1,076,955 rupiahs – and that’s just what I spent on 9 drinks one afternoon at the pool!

About one week ago, my girlfriend Emily and I returned from a relaxing 2-week break on the stunningly beautiful island of Bali.

Being back on the ground in Indonesia reminded me how much I really love traveling to places like Bali, Cambodia, and Laos, with very high exchange rates to the US Dollar. Who doesn’t love to look at the ATM screen and see balances in the several millions?

According to today’s exchange rates, if you trade in 1 US Dollar you’ll get 4,005 Cambodian riel. That means that if you have $250 in the bank, you’re a millionaire in Cambodia.

In Laos, your dollar is worth 8,030 kip, so for every $125 you’ve got a million in local currency.

It’s 9,174 to the dollar if you’re buying Indonesian rupiahs, so it only takes $109 to be a Balinese millionaire.

And amazingly, in Vietnam you’ll get 20,833 dong to the dollar, so if you’ve got $48 pocket change, you’re a millionaire.

Of course economics, exchange rates, and cost-of-living are things that are constantly in flux, changing all the time, but for now Asia is where it’s at. The biggest corporations all flock here to keep their expenses down, and smart individuals are doing the same. There’s nothing immoral about going where the deck is stacked in your favor, seeking work and a thriving lifestyle where you have the best chances. So why shouldn’t you?

I’m not a millionaire in the typical sense of the word—in US Dollars. But in Thailand, I’d say I’ve lived like a king for the past few years, at a fraction of the cost I’d need to lead a similar lifestyle in San Francisco, New York, London, or anywhere in the West.

So many people I talk to think that a permanent travel lifestyle would cost a tremendous amount of money and that it’s out of reach for them—but it doesn’t have to cost an arm and a leg. Learn how Steve Kamb got his round-the-world tickets traveling 35,000 miles, visiting four continents, nine countries and 15 cities for just $418. Or read how Nora Dunn, one of our faculty members at Digital Nomad Academy, has been traveling full-time around the world for less than $14,000 annually for several years.

Money and toys and possessions are all fun and good, but I think in the West we have developed a serious societal disease—in the middle class at least, a majority of people mistakenly accept the fallacy that those things are an end rather than a means to an end.

What you do while you’re on this earth, how much enjoyment you get out of it, who you are, and the impact you make (on the world, on the people around you…whatever scale you want to operate on) matter far, far more than the things you own, and the material shit you collect.

“You’re not your job. You’re not how much money you have in the bank. You’re not the car you drive. You’re not the contents of your wallet. You’re not your fucking khakis.”

–Tyler Durden, Fight Club

They have you chasing all the wrong things, wasting your time working a job so you can pay for shit you don’t need, while they call all the shots.

We’re still a small minority, but I see more and more people “waking up” and realizing there is another way to live. I think the biggest thing I’ve learned living abroad is that you don’t have to play by anybody else’s rules, and you don’t have to do things the same way everybody else around you does them.

I boarded a plane in San Francisco on November 25, 2008, with a one-way ticket to Bangkok and a crazy idea to come out to Asia to bootstrap my web development business while I enjoyed a much lower cost-of-living than back home in California. I’ve now lived in several different locations around Thailand and traveled to at least seven other nearby countries here in the region on a regular basis for over three years. Actually, I’ve been living abroad and traveling for exactly 1,121 days now!

I’ve learned a tremendous amount in those 3+ years. A lot about myself, a lot about business, about the world, about other societies and cultures, I’ve met hundreds (if not thousands) of interesting people along the way…

The biggest benefit I’ve had on my side throughout all this time “offshore” has been my ability to leverage geo-abritrage in my business—working remotely with clients overseas (in the US, Canada, Australia, UK, France, Singapore, South America, and more) where I can bring in strong currencies, while I spend in Asian currencies where my money goes much further, and I get to take advantage of a much lower cost of living in Southeast Asia.

My advice to anybody who wants to live the high life for less is you must come to Asia.

Tim Ferris said in The 4-Hour Workweek, it’s not that we really want to be millionaires, it’s that we want to have experiences we think only millions can buy.

While we were in Bali, we split an amazing 2-bedroom villa with private pool and gardens with our friends Chris and Hannah, definitely a four-star, truly luxurious experience that far surpassed most accommodations I’ve ever stayed in, for only about $150 a night.

Emily and I had a spacious, serene villa and retreat oasis all to ourselves for a few days—an interior designer’s dream, every detail crafted with care, a true sanctuary hidden away from the noisy chaos of real life around us, where we enjoyed the quiet, stunning views of wildlife, rice paddies and forests up in the mountains of Ubud.

We had a brilliant two-story family villa in Seminyak for a week with the parents, spent the afternoons catching up with friends, soaking up the sun in private pools…

We enjoyed cocktails, beers, and sangria at the swim-up pool bar at the Potato Head Beach Club, voted as one of Bali’s top restaurants and bars, and the kind of ultra-posh hotspot that would easily cost several hundreds of dollars (or possibly into the thousands) if you wanted to be a baller in Miami, Los Angeles, or even Ibiza.

We lazed on comfy bean-bag chairs of Bali’s beautiful beaches, taking in breathtaking sunsets that lit up the twilight sky with brilliant reds, yellows, and golds.

Definitely a million-dollar sunset.

I see more and more guys (and gals, and couples) selling all their possessions and choosing to travel and move abroad to experience a different kind of life. More people are “waking up” to the realization that it’s not about how much crap you accumulate or what your net worth is on paper, but life is more about how much varied experience you accumulate, how much fun you have along the way, and how happy you are.

Check out how my buddy Mark and his friends went island hopping in Palawan on their own boat with crew, eating a delicious crab feast on their own private beach, and how he felt like a millionaire, all for just 35 bucks (flight included)!

Dan Andrews, another collaborator of mine at DNA, has built an incredibly successful business here in Asia—he has a huge 4-bedroom house in the heart of Bali’s happening Seminyak area, with their own pool, and maids and gardeners, all for only about $1500 per month, where he brings interns out to live and work with him on the Tropical MBA (which I just think is the coolest fucking thing BTW), living a fantastic lifestyle, hustling and building a great business like nobody else I know, all while they have a great time too!

Back home here in Krabi, Thailand, my girlfriend and I have an immense, modern 3-story, 3-bedroom townhouse on the quiet outskirts of town that overlooks breathtaking limestone mountains and lush green jungles for just $575 per month. And that’s splurging for us, in a big way, so that I have a spacious office where I can be productive and so we can easily host a big happy family during the holidays.

I’d say that the value you get for your money is incredible here in Asia. If I’d been living back home for the last three years, I probably would be going out on the weekends with friends, but living on ramen noodles and sharing a small apartment with roommates to get by.

Instead, we get to have a wonderful, fulfilling lifestyle, live in abundance, travel frequently, spend a tremendous amount of time with friends and family, all while we keep our costs down substantially. That means we get to do a lot more of what we love here than we might somewhere else.

Making a move somewhere like Asia or South America might be a way you can also spend more of your very limited, precious time making memories you’ll cherish, having new experiences, and building something (preferably something of your own—a business, a charity cause, a legacy, what-have-you). You only live once, so don’t waste it.

