“[The hero's journey] is a labor not of attainment but of reattainment, not of discovery but rediscovery. The godly powers sought and dangerously won are revealed to have been within the heart of the hero all the time.” ~ Joseph Campbell
What My Blog Offers
My blog is about creating a life of freedom and choice.
So often in life we don’t go after what we really want because we don’t have the social skills, the business skills, or simply the faith that things will work out for us. What’s more, we worry that even if we do somehow manage to get what we want, it will be ripped away from us because we don’t have the skills to hold on to it.
We find out in our adult lives that school hasn’t really prepared us for the relationships, careers, or level of success we’d like to have. As a result many of us drift, living the lives that come to us rather than the lives we have chosen.
My blog is a “second education” to lead you back to a life of abundant freedom, fun and light-hearted exploration, healthy living, and rich personal and professional relationships. It’s about having the freedom not to just sit around and do nothing, but the freedom to do what you actually wanted to do with your life.
I write one or two articles a week on ways to expand your personal sense of freedom, reprogramming your thinking for success, achieving location independence, and “paleo” health & fitness.
My Story
In many ways I grew up as just an ordinary meat and potatoes guy from Des Moines, Iowa. And in many ways, I’ve also taken on the flavors of the different places and cultures I’ve lived in since then.
A recurring theme in my life is that I’ve constantly had to find ways of using my brains to overcome my general lack of natural talent in other areas. I have discovered that most skills in life are learn-able.
Nearly anything you might want to do in life can be broken down into it’s constituent parts and learned to a high enough level to put you in the top 20%–even things you might not think like sports or being successful at attracting a high quality significant other.
I’ve also learned that meaningful wins in life don’t always just come from busting your hump as hard as possible. It’s equally, if not more important, to become good at identifying opportunities.
The articles I write on my blog have in some way, shape, or form all grown out of my personal experiences with “learning how to do life.”
Some of the the things I’ve done, in no particular order, include:
- Travel many places. I’ve lived in Iowa, California, New York, Japan, and Korea. I’ve also traveled to Mexico, Puerto Rico, England, China, and Germany.
- Graduate from Stanford University. Going to Stanford actually had the opposite effect on me that you might think. After graduation I thought here I was coming out of this great school, I must have the knowledge for what it takes to succeed in the world. My first few years out of school I realized that school really doesn’t prepare you for anything, and now you are faced with the challenge of discovering what kind of life you want to live and learning the necessary skills to make it a reality.
- Compete in triathlons. I joined my high school swim team in order to learn how to swim for triathlons. I was so bad my coach joked that he thought I might drown the first day of practice. Learning to swim for triathlons was a key lesson in my life on the learnability of skills.
- Learn Japanese. Asian languages are one of my passions. I spent about two years combined living in Japan and passed the highest level of the Japanese Language Proficiency Test.
- Learn Korean. My second love in Asian languages, I also spent about two years combined living in Korea and learned to speak Korean fluently.
- Set a powerlifting national record. In March 2011 I broke the 100% RAW Powerlifting Federation national record for the squat in the 25-29 age group, 132 lb weight class.
- Appear in a fashion magazine (upper left photo). While living in New York, I really got into dressing sharp. I was on the way to work one day and photographers from Gainer Magazine (a Japanese men’s fashion magazine) approached me and took a few photos right there on the street.
- Eat a Paleo Diet. I had struggled with an on and off cold most of my life. In the summer of 2008 I decided I’d had enough. Inspired by a Korean saying that “food is medicine,” I set out to learn about nutrition and health. The science and principles behind “eating what our genes evolved to eat” made sense, and have made a dramatic improvement in my health.
Contact
E-mail:
Twitter: @brianbrookshire
