Ecuador 2013: A Chautauqua on Wealth and Happiness

You know how sometimes peak life experiences kind of creep on you when you’re least expecting them? Well, that just happened to me.

For the past week, I’ve been part of the first chautauqua produced by Cheryl Reed of Above the Clouds Retreats. I joined fellow financial bloggers Mr. Money Mustache (a.k.a. Pete) and jlcollinsnh (a.k.a. Jim) to present our philosophies to an enthusiastic group of 22 participants, most of whom were women and most of whom had reached (or were well on their way to) Financial Independence.

Including Cheryl’s husband, Rich, we had 27 in our group. You know how there’s usually one or two bad eggs in any group that size? Well, that didn’t happen to us. In fact, this is probably the best small group I’ve ever had the privilege to be a part of. The participants were universally intelligent and friendly and supportive and fun. “I haven’t laughed so much in years,” one woman said at the end of the week. I haven’t either.

Note: I’ve uploaded the PowerPoint slides for my presentation. I’ll post a written version soon (maybe on Pete’s blog, if he’ll take it). Plus, I plan to share a summary of the various financial advice from the chautauqua at Get Rich Slowly within the next couple of weeks. If you want more info right now, check out Mr. Money Mustache’s summary of the week.

Between me, Rich, and Mr. Money Mustache, we took thousands of photos during the ten days it took to produce and stage this retreat. I’ve culled these to 165 favorites. But since that’s far too many to ask you to view, I’m going to thin that even further. Here are 20 of the photos that I feel best capture our shared experience. (Click a photo to view a larger version.)

Morning at Cheryl’s farm: Cheryl, Pete, J.D., and Jim plan for the week [photo by Rich]

The “profits” from the week will help families like this in Santa Elena [photo by Rich]

Sunset in Santa Elena — Cheryl takes the dogs for a walk [photo by J.D.]

Pete and Amy O. look on raptly as J.D. shares some brilliant insight [photo by Rich]

Pete shares his Mustachian vision for happiness and lifestyle design [photo by J.D.]

Jim and Val prioritize their passions during Cheryl’s presentation [photo by Rich]

Colleen endures smoke and fire (and plenty of spit) during a shamanic cleansing [photo by J.D.]

During a day trip to Otavalo, street performers serenade the group [photo by Rich]

At a local orphanage, kids scramble for candy from a piñata [photo by Pete]

The group watches a folkloric dance group at Hacienda Cusin [photo by J.D.]

Another night of Story Time with Uncle Jesse — “That reminds me of the time…” [photo by J.D.]

Anita and Caitlin enjoy the company of the adorable (and annoying) cat [photo by J.D.]

Pete hosts the first of many enjoyable evenings at the hacienda [photo by ??]

Amy O. and J.D. bust a gut as Colleen slams a Mustachian Rosé [photo by Pete]

The entire group flashes the Mustachian Salute [photo by J.D.]

“La mitad del mundo!” — J.D. at the equator [photo by Amy F.]

Marla, Colleen, and Jason in Quito’s Plaza San Francisco at dusk [photo by J.D.]

J.D., Colleen, Amy O., Marla, and Val toast the end of a wonderful week [photo by Pete]

Shyam and Jesse watch as Carol is serenaded for her birthday [photo by J.D.]

Marla and Val posing with the handsome and dapper doorman [photo by J.D.]

One thousand thanks to Amy, Amy, Amy, and Tom; Menon and Shyam; Nathan and Caitlin; Cathy and John; Jason, Jesse, and Jen; Carol, Karl, and Colleen; Dave and Ann; Lise, Val, Anita, and the every-charming Marla. All y’all made this week amazing. I spent more time with some folks than others — Colleen and Amy O., for instance — but I enjoyed the conversations I had with everyone.

And, of course, thanks to my colleagues. Jim, Rich, Cheryl, and Pete — it was an honor to have been a part of this. Thank you for asking me to share the experience. Let’s do it again next year!

Now, however, I have a brief lull before starting the next leg of my expedition to Ecuador. I’ll spend two more nights at Hotel Ambassador in Quito’s “gringo-landia” — I’m listening to sappy Spanish love songs in the lobby right now — but on Monday, I’ll join a small group headed to the Galapagos Islands. It’s going to be great!

Then, exactly a week from right now, I’ll hop a shuttle the airport to head home. That too will be great. As much as I loved this chautauqua, I love Kim more. I’m eager to return to our home so that we can resume a routine together, and so that we can grow and learn together…

Photos of giant tortoises coming soon! (Plus, underwater snorkeling photos taken with my new waterproof camera.) Stay tuned, my friends.

