###

I left the States only about a month ago, and already I feel like I have shed my “old” life and am living in a completely new reality! Before my departure, I’d been asked a number of times why I wanted to go to Thailand. My answer back then was simply that I was ready for change. I had lived in Sacramento for 24 years and I was ready for new scenery. But I don’t think I’ll fully understand my reasons until after my journey ends (if it ever does!—life is a journey with no destination).

I was literally two weeks away from moving down to San Diego a little over a year ago. I had left my job at Sac State and was interviewing with marketing & design firms there (which is how i came across a few awesome individuals, like Rodney Rumford and digitaltelepathy’s founder Chuck Longanecker), when suddenly I split up with my girlfriend at the time, so the bottom fell out on those plans.

After that, my desire to travel abroad started as a bit of an escape—to eliminate all ties to my old “self” and start fresh somewhere new—and my interest in crossing international boundaries was fueled by Timothy Ferriss’ inspiring New York Times Bestseller The 4 Hour Workweek.

Reading Tim Ferriss’ 4 Hour Workweek changed my outlook on the world, and it literally shaped the future course of my life more than any other book has. I learned that the rules have changed. Earning a living doesn’t require you to put your life on hold—working 40- to 60-hour weeks until retirement age is the “deferred life plan” as he calls it. And most importantly Ferriss introduced me to the concept of geo-arbitrage (something I’ll get more into in a future post, but put simply, geo-arbitrage means earning in stronger currencies like the US dollar, Euros, and British Pounds sterling, and then living/spending where the cost of living is considerably lower). Ferriss, like many other business backpacker/vagabond/digital nomad types, says that Thailand and Argentina are two of the world’s best remaining destinations where Americans can easily stretch their dollar.

I had been interested in Thailand since I was just 17, when my high school French professor—Alec Hodgins, who I still maintain a relationship with and whose teaching had an immeasurable impact on my life—took his wife and son for a three-week excursion to the small Southeast Asian nation and came back with wonderful stories of the friendly people and photos of the gorgeous landscape. Thailand in my mind became one of the last sought-after paradises. It was beautiful, you could live on the beach, and the price of living was inexpensive.

So rather than dream about some future vacation there or wait for retirement, I decided to mold my life into something where I could work and travel at the same time. I’ve spent the last year and a half building a business that I can run remotely from anywhere on the globe (as long as there is a decent internet connection). And then I went for it!

When I got serious about my goal to move to Thailand and start traveling through Southeast Asia for a year, dozens of people in my extended network began to come out of the woodwork. Every single person I talked to had good things to say about Thailand. I still haven’t met a single person who didn’t enjoy their time here, and many have stayed here indefinitely or moved their families here. I met several PhD students who did an exchange program with my university for a semester, and they were so friendly and selfless—I was looking forward to change of pace from Sacramento, where it felt to me like strangers are typically pretty impolite to each other.

I felt much more jaded with my hometown than the people around me, but perhaps I was just tired of being in the same place all of my life. I had been fortunate to do quite a bit of travel across North America and Europe, but I had always lived in the same city. I felt like I needed new inputs, and going somewhere as different as I could find from what I was used to was appealing to me. Fast Company magazine ran a fascinating article a few months back about creativity and how to come up with new ideas, in which Gregory Berns, author of Iconoclast, describes how in familiar contexts, your brain falls back on experience—old neural connections—to fill in the gaps and reduce its workload, thus processing the world, both perception and imagination, more efficiently. He talks about the importance of new environments and new experiences for creative thinking and innovation:

“Novel experiences are so effective at unleashing the imagination because they force the perceptual system out of categorization, the tendency of the brain to take shortcuts.”

Additionally I felt that if I didn’t take my opportunity to go for a “gap year” if you will, while I’m still just 24 and have no commitments—no relationship, no kids, no car payment, no mortgage—then I might get stuck in that game and never be able to go wander the world like I truly desired. Another quote that the jet set and the location-independent entrepreneur types often like to allude to is by Mark Twain:

“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines, sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.”

So with that I think I’ve talked enough. Finally, here are some of the things I hope to learn as I travel throughout Southeast Asia in 2009:

Simplicity.

