I’ll be back early next week with much more about our time in Bali, but I just wanted to thank everyone who comes to Thrilling Heroics for making 2011 a wonderful year, wish you Merry Christmas, happy holidays, and express my sincerest hopes for a very happy New Year. 2012 is going to rock!

Every week I get a load of great emails in my inbox from readers. A while back, I received this comment from Sam (edited for length):

Man you really inspire me. I read your website at least 3-5 times a week. Since I graduated from high school I’ve always said I wanted to travel the world. Unfortunate obstacles have led me to say ‘#@%& I want to do this’. I want to live my life on my on own terms. I’m saving money now to get started. I want to thank you, keep doing what you’re doing man.

You probably have no idea how frequently you guys make my day, with subject lines like “Wow! This site is incredible!” … “ridiculously inspired.” …and “Thank you for doing what you do.” Your gratitude, appreciation, and feedback are what makes this all worthwhile. I am incredibly excited and humbled any time somebody says that this site or my writing have helped to inspire in any small way.

I receive lots and lots and lots of great questions, and I try to respond to as many as I can. Lots of people who want me to get on Skype and help them with their business ideas. Even people who want me to do some nebulous consulting work with their companies (from small projects to one very large foundation even).

But there just aren’t enough hours in the day! There are simply too many insanely interesting people out there who want to live life on their own terms, or build some cool, useful resource or project and share it with the world. That’s why I started Digital Nomad Academy at the beginning of 2011, as a comprehensive learning center for aspiring online entrepreneurs, where I can focus my time and energy and multiply the benefits many times over to teach, encourage, connect, and support many students all at once. And it certainly has become the focus of my time this year, along with many other incredible collaborators who have generously shared their time as faculty instructors and guest speakers.

I wish I could help every single person who comes to me with questions one-on-one, but I’ve consciously decided to invest my limited time into building something scalable, sustainable, and that will help many hundreds or thousands of students over the next several years (hopefully many more years).

But my faculty and I can only teach you so much. We can give you the business “recipes” if you will, share the techniques and tools that work for us, and connect you to a larger network of like-minded, ambitious people, including successful experts who’ve done it already. But actually building a business that will help provide you with the lifestyle you desire still requires an immense amount of time, effort, and investment that only you can do.

If you’re one of those people who’s been dreaming of starting your own business, quitting your stupid job, and creating a lifestyle you’d really enjoy (hint: ideally, the business part needs to come first), or traveling around the world, but you keep putting it off because of the latest TPS reports that have landed on your desk, this week’s important final exam, or you’ve spent the last 4 months planning the family Christmas celebration, or whatever else keeps you busy… let’s make 2012 the year everything changes.

I’ve put almost all of my energies into DNA this year, to the detriment of most of my other projects. We’ve brought together an incredible community of teachers and of exceptionally bright, motivated students. Many of them have already quit their jobs, started up their own small businesses, started freelancing, gone on short mini-retirements to Europe, moved to the peaceful countryside here in Asia, or set out on epic trans-continental road trips down through Central and South America!

Digital Nomad Academy will continue to provide a stellar learning environment for a long time to come, and as we bring in more and more students, it creates increased opportunity to meet each other, partner with each other, trade services with each other, and together we all improve and build our businesses up. The admission fee is a significant investment, but I believe we will continue to over-deliver by far, and the lifetime value to everyone involved will be priceless.

But I know this is not within everybody’s reach. I’ve heard your requests, and I’ve thought a lot about a financial aid program for the Digital Nomad Academy.

For the holidays I was feeling especially generous and I wanted to do something to give back, after all of you involved here and at DNA have made my year such a fantastic one. I want to help provide a chance for you to join me, my entrepreneurial colleagues, and our amazing students in building a community like none which has ever been seen before.

So, I will be sponsoring two full-ride scholarships, all-expenses paid, to our mentorship and training program at Digital Nomad Academy, so you can come learn directly from me and my all-star cast of faculty and guest experts, and collaborate with our incredible cohort of ambitious students.

What a great way to ring in the new year, right!?

→ Full details and applications for the 2011 Digital Nomad Academy Scholarship Program ←

That’s a $1,500 annual value for two very lucky people. This is a huge opportunity for you, but also for me, and for all of us. 2012 will be a year of explosive growth and improvement inside DNA.

If you want a shot at one of these two seats, absolutely free, all it takes is to get off the sidelines and show us what you’re willing to bring to the table for our student community. Go here to apply.

I hope to get your application, and hope to see you on the inside at Digital Nomad Academy in the New Year.

Happy Holidays! Merry Christmas. And a happy New Year. Let me know where you’re spending your holidays in the comments below. I’ll be spending mine here on the beach…

Read the original article on Thrilling Heroics here: The $3,000 Holiday Giveaway: Get a Full-Ride Scholarship to Digital Nomad Academy

Do you daydream about quitting your job and traveling around the world? What about taking it a step further and building a location independent career, so you can live and work wherever you want to?

I can remember the first time someone labelled me a “digital nomad” on a major blog… Two-and-a-half years ago these were the words of Corbett Barr—back when his site was still called Free Pursuits. Corbett listed me among the top 10 Digital Nomads to Learn From, alongside Tim Ferriss and Rolf Potts—two truly incredible writers who inspired me to follow my own path in life—as well as huge A-list bloggers Chris Brogan and Mike Elgan, and big names in the travel blogosphere including Christine Gilbert from Almost Fearless and Chris Guillebeau of Art of Nonconformity fame.

I wasn’t quite sure what I thought of the label at first, although I was immensely honored to be among such incredible company. I was excited! Reading Tim Ferriss’ The 4-Hour Workweek and Rolf Potts’ Vagabonding had been a turning point in my life—those two books opened my eyes to whole new possibilities and put a fire under my ass to create a life of my own design, and try my hardest to enjoy every moment of it.

Not long after in late 2009, Jonathan Mead used me as a case study in his manifesto The Zero Hour Workweek, which played off of the ideas in Tim’s book, but took them even further to encourage people to build businesses that basically allow them to get paid to be themselves. Soon I was being interviewed about my live-and-work-anywhere lifestyle, and people started calling my story inspiring, and asking me about my travel experiences and advice for overcoming travel obstacles.

Sometimes I’m a bit embarrassed by the buzzwords (digital nomad, location independent… and lifestyle design… there’s another one!) but eventually I embraced the title Corbett had bestowed upon me. Who’d have known that just two years later I’d be running a business course called Digital Nomad Academy with the help of Corbett himself and several other hugely successful remote-control entrepreneurs I look up to!

Like many people, sometimes I feel like the small (but growing) online niche we’re in is a bit too cliquey, too markety, and sometimes people get big egos, or they feel under pressure to maintain the appearance like they’ve got everything figured out and their lives are just so cool.

I know, because I’ve been there… but I’ll be the first to tell you, nobody has it all figured out. I’ve been broke as a joke many times along my journey, I’ve been stuck up a creek with no paddle many times on my travels, I’ve experienced immense business failures, I’ve been stabbed in the back, I’ve been discouraged. But, this is an incredible life we’ve all been given, and I’m grateful for the amazing adventures and obstacles I’ve experienced. I wouldn’t trade my experience for anything.

I’m even more thankful for the people around me who have helped fuel this adventure. It has its ups and downs for sure—I was defrauded and went through several down months. I wasn’t confident everything might not collapse at times. I took a break from blogging and let some of my friends use this platform to share their writing and their projects with you (I see no point writing unless I actually have something to say, but once I conquer the challenges laid out in front of me, maybe then I’ll have something of real value to share about them).

But despite the challenges of living an unconventional life, I have no plans to quit traveling, meeting new people, and having new experiences anytime soon, to stop experimenting with my own businesses, to ever go back to a 9-to-5 if I can avoid it, to move back home, or to stop blogging about this weird journey. Living life your own way, you will definitely be confronted with setbacks, and the journey will be more challenging than living according to someone else’s prescribed path. But it is absolutely, 100% worthwhile. 

My girlfriend and I are fortunate to live for now in one of the most beautiful regions in the world, in a three-story townhouse surrounded by forests and beautiful limestone mountains, all for a fraction of what it would cost back in California.

Emily and I recently spent a week in Singapore, and it was the most fun I’ve had in months! We were trying to decide what country to visit for a renewed visa and I decided I really wanted to visit old friends there. She teases me that I can’t travel anywhere unless I know someone there, and when I thought about it, I realized it’s not far from the truth.

