Greetings from my favourite Canadian city, Montreal. This is our second time in the cultural capital of Canada but our first experience couchsurfing.  CouchSurfing has been fantastic so far, not only as a free place to stay and an introduction to an unknown city, but as the quintessential social media site. It’s very essence is about connecting people in real life.

What is CouchSurfing?

For those of you who don’t know, CouchSurfing.org is a network where travellers can connect and find a place to stay  with a local person in cities around the world. There is no cost for the website or for the couch (bed, room or floor) but it is expected that you are going for the social exchange and not just a free place to sleep.

This is how my wife explained it to her mother, “We are going to stay at a stranger’s house. We found the person on the Internet.” (Very rough English translation. )

Prior to our visit, I must admit we had some apprehensions about staying with someone we have never met. Other than the profile everyone writes about themselves on the CouchSurfing.org site and reviews from other travellers, you really don’t know what to expect on arrival.

Will they actually be there? Is it safe? What etiquette is expected? What gifts should we bring? Many things were on our mind prior to our first meeting our host.

The World’s Greatest CouchSurfing Host

It turns out we managed to find the best CouchSurfing host in the world on our very first attempt. The generosity and trust of our host is amazing. He opens his home to couchsurfers constantly. There is a steady flow of new people living in his house. Each surfer gets the keys to the house and full access. Despite his never-ending kindness, for every one person he accepts, he has to turn two away.

My wife and I have had the opportunity to spend several amazing nights with him drinking late into the evening. We feel like we have gotten to know him more than some of our close friends.

CouchSurfing is What Other Social Media Sites Try to Be

I think many social media critics  associate online friends with superficial connections and banal conversation. That may be true in some cases but CouchSurfing is inherently different. The real value of the site comes from facilitating real life meet-ups. There is little chance that these kinds of connections could have been made before the Internet. Some good relationships can be developed online only but they will never reach the level of in person contact.

This to me is the real promise of social media. We are able to connect with like minded people on a global scale. That is huge!

It takes lots of work to build and maintain relationships but it can be so rewarding. I hope we have started the foundation of a life-long friendship with our host. I am certain we will meet again in different parts of the world.

Many people and businesses are using social media platforms as an inexpensive way to advertise. They try to friend or follow as many people as people with the intention of building a potential customer base. While that is part of life, I hope that it  is going to be a very small part of our social media experiences.

CouchSurfing is Not About the Money

With CouchSurfing there is absolutely no financial transaction, the host is generous without expectation of direct reciprocity. Certainly there are long term benefits of being repaid with future couches to surf, but most hosts seem to give a lot more then they will ever receive. The real reason for giving so much is the social interaction.

That to me is a very powerful idea. We are social animals after all, social connections have tremendous value. That value extends far beyond any financial exchange. We have been conditioned to be consumers over the last 150 years or so. It is important to remember that society wasn’t always like this and it doesn’t have to continue this way indefinitely.

Again, it is my hope that this is all part of the economic and social evolution of mankind. We are reaching for the peak of Maslow’s hierarchy. Life is no longer a struggle for food, shelter and clothing. We are looking for meaning and purpose in our lives. That meaning can’t be bought or consumed. Life is measured by the quality of our personal relationships and contribution to other people. CouchSurfing.org is the best example I have found of that so far. The only downside is that we have been having such a great time that I haven’t been able to get any work done. After the fantastic conversations we have had with our host, I am going to put a lot more effort into meeting people around the world.

I would love to hear about other websites that facilitate human interaction like CouchSurfing for a project I am working on. If you have any good examples or experiences please let me know in the comments or by email.

I am constantly discovering  people who are not happy with their careers and are looking for something more interesting to do with their lives. Jason Demant and Sharon Duckworth are two people that share my philosophy on life. The time to experience life and travel the world is now. As Jason and Sharon have found, once you begin you may never want to go back. They share some of their experiences and advice in this interview.

Please tell us  a little about your background.

We’re both 26 and originally from northern California. We met in college at the University of California, Santa Cruz (go slugs!). We both graduated and independently moved to the Silicon Valley. Jason worked for Seagate Technology for almost five years in a few different positions: project manager, finance and finally marketing. Sharon worked at a gym teaching kids motor-development skills originally, but ended up selling out and joined a commercial real estate company.
We always knew we wanted to travel, but weren’t planning on leaving until October 2010. When the economy started going downhill, we started really pumping up our savings to leave sooner rather than later. Last October we left and have been traveling around Asia ever since.

Please tell us about your travels?

We’re currently in South Korea. We started our trip in China, did the Southeast Asia route, headed back to China and then took a ferry over to South Korea. (All of the destinations we’ve been).
One of the things we wanted to do on this trip was learn a language and settle down for a while. Sharon is 75% Korean and so we thought the perfect place would be Korea. We lived in Seoul for a little over 2 months and now have settled down in the coastal city, Busan. Assuming Kim Jong Il doesn’t decide to do something stupid (again), we’ll be here for another couple of months before hitting the road again.

What has been the most expensive country you have visited?

Japan, hands down!! We couldn’t believe how expensive Japan was. On this trip, our average spend per day was $35 per person ($70 for the both of us), Japan however ended up being around $260 a day! We didn’t really splurge either. We did purchase the Japan Rail Pass, which put us back $300 each, but other than that, we slept in hostels in a dorm and ate at what we thought to be reasonable restaurants.

What has been the least expensive country you have visited?

On the complete other end of the spectrum was Vietnam. We traveled from north to south and spent about $23 per person per day. One of the best hotels we’ve stayed in on the entire trip was in Vietnam and it was $8 a night. Not to mention, it’s an amazing country with great food.

What has been the worst food you have tried?

The most difficult place for us eating wise was China. We knew only the very basics of the language and many restaurants do not have pictures of their food, nor do they have their menus translated to English. There were times where the only thing we could do was point to a set of Chinese characters and hope for the best.
I think the two worst foods we have tried on this trip would be:  1. Some kind of fried pork rinds that tasted like what I assume sewer and garbage would taste like.  2. Fried chicken feet.  I realize that chicken feet are very normal in Asia, but why?  It was like eating fried bones- there’s no meat there, not to mention they still very much resemble feet from a chicken, and that’s not a very appetizing thing.

What is a safe travel budget for a year?

For the way we travel, which is staying at middle-range hostels, eating reasonable meals out twice a day, taking buses and ferries rather than planes, $15,000 ($41 per day) a year should be sufficient per person. Extrapolating our budget, I think we’ll come in at $30,000 for the both of us. Which is great, because we saved $50,000 for the planned year trip!
Breaking that down is going to vary tremendously, but roughly (per day):

• Accommodation: $15
• Food: $10
• Transportation: $7.50
• Activities/Entertainment:  $5

This doesn’t add up to the $41, so the rest would be on other things: health insurance, flights to and from home, netbook, whatever. More detail on our budget and how we spend money by country.

How did you save enough money to travel?

The Twitter answer is: saving more than we spent .
The longer answer: I worked for five years, Sharon for four, in corporate America. We focused on saving and had to make daily decisions that prioritized saving for the trip over other things. We were still able to live comfortably, pay off most of our debt from school and have a good time with our friends. The key is automating your savings so you don’t have to think about it. I wrote a more detailed post on this topic.

Are you getting tired of traveling?

Now that we’ve discovered our preferred travel method, no, not really. The first 4 months of our trip we stayed in only two cities for longer than 5 days (and both were less than 10 days). Other than that we were constantly on the move. We now know this isn’t sustainable for us. We prefer more structure, where we can unpack for a while and have a stable Internet connection, make friends for longer than a night or two and really connect with a city. As many travelers have found, I think we’re happiest finding a place to live for a month to 3 months and settling down for a while.
In terms of things that we miss from home, we pretty much only miss our friends and family.  There have been many times when we experienced something amazing but wished our loved ones could have been there with us. Other than that, this lifestyle is tough not to love.

Have you had any serious problems on your trip?

No, thankfully not. Asia’s a very safe place and we’ve been very lucky so far.

Are you trying to extend this one year trip into a more permanent lifestyle?

The trip was originally one-year. We were heading to Asia for a year, then coming back to Northern California and looking for jobs again. I don’t know what happened to that plan, but it went out the window pretty quickly. I (Jason) always had an interest in entrepreneurship, but somehow lost that at some point. This trip has sparked my entrepreneurial interest again and I’ve launched a new travel site that I’m really excited about.

The site is called UnAnchor.com and it’s a place for anyone to create travel itineraries for sale. Eventually it will be a place for travelers to find all of the information they need in an itinerary for their next destination. Because it’s new though I’m still focusing on growing the database of travel itineraries. If you’re interested in earning some extra money, check it out, it’s easy to start and free to sign up. [End of commercial]

What are the advantages and disadvantages of traveling as a couple?

To be honest, it’s been pretty much gumdrops and rainbows. We’re both very easygoing people, so the benefits of solo-travel – doing things on a whim, and going wherever you want without worrying about someone else’s opinion is pretty much what we have. If one of us wants to do something, the other is typically fine with it. The advantages of traveling as a couple are numerous: feeling less isolated, splitting up the research process, finding places and things together.  However, we have had our share of meaningless bickering, but these were very limited to certain times; when we were wearing our backpacks, when we were lost and hungry, and when it was hot outside.

How do you deal with banking, bills and health care?

