This Just In… Before I Die
Thanks for tuning in! This week’s post features: Vagabonding by Rolf Potts (book), Would You Take A Bet That Would Change Your Life by Nir Eyal (blog), Before I Die I Want To… by Candy Chang (ted talk) & more. Enjoy…
Book: Vagabonding by Rolf Potts (224 pgs)
Continuing the travel theme from last week, I was turned on to this book after I wrote about my experiences traveling. It has drastically shifted my perspective on the topic. This book is meant to teach you how to travel on your own terms for any trip for the rest of your life but mainly discusses long-term travel. It does this by redefining what travel really is by introducing vagabonding profiles (renowned vagabonders), vagabonding voices (regular people that happen to be vagabonders), quotes and Rolf’s own ideas on travel.
It’s important to note that long-term travel can be an escape from or a discovery of your real life. This book is about the latter, rediscovering yourself and reality through vagabonding. While vagabonding you have to travel by way of simplicity and by doing this you learn to come to terms with your raw true self and how to take control of your circumstances. You also learn valuable skills like independence, flexibility, negotiation, planning, boldness, self-sufficiency, improvisation and more.
Vagabonding is somewhere in between backpacking and globetrotting, it’s more or less leaving the ordered world to travel anywhere inexpensively for an extending period of time. I never thought about travel in this way, I was used to taking short-term vacations where I would see the highlights of a given city and be ready to leave within 3–5 days. However, this book made me aware that my year and a half (and counting) in Israel has been a vagabonding journey of sorts, and definitely one of the reasons why I connect to this land more than any other place I’ve been aside from my home.
At the end of the day, no matter where, how much, or for long you travel, it’s powerful to know that life itself is a journey.
Blog Post: Would You Take A Bet That Would Change Your Life by Nir Eyal (4 mins)
One of my friends had a chronic nail-biting habit and I actually employed this tactic with him. Our bet was $20 if he could go 30 days without biting his nails. Well over a month later and he is now nail biting free. Is there a bad habit that you want to drop? I’m a gambling man and I would happily place a bet with you to encourage you to stop whatever bad habit you want to get rid of. Send me an email, let me know what your habit is and we will come up with terms for the bet.
Ted Talk: Before I die I want to… by Candy Chang (6 mins 13 secs)
Memento Mori. People from Gary Vaynerchuk to Neil Degrasse Tyson to Stoics around the world use the knowledge that they are going to die as a catalyst to do what they want to do. In this talk, Candy Chang turned an abandoned building into a chalkboard with “Before I die I want to____________________” written over and over again up and down the wall and the responses she received were emotional and heartfelt. In the movie Fight Club (damn I really need to read this book if I’m going to keep quoting it), the main character(s) get into a pretty severe car crash. In the midst of the aftermath, one of them pops out of the flipped over car laughing and say “we just had a near-life experience” (this video cuts off right before he says it but you get the idea). Candy discovered, like the people above already knew, contemplating or getting close to death brings us closer to life.
I also really like how “Go to Israel” is one of the first things you see when you look at the board. It is incredibly humbling to see that knowing that I have opportunities and luxury to get here for free and be here for almost 2 years.
Bonus: Mindful Vibes via Mindful Music
I’ve read a lot of different articles about what different creatives listen while creating. Additionally, Tim Ferriss has a lot of guest on his podcast that talk about listening to the same song or album at the same time every day to prime themselves. Ryan Holliday, for instance, listens to the same song over and over again to get into a flow state. I first witnessed this last year when my roommate in yeshiva would play the same song on repeat, he said it helps him focus.
Personally, this would drive me crazy. In fact, I tried this, I made a 30-minute long morning playlist that would go off with my alarm. I didn’t make it a week before getting annoyed and it reminded me of two things.
First, a scene from How I Met Your Mother where Ted and Marshall are driving and the only song that the car can play is 500 miles by the Proclaimers. Ted and Marshall go from Joyously singing the song to hating the song to joyously singing the song and back again. I couldn’t imagine torturing myself like that.
Second, a Joke by John Mulaney where he plays the song Whats New Pussycat by Tom Jones 21 times in a row on a jukebox at a diner. It’s a hilarious joke, listen to the link.
I’m a huge fan of routine, except when it comes to music. I get tired of songs very fast. That’s one reason why I stopped listening to the radio and started audiobooks. I do like listening to music when I write but I can’t listen to songs with lyrics, I end up singing along if I know the song or listening for a good line if it’s something new. Either way, I get distracted. I’ve experimented with a bunch of different tunes to write to and right now this is what works for me. There’s hours of music on this channel so I won’t hear the same exact thing but I get the same feeling and hit the flow state. Anyway, drop a comment or send me an email and let me know what you do.
Quote: “Quality questions create a quality life. Successful people ask better questions and as a result they get better answers” — Tony Robbins
Often times I write down “asked better question” in the “how could I have made today better” section of my 5-minute journal.
Usually, when I find good content it’s because I am researching good questions that I ask. Good questions lead to good answers and a better life. I believe that Quality of life comes from quality learning, which comes from quality questions, which comes from curiosity, which comes from having a child-like mentality, which ultimately means having a desire to understand and appreciate life.
I think what holds people back from asking questions is they are worried about being embarrassed, judged, or looked down upon by other people. Lack of questions forces your qualities to be fixed. You either understand something or you don’t but as the scientific method states (look up scientific method) you have to ask questions throughout the process to see things differently, find new solutions, and grow.
What was your favorite bullet in this post? If you had to pick only one bullet to keep in this post what would it be and why and if you had to get rid of one what would it be and why? Send a message or comment below.
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To your growth! Stay curious…
P.S. If you want my notes for the book above, send me an email with the subject “Notes for (insert book name)” and I will happily share.
