Tag Archives: parent

Shaun Paulet, Comics2Movies and XCT – Episode 103

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Geek collectable company owner Shaun Paulet decided to take a slightly different approach to the collectable market than most vendors. Instead of sourcing all the usual lines of stuff from the producers for the toy and collectable business, Shaun levered his passion for affordable collectibles to create, in conjunction with a collection of top Australian artists, a line of limited edition collectable prints available online or nationwide at Australian conventions for his company COMICS2MOVIES.

But after finding success within the artistic world of prints, Shaun decided to bring his own creativity and passion for comic books to the table, and thus was born XCT, a comic book series about clones of mythical monsters and ancient warriors like Spartacus fighting to the death for an audience of billions in the Xtreme Champion Tournament. XCT was successfully launched in Australia, New Zealand and the US in 2014.

Shaun and I have a great chat about high school sporting achievements, being the most funded Australian comic book crowdfunding project on Kickstarter, letting other people play with your stories, competing with the iconic American comic books for shelf space in Australian stores and ensuring your daughter shares your love of comics!

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Why Being Paid to Play is Vital to Raising Your Kids

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One of the things that Adam of Sprue Grey wrote in his comment on Episode 3 was that he feels that being a dad to a young kid means that he has to put his unfulfilled wish to open and own a geek culture store on hold.

Now, I’m not a Dad. Well, not of human kids, anyway: Vickie and I have a pair of fur-babies.

But that thought gets to me. Why must it be an either / or?

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Keeping it About the People: Deji Adiatu, Actor and Employment Agent – Episode 32

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Deji Adiatu migrated from Nigeria to Australia a few years ago and has been working almost non-stop since, not just as an actor who got his break as an extra on no less than The Great Gatsby (yes, that The Great Gatsby) but also with charity organisations like the UN High Commission for Refugees and employment agencies seeking to place people looking for work.

And in the midst of all that, he’s been looking after his young son.

Deji is very much a humanist who believes in helping everyone be the best they can. I’m very lucky to have had him as a guest on the podcast!

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Solopreneur Style Maven: Gerlinda Aras, Mirror Image Consultations – Episode 31 / Brazen Episode 3

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Gerlinda Aras of Mirror Image Consultations.

Gerlinda Aras, owner, operator and chief stylist of Mirror Image Consultations. Image provided by Gerlinda.

Welcome back for the third edition of The Paid to Play Podcast released in conjunction with Brazen!

Having a child tends to put a cramp on your ambitions – a stable, secure income from an employer looks more attractive than the unreliable income of a freelancer when you need to feed, clothe and educate your kids.

Cairns local Gerlinda Aras, though, used the impetus of wanting more family time than her day job would allow to create her own business as a style consultant for individuals and clothing store chains. With a little help from family and friends, Gerlinda is now completely self-employed and has no shortage of work!

Listen in to find out how Gerlinda does it – and how I’m applying the lessons I’ve learned from her in my own search to get paid to play!

Styling Her Way to Self-Employment: Gerlinda Aras, Mirror Image Consultations – The Brazen Careerist

As this is cross-posted from the Brazen Careerist web log, I’ve closed all comments on this page. Can you place any comments on the Brazen page linked above, please?

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Ultimate Freedom through Internet Entrepreneurship: Michelle Ward, Episode 26

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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!

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Podcast Marketing: Tim Reid, Episode 25

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It’s one thing to talk about getting paid to play, and another to turn your play into something that others will want to buy. But getting the word about how great your thing is and how it will help / entertain people? That’s a whole different kind of challenge, especially when you’re just starting out and your marketing budget doesn’t even have a brass razoo.

That’s where Tim Reid, host of the Small Business Big Marketing podcast, comes in. Tim is a longtime marketing guru who quit working for some huge agencies seven years ago to go into business for himself. Not only is each weekly episode a fun chat with a businessperson taking an innovative approach to connecting with his or her customers, it’s also a great advertisement for Tim’s marketing consultant and speaking services!

I have to thank my old mate Marcus Herstik for hipping me to Tim, who is the kind of guy I want to be when I grow up: Confident, relaxed, gracious and great to share one of his famous fireside chats with!

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Episode 14: Brad Russell, Earth Toys

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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.

In 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.

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Episode 13: Leigh Dall’Osto, Supplemental

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Leigh Dall’Osto is one of my more popular guests, and her story of going from the campaign trail of a local government election to opening a successful fusion of cafe and community centre in Edmonton, on Cairns’ south side, has garnered some interest outside the podcast too.

A few weeks ago I was talking with one of the writers at work about the podcast, and he asked me if I could pen a few words about career changes with Leigh as the sample case. I submittted a draft, and he asked if I could get Leigh to tell me more about that period between when Leigh lost the election and opened the cafe.

Thankfully, Leigh was happy to answer my extra questions over the phone. Thanks to having Leigh on speaker, I was able to record the conversation for quotes in the article – and after I was done, I realised the recording would make a great episode!

So please enjoy the return of the effervescent Leigh Dall’Osto to the Paid to Play Podcast!

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Episode 12: Mur Lafferty, Author and Podcaster

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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!

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Episode 6: Leigh Dall’Osto, Plan B Cafe

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The common trend in career changes is people giving up their old job in order to focus on what they love to do. While opening and managing a cafe might seem about as far removed from politics as you can get, Leigh Dall’Osto opened Plan B Cafe in order to keep doing what she’s always wanted to do, even when political avenues closed on her – help bring the people in her community, the town of Edmonton (around fifteen kilometres south of Cairns), together.

In my second location recording, I had the chance to sit down with Leigh at her cafe and talk about just how a cafe can help people get to know others in their own town – and what some of the surprises along the way have been!

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