Not only did I get the first 3 logos tattoo’ed on My Right Arm that day, I was also able to provide for my family who has done way too much taking care of me.
Thanks to my new coaching client, Jo Clegg, who is ‘paying’ for her sessions with meals from her catering business… How cool is that?
My friend Marilu Matthee aka as @UrbanAngelM on Twitter, is running an awesome competition on her website – www.urban-angel.co.za. The prize dinner with her at the award winning La Colombe restaurant of the Constantia Uitsig Wine Estate.
Below you will find the email I wrote her in an attempt to win:
Dear Marilu,
Firstly, thanks to you, La Colombe & American Express Platinum Fine Dining for running this competition. I like competitions, they are good for people like me.
Right, so why am I the perfect person to go to dinner with you at La Colombe? Well, let’s first take a look at the oath you mention on your blog that entrants must take: Take an oath that you will only bring with you a good attitude, light heartedness as well as entertaining and interesting conversation. No problem, I can make that oath easily as I really do have those qualities. But, for the sake of formality and commitment here is my oath:
I promise to bring with me my attitude which is great, my heart which is of the light variety and my entertaining and interesting conversations. (So far so good)
Honestly, I really do think I am the ideal person to go to dinner with you. I think I would be excellent company for reasons other than those mentioned above. My natural humility would usually prevent me from indulging in this kind of self promotion, but with the prize being a fine dinner with an Angel like yourself, I will act out of character just this once.
In addition to the above oath I am charming, funny, intelligent, a great listener and some say I smell good too
If that isn’t enough, perhaps my way of life will be the deciding factor. Again, I wouldn’t usually play the ‘No Money’ card, but with a prize like this I pulling out all the stops. One of the biggest challenges of living without money is in one’s social life. If I do not win this competition, I do not know when next I will have the opportunity of enjoying a great meal with a beautiful girl. I deserve this
Plus, we said that we should get together soon to catch up…what better chance than this?
Think about it…–
Adin
Some people get famous in traditional ways like being really good at something. Like being a great artist, singer, musician, actor or sports star.
Some people get famous for doing something really great for the world. Like Nelson Mandela, Ghandi, Mother Theresa, Martin Luther King or Albert Einstein.
Other people get famous for doing stuff on TV in reality shows. These people sometimes don’t even have to be good at what they do, and can become famous for the sake of being famous. I’m talking about people like Paris Hilton (vomit), the Kardashians (more vomit), Ozzie Osbourne’’s kids, that slag Heidi Montag from Laguna Beach or that loser who didn’t even win Survivor, Jonny Fair Play from Survivor.
Then there are people who get famous doing interesting, meaningful, creative, random or even scandalous stuff online. This seems to be the latest trend.
Have you heard about the guy who traded One Red Paper Clip for a house? Kyle MacDonald started with one red paper clip and over a series of 14 trades from 2005 to 2006 had a house. This story inspired my friend Telana Simpson to do something similar with One Matchstick. She is trading for offices though, not a house.
What about the movie Julie and Julia…heard about that? It’s about a woman called Julie Powell who in 2002 wrote a blog about cooking Julia Child recipes for a year. Just been made into a movie with Meryl Streep as Julia and Amy Adams as Julie…which is nice.
Matt Harding is a guy who got famous for dancing around the world, badly. His site Where the Hell is Matt features plenty videos of him dancing badly in various parts of the world. People just loved the videos and they spread virally, big time.
According to TechCult’s Top 100 Web Celebrities a lot of people have become famous on the web for various reasons. At 100 is Alex Tew, who came up with a clever way to pay for college. His Million Dollar Homepage project is genius! He sold pixels on his homepage and made more than enough money to pay his tuition!
At the top of that same list is Tila Tequila, a stripper…oops I mean video star, who made a million friends on Myspace then ended up having her own reality show. It was a bisexual version of those lank-people-living-in-a-mansion-competing-to-date-one-person-type-shows called A Shot at Love with Tila Tequila. (quality viewing)
Why am I telling you all this?
Well, I have come up with a way to make My Right Arm the most famous arm in the world. It is also a genius way of living for 5 years without spending money. On the 5th of May 2009 I gave up using money, and have been successful in surviving since then. Problem is I am tired of just surviving…I want to thrive like everyone else.
To live without money I need to find creative ways to add value to people who will give me things or do stuff for me. Everything is an exchange right? I’ve learned that exposure is very valuable and that a unique sponsorship opportunity may the most valuable thing that I can trade with people.
