The 2012 Manifesto

Posted on Sunday, 1 January 2012 by mikeschu

This year I’m approaching things differently.

I called a friend today and we discussed how we’ve changed the past few years. She’s a Ph.D. candidate in Missouri, working on her second semester of graduate school. I’m working on… well, you’ll see it in a minute.

She had mentioned that she was following Steve Pavlina’s primary-secondary-tertiary foci model for a few years, but it became progressively harder to fulfill. She was frustrated because of the lack of foci and because she was recently failing more often than not. I empathized and told her about my change in mindset with regards to the plans for 2011.

The Structure of My Personal Planning Process

Last year I let go of goals in favor of commitments and projects instead. I love it primarily because goals tend to be very time-oriented for me, and I end up on an express lane to failure when things don’t happen in the timeframe I want them to. I feel less down on myself if I break a commitment or drop a project, because I can recommit or redefine a project when circumstances change or are affected by things out of my control. With goals, I tend to stress out easily and force myself to play catch-up if I get behind, or I lose confidence when it’s apparent I’m not going to make the goal. I also seem to be looking beyond the objective world more and more, but that’s likely to be more of a philosophical shift than anything else (thanks to Slade Roberson specifically).

With all due respect to Steve and Chris Guillebeau, I also let go of critical, objective, detail-oriented planning. I have found that over the past several years I have objective and mind-oriented ideas about how I want the year to go, only for something completely different to happen that works out much better than I had mentally planned. This was really apparent last year when I accomplished a fair amount despite the fact that most of my success lied in the words I picked for the year. Those words arose out of a completely intuitive exchange with myself; I basically asked myself what will define 2011 while walking from a tea shop in late December and the three words came up instantaneously. I didn’t believe some of it initially, but as you can see it turned out quite nicely.

Of course, I can hear the objectivists, the achievers, the personal development gurus, and the rational, detail-oriented readers and friends of mine cringing that I’m following this method. We’ve been taught to write down our goals clearly and to focus on SMART objectives. To this, I say: I know, I hear you, and I get it. I used to be objective with all of my goals and plans, and I’ve done fairly well. I still maintain objectivity over the projects that I manifest and make work. But direct experience over the past couple of years has taught me that the Universe may have a bigger plan for me that I haven’t been able to sense objectively, and that I have to “let go and let God”, so to speak, in order for that plan to present itself.

Now, I’m not going to follow Leo Babauta’s model or even my friend Shanna’s – I actually need a little structure and space to accomplish things. I’m also not going to design my life for the year and then ask for guidance, which is what I did last year. Instead I’m going with intuition to start and filling in the details with what I want to do, keeping in mind that there are a couple of projects that, objectively speaking, I’d like to do.

The Words of 2012

When I went through my intuitive questioning process, I only came up with one answer: deep transformation. I kept asking and that’s all I got back. Well, there was one other quote: “You’re not going to recognize yourself in six months.”

Intuitively and instinctively I knew that I have to minimize the commitments and projects this year, at least to start, while this all unfolds. I have a vague idea about how this is going to go, but in reality I have no clue. In fact, besides “deep transformation” as a phrase of the year, I’m using and saying “unfolding” a lot more than I normally do. I’m going to ride those words for what it’s worth this year.

Commitments of 2012

This doesn’t mean I will not make commitments. In fact, my biggest commitment to the Universe is best said by this request:

I am committed to helping others integrate through experience and to help them in their development. Put me in situations where I can discover, recognize, and use my unique talents and skills. Allow me to experience and uncover any latent abilities that I have. Let me do the work that no one else or very few people in the world can do as well as I do, even if I don’t know or can’t describe what that work is very well.

This, or something better.

I’m working on a project at my current employer that is showing seeds of success. I’m not going to talk about it now since it’s so new and well out of my job description. But I’m seeing where my past experiences led to this point and how it’s all coming together. My coaching experiences uncovered the ideas back in August, and I’m just seeing parts of the bigger picture. I’m asking for more of these experiences and waypoints this year.

If I had a career goal, it is that I am in business for myself providing coaching, training or consulting work in two years. It is a vision more than a goal at the moment because (a) it may take more than two years due to skill development requirements; (b) there are some experiences this year that require a bit of money; and (c) I don’t feel ready for it yet since the details haven’t shown themselves, as I alluded to earlier. This doesn’t mean that I’m abandoning the vision. Instead I’m taking a similar approach as my Ph.D. friend when it comes to getting to the endpoint – I know it’s there, I just have to do the work to get there, even though I may not know exactly what that is.

Having said that, there are two commitments that I’m holding this year that don’t influence the above request to the Universe.

I commit to reading no business or personal development books this year. I did well last year and it’s a good one to keep again. Except for skill building materials and a book or two on consulting that I’m looking at, I want to keep focus on the transformation in whatever form that is taking (or going to take).

I commit to minimizing or zeroing out caffeine consumption this year. My thirty-day “no caffeine, no chocolate” trial went really well. I couldn’t believe how calm I was the entire month of December, and it wasn’t just because I had minimal holiday plans or shopping. I had some caffeine this morning in the form of oolong and green tea and hours later I can still feel the jitters and nervousness. I may have to give up my caffeine-tea drinking and coffee ideas and go the caffeine-free route for a while, or even permanently.

Projects for 2012

I only have two projects planned this year because I want to see how this year goes. If the words are correct (intuitively and from prior experience I believe they are), I need to provide space for it to happen. Therefore, I’m not going to go all-out when it comes to a bunch of planned projects to start.

Yoga teacher training. The paperwork was signed in December and my first class is Monday. I have nine months to complete the 200-hour training, but I’d like to get it done before July 4th and the start of the trip for WDS 2012.

