I knew I was going to love it. I had dreamt about it for four years, and I was finally going to do it.
I’d been through so much. So many ups and downs in my business, health issues, etc…
But I kept on keeping on. I kept my vision in front of me. Some way, somehow, I was going to make it happen.
I was going to make my first big life goal and dream come true. I was going to make it to Thailand and travel around Southeast Asia.
And it was going to make everything I’d been through in the previous four years worth it.
I was 26 years old.
Four years earlier, I’d graduated from college with an economics degree. During my senior year, I did an internship in the first semester, hated it, and quickly decided I wasn’t going to go into that field anymore.
Instead, I decided to start an online business after graduating with the dream of traveling around the world.
The first place I wanted to go?
Thailand, baby!
It was a mecca for digital nomads and online entrepreneurs. Every “mentor from afar” I’d been learning from had been there at some point, and I wanted to go too.
It sounded amazing. The beaches, the food, the low cost of living, the people, the culture, the lifestyle – it sounded like the perfect place to start.
When I started my business, I thought I’d be in Thailand within four months. However, through a convoluted series of events, it ended up taking four years.
In those years, I experienced many periods of doubt and perhaps some depression when I felt like my dream was far away.
But as I persisted, my desire only grew stronger. The dream only grew bigger. I only wanted it more and more as time went on.
I persevered through clients suddenly dropping me, having negative dollars in my bank account, my websites crashing (and my income along with it), a health issue that limited my ability to work, and even getting a soul-sucking corporate job to make ends meet (and save up money to make my dream a reality).
I believe that everything happens for a reason.
I also believe that a delay does not mean a denial.
Just because your dream may happen later than you want it to that doesn’t mean it’s never going to happen.
When I landed in Thailand and experienced everything in Southeast Asia, not only did it make the previous four years worth it, but I realized that maybe I’d landed there at the perfect time. Maybe the last four years happened for a reason.
And I started to trust my path and my journey more (and still do).
If you’ve ever thought about traveling or living abroad…
Or if you have a dream you want to accomplish…
This story will inspire you to go for it and keep going until you make it a reality.
Our dreams are there for a reason, too.
They can guide us, fuel us, and inspire us to higher heights of life.
May the dreams that rest in your heart and soul come alive as you read this story.
And may it awaken your belief that if I can accomplish my dream, you can too.
My Six-Month Preparation Before Leaving For Southeast Asia
On the surface, I didn’t leave for Southeast Asia at the “perfect time.”
I didn’t have boatloads of money in the bank. My business wasn’t wildly successful. I was still dealing with a health issue that limited my ability to work.
But I said, “Screw it, I’m going.”
Sometimes, if we wait for the perfect time to have all of our ducks in a row before we go after our dreams, we end up waiting a lifetime.
I wasn’t willing to wait a lifetime.
In my mind, I’d already waited too long. I’d been through too much. It was time to make my dream happen.
I didn’t wait for the “perfect time.” I waited for a time that was “good enough.”
I had some money in the bank. I was going to work on my business in Southeast Asia and hopefully get it to the level I needed it to be. And I was going to work around the health issue I was still experiencing.
Most importantly, I was going to trust that everything would work out in time.
Six months before leaving for Asia, I was still in that soul-sucking corporate job I mentioned. Despite despising it, I was saving up the money I needed to justify taking the leap of faith and going abroad.
It was an entry-level marketing job in the Bay Area, California, making around $4K per month. It wasn’t a lot for Silicon Valley, but it was enough that I was able to minimize my expenses and save about 50% of it each month.
This took discipline.
For months, I stopped going out, I stopped eating out, and I didn’t spend money on random Amazon purchases.
I itemized my expenses in a monthly spreadsheet and canceled any unnecessary subscriptions. I minimized my expenses and saved, saved, saved.
My primary expenses were just rent, utilities, groceries, and the gym. I even got free haircuts from my friend.
In six months, I had saved up more money than I’d ever had in my life.
I may have dreaded going to work each day, but I was working toward my dream. I was doing it for an important purpose.
Every dollar I set aside from every paycheck made my dream more of a reality.
At the same time, I was researching Thailand as if I were ready to go. I was looking up travel guides, learning about how the visa worked, reading about how to get around the country, and educating myself in general.
