Tag Archives: full-time

Resurrecting Great Games: Lukas Litzsinger, Episode 27

Leave a reply

We talk a lot about career plans and focusing on goals when we think about where we want to be. But sometimes, you discover an opportunity that takes one of your side interests and shoves it off the pedestrian pavement and straight into your career path.

For Lukas Litzsinger, that opportunity was a job vacancy on the website of tabletop game publishers, Fantasy Flight Games. The vacancy was on the team behind his favourite game (A Game of Thrones – The Card Game), and though he’d studied journalism and copy writing in college, he pursued it – which led him to a career in game design and the chance to resurrect one of the best collectable card games of all time, Netrunner, in a new form.

Lukas took the time to sit down with me over Skype for a chat about how he came to work for Fantasy Flight Games, what designing games as a day job involves and just the recent explosion in interest in tabletop games means in this era of smartphone game apps and massive online multiplayer experiences – not to mention some mutual gushing about how awesome Android: Netrunner is!

Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Embed

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | RSS

Continue reading →

Ultimate Freedom through Internet Entrepreneurship: Michelle Ward, Episode 26

Leave a reply

I’ve listened to a fair few life-change and small business podcasts in the last year or so, and a lot of them talk about Financial Freedom as an aim and an achievement. It’s one thing to hear podcasters in the States talk about it, though, and another thing to meet an example of it.

Michelle Ward has been pursuing alternative income streams for almost a decade and has amassed such a broad portfolio of affiliate sales sites that she has the freedom to explore where her interests take her, whether full-time employeehood or even freelancing. After getting to know her at work, I just had to talk with Michelle about how she became an Internet entrepreneur!

Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Embed

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | RSS

Continue reading →

Improving Body and Spirit: Emazon, Episode 24

Leave a reply

When she appeared on the 2009 season of Australia’s The Biggest Loser, the red-haired, red-gloved, hooded Emazon cut straight into not only her trainees but also the audience. Emazon demanded nothing less than everything from the contestants in short, sharp sessions that took them so far out of their comfort zones that they could barely remember what comfort meant. And a lot of folks watching at home weren’t sure just what to make of this fierce being.

It’s easy to be shocked or intimidated by that sort of intensity, but it’s just as easy to forget that Emazon, known to friends and family as Emma Barbato, was putting just as much effort into drawing her contestants out of their former selves as she was into challenging their physical limits. Emma has been working to help people overcome their conflicts with themselves for twelve years now, including helping victims of domestic violence and sexual assault find or rediscover their strength.

There was no way that chatting with Emma wasn’t going to be bloody interesting, and while she mightn’t sport that crimson hair colour any more, she is no less energetic and focused than when she first made us couch-potatoes sit up and take notice! We talked about Emma’s career up to now, her plans to take her STAND program to Saudi Arabia this year – and even about how our modern culture encourages us to dislike ourselves in order to get along.

So much strength in there. What happened to it? Where’d it go? My only objective was to get it back out again.

– Emazon on training a contestant, The Biggest Loser Australia Series 4

Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Embed

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | RSS

Continue reading →

Making Video Games as an Employee and Solo: Henry Smith, Episode 23

Leave a reply

Okay, you gamers out there. What’s your favourite game design studio? You know you’ve got one, just like you’ve got a favourite game platform. Wouldn’t you just love to work there, making video games like the awesome games you love to play?

Have you ever thought that even if you score that dream job, you might discover that there are things that you want to do with your passion for gaming, programming, design that you don’t have the spare time or energy to do?

Henry Smith had a pretty awesome job at BioWare, the makers of awesome games like Baldur’s Gate, Neverwinter Nights and, more recently, Dragon Age and the incredible science fiction trilogy, Mass Effect. Yet six months ago he decided to take a year off so that he could work on the personal projects that brought him joy.

I caught up with him a month or so after he released his first game, a science fiction themed iDevice app called Spaceteam, where you and one to three friends try and save your starship from utter destruction by pulling levers, twisting dials and yelling technobabble at each other. Though the game itself is free, Henry is earning enough money from the pay-to-download add-on packs to look at extending his time working solo.

I thoroughly enjoyed my chat with Henry about getting paid to play – by quitting getting paid to play!

UPDATE: After listening to this episode, please have a listen to my second chat with Henry during his (successful) Kickstarter campaign to fund a year’s worth of game development!

Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Embed

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | RSS

Continue reading →

A Freelance Photographer Career from Scratch: Matt Bond, Episode 21

Leave a reply

I wonder whether I’ve done Matt Bond a disservice. The most important thing to him is being a great freelance photographer. He’s all about the quality of his work and building his reputation on it.

In fact, one of the first things Matt asked me when we were discussing the interview was this: Could I avoid dwelling on the injuries that caused his switch in career?

Frankly, I don’t need to. Matt’s already racked up an impressive list of photographic achievements since he started his business in 2012.

He’s done portfolio shoots for models, publicity work for comedy gigs and fashion shows – he was even the photographer for Sesame Street’s most recent visit to Cairns. If you have any doubt about Matt’s skill, just follow the links in the show notes to his website and galleries!

If that’s not enough, Matt offers courses that demistify the complexities of even basic photography, teaching people how to find their way around their digital SLR cameras!

