Magical Career Change - Escape the Organization for Good!

Ernie Zelinski and Nadide Sevinç Tastan at the Istanbul Convention Center after Ernie's speech about The Joy of Not Working

Original Message -----
From: David3830@aol.com
To: vip-books@telus.net
Sent: Tuesday, March 11, 2008 10:33 AM
Subject: laid off

I have just finished your book Real Success Without a Real Job and have enjoyed it immensley.

Now as I have been toying with an idea for several years,I am now going to go ahead and do it.

Now I have a question,the quotations shown in the book, can they be freely used by another? or do I have to get permission from the writer.

This is a new line for me and I have no idea how these things work.

Hope fully this year I will be able to join your for a latte this year, but not to early.

Thank you.
David

----- Original Message -----
From: Raul Gonzales
To: vip-books@telus.net
Sent: Sunday, October 22, 2006 11:37 PM
Subject: Joy of Not Working and Real Success without a Real Job

Dear Mr. Zelinski,

I just want to thank you so much for the insight these 2 books The Joy of Not Working and Real Success Without a Real Job) have given me. I read them both in the last 2 weeks. I happened upon Real Success Without a Real Job at Barnes and Nobel one day and purchased it and could not put it down, and with all the references to The Joy of Not Working I ordered that one on Amazon and promptly read that one very quickly as well!

I know I am enjoying and getting allot out of a book when I can read them so quickly I too was laid off at a Mortgage company in March of 2005 after working there for a second stint 5 years straight, I also worked there pre college for 3 years in the early 90's! I am 37 years old, still single but looking for the girl of my dreams, but also in a quandary of what to do to make a living, but have the leaserly lifestyle!

Soon after being laid off I also determined in my mind not to find a job again, but try various businesses, I had some real estate I was renting out, but was only covering my carry cost monthly but did have some 401K money I cashed in and a layoff package I cashed in, I enrolled in a stock trading course which in hindsight was way too expensive 20K all on the MasterCard.. and will finish the last class this week in Chicago (The Trading Pit) but nevertheless, trading for the last year and a half has now left me without any more cash flow, I have one more position I am hoping will return some income. Much more on this year and a half period later.

The position I am in now, is that I am selling my primary residence in Cedar park Texas on Nov 1st to an Australian couple who were the only offer on the house, I will gain about 12500.00 in proceeds of which I will pay my folks back about 3000.00,,,, I have the (dreaded) interview for a job on Tuesday morning before I fly out to Chicago for a firm that places people in Accounting jobs (40) hours / week type positions. However I do not look forward to get back to the corporate world! I have started a blog to get into the habit of writing to someday produce an ebook or books like yours to self publish. http://tradersjunction.blogspot.com/

I guess the questions I have are (HELP), I don't want to get into accounting field anymore....? I am over 120,000.00 in credit card that I cannot service any longer and am considering CH 7. I really hate to do this.

Also, was considering taking some of the proceeds of the sale of my house and buy a used 35 mm camera and start a business of some sort. (landscapes) framed
and market on ebay or to corporations. I have no experience but love to drive out to the Texas hill country and explore the areas!

I just seemed to have struck a rock and a hard place of generating income,,, My trading has come to a halt but know that I want to try again one day when the funds are available.

I know this is long, but hope to begin some kind of dialog and advise or mentorship you may offer?

Thanks once again for the great books! I read every line, front to back!!!

Yours truly,

Raul Gonzales
Cedar Park, Texas (near Austin)

raulgonzales@hotmail.com

----- Original Message -----
From: Morris, David
To: vip-books@telus.net
Sent: Wednesday, September 13, 2006 10:34 AM
Subject: Real Success Without a Real Job

I just wanted to let Ernie know I finished this book and I had found it absolutely incredible! I can't even put into words how much I enjoyed reading his book and there were times I didn't even want to put it down. I am not one to send e-mails or write reviews so for me to be this moved my hat is off to you. I wish I could write more but I have to get back to the grind - for now.

David Morris
charles SCHWAB
Senior Retirement Plan Consultant
Schwab Corporate Services

----- Original Message -----
From: "Shely Skye" <shskye@cabrillo.edu>
To: <vip-books@telus.net>
Sent: Thursday, May 12, 2005 4:57 PM
Subject: thank you letter

Ernie,

Writing to you from Santa Cruz, I wanted to thank you for writing such funny and inspiring books. I have read the The Joy of Not Working and How to Retire Happy, Wild, and Free. Both are a validation of the choices I have made over these last 20 years.

I am, by profession, a counselor in the community college system in California, USA. I am fortunate to have worked for the last 17 years on a part time basis, usually about 21 hours a week for 8 months a year. I say fortunate because I am able to live on my income, put away some money for retirement and have lots of time off. Because I am a temporary
employee, I also get to apply for unemployment during the times I don't have a contract to work for the school. Thus getting paid to look for work at other community colleges that don't have work for me either. An awkward sentence I know but a sweet deal none the less.

Actually, I never wanted to work. I hated the idea I would have to go somewhere and be trapped there, whether or not there was something for me to do. Finally, after I graduated from college with my degree in American Studies, I did succumb to the whole idea of employment and got a full time job for 5 years. At first it was ok to have enough money to
not have to worry about running out of toothpaste or toilet paper (my personal fears). Soon however, I began to feel dead and hated the whole thing. Two weeks off a year? That's crazy. Plus my work was boring. I finally quit that job, took my retirement money out and traveled around the US and Canada for 6 months. I didn't know what I was going to do but I swore I would never get into a trap like that one again.

