How to Go from High School Student to Master of the Universe

Today I want to start off by answering one particularly good question I received, here on the blog, because I think it’s definitely something that could benefit a lot of people. This is especially relevant for 18-year-olds recently out of high school, but I hope my thoughts will be useful to people in all stages of life. This comes from reader Binbin here in Bangkok:

Dear Cody,

First off, kudos to you for breaking free!!
I am truly inspired by your lifestyle. My question is…what would you tell your 18 self about earning money and opportunities with your current knowledge?
I want to explore the world but need to start earning money top fund it. How should I begin??

Best regards,
Binbin.

If I could jump into a time machine and go talk to my 8-years-younger self, there are all kinds of things I’d tell *me*:

A Winning Mindset:

The first step in dominating the world is to cultivate a strong mindset. This is one of the many things you won’t learn in school. The first valuable belief to instill in yourself is that you truly can achieve anything. What most of our parents told us as kids—that we can be anything we want to be when we grow up—is still true; there is no goal that is out of reach, no person you can’t speak to, no place you can’t go, no possession you can’t have, nothing you can’t be. If you really invest your time in understanding your desired end results, break that goal down, and do what’s necessary.

You can bend the rules of reality. We’re mostly limited by fear and traditional “rules” that we think apply to us. (Subscribe to my newsletter and you’ll get a 1-hour recording about how to overcome fears and live a remarkable life, by the way!) Start challenging assumptions. You don’t have to go to college, graduate within four years, take a desk job, stay close to home, get an MBA, climb the corporate ladder, or anything just because it’s what society tells you it’s what you’re supposed to do. Your life is your masterpiece, and you are the painter.

Find people who’ve done what you want to achieve successfully, and “model” them. Everything in life is pretty much a game—relationships, business, money, politics—figure out the rules and adopt the most empowering beliefs that will get you where you want to go. Follow people who are really passionate about something, and have broken the rules of “reality” to achieve great success. A few people that have done their own thing and become wildly successful at it: Chris Guillebeau, Tim Ferriss, Gary Vaynerchuk.

Continuing Education:

Parents may not like my advice here, but if I could go back and do college over again with the knowledge I have eight years later, I would have made some very different decisions. First, you need to ask yourself if a university degree is even worthwhile for you at all. A lot of universities provide a tremendous amount of value, and college life will give you experiences that will help you grow in many ways—but there are also plenty of skills you won’t learn in school (see Mindset above, for one). Some of the most successful business leaders today were dropouts: Steve Jobs, Richard Branson, Bill Gates, Larry Page, Michael Dell, Jerry Yang, Mark Zuckerberg, Kevin Rose, and so on. And I know some wildly successful people personally—some of the most brilliant young entrepreneurs I know, and people who’ve been successful in the corporate world—who didn’t get degrees. That’s not to say that dropping out guarantees success—but there are other things you can invest your time in that might be more valuable than putting those years, and all that money, into traditional education.

I’d say that college is a good decision if you know what you want from your career. If you know what line of work you want to get into, and it tends to require a degree in order to be successful, or open doors, then go for it. If you’re just window shopping though, and you’re not sure what you want your life to look like, take a year and travel the world instead. Or take an interesting internship; experiment with entrepreneurship and fail; or even just read books! As much as I enjoyed and got a lot out of my college experience, I’d say I had no idea what I wanted, I had little direction, and could have made a lot more progress if I’d just gathered more life experience and gone into a degree knowing what I wanted out of it. If you’re going to go to university, pick up some hard skills—mathematics, science, economics, a business degree. Like Marc Andreessen says, “Graduating with a technical degree is like heading out into the real world armed with an assault rifle instead of a dull knife.”

Whether you go to a university or not, that’s not to say education is overrated. Either way, you’ll need to take initiative to learn a lot on your own if you want to be successful. You can almost get the same education from one of the top schools—without the diploma—on your own. Look at open courseware and things like the Personal MBA program. It’s important to keep your skills sharp, stay competitive, and continue learning throughout your entire life. Most people don’t read a single book after college. Don’t be like them.

If you want to see the books that have been most influential in my life, check out the Required Reading section at the top of my resources page for my top-10 most important books.

Purpose and Goals:

As stated above, you can do almost anything in this life, despite what the haters will tell you. But the fine print is that you have to be willing to give something in exchange. Our mission here on earth is to provide value of some sort or another to other people. Napoleon Hill said that you need to get clear and realistic about what what value you intend to share with the world in exchange for the success you seek out of life. You need to figure out what your purpose is—what drives you and what you want to build; to share with the people around you.

Once you figure out who you are and what you want, you need to create a roadmap for yourself to arrive at your destination. Most people don’t clarify any well-thought-out goals for themselves. But if you spend time figuring out what few goals are most important for you—whether you set new resolutions once a year, or come up with your own system—even if you don’t achieve everything, simply making the plan in the first place will make you about sixty percent more likely to follow through on the action. Check out how to set SMART goals or New Year’s resolutions—but this is useful any time of year. USE IT.

Now that you know what you want, you should surround yourself with like-minded people. Take a good look at your friends, seek out people on social media, blogs, meetup groups, and at networking events for others who want to do similar things as you. Build a support group for yourself—you’ll find simply by hanging out with people that are doing what you want to do, have the things you want to have, and are the way you want to be, you’ll begin to change. One of the best decisions I ever made was to build a mastermind group with a small group of friends in college where we met weekly to hold each other accountable to our goals.

Entrepreneurship & Location-Independent Work:

If you truly want to be in charge of your time, your location, and the projects you get to work on, then self-employment is for you. Even if you work for someone else, if you want to become “location independent”, then take all of the lessons I’ve given above, and focus all your energy on limiting distractions and making enough time to invest and concentrate on your own projects. Creating value for others and finding ways to give back are the most important things you can do, but it is far too easy to allow yourself to be overwhelmed with other people’s agendas and never make any progress towards your own goals.

