Live Limitless

Adventure, Imagination, Travel

Life

Don’t Look For Paradise – Look For People

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Not just people – friends, relationships, and connections.

Robin Esrock, a travel writer (to say the least) inspired me recently in a talk he gave at TED. It resonated with me so much because I knew exactly what he was talking about.

Paradise is people.

In the last three years, I have traveled all over the world. I’ve experienced road trips throughout 13 U.S. states, spent three months in Mexico City, enjoyed five months in Australia and backpacked across New Zealand, Japan, China, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, Borneo, the Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia, and Burma.

Some of these places had “paradise” written all over them. The kind of paradise we think of when we see a picture with blue skies and turquoise waters. Places like the Perhentian Islands of Malaysia, almost every island in the Phillies, most of Indonesia, and beautiful southern Thailand.

But as beautiful as these places were (and I strongly recommend visiting “paradise” now and then,) they don’t compete with the beauty of friendship and connection I made on these trips.

I partied with Mexicans in Malaysia, joined a group of travellers in Flores, Indonesia and crashed a traditional Indonesian wedding that was powered by generators, and met a really cool eclectic group of Europeans who teamed up with us to hike into minority villages in Myanmar.

Those were the times I enjoyed and learned the most from.

Connecting.

Friends in Flores, Indonesia

Paradise is beautiful; sure, it makes your heart sing.

But you hit a higher note when you share the experience with good people.

On your next travels (or maybe even at home), focus less on seeing everything or finding the next beautiful spot and more on meeting the next awesome person.

Strike up conversations with locals. You’d be amazed how friendly the world is. You can learn so much by talking with people from different walks of life. This is what life-changing travel is all about. It’s what every trip should consist of. Travel is one of the best forms of education and inspiration available today.

Find good people and you’ll find paradise.

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Welcome to Live Limitless

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Welcome to Live Limitless.

For those who are new to the game, this site used to be called A World of Inspiration. It was a fun site based mainly around travel and it introduced me to a lot of people who I now call friends.

At the same time, I was never truly in love with that title. Since a blog like this tends to blend in with it’s “writer’s” personality, I felt I needed to come up with something that means a lot more to me.

A World of Inspiration sounded just a little too oprah-ish.

A world of inspiration

Then one night when I was talking to my fiancé, she began to ask what I was like before I met her.

See, she met me in late 2008, just before I left to Australia on my first solo 6-month trip. Before that, and especially prior to 2004, I was a middle-class kid growing up in an oil-rich town in Northern Alberta.

Everyone around me made six figures and it was easy. I grew up basically knowing my salary would be over $100,000 with little to no schooling and my dreams consisted of following the joneses and buying a big house, a truck, a cool car, a boat, a snow-mobile, a quad, and taking part in those pre-fabricated all-inclusive holidays that many people were enjoying at the time.

That’s really it. Nothing wrong with it I suppose but then something changed. I began to think bigger. I wondered what it would be like if I didn’t work for oil companies like everyone else. I wondered what it would be like to really discover my strengths and talents and do something more remarkable. Something so cool that a book could be written about it. What would happen if I just left my town and setup shop somewhere else? Could I do something like that?
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How to Transform Your Body in 12 Weeks

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how to transform your body in 2013

(Completing the 12-week Body-for-Life challenge was one of my top things to accomplish from my 100 things to do before I turn 31 list. I’ve now completed all 100 things and have created a new epic list of 100 things to do before I turn 41. You can see the new list by clicking here. In addition, I’ve since researched a variety of ways to help lead a healthy life and have added affiliate links below. By purchasing through these links, you pay the same price but help support Live Limitless as well).

So yeah, as you can see from the photo above, I drastically transformed my body in just 12 weeks! It was remarkable to see the before and after photos and to get the results from my body fat testing, BUT guess what? I didn’t even realize I had made these changes until I saw the these results. Either the transformation was too gradual or my mind couldn’t see the new me. In fact, I remember feeling great but somewhat disappointed until I saw the after photo. That’s when I realized how much I had accomplished.

Here’s my advice for transforming your body in 12 weeks.

Stop putting it off. Don’t wait until the perfect time. That time will never come. There is always going to be some sort of excuse for putting off a diet or fitness plan.

“We’ll, there’s a big party coming up.”

“I have friends visiting from out of town next month.”

“I’m starting a new job in a week.”

Yadda Yadda Yadda.

I used to do the same thing. I still occasionally do the same thing. But once I told myself that I was going to finally start and FINISH the body-for-life program, I made sure to stay true to myself.

How bad do you feel when you start something that’s important to you and then stop short of successfully completing it?

I know I feel awful. It bothers me for months and even years.

2006 (the year when I did the program) was a long time ago, but I still remember finishing the program and listening to the results from the trainer who took my body fat measurements on day 1 and on day 84. He was really impressed. I was really impressed. I almost couldn’t believe my eyes when I printed out my before-and-after pictures.