During the next couple of years I did this and that, finally realizing if I got my graduate degree in Counseling, I could work for the community college system and only have to work 165 days a year. Plus make a salary that was plenty of money for me. (Did I mention that I am also very good at this work?) I did attend University and complete my graduate education, got a temp job at my current college but never did get that permanent position. This has been somewhat of a professional disappointment to me but on balance, a better choice not to work full time, even if only 8 months a year. Thus I have been, in effect semi-retired for the past 17 years.

I am now looking (longingly) towards retirement. Due to the lack of a health care system in the US, I don't see how I will be able to retire and have enough money for health care. Because I live frugally I will be able to live on my small retirement and pay my bills but as a temporary employee, I will have no access to health benefits as a retiree. I am considering moving to Mexico when I retire as the Mexican government has a health plan that non-nationals can pay into and it is affordable, at
this time about $500 a year.

I'm not sure why I am writing this to you except that many of the examples you highlight in your books are of people who live in countries that have national health care systems that pay for citizen's health
care needs. As a US citizen, I don't have access to any reasonable (i.e. affordable) health care and don't know when I can retire because of this concern. Of course, I could always just throw caution to the wind and hope I don't get sick until I reach the age of 65, when Medicare (for those older retirees) kicks into play.

If I chose to do this, I have 7 more years of part time work to do until I am able to retire at age 60. I have good health as of this time, probably due to not working too much! I backpack for fun and exercise, read and have a couple of book ideas of my own under my belt. I love alternative everything, from green building to living arrangements to lifestyles. I never have fit into the mainstream of western culture and doubt I ever will. More power to us, eh?

So, I just wanted to thank you again for giving voice to those of us who can't, or don't chose to make money in the standard way. If you can find a way to address the issue that US citizens deal with regarding health care it would be enlightening for others I am thinking. Many people have the idea that we, in the middle part of North America, have it made.

Frankly, it isn't what it seems. In fact, it is kind of bizarre to be living in such a wealthy country and not be able to afford health care.

The reasons for which are a whole other topic, which I won't get into here.

I hope this letter finds you still avoiding employment but full of energy to write and create up a storm.

Sincerely,

Shelly Skye
> Santa Cruz, California, USA

----- Original Message -----
From: "cashews1" <cashews1@telus.net>
To: <vip-books@telus.net>
Sent: Sunday, February 24, 2008 8:23 PM
Subject: I finally found something I can relate to

Hello Ernie:

Just about finished your 101 Really Important Things You Already Know, But Keep Forgetting and am loving it. ( I did skim to the end ahem.)

I think I will definitely have to take this book with me when I retire and purchase my motorhome.
(Should there really be a space in motor home?

Just doesn't look right lol. I don't think I could possibly remember everything you have said in this book so I'm sure it will be well read (and worn out) over the years.

Thanks for the write.

Sincerely,

Kathryn

If You Recently Got Fired from Your Job, Your Good Luck Has Just Begun!
Whenever friends or acquaintances tell me that they have either got fired or quit their conventional jobs, my response is, "Congratulations." After I said this to a friend who quit his job during an economic recession not so long ago, his face lit up, before he started laughing and remarked, "You are the only one who has said this to me. Everyone else is asking me things like 'How could you during a recession? Jobs are so hard to come by!' or 'How are you going to survive?' "

I congratulate people who have quit or lost their jobs because I know that for people who want real success in their lives, unemployment is an opportunity for them to go on to something better. In fact, if you have been in the workforce for over twenty years and have never gotten fired and experienced unemployment, you are likely not a risk taker or all that creative.

Indeed, some of the most creative and famous people in the world have got fired. In 1978 Lee Iacocca was fired from his job as president of Ford Motor Company by Henry Ford II, who told Iacocca, "I just don't like you." Soon after, Iacocca became the chief of bankrupt Chrysler Corporation and made it profitable for years.

No doubt, getting fired and being faced with unemployment can be distressing, as it was for me when I got axed from my engineering position over two and a half decades ago. But it wouldn't have been distressing at all if I had known at the time that I was destined for much greater things. Indeed, if I had known where I would be twenty-five years later - experiencing career success without a real job - I would have been profusely thanking my boss the second he fired me. What's more, I would have had a celebration that day as expensive and as big as I had twenty-five years later in honor of my twenty-five years without a real job.

The reality is that many hugely successful people have been fired at one time or another - sometimes several times - and gone on to better things. Most of these people admit that getting the ax placed them on a fast track toward career fulfillment. Indeed, it was the best thing that ever happened to them. For some, losing a job was the incentive they needed to open their own shop so that they didn't need to work at a job they hate ever again.

Years after working at an occupation that he hated, Leonard Lee, owner of Ottawa-based Lee Valley Tools and Algrove Publishing, told a reporter with The Globe and Mail, "No amount of money is worth doing a job you hate. It rots your soul. It destroys you." So why do so many work at a job they hate if it destroys their souls? Who knows? Perhaps they don't value their souls.

Many people do value their souls, however, and are not willing to sell out to the corporate world ever again once they get fired. Instead, they pass up even the most prestigious and high-paid positions, often for much less prestigious unreal jobs and lower pay, so that they can avoid working for a corporation.

Getting fired along with unemployment, as I found out, is the universe's way of telling you that you were in the wrong job in the first place. It is also the universe's way of testing you to see whether you can take advantage of the adversity that comes with unemployment and create some opportunity out of it, such as starting your own business. Put another way, unemployment is an opportunity to develop real character and true wealth.

If you are up to the universe's challenge, miracles will come your way. Money isn't as important as you may think it is. Many multimillion dollar businesses were started on kitchen tables. Passion, purpose, and dedication will take you places where money won't.

