Mark Boyle gave up cash. He doesn’t have money and lives off the land, so to speak. A quick read with a few examples of how he lives, I found the most interesting piece to be what he’s learned (emphasis is my own, so I remember it).

What have I learned? That friendship, not money, is real security. That most western poverty is of the spiritual kind. That independence is really interdependence.

I’ve been thinking a lot about online relationships/friendships and how useful they can be for businesses (see my Sponsor my Status post and the subsequent domain registration). Coincidentally, I stumbled into this BusinessWeek article, Learning and Profiting from Online Friendships. Loads of great information here. It’s likely I’ll file this away to continually reference (as with my Monocle post). Here are the blurbs that caught my attention in the first read.

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There’s a bit more to being a con man than I originally thought.

It requires avid study of psychology and body language. It’s an amazing paradox–a con man has incredible emotional insight, but without the burden of compassion. He must take an intense interest in other people, complete strangers, and work to understand them, yet remain detached and uninvested. That the plan is to cheat these people and ultimately confirm many of their fears cannot be of concern.

A cup of coffee is an opportunity to meet someone, talk about a few other things, make a friend or a business acquaintance. Done right, the face to face reference check is a lot more than a reference check. It’s a way to grow your network and your business. And it’s also the best way to find out exactly what you need to know about a person you want to hire, invest in, or otherwise go into business with.