gobuysoft.com

It’s a hell of a thing, DJing in front of a huge, international crowd.

Many of you guys have seen my Youtube Series The 90 Days Project: 90 Days To Becoming A DJ In Berlin. I think you’re going to like this episode.

When I moved to Berlin, I, along with my buddy Rachman, decided that we would become DJs. I made this goal years ago in college, when I started using it as a pickup line at parties—which is really how most of my plans get started.

How to Hack Getting A DJ Gig

If you check out the previous episodes of the 90 days project, you’ll see how we got started: we couldn’t get shows instantly, so we built a shopping cart music system and threw parties on the street. Episode 3 shows how we tried to build an amazing, bicycle wheel-laden behemoth that was a total failure.

So we realized, instead of only playing in bars….

What if we rented out a club and threw a party of our own?

So that’s what we did. Rachman found a club in Berlin, VCF Club, that was available to rent. He brought in great Dubstep DJs: Mensah from the UK, and several local excellent DJs from Berlin.

As you’ll see on the video, through the use of Facebook Ads and shopping cart promotion, we got the club completely full. Rachman did some amazing work with marketing and bringing in excellent DJs.

Check it out—I promise you’ll get something out of these methods.

How to earn 00 in one night as a DJ in Berlin – 90 Days episode 5 is a post from: Hack The System

Hack The System

Welcome to the second episode of the Hack The System show!

You should subscribe to this show on iTunes.

The Hack The System Podcast is your access to interviews with the worlds’ foremost experts on blogging, lifestyle design, traveling, and life/system hacking. In short–you’re going to learn how to kick ass.

In this episode, I sit down with Scott H Young of ScottHYoung.com. Scott is awesome–at 23, he’s built a business that pays for a swanky Vancouver apartment and all his bills, freeing up his time to do what he really loves to do: learn.

Scott has written a ton of ebooks and posts about learning. Over the last few months he has been implementing the MIT Challenge. He is using the MIT coursework, available online for free, to learn the entire MIT Computer Science Curriculum, in just one year. The amazing part is that, due to his system of studying, he never seems to be working—he takes frequent breaks, and always finishes his work by 6pm.

Listen to the podcast here:

Watch it here:

This podcast can be seen on iTunes. Click here to follow it via iTunes (and automatically sync it to your iPod)

0:13 – Scott H. Young
0:47 – How to get more from life
1:04 – The main distinguishing characteristic of my blog is that I talk a lot about learning
2:10 – Don’t memorize something that needs to be understood
3:31 – Learning holistically
4:42 – It’s not just about being proactive & a good student – it’s about understanding things on a deeper level so that you actually enjoy the learning
5:27 – Learning better is more difficult but not more time consuming
7:03 – The more you can separate your work and your life the less stress you’ll have
9:17 – People feel that the spontaneity of their system is what makes it relaxing, but that couldn’t be further from the truth

11:43 – Scott’s Three Phases of Learning
12:47 – The “Feynman” Technique
14:58 – The big problem with learning is that we don’t really have a good sense about what we don’t understand yet about an idea
19:51 – First get coverage of all the ideas so that you can see the big picture
22:50 – If you’re learning something technical, do 50% practice problems
23:32 – The point of practice questions is to search for possible errors
23:40 – Cal Newport’s “Quiz and Recall” Approach
25:20 – We don’t want negative feedback

26:16 – The key to going to a dedicated approach is to flip that mentality on its head; you must constantly remind yourself of the things you don’t yet understand
28:00 – Don’t resist deliberate practice
30:13 – Having intrinsic motivation
33:17 – Weekly Daily Goals
35:55 – The Pomodoro Technique
38:39 – Brainstorm / Destruct for Creative Work
43:01 – I need to give these people some benefits and skills, not just ideas
48:42 – Figuring out the worldview of your customers; how they interpret their own problems

Hack The System Podcast: Episode 2 with Scott H Young is a post from: Hack The System

Hack The System

Hacking the system is about finding cheat codes for life.

I try to discover the secrets to breaking into any new business, hacking systems, and figuring out the best paths to success—while skipping the normal steps.

In the summer of 2011, I moved to Berlin to attempt to become a DJ. I wanted to go from no experience, to throwing shows at clubs and in the city.