The reality is that great corporate jobs are hard to come by in today's world anyway. "The traditional admonition of one generation to the next, 'get a job,' has been replaced with a more complex mandate: 'Go out and create a job for yourself,' " George Gendron, editor of Inc. magazine, recently told Publisher's Weekly.

Being fired is an opportunity to create a job for yourself instead of finding another corporation that has a ready-made job for you, from which you can be just as easily fired some time in the future. A corporation can take away your job and your job title but it can't take away your talent and creativity. By firing you, the corporation may be doing you a great favor inasmuch as you now have an opportunity to fully utilize your creativity and talent.

Getting fired is a great opportunity to rethink where you are, what your priorities are, what's important to you, and whether or not you are in the right career. Getting another corporate job may only result in treating the symptoms - damage control, in other words. It has been my experience that the best way to fully utilize one's creativity and talent is to shun a real job and create one's own unreal job. If you can be successful at an unconventional job that involves self-employment, you won't get fired ever again because you are the boss. Above all, getting fired is a great opportunity to pursue the unreal job that you have dreamed about pursuing for some time.

So again, don't look at unemployment as all that bad of a thing. Your good luck may have just begun, particularly if you decide to make the great escape from the corporate world to pursue something totally unrelated to the field in which you were. You may feel that you have touched bottom, when, in fact, you are already headed upward. In the words of motivational speaker Zig Ziglar, "See you at the top."

Note: This article is adapted from the book: Career Success Without a Real Job by Ernie Zelinski. The book has been published in Spanish and Russian and has now sold over 10,000 copies.

Download the Free E-book (in PDF format) with the first chapter of Career Success Without a Real Job: The Career Book for People Too Smart to Work in Corporations at:

Free Downloadable Ebooks at The Real Success Resource Center

Purchase Career Success Without a Real Job by Ernie Zelinski at:

Career Success Without a Real Job at Amazon.com

Real Success Without a Real Job by Ernie J. Zelinski reads like a conversation with an old friend. The author found success in an unconventional way after losing his job as an engineer and has come to understand that the true path of happiness, contentment, and satisfaction lies in the discovery of one's ture passion or calling.

While pointing out that it may not be for everyone, the author proceeds to tell us of exciting realities that await those who dare to dream of a life lived on their own terms. We, not some faceless corporation, decide on the hours, vacation time, with whom we want to work, and what we are going to do today. To be able to say, "I love what I do and I have my freedom," is priceless to those who are not the corporate type.

Zelinski reminds us that real success is not measured merely by the 'all might dollar' but more so, by having a few good friends and the time to spend with them. He wants us to seriously consider if what it is we 'do', is what makes us happy and if it isn't, why not consider 'doing' that which does make us happy.

The book is 'peppered' with quotes from people like Henry Ford, Jerry Garcia, Mother Teresa and Mad Magazine that give us an inspiring look into the mindsets of all these successful people and ideas. A quote by William James encompasses the central concept of the book, "The greatest discovery of my generation is that man can alter his life by altering his attitude."

One thing all these people seem to have in common is a committment to their vision. 'Work' isn't where they go each day. The task at hand becomes something to accomplish that will bring their dream closer to fruition. When you have an idea and exert the effort, success will follow.

Real Success Without a Real Job by Ernie Zelinski is a pleasure to read and its positive, up-beat message is full of hope and encouragement for those who are ready to become their own boss.

Download the Free E-book (in PDF format) with the first chapter of Real Success Without a Real Job: The Career Book for People Too Smart to Work in Corporations at:

Free Downloadable Ebooks at The Real Success Resource Center

Life of Ernie Is Wild and Free

From the National Post

To say Ernie J. Zelinski has taken the road less travelled would be a large understatement. Quite simply, the author of How to Retire Happy, Wild, and Free and other self-help best-sellers has taken the road never before travelled, living a life designed on his own terms.

In How to Retire Happy, Wild, and Free: Retirement Wisdom That You Won't Get From Your Investment Advisor, he writes: "The way I see it, you will have attained true freedom in this world when you can get up in the morning when you want to get up; go to sleep when you want to go to sleep; and in the interval, work and play at the things you want to work and play at -- all at your own pace. The great news is that retirement allows you the opportunity to attain this freedom."

Zelinski, 58, a professional engineer by training and subsequent MBA graduate, has been mostly semi-retired since 1980 and has not missed the corporate grind one bit, living his particular kind of freedom for almost 30 years.

"I semi-retired when I was $30,000 in the hole and I've been semi-retired ever since," he says over the phone from his home in Edmonton. "Even if I made $10-million or $20-million, I still think I'd want to be doing what I'm doing because I really like doing what I'm doing."

Yes, but what exactly does a semi-retired self-help author do to make a living and live his version of happy, wild and free?

Zelinski, a bachelor, is a night owl, usually not retiring to bed till 3 a.m. or 4 a.m. He gets up at 11 or 11:30 a.m., goes for a run or bike ride or exercises at home for up to 90 minutes, gets to the coffee shop around 3 or 3:30 p.m., reads the papers, talks to people and maybe does a little work on his laptop. Around 8 p.m. he might join friends for a drink at a local lounge. Then he comes home, does some work, reads more papers and goes to bed.

This semi-eccentric semi-retiree's "work" of about three or four hours a day has paid him an average income of more than $100,000 over the past five years. But financial success was a long time coming for the erstwhile Alberta farm boy and was very hard-earned.

"Remember, there were years when I was living below the poverty line," he says, "though I never considered myself poverty stricken."

He had self-published his first self-help book on creativity, The Art of Seeing Double or Better in Business, in 1989 after almost a decade in which he had been fired from his engineering job for taking unauthorized vacation, took two years off, earned his MBA, taught at a private school, became a motivational speaker and generally tried to find his way toward a satisfying, if youthful, semi-retirement. The book sold 2,000 copies.