Extended travel is a great opportunity to separate oneself from dependence on material possessions. Before my departure, I sold most of my stuff on Craigslist. You’d be surprised how little you need to travel with (with exception of my laptop in my case!). Since I am essentially homeless, wandering from one city to the next, from one apartment or hotel to the next, I hope to learn to be content with only the possessions that are most necessary.

Pace of life.

In many Asian cultures, unlike American career-centric thinking, care for oneself and for others is much more important than business. With less need for material things and the ability to get by with less income, I thought this would be a good chance to scale back the amount of work I do, slow down, and concentrate more time on reading, personal growth, and improving my writing. I’ve got a long reading list of books on simplicity, psychology, positive attitude, the alleged law of attraction, success, and entrepreneurship to read in the year ahead.

Personal growth.

Life in paradise is not without its many challenges. I’ve already been stuck in travel purgatory because of unforeseen political protests, had to sort out un-sortable visa and immigration issues, and, well most recently I’ve woken up to a cockroach, two poisonous centipedes, and a dead lizard on my apartment floor in the past two days! But part of this adventure is to overcome challenges, and especially to learn to be more self-reliant. In Sacramento, not that I relied on it, but if I ever really needed it I had parents and family to fall back on and tons of friends to spend time with daily. Here, I am forced to make new friends, build a new network, and solve problems entirely on my own. To seek new solutions to new problems, almost daily. It can certainly be frustrating, but I think in the end it will be well worth it.

Openness to new ideas, new values, new people.

I think that, as a traveler, there is an ease in making new friends. Thais are intrigued with Western culture, and with other expats you have an immediate common bond simply by the fact that you are a stranger in a foreign land. You can easily form friends with people you might not normally engage with back home. Additionally, as a traveler, you must learn to be more trusting of those around you simply because you rely on them: your taxi driver, people who give you advice on the street, your fellow travelers, and so on. If you can learn to trust people and assume the best in others, most of the time you won’t get burned, and you will learn a lot about foreign cultures, religions, and ideas at an accelerated rate.

Calm down.

One saying the Thais have is “mai pen rai” or “it doesn’t matter.” It’s similar to when we say “no worries” in the US. My Thai friends are always telling me not to be so serious. In the last few days, I’d been stressing out about getting outside of the country before my visa expires, and how to get my paperwork with the immigration bureau in order. Well my good friend Tiam (who we call “The Protector”) told me that Thai law, unlike law in the US and many other parts of the world, is very flexible, and he took me to the immigration office where we were assured that overstaying one day would be no problem at the border. Customs, social norms, and rules are different all around the world, but in general as I face the challenges of travel and living abroad, I hope to cultivate Jai Yen, or “cool heart” in the face of adversity, and trust in the fact that one way or another things will work out okay.

In the end, I hope to prove to myself that life is only as hard as you make it. Although there are tons of language and cultural barriers/differences (some of which I will discuss in my next post), I believe that people around the globe are really all essentially the same. Some of my friends and family from back home were worried about my safety—the media is good at scaring people when there are robberies, kidnappings, acts of terrorism, etc.—but I really don’t think that life in other countries is any more dangerous or difficult than it is in the States. As seemingly “crazy” as people drive here, I haven’t seen a single vehicle collision since I’ve been here, whereas back home I could easily get in a car crash any day of the week (one of the leading causes of death in the US). I choose to accept that I could get hit by a bolt of lightning and die at any moment, so I should do as much as I can with every day I’m given. Why not live my dream in the meantime!?

You can too! Stay tuned.

###

By the way, if you want to keep up with my (mis)adventures around the world, please follow me at codymckibben.com where you can see live updates of my photos and activites around the globe and across the web. Additionally, I’ve just started a second venture with my friend Brooke Ferguson from Sacramento, called BusinessBackpacker.com where we’ll soon start coaching other entrepreneurs to follow in our footsteps and live the nomad/vagabond/location-independent lifestyle!

Read the original article on Thrilling Heroics here: What I Hope to Learn in Thailand

NG spent a week in Mexico with her sister and her sister’s fiancee. When she came back she was a completely different person than the one I dropped off at the airport.