I’ve been asked a few times if lifestyle design can work for people in the “developing” world, and my answer is a resounding YES! Just like anyone else, you need to take stock of your skills, your abilities, and what you’re passionate about—and identify the things that others find valuable (i.e., worth paying money for). Anyone who is like Binbin, living here in Asia, I actually think you’re especially well-positioned to take advantage of geoarbitrage and the global economy. If you can identify ways you can provide value, especially if you can work online, look for unconventional ways to take advantage of those skills. Can you start doing freelance work for firms in the US or Europe, rather than just doing business locally? Can you sell your services online, to a global market, at a higher price that will allow you to work fewer hours and leverage your time to do more of what you love? Even just start part-time, as a side job. But get started.

Blogging:

Like my friend Sean Ogle, probably the most life-changing thing I ever did was start this blog. Go start a blog and start talking about the things that interest you! Blogging gave me a good excuse to keep reading, keep learning, to talk about the current events, ideas and technologies that interested me. Blogging also gave me a means to reach out to interesting folks from all walks of life, ask questions, and make friends with people around the globe. I’ve expanded my network of friends to include people I would never have imagined; I’ve made friends on the other side of the globe, landed clients on five continents, had incredible mentors, become involved in great collaborative projects, gotten into conferences, been interviewed in papers and massive media sites, had free business books sent to me, gotten access to countless great information products, and been involved in organizing incredible events—all because of this blog.

Additionally, on the social web, the barriers are very low. There really is almost nobody that’s out of reach—entrepreneurs you look up to, your favorite author, who knows! If you find yourself especially inspired by someone—start a conversation with them! If you need an excuse, simply take Karol Gajda’s advice and thank them for their writing. This really is the best way to pay a blogger without having to spend any money.

###

On that note, I hope you will leave a message for me, and as I said, I always enjoy getting great questions from readers. Your feedback keeps me going most days, and it’s what keeps me creating useful content here! The best way to get in touch with me is to ask your questions in the comments or leave your comments on my Facebook fan page.

If you want to do something for my birthday…

the best thing you can do is to express your thanks, either by leaving a comment, subscribing to the RSS feed, or joining my exclusive email list if you’re not already on there. Remember, over the next few days I’ll be offering something really special STRICTLY for newsletter subscribers to say “Thank You” for being part of my community here at Thrilling Heroics.

Feature photo by andresrueda.

I’ve known Baker since early on after he started his blog in 2009. Since then, he’s quickly amassed a loyal following, joined forces with some of the biggest forces on the social web (Leo Babauta at Zen Habits, J.D. Roth at Get Rich Slowly, and the team at WiseBread). He and I partnered together with a great team to start Untemplater, and finally got the chance to meet in person when he visited Thailand in January on his year-long location-independent world tour! I’ve been looking forward to doing a video interview with him for quite a while now, and this week we were finally able to sit down for a great conversation.

Baker just launched his first ebook guide, Unautomate Your Finances: A Simple, Passionate Approach to Money, which lays out his holistic approach to personal finance. I know from interacting with him on a weekly basis that he’s spent the last several months toiling away on this guide, he’s gotten a tremendous amount of positive feedback, and this is something that is sure to transform people’s relationship with money. Watch our video conversation below to see why you should un-automate your finances, how you can build a more conscious, simple, sustainable financial life, and get the scoop about his world travels since freeing himself from debt prison!

Click here to view the embedded video.

• 0:55 – Baker’s college experience, business background & financial history
• 2:15 – White picket fences & opting out of the template life path
  
• 4:54 – Unconventional approaches to eliminating debt
• 6:45 – Deliberate, effective budgeting
• 8:13 – How to plan for income fluctuations & irregular expenses when you’re a freelancer
• 10:20 – Couchsurfing & backpacking through Australia, New Zealand & Thailand
• 13:38 – Traveling the world with young children
• 16:07 – More about Baker’s new ebook Unautomate Your Finances
• 20:36 – Cultivating a conscious mindset about personal finance & money
• 22:12 – South by Southwest Web Awards & where to find Baker
  

I’ll be honest: I’m someone who hates to sit down with spreadsheets and budget out my finances. I don’t even like to look at my bank statements every month! With student loans, a lot of random business stuff going on, and the fact that I’m a lazy excuse for a human, my finances are a damn mess, but Baker has developed a product that has fundamentally changed the way I think about money, and he and his wife Courtney are proof that you really can get conscious about how you spend, escape the debt “game” that the rest of the world is stuck in, and start to build the lifestyle you want now! Forget dreaming about retirement, if he and his family can eliminate their debt and go globetrotting, you can get control of your finances and do whatever you dream of doing too.

Here is what you get if you purchase a copy of Baker’s Unautomate Your Finances:

• A comprehensive 83-page eBook. In “The Unautomation Theory” section, Baker relates his experience climbing out of the debt hole and the way that has transformed his family’s lives. He goes on to explain how to avoid financial burnout and unlock conscious financial awareness by un-automating. In “The Science of Unautomation” he’ll help you take a hard look at your priorities and figure out how to budget for what you really want in life. Lastly, in the “Applying Unautomation” section, he focuses on application, showing you how to actively manage your finances with a simple 2-page minimalist budgeting system and apply his “Debt Tsunami” tactic to rid yourself of debt.
• A 27-minute video interview with Leo Babauta of ZenHabits.net. Baker interviews Leo on how he applied the principles of simplicity and minimalism to dramatically turn around his financial life.  Powerful insights from a leader in simplicity, blogging, and productivity.
• A 29-minute audio interview with J.D. Roth of GetRichSlowly.org, one of the top personal finance blogs on the web. J.D. joins Baker on a call to discuss his own financial recovery story and what it’s like now that he’s in the “third phase of personal finance“.
• A 2-page, custom-designed PDF version (printable) of the minimalist budgeting system discussed in the main guide.
• A simple Excel template for those who want to take the minimalist budgeting system digital.
• Free Extended Updates! Get on the exclusive email list and over the next 6 months, Baker will be releasing sample case studies, FAQ’s, and exclusive interviews… for free!

At just $17, I honestly thought he was nuts for giving away so much hard work, but it just goes to show how dedicated he is to providing real value and helping those who need financial guidance. This is a truly impressive product that would typically go for at least $39 if you look around at other bloggers online, and it comes with Baker’s “as long as I have a pulse” money-back guarantee. So if you need to learn how to get the best of your personal finances, start an emergency fund, successfully get out of debt, and create a realistic budget that will let you achieve your financial and life goals, then Unautomate Your Finances is definitely something you need to check out.