But his 1991 book, The Joy of Not Working, published in the midst of the recession, struck a chord with readers and sold 10,000 copies a year for the next five years. "Everyone's writing about how to get a job and I came out with The Joys of Not Working," he says. "It did really well."

That it did really well caught the attention of Ten Speed Press in California, which picked up the title in 1997 and has since been Zelinski's partner in other ventures. Today, The Joys has sold 250,000 copies and How to Retire Happy, Wild, and Free has had sales of 75,000 [90,000 counting foreign sales]. It is the No. 1 retirement book on Amazon.com and Zelinski is aiming to sell half-a-million over time as the Boomers retire.

There are 200,000 books published every year in the United States and Canada, about 50 of them about retirement. Ninety-five percent of them sell fewer than 5,000 copies.

Zelinski's books strike a happy balance between light reading and enlightenment, with the author's cheeky observations and many famous quotations helping the mix.

Also key to the books' success is Zelinski's talents at marketing and promotion, mostly through the Internet. Readers are drawn to Web sites with marketing offers that often translate into sales.

Ironically though, even more key to his success is Zelinski's dogged work ethic. He may spend only three to four hours a day working, but you can bet he's thinking about his tasks -- and thinking smart about them--in his time "off."

In his research about retirement, what strikes him the most is the fact that so many people have saved so little for their later years. "I know money can't make you happy," he says, "but a lack of money can make you very, very miserable."

What can also help make people happy in retirement, he adds, is to retain the three things that they lose when they stop work: Purpose, sense of community and structure. "You've got to put those things back in your life."

Ernie J. Zelinski, while taking the road never travelled, has seen to it that he has maintained those bedrock facets of life in a remarkable span of "semi-retirement." He has lived his self-help message and is living proof that one retirement does not fit all.

"I've learned to live very basically," he says. "I don't need what other people need."

By Bill Hanley

Author Ernie Zelinski working, or not, at the Sugar Bowl Cafe Photograph by : John Lucas, The Journal

EDMONTON - For a man who's relished the joy of not working for 25 years, Ernie Zelinski's been pretty busy.

The Edmonton author and world-class idler has just published his 15th book Real Success Without a Real Job (Ten Speed Press, $21.95), which touts the benefits of jumping off the corporate treadmill and restructuring your life so it has meaning, direction ... and joy.

The premise is that you can't be genuinely prosperous unless you have personal freedom, Zelinski says.

"You will have attained true freedom in this world when you can get up in the morning when you want to get up, go to sleep when you want to go to sleep, and in the interval work and play at the things you want to work and play at -- all at your own pace."

And how do you achieve this lofty goal?

By not having a real job, and creating your own "unreal" job instead.

That way you work for the best boss in the world, yourself.

The book, aimed at people who are tired of corporate politics or are just burned out, will also help retiring babyboomers who want to do something fulfilling, Zelinski says.

"It's not so much a how-to book, although there is some of that in there. It's more an inspirational book so people can make major changes in their lives."

While one chapter contains a comprehensive list of "unreal" jobs, the most exciting new area is information, Zelinski says.

"You don't need a lot of capital, and while it's true there is a lot of information already out there, the key is in how you present it."

Intellectual property, as he is finding out with his books, is a good way to keep getting paid for something you created, Zelinski says.

While it may appear Zelinski's literary output has put a lie to the premise of his The Joy of Not Working, which has sold 200,000 [now 225,000] copies in 17 languages over 15 years, he still has essentially the same leisurely daily routine he perfected after being fired from his engineering job for taking unapproved holidays.

He rises at about 11 a.m., rides his bike in the river valley for an hour, and then wanders down to a southside bistro for coffee and conversation, and to write on his laptop for three or four hours. The rest of the day he's busy doing nothing.

"I'm not lazy per se. I actually do run a company, and make a living at it. Sometimes I work seven or eight hours a day, and some days I don't work at all. The key is that it's my choice."

The frugality that's allowed him to do this is still evident in his 12 year old Toyota Camry, which he rarely drives, modestly furnished apartment and limited wardrobe.

He does spend money at favourite Edmonton restaurants - and tips well, he says - and visits friends across the country.

It's just that he doesn't put much stock in material possessions.

He estimates everything he owns, including the Camry and his beloved vintage MG sports car, is worth less than $20,000. But on the other hand he has no debts, not even a mortgage.

He has no new projects in the pipeline right now, and will spend the next months marketing the new book, and his previous volume How to Retire Happy, Wild, and Free, which has already sold 45,000 [now 90,000] copies.

Zelinski produces a letter from a 39 year old Los Angeles lawyer who wrote that he was burned out, and How to Retire Happy, Wild, and Free inspired him to change his life for the better.

"It's those kinds of letters and e-mails that make what I do so rewarding."

© The Edmonton Journal 2006

Work for the Best Boss

If, at work, you don't feel listened to, your work is unappreciated, you are underpaid, and you have been overlooked for a promotion while someone less creative and productive has been awarded the job, it is quite likely that you may begin to wonder why you are there.

In which case, you may be a prime candidate to join the league of the self-employed, and start working for 'the best boss in the world,' suggests Ernie Zelinski in Real Success Without a Real Job ( www.macmillanindia.com ). "As long as you work for someone else, regardless of how much money you earn, you will never be truly free," Real Success Author Ernie Zelinski's bemoans. "Contrary to what a lot of people believe, self-employment does not mean that you have to live in poverty. In fact, there is opportunity to end up being better off financially than 99 per cent of corporate workers."

