Zen Habits Radio | Leo Babauta - The Zen Habits Audio Blog and Podcast - Take Your Zen to Go

By Leo Babauta One of my favorite topics to talk about is unschooling. I talk about it with every new parent I know. And so, because it excites me so much, I’ve started a new blog: Unschoolery:My Undefinitive Guide to Unschooling In the last few days, I’ve posted nearly a dozen posts. I have another dozen ready to be written this week. I love talking about unschooling. Here are some topics I’ve written about already: What is Unschooling? Principles of Awesome Unschooling Why Unschooling is the Best Incubator for Young Entrepreneurs So What Do Unschoolers Do? Learning to Socialize, for Unschoolers Can (and Should) Unschoolers Go to College? About Us (my family’s unschooling story) Parents Learning With Their Unschoolers De-Schooling: Getting School Out of Your Head I Don’t Hate School I hope you’ll check out the new blog, and join the conversation! photo credit: {studiobeerhorst}-bbmarie

By Leo Babauta Recently I encouraged my 13-year-old daughter Maia to start a vegan cupcake business, and it’s so exciting to watch her get started. As I talked to her about starting, she had some worries: She didn’t know how. She didn’t know what kind of business to create. She was worried she’d fail. Do any of those sound familiar? Those were my worries too, when I had a day job and thought about building something of my own. Worry about not knowing what to do, how to do it, and whether you’ll fail … these stop so many people from starting. I’ve launched numerous ventures, from ebooks to courses to my Sea Change membership program and more. Next week, I’m launching a new video interview series called The Habits of Entrepreneurs, and can barely wait to show it to you. Today, I’d like to share the lessons I’ve learned about starting a business, in hopes of encouraging you to get started making something you love. Look for opportunities. This is from my friend Hiten Shah, who will be featured in the Habits of Entrepreneurs series. Keep your eyes open for opportunities — what pain points do people have, what problems need to be solved, how can you make people’s lives better? If you can’t wait to get started, you’re onto something. Every time I’ve gotten my best ideas, I get excited. I tell people about it. I might even stay up at night thinking about it. I can’t sit down for long from the excitement. Start small. People try to build their new business into a massive launch, but this is a mistake. Start as small as possible, giving a minimum viable product to a few friends, and let them test it out. Then a few more people. When you try to do something massive at launch, you make it less likely that you’ll actually start, and you’ll take forever to launch, and you’ll build yourself up for failure, and you’re building something massive without any idea of whether it works or if people like it. Launch is just one moment in the lifespan of a business, and it’s not even one of the most important moments. Not starting is the biggest mistake. I told Maia that the worst-case scenario — if the business fails — is not even bad. If she starts the vegan cupcake business and fails, at least she got to make and eat some delicious cupcakes, and share them with friends, and learn some valuable lessons along the way. She can always start something new after that. In fact, this scenario of learning something and having fun along the way, even in “failure”, is demonstrably better than if she’d not started at all. Start a blog. The best way to market a business is by giving away free information. Show that you’re valuable, help people for free, and they’ll want more from you. Don’t do SEO or social media market or viral marketing. Those don’t add any value for your customers. Instead, be super valuable. Build something great, and word of mouth is all the marketing you need (including people passing on your best blog posts). Overdeliver. They’ll love you, and you won’t need to do slimy SEO techniques. Start lean. I started my businesses with zero money, and just found free or cheap services to start with. Only after I started making some revenue did I pay for anything, or hire anyone. Make money as soon as possible by selling something valuable. Advertising is a bad business model. When you make money from ads, what are you selling? Your audience’s attention. This is horrible, and your audience/customers won’t love you for it. Instead, do everything possible to delight your audience/customers, and give them incredible value, and they’ll gladly pay for it. Forget about numbers. More specifically, forget about hitting certain targets. A million pageviews, ten thousand subscribers, half a million in revenues. Those are meaningless and arbitrary. Instead, worry about how much you’re helping your customers. How much value are you giving them? How can you make them smile? Try putting some numbers on those things.