Even though I had no clue when I was going to go, I was getting more and more excited. The research I did made the dream a stronger reality in my mind and helped me bear the daily drudgery of that job.
Two months later, when my contract was up, I quit. They asked me to stay on, but I couldn’t stay there any longer.
I hadn’t booked my flight to Thailand yet. I hadn’t made any definite plans to leave yet.
But I just couldn’t stay at that job anymore. It was hurting my soul too much, and I needed my freedom again.
As I was in the parking lot walking toward my car on my last day, one of the women from the accounting department came up to me. She had a sullen look in her eyes and told me, “You made the right decision.”
She had been working there for many years, and I think she felt stuck. I think she desperately wanted to quit as well, like so many people, but felt like she couldn’t.
At the same time as I felt compassion for her, I also knew that I was quitting because I had higher standards for my life and my work, and that job was far below what I wanted in my work life. I also quit because I had the courage to.
If she had higher standards for herself and tapped into her courage, maybe she could’ve quit and found something better, as well. Maybe…hopefully…she has by now.
My dream was also too important to me, and I wasn’t going to let anything get in the way of it.
I used that job as a stepping stone to achieve what I wanted to achieve, not a gilded cage that’s a struggle to break free from.
Quitting was one of the best feelings in the world. I was finally free again. I finally felt happy again.
At this point, I tried working on my business, but the health issue (tendinitis) had gotten worse while I was at that job, and I needed to rest. So I did.
About six weeks after quitting, I started looking at flights to Thailand. A short while after that, I bought a one-way ticket to Phuket, a big island in the south.
A month before leaving, I planned out my first two months in Thailand. I decided where I wanted to go, looked up hotels, hostels, and transportation, and made bookings.
After the first few months, I was going to just play it by ear and go where the wind took me.
In August of 2018, with a big, fat, audacious smile on my face, I landed in Thailand and achieved my dream after four long years.
The stuff I packed for Southeast Asia.About to leave.On the flight to Thailand.
Entering a Whole New World: My First Week In Thailand (A Dream Come True)
Thailand was truly a whole new world.
Watching videos, reading articles, or putting on some VR goggles does not compare to physically being in a place yourself.
The sights, the sounds, the smells, the feeling of the air, the people, the buildings, the nature, the food – it all combines to create a brand new sensory experience, one that I had dreamt of and imagined for so long and was finally living for myself.
I landed in Phuket at around 10:30 PM. Unlike arriving in America from an international flight, moving through customs was surprisingly quick and easy.
I stepped outside the airport in this new country, with it completely dark outside, and started walking toward the hotel I’d booked for the night.
Thankfully, it was close by, and someone was there to check me in and give me my room key. I settled in for my first night in Thailand, giddy as can be.
My plan was to head straight from Phuket to the island of Koh Phangan. Every month on Koh Phangan, they host a huge event on the beach called The Full Moon Party. The party was happening a week after I arrived, so I wanted to get there ASAP.
On my first morning in Thailand, I did something I’d been waiting to do for four years. I got my first meal.
I walked a short distance down the street from my hotel and found a little Thai restaurant. I ordered a soup, gleefully took a picture of it, and devoured it. It was one of the best moments of my life.
My first meal in Thailand.
After filling my belly, I grabbed my things and called a Grab (basically an Uber), and got a ride to the bus station. Just looking out the window of the car was an experience in itself.
Everything was different from back home. The buildings. The signs. The cars. I took it all in and appreciated that I’d finally made it there.
I waited at the bus station for 45 minutes before a two-hour bus ride to the ferry that would take me to Koh Phangan. Once on the ferry, the sky cleared up, the sun came out, and I really felt like I was on my way to another beautiful Thai island.
Landing on Koh Phangan, I had no idea what to expect. I didn’t know how I was going to get to my hostel. I didn’t know how far away my hostel was from the ferry station (it could’ve been on the other side of the island for all I knew). As is common when backpacking in a new country, I was going to figure it out when I landed.
Landing on Koh Phangan gave me my first taste of controlled chaos in Southeast Asia. It seemed like everyone knew where they needed to go except me.