Banking and health care took a lot of upfront research, but we couldn’t have been happier with the companies we went with. If you’re in the US, you should check out Charles Schwab. They charge zero ATM fees, no foreign exchange fees and on top of that they even reimburse you when the ATM you’re using charges you a fee. So, we never have to worry about which ATM we use. We couldn’t be happier with them.
Health care, like most travelers, we use World Nomads. It’s essentially emergency-only health care. The deductible is $100. So if it’s something basic, you’re paying for it, but if it’s something serious, you’re covered. It’s pretty cheap as well, only $500 for a year per person.

Do you have any advice for people considering long term traveling?

Our favorite advice comes from Sharon: “just do it” (the Nike corporation are thieves!). There are so many excuses: it costs too much money, I have a house, I have kids, I’m too old, I’ll have a big gap in my resume. For every excuse you can think of, we’ve met someone that’s overcome it. We’re not saying it’ll be easy, but if you’re serious about it, you can find a way and it’ll be the best decision you’ve ever made.

Links
LifeAfterCubes Jason and Sharon’s Blog
Follow LifeAfterCubes on Twitter
UnAnchor.com Travel Itinerary Site

On a recent post on Untemplater.com, I wrote about how I think talent is created, not born. I called the post, You are a Monkey so Stop Thinking You are so Special. I learned a couple of things from the comments, apparently people don’t like being called monkeys and some people place a lot of emphasis on the genetic side of the debate.

Of course genes are important in many circumstances. It is difficult to be a professional basketball player if you are short. It helps to have big hands and feet if you want to be a world class swimmer. Good eyesight is necessary to be a pilot. So yes, genes do shape our future to a degree, but how often does genetic makeup really limit what we can accomplish?

The purpose of the monkey post was to show that since humans have 99.9% of the same genes as chimpanzees, maybe we shouldn’t put too much emphasis on our genetic makeup. The worst part of an over-reliance on nature over nurture is that it causes many people to give up before they even try. “I am tone-deaf so I can’t play musical instruments.” “I not good at math.” “I can’t draw.” “I can’t understand computers.” “I was never good at sports.” When we see others excelling we often say things, like “He is a natural.” “She is so smart.” They have so much talent.” Our language seems biased towards a belief of naturally born talent.

In the article, The Making of an Expert in Harvard Business Review, authors K. Anders Ericsson, Michael J. Prietula, and Edward T. Cokely say,

Popular lore is full of stories about unknown athletes, writers, and artists who become famous overnight, seemingly because of innate talent—they’re “naturals,” people say. However, when examining the developmental histories of experts, we unfailingly discover that they spent a lot of time in training and preparation. Sam Snead, who’d been called “the best natural player ever,” told Golf Digest, “People always said I had a natural swing. They thought I wasn’t a hard worker. But when I was young, I’d play and practice all day, then practice more at night by my car’s headlights. My hands bled. Nobody worked harder at golf than I did.”

Even personality traits can be learned, the authors go on to say,

A surprising number of executives believe that charisma is innate and cannot be learned. Yet if they were acting in a play with the help of a director and a coach, most of them would be able to come across as considerably more charismatic, especially over time.

In fact, working with a leading drama school, we have developed a set of acting exercises for managers and leaders that are designed to increase their powers of charm and persuasion. Executives who do these exercises have shown remarkable improvement. So charisma can be learned through deliberate practice.

Do you have the Running Gene?

I ran another marathon last week. I am still painfully slow, but I have managed to drop my time by more than half an hour over my last race in December. I am mentioning this because when I did my first few marathons, I was terrified the night before. Running 42 kilometers is scary if you have never done it before. It sounds like an impossible task. In some of my earlier races, I couldn’t sleep the night before and got incredibly anxious about what I was going to eat, whether or not I could make it to the toilet before the start, what was the weather going to be like, what was I going to wear. I was worried about everything. I always felt that my body isn’t designed for sports.

Now that I have completed many marathons and shorter races I have no anxiety at all. The last 10 kilometers are always a killer but I know I can finish. Like anything in life, the more I train, the better I get. My wife also runs with me and despite the fact that she only runs a few times a month, she is still managing to consistently improve as well.

This same nurture versus nature argument has played out in many different aspects of my life. I never thought I had any artistic skills. However, daily practice with some basic drawing books and Internet tutorials has improved my skills phenomenally. I only wish I started 30 years ago, then maybe I would be a ‘naturally gifted’ artist now. I have found similar results with guitar, business and blogging.

There is no Substitute for Hard Work

It is highly unlikely that people who are better than you have some genetic advantage. The most likely cause of the their success is focused practice with good coaching and other environmental conditions. Blogging is no different. Starting off on the Internet can seem daunting. Everyone appears to have beautifully designed blogs, great technical skills and an innate understanding of social media platforms. How can you possibly catch up? You do it the same way everyone else did, you learn one thing at a time. The more deliberate practice you put in, the more you will learn and the better you will get. Online, everyone is making it up as they go. The difference between the self-proclaimed experts and you is only the hours of time invested.

Sure some may have some genetic advantages, but for most of us trying to earn a living, stay in shape or find our calling in life, our own personal drive is far more important. Giving up on art, blogging or a business idea before you have had an opportunity to develop some competence is not a genetic problem. I have often used the genetic inferiority excuse to justify my lack of effort. Not anymore, for everything I want to accomplish in life I know that any lack of success in my endeavors can only be attributable to lack of practice or quality coaching. Those two factors are definitely within my control. As I often say, we all can do ANYTHING we want, we just can’t do EVERYTHING we want. I just need to focus on what is most important and put in the quantity and quality of practice to excel. Deciding on what to focus on is the difficult part of course, but I am pretty damn fortunate to have excessive choice as my biggest life problem.

What do you think, is nature or nurture more important to to success? What percent is attributable to each? For most life choices I would say that it is 90% nurture, only in certain elite level sports would it shift more towards nature.

Sean Aiken of OneWeekJob.com, uncertain about what career choice to make after graduating university, decided to take job hopping to the extreme by trying 52 one week jobs. He has since managed to parlay the first website outlining his intentions into a book deal, speaking engagements, a documentary and an on-going project helping recent graduates try different jobs. Those of you reading my IdeaEconomy.net blog will likely know that I love a great idea; by that measure Sean Aiken is pure brilliance! He has proved that a good idea, talent and hard work can accomplish amazing things. Sean offers some background details about his success with the project in this interview.

How did ‘One Week Job’ get started?

When I was looking for a job, I saw all of these important sounding job titles but I had no idea what the job would actually be like. I was scared at the thought of committing to one, not liking it, and then feeling trapped in the position. In my last year at Capilano University, my dad gave me some advice on finding a career, he said, “Sean, it doesn’t matter what you do, just make sure it is something you are passionate about. I’ve been alive nearly 60 years and I’ve yet to find something I’m passionate about besides your mother.” It made me realize how many people are in similar situations – doing the same job for the past 20-30 years and not necessarily enjoying what they are doing. I promised myself that I would take the time to find something that I was passionate about and that would make me happy. I thought the One Week Job project would be a great way of testing out different careers. I think a mistake that many people make when deciding on a career is to focus on the title and ignore the characteristics of the particular career and it’s associated lifestyle. We may spend a bunch of time and money on school or required designations only to show up at the workplace and find out it’s not for us. My thinking was that if I could somehow try out different jobs then I’d be able to learn about the characteristics I wanted in a career, and the type of workplace situation I’d need to be happy before making the full commitment.

How did you find the first companies to work at?

I created the website with the help of my best friend and web developer Ian MacKenzie. On the website I wrote that anyone, anywhere in the world could offer me a job for one week. I explained my motivations behind the project, my background information, how to offer me a job, and then I sent an email out to all my friends and family and asked for help to pass it along. It slowly picked up momentum and the offers began to come in; however I rarely knew where I was working a week in advance – it was always last minute!

How did you get so many companies interested in hiring you for a week?

I think the idea resonated with many people because it’s something that everyone can relate to, whether you recently graduated looking for your first job, or in an older generation looking for a career change, at some point in our lives we all must ask ourselves, “What do I want to do with my life?” I think many employers wanted to help out as they related to my circumstances, thought it was a unique idea, expected to receive exposure from the website, or some liked the aspect that all my wages were going to charity.

Was one week enough to really gain an understanding of what the jobs are like?

I think it’s a misconception that it takes several years to learn whether a job is right for you. A lot of information can be gathered quite quickly. Granted, yes, a job might become more rewarding with time — once you really learn the ins and outs and how you can contribute and be successful at it. But It wasn’t my goal to find the perfect job in one week. It would have been awesome if I had, but it was more about learning from other people and putting the pieces together — well, figuring out what the pieces were.

What were your most and least favorite jobs?

My most enjoyable jobs were the weeks where I was working with some great people. It was not necessarily the job I was doing but my coworkers that made the experience memorable. The ones that stand out are: Cancer Fundraiser (Princess Margaret Hospital Foundation), Pizza Maker, Fashion Buyer, Advertising Executive, Steam Whistle Brewery. The least enjoyable week was working in a swamp picking cat tails. It was plus 35, tonnes of bugs, smelled bad, and really long 12-hour days. All in all not too pleasant.

You finished the jobs in March of 2008, what have you been doing for the last two years?

Writing the book which was recently published, working on the documentary which will be out this spring (view the trailer at oneweekjob.com), and speaking to students/companies about my experiences and what I learned. We also just started the One Week Job program which grants others the opportunity to have a similar to experience to mine.