Ursaphobia

While in Alaska last month, I confided in Kim that I’m terrified of bears. It’s true. All my life, I’ve been ursaphobic.

My fear of bears is a real problem when I go camping. Unless I’m in a large group, I’m always nervous — especially if the camping trip involves a long hike into remote territory. It’s also a problem any time I go to Alaska.

When I visited Alaska in 2010, I had a couple of close encounters with bears. The first time, we saw a group of bald eagles feeding on some grizzly corpses near the shoreline. (Yes, the bears were dead — killed by hunters on another boat — but I knew there were probably more around. And I had no doubt they wanted vengeance!)

Later in the trip, Mac and I took an uphill hike at a bay north of Sitka. The well-worn trail was covered with bear scat and clawed tree trunks. I was terrified the whole time, and very relieved to make it back to the boat in one piece.

Kim finds my fear of bears amusing. On the first day of our trip, she sent me the following, which she found on Facebook:

So true. So true.

In Juneau, I paused for a photo op:

I don’t want to live anywhere signs like this are needed.

I had a close call in Skagway. Fortunately, the bear was more interested in getting me to buy jewelry than eating me (or the tasty salmon in my backpack):

That’s enough bear action for me to last several years. Now, of course, I’m in Ecuador, where there are no bears. There are only jaguars. I’m fine with jaguars. I like cats…

My First Motorcycle

When I was a boy, I loved motorcycles. I was fascinated by the exploits of Evil Knievel, and liked watching motorcycle riders on the highway.

I never got a chance to ride when I was young, though. My friend Torey had a dirt bike, and he’d let me ride behind him from time to time, but I never got a chance to ride myself.

In college, Kris had a Honda Spree scooter. That was fun. When we moved to Canby, though, she sold the scooter, and for twenty years, I didn’t ride again. Then, last year in Turkey, I spent an amazing day riding a scooter through Cappadocia. Combine that experience with a girlfriend who loves motorcycles (Kim has ridden them since she was twelve), and suddenly I had a goal. I wanted to get my motorcycle endorsement.

That’s not just a formality here in Oregon. To get your motorcycle permit, you need to pass a written test. (Which I did on a whim last October.) To get the motorcycle endorsement on your license, you need to take an officially-sanctioned three-day motorcycle training program. Kim and I have been talking about doing this together for over a year. In August, we finally made it happen.

I learned to ride on this Yamaha dual-sport bike.

The motorcycle safety course includes eight hours of on-bike training.

It’s official: I passed!

At the end of July, Kim bought her father’s Harley Sportster 883. He rode it from Boise to Portland; we drove him home. While in Boise, we all went shopping at the Harley store. Kim came home with these kick-ass riding boots.

Hot hot hot!

After I finished the motorcycle training program, I looked around for a “starter bike”. It didn’t take long to find a white 2006 Honda Rebel with only 3400 miles on it.

Guess who just rode home on his NEW MOTORCYCLE?!?

Looking very serious with my new bike.

Our friend Cody also wants to learn to ride. The first free Sunday, we took him to an empty parking lot and taught him the basics. The three of us spent a couple of hours going around in circles, weaving between water-bottle cones, and practicing quick stops.

Cody on my Rebel, getting the hang of gentle turns.

Feeling confident, I started riding my bike for errands. Very fun. And so much better to make dumb mistakes (I keep stalling in first gear!) at low speeds and in light traffic.

I was twenty minutes early for an appointment recently, so I decided to ride my motorcycle around the neighborhood. Up hills. Down hills. Around gentle corners. And so on.

I had slowed to take a sharp corner when I laid my bike down for the very first time. I’d turned my head to look into the turn, as I’d been trained to do, but had failed to account for the thing layer of loose gravel on top of the road. At about 12mph, I leaned into the turn — and the bike slid out from under me. It stopped almost immediately, coming to rest on my right leg. Ouch!

Fortunately, all I suffered were skinned knees and elbows and a bruised ego. And I learned a valuable lesson. Even a little gravel is hazardous to a motorcycle in a turn.

I’m actually a very cautious rider. I’ve been an avid bicyclist for over a decade, and I’ve been in one bad car crash. I know the biggest danger on the road is other drivers, so I’m very wary. And having crashed my bicycle several times, I know how important it is to get back out there and ride. If you take time off after a crash, you psych yourself out. You become afraid to ride.

