The moment I boarded the American Airlines flight to the U.S., I was reintroduced to American standards of customer service (piss-poor compared to Asia), cultural sensitivity (now I’m being completely sarcastic), and security checks. At LAX, I refused the backscatter X-ray machine and was the lucky recipient of the up-close-and-personal new pat downs the TSA is graciously giving out.

Welcome back, Cody!

Finally, I arrived in Austin, Texas, for the tail-end of the South By Southwest Interactive conference and the start of the city’s immense music and film festival that attracts tens of thousands of people from across the country and the world every year.

For four days, I had the great fortune to hang out with friends at The Monarch apartments in Austin, right in central downtown, with a great view of the city, meeting several faces I’ve known for years (but only online), catching up with a couple old friends, and interacting with several fascinating new folks. Here are just some of them:

Markus Urban is without a doubt, one of the most profoundly inspiring people I have ever crossed paths with. He unapologetically pursues what he desires and follows his every instinct and passion (he calls this Living on Impulse). He has an incredible, sometimes startling ability to connect and relate to others, pierce through all the things that typically distract us from being completely 100% authentic, and turn the seemingly “impossible” into reality. He currently uses his superpowers to bring awesome people together into the same environment, collaborate on exciting projects like the upcoming DMAD.com and I Want to Travel show, and generally create fun everywhere he goes.

Ashley Spiker found the perfect niche for herself online when she combined her love for designer shoes and blogging at ShoeRazzi. Ashley and Markus are digital nomads that have been traveling across timezones together for the last year+. We met for a brief time in Krabi, Thailand, last year and they made a profound impact on my life, even in such a brief time. The two of them were generous enough to invite me to stay with them at the brilliant condo they rented in Austin for the month—the Superhuman Loft! It’s largely because of the two of them I was introduced to dozens of motivated, ambitious, interesting young folks all working to change the world in their own ways.

Will Hutson produces awesome television and video, including A Drink With Dave (with MTV’s Dave Holmes), among other things, and heads up Unscripted, the production company working on the upcoming I Want to Travel show mentioned above. He also shares cool and funny stuff at thehipsterdiet.

Nick Reese is a passionate young entrepreneur, affiliate marketer, and nomad. He’s recently released an impressive project with Chris Brogan, the book How to Turn Traffic and Trust into Sales, and explores what sets some people apart from the crowd at Becoming Bold.

Jenny Blake is a Career Development Program Manager and internal coach at Google, and has just recently published her book Life After College: the Complete Guide to Getting What You Want. A passionate young woman with a personal growth obsession, find her at Life After College.

Thursday Bram is a prolific freelance writer who’s done tons of impressive work for CNET, GigaOm, Lifehack, and many other publications. She’s also runs Hyper Modern Consulting, and is a really friendly gal to bounce business ideas off of over lunch, as I discovered with Jeanie Witcraft (see below).

Karol Gajda is my Polish-American, vegan, digital nomad friend who’s about a foot taller and even more dynamic in person than I imagined! He’s on a mission to help 100 people achieve Ridiculously Extraordinary freedom and he’s setting out on a tour of every roller coaster in the U.S. Karol is also the author of How to Live Anywhere: The Official Guide to Ridiculously Extraordinary Freedom.

Jenny Leonard is a skater chick and a courageous young soul who’s taken some huge risks recently to completely reboot her life, overcoming health challenges and other obstacles, selling all her belongings, and leaving everything behind to start traveling the world. Jenny, Markus, and I shared some cool, deep, vulnerable conversations. She’s always been self-employed and supported herself with her graphic design and creative freelance work. Find her at Where Is Jenny for now.

Andy Drish is someone I’ve been following for a very long time, since the beginning of my time online, so it was great to finally meet him face-to-face, albeit brief. Andy has worked extensively in corporate leadership development, social media marketing, and sales development and shares his knowledge through speaking, training, and workshops.

