I’ve been craving to do a 30 days challenge related to my email list for years. Seriously. I did 30 days challenges for running, for challenging relationships, for #5words, you name it. I even did 30 days challenges disguised as monkeys, for an entire year. But nothing related to my email list.
It’s kinda strange when you look at the type of content that gets popular on my blog. It’s lists, of course. And lists have a sequential way of be built, which is very suitable for a 30 days challenge. But the wait is over. As of yesterday I started not a 30 days challenge, but a 33 days challenge. Yeah, baby. Going big.
What’s the catch? Each day I will be sending to my list a short message. Most of the times, the message will be a short question. Sometimes it may be a short story squeezed in, but the goal is to keep the emails very, very short. What’s in it for me? I want to know my audience better. These 33 questions are inspired from one of my most popular posts (I still get hits to that posts even 4 years after I published it) 33 Questions For A Interview With Yourself.
So, if you are on my list, chances are that you already got the first message. And the first question. If you’re not on my list, you can subscribe in the form at the end of this post, it takes only a minute and it’s free. Even more, you’ll get something really nice as a gift, if you do it.
Day One: What Do You Do For A Living?
The first question. It may seem like an easy one, but if you really look at it, it’s not. I got a few answers to this one, and I’m going to paste them below. Since I didn’t ask for permission to put the real name of the people in it (and I have no idea if they want their name to appear or not) I will use their initials:
A.A. “I’m collecting tomorrows“.
That’s a very nice answer, A. Thanks. I think I could’ve used a bit more details, but it’s nice. I agree.
S.L. “I’ve just completed my tertiary education and still scraping by by partially selling my time in exchange for some money. So what do I do for a living? I’m slowly shedding off the illusion of money and weaning off my dependency on it. My goal now is to pay off my student debts and looking for alternatives to build my life of freedom. I have weaned off shampoo and soap and now experimenting vegetarianism and planting vegetables. In the midst of economic turmoil, I’m also planting ideas about sustainable living such as resource-based and gift economy to anyone who discusses “money problem” with me 🙂”
Great insight, S. Especially like the way you referred to money, as an illusion. For me, money is just another type of social agreement. If everybody agrees on that, there will be money. If nobody agrees, there’s no money left. I’m very curious how can we replace the money agreement. I gave my shot a while ago in this article, not sure if it stands for you. For me, it does.
T.M. “Go-See-Do. I live aboard my 50-ft sailboat on an extended (8-years so far) wandering throughout Mexico, Central America, Panama and Colombia simply going, seeing, and doing whatever interests me. I can fill the quiet times with my knitting and designing patterns for other hand knitters. My husband and I live simply and enjoy the company of other “cruisers”, the people of the countries where we spend time, and the beauty of the natural environment around us. ”
Now that’s a very nice way to live your life, T.! 8 years already? Great! Happy you still have the time to read my newsletter 🙂
B.D. “In answer to your question, I don’t work for a living–I am disabled (cannot walk due to lower spinal nerve damage), but I live on SSDI (social security for the permanently disabled). I want to make a living on blogging, have learned how to blog from: Eben Pagan, Yaro Starak, David Risley, and Pat Flynn. I would like to make enough money to get off of SSDI, but am afraid the SSDI would be taken away from me before I made enough to live on my own. I do blog and write e-books (relationship field and health field), but it’s slow going due to fear, I guess. Fear I won’t make enough to live on and that money coming in would be sporadic, so that it doesn’t make sense to give up the SSDI, which is coming in regularly, and comes with Medicare. If I thought I could make decent money quickly and have good health insurance, I might try harder. Thanks for the challenge!”
All my respect, B.! Congrats for your courage and determination. Just don’t give up. It will happen at some point 🙂
B.K. “I hold a very creative and challenging job that eighty-five to ninety percent of the time, I am happy to get up and go do. During the time when I am not at work ~ I am a wife and mother of three. Both pay me in different ways and both give me a reason to be the best person I can be.”
Eighty-five to ninety seems like a lot. You’re lucky. I loved the way you identified the different types of benefits you get from both and that you didn’t try to make “rankings”, which one is better. I do think that both “roles” are very important.
S.C. “What a great question/ challenge! Pls allow me to give my best shot: I do not think I live my best life right now. And I have not been living a true and peaceful life for a while now! I know I am a special individual, created for a unique purpose on Earth, and I have not found it yet. So the answer to your question is: I merely exist for a living and I am desperate for an answer to my quest for my real life’s purpose. I do not want to waste my life any longer!!!”
S., just go out and try. There’s no fixed answer. Nobody holds the answer, but you. I can only tell you that it took a lot of trial and error for me too, and I still don’t think I’m doing the best I can do. Hang in there. 🙂
V.Z. “Since in my country the unemployment rate of people under 30 is over 56%, I too have no ‘real’ job. But I had luck to start selling stock photographs online in 2007. Photography is what I’d like to do, but in my country just a very few persons live from that (excluding those people who shoot weddings or passport photos). I have a master in agriculture (agricultural economics) and I’d like to work in some normal environment, in a normal company, on a job that I was educated for.”
V., that’s an interesting combination. I kinda feel you’re on the right track already. Maybe the “normal” company need you have right now is related more to the social life and not to the actual business needs? I know the feeling of living “off the grid” and in time I built a circle of friends that are fulfilling my social needs.
Now, it wouldn’t be a fair challenge if my answer wouldn’t be here. So: “I inspire other people to get the best of their life, by taking risks and trying (sometimes stupid) things and sharing my experiences with the world.”.
Well, these are the answers to my first newsletter. If you want to be a part of it, all you have to do is to sign up here. It takes only a minute.