So, naturally, I haven’t let me little motorcycle accident dampen my enthusiasm. As I prepped to leave for Ecuador, I completed all my errands by motorcycle. And I can’t wait to get home. There should be a couple of nice weekends left for me and Kim to take some joyrides through the Willamette Valley. And just wait until next summer! By then, I hope to graduate from my “starter bike” to something with a little more power…

Alaskan Cruise 2013

“Something about this place appeals to me,” I told Kim last week as our cruise ship glided through a remote corner of southeast Alaska. (Well, remote except for the two other cruise ships sailing directly behind us, that is.) “Some part of me likes the idea of living in a cabin with nobody around.” I paused. “Fortunately, the rest of me isn’t that crazy.”

That said, I’ve now visited Alaska three times in the last decade. I love the place. In 2004, Kris and I went on an Alaskan cruise with her parents. In 2010, a friend and I spent ten days in southeast Alaska on my neighbor’s boat. And last week, Kim and I took another cruise into the wilderness. We had a good time.

On the trip, I discovered the iPhone’s panoramic photo mode. It’s like a revelation! Whole new worlds of photography are available for me! So, if you’ll indulge me, here are some of the best photos from the trip, including a few panoramas.

Our sister ship, the NCL Jewel, and two others docked in Juneau.

On board the Norwegian Pearl somewhere in sunny Alaska. To the far right, you can see Kim chatting with new friends, Steve and Beverly.

On the NCL Pearl somewhere in sunny Alaska. Kim is on the right, chatting with new friends.

On the top deck of the NCL Pearl, gawking at the glaciers with other tourists.

We spent a LOT of time in the ship's spa. Very relaxing.

We spent a LOT of time in the Pearl’s spa. Kim is to the left, chatting with Leah.

The casinos on cruise ships are surprisingly busy…

In Juneau, we biked around Mendenhall Glacier.

In Skagway, we took a canoe trip to see Davidson Glacier.

We all got our feet wet on the walk into Davidson Glacier. It was totally worth it.

We were lucky enough to hike into (and across) the ice. Fantastic!

This glacier excursion stands as one of my peak travel experiences.

We got up-close and personal with the blue of the ice.

Happy happy happy.

In Ketchikan, we did an obstacle and zip-line course in the rain forest.

We only had a few hours in Victoria, but it was still a lot of fun.

We only had a few hours in Victoria, where we ate seafood and walking the waterfront.

We had a damn good time in Alaska. It’s not on our “must return” list (as Scotland is), but it’s close. Next up? In late February, Kim and I plan to visit Hawaii. As for me, I leave for three weeks in Ecuador on Thursday. Hasta pronto, mis amigos!

The Substance of Our Souls

I’ve spent much of the past month moving the last of my belongings out of Kris’s garage, storage shed, and house. It’s amazing how much Stuff I still has there, even after nearly two years of moving, and even after several years of purging before that. Now, though, all I own is here with me in the condo…or in the storage unit that Kim and I have rented across the river.

While much of the work to move my Stuff was tedious (and overwhelming), some of it was fun. For instance, I’ve spent several hours sorting through boxes of papers and notebooks, skimming my old essays and classwork from high school and college. (Why was I keeping these things?)

In the process, I stumbled upon some unexpected gems.

Here, for example, is an epiphany I wrote in my Astronomy class notebook during my junior year of college.

J.D.’s major spiritual transformation/revelation of 29 Sept 1989

Maybe things don’t need to have a beginning and an end. Maybe such constructs are just our attempts to impose what we can know and comprehend onto what we observe, which may be incomprehensible and unknowable.

Perhaps everything is cyclical — the universe just goes on and on. We do, though our intellect does not. Where did we come from? We came from a sperm and an egg, which grew and flourished as cells were transferred from food to us. We grew from food, which grew from something else.

When we die, we will not pass away. Our remains will be absorbed into the ground to feed the Earth, and our minds will pass away. But our remains will serve to replenish life elsewhere and our cells will become part of other living beings — an endless cycle.

The body belongs to nature and to the endless cycle of life.

So, where do our minds go when we die? What happens to that energy? How and why do we think? Our physical self is part of a never-ending cycle, but what about our mental self? Is our mental energy just a by-product of the physical nature of our beings and doomed to non-existence when we die? Or is it possible that our mental energy is absorbed into some sort of “psychic ground” to be born again in other lives?