Read the original article on Thrilling Heroics here: How to (Literally) Be a Millionaire and Live the High Life on the Cheap

Alright, so it’s official!

I’ve purchased tickets halfway around the globe and I will be traveling the U.S. for about five weeks, between March 14th and about April 21st, 2011. I’m very excited about this trip, because it will be my first venture home in two years, and because I’ll have the opportunity to visit several cities and meetup with old colleagues, blogger friends, clients, DNA students, friends and family.

(Read on to see my rough itinerary if you’d like to meet up in person in March or April.)

So here’s the slightly crazy part (every entrepreneur needs to be a little bit insane, right?):

I’ve already invested in airfare, I’m covering travel expenses myself, and no matter what happens, I will be visiting several conferences & events throughout Texas, Arizona, and California for five weeks. But I would love to find a corporate sponsor to help me make the most of my 2011 Whirlwind Thrilling Heroics U.S. Tour and fund some BIG ideas I have for my time there.

If I am going to spend just 5 weeks in North America out of every 2 years, then I want to do some huge, impossible, ridiculous shit while I’m there. I’m confident this can be a massive win-win-win situation for the right company or startup that shares my vision for making a change in the world.

Here’s what I’m about in a nutshell: I am tired of the world some of us grow up in and I want to shatter any notions that people have to settle for “normal” life. I want to truly convince people that they CAN in fact do anything with their lives. They can be anything they want. They don’t have to fit into anyone else’s cookie-cutter expectations, they don’t have to do the same thing everyone else does. I want to help crush people’s fears, and the self-imposed limitations that hold us back. I want to encourage more people to spend a LOT of time to figure out what they’re sincerely interested in and passionate about, to CREATE more, to start up their own small businesses, their own global microbrands and projects to leave their impression on the world, and to have more control over their own time, happiness, and freedom. I want to encourage more people to travel, to live abroad, and to have a wide range of experiences that will make them more informed, compassionate members of the human race.

I believe these things are the future. We won’t make the world a better place ensuring everyone studies calculus in school, by increasing spending year after year on stupid government “solutions” without ever looking at results, or by taxing everyone so we can go murder women and children on the other side of the world, all for control over resources.

No. The future—if our species is to have one for very much longer—requires more creativity (not destruction), more curiosity (not fear), more connectedness. We need to remove as many of the rules as we can—no more white picket boxes—we need to encourage young people to follow their passions, not money. We need billions of people all doing things they love, creating goods and services of real value for each other because they care.

If I sound like a raving lunatic, then you should probably leave now. If these crazy ideas sound like they align with your beliefs, if your company could benefit from working on some interesting projects along these lines, and connecting with a network of remarkable people who believe similarly—people who are actively working to make the world a better place—then read on.

There is a lot of crap out there. But I know for a fact there are thousands (maybe millions) of passionate entrepreneurs out there, creatives, and small organizations that truly seek to make a transformational change in people’s lives and change the world for the better. If what I have to say here on Thrilling Heroics resonates with you, with your worldview, with your company’s mission, then I truly believe there is an opportunity for collaboration that would both make sense commercially and make a difference—it would increase your visibility, get you connected with changemakers, and create a lot of excitement.

Who the Hell Am I to Sell Out Like This?

I’ve spent the last three months pouring myself into building Digital Nomad Academy with my two cofounders Brooke and Milt. In that time, I’ve not taken on any new paying clients for my development and marketing consulting business, no big new projects, other than DNA, which is a personal passion project to help more people create meaningful online businesses (that will also help them travel and live wherever they want). We had a hugely successful prelaunch, and now we’ve got roughly 60 students all going through our course for the first time and helping us ensure that everything is top-notch, and being patient with us as we sort out all the technical aspects and get things running smoothly.

We’re reinvesting a large portion of our revenue back into the business, into the infrastructure, into software to create the best membership site and deliver content in the best way possible, into marketing plans and tools for our official launch the next time around…  And I’m investing the bulk of my time now with our students, ensuring we get the best teachers involved each week to speak with them, answering questions on weekly live phone calls, combing through our peer forums, listening to a lot of feedback, making improvements to the site, and generally trying to ensure Digital Nomad Academy reaches its full potential and that our students are successful in making the life change they desire.

So naturally I was living on savings as we got DNA ready for consumption, draining most of the TH coffers for now…  And I’m investing several thousand dollars now in airfare, travel and living expenses, to get halfway around the world for five weeks and be at several big events.

Like I said, no matter what happens, I will be visiting several conferences & events throughout Texas, Arizona, and California in March and April, but with your support I hope to make this time absolutely remarkable, to plan several gatherings and at least one big retreat, and to connect with as many people as I can and make the biggest impact with my time as humanly possible.

With that said, I am certain if people are interested, I’ll have interest from some organizations that aren’t the best fit for Thrilling Heroics. I will carefully review anyone who applies, speak at great length with the best applicants to ensure that our vision aligns, brainstorm exactly how we could collaborate together on a case-by-case basis, and guarantee that we can create a win-win-win situation together. This is not an invitation to just any company; I only want to partner with someone if it’s a genuine fit.

The 2011 Whirlwind Thrilling Heroics U.S. Tour Schedule

Alright, so here’s my tentative itinerary for my five or six weeks back in the States so far:

• South by Southwest Interactive, March 14–18. I’ll be hanging out in Austin, Texas, for the tail-end of SxSWi and the beginning of the film & music festival. I’m already confirmed to hang out with Benny Lewis from Fluent In 3 Months (who’s generously hosting several bloggers for the week), Karol Gadja from Ridiculously Extraordinary, catching up with my old cofounders Adam Baker from Man Vs Debt, stellar web developer Andrew Norcross, and author Monica O’Brien, as well as Gary Arndt, Sean Ogle, Markus Urban (Mr. Impossible himself!), Chris & Cherie at Technomadia, Charlie Hoehn, Tyler Tervooren, and several others.
• Phoenix, Arizona, March 18–23. I’ll be visiting my little sister and spending time with family for my birthday on March 20th (btw if you want to help me make my biggest birthday wishes come true, please contribute), but would love to meet with entrepreneurs and blog readers in the area. I’ll also be in Sedona, AZ, on the 21st.
• Sacramento, California, March 24–? This is home for me. I’ll spend a few weeks here catching up with friends and working overtime on Digital Nomad Academy, interviews, and other projects for Thrilling Heroics (gotta make use of the blazing fast internet at home while I can!). But if you’re in the area, feel free to let me know.
• San Francisco, California, April ?? At some point, I will be heading to SF to catch up with my old friend Jun Loayza, gen-y serial entrepreneur, visit several friends, and hopefully several other bloggers and readers. Time for a Tweetup!
• Los Angeles, California, April ?? When I head south, I will definitely pop in to check up on my good friend Ryan Lei (recently relocated to the U.S. by the UN Refugee Agency), Clay Boeschen, possibly the Tropical MBA guys, and others. Tweetup time again!
• Coachella Music and Arts Festival, Indio, CA, April 15–17. This is a tradition with a few close friends of mine. I’ve already got my VIP tickets and would love to catch up with any readers who will be there. This is a great festival to see artists from across the region and meet many creative types who flock to Southern California for great music in the middle of the beautiful Coachella Valley desert, surrounded by palm trees, mountains, and gorgeous sunsets.