People have been asking me what am I willing to do to live without money, and the answer is I’m willing to give My Right Arm…literally. Instead of selling pixels, I am trading space on My Right Arm. That’s right, I am giving branding opportunities to 25 people’s businesses or give me their product or service for free or buy me something I really need.
I have just started this campaign, but here are some videos I’ve got so far:
If you are reading this on Facebook, please watch this video on Youtube
If you are reading this on Facebook, please watch this video on Youtube
Now if you go and tell all your friends about this crazy idea of mine, then I can become a web celebrity too and it won’t be too long until there is My Right Arm, the movie. All that’s left is to answer the question…
I need your help. I’m in a situation that is a bit of a challenge for someone that doesn’t use money.
What’s the problem?
Firstly, there is something that I really want to do but it costs money…R850. I can’t tell you what it is for (not yet at least) but I can say that it is very important to me and I will be very very sad if I don’t get to do it.
Secondly, I need to ‘pay back’ R900 to my friend Jess and to my dad for covering my share of the Joburg to Cape Town trip.
PREDICAMENT!
But not to worry, I am an out of the box thinker so I have come up with some possible solutions…I just need your input.
How can you help?
You can buy a years hosting sponsored by Dirk Tolken of PERONii and save R300. You pay R900 for something valued at R1200. (more on this offer, here)
You can hire me to do something for you – I am a life coach, house sitter, designated driver, inter-personal assistant and all round favour-doer. Basically what I am saying is, if you need something done I reckon I will make a plan to do it. You name the price.
You can buy some advertising from me. I’ll give you a banner on this site for a month, I will write a blog post you and your business and thank you on Facebook & Twitter. Again, I will let you name the price.
PLEASE NOTE: I don’t have a bank account. So if you take on any of these offers you will pay the money to my dad’s account and he pay the money to the relevant people thus maintaining my money status.
Ok, so I kinda need to sort these things out ASAP. Please can you think about these offers for yourself as well as your friends. PLEASE SHARE – I need your help with this one.
For the last couple of weeks I have talking about a campaign that I am launching called My Right Arm. If you have been paying attention to some of my tweets and updates, I should have had the first tattoo already but sometimes things take longer than anticipated.
What would you give me to get your business on My Right Arm?
When I met with Fabian & Daniel from Young Guns, the peeps who are sponsoring my tattoos, they said I should come in on the 4th. I naively thought that meant I would be getting inked that day. I guess I should have paid more attention to Miami Ink and remembered that a little preparation has to go into getting tattoos. I put myself through a whole bunch of unnecessary anxiety for nothing cos all we did that day was to find a film strip image that Daniel could model my tattoo on. Gareth and I went to the internet cafe found one that worked, and then I left it with them.They said they would call me when they were ready for me…YAY…more anxiety!
Anyway, the waiting is over. I got a call from Fabian yesterday asking me if I could come in on Monday. So, it’s official…the wait is over. I am getting inked on Monday the 11th of January 2010.
This is the deal, I’ve asked Daniel to design a film strip with 25 frames that will wrap around my arm. Each of the 25 frames is a unique branding opportunity for my friends who support me on my mission. 25 brands will get to play this game with me in 2010 – 3 tattoos in January then 2 per month thereafter. I already have the first 4 tattoos lined up so if you want in you better get in touch soon!
Still confused? Watch this video:
If you are reading this as a note on Facebook you will need to click on the following links to watch this video
You may think that blogging everyday is an easy thing to promise, but let me assure you, for me it’s huge. In fact, it is such a big thing for me that I broke my promise on day 2 already. Nice going Adin!
Many people give up on a goal altogether when they don’t stick to it perfectly, but I’m not going to do that. I know how important blogging is to the success of my mission so I am persevering, no matter what!
It’s weird, isn’t it? Living for 5 years without spending money doesn’t scare me but blogging does! I’m not sure what’s so scary about blogging but it just is. Maybe scary is too strong a word. Maybe it is just that blogging (or writing in general) doesn’t come naturally to me, well not yet any way. I’m hoping that as I do it more regularly it will get easier.
I guess some things comes naturally to people, and some things don’t. Maybe writing will never come easy to but I am sure I can better, with practice. I flippen hope so, let’s see what happens
I am much more comfortable talking than writing. I’m hoping when my Flip video camera arrives my blogging experience will change drastically. I reckon I will find it much easier to capture memorable moments as they happen on camera and just upload the videos. I’ve done a few videos with my blackberry and with other people’s cameras and I found it quite easy to do. With a little editing practice too I am sure I can put out some pretty cool videos in the not too distant future.
