After slowly investigating and integrating myself into the world-traveling community for a few months, I finally have a fairly good sense of the people involved, the methods available and the lingo that is used in this culturally rich and quickly growing community.

One aspect of this (dare I say?) movement that I find absolutely fascinating is the semantics involved; what people choose to call themselves and what they do. When I first started thinking about traveling the world as part of my day-to-day, I would tell people that I was undertaking a project that would involve my living in a different country every four months. I thought this was a pretty simple explanation. Boom. Done. Send it to the PR people and turn off the lights on your way out.

I was recently asked by a friend from college for a copy of my résumé so that he could get some inspiration before updating his own. I paused for a moment, choosing my words carefully, before politely informing him that if he’s going after a job that requires a résumé, he’s likely going to be unhappy with that job.

Here’s why: résumés represent an age where standardization at all levels of corporation is key. Everyone uses the same color Post-It notes, the same brand of paper and adheres to the same dress code. Ideas and motivation stagnate in such environments, and in most cases the really groundbreaking ideas come from outside help; consultants brought in to spice things up. I can pretty much guarantee that the consultant that was brought in at 5 times your hourly rate didn’t have to show a résumé to get the gig.

A lot of people are going to read the title to this blog and think “Uh-oh, here comes farmer Colin to tell me about planting a vegetable garden on my roof and that I should only wear pants made of hemp. Cut your damn hippie hair and get a job!”

I will then explain “No, kind Sir/Madame, being sustainable doesn’t mean living in the forest and composting your own bodily waste. It means reducing your unnecessary consumption, increasing your productive output and generally not reaping what you can’t sow. It’s creating a personal ecosystem that functions without unbalancing the world around you. You don’t even have to ever touch dirt or see a bug if you don’t want to!” We’ll then share a carton of French Rabbit wine. Cheers!

Here is the first ebook released through Exile Lifestyle in a series of books I like to call the ‘Least You Need to Know’ series. It covers a wide range of topics related to personal branding, including an introduction to what branding and personal branding are, the process of self-branding, a bit about labeling theory and how the people you surround yourself with, and how the events you attend and your worldview can greatly impact your success in personal branding. It also covers collateral usage, ethics, how to communicate your brand over a variety of media, information about building ‘home bases,’ how to best moderate your reputation (online and offline), and basic tips for dressing and grooming for success. It’s 50 pages, folks, and it’s available free by clicking on the mini-magazine about (which will open a full-screen version of the ebook), by visiting my library on Issuu, or by downloading the PDF. This ebook is free for you and for all, so if you enjoy it, please pass it around and link back to it as much as possible.

When many people think of online dating, they think of all the World of Warcraft addicts and goth kids from high school getting together online trying to get dates. I actually felt the same way about it until I undertook a research project a year and a half ago that led me to join 18 different dating sites, going on a date with a girl from each one. I was doing research for a dating service branding project, but I took away two things I didn’t expect: first, that online dating sites (depending on which ones you join) are actual full of great people who are looking for an alternative to clubs and bars for meeting new people, and second that there are some oft-overlooked tricks to online dating that, according to many of the conversations I had, most people are not using.

It seems like confidence is in short supply these days. Below are 7 reasons why you should increase your self-confidence level, just in case being in the minority isn’t reason enough.

1. Become a Good Winner/Loser

One of the marked traits of someone with high self-confidence is the lack of that driving need to prove yourself constantly. Think of someone you know who is a sore loser (or winner) and how they whine and complain (or brag and strut) about their victory or defeat. A confident person does not need to compensate in this way, because they know they are good at what they do and that a game or competition doesn’t make them any less of a person. This goes a long way to making someone more socially palatable and less likely to come across as a jerk.

Most of us are not blessed with an uncommonly high level of self-esteem. In fact, most of us have trouble finding positives in even our greatest successes because of the incredibly high expectations we have due to the explosion of ‘optimalism’ created by the mainstream media (meaning that they only show extreme successes on TV and on the radio…it’s good for ratings, but wreaks havok on our personal expectations).

To remedy this, here is a short list of 5 things you can do to boost your confidence level right now (if you are unconvinced of why you should be boosting your confidence, read this first).

It’s a common misconception that if you are thrifty, you are cheap. You’re a penny-pinching ninny who doesn’t care for material pleasures, owns a piggy bank (or some other coin-stuffed animal), and absolutely refuses to LIVE, because living would mean going out and spending your hard-earned dollars instead of hoarding them in the bank for those extra pennies in interest each year.

This is, as you might have gathered from the title, not always the case. Sure, there are some people for whom saving is a reward all unto itself, that desire no pleasure beyond that of a steadily inflating investment fund and for whom Mint.com is like pornography.

The results from the ‘Where Should Colin Go?’ poll are in, and the winning country is Argentina.

What do I know off the top of my head about this country? Not much.

I can tell you that they are known for their dancing, especially the tango, and that Beunos Aires is supposed to be a mecca for travelers from the United States and Europe, due to something that happened in the last 20 years or so regarding their peso (I believe they tied its value to the dollar in some way) which lowered its value in comparison to the dollar, so that an individual like myself would be able to go and live there, enjoying the comforts and benefits of a large city but at a fraction of the cost.