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Are you going to be in any of these locations?? I would love to meet you! Let me know in the comments below, on Twitter, or on Facebook.

Be a Thrilling Hero and Help Me Make My Impossible Dreams a Reality

I’m doing this either way, to the best of my ability. But with your help, I could network with the A-listers, organize several events in three states, and hopefully run a large retreat that will transform people’s lives. For the right sponsor, this could be a ridiculously cost-effective way to reach thousands of people.

Major Opportunities:

#1: As described on their website: “The South by Southwest® (SXSW®) Conferences & Festivals offer the unique convergence of original music, independent films, and emerging technologies. Fostering creative and professional growth alike, SXSW is the premier destination for discovery.”  I don’t have a badge to attend the official SxSW events, but being in Austin while nearly 30,000 people converge for the event still offers plenty of opportunities to meet & greet. For now I’m just crashing the unofficial events, meeting up with tons of people for coffee & after parties, and hopefully organizing my own meetup or two, but if I partner with a sponsor who can help cover the conference costs, that might change, and I’d have the opportunity to attend several keynotes, events, workshops, and private parties, and multiply my impact while I’m there.

#2: If I get full funding, it’s my impossible dream to host an entrepreneurship, personal development, and lifestyle design summit—a sort of unconference & retreat with inspiring, like-minded people who want to create radical change in their lives and build meaningful businesses. Host a group of 15-20 for a series of talks, workshops, trainings, and networking in a beautiful venue for 3-4 days—a place where a group of motivated, creative people can hang out with other like-minded folks to encourage and support each other, probably either in LA or San Francisco in mid-April. Originally I had wanted to plan this in conjunction with Coachella—spend the week sharing inspiration & knowledge, and collaborating together on business ideas, and then spend a fun weekend together at the festival, but my early proposal didn’t get accepted for funding. You can see it here for more details. If not this year, then definitely we will make it happen in April 2012. Do you want to be a part of this??

Thrilling Heroics has over 5,000 subscribed readers, approximately 11,000 members in our larger social media community (on networks like Twitter & Facebook, etc.) and about 15,000 unique visitors per month. This is a relatively small, but very loyal and engaged audience of passionate, motivated, creative, entrepreneurial people who are curious about the world, travel, and building things that make a difference. According to Twitter, when I share about one of my colleague’s product, or a hotel I recommend, or a trip a take, my messages reach at least 50,000 people in my expanded network!

With other communities I have helped build (Digital Nomad Academy, Untemplater, Business Backpacker, In Search Of Sanuk, see here for many of my clients and companies I’ve built online platforms for), it’s nearly impossible to measure the reach of Thrilling Heroics online, however of all websites online, TH currently ranks #56,426 for traffic in the U.S., and is within the top 65K most-visited sites worldwide.

And imagine how those numbers will go up after I rub shoulders with the big wigs at South by Southwest and across the U.S. this year!

So how much would it cost to help make my 5-week U.S. tour Thrillingly Heroic and expose your company to thousands of motivated world-changers?

I am looking for 1-3 unique, remarkable companies to sponsor me with about $5,000–$6,000 US. This will help me cover all transportation and accommodation, conference fees, and startup costs for my big in-person retreat. If you think you would be a good fit, please send me an by email at cody at thrillingheroics.com and we can discuss further possibilities and how to make this a huge success for all of us.

6 Things You Get If Your Company Sponsors My Trip

1. A major sponsor that aligns with my philosophy and my audience’s interests will get prominent adverts across ThrillingHeroics.com site for all of 2011 (probably the only adverts you’ll see on TH anymore).
2. Major thanks and exposure in multiple blog posts, emails to my growing list, and social media updates throughout the year (Twitter, Facebook, etc.). Building communities is what I do. If you have something that I believe in and trust, then let’s talk about how I can help you present your service, product, or message to my community and create a win-win-win.
3. Here are just a few people I hope to interview in the next few months: Derek Sivers, founder of CD Baby, Brian Johnson of Philosopher’s Notes, and Vishen Lakhiani, founder of MindValley. Want your name or logo attached with interviews like these? Get recognition on any video interviews or podcasts I make for Thrilling Heroics this year.
4. Recognition and thank-you, as well as your banner or slide prominently displayed  at any events I coordinate this year, like my dream retreat. Help me orchestrate a killer major event and come participate in-person and present your business directly to attendees if you want!
5. Get access to my network of friends and colleagues on five continents. If there is a possible partnership or collaboration that benefits you both, I am happy to connect you to entrepreneurs in Asia, awesome developers in the US, assistants in the Philippines, affluent world travelers, sailing enthusiasts, underwater basket weaving experts, whatever!
6. Again, if it’s a fit, potentially promote your product, service, or message to customers of my other companies & projects elsewhere.

Make a Donation to Help Me Reach My Dangerously Ambitious Goals

As I said above, my birthday is on March 20th, and if you want to help me make my biggest birthday wishes come true this year, please do it by contributing to my 5-week 2011 Whirlwind Thrilling Heroics U.S. Tour! Individuals can make a small contribution through PayPal if you want to support my trip. Here’s the deal:

• If enough money is donated ($5,000+) and no company sponsors me, I’ll go to SXSW and write about it here to share what I learn with you, and I’ll do as many interviews as I can to help expose you guys to the coolest, most remarkable entrepreneurs out there, ad-free! Also we’ll have seed money to set up my personal development retreat for this and/or next April in Southern California.
• If a sponsor fully funds my target amount, I’ll donate all reader contributions to The Girl Effect and In Search Of Sanuk (my friend Dwight’s charity project in Bangkok).

Please click the donation button at the bottom of this page and make a $25 donation (that’s my suggested amount, but please feel free to make any contribution you feel comfortable with), or you can become a recurring micropatron if you love what I share here on Thrilling Heroics.

Help Me Spread the Word About My Impossible Dreams for 2011

Please help me seek sponsors and spread the news about my impossible goals by sharing this story on Twitter, Facebook and anywhere else you can. If you know anyone who works at a company you think would align well with my mission here at TH, or in an ad or PR company, please email them the link and tell them my story. If we make this happen, hopefully you can count on meeting me inside South by Southwest and there will be a HellaCoachella retreat in April!
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6 Damn Good Reasons to Help:

1. You love what I write here at TH and want to give back for the time & energy I’ve invested here for the last 5 years.
2. I’ve helped motivate or inspire you to make a major change in your life.
3. You’d like to meet me in person at South by Southwest Interactive.
4. You like to support a hard-working entrepreneur trying to make a little dent in the world in a very unconventional way.
5. Help me grow the Thrilling Heroics community so I can make a bigger impact to help you live the life you want.
6. You want to help me make my idea for a fun entrepreneurship, personal development, and lifestyle design summit a reality.

If you’d like to help me make the most of my 5-week trip Stateside, I will be truly appreciative for any generous contribution you can make. Just click here to make a donation. And if you will be in Austin, Phoenix, Sacramento, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Palm Springs, or Indio in March and April, let me know so we can try to meet up in person!

