Over the last three days I put together many of the items I was planning to eventually get rid of, photographed them, and wrote eBay listings for them. They’re all scheduled to start over the next few days, so we’ll see what comes off it. All in all, there’s 12 listing up right now. I’m confident that it should make for a good start. I also have plenty of books and movies I’d like to unload before moving which should be making their way onto eBay soon too.

Apart from that, I’ve been reading Steve Pavlina’s blog pretty frequently. It’s interesting to me that I found his blog less than a week ago, but reading so much of his content I feel like I am starting to get to know him. He’s a great writer, a shrewd man, and an inspiration. I’ve already picked up several tips on his site that I plan to put into practice over the next few weeks.

I gotta say this intention-manifestation model has already yielded some results for me. I read Steve Pavlina’s Million Dollar Experiment post quite by accident, added his feed to my RSS reader, and within a day I was on board. After reading the version 2.0 post and thinking about the intetion, things began to come into my consciousness. I remembered I had a free domain name left with my web host, netfirms. I remembered they had recently added a content manager tool that I wanted to try out. I got an itch to start a blog (again) but this time the topic seems a lot meatier.

And more importantly, I happened upon this at a time when my life will be seriously in transition and I am open to new opportunities. Just last month I decided that after two and a half great years, it is time to leave Hawaii. The reason for the decision is an amazing girl named Lisa who lives in LA, but the ramifications of this decision are going to be all over the place. I’m going to quit my job. I’m going to leave friends behind and make new ones. I’m going to live in a big city again. And my dissatisfaction with the run of the mill 9 to 5 working world is beginning to resurface again, amidst well-intentioned hope and pressure from my parents that I’ll find “a great job.”

But back to the intention. Here’s my first thought for making a few bucks. I’m planning on moving soon and so was going to trash, give away, and sell most of my stuff. Because of this experiment, I’m going to take this process seriously and put all the small stuff on eBay. Since I wouldn’t have done that without this prompt, this income will count towards my million dollar total. Big sales that I was planning anyway, like my car and my furniture, won’t count.

Why Flee the Cube?

You tell me. Are you sick of your job? Do you hate your boss? Do you dread getting up in the morning? Are you ready to flee from your cube? I can think of countless reasons why people want to leave their cubicles behind, but I can only think of a few explaining why they stay. They are scared. They have no idea where to begin. They don’t know how to make the transition. They are worried about what others would think. Or they genuinely love their jobs (yes, it happens).

What is this?

I stared keeping this blog in November 2005 as the plans for my escape were forming. Then, in December, I fled. Initially, this blog is here to provide a chronicle of my path from cubicle monkey to permanent unemployment. I also want to share the lessons I learn along the way and provide some practical advice and ideas for anyone with a similar plan. That’s not to say there is much good advice here yet, I’m a green entrepreneur. But I hope that, at least, I can provide an interesting story.

Who writes this mess?

Me. My name is Cesar Gonzalez and I’m a young entrepreneur living in the US. I’m an engineer by training, but lately I try not to classify myself that way; it’s limiting. I have a little training in entrepreneurship, but I know that most of my wisdom in that area is going to come from the school of hard knocks.

I was born in Peru but moved often as a kid, living all over South America, in Northern Africa, Europe, and the USA. I went to college in California, after which I settled in Hawaii for my first few years as a grown up, and in protest to the go-go life most of my peers chose (poor me, I know).

I quickly found that you really do need an income to live, even in Honolulu, and after a series of odd jobs including Cutco, MLM, and used car sales, I finally settled into an engineering research position at a biotech startup. It was a good but uneventful job in a friendly and relaxed atmosphere. There wasn’t much opportunity for advancement or raises, but it finally got my parents off my back. And then proceeded to slowly suck the life out of me.

The hours were good though, and Hawaii is a phenomenal place to live and play. What’s more, I made many good friends there, and my job left me with plenty of time to see them, to teach salsa twice a week for fun, and to go out often.

So I put up with it, and probably would have continued to do so if it wasn’t for Lisa. To make a long story short, I moved back to Los Angeles to be with my girlfriend Lisa. The transition caused me to think a lot about my future, and many of my old dreams to be more than just another cog in the machine resurfaced as a result. This time, I’m running with them.

[Update - March 2006] Ok, maybe I meant to say jog, or walk, or crawl. The early stages of working for yourself moved slowly during the move and the transition, and I’m only now starting to settle into a new house and into a work routine. But I’ve made progress, both in my undestanding of the web 2.0 wave, and more importantly, in my self-discipline and productivity. This blog is finally taking shape and building a readership, I started a portfolio of domain names that shows some promise, and I’m considering contracting out my web design and optimization techniques that I’ve learned through niche site creation. Let’s give it a few months.
Are you planning an escape?

I know there are countless people out there with similar aspirations. The idea of escape and independence can take a million different forms and each person deals with them in their own way. They harbor them is secret. They scream them out. They discuss them with their friends. They hash them out around the water-cooler. They work feverishly on them after-hours, or blatantly in the office.

If you’re planning an escape, I’d love to hear about it. Those are the stories that keep me motivated and on-track. If you want me to, I can even post it right here on Flee the Cube.

Subscribe to Flee the Cube

You can subscribe to this feed using your favorite RSS reader.

create your own visited countries map or vertaling Duits Nederlands

Alright buddy, this is where you start talking, but not right now because you’re tired!

When you hear the words “well-rounded,” what comes to mind?  A successful person? A balanced life?  A Renaissance Man?  Almost certainly, the connotation in your mind is positive.  Few of us would imagine a well-rounded person as a complete failure.