Happy New Year, Climb on.

I've bored everyone I know about the journey that I'm on. At any point when anyone asks, "So what are your plans?" I always launch into an extended monologue about moving to the Isle of Wight and starting a writing career, and starting a special needs holiday let business, oh and don't forget the NLP. I've been talking about it for so long that it probably seems as though I'm not getting anywhere fast, but I've been gradually edging my way there bit by bit, even if most of those bits are more in Claire and I's minds.

But now, this is the last push. I want to start tracking our progress between now and the landing, so that firstly we can keep people informed, and also that I can collate this material one day in order to help others thinking of embarking on a relocation with a family, including a career change.

I want to keep this blog as informal as it can be, and as simple as it can be, and it will just keep up with where we're up to.

I'm going to be tracking:

- The sale of the house in Stockport
- Getting a redundancy package from work
- Getting my book published
- The progress I make with NLP Coaching and Therapy
- Schools for the kids
- Areas to move to in the Isle of Wight
- Special requirements for Sophie (my Daughter with a Chromosome Deletion)
- And any other cheeky little things that crop up that are completely unknown to me at this stage

I'm going to add entries as and when things happen so that this blog is a true reflection of living with the challenges that we're going to face. It will reflect the ups and downs, there will be some interesting factual stuff, and there will also be a lot of the feelings attached to this type of a move. I want it to be as real as possible, and for this reason I will only suggest to select people that I know to read it.

I know that if you subscribe to this blog using the RSS feed button on the webpage then at worst you will be entertained by a real life drama unfolding week after week, but at best it will be inspirational and life changing.


I'm bored beyond belief with my current career as a Project Manager for a software implementation project, oh my god, even the title sounds boring. This Relocation is going to be the beginning of something massive for us, and I want you all to come along. I've been inspired by books that I have read, including Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill, The Secret by Rhonda Byrne and Change your Life in Seven Days by Paul McKenna, all of which have fired me up to succeed. I have also become an NLP Practitioner which is at the root of all of these books, and I now want to inspire others to make the change and grasp it while it's still there.

So here's to a wonderful journey and an enriching experience, and a future of happiness and contentment.

Location:Manchester Rd,Stockport,United Kingdom

The Light

Back in the days when the world was dark and life fought to survive. There were glimmers of light that shone through the grime and pierced the existence with a revived energy. Nothing could explain the light but its presence was deafening.

Plants would feel their direction being torn towards it, lonely wild animals would wander into the magnetised beams, and once gentle waters would reflect and shimmer in their new found brilliance.

This light then crept over the world and bathed the whole in a divine duvet of protection. The immense glory being all encompassing.

Then the most incredibly sad event happened. The light that had generated from within, began to fade away and slowly the influence began to drain from every living thing. Fields that were lush began to look withered and bleak, and the animals crawled back to their fearful hiding places. The dark ages were upon them once again.

Many years passed and many scholars attempted to understand the light, in a vain attempt to recreate it. But the light was never to be found. The darkness ensued.

But the light that stretched over the land had not been made by a heavenly source. It had not been generated by an ethereal instrument. The answer then came to the people that by then inhabited the world.

The light had come from within the people themselves. The light had been manufactured by their own brilliance, by their own optimism and enthusiasm. Everyone is born with their own sun and moon. The magnetism is controlled by the people.

Since this time, there have been five thousand long year passed, and many different vehicles and approaches, ceremonies and vanity have been provided to hold this power in the hands of a few. Gradually though the dawning of the light, the answer to where it came from, has materialised out of the modern gloom.

Life as a concept is there to be seized rather than forced upon. The truth has filtered through the greatest minds of our time, and is now once again in it's ascendancy. It does not matter which beat you listen to, or which books you read, or which clothes you wear. The light is always there, but it needs belief to turn it on.

In a scientific world it still requires a leap of faith in order to achieve the very basic command of oneself. To believe in oneself and believe that one can achieve anything is almost primal, but the dark times have covered this ability and prevent us from accessing it readily.

Life should be a prairie not a prison. We have a better standard of life than any other set of people in history and we are still not free. Why can we still not see the light?

The times were so recently so different that we still live in the same homes as them, but we still have no idea of what we should be grateful for. It is all in front of us, we just need to open our eyes and take the first step... And the light will return.

Portfolio Career - The New Plan

Since the last entry we have been on holiday and I have been concentrating on finishing the book. I am glad to say that I have now finished the book. BUT there is still maybe some extra scenes that I want to include, and I am committed to finishing these by the end of July.

This is the first milestone on this journey, and therefore important that I reach it before diverting my attention to other steps, i.e. Freelance Writing.

The other important thing to mention is the holiday that we went on a couple of weeks ago. It was to the Isle of Wight which just so happens to be the place where we are thinking of moving to. We coupled the holiday with a reconnaissance of the island, especially the special needs school for Sophie.