If I had to objectively say, “This is the transformation path I’m talking about”, yoga teacher training is probably it. It’ll help with the skill building that I’m describing, and I know yogis who say teacher training has been a point of inflection in their lives. It doesn’t feel one-hundred-percent “it”, but it definitely feels like the right time to engage in teacher training.

Safety razor shaving. This is completely a side project of my own design. I liked the idea so much over a year ago that I bought stuff for it, but it languished on the shelf due to some health issues and general frustration with the process. But after working with some of the lather methods and getting the health issues resolved, this is something I would really like to get good at. I’ll keep people updated on a new blog, but don’t expect me to update it consistently.

My plans are short this year, but that doesn’t mean that I’m not doing anything. I’m sure I’ll be doing a lot like I do every year. I ask of you to consider a more intuitive planning process this year, and let me know if you have anything you are looking forward to accomplishing this year.

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The 2011 Recap

Posted on Saturday, 31 December 2011 by mikeschu

“But I have a sense that it will be a great, action-packed year.”

That was the last sentence I wrote in my 2011 manifesto. True to form, it was. I had more enjoyable experiences than I had planned. I was even more successful than I had originally described on Twitter. I met a lot of great people throughout the year and had a lot of great opportunities come to fruition.

For me, 2011 was really the tale of two separate timeframes, with June as the dividing point. Plans that I made in the beginning of the year didn’t hold up, and it felt like post-June that there was another plan that unfolded. I’ll speak more about this later in the post.

2011 Commitments

I did about what I expected at the beginning of the year with respect to keeping commitments. Some worked great, some did not.

  1. Set aside the idea of starting my own business, at least for this year. I believe I was successful at this with the caveat that I asked about career opportunities when I booked coaching sessions in August.
  2. Only read business or personal development materials when I need them. I did not read a business book this year. As for personal development, it largely depends on what one considers PD. I read a couple of extraneous books, but by and large the materials I bought were for personal interest than anything else.
  3. Continue with writing and creation (the goals from last year). I didn’t do as good of a job as I intended past July. The first six months were great: I largely kept to a weekly blog entry and wrote the Augmented Humanity HOWTO (or most of it).
  4. Continue down the path of minimalism. I did okay here. My travel for the past six months made me realize that I do not want to live out of a suitcase. I was also tired of having no living room furniture. I realized where minimalism was heading early on in 2011, but committed to stuff reduction. Even with buying some new furniture I believe I have less stuff than I did back at the beginning of the year. For instance, my garage only holds my car, my bike, some electronic items for recycling, and some boxes.
  5. Make adjustments to improve my health. I did more in December for this than any other month. I embarked on a 30-day “no caffeine, no chocolate” trial and succeeded so much that I like the idea of continuing once my tea stash winds down. I also started structural integration work in July, which has been a marvelous transformation tool. The diet and exercise regiment didn’t change significantly.

Projects For 2011

My project success was decidedly average.

  1. Learn bike repair to a beginner/intermediate competency. I dropped this early in the year once I realized how much work it was going to be with my current bike.
  2. Commit to funding portions of 50 Kiva loans. I funded my 51st loan on 12/28, which was my 50th loan of the year.
  3. Start a mentor program for the Toastmasters club at work. I started it, but it didn’t lift off like I thought it would. I do need to put more effort into this next year or transfer it to someone else.
  4. Commit to receiving the Toastmasters Advanced Communicator Bronze award by June 30th. I completed this on 6/29.

The Words of 2011: Minimalism, Travel, Business

Each year I sit and think of the words that guide the year. For 2011 they were “minimalism”, “travel” and “business”.

Minimalism: I covered a lot of this earlier, but my goal was to pare down to only what I needed, and hopefully by Memorial Day. That didn’t happen, and in fact I was starting to feel less abundant because I was paring down so much. I still did a good job of liberating what I didn’t need, but I have a ways to go.

Travel: I traveled a lot in the past seven months. In fact, this was the busiest year in travel since 2002. I visited Santa Barbara, San Francisco, Portland, Seattle, Vancouver, El Paso, Chicago, Montreal, Denver, Las Vegas twice, and Honolulu – all since June. I estimate that I was on the rails for 2500 miles and in the air for about 17000 miles during this time. Most of my air travel was between September and early December. I had a great time, but it just got to be too much. Most of my travel was over weekends or spending a day or two in each city. I was actually becoming travel fatigued when I went to Hawaii, only because I was on a plane so much.

Business: I didn’t believe this when I came up with it. However, when I received a few coaching sessions in August, my coach and I discussed potential career paths. The conversation we had was very insightful and revealed things about me that I wasn’t really aware of. That was the basis of a discovery process that will go into 2012.

I spent a fair amount of time exploring this in person, and a day or two in Hawaii outlining some potential posts for a new Web site. I still have designs of launching a new site for my next career and/or business, but we’ll see what 2012 brings first.

My 2011 Focus

If there is one thing that I would say I failed at, it was identifying my focus for the year. I wrote in my manifesto:

This year I am shifting from the focus of personal development and self-employment to interpersonal skills and helping others out.

I got the movement away from personal development and self-employment correct, at least from the standpoint of just reading books on it. I completely failed with respect to the latter half of the statement.

As I said before, this year felt like it had two distinct parts. There were only two things I was sure about on January 1st: I had a trip to the World Domination Summit, and I was still in the throes of minimalism. The former was a catalyst for the second half of the year, while the minimalism was not. In fact, I had felt a huge shift coming on when I wrote an update in April. I can’t tell you the exact trigger, but I remember not writing on minimalism starting in February and focusing on writing different topics. My only guess is that I read “The Empathic Civilisation” and some of Ken Wilber’s books and resonated with that more than minimalism, at a deeper level.