Undoubtedly when most people think about travel, they tend to think of places, monuments and landmarks like the Acropolis of Athens, the Roman Colosseum, the Eiffel Tower, London’s Big Ben, Bangkok’s reclining Buddha, Krabi’s mountaintop Buddhist temple, the Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur. Each of these are fantastic places I’ve been able to see on my travels. But what really has made my travels remarkable are the people I have met and the experiences I’ve shared with them.

I became very close with my French professor in high school, who was also a huge influence on me (as far as my interest in travel, culture, art, music and languages). The very first time I traveled outside the U.S. was a trip with some classmates to France, and what made it special was the wonderful family I lived with for a week on the Mediterranean coast in Cannes, as well as the time I spent with Mssr. Hodgins and my classmates wandering around Paris.

London is probably one of my top three favorite cities in the world to visit. Although I really enjoy wandering around on foot through London and sightseeing, it wasn’t the London Eye or the Houses of Parliament that kept me coming back… it was because I first traveled there on my own to visit my cousin Ian, who spent a year as an exchange student there, and it was the fun crowd of college students I got to know—James, the Toms, Sarah, Dav, Elaine, and many more—when I visited him for two weeks that made my experience so special.

I traveled to Spain for a three-week Christmas and New Year holiday with my friends Paul, Tim, and Ryan. Barcelona was a stunning city with great food, equaled by the gorgeous views and historical Old Town on Ibiza (and it’s nightlife), but what really made the trip special were the incredible friends we made—Meye and Barbara, two amazing women who took it upon themselves to show us all the best restaurants and pubs in town, introduced us to friends, showed us the parades and the local Catalans celebrations, and invited us into their homes for Christmas dinner!

Greece, Turkey, and Italy are infused with history, vibrant culture, and amazing sights (especially for someone who studied history at university) but what made my travels there special were the memories and time I spent bonding with family.

When I first arrived in Thailand, it was two Thai friends I met—Poon and Om—who spent three days driving me all around Phuket on their motorbike showing me the sights.

Bangkok is a huge metropolis with great nightlife, great food, a big flag on the backpacker trail. But what made it so much fun for me was the people. I got caught up there for a year and a half eating cheap street food all the time with Migration Mark, Joel, Ryan, May, Nalin, Bank, and Aum, going out partying, and running fun monthly mixer events and volunteering with Dwight Turner, Christina, Craig Gonzales, and others. I remember the first day Sean Ogle landed in Asia, and we went with my sister and my friends Chris, Ryan, and Nick to explore the ancient ruins and Buddhas at Ayutthaya, coworking with David Walsh and Derek Johanson, planning a TEDx conference with Rob, Greg, Andrew, Chris, Karla, Fluke, and more.

Travel puts me face-to-face with friends—many friends I’ve known for many years from school or work, but also many who I’ve met and become friends with through running my business online.

In Bangkok, mostly through Twitter and the Bangkok Tweetups that Dwight and I would put on, I also was able to meet in person with awesome bloggers Dan Andrews, Adam Baker, Benny “the Irish Polyglot” Lewis, Gary Arndt, Matt Goult, Jodi Ettenberg, Jonny Gibaud, Marc Gold, Ross Hill, Kevin Revolinski, Wes Nations, Ryan Martin, Mark Powers, and many more.

Warning: I’ve linked to a lot of people in this post! But I want to share each and every one of them with you (I’m definitely missing more than a few, too) not to gloat… not because I’m some celebrity, but because I’ve been blessed to meet so many truly cool people from around the world—each of them working on their own unique, interesting things—and each of them has at some point or another in my travels made a profound impact on my journey in their own small way. Because of that, I do encourage you to check out each and every one of these folks and discover how they’re making the world a more interesting place. I owe it to them to share what they’re doing.

In Bali I met Kyle and Bessie Crum doing yoga in the rice paddies, Stuart McDonald eating ribs at Naughty Nuri’s, Jez Tryner for a drink, and spent time with my friends Jerm and Vie at their lovely condo.

In Kuala Lumpur I met Nomadic Matt Kepnes while wandering around hostels, Dwight and Mark and I met our travel buddy Agnes (who drove us at lightning speed at 11pm one night to see the cozy little town of Melaka, on a whim!) through Couchsurfing, and I met Hani Khaursar, Vishen Lakhiani, Brian Wong and others on a subsequent trip when I spoke at a conference.

Phnom Penh has been home to my two friends Brittany Sims and Caron Margarete who, along with some of Cambodia’s footballers showed me the town and made me feel right at home.

Here in Krabi, I spent considerable time climbing and beach partying with my friends Alicia, James, Vanessa, Peter, Jane & Toto, and I finally met in person with my blogger buddies Carlos Miceli, Colin Wright, Adventurous Kate McCulley, Backpacking Matt Kyhnn, and Shannon O’Donnell, who’ve all stopped by on their travels.

When I traveled back to the States this year, in Austin, I met up with Markus & Ashley, Nick Reese, Jenny Blake, Ridiculously Extraordinary Karol Gadja, Where is Jenny Leonard, Andy Drish, Andrew Norcross, Thursday Bram, Technomads Chris & Cherie, and many other good folks for a week of awesomeness while South by Southwest was on.

The San Francisco Bay Area is home to a host of inspiring folks like Ramit Sethi, Corbett Barr, Amber Zuckswert, Charlie Hoehn, Lorna Li, and serial entrepreneur Rajesh Setty (and I also had the pleasure of meeting Mr. Chris Ducker there, who usually plays an Englishman in the Philippines).

Los Angeles is or has been the stomping grounds of my very good friend Ryan, entrepreneur Jun Loayza, blogger Jonathan Mead, dating coach Jordan Harbinger, my friends Dariane Nabor, Laurenne Sala, and many other cool peoples.

In past trips to Singapore, I’ve met other cool nerds (like myself) Adrianna Tan, Ziqi Koey (who also just visited us here in Krabi!), Guyi Shen, and many more.

This trip, Emily and I had an incredibly fun time together…  we did all the touristy stuff: we walked all around the city on foot, stayed on the beautiful riverfront in Boat Quay, gorged ourselves on amazing delicious food from all around Southeast Asia and beyond, we hung out at the marina by night and took in all the city lights, wandered all around the big fancy new Marina Bay Sands resort and casino, went to a Salvador Dalí exhibit, to the cinema, briefly to a concert hall, and much more. But our time together there also reminded me that one of my biggest motivators is the people I get to share it with.

It was seeing my friend and singer Shimona Kee for her birthday and enjoying the hip young local music scene, having a lovely homemade dinner with Michelle at her impressive 16th-floor apartment, having a drink, a shisha and a catchup with my old friends John Berns and Martin, and getting to meet Derek Sivers in person (the very down-to-earth, engaging, but brilliant and wildly successful gentleman who founded CDBaby) to chat about travels, businesses, failures, and planting multiple flags (BTW you absolutely must watch this fascinating, short 8-part video series by Sivers). Getting to interact with, have fun with, learn from, and learn about all these fascinating people that are all doing their own interesting things—that’s what makes travel so much fun for me.

Running my business online has meant I’ve built friendships with people all around the world. Interacting with people through Twitter alone has connected me to dozens and dozens of new people that I’ve actually become real friends and done business with.

The point is, I’m just an average dude—but because of the way I choose to live my life, the way I run my business, and the way I reach out to connect with other people out there, I’ve had an extraordinary experience making new friends all around the world. The tools I’ve used to build an international network of friends and colleagues are also available to you.

Being location-independent, running a business online, and being on the move—living my life this way has opened many doors to people and experiences I wouldn’t have back in my “normal” life, that I would have never dreamed I’d have. My passion and what drives my journey is the interesting people I meet… making new friends and having fun new experiences with them, learning from them, and growing with them. Your interests, what drives you, and the life you want to have may look entirely different to mine, but whatever they are, there are millions of people you can connect with out there in this small little world of ours. The amazing journey I have had, like many others, is only an example of what anyone could do. You only need to start opening doors.

What journey are you on? What are the people, places, and experiences that have meant the most to you along your path?

If you found this interesting, and if you’re anything like me, click here to get some incredibly awesome (and completely free) stuff to add to your toolbox and learn more about my philosophy. You won’t regret it→

Read the original article on Thrilling Heroics here: Setbacks, and What Motivates Me to Keep Exploring & Experimenting

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.

Tweet

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!

Over at Digital Nomad Academy today we’re putting out another great piece of free content, a report full of Digital Nomad Case Studies—experienced, successful people from all different backgrounds, some single, some with partners, some with families, all running different kinds of mobile businesses in different parts of the world. (Note: if you want to be sure to get this free report and you’re not already on the DNA email list, then just tell me where you want me to send this in the form halfway down this page and I’ll send it out today.)

