Your Portable Empire: How to Make Money Anywhere While Doing What You Love

Chapter 29. The Gold Zone

Betsy and I were just talking about the difference between how things feel when you're in the "gold zone" and how they feel when you're not.

Julia Cameron calls it the Vein of Gold and wrote a great book about it. Athletes call it the Zone. Let's call it the Gold Zone.

She was reminding me of the months right before I got serious about Internet marketing.

I had been a working musician since I was fifteen. I went "on the road" the first time when I was seventeen. I was gone for three months, and it was hard on me and hard on my family when I had to come back from being "on the road" to finish high school. I took several detours, but for the most part, I was a musician for over 30 years.

In spite of some success, I never really "made it" as a musician. I got really, really close a few times, but something would always go wrong.

For example, in 2003 I played an extended tour of Europe. We went to Sweden, Holland, France, and England. I played from Bogner Regis in the far south of England all the way up to the Isle of Aran in northern Scotland. It was a wonderful tour, and the people seemed to like my music.

The scenery was breathtaking. From Moose in Sweden to the Holy Isle in Scotland to the coffee shops in Amsterdam to the street performers in London.

Everything was wonderful except things kept going wrong. My bandmates made the decision to stay completely amphibious for the whole tour. Blame it on Amsterdam. The big festival in Sweden got no promotion, and almost ...