I would like to say thanks to my friend Steve Jones who bought me the Flip camera. Steve has been telling me for a while to do videos and I promise to do his gift justice. Oh, he also takes the 4th spot on My Right Arm for his contribution to my experiment…thanks Steve.
Still don’t know what My Right Arm is…well I better get onto blogging about that shouldn’t I? In the meantime, check out this video.
I am feeling better already, sharing feels good, thanks for listening LOL, sounds like I am in a support group or something – “Hi my name is Adin and I suck at blogging!”
Cool, I got this one in before midnight so it counts, I BLOGGED TODAY!!!!!
I guess, you’ll hear from me sooner rather than later.
Much love
Adin
P.S.
Steve Jones is the creator of A Simple Guide to Making a Difference and a real good guy!
As a life coach you might find it hard to believe that I struggle to keep goals, but I do. The main thing that I struggle with isn’t the goal necessarily, it is how to keep track of them.
You see, I suck at admin…I really do. So, keeping to do lists and goal lists isn’t something I’ve ever been very good at. “What about using desktop or online applications?” I hear you say… Well, that also has been a problem cos I’m also a bit of a technophobe.
My friend Marcel showed me an online application that looks really really simple so I’m gonna give it a try. It’s called Joe’s Goals, and you can find it at www.joesgoals.com
I’m starting with just one goal and I’m choosing the most important thing to me right now, and that is to blog everyday. Blogging has been my biggest challenge since starting my mission to live without money, and also the thing that I have been told to do by the most people. All my friends are like “blog more, write more” so I guess it’s time I take their advice.
So, I’m warning you…in an attempt to get over my ‘blogger’s block’ I am gonna blog whether something interesting happens or not. Even if it’s only 5 words I’m gonna blog at least once everyday, it’s the only way I am gonna get better.
So, the first thing I am blogging about is my commitment to blog…done Now I can go give myself a smiley face on http://www.joesgoals.com/
Cool, look what it looks like (real simple)
simple right?
Ok kids, so I already have day 1 down…wish me luck for the rest of my life!
If you are reading this you can get 1 years hosting package worth R1200 for only R900! You save R300, cool hey?
The package includes:
PHP
Database functionality
and your own .co.za domain.
You may be thinking, “but this oke doesn’t use money, why is he selling something?”
Remember I was just in Joburg recently and attempted to do a ‘NO MONEY ROAD TRIP’ back to Cape Town? Well, that didn’t exactly work out according to plan. In then end I am still responsible for 50% of the cost for that trip. In light of that I ‘owe’ R900 to my dad and Jess, my friend I did the trip with.
So, you saving R300 for this hosting package also saves me from this little predicament I now find myself in.
If you are interested, I will give you my dad’s banking details and he will pay Jess’s share to her.
Picture the scene: You and your mates want to go out for a night of fun, mischief, shenanigans, tom-foolery or maybe even some downright mayhem. But there’s a problem. You don’t want to get caught drunk driving, have an accident or worse. Sometimes the price we pay to party is pretty steep and it may be more than our credit that gets crunched!
Why not assign a designated driver? Seems fair enough, right? One of your crew takes one for the team so the rest of you can have a stress free party. But how do you decide who has to stay sober so the rest of you can ‘Phuza’ yourselves? You can only play Rock Paper Scissors so many times, right?
Well, I’m making it real easy for…I’ll be your DESIGNATED DRIVER! You see, I have been a non-drinker for almost 8 years and it just doesn’t make sense to me that people drink and drive…it’s just not worth it. I can’t think of a better act of friendship than getting you home safely.
I’ve wanted to do this for a while and now I’m finally doing it. Because I’m so excited about this project I’m starting immediately. What better night to have a designated driver than New Years Eve? Wouldn’t you and your mates love to celebrate the end of this decade without one of you having to ‘miss out’? With me as your DESIGNATED DRIVER there will be no need for ‘Ching Chong Cha’ tomorrow before you head out for you the party of the decade!
How does it work?
I drive my scooter to your house
We get into your car and go pick up each of your friends (max 5 people in the car)
I drive you to where you want to go and we party together (yes, me too)
When you want to leave I drop each of you safely back at home
I then drive home on my scooter
my scooter, ain't she cute?
What’s in it for me?
Feed me, hydrate me and get me into where ever you are going on the night…that’s all! As you probably know, I’ve committed living without money for 5 years, so this is a way for me to keep that promise.
Simply right? If this sounds like the idea of the decade, and you want me as your DESIGNATED DRIVER this NYE, please get in touch with me ASAP.
THIS OFFER IS VALID FOR PARTY PEOPLE IN CAPE TOWN ONLY.
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