Click here to get your copy of Unautomate Your Finances: A Simple, Passionate Approach to Money

And do make sure you follow Baker on Twitter, Facebook, and join the Man Vs. Debt Militia over on his site MVD to learn more about how he turned his financial life around, took his family vagabonding around the globe, and get good solid money tips.

His passion for linguistics and cultures has led him to nearly twenty countries, and also led him to seek out online work that would enable his full-time travels. He calls himself a “technomad”—a technology-enabled, location-independent freelancer, combining his electronic engineering degree from University College Dublin with his deep linguistic knowledge translating technical documents and picking up different jobs anywhere he travels.

I had the pleasure to spend some time with Benny on his recent trip to Bangkok, and sat down with him to talk about his travels and his unconventional approach to learning languages. He stresses the importance of confidence in your speaking abilities, and insists that it’s not necessary to speak perfectly at the start, but it is necessary to start! He also has unique tips for making the time to learn a new language, and assures people that you don’t have to travel to learn or maintain languages.

If you’ve ever been interested to pick up even a little of the local language when you travel abroad, or to reach fluency in a second or third language, give our video a watch below:

Click here to view the embedded video.

• 1:20 – All about Benny’s 3-month language missions
  
• 2:00 – How a blogs can help you achieve your goals
• 2:56 – Language hacking versus academic language learning
• 5:15 – The importance of attitude; Is your language half full?
• 6:45 – Language-learning methods, image-association
• 8:10 – 3 top language-hacking tips
• 11:40 – How to keep a language fresh when you aren’t actively using it (Benny recommends using Couchsurfing.com, Meetup.com, LiveMocha.com)
• 13:40 – Travels & tech nomad experience
• 15:20 – Get specific with your language-learning objectives
• 16:25 – Confidence and re-framing your mindset about languages

Here’s a quick video of the Thai he learned (in a matter of days) while he was here, which also illustrates his emphasis on “filtering”:

Click here to view the embedded video.

If you’re interested in languages, be sure to keep your eye on Benny. You can follow his travel-hacking videos (in seven different languages) at IrishPolyglot.com, and follow his 3-month language missions and language-hacking tips by subscribing to his blog FluentIn3Months.com. Some of the best:

• How to take as much as you like in your hand luggage
• How to speak Portuguese as if you were from Rio
• Burning Man – a week in the desert
• How to survive as a traveling vegetarian
• How to practice a foreign language for free without traveling
• How to speak a language pretty well, starting from scratch, in just two months
• The smartest decision you will ever make to achieve fluency

Feature photo by Benny Lewis.

Saturday night in a local nightclub, I witnessed firsthand how possessive men out here can be with women. While trying to make friendly conversation with a friend-of-a-friend, I guess I must have violated some unspoken rule or sufficiently intimidated this guy into thinking I was competition. After clinking glasses with me and acting all buddy-buddy, out of nowhere, he assured me that the three young ladies he came with belonged to him and I should back off—when I hadn’t even spoken a word to them! Later, on the dance floor, I was merrily acting a fool, dancing by myself, and one of the girls—along with another male friend—joined me. There was no touching, not even any flirting going on—I was very aware how hostile this crowd was and we were having a respectful Sunday school dance here. But I watched as this Cambodian asshole later came over to pull her off the floor and then smack her right in the face because she’d danced with me.

I’ve spent a good amount of time with some new friends I’ve made from Nigeria and Ghana. A couple of them are soccer players on the Cambodian team even, and these are the kind of guys who go in a club and drop lots of money on bottle service and know how to have a good time—fantastic, friendly guys who know everyone. But I’ve passed right through security and then seen them be denied entry because of the color of their skin. Instead, we found a nearby outdoor seating area and had our own party on the sidewalk—just good, clean fun—as military-style security guards suspiciously eyed them, fondling their Kalishnikovs and all the while ignoring all the prostitutes, and the opium and cocaine pushers that fill the streets. Talk about having your priorities backwards.

I’ve sat in the comfortable, three-story, waterfront Foreign Correspondent’s Club while children sit hungry across the street with no shirts on their backs and no beds to go home to. I’ve written about the extreme poverty and the aftereffects of unimaginable genocide here before. Cambodia is one of the poorest and most corrupt places in the world; the sexism, racism, and other socio-economic trends are tough to swallow.

Last week, back in Bangkok, I went twice to visit my friend Ryan in the Immigration Detention Center. Strangely, even though Thailand attracts probably the largest number of political refugees and asylum-seekers from all across Asia, the Middle East, and Northern Africa, the government doesn’t recognize official UN refugee status, and so Ryan and his family had to turn themselves in and spend five nights in prison before they’d be allowed to fly out of the country to be relocated to the United States. Ryan and his father were separated from his mother for 23 hours out of the day—only allowed to see each other and visitors from 11am–noon on the weekdays. They were kept in small cells no bigger than a small studio apartment, sometimes with up to a hundred prisoners; fed rotten chicken and rice soup through the small crack under the bars. You can smell the open-air toilets from 40 feet away as we visit—shouting over all the other prisoners and visitors between two fences, separated by a span of about five feet. He says they’d thrown a senile leper in the cell, who’d ran around like a madman, yelling and vomiting all over until he passed out and died before their eyes. They are treated like animals, not people.

Sometimes parts of Southeast Asia feel like the wild west in the very worst of ways, and I feel powerless to do anything about the injustices I see because I’m an outsider here and the problems are very deep and convoluted. If you’re a conscious traveler at all, it will test you to your limits at times, but it will also open your eyes with strange new experiences and teach you a lot about the world—whether you like what you learn or not.

The world is a clusterf#@%! So what can we do about it?

Sometimes I feel like I’ve lost my direction—spending too much time on Facebook and Twitter, contributing to every project under the sun without feeling like I’m really adding to the legacy I want to leave, worrying about money, tweaking my online businesses in the most insignificant of ways, going out and dancing the night away—while people face all this suffering. A lot of young people want to help make the world a better place, but we don’t know where to start, and we often feel like it’s completely beyond the scope of our abilities.

But don’t fall victim to that line of thinking. Start where you are now. Support the things you care about. Don’t lose the desire to do something you’re truly passionate about and make a difference in your lifetime.