I’ve been running a location-independent online business for nearly 4 years now, and I’ve been asked time and time again why I don’t have a product or a coaching program of my own yet about the digital nomad lifestyle I live.

For ages, I thought I didn’t have time, or that I was too busy with my own client projects.

But a few friends and I got together and finally started to bring things together, and they kicked my ass into motivation mode. One day I asked you if you’d be interested in learning how to become a digital nomad. And lo and behold, between email messages, blog comments, survey responses, and more, I’ve received hundreds and hundreds of enthusiastic responses from around the world!

I just didn’t anticipate a response like this. This is the biggest idea I’ve ever put out there, and it’s had the biggest reception! Your surge of support was encouraging and exciting and unreal and inspiring and overwhelming and humbling and scary.

And for the first time in a very long time, I got really excited about something new.

Readers sent in 220+ detailed, lengthy, thoughtful, amazing responses. In your survey responses, you told me what you wanted in a Digital Nomad training program.

You said you want one-on-one coaching. You want an incredibly selective application process. You want case studies of those who’ve been successful. You want direct access to them. You said you want supervision, and marketing advice, and troubleshooting guides, a yearly conference, and so many more great and helpful things.

In addition to the exclusive business course we’re building, we also promised to share a bunch of cool free resources, and dozens and dozens of people wanted Digital Nomad Case Studies. So today, if you are on our DNA list, you can get a free report with profiles of several top digital nomads:

Cody McKibben from Thrilling Heroics

I’ve traveled to 25 countries, including all of North America, France, the UK, Spain, Turkey, Greece, Switzerland, Malaysia, Singapore, Cambodia, China, Indonesia, and more. I’ve been running my web development and online marketing company remotely from Southeast Asia for over two years now. You know me. Let’s move on…

Brooke Ferguson from Business Backpacker

Brooke was running her own business consulting company in Northern California when she decided to move her clients online and work remotely. She continues to coach clients one-on-one to turn their businesses into something that support their ideal lifestyle. All while blogging, rock climbing on the weekends, and earning her Divemaster certification. Brooke will serve as DNA’s curriculum director, and brings to it her comprehensive, all-inclusive self-mastery and business building system which she developed over the course of four years working with clients one-on-one.

Dan Andrews from Lifestyle Business Podcast

Dan and his partners have a series of niche manufacturing businesses with offices in San Diego and the Philippines, and has become a leading authority on outsourcing. He is based in Manila, and has spent significant time in Boracay, Dumaguete, Manila, Cebu, and Puerto Galera, Philippines, as well as Thailand and Bali. Meanwhile he co-hosts the #1 podcast for lifestyle designers and lifestyle entrepreneurs, The Lifestyle Business Podcast, and sponsors the Tropical MBA internship program.

Corbett Barr from CorbettBarr.com

Corbett started a major Silicon Valley tech company, raised $3 million in venture capital, had employees and the whole bit, when he and his wife decided to take a six-month sabbatical to Mexico. Now he has built his own small business around ThinkTraffic.net and his personal site, earning over six figures a year and spending half the year at home in San Francisco and half the year either in Mexico or elsewhere. This summer they’re headed to Croatia.

Adam Baker from Man Vs. Debt

Adam, his wife Courtney, and their two-and-a-half year old daughter Milligan spent over a year living and traveling abroad, in Australia, New Zealand, and Thailand. They spent a year preparing for their trip, selling all of their possessions, and paying down $18,000 in consumer debt, so Adam brings a lot of insight into personal finance and minimalism. Now they’re voyaging out from home state of Indiana to wander around the United States in their newly-purchased RV.

Nora Dunn from The Professional Hobo

Nora had a successful financial planning practice in Canada when she realized her life’s dream to travel extensively around the world was passing her by. In 2006, she sold everything she owned to travel the world full-time and has already set foot in 15 countries while she works as a freelance travel writer. Her travels have taken her to Hawaii, across Asia, Australia, throughout Europe, and now she is starting the new year in New Zealand.

Jeanne Dee from Soultravelers3

The “Soultravelers3″ are a digital nomadic family into their fifth year of an open-ended world tour. They were living the American dream, with a large, ocean-view California country home, but when they had a child in 2000 they decided that a permanent travel lifestyle would give them more time for bonding and freedom. They’ve raised their daughter to be tri-ligual in Chinese, Spanish and English, and they’ve now seen 38 countries on 5 continents, usually spending their winters in Asia (they are currently in Penang, Malaysia), and summers in Europe.

Andrew Hayes from Sharing Travel Experiences

Andy launched two online ventures at once. Sharing Travel Experiences is an online travel lifestyle magazine where he puts to use many of the skills he developed when he used to do a lot of writing for clients, and Travel Online Partners is a tourism marketing company that he has spent time working on while he’s been in Spain, Canada, and California in the last year. He is also an iPhone app developer and a published travel author.

Michelle Dale from Virtual Miss Friday

Michelle is a mobile entrepreneur, mother of two, and the virtual assistant behind VirtualMissFriday.com and VirtualAssistant-Live.com. She left a high-paying job in the banking industry and left the UK to move to Egypt for two years. Since then, she took her VA business from a one-person operation to a 6 figure offshore company while living in Luxor and in a few different parts of France. Michelle currently lives in Spain, and will be making her way to Italy later this year.

Drop Your Email in the Signup Form Below to Receive Your Free Digital Nomad Case Studies Report

(Note: If you’re already on the DNA email list, you don’t have to sign up again, you’ll be getting this in your email inbox very soon.)

But people didn’t just want case studies of successful nomadic entrepreneurs. You asked for direct access to them. You said you want supervision, and marketing advice, and troubleshooting guides, a yearly conference, and so much more.

Looking at all the feedback to what we’ve been bringing together at DNA made me realize the immensity of what we’re about to do. Nothing like what we’re about to at Digital Nomad Academy exists. There is no rulebook for what we’re going to put together for our students there. And we’re going to blow every other product or community in this niche out of this universe! (Sorry guys)

This is going to be so much bigger than I had originally imagined. I’m going to need to cancel some plans this year, stop doing my normal client work for a few months, and pour my time and energy into DNA. This will be an undertaking for all of us because we’re not just talking about a 6 session class, followed by some Q & A sessions. We’re talking about a comprehensive all-inclusive training program.

All of the individuals profiled above will be Digital Nomad Academy Faculty Members.

That means they will each participate on weekly coaching and mentoring calls, and you’ll get the chance to ask them your questions directly.

Not only that, but this is just the first round of faculty announcements. We’ll have many more successful online entrepreneurs, nomads, and niche experts involved to contribute to the vast amount of knowledge and training we’re putting together for you at DNA over the course of 2011!

Do You Want to Learn Directly from These (and Many More!) Successful Digital Nomads?

If you do, then here’s what I want you to do next: drop your email in the sign-up form up above on this page and we’ll send you the free report “10 Real-World Digital Nomad Case Studies” (as well as my last freebie, the Digital Nomad 101 Resources Guide), and you’ll get a chance to learn more about how you can be mentored directly by myself and all of these experienced nomadic entrepreneurs and many MORE!

Read the original article on Thrilling Heroics here: 10 Digital Nomad Success Stories, and How You Can Learn From Them…

[Note: In case you're wondering, this post is a FOLLOW UP TO THIS POST which resulted in well over 200 comments & survey responses from all across North America, and as far as Australia, Hong Kong, Sweden, Argentina and South Africa! I try my best to respond to as many comments as possible, BTW].

The Story of How I Became a Vagabonding Entrepreneur

As most of you know from reading my site or my free Digital Nomad 101 guide, I left California in November 2008 with a one-way ticket to Asia and no plans to return for at least a year.

My desire to travel abroad started as a bit of an escape—to start fresh somewhere new. I’d had a nasty breakup, found myself bored in my 9-to-5 office job, stagnating in my personal growth, followed by another messy relationship. I was ready for change.

I’d lived in my hometown for 24 years and I was ready for new scenery.

Like Neo in the Matrix, I didn’t know what it was, but always knew that there was something wrong with the world. I looked around at everyone tied to their cubicles, plugged into the Machine, slaving away chasing some “dream”, but really just feeding the System: a system that encourages the status quo, conformity, mediocrity, stagnation, and submission to the same groups that have always held power in our society.

But I digress…

How This Whole “Digital Nomad” Thing Started

I remember the EXACT moment I decided that I was going to follow MY intuition when it came to how I live my life, where I live it, and what I make of it.

Rather than waiting for retirement to do what I wanted with my life, I decided to quit wasting time going down the template life path and start working on doing the things I dreamed of doing NOW. Even if it means I fail a few times before succeeding.