Thank you for your support!

Read the original article on Thrilling Heroics here: The 5-Week Thrilling Heroics U.S. Tour: Help Me Make the Most of It!

a panorama view from the balcony of our new bungalow

Sometimes what you need to overcome a challenge is a state change. Tony Robbins talks about this when he discusses negative moods.

Change your external state, and you change your internal state.

If you’re feeling down, sad, or a bit upset, one of the simplest applications of this is to take a big deep breath, look up at the sky, and fake a big, goofy grin. Tony says that activating those muscles—and that part of your brain—is likely to manifest the real feelings of happiness and improved mood.

This state change is powerful, and it could be just the boost you need to shake a negative mood, or procrastination for example.

But sometimes you need something bigger and more lasting than a smile. To overcome a big hurdle, change a persistent negative behavior, or make some other kind of big leap in your personal development, maybe you need to change more than yourself… maybe you need to change your surroundings?

Sometimes it’s the people you surround yourself with (some say you become the average of the 5 people you hang out with the most), but very frequently it’s your environment.

If you’re in a slump, stuck in a rut, unproductive, unmotivated, or in a destructive cycle, you need to change your state somehow—that’s for sure.

Ask yourself: is your workspace uninspiring? Is your neighborhood dingy or depressing? Do you crave a change of scenery?

How I Gave Up City Life for Island Paradise

I’d been based in Bangkok for the last year and a half—and it’s an incredible city. The people I met there are what kept me wanting to stay—incredible, entrepreneurial, interesting folks from all corners of the globe. It was the first truly big city that I’d lived in for any good amount of time—the nightlife, the food, and the sights, are stimulating—there is something for everyone, and always new experiences to try.

But after that amount of time, I wasn’t excited by my surroundings anymore. I was distracted by the noises of the city, 24 hours a day. I found my simple studio apartment dull and solitary, and I realized that staring at the freeway out my window for a year and a half wasn’t an inspiring environment to turn out my best work. I wanted to get away from the heavy traffic, the trash in the streets, the pollution in the air…

I felt this way and didn’t realize it for a long time, and in retrospect, it sapped my productivity, decreased the quality of the work I’d been putting out over the last six months, and probably put me in a foul mood all to frequently.

All this, and throw in the bloody protests outside our doorstep, and finally my girlfriend and I decided it was time to change our scenery. Nikki had found an incredible bungalow in Koh Phangan, an island in the south of Thailand, on the hillside overlooking the beach and the ocean. After almost 21 months in Thailand, I’m finally living on the beach like I’d daydreamed of before I moved abroad!

Watch the video below for a walkthrough of our new home in this beautiful beach paradise. I’ve been a bit quiet the last couple weeks while we’ve been settling into our new home.

Beach Living in Koh Phangan, Thailand

It is an incredible find—we live on the island famous for the Full Moon Party (but on the quiet side of the island on a resort beach) and all of this for only about $480 per month! And even that’s split two ways between us!

Since moving here, we’ve been working diligently (and productively!) on her magazine and other work projects together. And I’ve even kicked my worst habit: it’s only a start, but I haven’t touched a cigarette in three weeks! Whereas the dirty, crowded, hustling streets of Bangkok made me want to smoke, here I’ve been able to let go of a lot of city stresses and live more healthily. (More on my goal to quit smoking in future months, but wish me the best for now!)

If you dream of living somewhere incredible like this—it is easily within your grasp. There are hundreds of thousands of little gems like this just waiting to be found all throughout Asia, South America, and even nestled where you least expect them in your home country.

If you do need a good kick in the ass, something to light a fire under your butt to start thinking outside the box, get out of the office, and get out of your hometown, then stay tuned for our videos here at Thrilling Heroics, and check out the new Backpacker Video Diaries videos Nikki and I are producing together. Four gals from my hometown (Sacramento, California) go traveling throughout Southeast Asia (and eventually South America) for over a year—having a hilarious, adventurous time.

Even if you only relocate for a short sabbatical or a mini-retirement, what’s holding you back from experimenting with traveling and living abroad?

In any case, remember the importance of changing your state when you’re struggling, and if you’re not happy with your life, take a critical look at your surroundings and ask yourself whether you need a change of scenery.

Maybe you just need to get out of the city. Or maybe you need to get out on the road less traveled for a while.

You don’t necessarily have to travel—especially not across the globe like I have. But one thing’s true: travel will push you to reexamine your preconceived ideas about the world—the very first step in freeing you to make the changes necessary to achieve the life that you desire.

At the very least be real with yourself. Are you boxing yourself in somewhere that doesn’t make you happy? Are you convincing yourself to stay in one place when you really don’t have to?

Read the original article on Thrilling Heroics here: Change your Life with a Change of Scenery

For a majority of us, it has never been easier to grab the reins and create the life you want. It’s easy to say when you have a dream, all that stands between you and achieving it is yourself—and that’s why I write this blog: for anyone born in the West, into a middle-class family, with decent education, if you can dream it, you can make it real with enough hard work.

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.

Read the original article on Thrilling Heroics here: Coming to America: Help Change Someone’s Life

A lot of my blog readers are friends, family and professional colleagues. But even if we don’t know each other personally yet, I consider each and every one of my readers a valuable part of my community. The more active participants there are in the discussions here, the more valuable Thrilling Heroics becomes for everyone!

I started Thrilling Heroics in 2006 to encourage young professionals and entrepreneurs to pursue an unorthodox, exciting lifestyle and career, strive for excellence, and make a positive difference in the world! If you’re a regular subscriber, I thank you for continuing to visit and support this community. No one can succeed without the friendly cooperation of others, and you have each helped make Thrilling Heroics a success! And whether you’re a regular reader or a new visitor here, I also wanted to share 23 things to help you get to know me a little bit better:

• I’m from California’s capital, Sacramento. But I’ve spent over a year living abroad in Southeast Asia. My homebase is in Bangkok, Thailand, and I occasionally travel around the region to places like Krabi, Cambodia, Laos, Malaysia, Singapore, etc.
• Professionally, I’m a web developer and internet marketing consultant: I help lifestyle designers and social entrepreneurs develop online businesses and web presence, and help teach them to leverage social media networks to build authority and expand their business globally.
• I have been self-employed since 2007, and working remotely as a digital nomad since November 2008. In my travel experience, I’ve been fortunate enough to visit about 20 countries (all of North America, across Europe & the Mediterranean, and now Asia).
• I recently co-founded an awesome lifestyle design community for college students and young professionals who want to learn to build their own businesses, live anywhere, and take their lives into their own hands.
• I used to speak French fairly fluently thanks to my high school language professor who got me passionate about travel and cultures. I am also learning to speak Thai, ever so slowly.
• Music is my biggest passion, and I love love LOVE electronica: house, techno, downtempo, chillout, everything. Some of my favorites are Thievery Corporation, The Crystal Method, Chemical Brothers, Kraftwerk, and Zero 7.
• Two of my very closest friends passed away by age 22: Chris Cravens and Kareem Khan will always be missed. Take life by the horns, because you never know when you might suddenly lose it.
• As a fan of Tony Robbins, Tom Peters, Napoleon Hill, and Dale Carnegie, I naturally was a member of Toastmasters International back in the States, and founded a mastermind group for ambitious college students.
• In 2006, I got to meet multi-billionaire Warren Buffett. Probably the world’s greatest money manager ever, and one of my biggest role models.
  