I’d had all this anticipation for Sunday night—waiting all week for her to return, making big plans to show her a great time for the next two weeks; I even designed a website for her acting portfolio while she was gone!

I know travel changes you (otherwise I wouldn’t be spending a year abroad) but six days apart shouldn’t make someone go from the “honey, baby, I love you” end of the spectrum to wanting nothing to do with you. I have my ideas about what happened, but frankly I don’t expect her to give me the explanation I deserve. I haven’t even heard her voice since Sunday night. I had to push her to tell me that we were actually broken up—and via text message no less!

I dunno what the hell is wrong with her, I just know how it feels. It feels like being effin’ dead inside. I can’t breathe, I can’t eat or sleep at times. I feel as though, once again, the world has proven to me that I can’t count on anybody but myself. At least NG’s given me my reason to move back.

Before the breakup, I almost settled for that sense of security. I mean, we were really happy. She’s a great girl, and we had a fantastic time together. When you’re with someone who makes you feel great, when you have someone to “come home to” and share life’s challenges with, it makes all the other shit almost bearable. But now I am reminded of why I wanted to get out of here in the first place.

I know I have a great life here in the States, but I’m also tired as shit of it. I have a few fantastic, close friends and some really supportive family, but I’m jaded. I’m a workaholic, which makes me stressed out and out-of-touch. I am often crushed to see how quickly some people can turn around and treat others like human trash, and without thinking twice about it. We are lucky in the U.S. to have so many freedoms, so much comfort and security, but a lot of people seem very unhappy—and I’ve long been one of them.

So this is why I’m leaving home for a while. I feel jaded with life here, and I don’t know why I’m here. I often feel like I wasn’t meant to be here—in this time, or on this planet, or something. I just don’t fit in. I don’t see anything I’d be interested in spending the next 60 years on. I’m just not into it. And I know I can’t expect life to be that different anywhere else, but I have to look around and see what else there is.

I’m not trying to get your sympathy vote or sell you a sad story. I know there are plenty of people out there in the world who have had it much rougher than I have. But after being in one place for all 24 years of my life, I can’t look around without being reminded of past failures, deceit, rejection, and so on, and this is just my way of dealing with the emotional baggage.

This is the point:

I should have started a lot sooner, but the idea is to sell everything I own, hit the road with a backpack, a laptop, and a week’s worth of clothing, and start fresh somewhere new. Piece by piece, I’m either selling or giving away everything that represents my old life. I’m going to go somewhere as different as I can possibly find—for a year, or however long it takes—with no set agenda. We’ll see what opportunities present themselves and where life takes me. I’ll be back, but for now I have to do this while I still can—while I’m not in a relationship, have no kids, no mortgage, no car payment…

Some people call it a quarterlife crisis! But it’s time for me to let go of all the reminders of a past life and move on to see what else life has to offer me.

Here’s how you can help:

I leave in 11 days! I have already sold a ton of my furniture and stuff. And I am listing a whole bunch more on Craigslist, but time is running out and I also just don’t have the energy or emotional capacity to get a fair price for all my things, what with all the travel planning, running my business, and the breakup running through my head at all times! Please checkout some of the stuff I have below. If you’re interested or know someone who might be, please get in touch. I just need to rid myself of as many material possessions as I can for now, and if I can give them a happy new home, or help you guys get your hands on some things that you might find useful, then that’d be great. For local Sacramento-area friends or family, of course I’m willing to give you some of this stuff for cheap or free if you’re interested, so let me know (that excludes the car or the iMac, now!):

• 1998 Pontiac Sunfire GT (5-speed) – $1500 OBO
  
• 2.4 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo iMac – 2GB Memory/500GB Hard Drive, Loaded with Software, Latest Mac OSX, just bought in February – Asking $1100 OBO
• Men’s Research Dynamics Mountain bike – $45
• Bench Press + 100lb weights set – $40
• Mexican Classic Acoustic (Paracho) Guitar – $35
• 2 box speakers – $20
• VCR – FREE for local friends
• A buncha DVDs and Books I’m getting rid of – Also free for local friends if you want to look through them

I will write more soon about my trip and what I hope to get out of it, but for now, thanks for your support and your help!