Zelinski cites studies to state that individuals who go into business because they want to perform a service they love performing or selling a product they love selling make more money in the long term than individuals who go into business just to make money.

Persuasive enough to help you quit your job painlessly.

NOTE: I am presently rewriting this book and it will be re-issued with a new cover under the new title and subtitle Career Success Without a Real Job: The Career Book for People Too Smart to Work in Corporations. The cover is shown above.

Review of The Lazy Person's Guide to Success in the Seattle Times

Ernie Zelinski hadn't quite gotten up when I called him early one Friday morning.

"I usually get up about 9:30," he mumbled. Around 2 or 2:30 in the afternoon, he'll get in a couple of hours' work, writing on his laptop at a favorite coffee shop, and maybe a bit more in the evening.

You have to keep to a grueling pace like that to write a book called The Lazy Person's Guide to Success: How to get what you want without killing yourself for it (Ten Speed Press and Vipbooks)

Work really can kill. You may have read last month about the Finnish researchers who followed 812 healthy men and women for an average of 25 years and found the ones who had the most job stress were more than twice as likely to die of heart disease.

I'd bet money we're more stressed out here than folks are in Finland. The St. Petersburg Times surveyed the statistics and reported a soaring number of people calling in sick or taking more vacation time than they are due. The cost to employers of unscheduled absences reached a record this year and is 30 percent higher than it was two years ago.

Every statistic pointed in the same direction. A survey by the Conference Board this year found 50 percent of workers unhappy with their job. And, not surprisingly, prescriptions for antidepressants are way up.

Something is amiss, and Zelinski thinks he knows what it is. You probably know too.

Many people have given up control of their lives to the pursuit of money to buy stuff that they don't need because they are bombarded by messages that tell them everyone else has it, and they'd better get it too.

Too many people work for security, when security is not ever a sure thing. A lot of people have been thinking about that after Sept. 11 and while watching their investments shrink, but it's hard to get off the treadmill. A person still has to eat.

Zelinski thinks people would be happier with less stuff and more time. We'd be happier if we defined success for ourselves rather than wearing an off-the-rack definition that doesn't fit.

Success for him means doing work he enjoys and feeling he is contributing something to society. He'd also like to make The New York Times best-seller list some day, but he's done all right. This is his eighth book (published by Ten Speed Press - in Berkeley, of course), and he says he has $200,000 in the bank. He lives in a duplex in a nice part of his hometown, Edmonton, Alberta, and his time is his to do with as he pleases.

Zelinski, who is 53, was an electrical engineer once. "I did well in university in courses but never liked it. I went into it because they told me I should because I was good at math."

He was promoted quickly, but his heart wasn't in it. He was putting in the time, though. He'd gone nearly three years without a vacation when he decided he wanted to take two months off. The company said no, but he went anyway. They fired him.

Zelinski still wanted a job. He got an MBA and thought he might teach, but nothing came along. "I thought, 'Well, I could become a public speaker.' But you need credibility. A book gives you credibility. So in 1989 I did a book on public speaking.' "

Bingo, instant credibility. He made a living speaking but kept on writing, too. When he realized he could make a living writing, he stopped speaking. Less stress, more free time.

He also learned about and adopted the 80/20 principle, which says the first 80 percent of our productivity comes from the first 20 percent of our effort.

So a person could dispense with the 80 percent of effort that is mostly busywork and still do a good job.

Work smart, not hard. Tell your boss that, or your co-workers.

Ever since the Industrial Revolution, our society has been preaching industriousness as a moral virtue. People think they need to be busy all the time. But, Zelinski says, do the essential things well and forget the rest. Use the saved time to play with your kids or have coffee with a friend.

Maybe you'll make less money, but what's more important, money or time?

Zelinski did have that year when he was $30,000 in debt, when a cubicle started looking good, but he stuck it out.

That's easier for a single guy, but he says you can be responsible and still have balance. What good is a family, he asks in the book, if you never see it?

He's not anti-work, anti-stuff, or anti-money. It's just a matter of who's in control of your life - you or those other things.

Too many people, Zelinski says, sacrifice their present working toward a future when they'll be able to enjoy life. That future isn't guaranteed to anyone.

Everybody already knows this stuff, Zelinski admits, they just need to be reminded. They need someone with credibility to say it's OK. And Zelinski gets more credibility all the time.

By Jerry Large

Excerpted from the Seattle Times

NOTE: Also see The Lazy Person's Guide to Success in One Chapter Free

I will be the first one to admit that I am not a great writer. As I have indicated previously, by the time I realized how bad of a writer I was, I was too successful to quit.

In spite of my bad writing, it still has resulted in hundreds of positive letters, e-mails, and phone calls about my books from readers. This is one of the magical rewards that come with being a writer - knowing that people are benefiting from your books.

Here is an e-mail that I just received from Deepal Peiris in Sri Lanka.

Dear Ernie J. Zelinski

My good friend Anil Fernando now living in Edmonton sent two of your books How to Retire Happy, Wild, and Free and 101 Really Important Things You Already Know, But Keep Forgetting, with your personal endorsement addressed to me.

I am not an ardent reader but I finished reading both your books and now have taken to reading as a hobby.

Your letter to your mother that you placed in the chapter called Thank Your Mother a Lot While She Is Still Alive in your book 101 Really Important Things You Already Know, But Keep Forgetting is extreamly touching as my aged mother now 89 is hoping to celebrate her 90 th birthday in December.

I gained a lot by reading your well written books and I shall continue to "LIVE" without simply "EXISTING".

Thank you Ernie and I wish you all the very best and hoping to read more of your books.

May the Good Lord bless you!!