By the time I left for Portland in June, I knew something had changed. Little did I know how much it was going to change. Travel allows for some great unfolding, but being around 500 great people I didn’t know perhaps set me on a different path. Between coaching, structural integration, more travel, and some alone time in Hawaii in the second half of the year, I just feel like I’m a very different person than I was in January.

So I had the “Year of Others” pegged incorrectly. This year was the “Year of Exploration”.

My thoughts about 2012 will be in the next post, of which I intend to have posted by Monday. I’m still not even sure how 2012 will unfold given this year, but I have a sense it will be as fulfilling as this year.

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A Brief October Update

Posted on Monday, 10 October 2011 by mikeschu

I haven’t forgotten about you, dear reader; I’ve just been really busy.

I’ve been traveling a lot the past few months: up the West Coast in June, Chicago-Montreal-Denver and El Paso last month, Vegas later this month, Hawaii next month. I’ve learned a little about surfing and a lot more about my body through structural integration. My current employment is keeping me busy (and gainfully employed). Yet while everything is going pretty well, I wasn’t feeling self-actualized. I was in the enviable and strange position of feeling miserable and really happy at the same time, with no obvious pointers to why I was feeling bad.

When times like these happen, it’s best to talk it over with someone to gain another perspective. In this case I had to find someone who has been in my position before, understands the skills and perspectives I have, and has the experience to guide me through what I need to do. Fortunately I found the perfect coach for what I needed, and she’s been nothing short of amazing.

We met for a few sessions to talk about the next great leap in my life. We discussed where I am, where I’d like to be and what the next immediate steps are. We came to the conclusion that the work I’m here to do is going to be very valuable, but it isn’t something that I can start immediately (e.g. affiliate marketing). I’m going to need to do a little more work and introspection, planning and training before I can hit the sweet spot that is my life purpose.

I was also challenged to write when I was inspired to, instead of trying to write every week. While I feel good about what I wrote in my last few entries, I felt that I was trying to write to a deadline and force the topics more than I wanted to. So I chose to take a break that ended up being… three or four months.

Fortunately, the direction I’m heading isn’t too far off from what I was blogging about. Integration and helping others integrate is one of the key skills I have in my pocket. I’m still all about leadership, taking action, and seeing the world from an Integral point of view. The audience that I’m writing to may change a little bit while I zero in on the target, but I believe everyone can benefit from my writing in the next few months.

One of the things that I want to focus on is being a little more practical and a little less theoretical when I write. I’m not here to teach Integral Theory or post-modern philosophy, but it’s one of the tools in the bag. I’ll make an effort to introduce it where it’s necessary instead of writing explicitly about it. Thus I’m not going to introduce the many facets of AQAL to the world – but I sense that it wasn’t going to be a popular series for most of my audience anyway.

In short, I’m back, and the focus of the blog isn’t going to change too much, but I’ll be writing to play with the strengths I have and to what audience I’m writing to.

Keep an eye out for another evolution of this blog. It will have another address, and I’m starting that evolution from scratch. I’m starting to understand how a business is coming into focus this year; I didn’t see it back in January when I wrote about it.

What have you been up to in the past few months?

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Modernism, Postmodernism and the Minimalist Movement

Posted on Monday, 11 July 2011 by mikeschu

How does the minimalist movement fit into consciousness?

Last week I was on a podcast discussing human history through the lens of Integral philosophy. If you haven’t listened to it yet, please do so – it’s my first time on a podcast interview and it provides a really basic introduction to worldviews and the development of consciousness over time.

One of the topics we didn’t get to discuss in detail is the concept of minimalism as it pertains to a shift in consciousness. I said on the podcast that the minimalist movement is one mechanism that people can use to shift from a modern worldview to a postmodern worldview. This post will describe why this is the case.

It had occurred to me that I didn’t get to explain the differences between modernism and postmodernism due to the time-limited nature of the podcast. A much more in-depth look at the levels of consciousness is in the works, especially once we look at Ken Wilber’s AQAL model. For this post, I’ll briefly touch on the two levels of modern and postmodern consciousness. From there it will be easy to see how minimalism fits in the transition.

The source of work I cite for this entry is the book Integral Consciousness and the Future of Evolution. It’s a good overview of the Integral philosophy and draws on prior works by other Integral philosophers. In fact, I recommend it more than anything written by Ken Wilber as an introductory read.

Basics of Modernism

The modernist philosophy evolved from the Enlightenment as a way out of the religious- and feudal-based hierarchal worldview. Prior to the Enlightenment, many people were living in societies dominated by religious institutions, monarchies, or aristocracies that wielded all of the power. In European cultures, this started to dissolve when people became tired of being used and abused by the authorities. Modernist consciousness was assisted by the printing press, the Age of Reason and the evolution of hard sciences that started in the Renaissance. The founding of the United States in particular was a marker of the newly formed modernist philosophy.

Modernism consciousness is essentially an individualized, rational, objective worldview. Logic and reason reins supreme, and over time wealth eventually transferred from the aristocracy to individuals who had the ingenuity to build businesses. Modern democracy, capitalism, science, and individual liberty are the building blocks of this level of consciousness. The inventions and discoveries of modernist culture helped many people free themselves from abject poverty and lower forms of philosophical existence. Universal education, the corporation, science and medicine are some of the pinnacles of advancement that the modernist consciousness has contributed for the betterment of humanity.

Unfortunately, today we are seeing where modernist consciousness is starting to fall apart. At modernism’s best, concrete, objective numbers and logic reign supreme over the environment and human resources. The structure of the corporation is used as a way to “make it” in society – show up, perform work, get paid and live a good life. But what do people do with this wealth? They save, of course – but they also buy stuff that corporations provide, typically material goods, so they can live a better life. Hence there is a push at this level of consciousness to show power and status not by nobility, but by being able to buy goods and services.

