I completely forgot to link to my interview on The Stateless Man radio show!
The recording was really poor due to me being on my cell phone, but I enjoyed getting a chance to chat with the host Fergus Hodgson about a previous blog post of mine “Why It’s Stupid to Stress Over Money“. Anyway, I’m on the first segment, on this page the link is in the November shows: http://overseasradio.com/stateless-man/ I’ve listened to some of Fergus’ other shows and really enjoy the combination of entrepreneurship, travel, and liberty. Sounds familiar!
So the “holidaze” have snuck up on us once again. It’s not 100% my favorite time of year. I prefer to have steady business and work at all times (plus it is truly cold here now…dipping to 37 the other morning and my house as about zero insulation, typical of most houses and buildings in San Diego!). When Christmas comes up, everyone and everything shuts down the week before and the week after. Then there’s that hope that things will be back to normal the first weekday after new years. But it’s usually another week after that before it’s business as usual again!
People will say “Relax! Just take the time off!” Which would be fine, if I were on a salary, getting paid time off and not having to worry about “the business” as much as just “my job”. Anyway, I’m not complaining! I’m couch surfing in Ventura tomorrow night and driving up to see the family for a few days on Sunday. Should be an overall nice time, and I can catch up on podcasts and maybe an audiobook on all my driving!
Lastly, I’ve been listening to and reading lots of self development stuff lately. The theme that has come up over and over is “finding your purpose”. As far as “what I was meant to do”, I don’t believe in that. I could have done a lot of things. I can do a lot of things now. 10 years from now I can do different things. All or none of them can be fulfilling. As I’m reading the Steve Jobs book currently, I can see how insanely passionate he was about everything he worked on. And I do mean insane!
But not everyone needs to take it to Jobs’ level to be fulfilled. I don’t think I have a single purpose. I think I have a few. Do I know exactly what they are yet? No. I have some clues. Luckily, many things have been ruled out over the years! Over the next few weeks I’m going to be giving myself a crash course in “finding purpose”. I’ll be attending the Millionaire Mind seminar in San Diego on January 4-6th, which I think will help. I’m reading a book right now called “The Way of The Superior Man” by David Deida, which stresses the importance of having a purpose.
On paper, it sounds kind of daunting to try to find your purpose! And I’m not one to think about or care about the idea of “Why are we here on earth?” For me, everything is local. I can figure my own stuff out but I will let others figure their stuff out before I go off theorizing on what they may want out of life.
But I’m actually looking forward to the process. I get to try all kinds of new things. I’m trying to put myself in the mindset that I was as a kid. I doubt I will be busting out my hot wheels, organizing my baseball cards, or re-launching myself into the world of Dungeons and Dragons in this process, but, there are so many things that I’m thinking about doing like:
-Playing ultimate frisbee (only played twice in my life and that was in college)
-Getting back to climbing
-Getting funding for a work project through Kickstarter.com
-Learning Spanish (finally!)
-Learning to play the guitar (finally!)
-Learning how to DJ
-Improv (yeah this one kinda terrifies me which is why it’s on the list!)
-Doing more personal videos and posting them here
-Writing about my upcoming trip to Vietnam
-Getting on more radio shows/podcasts
-Starting another podcast (possibly Freedom Lovin or something similar)
That’s a start. I guess these are New Years Resolutions in a way. I think 2013 is going to be a good year. I don’t always say this every year but this one I can feel…especially since we made it past 12/21/12 with no apocalypse. 😉
