A Year in Review

The big question is whether you are going to be able to say a hearty yes to your adventure.  –Joseph Campbell

 

Today marks a full year passing since I decided to pursue passion over obligation. 

 

Frequently over the course of the year I have run into and conversed with friends and acquaintances.  The common denominator to these conversations is the same question:  what have you been doing with yourself?  All roads lead to Rome.  In response there are times I am at a loss for words and there are times I am overflowing with them to the point that I am probably difficult to comprehend.

 

The benefit of realizing the anniversary of a big life decision is a convenient opportunity to reflect and reset.  It is a chance to find the proper words and pen them in concrete form.

 

The dominant feeling that I have and best analogy I can use is that of an informal graduation from a self-taught course in life.  Throughout the year I found that I needed no formal classroom and that everything I needed to know was only an arm’s reach away.

 

The course material I used was as follows, roughly broken into categories.  The most influential of the group are preceded by asterisks.

 

Fiction:

***The Count of Monte Cristo (unabridged), Alexandre Dumas

The Three Musketeers, Alexandre Dumas

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, JK Rowling

The Road, Cormac McCarthy

No Country for Old Men, Cormac McCarthy

One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Ken Kesey

Sleepers, Lorenzo Carcaterra

The Alchemist, Paulo Coelho

Warrior of the Light, Paulo Coelho

Way of the Peaceful Warrior, Dan Millman

 

Business:

***The Four Hour Workweek, Timothy Ferriss

The E-Myth Revisited, Michael Gerber

The Magic of Thinking Big, David Schwartz

The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, Stephen Covey

This Business Has Legs, Peter Bieler

The Monk and the Riddle, Randy Komisar

How to Make Millions with Your Ideas, Dan Kennedy

The Official Get Rich Guide to Information Marketing, Dan Kennedy

No BS Wealth Attraction for Entrepreneurs, Dan Kennedy

No BS Time Management, Dan Kennedy

***Losing My Virginity, Richard Branson

Secrets of Power Negotiating, Roger Dawson

The Wizard of Ads, Roy Williams

Groundswell, Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff

Now is Gone, Geoff Livingston

The Marketing Gurus, Chris Murray

How to Make Money with Your Blog, Duane Forrester and Gavin Powell

Web 2.0 Blog, Todd Stauffer

 

Certification Manual:

ACE Personal Trainer Manual

Musculoskeletal Anatomy and Human Movement, Lawrence Golding

 

Self Improvement / New Age:

***Think and Grow Rich, Napoleon Hill

A Year of Growing Rich, Napoleon Hill

The Master Key to Riches, Napoleon Hill

The Science of Getting Rich, Wallace D. Wattles

Harmonic Wealth, James Arthur Ray

The Secret, Rhonda Byrne

The Power of Your Subconscious Mind, Robert Murphy

 

Philosophy/Other:

Man’s Search for Meaning, Viktor E. Frankl

***The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius, Russell McNeil

The Art of Living, Epictetus

48 Laws of Power, Robert Greene

Art of Seduction, Robert Greene

The Art of War, Sun Tzu

Vagabonding, Rolf Potts

Less is More, Goldian Vandenbroeck

Blink, Malcolm Gladwell

Tipping Point, Malcolm Gladwell

***Flow, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

Walden, Henry David Thoreau

Religions, Values, and Peak Experiences, Abraham Maslow

***What Should I Do With My Life?, Po Bronson

This is It, Alan Watts

Become What You Are, Alan Watts

 

The course material list was compiled from a bookshelf inventory, and I am sure it does not include countless loaned books, borrowed books, and skimmed books over many Barnes & Noble sessions fueled by coffee and tea.  It does not include the intake of influential blog posts over time such as those by Tim Ferriss, Copy Blogger, and Dosh Dosh. 

 

The year began in an unfocused effort.  I jumped between categories and authors rapidly, as I began a process of filtering what I most enjoyed.

 

The year now closes with a great deal of mental focus.  I know I have a great passion for physical performance, optimal experiences, quantum psychology, and the subconscious mind, and I plan to proceed in learning as much as possible in each field.

 

Fortunately throughout the year I also had the opportunity to experience and learn outside of the realm of literature. 

 

In the entrepreneurial realm, I gained the experience of co-owning a limited liability corporation complete with a curriculum in outsourcing, website design, finance, product creation, advertising, marketing, and customer service.  I was then able to transfer and apply the skill set and lessons learned into forming a successful sole proprietorship.

