{"id":25,"date":"2009-09-04T11:58:02","date_gmt":"2009-09-04T11:58:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/freshliving\/2009\/09\/bootstrapping-your-way-to-a-more-balanced-life.html"},"modified":"2009-09-04T11:58:02","modified_gmt":"2009-09-04T11:58:02","slug":"bootstrapping-your-way-to-a-more-balanced-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/2009\/09\/bootstrapping-your-way-to-a-more-balanced-life.html","title":{"rendered":"&#8216;Bootstrapping&#8217; Your Way to a More Balanced Life"},"content":{"rendered":"<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"mt-image-left\" style=\"margin: 0px 20px 20px 0px;float: left\" alt=\"bootstrapping101.jpg\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/84\/import\/bootstrapping101.jpg\" height=\"290\" width=\"200\" \/>My dad, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bootstrapping101.com\/pages\/author.html\">Bob Reiss<\/a>,&nbsp;just published a timely new book, &#8220;Bootstrapping 101: Tips to Build Your Business with Limited Cash and Free Outside Help.&#8221; <\/p>\n<p>A lifetime entrepreneur, he&#8217;s been involved with creating about 16 businesses&#8211;everything from marketing the TV Guide trivia game back in the trivia-obsessed 80s to selling personalized brass thingies to running a watch company that was an INC 500 winner three years in a row. My whole life I&#8217;ve seen him (and my mom, who&#8217;s also always been her own boss) create his own life. He makes his own hours, takes vacation when and where&nbsp;he wants, and has always, religiously, made time every day for a workout and a nap. As he likes to quote&#8211;&#8220;When you have your own business you can choose which 14 hours a day you want to work.&#8221; <\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p>Now mostly retired, he stays busy&nbsp;teaching classes; coaching young people with business ideas;&nbsp;and the &#8220;case studies&#8221; for two of his business ventures are standard reading for Columbia and Harvard MBA students. He&#8217;s fancy like that. But he grew up in decidedly unfancy Bensonhurst, Brooklyn and most definitely &#8220;bootstrapped&#8221; his way up with basketball and scholarships. The book is filled with hard-earned common sense&#8211;but not necessarily obvious&#8211;wisdom: How to create a website, how to sell, how to get free advertising, how to&nbsp;find a mentor,&nbsp;how to connect with the booming barter market, plus info on licensing, franchising, free government support, and some help with bookkeeping and crunching numbers.&nbsp; <\/p>\n<p>Obviously I&#8217;m genetically biased, but the book is simple, direct, and full of solid, applicable advice for even the take-the-leap-phobic among us. All good things in an&nbsp;economy in which&nbsp;the less dependent we are on the corporate teat the healthier it is our wallets, sanity, and nap-work balance.<\/p>\n<p>To buy the the book or just say hi to my dad: <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.bootstrapping101.com\/\">Bootstrapping101.com<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>Or you can also check it out on <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/gp\/product\/0578024136?ie=UTF8&amp;tag=lowriskhighrewar&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=9325&amp;creativeASIN=0578024136\">Amazon.com.<\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong>Do you run a small business? Does it make your life richer?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>Like what you see?&nbsp; <\/strong><a href=\"http:\/\/feedburner.google.com\/fb\/a\/mailverify?uri=FreshLiving&amp;amp;loc=en_US\"><font color=\"#023d89\"><strong>Click here to subscribe<\/strong><\/font><\/a><strong> and get Fresh Living in your in-box every day!<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>My dad, Bob Reiss,&nbsp;just published a timely new book, &#8220;Bootstrapping 101: Tips to Build Your Business with Limited Cash and Free Outside Help.&#8221; A lifetime entrepreneur, he&#8217;s been involved with creating about 16 businesses&#8211;everything from marketing the TV Guide trivia game back in the trivia-obsessed 80s to selling personalized brass thingies to running a watch&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":38,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-25","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-by-valerie-reiss","category-holistic-living"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>&#039;Bootstrapping&#039; Your Way to a More Balanced Life - Fresh Living<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/2009\/09\/bootstrapping-your-way-to-a-more-balanced-life.