I recently tried a test: I used this blog as a platform to see if I could help a friend in need. I wrote about my good friend Ryan Lei, who’d fled religious persecution in China four years ago, lived as an illegal immigrant in Bangkok for four years (even with official refugee status from the UNHCR), and has now finally been relocated to Los Angeles. You guys responded with a great show of support, and I was able to connect him with at least seven or eight friendly new contacts in the LA area. (Thank you!) Through Facebook, he raised enough money through friends to pay the immigration fine and get a start on teaching his parents to speak English. These are small steps—but in little pieces we can help change people’s lives for the better.

I also recently had the pleasure to help plan Thailand’s first TEDx event two weekends ago in Bangkok. For anyone unfamiliar with the 25-year-old conference, it’s a pillar in the technology, entertainment, and design community and brings together innovative thinkers, researchers, and changemakers from all pursuits to share ideas on how to build a better world. TEDx BKK turned out to be an incredible day-long conference, with over 200 eager attendees from around the world.

We featured incredible speakers including former Bangkok governor Apirak Kosayodhin, dive journalist Chris Mitchell, performing artist Ronley Teper, actor James With, and many more. But my favorite topics were those given by Brooke Estin, who spoke about her experience at Kiva and ChangeFusion working on microlending and social innovation; Daniela Ruby Papi, who works with PEPY in Siem Reap, Cambodia, and talked about responsible giving and sustainable community development as opposed to charity; Prae “Fluke” Sunantaraks, who suffers from Retinitis pigmentosa (RP), a progressive vision loss disease, and works with visually impaired children in Bangkok; and Bruce Poon Tip, founder of Gap Adventures, who discussed responsible adventure travel and giving back to local communities. (You can expect a valiant return in 2011!)

To return to my Personal Mission Statement, I strive to constantly seek personal growth through continued learning and new experiences (travel, entrepreneurship, and other assorted weird adventures); to increase my sphere of influence by building quality, lasting relationships, and leveraging creative synergy with like-minded folks; and in the end, I hope to use the business I build and the influence I have to leave a positive impact on the world.

I will continue to promote worthy causes when I come across them; I will continue to use my online presence as a test platform to help friends and those in need; I will continue to involve myself in conferences and fundraising mixers that bring together creative, thinking people; I will continue to collaborate on inspiring campaigns with influential folks; and I will do my best to build and expand a business that helps remarkable people build awesome online projects that change the world. I’m not anywhere near where I want to be yet; but if I can make a difference in the quality of the lives of those around me and instigate innovative thinking about the world’s problems, then I will have succeeded.

You don’t have to wait until you have the money, influence, prestige, or any of that to make a difference. Don’t wait until retirement. Don’t wait until you’re wealthy. Start now.

If you’re reading this, chances are that you were fortunate to be born in the “developed” world. We have our own problems, but most of us are in the top 5%, we’ve received an incredible education, and have been given a lot of advantages in this life. How will you put those things to use? Don’t settle for passive consumerism. Don’t veg out on the couch and ignore the world outside.

What direction are you going? How will you make the most of the life you’ve been given?

P.S.: To be clear, Cambodia can also be a very stunning place, with many friendly, wonderful people. I owe special thanks for the inspiration of this article to Brittany Sims, who reminded me where I’m supposed to be going.

###

Please take my special survey for the Thrilling Heroics Community to help me learn more about what you love, what you want more of, and how I can best help you with what you want to accomplish. As an added incentive the first 100 people who complete the survey (and include your email address) get a free invite code for AwayFind, a useful productivity tool to help you get outside your email inbox, currently in invitation-only beta. Take the survey here!

Feature photo by Allie Caulfield

Success is being able to live and work anywhere you want.

Success is making a difference in other peoples’ lives.

Success is unique for every individual, and you have to define it for yourself.

There is no dollar-amount on your paycheck, no job title, no luxury car or status symbol that objectively demonstrates that you’ve “made it”. Success, above all, requires that you set your own unique, meaningful goals and work hard to achieve them.

Jonny Gibaud from TheLifeThing.com has been working hard over the last month to bring together an awesome lineup of young bloggers from around the world and asked them two simple questions:

What is Success? and How Do You Achieve It?

Jonny asked me to contribute something to the book, along with these cool friends of Thrilling Heroics:

• Greg from Rock Star Lifestyle Design
• Colin from Exile Lifestyle
• Ashley from The Middle Finger Project
• Carlos from Owl Sparks
• Matt from Life Without Pants
• Bud from A Boundless World
• Gordie from Lifestyle Design for You
• Henri from Wakeup Cloud
• Sid from SidSavara.com
• Jun from JunLoayza.com
• Raam from RaamDev.com
• Brenton from BrentonGieser.com
• Diggy from Unleash Reality

And many more.

The SUCCESS ebook brings together 30 great perspectives on what Success really is and most importantly, how you achieve it.

“Written by successful people, for successful people, ‘SUCCESS’ was created to bring together and form a group of incredible global individuals united by a shared passion for Success.”

Dowload the new ebook here for free.

Network with others and win a copy of Source Control

Additionally, you can join the Facebook group or participate in the group’s Twitter contest from Monday, February 1st, through Sunday the 14th for a chance to win a copy of Source Control, which focuses on teaching you to outsource your life to make you more successful.

Interested? Here is how to enter a Twitter submission: Just tweet in fewer than 140 characters what your idea of success is.  Your tweet should look like this: “#SuccessIs:  _______  www.downloadsuccess.info”  (don’t forget the hashtag and the link so Jonny can track anyone who participates)

Enjoy the free ebook, leave your feedback on the Facebook page, and share what your definition of success is in the comments below.

In your own words: What Is Success and How Do You Achieve It?

Photo courtesy of nattu

But unfortunately, the reality is that not everyone is so fortunate. We live in a broken world where children are abandoned or orphaned—even worse forced into sex slavery or child armies—entire communities fall victim to genocide, and all kinds of people are deprived of their basic rights to freedom.

Governments haven’t caught up yet—they pose challenges and restrictions on those of us who choose to travel and live beyond the borders of our home countries, and more importantly, they don’t provide enough protection or allowances for those who are forced to leave their homes either.

My good friend Ryan is a Chinese refugee who’s been living in Bangkok for nearly four years waiting to be relocated by the UN. He’s originally from Xi’an province, where his family faced religious persecution and was forced to flee.