Read the original article on Thrilling Heroics here: Selling All My Belongings

I left my full-time employment at Sacramento State University almost two months ago, after which I took a short break while my broken hand was healing. I continued to do my freelance web design, and then I also took a temp job with my stepmom’s company in Roseville. I worked just four days a week helping the scientific company rebuild their website. The experience was valuable, and the people were great. But I was still working in a cubicle, taking assignments from someone else without having any creative input. When I stepped back and thought about the bigger picture, this still wasn’t getting me any closer to the lifestyle and the career I truly desire.

So I left that job after only three weeks, even though the pay was great and I was making more in four days than I had in five days per week previously. I decided that if I don’t devote myself–all of my time and energy right now–to doing what I really am passionate about, I may very well never take that big, scary step. Right now, when I’m young and have no car payment, no mortgage, no wife, no kids–that is the time to take a risk and see if I can work for myself or start a company!

I’m tired of being an employee. I know I haven’t done it for very long compared to some of you, and I haven’t “paid my dues.” But, I know that’s not the life I want. I want to be in control of my own time. I want to be in charge of my own personal and professional development. I want to decide what tasks inspire me enough to take on. I just had to realize that I have skills that other professionals are ready to pay me for! In some areas, I have a lot of knowledge that can benefit others. So I started designing small webpages for professionals and small businesses. Creating blogs as public relations tools for small companies, and doing technical consulting on the software and programming used to create and run them (I work with the WordPress open-source content management system, so if you or any of your friends need technical assistance, consulting, or web design, please get in touch!).

So I’ve been working on my freelance web design and business blog consulting full-time for a week and a half now. It’s a brand new experience that I’ve just started, and I realize that it will take some time to adjust to (and it will take some time to be lucrative). Other reasons that I decided to quit “work” and eliminate a few other things from my plate right now include focus on healing my fractured hand, keeping a schedule that agrees more with my own circadian rhythm, and practicing a healthier lifestyle…so I am perfectly happy to take it slow and accomplish one goal at a time. But in the first week I have already experienced a few of the challenges that await me: we become so trained in school and the traditional workplace to accept tasks from someone above us–staying motivated and determining the priority of tasks is a new experience to get used to; and the workplace does provide one thing even I can’t live without–interaction with other people! Adjusting to the frequent social isolation of working for yourself/by yourself is tough too.

Regardless, I chose to make the change. At least for now. I enjoy the work that I do–I am able to keep learning and growing, I get to be more flexible with my time, and I get to work with new, diverse groups of people from time to time. I’m self-employed, and my long-term goal is to set up the infrastructure of a full-fledged, legitimate business. Start my own design and consulting firm! It’s a lot of work–defining specifically what products and services I offer and what I don’t, conveying that concretely for the non-technical client, refining the business process, setting up the DBA and tax paperwork, and possibly writing a business plan and trying for a small business loan. Maybe I will fail…but either way I will learn a LOT along the way.

I’ve also studied a lot about automating my income, lifestyle design, and geo-arbitrage. Tim Ferriss talks at length about these exciting concepts in his book The 4-Hour Workweek. And I recently came across an older yet fantastic podcast from Steve Pavlina in which he discusses moving away from trading your time for money. Eventually, I would like to shift my paradigm from thinking of myself as merely self-employed to being a business owner. As Pavlina discusses, the idea is to detach your time from your income, put your income on autopilot, through generating information products for instance, that can earn you residual income, even while you sleep. Or I could develop my web sites further, and try to monetize them. He says how his multiple streams of passive income allow him to spend the bulk of his time doing what he is passionate about, regardless of whether or not it is profitable. Eventually, I would love to develop this business structure, so that my work is less of a means to pay the bills, and more a way to express my passions and continue to learn and grow.

Keep me in your thoughts. Your motivational words (and small contributions to my startup fund!) mean a lot. =)

Read the original article on Thrilling Heroics here: Experimenting with Career Options