It sounds so obvious once you start thinking differently than they tell you to think about your “career”, but technology now enables us to collaborate from opposite ends of the earth, and build 1-man businesses that span the globe on the internet. What many folks don’t realize is that means you’re no longer tied to one place, geographically.

Digital nomads are the savvy professionals who leverage technology to work from anywhere they want—from home, the coffee shop, on the beach, or from the other side of the world! With a laptop, an internet connection, and a little resourcefulness, you can hire assistants in India or the Philippines, manufacture in China, and sell products to customers on the opposite side of the earth!

From the time I was toying with the idea of sneaking my way into Stanford Graduate School of Business, I’d already built an online platform to share my ideas about business, technology, and social entrepreneurship. And with my growing web development business, I’d already worked with clients in Canada, Australia, France, and beyond. Why couldn’t I run my business from anywhere?

I was smart enough. I was good enough.

There were naysayers who said I’d fail… that I’d go broke and come home with my tail between my legs. I had many moments of doubt (and still do, that’s part of being an entrepreneur!)

But here I am still after more than 2 years, while they sit in their cubicles…

… living near my favorite beach in the world, working on my own creative projects, meeting tons of cool entrepreneurs and travelers, and free to go out for dinner and drinks with friends any night of the week!

Creating a business that I could run remotely from anywhere in the world has given me the freedom to choose: where I live, when I work, and it has enabled me free up more time to put into relationships, writing, volunteering, and many side hobby projects.

And being able to travel frequently and spend extensive time abroad (I’ve traveled to another 8 countries in the last two years) is perhaps the most impactful and meaningful facet of the lifestyle I’ve been able to create. I can’t imagine any better way to learn about yourself, your values, and worldview, than interacting extensively with a wide range of people who will show you their many different diverse cultures, traditions, values, religious beliefs, and more (not to mention their food and parties!)

I used to get emails from friends of friends, or referrals from my clients. People started to notice the way I was living my life.

Now I get hundreds of emails every month from people who are interested in traveling or moving to Asia, or who are striving to build their own freelance businesses so they can have more time freedom and location independence.

When I started, there wasn’t anyone in the trenches with wannabe Digital Nomads like me.

“Lifestyle design” has of course been around for ever. And as you all know, there was Tim Ferriss’ book The 4 Hour Workweek… which was a major wake up call for many of us. And there have been a lucky few who have been working “telecommuter” jobs for the last 15 or 20 years I suppose.

But the Digital Nomad lifestyle is really a paradigm shift. It’s still a new idea in the workplace, still in its infancy. At the time when I got my start, there was nobody out there to mentor me or supervise me or even to brainstorm with me when it came to actually taking my small business mobile.

There were no authorities on the subject who were accessible.

There were no training programs…

So I researched and read and taught myself along the way, taking bits of knowledge from business mentors, internet marketers, travel gurus, social media “experts”, remote workers, and more. And I actually became a part of the early Lifestyle Design/New Rich/Digital Nomad community that was just starting to grow (and still is growing).

My passion (and flat-out obsession at times) for living life on my own terms, and for helping others achieve the same freedom, is what kept me going, and keeps me going, even when things get tough.

In The End, After Tons of Work… All My Passion and Drive Has Worked . . And in a BIG Way.

Back when I began doing all of this (all alone, working until 5 in the morning, pull my hair out some nights) I never would have dreamed that…

• I would have a hugely successful blog—with an audience of thousands of worldly, ambitious readers—and that lets me connect with hundreds of brilliant online entrepreneurs, accomplished authors, and intriguing travelers from around the world in person!
• That I would have millionaire globetrotting clients, and customers on 5 continents!
• That I’d co-found a company (with friends, just for fun!) that would get us in the New York Times
• That my story would be featured in books, or that I’d be interviewed by ABC News or countless business & travel sites
• Or that I’d be speaking at (and helping organize) international business conferences
• Or be able to help underprivileged and orphaned children with my friends at In Search Of Sanuk

But In Addition to Being Humbled By the People I’m Able to Interact with Every Week and the Impact I’ve had, I’ve Also Been Fortunate to Have A Very Gratifying Lifestyle (My Friends Call It Amazing… I Just Enjoy Having Choices).

For example, I get to work FROM HOME (wherever that is this week) on the web with individuals all over the world, and know that I’m making real and meaningful connections with people (and that my interactions with clients and friends can create dramatic changes for the better).

I never would have dreamed that I’d get to set my own schedule (so I have more time to spend with friends, in relationships, and getting to know new business contacts).

And I never would have imagined that I would be able to jet set around so many beautiful destinations and stay in such luxury as I have at times… It doesn’t cost as much as you might think to live a rockstar lifestyle abroad, by making a few savvy choices and using a couple smart geo-arbitrage principles.

So Here’s What I’m Getting To… Here’s What I Feel Compelled To Do…

So here’s the deal. Things have changed since I got my start a few years ago.

There is a TON of demand from people who want to know how to build a business that lets them live like this, way more than I can keep up with (like a thousand times over). And with each passing day, there are also more and more people who are successfully DOING IT. There are a lot of bloggers talking about “lifestyle design” or “location independence” who are just locked up in their dorm rooms—who haven’t actually traveled anywhere, and whose only “business” is their blog, but in the last two years, I’ve gotten to know dozens of people who are REAL success stories, many of them in person. These folks are the real deal. So I feel that our community is being compelled to step up to the plate.

The time has come for a central place to gather all these successful Digital Nomad authorities in one place where those of you who need guidance and encouragement can learn from them directly.

It’s time for some of you to stop living vicariously through what you read here and elsewhere online…

… and I’m on a mission to bring many of my friends and several of the big names online together to take you by the hand and actually TAKE ACTION to move towards the life you want. In my heart of hearts, I want to empower every one of my readers to have the same freedom and choices that I have. I’ve wanted this for a long time. And this is way overdue.

It’s time for Digital Nomad Academy

Last week I asked if there were many aspiring digital nomads out there who’d be interested in my complimentary resources guide.

I’m a lazy procrastinator, and I didn’t want to make the thing if you guys didn’t want it… so I made an interest list to gauge the interest.

(If enough people joined the interest list, I promised you I’d compile the free guide).

Well… um… enough people joined.

I was blown away! Over 600 people signed up for the interest list. I’ve been really humbled by the buzz surrounding the Digital Nomad 101 guide. I even got enthusiastic responses from authors Seth Godin, Rolf Potts, and Sam Carpenter, who I featured in the guide!

And there has been A LOT of interest in the coaching program that I talked about POTENTIALLY developing. So we’re doing it. DNA will become a reality in early 2011.

We’ve already secured commitments from some of the biggest Digital Nomads online to be faculty members at Digital Nomad Academy, and we’re in talks with several more. I’m going to bring as many of my friends as I can into this program to share their success stories, and so you can ask them your questions directly—a wide range of people from all different backgrounds, running different kinds of businesses, traveling and living in different countries.

AND we have an incredible curriculum we’ve spent a LONG time developing for you to go alongside the premium access to the experts. More on that later…

The Final Call

Starting tomorrow, only people on the Digital Nomad Academy early bird list will receive insider information on the upcoming coaching program and receive the free content we’re creating for you (If you’re on the list, you’ll get that free resources guide, and next I’m working on a case studies report, because that’s what many of you asked for).

(I’m not here to hard sell you, and some readers are only here to read my travel stories or my thoughts on web entrepreneurship, not because they want to live the same way I do… so I want to be considerate of them and make sure that they don’t get bombarded with information they don’t want or need).

So if you want to get the free resource guide, and the all the good stuff I’ve got coming your way, I highly suggest you join the Digital Nomad Academy early bird list below now:

That’s It For Now

Well, I’m off to figure out where I’m meeting my diver friends for New Year’s Eve barbecue tomorrow night!

But rest assured that if you’re on the DNA email list, I’ll be hooking you up with lots of great resources and information…

Have a GREAT New Year’s weekend, and remember to check back for your regularly-scheduled programming here next week!

–Cody McKibben
Dean, Digital Nomad Academy

Read the original article on Thrilling Heroics here: Digital Nomad Academy – We’re Doing It!

I finally received video footage from the Guerrilla Entrepreneurs Seminar in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, where I spoke about my experience as a nomadic entrepreneur and permanent traveler back in August.

My friend Hani Khaursar invited me to share the stage with some great folks including Vishen Lakhiani, Brian Wong, and others, and I discussed lifestyle design, finding your purpose and passion in business, geo-arbitrage, and living the digital nomad lifestyle anywhere you choose.

