When last you heard from me, I was in the midst of an information diet. I vowed to avoid all news sites for an entire week.
Did the diet work?
(more…)
Hope my readers are having a great weekend.
I just wanted to thank all of you for your support of this blog. I could not do it without the awesome feedback (and the occasional donation) to keep this blog afloat. The postings have been irregular the last few months during my adjustment to the “single dad” lifestyle, and I appreciate you all bearing with me. I hope that the posts I have written have benefited you in some way.
I have also been “looking under the hood” of the blog and making some changes behind the scenes. You won’t notice so many changes in the coming weeks, but I am am looking at some ways to improve the blog and get more readers. Of course, if any of you know anyone you think would benefit from this blog, please pass on the url, or just tell them to go to existmore.com.
I will be doing some interesting things with the blog and will also do a few “experiments,” including being a “human guinea pig”. Just wait and see. It will be fun.
I wish all of you the best and please post a comment on any post. I ahve made some updates to the blog that I hope will provide some interactive dialog among readers of this blog.
Best wishes,
Carlon Haas
Long time no blog. My utmost apologies to all of you. Those who know me personally know that I am going through a bit of a transition period as I adjust to the, for lack of a better word, single-father-raising-his daughter-life (in a foreign country no less!).
Let me just say the lessons I have already learned (and continue to learn) on the topics of time management, making solid relationships, and the importance of possessing less could give me about a year’s worth of material on this blog.
And I should also mention that I understand now more than ever the importance of continually developing yourself. Those of you with children might know what I mean when I say that the time we devote to developing ourselves trickles down into our children’s development.
So, Possess Less Exist More is back! I’ll most likely go back to my 3 posts a week schedule. But for now, I wanted to share with you a video of my new “dream apartment”. Its about 650 sq. feet for two of us. But having little space is actually a lifesaver (I’ll blog more on the joys of having a small place–especially if you are like me and hate to clean).
The video is not that good and I shot it in haste. I’ll try to get a beter one up here soon with some commentary. Maybe the beginnings of some video blogging as well.
Thanks to all of you who e-mailed me wondering where I was. I do still exist and live joyfully.
OK, Carlon. You’re going to
But hey…I get a 2-day trip out of it. So, why not?
But Japan. What do I really know about
As you may have read, I have a much different travel philosophy than others. So, if you expect to hear about famous sites in
First of all I’d like to thank all of you—my readers for your support for this blog. I am overwhelmed by the positive feedback I’ve received from many of you out there. I hope I can continue to meet your expectations for this blog.
I am grateful to all of you for taking the time to read my blog,and hope they have brought value to you and your life. I hope this will be the first of many posts of gratitude for you and all you do.
Happenings in the Possess Less Exist More Universe
Over the past week, I’ve been honored to have some of my blog articles featured in some blog carnivals. There are many good articles (besides mine, of course) in these carnivals, and you may want to take some time to read some.
You can view the articles at the following blog carnivals:
Abundance Thinking blog Carnival
More thanks
Also thanks to Steve Harper for his efforts in publicizing the Possess Less Exist More Blog and for taking part in the inaugural podcast. I plan to do more and more podcasts, and if you think you might be interested in participating in a Possess Less Exist More podcast, just contact me and let me know you’re interested. We typically cover personal development issues or frugal living.
Also, if you think other people from benefit from any of my articles, I encourage you to email them to your friends, “Digg” them, or submit them to your favorite social media site. I made some changes to the blog adding a mail to button and easy submission buttons to most social media sites.
Some personal notes
Great things have happened to me since returning to
Next week, I’ll be “existing more” in
Have a great weekend.
As you may have seen, I have not posted to this blog in a while.
The reason?
I have recently realized a long-time desire of mine which was to relocate to South Korea. So, here I am living again in South Korea and I am ready for a new direction.
To that end, I am changing carlonhaas.com from a marketing blog to a blog dedicated to my personal life philosophy of “Possess Less Exist More.”
The new blog will focus on personal development through simplifying your life.
For all my marketing readers, don’t worry. I will keep all the marketing stuff archived and I will occasionally still post on marketing since I believe that marketing is one skill you can take with you wherever you go and be successful with it.
