Eight Reasons You Don't Have the Life You Thought You Would When You Were A Kid

What did you imagine life would be like when you were young?

1. You never defined what you really wanted your life to look like. It's hard to hit a target when you don't know where it is. If you feel like your life could be better, I would challenge you to figure out what kinds of things you would like to see in your life. Write them down. Discuss them with someone close to you. Make them specific.
   
   
   Don't do what many people do, however. Most people assume that having a certain amount of money is what they want. As in “If I only had a million dollars, everything would be wonderful.” Yes, a million dollars might make your life better, but what would you do with a million dollars? What would your life look like now that you have a million dollars? Where would you live? What would you do with your time? That's really what you should be striving for – not simply a random dollar amount. In fact, you'll find that if you concentrate on being the kind of person you imagine you would be if you had a million dollars, that you can probably get the kind of life you want without a million dollars. And just maybe, leading the life you love will bring in a million dollars. The point is freedom.
   
   
2. You accepted conventional wisdom. Doing what most people do will get you exactly what most people get. If you are looking for a life of obscurity and mediocrity, then by all means follow the typical advice. That usually involves going to college, getting a “good” job, finding a “good” house, and saving up for retirement in the off chance that you'll still be living and healthy enough to enjoy what you've worked so hard for. I spent some time as an insurance salesman for an agency that only sold to the medicare crowd, which is people who are over the age of 65. Many of these elderly people had followed the conventional wisdom of their time, and found that at the end of their lives they had little more to do than watch TV all day. Most were either too feeble or too poor to do something as simple as go for a walk in the park. The ones who did seem the happiest and most energetic were the ones who ignored, disregarded, or even poked fun at conventional wisdom.
   
   
3. You listened to well-intentioned advice. Most of the times when you explain big dreams to people, they try to bring you back to “reality” by explaining how things “really” work. But if you analyze their advice, you'll find that, first of all, they have given your idea almost zero thought, and, secondly, they say things that make them feel better about themselves. When I told people I was going to quit my job to go work as a volunteer in an organization that required me to pay them to work there, there were quite a few people who said that saving the world is all well and good, but that I should be realistic about earning some money first. They said that supporting yourself is “the way the world works.” At first, it caused me a lot of doubt and worry. But then I realized that they were just trying to justify their own life. By living outside of their accepted ideas, I was actually calling into question all the decisions they had made because of those ideas. Once I realized where they were coming from, it was a lot easier for me to jump into my own adventure without hesitation.
   
   
4. You worried about the wrong things. Instead of risk, you opted for safety. Instead of the long shot, you went for the sure thing. You were worried that if you gave it your all, you might end up just giving it all away. The reality of life, though, is that there is plenty of time for second chances and restarts. If you passionately and intensely give yourself to something for five years and in the end you don't have what you wanted, so what? At the very least you will have gained a world of knowledge and experience that will set you above 98% of the population out there. You will also have truly experienced those five years instead of simply passing time being safe and comfortable. It's been two and a half years since my wife and I gave away everything in our house, most of our clothes, very nearly everything we owned, and moved out of our town home. Most people spend a lot of time worrying about what would happen if they lose their stuff. But do you know what happened to me? It was the most freeing experience in my life. So many possibilities opened up to us simply because we were no longer tied down by our belongings. Life became alive for us. Worrying about “what might happen” is the only way to make sure that nothing happens.
   
   
5. You listened to the experts. Einstein was only 26 when he published his Special Theory of Relativity. Joan of Arc was 19 when she became the commander of the French army. Bill Gates was 20 when he founded Microsoft. They didn't listen to the experts. Roger Bannister was the first runner to run a mile in under four minutes, when everyone else said it wasn't possible for the human body to run that fast. Experts are only experts until someone who can see the impossible proves them wrong.
   
   
6. You thought you needed a pass-key. Many people believe they can only become successful if they have a certain something. What this something is depends on the person. For many people, it's a college degree. Or a master's. Or a doctorate. Or maybe it's meeting a certain person who will provide for them and whisk them away to a dreamland. Possibly it's getting hired at a certain company, or getting that promotion at work. Maybe it's closing that special deal, or buying that perfect house. It may even be that perfectly protected retirement account.
   
   
   Whatever it is, many people suffer under the delusion that they have to wait until they have something to start living the life that they dreamed about when they were a kid. But you don't need to wait! There's no real barrier. You don't have to wait for someone else to give you permission to enter. Figure out what you want your life to look like, and start getting busy doing it.
   