We had a blast! Attendees to the full-day summit paid more than $100 to hear our talks, but here’s your free ticket to watch my presentation below (hopefully I won’t get in trouble with Hani). Also you can follow along with my interactive visual presentation right below the video.

Enjoy!

Let me reiterate what I said at the end of my presentation:

The tools and the resources are the easy part—it’s the mindset, and breaking your preconceived ideas about your business and your life that’s difficult.

But I’ve said it before, if I can do this, anyone can do this.

If you’re serious about learning the mindset and overcoming the challenges that are holding you back from living life fully, on your own terms, then take a look at Digital Nomad Academy, where we bring together a faculty of incredible, experienced entrepreneurs from all backgrounds who’ve done it, that can help lead you where you want to go.

If you enjoy the presentation above, you can also watch my interview on the Leaderonomics Show in Kuala Lumpur, for more on similar topics.

Read the original article on Thrilling Heroics here: How to Make Friends Around the World & Serve Clients on 5 Continents

Update #1: Help me get 500 people to show their interest in DNA by jumping on our early bird list and I’ll release this FREE Digital Nomad 101 guidebook for you by Tuesday! [See bottom of the post]

Update #2: Digital Nomad Academy now has it’s own home at DNA.com, finally live!

If you’re on the Thrilling Heroics email list, I told you I’d have a special announcement for you today.

I’ve been pretty damn quiet on the blog since my last article when I told you all about how even when you live in paradise, sometimes life gives you lemons.

So it’s time for a short video update to let you know what I’ve been occupied with. I’ll show you my favorite destination I’ve found in my travels to 25 countries, where I’ve been lying low the last three months.

I won’t lie to you, living life on your own terms isn’t easy. I’ve thought about quitting the game and going back home to “normal life”. But late November marked my two-year anniversary on the road, making a living as a digital nomad and living the dream out here in Asia.

And at the end of the day, there’s nothing I love more than living near my favorite beach in the world, being able to go rock climbing every weekend on some of the most world-renowned routes, being Ewan McGregor’s double in random movies, snuggling with pet monkeys, and getting to hang out with incredible people like Brooke Ferguson, Dwight Turner, Sean Ogle, Mark Wiens, David Walsh, Derek Johanson, Nikki Scott, Jodi Ettenberg, Matt Goult, Markus Urban, Carlos Miceli, Colin Wright, Nomadic Matt, Gary Arndt, Backpacking Matt, Adventurous Kate, Ross Hill, Chris Mitchell, Dan Andrews, Milt Barron, Brittany Sims, Hani Khaursar, and dozens and dozens of other ridiculously rad individuals all over Southeast Asia!

Living the dream isn’t easy. It isn’t all roses and butterflies—it comes with plenty of challenges. But you get through them and it’s fucking worth it.

You guys helped keep me motivated even when I thought about throwing in the towel. I get so many comments and emails that remind me no matter what struggles I go through, nothing will ever rob me of my purpose and my passion to share this journey with you, and to help as many others live a life that makes you truly come alive too. So, in honor of two years living abroad, I’m working with a few friends on a new project to give back to you, to help answer all those questions I get in my inbox, and to help you finally take life by the horns yourself!

Digital Nomad Academy will bring together some of the most successful digital nomads, location independent business owners, and lifestyle designers—as many of these folks as we can get together in one place to share their case studies and help teach YOU how to attain the same levels of success that they have!

A digital nomad—or location-independent professional—is someone who leverages technology to work wherever they want—from home, your favorite coffee shop, on the beach, or even from the other side of the world! These nomadic entrepreneurs use their laptops, iPhones, a little resourcefulness, and a few handy web-based applications to earn an income wherever they live or travel, frequently working as freelance writers, photographers, affiliate marketers, web designers, software developers, graphic designers, consultants, and sometimes they simply pick up odd jobs as they go.

The internet now gives you the power to easily take your business to the whole world, giving you the unprecedented ability to work and travel your way around the globe, or simply live anywhere in the world you choose.

In the next few weeks, we’re going to make Digital Nomad Academy a reality, and throughout 2011, we’re going to take a few select people by the hand—those of you who know you want to be here doing what we’re doing, but you don’t know how to get here, those of you who are serious about making a huge change and taking the risks necessary to live on your own terms—and give you an exclusive look into what we do and how we do it, creating a framework for building a career that enables you to pursue your dream lifestyle.

You heard it here first! Sign up to be first in line for private access to the experts.

If this is you, if you have been waiting for an opportunity to make the changes you know you need to make in your life, to STOP reading, STOP living vicariously, and start taking the action that will get you there, then what I want you to do next is 1) enter your email and sign up below for our special DNA newsletter and get on board so we can keep you updated about the roll-out of this new, exclusive community.

Then, if you have 30 seconds, 2) I want you to leave your feedback in the comments section below.

• Do you want to learn directly from some of the web’s top digital nomads?
• What does your ideal lifestyle look like?
• And how hard are you going to work to make it a reality?

Update #1: Help me get 500 people to show their interest in DNA by jumping on our early bird list and I’ll release this FREE Digital Nomad 101 guidebook for you by Tuesday!

This is going over great so far. Lots of interest from potential students and I’m already talking with dozens of experienced nomads who want to be part of our ensemble faculty! We had about 100 people sign up on DAY ONE! And we’re at around 200 now…

But let’s keep it going! I want to make sure we get this in front of all our “right people”—all the folks out there who are looking for this kind of guidance and motivation. Please please, hit the share buttons at the top left of your screen, share this on Twitter, on Facebook, give us a thumbs up on StumbleUpon, or email this to your friends & family who you think might be interested.

If we get 500 people who want to learn more about DNA in the next few days, then I’ll work extra hard to put the finishing touches on this free Digital Nomad 101 Resources Guide I’ve been compiling for you and get it out to you Tuesday.

Otherwise, that’s alright, we’ll get there. But I have friends in town who want me to take them rock climbing this week, and I’d love to do that instead! Since I’m a perfectionist and a procrastinator I’d love to take my time and I’ll get it out when I get it out! Either way, free guidebook coming your way soon, if you jump on the list below. Cheers

Update #2: The free Digital Nomad 101 Resources Guide is now available to subscribers on the Digital Nomad Academy early bird list.

Read the original article on Thrilling Heroics here: 2 Years Living Abroad, My Favorite Beach in the World, and Your Chance to Come Join Me

Note: this article is massive, and it’s a bit more personal than I usually get, but I’ve summarized the lessons I’ve learned over the last six weeks about overcoming fear and dealing with unexpected life changes. My belief is that fear of the unknown is the only barrier between you and the life you want to have, so I’m certain almost everybody can get something out of this. Also, on a related note, if you want to take action to break each of your fears into much smaller, actionable items, to facilitate change and actually take control of your life, I highly recommend my friend Sean’s Overcoming the Fear of Uncertainty program.

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When a resolute young fellow steps up to the great bully, the world, and takes him boldly by the beard, he is often surprised to find it comes off in his hand, and that it was only tied on to scare away the timid adventurers.”

–Ralph Waldo Emerson

Maintaining relationships as a permanent traveler and entrepreneur has it’s challenges. I’ve been puzzled as to how to broach this topic here, but I recently parted ways with my (now ex-) girlfriend.

Nikki was (and always will be) a stunning, inspiring, ambitious woman. We met in Bangkok, she had built her own successful business, we saw four countries together in the last eight months alone, and together we got a beach house on beautiful Koh Phangan island in the south of Thailand. In many ways, we were the perfect travel couple. I thought I’d found the love of my life. So it’s hard to share with the whole world when you fuck something that good up.

Maybe we rushed into things. Maybe our hopes were too high. Maybe we were too alike—both A-type, hard-headed entrepreneurs, both accustomed to the ever-changing permanent travel lifestyle, and both very stubborn. We both had outside stresses, and moving from a busy city with literally hundreds of friends we could go out with nearly every day of the week, to sharing a home together for the first time, together nearly 24/7, on a small island where we didn’t know anyone, we had a few fights that escalated from bad to worse, and eventually I left Koh Phangan.

In retrospect, I don’t even remember what our arguments were about. Average disagreements, minor hurt feelings, money worries, but they would spiral out of control as we provoked each other to higher and higher stakes back and forth. Occasional fights are inevitable in long-term relationships. But perhaps we hadn’t had enough time to fully figure each other out, or maybe we both still need to learn how to handle those misunderstandings and disagreements properly with a more mature discourse.