In episode six, you’ll see a very special party—on an abandoned boat in the middle of a Berlin canal.

We built a mobile disco that was powered by car batteries, and played our music everywhere.

Check out our party that ended with the Polizei coming on a giant frigate and letting us finish our last song before breaking up the party (at 5am).

Check out the whole series at http://90days.tv.

Abandoned Boats, Polizei, and a ridiculous party – 90 Days To Becoming A DJ Ep. 6 is a post from: Hack The System

Hack The System

Time to read: 7 minutes
On March 18, I’m flying to Medellin, Colombia—the City of Eternal Spring.

28 days later, I’ll be flying to New York City—business class.

Total cost? , for taxes and fees. For an INTERNATIONAL round trip business class ticket.

Getting free plane tickets for fun and profit (Total time required: 15 minutes)

Over the last 18 months, I’ve increased my frequent flier mile balance from 0 – 600,000+. Below, you’ll see my AwardWallet screenshot. (NOTE: If you want a free premium account at AwardWallet, leave a note in the comments and I’ll send it to you).

A couple of years ago, I read an article on Chris Guillebeau’s site called the Frequent Flyer Challenge. Chris wrote about his experience applying for credit cards that offered a mileage bonus for signing up. I’ve been hooked ever since I received my first 20,000 mileage bonus. And now I’m going to share with you the exact steps you need to follow to fly anywhere in the world, for free.

Step by step–how to earn a round trip flight to Colombia

I’ve written about this in the past in my Travel Hacking Report, but I’ve gotten some questions about the specific steps to make it happen. I want this article to go into more depth about how it works—and how you can redeem tickets.

Here are the specific steps. I’ll go in depth after.

How Frequent Flyer Miles, Alliances, and Credit Card Hacks Work

I spend hours every week reading forums, booking sample tickets, and trying to optimize for miles. Honestly, if I just worked, I would make more than enough money to cover the ticket.

Fortunately for you, I’ve done all the hard work.

Alliances

An airline alliance refers to airline partners. When two airlines are in the same alliance, you can use the miles from one airline to book a flight on the other. For example, if I have miles with United Airways, I can book a ticket to Europe with Lufthansa, using my United Miles. However, I must book by calling United Airlines, not Lufhtansa.

This also means that if you pay for a ticket on Lufthansa, you can earn miles that accrue in your United Account. The goal is to centralize all your miles into a single milage account for each alliance.

There are three alliances:

• Oneworld, consisting of American Airlines, British Airways, Cathay Pacific, Iberia, LAN, Qantas, and several others.
• Star Alliance which consists of United, Continental, US Airways, Lufthansa, Swiss, and several more.
• Skyteam which consists of Delta, Air France, KLM, and a bunch more. Skyteam sucks. It just does. This alliance is irrelevant for international flights. It’s okay for flights within the US though, using Delta.

You’ll want to create an account at one airline in each alliance, and centralize there. I recommend the following

Oneworld: Create an account at American Airlines.
Star Alliance: Create an account at United Airlines. (although, there may be benefits to using Air Canada—read here for details.
SkyTeam: Create an account at Delta.

Once you have the mileage accounts set up, make sure that you credit miles into the correct alliance account whenever you fly.

Some notable exceptions that don’t have alliances are JetBlue and Southwest Airlines. If you fly with these airlines, you can’t credit them into one of the alliance accounts.

How Frequent Flyer Miles Work

This part is confusing for people. What are miles? How can you redeem them? How do they work?

Frequent flyer miles are accrued for flying on an airline. Usually, you earn one mile for every mile you fly. Flying isn’t the only way to earn miles, however.

You can also earn miles by acting on promotions, or spending money using an airline credit card. Generally, you’ll earn one mile per dollar spent.

Once you have enough miles in your account, you can redeem miles by going to your airline’s website, or calling their help desk. I recommend you call in, because only by calling can you search partner airlines as well.

One major question is “How many miles does it take to fly somewhere?” For your resource kit, here are links to all the award charts.

Oneworld: OneWorld Award Chart.
Star Alliance: Star Alliance Award Chart.
SkyTeam: SkyMiles Award Chart.

Let’s take a look at the American Award Chart and see what it means.

It’s a complex beast, no? Let me break it down for you.