Deepal Peiris,

Mologoda Estate, Mologoda 71016, Sri Lanka



Note: Here are some other chapter titles from 101 Really Important Things You Already Know, But Keep Forgetting,





• One true friend is worth more than 10,000 superficial ones.


• Good deeds are seldom remembered; bad deeds are seldom forgotten.


• The surest way to failure is trying to please everyone.


• Your past is always going to be the way it was - so stop trying to change it.


• A walk or run in nature is the best medicine for many of your ailments.


• The shortcut to being truly fit and trim is long-term rigorous action.


• Compromising your integrity for money, power, or fame will come back to haunt you.


• If the grass on the other side of the fence is greener, try watering your side.


• No matter how successful you become, the size of your funeral will still depend on the weather.


• Be happy while you are alive because you are a long time dead.










Purchase 101 Really Important Things You Already Know, But Keep Forgetting (Vipbooks) at:101 Really Important Things at Amazon.com
or:101 Really Important Things at BarnesandNoble.com

This is a photo taken by a fan of both Ernie J. Zelinski, author of How to Retire Happy, Wild, and Free: Retirement Wisdom That You Won't Get from Your Financial Advisor and Jack Canfield, author of The Success Principles: How to Get from Where You Are to Where You Want to Be. The photo was taken at the Shaw Conference Centre in Edmonton, Alberta.

The Alberta Career Education Network has asked Ernie Zelinski to make a keynote speech about The Joy of Not Working at their Annual Convention.

The Alberta Career Education Network Conference (SUMMIT 08) is taking place October 6 & 7, 2008 at The Red Tail Landing Conference Facility (near the Edmonton International Airport).

Summit 2008

Connect with key people, share information and effective practices, and optimize resources. ACE Network conferences, forums and learning events ensure that participants/members are kept up to date with the latest thinking and trends in the career education and development field.

The Summit will be attended by teachers, career practitioners, counselors, sales managers, campus coordinators, government, employment specialists, principals, superintendents, business sector, community relations, executive directors, presidents & ceo's, consultants and school staff.

Even The U.S. State Dept LikesThe Joy of Not Working

This short review of The Joy of Not Working comes from the United States Department of State.
"A delightful indictment of workaholism and ways to counteract it. The author views unemployment as a true test of who one really is." - U.S. Department of State Book Reviews

My Gift to the Workers of the World

This free E-book in PDF format called 1001 Best Things Ever Said about Work and the Workplace is the ultimate book of quotations about work for the professional speaker, journalist, author, career advisor, life coach, and connoisseur of great quotations. It also makes great reading for just about everyone.

Refer to the Table of Contents and you will see that this E-book is organized into over 125 subjects and categories for easy reference.

What's more, all you have to do is place your cursor on the category and you will taken to the respective page for the category.

Partial Table of Contents of Subject Areas

• Ability
• Accomplishing the Impossible
• Action
• Aggravations of Work
• Ambition
• Artists at Work
• Bad Days at Work
• Boring Work
• Breaking New Ground
• Bureaucracy
• Busyness
• Careers
• Career Advice
• Change in the Workplace
• Committees
• Communication in the Workplace
• Competence
• Competition
• Computers
• Creativity in the Workplace
• Crisis Management
• Dating People at Work
• Delegation

You can place 1001 Best Things Ever Said about Work (and the Workplace) on your website as an important retirement resource for your readers and clients.

Download this E-book for free:

Creative Free E-books at the Real Success Resource Center

If you would like a JPG of cover of the E-book for your website, let me know.

Ernie Zelinski

Author of the Bestseller How to Retire Happy, Wild, and Free

Almost three out of five new middle-class retirees will outlive their financial assets if they attempt to maintain their pre-retirement standard of living, according to a new study conducted by Ernst & Young LLP on behalf of Americans for Secure Retirement.

If you are a baby boomer quickly approaching retirement, you may be concerned whether
you are saving enough for retirement. If you feel that you will be financially embarrassed in retirement, then starting a fun retirement business is the way to go.

To be successful at at retirement business, you must spot and capitalize on the many opportunities that the world has to offer. Paying attention to the world around you - looking at commonplace things and seeing the miraculous - will lead you to opportunities that others don't see.

Of course, the critics and negative people - which constitute the majority in Canadian and American society - will not spot the opportunities around them. Even if they do, they will not do anything with them.

I received this e-mail from Nicola in Australia (she did not want me to post her last name or e-mail);

Thanks Ernie for your great book Real Success Without a Real Job.

After a pretty disastrous few months of rotten health at the beginning of this year, I read your book while recuperating. I loved the story of the bloke who sold splinters of the Brooklyn Bridge. It was an opportunity there for anyone with eyes to see, but only he was prepared.

After reading and seriously thinking about your book, my eyes were "sharpened up" looking around for opportunities. I didn't strike an instant goldmine, but have found something that really suits me.

In a room of about 20 mums at playgroup, only two of us paid attention to a newcomer telling us about her amazing new kitchen appliance. And only I grabbed the opportunity, seeing the huge scope of possibilities for this appliance in our state. That was almost three months ago.

My little business is up and running, and taking off like a rocket. It means I can continue home educating our 4 children, and do the business work in evenings and weekends.I'm not a natural sales woman, but I have a high quality, unique appliance that can help people eat healthier and cheaper. I feel good that I have an "ethical" product.

How come the other 19 people in the room didn't also see this opportunity?

Keep up the good work. I hope many others will be emboldened to take the steps they need to make their lives more satisfying.

Nicola
Australia

So why didn't the other 19 people spot the opportunity that Nicola saw? Simply, because they have a thinking problem. Fact is, opportunites for retirement businesses and retirement jobs are all around you.

