How does one get ahead in life?

Of course this can be different for every person because we are all very different sometimes at core.

But, for me, I wanted to live far away from big cities and so at age 32 I bought 2 1/2 acres of land 10 miles away from the nearest gas station or store of any kind in a forest at 4000 feet elevation and built an A-Frame house for my family and I and we lived there about 5 years. This time was amazing and changed how I saw my whole life ever since.

Another thing that changed how I saw everything at the time was sweating with Charlie Thom a Karuk Medicine man at Stewart Springs in the winter time. IN between rounds of the sweat we cme out and it was snowing and had to break the ice to jump in the stream nearby us. I remember thinking how wonderful it was to be a human being that was young enough and healthy enough to be able to experience this even once. It completely changed how I saw being a human being that I was just fine coming out of a sweat lodge where it was hot and breaking the ice to jump in a stream when the temperatures were between 20 and 25 degrees outside the Sweat Lodge along with my whole immediate family. I was in my 30s then.

Another thing that completely changed my view of reality was going on a vision quest of no water or food for 4 days or 96 hours straight on the Trinity River miles from the nearest human being in a bear wallow.

Another thing that completely changed my view of reality was being told by a Tibetan Diety that I would be going to India in December. I told my wife and she said: "With what money?" At the time I knew when dieties came to me these things usually came to pass. At first we couldn't figure out how this would happen. Then in a few weeks we inherited money but when we went to a travel company we wouldn't have enough company and pay someone to run our businesses while we were gone. Then I was walking my mother and a friend and my family along Haight STreet in a nostalgia walk because this was late 1985 and my friend used to write for the Berkeley Barb in the 1960s. So, he wanted to see the Haight Ashbury area once again.

But, my mother saw a deal where it said something like: "Go to Hawaii for a week for $258." This seemed too good to be true so I walked in with my mother who wanted to enquire about this deal. So, when I went in with her to the travel agency I saw that they sold discount tickets for college professors and students who had a lot of time but not money. I asked how much it would cost to fly to Kathmandu, Nepal? He said, "likely around 1300 a ticket round trip routing through Narito in Japan, Bangkok Thailand, Hong Kong and Kathmandu. "You can stay as long as you want in each place but because of the holidays in Asia you would have to leave within 1 weeks time because it is early December. I said, "I'll by 5 round trip 6 month open ended tickets to Kathmandu through all these other airports." I'm not sure if this type of ticket is sold to college professors and students like Paleontologists and the like going to digs around the world. But, this was great for us then. There are many universities in the San Francisco area so these types of tickets sell well there if they still exist 35 years later now.

So, going for 4 months to Japan, Thailand, India and Nepal changed all our lives and doing it this way we could afford to hire someone to run our businesses while we were gone.

From this 4 month amazing almost off world experience we became literally "Citizens of the world" and have been ever since.

The culture shock going was pretty bad in Nepal and India even though Thailand and Japan were relatively easy because they were more like the U.S. and Europe even then. But, Nepal and then INdia going into Bihar in 1985 and 1986 were a level of culture shock I haven't experienced since except for the extreme culture shock of coming back to the U.S. after 4 months that was so much worse than anything I could have ever expected. People are so cold here compared to other places where death is an every day experience for everyone.

In India there were dead bodies a lot of places in the streets that no one picked up which was pretty mind blowing for the kids and my wife and I. But, it was likely the most powerful real life educational experience of my whole life in that I never took the U.S. for granted ever since. We literally live in Disneyland compared to the rest of the world. Understanding this is important I think to really grasp what it is to be a real citizen of the world.

All these educational experiences set me apart from most people both as an entrepreneur and as a father and husband and as an American. It's true you have to be a certain kind of person to benefit from experiences like this. Most people wouldn't have the faith to do something like this especially with their families. And yes, we had many near death experiences during these 4 months time.But most of this wasn't people trying to attack us or steal from us. Most of this were completely unexpected things none of us could really prepare for.

But, after this 4 months all the members of my family have become world travelers ever since and all of my oldest children have college degrees or masters degrees. So, world travel often opens up people to themselves and to their full potential in life. But, obviously it isn't for everyone.

But, if it is and if you can survive all this it will permanently change your lives forever, hopefully for the better.

By God's Grace

Note: The point is that for me, success always came from "Thinking outside the Box" and of being "A Captain of my own ship and master of my own destiny". And of course thinking always like an entrepreneur and businessman. My father owned his own business, my grandfather and uncle owned their own businesses and even my great Grandfather who was a captain of the northern Army in the Civil War owned his own business from the 1870s until 1925 when he sold it and then retired and then lived until World war II  in Kansas.

So, my family has always gotten ahead owning our own businesses at the very least since the 1870s here in the U.S. and likely before that too.

By the Grace of God