I’ve marked flights originating or ending in North America with a red box. As you can see, the cost in miles is based on the region you are originating from and the region you are ending up in. Doesn’t matter which airport, which city, etc. This means that it costs the same number of miles to fly to a capital city as to a difficult and hidden airport.

So, if you see the column I’ve highlighted, you’ll see the costs to fly from anywhere in the USA to any other region in the world. Here are some sample economy class one way itineraries.

USA -> Europe, offseason: 20,000 miles
USA -> South America, offseason: 20,000 miles
USA -> Central America (incl. Peru and Colombia), offseason: 15,000 miles
USA -> Another city in USA: 12,500

So, for 30,000 miles round trip, you can head all the way to Peru or Colombia. These tickets often cost 00+ to fly to. But, with miles, it costs almost the same as flying to another US city. Amazing, right?

So, depending on where you want to go, all you have to do is earn enough miles to book that ticket. Then, when actually booking the ticket, I recommend you call in—by calling in, they will check partner airlines as well as the original airline. When you try to book on the website, you have much less availiability.

Here are the phone numbers to book award tickets, for your records:

Oneworld: Call 1-800-882-8880.
Star Alliance: For travel within the U.S., call 1-888-467-0507, for international award travel, call 1-888-674-4680.
SkyTeam: Call 1-800-323-2323.

How to Hack Travel With Credit Cards

So, now we are getting closer to the method. Here’s the deal — many banks in the US want you to apply for their cards. In order to get you to do this, they offer enormous promotions if you apply.

My favorite card, the Starwoods Preferred Card, gives you 25,000 miles that you can redeem on any airline. The coolest part is that Starwoods offers a 5,000 point bonus when you transfer 20,000 at a time—the only card that offers such a serious bonus.

The OneWorld cards are great for mileage. Here’s why.

For spending just 0 in 4 months, you get 30,000 miles. BUT, that’s not it—you also get 0 in free credit. That’s right—they are actually paying you 0 AND giving you a FREE Roundtrip flight to central america…for just a single credit card.

So, if your goal is to get to Colombia or Peru or central america, round trip, you only need to apply for a SINGLE Citi AAdvantage card. But you can apply for 4 or more at the same time, earning up to 120,000 miles.

The other cards that are great for starting out are the United and Continental Award cards. I use the Continental OnePass card. These guys give you 30,000 miles after hitting the minimum spend, and because they are about to merge, you can transfer the miles into a single account. Awesome.

Now here’s the cool part–after you’ve received the miles, you can cancel the card, and they’ll usually pay you more if you just hold off for 24 hours. I usually call in, and they say ‘we’ll give you 3,000 miles if you wait to cancel.’ Free 3,000 miles? Score.

Your credit score doesn’t usually go down. We’ll talk about that a bit later on.

The Step-by-Step process

Okay, so now that you understand how the whole system works, here is what you need to do.

1) Best overall card (GET THIS FIRST): Starwoods Preferred Amex Card.

Why? You can transfer the miles to ANY frequent flyer program, and it gives you a 25% bonus (25,000 miles for every 20,000 points transferred).

Apply at the link above to get the bonus offer: 15,000 automatic points, 10,000 bonus after spending ,000 in 6 months, and fee for the first year (AMAZING)

You shouldn’t ever have to cancel this card, it is the best of the best. It should be your goto card.

2) Next card to get: American Airlines Citi Mastercard and Amex

Why? American Airlines is part of the OneWorld Alliance, which has the best redemption offer out of any alliance. Offseason, you can get to Europe OR South America for 20k miles.

Apply at the link above to get 30,000 miles after spending 0 in 4 months of membership, and 10,000 more after spending another ,000 in 6 months. PLUS, get 0 in
statement credit (that is FREE MONEY, with no annual fee for the first year).

Other excellent cards to research and get: Continental OnePass Mastercard, United MileagePlus Explorer Visa. There are other ones with many airlines, but these are good to start with.
Check out Chris Guillebeau’s Airline Card Comparison Chart for more info.


And that’s really all there is to it…

It takes 5 minutes to apply for a card. For example, this is all you have to do to sign up for the Starwoods Card.

As you can see, it’s just a few fields…and takes less than a few minutes.