People got off the ferry and just started walking inland. I had no idea where to go, so I just followed them.
On the sides of the street were vendors selling food and drinks. Taxis waited to help people get where they needed to go. But I just kept walking, following some other foreign backpackers who seemed to know where they were going.
After about five minutes, a Thai woman on a motor scooter smiled and waved at me. She was a scooter taxi driver and asked me if I needed a ride to my hotel. I said, “Yeah, sure. Do you know how to get here?” and showed her the hostel’s name on my phone.
She said yes, and I hopped on the back of her scooter with my massive backpack.
Picture this:
I’m a six-foot-two American guy weighing around 180 pounds with a backpack that’s the size of my upper body (I took way too much stuff) sitting on the back of a scooter with a small Thai woman driving me. I was nervous, and she could tell.
Every turn we made, my legs would violently clench against the sides of the scooter. I couldn’t help it. It was my first time on the back of a motor scooter and we were going damn fast.
Of course, she did this all the time, so it was no big deal for her. But I was out of my comfort zone, so every once in a while, she would look back, smile, and ask me if I was okay – like a dental assistant poking your gums with a sharp metal object knowing full well that you’re not okay.
See what I mean? 😂
Like in the dentist’s office, I smiled and said yes each time, trying not to show any fear, but my legs stayed clenched for dear life.
As we maneuvered through the island’s winding streets, the scenery became more and more beautiful, and I relaxed.
The route we took gave us a view of the ocean the whole time, with palm trees, quaint Thai homes, and lush tropical foliage whizzing by.
It was a gorgeous day, and I was happy AF. I was on a beautiful Thai island! Finally!!
The adventure felt like it had really begun. My nervousness turned into an exciting adrenaline rush, my legs finally relaxed, and I could’ve sat on that scooter for ages soaking it all in.
With another big smile on my face, we pulled up to the hostel. I said thank you, paid her, and walked in.
I chose this hostel because it was the first one on Hostelworld (a hostel booking app) when I searched for Koh Phangan. It was the most popular and had the best reviews.
The front desk attendant welcomed me, gave me a key, and told me how to find my room. My room was at the back of the hostel, a large dormitory with about seven bunk beds – just the way I wanted it.
I wanted to meet people, so I didn’t want to section myself off in a private room by myself. At the same time, I was kind of nervous about meeting new people.
I’d gotten comfortable with my group of friends back home and hadn’t needed to put myself out there much since college. I was solo traveling in Asia, so I needed to put myself out there again, and I knew the best way to do that would be to stay in hostel dorms.
Just like living in a college dorm, meeting people becomes easy and natural. You don’t even have to try. Literally.
As soon as I got in my room and set my stuff down, a British guy said hi to me, asked me where I was from, and invited me to go eat with him and his friends. We all became friends and hung out the whole time I was on Koh Phangan – eating, drinking beers, going to the beach, partying, and having fun.
We met a group of girls who were staying in our room as well, along with some other cool people staying in the hostel. By the end, we were a group of 10+ people doing everything together. It was awesome.
To put the cherry on top, one of the girls and I had a little travel romance (something else I’d been dreaming of). We basically became a couple for the week and got to experience the romantic side of the island as well.
Hanging out on Koh Phangan gave me my first taste of the island lifestyle in Thailand:
Waking up to a beautiful sunny day.
Taking a dip in the pool.
Walking down to one of the many restaurants and having a delicious meal that only cost about $1.50.
We would go to the beach and relax, grab some beers from the store, and go back to the hostel to swim and play games. Then we would go out at night, dance on the beach, and watch the fire dancers.
We did that almost every day for about a week straight.
A fire dancer on Koh Phangan.
To this day, I still cherish that time.
I’ve been to other countries, hung out on other beaches, and met more people, but the feeling of being there for the first time after years of working toward it was pure joy. As I said, it made everything I’d been through to get there worth it.
I released all the stress I’d been carrying from the years prior on the beach of that island.
To cap it off, the Full Moon Party was one of the craziest parties I’ve ever been to. Thousands of people filled a massive beach with DJ booths, alcohol stands, and random art fixtures sprawled out everywhere.