Over the course of several months I had adjusted my business and scaled back on a lot of the projects I had been doing on my own (to clarify, she didn’t ask me to do this) to help her expand her magazine online and across Asia further. She had wanted me to potentially partner with her more officially on it, and we’d had plans to travel to South America in 2011 and do similar business there…

So when we went our separate ways, not only did I walk away from a girl that meant a tremendous amount to me, but I also became a homeless “digital drifter” again, and reverted back to solo entrepreneur. Because I had dropped a few big clients and discontinued some of the services I had been providing over the months, it’s put me at a crossroads in my business: what direction do I go? What opportunities do I get back into? Do I search for new clients or reinvent things and do something entirely new?

Not being in a committed relationship also puts me back in a position where I could almost go anywhere in the world, which is actually scary as hell. The decisions are paralyzing.

We’ve all had experiences like these—it was actually another breakup over three years ago that pushed me to move overseas—and I’ve had countless emails from readers in similar situations, who also experienced a breakup, or some other big life change.

But these big changes that we experience—losing someone you love (through a breakup, the death of someone you care about, or otherwise), having your career or your business thrown in disarray, experiencing a huge change in your living situation before you’re ready for it, trouble in your family, misunderstandings with your friends, and many other similar things—they can also bring out massive fears that—if you don’t overcome them—will put you in a rut for months or years, and may destroy you.

We may feel fear because of an experience that has happened in the past which triggers fear in the present. We might feel fear of uncertainty, or fear of the unknown. Or, we may even be frightened of doing what we’ve always wanted to do with our lives—a kind of nervous excitement, if you will.

[…] Fear is debilitating. It keeps us at a distance.  It stops us from moving forward.  It holds us back.

Our natural instinct when we begin to feel fear is avoidance.  Many people will go to unnatural extremes to avoid their fears, rather than dealing with their fear, and moving forward.”

–Brooke Ferguson

The Fear of Uncertainty

I am a firm believer that the only thing that holds you back from getting the things you want in this life is yourself—or, to be more precise, your fears.

Fear is a product of our evolution—it’s a survival response, a remnant from caveman days when we needed to remain alert and move our asses to avoid getting eaten by sabertooth tigers. But life in modern society is pretty cushy, and that inherent fear and anxiety response isn’t so useful anymore. At least I haven’t come across too many sabertooth tigers.

You’re never going to completely remove the fear. But you must master the fear if you want to be successful in life and attain your goals.

Most of us fear failure in some form or another. A lot of people stay in their 9-to-5 jobs because they fear the unknown—not having that paycheck to rely on, or they fear their own ability to go out and find enough paying clients to make a living. I experience that fear every month! Or you might fear that people will think your idea is stupid, that no one will buy. People will laugh at you because you choose to walk a different path—the unconventional path.

“Most people will choose unhappiness over uncertainty.”

–Timothy Ferriss

But it’s not going to kill you to fail. Ask anyone successful how they got there, and they will undoubtedly tell you about the many, many failed ideas and failed attempts they made before they became an “overnight” success.

Failure doesn’t have the same sharp teeth and claws that it used to. If you’re trying to do big, remarkable things in business or in life, then failure is unavoidable. It’s part of the journey, part of the learning process. And in fact, failure is only going to teach you what you didn’t know already, and it will teach you lessons to apply in your next attempt at success.

One lesson that really made a huge impact on me early on, from Ramit Sethi, is that if you’re not failing at a few things each month, then you’re not trying hard enough. Ramit keeps a folder for failures, and he’s a New York Times bestselling author now.

Mountains from Molehills

Any big life change is going to feel like an insurmountable goal before you actually achieve it. The more you think about it without taking action and getting started, the more you will build it up to be a huge challenge in your head.

I remember before I finally pulled the trigger and packed my bags to live abroad in late 2008, I was scared shitless about leaving my comfortable surroundings. I thought I might end up spending a year in Asia in complete solitude. Boy did I turn out to be wrong though! I have friends now that I would never have back home—millionaires, media personalities, nightclub owners, authors, folks from all industries and from every corner of the world.

my 2nd day in Bangkok

I made it out to be a much bigger obstacle in my head than it really turned out to be. There were plenty of challenges, as I arrived in Beijing, China, just as the Bangkok airport was closed down by political demonstrations, and they wanted to turn me around and send me back to California.

But once I was moving towards my goal, once I was on the road traveling, I was surrounded by a completely new world—foreign languages I didn’t understand at all, different social norms—and it forced me to be resourceful. I had to learn and overcome the challenges, and in fact it increased the rate at which I was learning new things and becoming more resilient.

How to Royally Fuck Up a Sure Thing

Alright, so how to actually deal with the fear…

First, I want to tell you how not to deal with your fears. This is something that I’ve probably done over and over again, and one of these days I’ll have to learn that if I want a different outcome, I have to change my behavior. But I’ll share it here so hopefully you can learn a lesson from my failure.

So to go back to the breakup, a huge fear that I’ve recognized in myself is the fear that I’ll never find the kind of companionship I want—someone to share my life with. I’m not ready to settle down in one place, and I know I’m not mature enough to get hitched just yet, but I’m pretty serious when it comes to dating, and I’m looking for the right woman to join me on my unconventional journey through life—with all the ups and downs of travel and business thrown in there.

I tend to be extremely loyal when I find someone that fits—sometimes too much so. But a common fear that crops up in my relationships is that my other half isn’t as committed to the partnership.

In Nikki, I found someone who was exceptionally like-minded—she also enjoys the unleashed travel lifestyle and has the ups and downs of entrepreneurship. Very rare, but we understood each other pretty damn well. We made an incredible couple, and had a brilliantly fun time, something I’ll always be thankful for. We were almost sickeningly cute at times, I’m sure.

The huge mistake I made, though, was letting the fear take control at the first sign that something was wrong. Seth Godin calls it the lizard brain—the fight or flight tendency.

When we fought, all my biggest fears came out: that she would leave me, or maybe that I wasn’t good enough for her, and that even if we did work things out, get through the argument and come to an understanding, eventually there would come a time when I wasn’t able to keep her happy and the relationship would fall apart anyway.

So rather than fully committing myself to working things out, getting through the argument and working at it to come to an understanding, which is the mature thing I should have done, I let my past experiences dictate my behavior, and I acted out of fear. I said things I didn’t mean. And at the end, I was the douchebag who walked away from her, because I feared she would dump me, and I was desperate to avoid that pain (real or imagined).

I feared a certain outcome, so rather than working hard at it and being there the way I should have, I overreacted out of fear and prematurely severed the relationship because I feared an unknown future. When I realized what a mistake I’d made, I spent a week or two trying to persuade her back with logical reasoning. This is exactly the opposite of what you should do. There’s no reasoning with someone to love you; I’d already lost her trust.

“Love is an act of endless forgiveness, a tender look which becomes a habit.”

–Peter Ustinov

Moral of the story: if you really want something, don’t let fear take the wheel and go into fight or flight mode. Don’t react and be a jackass when you fear an unknown outcome. Instead, stay reasonable, keep a cool head, hang in there and keep working hard, taking the steps necessary toward what you want. Because you never really know what will happen—you can’t predict the future—but a lot of people sabotage themselves, almost subconsciously, so that they don’t have to experience failure if they don’t get what they want.

This applies to relationships, but also to pretty much everything else too. Don’t do this!

Keep Your Options Open

No matter what fear you’re facing, the biggest element is that we all fear we will be ruined if we fail. Life will be over!

But that’s just not true. What you need is to figure out your options if everything goes horribly, a backup plan, if you will. A lot of times we have these fears because we don’t know what alternate options we have. So you need to spend some time and think about your options.

Tim Ferriss calls it fear-setting: you need to spend some time and think about your options if the worst case scenario happens. Try writing down exactly what would happen in the absolute worst case, if you completely and utterly fail at your goals. Then map out as many paths to recovery as you can, or alternate solutions to achieve your goal.

A few weeks after my breakup, I sat down and put together a mindmap with some of my biggest fears right now at this stage in my life: what direction to go with my business, money troubles, my fear of loneliness, and yes even the fear that I’ll never find the Mrs. Right.

Once I did this, I actually realized how many friends I had coming through to visit, how much fun was in store, I realized how many different business opportunities were already open to me, and new income streams I could start if I put in the effort, I even realized a lot of the positive things about my breakup and being on my own again. It made a huge difference in my attitude, and gave me the energy to look for new possibilities and keep pressing forward.

Once you define your worst possible outcome, and brainstorm solutions for it, you’ll see that in most cases failure will be much easier to come back from than you might fear. This should help remove a lot of the uncertainty for you in any area of your life.

Surround Yourself with Good People

I was exceptionally fortunate that I had a good friend not far from where I was: Brooke Ferguson was just a few hours away in Krabi, Thailand. I took a bus to see her, she helped me get my feet back on the ground now that I was homeless, she listened to all my braindump about what had happened, gave me lots of helpful insight, and we even got some momentum going on an exciting new project.