After applying, you’ll either get an ‘Application Approved’ message or ‘Application Received.’ If it says ‘Application Received,’ then you’ll know the result via email or mail in a few days.

Next, just meet the spending requirements.

And that’s all it takes to fly free. Click here now to apply and get started.

Some Frequently Asked Questions

1) What about your credit score?

I’ve written several articles about credit scores when I blogged at Lending Club, but my experience has been this: In the four or so years that I’ve done credit card mileage hacking, my credit score has increased from 715 to 800. The reason is this: I always pay off my cards on time. Because each new card increass my credit limit, and I continue to pay off my card, my record looks consistently better and better, and therefore my score increases.

From anecdotes and experience, it seems that your credit score will drop in the short term, especially when canceling cards, but will go up in the long term. So, if you don’t expect to be purchasing a house or car in the short term (1 year or so), then this mileage hack is perfect for you.

2) What if I’m already in debt?

Then, this is probably not for you. I don’t recommend that people deeply in credit card debt attempt this method of mileage hacking for two reasons. 1) You probably won’t be able to get the cards anyway, and 2) I’m worried you’ll overspend and go deeper into debt. Don’t do this if you’re stupid and will go deep into debt.

If you’ve got good spending habits, and your credit history is decently long, then you’re a perfect candidate for this method.

3) Do I need to sign up for the rewards program before signing up for the credit card?

No, usually they will create a number for you if you are a first time applicant.

But, if you are applying for three AAdvantage cards, you may want to create the account first, and use the same number—otherwise, they may create 3 different accounts for you.

Great, that’s all there is to it! Please post any questions in the comments, and I’ll add them to the FAQ above!

Get the Starwoods Amex and get your first free ticket.

What do you think about this hack? What sort of hacks would you like to learn? Please let me know in the comments below!

How to fly business class to Medellin, Colombia—for is a post from: Hack The System

Hack The System

Hey guys!

I just felt like making a quick video for you all. So I whipped up a video about my LiveScribe Pen—the new way I write.

The pen is designed so that it knows exactly what you’re writing, saves it to the computer, and even records the audio happening around you (if you are taking notes on a meeting, for example).

The coolest thing is that the software even converts your written text into ASCII text, so you can copy and paste it into MS Word or anything else. This photo shows the difference between what I wrote and what it’s converted into.

Anyway, I put together a quick video for you to check it out. You can get it at Amazon: Livescribe 8 GB Echo Smartpen Pro Pack

Video – The LiveScribe Pen, a revolutionary way to write is a post from: Hack The System

Hack The System

A new jobs board has been launched as part of the new web site for the UK Game Developers trade association, TIGA. Built on the engine of DS Interactive Ltd’s very own Games Job Board the site boasts 248 senior level and 182 mid level games industry jobs in the UK (175), China (45), Germany (31), Sweden (23), Irealnd (22), and Canada (19) and many other countries. Vist the new site at http://www.tiga.org/jobs

Game Careers .BIZ – Video Games School, Jobs in Gaming.

In the summer of 2011, DJ Maneesh and DJ Rachman moved to Berlin to attempt to become DJs in Berlin. They had no experience.

We filmed this in our attempt to become well known DJs in just 90 days. In our first episode, Building the Mobile Disco, we built a system that allowed us to throw parties anywhere in the city.

In the second episode, Destination: Subway Station Rave, we showed the sort of parties we threw in Metro stations and on the street.

Today, you’ll see our failed Bicycle Cart, where we attempted to improve our outdoor party center—miserably. Check it out. PLEASE: Share this video with your friends!

Ep. 3 – Building the Failed Bicycle Cart. 90 Days to Becoming a Berlin DJ is a post from: Hack The System

Hack The System

Welcome to the inaugural episode of the Hack The System show!

You should subscribe to this show on iTunes.

Starting today, you’re going to get access to interviews with the worlds’ foremost experts on blogging, lifestyle design, traveling, and life/system hacking. In short–you’re going to learn how to kick ass.

In this episode, I sit down with Jonathan Mead of Illuminated Mind, where he blows my mind with his ideas about joint webinars and building a brand. This interview literally changed the way I do business.

Jonathan teaches people how to change their lives through his Trailblazer course, where he helps students discover, and implement, their passions. Check out his awesome Trailblazer video.