‘One Week Job’ really is a marketing phenomenon, how did you accomplish so much?

• First step was creating the website and outlining my goals, and why I was doing what I was doing.
• Second, I landed a sponsor at Week 5 to help pay with travel expenses as my wages were donated to charity.
• Third, Week 6, the first major media outlet covered the story.
• Fourth, the book deal happened around Week 37.
• Fifth, all of the small milestones in between with trying to find a new job, a new place to stay, and organize travel plans each week for an entire year.

Sean Aiken's book The One Week Job Project

How did the book come about?

I was extremely lucky in that when the New York Times picked up the story, I heard from several publishers directly asking if I’d thought about writing a book.

How did you get the great support for the book from all the famous authors?

I emailed them and asked real nice.

Please tell us about the people working on One Week Job?

Ian MacKenzie is my best friend, filmmaker, web editor, new media producer guy. He directed the upcoming documentary (view trailer on website). There were a few companies we worked with for the documentary.

How are you making money now?

The publishers provide an advance against royalties so that an author can live while they are writing the book. I make money by doing talks at conferences or schools.

Is the book going to make you rich?

Time will tell. Although I remember reading a quote from bestselling author Seth Godin – it was something to the effect of “those who write books to get rich are fooling themselves.”

Is One Week Job making you rich?

Nope.

What comes next? What is the future for Sean Aiken?

The book about my experience is called The One-Week Job Project. Published by Penguin Books in Canada and Random House in the US. The book is a memoir of my year. It begins from graduation, and me struggling to find an answer to the question “what should I do with my life?” How this developed into the idea to start the One Week Job Project, the different jobs I had, all the advice I received from my employers on finding a career, and the story of my personal journey making the transition from school into the working world. We recently finished post-production on the documentary that will be available this spring. We just started the One Week Job Program that provides others the opportunity to have a similar experience to my original journey. We’re giving three individuals $3000 each over the course of two months this summer. They’ll perform eight different one-week jobs and blog from the website. Anyone interested can apply at oneweekjob.com. I’d like to help other people interested in starting the One Week Job project in their country. Currently there is interest in the UK and potentially in China. Also, I’m planning an extensive college campus tour around the country next fall to share my story and all that I learned in making the transition from school into the working world.

Links
One Week Job
Follow Sean Aiken on Twitter

Making the decision to move to another country is difficult and scary. It is even harder if you have a family to support and educate. Brandon Pearce, his wife and two daughters made that choice and moved to Costa Rica at the start of the year and are loving their new life outside of the US. Brandon is also proving that the idea of the low hour work week (he works 5 hours per week) is definitely possible if you put in the effort. Brandon offers some great details into his business and his lifestyle in Costa Rica in this interview.

Please tell us a little about your background.

I just turned 30 years old, and was born and raised in Salt Lake City, Utah. As a child, I fell in love with both music and computers. I learned to play the piano and sing – a passion probably inherited from my parents who are both musicians – and when I was 12, I began teaching myself to program in QBasic. I always dreamed that one day I would either be a music teacher like my dad, or have my own computer game on the shelf.

As it turns out, I ended up both teaching music and writing computer programs as a profession for a season, and then quickly decided that neither profession was what I wanted to do forever. Now I enjoy working less than 5 hours per week, living wherever I want (currently Costa Rica), and enjoying life to the fullest every day.

My first experience living internationally was when I served a volunteer mission for the LDS church at age 19 (I am from Utah, after all). I was called to serve and teach the people of Japan for two years. I loved my mission, and I loved Japan. Everything was so different. The language was interesting, the people were so polite, and the food was delicious (well, some of it – I still can’t down natto). At that time, I don’t think I considered the possibility of living outside the U.S. permanently, but it opened my eyes to what else was out there.

After my mission, I graduated with a B.S. in Computer Science (although I found learning on my own to be much more useful). I also met my wife, Jennifer, who had served a mission in the Canary Islands (by Spain). We now have two little girls, ages 6 and 4, whom we absolutely adore!

Where do you live now?

We have been living in Costa Rica since January, 2010, and are renting a beautiful house here that overlooks the central valley for $900/month. We found it on Craigslist. We wanted a furnished place because we sold nearly all our furniture before we made the move abroad, and didn’t want the burden that comes with large possessions. We chose to rent for a year because we could get a lot better deal than the 1-3 month vacation rentals we were looking at previously, and we wanted to stay long enough to become fluent in the language, make some good friends, and understand the culture.

We chose Costa Rica for a few reasons:

• Climate. We got really tired of snow and cold in Utah. We wanted some place green and warm all year around.
• Language. I wanted to learn Spanish, we wanted our kids to learn it, and since Jen already speaks it, we figured it would be a less difficult transition than a new language for all of us.
• Culture. Coming from the U.S., we knew our lives were too full of stress, too focused on material possessions, and too busy to really enjoy what’s important in life. Costa Rica has a reputation of being relaxed and easy-going. “Pura vida” (pure life) is the phrase they often use. We hoped some of that could rub off on us. Fortunately, it has.
• Cost. We thought we could live cheaper in Costa Rica than in the states, and for the most part, we have found this to be true. Electronics and cars are actually more expensive here than in the U.S., but housing and food is cheaper. We’re spending less and living better. For example, we have a maid that comes 5 days a week, a gardener, and a private Spanish tutor twice a week.
• Activities. There is so much to do and see in Costa Rica, from volcanoes to beaches, rainforests and the animals that are in them. Our kids are big animal lovers, and Costa Rica is an ideal place to get up close and personal with all kinds of unique animals.
• Buddy Passes. We’re lucky to have a family member who works at Jet Blue, so we were able to fly here for almost free on buddy passes. Costa Rica is one of the few international locations that Jet Blue flies to. We knew this would also make it easier (cheaper) for family to come visit us if they wanted.

For a more complete explanation about our decision to move abroad, check out this post on my blog.

We have been so happy here in Costa Rica! We love the people, the weather, and feel much more relaxed and at ease. We feel like we have time to enjoy being a family, learning together, and pursuing our interests. I also just love to sit out on our balcony, listen to the birds, and enjoy the view.

What made you decide to make the move abroad?

We would never have dreamed of making this move a few years ago, but I was seeing people get laid off from their “secure” jobs and realized that there is no such thing as job security when you work for someone else. So I focused on building my Internet business in order to be more in control of our livelihood. Once it started taking off, I quit my job to work on building it full-time.

And then it finally dawned on me, thanks to books like The 4-Hour Work Week, that I was now able to live anywhere in the world since my business was all on-line. In January of 2009, we took a 6 week trip to Panama as a family to test the waters, and it was an amazing life changing experience for all of us. It was there we realized we wanted to homeschool (a thought we had considered before, but didn’t really see the benefits of), and that we really could stand to be together as a family 24 hours a day, seven days a week without going crazy. We knew we wanted to spend more time abroad as a family.

What is it like in Costa Rica?

We live in Grecia, which is a fairly small town (Wikipedia says 15,000 people) about 45 minutes west of the big city. We live up in the hills, away from the town center, where it’s a little cooler (perfect temperature for us). We decided we like smaller towns, because we’re not much for crowds, concrete, or pollution. It takes us about 15 minutes by car to drive to town (or 25 minutes by bus), and we enjoy the ride every time. Initially, we thought we’d go carless, but after two months, we really missed the convenience of being able to explore hidden streets, take excursions to further away places when we felt like it, or visit friends without making the girls walk for two miles. The bus access is good here, but we determined a car would work better for us living so far from things. So we bought an old 99 Rav4 (an adventure in itself) , which has been getting us around great. We’ll probably just sell it when we leave.

Internet access is excellent here. It hasn’t gone down yet (although the power has). However, I’ve been trying to upgrade from a 1MB to a 2MB connection for over a month now. Apparently, it’s not as simple as calling the Internet company and asking for an upgrade. One thing I’ve had to learn more of in Costa Rica is patience. Things get done when they get done, not when someone says they will get done. That’s just how it is here, and you can’t really rush things. Whether it’s your water or electricity going out, or someone scheduled to come to an appointment, we’ve learned not to expect things to happen on time, but just be glad when they happen at all, and try to be content in the mean time.

My iPhone works great here at 3G speeds with Internet. It was a little difficult getting a line, since you either need a Costa Rican corporation, or a local friend who can get you the line. I had the latter.

We feel very safe here in Grecia, and are completely comfortable walking the streets at night with our kids. People are friendly, and we’re always hearing people comment to each other about how cute our girls are. (Their blonde hair is quite a rarity here). Shopkeepers chat with you, and there are smiles everywhere you go. We’re making friends and having a great time.

What is your cost of living Costa Rica?

Here’s a rough breakdown of our monthly expenses (in USD):

Rent: $900 (Remember, it’s this house)

Maid: $240 ($12/day – 5 days a week, 4 hours a day).

Gardner: $140 (comes a few times a week, and helps with a lot of side jobs, too)

Spanish Tutor: $200 (comes twice a week, for a couple hours)

Internet: $25 for 1MB/second, $38 for 2MB/second

House Phone: $7

Cell phone (iPhone w/3G Internet): $34

Satellite TV: $33 (so the kids can watch cartoons in Spanish)

Other Utilities: $40-70 (including water, gas, electricity, garbage – cheap, huh?)

