A little background first: I wrote this while I was backpacking in Australia during December 2008 and January 2009.  I had been traveling alone for the last 2-3 weeks of my trip and had been forced to acclimate myself to a foreign world and culture. Although Australia is far from atypical America, there are some significant differences inherent in Australian culture (and/or perhaps backpacker culture) that have significantly affected me. On January 13, 2009 on my flight back to America, I wrote a letter to reread someday when I need a bit of clarity . Here’s an exerpt:

I realize now that the person I was before is not the person I want to be anymore. I feel this way very strongly. I’m afraid that the excitement of day to day business life and exclusively being around others who feel the same way has distracted me from a superior alternative experiential life. So, whenever you feel like ‘hey, things aren’t so bad at all, this is fun…I’m enjoying things now that I’m back…I URGE YOU…’

Please. Read your travel notebook, mainly “things I’ve learned” and the “key tenets to experience life.” In the past– I have been too fast, too careless, too impersonal, too IGNORANT. Caught up in “the american way”. I want something different out of life. Something better.

7 Key Tenets to an Experiential Life

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As life becomes smoother and less rocky, it’s like being in a state of quietness and then being at total peace. It’s an easy place to stay. It’s comfortable.

But you do want more experience, don’t you? If you’re anything like me, then you crave it, you lust for it. We feel the urge inside our hearts for a higher fun level, a higher intellect level, a higher plane of life experience – and yes, it is possible—we know it is. The more experiences we can experience, the higher our level of adventure climbs. We CRAVE adventure and change and the unknown because it is what drives us through life and will drive us even further, even higher.

Do not be afraid to live in a world where you have more options, more choices. Do not be afraid to live in a world without limits. Do not be afraid to live in a world where tomorrow can look very different than today. Accepting this and embracing this is key because, after all, it is the world that you and I are living in, already.

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Every once in a while I reach a point where my mind is filled with so much stuff that I feel that I just can’t move. Stuck, like I’m walking around in quicksand, not really going anywhere. Out of all my techniques I’ve tried, the best one so far I’ve discovered is a twenty minute written meditation.  These are the steps I follow.

1. Open up my Google Doc “Notepad” file.  (I like Google Docs because it automatically saves the document and never crashes.) Note: it’s important that this document is a secure document that no one else will read except you. This gives you the freedom to truly unload.
2. Open up your favorite timer application. I use the free, Apimac Timer for Mac. And set it so that it counts down from 20 minutes. Make sure the alert is audible and that your sound is turned up enough that you can hear it.
3. Start the timer.
4. Close your eyes. (assuming you are a good typist). Bonus points if you’re in a public place as doing atypical things around strangers makes you a stronger person.
5. Start writing everything that’s floating around in your head no matter how seemingly weird and unrelated it is. Force yourself to keep writing, paying no attention to typos or grammar—go for stream of thought. You’ll probably reach points where you run out of things in your mind. It’s empty, already? Yeah, right. If you really have nothing to say, then write, “I don’t know what to say…” over and over again until your mind pops thoughts into your mind. And it will, trust me.  Eventually ideas will start flowing and things will come out. It might even surprise you what you uncover. Just go with it.
6. When the audible alert sounds, open your eyes and be amazed at how much gunk you’ve siphoned out of your mind. Can you really believe all that was up there? Note: if you’d like to keep going, then by all means, keep going. The longer the meditation, the better, but twenty minutes is the least amount of time I would recommend you do this for.
7. Feel a sense of cleanliness and emptiness that this exercise forces you to achieve.

Above is what I wrote out after my twenty minute meditation today. I reached a mental point towards the end similar to the mental experience I get from normal, quiet meditation. Sometimes after this exercise I feel a clear mind and that’s it. And at other times not only do I feel a clear mind, but I feel a sense of extreme clarity and am able to find meaningful, personal realizations in the last few sentences.