Listen to the podcast here:

Watch it here:

This podcast can be seen on iTunes. Click here to follow it via iTunes (and automatically sync it to your iPod)

00:25 – Welcome Jonathan Mead!
1:05 – Importance of branding in business and in life
2:10 – The feeling of getting success stories from people you’ve inspired
3:10 – Feeling trapped in your job
3:45 – How to escape feeling trapped
6:00 – What was the first step for Jonathan towards finding his passion
7:00 – What did Jonathan do before blogging?
8:50 – Mentors that help you design your life
9:55 – How Jonathan helped one woman achieve her passion
10:55 – How to reach out and network with people who are more powerful than you
12:00 – more tips on networking
12:50 – How Jonathan built his readership by leveraging others’ communities
13:30 – Offering your skills for free to network

From 15:50 – 25:00 == Some of the best tactics for networking an generating revenue that I’ve ever heard

15:50 – How to reverse engineer situations to meet important people
16:30 – Specific tactics for making important people notice you
18:40 – How Jonathan built such a large email list
21:05 – Jonathan’s current tactics for success: building partnerships
21:20 – Doing co-webinars (This advice BLEW MY MIND)
22:00 – Exactly how to leverage other peoples’ audiences to make money and build your subscriber list
25:00 – Getting excellent design for ebooks and web sites
25:20 – For people who are just getting started, what’s the next step to become successful?
26:00 – The importance and how to of running your blog like a business
27:40 – What about building an online business/passion without blogging?
28:50 – Jonathan talks about his product, Trailblazer

Hack The System Podcast: Episode 1 with Jonathan Mead is a post from: Hack The System

Hack The System

Journal entry – January 15. 99.5% of people.

“I’ve failed my New Year’s Resolution . I wish I could do better. I just don’t have enough willpower.”

Have you ever set a goal you didn’t achieve? Ever tried a New Year’s Resolution that didn’t stick?

What separates the 0.5% from the 99.5%? What makes some people succeed in building new, sustainable habits—-but almost everyone else fail?

I’m going to reveal to you surprising research about habit change–what influences success, what causes failure, and specifically, what you should do to build a successful new habit.

But first, I’m going to share with you a personal story, where I discovered the power of context on habit change

“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then is not an act but a habit” – Aristotle

How living in a cave turned me into a blogger

October, 2011. I decided to hike for 28 days into the wilderness with no backpack, no tent, no sleeping bag.

Actually, let’s go back further. Sophomore year, college. I never could get an assignment done on time. I had to request late days often. I would procrastinate on every assignment, leaving me with a required all-night study session on the day before the assignment was due.

I took my advisor’s advice and visited a psychiatry clinic. I was diagnosed with ADHD. Now I had a name for my problem. I had pills. I thought that they would magically make me focus on getting my work done.

Boy was I mistaken.

Instead of focusing on finishing my work, the pills did the opposite: they made me hard-core focus on distractions. Now, I would Skype chat with 8 windows open, wasting my focus on unnecessary tasks.

The pills were making me focus on whatever I was doing. In this case, I was simply focusing on the wrong thing.

Back now to the wilderness. I’d been trying to start my blog for over two years, but I could never get words written on the page. My empty blog sat online, since 2008, just waiting for me to feed it content.

I blamed it on ADHD. I blamed it on being busy. 

But in October, 2011, I was in a cave with just a little bit of food, a pen, and a moleskine. No distractions, no facebook, no notifications—just a pen, paper, and a grove of prickly pear cactii.

I woke up on the first day at sunrise when a mouse startled me by walking by my face. I got out of bed, walked outside, drank some water, and sat down by the river with my Moleskine and pen.

The words just flowed. I didn’t have a clock so I can only measure the amount of time I wrote with the sun: I wrote from sunrise till sunset. For 4 days. Almost 3000 words a day, over 1.5 months of blog content in four days.

And now that I’m back in society, with a computer (that allows me to type 10x faster) I barely manage to write 500 words a day.

Why? It’s a function of context.

How heroin addicts in Vietnam and your productivity habits are the same

Everyone knows the horrible effects of heroin addiction. Once someone starts taking heroin, it’s almost impossible to quit—and those who form a recurring habit will likely never quit.

