(Sorry about the wind in the video)

On August 5th, 2012 I flew to Israel for a 10-day trip from Birthright.

I was originally going to extend the trip from the 15th to the 23rd, but a few days ago, I quit my part-time job back in the states and I extended my ticket until November 2nd.

This may sound a bit extreme, and you may be asking,

“Do you have money?”

“Do you have a place to stay?”

“Where will you work?”

In all honesty, I don’t have the answers at this moment, and no, I don’t have the money.  You can see how much I have in the bank (here) and you can also see all my expenses and income for July (here).

I post my financials for a number of reasons.  I am working on radical honesty and radical transparency, and in a few years, when I am living the lifestyle that I designed, and people throw comments my way like, “Yea, but you need to have money to travel man” and “Not everyone can do these things”, blah, blah, blah – excuses, excuses, excuses… I’ll just send them back to my archive so they can see that I don’t allow excuses (bullshit, fear-based reasoning) to take precedent over my values and priorities.

More importantly for me, was that I took a leap and I did what feels right.

The argument of what “feels right” vs. “what is right” can be talked over for hours, and in this case, I’m not necessarily telling you that you should do what feels right, but in my life, I trust my gut, my intuition.

There were a lot of fears (bullshit thoughts) that came up for me before making this decision, and I did spend a few days thinking things over, then another day or so mustering up the courage to pull the trigger and take action.

It’s currently August 24th and I’m sitting in a lovely park writing this post and enjoying the weather in Tel Aviv, Israel.

Intuition vs. Thinking

Since I don’t feel like finding studies and research to back up my approach, I’ll just reference a few books that I’ve read that opened up this way of decision making for me.  I am not here to convince you that your intuition is the way to go.  For me though, it is.  If you are interested in learning more about how to guide your life with this power, you can check out the following books.  They will also guide you to new information – as each resource in life will always point to at least one other.

Blink, by Malcolm Gladwell

Malcolm Gladwell does a beautiful job blending data and stories, showing that there are parts of our bodies that recognize when something is “off” way before our brains “think” something is wrong.

The Dream Giver, by Bruce Wilkinson

Ordinary lives in a regular town and does regular things.  He decides one day to leave his family and step onto an unordinary path. Along his journey he faces and challenges.  Typical hero’s journey story, but a great read!  Really!

The Alchemist, by Paulo Coelho

“When you really want something, the whole universe conspires in helping you achieve it.”

There have also been multiple times in my life where I’ve proven to myself that my intuition and gut decision-making processes were correct.  As you get to know me more and read more of my material, some of these stories will present themselves.

Note – if you want to see my list of books, check out this page.

Living on the Edge

I shot this video a few days back when I had a realization about the power of living our lives on the edge… where the real beauty is.

I’m going to sign off for now and end this post with a powerful quote and some photos from the past 2 weeks:

“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do.”