Nomad Challenge

On this third day of dance craziness, I am grateful to offer, The Gratitude Dance.

I first saw this video in an email I received some time ago.  Like our first video of the week, Matt Harding’s dancing around the world, this dance doesn’t require much skill.  It’s simple, after writing down what you are grateful for, you watch the video and proceed to move your feet and cross your arms in front of you a bunch of times!  There really is no trick to it.  And like the previous two dances, this is excellent cardio - especially for your arms! (I’m noticing a pattern to this dance thing, I guess it is great exercise for the mind and body!)

Even though the dance is a little crazy, the message is fantastic.  In today’s world we often are led to believe that there is all this negativity around us, so it is easy to forget about the wonderful things we do have and we end up taking them for granted.

I can’t stress enough how important implementing an attitude of gratitude is for all of us.  Our health, body and everything that goes on in our lives is a reflection of our thoughts and feelings in our mind.

So with that, I give you today’s video from Junior Attractors (aka the “Gratidudes”).  They may aim their message to a younger audience, but as you can see in this video, “The Gratitude Dance” is for everyone.  Please enjoy!

The place where everyone knows your name. (photo by Caitlinator/Flickr)

I must say, although I am still new to the world of blogging and internet marketing, I am very impressed with the blogging community, particularly with some well-established bloggers. And from what I can tell, the type of generosity they have displayed recently is more the norm rather than the exception among the community.

Two blogs that I often read, The Writers Manifesto and ProBlogger, recently included a list of links to pages of some of their readers. On The Writers Manifesto blog, Monika Mundell compiled a list herself of various posts from her readers in her own post titled “Success Principles As Seen By My Readers.” Then earlier this week, Darren Rowse ran an interesting experiment of sorts with his ProBlogger Social Media Love-In. He basically asked his readers if they were active on various social media sites, and if they wanted to network with other bloggers, told them to feel free to include links to their profiles.

I was pleasantly surprised to find my opening post included on Monika’s list, and all of us on it were very grateful to her. It was a very nice show of appreciation on her part to introduce us all to each other. After reading Darren’s post and seeing that a few people had decided to list their pages in the comments section, I decided why not and put links to my Twitter, Facebook and MySpace pages. I didn’t think much of it at the time, seemed like a nice gesture on Darren’s part, and yet little did I know what was in store…

It turns out the Twitter links were very popular as almost immediately my email was turning up Twitter follow notifications like there was no tomorrow! And the notifications are still coming in today! I hadn’t used Twitter very much before (it was still on my “to learn” list) and now I went from six followers to over 100 in a matter of a few days. You can find the complete list of ProBlogger’s 538 twitter users that blog here (I’m no. 175 on there).

What have these two acts of kindness done for my blog? Well a lot more in terms of bringing in visitors than I had been doing, that’s for sure! Admittedly I haven’t gotten around to doing much promoting of my website yet (shame Kevin!). Prior to these two listings, I only had a few visitors here and there from a few friends who I have talked to about it and a few others who I either contacted directly or may have seen me comment on another site.

And while my traffic numbers are still very modest, compared to what they were before they have skyrocketed (relatively speaking, of course). I even got a few encouraging messages from some of my new Twitter friends saying they checked out my blog and enjoyed it! All this has gotten me very excited. Being an athlete, I compare seeing this first wave of visitors and comments to scoring your first goal or winning your first match. I actually do remember the emotions from my first soccer goal from when I was six very vividly.

On a similar note, I would be remissed if I didn’t give thanks to a couple other bloggers, Penelope Trunk and Caroline Middlebrook, who recently took the time to answer an email I sent, in a very timely manner I must add. I’m sure they are very busy so I appreciate that they took the time out of their day to respond. It may be a simple act, and yet it has helped me with my blogging in these early stages. Little things like that do go a long way.

These acts of generosity have opened my eyes more to the culture of the blogging world while introducing me to many other fascinating bloggers of various topics, of which I may not have found otherwise. It makes sense, in order to succeed in blogging (or business for that matter), that one must provide value to their readers (or customers). I get the impression that this sort of collaboration and interdependence has been picking up steam among those on the cutting edge for some time now, which is a nice trend to see.