Benny Lewis is a multilingual Irishman who’s been traveling for almost a decade. He speaks at least 8 languages fluently and constantly relocates to new locations around the world to embark on new language-learning missions and become Fluent in 3 Months. It was especially good “craic” (fun) hanging out with the nondrinking, vegetarian Irish Polyglot for my favorite holiday, St. Patrick’s Day. If you’re into travel and languages, check out Benny’s extensive Language Hacking Guide.

Sean Ogle is a good friend that I spent several months with in Bangkok, so it was great to spend time with him again after some time. Sean quit his finance job to travel the world and work with Dan at the Tropical MBA, picking up a wide range of entrepreneurial skills along the way, and now he travels freely, working on several cool projects with some of the biggest names online. He recently put out a great course about Overcoming the Fear of Uncertainty, and you can follow all his unconventional adventures at Location 180.

Ryan Martin recently finished a ridiculously epic full year of travel. A close friend of Sean’s who I met back in Thailand, they should be somewhere between Las Vegas and Portland right now. Ryan will soon be working as an adventure tour guide all across the U.S., Canada, and Mexico. Check him out at Follow Me Everywhere.

Andrew Norcross was one of our partners when we started up Untemplater, so it was really fun to finally meet him in person for the first time in Austin! Norcross is an incredible developer, always helping solve my technical problems, and a stunning web designer (if you need a site redesign, I highly recommend you hire him). As he says, his ’personal brand’ is a combination of Camel Lights, tattoos, his son, and the word ‘fuck’, which is hilarious.

Adam Baker was another cofounder of Untemplater. We met while he was on his worldwide travels with wife Courtney and their young daughter through Australia, New Zealand, and Thailand, and this year the Baker family is on an RV journey across North America. Baker is author of Unautomate Your Finances, Sell Your Crap, and provides tons of great personal finance and life advice at Man Vs. Debt.

Chris Dunphy & Cherie Ve Ard are two technology-enabled nomads who have been traveling full-time since 2006. They started as RVers wandering across the U.S., and this year they’re living on the US Virgin Island, St. John. I only got to hang out with them briefly at the HP Trailer Park at SxSW, where they showed off some of their cool iPhone/iPad apps made for travelers based on needs they’ve addressed in their own travels (app one and app two). You can follow their travels at Technomadia and grab their book Answers to Common Excuses Not to Travel Full-Time.

J. Money is a lively, good-humored, punk rock kinda guy who learned a tremendous amount about personal finance when he got married and bought his first house and now shares it in an exciting, sexy way at Budgets Are Sexy.

Nate St. Pierre wants to change the world, by focusing on giving hope to people on an individual level, one at a time. He and J. Money work together on a truly inspiring project called Love Drop. Check out how you can make a difference in the world in just 15 minutes a week at ItStartsWith.Us.

Jeanie Witcraft has worked as a mental health therapist and is just starting to build a radically new life doing work to change the world sustainably, balancing different spheres of time, focus, and life, and connecting with people one-on-one to help in healing society’s ills.

Monica O’Brien was another of our cofounders when we started Untemplater in 2010. It was fantastic to finally meet her face-to-face, although entirely too brief (we’ll have to do it again soon). Monica is the marketing director at Braintree, and author of Social Pollination, and just recently released her first fiction work Silver Smoke.

A huge thanks to all these folks, and especially to Markus and Ashley who put a lot of us together in one place and made a ridiculously cool mashup of minds possible. It is indeed true, when you surround yourself with insightful, ambitious people, you up your game. I hope to release some interviews and videos with a couple of these folks soon…

Also, credit to Markus Urban for most of the photos on this page.

Please share your South By Southwest experience in the comments!

Finally, a side note: today is my birthday! If you want to help make my year, please consider contributing or helping me spread the word about my 5-week tour across the U.S. I’m seeking a sponsor to make one of my biggest, most ridiculous dreams come true, and I hope to host a big personal development and entrepreneurship summit in April (or next year if we have to, but we will make it happen!) Please help me spread the word by sharing on Facebook or sending a Tweet to your followers. Sincere thanks!