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lobby art in "The Monarch" condo, downtown Austin

I’ve been juggling a bunch of balls for quite some time now. Here’s a quote from a previous blog post I wrote in 2007: The Law of Gravity: as it applies to Entrepreneurialism:

I compare all my businesses/projects to balls. I continuously throw up as many balls in the air as I can. Right now, all the balls are different shapes, sizes, and colors—-but there’s probably about 6 of them right now. I’ve learned to accept (and to look forward to) the realization that most of the balls will fall, roll around on the floor, and then ultimately get squashed. As a positive, that’s when you no longer have to pay attention to them. But in your heart, you know that you gave them a chance to fly…no regrets on your part. Some balls, though, stay up for longer than you would expect. However, the longer they stay in the air, they gradually grow in size and begin to get heavier and thus, harder to manage along with the others.

Lately, I’ve been feeling a bit overwhelmed about new “opportunities” that have come to me, that a year ago I would have jumped at—effectively adding them to juggling exercise. I’ve reached the point, it seems, where my mindset has shifted. I’ve now become a lot less interested in picking up new projects and more focused on the ones I’m already working on—those that I’ve grown exceptionally passionate about and have a high potential for sustained success. I still have a tremendous curiosity with the new projects that I’m teased with—and am in fact, admittedly addicted to curiosity. I would even make the bold statement that I’ve never met anyone more curious than myself. So, now as I’m refusing to allow myself to get wrapped up into these new ideas, I’ve realized that what has drawn me to them in the past has been my sheer curiosity of “what if” and perhaps my lack of full belief in my other projects.

Now, though, I’m confident and sure that the projects in front of me right now, are the ones I want to focus my time on. Yes, it stings a little bit to say, “no”, but perhaps the only way to reach massive success with one thing in life is to say no to countless others.

What balls are you juggling right now? Do you find yourself adding more and more to your collection? If so, maybe you should explore the true reason why. And if you’re not adding more and just focusing on one or two, then perhaps you’re a step ahead of me.

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Every once in a while I go on a reading rampage. In fact, for a three month stretch during my last year in college, I was consistently reading four to six books per week (non course work related) and regularly checked out 15-20 books at a time from the library. In fact, it was a bit of an unhealthy obsession—and I felt quite consumed by my addiction to knowledge.

I’m able to read pretty quickly because of a speed reading technique my dad taught me years ago that he learned while in the US Air Force Academy.

A couple months ago, I was on one of my reading rampages and went to one of The University of Texas libraries (they have an amazing collection books and honestly, it’s kinda neat to be in there and know that you’re one of the ONLY people in there reading for leisure) and found a bunch of books that facsinated me. I plopped down for a long while and read them all, taking notes of the most memorable passages from each book. Here’s an AMAZING quote from one of them:

Thoughts are cold, but feelings are warm, alive and vital. So don’t “think” I am strong. Feel it! Stir up your nature to its depth until you can really feel you are indeed strong and possessed of the radiant energy of mentative force. - Mind Power: The Secret of Mental Magic by William Walker Atkinson.

This was the quote that inspired me to have the realization that I wrote on previously: Clarity is feeling, not thinking

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So many people live within un-happy circumstances and yet will not take the initiative to change their situation because they are conditioned to a life of security, conformity, and conservatism , all of which may appear to give one peace of mind, but in reality nothing is more damaging to the adventurous spirit within a person than a secure future. The very basic core of a persons living spirit is their passion for adventure . The joy of life comes from our encounters with the new experiences, and hence there is no greater joy than to have an endlessly changing horizon, for each day to have a new and different sun. If you want to get more out of life, you must lose your inclination for monotonous security and adopt a helter-skelter style of life that will at first appear to you to be crazy. But once you become accustomed to such a life you will see its full meaning and its incredible beauty. -- Christopher McCandless, Into the Wild

Food for thought…chew on that.

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“Clarity is feeling, rather than thinking. The pureness of existing is feeling the sensation of life, not thinking about its intricacies.”

I pulled this “note to self” from my journal, which is a realization I had on May 14, 2010. Frequently, I catch myself overthinking so many things. Truly experiencing the moment, though, comes only when the mind is completely silent. That’s when you feel the moment. And when this happens, oh my, it feels brilliant.

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I was going through some old papers when I came across a page I literally ripped out of a magazine while I was traveling in Australia from a couple years ago. from the article:  today’s backpacker is no longer a “worthless, party-addicted wanderer, roaming Australia in a Combie Van.”

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