Food: $400-600 (we eat really well, and eat out probably 3-4 times per week)

Gasoline: $50-100/month

Activities: $200-300 (really depends on what we feel like that month)

Those are the basic monthly expenses. Obviously, we’re splurging in some areas, but my family of four is living very well for under $2,500/month. You could live here for a lot less, though, if you wanted. You can find decent 3bdrm houses that rent for under $150/month, for example. They may not be furnished or have a breathtaking view, but there are lots of options if you want to live on the cheap.

For activities, we love taking family trips to different parts of the country. There is so much to see and do in Costa Rica. Some of the activities are made for tourists and have tourist prices ($30-60/person), but others are very reasonable. We’ve done everything from feeding toucans and cleaning raccoon cages, to swimming at waterfalls and zip-lining through the rainforest. I’ve been writing about our adventures on my blog, Fulness Of Life.

I should also mention that we recently cancelled our health insurance in the U.S. because we realized it just isn’t necessary, so we don’t have that expense either. The healthcare here is good and cheap (and universal). You can get insurance for your whole family here for $60 if you want it, but we rarely visit the doctor. If we had an emergency, nothing is so pricey we couldn’t afford it.

Do you need special visas to live there?

We’re just on tourist visas, which are free, but which require us to leave the country every 90 days, for 72 hours. In some ways it’s a burden. In other ways, it’s a good excuse to take a vacation every few months. At our first 90-day mark we drove to Nicaragua and spent a few days in a hotel there. We’re not sure where we’ll go next. You can apply for residency, but I hear that it’s a fairly expensive process that can take years to complete (remember, everything moves slowly in Costa Rica). We don’t plan on being here for more than a couple years, so we didn’t think it would be worth it to apply for residency at this point.

How long do you expect to stay in Costa Rica?

We don’t really know exactly how long we’ll stay in Costa Rica, but we’ll be here at least until our lease is up, and then at that point decide if we want to find another place here to rent, or if we want to explore the world some more. I think we would like to stay long enough for us all to become comfortably fluent in Spanish.

How are you schooling your two daughters?

We’re following more of an “unschooling” approach, where the kids direct their own education. We don’t follow any specific curriculum. I believe that learning is a lifelong process, and that we’re learning in every moment whether we think we are or not. People learn best when what they’re learning is immediately applicable and interesting to them, and they learn even better when they are the ones seeking the information and getting their own answers. Experience is the best teacher. I think most curricula (including school) kind of squashes that by forcing you to learn things that are largely irrelevant to you at the time (or not even useful in the real world), causing you to quickly forget what you’ve learned, and in some cases, to hate the process of learning itself.

Kids learn best when they’re having fun. And they have the most fun when they’re playing, so we play a lot. They like to create make-believe adventures, put on plays, create art, play computer games, and ask a lot of questions. If they ever ask something we don’t know, we immediately pull up Google and find the answer with them. We’ll watch videos on YouTube, which they love, and go as deep into their question as they want. We also use IKnowThat and Tumblebooks on occasion..

We read to our kids a lot as well. Lately, I’ve been reading them the Narnia series on my iPad. Emily, our six-year-old, never wants me to put it down. She is also reading very well on her own, and loves to read the scriptures at night during our devotional. (We sing a hymn, read the scriptures and pray together before bed each night). We’re happy that she loves to read, and can sound out big words surprisingly well, even in Spanish. Marie, our four-year-old knows the letters and is starting to put sounds together.

The girls each have their own blog, which they update periodically. Emily types it all herself, and Marie mostly dictates to us. We thought a blog would be a good way for them to journal their experiences abroad and also get good reading and writing practice. Their blogs are emilyinthejungle and ridingabutterfly.

We do have a Spanish tutor named Nela, who comes to our house twice a week for a couple hours to teach the girls and me. We didn’t start this until a few weeks ago, but I wish we would have started it as soon as we got here, especially for the girls. She brings games for the girls and quizzes them on vocabulary. They’re learning well. It’s been great for me, too, as I’ve had someone to ask questions to about the intricacies of Spanish grammar. But outside of tutoring, we get a lot of Spanish practice from being with friends, going to church, and talking to people wherever we go. I’ve been amazed at how quickly I’ve been able to learn Spanish. It’s only been four months, but I can understand about 85% of what people are saying, and can get my point across quite clearly most of the time.

Finally, I think traveling is an education in itself. Seeing different cultures, learning new languages, and interacting with different people opens your mind to new ways of thinking and living.

Have your daughters adjusted well to life in Costa Rica?

Adjusting seems like it’s been no problem at all for any of us. Even though we spent the first three weeks in a hotel while looking for a place to live, it’s all been a great adventure and we’ve enjoyed it from day one. The girls have made some good friends, and we have play dates usually once or twice a week with friends they’ve met at church or in the neighborhood. Despite the language barrier, they still have a lot of fun playing together, and our girls are picking up Spanish little by little. (Although sometimes they seem more intent on teaching English to their friends than practicing Spanish).

Marie does sometimes talk about wanting to go back to our “old house” in Utah (which we sold), but none of us really want to return to the U.S. culture and lifestyle. We do miss our family and friends there, though. If you read Marie’s blog, in almost every post she asks for people to come visit us. My family is planning to visit us down here in June, and we’re excited for that.

How do you earn an income?

My main source of income is from a business I created called Music Teacher’s Helper. It’s a web application that helps private music teachers manage the business side of teaching, such as scheduling and billing. I also created Studio Helper, which is the same idea, but for larger studios with multiple teachers, and not just for music. Teachers pay a monthly subscription to use the sites (between $10-25/month for Music Teacher’s Helper, or $50-200+/month for Studio Helper). MTH also has a Free plan with lets you use it with up to 3 students, and includes a free website. Lots of teachers join that one just for the free website.

Both of these sites combined bring in over $20,000/month, currently, and are growing more every month. I don’t get to keep all of that, though, since I’ve hired two full-time programmers, a full-time SEO guy, and a fantastic customer support team that answers e-mails 24/7. I also have a team of bloggers who write many useful articles for music teachers each month. Then there’s marketing and server expenses, etc. But I make plenty for my needs, and am able to save a lot of money each month (way more than I’m spending).

I used to do a lot of freelance web programming, but I kind of got burned out on it. Sure, I could outsource it, but I don’t really need the extra money and I don’t want the stress of managing extra projects right now. There are other things I’d rather do with my time, like be with my family, read, write, and compose music.

How did you come up with the idea for MusicTeachersHelper.com?

When I was teaching private piano lessons, I used to get frustrated trying to keep track of when all my students’ lessons were and how much they owed me. So I wrote a little program to keep track of their schedules and payments. Students could login to see when their next lesson was and how much they owed. It saved me lots of time and headache.

Soon, other teachers saw what I was doing and wanted it for themselves, so I decided to make it available to others. I listened carefully to feedback from my customers and improved the program a LOT over the next few years, adding everything from automatic invoicing, to on-line payments. Now it does pretty much everything except teach the student, and teachers love it!

How do you market the site?

I didn’t know much about marketing when I started this business. I made some paper fliers to display at local music stores. Then I tried Google Adwords. Eventually, I started going to music teacher conferences and demonstrating the product to teachers. I wasn’t very confident in the program at first, though, since it was pretty buggy (it was the first real web app I’d ever made) and I was afraid to do much marketing, thinking that if I got too many teachers upfront, word would get around that it wasn’t a good program, and then no one would want it.

Actually, the opposite happened. Almost every teacher who tried it out absolutely loved it! Sure, they had some suggestions for improvement, but they were happy to pay for it. Eventually, it got to the point where it was doing way more than I originally intended, and I decided to rewrite the whole thing from scratch, with cleaner, faster code (I’d learned a ton since I started).

It wasn’t making much money at first, because I wasn’t doing much marketing. But teachers were telling other teachers about it, and Adwords was bringing in a slow but steady flow of customers. Also, I never put any of my own money into this business. It has always been funded entirely from its own profits (and my initial efforts, of course).

Now, 6 years later, our marketing looks quite a bit different. The blog itself has been a great marketing tool, and brings in lots of traffic. We still go to music teacher conferences, although I now usually have an affiliate go in my place. We’re at the top of search results for our desired keywords, and teachers are constantly telling each other about us. Interestingly, word of mouth is still our largest source of referrals.

Your site says that you are working less than 5 hours per week, is that correct?

Yes, 5 hours is correct, and it’s often even less, but let me define what that means. I count “work” as any activity that’s related to making money. My daily “work” usually involves looking over the tasks my programmers have completed, deciding what new features we’ll add or bugs we’ll fix, advising the support team members with any questions they’ve had, and answering any other e-mails that have come in. Some days, I can get this done in under 10 minutes. Other days, I may want to spend an hour or two to really think things through. I don’t count blogging as work, since I’m not trying to make any money on my personal blog.

I keep track of my time using SlimTimer.com, so I can measure how effective my time is at producing results. I wrote a blog post a while back that goes into detail about exactly how I spend my time in a given week. It’s a little outdated – back from when I was still doing some freelance programming, but it will give you a good idea. You can read it here: How I Spend My Time.

It hasn’t always been this way, of course. I used to be a “one-man show”, doing everything from the design, programming, planning, customer support, marketing, and bookkeeping all on my own. This was time consuming. When I was an employee, I’d get up early in the morning to work on my business before work. Then, I’d spend my lunch breaks working on it as well. And at night, when my wife would let me, I’d work on it some more. It was an obsession and it was exciting because I could start to see where it would lead – to eventual freedom of my time and enough money to do whatever I wanted. And it has been worth every effort.