   
7. You never started. Although it seems simple, many people have fallen prey to this very trap. They think they want to be something – like an actor. Lots of people want to be an actor when they're kids, right? But when they get older, they never do anything to make it happen. They don't ever go to an audition. They don't research the industry. They don't improve their skill-sets or try to create opportunities to appear in films. They just sigh, and wish that the world were different, and that the universe had somehow, magically handed them their dream on a silver platter despite all the choices they were actively making which led them away from the very thing they said they wanted.
   
   
8. You found something you wanted more. If this is you, I applaud you. I know I fall into this category. You recognize that the specifics of a dream you had as a child aren't necessarily the true heart of the matter. As a kid, I always said I wanted to be a scientist when I grew up. However, the older I got the more I realized I don't enjoy what scientists actually do. What I really wanted was to do something that took expertise that would cause positive change in the world and in people's lives, and that would be exciting and interesting at the same time. In the cartoons, a scientist can do that. In the real world it's the people who spend time investing into other people that make things like that happen. So now I'm busy pursuing that goal. Everything I do is driven by it – even writing this article.
   
   
   I want everyone I come into contact with to be able to live an extraordinary life. It is possible. You can do amazing things that will change the world. We need you! The world is waiting for your brilliance to dazzle us. Me dream is to see you start that journey.

The Time I Traveled Halfway Around the World Without Enough Money to Get Back

Shanghai - Our Destination

One of the core beliefs I have about living an extraordinary life is that I have to take risks. Playing it safe, always coming in on the side of comfort and security, and being too careful are sure-fire ways to have an unremarkable life. The people who stand out in the world are those who take unimaginable risks and come out on top.

The thing is, you have to be intentional about risk taking. If you don't have a mindset that accepts risk as part of the equation, you'll never even begin to start doing interesting things with your life, let alone exceptional ones. But also be intentional about the reasons for taking the risks. I've seen people do some pretty reckless things that have little or no value besides the adrenaline rush. I'm not talking about risks like that. I'm talking about taking a risk in order to produce something of value in your life.

Like the time I went to Nepal without enough money to get back. I was involved in non-profit work and was taking a team of 6 people from Switzerland to Nepal, on to Hong Kong, then back to Switzerland from Shanghai. The airline tickets were open-jaw, meaning we flew into Kathmandu and flew out of Beijing. Total trip was three months long. It was my responsibility to get the team from Kathmandu to Shanghai during those three months.

Here's the thing. One of the team members was unable to come up with all the money she needed for the trip. We wanted her on the team and were convinced that taking her was the right thing to do. What that meant, practically, though, is that we would have carry her out of the funds of the other team members. We didn't have enough money for the team to purchase the tickets, travel between the two locations, and pay for things like food and housing for the three months in between. If we left, we truly did not know how we would complete the trip with the money we had. All we did have was a conviction that we were doing the right thing and a willingness to ride out the adventure, wherever it took us.

As we left Switzerland, one of the main emotions I was feeling was one of “What the heck have I gotten myself into?” I think this is a normal part of adventure. There is always a moment (or a whole long string of moments) where I start to double-guess myself, wondering if I'm being adventurous or simply crazy. Normal people don't do these kinds of things, I think to myself. Then the irony of that statement hits me: I don't want to be normal, do I?

The first part of our trip went well, or as well as can be expected for these sorts of trips. Stomach problems, bad drinking water, and harrowing bus rides over steep mountain passes were all part of the equation. I was approached to smuggle jewelry back into Europe by a shady store owner. Our bus was stopped by rebels demanding a bribe of the current newspaper before letting us pass. You know, routine travel stuff. I was constantly eying our money supply. Luckily, however, Nepal is a pretty cheap place to be in, especially if you're not always doing the tourist thing.

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Purchasing the tickets to Hong Kong was an experience, though. Five of the team members were American, one was Swiss. The tickets were actually more expensive than we had hoped, which ate into our already tight budget. We purchased the tickets from a local travel agent, who had to hand-write the tickets and submit stubs into the airlines and transit authority to make sure everything was legit. I was nervous about it because I had to hand over our team members' passports and wait for a couple of hours, something which violates one of my cardinal rules of traveling (Handing over the passports, not waiting).

When the appointed time came and I went back to the travel agency, he gave me the tickets and passports back. I looked them over and saw that they had filled out the Swiss team member's nationality as USA. I handed it back to him and said “This isn't right – she's Swiss, not American.”