Crazy stuff. There I am, at the age of twenty, trying to find an argument for reincarnation and the rebirth of souls. There’s nothing in my past that would have led me to that, and it’s an idea I discarded almost immediately. It’s only recently — since I’ve been dating Kim, who believes strongly in past and future lives — that I’ve begun thinking about these ideas once more.

I like the twist my youthful meditation brings to the subject. Instead of suggesting that our souls might be reborn whole from one life to the next (which seems to be the traditional view of reincarnation), I’m suggesting that our “psychic energy” might break down to become food for other souls, just as our bodies will break down to become food for other bodies.

In a way, this does happen, even leaving aside reincarnation.

Also while sorting my Stuff, I happened upon the eulogy I wrote for my friend Paul a few years ago. Here’s how I ended it:

Paul is gone now — but he’s not. I’m reminded of him every day in countless little ways. First thing in the morning, when I get out of bed and walk downstairs, I have to shuffle sideways like a crab. My bum knee hurts. That’s Paul. When my knee hurts, I think of Paul, every single time. It’s as if a piece of him is in me. When I hear U2, I think of him. When I get on my bike, I think of him. And every time I meet and talk with one of you, I will think of him, too.

So, maybe our mental energy doesn’t return to some sort of “psychic ground” when we die — maybe it’s a process that happens our entire lives. Maybe we’re constantly feeding people with the substance of our souls, so that pieces of who we are will linger long after we’re gone.

A Series of Fortunate Events

Last Tuesday, I was cleaning the apartment when I noticed that my A/C was producing severe condensation once again. I knocked on the neighbors’ door. “Have have had problems with your A/C unit?” I asked.

“No,” said Jan. “Ours works fine.”

“Would you like a glass of wine?” asked Sheila, his wife.

I held up the half-finished beer in my hand. “Not yet,” I said. She laughed. “Well, at least sit and talk with us while we drink our wine.” And so I did.

Jan and Sheila are both seventy, and for the six months I’ve lived in this building, they’ve been asking me to drink wine with them. The timing never worked until now.

I joined Jan and Sheila at 4:30 in the afternoon. For four hours, we chatted about travel, motorcycles, and more. Sheila drank sangria. Jan drank beer. I took a little of both. When Kim arrived home from work, Sheila made us a lovely dinner with a tomato-basil salad, fried cheese, and corn on the cob.

The food was great, but the conversation was better. My favorite thread of discussion revolved around the role of luck and good fortune. I told them I’d recently written about accepting responsibility for your life and the things that happen to you, which led quite naturally to a discussion of Portland’s booming homelessness problem.

“Do you think the homeless are responsible for their situation?” Sheila asked. We talked it out, deciding that some homeless folks are responsible for their plight — and others aren’t. (Somebody mentioned the following quote, which I like: “It may not be your fault, but it’s your problem.”)

Jan and Sheila also talked about their friend, who’d just undergone open heart surgery that day. We talked about other people we know who have had bad breaks or fallen on hard times. At one point, I tried to draw a comparison between a couple of situations. Jan stopped me.

“You can’t compare misfortunes,” Jan said, an insight I believe is profound. You can’t compare misfortunes. Bad luck is bad luck. It sucks, no matter what the situation is. (Jan’s comment reminded me of the opening line to Anna Karenina: “Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.”)

A while later, Jan was talking about the twists and turns his life has taken. He’s a curious man, and always has been. He’s willing to try new things and to talk to new people. As a result, good things happen to him. This reminded me of one of my favorite books, Luck is No Accident [my review], which encourages readers to open themselves to “happenstance” by embracing life head on.

“Most of my life has been this way,” Jan told me. “It’s a series of fortunate events.” I liked that statement too. I feel like my own life has been a series of fortunate events over the past few years. And the more I share, the more open I am, the luckier I get.

I think I should drink wine with Jan and Sheila more often.

One Second Everyday

At World Domination Summit this year, one of our attendee stories featured Cesar Kuriyama, who built an app called One Second Everyday. Kuriyama documented a year of his life in a six-minute video, one that included a one-second clip from each day of the year. As the name of his app implies, it helps others create similar videos by automating the process.

For three weeks, I’ve been using One Second Everyday to document my life. It’s fun. I’ve been pretty good about the process, except for a three-day span last week where I didn’t do much besides read, write, and clean house. (For those three missed days, I “cheated” by using extra footage from days where I had fun clips available.)