• I am a serious Apple fanboy and not ashamed of it: I own a dual core Apple iMac desktop machine, a 13-inch aluminum body MacBook (my ideal travel laptop), an iPhone 3G and an iPod nano!
• I code websites by hand in XHTML, CSS, PHP, JavaScript, and jQuery. I’m a huge WordPress evangelist for its ease-of-use and built-in SEO benefits.
• Being a codemonkey and a night owl, I keep a work/sleep schedule that most people would find strange. I frequently work until 5 or 6am and get up between 11am-noon. Don’t call me lazy please, it’s just how I am.
• I despise rainy, cloudy weather. It makes me depressed. I would much rather be soaking up the sun on a beach somewhere (which is a big part of why I came to Thailand!)
• Unlike most dudes my age, I can’t stand watching televised sports. None of ‘em. I like sports bars and pubs, but could care less about the Superbowl game on the bigscreen. I’d rather be reading business news and blog RSS feeds or watching TED Talks.
• I’m a regular attendee at the Coachella Valley Music & Arts Festival. Three days of incredible bands and DJs in the southern California desert! I’ve seen Paul McCartney, Portishead’s reunion, Roger Waters (Dark Side of the Moon in the desert!), Kraftwerk, Rage Against the Machine’s reunion, the Red Hot Chili Peppers, M.I.A., Thievery Corporation, The Crystal Method, Tiesto, Fatboy Slim, Justice, Bjork, The Killers, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, and many other incredible shows in Indio, California!
• I’m a huge photography enthusiast, and sell some of my travel and landscape photos I’ve done over the years. I actually studied photography and computer graphics for three years in high school, then worked in a dark room and as a glamour shots photographer!
• In college, I studied a lot of literature, religions, anthropology, philosophy and arts. I graduated with a Bachelor’s degree in Humanities & Religious Studies, and a minor in History.
• I have three phone numbers and just one phone (thanks to international call forwarding and Skype). It’s my least favorite communication form though. I love interacting with people and talking with new people in person, but for some reason I have a strong aversion to being on the phone.
• Two things I miss from home: driving, and my golden retriever! I used to have a thing for customized street cars and fast driving.
  
• I have a strong fear of heights, but I’ve also gone skydiving out of a plane at 13,000 feet. It was one of the most incredible experiences I’ve ever had!
• When I started writing Thrilling Heroics in 2006 I had a strong desire to attend Stanford University for grad school, and I still would like to one day, perhaps after I’ve been successful in business and made a name for myself. I’m drawn to Silicon Valley for its innovative, entrepreneurial atmosphere, and I love following the research and trends that come from Stanford’s professors.
• Since I started blogging, I’ve become friends and interacted with some of the coolest people online: Rajesh Setty, Ramit Sethi, Jun Loayza, Adam Baker, Jonathan Mead, Chris Guillebeau, Kare Anderson, Pamela Slim, Monica O’Brien, Ben Yoskovitz, Penelope Trunk, Clay Collins, Guy Kawasaki, Andrew Warner, Gary Vaynerchuk, Chris Brogan, and many, many more.
• I have an unhealthy addiction to information! But on the bright side I love continually learning, about everything, including online business & startup advice, social entrepreneurship, social media trends, content marketing, travel, outsourcing, productivity, personal finance, personal development & personal growth, “pickup” & social dynamics, reason & philosophy, and much more.

If we don’t know each other personally yet, please feel welcome to introduce yourself. I am always happy to bring readers into my extended network! There are many ways to connect with me online:

You can connect with me on Facebook—please share a short message, and tell me something about yourself. What do you do professionally? Where do you blog? What projects are you working on? How did you find Thrilling Heroics?

Follow me on Twitter—this is probably the best place to engage with me in discussion. Aside from email, sending me an @reply is the quickest way to get my attention and I try to spend a decent amount of time here involved in discussions and answering people’s questions.

Ways You Can Help the Thrilling Heroics Community Grow and Thrive

In our interdependent society, it’s impossible to achieve great success without the help of others. The best way to get friendly cooperation is to give it. When you make it a habit to encourage others and to help them better themselves, most will reciprocate when you need their help. This is especially true in our online social communities. Thrilling Heroics is a part of a larger network where I try to help others as much as possible and receive a ton of support from my peers in exchange.

Help me give generously to the Thrilling Heroics community, and you will benefit in kind. You can help me by leaving your feedback and encouragement in the comments (encouragement is what keeps me going!), correcting my errors and adding in the areas where I’m weak, answering questions and offering support to other commenters and community members, and so on. Get involved and help the Thrilling Heroics empire thrive by subscribing to the RSS feed, joining my exclusive newsletter (and get a free telecall recording!), and sharing with your friends:

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Thank you again for continuing to visit and support this site.

Read the original article on Thrilling Heroics here: 23 Interesting Things You May Not Know About Cody

The financial sector is failing. The dollar is already a lame duck in currency markets, and the Fed just printed up another trillion dollars (God knows where that will come from!) so Wall Street can pay their C-level executives. The presidential campaign is like a bad joke, and the absence of laughter in the crowd is deafening. And then there’s this woman.

I’m mad as hell and I’m not gonna take it anymore!

Howard Beale’s “mad as hell” speech in the film Network is a famous one. If you haven’t seen it, I highly recommend this movie. Many of the themes in director Sydney Lumet’s 1976 film, about a fictional news network struggling with ratings, are surprisingly relevant today:

That was written over 32 years ago, and we’re still worrying about the banks, inflation, the Russians, and the oil crisis. What the hell has the government done for us in 32 years! What have they accomplished?!

As the economic crisis unfolds and especially as this presidential campaign plays out, I’ve struggled with a lot of disappointment in some of the people of this great country, and although I try not to be too political on this blog, it’s well past time for me to school some of you. As November approaches, I actually have plans to move abroad for a year, and in this post I’ll share some thoughts on why I’m eager to hightail it out of the U.S. for a while at this moment in history. I won’t even dance around the issue: this post is certain to be divisive and get some of your panties in a bunch, and I promise to offend! If you can stand it, please stick with me through the end of the post, where I’ll try to share some solutions to the questions I raise in this article.

First, This Bailout Business

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke and Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson have been hard at work spending your tax dollars for the last several months. Not only my tax dollars and your tax dollars, but they’ve been spending future generations’ tax dollars, and spending Monopoly money we don’t even have! First it was AIG, then Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, now most recently a nearly $807 billion package to bail out nine of the largest banks in the country—including Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, Wells Fargo, JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley, State Street, and Bank of New York Mellon Corp.

Wall Street has been making poor decisions for a while now, foremost with the subprime mortgage mess, and now it should be paying the consequences. But a free market doesn’t exist in this country and never truly has. If the market were allowed to function freely, the banks would suffer and in some cases even go bankrupt through the forces of free competition. (If you or I were going bankrupt, or your friendly neighborhood small business, you wouldn’t see Congress running around trying to help bail us out.)

