108 Three Ways To Delegate

This episode is about three approaches to delegating work within your business. No business can grow unless the founder is able to delegate work to a wider team of people. It's essential that tasks are properly delegated and that the business owner doesn't abdicate responsibility. However, there are three very different ways to delegate:

• The Operations Manual Approach is where detailed standards and procedures are defined for how all tasks are to be undertaken. Work is typically undertaken by relatively inexperienced employees, who learn to follow detailed specifications.
• The Results Only Work Environment is where employees are given clear targets or results to meet and it is up to them how they do so. They create their own work procedures and have maximum freedom on issues like whether to work at home.
• The Outsourcing Approach is where work is delegated to independent contractors or virtual assistants. Fixed costs are kept low by avoiding hiring employees as much as possible. Work is typically outsourced on a specific fee-for-project basis.

The episode explores the advantages and disadvantages of each of these approaches.


Show Notes:
Anything You Want by Derek Sivers
The E-Myth Revisited by Michael Gerber
Maverick by Ricardo Semler
Rework by Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson
Why Work Sucks and How to Fix It by Cali Ressler and Jody Thompson
The 4-Hour Workweek by Tim Ferriss
How I Found Freedom in an Unfree World by Harry Browne

Podcast Episode

107 What Kind of Business Should I Start?

If you want to become an entrepreneur but are not sure what kind of business you would like to start, what framework can you use to help you decide? There are two things to consider that will provide you with a strong advantage:

1. Starting a business to create a solution that you will be a customer for

This is sometimes called "eating your own dog-food". To be successful, all businesses have to deliver value to customers: they have to make something that people want. If you use the product or service that your company makes, it helps you understand whether it is providing value.

2. Starting a business in an industry that you understand

Industry experience provides valuable knowledge about the opportunities and constraints that your business will face. Some examples of industry knowledge are:

• knowing where your potential customers shop
• understanding why they buy
• knowing how potential distributors or affiliates work
• understanding what the major concerns of key contacts for your business are

If you don't make something that you yourself would be a customer for and you don't have a good understanding of the industry, you are flying blind. Try to develop a business where you have at least one of these two advantages. Also, try to increase your awareness of the aspect that is missing.

Podcast Episode

106 Self-Employed Vs Business Owner

This episode is about the pros and cons of being self-employed vs being a business owner. Both options have advantages and disadvantages, but mixing the two does not work well.

In the self-employed/freelancer model, you sell your time, cover your own expenses and keep all profit. This works best when you have a valuable skill and lots of industry contacts, as you are able to undercut bigger companies on price but keep your overheads low. If it works, you get the advantage of a lot of flexibility to work or take time off.  The disadvantage is that you are dependent on work for income, so there is much less financial freedom in the long term. You don't build up value in business itself (nobody wants to buy a job) and it can be hard to keep your overheads low for longer (as you may need to start investing in marketing, new equipment etc). So it's a vulnerable model over the long term.

The business owner model is the idea to create a value generating machine. The focus here is on developing standards and procedures to make yourself (the founder) unnecessary to the running of the business as quickly as possible. The advantage of this model is that you create an income stream and a source of value (the business itself) that you can sell in the future, or live from as passive income. This has the potential for much greater financial freedom as well as the freedom to step away from the work in the longer term. The disadvantage is that you have more risk in the initial period, as businesses take more investment. You also get much less free time in the initial period, as the startup phase of a business is more stressful than freelance work.

Either model can give you a lot of benefits, but be careful not to get stuck between these two models- you can end up with all the stress and none of the benefits. If that happens, it isn't creating a business, it's creating a job (and the worst kind of job, because you can't stop doing it). I hope this podcast will help you be conscious of which model you are adopting and to move more clearly to one or the other if you are currently stuck in-between.

Show Notes:
The E-Myth Revisited by Michael Gerber
The 4-Hour Workweek by Tim Ferriss
Anything You Want by Derek Sivers

Podcast Episode

105 Crowdfunding Your Startup: An Interview With Kristov from Robber Baron Swag

This episode is about crowdfunding your startup. Kristov is one of the co-founders of Robber Baron Swag, an apparel startup that is using a kickstarter campaign to launch it's first t-shirt. In this interview, Kristov explains the origins of crowdfunding and talks about the benefits for entrepreneurs in financing their ventures using crowdfunding.