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"&#039;Bootstrapping&#039; Your Way to a More Balanced Life - Fresh Living\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"My dad, Bob Reiss,&nbsp;just published a timely new book, &#8220;Bootstrapping 101: Tips to Build Your Business with Limited Cash and Free Outside Help.&#8221; A lifetime entrepreneur, he&#8217;s been involved with creating about 16 businesses&#8211;everything from marketing the TV Guide trivia game back in the trivia-obsessed 80s to selling personalized brass thingies to running a watch&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/2009\/09\/bootstrapping-your-way-to-a-more-balanced-life.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Fresh Living\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2009-09-04T11:58:02+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/freshliving\/files\/import\/bootstrapping101.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"vreiss\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"'Bootstrapping' Your Way to a More Balanced Life - Fresh Living","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/2009\/09\/bootstrapping-your-way-to-a-more-balanced-life.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"'Bootstrapping' Your Way to a More Balanced Life - Fresh Living","og_description":"My dad, Bob Reiss,&nbsp;just published a timely new book, &#8220;Bootstrapping 101: Tips to Build Your Business with Limited Cash and Free Outside Help.&#8221; A lifetime entrepreneur, he&#8217;s been involved with creating about 16 businesses&#8211;everything from marketing the TV Guide trivia game back in the trivia-obsessed 80s to selling personalized brass thingies to running a watch&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/2009\/09\/bootstrapping-your-way-to-a-more-balanced-life.html","og_site_name":"Fresh Living","article_published_time":"2009-09-04T11:58:02+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/freshliving\/files\/import\/bootstrapping101.jpg"}],"author":"vreiss","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/2009\/09\/bootstrapping-your-way-to-a-more-balanced-life.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/2009\/09\/bootstrapping-your-way-to-a-more-balanced-life.html","name":"'Bootstrapping' Your Way to a More Balanced Life - Fresh Living","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/2009\/09\/bootstrapping-your-way-to-a-more-balanced-life.html#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/2009\/09\/bootstrapping-your-way-to-a-more-balanced-life.html#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/freshliving\/files\/import\/bootstrapping101.jpg","datePublished":"2009-09-04T11:58:02+00:00","dateModified":"2009-09-04T11:58:02+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/#\/schema\/person\/df896dd70b2001a7a331d7c0264dbd4d"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/2009\/09\/bootstrapping-your-way-to-a-more-balanced-life.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/2009\/09\/bootstrapping-your-way-to-a-more-balanced-life.html"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/2009\/09\/bootstrapping-your-way-to-a-more-balanced-life.html#primaryimage","url":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/freshliving\/files\/import\/bootstrapping101.jpg","contentUrl":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/freshliving\/files\/import\/bootstrapping101.jpg"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/2009\/09\/bootstrapping-your-way-to-a-more-balanced-life.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"&#8216;Bootstrapping&#8217; Your Way to a More Balanced Life"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/","name":"Fresh Living","description":"Holistic, Health and Wellness","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/#\/schema\/person\/df896dd70b2001a7a331d7c0264dbd4d","name":"vreiss","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/7e2\/7e2e836248d6127446bfae5802ee2a83x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/7e2\/7e2e836248d6127446bfae5802ee2a83x96.jpg","caption":"vreiss"},"description":"Valerie Reiss is Holistic Living Editor at Beliefnet. She was a founding editor at Breathe magazine, and her writing has appeared in The New York Times, Newsweek, Women's Health, Natural Health, Yoga Journal, Lime.com, Vegetarian Times, and ABCNEWS.com. A native New Yorker, Valerie holds an M.S. from Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism and a B.A. from Beloit College in Creative Writing with a minor in Women's Studies. She also lived in Maui for a while where she drank green papaya juice and taught some creative writing. She lives in Brooklyn, New York.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/author\/vreiss"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/38"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/freshliving\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}