Our 252 acre Merrily Farms at Little Horse Creek shows how small business inspiration comes in all forms… from everywhere… every day.

Welcome to Little Horse Creek… where it is…

always quiet and cell phones do not work.

In times that so many perceive as tumultuous, inspiration becomes even more valuable and important in business.  The news on the internet, in the papers and on TV are so filled with negativity that it can be catching. In such eras, those who see positive realities gain an extra edge.

You own small business can help you enjoy a lifestyle of freedom…such as Merri and I have.

Our international micro business allows us to live part time at our remote North Carolina farm on Little Horse Creek.

Here is the creek…

deep in the forest…

isolated and with many waterfalls.

The creek becomes a bit swollen in the spring time. Changing from this to…

this!    The creek starts on our land… fed by dozens of pure water springs. It feeds the pond below our main house and…

fills our…

deep woods…

Japanese soaking tub that is heated with a wood burning stove and refilled after each soak… so the water never requires chemicals but is always clean.

The creek provides some great trout meals also. Here is a brookie our daughter Eleanor caught.

The water refreshes in summer. Here is…

our son Jake soaking in one of the pools on a hot summer day.

We have a…

creekside…

forest office where…

we can feed everyone on the deck looking over the waters.

In winter our meandering stream becomes part of the wonderland.

This beauty and solitude provide many positive inspirations. There is plenty of space to hike. We have put in over…

eight miles of road (the blue lines).  Each leads…

to a place… like our…

isolated glen labyrinth which has a great…

view.  Vistas are…

everywhere. The paths themselves are…

places of…

Blue ridge mystery leading to beauty… year round… summer green, gold in autumn. They are white powder in winter and…

lead to flaming wild azaleas in spring.

We grow bold sunflowers and a lot of our own vegetables in the summer.

and have…

farm fresh…

eggs.

Here is my office and…

my sunrise view on…

crisp mountain morns.

In the summer we get to watch the horses being…

lethargic.

We invite delegates at our North Carolina courses to come up for an afternoon tea to…

our house. The horses like to visit also.

Merri gets busy in our teaching kitchen…

and cooks up the treats when…

we have seminars.

A few people come stay with us in our…

seven cabins and farmhouses for guests. This is Blackberry…

Cabin.  All have feather top mattresses and high thread count…

sheets and mountain made quilts and Pendleton wool blankets for cool nights.

The blackberry has a great porch and…

rocking chairs for idle afternoons.  The Trout Cabin…

is next door. With a…

big porch for Bar B Qs plus a king…

size bed.

The Johnny Appleseed Farm House sleeps up to 7 and the Wildflower Cabin is here as well.

We converted this…

falling down tobacco shed into a great Guest Barn… with all amenities including a pillow top king size bed. This is very comfortable.

However if you are not into comfort we have a primitive cabin…

deep in the woods… cold water and a pot bellied stove for heat and cooking… but still a great pillow top king size bed.

Here is Thomas Fischer of Copenhagen’s Jyske Bank speaking at our seminar with roses we imported from Ecuador in the background.

 

This is why Merri and I like having our own international micro  business. North Carolina farm… Danish bankers… Ecuador flowers!  The best of every world.

This gives us the freedom to live part time in the North Carolina mountains but also part time in Ecuador… and part time in Florida…  yet still earn income.

I can do shamanic exercises  when our son visits us in North Carolina even in the winter.

Or swim in this, a warm Pacific current, about 45 seconds stroll from our Ecuador beach penthouse.

Here I am chasing our horses past the primitive cabin during a snow storm.

But when it gets too cold, I can ride in Ecuador instead. Here my friend, Joe Cox, and I enjoy winter views of Cotacachi below.

Merri and I can walk in this…the entrance to our Farm in January.

Or we can hike around Lake Quicocha, a sacred Andean lake near our Inn Land of the Sun (formerly Meson de las Flores).

Of course this message is not really about weather… North Carolina… Florida or Ecuador.

This message is about the benefits of having a business that provides freedom and allows you to live and work wherever you find inspiration.

Get away from the gray humdrum… go where your horizons expand.

Inspiration is everywhere. Seek it. There has never been a better time for a micro business and an upbeat outlook on life.

One kind reader sent me two coffee mugs recently, enamel bumper stickers if you like, that said “Ille Gitimati Noli Carborundum.”

The translation is “Don’t let those who are illegitimate wear you down”.

Look for inspiration in your passions.  They may lead you to strange places… in the minds of the humdrum herds.  Yet success is waiting for you in the nooks and crannies where others do not go.

Gary

If you want extra income, adventure and fulfillment in your life…consider a international micro business.

Our emailed course International Business Made EZ may help you do this.

An October 22, 2008 New York Times article entitled, Inspiration Can Be Found in Many Places, but You Need to Be Looking By MICKEY MEECE says:

“Successful inventors, entrepreneurs and writers say they are often asked where their big ideas came from.

They will acknowledge that serendipity often plays a role. But equally as important, they say, is having an open mind — especially in tumultuous times like these. Big and small ideas are out there, they say, if you are looking for them.

Consider the experience of Lopa Mehrotra, who was studying to be a political scientist. One hot summer day, she said, she was watching her 6-year-old daughter outside playing.

“Look,” her daughter said, as she scraped two gray rocks on stone and watched them turn white. “It’s magic.”

“I said, ‘Actually, it’s science,’ ” Ms. Mehrotra said recently, explaining how that moment inspired her to create TestToob.com, a social networking site that allows students to showcase scientific experiments.

Jacques Heim, who founded Diavolo Dance Theater, was in Aspen with his dance company, using an elementary classroom as a dressing room. Naturally, it was full of toys, he recalled. He saw a box of blocks, including three in particular that caught his interest: identical five-sided pyramids that created a cube. “I was inspired by the geometry behind it,” he said, “and played with it for months.”

Ultimately those cubes led to a performance piece called “Foreign Bodies,” set to music by Esa-Pekka Salonen, music director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic.

Members of Diavolo, based in Los Angeles — gymnasts, actors and dancers — use everyday objects, like doors, stairs and chairs for dramatic movement, as well as the three mobile pyramids for “Foreign Bodies.”

“I believe if you have the child inside you and you walk down the streets, things happen to you,” he said. “Intuition. That’s how I operate.”

Diandra Leslie-Pelecky, a physics professor, said she got her idea when she was changing the channels one day and happened upon a Nascar race. Without warning, she recalled, one of the cars hit an outside wall. None of the cars had bumped, she said, and there were no engine failures or flat tires. So what happened?

It was not idle curiosity. To solve the problem, she immersed herself in racing by spending time with pit crews, crew chiefs, mechanics and drivers, and eventually wrote, “The Physics of Nascar.” The book traces a race car from its design to its race to the finish line.

Sometimes, Ms. Leslie-Pelecky said, she finds herself on the track and thinks, “How did I get here?” It is because of her “pit bull gene,” she decided. “When you get to a problem, you don’t let go until you solve it.”

Our International Business and Investing courses in Ecuador and North Carolina can also inspire.

How We Can Serve You

2013-2014 Super Thinking + Spanish – Writing to Sell – Investing & Business Course Schedule

Schedule 2013-2014  Super Thinking + Spanish  – Writing to Sell – Investing & Business Courses

Here are photos I took of Mt. Dora…