So why didn’t heroin-using Vietnam vets relapse when they returned to the USA?

A study from the Washington School of Medicine concluded that very few heroin-using veteran relapsed when they returned to the USA—and those who did were most likely to have been illicit drug users before ever arriving in Vietnam. These vets weren’t addicted to the chemicals in heroin—they were addicted to the experience of heroin in a specific, situational context.

In the same vein, you think that you are in control of what you do. You think that when you fail, it’s a failure of your willpower.

But the fact is, you don’t even realize the influence your environment has on you. Did you know that obesity spreads through a network of friends? Happiness also spreads throughout a social network. Your situation determines your choices as much, or more, than your own personal choices and willpower.

“So how can I use this to improve my habits?”

You now know that your context influences who you are. So you need to make a choice—are you willing to create systems that will help you achieve your goals, or will you mindlessly try to make things happen that just don’t work?

Here are a few of the best methods for improving your context.

1. Make better friends- You MUST associate yourself with people who help you achieve your goals. Everyone has had a depressed friend or family member, who makes you more depressed the more time you spend with them.You are the average of your five closest friends. So make sure that the people you associate with are helping you get closer to your goals, rather than pushing you away from them.
2. Automate systems to increase productive time – It’s easy to say you ‘should save more money.’ But it’s much, much harder to force yourself to send money to your savings account every month. Why not automate it, so that your bank account automatically deposits money in your savings account/IRA every month?Some other systems that I’ve created – Hiring a virtual assistant to call me and remind me to do my tasks. Hiring others to do my work for me, so I can focus on specializing on important tasks. Hiring a personal trainer to force me to go to the gym.
3. Work on projects/goal with a partner – Life isn’t a solitary thing. The best businesses have cofounders, and if you are working alone, you are fighting a losing battle. In anything, it’s better to have a partner.
4. Use 30 day habits, and Tiny Habit mechanisms, to make new habits stick – My old professor from Stanford, B.J. Fogg, runs the Captology Lab, which researches behavior change using digital tech. He now runs a program called TinyHabits—a method to develop any new habit. Any new habit takes three steps:
   1) Make it tiny – Any habit must be incredibly small. Floss one tooth. Walk for 3 minutes. nothing more. Once you get started, it’s easy to continue—so just make yourself start
   2) Find a spot – Your new habit must go somewhere in your existing routine. Trigger it by forcing yourself to do something right after finishing something else. After brushing, floss one tooth. After lunch, walk for three minutes. Etc. This is called ‘anchoring’
   3) Train the cycle – If it’s a very small habit (i.e. you followed step 1), then you simply need to start executing to make it automatic. If you are finding this too difficult, go back to step one and make the habit simpler.

You are basically training your body to associate the existing habit (the anchor) with a new habit. Thus, continuously do the small habit, until it becomes natural. Then you can try running more, or flossing your whole mouth.

Read this article by BJ Fogg for a more in-depth explanation.

To hack a better life, you need to build good habits. Follow the steps above, and build an awesome life.

How Heroin Addiction In Vietnam And Your Productivity Habits Are Identical is a post from: Hack The System

Hack The System

If I spent as much time working as I do trying to find ways to beat the system, I’d be a millionaire by now.

Fortunately for you, I’ve done all the hard work. I know how to fly around the world for free, without spending a dime on tickets. I know how to find offices in every country of the world. I know how to become a famous DJ in just 90 days.

And for some reason, others seem to want to know the same.

So I’ve created an ebook for you called “Taking Advantage Of The System.” It’s only 10 pages long, but it’s action packed with specific steps to

1) Get a free roundtrip plane ticket, anywhere in the world.
2) Get free office space in almost every single country you could imagine.

All you have to do is sign up below, and I’ll send it to you instantly.

And hey! If you could share this page on facebook, I’ll love you forever.

Check out some emails I’ve already gotten related to it:

awesome guide, I’m really digging it. Clear, well written, and actionable.

Hey man, the ebook was awesome, thank you so much. I’ll pass it on!

Take Advantage Of The System-A Free Travel Hacking Report is a post from: ManeeshSethi.com – Lifestyle Design, SEO, and Living the Digital Nomad Life

ManeeshSethi.com – Lifestyle Design, SEO, and Living the Digital Nomad Life