THE DREAM IN ACTION

Costa Rica

Costa Rica is one of the most beautiful countries that I’ve ever been to. The combo of the almost year round weather perfection, combined with more activities that you can fit in to a 2 week long vacation, make it possible the perfect honeymoon destination. @Mollstar and I literally had the time of our lives with plenty of relaxation but enough adventure to never get bored.

We stuck pretty strictly to a one day in and one day out schedule. As fun as it may sound, we both knew that too many days just lounging around the resort drinking Pina Colada’s would get old for both of us pretty quick. Here are some of the highlights…

Crazy Ass Pizote Families

Horseback Riding/Rafting/Zip Line/ Volcanic Mud Bath

No horse back or rafting pics. Sorry.

An Awesome Trip to Volcano Arenal and The Springs Resort

A Day trip on Thanksgiving to Nicaragua

And Some Amazing Animals!

I came upon this video from @reecepacheco, a fellow surfer stuck with no waves (he’s in NYC). I grew up watching Rob Machado surf and even saw him in a contest once at Oceanside Pier. He’s amazing and his career has really been an interesting one. He was once very close to top being the top surfer in the world, then stopped competing and did a lot of videos and travel. I don’t know Rob at all, but it seems that this video is a very personal one, showing off the “struggles” of being a professional surfer. Obviously it’s got to be the best lives ever but coming from someone who get’s sick when I don’t feel like I’m accomplishing something, I can sympathize with how just surfing everyday would be a struggle sometimes.

This trailer also got me very excited because next month I’m getting married, and Moll and I are going on a long honeymoon down to Costa Rica. It might be the best vacation ever… I’ll have the 3 of the most important things in the world with me; my new wife, great weather, and the ocean. I’m so pumped.

As Reece points out in his post of this video, surfing movies don’t necessarily do very well in the box office but I’ll definitely be checking this one out.

Last night I jumped on an SWA flight with 5 buddies headed towards Denver, CO. This weekend is my bachelor party, where we’ll be in Denver 1 night, camping in Estes Park 2 nights, and Ft. Collins the last night for a brewery tour crawl. This is no doubt going to be one of the best weekends ever. Let the memories commence…

Rough Itinerary below:

This was organized and orchestrated by my buddies Dan (who likely refuses to be on Twitter), @nsabato,  @allenpenn, & @michaelberner. They have no idea how much I appreciate this.

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I’m a dog person.

I’ve grown up with dogs and love them. I have a particularly special place in my heart for Golden Retrievers because a special Golden named Chelsea use to break my falls at the age of 3. Now @mollstar’s dog, Moose, takes Chelsea’s place. I don’t dive bomb him but I definitely appreciate his attention.

Over the past few weeks I’ve seen a number of internet meme’s (viral stories) about cool dogs, so I decided to write a quick post on the cool dogs that are making a name for themselves on the internet. This post is definitely different than the traditional post here but sometimes I think that’s not such a bad thing. After you read this post & watch these videos, go give your pup a hug, or go find a dog to add to your family, you won’t regret it.

Skidboot – The best trained dog ever:

David Hartwig, Skidboot’s owner clearly has a special love for this pooch and it’s obvious that this love has lead to their success.

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Today marks 2 years of blogging. I started out on ActionsTalk.com, then I was on RyanAGraves.com, now I’m on the URL THE DREAM IN ACTION.com. I thoroughly enjoy the process and have learned a lot in the process. This site gets about 3,000 unique readers a month which, in my eyes, with all the changes to the site, is no small accomplishment. I hope that over the next year we can hit 10k per month. Here’s why…

I write about my dreams, and how to make yours a reality. Why, and where do I get off trying to teach other people how to do it? My hope is that as I answer these questions you’ll see my answers as reasons to subscribe to the RSS or come back to the site on a regular basis. I hope that the experiences I have, that turn into blog posts, help you get closer to your dreams… through action of course.

This Is Not A 4 Hour Work Week

First, it needs to be said that this isn’t a get rich quick blog. It’s not a ‘how to blog for a living’ site or a ‘use the internet to scam people and make a quick buck’ site. I’m not going to try and teach you how to live a 4 hour work week, others do that better than I, so why rebuild the wheel. This site is the all about making your dreams realities on a daily basis. It’s about how to make your life better one step at a time so that you not only achieve your goals in life, but that you enjoy the process.

Full Time Job

I’m an entrepreneur. By that I mean I have revenue streams outside of my day job, but let me be clear, I do have a day job. I do not work on my startup full time and I’ve not reached the point that my entrepreneurial ventures are large enough to sustain my life (YET). However, I definitely believe you can live with an entrepreneurial spirit without being a CEO or a founder of a startup. I’ve written about being a corporate entrepreneur and I know from first hand experience that now, when our economy is at one of it’s shakiest moments, is when large corporation need entrepreneurial innovation the most. Put the dream in action and enjoy what you do by changing your workplace and your life for the better.