 

My passion crystallized in the field of health and fitness, and I recently became a certified personal trainer.  Conveniently my first day on the gym floor will be tomorrow, almost exactly a year from changing careers.

 

In the physical recreation and adventure realm, I spent a month traveling across Japan and the Los Angeles region.  Basketball, hiking, rock climbing, and weight lifting were activities I enjoyed throughout the year.  On the extreme side, a midnight climb of Mount Fuji and skydiving remain burned in my mind.  My passion for mixed martial arts led me to Daddis Fight Camp where I now practice muay thai.

 

In the social world, I had the opportunity to spend more time than ever with my family and the friends I value most.  It granted me the opportunity to meet countless new friends and surround myself with a social circle that is inspiring, positive, and uplifting.

 

One overly simple and silly reason I know it has been a healthy, happy, positive, and productive year of my life – I never once got sick.

 

As much as I view Year One as the learning year, I see Year Two as the application and fruition of those efforts.  It is a year of thinking big, setting large goals and intentions, living what I love, removing fear and social constraints from the equation, and firmly believing that life is conspiring for and not against me. 

 

I look forward to living it one moment at a time.

 

“Think of a car driving through the night.  The headlights only go a hundred to two hundred feet forward, and you can make it all the way from California to New York driving through the dark, because all you have to see is the next two hundred feet.  And that’s how life tends to unfold before us.  If we just trust that the next two hundred feet will unfold after that, and the next two hundred feet will unfold after that, your life will keep unfolding.  And it will eventually get you to the destination of whatever it is you truly want, because you want it.”  – Jack Canfield

Japan – The Experience of a Lifetime

           

My first memories of Japan are a litany of negatives. I recall stumbling about Tokyo Station as if in a labryinth. A 6′1″ white male with a large daypack strapped to my back, I stuck out like a sore thumb in a sea of suited commuting Japanese workers. Exhaustion had set in from the plane ride and that was not helping as I attempted to navigate by communicating with Tourist Information.

I had no plan.  I did not have accommodations for the night and darkness had fallen. Fear set in. Two and a half weeks in Japan seemed like a prison sentence, not a privilege. There was no exit strategy, no cell phone in my pocket to reach out to a comforting voice, and no Google chat at my fingertips via Internet.

Finally I navigated out of the Station to a closet-sized hotel room (the first I could find) and spent double my nightly budget. It did not matter to me at the time. I pulled out my Moleskine and penned a quick line – This is a really strange and negative experience so far . At 7pm Tokyo time, I collapsed on an empty stomach. Solo travel was not for me.

Looking back there is such a dichotomy between that night and the latter sixteen days of my trip. What ensued was one of the most positive experiences of my life. When I woke up on day two, even though quite jetlagged at 5am, I resigned myself to explore, to keep an open-mind, and to make the experience work for me. I filled my mind with thoughts of the positives travel aficionados like Ferriss and Potts espoused. Confidence renewed I strapped my bag to my back, checked out of the hotel, and set off for the Imperial Gardens and the Tokyo International Youth Hostel.

After setting out on that mission and making that declaration, the rest is, as they say, history. A whirlwind tour of Japan took me from Tokyo to Nikko to Kamakura to Mount Fuji to Kyoto to Osaka and back to Tokyo via subway, JR line, midnight bus, bullet train, as well as my preferred mode of travel – on foot. Six different hostels housed me and countless restaurants, open markets, and shops fed me.

Tokyo will be remembered as a fast-paced, neon lit metropolis that ushered me into Japan. Nikko as a natural respite from Tokyo, offering me creeks, waterfalls, and a good hike. Kamakura as the home of the great Buddha, which succeeded in wowing me. Mount Fuji as the crowning moment of my journey (I will get to that). Kyoto as a more down-to-earth people centric city with countless shrines. Osaka as a nightlife hub and a catch-the-first-train-back-in-the-morning mentality.

I will never forget some highlights of the Japanese culture. There is a hilarious irony on the streets – no wastebaskets and yet a pristine cleanliness. Vending machines are so ubiquitous; I practically expected to find one on top of Mount Fuji. Sushi, noodles, okinomiyake, and a variety of other wonders make up an amazing cuisine. The locals left the biggest mark on me – many approached and attempted to help when I looked confused, others offered rides and their homes, shop-owners actually left their stores to walk me to a destination, and businessmen were quick to enter into loud conversation and provide rounds of drinks on nights out.