The time eventually came when it was taking so much time outside of work, that I wasn’t being very effective at my job. I’d find myself answering business e-mails or doing other tasks when I was supposed to be working. I knew this wasn’t right, and I also knew that I wouldn’t be able to grow my business how I wanted to while working at a 40-hour a week job. So, even though my business was only making about $1,500/month at the time, and I probably had less than $10,000 in savings, I decided to take the leap and quit my job. I was confident that we could make do until the business got larger, especially since I could also supplement my business income with freelance projects.

Everything worked out great, and the business took off quickly. I automated as much of the busywork as I could, and hired people to help with the rest. Now here we are living the dream!

Do you have any advice for others wanting to build a similar low hour business?

Yes, lots. In fact, I just started writing a book about creating an on-line business. It probably won’t be ready for several months, but I want to share what I’ve learned with others and show people that it’s totally possible to create this kind of lifestyle. I see too many people who hate their jobs and don’t see any way out. I’ve also written several blog posts about creating a business on my blog in the Entrepreneurship category.

My biggest piece of advice is to just get started. You may feel like you don’t know enough, but you can learn as you go. You’ll make mistakes along the way, but that’s okay. What’s important is that you’re making progress toward your goal. And the more progress you’ll make, the more you’ll be inspired to keep working at it. So just get started. If you can set aside an hour a day to work on your business, you’ll be amazed at how much you’ll be able to get done.

Do you plan on permanently living outside of the US?

Yes. We don’t have any plans to return to the U.S. at this point, except maybe for a vacation or to visit family now and then. It’s hard to know what life will be like for us in 10 or 20 years, and we may eventually want to return to the U.S. But who knows? We’ll just take life as it comes.

Are there any other countries that you hope to move to in the future?

Oh! So many! I’d like my kids to experience Japan like I did on my mission and brush up on my Japanese. I’d like to see what it’s like in India and China. Emily really wants to go to Venice, Italy. Jen would like to live in the French countryside. I have no idea where we’ll end up, but we definitely want to live in other parts of the world.

One of the things we learned is that short 1-2 week vacations just don’t cut it if you want to experience what it’s really like in another country, especially if you just stick to tourist activities and sites, and don’t meet any people. Our church has been a real advantage to us this way because there is a built-in community of friends everywhere we go, as well as opportunities to serve and help. It does make it a little harder to leave a place once you’ve made good friends, but the Internet makes it easy to keep in touch. And we can also come back to a place to visit.

Thanks for giving me the opportunity to share my story on JetSetCitizen!

Links
Fulness Of Life Brandon Pearce’s blog.
Follow Brandon Pearce on Twitter

I love watching people succeed through hard work and talent. I often say that we live in amazing times, because anyone with focus and dedication and rise to the top. Corbett Barr is one of those people that I have admired since his blogging beginnings just over a year ago. He has managed to build two popular blogs, start several other business ventures and live location independent in Mexico for a good portion of the year. Corbett has the talent and dedication to accomplish big things. If you want to track the progress of a rising Internet celebrity, than I recommend watching and learning from everything he does.

Please tell us a little about your background

I’m a 30-something former careerist who traded salary and perks for doing what I love and living anywhere.

After growing up in typical American suburbia, I jumped on the career hamster wheel and ended up as a management consultant working for Fortune 500 clients. I traveled across the country and worked on projects that helped giant corporations make more money or become more efficient. It paid well and everyone I worked with was whip-smart, but I never felt fulfilled or completely satisfied doing it.

Eventually, I gave in to that little voice that said, “you’ll never really enjoy a ‘normal career,’ why don’t you start working for yourself so you can live how you really want to?” I started a venture-capital backed startup in Silicon Valley, learned a lot but didn’t succeed wildly, took a sabbatical and realized what I really want is a lifestyle business built around things I love to do. It’s been a long journey, but I’m far more satisfied and happy now, even though I’m earning less and have less traditional “status.”

What type of work does your wife do?

My wife is an artist. She paints big expressive landscape paintings and shows them in galleries in San Francisco, L.A. and other cities. She and I both really love traveling and have pretty similar thoughts about what makes a fulfilling life. We’re both also big on having a central “home base” for 6-9 months a year, as opposed to traveling indefinitely.

Where do you live?

We live in San Francisco for most of the year, although we’ve spent about 11 of the past 16 months traveling throughout Mexico, the U.S. and Canada. We just returned from a 3-month stint in Mexico for the winter.

San Francisco has been home for the past 5 years, and we love it here. It has great weather, progressive people, a small but close-knit fine art community and lots of fun things to do. It is an expensive city, mostly when it comes to housing, but if you really want to be here, you can find a way. We have offset the cost of living over the past year and a half (while I’m getting new businesses off the ground) partly by living in Mexico.

You seem to be constantly experimenting with new business ideas can you please talk about your successes and failures

You’ve noticed I have a lot of projects going on? That’s partly by design, and partly because I change my mind a little too often. I started blogging about a year ago (at FreePursuits) while we were on sabbatical. I didn’t really have any goals for the blog, but found that I really enjoy it and have been able to connect with a lot of awesome people.

Once I started blogging, I saw potential for it as the foundation of a business, but wasn’t really sure how to make it happen. The past year has been an intense learning experience, and I’ve experimented with quite a few different online ventures and business models (blogging, affiliate marketing, email-based Spanish lessons, a Q&A site, etc.). I’ve taken the approach up ’till now of throwing a lot at the wall to see what sticks.

What I kept coming back to is that I really enjoy the process of starting something new and building an audience. Finding customers/readers/visitors once you’ve started something online is what would-be Internet entrepreneurs struggle with most. That’s what ThinkTraffic grew out of. It’s a business focused on helping people build high-traffic websites and blogs. I’m pouring my soul and everything I have learned over the years about building audiences into it. The response has been fantastic so far.

My primary business goal at this point is to do something I love in a way that allows me to live a great lifestyle. It has been just over a year since I made that realization, and I’m finally getting close to where I want to be. I think anyone who decides to make such a radical shift in business/life goals will go through a long period of experimentation and learning. Luckily I already had a foundation in online entrepreneurship (through more “traditional” startups), but someone just starting from scratch might have 3-5 years of learning to do.

Your sites all have a great design and layout, are you doing the design work?

I’m a big believer in attractive and functional design. I don’t have a background in design, but it’s definitely one of my interests. For FreePursuits, I hired a designer named Andrew Lindstrom to develop the design, and I implemented it on top of Thesis. For ThinkTraffic, I created the design from the ground-up myself and built it on top of Thesis as well. Design is one of those things that you can learn on your own (especially given all the fantastic free information on the web) but that takes a long time to get good at. I’m finally starting to like my own designs.

In one of your posts you alluded that lifestyle design is not a good niche to make money can you please explain?

I think a lot of people come to blogging about lifestyle design in the same way that I did. You have a realization that you want to live your life outside of the conventional house/career/kids/suburbs definition, and the concept of lifestyle design appeals to you. So you start blogging about it, without really connecting the dots about how blogging about lifestyle design will help you achieve your own lifestyle design.

There’s a chicken-and-egg problem there. If you’re giving people advice about how to achieve their own ideal lifestyle design, should you have achieved yours first? So, most lifestyle design bloggers have to find a way to attract and retain an audience by talking about lifestyle design without having much expertise.

The success stories in the lifestyle design blogging world are usually people who had prior experience to share, or who went at it in a different way. Chris Guillebeau is probably the biggest success story (aside from Tim Ferriss), and he has been self-employed for life, lived in Africa for years, etc. Not too many others are making a real living from blogging about lifestyle design that I know of. Karol Gadja is starting to have some success, and he has never worked a “traditional” job in his life. He has 10 years of supporting himself online to draw from. Adam Baker is also doing well, but he decided to come at “lifestyle design” from a different angle entirely (personal finance).

The other issue with earning money by focusing on lifestyle design is that it (LD) can have very different definitions from person-to-person. At it’s core, LD is about living how you want to, instead of by society’s traditional rules. It’s a very broad topic. If you wanted to create products or services around the topic as a whole, it would be hard to come up with something appealing and different enough.

How many months do you spend in Mexico every year?

We spent 3 months in Mexico this year, and about 6 last year. I have a feeling we’ll be returning to Mexico again next year, at least for a month or two.

What is it like to stay in Mexico?

Mexico is a fantastic place to live. People are friendly, the food is good, it’s inexpensive and there are some gorgeous beaches. It’s also super easy to get to from the U.S.

We like to live at the beach (I took up surfing last year). Typically, we rent a small apartment or house (with Internet access, of course) and like to move around as little as possible.

What is your cost of living Mexico?

Rent in Mexico can vary widely, depending on where you are, and who you’re renting from. A basic apartment in a small beach town might run $300 to $800 per month, although we have friends who have paid as little as $150 per month. Meals are typically around $20 U.S. equivalent for two, including a beer or cocktail. On the whole, Mexico costs 1/3 to 1/2 of what it costs us to live in S.F.

How do you earn an income?

I mentioned earlier that I’ve experimented with quite a few different projects over the last year. My income sources have changed quite a bit as well as I’ve sold or moved on from project-to-project. Over the past few months, my income has been about half through affiliate marketing (both through Free Pursuits and other standalone affiliate “minisites”), and half through consulting. I’m about to take on a bigger client through Think Traffic and launch a new product, so that mix will change again.

Do you make much income online?

