An SLT Update, & the Value of Simple w/Joel Zaslofsky
Well, we’re a little over 6 months into this “whole blog/podcast thing” and we figured it was time for an update. Actually, we’re probably way overdue for an update! There are some things upcoming that you may be interested in and we’ll also be taking a little bit of a break as we head into our summertime family working vacation.
But the highlight of this week’s episode is an interview with a good friend of ours, and fellow simplicity aficionado, Joel Zaslofsky of the Value of Simplicity blog and the amazing Smart and Simple Matters podcast!
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Subscribe: RSS
Simple Life Together Update:
We wanted to let you know some things that are going on with us and the show:
Photo organization: We’ve talked about this in the past and it’s probably one of the most requested topics we get. We’re still researching and asking the pro’s for some tips, so you can look forward to that in the next couple of months.
Dan will be doing an Evernote tutorial, too, at some point. He’s been waiting for the dust to settle and now is ready to start working on it. If you have any special requests regarding Evernote, drop Dan a note at Dan@SimpleLifeTogether.com.
Finally, we’ll be on the road a bit for the next month or so…we’ll be in Portland for Chris Guillebeau’s World Domination Summit for the 3rd year in a row and then we have some mixed business & fun time with family throughout July and early August. We typically release shows every Thursday but for July we’ll have shows on the 4th and 18th and then pick back up in August!
Interview with Joel Zaslofsky of the Value of Simple
We had an amazing interview with Joel Zaslofsky…creator of the awesome Smart and Simple Matters podcast and the Value of Simple blog. He’s incredibly open about his journey from a six-figure corporate job to carving out a niche online, while shaping his simple lifestyle. He offers tons of tips and free resources on his website to help you “liberate your time, money and talent.”
We were thrilled to be his guests on Episode 15 of the Smart and Simple Matters show back in January and we’ve been dying to have Joel on our show. Well, we finally made that happen and it was fantastic! You don’t want to miss this interview! Here are some of the questions and things we talked about:
– So Joel, who are you and how do you make people’s lives simpler?
– So, you talk about your “Personal Renaissance.” Can you describe what that is, what it’s been like for you, and how it has led to a simpler/more focused life?
– Can you tell us a little about the backstory of “liberate your time, money and talent” as it relates to you, your clients and your people who follow your work?
– Tell us about your love for spreadsheets and some ways you use them to simplify your life.
– How would you define curating, what do you curate personally, and how do you think others could benefit from curating?
– Batman has his Batcave, the Super Friends had the Hall of Justice, and you have the Refuge of Simplicity! Can you share what goes on there?
– Can you give us any tips about “keeping it simple” with a family?
– For a lot of people, the whole “investment thing” is complicated. You address simplifying that in your online course “Start Investing with $100.” Can you share a little about that?
– So Joel, what have we left out that is “must know” info for our listeners? What have you got going on these days?
Thing Segment
Dan’s Thing: Our upcoming trip to WDS
Vanessa’s Thing: Passing her BCPO Exam and all the support she got from friends, family, colleagues….and even YOU…our listeners!!!
Links from our Interview with Joel:
Research:
-
How Much Information? 2009 Report on American Consumers (this is the 100,000 words a day research)
-
Your Memory is Like the Telephone Game (this is the reference to how much our memories suck, even if we think they rock)
Smart and Simple Matters:
Value of Simple Stuff:
-
SASM 015 – The Forces of Order and Simplifying with Dan and Vanessa Hayes
-
SASM 005 – Curating Part 1: The Awesome Importance and Startling Benefits
Start Investing with $100
Social Media Profiles:
If you haven’t already, please be sure to go to iTunes to subscribe to the show. Don’t forget to leave us a rating & review! Thanks!
It’s a big-time honor and pleasure to join you for this episode of the show, Dan and Vanessa. I hope your/our community digs it… and then digs into spreadsheets, curating, and the other groovy stuff we spoke about.
Thanks for everything you’ve done and continue to do!
Listener feedback 😉 I prefer to the podcast host get to the main content first and make the announcements, etc at the end. 😉
Thanks for the great interview.
Completely understand that, but this time we wanted to make sure folks knew that we’d be releasing episodes every two weeks in July. So, we put that up front to ensure everyone got it. Thanks, Byron!
Thank you for introducing me to Joel’s site and podcast. It’s tough to find good podcasts, you have to kiss a lot of frogs if you know what I mean.
I completely agree about spreadsheets. I’m an excel pusher too but no one listens to me because they figure it’s only because I’m a financial controller and therefore I posess some magical excel powers not attainable to those who don’t care for numbers. Excel is great for numbers for sure but you can also use it to accumulate counts of data, like if you have people answer a multiple choice survey, you could use a pivot table to see how many people selected each choice in their response. I also know an author who uses excel to organize his plot outline and critical points in his stories. Excel comes in handy for managing events too like guest lists, table assignments and silent auction donations. You can also easily split or combine cells of data (text or numbers, whatever your pleasure) that you’ve downloaded or that someone has given you. I could go on and on.
Have fun at the summit! I would love to attend one day. A guy I kind of know (he comes to Maui once inawhile), Kevin Bates of “We’ve Created a Monster”, a great site about SEO is also on his way.
We both like spreadsheets…but after meeting Joel…we have a newfound love of them! Wish you could spread some of your “magical excel powers” automatically with us! Thanks for sharing. We always love and appreciate the tips you share with us!
Preach on, Tania! It’s great to find another person trying to convince the rest of the world that Excel is awesome for something other than hard-core number-crunching. It’s even harder to find an author who uses Excel to organize his plot outline. I mean… seriously?! That’s rad.
I hope you’ve been digging Smart and Simple Matters half as much as you dig SLT. And I agree: finding good podcasts is rough and I’m happy when I fall into the “not rough” category.
And oh yes, I’m looking forward to the evernote tutorial. I know that I’m not using it to its fullest capabilities. It’s kind of a glorified notebook for me right now.
We know how you feel Tania! We were the same way and are branching out to try and capitalize on all it’s functionality. But even as a glorified notebook…you can’t beat it’s accessibility, OCR, and search functions! We’ll get on that tutorial soon!!!!
I was listening to this podcast yesterday when my husband came home. He informed that Joel is local for us. He is from Minneapolis and we are from Saint Paul. It’s really cool to find someone else, especially local, that is also simplifying life. Such a great interview!
How cool! Joel is fantastic!n We spent quite a bit of time with him at the WDS conference in Portland and he’s such a smart, genuine, brilliant guy! Glad you liked the interview….and thanks for listening in ;o)
Hiya Liz! I’m in St Paul every Wednesday when I bring my son Grant over to grandma and grandpa’s house (where I grew up) for the day. If you want to connect for a bit some day and talk about simplicity – or heck, anything really – let me know. I have a short window before son #2 joins the world in about a month-ish, and then I’ll be zombified until the start of 2014 I imagine. 🙂
Hi Joel! Would love the chance to meet up. I can understand how things will be after #2 arrives. There are many days I have feel zombified and I only have the one to take care of. I don’t have this Wednesday open, but one of the following weeks would work. I would have to bring my little guy with though