** Update the winners are announced. Check them out here **

With Independence Day (July 4th) right around the corner – I had a brainstorm last night to give something fun a try.

So here goes…

I’m opening up a video contest all about ‘freedom’….

Personally, I believe the single biggest reason when you boil it all down for entrepreneurs to start anything is that word ‘Freedom’. Financial freedom, entrepreneurial freedom or whatever freedom you want.

So I’d like you to SHOW what FREEDOM means to you!

I’ll mention the cool prizes in a minute but for now here are the simple rules. Or as Secret Agent Oso on the Disney channel says there are “3 Special Steps” to be part of this. (Umm…If you don’t get that reference that means you don’t have pre-school kids)

Step 1: Create a 3-minute video (max) about what freedom means to you and incorporate a creative mention of MaverickBusinessInsider.com in some way shape or form.

Step 2: Upload the video to YouTube.com and include one of these 4 title choices:

• “Freedom – What it Means to me” or
• “Financial Freedom – What it means to me” or
• “Independence – What it means to me” or
• “Entrepreneurship – The Ultimate Freedom”

Step 3: Email the link in to support@maverickbusinessinsider with the subject line ‘freedom contest’

That’s it.

We got a short fuse on this sucker because I want to get the top videos together for Independence day. So your deadline
is Monday, 6/29 @ 12pm (EST) I repeat the deadline is Monday, June 29th  at 12 noon EST.

Okay now for the prizes in line with our make more, have more fun and give more theme – take a peek:

First Prize: My Ultimate ‘At-Home’ Internet Copywriting Workshop Course (true value at $1475 – on sale @ultimatecopywritingworkshop.com) + 6 months of Maverick Business Insider newsletter + a fun (and slightly goofy)
patriotic hat +$100 Kiva.org microfinance gift card.

First prize in our freedom contest

2nd Prize: 6 months of Maverick Business Insider newsletter + a fun (and slightly less goofy) patriotic hat  +$50 Kiva.org  microfinance gift card.

3rd Prize: 3 months of Maverick Business Insider newsletter + a different patriotic hat +$25 Kiva.org  microfinance gift
card.

4th Prize: 3 months of Maverick Business Insider newsletter + freedom ducks. (What the hell are freedom ducks? You’ll
have to see if you win!)

5th Prize: 3 months of Maverick Business Insider newsletter

(Note: If you are already a Maverick Business Insider subscriber we will simply extend your subscription if you are the winner. And if you’re not – what are you waiting for? It’s our least expensive newsletter filled with information on how make more money, have more fun and give more back!)

But here’s something else you win…

* FREE PUBLICITY *

Once we pick the 10 finalists – we’ll ask our list to vote on winners – then the final 5 winners will be featured to over 100,000 subscribers online. Pretty cool, right?

So fire up your Flip camera, webcam…or even the ole’ BetaMax but get your entry in before Monday’s deadline (June 29 at
12 pm EST). Leave a quick comment if you’re in.

Nearly every successful entrepreneur I know has gone through or has grappled with burnout. I think by nature entrepreneurs are inspired, passionate and many-times a bit (or a lot ADHD) and all of this contributes to a feeling of malaise or burnout.

I’ve personally gone through it and come out the other side several times and many of these 4 techniques have helped me. (Note: This is a highlight of the 9 ways that I just shared with Maverick Business Insider members.)

1. Truly Disconnect – In a world where we are constantly tethered to our blackberries and ‘Always-On’ connections there’s something magical about truly disconnecting.

That doesn’t mean I’ll ONLY check emails in the morning – but truly and totally being out of touch. On a recent trip to Baja I did something that might seem a bit over-the-top. I completely ‘black holed’ all my emails during that week. Meaning – I had them all deleted with a note directing people emailing me who to contact for help or support while I was gone and then asking them to email me again after my return if they needed. Most people would be scared to death to do this in case something incredibly urgent comes through and is missed. Oh well.

How many times do you come back from vacation even more stressed out because you’ve got 2,313 emails sitting in your inbox? As you are sorta disconnecting there’s always a tiny voice in the back of your head replaying over and over again, “Wow! I wonder how much email I’ll have to catch up on. I wonder what’s going on?” By totally cutting this off you free up more “Psychic RAM” in your head.

2. Refocus on your successes – Many times the feeling of burnout occurs because things are NOT going “right”. And right is a relative term in relation to what we believe it should be. (Now I have my own crazy notion that everything ends up ‘right’ – for whatever that means – in the end anyway.)

Instead of focusing our energy on what’s wrong – which only creates an endless spiral of more and more negativity – I believe it’s important to change the focus. Take out a piece of paper and start making a list of every “victory” you’ve had during a certain time point. It could be this quarter, this month, this day, etc. Once you adjust your focus your selective perception kicks in and you’ll see there is significantly more that’s good than bad going on. (You might or might not have noticed this is a variation on being grateful. Your gratitude connects you back to the source of your original success.)

3. Set a big vision that you cannot achieve on your own – I admit, I’ve only just started doing this but it leads to a real powerful change of direction, intention and motivation.

Perhaps you’ve heard of a “Big Hairy Audacious Goal” or BHAG coined by Jim Collins and Jerry Porras. This is the kind of goal that gets teams rallying around it and lets people transcend what they thought was possible. One famous example is Microsoft’s original goal of “A computer on every desk and in every home.” When you create a big vision or goal like that – you’ll find people getting on your team to help achieve it. My friend, Tellman Knudson, has set the goal of raising $100M by running across the country barefoot. I think that fits the bill.

Our company’s 2020 goal is 3-fold:

1) Motivate, inspire and educate 1M young entrepreneurs to start their own ventures.

2) ‘Mavericktize’ 1M successful entrepreneurs to ‘buy-in’ to the philosophy of making more, more fun and giving more.

3) Have 1M cumulative items checked off entrepreneurs BIG life lists.

And the ultimate goal is to “Change the Way Business is Played”. To me that means bringing more fun into business and never doing things the same way it’s been done. It’s something that can inspire me (and our team) out of funks.

4. Get back to the fun – Think back to when you were a kid and what activities or interests got you really jazzed and excited. Somehow as ‘adults’ many of us have lost that sense of fun and inspiration. What did you like to do? For me, it was playing sports, drawing and making people laugh. That’s why I still play ice hockey and beach volleyball. Why I’ve taken art classes and stand-up comedy classes. I make sure to incorporate what gives me enjoyment into my life by actually making it a priority.

How many times have you heard yourself saying, “I’d love to ___ BUT I can’t because I’m too busy.” That’s total bullshit. What you’re really saying is that activity does not have enough priority in my life. Or I feel guilt around having fun.

Quite frankly for most entrepreneurs work is our default unless there is something else scheduled. Don’t just settle for enjoying life when you squeeze it in between your business. Here’s a great quote from Jim Loehr and Tony Schwartz, New-York Times Best-Seller “The Power of Full Engagement”:

“…the richer and deeper the source of emotional recovery, the more we refill our reserves and the more resilient we become.”

Put fun activities, rewarding experiences and exceptional adventures on your calendar and protect them like you would any ‘real’ appointment.

Quite frankly, the inspiration for Maverick Business Adventures came from a period of my personal burnout and ironically the unique nature around it can help other entrepreneurs avoid or recover from burnout. I hope you’ll give some of these ideas a try when you’re feeling burnout occurring or when you attempt to break free from it.