Instead, the deregulatory, so-called “free-market conservatives” have turned us all into socialists to keep the banks afloat. And somehow they want to do all of this while at the same time lowering your taxes! Erica Douglass wrote a great summary of the banks’ poor moves in the long history leading up to this credit crisis. She quotes Henry Hazlitt on the economics of a bailout: ‘“The taxpayers must lose precisely as much as the people in X industry gained.” $700 billion is a little over $2000 for every taxpayer in the United States. That $2000 must come out of your pocket at some point. That is $2000 less than you had before, to spend, save, or invest.’ Meanwhile the Fed also flooded the market with another $620 billion in U.S. dollars worldwide, on top of the Congress-approved bailout package. So seriously, where does all this funny-money come from?! As Larry Edelson said: “The biggest cost is going to be the sheer destruction of the purchasing power of your money, an outright devaluation of the dollar that’s going to occur, no matter what.”

Boston Gal says it will discourage consumer saving, pointing out that the government is forcing individual workers pay for their retirement twice, “first by saving what [they] can in the individual accounts, then again as a tax payer by bailing out these companies. A horrible deal for the individual worker.”

Now let’s look at what we’re actually making this sacrifice for. At first it was a $700 billion plan, but to pass the House of Representatives, the legislation grew from three pages to 452, and over $100 billion in special interest earmarks were added to the bill:

• $109 million for Nascar race track builders.
• $200,000 a year for the manufacturers of wooden arrows for children.
• $192 million for rum producers in Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands.
• $19 billion over two years for companies who do research.
• $478 million for film and television producers over 10 years.
• $62 billion for 24 million households excluded from the alternative minimum tax this year.
• $17 billion for alternative energy producers.
• $8 billion for Americans affected by hurricanes and floods.

All of this was enough to make hedge fund manager Andrew Lahde leave the business, with his own finger-wagging resignation letter: “[L]egislation was repeatedly brought forth to Congress over the past eight years, which would have reigned in the predatory lending practices of now mostly defunct institutions. These institutions regularly filled the coffers of both parties in return for voting down all of this legislation designed to protect the common citizen. This is an outrage, yet no one seems to know or care about it. […] Capitalism worked for two hundred years, but times change, and systems become corrupt.”

Lies, Rhetoric, and Incompetence

Now who was there to lead the charge, heroically suspending his campaign and seeking to postpone presidential debates to go back to Washington and “save the nation” from economic crisis? Senator John McCain, just two weeks after being quoted as saying that he didn’t think U.S. taxpayers should be on the hook for bailing out AIG or anyone else!

The McCain campaign publicized on the Wall Street Journal online that he had won the first debate before it even took place (let alone before he had even clarified whether or not he would be there). Then McCain himself prematurely claimed responsibility for the bailout plan’s success, saying he had helped “bring everyone to the table” and agree on legislation, when it later turned out he couldn’t even secure the votes of his own Republican colleagues. McCain is quick to take credit, but his empty words mean nothing.

Then again, when you’re on TV, if you say something often enough and loud enough, people will believe it. McCain positions himself as a “maverick” who wants to end our oil addiction and clean up Wall Street. He loves to say what people want to hear, and he will pander to any audience you put him in front of (watch John Cafferty give a good summary of his flip-flops on oil taxes, offshore drilling, the Bush tax cuts, Guantanamo Bay, and torture).

Then there’s the Palin pick. It was as if John McCain turned this entire presidential race into a joke, at all of our expense, when he chose an inexperienced crony cheerleader from a backwater Alaskan town to be his VP. Time columnist Joe Klein summed up what a lot of people have been thinking—conservative and liberal alike—when he said “It was a gimmick. It was one of the most disastrous decisions I have seen in a presidential campaign since I’ve begun covering them.”

Palin sounds like a teenager who didn’t study the night before the big essay test, stringing together extraneous topics and peppering her answers with buzzwords, pretending as best she can like she read last night’s assignment. But there’s no substance. In her interviews with Charlie Gibson, Katie Couric, and even with Sean Hannity, as well as her performance at the Vice Presidential debate, it is clear that the woman is not fit for the job. She doesn’t know what the Bush Doctrine is! She claims Alaska’s proximity to Russia gives her foreign relations experience. She thinks the bailout plan is about healthcare and job creation. She can’t name a single news source she reads regularly. She had never been outside of the country before 2007! (Here are a few more interview clips that should confuse and/or frighten the hell out of you.) The campaign claims that her “executive experience” as a mayor and a governor qualify her for the second highest seat in the government—though Wasilla is a town of only 6,000, and the Alaskan constituency is only about 680,000 [source]. That’s smaller than population of the city I’ve grown up in, just one moderately-sized city in California.

Michael J. Cecchin is calling November 4th a national IQ test, citing that the folks in charge of running our federal government should be the cream of the crop:

“[W]ith the introduction of  hick-ish religious zealot and uninformed hockey mom Sarah Palin as the VP candidate, the rules have changed.  The prospect of having a future Vice-President with so many  fundamental cognitive loop holes and personality defects sends a terrifying shudder through most thinking Americans. It leads us to believe that if selecting Palin is the McCain administration’s first major decision its likely just the start in a line-up of future disasters.”

McCain has shown poor judgment with his selection of Palin as his running mate, and when he stalled presidential debates during the bailout talks. I admire McCain’s service to this country, but he’s quick to take sole credit for Congress’ successes, and he has demonstrated a strong tendency to be reactionary, aggressive, divisive, and out of touch—with the internet generation, with the majority of the American public, and with his own Republican colleagues in Congress. His ideas are old and exhausted: when he talks about foreign relations, he boils it down to military bullying. When he talks about energy policy, the only solution he can offer is to give big oil even more subsidy money and less regulation. When John McCain talks about “change,” he’s not talking about progress. He’s talking about maintaining the status quo, and giving even more power to the people who already have it.

The Politics of Hate

Together, McCain and Palin have been playing on the fears and hatred of American voters. The campaign has repeatedly incited racial, religious, and nationalistic hatred among supporters, at times accusing Barack Obama of fraternizing with terrorists. When General Colin Powell appeared on Meet the Press, he spoke of how McCain supporters have been allowed to call Obama a Muslim and link him with radical Islam and gone unchallenged by the candidates:

“Well, the correct answer is, he is not a Muslim, he’s a Christian. He’s always been a Christian. But the really right answer is, what if he is? Is there something wrong with being a Muslim in this country? The answer’s no, that’s not America. Is there something wrong with some seven-year-old Muslim-American kid believing that he or she could be president? Yet, I have heard senior members of my own party drop the suggestion, ‘He’s a Muslim and he might be associated terrorists.’ This is not the way we should be doing it in America.”

He then goes on to tell the story of 20-year-old Kareem Rashad Sultan Kahn, an American Muslim who went to fight in the Iraq war after 9/11 and gave his life for the American people, making an appeal for religious equality and respect.

“Those kinds of images going out on al-Jazeera are killing us around the world… we have got to say to the world, it doesn’t matter who you are—if you’re American, you’re an American.”