Over a couple of hundred years, modernism developed into the situation we’re in now, where material goods are cheap, people value their material goods highly, and capitalism is starting to exploit workers and natural resources across continents like never before. In response to this worldview, a philosophical and cultural shift in consciousness started to take hold as recently as fifty years ago but has grown significantly in the past couple of decades – the framework of postmodernism.

Basics of Postmodernism

Postmodernism in this context sees the beauty in personal growth, sustainability and equality. No longer is life about acquiring the most wealth; people realized they would still be dead in the long run. Nor is it all about being 100% rational and objective in their life’s experience. This doesn’t imply that postmodernists are insane and crazy; rather, postmodernism bases its values on equality, inclusion and diversity. Postmodernism favors holistic, inclusive, worldcentric solutions to problems. The environmental and multiculturalism movements are borne out of this consciousness, as is decision making by consensus. Another aspect of postmodernism in society is that spirituality (but not necessarily in the form of religion) starts coming back into the culture – but that’s for another blog entry.

The Minimalism Movement

From this (admittedly very simple and basic) explanation of modernism and postmodernism, it’s easy to see how the minimalism movement fits in philosophically. People that were living in a consciousness focused on maximizing wealth expanded their personal worldview and started placing their priorities on caring about other people and the environment. They also started to see the exploitation of others and themselves (via their jobs) and chose to make life changes. Part of this change can involve abandoning materialism and choosing minimalism as a framework in order to minimize their consumption footprint.

Note that this minimalism movement is different than the minimalism demonstrated by people prior to modernism. At prior consciousness and societal levels, minimalism was the de facto standard of living either as a requirement of religion (e.g. monks and nuns) or because of the economic realities present in that society (e.g. feudal serfs). While people chose to live by vows of poverty from a religious standpoint, this particular evolution of minimalism arose from a conscious choice by people who lived in a society influenced by modernist consciousness.

I hope this entry serves as a way to understand how consciousness can evolve and as a way to describe some of the factors of modernist and postmodernist consciousness. They’ll be more to discuss, especially once we start looking into how Integral philosophy was formed and how Integral consciousness is starting to take shape. I will be writing more about the structure of Integralism in the coming weeks.

image credit: Editor B

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Deactivating Facebook

Posted on Tuesday, 5 July 2011 by mikeschu

Last week I deactivated my Facebook profile.

A few months ago I went an entire month without Facebook. Since the beginning of March, I have logged into Facebook no more than a couple dozen times. Most of that time was spent making pithy updates and contacting a couple of people in anticipation of my trip up the West coast.

A couple of people wondered why I would go to the trouble of deactivating my profile, especially that in recent times I wasn’t contributing much beyond links to my blog. Primarily, I found Facebook to be of low value regardless of how much effort I put in to it. But I have other, deeper reasons for taking a more drastic Facebook hiatus.

  • I feel the need to consume less online content in general. This year I made it a focus to limit the amount of extraneous personal development content to read. It’s possible I have to do the same with social media content. I was surprised how much time Facebook was taking up on the weekends and in the mornings. A month off showed me how to regain that time. The first week in March showed me how easy it is to get back into the same pattern I was in prior to February. Fortunately I recognized what was happening after the first day or two of March. I enjoy my involvement in social media with Twitter, so Facebook felt like a good place to start cutting back online.
  • I realized after February that Facebook takes up mental and emotional space regardless if it’s actively or passively used. I felt a little guilty for not making contributions on Facebook, but when I did I eventually succumbed to the site for hours at a time watching the stream and trying to follow up with all of my friends. It’s possible that I have a cyber-addictive personality and that merely restricting my time simply doesn’t work; I have to dispose of the proverbial cookie jar to avoid eating more cookies (or in this case, waste time on the Internet).
  • I feel the need to contribute more content in a way that expresses me. I started a blog to express ideas and a worldview that I believe in. I feel that I would rather spend the time contributing to others via the blog than on Facebook, as I have the possibility of unlimited reach on the Internet versus a few hundred of my closest friends. I also take full ownership of the content and the method of presentation on the blog. To me, Facebook feels like being in a cubicle farm on the Internet, except I’m not getting paid to contribute (not that I would ask for money via social media, but you get the point).
  • I cannot agree with Facebook’s rules and its implementation, especially in matters of privacy. We all know how painful it is to update the privacy settings every time they change so that they don’t share personal data or that our likeness is used in advertisements for products that we would never use or remotely endorse. I don’t recall any recent changes, but I do recall at one point they were considering sharing address data so that third-party applications can send physical mail. Even when I was a passive user of Facebook, I never received (many) e-mails about changes to the Terms of Service – I would generally have to log in or hear from friends that the TOS changed.
  • I prefer private conversations over ones initiated over social media. Being at the World Domination Summit made me realize this much more than ever. I admit that I’m not an extravert, but I feel a much richer experience talking to someone over the phone or meeting them in person. Facebook and other social sites are good for maintaining relationships, but nothing beats sharing a hug or coffee to forge new ones. Facebook was starting to be much less of a priority relative to answering e-mail, the phone, and even blog comments (yes, I’m committing to answering blog comments).

As I have only deactivated the account, I still have the opportunity to come back to Facebook at a time of my own choosing. I’ll keep the profile deactivated for at least three months and probably closer to six months. However, I have an account on a dating site that has been deactivated for years now, so who knows how long this will last. As always, you can use Twitter, LinkedIn, e-mail, or the phone. My contact information is here.

The next three to six months without Facebook will be a challenge in my online presence and how I approach the game of life. I look forward to seeing how life evolves from this choice and how the experiment unfolds.

image credit: fbouly

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Notes From Three Weeks Of Travel

Posted on Monday, 27 June 2011 by mikeschu

 

I’m not a travel writer, but traveling is a great way of gaining insight into how you can design your life.