“We were persecuted by the government because our faith in Christianity and my father’s association with Christian organizations outside of China, combined with his involvement with the house-church movement in China. We were constantly harassed, mistreated and interrupted in China. We were forced to move from place to place, living like exiles in the country we’re from. It was unbearable living like that.

The reason we chose to come to Thailand, was because we heard on the Radio Free Asia (an U.S. government founded non-profit radio station) that in Thailand some organizations could provide international protection to people who are persecuted in their own country. We didn’t know they were referring to UNHCR at that time. Another reason was because coming to Thailand from China was financially affordable and the distance was relatively short.”

Over the last year, Ryan has lived with my friend Dwight and spent considerable time with us—nearly every day—working with us, traveling with us, learning from us, as well as teaching us and opening our eyes to another perspective on life.

“A refugee will never have a real life in this country, the only hope for them is to rebuild their lives elsewhere.”

Ryan is 21, and because his family fled China when he was just 17, he was never able to finish high school. He has been working and supporting his parents while they’ve unfortunately stayed cooped up in their apartment fearful of being caught by police.

“Every day, living on the edge of bankruptcy, is how I would describe the general financial condition of a refugee in Bangkok. Because refugees are not allowed to work, it is particularly hard to find a way to sustain yourself in this country. Fortunately, I was able to work as volunteer at the Bangkok Refugee Center because I could speak English. As a refugee we also receive a monthly allowance from UNHCR, but this income only allows a very limited living standard.”

You can read more about Ryan’s background and his experiences in this interview on In Search Of Sanuk. (also part 2)

After long awaiting approval and word that he and his family would be relocated, Ryan will finally be moving to Los Angeles, California, in about three weeks. We have two more weeks with him, business-as-usual, before he and his family have to go spend 7 days in a detention center and pay a hefty fine before Thai immigration authorities will let them leave the country.

Ryan wants to go to college and excel, and I know he can. He’s the brightest young kid I know—he was a top 5% student in his province (tens of thousands of students). Before coming to Thailand, with it’s large expat population, he didn’t know any English. But he taught himself to speak the language fluently within three years. He is working on his GD and SATs. Being restricted from traveling freely, not being allowed to work, and many other challenges take a huge toll on the human spirit after so much time, but so far Ryan has had the tenacity to overcome these disadvantages.

He has a ton of potential, but also will face many challenges. It’s one of my biggest goals to see that he can one day live a normal life like you and me and actually experience the freedom he deserves.

So why am I telling you this? I wanted to see if I can call my community to action to help make someone’s life better—to somehow start to build a support network for when he arrives. The family already has a sponsor who will be receiving them when they arrive; they have housing; they have a small stipend for a short time. But Ryan is already working hard to find employment (he’s worked as a Mandarin/English interpreter in legal cases, document translator, language tutor, fundraiser, coordinator of volunteer programs and events, medical assistant, and more). He wants to find a great school where his parents can learn English quickly and effectively, so that they can also seek employment and start to support themselves. And he would benefit from any networks or groups in Los Angeles—Asian American student groups, networking groups, church groups…

If you have any ideas or feedback, please leave your comments below. And if you or any friends live in the LA area and would be willing to talk with him if he ever has questions, please contact me at cody at thrillingheroics dot com and I would be very happy to introduce you.

Sincere thanks for your help and generosity.

If you travel in certain circles, you definitely know what TED is. If you aren’t familiar with it, TED is a nonprofit foundation best known for its conferences which focus on Technology, Entertainment, and Design, first held in Monterey, California, in 1990. Curated by former publisher Chris Anderson, TED’s popularity soared and it quickly spread to Europe, Asia, and around the world, hosting high-profile speakers including Bill Clinton, Al Gore, Gordon Brown, Bill Gates, John Doerr, Muhammad Yunus, and Google founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page.

TED is all about “ideas worth spreading”—it has a wide interest in science and culture and has opened my eyes about a range of things including black holes, how we’re affected by the sounds around us, unconventional design inspired by nature, how nations can use “soft” power, when China and India will overtake the West, new ways to think about philanthropic aid, and post-crash consumerism. TED believes strongly in the power of ideas to change minds, lives, and ultimately the world. TED Talks offer free knowledge and inspiration from the world’s most inspired thinkers, and the conference gives curious souls a platform to engage with ideas and each other.

Rob Newberry speaking at TEDIndia University

Photo by James Duncan Davidson.

It has always been one of my dreams to attend or speak at a TED conference, which is where TEDx comes in—a new program that enables local communities, schools, businesses, libraries, and other groups to organize, design and host their own independent, TED-licensed events. My colleague Rob Newberry spoke at TEDIndia University in late 2009 and holds the first Bangkok TEDx license, so I was excited to get involved with the TEDx organizing committee to bring this open exchange of ideas to Thailand for the first time!

TEDx BKK will be held on Saturday, February 13th, at Ruamrudee International School in Bangkok. Thailand’s first TED-related conference encourages attendees to bring “Minds Wide Open” and will be a platform for sharing ideas openly. All who attend are guaranteed to go home feeling inspired!

We will feature the former Bangkok governor and advisor to the Thai Prime Minister Apirak Kosayodhin, social innovator Brooke Estin who works with Kiva.org and ChangeFusion, Gap Adventures founder Bruce Poon-Tip, actor James With, Prezi community manager Zoltan Radnai, dive journalist Chris Mitchell, and many more captivating speakers. If you’re interested to hear these profound speakers and interact with others who share your passion for ideas, take a look today:

• Learn more about TEDx BKK
• See our confirmed speaker list for our 2010 event
• Apply to attend the conference
• Follow event developments on Twitter and Facebook

Application deadline is January 31, 2010

That’s only 10 days from now, so get your applications in if you’re in Bangkok and you’re interested to attend this one-of-a-kind event!

I’ll leave you with this video: one of my favorite TED Talks so far: Stefan Sagmeister discusses how a sabbatical can help rejuvenate your creativity.

###

Love Haiti Charity Party

Saturday the 13th will also coincide with the next Bangkok Tweetup which is set for February. Nothing official yet, but word on the street is that the BKKtweetup will be co-hosting a charity mixer with QBar Bangkok to raise money for earthquake victims in Haiti. So, even if you can’t make it to the conference, if you want to rub shoulders afterwards with some speakers, meet others from around Bangkok, and help raise proceeds for Haiti, come find us there from 8–11pm Saturday, February 13th.