Here’s my One Second Everyday video for July 11th through July 31st. It does a pretty good job of capturing what I’ve been up to.

Here’s what each second captures:

July 11th – Writing October’s Entrepreneur column on tax deductions.
July 12th – Mannequin salesman at the antique fair.
July 13th – Visiting with the Limbaughs on Kim’s last night at the house.
July 14th – Packing Kim’s house and moving her to my condo.
July 15th – Talking with Benny Lewis about his travel plans.
July 16th – Working with Lisa Briscoe on our poster project.
July 17th – Kim’s bad cough keeping us awake in the middle of the night.
July 18th – Kim kicking my ass at pool (after beating me at shuffleboard).
July 19th – Picking berries with Kris at the house.
July 20th – Listening to live music at the Muddy Rudder.
July 21st – Romantical.
July 22nd – Watching “Breakfast at Tiffany’s”. [Cheated.]
July 23rd – Smoking on the back porch at Kim’s house. [Cheated.]
July 24th – Celebrating a goal at the Timbers match. [Cheated.]
July 25th – “Baby Got Back” at the Yukon with Portland money bloggers.
July 26th – Sneaking down the steep hill behind the mausoleum.
July 27th – Beer and pizza at the Muddy Rudder.
July 28th – Buying flowers at the Farmers Market.
July 29th – Holding plank position at Crossfit.
July 30th – Comparison pricing at Costco.
July 31st – At the park with Andrew and Isaiah.

One interesting thing about this project is choosing what to include. Because I want to share my video with the public, I’ve kept it pretty PG (or PG-13). My life is more R-rated than that (as are most people’s lives!).

It’s also interesting that once I started taking short video clips, I stopped taking as many photos. Since I have a couple of ongoing photo projects, this is a bit of a challenge. I need to be sure I’m documenting my life with still images for these projects at the same time I’m capturing moving images for One Second Everyday.

I’m going to do my best to continue this project as long as I can. Can I keep it up for an entire year? I don’t know. It helps, though, that the app sends me periodic reminders throughout the day. These little nudges are enough to make me think, “What am I doing right now? Can I film a few seconds?”

I love this app. It’s fun to use, and it’s fun to see the pattern of my life captured in this way…

Giving Without the Expectation of Return

Well, it’s official. Yesterday I signed the contract to resume writing at Get Rich Slowly. I’ll be supplying a minimum of two articles per month, though I hope to write more. In return, I’ll be paid nothing.

To some, this seems crazy. To others, it seems like I’m being a sucker. To me, it sounds like fun. Often my favorite projects are the ones done solely for passion, the ones where there’s no expectation of an immediate payoff or return.

No Immediate Payoff

Last January, I had a phone conversation with Seth Godin. I was excited to pitch him on the idea joining us at World Domination Summit as a speaker this year.

“Why should I do this?” he asked.

I explained that it was a chance to share his message with 3000 receptive influencers. He was unconvinced. (In retrospect, I understand. Unlike many of our speakers, Seth already has a huge platform. While I still think he’d benefit from speaking at WDS, he’d get less from it than other speakers might.)

Seth had another objection. “You’re asking me to do this for free,” he said. “Would you do this for free?”

“Yes. I did it for free last year,” I said.

“And how much are you paid to help organize the conference?”

“Nothing,” I said.

“See, I don’t get that,” he said. “Why would you do that? I understand why Chris does it. There’s a payoff for him, even if it’s not financial. He’s gathering his tribe. But what’s in it for you?”

I had no answer. There’s not anything in WDS for me — except that I love the event, and it makes me happy to help connect amazing speakers with a receptive audience. I get true joy from facilitating collaboration. It sounds hokey, but it’s true.

Ultimately, Seth didn’t speak at WDS, and I get it. He believes free speaking gigs undermine his industry, making it more difficult for him to find quality paid speaking gigs. He needs a concrete return on his investment of time. That makes perfect sense.

But I’m still willing to work on WDS — and other projects — without the expectation that I’ll receive anything in return.

Note: Before this conversation, I didn’t really “get” Seth Godin. He sounds a little mercenary from this anecdote, but that’s not the impression I got at all. Instead, I was impressed from the first moment by how sharp his mind was and how insightful his questions were. We spent twenty minutes on the phone, and in those twenty minutes I learned a lot, especially about business. Since then, I’ve read as much as I can by him. I “get” Seth Godin now. He’s a smart, smart man.