I recently returned from a three-week vacation on the West Coast of the United States and Canada. During this time I visited Santa Barbara, San Francisco, Portland, Seattle, and Vancouver BC. This trip has influenced me in ways only vacations can, in ways I didn’t think were possible. This week I’d like to share a few thoughts about the trip from a travel perspective and what I took away from it.

Take a two-week or longer vacation. As much as long weekends and single weeks away from the office break up the rut, they don’t allow you to decompress and review what is truly going on in your life. By the time most people settle out of their stress and emotions on a vacation of one week or less, they’re either heading back to the office or looking ahead to work in a couple of days. A full three weeks away from the cubicle allowed me to comprehensively look at how things are going and note where I need to make adjustments.

Having said that, make sure you allow yourself time to recover on vacation. I’m not the traveler who enjoys the two-week, eight-country tour (“If it’s Tuesday, it must be Belgium”). In fact, this trip was exhausting in several ways: lots of overland travel, a conference in Portland, and all-day adventuring in every city I visited. It’s okay to spend a couple of days doing nothing on a trip, just to sleep in and rest. Your body will thank you later for the recovery time.

One or two carry-on bags is all you need. When I went to Wales in 2005, all I carried with me was on my back – a Camelbak similar to this one. That particular vacation was a two-week trip to hike Glyndwr’s Way, a 132-mile trek across the Welsh countryside. I survived and learned a lot about what to pack and what not to pack. It’s true that those lessons can be forgotten; I overpack when I take the car, and my last overseas trip to the Caribbean was a packing disaster. But this trip reminded me that I can definitely hit the road with less.

For one thing, going carry-on only prevented me from seriously overpacking. I had to test-pack for the vacation a couple of times before I dialed it in. But the effort saved me time and stress. I was able to pack and unpack my bags in the time it takes to make tea. I didn’t have to spend time or money with the baggage handlers. Since I was primarily traveling by train I also had the possibility to walk away from it if I was compelled to stay in a particular city or town along the way.

Traveling carry-on only has stoked the minimalist and location-independent fires again. Living out of a suitcase isn’t easy, but I found that I can do it if I choose to. That’s a big boon if I find that I want to or have to cut down my possessions significantly from the minimalist lifestyle I have now. In a more immediate sense, I now have a good-sized pile of stuff that is headed for the nearest donation center.

Take the train for one vacation. I’m all for traveling any way you can get there – by plane, by car, by foot or bike if you have to (or want to). And I’m certainly for maximizing vacation time, especially if you have to cross the United States or go overseas. But if you have the time and a little money, take a trip by train and spend the money on first-class lodging.

Amtrak was my primary mode of transportation for this trip. By using the Pacific Surfliner, Coast Starlight, and Amtrak Cascades trains, I saw some of the best scenery in America and had a great travel experience:

  • Breakfast while watching the snow on the ground in southern Oregon.
  • The Pacific Parlour Car.
  • The Pacific Ocean and Puget Sound mere feet away from the rail line.
  • Business-class airplane seating in coach class.
  • Talking to people in the observation car and the dining car.
  • Decent food on the train instead of a microwaved meal, for the most part.
  • You can even drink on the train! (Nearly everybody told me this when I said I was taking the train, including people drinking on the train.)

Most people told me that it takes forever to get anywhere on the train. It takes longer relative to the plane, but I spent a lot of time writing and looking out the window, watching the scenery go by and being present to the landscape. It was very enjoyable and a refreshing change from the chaos of air travel and the necessary diligence of driving. Based on the experiences of this trip, I will book another trip on the Coast Starlight up to Seattle or Portland and use the Surfliner if I need to be in Los Angeles or Santa Barbara. I’m also looking to book a very long trip next year that might take me across the country by train. (Preview of coming attractions? Maybe….)

I will avoid using hotels if possible. This trip I booked all of my lodging with AirBnB, and it has been nothing short of amazing. People have been opening up their houses for me to stay in, and it has been very positive at each place I’ve been. I stayed in a loft in Portland, in a house on the cable car line in San Francisco, and in a basement studio apartment in Vancouver, each for less than the cost of a good hotel. It’s a much better experience than the standard hotel service and I’m directly putting in money into the hands of locals instead of some large hotel corporation. Not only that, I have some great insight on how it is to live in each city as my hosts do. (I’m looking at you, Portland and Santa Barbara.)

Flat-rate Priority Mail boxes are a gift. It happens: you will likely overpack or pick up a few things along the way that won’t fit in a suitcase. I didn’t overpack much (again, test-pack your bags once or twice before you travel), but I picked up some tea, a couple of books, and some conference swag that wasn’t necessary for the trek into Canada. A little time at the post office and $20 later, the stuff I didn’t need was waiting for me at home. Considering what checked bag fees are these days, it can be worthwhile to pay the postage and lighten the load at periodic intervals. (Note that similar services may not be an option outside of the United States, but check with the postal carriers.)

Stuff happens. Some of it is great, and some of it is not. By and large I had a lot of fun on travel by meeting new friends and having great conversations with random people. Meeting two people dressed like Ronald McDonald and The Burger King as I detrained in Santa Barbara was hilarious. Spending time walking Alki Beach in Seattle with someone I had just met offline made for a great bonding experience. Biking around Vancouver for an entire day was a challenge, but it made me want to visit again. Those are the good things that happened on this trip, but sometimes other things happen that make a trip memorable. The major downside this trip was that I had to deal with the small issue of a riot in Vancouver after the deciding game for the Stanley Cup. Being crammed into a coach seat in a 737 after so much time in a train seat was probably the second biggest downside, so all in all this trip was a smashing logistical success (pun not intended). Just be present to what is going on around you – you may find someone or something really interesting around the corner.

In short, three weeks of travel has changed my life, and I’m sure that it can change yours. Take a long vacation and get away from the everyday life you live. I’m sure that with a little travel and a little time away, you can see ways of designing the life you love to live.

