The Empire Building Kit

So if you're not familiar with the work of Chris Guillebeau, he's sort of a badass of the non-traditional entrepreneurial circle. He is a writer and his goal is to travel to every country IN THE WORLD by the time he's 35. Crazy. However crazy he might be, he is on track to do it, and he shares his travel hacking tips, advice on starting up your own business, and how to set off on your own and make money doing something you love.

I randomly found out about him after clicking a link on twitter, and I was sold. After purchasing his guide to Art + Money, we were convinced he was the real deal. Now don't get me wrong - the dude gives you a lot of awesome advice, but it's not a get-rich-quick scheme. It's more like "here are the tools to go change the world, now it's up to you to start doing the heavy lifting (albeit in bite-sized quantities).

He sells Unconventional Guides with topics like travel hacking and making money off your art that, from what we've read (and we own three of the guides), pretty awesome advice. They run $35 and up, from when I last checked, but they're worth it.

He just recently released his Empire Building Kit, which we invested in, and has thus far been well worth the $149 (the lowest of three tiers) that we paid. It has helped us re-evaluate business strategy, and helped spur us onto creating the free 7 Ways to Make Ordering Wedding Invitations Easier (and Cheaper). Anyway, we are so all about this that we wanted to let you know that Chris will be selling his Empire Building Kit again for another limited 24 hour period. If you want it, you'll have to visit between 9am (PST) tomorrow (Tuesday May 18th) and 9am Wednesday.

Really, for $149, reading all the interviews with small business owners who are actually making it doing what they love (a lifestyle business, if you will) was well worth it, and the case studies are icing on the cake. The case studies, which you get more of, aren't as in depth as I might want, but the interviews definitely make up for it.

Finally, you also get an email a day for 365 days helping urge you along your path to carving out your own empire in the world. Although 1/7 are recap emails (which I honestly don't find really that helpful), that's still a good 312 emails of motivational stuff, suggestions on small actions you can take, and other cool things that make it easier to keep on working towards the dream.

So Monkey + Seal are affiliates of the Unconventional Guides (meaning we do get a cut if you buy something), but like we said if you've ever checked out our affiliate policy before: we don't endorse crap that we don't use ourselves. I can't guarantee that you'll find the Empire Building Kit (or any of the other guides) useful, but Chris does come with a 100% money back guarantee - assuming you actually try his suggestions for a month and if you are still unhappy with the results, he'll give you your money back no questions asked. Not bad, eh? Additionally, Chris offers two free guides (his manifestos) which also offer loads of wonderful information, so even if you don't go to buy, at least check out the free stuff!

Go here to sign up for building your own empire! Huzzah!

Tax Time

Well, the deadline has passed - we hope you all managed to file your taxes on time this year! We cut it a bit close, filing at around 2am the day before they were due. Whew! Every time Monkey thinks about taxes, he thinks of Maggie Gyllenhaal screaming "Get bent, tax man!" at Will Ferrell in "Stranger than Fiction."

It has been a good process going through all the records and books and using this mandatory, stereotypically-icky event to look back and reflect on all the major financial gains and losses throughout the year as Monkey + Seal. When you get right down to it, as much as Monkey + Seal both want to make their business fun and exciting and full of art and goodness and yummy food, the reality is that it can be all of that, but you also have to manage your money, track financial records, and handle all the business side of things. It can be sort of rough at times, but in the end, anything that brings you one more step to your dream is worth it.

For all you budding entrepreneurs out there, how do you manage to keep the balance between the fun side of business and the business side of business in check?