Honestly, I’m not making enough to fully support our lifestyle yet. San Francisco is expensive, as I mentioned, and we haven’t cut back much in how we live. We’re fortunate to be in a position where we can supplement our income with savings and investment for a while. That has shaped my decisions considerably. If we couldn’t support ourselves in this way, I would probably have taken on far more consulting gigs right away and focused more on affiliate marketing.

As for the possibilities of affiliate marketing and blogging, they’re almost unlimited. Darren Rowse mentioned this month that he’s making nearly 7 figures from blogging. I heard Brian Clark of Copyblogger mention that his online businesses gross something like 2.7 million a year. There are countless affiliate marketers making a full-time living. Anything is possible.

Knowing that you can make a full-time living or better as a blogger or affiliate marketer, a better question might be at what cost can you earn such a living. How long does it take to start earning a full-time living? How much effort do you have to put into it? What kind of lifestyle does it lead to? The most insidious part of the whole lifestyle design topic is the belief that someone can create a “passive income” business in a few months, and spend 4 hours or whatever working per week from a beach in Thailand. It takes much more effort than that, and most people want to enjoy what they do for a living as well. Don’t get me started.

My advice? Figure out what you’re passionate about, what you wouldn’t mind putting 2-3 years into, and build something you’re proud of that supports you financially. Then, you can start looking into ways to run parts of the business passively. Trying to build something with the sole goal of working only 4-hours per week is undoubtedly going to lead to failure.

How easy do you think it is to make a living blogging?

I read a piece at Daily Blog Tips this week where Daniel asked some of the most successful bloggers about their work habits. The average blogger on the list worked something like 60-70 hours per week. Some worked up to 100 hours per week. I’m not saying it can’t be done in less, but that’s your competition. You’ll have to put in some serious effort, at least up front.

You are not selling ebooks or membership programs, are they coming in the future?

I have a new product in the works now. It’s a complete beginner’s course in affiliate marketing. The goal of the course is to walk newbies through the entire process of building a profit-earning affiliate marketing minisite from the ground-up. Affiliate marketing is probably the easiest way to get started working online, and everything you learn about creating an affiliate marketing site will help you in any other type of online venture.

There’s no question, if you’re trying to monetize a blog, creating your own product is an absolute must. Advertising is the worst way to monetize a small blog, and creating your own product (ebook, membership site, etc.) is the best. I’m behind my original goals for creating my first information product by a few months. Procrastination and getting distracted by other projects is to blame. That and the warm surf of Mexico.

Do you have any plans to move to another country?

We currently travel with our dog (an 11-year-old Vizsla named Kinsey), and Mexico is an easy destination to bring him along to. We definitely have plans to travel elsewhere for short stints (3 months or less each), but don’t plan to move to another country anytime soon.

What can we expect from Corbett Barr in the future?

Watch for my affiliate marketing for beginners course to launch soon. Beyond that, I’m building ThinkTraffic into the go-to resource for learning how to attract an audience and create raving fans for your website or blog.

Links
ThinkTraffic Helps its clients and readers build high-traffic websites and blogs
FreePursuits Corbett Barr’s blog about life as a digital nomad and what it’s like to live part-time in Mexico
Follow Corbett Barr on Twitter

In a recent email, a reader of this blog asked me how I became so successful. He read in one of my posts about how I moved to Japan on one week’s notice with no job, no work visa and only $1000 to my name and later became a jet-setting global rock star celebrity. (Okay, I added the ‘jet-setting global rock star celebrity part ‘ for added effect. )

Here is the Secret to my Success

The short answer is … I am not successful. Most people, myself included, tend to glamorize or even exaggerate successes and hide set backs or negative aspects of their lives. Don’t believe everything you read or hear because you are only getting the positive side of the story.

I am not rich. I am not famous. I am not particularly smart or talented either. I am just an ordinary person that is not afraid of hard work. When I arrived in Japan more than 13 years I worked a lot to save money and pay down debt. I worked two English teaching jobs and a bar job.

A couple of years later I started teaching private students in my apartment. A year after that, I took those students and opened up my own English school. My wife and I worked 50 to 60 hour weeks for close to 10 years. For several of those years we lived in the same building as our school. We were able to save 50 to 80 percent of our gross income. Our secret was work lots of hours and don’t spend much money.

After several years of frugality, we started to grow tired of working so many hours and started working less. We hired other employees, bought a new car and house. Spent lots of money on furniture and started traveling several times a year. We were just burnt out from working so many hours for so long and we thought buying all the things we wanted would make us happy. Well it didn’t. The happiest times of my life have always been when I had no money and was working insane hours to build a business or work on a project of my choosing. The struggle to achieve is far more rewarding than the actual achievement. More money and more things are nice when you have nothing, but after a certain point they become a burden.

Get Out When the Getting is Good

As you can probably tell, my wife and I should have sold our school several years ago when sales peaked and our expenses were minimal. If we did sell at that time, we would definitely have had a lot of extra money in the bank. We both knew about 4 years ago that it was time to move on to something else but we kept procrastinating and making excuses.. We told ourselves that we had a great lifestyle with a good income and lots of vacation time. Why change when everything was so comfortable?

Finally, enough was enough and last spring I made a public declaration on this blog that we were going to leave Japan and change our careers within one year. It was that deadline and announcement that gave me the fortitude to actually follow through on the plans. I can honestly say that blogging has changed my life.

Three years ago we were spending about $5000 per month on living expenses, now we can get by anywhere on about $2000 and much less in cheaper countries. We are getting back in shape and starting to eat healthy again. I am running regularly and playing a lot more guitar. We are also just starting to get back to work on our other business projects. We aren’t making much money and we don’t expect to for a while yet, but it is nice to see new projects slowly come to fruition.

The Future is Bright but a little Scary Too

We have our fears and worries as well. We have enough savings to last for many years, but we don’t want to blow all of our cash either. We will need to work again, but we want to do it on projects that we are excited about.

We don’t have fat corporate pensions so we are thinking about our retirement and also worried about what will happen if one or both of us has a major accident or illness. Our biggest fears are not finding rewarding ways to spend the rest of our lives. We want to do interesting things but we are afraid that we are getting too old or we don’t have the right experience. (We are 40 and 41 years  old.)

Overall, we are extremely happy about where we are in our lives but we also have a lot of regrets about all the things we could have and should have done. We can’t change the past so all we can do is make sure that we are putting in 100% effort everyday into everything we find important in life.  I just want to end each day knowing that I lived as much as I could have.

Am I successful?

I don’t have a house in the suburbs with two SUVs parked in the garage. My essential possessions can fit in two bags on an airplane.  I don’t have a prestigious career or major accomplishments behind me. I am not successful by any of the popular metrics of society. However, I am happy. I now know that material possessions will never satisfy me so I don’t want them anymore. My wife and I are both healthy and we were fortunate enough to be born in rich countries with good parents. Everything else has been a fantastic bonus.  I want to be fully alive each and every day and I am doing that now. Life is good. We live in amazing times.

Are you successful? Please share some of your accomplishments in the comments.

Corbett Barr at FreePursuits.com recently posted  a fantastic video that is closely aligned with my personal life view. The TED video is of Srikumar Rao who outlines how to be happy in life. I briefly summarized the video below, but I didn’t include the great examples that will help convey the message. Watch the video, it is worth it.

Brief Summary

Srikumar Rao

Everything we do in life in someway is a quest for happiness.

There is nothing that you have to get, do or be in order to be happy.

Happiness is your innate nature. It is wired in your DNA.

We have a mental model that says we have to get something in order to be happy.

IF this happens, THEN we will be happy.

The IF-THEN model itself is flawed. But instead of realizing that, we spend an enormous amount of time changing the ‘IFs.”

Recall a scene of spectacular beauty that took you outside of yourself into a place of great serenity like a rainbow or mountain range. The reason that happened is that you accepted the universe exactly as it was. You didn’t say that is a beautiful rainbow but it is a little off to the left. If I could move it 200 yards to the right it would be ever so much beautiful.

We all want to achieve things in life. We all want certain outcomes in our life.  Actions are within our control but the outcome is completely out of our control. Sometimes we get the outcome we want and sometimes we don’t.

We typically invest in the outcome. The alternative is that you invest in the process. Don’t focus on the winning. When it is over and you look in the mirror, did you do the best that you were capable of? And if you did the best that you were capable of then the score doesn’t matter. If you did the best that you were capable of, you will find the score to your liking.

Passion exists inside you, it does not exist in the job. If you do not find a way to ignite it within you, you will not find it outside. If you ignite the passion where you are, you will find the external world rearranges itself to accommodate the new person you are becoming.  As you do that, you will find that miracles happen on a regular basis.

Seth Godin’s Linchpin

Godin’s latest book Linchpin is also related. I have written a brief summary of Linchpin and have a couple of links to a free mp3 and eBook that Godin created on my IdeaEconomy blog. Please talk a look if you are interested.

Excellence

Godin and Rao both speak about something that I have been calling excellence. I really feel that the only route to happiness and success is striving to do the best that you can. You don’t have to be the best to be happy. You just have to do your best. At the end of everyday ask yourself, ‘did I do the best that I was capable of?‘ I find that when I can answer that question affirmatively, then I am pretty happy with my life regardless of what occurred or was accomplished.

Taking a year off after university is a great way to see the world and delay the inevitable corporate grind for a little longer; unless you learn to make traveling a way of life. Seeing the world changes people fundamentally and makes you question all your earlier ambitions and goals. Johnny Ward’s one year travel adventure has turned into four years and counting with no end in sight. Johnny has discovered that he can contribute more to the world by working directly with communities in need than his previous plan of a career in finance.