The photo is mine – all rights reserved, but ask nicely and I’ll probably let you use it with attribution.

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A Few Travel Vignettes

Posted on Tuesday, 21 June 2011 by mikeschu

I’m not a travel writer, but I’m giving this a shot.

I just returned from a three-week trip, primarily by rail. I’m working on the post about the lessons I learned, but for this week I am posting a few snippets of what transpired on the trip. I hope you find it as entertaining as I found the trip.

Santa Barbara, CA

I’m sitting with my host, who happens to be a healer and an astrologer. I started the morning discussing a few things about my chart and what I know about astrology; now she’s looking at it and my solar return (birthday to birthday) chart. She reminds me of a gift I have that I never considered to be one, but what she tells me next takes the cake.

“You turned 33 this year? That’s a big year for transformation. You start unwinding what your parents taught you and experience more of who you are. By the time you’re 36 your transformation will be in full swing, and age 40 is when it completes in stride. But looking at your solar return chart this year, something big is going to come out.”

I had a feeling that this year is going to be a transformative one, but having two people tell me the same thing sends a small chill up my spine.

The Coast Starlight – South of Salinas, CA

I’m in the observation car watching the Salinas Valley roll by in the evening sun at seventy miles an hour. It looks almost like the Central Valley, only smaller. A woman is knitting a sweater next to me; across the way there are three or four people talking about how to get California medical marijuana cards, even though most of them are out of state residents.

This is the first time I feel grateful for this trip and how much it means to me. My seat-mate in coach is a man from Mobile, Alabama who is on disability and in his fifties, with a ponytail and well-worn clothes. We’ve been talking on and off since Lompoc and Vandenberg AFB. He tells me has led a simple and good life, but he doesn’t know why he’s still alive at this point. I listen attentively but can’t offer any insight in the moment. I think he just needs someone to be present to him.

In hindsight I get a sense of why he’s still alive – he told me he has very young nieces and nephews in the family. I sense that they can use his experience and joy that he brings. He’s a good man. Unfortunately by the time I realize this we’re both long off the train.

San Francisco, CA

I’m exhausted. I feel like I’ve walked nearly everywhere throughout the city. Today I’ve walked from Russian Hill, to Zen Valley for tea, to the Castro for dinner with a friend. Now after a quick jaunt on an inbound J train I’m looking at a long slog up Powell Street that I really don’t want to invest in. Fortunately a cable car arrives after a few minutes of rest. It’s a veteran and rather hilarious crew of two working the cable car, which is refreshing after fighting both the transit system and my aching feet.

Just as we’re at the top of the hill, at Powell and California, where you can feel the three or four seconds of time tick by as the cable car slowly drifts across the intersection, the front operator puts both hands up at a car and screams, “Whoa! WHOA!” The car stops in a heartbeat a fraction before the cable car, waits for us to complete the drift, then speeds off like a demon into the night.

At the stop right after the intersection, he calls to his partner, “Cop car almost tried to drive through us, but we won this time.”

The Coast Starlight – California/Oregon Border

We’re tired, but happy. My partner on the train and I are eating breakfast in the Pacific Parlour Car, one of five in the entire Amtrak system. A dusting of snow covers the ground, and I can tell just by sitting near a window that it’s cold outside. Before I started the trip, she told me that she’s always wanted to ride the train like this. I booked a roomette, so I offered the second bunk gratis if she bought her coach fare and can make it to San Francisco. That’s how she’s sitting across the booth from me.

Before we boarded the previous night we discussed about doing some film, interview-style, for her site redesign. Instead we spend a little time talking some philosophy and how each of us are going to approach an upcoming conference. But most of the day is spent in silence gazing out the window of the roomette. We’re too much like awestruck kids at the zoo as the train meanders through southern and central Oregon.

Seattle, Washington

It’s my first Major League Soccer game, and my first time at Qwest Field. This place is incredible, and it’s only made better by the fans at the game. I had heard that MLS in general doesn’t get great attendance everywhere. But it appears that soccer is as well-followed as baseball in the Pacific Northwest, especially if it is a rivalry game. Fortunately I have a great seat – an unobstructed view at club level a few yards offset from club level.

The game between Seattle and Vancouver attracted 36,000 rabid fans from both sides. The quality of the game isn’t like the English Premier League; there are a lot of missed cuts, mistimed passes and poor defending from both sides. This makes the game highly entertaining in its own right. The fans also created an atmosphere quite similar to an NFL game that kept everyone on their feet for a large portion of the match.

Down 0-1 with ten minutes left, three goals within five minutes led to a 2-2 draw. The home team felt robbed of the full three points, perhaps rightly so. I left relishing the experience and getting a glimpse of the so-called “12th Man” of the Seattle Seahawks.

Vancouver, British Columbia

“It’s already started.”

A couple of us are huddling around a smartphone, watching YouTube and Facebook clips of a car burning in downtown Vancouver. Hordes of people are huddling around the car but are keeping a safe distance. Less than hour after the final whistle of the last Stanley Cup game has past; Vancouver lost 4-nil in a rather anticlimactic fashion. I text my friends staying in the city to see if they are okay.

I’ve made a few new acquaintances for the game by knowing one person I met in Portland and bringing components for guacamole. I find I’m instantly one of the hits of the party, just on the guacamole alone. Now I’m asking them how to get from West Vancouver to Strathcona while staying in one piece and avoiding what will turn out to be a full-on riot.

“I’m thinking you need to take Pender Street. Once you’re in Chinatown you should be home free – just don’t go down Main Street if it’s too dark.”

I watch a couple of buses on Robson Street head west. They’re packed to the gills. There’s no way with the downtown core like it is to expect a bus to help me home. At this point, with nightfall descending and who knows what else going on elsewhere, I start the walk home.