Thank all of you for your loyal readership, and I hope you will come with me on this next journey and enjoy the new blog content.
You can sneak a peak of the “beta version” of the new blog here. That blog will be replacing this current blog in about a week.
Best to all of you,
Carlon
This may have nothing to do with marketing or social media, but I am saddened by what I consider to be a tragedy for the English language. As a writer, I do read literature. And, yes, I think all of you should too.
One writer I enjoy reading is Kurt Vonnegut. Vonnegut, for lack of a better word, could turn a phrase. Consider what he wrote about the firebombing or
“The firebombing of
Language does not get better than that. We may not agree with the statement, but you cannot deny its beauty.
I was going to try to somehow turn the life of Vonnegut into a marketing lesson for all of you. As much as writers hate to hear this…the best authors are great marketers. And Vonnegut was no exception.
But I just don’t think it’s appropriate. I do suggest though that if you’ve never read a book by Vonnegut that you go pick one up now. My favorites are:
The great thing about Vonnegut is that his books are short (if you have no attention span) and they are wildly entertaining. You can’t say that for most literature out there. Heck, you can’t say that for much ad copy you see out there either.
So it goes….
Carlon Haas
I was sitting in the lobby of the Hyatt having a beer and minding my own business when some guy comes up to me and says, “Hey Darren!”
Well…he soon realized that I was, in fact NOT, Darren.
Of course, I didn’t know who he was, but I did find out that the “guy calling me Darren” (as I referred to him in my head for a couple of days) was Joel Comm author of the AdSense code..good book, check it out.
But, it didn’t end with Joel.
I still had no idea who Darren was. But it became clear. At the Underground Online Seminar that I attended, one of the speakers there was none other than the problogger himself Darren Rowse. And then it hit me…Joel must have confused our heads. Understandable. I assume the lack of an Australian accent was what probably tipped him off.
But then after Darren Rowse spoke, I had other people coming up to me telling me about my great presentation on blogging. I admit it started going to my head. In fact, whenever people came up to me and asked for advice on blogging, I suddenly developed an Australian accent.
They were all spellbound by my advice on blogging like only post once every 6 months, use a lot of profanity in B2B blogs, and–my favorite–make sure your blog talks about a wealth of unrelated topics to keep readers on their toes.
All the while, they were busily taking notes.
Yeah…it sure was good being the problogger for a while.
But all good things must come to an end.
I may not be the problogger, but I did learn a lot from him. I have already started implementing some of the things he recommends in my blogs.
Tune in tomorrow when I talk about why I dig Digg.com (and why if you have a blog you should too).
OK. If you hate American Idol, feel free to skip this post. But I just have to say that watching American Idol these days is a heart-wrenching experience.
Man, I feel so sorry for most of the contestants because Melinda Doolittle is wiping the floor with them.
I mean, nice as she appears to be, she’s a pro and the rest are rank amateurs.
It would be like watching Michael Jordan and yours truly in a game of horse. How fun would it really be to watch Mike swish one after the other while I clanked them off left and right.
And what if you were forced to watch weeks of this agony? That’s American Idol.
Though I am going to speculate here…and I don’t do this much, but I think Melinda will get voted off in the top 4. You heard it here first. Yes, everyone will be surprised. There will be all sorts of conspiracies, but I’ll save you the trouble of needing one.
No one likes bullies. And right now Melinda Doolittle is picking on the less-talented singers out there. If the game of horse between Mike and myself was decided on votes instead of skill, I might just be able to get the sympathy votes required to knock Mike off his pedestal.
I think the same thing will happen to Melinda Doolittle.
Sorry Melinda,
Carlon Haas
http://www.BraveNewMarketing.com
OK. This isn’t about marketing or social media…but I was looking at the cover of the Wall Street Journal yesterday when lo and behold I saw my wife! I had no idea she was a model for Jil Sander. Or is she?
I was pretty upset because I have not seen a dime of that “model money” coming into the company coffers. She (of course) proclaims her innocence.
You be the judge. One is from the journal, the other my wife’s passport picture (yes…it’s from her passport). Tell me if I shouldn’t be expecting some extra “model money” this year?
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