Please tell us a little about your background.

Well, Im 26 and I’m from Northern Ireland – I lived there all the way through until I finished high school. At 18 I moved to England to study, I went to university there for four years there and graduated with a BSc (Hons) International Economics. All the way through from around 15 years old until about 6 months into traveling all I wanted from life was to be an investment banker in London, drive a Ferrari and wear Hug Boss suits (very fickle I know!). Thankfully, I’ve seen the light and now I have no intention spending my life chained to a desk in a corporate cage!

You initially planned to travel for a year after college, why take such a long break from starting your career?

As I said, I wanted to get into finance which would have involved working 60 hour weeks for 20 years so I needed a year to get traveling ‘out of my system’. Nearly four years of traveling later, a serious life epiphany and it shows no signs of ‘getting out of my system’

Your one year career break is now approaching four years, what happened?:-)

To be honest I realized there is so much more to life than waking up on a Monday morning and wishing it was 5pm on Friday straight away, you have one life – only one life, do you really want to be in a situation where you are wishing 5 days out of every 7 to be over?! That’s crazy and I hate the thought of spending my life living for the (short) weekend you know? So, on my travels the sights I saw – both amazing and disturbing – really affected me and now I have a strong desire to do something worthwhile in my life, by that I mean to experience my life to full with the opportunities I have been lucky enough to have and also to give something back to people who haven’t been so lucky

Are you worried that you are missing career opportunities back home?

This is a real issue and I reckon every long term traveler has spared a thought for this! During my first year I didn’t think about it once, but during my second year I started to think about it to be honest (am I wasting my degree?, am I going to be too old when I return to get into industry?) then in my third year I started to really stress about it so when I came to Australia I was desperate to get some corporate experience (be careful what you wish for!). Now I realise the sort of opportunities that I was ‘wasting’ are the opportunities I never want. Imagine if someone had offered me a huge salary just before I set off on my journey it would have been the worst thing that ever happened to me. I would have taken it and been miserable in some city, with huge debt, comparing business cards with other suits in the same bar I go to every Thursday night like some scene out of American Pyscho! So now I don’t worry at all.

Are you planning on returning to Ireland or to get into finance?

Absolutely not! There’s a lot more countries I want to live in and literally probably 100 more I want to travel through! My mindset has changed so much with all the countries I have been too. Travelling around Bangladesh, East Timor, the Philippines etc. really opened my eyes to the disparity in the world, I know we see it on the news and in the paper every day but we become desensitized to poverty through media but when you see it first hand, you can’t help but be affected by it.

Where are you now?

I’m currently in Sydney Australia living, temporarily, the exact lifestyle that I never wanted to live! I got quite ‘lucky’ (if you call working in an office 40 hours a week lucky :S) actually, I moved here to save some cash and gather some corporate experience, as I was 25 when I arrived and had never worked in an office. This will be my first and last office job, I promise that – never ever again. Ever.

How easy is it to find work and save money in Australia?

I arrived during the recession and even then there were jobs available. You just have to be proactive and diligent you know, there are plenty of jobs out there and if you are prepared to look harder than everyone else you will have a job within a month 100%. My mum once said to me ‘finding a job is a full-time job’ so when I arrived that’s how I treated it. Wake up at 7 am, have breakfast, start ‘work’ at 8am and chase jobs all day until 5pm. Online, in person, rewriting cover letters, resumes etc. Within a week I managed to get a pretty good job in sales and 12 months on I have managed to scrape together over $20k AUD savings (after paying for trips to scuba the barrier reef, watch the rugby in Melbourne at the MCG, trekking in the Northern Territory to Uluru etc), ready to pay for my Masters in Malaysia in a one-off payment and hit Africa with my backpack! With the strength of the Australian currency it’s very easy to save, just don’t fritter it away on pointless purchases. I would try not to eat in restaurants, take taxis, go to movies on cheap nights and save money that way but I would have no problem in spending $1k on a trip to Uluru, all about priorities I guess.

Please tell us about your travels so far?

My travels so far – that could be a long answer! Which is why I started my blog, to truly chronicle all the cool stuff I’ve been lucky enough to experience. After graduating in 2006 I went to America to be a counselor on a summer camp (great fun) then I traveled a bit around America – Vegas, NYC etc, back to the UK, did some medical research (awesome way to make some decent cash too!) then one-way to Thailand. Since then I have been to most countries in across Asia and tried to get from Bangladesh to Australia by land over a year or 2, got offered a teaching stint in Korea so I had to fly there, breaking my no-flight rule! Then got the boat from Japan -> Korea -> China, went to the Olympics (amazing!). And from their just made my way south all the way to Oz, by land. And got stuck in East Timor when the guy in the port wouldn’t take me on his boat (b*stard!!) and I had to fly from Dili, East Timor to Darwin, Australia.

You taught English in Chiang Mai, Thailand for 18 months, please tell us about that experience?

I only have good things to say about Thailand, Chiang Mai in particular and teaching English in general! I wish everyone would take the plunge because you will have the best time imaginable. Chiang Mai is my favourite place in the whole world and everyone I know who has been there has loved it. My teaching job was perfect, working 5pm-8.20pm Tuesday to Friday and Saturday 9am-4pm, I had so much free time to explore the area, study Thai, hit the gym or recover from the night before! Finding a job was quite straight forward actually because I recently had just finished my CELTA course which puts you at the front of the queue for teachers with no experience, that helped loads, and I would recommend any budding English teachers to fork out the cash for your CELTA, you won’t regret it.

What was it like to live in Chiang Mai?

Everyday was an adventure, that’s the best thing about living overseas – it shakes you up, moves you out of your comfort zone and makes you feel alive. Chiang Mai’s climate is cooler than Bangkok and hovers around 30 degrees for most of the year so that’s nice, your surrounded my mountains so escaping the city takes all of about 10 minutes by motorbike. Cost of living is so cheap, my serviced apartment was around 4000 Baht per month, one dish of delicious thai food from your local market is around 30 baht (1$), booze is cheap (bottle of whisky around 150 baht), people are so nice it makes you question what we are doing wrong in the West, it’s very very safe too and it’s a very welcoming culture so within a week or 2 of being there you feel right at home. There’s not a day that goes by that I don’t miss it.

You said that you spent less than $5000 traveling longer than a year, how did you manage to travel so cheap?

Cheap travel – that’s my true specialty! I know a lot of people harp on about traveling cheap, and really getting off the beaten track, and telling you they did it cheaper than lonely planet yadda yadda yadda so sorry if I come across like that here :S BUT, my budget initially was $9 AUD per day – that includes everything, travel, food, accommodation, sights and activities. So if I wanted to visit the Taj Mahal which costs around $20 then I’d budget for it in the days leading up to it! I would eat exclusively in local eateries or on the street, and I didn’t touch Western food for pretty much the whole trip! That means no bottles of coke when you’re thirsty, no icecreams when you’re hot etc! No air conditioned hostels for me either, I stayed in local ‘hotels’ where I often shared my room with cockroaches, rats or locusts! It’s wasn’t easy but the best thing about this sort of travel is that you really get to experience the country. I rarely stayed in backpacker hubs, didn’t touch imported alcohol (that means getting drunk on local rice wine, bought from a dodgy guy with one eye and a hook for a hand, that tastes like cat piss!). And I honed my bartering skills perfectly – I’m an expert barter now! The way I see it is that if I can negotiate every down 25% then I can travel for 25% longer i.e a 12 month trip can become 15 months. Also, I did it through necessity – I didn’t have enough money to travel in any other manner so if I wanted to see all those countries then that’s what I had to do AND now having travelled like this for so long I honestly can say if I was to win the lottery tomorrow I would continue to travel like this – you really discover the true essence and soul of a country like this.

What have been the highs and lows of your travels so far?

The highs have been almost endless – if I had to say the top three off the top of my head, I would probably say seeing the Golden Temple (the spiritual centre of Sikhism) in Amritsar near the India-Pakistan border was one of the most breathtaking sites I have ever seen. Seeing Mount Everest with my own eyes from Everest base camp, that was pretty special too! A snow capped Mount Fuji was beautiful. The live volcano, Gunning Bromo, in Indonesia was crazy. Wild orangutans in Borneo were awesome. Wait that’s more than 3! It’s tough to narrow it down! The lows – 100%, categorically, definitively working in an office in Sydney. Living in the corporate cage for what seems like an eternity BUT it’s a means to an end and I understand that

How long do you plan to continue a life of travel?

Honestly, it’s tough to say but I hope to keep going for another 5 years at least. I graduated at 22, so maybe if I stop at 32? Or maybe not!! I’m so thankful for the opportunities that I’ve had to travel, my family are awesome and support my life choices which helps a lot, and I’m really happy with how my life is turning out so I’ve got no plans to stop for the forseeable future. I’m moving temporarily to Malaysia in December to study my Masters (which will allow me to pursue my NGO dreams), and next month i’m beginning another 8 months on the road – from Cape Town to Istanbul by land – that should be an adventure! So when I gaze at my computer screen at work in Sydney I have a map of Africa as my desktop staring back at me – just gotta think ‘keep your eyes on the prize’ and grind through the last couple of weeks of work!

Do you have any advice for people considering moving abroad, teaching English or traveling?

