With Nguyen and the first family of JadeMosnters.

Miss Nguyen is one amazing woman and I feel most privileged to have been able to work with her.  If your day needs a bit of a lift, or you’re needing some motivation to get on with those new year resolutions, please have a flick through the following stories.  I hope Nguyen gives you the strength of heart she gives me.

Over the past few months I have had the pleasure of working with Miss Nguyen, a talented crafts woman working at the Lifestart Foundation Workshop.  Together we created the JadeMonster plush toy – the first in my new range of merchandise available from my website.

Nguyen’s Early Story - by Karen Leonard

Meeting Barry III, Nguyen and creating the JadeMonster – by Jade Leonard

Miss Nguyen’s Heart Warming Update – by Jade Leonard

JadeMonster logo!

If you have purchased one of Nguyen’s sock creatures, or a JadeMonster plush toy, please leave us a comment and give us an update on your new family member!

Working 40 hours per week isn’t pleasant.  Working 60+ hours, even less so.  So I quit my music teaching job.  I left the family business.  Mum wonders who she can blame for my rebellion.  I told her Tim Ferris and his first edition of The 4-Hour Work Week.  She’s reading it as I write this.

I’ve read a lot of ‘wealth creation’ books.  I was part owner in seven properties, on my way to the dream of early retirement. I played gigs on the weekends.  I was working so many hours I would wake up with such little sleep some mornings, my day would start in tears.  Something had to give.

Fiona, rang me from work one day, telling me she’d bought The 4-Hour Work Week with a discount Borders voucher that had landed in her inbox.  She said it sounded interesting.  Once at home, I read it from cover to cover – three times.  I engaged the expertise of a lifestyle coach.  Then I quit my job and sold my share in the properties.  Finally, I felt like I had the right information, I felt empowered.  My dream felt possible.

Playing at Secret Garden, Vietnam.

For the past twelve months I have dedicated myself to my true passion – performing and writing music.  I have played in Australia, India and now Vietnam.  Next will be the Philippines.  I have released five of my original songs online, with five more to come.

Playing for the children at the local orphanage.

At the same time as quitting my ‘real job’ as a singing teacher, I employed a Virtual Assistant through elance.com.  Vipul is based in India and is worth his weight in gold.  While I perform in Vietnam, he is looking for my next gig in the Philippines.  While I develop a new line of merchandise for my website, he is sourcing distributors.  Brilliant.  I really can be in two places at once.

Playing at Kyra, India.

So now, I wake up every morning, well rested and energized for the day ahead.  All day every day I am creating.  Making music, making JadeMonster plush toys, bags, tees.  I can go to the beach any time I want.

Beach view, Kovalam.

Living currently in Hoi An, Vietnam, my weekly cost of living is reduced to $80 per week .  Yes, I live in a hotel (no cleaning or bed making), eat at vegan restaurants (no cooking) and ride my rented bike (no maintenance costs) for $80 per week.  As long as I earn $80 per week, I can sleep, eat and get around.  Any more than that and I’m saving, traveling, shopping or re-investing back into my music and merchandise products.

Sunday. Vietnamese coffee. Beach.

My New Way to Work is now far less complicated, almost entirely stress-free and 100% enjoyable.

Come and join me!

jade@jadeleonard.com

www.jadeleonard.com

www.jademonster.net

These are my responses to a series of questions I have now misplaced. I thought it might be interesting to post them now, and publicly review them over time.

In my later years I want to be known for my joyousness.

I will develop a wide range of artistic hobbies: dance, painting, photography … I will also enjoy the outdoors as recreation, rejuvenation and relaxation.

My education will continue daily. Life and experience will be my educator.

I could invent a clear and simple technique to obtain bliss.

My community will be diverse, reflective of my personality and full of energy-giving people.

I am ‘married’. I would like children. As many as we can afford to have.

To keep myself healthy I will
• seek therapy when needed
• eat consciously
• exercise willingly
• spend time with the people and doing the things I love

I will develop spirituality through yoga and meditation practice and by continuing to experience life.

I will earn an income through sales of my music and merchandise.

In my old age, the three most important things to me will be:
• People and my relationship to them
• Music and all forms of artistic expression
• Connectedness with all that is around me

In complete contrast with my sincere desire to scale-down my life, live with less, reduce my consumption and essentially follow a commune-living-mung-bean-eating lifestyle is my passion for excess. More make-up, big hair, false eye-lashes, manicured nails, Swarovski crystals, fish net stockings, high-heels and satin dressing gowns.

I’m kind of Darryl Hannah meets Dita Von Teese! I’m more confused than you, trust me.

Fiona and I departed for foreign shores indefinitely three weeks ago and are currently residing in Kerala, India. Due to my insistence that I pack my tiara and matching diamante stilettos (among my other non-negotiable travel accessories), our baggage allowance was 19 kilos overweight. I bought every pair of cufflinks we own (I didn’t count, but let’s say 30+ pairs), and essentially my entire jewellery collection, which includes the cutest diamante tie necklace (times two, I packed Fiona’s as well, just in case…).

Fiona insisted we mail some non-essential items home yesterday, so I diligently cut my underwear supply in half, agreed to share a mobile phone recharger and take my music folders as carry on. The tiara and the heels stay.

And I kid myself that I’m learning to detach. Hmmm.