Show Notes:
Wiki page about Crowdfunding
Kickstarter
Robber Baron Swag's Kickstarter Page

Podcast Episode

104 How To Diversify Your Investments

This episode is about how to diversify your investments for lower risk and higher return. The issues covered include:

• The problems with a simple "buy and hold" approach, whereby you invest all your money in your one favorite asset (be that stocks, gold or anything else).
• The problems with the "market timing" approach to investing and why it doesn't work.
• The benefits of diversifying your portfolio
• How to properly diversify your portfolio by using different asset classes, rather than just different securities.
• How to use rebalancing bands to harvest volatility, increase your return and reduce risk.

You can get more information about the concept of the permanent portfolio discussed in this episode in Harry Browne's book "Fail-Safe Investing" and in many of the previous Voluntary Life podcast episodes on investing.

As always regarding investment, do your own research. I am not an advisor and this isn't advice of any kind, it's just my own opinions based on my experience.

Podcast Episode

103 Everything You Need To Make Long Term Travel Easy

It has never been easier to live and work abroad. If you are self-employed and work online there is nothing to stop you. Why nor sublet your apartment for a few months and live abroad in a fascinating (and potentially cheap) destination? Here is a list of all the things that make long term travel super easy:

• Have your home post rerouted to friend (or commercial service) who scans it into a Dropbox account for you. If a friend does it, buy them a multi-page scanner for this.
• Get a professional agent to manage the sublet of your apartment back home
• AirBnB for renting longer term accommodation (especially for whole apartments)
• TripAdvisor for short term hotel stays
• Cloud services for file storage (e.g. dropbox, google drive)
• Clound services for backup (e.g. Crashplan or Backblaze)
• A small scanner app on your smartphone for scanning any paper you need to keep (receipts etc) when abroad
• Get your online banking set up for all the transaction types you will need to do
• Get your Credit/Debit cards set for use abroad
• A password manager (e.g. LastPass, 1Password) for your online passwords
• An E reader (e.g. a kindle, iPad) to enable you to read as many books as you want while you are away
• A lightweight laptop for your work
• A Smartphone with a nice camera for taking pictures and getting online
• An external encrypted drive for local storage/backup
• International plugs for all your devices

Please do post your own ideas for things that make long term travel easy in the comments.

Podcast Episode

102 Five Years Abroad: An Interview With Phoenix Zerin

Phoenix Zerin is the author of the blog Five Years Abroad. He left his country of origin (USA) in 2012 to experience living abroad for at least 5 years. In this interview he describes his experiences so far travelling in Colombia, Paraguay and Chile.

Podcast Episode

101 How To Dream Big

An episode about how to use goals and visions to move forward in creating the life you want.

Show Notes:
Previous Episode on GTD
Getting Things Done by David Allen

Podcast Episode

100 Entrepreneurship Part 16: Limited Liability Is Not A Magic Shield

This episode is about the concept of limited liability and it's role in entrepreneurship.

• The purpose of the limited liability principle is not to protect the entrepreneur as director or manager of a business, it is for the protection of investors.
• There is a big difference between this principle and how the actual law of limited liability works in practice. The law is messy and confusing, with strange concepts such as "corporate personhood" granted by the State. 
• I argue that the principle of limited liability for investors could be implemented through contracts and that the whole messy legal implementation that we currently have is unnecessary to achieve investor protection.
• I argue that it makes sense for entrepreneurs to use contractual limits of liability wherever possible and to use insurance whenever you need to reduce risk in that way.
• The reality for small business entrepreneurs is that you will not be able to hide behind a shield of limited liability, for example you will be expected to personally underwrite loans.

These are just my opinions. As always, you need to rely on your own due diligence and get your own legal advice.

Podcast Episode

99 Taking Risks With Money And Business

This episode discusses the question of risk in investment, speculation and entrepreneurship. When is it a good idea to take risk and when isn't it? I share my own personal opinion.

