Want to know how?

As I’ve been telling people about my trip, I continually get asked how I plan on doing things. People ask me how I’m going to find places to sleep every night. How am I going to find rides and get where I need to go? What am I going to do if I can’t find rides or places to sleep, etc. So, I intend to answer those questions in this post.

In reality, I do have some ideas about how I’ll accomplish my goals. I’m of the opinion that as I meet and talk with different people and I tell them about what I’m doing, they will want to help me with my journey. The more people I can get to follow my blog, and the more people I meet, the larger my network will be to pull from. Every person I stay with, will probably know somebody else that might let me stay at their place, an so forth. However, I don’t intend to plan every single thing out about my trip.

Sometimes, you just have to act, and things will work out. If I waited until I had everything figured out about how to survive on this trip, I might never go. There is absolutely no way I’ll be able to plan everything that is going to happen. I know it will be hard at times, but I just plan and expect things to work out.

I see this trip a lot like I view entrepreneurship. I mean, a lot of people will talk about their good ideas and talk about how they want to start businesses, but then they don’t do anything about it. Really, you’ll never learn until you get out and start DOING stuff and learning from your mistakes. Too often, people are held back by their fears of the unknown or not having everything figured out.

That is what has bothered me about trying to figure out what to do with my life. I’ve had a variety of different jobs, but in addition to my jobs, I’ve also taken personality profiles, read different career assessments, and looked at job profiles online. But, we learn so much more through our experiences than we do sitting on a computer. I feel like the best way to learn what kind of things I might enjoy doing is to get out and DO stuff. The more people I meet, the more opportunities I’ll find. I can also learn from all of the different people I’ve talked to. I’m sure a bunch of people have gone through my same situation, and unless I get out and talk to them, it’s hard to learn from them.

So, no, I don’t know exactly how I’ll do everything on my trip. But, I think that if I just go out and do the trip, I’ll learn a ton from it. There will be so many cool experiences that I can’t foresee at this time. That’s the great thing about action. Just do stuff, and things will eventually work out.

More Doubts and Fears

I’ve started having some worries today about my trip. As I’ve been pondering and trying to figure out what my fears are about, I think I’ve come to a better understanding of why I’m nervous. I’m scared that I’m not going to accomplish what I’d like to accomplish with my trip. I’m scared that I’m going to get out on my trip, and start having second thoughts about what I’m doing. Like, with every job that I’ve had with graduation. I can see myself questioning my motives for doing what I’m doing, and not having sufficient motivation to carry through with it. I really don’t want that to happen. I mean, I’ve been having doubts with every decision I’ve made with graduation, and this is something that I’ve felt really good about and have been really excited to do.

I think one of the main reasons for this fear is the fact that I’m pretty sure there isn’t any job that will excite me. I want to be an entrepreneur, and I really don’t think I’ll feel satisfied until I’m successful in my own venture. So, is the purpose of this trip really to figure out what occupation I could enjoy? Hmmm, now that’s the question. Although I would like to be able to find an occupation that I could enjoy and learn from while I work on my own business, I know that any occupation I have will be seen as a short-term solution to help me accomplish my long-term goals. So, really, I don’t think the purpose of my trip is to find an occupation I would enjoy, although I do think that would be a nice byproduct.

I guess I just really want to be sure of what my purpose for this trip is, because I’d hate to build a blog around a certain idea, and then want to change it half-way through. So, I think my real objective and purpose of this trip is to gain a breadth of experience. I want to understand how things are in the real world. How do people do certain jobs and feel fulfilled doing them? What kind of places are out there that I haven’t experienced? What kind of people can I meet and learn from? What do the big and small companies of this country look like, and how do they operate? What kinds of problems exist in the lives of people all over the country that could be fixed by businesses?

I really think that no matter what I do on my trip, I’ll feel like I’ve accomplished my goal if I learn and grow from my experiences. So, really, I can do the same things I’ve been thinking about. I can try to go to work with different people. I can try to tour different businesses across the country. I can stay with a different person every night. Because, in the end, I just want to have a lot of experience and find out what my next step in life really is. I guess I shouldn’t end my trip until I have a specific plan for the future. I can see myself stopping in a city, seeing a good opportunity for a business, and staying there in order to bring it to fruition.