Read the original article on Thrilling Heroics here: 20 Inspirational, Superhuman Folks I Hung Out With at South By Southwest

Alright, so it’s official!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Who the Hell Am I to Sell Out Like This?

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

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

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

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

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

The 2011 Whirlwind Thrilling Heroics U.S. Tour Schedule

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

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

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

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

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

Major Opportunities:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

6 Things You Get If Your Company Sponsors My Trip

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

Make a Donation to Help Me Reach My Dangerously Ambitious Goals

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

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

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

Help Me Spread the Word About My Impossible Dreams for 2011

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

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

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

Thank you for your support!

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

Cody, Brooke Ferguson & Craig Gonzales in Krabi, Thailand

But It Makes Us Seem Cool!

Having friends throughout the world makes me feel pretty cool. I remember having a coffee conversation with a group of friends in Memphis, Tennessee a few years back. We were on our way to the Lollapalooza music festival in Chicago and got tired of the drive, so we stopped for some drinks with a friend. While chatting, our host dropped the “My friend in Georgia…” line. The young, arrogant boaster in me had to say, “oh yeah? I’ve been to Georgia…”

“Uhm… I meant the country,” she said while rolling her eyes.

“Yeah, me too. I spent time in Tbilisi after visiting my Peace Corps volunteer friends in Moldova and Azerbaijan,” I proudly remarked.

Shit like that is cool: To know what she is talking about, and to know that she thinks she is the only one who knows what she’s talking about.

There is a very real pride in knowing people around the world. The exoticness rubs off. It is like being attracted to the Brazilian exchange student or the British au pair. We are cool by association. Being from Texas is not cool if everyone around us is also from Texas, so we glean the coolness from our association with the Spanish, Qatari, or Thai friends that we have.

In addition to feeling cool, worldwide friends make our personal and professional lives more fulfilling. We can operate business remotely, we can rely on a warm bed and a tasty meal, and we can gain powerful insight into local business markets.

My young arrogance was not simply to seem cool to other people, though that was part of it, rather it was to make me more professionally capable and more culturally aware. But developing friendships takes time and energy. Networking is hard work, and if you know too many people, you run the risk of spreading yourself too thin.

The only surefire way to do this is to spend extensive time internationally. Spending several months in a new destination seems a requirement for this sort of true international experience. Sure, on my last trip to Darjeeling I met a lovely Tibetan lady in my hostel, but she is not really part of my network. She is someone I sometimes “like” on Facebook.

Superficial, one-off relationships are not what I am talking about.

But I Chat With People All Over!

We have conversations on the web: chat through MSN and Facebook, comment and communicate on Twitter and on blogs, and expose our language skills to those in language exchange programs. That is nice, but it is not what I am talking about.

Online friends share ideas. Good ideas—intelligent and helpful ideas. Relationships you maintain with other people online can be good, but they’re different from relationships with in-person friends, true friends.

Online friends are like study buddies or colleagues that enjoy each others’ company. The communication is intellectual, idealistic, or sophomoric. However it works, it’s narrow and important.

In-person friends do share these intellectually stimulating conversations, but they also share experiences. Money blogs and relationship blogs have individuals bearing their souls, so I am not saying web friends cannot be intimate, but true in-person friends grow together. They watch football together, go tubing together, eat breakfast together, and go through relationships together. They grow through time with each other in a beautiful way. This is something online friends cannot have, really, and it is something that some perpetual travelers and lifestyle designers may not realize we miss.

We spend time building a network, responding to blogs, and chatting on Twitter. But this is only a band-aid used to fill a very real void. Our “friendship void” makes us reach out however we can. In some cases, it is to people on the web. This is a very real experience and a very real problem.