He looked it over and made a tapping noise with his mouth. He said “Follow me.” We then proceeded to go on a crazy journey through all of Kathmandu hunting down people who's sole function was apparently to tell us to go find someone else back across town. I followed that little travel agent everywhere – at least three hours of going into a house, or a storefront, where the travel agent would converse briefly in Nepalese with whoever was there, and then turn around and go to the next place. Finally, after walking for what felt like all day, we landed in a slightly larger travel agency exactly three blocks from where we started. I could look out the window and see my guide's store where we had started. The travel agent there took the ticket, (I swear I am not making this up) erased the nationality, and wrote in “Suisse” instead. This turned out to be okay, since the customs agent at the airport was more concerned with our “departure tax” receipt than with our tickets.


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The real moment of panic came on the airplane between Kathmandu and Hong Kong. Our budget for Nepal had been about $7 per person per day, which covered all of our housing, meals, and transportation. China was a different story altogether. We hadn't made any contacts in China yet, so we were forced to rely on the Lonely Planet guide book. My heart rate kept increasing as I searched for hotel or hostel rates and found that the absolute dirt-cheapest place to stay was $10 per night. Looking at it now, that seems really inexpensive. But when we were covering all of our expenses for $7 per day, paying 150% of that just for a room was freaking me out.

I calculated we could stay in China, at Hong Kong rates, for exactly 8 days. Then we would have zero dollars left. In fact, it was looking like even paying for train tickets straight to Shanghai and changing the return flight to be six weeks early would take more money than we had.

So, there we were, disembarking from the plane and going through customs with absolutely no idea where we were going to go or how we were going to make it work.

On an off chance, my amazing wife had written down a phone number of a local branch of the organization we were a part of. But those international branches were always a gamble. Sometimes, they were nothing more than an office with a phone that was rarely answered, and if it was answered the probability that they would speak English was pretty low. Not to mention we weren't entirely sure about China's laws and how they felt about NGO's operating in their country and what we could and couldn't do. However, with zero other options we figured we would at least contact them to see if they knew anywhere cheap to stay. It was a long shot, but it was all we had.

Amazingly, after we cleared customs and right before we got to the baggage claim, we found a courtesy phone. An honest to goodness free phone that anyone could use. My wife dialed the number for the branch office, and a friendly American answered right away. My wife told the lady on the other end of the line that we would like to come visit their office sometime.

“Well, where are you now?” the friendly voice inquired.

“Ummm...we're actually at the airport,” my wife replied.

“Really? Did you just get here?”

“Umm, yeah. Just now.”

“Well, do you know where you're going to stay?” she asked, still very enthusiastic.

“Well...Not really.”

“Well, this is great. We just had a bunch of people leave here, and we have plenty of open housing. We would love to have you stay here! In fact, one of our staff members is on the way to the airport now to pick up someone else. He can get you back here right away!”

One amazing lesson I've learned is that when you step out and take risks in order to have an extraordinary life, you end up having all sorts of “coincidences” happen to you. Case in point: Not only did we happen to arrive just as someone happened to be on the way to the airport who happened to have a nice, free place to stay, but one of the people he was originally meeting at the airport just happened to be a girl from my hometown that I had gone to high school with. How do you even begin to explain something like that?

Anyhow, we took the bus back to the branch office. The cost of the bus trip? Nearly $9 per person. Yep, just the bus ride from the airport cost more than an entire day's expenses during the first half of our trip. Needless to say, my heart rate was slightly elevated.

Well, our hosts were extremely gracious to us. They gave us a huge break by not charging us to stay there for a few days, they got us contacts within “mainland” China, and they helped us plan out the rest of our trip in the most cost-effective manner possible. In fact, we were told that the absolute cheapest they knew that anyone had ever gone to China for was a budget of about $12 per person per day. We were able to do it for about $10.

Despite their help, despite cutting every cost we could think of (Do we really have to eat every day?) we were still looking at the end of our finances in approximately 3 weeks. That left 3 weeks with no money.

As a team, you can bet we were praying and wondering how in the world this was all going to work out.

Then, just a day before we were going to head into China proper, one of our team members got some exciting news. (Remember, this is in 2001, before skype, before reliable internet throughout the world, and before international calling was so dirt cheap) His parents, who were unaware of our team's dire financial situation, had randomly had a garage sale where they sold some pretty nice furniture. They felt that the money was supposed to be for something else, so they wanted to give it to us! They got him word that they were depositing the money in his account, except that it wasn't just for him, it was for the entire team!