Connecting and Collaborating

For much of the past two years, much of my work has been built around giving without the expectation of return.

As I’ve mentioned before, I meet with folks several times each week. I receive lots of email from readers and colleagues and complete strangers who want to have lunch or coffee. I agree to meet as many people as possible.

These meetings have become my real work. I spend an hour or two at a time talking about whatever my companion finds important. Last week over dinner, for instance, I discussed soccer and careers and ice cream with a fellow financial blogger. The next day, I met a reader for tea and we talked about games, about getting out of debt, and about starting a business. And the following day, I spoke with two folks by phone, exploring topics like fear and rejection and knowing when to quit.

I have no agenda for these meetings, and often nothing comes of them. But that’s okay. Other times, I get a great idea. Or my companion gets a great idea. And sometimes, I’m able to provide an introduction that could lead to a cool collaboration. (“Ramit Sethi, meet Jia Jiang. Jia Jiang, meet Ramit Sethi.”)

These meetings make me happy. I feel like I’m doing something good in the world. Plus, who knows? Maybe someday all of this connecting and collaborating will lead to the Next Big Thing.

Ulterior Motives

My return to Get Rich Slowly isn’t completely altruistic, I’ll confess. There’ll be no immediate monetary benefit, but I’m hopeful that there might be future positives that come from it.

Last week, Kim asked me to make a list of all the crazy plans that have been running through my head. “You have so many business ideas,” she said. “It’s hard to keep track of them all.”

I spent an hour jotting down the different things I’d like to do, like write another book (or three), start a new business, open a store that sells financial advice, and so on. When the list was finished, I was surprised to see that in order to pursue many of the ideas — especially those that matter most to me — it would helpful to write at Get Rich Slowly again. That sealed the deal. (Though, really, I was planning to return anyhow.)

Plus, I’ll admit: I’ve met a lot of cool financial bloggers over the past year (bloggers like Paula, Joe, MMM, and Kathleen), and I’m excited about interacting with them on a daily basis. Again, it’s a chance for connecting and collaborating. It sounds like fun!

I believe that a lot of good can come when you give without the expectation of return. You produce good in other people’s lives. Often, you receive unexpected benefits. But most of all, you make the world a better place.

Note: Some might wonder how this will affect my writing here at More Than Money. The answer is: It won’t. I’ll still be writing here about my favorite non-financial topics. I have lots more to say in coming months about overcoming fear, traveling the world, and discovering happiness in everyday life.

Expertise and Expectations: Thoughts on Success — and What Comes After

One of my favorite parts about working on the World Domination Summit is getting to know the speakers.

This year, for instance, I fostered friendships with radio journalist Tess Vigeland and blogger/entrepreneur Jia Jiang. Earlier this month, both spoke from the WDS main stage. Tess shared her story of leaping without a safety net; Jia talked about his project to actively seek out (and learn from) rejection. (Update: The video of Jia’s WDS talk is now available!)

Today, I spoke with both Tess and Jia by phone. Jia and I mostly talked about business. And soccer. And collaboration. My conversation with Tess was more personal. She and I have remarkably similar experiences with (and reactions to) success and life. Her counsel this morning was both insightful and helpful.

The Impostor Syndrome

Last week, Tess chatted with Carl Richards (the brains behind Behavior Gap). They discussed how strange it feels to be thought an expert when you only feel like a normal person. Carl told her about the impostor syndrome, the psychological phenomenon in which you’re unable to accept your success and accomplishments. While the rest of the world may tell you how well you’re doing, you don’t think you’ve done anything noteworthy. You feel like a fraud or a phony.

This reaction is surprisingly common among the successful people I’ve spoken with in recent years. The crazy thing is that in every case that somebody has confessed to me that they feel this way, I’ve been able to see that they’re wrong, that they are worthy of the accolades they receive.

Despite this, I still feel like I don’t deserve the recognition that I receive. Just yesterday, I met with a long-time Get Rich Slowly reader. “I want to thank you, J.D.,” this man said to me over hot tea and hummus. “You changed my life. You helped me get out of debt and save money. As a result, I was able to spend a year-and-a-half doing my own thing. Thanks.”

I accepted my companion’s approbation, but the whole time I was thinking, “Dude, it wasn’t me. It was you. You did all of this. I don’t have any special knowledge. I’m no expert.”