You’re already en route to your thrilling lifestyle so why are you still giving the same way? In the footsteps of Jesus, Ghandi, Spiderman and all four Ninja Turtles, here are three steps to make your giving as revolutionary as your lifestyle.

Stop Giving Only When It’s Convenient

The template lifestyle dictates that you should probably begin thinking about what you can give back a few years before you expect to die. How much have you bought into that mentality? Have you repeatedly postponed giving until you have more money, more stability, and more success? My first big project last year was to design a fundraiser for Bangkok’s Refugee Center. I ended up throwing an art show that provided much needed funds for the center and got more people in the city talking about my initiative. However, had I let the unpredictability of my personal life govern the decision to be involved, it would have been scheduled for 2030. To play a role in social change, we can no longer conceptualize giving the same way we think about clipping our toenails or doing our taxes. Break the mold and transform giving from a mundane task to a part of your thrilling lifestyle.

Embrace Risky Giving

As a society we have bought the idea that giving should be feel good and secure. Sometimes it can be, but we are wrong to believe putting others’ well being before our own will be all smiles and rainbows. My hunch is this is because we’re not giving for the right reasons to begin with. I cringe when I hear, “Give and you WILL RECEIVE.” How much of what you give is steeped in what you’re hoping to receive? Are you doing it so more people will buy your product or read your blog? In reality, the people giving the most are hardly recognized or rewarded. Stop and think about your teachers and I know you’ll get my point. Why then do you expect some selfish reward for doing what we know is right? Really want to be an unconventional giver? Try this:

Give when no one is looking. Give and expect nothing. Be risky, be taken for granted and give purely.

Give From the Bottom of your Hurt

Your parents tried it. You tried it. So where did giving from the heart get us? Well, besides forcing smart non profits and NGOs to scramble, rearranging budgets or compromising their services for overpaid marketers who know how to tap into our vanity. To our detriment we’ve created an environment where cause marketers have to dupe us into repeatedly buying a latte laced with ‘feel good’ to do something noble like saving the rain forest. It works, so everyday we fall out of bed and into line for innumerable magic lattes until we’ve purchased such a monstrous caseload of feel good that we honestly believe we can end poverty without ever changing our daily routine. Nothing wrong with a laced latte, right? But, if you’re reading this it’s because you’ve already fallen off the bandwagon. So I challenge all former bandwagon riders to start giving from the bottom of your hurt. You don’t have to be hungry for long to have enough of an idea of what starving might be like. Likewise, you don’t have to travel to countries where every meal is an appetizer just to realize more should be done to relieve the suffering of those less fortunate than us. Pain is universal. Give when it hurts and because it hurts.

Dwight Turner is the crazy changemaker behind grassroots volunteer organization In Search of Sanuk. Thrilling Heroics Consulting is a regular supporter of ISOS and fully sponsored his December teaching initiative in the Bangkok slums. Find out more about his project and begin your unconventional giving by donating today.

Work where you want… Live how you want… Be who you want to be.

Untemplater is the culmination of nearly four months of hard work with some incredibly cool co-founders: Jun Loayza from Viralogy.com; Adam Baker, nomadic family man at Man Vs. Debt; the philosophically-brilliant Carlos Miceli of OwlSparks; published author and consultant Monica O’Brien; and our rad web developer Andrew Norcross. We’ve also got dozens of fabulous writers lined up—young entrepreneurs, lifestyle designers, digital nomads, and more—who will share their personal stories and guidance on how to design your ideal lifestyle and career.

There are many blogs and books meant to teach and inspire you to leave your corporate existence in order to pursue a venture that you’re “passionate” about. Most of these sites mean well and are inspirational, but they’re written by gurus who’ve already “made it” and aren’t in touch with your reality, or they’re written by pure theorists—people who haven’t actually put their lessons to action—they talk the talk but don’t walk the walk.

Untemplater, on the other hand, is composed of real people who are in the trenches, working hard to live the life that we want to live. It’s not easy, nor is it glamorous. You’ll see our pain, struggles, successes, and failures as we create an existence that we are proud of and enjoy 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.

We are MBAs; we are husbands, wives, and fathers; we are scrappy entrepreneurs, authors, and freelancers. We live all over the globe. We’re a small group of unconventional folks who hope to build a thriving community for anyone who ever sought more out of life—and we hope to help you learn how to sidestep the traditional life to find the career, relationships, and lifestyle that makes you come alive!

Grab a Bunch of Awesome Free Shit!

Jump in, read the free download we’ve put together for you that examines the Untemplater lifestyle and shows you six unconventional, remarkable lifestyle case studies.

[Also check out my first feature post at Untemplater to watch my lifestyle design video success story since reading The Four Hour Workweek in 2007]

We’ve also partnered with some incredible folks like Seth Godin, Gary Vaynerchuk, and Chris Brogan to give away tons of great business books, as well as a few $500 seats in Josh Kauffman’s Personal MBA Business Crash Course! Starting tomorrow and for the rest of the week, we will be hosting giveaway contests to win all kinds of stuff, so sign up for our exclusive Untemplater Insider email list and stay tuned to Untemplater.com throughout the week to participate!

Join our rebellion against the status quo at Untemplater and learn how you can Work Where You Want to Work, Live How You Want to Live, and Be Who You Want to Be in 2010.

To all my readers, I wish you a very happy New Year! Last week I shared my Christmas letter to my friends and family and shared a lot of the great things I’ve been fortunate enough to do this year, people I’ve met, and places I’ve seen.

Since this time last year, my visitors, subscribers, and revenue here at Thrilling Heroics have increased fivefold. My photography was published in Frommer’s Bangkok Day By Day guide. I helped my friend raise thousands of dollars for charity and get coverage from CNN. I officially became a regular, paid freelance writer with my staff writer position for SocialMediaMarketing.com. I interviewed social media heavyweight Gary Vaynerchuk. I’ve been involved in planning the TEDx conference coming to Bangkok in February. I traveled throughout Thailand, to Laos, Cambodia, Malaysia, Singapore, and near the Burmese border. I hung out with lots of cool kids that put smiles on my face, I met tons of extraordinary people from around the world.