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Photo was taken flying over Alaska on the way back from China.

Use Dopplr to Document Travel

I’ve been using Dopplr for a couple of years to document and share my travel itineraries. It’s nice to be able to see who will be where and when, and how our trips align. You can see my travel schedule in the widget on this blog and I do my best to keep that up to date.

Another feature of Dopplr that I love is the 6 month and year end reports of my travel. I got this chart (above) in my email last week showing me what I’ve done and where I’ve gone this year. Not a bad start to 2009, and it’s not done yet!

My Travel in 2009

In February this year I had the opportunity to travel for work to China and stay there for a month. I spent the first 5 days in Hong Kong which I found to be amazing. Hong Kong was a perfect mix of western and eastern culture, and the city is young enough that I would probably live there for a while if the opportunity presented itself. lanjut →

Vacation is important because…

Vacation, as the Europeans have discovered, is critical to ones ability to contribute effectively in the workplace. As I’m in Sweden this week and our project time lines are surely impacted by month long (or more) vacation schedules, I figured there would be no more appropriate time to write about vacations and the value of them.

Note: This trip is for business and not a vacation, however, I am spending a free weekend in Stockholm. A mini vacation I guess.

Although the “American way” seems to criticize the European vacation mentality, I think that it may be important to consider the value of extended breaks for multiple reasons.

1. Taking a break allows one to recollect their focus and return to work with a laser focus on their work.
2. A vacation allows one to recharge their batteries, release the pressures that can build at work, and return energized and excited.
3. Taking a vacation, perhaps a luxurious one, gives you a sense of reward and helps you to feel really good about giving 110% to your work.

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I’ve been working in Uppsala, Sweden, about 45 minutes north of Stockholm, this week and have learned a few very valuable business lessons. I was lucky to have the opportunity to travel when most other travel opportunities have been cut, and I’ve really focused on making the most of the trip.

Coming into the week I wanted to focus on really investing myself fully into the deliverables that I’d committed to in order to justify the trip and also through building relationships that are critical in order to successfully execute on the project in the future. With those two focuses in mind, I’ve learned quite a lot and have, I think, succeeded in both.

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Arrival

I arrived on the red-eye from Newark, NJ at 7:40am local time. My driver (it’s not as fancy as it sounds) was waiting and when I jumped in the cab the first thing he did was blow into a breathalyzer. I was thrown off by this but I appreciated the confidence I felt from his sobriety. The driver either spoke minimal English or he just didn’t like the looks of me, either is quite possible after getting about 3 hours of sleep on the flight. I won’t hold it against him.

During my 30-40 minute drive from Arlanda Airport out to Uppsala my initial reactions to Sweden are clean & green. It’s a beautiful country and everything seems brand new. From their automobiles, to their infrastructure, it’s seems “refreshed”. I expected the opposite. There is a lot of history here but it seems their has been a large investment in the country in recent years. lanjut →

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This weekend I got a free flight out to San Francisco from Chicago so I cam out to visit friends, meet some folks in the startup world, and soak up some California sun. I got up Saturday morning after a pretty calm evening and decided the best way to see some of the city was to go for a quick jog. Shortly after setting lofty goals of reaching the Golden Gate Bridge, that “jog” turned into a 9.25 mile run (route pictured above).

My first reaction after the run was, wow, I love people. It was one of the most entertaining runs I’ve had in a very long time. The terrain was a bit tough with some good hills between The Wharf and Fort Mason but the people watching was phenomenal! I saw 70+ year old men running at twice my pace (embarrassing), I saw tons of 20 somethings desperately trying to run off the 6 pack they drank last night, and  almost everything in between. I really wish I had a camera out there that I could snap quick, clear, photographs of people while running, the snapshots in my head will only last for so long.

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I recently got a pro account to Remember the Milk so that I could use their iPhone/iTouch application. This allows me use use that device for my to-do lists and view/work these lists from any computer. I now use RTM for my work to-do’s, my personal project to-do’s, and now other lists like Dreams, Things I Want, etc. 

I’ve recently been working on compiling a list of “Dreams”. These are things that I’d like to do if I didn’t have to work everyday. Forming this list will help with:

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My last day in China was another amazing one. I decided to head solo to Tongli, one of the ancient water cities in China. I was to arrive at the bus stop by 8:30a and travel for about 2 hours by bus to Tongli. I chose Tongli because my guide book said that it was less touristy, thus less crowded, and I wanted  to experience authentic, rural China on my last day. I wanted the reverse culture shock to be as drastic as possible as I came back into the States . I wanted the sites, sounds, and smells of China to be as memorable as possible as I returned.

