OK, well this is nothing personal, but I felt that there was an issue with my blogging subjects creeping up on the horizon.

I spend a lot of time Internet Marketing and doing professional items that relate to the challenge, but not so much to personal life and I felt it was starting to splinter this blog. For that reason I have opened up a new domain specifically for the Ferrari challenge blog. Over there you will find all sorts of useful information on business related stuff. This blog will morph to become a vessel for my personal trials and tribulations, ideas and feelings.

So you have two for the price of one now! At the very least please check out www.ACartooFar.co.uk and see what is going on there. It might take me a few weeks to iron out the content split, but after that I will look at the presentation layer.

Thanks for you constant support,good luck in your personal endeavourers

Matt

Yep, I'm well aware that this post is a little overdue, and I make my apologies. You would think with the extra hours I have been having I would have more time to update everyone, so my apologies, but I must say it was nice to hear from people asking me to post again. It was nice to know that I don’t go totally unnoticed.

Oh, what's that? Extra Hours? Excuse me?

OK, a quick 411 on the last couple of weeks. Since leaving my job as a well paid engineer at a decent little engineering company to pursue my insane an unfounded dream of multiple AIS (Automated Income Streams) I have made a number of changes to my life. Pretty drastic changes really:

1. Working from home trying to develop AIS.
2. Trialling Polyphasic sleeping (Uberman Schedule).
3. Pretty much kicked the caffeine habit.
4. Shelved my physical training.
5. Gone slightly loopy.

OK, so number 1. I now live and die by my laptop and my desk. I spend 17 to 20 hours a day at my laptop hacking away with new ideas, tweaks on existing sites, emailing etc etc, desperately trying to get a good AIS or two. What's an AIS? An Automated Income Stream (A la Burt's Blog is a means by which you have an automated or managed business (or website most often) that generates money whether or not you are putting hours into it. Studying the ideas and practices that are now being talked about all over the net has changed my view on how to go about life. The focus of my life for the duration of the Ferrari challenge is now about developing AIS in order to get a sort of "compound interest" effect on my earnings.

2. Polyphasic sleeping. OK, this is a huge topic, but the short story? Try living in a way that means you only require 2 or 3 hours sleep every 24 hours. Sounds too good to be true? I'm living it right now (well not perfectly, more about that later). If you're interested, I will be posting more on it soon, but the idea was brought to me by all time Self Development Guru Steve Pavlina(that link should tell you more than I possibly can about Polyphasic Sleeping.

3. Kicking the caffeine. Yep, I can now officially go 24 hours without a coffee without getting a RAGING headache. As part of the Polyphasic Sleeping, I had to kick the coffee addiction, so now I just have one when I really want one, I don't use it as a stimulant just to get me though the day. I though this time would never come.

4. As part of adapting to the new sleeping regime, I found it very difficult to go to the gym and regulate my sleep habits, so I have shelved it for the 3 week adaptation period.

5. Gone slightly loopy... but then would anyone be able to tell the difference? I guess it's a mix of loneliness (working from home) Pressure (I have no income!) and overworking (I do nothing else except maybe see the handbrake (girlfriend for all you not familiar with that terminology).

I love this illustration. It says so much about us, so much more than we would admit to ourselves, yet somehow, when we look at it, it makes us feel a little more comfortable, like we are not alone in our feelings. The beautiful thing about this illustration (well it’s a postcard actually) is that it is entirely genuine. It is not meant as a motivational tool, or as a publicity stunt. It is not selling a brand and it is not making a point. It is not accusational, nor self righteous. It comes from a captivating array of truths on the site PostSecret.com . The simple premise behind the site is that if you have something you want to get off your chest, you can post it on a postcard, anonymously, for it to appear on the site. It has been so successful that they have even published a book (To get a copy of the book look here (aff)).

Yet this post is not a review nor a discussion. It is an admission of my pain at the same feelings. I went for an interesting drink with a colleague from work today. He knew of my plans to leave my job and go it “alone” to try and make my living without a “job”. I want to know what I am capable of, and he helped encapsulate a feeling of the persona that is driving this desire. He said:

“I can liken it to dice. Our whole lives we walk around with our fists clamped tightly around some die; being too scared to see what happens. What you are doing is casting you die to see what could come up”.

It’s true. Whilst I don’t believe in gambling (that’s another post waiting to happen) I do have that feeling that until you risk it all, you cannot know what you are capable of.

So if you feel like this illustration, maybe it’s time you cast your die. Time moves on rapidly (I’ll be 25 tomorrow) and it’s all too easy to feel safe with what you’ve got, not every daring to cast your die.

So consider me this. How will you feel, what answer will you give to yourself, if you leave it too late (and in my head the only “too late” is on your passing bed) with your die uncast. You could have had a pair of sixes clutched in your fist. Admittedly you could have had a pair of ones, but the beauty is, the earlier you roll you die, the more chances you get to roll again.

Well it would seem that many others have found the Apple jibe at Microsoft pretty rude and out of key.

Glad it wasn't just me then!