I even got to spend my Christmas day out sailing with friends in Railay, Krabi (my favorite place) and cooking up a fresh fish dinner!

2009 has been a great year for ThrillingHeroics.com too! The Top Performing Articles in 2009 were as follows:

1. Steal My Blog Design: Announcing the Free ThrillingTheme for WordPress
2. 22 Inspirational Quotes for Living the Rockstar Life
3. 49 Tools for Living the Location Independent Lifestyle
4. Obey the Law Most of the Time (guest post by Colin Wright)
5. How to Turn Your True Fans Into Your Worst Enemies
6. 11 Incredible Positive Thinkers You Should Follow on Twitter
7. Choosing the Life Path Less Taken
8. 10 Travel Ninjas You Should Follow on Twitter
9. 14 Mandatory Manifestos for the Lifestyle Design Journey
10. Reach Your Dreams with Lifestyle Design (video)

[Interesting that half of these results are list posts. I'll definitely come back to the Twitter lists.]

I’ve also become Chief Marketing Officer for an exciting new startup with some truly incredible co-founders—Jun Loayza, Adam Baker, Carlos Miceli, Monica O’Brien and Andrew Norcross. We’re still keeping the project under wraps, but next week we’ll have a remarkable free manifesto for you all about living on your own terms and taking back control of your life in 2010.

I can’t top this 2008 article on how to set meaninful goals and reach your New Year’s resolutions, but on that note here are a few of my goals for the year ahead that I hope to share with you on Thrilling Heroics:

• Successfully build our new startup into a strong community for other twentysomethings that want to create their own “untemplate” lifestyle
• Participate in Josh Kaufman’s 12-week Personal MBA Business Crash Course (we’ll be giving away three free seats in this $500 program with the launch of the new site, so check back on Tuesday)
• Return home to attend the South by Southwest conference in Austin, TX in March, and the Coachella Music & Arts Festival in Indio, CA in April (make a small donation to help me get my SxSw ticket!)
• Increase TH to 50,000 monthly visits, 5000 RSS subscribers, PR 4, and break into the Alexa top 40k sites online with proper market research, SEO, and guest blogging on high-ranking sites
• Re-read Tim Ferriss’ new expanded 4 Hour Workweek and David Walsh’s SourceControl to systematize and automate my businesses as much as possible, and research outsourcing systems to virtual assistants & hiring service providers on Elance
• Spend 1+ months living in at least one of the following: Krabi, Philippines, Bali, Argentina.
• Implement the Bond Body exercise routine
• Increase passive income by releasing my first two ebooks, finding regular advertisers for Thrilling Heroics, getting my exclusive newsletter back up and running, building a portfolio site to showcase my photography, and possibly developing an online nomad school
• Check email only 4x per day at most, continue to eliminate distractions more rigidly, apply 80/20 principle at a regular interval, and increase productivity by applying principles from the 4HWW checklist for example
• Create an updated Dreamline worksheet every 3 months to define & make sure I’m on track to reach my travel & lifestyle goals

What are your goals for 2010? Will this be the year you take back control of your life? What is the one thing you most want to learn to achieve your dreams?

My year abroad has been an incredible experience. Although I miss home and all the people I left behind, I’ve had the time of my life, met fascinating people, been able to do some incredible things, and have grown in many ways. Since I moved to Thailand about 13 months ago, I have largely attained the travel goals I set out for myself and learned the things I’d wanted to learn. I’ve adjusted to the slower pace of life in Thailand, and the more laissez-faire attitude.

Mai Pen Rai

I watch tourists who just landed and can’t relax, can’t get off their Crackberry addiction, and get frustrated when the waitress (who can’t speak any English) gets their special order wrong. As a long-term traveler, you begin to understand the local customs, you learn to go with the flow, laugh at the vast language barrier and frequent mix-ups, take challenges as they come, and basically just enjoy whatever life throws at you. You learn to stop freaking out about misunderstandings, problems, and the unexpected. You learn to have a “jai yen”—a cool heart.

Failures

I failed at quite a few things this year. I attempted (mostly unsuccessfully) to reposition my social web development business to consult mainly with non-profit organizations and social entrepreneurs. I didn’t reach my income goals (not by a long-shot). Quite the opposite, I was very nearly a pauper for a majority of the year! But when you start to make friends, be ready for the right opportunities, and search for alternative ways to do what you want to do, you don’t need a lot of money to live well. Especially in Southeast Asia.

I sold nearly everything I owned last November and have learned to enjoy a minimalist life of simplicity, with few possessions. It’s a portable lifestyle with few distractions that allows me to spend more time concentrating on work, reading, writing, and spending quality time with my friends. I’ve been able to thrive with only about $700–1000 a month in living expenses, transitioned to a cash-only economy, and what money I do earn I typically spend on travel and other experiences, rather than things.

The Unexpected

I’ve had a lot of unexpected growth and unusual experiences. Come to Asia and you’ll see families of five crammed on clumsy motorbikes weaving precariously through traffic, elephants in the streets, quirky red-light districts where students, monks, and prostitutes share the same sidewalk, you’ll eat fried bugs, and much much weirder stuff I’m sure.

I live in the heart of Bangkok, in a building with five of my best friends. I hang out almost daily with a refugee who fled religious persecution in China (but you can call by his name, Ryan!) I pay extra for the fastest “high-speed” DSL in Thailand and spend most of my days at home working on the laptop. I know the minimart owner downstairs, the salon & massage shop owner up the street, and the owner of the wine bar/bistro across the soi. I couldn’t ask for more.

The Fun Part

I’ve dated a few beautiful Thai girls (and picked up a good amount of the language). I’ve dated a few travelers. I got to feel like James Bond. My friend Dwight Turner and I discovered a way to drink beer to benefit charity(!), catalyzed a monthly staple in the Bangkok event scene, and hosted massive parties at posh clubs way out of my league.

I worked with Dwight to develop a strong internet presence for his grassroots Bangkok volunteer organization, and spent a significant amount of time helping raise money, volunteer with kids, and make a difference.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Successes

Thanks to all of you guys, I built a real community of engaged, loyal readers here at Thrilling Heroics, with thousands of RSS subscribers, Twitter followers, Facebook fans, and over 12k+ visitors per month. I rank in the top 60,000 sites on the web, which is quite an accomplishment when you’re competing with thousands of millions.