The school passed our tests regarding the safety for Sophie, but more importantly the 'feel' of the school. Everyone there was happy and kind, and all of the children were really happy to be there, and this is the most important thing on my list.

This was the only practical obstacle to relocating and this has now been cleared. Which is great because we can concentrate on making it happen, but it is quite scary as well because the plan is now real and I need to make it work.

So, to reiterate the plan; The book to be finished and begin to be sent out - September, Freelance Writing work to begin to be established - September, At least one paid writing assignment, or 10 free assignments - December.

It's full steam ahead, and all of this in parallel with my day job which in case I haven't mentioned before is full on as well. It is still my intention to secure a redundancy package and I am hoping to start these discussions in September.

So, that's it for now. I will finish my book and then when I begin the Freelance writing adventure I will track the progress on here. The journey with the book is a very creative process, and hard to track, all I can say is that it is close and when it is finished you will be the first to know.

Also, as an aside, I have completed the swim and raised a staggering two thousand pounds in a fortnight for the Neo-Natal Unit at Stepping Hill Hospital.

Portfolio Career - Bank Holiday Weekends

What a lovely weekend, and absolutely no further towards a Portfolio Career. I've spent the last three days with Claire and the kids and we've had a great time. A Bank Holiday weekend is about recharging and reaffirming what is important, and what all this is about in the first place.

I have been desperately trying to get Claire's birthday present ready in the evenings and this has been a mini project. It has taken so much longer than I first expected, but if you knew what it was then you wouldn't be surprised. But, the fact that I have been 'working' in the evenings made me think that this is the type of thing that I am aspiring to.

I have enjoyed the birthday present preparation because I really want Claire to enjoy it, and for it to be just right when she opens it. This can therefore be compared to a task that I love that I am doing for money instead of giving joy.

I can work around the kids when they are at school, or in bed, and still be there for those good times in between. Those good times that unfortunately are so seldom in my current existence.

I really enjoyed yesterday because we all went into Manchester, and spent three to four hours there not really doing anything. We went to see a photography exhibition, Dorothy Bohm, but that was it. We decided to buy some lunch in M&S and eat it on a bench watching the world go by us, and then later we had a coffee and watched a different world go by.

It felt like such a lazy day, even though it wasn't due to the walking, and we were all together sharing the experiences for the whole time. It made me think of how England has changed in my lifetime. I have written about this before, but I still think we are quite lucky to have this coffee bar culture in England. It has come from the continent, and the idea of relaxing in public is a concept that I have always loved from earlier holidays. Now we can enjoy this without having to travel first.

I love watching people walk past, real characters, and making up stories about them. My curiosity about their personal circumstances, asking questions to myself about why they are wearing that particular hat, or where they are rushing off to. I could do it all day long, and if it wasn't for Claire then I probably would have. I think Dylan has started to get the bug as well, a young man walked past with a big Victorian beard, and he all of a sudden jumped up, laughing and pointing. Very funny.

So really, this is the part of my balanced portfolio of life that I am trying to increase. Surely this can be achieved. If as well, I can accompany it with work that I love, and the ability to help others, then jackpot.

I'll know I've made it when I have a box at St.Marys, and we are all there enjoying lunch before the match.

Anyway, I have digressed a little in this entry, but this is due to the incredible length of time it is taking to edit the book. I am going to have to up my effort, and start working in the evenings as well, in order to get it finished to a point where I can finally start getting it out there.

So, as always, I will keep you up-to-date with my lack of progress as well as my progress, and hopefully I can start to report more of the latter very shortly.

Portfolio Career - Well-Being

The most important part of a Portfolio Career, for me, is the ability to choose the components of the portfolio. Like I've mentioned before, you would only choose things that you enjoy and that bring you a reward. This would in turn create a contentment in your everyday life, and you would really start to enjoy life.

Another term for this is 'Well-Being', and there has been a book called Well-Being by Tom Rath and Jim Harter which explains the factors that go towards achieving it.

Gallup, as in the company that run Gallup Polls etc., have analysed statistically the components that go in to well-being. They have concluded that there are five key areas:

Career Well-being, the job, or what you do each day.
Emotional Well-being, your relationship with loved ones.
Physical Well-being, your fitness, your health
Financial Well-being, how comfortable you are, having enough to support your lifestyle
Community Well-being, what sense of belonging that you have with a group of people.


Each of these in equal volume will work towards an overall sense of Well-being. Interestingly, 66% are perfectly happy with one of these, but only 7% are happy with the balance across all five.

This directly applies to what I am trying to do with this whole journey into a Portfolio Career. I want to improve my Career Well-being, and Financial Well-being, whilst maintaining the others.