So, prior to leaving home to live on under $10 a day, we decided to have one last hoorah with our good mate, Keirah and doll ourselves up for a photo shoot at the Boudoir Boutique. God only knows what I’ll look like by the time I get home, so best we capture our collective beauty now!

I have long been a fan of Dita Von Teese’s inimitable classic style, bringing the sophistication (and naughtiness!) of the past into contemporary society. Anyone who upholds the superiority of seamed stockings gets a tick in my book any day. So when the opportunity to have a vintage make over at the Boudoir Boutique came my way, the three of us jumped at the chance.

My gal pal Elise Gow opened the Boudoir Boutique as a secondary to an already thriving wedding and portrait business, Elise Gow Photography. Elise created the most magical wedding photos for us in January, so when she approached us to come in for a make-over, we were only too happy to oblige, of course!

Prior to the day of the shoot, Elise told us to gather pictures as suggestions for looks and poses that we wanted to recreate. I pulled out my Dita Von Teese guide book, my oriental deep emerald robe, fishnets and heels and was ready to go!

On the day of the shoot, Keirah, Fiona and I brought enough clothes to dress a vaudeville chorus. Feather boas, peacock feathers and corsets abounded! Despite my penchant for over packing, I was fairly certain on the look I wanted to create. I had already discussed with Elise how much flesh I was willing to reveal and with a glass of champagne under my belt, I was happy to bare mostly all in front of the team.

Hair and make up created quite a wonderful and unexpected transformation. Given my current contemporary hair style, I was concerned that they wouldn’t be able to create much of a vintage look with what there was to work with. But my concerns were well allayed by a curling wand, some teasing, plenty of spray and a scarf. Jade was miraculously transformed into ‘Betty’!

We chose a photographic angle that highlighted my better features, namely my legs, and smoothed out (or hid altogether) the areas of my body I’m more self-conscious about, mainly my tummy and upper arms. Although at times I felt a little too revealed in my position, I was comforted by Elise’s keen eye for angles that all of my self-conscious requests would be seen to. And they were.

The day was akin to a dress up play-date at Anton’s (my all time favourite man and shop, but he’s too cool for a website, you’ll just have to find him yourself), in and out of corsets, tutu’s, negligees, short satin gloves, long satin gloves. You get the picture! It was a wonderful girls day out – so many laughs. I felt like a true super star, Ava Gardner style, lounging around in my robe with a champagne while the other girls had their shots done.

Before leaving the studio for the day, Verity (Elise’s right hand woman) showed us some preliminary shots. And, wow! We couldn’t wait to see our final copies. In fact, Fiona and I were so enamored with ourselves we kept our ridiculously outrageous photographic make up on for our evening dinner party!

While I have had the privilege of having many self portraits taken for my work, I have never had any ‘glamour’ photography taken of myself, for myself. I now have some of the most beautiful photographs to cherish when there are more happy wrinkles than photo shop can erase. As one of two, Fiona and I promptly swapped photos and I also have the most stunning vintage shots of my wife to keep forever.

But alas, after all that primping and preening, I now sit facing the ocean from our $6.40 per night, second story beach front apartment, my hair now dried crispy with salt water from my swim earlier. I am comfortable in my fisherman’s pants and ‘Powered by Tofu’ t-shirt, knowing that my diamante stilettos are always within my reach.

By the time you read this I will be at Sivananda Yoga Vedanta Ashram in Neyyar Dam, India.  More than a few people have already enquired as to why I would want to spend a month (or more) practicing meditation and yoga in monsoon season with no hot water for showers.  Through a series of blogs I am going to attempt to answer this question!

It all started with a new year in 2008, reflecting on my first decade in the work force.  Like most people, I had stable and secure employment as a singing teacher in several schools in Melbourne and also managed the Karen Leonard Music School.  While I enjoyed my teaching and the relationships I had developed with my students and the lifestyle my job afforded me, I was not entirely happy.

By chance, Fiona purchased a copy of Timothy Ferris’ “4 Hour Work Week”, which I read from cover to cover in record time.  This book is now my bible and I take it everywhere I go.  In short, Tim explains – in more tangible detail than any other ‘wealth creation’ book I have read – how to leverage yourself out of the nine to five rat race and into a career and lifestyle of your own design.  This book, seriously, changed my life.

So at the end of 2008, I resigned from all of my teaching positions to, once and for all, pursue my dream of a performance career, which had long been side-lined.  I have spent the past five months laying the foundations of a new online career.

I have started writing songs again – recording more than a dozen new tracks for release this year.  I have launched my online store, this blog and Myspace and Twitter pages.  This online medium of distribution also sits well with my ethical stance on reducing our environmental impact as I will no longer be manufacturing hard copy CDs and DVDs.  No land fill!  Yay!

So I am now a fledgling blogger and have discovered I am not the only one pursuing a self-created lifestyle.  In fact, there are so many people doing this now it even has a term:  Location Independent Business.  Who knew?!

My aim now is to have a level of creativity in all areas of my life, not just my compositional and performance work.

So, back to the ashram.  When my lifestyle coach, Loreen Visser, asked me what I would want to do if I weren’t teaching singing, my answer surprised me.  I said I had a strong desire study yoga and meditation intensively.  Second to that, I wanted to create a situation where I could write, record and release music as my total source of income.

With the first release of my new recordings coinciding with the first day of my stay at Sivananda today, I can now see a wonderful synergy at work in my life.