I mentioned Stephen Covey’s The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People book in an earlier post, and I bring it up again as interdependence was a big theme of his. His seven habits are meant to guide people from dependence, to independence, to interdependence. What does that mean exactly? Dictionary.com defines the term interdependent as “mutually dependent; depending on each other”, while Wikipedia states that interdependence “can also be defined as the interconnectedness and the reliance on one another socially, economically, environmentally and politically.”.

I think it is important to note that like it or not, we are all interdependent of one another, and life itself is interdependent. Even more so these days with globalization and the power of the internet and other communication technologies. It’s comforting to see that more and more people, especially those who are in a position of influence, are embracing this concept.

Cheers, mates! (photo by gamma.amore/flickr)

Mentioning these folks on this blog will likely not have the same sort of impact on them as they have had on me and my blog. I simply don’t possess the same amount of influence at this time. This charitable attitude is something I intend to keep paying forward though as I go along. Generosity begets generosity, and that is a VERY good thing. Who knows, I could always buy them a drink should our paths ever cross in person! It would be the least I could do.

On that note, to Monika, Darren, Penelope, Caroline and all my fellow bloggers and readers out there; thank you, and here’s to all our success and happiness. Cheers!

First off, Happy Independence Day to all the readers out there from the USA!

Ahh, Providence… No, not the nice city pictured above that’s situated on Narragansett Bay in Rhode Island, home of the prestigious Ivy League school Brown University as well as a famous big blue bug alongside the highway! Gotta love that critter!

The Big Blue Bug “Nibbles Woodaway” Photo by: Jonathan Baker
Taken from I-95 N-bound in Providence, RI

The sort of Providence I am talking about is illustrated in one of my all-time favorite quotes, which comes from W.H. Murray when he refers to Johann Wolfgang von Goethe in his book The Scottish Himalayan Expedition (1951):

“Until one is committed
There is hesitancy, the chance to draw back,
Always ineffectiveness.
Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation),
There is one elementary truth,
The ignorance of which kills countless ideas
And splendid plans:
That the moment one definitely commits oneself,
Then Providence moves too.
All sorts of things occur to help one
That would never otherwise have occurred.
A whole stream of events issues from the decision
Raising in one’s favor all manner
Of unforeseen incidents and meetings
And material assistance,
Which no man could have dreamt
Would have come his way.
I have learned a deep respect for one of Goethe’s couplets:
‘Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it.
Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it’”

Absolutely Powerful! Perhaps it sounds a bit too wishy-washy for you, I understand. And yet I believe that no matter what your beliefs are about the universe, religion or life in general, that this advice is golden. Experience has shown me, and I am sure every person can relate, that life sometimes has a funny, seemingly magical way making things happen. This is why I think it is important that when you are planning to reach a certain goal, rather than keeping to a strict course of action, it’s best to leave some room for the unknown to happen.

If you have a real big proper goal, and by that I mean something that you really have to reach and grow for, something that is a true challenge that you have not accomplished yet, then you shouldn’t already know what the absolute best course of action is. If you did, you’d probably have already done it, and it probably isn’t going to help you grow that much. That, or you wouldn’t do it at all because it wouldn’t push you enough. Sure, having some idea of what to do is helpful, but just get started already!!! The rest will come to you as you go along, I promise!

In my previous post, I mentioned that just getting started was a huge step for me, one that unfortunately many people never get past. And committing to my goal on such a public forum just magnifies everything many fold. It strengthens the force of Providence, if you will, as well as my motivation. I’ve crossed the line of no return, there is no “chance to draw back.” Heck, if I draw back now, that will make me look bad in front of all of you!

Leo Babauta, who writes an an excellent blog called Zen Habits, referenced committing publicly in a recent post called The Ultimate Guide to Motivation - How to Achieve Any Goal. Leo gave eight beginning motivation suggestions, and number five was:

“Commit publicly. None of us likes to look bad in front of others. We will go the extra mile to do something we’ve said publicly. For example, when I wanted to run my first marathon, I started writing a column about it in my local daily newspaper. The entire island of Guam (pop. 160K) knew about my goal. I couldn’t back down, and even though my motivation came and went, I stuck with it and completed it. Now, you don’t have to commit to your goal in your daily newspaper, but you can do it with friends and family and co-workers, and you can do it on your blog if you have one. And hold yourself accountable — don’t just commit once, but commit to giving progress updates to everyone every week or so.”