Now, that’s definitely a hard purpose to portray to other people. It’s been hard enough to tell people what I’m doing as it is. Just saying that I’m hitch hiking across the country really doesn’t do the trip justice. Whatever, I’m not doing this for other people anyway.

On another note, I’ve been trying to establish a schedule that I can maintain while I’m on the road. So, I’ve started doing exercises that I should be able to do, no matter where I stay. I’m doing calisthenics every night and running every morning. It feels great when I’m consistently exercising. How come I ever let myself not exercise regularly? I love running. Every time I go running, I feel so good and I wonder why I’m not 100% on doing it every day. I guess that’s just life. Constantly trying to do what you know you should do.

Well, that’s all the thoughts I got for today. There’s a funny video clip from the new twilight movie that I’ve been showing to lots of people that I’d like to share:

Have Interest

Well, today I was getting sick of trying to sell and I hadn’t made any sales. Two days in a row without making sales? Yeah, that would hurt. So, I started thinking about quitting and how I just don’t know if I can sell a product that I don’t feel good about. Not even that I don’t feel good about selling the product, more that I just don’t feel good about selling it to the people I talk to. Anyway, I started talking to this one lady, and we just got a talking. We ended up having a great conversation, and I could tell she really liked me. She told me to never be a teacher because she hates her job, and I was telling her about the hard time I was having deciding what I want to do with my life.

To make a long story short, I ended up selling this lady, even though she wanted to wait. I remembered how this morning I had read a chapter in How to Win Friends that talked about how we should show a genuine interest in people. That’s what I did with her, and I ended up selling her. Although I don’t think selling her was the most important part, my spirits lifted considerably after that call. I remembered how sometimes when I got sick of knocking doors and selling pest control, I would just try to find somebody nice to talk to. I would just make a friend, and I would a lot of times sell that person. But, I liked that because it rejuvenated me. Rather than feeling like a selling machine that didn’t really care about people, I felt like I was making friends and still giving my friends something they could benefit from. Well, after my first phone sale, the next lady I called I used a similar approach. I just started joking with her and she thought I was “a riot”. Her words, not mine. Well, I ended up selling her as well. What started as a horrible selling day and where I thought I was going to just quit and hate my job, turned into a very rewarding and fun day. I need to use that approach more often when I sell. I need to have a more genuine interest in the people I sell and just make friends with them on the phone.

During the time that I was having a hard time selling, I was talking to my coworker David. He’s the one who went on the trip from California to Rome. We talked about how I’m planning on getting a job, but that I still have my nomadic trip as a backup option. Well, he invited me to read some of the journal entries from his trip that he has posted on facebook. He has the first 19 days of his trip posted, so I went and read them tonight after work. They were so fun and interesting to watch, and they got me laughing really hard on multiple occasions. The trip just sounds so much fun.

I think one of the biggest fears I have about going on a trip is that I’ll regret going on it. Although one side of me does want to go out and explore and experience more of what is around me, the other side of me wants to start learning a profession and to get good at something. I just don’t want to go on my trip and regret not getting a job and getting started on life. However, reading his journal entries has fueled some of my desire to go on a trip. I’m just not sure. I’m just realizing more and more that there are tons of different occupational options that sound like lots of fun to me.

I think consulting, Venture Capital, Private Equity, and sales all sound like careers I would join. However, that’s only based on my personal experience and my personal experience is very limited. Also, as I search for jobs, I just feel like it’s useless. I’d much rather get a job because I know somebody, not because I apply on some website or something. So, if I go out every day, meet and talk to people and see new places, I’ll gain more experiences that I can then utilize to make a more educated decision. If I make a decision based up on my limited experience, will I continue to wonder if it’s the best thing for me? Will I ever be content with what I do until I’ve explored other options? These are the questions I face.