In the whirlwind that has been the launch of Penguins Can't Fly, I have had the great privilege of being the guest on some neat radio shows and podcasts. I wanted to share a few I haven't already blogged about. They are definitely worth a listen if you are interested in hearing tips about fighting Adultitis, finding balance, and having more fun. The shot above was from an interview I did on The Joy Cardin Show on Wisconsin Public Radio. The neat part about this experience (besides meeting Joy!) was the opportunity to be live and take calls from listeners. The hour went fast, and we covered …
Kim & Jason News
Next up on the #Notarule Tour: an Art Fair and a House Party!
The #Notarule Tour is a curious cavalcade of unusual events united in the purpose of helping you break rules that don’t exist. Fueled by the message of my new book, this is one unconventional book tour, with stops at all kinds of unexpected places. We're taking advantage of the great opportunity to experiment, and we're really having fun with it. We just had our first stop at a zoo, and in the next week, we have two more unique events going down. The first is this Saturday in Madison from 1:30 - 3:30 pm at the Dream Bank across from the State Capitol. In conjunction with Madison's …
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Breaking Rules Can Help You Be Ah-Mazing
I had a wonderful opportunity to sit down for a fun conversation with my dear friend Neen James, who is a productivity guru of epic proportions. Now, many people might put "productivity gurus" into a box of boring, bland and beige individuals who have all these rigid restrictions. Not Neen. She loves the color pink, rides a Harley, and is a first-class rule breaker. We share the sometimes helpful trait where if someone says we can't do something, we automatically want to prove them wrong, just on principle. Anyway, please check out what she has going on, and enjoy this fun video …
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#Notarule Tour Stop at NEW Zoo in Green Bay
On Wednesday, Kim and I packed up the animals that live with us and headed up to NEW Zoo in Green Bay for the third #Notarule Tour stop. Fortunately, they all took naps on the way up. Upon our arrival, we were excited to be stationed directly across from the penguin exhibit. Fitting. It was a beautiful evening, and we had a steady stream of folks stop by to say hi. We even sold a nice stack of books! As advertised, we had a bunch of fun rule-breaking activity stations for people to enjoy. Ben used the special coloring pages I made to demonstrate that contrary to …
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#Notarule Tour Kicks Off in Ottawa
The #Notarule Tour officially kicked off this past Saturday in Kim's hometown of Ottawa, Illinois. A steady stream of people stopped by the Book Mouse, the adorable little independent bookstore that hosted us. It was great to see so many friendly faces and meet some new people, too! One highlight was that there were representatives from each of the first three Escape Adulthood Summits on hand, including these three (and a few others who didn't make this photo): Besides the opportunity to buy Penguins Can't Fly before its official release date, attendees were also encouraged to engage …
Talking Cheese Curds, Entrepreneurship and Giving Back
I recently had a chance to be on my friend Thom Singer's cool podcast, appropriately named "Cool Things Entrepreneurs Do." Thom is a fellow professional speaker, and we actually roomed together at a speaking conference in Miami we both attended earlier this year. He's a super good guy and we had a fun chat about curiosity, Adultitis, entrepreneurship (which is a topic I LOVE talking about!), and how cheese curds are like crack. My favorite part about the interview was near the end when we talked about giving back, and how we both built it into our businesses from the beginning, even while …
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A Public Declaration
The picture above is from 2002, eight months after 9/11. I was focused on my comic strip back then and was three years away from the start of my speaking career. We were in New York City for the first time to walk the National Stationery Show. While there, we met a licensing agent who agreed to represent my Kim & Jason artwork. It was so exciting, and it felt like such a big break. It amounted to a handful of small deals, mostly overseas (I think they made some sort of photo album in Japan), but it didn’t really make the dent we’d hoped for. That was thirteen years ago. Since then, …
Our Unconventional Book Tour
The 2015 #Notarule Tour is a curious cavalcade of unusual events united in the purpose of helping you break rules that don’t exist. Fueled by the message Penguins Can’t Fly, this is one unconventional book tour. There will be stops at zoos, ice cream parlors, national landmarks, a few bookstores, and even an art fair! Rather than repeating the tried-and-true (but insanely boring) model most “book tours” subscribe to, our goal was to tell a better story by creating fun, memorable, and engaging events and experiences. Most stops will feature opportunities for you and your companions to break …
Rattling Cages: Behind the Scenes of Our Latest Battle Against Adultitis
Writing, designing, and illustrating Penguins Can’t Fly was easy and fun, at least compared to the marketing, promoting, and selling part of the process. Since the beginning, I knew that the bulk of the latter was on us, not the publisher. This is something that few authors grasp. You see, with all the books that they publish, there are only so many resources a publisher can put behind a first-time author. (Technically, I am not a first-time author, with four books and several thousands of copies sold, but I AM a rookie when it comes to the traditional publishing game.) St. Martin’s has …
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Why You’ll Want to Order Extra Copies of Penguins Can’t Fly
First of all, anyone who orders at least one book from anywhere can email their receipt to penguins@escapeadulthood.com and get a special e-Book containing five bonus rules that didn't make the original cut, a Permission to Break The Rules Coupon book, access to the video of one of my 70-minute speaking programs, and a cache of digital wallpaper. (Details here.) Wondering what you could possibly do with all those books? You could just give them out to strangers on a random street corner or build a little fort for your Lego minifigs, but here are some more practical suggestions: …
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