We partied into the early hours of the morning. The next day, the beach had been perfectly cleaned as if nothing had happened, most of the travelers had left, and the island became quiet and peaceful again.
The beach the day after The Full Moon Party.
Gradually, I said bye to my new friends, as we ended up going in different directions for the next legs of our journeys.
Already, I’d lived out so much of the fantasy I’d built up in my mind for four years, and this was only my first week in Thailand.
What a way to start this adventure.
Heading to My Next Thai Island Paradise
Before leaving Koh Phangan, I had to decide where to go next.
In the “plan” I’d made before leaving the US, I said I was going to spend a month in the Thai islands before leaving for Malaysia to do a visa run and come back to Thailand.
Beyond Koh Phangan, I hadn’t chosen another island, so I needed to choose the next one.
I opened up my Google Maps, zoomed in on my location, and saw this tiny island called Koh Tao not far from Koh Phangan. I said, “Screw it, I’m going there.”
I love making spontaneous decisions like this when I’m traveling. It’s exciting to go with the flow and see what happens.
A lot of people like to plan out every second of their trip to a foreign country, but I would feel constricted doing this. When I’m traveling, I want to feel free, so I always leave lots of room to make spontaneous, on-the-fly decisions.
Little did I know that this spontaneous, on-the-fly decision would completely change the rest of my time in Southeast Asia.
On my last morning in Koh Phangan, I took a taxi to a different ferry station and rode the ferry for a couple of hours to Koh Tao.
Boarding the ferry to Koh Tao.
Landing in Koh Tao was similar to landing in Koh Phangan. I had no idea where to go, so I just followed other people.
I’d booked a hostel that looked pretty cool and was close to the beach called the Bed & Ink Hostel. This hostel was known for having a huge pet pig. Yes, you read that right.
As advertised, when I arrived, checked in, and went to find my room, a massive pig was lying on the floor. He was so big that he took up the whole hallway, so I had to carefully step over him with my gigantic backpack to get to my room.
Mongkol, the huge pet pig.
Besides being a cool attraction, he was a legitimate hostel pet. Once a day, the employees would take him down to the beach for some exercise and a swim, with a swarm of travelers following along, petting him, and taking pictures and videos.
His favorite spot to sleep was right outside my room, so I saw him every day.
I stayed in another dorm to make meeting people effortless. Before I’d even unpacked my stuff, I met a few people, and we decided to get dinner and drinks together by the beach.
While I loved Koh Phangan, it was huge compared to Koh Tao. I loved how close everything was in Koh Tao. We walked less than five minutes to get to the beach and another ten minutes to get to the restaurant/bar area, just in time for sunset.
Koh Tao was stunning.
Palm trees leaned over the beach as if trying to go for a swim themselves. Tiny wooden boats were docked in rows just beyond the waves. Quaint shops and restaurants adorned the tiny walking/scooter streets.
Koh Tao just before sunset.Blue hour on Koh Tao.
DJs played music as the sun went down. Every beachside restaurant and bar had comfortable beach chairs to sit on and enjoy the sunset. Everyone was having a good time.
The next morning, after about a week and a half of traveling and having fun, I decided it was time to get to work again. I asked the desk attendant at my hostel if there were any good cafes where I could work.
She named a few, so I went to check them out. The first was closed, so I went to the second one, a beachside restaurant called Coconut Monkey.
I ordered some breakfast, set up my laptop, found the WiFi password, and started working.
I’d had the image of a digital nomad working from their laptop in a cafe by the beach in a beautiful country in my mind since I started my business four years earlier. And there I was, finally doing it myself.
At the time, I had a freelance writing client, and I was working on getting traffic to a drone blog I ran.
As I was working on an article for my client, which happened to be a review for a popular digital marketing platform, a guy suddenly appeared behind me, saw the title of my article, and excitedly said, “Ayyy ClickFunnels!!” Then he asked if he and his friend could sit down with me.
I said sure, and we introduced ourselves. They were digital nomads, as well, running their own online businesses. We talked for about an hour, getting to know each other while they ate their breakfasts.
One was from Colombia and lived in Thailand. The other was from England and lived in Australia, but he was staying in Thailand for about a month. They had met a year earlier in the Philippines and decided to meet up on Koh Tao to work and hang out.