Awesome! A great example of what Goethe said, “Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it.”

What have you always wanted to accomplish that you have been putting off for a rainy day, or for when you have more time, or out of fear? Leave a comment and let us know. Perhaps by stating publicly, you too will take actions toward that goal which will start the chain of events in your favor.

The unknown is nothing to fear, and the perfect time will never come. Get started now!!! I’ve always wanted to have the freedom to set out and see the world, and I knew if I didn’t start to do something about it now, I may regret it for the rest of my life. Two things, you must be clear about what you want, and you must take action. C’mon already! Now let’s get started!!!

Greetings!

I figured I would take a little time today to get you all caught up to speed as to how this blog came about. I’ll try to keep this as concise as possible…

First, as you can probably guess, I want to do a lot of traveling around the globe. And as I alluded to in my previous post, my first destination of choice is Australia, although there are many others. Ever since I was little, I’ve always had that bit of wanderlust. I’ve met plenty of people from all over the world, competed in an international sporting event, have a bachelor’s degree in international business, and yet I somehow have only gone out of the country once, and that was to Toronto (not very far outside the U.S., actually, so that doesn’t really count).

Over the years that itch to move about and see the world keeps getting stronger and stronger. I have no regrets over how I have spent the first 10 years of my adult life. Most people who study international business do a semester or two studying abroad. I was on the college’s tennis team and didn’t want to miss out on any of that experience, and I made the right choice. Overall, I’ve done some cool things and met some amazing people during this time. I wouldn’t change a thing.

Second, I recently resigned from my job that I had been at for the past five years (it’s now been a week since I left), and I am taking a little time off to reevaluate where I want to go from here. I won’t to go into all the details. There were a lot of things I liked about the job. It involved one of my bigger passions, I got to travel a good bit around the country to places I probably never would’ve gone to otherwise, and I got to know a lot of great people. What’s so bad about that? Nothing, I’m very grateful for having had that opportunity.

I am also grateful that I finally, after mulling this over for a long time, decided to get out. It was time. I was burnt out (something that happens to people all too frequently in that profession, and many others for that matter) and was really struggling to stay motivated. Long hours and low pay, among other frustrations, got to me. It isn’t even so much the pay. I think if it were a six-figure job I would probably feel the same way. It just wasn’t the right lifestyle for me, not enough balance. I look at where I was headed five, 10, 20 years down the road, and at the people who were already there, and it scared the hell out of me.

For the past few years, I’ve been thinking of ways in which I could work for myself. There was a big craze in real estate and I grabbed every bit of info that I could find on the subject before realizing that it wasn’t really for me. Now what?

If I could pin point the two things that helped me advance in my career it was writing and having some sort of uncanny ability with computers and the internet. Hmmm… why didn’t I think about that before????

Well, now I’m here at a bit of a crossroads. I gave about five weeks notice when I resigned (I’m such a good employee!) and knew this nomad project was something I wanted to work on, although I kept that from most people unless I already knew they were like-minded. I think people were a bit surprised about how calmly I told them that I had no idea what I’d be doing after I left and that I didn’t have another job in the works. I know it was the right decision even though the prospect of not having an income at the moment does scare me a bit from time to time.

So I decided back when I resigned that, while I would still look for a new job, I was going to journal about how I was going about my journey to follow my dream of working and traveling on my own (i.e. being a nomad, if you will, or what The 4-Hour Workweek author Tim Ferriss calls, the “new rich”).

I’d read other stories and how-to guides of people that had successfully gone down this path before, such as the Working Nomad Ebook, and it really excited me! This is what I’ve been looking for all along and I could totally see myself doing this as well! Then I thought, I’ll also journal about my path, except instead of telling my story at the end, I would detail all the emotions, triumphs and bumps along the road as I’m doing it, how unique!?!

Then after searching some more, I realized there are already people who are/have done that as well. AGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!

Oh well, I’m doing it anyway!!! I am learning a great deal and gathering tons of inspiration from these people, although I feel that each one of us have our own unique perspectives and experiences that I think anyone looking for guidance along this avenue can benefit from all of it.

Full steam ahead…