The walk takes about 45 minutes and, true to form, I encounter no buses and no problems. I hear a couple of murmurs of “tear gas”, but nothing concrete transpires along the way. You can smell things burning and there’s a little black smoke coming from the streets south of where I’m walking. Except for one person in Chinatown sitting with his head in his hands and with two cops by his side, most everyone is somber and just trying to get home.

Vancouver, British Columbia

I’m hoping for the best and expecting the worst as I take the bus into the city core. My goal for the day is to experience Stanley Park, but I need to eat first. This involves going downtown for lunch. It’s midday, and I have no idea what shape the core of the city is in. But I’m surprised when I walk down Granville Street that, aside from the plywood where windows used to be, there’s little evidence of the rage that occurred the night before. It’s almost as if it didn’t happen.

At Hudson’s Bay Company, one of the epicenters of the riot and a target of massive looting and destruction, I notice something on the plywood. A couple of Sharpies are attached to the plywood by Velcro, and people are writing on the plywood. They’re writing very positive messages: messages of apology, how they love the city, and how strong the heart of Vancouver really is. I’m encouraged by the outpouring of love that the city showed that morning, from the volunteer effort to help clean up the core to the people that take the time to write about how wonderful of a city that Vancouver really is.

Photos are mine. All rights are reserved, but ask nicely and I’ll likely let you use them with attribution.

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500 Of My People

Posted on Wednesday, 15 June 2011 by mikeschu

For one weekend I felt known and understood, fully and completely.

I can’t objectively explain why, but when tickets for the World Domination Summit went on sale I knew I had to be there. Call it synchronicity, call it intuition, call it what you want. I’d only known Chris Guillebeau through his manifestos and his Web site. I hadn’t met Chris in person yet, and I had just finished reading his first book. But I had those similar gut feelings as I did when I booked trips to Sedona in 2007 and Sint Maarten/St. Barths in 2009. Portland was calling, and the conference was calling too.

My feelings were confirmed the minute I stepped into the registration line Friday evening. There was something in the air the entire weekend, and the energy crackled throughout the conference for the two-and-a-half days we were in the Portland Art Museum. Only after time away from the conference and deep introspection did I fully understand the impact of the weekend and why I was called to be there.

These are my people. They are change agents who care about the world they live in and are committed to making a difference. They are fully alive and unmoved by the challenges they face and the societal pressures and norms they confront every day.

I met a lot of entrepreneurs, bloggers, writers, creatives, travelers, nomads and artists over those three days. For someone who has a desk job and promised himself to not transition out of one until I have a plan with a reasonable chance of success (think 40-70% chance of success of replacing 40-50% of my income), I thought this was going to be a tough place to be. Indeed, early on I wondered if I was the spare part in the shop. Fortunately, I wasn’t castigated about my ties to a corporation or my current reluctance to leave a cubicle. Instead, they understood and showed me gifts I have that I only had inklings of.

If there was anything I learned that weekend in Portland, it is that I learned a lot more about myself and what I can offer through the connections I made at the conference.

Don’t get me wrong; Chris Guillebeau put on a hell of a conference. In fact, it was the best one I had been to in the six years of attending seminars and conferences. The speaker list was amazing, and each of them lived up to their billing. No detail was left out. And given that the conference was organized and run by Chris and a number of volunteers (including the speakers themselves, all unpaid) and went off seamlessly, that is an incredible feat in of itself. Neither I or the 500 other attendees can thank him and the volunteers enough.

But there were specific moments throughout the conference and my time in Portland that put a dent in my universe:

  • Danielle LaPorte sharing with the audience that there still is a need for change agents in corporations. (This was reassuring in the immediate work sense.)
  • The partnership behind Mondo Beyondo leaving a handwritten notecard for each  attendee under the seat. Most everybody I talked to said that theirs rang especially true. (Mine read, “You are seen. Completely. Fully. And loved for every bit.“)
  • The fact that most people greeted each other with hugs instead of handshakes, as long as they were energetically able and willing to. (4pm on Sunday, most people were looking for the proverbial post-coitus cigarette. It was that energetically alive and intense all weekend.)

  • Deep conversations with Crystal, Crystal, Jack, Thea, Miguel, Amy, Sarah, and others I met throughout the weekend and afterwards.
  • Numerous people telling me in person that I was very grounded and present with them, and that I was a calming and reassuring influence throughout the conference. (For someone who astrologically has six planets in fire signs and was ready to unleash that energy at work before the conference, this was a complete shock.)
  • Shanna and Sophia cracking my heart open over dinner after the conference. I needed it, and they also provided me with a couple of potential challenges for the coming twelve months.
  • A lovely hour spent with Bridget, who gave me great advice about how to transition out of the management vs. technical decision I am about to make at work as well as nudging me to a couple of possibilities to break from the cubicle walls.

For me, this conference was all about remembering and understanding the gifts I assumed, inadvertently buried, or simply forgotten about. In particular I have to cultivate and nourish the empathy and vulnerability I have within and use it to help others. I’m not sure exactly how it’s going to look, and I hope to have an answer when Chris asks what will be different by the time next year’s WDS happens. I’ll share it with you when I answer him and get more clarity about it.

Most importantly, the World Domination Summit showed me that there are five hundred people who are unconditionally dedicated to share their gifts with the world for everyone’s benefit. I share my gratitude for their presence that weekend, and I cannot thank each of them enough for the guidance they provided me.

image credit: Armosa Studios

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The First Crux of Leadership

Posted on Monday, 23 May 2011 by mikeschu

I have two primary beliefs about developing people into leaders.

First, leaders are developed or “made”. Leaders are not “born”. This wasn’t the case in large swathes of human history, where leadership was either by inheritance (e.g. royalty) or by physical strength. If you’re reading this, chances are you are not living in an absolute monarchy or a dictatorship obtained through force.