The fast friendships I forged are priceless. Each individual assumed such an open, un-jaded personality when traveling. No matter where I stayed there was always a motley group with which to enjoy dinner, enter into lively conversation, and embark on unforeseen adventures. Most notably – an Australian who could not get enough of Japanese women, three Liverpoolers always up for a day hiking and a night out, a Mauritian who accompanied me on the climb of the trip, a German in love with ramen houses, and a Northern Irishman who astonished me with his exploits of skydiving, travel, and underground fighting. While I came to Japan skeptical of such fleeting friendships and the emotional toll they might take, I left appreciating them and all moments involved.

Looking back the trip climaxed in an ascent of Mount Fuji. Two of us set out at midnight with a goal of watching the sunrise from above the clouds. It did not matter to us that climbing season was two months in the rearview mirror. The climb would become a pilgrimage. Fog and rain were hallmarks of the outset, affording us two feet of visibility in the forest and leaving me drawing comparisons to the Blair Witch Project. Six hours later the clouds dramatically parted as we watched a picturesque sunrise from 3,000+ meters. At that moment I remember thinking I did this, I climbed Mount Fuji and I came to Japan on my own and made the most of it. I conquered my fears.

In summarizing the trip, I always return mentally to a passage in Po Bronson’s What Should I Do With My Life? On day three of the trip I journeyed to a Japanese bookstore and sought out its remote and quite tiny English shelf for some good reading. I found Bronson’s book on that shelf, a happenstance that makes me wonder about destiny, fate, and all related oft-mentioned buzz words. On a rainy day in my hostel, I drank cup after cup of green tea and read the following:

At home, at work, at school, there are always a ton of external inputs coaxing you in the direction you’re already going. Deadlines, parents chirping in your ear, friends wanting you to go out. Your life has a momentum. Traveling can take you away from all those influences, quiet their din, and allow you a kind of silence to consider who you are as an independent entity. It can be uncomfortable if you’re not used to it. You might come face to face with the fact that there’s not much brainwave activity upstairs without all those influences to react to. “And when you start to think that you haven’t been the pilot of your life for a long, long time, you have no other choice but to hear what your soul is saying,” wrote one young man who found the courage to quit business school while traveling across Asia. “Am I the person I think I am if nobody is there to tell me who I am?”

Being uncomfortable is good. If you remain comfortable, you remain more or less yourself. The quickest way to make yourself uncomfortable is to travel alone. I found a high correlation between traveling alone and milking the rock. It takes courage to change your life. Sometimes, doing so, you feel all alone in the world. You can get used to this scary feeling by traveling alone, being by yourself for long periods of time, having to talk to strangers, having to get yourself from one city to another. You become accustomed to it. The fear of being alone will no longer stop you.

It also helped to travel without a plan. This was particularly true for young people who’ve segued from high school to college to a prize job they were recruited for without taking any great leaps of faith. They’ve never been off a path. With each step, they’ve known where it was likely to lead, even as they pretended they might opt out. They’re uncomfortable with the prospect of not being associated with a respected school or company, since they’ve always had that. Traveling without a plan is a way to rehearse the improvisational approach, and opens your mind to the sense of adventure. You learn to trust the laws of chance. Perhaps, when you get home, you’ll be willing to do the same.

When you subdue these fears, they no longer guard the gates, and you invite the truth into your life.

The passage mirrors my thoughts better than I could have ever penned them. My life has always had the path to it – high school to college to a prize job in the financial world. It seemed scripted. Then one fine day I began improvising and, just as Bronson states, began trusting the laws of chance, when I broke form and left my job. Winning the Endless Summer competition then afforded me the opportunity to speak to Tim Ferriss, a man whose pen influenced my improvisation. Afraid of heights, I went for a skydive. Japan and solo travel followed that, conquering inherent fears of being alone and instilling independence and self-reliance.

From each of these new experiences, I return a changed man. From Japan, I have returned with a newfound traveling bug or itch, which is indicative of a growing bug or itch for conquering fear and seizing adventure. My mind has been opened to that sense of adventure maybe more than it has ever been, rivaling my days as a child.

A heartfelt thank you to Tim Ferriss for opening a generous door for me to walk through and the readers of his blog who found my Endless Summer submission inspiring and whose votes flew me to Japan.

A Call to Action and an Endless Summer

Life was good.  After breaking ties with the corporate world, I settled into a more fitting routine running a fledgling business out of a local coffee shop.  I’m a sucker for a double shot espresso and free wi-fi.  As part of my daily routine, I frequented the Lifestyle Experimentation blog of Tim Ferriss.  The message was in tune with the direction of my life at the time.

