A little background first: I wrote this while I was backpacking in Australia during December 2008 and January 2009.  I had been traveling alone for the last 2-3 weeks of my trip and had been forced to acclimate myself to a foreign world and culture. Although Australia is far from atypical America, there are some significant differences inherent in Australian culture (and/or perhaps backpacker culture) that have significantly affected me. On January 13, 2009 on my flight back to America, I wrote a letter to reread someday when I need a bit of clarity . Here’s an exerpt:

I realize now that the person I was before is not the person I want to be anymore. I feel this way very strongly. I’m afraid that the excitement of day to day business life and exclusively being around others who feel the same way has distracted me from a superior alternative experiential life. So, whenever you feel like ‘hey, things aren’t so bad at all, this is fun…I’m enjoying things now that I’m back…I URGE YOU…’

Please. Read your travel notebook, mainly “things I’ve learned” and the “key tenets to experience life.” In the past– I have been too fast, too careless, too impersonal, too IGNORANT. Caught up in “the american way”. I want something different out of life. Something better.

7 Key Tenets to an Experiential Life

www.youtube.com/watch?v=CKlU9GBn7cE

www.youtube.com/watch?v=2LAuzT_x8Ek

So many people live within un-happy circumstances and yet will not take the initiative to change their situation because they are conditioned to a life of security, conformity, and conservatism , all of which may appear to give one peace of mind, but in reality nothing is more damaging to the adventurous spirit within a person than a secure future. The very basic core of a persons living spirit is their passion for adventure . The joy of life comes from our encounters with the new experiences, and hence there is no greater joy than to have an endlessly changing horizon, for each day to have a new and different sun. If you want to get more out of life, you must lose your inclination for monotonous security and adopt a helter-skelter style of life that will at first appear to you to be crazy. But once you become accustomed to such a life you will see its full meaning and its incredible beauty. -- Christopher McCandless, Into the Wild

Food for thought…chew on that.

For older entrepreneurs, the vastness of the Internet may seem daunting, and rightfully so. Since almost anybody can disseminate anything to an audience, monitoring your online reputation is more important than ever.

Online reputation management means keeping close watch of public commentary and opinion regarding your product, services and brand. Mitigating negative reviews or slanderous commentaries can seem like an overwhelming task. But it’s simpler than you might expect when approached with a few basic steps.

Without ORM, someone is sure to wrongfully ridicule you or your company. Because of the anonymous nature of the Internet, anybody can have a voice without real consequence. Sadly, that means vengeful customers and disgruntled employees have a way to criticize you, no matter how irrational or mundane the reason.

At the same time, the Internet gives you the chance to check yourself and respond to malicious content. Follow these steps and you’re sure to maintain a good online reputation.

Search Thyself. Don’t think typing your name into Google search is good enough either. Google doesn’t encompass the entire Internet, only its servers. Try other search engines, such as Dogpile, Yahoo! and even AskJeeves. However, it’s a good idea to set up Google Alerts for your name, its derivatives and your company name. Go to Yelp and find out if there are more bad reviews than good ones about you. The purpose of searching for content about you is to find anything that disparages you. Though you cannot delete that content, you can counter it with positive content, such as a blog of testimonials for your company.

Think prevention. To keep from always being on the defensive and having to produce new content, stop reputation-destroying web users before they start. A common practice is to buy domain names that are similar to your business’ site. For instance, buy different extensions (mybiz.net, mybiz.org), any abbreviation of your company name, several domains with your name in it and maybe unflattering site names (yourcompanysucks.net) by doing this you’re stopping some content from ever existing. You can also purchase and build simple customer review sites to help counteract potentially damaging online postings.

Be a social (networking) butterfly. You can’t expect to have one website with sufficient traffic anymore. Make use of the free social networking sites (SNS) to attract potential customers. Having tons of usernames and passwords can be difficult to manage, but free programs like HootSuite let you juggle all of your SNS accounts from one place. At the very least, you’ll need Twitter, Facebook and blog accounts. Don’t just use SNSs to manage your reputation because they’re great places to show off your personable side. You’re allowed to be more casual with your SNS interactions.