Also just because there is presently an economic downturn happening does not mean that there is no opportunity. What do Microsoft, Hewlett-Packard, and Disney have in common? They all started during economic downturns, as did more than half of the 30 companies that comprise the Dow Jones Industrial Average. An recession is a great time to create your own retirement job or start one of many retirement businesses to help the economy.

Keep in mind that you don't have to go halfway around the world and spend a ton of money to spot opportunities for retirement jobs and retirement businesses and take advantage of them. Opportunities for creating new sources of income are all around us, including our backyards. Robert G. Allen and Mark Victor Hansen, co-authors of The One Minute Millionaire (Harmony, 2002), claim that they will be able to spot at least fifteen money-making opportunities in your living room alone. Indeed, opportunities for creating your own great retirement jobs and retirement businesses are all around you. I discuss this at length in Real Success Without a Real Job.



See Retirement Quotes and Sayings on Squidoo

Former Citicorp Chairman Walter Wriston was considered an incredible innovator, having pioneered the automated teller machine, which changed
the way people banked forever. This is what Wriston told Wired magazine about the importance of information in today's world. "The information
revolution has changed people's perception of wealth. Originally, land was wealth. The we thought it was industrial production. Now we realize it's intellectual capital. The market is showing us intellectual capital is far more than money. This is a major change in the way the world works."

See this: Review of Real Success Without Real Job from the Spirit of Change Website:

Review from I Have an Idea

The Lazy Person's Guide to Success: How to Get What You Want Without Killing Yourself for It (Ten Speed Press)

A great self-help book for those lazy creative people. After reading it it made me feel great about being lazy. Lazy is looked at as being
a bad character trait, but this book puts it into perspective and shows you a path in which you can profit off of your creativity.

Its a great tool to put money, success, and the lazy route to those dreams in perspective. I would definetly recommend this book to anyone, lazy or not. The book has showed me that hard work is no match for relaxed and creative action. Also includes many thought provoking quotes for your mind.

Purchase
The Lazy Person's Guide to Success:

Any fool can criticize,
condemn and complain . . .
and most fools do.
- Dale Carnegie

Let this be a warning to you: Instead of getting you on the road to Success City, trying to belittle successful people will get you headed full tilt in the opposite direction toward where the misfits of this world hang out. It's called Loserville. So where would you like to hang out? Loserville or Success City? It's your choice. Personally, I prefer Success City.

If you choose Success City as the place you want to be, entertain no notions about avoiding criticism directed your way. Those who are motivated out of a higher level of consciousness do; those who are too lazy or too ignorant to do become critics. The thing to remember is that the more successful you become, the more criticism you will receive.

Avoiding criticism is an unattainable task - even to the most renowned individuals of this world - because the most degenerate of misfits can easily belittle the highest of world class accomplishments.

There is no reason to despair, however. Receiving a lot of criticism from the misfits of this world is a good sign that you are well on your way to success - or that you have already arrived.

As much as possible, disregard the comments made about you by the negative people of this world. A critic's most cherished beliefs are often in inverse proportion to their actual worth and relation to reality.

Truly successful people get bashed a lot, mainly by the lazy, jealous, or broke, who apparently have nothing better to do with their time, aside from watching a lot of bad TV.

Successful people, however, are used to - and spiritually above - the misconceptions, criticism, and untrue statements that negative people utter about anybody and everybody who is successful.

Putting things in the best possible way, these negative, faultfinding people are just ignorant and don't know any better. What's more, they are not complete failures - we get to use them as great examples of the type of degenerates that we don't want to become ourselves.

I received the following e-mail on August 31, 2008 about my book Real Success Without a Real Job

----- Original Message -----
From: M.M.
To: vip-books@telus.net
Sent: Sunday, August 31, 2008 4:43 PM
Subject: Real Success Without a Real Job

Dear Ernie:

When I saw this book title in the Ten Speed Press Catalog I could not resist it and I am very glad I bought it.

What a great read!

I enjoy a book where it feels the author is sitting next to me having a conversation.

I just finished this book and it has helped me during a rather difficult time in my life.

I collect quotes and was inspired by the quotes you included along with the real life stories you included in the information.

And your book has given me an incredilbe reference list of books I can not wait to read and learn from.

It may come as a surpise to some people that we all have our doubts and our fears about our projects and career aspirations, regardless of how much success we have achieved in the past.

Lest you think that you can totally eliminate the fear of failure forever by being a major success in your field, perish the thought. You will always experience some fear when there is risk involved.

Even though I have spent many years reprogramming myself and learning as much as I can about what it takes to be successful in my own way, I know this old programming based on fear still exists. No doubt it doesn't affect my behavior as much as it used to, but it still does, and can become intense at times.

A recent experience comes to mind. Shortly after I completed my book How to Retire Happy, Wild, and Free: Retirement Wisdom That You Won't Get from Your Financial Advisor, I sent the manuscript to twenty-five American publishers and ten British publishers. I thought that I would have no problem getting a publisher, but the opposite happened. Here are excerpts from four of the rejection letters that I received from American publishers:

1. From St. Martin's Press: "After reading your proposal, I am impressed with your obvious zest for life. Unfortunately, the retirement shelf is tough at the moment and I just don't think there is room for another title."

2. From Warner Books: "Even though I'm well aware of your successful track record as an author, there was a strong sense from my editorial colleagues here that most people really wouldn't have much of a problem in trying to plot out their retirement years."

3. From Harmony Books: "Especially in light of the current economy, my sense is that there's not a large audience at present for retirement books."