Several friends have actually come to visit in the last two months: Craig Gonzales, who wrote here about friendship and location independence recently, Colin Wright, Carlos Miceli, Ross Hill, Dwight Turner, Matt Goult, and others. Some were there when I needed someone to discuss my breakup and my fears with, and slowly, through many conversations, I was able to learn some important lessons and understand my mistakes a bit better.

Markus from LivingOnImpulse.com & Dwight from InSearchOfSanuk.com

Some of them were there when I just wanted to go out for drinks and a fun time. A couple joined me on the renowned rock climbing routes in Railay Beach, Krabi (which itself, like skydiving, deals with my fear of heights. Staying active, or getting involved in a new activity can be a great way to challenge yourself in new ways and overcome unique challenges that you can then also apply in other parts of your life. Like losing a toenail after four hours of climbing, and then having to climb through pitch black caves and abseil down a 100-foot limestone cliff barefoot!)

abseiling barefoot over West Railay Beach

A rare few will excel at helping guide you through your own mental process, which is exactly what Markus Urban was able to do with me when we met for a few days of food, drinks, adventure, fun, and deep conversations.

Don’t compound your fears by staying isolated from the world. Often, if you can talk things through with people who you trust, they’ll help you see new things you didn’t see on your own. Getting the support of good friends, or family, can help infuse you with the courage you need to overcome your fears. And remaining present, honest and open to old and new people around you will frequently present new opportunities that weren’t there before.

Stare Fear in the Eye

It’s likely that what you fear most is what you must do. Steve Pavlina says that whatever you fear is not really an obstacle, but a challenge that you must face:

“The reward for facing fear is that you get to be fully alive. When you turn towards your fear, you feel the breath of life blowing straight at you, and it’s very refreshing. You feel awake and energized. It’s not that you become an adrenaline junky. You simply realize that you can’t let fear stand in your way if you want to live your life consciously. Being afraid of something is no excuse for not doing it.”

–Steve Pavlina

All the big things you want to accomplish will stir up your fears to some degree, and it’s only by confronting those fears head-on that you’ll ever overcome them and achieve anything remarkable. If something seems impossible, then break it down into smaller parts, and start today on the first one that will get you going the direction you want to go.

By breaking down your huge fears into small pieces and taking action every day, you’ll start to build up resilience and tenacity in the face of those fears. And every time you have a small breakthrough or a victory over something you fear, you’ll gain more and more momentum to continue on and take on bigger and bigger challenges.

I finally decided to take initiative on a big, impossible dream I have of hosting some kind of an entrepreneurship, personal development and lifestyle design summit in the Southern California desert—a sort of unconference and retreat with inspiring, like-minded people who want to create radical change in their lives and build meaningful businesses.

As soon as I started sharing this idea with the right kind of people—a few folks who I really look up to and a few individuals who crossed paths by serendipity and shared an understanding of what change I want to make in the world—I started to get positive feedback from some who are also interested to participate and make something happen, which has given me new motivation to put in the attention and effort and make this one of my central projects in the coming months. (More on this soon, but if you want to learn from and collaborate with some remarkable people for a week in Palm Springs, say around mid-April when Coachella Music & Arts Festival is on, drop me a line.)

And in the dating arena, I’ve simply forced myself to keep being social, going out and meeting new people, bonding with new friends, and already I’ve found that there are plenty of great women out there to meet and plenty of potential for new relationships when the time is right, and maybe my huge fear that I’ll spend eternity alone isn’t true after all.

Are You Avoiding Doing Something Out of Fear?

“You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.”

–Wayne Gretzky

Consider what you have to lose by not taking action. Will you get another chance at this? Are you happy with things as they are now, or are you miserable? Will you choose unhappiness over uncertainty?

The key to achieving your wildest goals in life is to overcome the fears that hold you back, and to question your assumptions. The more certainty you require in life, the more you will be let down and unhappy. The people who succeed are the ones who accept that much of life is uncertain, and every day will serve up new challenges. Sometimes you’ll feel prepared to handle them, but most of the time you probably won’t. You must learn to adapt quickly to change, seek out how you can turn uncertainty to your benefit, and stop being a victim—but instead start looking for the lessons you can learn from life’s challenges to make you stronger.

Here are four lessons I’ve learned as I’ve overcome big challenges and faced my fears:

1. If you feel pulled towards something, embrace it and race toward it.
2. Big life changes are never as scary as you make them out to be in your head at first.
3. No matter what happens, you will adapt to new surroundings and new things in your life surprisingly quickly.
4. Even if your plans don’t unfold how you want them to, at the very least you will experience growth and learn valuable lessons along the way.

The willingness to risk the comfort of the familiar in order to find your true happiness is the path to living a remarkable life.

“Winners expect and embrace failure as something that will remain constant throughout their lives. No matter how successful they are in whatever they do, they will have the failures to go alongside it.

Every winner out there has had to first become a Master of Failure before enjoying the winning side of life.”

–Kevin Abdulrahman

There always have been and always will be a small subset of the population who lead remarkable lives. They choose not to allow fear—of the unknown, of uncertainty, of failure—to hold them back from doing big things. They take action in the face of fear. The question is: will you choose to be one of them? Will you overcome your fears and live a remarkable life?

If So, the World Is Your Oyster!

Image: Anton Balazh

Read the original article on Thrilling Heroics here: How to Keep Kicking Ass When You Lose Everything

Songkran water festival with Gary Arndt & the blogger gang

This week I finally want to share a fantastic interview I did with Gary Arndt from Everything Everywhere. You may be wondering where I disappeared to, I’ve been meaning to get this interview up for about a month, but unfortunately personal life took the driver’s seat for the last few weeks.

But today I’m excited to finally share this with you. I met Gary while he was in Bangkok, Thailand, for a couple months earlier this year. Coming from Wisconsin and Minnesota, Gary made his first trip around the globe when he sold his internet consulting company in 1999. Then he made it his mission to travel the world on a more permanent basis and left the States in March 2007. He’s been nomadic ever since and has visited over 70 countries in the last three years, traveling solo.

His blog has been recognized as one of TIME’s Top Blogs of 2010, and his work has recently been featured on Huffington Post. Gary and I got into some great conversation. Here are some of the highlights:

• 0:30 – Gary’s experience traveling to 70+ countries in 3 years
• 1:24 – Little-known secret destinations in the Pacific: Micronesia and more
• 3:33 – What it’s like to be a full-time solo world traveler
• 4:42 – The trap of over-thinking your trip before you go & how travel forces you to grow
• 5:50 – The vacation mindset versus the nomadic, permanent traveler mindset
• 6:30 – How Gary went from his parents’ basement to founding a successful tech company
• 8:50 – How he sold his company and leveraged it to take his first round-the-world trip
• 10:28 – More about Gary’s top travel blog Everything Everywhere and how he went from less than 100 visitors a day to one of the web’s top travel blogs
• 14:22 – Networking in the travel industry and how to get other people to pay for your travels!
• 17:50 – How Gary abandoned SEO practices and made it into TIME’s Best Blogs 2010
• 20:05 – Lessons he learned from 3 years of traveling the world (feature on Huffington Post)
• 21:40 – How the news makes people fear the “outside” world, and how the world is actually a pretty safe place
• 24:13 – Why Gary got kicked out of the island nation of Kiribati and changed their visa laws!
• 26:00 – About his new book deal (and how to use a blog as a marketing platform for publishing your own book)
• 27:28 – Gary’s beef with the lifestyle design niche and bloggers who don’t walk the walk (the importance of experience and credibility)

[Apologies for the rough video quality: it's late night for Gary so he looks like a ghost illuminated by his screen, and it's a bit choppy at one or two spots because I'm recording from a beach on Koh Phangan!]

Gary will be in Las Vegas next week, speaking at Blog World Expo at Mandalay Bay Convention Center on October 15th. Make sure to connect with him on Twitter to track him down wherever his world travels take him! He’s also instrumental in the This Week in Travel podcast.

If you liked learning about Gary and his Permanent Travel Adventures, click here to discover Case Studies of several more Successful “Digital Nomads”→

Read the original article on Thrilling Heroics here: 70 Countries in 3 Years: An Interview with Permanent World Traveler Gary Arndt

Last week, before I packed up everything to move again, I had a great chance to talk on the phone with Karol Gajda from Ridiculously Extraordinary, phoning in from Wroclaw, Poland.