And that’s the thing: I’m not an expert. I’m not a financial guru. If I’m an expert at anything, it’s at conveying complex topics in simple terms so that they’re understandable to everyday people. I’m an expert at telling my own story and sharing the lessons I learn from it. But perhaps my greatest skill is self-awareness — and helping others to become self-aware.

Great Expectations

Tess is having a tough time enjoying her success. Right now, she’s terrified. The reaction to her talk at WDS was so overwhelmingly positive, and so many good things came out of it (job offers, a book deal, and so on), that she feels like whatever she does next cannot hope to measure up to what she just accomplished. She feels like nothing will be as successful as that speech. She feels like she’s reached the high point of her career.

Note: There’s no audio or video of Tess’s talk yet — soon! — but you can read a transcript at her website.

I’m in a similar position. I achieved success with Get Rich Slowly. Now, I’m ready to try other things. I have many opportunities. I’m a fortunate man because I can pick and choose what I want to try next. Yet I’m reluctant to commit to anything because I feel like I won’t be able to measure up to what I’ve done before. The perfectionist in me prevents me from being decisive.

“Sometimes I just want to walk up to Starbucks and take a job as a barrista,” I told Tess on our call today.

“Right. I get it,” she said. “Because then nobody will expect anything of you.”

“Exactly!” I said. “I can work a simple job, do it well, and come home at the end of the day with nothing to worry about but making coffee in the morning.”

“But at the same time, you know there’s more you can do, right?”

“Yes,” I said. “I have this desire to do great things, to continue helping people. And I have ideas of how I can do that while making a little money at the same time.”

“It’s that goddamn ambition,” Tess said — and we both laughed because it’s true.

The bottom line: We’re afraid of failing to live up to the expectations of others, but we’re also afraid of failing to live up to our own expectations. That’s quite a trap. How does one escape it?

Self-Respect

Tess and I also talked about those strange situations where you’re able to meet your own expectations but unable to meet the expectations of others. I’m experiencing this in my own life right now, and I don’t like it. It’s new to me. (Usually, if I’m doing a poor job, I know it and so do people around me. If I’m doing well, that’s obvious too. But to be told I’m doing poorly when I think I’m doing well? That’s a new one!)

During her presentation at WDS, Tess talked about being trapped by a good thing. In her case, she was working at her dream job — but her dream job wasn’t as fulfilling as she’d hoped. In fact, in some very real ways, it was bringing her down. After a lot of deliberation, she realized she had to quit.

“It’s time to leave when you have too much self-respect to stay,” Tess said on stage in front of nearly 3000 people. That’s an important message, one that resonates with me right now.

“Sometimes something will slowly chip away at your sense of self-worth,” Tess told me today. “It’ll chip away at your sense of value so much that even you begin to believe it, to accept that you’re not as good as you know you are. But you have to remember that you’re better than that. Life is too short to be treated like shit. Nobody deserves that. Don’t hang out with people who don’t treat you the way you deserve to be treated.”

In the end, Tess told me something I already knew: “Sometimes you have to know when to quit.”

What’s Next?

One reason it’s difficult to quit something (even when that something is a net negative) is that we’re wired to be afraid of uncertainty. We’d rather stick with the devil we know than the devil we don’t. That’s how women get trapped in abusive relationships and workers find themselves stuck in jobs that are unfulfilling or unprofitable.

Like anyone, I’m apprehensive about the unknown. It makes me nervous to leap without a net. But the thing is, I have a net. I’m lucky, and I know it. If needed, I can take a long time to discover what life holds for me. I have the luxury of being selective about which course of action to take.

“You need to listen to your gut,” Tess told me. “Do what it tells you to do.”

She’s right.

After my conversation with Tess was over, I thought about my own talk last year at WDS. In that talk, I shared a lesson I’d learned from Derek Sivers.

Sivers says you should either be so excited by something that it makes you say “HELL YEAH!” — or you should say “no” to it. When you say “no” to the things that don’t excite you, you leave lots of room in your life to passionately pursue the few things that make you go HELL YEAH! If you want to be happy, if you want to become a better person, then focus first on the parts of your life that are most important to you. Make these your priorities. Once you’ve scheduled these things, fit the other, less important things in — if you can.

For the past few months, I’ve been exploring possible courses of action. I’ve been trying to decide what’s next for me. I need to follow my own advice — which is to follow Sivers’ advice. I need to look at all of the possibilities, and then only pursue those that make me say “HELL YEAH!”

Which direction will this take me? I don’t know, but I don’t need to know either. I’m ready to embrace the uncertainty!

