Self Sufficiency, Autonomy and Being a Hippopotamus

And there's always another point of view
A better way to do the things we do - The Raconteurs

I left a good job in the city
Working for the man every night and day
And I never lost one minute of sleeping
Worrying 'bout the way things might have been - Tina Turner

Take a match and break it. Now take a thousand, hold them together and try again. Impossible.

While there is safety and strength in numbers, when you go out on your own, you will end up pushed to the brink. Don't expect support from those around you, even your most avid supporters, every step of the way (unless your business is producing cash flow immediately!).

Tim Ferris makes a great point about setting up your next income BEFORE you leave corporate. While this is common sense, for me, leaving NOW was a health decision that couldn't wait.

At any rate, you can count on the fact that people, important people, will not understand many actions you take to make your transition from coal mining slave to community building entrepreneur a successful one. For example, people tend to marginalize technologies they don't understand. "What's the big deal about Twitter? It's stupid, I don't get it, anyway." Never mind that 250 Million, that's a quarter of a billion, tweets are being posted daily. And don't get me started on the power of Facebook and YouTube!

If you can reach only a fraction of these people with some product or service, you can easily support yourself and your family. A website (or any business) that produces $200 in profit daily (average or otherwise) makes $6000 per month! Pre-tax of course, but you get the idea.

Ask Sarah Johnson hows she's doing selling travel sized perfume sticks! You can buy them here. "Because you should always smell lovely."

I don't love the idea of perfume sticks, but that's the whole idea. It only takes a few customers per day to equal freedom. That really flips the matchstick analogy on it's head, too!

The real question is, how to we turn Pizza Hippo into a website that produces cash, not just a brochure for the location of Vermont's Best Organic Pizza.

Any ideas are welcome. It's not easy being a Hippopotamus!

This just in... Pizza Hippo and the Pizza Stone have begun talks to organize a Pizza Throw Down to fund raise, potentially for Music for Minors. Thanks to Twitter, of course.

The moral of the story is to trust yourself, even when you don't trust yourself and no one else does either. Stay focused, and you too can become a hippopotamus.