4. From Broadway Books: "Thank you for the opportunity to consider How to Retire Happy, Wild, and Free. This is a quirky, informative, and often motivational look at retirement. We discussed this at our editorial meeting this week, but I'm afraid our consensus was that a book-length work on the subject just wouldn't have enough widespread potential for us to publish it."

Much to my surprise, all twenty-five American and ten British publishers that received my manuscript felt there was no market for retirement books, or if there was, the market was too saturated with too many similar books.

I estimated at the time that there were anywhere from one to two hundred retirement books published in English, with the likelihood of many more to come. Notwithstanding the major publishers' negativism about the potential market for retirement books, I decided to self-publish after Ten Speed Press agreed to distribute the book for me in the United States. I felt that I had likely written the best book in the world on the personal aspects of retirement and that it should eventually prove itself in the marketplace.

Even so, after I had arranged for the editing, cover design, page layout, and printing, I was still fearful that the project would fail and that I would end up losing money. I started doubting myself largely due to the fact that so many major American publishers - the so-called experts in the field - didn't think there was a market for the book.

It's a good thing, as things turned out, that I confronted my fear head-on. On the other side of fear and failure is success and fortune. As Helen Keller stated, "No pessimist ever discovered the secrets of the stars, or sailed to an uncharted land, or opened a new heaven to the human spirit."

Taking the financial risk paid off big time. With an order that I just received from a major U.S. Financial Corporations for 3,700 copies, How to Retire Happy, Wild, and Free has now sold over 100,000 copies. I have also sold rights to nine foreign publishers.

The cool thing is that I have now realized a tidy pretax profit of $350,000 on the book, much, much more in earnings than I would have received if a major publisher had published the book. Just as important, I have experienced an incredible amount of satisfaction from seeing the book do so well in the United States market when so many major American publishers felt it had no potential.

Clearly, had I not confronted my fear of self-publishing How to Retire Happy, Wild, and Free: Retirement Wisdom That You Won't Get from Your Financial Advisor, I would be poorer both financially and psychologically.

In short, fear of failure and fear of losing money are things that we all have to face and conquer if we want to work outside the corporate world. But it is not fear that is the problem. It's how we handle fear. We must get over the fear and realize that even if we fail, we can handle failure. This is what makes all the difference.

An entry-level job will seldom be a great fit for the employee; indeed, to find such a fit would be a fluke. Even most seasoned employees are limited in how much influence they can have on their job duties
and workplace environment.

To be sure, corporations seldom allow employees to delegate or contract out tasks that they don't like. Few, if any, corporations have formal structures in place that permit employees to modify the specific nature of their jobs or the broader work environment.

Check Out: WHY HARD WORK CAN KILL YOU

Check Out:

HOW TO KILL BOREDOM WITHOUT A GUN

Check Out:

REASONS TO QUIT YOUR JOB

Check Out:

FUN AT WORK RESOURCES

See:

FAREWELL LETTER FOR WORK

There are days when it takes all you've got just to keep up with the losers.
- Robert Orben

Smile. Tomorrow will be worse.
- Unknown wise person

See:

WORKPLACE AND OFFICE PROBLEMS

Clearly the most unfortunate people are those who must do the same
thing over and over again, every minute, or perhaps twenty to the
minute. They deserve the shortest hours and the highest pay.
- John Kenneth Galbraith

A tremendous number of people in America work very hard at something
that bores them. Even a rich man thinks he has to go down to the office
everyday. Not because he likes it but because he can't think of anything
else to do.
- W. H. Auden

The bigger the bore, the greater the knowledge of computers.
- Unknown wise person

To err is human - and to blame it on a computer is even more so.
- Robert Orben

Computers make it easier to do a lot of things, but most of the things
they make it easier to do don't need to be done.
- Andy Rooney

See:

ZEN AT WORK

One of the saddest things is that the only thing that a man can do
for eight hours a day, day after day, is work. You can't eat eight
hours a day nor drink for eight hours a day nor make love for eight
hours- all you can do for eight hours is work. Which is the reason
why man makes himself and everybody else so miserable and unhappy.
- William Faulkner

Perpetual devotion to what a man calls his business, is only to be
sustained by perpetual neglect of many other things.
- Robert Louis Stevenson

See:

FUN SPEECH IDEAS FOR WHEN YOU QUIT YOUR JOB

Warehouse Worker Wanting to Experience The Joy of Not Working

Career Success Without a Real Job

Working Smart and Not Hard According to the Principles of The Joy of Not Working

Working Salesman Wanting to Retire Happy, Wild, and Free

Alien to the Work World Looking for Career Success Without a Real Job

Worker in the Dark Looking for Career Change

Artist at Work Looking for a Career Change

Overworked - Should Read Real Success Without a Real Job

HAVING A BAD DAY AT WORK

1. If you have the time for a work project, you won't have the money. If you have the money for a work project, you won't have the time.

2. Left to themselves, things tend to go from bad to worse.

3. Every solution breeds new problems.

4. Nothing is as inevitable as a screwup whose time has come.

5. Never underestimate the power of stupid people in large groups.

6. Things go right in the workplace sometimes so that they can go terribly wrong.

Contains:

Friendship Poems

Best Friends

QUALITY versus QUANTITY IN THE FRIENDSHIP GAME

FRIENDSHIP ADVICE BETWEEN BEST FRIENDS

FRIENDS HEAVEN SENT

DIFFERENCE BETWEEN FRIENDS AND ACQUAINTANCES

How to Make Friends

Friendship Proverbs

Friendship Resources

Friends and Money

Where to Retire

Retirement Jobs

Retire Happy

Fun Things to Do When You Retire

101 Resources to Help You Retire Richer, Smarter, and Happier

HEALTH IN RETIREMENT

Never Too Young to Retire

Retirement Planning