Karol is one of my favorite bloggers out there, and I haven’t shared his stuff enough. Karol lives life on his own terms. He travels where he wants to, lives where he wants to. He’s not afraid to be himself, to curse once in a while, he gets philosophical and vulnerable about the challenges of living a life of extraordinary freedom, and he digs into some really, truly valuable strategies and tactics for improving your life.

What’s in store for you in this excellent interview:

• 2:00 – What is ridiculously extraordinary freedom?
• 2:45 – Karol’s trip to Goa, India, to build a handmade guitar
• 3:18 – All about his guide How to Live Anywhere
• 6:36 – About Karol’s long career in affiliate marketing and info product strategies
• 8:26 – Specific tactics for earning money with your blog
• 10:55 – All about hustle
• 12:32 – Secrets to exploding your blog & Karol’s secret for guest blogging on huge sites
• 17:02 – Karol’s travels to India, Thailand, and Poland this year (see Karol’s guest post The Beginner’s Guide to Minimalist Travel on Zen Habits)
• 19:20 – What it’s like traveling and living in Wroclaw, Poland (Karol’s birthplace)
• 23:35 – Networking and using Couchsurfing when you travel
• 24:30 – What’s up next in Karol’s travels, BlogWorld conference
• 25:25 – How a Gameboy at age 8 helped Karol realize an extraordinary method for achieving goals

Download the MP3 here to listen on your own computer (right click and “Save As”)

How to Live Anywhere: The guide I wish I’d written

The last thing I want to mention is that I read Karol’s truly incredible guide How to Live Anywhere: The Official Guide to Ridiculously Extraordinary Freedom while I was in Bali with my girlfriend a couple months ago now. Even as someone who’s already living the location independent lifestyle, I found several valuable strategies for making more money online and insights into improving my mindset, for example.

Update August, 2011: Unfortunately Karol has made his excellent guidebook unavailable, so if you want great lessons, interviews, case studies, and tools for how to live anywhere, make sure you become a part of the Thrilling Heroics Inner Circle (it’s free)!

Make sure you follow Karol Gajda on Twitter and check out these awesome articles on Ridiculously Extraordinary:

• 21 Reasons You Should Quit Your Day Job
• 17 Miniscule Actions that Produce Massive Results
• How to Pack Ultra Light

Read the original article on Thrilling Heroics here: How to Live Anywhere: A Ridiculously Extraordinary Discussion with Karol Gajda

Chris Ducker is my go-to guy that I trust when it comes to outsourcing and virtual assistants. We met through Twitter and the blogosphere and over the last several months I’ve gotten to know him quite well.

Chris is an experienced sales and marketing professional originally from London, who’s now the CEO of the Live2Sell Group of Companies, a thriving offshore outsourcing provider and call center operation in Cebu City, Philippines, where they’ve grown exponentially from about 7 employees to a massive firm with 217 staff and growing!

Chris is on a mission to be a full-time Virtual CEO by the end of 2010, to get his business to the point where he can work from home with his family, and he documents his journey at Virtual Business Lifestyle.

Chris recently interviewed me for VBL, but this time I sat down to chat with him about his businesses, how he turned his life around 180 degrees from near bankruptcy to thriving success, the key differences between hiring freelance virtual assistants and hiring an outsourcing service provider, and his mission to remove himself from the office and become a Virtual CEO before the end of the year:

0:45 – All about Chris’ Virtual Business Lifestyle
1:40 – How Chris ended up living and working in Cebu, Philippines
4:20 – Rags to riches, going from lots of debt to great financial success
6:56 – Why Chris wants to free himself from the office and become a Virtual CEO
11:25 – Work-life balance and what Chris’ mobile lifestyle with his family looks like
14:45 – All about Chris’ business process outsourcing firm and call center and his personal web PA company
17:47 – The quality of the workforce in the Philippines and the scalability power of outsourcing
22:45 – Home-based freelance outsourcers and keys to finding great virtual assistants
25:14 – The benefits of going with outsourcing companies
26:33 Chris’ new match-making service to help you find reliable home-based virtual assistants
28:19 – Expat life in the Philippines and the low cost of living in Asia (see Chris’ blog post What’s it Like to Live and Work in the Philippines?)

Late last week, Chris and his team launched their new Virtual Assistant match-making service, Virtual Staff Finder. In a nutshell, it bridges the gap between entrepreneurs that want a hard-working, experienced home-based VA, but one that is filtered and vetted in a more professional way. They do the background checks, test applicants online and give you the top three candidates to interview. For people who want to hire outsourcers, it eliminates all the guesswork, and you basically don’t have to do anything but make the final ‘hire’ decision.

I’ll be using Chris’ new service myself in the weeks ahead, as I’ve had my share of headaches searching job listing sites and trying to find the best virtual assistants through other means. You can check it out by visiting VirtualStaffFinder.com—where you can also get your hands on his new free eBook “The Top 10 Virtual Assistant Tips”! And if you do decide to hire your own VA with Virtual Staff Finder’s help, make sure you use this link to let them know I sent you their way and they should treat you with extra love!

Make sure to scope out all the invaluable content Chris has on his site Virtual Business Lifestyle. A couple of my favorites:

• How to Utilize Virtual Assistants to Help Create, Market and Sell Your ‘4HWW’ Style Muse!
• What’s it Like to Live and Work in the Philippines?
• Personal Branding and The Art of Self Promotion
• The Virtual Business Lifestyle Top 12 “Lifestyle Design” Blogs

You can also connect with Chris below:

• Get the Virtual Business Lifestyle podcast on iTunes
• Join the VBL Facebook page
• Connect with Chris Ducker on Twitter

Read the original article on Thrilling Heroics here: Outsourcing to the Philippines and Building Your Virtual Business Lifestyle with Chris Ducker

Sean Ogle is the man.

Sean is someone who quit his office job, working in finance in Portland, Oregon, and took a huge leap. He moved to Asia and started a new life abroad, experimenting with working as a digital nomad.

Sean submitted a remote work proposal to his firm in Portland, and when they wouldn’t negotiate with him, he did it his way anyway. He was going to experience life abroad, one way or another.

He ended up being selected for the first Tropical MBA internship, working remotely with Dan Andrews of the Lifestyle Business Podcast and a team in Manila, Philippines, and his business partner in San Diego, California. Sean also helps manage affiliates for Chris Guillebeau—who just recently launched the hugely successful Empire Building Kit—and has many personal projects of his own on the way.

Sean soaked at Songkran festival in Bangkok (photo by Gary Arndt of Everything-Everywhere.com)

Sean’s blog Location 180 is where you can see this entire life transformation unfold over the last year and a half.

Sean took a huge risk, and made a big life change. I was lucky to get to know him pretty well and spend a lot of time with him here in Bangkok, Thailand for the last six months.

A few weeks ago, it was time for him to return home for a while, so I took the opportunity to sit down and catch up with him on video to ask him some questions about his travel experience, get his advice for other folks who want to make the jump into working remotely and living abroad, and share how he’s successfully built a location independent career and designed his ideal lifestyle.

• 0:45 – What catalyzed the change Sean wanted in his life
• 1:40 – About the Tropical MBA & bootstrapping a product development company from the Philippines
• 3:45 – Sean’s travel itch before redesigning his life
• 4:35 – Advice for taking the jump from corporate life into self-employment
• 6:55 – How to stay productive & accountable when you work at home
• 8:30 – Changing your mindset for a location independent lifestyle
• 9:25 – What Sean does to earn a location independent income
• 11:55 – Sean’s upcoming course to help you Overcome the Fear of Uncertainty
• 16:25 – About Location 180 & seeing Sean’s personal growth as he turned his life around 180 degrees
• 18:05 – Sean’s favorite travel experiences in Southeast Asia: Ubud, Bali, Koh Tao, Thailand and Puerto Galera, Philippines
• 20:00 – Expat life in Bangkok & meeting entrepreneurial people from around the world
• 23:05 – What’s next for Sean Ogle?

UPDATE: Sean’s product Overcoming the Fear of Uncertainty is NOW available, and it is indeed an invaluable guide for anyone who wants to start their own freedom business or work location independent. Fear of the unknown is the only barrier between you and the life you want to have, so I’m certain nearly anyone can get something out of this. If you want to take action to break each of your fears into much smaller, actionable items, to facilitate change and actually take control of your life, I highly recommend Sean’s program. (P.S. Click here to learn more about my own experience with petrifying fear.)

Learn more about Sean’s ultimate guide Overcoming the Fear of Uncertainty by clicking here→

You can connect with Sean on Twitter, and also be sure to subscribe to his mailing list at Location 180 to get a great free audio interview all about how to craft a remote work agreement.

Read the original article on Thrilling Heroics here: How Sean Ogle Quit His Job and Became a Location Independent Rockstar