The Voluntary Life

A podcast for entrepreneurs about getting your business to profitability and making it more and more profitable once you get there. The title of this podcast comes from the saying "turnover is vanity and profit is sanity". Some of the topics covered in the episode include:

• The unjustly-bad reputation that profit has in our culture and it's origins
• The other motives (unrelated to profit) that entrepreneurs have and the problems that they cause for their business
• Profit as the truly rational measure of how healthy your business is
• Two approaches cutting expenses to increase profit
• The value of measuring profitability at the project or product level
• The necessity of measuring all aspects of operations to find out where you make a profit and where you don't

In this podcast, Jake talks about the most important responsibility you will ever have as an entrepreneur: selling. He talks about how to overcome the barriers to selling that most entrepreneurs face: the cultural prejudice against sales, ignorance about what selling really is and the psychological barrier to selling (the fear of rejection). Stages of Selling To Learn More About:

1. Prospecting
2. Contacting
3. Qualifying
4. Presentation
5. Handling Objections
6. Closing
7. Referrals

Checklist for New Entrepreneurs:

1. Have you started selling yet?
2. Are you setting aside specific time within each day or week devoted only to selling?
3. Are you measuring everything that you can measure about your selling activity?

Show Notes:

• Glengarry Glen Ross (great movie, but also an example of how negative the representation of selling is in our culture)
• How to Master the Art of Selling by Tom Hopkins (a recommended book).

An interview with psychologist and filmmaker Daniel Mackler about the subject of psychological freedom. Daniel shares his thoughts on what psychological freedom means: the healing from past psychological traumas. He identifies the root of trauma in unhealthy parenting and talks about his own journey towards more psychological freedom.

Part 2 in a series of episodes on freedom from politics with special guest Stephanie Murphy, host of the Porc Therapy podcast. Show Notes:

"You must be the change you wish to see in the world" by Gandhi Penn Gillette on politics School Sucks Podcast on Ron Paul George Carlin on Not Voting Doug Stanhope on Democracy "If Voting Changed Anything They'd Make it Illegal" by Emma Goldman

Part 1 in a series of episodes on freedom from politics. Special guest is Stephanie Murphy, host of the Porc Therapy podcast, co-host of Free Talk Live and Prometheus Unchained, all of which are on the Liberty Radio Network. Show Notes: Hans Herman Hoppe on Marxist and Austrian Class Analysis Harry Browne's book How I Found Freedom In An Unfree World Stephanie's book Ron Paul: A Life of Ideas

This episode is an interview with Michael Fogler about his book "Un-Jobbing: The Adult Liberation Handbook". Michael talks about his life experience, having reached the age of 58 without ever having had a single, full-time job. He talks about how his personal experience in "failures" a traditional career-job route led him to discover unjobbing as an alternative approach. He talks about how he came up with the name "unjobbing" and the influences on his ideas, such as Grace Llwellyn's book "A Teenage Liberation Handbook". Michael provides some tips on achieving personal liberation, including the issue of minimising expenses, saving and ensuring that you "act your wage". He talks about the importance of having other people around you who share your values, especially as the unjobbing approach is not considered "normal" by mainstream culture.

Vickie is the author of the Demand Euphoria Blog and Parent-Free By Choice Blog. In this interview we discuss the concept of "Parent-Free By Choice", which is the choice of some adults to voluntarily separate from one or both parents. Vicky talks about why this choice, although quite widespread, is viewed as a taboo subject. Vickie shares her thoughts on whether or not adults who choose to cease contact with their parents are "running away" from issues that they should stay and face up to: "There is this whole stigma about "running away from your problems". It starts with kids and bullying in school where everyone says running away from a bully doesn't do anything, you have to stick in there and face it. That carries over into our family relationships: this idea that "no matter what they do to you they are still your family" and you are supposed to toughen up, figure it out, forgive or whatever. I think that is unfortunate because it allows people to keep treating each other badly. I think running away from somebody who is treating you badly is actually a good thing because you deserve better and you shouldn't put up with it. I think removing yourself from a toxic situation is good for you." Here are Vickie's thoughts on the question of whether people owe their parents anything: "I have often thought about this concept of your parents giving you the "gift of life", but I always think about that word gift and think about how...if it is truly a gift then you don't owe them for it. If they gave you a gift then they shouldn't be charging you for it every day of your life. A lot of parents call it a gift and then make you feel guilty for everything they do for you." Vickie's blog, Parent-Free by Choice, offers a supportive environment for people to anonymously share their own stories about their choices. As Vickie explains; "No matter what happened to them in childhood or how their relationship [with their parents] is now, if they feel like it's not a positive relationship then that is all that matters and they should have the freedom to get out of it."

An interview with Dale Stephens, founder of the Uncollege movement. Uncollege represents a revolutionary approach to education: applying the principles of unschooling to higher education. In the interview Dale talks about opportunities to hack your education and go for self-directed learning. He challenges the notion that going to college is the only path to success and identifies the declining value proposition of traditional college education, as well as the potential of an alternative, self-directed approach.

This episode is about how living and working abroad can bring more freedom into your life. Special guest on this episode is Jaime, a freelance writer living in Beijing. Jaime is the author of the blog It's Always Sunny in South Korea Beijing and is one of the co-authors of the Chinarchy podcast and blog network. Podcast Episode

This episode explores the topic of psychological barriers to personal and political freedom. It is a discussion of the ideas in Eric Fromm's book "The Fear of Freedom" (also published under the title "Escape from Freedom").