Second, everyone has the capacity to be a leader of something, whether it be specific to a cause, a field of interest, or a community. Leadership and managerial authority can be correlated, but they do not have to be.

Even with these beliefs I wondered why relatively few people are willing to lead.  Perhaps the fear of failure holds people back. Perhaps it’s the responsibility for results that makes people second-guess themselves. Certainly priorities can be at play here. Usually those who have other priorities were prior leaders or are currently a leader in some other field or interest that has their time occupied. Some people appear to have no interest in being a leader. Apathy and indifference are barriers to leadership, but eventually I find that everyone has something they are passionate about. These are all certainly valid reasons for eschewing leadership, but it felt like something was missing in describing why people do not become leaders.

It was only after I organized a Toastmasters club and became its first President that I understood more about how leaders initially develop.

Watching thirty new people start the Toastmasters program was an eye-opener. I would estimate that a significant number of the club’s members had never led a meeting before. While the meeting leader (i.e. the Toastmaster) does a lot of speaking, it’s much more of a facilitator role. The Toastmaster guides the members and guests through the meeting and is responsible for its success. It’s true that being alone behind a lectern and running a meeting is daunting the first few times – even when you know everyone there!

Over time the club’s members transformed themselves. At the same time that they were becoming better at speaking in front of an audience, I found that they were becoming better leaders as well. They were delivering better speech evaluations. Meetings were running smoothly. People were offering tips and encouragement to each other after a meeting. More and more people spoke up if something was missed or if there was an opportunity to take a leadership role.

The Toastmasters program allowed me first-hand to see the initial crux of leadership that all leaders must overcome.

The first crux of leadership is attaining the confidence to be a leader.

Fortunately, it is easy to overcome the confidence crux. Here are three possible actions to take to become a better leader.

  • Take on incrementally larger roles, responsibilities and risks. There is no significant gap between a leader and a follower. There is no epic challenge to take on or any significant risks in order to become a leader. Most of the time becoming a leader requires just a little more work than in other roles. Heroism doesn’t make for good leaders; it only takes initiative and a willingness to fail, to learn, and to expand one’s influence and responsibility.
  • Take advantage of mentoring. There usually is someone who has experienced what you wish to do, and often they are willing to help you succeed as a leader. While a mentor isn’t there to help you avoid every pitfall with being a leader, they are there as a sounding board and as a teacher for your development. This is why Toastmasters works so well; there are so many ways to receive mentoring within the club and within the Toastmasters community at large that a club and its leaders are virtually guaranteed not to fail.
  • Practice how to communicate more effectively. Most prospective leaders I know have the knowledge and the skills to perform the job. Often it is a matter of communicating their vision and their knowledge to others, or even having the confidence to volunteer to lead. The Toastmasters program is one of the most effective ways to gain effective communications skills.

As I said before, everyone can be a leader. It doesn’t have to be a civic leader or one wholly based on authority or power. We are all leaders. It simply takes getting over the first hurdle of confidence to experience the path of leadership. I encourage you to look into your leadership skills and develop them today, for there is always an opportunity for you to lead.

image credit: imfphoto

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Lessons From The Train

Posted on Monday, 16 May 2011 by mikeschu

Valuable lessons can be learned by simply changing how you do things.

A couple of weekends ago I was in Los Angeles with a friend to watch a movie and see a few trains on display. Instead of driving to LA, I took the train.

Train travel in the United States is unlike train travel in most developed countries. For starters it’s typically slower than car travel. It’s widely ridiculed for being late, inefficient and highly subsidized by the government. It can be more expensive than driving for short weekend trips, especially if you are traveling with others. And who wants to spend two or three days on a train when you can fly there in hours?

Yet I was thinking about the pace of life, the pace of travel, and the nature of time itself while watching the ocean go by on the train back to San Diego.

Most of the developed world now lives and breathes in a 24-hour linear time frame. Globalization means that the sun never sets on productivity if you have enough resources. Information is available through the Internet within seconds when previously a mentor or a library were the only viable options. We can hurtle through the troposphere at four hundred fifty miles an hour in a metal tube with wings attached to it, and be anywhere in the world within two days. One hundred years ago, international travel typically meant taking a boat. Our food is becoming increasingly more processed and prepared when we want it and as quick as possible. Society’s demands of productivity and keeping up with our associates implies a certain pace of life that we feel we need to align with. We want things to be faster, and most people appear willing to pay a premium for it.

But the effects of time’s linear frame of reference and society’s adjustment to maximizing every minute are remarkably visible when traveling.  Most people I see in an airport are stressed or anxious in one form or another, worried about getting through security, making their next flight, fretting about delays, or even spending too much time in an airport before they take off again. When I watch people in an airport I can almost sense their projection of the future, from what they’re going to do in their destination city to contemplating their next actions once they get their luggage. Even traveling by car has its own set of pace problems – we might be stymied by traffic, our vehicles, our road system, our passengers’ needs, or our own abilities to be behind the wheel for many hours. We compound the stress of car travel by believing that we have complete control over the outcome of when we arrive to our destination, when by and large that is not the case.

The train trip was teaching me about surrender and reminding me that the pace of life doesn’t have to be so fast. The train stations were busy without any sense of needing to be in a rush. I noted that most people were relaxed and happy to be on the train because they weren’t driving. When we had a brief delay, everyone was okay with waiting a few minutes – almost like it was expected. And the ability to sit back in my seat and watch the world go by and unfold in its daily ritual provided an amazing opportunity to be present with what was happening all around me.

For this week, consider the pace and routine of your life. How fast do you perceive that you have to go? Are you trying to keep up with an imaginary marathon sprinter that society tries to impose on you? Where and how can you build in time to let go, slow down, and live a little?

image credit: rosemarie61103

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