By Leo Babauta Let’s imagine that you’re going to change your diet — you’re going from eating chips, ho-hos, Double Down Chicken Sandwiches and taco “meat” in a Dorito shell, to eating fruits and veggies and beans and nuts and whole grains. Sound easy? But when you’re stressed and tired from a long day of rebranding meetings and obsessively checking your Facebook, and don’t have much willpower, you’ll reach for the easiest snack, the thing you’re used to and comfortable with. And when your co-workers or family breaks out the cupcakes or home-made cookies, you can’t resist the temptation, just this once. Old habits are hard to break for many reasons, but your environment is one of the biggest. Stay in your old environment, and your old habits will be much harder to change. But change your environment, and it’s easy. Some examples: Go to a retreat and eat nothing but the delicious and healthy vegetarian food they make for you — that’s easy. Go back home when the retreat is over and you fall back into your old patterns (i.e. stuffing your face with eggo waffles and bacon). Hang out with a bunch of runners who invite you on some beautiful runs, and it’s easy to become a regular runner. But hang out with people who like to watch sports on TV all weekend, or play video games, or drink beer at pubs, and you’re less likely to run regularly. Hang out with smokers, at places where everyone smokes, and you’re not likely to kick the habit. Having junk food all around you at home and in the workplace, and when your willpower isn’t strong, you’ll give in. There might be some of us who can overcome a more difficult habit environment, but why make it so much harder on yourself? Change your habit environment to one that’s geared to a successful habit change. Because, you know, life’s too short to keep messing up your habits. Ways to Change Your Habit Environment Some examples things you can change that will help you succeed: Hang out with people who are doing the habit you want to do. If there are people around you who don’t do the habit you want to do (i.e. they’re smokers or put bacon grease in all their food), talk to them about what you’re trying to do, and ask for their help. Ask them to support you, and not rag on you all the time for changing. If they can’t do this, consider dumping them. That’s harsh, but what kind of douchey friends won’t support you? Get rid of junk food (or cigarettes, etc.) in your home and office. Have only healthy things around you. Prepare them in advance, when you’re not tired. Block websites that distract you, if you’re trying to procrastinate less. Join a supportive community online who are doing the things you want to do. Read blogs and books that inspire you to do the habit. Have reminders all around you. Develop a mantra, and put it on your computer and phone. Ask people around you to remind you. Create a public challenge for yourself, to create accountability. Have a habit partner you report to each day, and make a vow never to miss. Blog about it daily. Go for regular runs, walks or hikes with a friend. Meet every day — if you’re meeting someone, you’ll make sure to be on time. The possibilities are endless, but by trying out one or two ideas at a time, you can craft a habit environment that works for you. If it isn’t working, change your environment again. Keep doing it until the habit sticks. If you need more accountability, crank it up with a challenge. If you are giving in to temptation, remove the temptation. If you keep forgetting, put up reminders or have someone help you. If you need supportive people, find them and make them a regular part of your life. There are no excuses, only an environment waiting to be changed. photo credit: Pedro Moura Pinheiro

By Leo Babauta In the past year or so I’ve traveled more than ever, for both work and family reasons: A tour of southern Europe with 5 of our kids and Eva in summer 2012 NYC (with a vegan tour) with Eva in fall 2012 Maui with all 6 kids and Eva in January 2013 Japan, on an awesome train trip and cherry blossom festivals with Tynan and some new friends, in March-April 2013 NYC with all 6 kids and Eva, again sampling the vegan delights, in June 2013 Portland & Eugene for the World Domination Summit and to visit family, with Eva and some of the kids, in July 2013 Los Angeles with all 6 kids and Eva in July 2013 For me, a person who enjoys staying home and enjoying the simple pleasures, it’s been a bit crazy. I don’t normally think of myself as a traveler, but the evidence is against that. I’m a traveler now. And during it all, I’ve been taking notes. I’d like to share them with you here — my lessons learned in the past year or so of traveling. Traveling Lightly For me, the traveling lightly philosophy isn’t just in what you pack (though that’s a good part of it), but in how you approach travel. Here are some lessons learned: For most people, a backpack of 24-, 18- or even 16-liters is enough. I’ve traveled with a 16-liter backpack for weeks with no problems. I think we tend to bring more because of fear that we might need more. Wash clothes in the sink and hang them overnight. Bam. You just eliminated the need to bring a lot of clothes. My packing list: I wear jeans, underwear, a T-shirt, socks and shoes (of course), and then pack 2-3 more underwear, another T-shirt/workout shirt, workout shorts (that I can run and swim in), 2 more pairs of socks, minimalist running shoes (that don’t take up much space), a Macbook Air and iPhone (with Kindle app so I can read books), cords and some toiletries. If it might be cool, a sweater or jacket. I wear the same jeans over and over, and just wash them once every week, hanging them up at night to air out. Packing lightly means traveling more easily, not having to drag around a roller bag or luggage. Honestly, you don’t realize how much this costs you in energy and happiness until you go without all the weight. Trips become easier, packing and unpacking takes a few minutes, and you aren’t tired or grumpy. Traveling lightly also means you don’t plan out as many things to do, but instead just research possibilities. What do you do each day? You look at the possibilities, and explore. You might just walk around and see what there is to see. Don’t worry about a schedule. Traveling lightly also means avoiding the tourist traps. Some tourist attractions are genuinely worth seeing (great art and architecture), but otherwise, just see the city and people watch. You avoid the lines, and again you are lighter and happier. It also means resting. Built into each day: slowness and rest stops and picnics and lounging in parks and stopping to just be in a place. Walk a lot to explore, and try public transit. Also go for a run. These are the best ways to explore a city. Finally, let go of expectations. If you’re going to a great city like Rome for the first time, you probably have an idea of what it is like. You’re wrong, and because it won’t match your expectations, you might be disappointed or frustrated. Instead, go in with curiosity, to explore and to really see. You’ll enjoy every trip much more. The Funnest Stuff Here are some highlights that I’ve loved: In New York City, definitely don’t miss Hack the Museum. My friendNick recently started these super fun tours of the Met, and I took my whole family, not because I like tours (I usually hate them), but because they make a normal museum experience into an extraordinary one. Highly recommended. In Portland, go on a run in Forest Park. Really lovely, miles and miles of trails through a real forest, right within the city limits. In Japan, go during Cherry Blossom season,