I have lots of advice! First up I would say be brave, venture into the unknown and you’ll be rewarded with life experiences that you can’t even imagine. I didn’t realize how closed my eyes were to the world until I took the plunge and now I want to encourage everyone to do the same.

Teaching English is a great way to explore the world, it gives you the structure and income you might need to set off. I had very little money when I first set out so I had to work and teaching in Chiang Mai was one of the best decisions of my life. So get your degree, get your TEFL and give it a crack. You don’t want to be on your deathbed and think ‘I wish I had traveled more when I was younger’ because I’m sure you won’t be saying ‘I’m glad I spent most of my youth in the office’!

Traveling brings such a sense of excitement and adventure to your life, it’s difficult to articulate but when you are doing it you’ll know what I mean. To truly feel like a global citizen is an awesome thing, a thing I hope a lot more people will be able to feel in the future.

Links
OneStep4ward Johnny Ward’s blog.
Follow Johnny Ward on Twitter

Nathan Hangen is half of the superstar marketing team that published the hugely popular ebook Beyond Blogging recently. Nathan also happens to be in the US military and was stationed in Afghanistan. He shares some of his experiences and advice in this interview.

Please tell us a little about your background.

Well, I’ll start by saying I’m 31 going on 19…feel like I’ve gone back in time over the past few years…much of which has to do with finding myself through my entrepreneurial ventures.

I have a wife, Heather, and 2 kids (a 3rd due any minute).

I’ve worked in every industry you can imagine…fast food, service, retail, manufacturing…etc.When I was 18, I worked for a very big company called Lexis Nexis…and having a job there was like a ticket to retirement. You just didn’t question a job like that. But then suddenly, they started laying off people that had worked there for their entire lives…it was really tough to watch…so I quit and went back to school. I just couldn’t take it being in an environment like that. The magic was gone.

I graduated from school 5 years later (had a family and worked my way through, so it took a while) with a B.S in Psychology and a minor in religion. From there, I worked two “management” jobs until I was laid off a week before Christmas without any warning, severance package, or pat on the ass.

From there, I joined the Army, which gave me a great place to both find myself and appreciate the opportunity we have in this country. As I write this, I have four months left and have been home from Afghanistan for nearly a year.

What is it like to be in the US Army?

You wouldn’t believe me if I told you, but I’ll say that it’s much less exciting than you’d think. We spend a lot of time in meetings…cleaning…and doing basic soldier training. Every once in a while we get to do the fun stuff, like go to weapons ranges and/or practice real life scenarios, but because of my job, we spend most of our time in an office studying culture and talking about the Middle East.

It’s both boring and challenging because you can’t really vent to anyone but your peers, and there aren’t many of them. The rank structure is a unique challenge…you don’t talk to a superior unless you are “at ease” and speak with respect.

New soldiers look up to you, so you can’t really screw around. It’s a different world behind those gates.

What is it like to be stationed in Afghanistan?

It’s like the dirtiest place you’ve ever been. It’s just like what you see on TV, except that’s the nice part…the rest is just a wasteland. It’s sad really, because the people don’t know any better, but being over there gave me a different perspective on what it’s like to be as fortunate as we are in the US or Europe.

They don’t have running water or 24 hour electricity. In fact, many of the houses there run on generators and that’s in the capital. The rest of the country still builds walls of mud and lives in a stone age type of environment. They have things like cell phones and TV’s, but not many of them. It’s really strange.

The people there are great, and there are a lot of kids without families. Kids start working at around 5 years old doing things like filling potholes and selling phone cards. I made a lot of friends there, many of which I’d trust with my life.

The food is decent…but honestly most of what we had was American style food made for us.

Dangerous? Yeah, but no more than any other war torn country. There were some bombings nearby and a few rocket attacks, but you get used to it. I wasn’t in the “mess” like some guys were, but we did see some crazy stuff.

Is the Army a good way to see the world?

I guess it depends on what parts of the world you want to see

If you love the Middle East…then absolutely

Sure, you can request to be stationed in Europe or Asia, but those assignments are few and far between. However, it is a great way to get out of a place you can’t stand (like me with Ohio). I’ve lived in Missouri, Georgia, and North Carolina since I joined. I spent 8 months in Afghanistan. But aside from that, I haven’t really had a chance to see the world.

How long do you plan on staying in the Army?

I’m over 4 years now and by the time I leave I’ll be at around 4.5. I don’t regret joining, but for me, it’s not something I could make a career out of. I took the best parts of it and used that to improve my life for the next part of my journey, which starts very soon.

How do you earn money online?

Wow, hard to answer this one. How much time do we have?

I started off by selling e-courses, such as Twitter Rockstar. From there, I started selling ebooks and consulting services. I also spent some time freelancing as a content provider (fancy name for writer).

That got me started and helped me bootstrap my business, but now I’ve focused heavily on building assets that I can use to move me to the next level of the game.

I make about 25% of my income selling my own ebooks and courses (Facebook Rockstar, Twitter Rockstar, Claiming Your Destiny, etc), 50% via JV deals (Beyond Blogging, Roark Media, etc), and the rest from affiliate sales and consulting.

I view affiliate income as play money because it isn’t really consistent and it’s not expected. I’ve made anywhere from 10 bucks/month to 3k/month doing that. Most of that money goes into a business savings account or straight into my business to pay for expenses.

Beyond Blogging does really well for Mike and I, both the ebook and the print version. We also just launched a low-key consulting project called the Beyond Blogging Project, which is open to only 50 bloggers and is a way that Mike and I can really dig in and help people succeed. That is my primary focus now, and it’s been very successful.

Please tell us about your recent book, Beyond Blogging?

The concept was to create a modern Think and Grow Rich for bloggers. I wanted to create a volume that was timeless, but still provided specific things that people could use for their own blogging business. As it developed, Mike and I focused heavily on the business side of blogging, rather than the stuff that people get hung up on, like finding a niche, where to put ads, how to create email lists, etc.

We interviewed 6 bloggers as our main effort (Chris Brogan, Chris Garrett, David Risley, Penelope Trunk, Chris Guillebeau, and Gary Vaynerchuk) and did a detailed case study on 9 others (iJustine, Steve Pavlina, Darren Rowse, Brian Clark, Shama Kabani, Michael Dunlop, Pete Cashmore, Jonathan Fields, and John Chow).

All in all, the book is over 200 pages and is jam packed with both entertaining stories and information that you can use to change your business for the better…today. We topped it off with a 5 step blueprint for success based on what we learned from the 15 bloggers we studied.

As for the success of the book itself, we reached 5 figures in the first 24 hours, largely thanks to guys like Chris Brogan, Darren Rowse, David Risley, Chris Garret, and others helping with the promotion.

The book still sells regularly on both our site and on Amazon.com. Just recently, we opened up an invite only mastermind group called the Beyond Blogging Project, which we’re using to work hands on with people that want to take their business to the next level. We just started last Friday, and so far, it’s been awesome.

How did you approach all the big name bloggers in Beyond Blogging?

Some were easier than others. Most replied with a yes or no, but there were some that wouldn’t return a single email (John Chow, I’m talking to you).

I met most of them in Las Vegas during Blogworld Expo and I think that really helped them remember who they were helping and why. Mike knew some of these guys very well, and leveraged his network to get guys like Chris Brogan and Chris Garrett.

Guys like Chris Guillebeau were mentors for me early on, so I’d been in touch with him since his blog started.

The key to getting guys like this on your side is not to wait until you need something to contact them. I’d emailed most of them back and forth for months before we even approached them on the issue. I’d guest posted for many of them as well, so the relationship was there already. That was the difference and why it was so successful.

As for getting help with the promotion, all of these guys operate with a high level of integrity, and we knew that they wouldn’t promote the book unless it was good. So our first goal was to make it so.

We sent review copies and stayed in touch throughout the writing process. In the end, they felt like they were part of the project, not just being used so we could namedrop.

Sure, offering a commission helps, but I think the relationships made the difference. We had a lot of offers from people that didn’t want a commission, but just wanted to help out. That was really cool.

In a recent post you said that blogging and ebooks are not a very good way to make money online, can you please elaborate.

Well, let me clarify what I meant there…sure, you can make a few grand selling ebooks, but for most bloggers, that’s not enough to live on. We’ve only got so much great work within us, and selling that work for nickels and dimes, or even for $47 isn’t going to do the job.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s a great place to start, but unless you want to write an ebook every 4 months for the rest of your life, then you’re going to have to build a real business…which means having something useful to sell. The blog is just a tool. The ebooks are a way to build customer lists and to get your feet wet, but beyond that, you need something bigger.

For example, we turned the Beyond Blogging ebook into a print version on Amazon and a mentorship program. I’m working with another partner to develop solutions for brick and mortar small businesses. I’m creating a monetized podcast with a friend that makes great original music.

I’m trying to think big, and it’s something I encourage everyone to do.

(Here is Nathan’s blog post on this subject.)

What are your future business plans?

Well, I just hinted at a few of them, but aside from that I’m using my blog as a platform to develop JV deals and meet new people. I’m planning a year or two out (at a minimum) and am always working on future partnerships.

Eventually, I hope to build a portfolio of businesses that I can use to launch me into something bigger…such as the tech scene. I’m really interested in virtual environments, 3D, and holograms. That’s where I’m heading.

Of course, in the short-term, I’m still working for that book deal with Wiley

Links
NathenHangen’s Webrepreneur Blog
Follow Nathan on Twitter
Beyond Blogging