putting my money where my mouth is

I’ve always tried to lead by example. When I was the captain of my hockey team I very rarely addressed the team or gave rah-rah speeches to get everybody fired up. I preferred to let my effort be my leadership voice. I’d work harder than everybody else in practice, sacrifice my body by blocking shots in games, play through injuries, stay late and arrive early. That principle can be applied outside the hockey rink by making sure I practice what I preach. That’s why the last week has been very important to me.

Releasing My First eBook

As I’m sure you’ve already noticed, I released an ebook earlier this week. It is a collection of what I feel are the 8 “essentials” of simplicity. I started writing it months ago and was finished with the bulk of the writing in early March. Since that time my girlfriend and I have been editing, tweaking, and getting it as close to perfection as possible. I could have continued working on it indefinitely but I decided it was time to throw my fear to the wind and release it to the world. Much like the way I tried to lead as a captain, I hope this ebook accurately represents my hard work and dedication. I know it’s not perfect and it has many flaws. However, it is important to me to get beyond my fear of criticism and “learn while doing.”

Moving Out

In addition to releasing my first ebook, I moved out of my parents’ house and into my own apartment. This was much more unexpected than the ebook release but I found a deal that I couldn’t pass up. It’s not too far from my family, it’s closer to where I have to go for hockey practice, and it’s within walking distance of one of the coolest downtown areas in Michigan. Moving into an internet-less apartment and releasing an ebook at the same time was tough but coming out on the other side unscathed has been a very positive experience.

I’m excited because for the first time since college I have complete control over my consumption choices. What I buy, eat, and spend my time/attention on will be solely based on my own decisions. At home, life was too easy. Maybe if I had better self-discipline I would have been able to resist falling into the trap of convenience but alas, I couldn’t do it. Most importantly, I have no choice about moving forward with my writing. As of right now, I do not have a “job” once the summer ends. Before my income from restoring decks dries up I need to either a.) find a teaching job (which I haven’t ruled out) or b.) grow this blog into something that can sustain me. While living with my parents it was easy to ignore my writing or take the easy way out because there were very little consequences for doing so. If I do that now I will quickly be moving home, penniless, in disgrace.

It’s time to put up or shut up.

Planning For the Future

As I move forward with this blog here is a rough outline of what I have planned:

• Writing a significant number of posts and getting a backlog scheduled and ready to go on thesimplerlife.net.
• Writing many, many guest posts. (If you’re interested in having me write for your site, contact me at samspurlin AT gmail DOT com).
• Starting a monthly newsletter (more on this soon).
• Conducting more interviews (check back next week for my interview with Jeffrey Tang!).
• Starting another ebook.
• More interaction with other bloggers and writers while being as helpful as possible.

I’m excited to have taken the first step toward making this my sole source of income and I’m excited to have finally moved out to my own apartment. The coming weeks’ promise to hold a great amount of change for me and I will be here to share it with you. Thank you for taking the time to support me, my writing, and I think there are many great things in store for us in the future.

Photo by German G