After finishing eating, they said they were going to work at a different cafe and asked me if I wanted to come with them. I said sure. I hopped on the back of one of their motor scooters, and we zoomed over to another part of the island to work.
Similar to the people I met on Koh Phangan, we became good friends. We hung out every day for the next three weeks I was on that island.
Little did I know at the time, but after our British friend left to go back to Australia, I would end up spending most of the next eight months with my new Colombian friend, traveling and living together in both Thailand and Vietnam.
While on Koh Tao, my daily routine looked like this:
Wake up and meditate.
Go for a walk and eat some delicious Thai food.
Grab my stuff and meet up with my friends at a cafe to work.
Work until lunch and grab another delicious meal.
Go for a walk on the beach and relax.
Work for a few more hours in the afternoon.
Find a bar to grab a drink and watch the sunset.
Find a place to eat dinner together.
Go back to my hostel to drop off my stuff, rest, and shower.
Meet up with my friends by the beach again to go clubbing and enjoy the night.
It was a blast. My new friends showed me the ropes when it came to living the digital nomad lifestyle.
Not only was I finally getting a taste of what this lifestyle was like, but they were the first people I’d ever met who had similar life goals and intentions to mine (and were actively pursuing them).
They also wanted to make a big impact on the world. They were also into business, personal development, and spirituality. They also wanted to become the best versions of themselves and live their best lives.
And we started feeding off each other and helping each other grow and evolve.
We started having deep conversations about life together, sharing the stories and lessons we’d learned in our journeys so far. We pushed each other to get out of our comfort zones, do things that scared us, and grow in the ways we wanted to grow.
At the time, I was still dealing with a lot of social anxiety and insecurity, despite working on them since I was 19. So I took the opportunity to learn from my Colombian friend, who was a social savant, and do some deep inner work.
By the time I left Asia, I was almost as comfortable as he was with meeting people and putting myself out there.
Koh Tao is known as a great spot to get your diving certification (both scuba diving and freediving without an oxygen tank). Towards the end of my time there, my friend got me to do the freediving certification, something that scared the crap out of me.
The idea of diving in the ocean with no oxygen, holding your breath beyond the point of wanting to breathe, and going as deep as you can go, made me incredibly uncomfortable.
At the same time, I wanted to overcome my fear, so I did it.
Nervous before my first dive.
There I was, floating in the big, dark, scary ocean. The boat that dropped us off was long gone and wouldn’t be back for hours, and I had to dive down into the darkness and hold my breath for as long as possible before coming back up.
Our freediving instructor taught us that when you have the first impulse to breathe, your body still has ample oxygen. You can hold your breath much longer than the first impulse.
Continuing to stay under while holding your breath is a mind-over-body thing. As a student of the mind, I loved this part of it. I used the experience as a mental training exercise.
However, no one was happier than me when the week-long class was over and I didn’t have to wake up at the crack of dawn to go diving with no oxygen in the middle of the ocean. But I was happy I had faced my fear and overcome it.
With each new experience, my confidence built as I took more steps outside my comfort zone.
As the freediving class came to a close, my time on Koh Tao did too.
My Colombian friend lived in Chiang Mai, a city in Northern Thailand that I planned on going to in a few months.
Chiang Mai was a digital nomad hub, and I figured I would make it my home base for a while after my initial period of backpacking.
The more my friend told me about Chiang Mai, the more I wanted to be there. I initially thought I would go to Malaysia, get my 90-day Thai visa, stay in Bangkok for a few months, and then go to Chiang Mai.
But by the time I left Koh Tao, I knew I wanted to get to Chiang Mai ASAP. I decided I would only spend a few weeks in Bangkok before heading straight to Chiang Mai.
My 30-day visa on arrival was running out, so I had to catch my flight to Malaysia to do my first visa run.
Traveling to Malaysia for My First Visa Run
After my first 30 days in Thailand, I had to leave and come back. I knew this before leaving the US.
As an American, I could get a 30-day “visa on arrival.” This meant that I didn’t have to do any prior paperwork or fill out an online application. I could just arrive, get a stamp in my passport, and stay in the country for 30 days.