I’ve experimented quite a bit with my businesses and work. I taught business English to masters’ students at Mahidol University School of Management for five weeks. I currently am involved in organizing the TEDx conference that we’ll be bringing to Bangkok in February, one of my dreams! The last few months, I’ve been working with some awesome awesome partners on an exciting new project/business for the new year (more on that next week).

Some other random stuff I’ve done while traveling this year:

• I climbed over 1,000 steps to reach a temple on a mountain top in Prachuap…



• …where I defended some girls from Coke-addicted attack monkeys.
• I’ve spent an afternoon learning from and sharing a meal with a Buddhist monk.



• I got stranded in the Thai countryside on the way to a friend’s hometown in northeastern Thailand when our car broke down.
• I dragged my parents to Asia and spent 2 weeks living in luxury on the gorgeous beaches of Phuket & Krabi with them.



• I took LOTS of jumping photos!



• I spent my birthday week celebrating at posh rooftop bars that would cost hundreds of dollars back home, and hanging out with gorgeous women!



• I traveled with good friends and saw the Mekong river in Laos, the breathtaking ancient wonder of the world—the Angkor Wat temples in Camobodia—and the Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur—two of the world’s tallest buildings.



• I saw the skulls of tens of thousands of victims of genocide and witnessed school classrooms turned into torture chambers.
• I mastered the Asian squat toilet.



• I saw elephants dancing, and went elephant trekking in the jungle.

Click here to view the embedded video.

• I survived political protests in my neighborhood, with automatic gunfire, gasoline bombs, Molotov cocktails, and tear gas flying around.



• I visited home, roadtripped with some close friends from Northern California to the SoCal desert to go to my favorite three-day outdoor music festival—Coachella—to see Paul McCartney, The Crystal Method, M.I.A., The Killers, The Chemical Brothers, Thievery Corporation, Groove Armada, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, and more play at the Empire Polo Fields (and we won VIP tickets for life!).



• I discovered paradise.



• I adopted a Thai mom who made us lunch on the beach in Krabi every day.
• I shook hands with people who lost their homes, their jobs, their limbs, and their families in the tsunami.
• I volunteered with a large children’s home in the Thai countryside and took all the kids to the beach in Pattaya.



• I dined on sidewalks and in alleyways for a year.



• I got to meet Chris Guillebeau, Nomadic Matt, Chris “Travelhappy” Mitchell, Chris “MyEggNoodles” Osborne, Jonny Gibaud, Mark Eckenrode, Caron Margarete & Brittany Sims in person. I also spent a lot of time with my blogging buddies Migration Mark and Brooke “Business Backpacker” Ferguson.



• I helped raise and deliver thousands of dollars to two orphanages near the Burmese border…and got to spend some cherished time with one boy a week before he lost his life to a struggle with sickness.



• With a diet consisting mostly of incredibly delicious Thai noodle & rice dishes and fresh papaya salad, I lost about 25 pounds without even trying.
• I added Beijing, Hong Kong, Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, Malaysia, Singapore, and Japan (although I didn’t see more than the airport) to my passport.
• I became close friends with many fun, eccentric Canadian, American, English, Swiss, German, Australian, Mexican, Italian, and Swedish expats—backpackers, climbers, divers, English teachers, aid workers, fundraisers, journalists, photographers, club owners, news editors, UN workers, artists, musicians, resort owners, technologists, lawyers, chefs, investment bankers, refugees, business magnates and beach bums.

Do I plan on quitting the untemplate lifestyle and moving home anytime soon? Hell no. I’ll visit California probably in March and/or April, return here to Thailand (as long as they’ll let me stay), and possibly spend some time in Argentina. More on that next week.

“The question isn’t who is going to let me; it’s who is going to stop me.”

—Ayn Rand

Merry Christmas! Please let me know how your year was with a comment below.

I’ll be missing you all, but hope you have great holidays, and hope you come for a visit in 2010!

Cody McKibben
23 December, 2009
Ao Nang, Thailand

Last week my friend (and one of my co-founders on a new company we’re launching in early January), Monica O’Brien, published her first paperback book, Social Pollination: Escape the Hype of Social Media and Join the Companies Winning At It, and I wanted to give a quick shout for her. The book is a thorough guide to social media marketing for small businesses, entrepreneurs, and PR and marketing folks.

Social Pollination is about how small businesses can and should be using social media – starting with creating goals and strategy, to the optimizing the 12 social media success factors on any platform, to measuring social media ROI, all the way to building a social media team when you see that social media is so much more important than advertising for 2010.

In her introduction Monica explains what the concept of social pollination is, and details several common social media mistakes to avoid—not creating a strategy, thinking the tools themselves are everything, gathering followers versus building a network, being too impersonal, being overly controlling of your community, abusing permission, and more.

She goes on to explain the necessity of using social media, how it is changing the way businesses do marketing, and how to properly share your message in a way that consumers trust.

Monica reviews goals and strategy and shows how social media will help you raise brand awareness, demonstrate thought leadership, create a sales pipeline, increase the loyalty of your community, and give you new avenues for customer support, recruiting, and R&D.

She then breaks down the many different kinds of new media, such as blogs, microblogging, social networks, bookmarking sites, and many other kinds of special-interest site and sites for specific types of multimedia. She describes the importance of building a community founded upon relationships, the psychology behind why people will or won’t share your content, ideas for developing your content, keyword research, on- and off-page search engine optimization techniques, and how to measure and analyze your performance.

If you’re new to promoting your business on social media, check out the book on Amazon. And if you’re curious about the process of writing, pricing, and marketing a paperback, Monica has an interesting behind-the-scenes look at her new book on her blog.

###

Additionally, I’ve recently become a staff writer for SocialMediaMarketing.com. You can follow my guest articles there for more about social media marketing strategy if you’re interested. Check out my first few posts at SMM and leave me your feedback:

• Why You Need to Start a Business Blog Now
• The 3 Different Types of Social Media & Why You Need to Use Them
• How Some Airlines Are Failing at Social Media…and Others Are Rockin’
• Social Media is a Blast from the Past