Poems for People Who Don’t Like Poetry?

When I was younger, I wanted to be a poet. In high school, I wrote poetry all the time. Some of it was actually okay — in a sophomoric kind of way. Most of the time, it was about what you’d expect from a nerdy high-school boy. Still, I managed to get some poems published, and even saw a few paychecks because of it.

I haven’t written much poetry since college, though. The impulse vanished. About once every couple of years, I’ll dash something off, but mostly I’m non-poetic. Here’s a little bit that I wrote on September 11, 2001. I like it.

In the twilight
the colors bleed and fade —
what once was red, or blue, or green,
is now black. Or white.

The approaching darkness
casts long shadows, cloaking
all that once danced in light,
consuming warmth, producing fright.

Though I don’t write much myself anymore, I appreciate good poetry. Here are a few of my favorites:

When Death Comes
by Mary Oliver

When death comes
like the hungry bear in autumn;
when death comes and takes all the bright coins from his purse

to buy me, and snaps the purse shut;
when death comes
like the measles-pox;

when death comes
like an iceberg between the shoulder blades,

I want to step through the door full of curiosity, wondering:
what is it going to be like, that cottage of darkness?

And therefore I look upon everything
as a brotherhood and a sisterhood,
and I look upon time as no more than an idea,
and I consider eternity as another possibility,

and I think of each life as a flower, as common
as a field daisy, and as singular,

and each name a comfortable music in the mouth
tending as all music does, toward silence,

and each body a lion of courage, and something
precious to the earth.

When it’s over, I want to say: all my life
I was a bride married to amazement.
I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms.

When it is over, I don’t want to wonder
if I have made of my life something particular, and real.
I don’t want to find myself sighing and frightened,
or full of argument.

I don’t want to end up simply having visited this world.

Summer Storm
by Dana Gioia

We stood on the rented patio
While the party went on inside.
You knew the groom from college.
I was a friend of the bride.

We hugged the brownstone wall behind us
To keep our dress clothes dry
And watched the sudden summer storm
Floodlit against the sky.

The rain was like a waterfall
Of brilliant beaded light,
Cool and silent as the stars
The storm hid from the night.

To my surprise, you took my arm —
A gesture you didn’t explain —
And we spoke in whispers, as if we two
Might imitate the rain.

Then suddenly the storm receded
As swiftly as it came.
The doors behind us opened up.
The hostess called your name.

I watched you merge into the group,
Aloof and yet polite.
We didn’t speak another word
Except to say goodnight.

Why does that evening’s memory
Return with this night’s storm —
A party twenty years ago,
Its disappointments warm?

There are so many might have beens,
What ifs that won’t stay buried,
Other cities, other jobs,
Strangers we might have married.

And memory insists on pining
For places it never went,
As if life would be happier
Just by being different.

The Sunlight on the Garden
by Louis MacNeice

The sunlight on the garden
Hardens and grows cold,
We cannot cage the minute
Within its nets of gold;
When all is told,
We cannot beg for pardon.

Our freedom as free lances
Advances towards its end;
The earth comples, upon it
Sonnets and birds descend;
And soon, my friend,
We shall have no time for dances.

The sky was good for flying
Defying the church bells
And every evil iron
Siren and what it tells:
The earth compels,
We are dying, Egypt, dying

And not expecting pardon,
Hardened in heart anew,
But glad to have sat under
Thunder and rain with you,
And grateful too
For sunlight on the garden.

I’m particularly impressed by folks who make good use of meter, rhythm, and rhyme. It’s harder to work within these contraints than outside of them. Besides, I don’t find much difference between modern free verse and flowery essays. (I’ll readily admit this could be a shortcoming on my part.)

When Kim and I started dating fifteen months ago, I mentioned my fondness for poetry. “I’m not sure I like poetry,” she said. “A lot of times, I just don’t get it. Plus, I don’t like being told what things mean.”

“Some of it’s good,” I told her.

“You should share it with me,” she said. But I never did.

Last weekend, I found some time to read her a handful of poems. She liked a few, but others simply reinforced her opinion. “I don’t get it,” she said after a couple of opaque poems. From her perspective, it was as if the poets didn’t want to be understood, an observation I find interesting (and, quite possibly, accurate).

So, I’m coming to you for advice. Can you recommend some poems for people who don’t like poetry? Did you used to be a poetry hater? Are you still? What poems changed your mind? What poets do you appreciate? How does somebody who finds poetry frustrating learn to love it?