Still, you tend to view those achievements in a new light when working them meant Matt was in constant pain just from standing up.

Matt’s photography career was, in a way, his Plan B. Heck, after his leg injuries made him unemployable and put a career in music out of his reach as well, it was his Plan C!

Yet when Matt discovered his new passion, he embraced it and let nothing, not even pain, get in his way. It’s a story all of us folks who dream of getting paid to play can learn from.

In the end, we did spend much more time on just how Matt went about building his career, from his first portrait shoots to how he organises and executes his projects. So please listen to a great interview with a  skilled photographer who lets nothing get in the way of his passions!

(CORRECTION: I originally had the start year of Matt’s business as 2010, and I think I mentioned it as such in the episode intro. It was actually 2012 – which makes his achievements even more awesome!)

Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Embed

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | RSS

Continue reading →

Episode 18: Jeffrey Rufino, Social Media Guy

Leave a reply

It’s easy to think about starting your own business in terms of how it’s going to solve your fiscal problems, but if Jeff Rufino were happy with simply bringing the cash in, he could have stuck with playing poker at the Casino every night.

Instead, twelve months ago, Jeff took a chance on a belief of his – that social media could help Cairns’ struggling businesses get more customers through the door – and went into business for himself. In that time, he’s built himself a reputation as the local Social Media Guy, has formed a company of equally passionate individuals and is still going strong.

I’m very happy to have sat down with Jeff over Skype and talked about how he got to where he is. His passion, his confidence and his honest desire to help people out shine through as he speaks!

Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Embed

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | RSS

Continue reading →

Episode 17: Carol Tice, Freelance Writer and Career Coach

2 Replies

After having authors and bloggers on the podcast, it’s fun to have someone who’s not only a full-time freelance writer on the show, but also someone who’s dedicated to helping others achieve similar goals – so much so that she not only blogs about making it as a freelance writer, she also runs a paid-membership web site that offers courses and tips on every aspect of the business of freelance writing.

Carol worked at a newspaper and as a movie script transcriber before going freelance and managed to blow away her own expectations of success when she started the Freelance Writers Den. On top of all that, she’s a wife and mother of three! Talk about doing it all…

Please listen to this interview, wherein I completely miss the opportunity to quiz Carol about her early work as a song writer (Brill Building Fail!) but find out plenty about what it takes to make it in freelancing.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Embed

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | RSS

Continue reading →

Episode 14: Brad Russell, Earth Toys

Leave a reply

Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Embed

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | RSS

It’s one thing to start a business in order to sell a product, yet another to believe in the product and its benefits. But Brad Russell, the co-owner and operator of Earth Toys with his wife Bree, lives and breathes a whole philosophy of play that seems absent from most places that sell toys.

earth-toys-interior-2016-3In my fifth location interview, I visited Earth Toys, a shop in the middle of Cairns, to talk with Brad about how he and Bree set their business up and how it’s going, but came away not just with that but also a hefty slice of Brad himself.

Brad is a great guy to talk with: Always relaxed, always intelligent and always very insightful. Relax and let this one sink in!

And once you’ve finished this episode, drop in and see Brad when you’re next in the area. You’ll probably leave with something you hadn’t thought about buying before, but with a view on playing – and living – that you’d never considered before.

Continue reading →

Episode 12: Mur Lafferty, Author and Podcaster

Leave a reply

Mur Lafferty is one of the first podcasters I ever listened to. When I decided to take a crack at writing again, I stumbled across Mur’s podcast I Should Be Writing and downloaded as much of it as I could – which is a lot of episodes. Just recently, Mur recorded her 250th episode – and that’s not counting all the extra episodes she’s done.

I Should Be Writing is for people who want to be authors what I hope my podcast is for people who want to follow their passions. Though she has a strong genre focus, Mur interviews authors who have secured themselves publishing deals for any works, asking them about how they write and how they got published. Not only that, Mur gives all us wannabes a little moral support by talking about her own progress to published authordom.

That’s right; Mur Lafferty is also an author, with two novels (one published and one self-published), a series of novellas and a raft of short stories – not to mention another novel coming out next year via publisher Orbit Books!

But not only is Mur a podcaster, she’s a podcasting professional. On top of I Should Be Writing, Mur is the senior editor of the science fiction short story podcast, Escape Pod (for which she also writes and narrates) and host of the official podcast of UK publisher Angry Robot Books.

So I just had to interview her about how she gets it all done!

Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Embed

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | RSS

Continue reading →

Episode 8: Jared A. Sorensen, Game Designer

2 Replies

It was Australian gamer Steve Darlington’s describing Jared A. Sorensen as the “foetus horribilis” of the tabletop roleplaying game design set that got my attention. From there on it was all downhill as I followed Jared from the web forum RPGnet to The Forge and bought myself a copy of his game InSpectres, still the most fun tabletop roleplaying game I’ve ever played or game mastered (and would love to play or GM again regularly).

I managed to catch Jared on Facebook one Saturday and asked him about interviewing – it turned out he was available right there and then! I connected my recording kit and got a good half hour chat about his design process, his full-time job in game design and how empanadas are key to his upcoming martial takeover of New York City.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Embed

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | RSS

Continue reading →