Meeting online friends in real life (Cody, Carlos Miceli, Colin Wright, Ross Hill)

[Craig's] Personal Experience

The words ‘I’ and ‘me’ get thrown around far too often in blogs, but with that said, if I want to play the game, I should at least read the rulebook. I formalized my opinion based on the following experiences:

• While I was in high school. I had a core group of high school friends. I was part nerd, part bully, part social magnet, and part crescent fresh dude. I made many friends in high school. Most of my friends went to the same colleges, universities, military, or jobs after school. They all knew each other. I went to a school where I knew nobody. I left my friends behind for the great unknown.
• I went to university and had to make new friends. I stayed in contact with my high school friends, but they kept their relationships going. Throughout the four years of college, as I built new relationships and developed strong social skills and bonds with beautiful friends, my old friends grew closer. What I left after four years, they continued for eight.
• Upon graduation, I decided to go to graduate school. I didn’t know anyone in this new city. Most of my friends stayed in either Austin or Houston, Texas. They hung out all the time. They loved each other. I still talked to them. And sometimes I went to visit them. But throughout my entire time in graduate school, my high school friends kept their lives together, my college friends kept their lives together, and I made a brand new base of friends. In graduate school, most of my friends were undergrads. (I was still in that mindset.) In grad school, I realized that I needed some life experience, so once again, I moved away, and once again, I was the only person I knew making the decision I was making. I moved to Ghana.
• In Ghana, I made new friends. Wonderful expat and local friends. My high school friends now had almost 10 years together, my uni friends had six, and my grad school friends had already been building more than two years. I had these three groups of friends to keep up with, and surprisingly, while some came and went, there was always a core group, my core 3-6 friends, that always were together. They’d vacation together, they’d movie together, they’d have mid-week cookouts together. They grew up together. They knew each other so well. Their lives were beautiful. And I kept having to etch a new social life out of my experience. I had wanderlust.
• This experience happened to me three more times. Once, after Ghana, I took a job in a new city. I knew so few people, and had to make new friends. Then, after working for one year, I moved to Thailand. I was the only person I knew in Thailand, so I again had to make new friends. Then, after one-and-a-half years in Thailand, I moved to Singapore, where I had to start the whole process again. As you can see, this is a cycle that gets exhausting, because while I have known my new friends here in Singapore for three months, my old core groups (what is it now, five core groups of friends?) have become so close that they are experts on each other. They have spent so many hours together that they can finish each others sentences.

But Is It Worth It?

You have to decide that for yourself. Personally, I am pleased with my decision.

But I didn’t know the full consequences, mainly because I didn’t take the time to rationalize the cause-and-effect of this sort of lifestyle. I know more people than some of my friends; I know a more diverse group of people, and I have a wider perspective and more things to talk about. I love it. I love it so much. I would never trade it.

But I recognize what I have lost, and what I will not have with those I care about. For many people, family and friends are everything. Not just having them or chatting with them, but being with them. Daily, weekly, or monthly.

To have a work/life/relationship balance, you need to think of more than just money and freedom. You need to think about others. A lot of the location-independent bloggers have a positive, no-holds-barred approach to living life by one’s own means. I support that 100%. But our decisions affect not only ourselves but also our family and friends. And it is essential that we recognize and are comfortable with that transition—with that life.

For me, it is worth it. For you, I do not know.

But know that there are pros and cons to everything; there is nothing wrong with having a traditional home base and taking many mini-retirements. There is nothing wrong with taking your winter trip to Vail and your summer trip to Cancun. There is something wrong, however, with wishing you could live a different life but doing nothing to get that life.

Conclusion

Living a perpetual travel lifestyle or a location independent lifestyle has consequences. For many, the consequences are too dire to live with. That is fine. For others, those consequences are small when compared to the exciting life we live. As Socrates said, a truly wise man knows what he does not know. Consequently, a truly wise nomad knows all that he gives up in order to live this life, and is validated by his decision.

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Read the original article on Thrilling Heroics here: The Nomadic, Permanent Travel Lifestyle and the “Friendship Void”

The Top Ten Cities to Live, Work, & Play

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

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

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

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

XanderCrews says:

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

aj_robins says:

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

Listen2Eurobeat says:

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

cnc says:

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

Xerloq says, with regards to Sacramento:

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

Mile High Soapbox says:

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

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

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

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

And cnc returns to say:

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

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

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

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

Branding and Credibility

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

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

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

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

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

One other great tip she shares:

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

[via: Anywired]

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