UN-BELIEV-ABLE!

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The 100th Post, Special Thanks, Helpful Mondays, and Prizes

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Tim Ferriss and Matthew G Bailey
With Tim Ferriss

In honor of reaching the 100th post milestone, I’d like to share some thoughts on the potential direction of the site, my new “helpful Mondays”, and to celebrate the people, businesses, or things over the last few years that have inspired me to all new levels. What better way to say thanks than to share them with more people.

With John T. Unger

To begin, A World of Inspiration has changed a little over the years. I first started the site with the intention of interviewing inspiring people. Although that’s still part of the plan, I realized I also enjoyed sharing my own thoughts and travel stories. Now, after returning from another 11-month trip, I feel the title of the site is fading away. Whenever I think of the name, although I like it, I don’t feel it speaks to me anymore. I have since been creating a “storyboard” of sorts to come up with my vision for the site and a suitable name to carry it into the future.

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Passion: A Visit to Ron Mueck

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A sculpture of Ron Mueck's face

Last week, I visited a Ron Mueck gallery in Mexico City. I’m not usually a museum/gallery type of person (although I did love the museum of Anthropology and the peace museum in Hiroshima) but since tuesdays were free, I decided to take a look.

If your unfamiliar with Ron Mueck, he is a hyperrealistic sculptor from Australia.

His art is truly amazing to see. The amount of details are almost chilling and they really do look like real people (or creatures in some cases).

Ron does this to put things in a different perspective for people and to make you think deeper and/or differently on various subjects. For example, one of his pieces is a giant human-sized chicken with it’s throat cut, hanging upside down by the feet. This is done to show the brutality towards chickens (animals in general) and was created larger to allow us to think of it in the same manner as we would a human.

I was truly amazed by the craftmanship. At the end of the gallery was a very impressive video that showed Ron creating one of his masterpieces and the amount of work that goes into each one. It also got me thinking about passion.

Passion is something I have been thinking about for the last couple years. 

Ron Mueck
My fiancee dwarfed in comparison to this sculpture

This video and the art pieces in the gallery showed the passion that Ron Mueck has towards his craft. It amazes me when I see someone with enough passion to spend months and years of hard work while working on every little detail to create something to show the world (or just to show one self).

It’s so inspiring to see people who have found such a strong passion in life and are able to essentially give their life to that passion and channel all their energy into such magnificence.

I’m not sure I have a passion like that. I do love travel but I’m not sure it’s the same. Maybe it’s staring me in the face and I’m to blind to see it. Sometimes I’m happy I don’t have one intense passion since it allows me to be free to explore so many different worlds. On the same note though, passion for one thing can also be freeing as it allows you to channel your energy and become a “pro” at that activity.

I’m not sure if Ron Mueck really intends for visitors to his galleries to be thinking about “passion” but it’s certainly the biggest thing I took away.

Do you have a passion?

And is so, are you giving it enough of your time?

The Next Chapter

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guanajuato

When one chapter ends and another hopefully begins.

I wrote about this on the bus heading home from a 2-week job on a military base in Wainwright, Alberta. It was a totally unique experience. I had received an offer to act as a villager in a military role play exercise. This meant I got to pretend to be a spanish villager while watching ground troops and tanks cover the area and humungous helicopters hover overhead. I met over 100 amazing people from all walks of life. Some were musicians, some were actors, and some were just trying something new. Some were Canadian, some were Mexican, and some were Columbian. We became family for 15 days, living in dorm-room type conditions, working together, eating together, and partying together. Some of us became good friends that will continue well into the future.

And yet, despite how cool of an experience this was, the 2 weeks ended quickly, and I found myself on a bus headed back home. Everyone was still sitting around me on their way back home but I knew that for most of us, we would never see each other again. We had just woke up from an amazing farewell party complete with a talent show and a spectacular performance of the Northern Lights (otherwise known as Aurora Borealis).

It was a mixture of sadness and happiness. It was sad to close a chapter on such a wonderful experience, yet exciting to imagine what the next chapter was going to hold.

I’ve felt this so many times as I’m sure you have as well. High school, college, university, trips around the world, hobbies, sports, and new found friends. Each chapter must end at some point.

But the best way to fight the chapter blues is to begin a new one. One filled with new adventures, new experiences, and a new story.

I’m now in Mexico City, a new chapter to finish off the 2011 year. I know next year, I will turn the page to another chapter featuring Malaysia and the rest of SE Asia. I know the location but I don’t know the story.

So although it saddens me a little to finish one chapter, it’s exciting to begin the next.

As long as you keep your curiosity alive and the adventures rolling, you won’t get stuck in one chapter and life will keep churning out amazing stories of unique experiences and new friendships.

Have you started a new chapter lately?