Empire Building Kit Review

So we already reviewed Chris Guillebeau's Empire Building Kit for his 2nd 24-hour launch, but he's opening it up for sale again - but this time it'll stay open! So you may be asking "why even review this again if I can sign up whenever I want?" The answer is that if you buy it on Wednesday the 16th, when it goes on sale, you'll get a free copy of Chris' "Backyard Biz Profits," which focuses on applying his empire building strategies on local markets. Not bad, eh?

And if you were too lazy to go click on the review, we'll sum it up again for you:
Basically, if you want to start up your own business, you need this guide.

Why?
- 365 emails (one per day!!!!) of reviews, hints, tips, action plans, and more awesomeness that'll inspire you to stay active and keep on keeping on
- interviews with other business owners that are making at least $50k a year with less than 3 employees
-answers to specific questions like "if you're starting an ebook business, how many people on my list do I need before I should start releasing new books?" or "what email service do you use to manage your email list and why?" or "how do I find my market?"
-there are bonuses up the wazzooo! Extra interviews from his other projects, and the seriously, the in-depth interviews with some awesome, awesome people.

If you have any questions, feel free to email us (at info@monkeyandseal.com) and we'll give you our honest opinion on the matter and answer as much as possible. We were a bit hesitant, but really, $149 (there's also more stuff if you get the $249 or $449) is totally worth it if you are serious about starting up your own empire. $149 can be made up by skipping your morning coffee once every three days. $149 can be made up by cooking instead of eating out (in San Francisco) 15 times. In our minds, it's a small, small price to pay to get the knowledge and key skills needed to take your game to the next level.

If anything, we look forward to 1am, as that's around when Chris sends out our next email. We signed up for the first go-around, and we're on day 68, and what we've got so far is well worth $149. It's actually a bit shocking to think that we still have almost 300!!! more emails to go.

Anyway, we believe so strongly in Chris' product that, even though we're part of his affiliate team, we highly encourage you to go pick it up even if you don't go through our affiliate link.

If you want to go check it out, no strings attached (ie: the non affiliate link) after 9am PST on Wednesday, you can go check it out at: http://unconventionalguides.com/. No hard feelings, promise. However, if you'd like to help support us along with Chris, our affiliate link is here: http://unconventionalguides.com/cmd.php?Clk=3725273, which we would super appreciate you clicking on, but either way, we highly recommend you checking it out!

I hope you jump on this offer now (it's your last chance to pick up his free guide on local markets (later to be sold at $49), but if it takes you a while to digest/save up/etc., take your time. Like we said, if you have questions, email us at info@monkeyandseal.com or leave your question in the comments and we'll do our best to answer you quickly. Huzzah!

Getting off the rump

To steal a worthy topic from the ever-awesome Chris Guillebeau, we gotta get ourselves in motion, people. Often, our sometimes crap-tastic situations are blamed on others, or other external forces. And sometimes, which I think a lot of forward thinkers fail to mention, it is these outside forces' faults. However, as Chris points out here, a lot of it is our own failings, our own fear, and our own inaction which really causes us to miss out.

Now, let me explain this from the Monkey + Seal point of view. In this crazy world we live in, there are most definitely circumstances that are out of our control. Things like the genocide, murder, rape - terrible stuff like that is not something that you bring onto yourself with the Law of Attraction. Monkey + Seal are very understanding of how traumatic events and our upbringings are extremely difficult to work past - socialization is a huge factor in our day-to-day lives (partially because we don't even realize it).

But (and this is the big But), we can take ownership of our agency and turn bad situations around by doing the most you can do every single day. What you can do is different from what Monkey can do, or from what Seal can do, or from what Barack Obama or Kobe Bryant can do. It's not about changing your entire situation in a day (although we'd all wish it was so easy). What brings about change is doing what you, not anyone else, can do in a day. If all you can do to work towards a clean house is just wash a single dish, then do it. If you're looking to start a business, and the only thing you can do today is to google unreserved domain names, then get on your computer. No matter how small or insignificant, if you start today and keep at it, eventually you'll be surprised at how much you've accomplished.

We are all about sustainability over here at Monkey + Seal. Even though sometimes it looks like we're totally overworking ourselves in an unsustainable manner, we don't push ourselves to the point of burning out, and if we do, we know to take some recovery time. Yes, sometimes you have to push yourself to meet a deadline, or to go above and beyond, but for the most part, we like to practice sustainability, as we are artists working with socialized norms that are detrimental to our dreams. If we push ourselves too hard and too fast, our pasts can catch up with us and paralyze us in emotional poop-storms. We've since learned to recognize when we're going outside of our means and to step back and take a night off (or at least to take a break).

So I just want to advise people to take action. It doesn't have to be earth-shattering at first, but as long as you are taking constant action, things will move into place for you.

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year everyone!

As 2009 went right on by, we want to welcome in 2010 in what we're hoping will be an awesome year!

We hope that everyone out there has already set some goals for the year and we thought we'd share some of our broader goals:

-Curating a successful gallery show
-Commercial success at all craft/anime/comic festivals (especially at APE)
-Being able to live off the money we make from our art
-Drawing/Painting every day
-Posting at least one new item in our Etsy shop per week
-Each of us publishing our own art books
-One new comic each
-Bad Date Zine 3!

We're definitely working (a bit late, however) on our own "annual review" of sorts to really go through and figure out a definite action plan for 2010. Monkey got the idea from Chris Guillerbeau, the man behind the Art of Non-Conformity. You can even download his template that he uses for his Annual Review here.

What goals have you set for 2010?

The Art of Non-Conformity/9

So Monkey + Seal, through a series of random link exploration on twitter (btw, you should follow us: twitter/monkeyandseal - we have a twitter now, yay!), we stumbled upon a website titled "The Art of Nonconformity" run by Chris Guillebeau.

We highly recommend checking out his blog, as he has a lot of cool things to say about making your own path in life and being able to do what you want to do in life. Monkey read both his free manifestos (A Brief Guide to World Domination and 279 Days to Overnight Success) which you can easily download to your computer, and found a lot of really good information.

Anyhoo, we get his blog updates in our email, and so far, what the man has to say is pretty awesome. Go check it out today!

In other news, Monkey + Seal have started designing their new business cards and are kicking around the idea of getting some promotional postcards made. Any suggestions on items we should feature on the front? We're thinking of doing an old-fashion split card, with one Seal item and one Monkey item. We'd love for you to check out our shop and give us feedback as to your favorite item!

On a quick closing note, we're both really excited to check out 9, which opens in theaters today. When we saw the teaser trailer in the theater, we nearly got out of our seats to cheer, and we hope to get a chance to check out this film ASAP!