A similar issue on the California ballot this year is Proposition 8. Prop 8 would change the California Constitution to eliminate the right of same-sex couples to marry in California, and provide that only marriage between a man and a woman would be valid or recognized in California. Ben Casnocha did a very thorough evaluation of both sides of the argument and comes to the conclusion that we should act to “keep out actively homophobic and discriminatory language from our constitution and keep in the state the people and culture which make this place so great.”

So, why is there such a strong push to repeal the decision that was made just months ago to award equal rights to gays and lesbians? I may disagree, but I can respect and understand other people’s individual moral and spiritual beliefs. I have no problem with a person’s right to feel however they choose about homosexuality and their right to define marriage as they see fit, but religious and spiritual beliefs of that nature are a very private domain. It’s time we stop allowing the conservative Right to determine civil rights for the Left and the Middle. Nobody should force others to adopt their religious ethics—biblical teachings are to be kept by the believer, not enforced upon the non-believer. And except in cases where someone’s well-being is in danger, I don’t think the government is suited to enforce a moral code, because there are as many different ideas about morality as there are people on this planet. When it comes to one’s rights in the eyes of the law, it’s well past time for everyone to be on the same playing field. This is no different than the civil rights or women’s rights movements.

Rick Jacobs, a homosexual columnist who grew up in the Orthodox Jewish tradition, says that “those speaking in the name of their God and prophets, led principally by out-of-state Mormons and joined by evangelical Christians, have made the removal of my rights a holy war for the new century.” He continues:

“I feel laid bare that people I do not know can vote secretly to remove my rights. This is, unfortunately, reminiscent of Nazi Germany’s Nuremberg Laws that led to Kristallnacht, that horrible event 70 years ago next month that resulted in the burning of over 200 synagogues and countless other Jewish-owned establishments. The Nazis stripped rights from Jews piecemeal until finally Jews lost the right to eat and then to live.”

A young woman I know has to deal with the hard fact that her own father would vote to deny his daughter equal rights, because she is a lesbian. What does that say about our society?

It is funny in this country how many people claim that a vote for Barack Obama will lead to socialism. The media and Republican talking heads throw that word around a lot. But in fact, this nation is much further to the right than many people are willing to admit, and for some reason no one is comfortable to use the word “Fascism” when they speak about the Neoconservative agenda or the many constitutional trespasses of the current administration. I fear a move from the Right towards Fascism much more so than I fear a move to socialism from the Left in this country. When I look at how this government has chipped away at the Constitution in the last eight years, I see things aligning similarly to how they did just before Germany’s Third Reich—extreme social conservatism, civil rights abuses, a surveillance state, propaganda in the media, the looming threat of hyperinflation, imprisonment without charge, institutionalized torture, even internment camps!

Don’t get me wrong: I’m not a huge supporter of Barack Obama either. On the FISA bill in June, Obama went from opposing warrantless domestic wiretapping to giving President Bush and the telecoms full retroactive immunity for the administration’s illegal wiretapping program. He also supported the $807 billion bailout mess just like McCain did. Nobody’s very fiscally conservative, no matter what they tell you. It’s business as usual, and Obama really is the lesser of two evils.

Both political parties offer us the same mediocre results. This two-party system has utterly failed us. It has devolved into a mindless back-and-forth popularity contest. They keep any third-party contenders out—intelligent folks like Ron Paul who actually want to discuss real change and restore our Constitution to its former supremacy. Big government and big business strive to keep the masses ignorant, because the rich prosper off of a large, stupid populace. As long as we have our flatscreen TVs and our gas-guzzling Escalades, the American people won’t ask questions. They fill our heads with myths about a “liberal media” and the necessity to stay involved in a war that costs us many, many lives and billions of dollars each month with no clear end goals. They frame everything as black and white, good versus evil, red states versus blue states, and you buy it. The political climate we live in is no different than the medieval Crusades. We still buy into an “us versus them” mentality, but it’s just not true. The world is not that simple.

I would have hoped that the human race would have evolved by now. I would have hoped that we would could get beyond wars as the solution to our problems. I would have hoped that we’d be a bit more intelligent, and realize that, like Colin Powell so eloquently said, “We have got to stop this nonsense, pull ourselves together, and remember that our great strength is in our unity, in our diversity.”

Really Nation?

Must we learn the same lessons over and over again? Must we really revisit a woman’s right to choose? Gay rights? Freedom of religion? Must we really let the Democratic and Republican parties distract us as usual with issues that were decided upon 30 years ago, while our young men and women are dying overseas and the value of the dollar is freefalling? It’s all a bait-and-switch. They are keeping us distracted from the issues that really matter.

As the election draws near, I have this growing fear that all of our worst qualities will become blatantly clear to the world on November 4th—the fear, ignorance, racism, hatred, bigotry—and the United States will show itself for what it really is: an uneducated, divided, fearful nation. I fear that if John McCain is elected President, it will seal our fate for another four years of poor judgment, gross mismanagement, poor international relations, economic recession, and perhaps much worse.

America was supposed to be the Great Experiment. This was supposed to be the most democratic, progressive, tolerant nation in the world. We pride ourselves on being the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave. But we’re acting like the Land of the Fearful and the Home of the Bigots. Who did this to my country? Who’s responsible?

Every one of us is responsible. I’m not asking you to vote for Obama. Vote for Bob Barr. Or better yet, write in Ron Paul. Vote for Stephen Colbert. Or vote for me! I don’t care who you vote for. (Click here for the full list of candidates.) All that is clear, in this writer’s opinion, is which candidate you should NOT vote for. Smart Republicans are walking away. Take my advice or don’t, but whatever you do, don’t bury your head in the goddamn sand! Don’t ignore the issues. These topics will affect your life, and the lives of your children and your childrens’ children. Please make your voice heard, and please use your vote wisely.

If you agree with my sentiments, pass this article along to friends and family or vote for it on Digg or StumbleUpon. If you disagree, then call me names in the comments! But whatever you do, get fuckin’ angry, and get yourself to the polls on November 4th.

So what can you do? Well here are a few great articles by other writers (to get you thinking) and a few resources to make the most of this election and rough economic times ahead:

• Learn why many Republicans and Conservatives are voting for Obama at ConservativesForChange.com
• Read and share Ben Casnocha’s thorough evaluation of Prop 8 on the California Ballot
• Why I’m voting Obama by Andrea Zak
• Why You Should Vote for Obama, Even If You Don’t Agree on the Issues by Holly Hoffman
• Maximize Your Influence in the Election – Lifehacker
  
• How Do I Help Fight Prop 8 and Keep Same-Sex Marriage Legal in California? – Huffington Post
  
• What Can You Do To Help Solve The Credit Crisis? by Erica Douglass
• Stash your cash in an ING DIRECT Orange Savings or Emigrant Direct American Dream Savings account
• AARP’s Divided We Fail site
• DeclareYourself.com, where you can get state-by-state ballot info

Read the original article on Thrilling Heroics here: I’m Mad As Hell and I’m Not Gonna Take It Anymore! This Government Is An Unprecedented Failure. It’s Time For Change!

