Monetize Your Life: 6 Steps Toward Doing What you Love

The term "monetize" came to me in relation to the internet. A friend of mine involved in the creation of websites explained to me that internet entrepreneurs operate by coming up with ideas for websites, putting them out there and generating traffic on them. Only then do they look for ways to "monetize" them; that is, make money from them.

And thus the website reaches it's full, sustainable potential as a website in monetary terms. But what about people? How do they reach their full, sustainable potential as people?

Maybe there's a lesson here. Perhaps this is the way anybody trapped in a job that isn't their true calling can make a move to one that is--just start doing it! Figure out how to make money at it later.

The New Earth Economy - A Radical Approach to Money

I'm here to tell you about a little thing I like to call the New Earth Economy, or N.E.E. for short. The N.E.E. is named in honor of one of our favorite books here at Todd Wright Now, A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life's Purpose (Oprah's Book Club, Selection 61),by Eckhart Tolle. In that book, our good friend Eckhart expounds upon his vision for the evolution of us humans:

"'And I saw a new heaven and a new earth,' writes the biblical prophet. The foundation for a new earth is a new heaven--the awakened consciousness."

The N.E.E. is based on the principle expressed by Jesus: "Give, and it will be given to you: good measure, pressed down, shaken together, and running over, will be given to you. For with the same measure you measure it will be measured back to you." (WEB)

Now Jesus certainly never said, "Give, but don't sell." But the NEE is predicated on the idea that if you're going to be given so much as a result of giving, why bother to sell?

Put Being Before Doing in Job Search

A version of this article was originally published by Technorati on 30 March 2010.

According to Yahoo! hotjobs, nine occupations are still hiring, even in this recessionary period: Truck Mechanic, Physical Therapist, Special Ed. Teachers, Environmental Engineers, Healthcare, Nursing, Finance and Banking, Veterinary Techs, and Wind Energy Techs.

Investipedia.com's Bobbi Dempsey, the article's author, took her data from a wide variety of sources--including a couple of job search engines (Monster.com and Simply Hired), a nursing college, and an interview with Jeff Cohen, author of The Complete Idiots Guide to Recession-Proof Careers--to give people valuable leads in the search for their next job.

Now, juxtapose this bright, helpful information with a recent very gloomy forecast (also posted on Yahoo!, by the way) from Lakshman Achuthan of the Economic Cycle Research Institute (ECRI). Of the current employment picture, Achuthan says, "Forty percent of the unemployed are long-term unemployed. They've been unemployed for six months or longer."

These jobs, Achuthan says, are either "associated with the bubble that burst" or are in manufacturing. "So, those people are displaced. The recovery is happening. It’s very real, but the economy doesn’t want their skills for one reason or another."

According to Achuthan, they are permanently unemployable. He predicts a resultant elevated rate of unemployment for the foreseeable future. "[Unemployment] was down around four or five percent," he says. "Forget that! Forget it!"

The Pursuit of Greatness Can Be Costly

A version of this article was published by Technorati on 24 February 2010. To see all my Technorati articles, click Lifestyle in the Contents listing on the sidebar.

An object lesson in egoic behavior comes by way of a recently authenticated Van Gogh original.

Museum de Fundatie, a small museum in a small Dutch town 70 miles east of Amsterdam called Zwolle began showing what is now known to be Van Gogh's "Le Blute-Fin Mill" yesterday (pictured). It will remain on display through July 4th.

The painting and its former owner will remain forever linked by a checkered past.

"Le Blute-Fin Mill" was previously owned by an art collector and curator named Dirk Hannema, who bought it in 1975 from an unsuspecting Paris art dealer for the equivalent of $2,700. Hannema later insured the painting for around $43,000.