Podcast Episode

98 Entrepreneurship Part 15: Scaling Your Business

An episode on how to scale and optimise your business to make more profit and enhance your competitive advantage. The issues covered include:

• Standardisation: making one version of what you do
• Proceduralisation: making one version of how you do it
• Optimisation: speeding up and automating your procedures
• Knowledge Capture: maintaining and growing your operation within the context of staff coming and going
• Optimising at the level of the whole business: only doing the things that it makes sense to do

Podcast Episode

97 Entrepreneurship Part 14: Employing People

This episode is about employing people as an entrepreneur. Topics covered include:

• The destructive legacy of the reward and punishment paradigm from school
• Why pay isn't as important as you think
• The importance purpose, mastery and autonomy in motivation
• The problem with relying on interviews for hiring and alternative ways of finding great people
• The value of freelancers or independent contractors
• What employing people teaches you about taking responsibility for your side of a relationship and how it deepens your respect for individuality

Show Notes:
Dan Pink Talk on Motivation
Discipline Without Punishment by Dick Grote
Gifts Differing: Understanding Personality Type by Isabel Briggs Myers

Podcast Episode

96 Entrepreneurship Part 13: IP Is Bad For Business

An episode about the problems with Intellectual Property, from the perspective of an entrepreneur. I started off thinking that IP is an integral and necessary part of entrepreneurship. I thought that it would be very important for my business.  I have now come to see IP law as something that:

• prevents innovation,
• is immoral,
• promotes conflict,
• diverts resources to unproductive uses
• and is ultimately unnecessary for making money from ideas.

Show Notes:
Against Intellectual Monopoly by Boldrin and Levine
Article about the Shopping Cart case
Against Intellectual Property by Kinsella

Podcast Episode

95 Judd Weiss on Business Relationships Part 2

Part 2 of an interview with entrepreneur Judd Weiss, talking about business relationships. In this episode Judd talks about:

• The pitfalls of employing people
• The benefits of partnering or affiliate relationships
• How to create awesome relationships with clients

Podcast Episode

94 Judd Weiss On Business Relationships Part 1

Part 1 of an interview with entrepreneur Judd Weiss, talking about business relationships. In this episode Judd shares his thoughts and experiences about how he approaches working relationships in general and what he thinks about  the question of going into business with others.

• Should friends go into business together?
• What makes a good business partnership?
• Why do so many business partnerships go so badly wrong?

Find out in this episode.

Podcast Episode

93 About The Voluntary Life Part 2: Empowerment

Part 2 in the short series of podcasts about The Voluntary Life. This episode is all about the podcast itself.

• The podcast comes out once per week and is a mix of solo-casts and interviews. Some topics are covered in more detail as a series, like the entrepreneurship series.
• The aim of the podcast is personal freedom empowerment: providing ideas for finding the maximum freedom in your own life, within an unfree world.
• The podcast always takes a constructive approach: the angle on any topic is- what can you do to maximise your freedom in this area of life? 
• All the topics are about things that are actionable and personally relevant at an individual level.
• The podcast aims to explore the approach of living a free and voluntary life across all aspects of life (work, personal relationships, finances etc).
• We showcase examples of voluntary living through interviews with people who have maximised their freedom in a particular aspects of life.
• I'd love to hear your thoughts about what the opportunities are for expanding the show in the future. I'm interested in developing opportunities for listeners to connect with one another and create more of a community, perhaps online or perhaps with physical meet ups. I look forward to your thoughts!

Podcast Episode

92 About The Voluntary Life Part 1: More Free Is More Alive

The first in a series of podcasts introducing The Voluntary Life, both as a concept and as a podcast. This episode explains the concept of living a 'voluntary life', which is a life lived according to the principle of free choice. The extent to which we have the freedom to make our own choices about our lives (and to respect the free choices of others) is the extent to which we are leading the voluntary life. This concept applies across aspects of life, as diverse as freedom at work, financial freedom, freedom in personal relationships and psychological freedom.
The following principles underpin the concept of living a voluntary life:

• Voluntary living is the highest expression of individuation possible. The deepest experience of being alive comes from our ability to express our personality and individuality in our free choices. The more free you are, the more alive you are.
• Voluntary living is the only truly moral way to live. A voluntary life is one lived in accordance with the Non-Agression Principle, which is the fundamental moral framework from which all valid morality is derived.
• Voluntary interaction is responsible for all the greatest achievements of humanity. Peaceful co-operation of individuals through trade and entrepreneurship has given us all the enlightenment, technological progress, economic development and civilisation (in the best sense of the word) that we now enjoy.
• The voluntary life must start from the individual and his or her own choices. You have to be the change you want to see in the world. This is why the show is called "the voluntary life" and not "the voluntary society". 