As it worked out, that was almost the exact amount of money that we needed to complete our trip. We did everything on our schedule, and by the time we finished we even had a little bit to spare.

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What does all this have to do with you? Well, I'm passionate about seeing you live a life that's outside the ordinary. It just can't be done without throwing caution to the wind every now and then. When everything is riding on the line, you find yourself focused on the moment, insanely aware of every detail, truly experiencing life. More than likely, you'll find that things work out even better than you can imagine them working out.

So go ahead. Take a big risk. It doesn't have to be traveling across the world. It might be quitting your job, or applying for a job. It might be starting a business, or talking to that certain someone. It might be anything. No one's challenge will be the same as yours. But if you long for something extraordinary, you have to take the first step.

Extraordinary in Progress

Just like this wall, I am a work in progress...

You know that it's there. You know what I'm talking about – that feeling. That sense that you were meant for something more. Not just that you can be good at what you do – you probably already are – but that sense that there's a destiny of some sort that will come upon you soon. That your life is full of promise. That you are destined for greatness.

If not, you can go ahead and stop reading. If you find yourself content, happy with what you have, and not eager for much more out of life, then most of what I write is probably not for you. This article is for people who know that there is more than what they are experiencing right now. They know that they want it. On some level, they know that it's theirs, they just need to reach out and grab it.

That's what I call the “Extraordinary”: taking hold of the life that is possible instead of settling for the life that's presented. My dream in life is to see people who dare to live extraordinary lives change the world. I can only touch the people around me. The way I figure it, if I can help the people around me step into the Extraordinary, they'll inspire others around them that I probably won't ever meet.

One of my favorite parts of unconventional living is that it's not like I ever arrive. I mean, there's never going to be a day when I wake up and am like “Wow, I've done everything. Literally, everything. There's just nothing left for me to do. Guess I'll go get a job somewhere.” No, there's always something new, something exciting to discover. There will always be a new adventure right around the corner, or some new challenge that will test the limits of my courage and resolve. There is always more.

Which is my hopeful thought for this week. I will never run out of unique, creative, exciting things to do in this life. In fact, I will probably wish I could live longer just to experience more of them. It is possible for my life to be an unending pursuit of the goodness and wonder of all that life has to offer.

Care to join me on this adventure?

Something new is in the winds...

Just posting here to let people know that this blog will be migrating, eventually.  I am setting up a separate website so that I can be more versatile with the layout, what I upload, etc.  More to come in a few days...

A Small Collection of Thoughts on Exceptional Living

The Siduhe Grand Bridge in China - 2,132 feet above the ground.  A reminder that all things are possible.

This is a small collection of things I like to remember that make a lot of difference in the way I live:

I am valuable. Incredibly, infinitely, unimaginably valuable. I'm worth so much that God stopped what he was doing, went to find me, turned the world on its head and paid everything he had – even his life – to buy me back. I'm that valuable.

I have something to offer. The things I think, the things I say, the things I write, the way I am with people – all of these are valuable to other people. Withholding the things I have to offer is acutally a disservice to others.

Trying to eliminate risk is the riskiest thing I can do. To gain much, I must risk must. The less I risk, the less I stand to gain. If I am interested in living a full life, I must be willing to take risks both large and small.

Life is meant to be exceptional. There is no rule out there that says I have to live a certain way, there is no reason I have to follow the crowd and fade into mediocrity. I can live the life I imagine – it is possible.

I always have a choice. No matter how bad things look, or how trapped I feel in my circumstances, I always have a choice about how to live my life. There's no reason I can't do something completely unconventional or unexpected. Circumstances don't dictate my life, I do.  I have the ability to choose each moment.

One person can change the world. Just because someone's been around longer or had more experience than me or seems more confident doesn't mean they know better than me. In all of history, the people who have really made a difference are the people who did so in spite of all the “experts” telling them that they were wrong or that what they were doing was impossible. So I can stick to my beliefs and change the world by living my own exceptional life.

There are always more possibilities than what I can see. Everything, truly everything, is possible. The main thing that holds me back from living the impossible is my inability to believe in it. The more I believe that there is nothing impossible, the more impossible feats I achieve.

There are options right here, right now. I don't have to wait for “someday” to start living an extraordinary life. I don't have to wait until I have a certain amount of money, or meet that certain someone, or get that degree or equipment or book or whatever. There are opportunities right in front of me that can change my life, or other people's lives, forever if I will just have the courage to reach out and take them.

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What about you?  Have any thoughts that keep you living the dream?  I'd love to hear what they are.