Embrace it all. Technology has come a long way, and as an older entrepreneur you might remember the days when computer towers filled a room and car phones’ one function was to make calls. No matter how scary, it’s time to make use of everything, especially the internet to manage your reputation. Regularly check what’s out there that might hurt your cash flow. Stay educated on your industry and post stories, your reactions or questions on your blog. Use SNSs to put a face with your name. Customers need reminders that you’re a person, too. Given your experience and wisdom that you’ve acquired for years, they won’t mind seeing a gray hair or two.

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This is a guest post from Chris Birk.

It’s 4:35AM in Australia and while everyone else (my sister, her roommate, & my girlfriend) are asleep, but my internal clock was aching me to ‘get the hell outta bed!” So here I am sipping tea and writing a blog post.

Before my travels to Sydney I purchased the super tiny Asus eeePC 901 series.

Yes, the thing is tiny. I’ve figured how to type pretty well on it, though!

There are a number of challenges that traveling abroad has already presented and will be presenting soon. I will be here for 6 weeks, so as person who spends about 12hrs/day on the computer (personal + professional) things will be transforming a bit. Hopefully it will teach me to work in a more efficient, productive way. I feel like it’s almost like jumping into the deep end a bit…we shall see.

I will be sharing these challenges and the steps I’ve taken to overcome them over the course of the next few weeks. My girlfriend, Katrina, thinks they sound like boring posts…lol, but I’m really facinated with it anyways.

Sometimes it takes hearing something that takes your breath away to make you second guess yourself about how you measure success.

I encourage you to reevaluate what you’re trying to do in life by looking at the end goal of it all. Is your end goal really money? Or is it simply just happiness and you’ve brainwashed yourself to think that as soon as you get enough money you’ll finally have the time to be happy? I know it seems like hackneyed idea, but really dig deep and ask yourself “what the hell am I doing?!”

I remember several years ago I read a business book that interviewed one particular successful business man and he said the secret to his success was his wife and family. What? I read that at 21, and I thought “what a load of crap.” He said his wife’s support and love for him helped him through the toughest times and allowed him to strive for the highest peaks. Honestly, I thought he was kind of pathetic. I had always subscribed to the thought that “I don’t have time for a serious relationship. I may never get married because I wouldn’t be able to dedicate enough time to the relationship to make it work. I certainly won’t ever have kids—it’s the sacrifice I need to make in order to be ‘successful’.” I look back on that mentality and realize how ignorant I was. I was totally missing the point of it all—”it” being life.

It’s not going to be here forever, so embrace every aspect of life that you have already attained–your family, your friends, your significant other, the success in your business thus far. In fact, you might be surprised to find out how successful you already are and that you’re not doing so bad after all. Once that gives you a mental confidence boost, you also might start to realize that the money part might just get a little bit easier and not seem so daunting.

Don’t neglect the loves in your life. Because that’s what got you here. And that’s what’s going to get you to the next step too.

Willie, a delivery guy from Dean Foods, comes to Mozarts Coffee in Austin TX every day at 12noon and goes through the same process. With a huge cart on wheels stacked with gallons of milk, he clumsily navigates his way down 7 stairs and then up 3 stairs. I wonder if anyone has ever thought of giving him an easier way to deal with this. It’s got to hurt his back. He looks to be in his mid 50s.

Companies have got to listen to their workers on the front line. But more importantly, the workers must know that their opinion matters that way they’ll be thinking about making things more efficient.

Why is it that when people talk with someone else they discuss events, rather than feelings? Yesterday this happened, and then we did this, and it was cool, and then we went here, etc, etc. Are we so secretive as a species that it is a faux pas to mention feelings in conversation with an acquaintance? Why are topics of conversation so bland as to be a laundry list of what they other person has done recently?  Or will be doing in the future?  Is it because we’re all so focused on ourselves, on our own lives that we each want a chance to talk about us, that it’s an understood that after you’re done talking about you I get a good chance to talk about myself?

Why is small talk about insignificant things?  Why can we not have deep meaningful discussion in casual conversation?

After all, it is this talk that helps people to grow closer together, to feel more emotionally aligned, it seems like the most evident solution.

This is your call to action: I challenge you to try and share a meaningful moment with someone—force it even—when you realize the conversation has turned into simply useless filler.