When I read about this, it really resonated with my purpose. So much so that I am going to draw up a kind of Balanced Scorecard, in which I will list the activities that I do currently and allocate them into one of the five pots. I will then score these and calculate totals.

Then I will estimate a level that I am aiming to reach for each pot, calculate the gap, and plan what to do about it. I am hoping that most of the work that I am doing at the moment will go along way to plugging that gap, but it may pull out something that I have taken my eye off.

Portfolio Career - Steps for Freelance Writing

The next stage to achieving a Portfolio Career is to start to establish the income streams. One of the potential income streams that I have identified is Freelance Writing. I think I will enjoy this area of work especially if I can concentrate on the appropriate categories.

Freelance writing is becoming a real boom industry at the moment due to the explosion of the internet. The amount of new information that will be produced in 2010 will be equal to the amount of information that has been published in the last three thousand years put together.

This is possible due to the volume of websites that now exists on the internet. All of these websites need content in order to stay relevant and attract people. If they attract people then they will earn more money in advertising.

So, the market for the writing of this content is huge. Due to the business models of websites they do not have in-house writers that are paid on their staff. They raise a request online for freelance writers to bid on and, depending on the level of expertise and quality that they are after, they will make a choice. There has been a rise in the freelance writing market places where projects are offered up and bids are collected.

In order to win a bid the writer must suggest a competitive price for the work, but also ratings are given to each writer, and also profiles of the writer can be viewed in order to give the employer an idea of quality. These three factors will go towards a decision being made. Obviously, therefore, if a writer is established and has many articles under his belt, all with high ratings, then they can demand a higher price due to confidence levels of quality.

How can you break in to this world of dangling pound notes? I have bought an ebook called Six Figure Freelancer and it describes the step-by-step process to establish yourself. Surprisingly it does not seem hard and because of these low barriers to entry, you can expect a large amount of competition. Also, as it is online it is opened up to the whole world and I will suffer from the impact of lower standards of living in developing countries. A person in India will charge a lot less than my hourly rate to produce the same work, and so I need to concentrate much more on quality. Once set up this should be okay, but breaking into it will be harder because of the lack of proof that I can back up my obvious quality. That obvious quality that purveyors of this blog could verify from the rooftops.

Steps required to take part:

- Register on the online market places
- Create a profile on said market places
- Bid for work, at first by either, 1) reducing the price, or 2) creating my own requests for work (clever)
- Once the ball is rolling, then create my own website that I can direct prospective clients to, and begin to establish regular income streams with the same people that begin to know and trust the quality that I produce.

Easy.

The good thing with all of this is that it can be done whilst I am still working 9-5.

I am concentrating at the moment on finally editing the book that I have written, and getting that to a stage where I will be happy to start giving it wings. Once this is done, I will then throw my energy into the freelance writing, and let you know how I get on.

Portfolio Career - Think and Grow Rich

Like a duck, the energy is all happening under the water at the moment in progressing my Portfolio Career. I bought the book called Six Figure Freelancer in order to learn how to initiate the freelance writing side, and with it came a bonus three books. One of these books is called Think and Grow Rich by Napolean Hill.

It was first published in the 1920's, and the content still appears as relevant now as it did then. The specific examples of industry and fortune making are out-dated, but the 'secret' behind them is still true.

The 'Secret' is something that is written about in a number of contemporary books that I have read, and something that I can definitely identify.

The law of attraction is something else that it's called, and NLP and Cosmic Ordering are also based on it.

The primary concept is that you must yield a desire to achieve a result. In order to build the desire into an obsession and follow through with perserverance, you must first know exactly what it is that you are aiming at. Once you have articulated in detail the eventual target, you must then use all of your energy in reaffirming that it is possible, and visualising the person that you will become and the life that you will lead.

The point is that as long as you are concentrating on one outcome the universe, or the ether as the book calls it, will deliver opportunities that to a ready mind can be seized.

The book highlights many examples of the day where people have used the 'Secret' to earn huge fortunes, including; Henry T Ford, Abraham Lincoln, Thomas Edison, Andrew Carnegie, Rockefeller. All of these people particularly had received no formal education, but they had a laser focused goal to succeed and thought of little else.

Now, why am I mentioning all of this stuff? Well, firstly it confirms what I have read elsewhere and I am taking on board some of the exercises that they advise, in order to concentrate my mind on achieving. But secondly, by analysing successful people you build into your own personality that quality of success. I will be using the teachings to achieve my dream life, which is a long way from any of the names mentioned above. I do not chase this type of dream, but my humble dream of being in control and free to make choices on how I spend my time, and be able to spend that time with who ever I want, can be substituted in it's place.

It gives me a renewed belief that what I am doing is not only possible but also the best thing that could ever happen. This state of mind is fearless, but must be nurtured to ensure sustainability. So onwards and upwards...