One fine morning over an espresso and egg wrap, I came across a new post laying out a competition titled the Endless Summer - answer the question ‘How would you use 36 extra hours a week?’ and vie for a trip anywhere in the world, along with Tim’s help planning it.

http://www.fourhourworkweek.com/blog/2007/05/26/the-endless-summer-how-to-travel-the-world-and-improve-it-for-free/

A former self would have been intrigued but withheld a submission, choosing instead to label the eventual winner lucky.  Good thing I matured in time.  In the spirit of action, I whipped up an essay in journal form, chronicling my departure from the corporate world.  I entered it and forgot about it.

It turns out the submission started an amazing chain of events.  I was named one of ten finalists by a panel including Tim and several travel personalities. The winner would be determined by an online vote.

http://www.fourhourworkweek.com/blog/2007/07/04/how-to-change-the-world-with-200-books%e2%80%94you-decide-plus-finalists-of-the-endless-summer-competition/

One of my favorite things about the experience was the collection of support I received as comments to the finalist post.  Sure some of the comments were close friends of mine showing me their love (to all of whom I am very grateful).  But many weren’t.  I was contacted by several readers who were inspired, which in turn re-inspired me.  One of my favorite related anecdotes is about Dave Walsh and Patrick Emerick, who were two of the readers.  We have since become friends and business associates.  They were absolutely instrumental in the competition and spearheaded the creation of a video for support (see below).

And then it all peaked – I won.  Unbelievable.

http://www.fourhourworkweek.com/blog/2007/07/19/media-feast-and-getting-on-tv-producers-seek-4hww-success-stories-plus-winner-of-the-endless-summer/

I was traveling to Japan, a destination that had been part of my dreamlines.  To plan it I would speak to Tim Ferriss, who had become an inspiration.  Euphoria ensued.  The entire experience was incredibly fulfilling. 

I was once told ‘you cannot win the lottery unless you buy a ticket’.  That applies here.  Unless we all act on our dreams and goals, no matter how unrealistic they seem, we deprive ourselves of a chance.  Pick up the pen.  Act.  There is nothing to lose and everything to gain.

 

In the Name of Edmond Dantes

The 4-Hour Workweek sparked the first relevant step in this journey.  

Prior to my encounter with the novel, I worked as a fixed-income trader at a financial institution.  Don’t get me wrong – the job had its fair share of positives.  After graduating college I was given a position of great responsibility, earned a dream salary, and had the opportunity to work with some brilliant people along the way.  The perks offered an attractive bragging platform.  There were fancy dinners, sports tickets, and generally a lot of opportunities the average 22 year old is not presented with.

Somewhere along the way the novelty wore off.  The appeal to materialism had only lasted so long.  I could not identify with the job or the numbers I was crunching each day.  The trading attitude permeated my life and was, in fact, becoming my life.  Analyzing and making markets on daily minutia seriously hindered my capacity for appreciation.  Today when I encounter old associates and hear them buy or sell an estimate of what a dinner bill will be, I cringe.  Now I know what others probably thought of me along the way!

And so the seed of discontent was planted.  I started reading literature again and longed to be Edmond Dantes from The Count of Monte Cristo.  I returned to the gym in earnest and focused on a passion for physical fitness.  My identity slowly resurrected itself.

Then The 4-Hour Workweek inspired action.  First through my fitness kick, I found Tim Ferriss’s (the author’s) blog through an article on building muscle mass (http://www.fourhourworkweek.com/blog/category/the-4-hour-body/).  Conveniently it was Week 1 of his new book’s release.  I picked it up, blazed through it, and loved it.  Its core message offered an actionable alternative to the 60 hour week and the corporate world, a breath of fresh air for the stressed masses.  I contacted Tim on a whim and even he had this to say:  ”The fixed-income life (in more ways than one) is brutal.  Don’t let yourself get trapped in their thinking.” The book’s worst-case scenario exercise was gold – it helped me realize that no, the world would not end if I deviated from my career path and left my job.

When I did leave my job just two weeks later, true to the book’s word, the world did not end.  Although I had a fair share of critics and doubters for leaving a sure thing, I was confident my choice was sound.  A significant theme of the advice I sought was to ‘give it time’, advice that had I followed, may have caused me to lose the spirit of change.  Instead I challenged myself, made a significant decision, and acted on it – for that I am proud.