Somewhat surprisingly, my hometown Sacramento was recently included on a new Yahoo! Finance list of ten Best Cities to Live, Work and Play in the U.S. “Our approach this year to picking the ten best cities in which to live and work was simple: Look for places with strong economies and abundant jobs, then demand reasonable living costs and plenty of fun things to do.” The results of the study:

The Top Ten Cities to Live, Work, & Play

1. Houston, Texas
2. Raleigh, North Carolina
3. Omaha, Nebraska
4. Boise, Idaho
5. Colorado Springs, Colorado
6. Austin, Texas
7. Fayetteville, Arkansas
8. Sacramento, California
9. Des Moines, Iowa
10. Provo, Utah

With a population just over 2 million, Sacramento is the largest city besides Houston, TX. The researchers at the Martin Prosperity Institute say that about 34% of workers are in the creative field, surprisingly. And it’s revelatory to learn that we’re also the only city on the list that has an above-average cost-of-living index, at 121.7% the national average!

It is promising that the researchers believe the California state capital has a relatively healthy job market and shows promise for future success, but I also wanted to take the opportunity to examine reader feedback.

Although Yahoo! doesn’t allow discussion, a reprint of the results at Lifehacker has already prompted over 100 comments:

XanderCrews says:

“Living in one of the suburbs would be fine, if an acceptable starter home was available for less than $350,000.”

aj_robins says:

“There may be fun things to do there, but the cost of living is probably only great compared to Southern California or the San Francisco Bay area. The price of homes in Sacramento is still pretty high compared to other parts of the country.”

Listen2Eurobeat says:

“I’ve lived in Sacramento for 8 years and the only things you can do there are LIVE and WORK. […] You’ll have a hard time finding PLAY in that city.”

cnc says:

“…the real estate bust hit here harder than almost anywhere else in the country. Starter homes in decent suburban neighborhoods can now be had around $200,000, which is what they were about six years ago. Cost of living has improved dramatically (or worsened, depending on whether or not you’re a homeowner).”

Xerloq says, with regards to Sacramento:

“Move to Napa. Nice winters, though. I prefer the wine country and the Delta area more though, especially with BART nearby. Summer not bad, though it’s far from everything (e.g. San Francisco).”

Mile High Soapbox says:

“I don’t know why Sacramento is on the list. It has crazy traffic, pollution, is no where near anywhere to play.”

Looks like lots of commentary regarding the housing bubble. And it is eye-opening how high the cost of living is here, which might help explain why it’s so difficult to prosper in this town, financially.

On the bright side, danahyatt adds a more positive note:

“Overall, Sac has everything that one wants in a living place. Employment is plentiful while cost of living is low (in balance) compared to salary. Transportation (public) relies on county board’s decision making, and comes up short most of the time. Poor public transportation. Mid town is accessible to most everything one needs. Schools are wonderful. CSUS offers classes in everything. However there should be more PHD Degrees offered. It’s hard to complain about anything here in Sacramento.”

And cnc returns to say:

“I see the glass as half full. Outdoor dining is awesome as late as you want to go. […] Sacramento isn’t as cosmopolitan as the Bay Area, and our outlying areas are as boring as anywhere. But the central city is vibrant, interesting and fun and the weather for most of the year can’t be beat.”

It’s always interesting to hear people’s perspectives on our little city in comparison to other parts of the country. I enjoy it here and I know I’ll want to return one day, but I know I’m definitely prepared to experience life in another part of the world! I wonder if prosperity is easier to achieve in other areas with a lower cost-of-living index and a little less “keeping up with the Joneses.”

What’s the most prosperous city in the U.S.? Share your opinion!

Read the original article on Thrilling Heroics here: Sacramento is the 8th Best Place to Live and Work in the States!?

There are many benefits to leveraging a blog for your business or even for your personal use. When many people hear the word “blog,” what immediately comes to mind are things like MySpace, teenagers sharing stories of heartbreak, love poems, emo photos, and so on… But chances are, if you access the web multiple times per week, you probably frequent a few sites that you didn’t even know were blogs!

Branding and Credibility

For newcomers, I like to describe blogs simply as a great tool for personal branding or client relations. You can try to define a blog as a “personal publishing platform,” but that description can still be very limiting. Blogs powered by open-source software like WordPress can be built for virtually any application—an online magazine, a technical journal, e-commerce site, an online CRM client, or even a full-blown social network—and blog designs and functionality can easily be manipulated to do almost anything the user could want it to do.

For me, since I began a professional blog less than three years ago, it has opened the door to many opportunities for me. I’ve made friends with readers and other bloggers from around the globe, I’ve met entrepreneurs from across California, I’ve been asked to write for various publications, I’ve had conversations with some of Silicon Valley’s big movers and shakers, and as a freelance web worker, I’ve landed clients in Texas, Canada, and even France because of my visibility through my blogs.

Skellie of Skelliewag.org is another web freelancer, and a very well-known blogger across the web. At her new site Anywired, she shares some tips for how to Earn More Income Online By Leveraging A Blog:

Whether you’re advertising freelance services, starting a website to sell a product or becoming a virtual assistant, you won’t find work if nobody is paying attention to you.

If you can start to think of an active blog as a source of attention you can leverage, it becomes apparent that even a moderately successful blog is an incredible resource for anyone working to earn an income online.

One other great tip she shares:

Your blog is a portable asset. It adds value to your business anywhere in the world (and allows you to avoid “I’m big in Japan” syndrome when you try to find work internationally.)

[via: Anywired]

Read the original article on Thrilling Heroics here: Why You Should Start A Business Blog

For any readers in the greater Sacramento area, there is a great business networking opportunity on Tuesday, June 17th at the Mondavi Center at UC Davis: The New California 100. Billed as the Central Valley’s first leadership summit, the event will honor the top 100 companies in Northern California that generate more than $50 billion in revenue and employ more than 250,000 people. The event will feature 100 companies, 100 C-level executives, and 100 entrepreneurs and investors, so it will be a good opportunity for entrepreneurs or leadership-minded graduates to meet some influential individuals.

There will be a keynote address by Steve Sabol, President of NFL Films, discussions on the growing network culture among businesses, and some appealing showcases on the High Technology and Internet/New Media Industries. The summit will also have sessions focused on cleantech, manufacturing, consumer products, healthcare, land development, and more.

• The event is designed to bring together the top 100 companies in the 19-county area that stretches from Redding to Bakersfield through the Central Valley
• The economy in this area is different than in San Francisco, LA, San Diego or other coastal counties
• The goal is to bring together the leaders of these companies, along with several early stage companies from the region, and hope to stimulate ongoing dialog and business activity among them to benefit the area
• The primary producer of the event is Golden Capital Networks, based in Chico, and the producer of several regional venture capital events (Venture Vineyard in Napa, Silver & Gold in Reno and Angel & VC Investment Summit in El Dorado Hills)

The New California 100 summit should offer many opportunities for CEOs, entrepreneurs, VCs, development professionals and professional services providers, but Josh Morgan, principle of Morgan/Dorado Public Relations, also wants to draw a younger crowd out to the leadership event this year. I know that there are special rates for students and free press passes available for a select few business- and entrepreneurship-oriented bloggers. Follow me on Twitter and send me a direct message to get connected to Josh for student/blogger passes. Or you can contact Josh directly via Twitter.

Read the original article on Thrilling Heroics here: California 100 Leadership Summit at UC Davis Next Week