The Sprint through Shanghai

That morning I decided to take the subway to the train station. I got on the subway about 45 minutes before my bus was scheduled to leave. Plenty of time, so I thought. Well, I some how misread the map and went one exit too far. This added an extra 10 minutes. Then, when I finally got off at the correct stop, I asked a woman, “where exactly is the train station?” I was pointed in the direction of the Shanghai Stadium. At this point I had about 15-20 minutes to spare. The stadium however was a good 10-15 minute walk from the subway station. I started walking. As I check my watch at 8:25am I realized I was really pushing it. Picture this… a white man, standing 6′3, with a full day pack, absolutely sprinting through downtown Shanghai. I became the laughing stock of many Shanghainese that morning!

I finally recruited someone to help me find the train station at about 8:31am. Me and my recruit were both running towards the train station and all around the stadium, neither he, nor I, had any clue where exactly this station was. How I convinced a commuting Chinese guy to run through downtown with me, I’ll never know. As we arrived at the station and ran to the counter I didn’t need to understand Chinese to understand that my bus had left and there wasn’t another one coming…all day.

At this point I really wasn’t upset at all. I just decided there’s gotta be somewhere else that would be cool for a day trip. I refunded my ticket for 80% of the cost and purchased a ticket to Xitang, another water city. This one was about an hour and fifteen minutes away. Closer but much more touristy.”Oh well”, I thought, “better this than nothing”.

“Be Back On-time!”

I got the bus to Xitang about 9:15am and we were on our way. I read as much as I could about Xitang but my guide book didn’t include much other than saying, “this place is touristy”. No biggy, I’d explore none the less, and I was excited to be traveling solo again.

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Image via Wikipedia

Pedestrians absolutely do not have any kind of right of way. Really nobody in Shanghai has a right of way. At one point I was in a cab at 9pm (dark) and there in front of us was a guy on a scooter with no light coming directly at us. He was honking that we didn’t see him! In short, the driving is way crazier that NY or anything we’ve seen in the States.

KFC is huge. The colonel is killing it in China. I don’t know how they’ve completely dominated the Chinese markets, but in both Shanghai and in Beijing, Kentucky Fried Chicken is the bullocks. Much larger even than McDonald’s is in the States.

Spitting, no swallowing mucous. The Chinese don’t believe it’s healthy to swallow your mucous. So, every morning you hear “hawking” non stop. It’s pretty disgusting.

Subway pushing. Basically, there is no sense of personal space in the crowded cities of China. On my last day in Shanghai I was riding the subway during rush hour and witnessed first hand the sardine packing that goes on in the subways. The ideal situation is that you keep your footing and end up inside, the less ideal is that you get pushed onto the ground. I held my own.

No tipping. From taxi drivers to bar tenders, you never tip in China. Call me cheap but it’s kind of nice.

Americans all have guns. I had lunch with a random Chinese kid that I met in Xitang on my last day in China and he asked me how many guns does my family have? This shocked me, but he went on to say that he thought all Americans have guns. He said that that’s why we are such a safe country because everyone has guns. Interesting huh?

One front wheel on full sized trucks. I’ve never seen it before, but in China they have full sized trucks, almost as large as an F350 that have only 1 front wheel. I was trying to figure out why this was, but all I could come up with is that they don’t have to go 60-80 mph on a freeway and maybe one wheel allows them to make tighter turns in smaller streets.

Service employees study customer names and characteristics. In our hotel I thoroughly enjoyed coming to breakfast (sometimes hungover) and have 2 or 3 hostess’s say, “Good morning Mr. Graves” or better yet, “Zao Shang Hao Mr. Graves”. Apparently, the reason they learn the customers names so well, is because they have meeting where the employees talk about the names and the physical characteristics of each guest. Also, there are 2 -5 people assigned to each guest, to know their names. At any giving time it seemed there was always 2 service people for each guest. It was brilliant!

I miss China. 

During my adventures in China I read The 4 Hour Work Week by Tim Ferriss. The man is incredibly motivating and thought provoking in his quest to challenge the socially excepted lifestyle of differing retirement to the end of your life. He promotes spreading the fun and the work out and setting up means of income so that this New Rich (freedom of time and money) lifestyle  can be made possible…now.

The book starts with the process of identifying your dream adventures of knowledge, travel, and life exploration. Although I’ve already read through the book, I’m far from finished with it. I’ll be working through the exorcises and likely even the entrepreneurship aspects of the book over the next few months. Tim promotes the idea of a ‘muse’, a business that you own but don’t even run. By completely automating a source of income you can free yourself from having to “deal with it” and become what you dreamed of as a child.

As I brainstorm both my dreams and my potential “muses” I’ll be sharing much of the process/adventure here.

The really fun part is the dream identification process. Let’s start with this.

These guys literally have figured out a way to fly. By putting on suits that turn them into flying squirrels they’re able to base jump and stay airport with control for minutes at a time. This is def on the list. Thanks Mom for sharing this, now you can’t be mad when I do it :)

wingsuit base jumping