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.

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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Allen is at Big Brother Mouse

I just received this picture of Allen (co-founder of LibraryforLaos.org) at Big Brother Mouse HQ in northern Laos.

Allen had the opportunity to go to a BBM book party and watch and even help out with handing out the books THAT YOU”RE GOING TO DONATE FOR to the kids.

After chatting with him it was clear the affect that the experience had on him was profound and that our efforts towards this cause and helping the children of Laos were worthwhile!

Our Progress

So far we’ve raise about $813 bucks. We’re realizing that it may be difficult to hit our goal by the end of the week without a significant surge! We want to sincerely ask beg you to get out there and help us spread the word. I only have so many emails I can email but we’re relying upon the power of the social web to help spread this effort around the world and reach hearts to make a huge difference. I’ll be posting again the morning of the last day (Friday) with a last update of our progress. Go out there and fund raise!

Our Thanks

I do want to be very clear how grateful we are for the people who’ve donated already. In a tough economic climate donating is not easy and makes a much more significant impact peoples person lives and personal finances. We want to take our hats off to you to for maybe stepping out of your comfort zone and helping out.

Follow the progress on Twitter!

Give A Poor Child the Gift of Reading – In Just 5 Minutes!

LibraryForLaos.org is an ONLINE campaign to raise $5k in 5 days for children’s books in rural Laos? It only takes 5 minutes!

Dates: Monday, April 27 – Friday, May 1!!!

Donate here.

via vadirajcs

I’m pumped that now my Tweets feed directly to Facebook. All the friends that made fun of me for using Twitter are now commenting and joining in conversations around my Tweets and my blog posts that I share on Facebook via Twitter. This is a huge “crossing of the chasm” for Twitter because the “normal people” are now joining in on web based conversations at a rapidly increasing rate.

Sorry this post is so late, I’ve been thinking/working on it for a while. First, I’ll share why you should use Twitter for status updates, then show you how.

9 Reasons Why You Should Use Twitter for Status Updates

I have found multiple reason for using Twitter. I’ve use the service for almost a year and have been able to meet a ton of cool people using the service. I’ve used Twitter for personal and business cases. It’s a phenomenal communication platform that allows for extreme flexibility in communication. Here are my top 9 reasons why you should use Twitter to update your Facebook status.

1. Twitter allows for mobile status updates – Go to the ‘Devices’ tab under your Twitter account settings and give Twitter your mobile phone number. Then SMS or txt message ‘40404′ your message. This will update Twitter and now also your Facebook status. Easy peasy!

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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. 

Tomorrow I’m headed out of Shanghai for a solo day trip to Tongli, Suzhou. Tongli is a water city also known as the Venice of the East. Apparently the stand-out features of this rural, authentic, and tourist light city are the beautiful bridges and the Chinese sex museum. No, that was not a typo.

I’m pumped for a day of solo exploration and adventure. Much pictures to come!

For previous pictures from the trip check it out.

I spent the last 2 hours relaxing at a tea shop in a market called Tea City in Zhong Shan Park, Shanghai. As I read (4 Hour Work Week) the man running the shop (Wu Jin) prepared and poured tea in the typical Chinese fashion. My goal was to read, relax and have tea. The shop I chose delivered perfectly. I also learned a very valuable lesson about underselling your competition from this shop owner.

As I walked through the market all the tea shops were essentially the same. 1 or 2 workers per shop waiting to prepare your tea. Each shop had tea products ranging from tea sets, pots, containers, and tea itself. They all basically offered the same thing so how was a customer supposed to choose which shop to go to?  Well, I made my decision based on where I thought I could relax the most and with all the vendors practically yelling at you as you walk by, I didn’t see that I would be able to relax very easily. The vendors all yelling for your business was the offline equivalent of spam. So, I chose the vendor that didn’t yell at me, the one who didn’t spam me. I chose the shop where the vendor was sitting peacefully in the back reading and wouldn’t scream at me. He differentiated himself by underselling. This was a valuable lesson.

With all products and service roughly the same it was difficult to differentiate from shop to shop. I was very happy to find one shop out of 30+ shops that was inviting and could deliver a moment of relaxation. This is a less is more situation. The same principle may be applied to a guy trying to pick up a girl in a bar. If the guy in the bar doesn’t hit on the beautiful girl in the corner but instead gets her attention and waits for her interest to bring her to him, he will likely have a better chance. Hubspot always preaches the importance and value of inbound marketing and this is classic inbound marketing. Create a good product and let the customer come to you. Put out the right “vibe” and wait for her to come to you. Save your energy and your budget by not spamming the customer.

Then, 2 hours into it, I had plenty of tea, was very relaxed, had a chance to read, and decided to buy about 500RMB worth of tea products. I got 2 hand carved tea containers, 2 different Oolong teas, and traditional wooden Chinese tea tools.

I should also say that I didn’t even get charged for the tea that I drank, only for the products I purchased. In the future when I recommend the Tea City to friends I will definitely point them back to Wu Jin’s shop. By underselling his competition Wu Jin differentiated himself perfectly and got quite a bit of business. You should try the same.

Sunday night photo from the Bund on the opposite side of Pudong, in Shanghai, China.

Tonight we are headed to Skybar at the top of the needle behind me. Yes it is true, the dream is certainly in Action!

Here are some pics from the trip thus far. I’ll be updating the China 2009 set a few times a week with new pics.

I’ll probably end up posting a cumulative version of this list at the end of my trip but I wanted to share a few of the crazier things I’ve experienced here in Shanghai over the first week. Some are just cultural and some are just weird…some are both.

-massages while urinating – You know that guy that every hates tipping just to give you some soap…well, in China when using the urinal in a mens restroom in most bars or clubs there is a guy to massage your back. I’m not a fan. Special messagy?

-employees watching window washer (silently) – I was grabbing a snack the other day and I walked by a conference room and there were 15 hotel employees standing at the window watching the window washer in silence. Upon my return about 15 minutes later, they still stood there. Awkward.

-rumpled table cloths – I’ve not seen a table cloth just normally drapped over a table. Almost every single one is ruffled or folded in some artistic fashion.

-pigeon soup – The other night I had a soup that taste similar to chicken noodle soup, except without noodles. It turned out the soup was pigeon…and by the way, there was an entire pigeon in the soup…head and all. Yum!

-waitress got slapped from dropping glass – (I did not see this) The other morning my friend watched a waitress drop a plate at breakfast. About 30 seconds later the manager of the service people (of which there are many) come up to the waitress and slap her. I thought that was a not an equal punishment for her error.

-doorbell ditching from room service personnel – I was taking a nap during my lunch today my room doorbell range. I got up to answer the door and when I opened it I saw a lady (hotel staff) hiding across the hall behing the corner. Once she knew she got caught she said, “sorry”, in terribly pronounced english and ran off the other direction. I check for a flaming bag of shit but couldn’t find one.

So, I’m sure there will be many more experiences to come but these are just a few of the crazy and culturally different experiences I’ve had thus far.