Podcast Episode

91 Entrepreneurship Part 12: JFDI

A podcast about how to overcome indecision, paralysis and procrastination about entrepreneurship and JFDI (Just Fucking Do It). There are some objective hinderances to creating and running a business, especially if you have other major commitments in your life that you need to focus on first. However, often the battle is really an internal psychological one. How do you get into the mindset of being able to JFDI? This episode contains some suggestions about giving yourself permission:

• Permission to fail
• Permission to be imperfect
• Permission to piss people off
• Permission to succeed

Listen to the podcast to find out more.

Podcast episode

90 Rational Optimism Vs Doom Porn

A message of optimism. Happy New Year!

Show Notes:
The Rational Optimist: How Prosperity Evolves by Matt Ridley
Article on the recent massive decline in poverty

Podcast Episode

89 Financial Consciousness: An Interview With Mike

Mike talks about how he saved his way to financial freedom, without a college degree or a high-powered job. He shares his thoughts on how to be conscious about your relationship with money and explains some of the methods for saving your way to wealth that work for him. As always, do your own research- we're not financial advisors and this is just our opinions.

Podcast Episode

88 Why I Feared The Free Market

Some thoughts on what it is that frightens people about the free market, based on my own experience of what frightened me. The fear of the market is often expressed in very abstract arguments about whether free markets would really work (if we had them) and what their relationship is to poverty etc. However,  at an individual level, I believe people fear markets because of how vulnerable you can feel when taking part in voluntary exchange:

• Trade on the free market involves selling to others. This opens you up to the potential for rejection and failure, which can be scary.
• The division of labour involves choosing to specialise in some skill or area of work that might one day become obsolete, which can feel vulnerable. It also involves taking responsibility for specific outcomes- the buck stops with you- which challenges any defences against the fear of responsibility. 
• Respect for private property rights involves looking after your stuff and respecting other people's stuff. This opens you up to the potential for feelings of humiliation if you don't understand how or why others have made a success of selling when you have not yet been able to.

It's understandable to fear the free market. It can be scary to launch yourself into entrepreneurship, as well as being wonderful. However, some people project their personal fears of the market into abstract theories: they blame the market itself for the world's ills. That approach will prevent you from overcoming your fears and limit your potential.

Podcast Episode

87 An Expat Entrepreneur In Chile

This episode is an interview with Edwin, an expat entrepreneur in Chile. Edwin talks about his experience on an entrepreneurship visa in Chile and shares his thoughts about the pros and cons of Chile as a place to live and to create a startup in. He discusses other things to consider regarding coming to Chile as an entrepreneur, including his views on the Start-up Chile grant, some comparisons of cost of living and considerations on quality of life in Chile as an expat. You can contact Edwin at edwininchile@gmail.com.

Podcast Episode

86 Teaching Entrepreneurship to Kids: An Interview with Eduardo Marty

An interview with Eduardo Marty, who founded Junior Achievement in Argentina and in many other Latin American countries. Junior Achievement is a charity that teaches entrepreneurship to children and young adults.

Eduardo has also held academic posts as professor at the University Francisco Marroquín, Guatemala, and the University of Buenos Aires. He is one of the few academics who is truly passionate about the need for young people to learn the practical skills of entrepreneurship. As he says in the interview; "the problem with intellectuals is that they are always running out of money".

In this entertaining interview, he discusses his experiences and his adventures in a life dedicated to helping kids realise their entrepreneurial potential, including a narrow escape from being imprisoned in Cuba when he tried to establish Junior Achievement there.

Podcast Episode

85 Freedom From Intellectual Heroes

This episode is about gaining freedom from intellectual heroes. I share some thoughts about how to extract the best ideas from thinkers that you admire, without relying on someone else to think for you. I talk about some ways I have found for gaining intellectual independence, including:

• Taking apart the "package deal" of a set of new ideas to use the ones that work and discard the ones that don't.
• Learning to trust your own judgement: if an idea doesn't make sense to you, it's probably because the idea is incoherent.
• Starting from the assumption that "everything is a remix", even if an idea appears to be very original or is presented as very new.

Ultimately, I believe intellectual independence is about giving up the emotional search for leaders. It is a part of growing up and being an adult to stop looking for intellectual heroes and to treat every thinker as someone who puts their pants on one leg at a time, just like you and me. A really important aspect of intellectual freedom is to give up deference to our heroes- to take what we can from their ideas and own those ideas for ourselves, so that we truly think for ourselves. That's what free people do, they think for themselves.

Podcast Episode