But if I wanted to stay longer, I needed to get a 90-day visa, which was a hassle to get while in the US. I needed to go in person to a Thai embassy, and there wasn’t one near me.
So, I decided to do my first 30 days on the 30-day visa and then travel to another country in Southeast Asia to get my 90-day visa before reentering Thailand.
In my research, a lot of people said Kuala Lumpur, the capital city of Malaysia, was a great place to go.
It was close by, and the visa application process was straightforward. So, before leaving the US, I had already booked my flight to Malaysia and my flight back to Thailand.
I gave myself a little less than two weeks in Kuala Lumpur to explore the city and get my visa sorted out.
My friend gave me a ride to the ferry station on my last morning on Koh Tao. We planned to meet up in Chiang Mai in about four to six weeks. He was going to stay on Koh Tao for a bit longer and go to Koh Phangan to meet up with another friend of his.
I hopped on the ferry, super grateful for the new friends I’d made and the fun we had on Koh Tao. I rode back to Phuket, took the bus and a taxi back to the airport, and booked a hotel within walking distance from the airport. My flight to Kuala Lumpur was the next day.
Landing in Kuala Lumpur: A Southeast Asian Melting Pot
I had no idea what to expect in Kuala Lumpur (and Malaysia in general). I’d done a lot of research on Thailand but very little on Malaysia.
And I loved that. I loved the mystery. I loved that I was going to land with minimal planning or research and allow the experience to unfold.
Like Thailand, Malaysia also offered a visa on arrival for Americans, so I landed, made my way through customs, and got my stamp. Now what?
The airport in Kuala Lumpur was one of the largest I’ve ever been to. It took about 30 minutes for me to make my way through it and find the taxi/pickup area outside.
I ordered a Grab, waited for it to arrive, and he took me to my hostel.
Once again, I chose a hostel that had the best reviews on Hostelworld and looked the coolest. It also wasn’t too far from the Thai embassy, and it was relatively close to the city center where the main attractions were.
The hostel was called Reggae Mansion, and it’s one of the coolest hostels I’ve ever been to. The place was HUGE, a literal mansion quietly nestled into the cityscape. You couldn’t tell how big it really was from the street.
It was three stories tall with multiple rooms on each floor, each with 30 or so beds. They even had a club, bar, and hang-out area on the roof with an awesome view. And I only paid about $10 a night to stay there.
I landed in Kuala Lumpur at night, so my first order of business was to put my stuff down and get some dinner.
One of my favorite parts about living in Southeast Asia was that I never had to cook. In ten months, I didn’t cook once. I ate at delicious restaurants three times a day, and I loved it.
I probably wouldn’t want to eat out this much in America, but it’s part of the lifestyle in Southeast Asia. Restaurant food is cheap, easy to find (within walking distance from wherever I lived), and not too heavy.
I asked the desk attendant at the hostel where to eat, and they directed me to a place that was just down the street.
Still, to this day, this is one of my favorite places ever. The food was simple but so good and unlike anything I’d had before.
Here was my favorite dish:
I can’t tell you what was in it exactly, and it doesn’t look that special, but it was damn good. I ate it almost every day I was in Kuala Lumpur (sometimes multiple times a day).
After dinner, I did one of my favorite things when landing in a new city – I went for a walk.
Walking around a city gives me a better sense of what it’s like than just driving from site to site. I get a better feel for the place and often find cool spots I never would’ve found by just looking up “best things to do” wherever I am.
So I left the restaurant and started heading toward what seemed like a central location in the district I was in.
As I got closer to what seemed like a big area with tons of restaurants and bars, a guy stopped me and sold me a cigar. I don’t smoke, but I was caught a little off guard, so I bought it. When I turned the corner and he couldn’t see me, I promptly dumped it in the trash.
Ahead, I saw a huge gold and red sign that said “Chinatown,” with tons of people walking around food stalls and shops. It looked like a cool area, so I went straight to it.
As I was walking around, I saw a food stall selling sticks of meat. I walked up to it at about a 45-degree angle. From this perspective, I had a sudden realization.
A few years earlier, while I was still desperately trying to get to Southeast Asia, I’d put an image of a food stall selling sticks of meat on my vision board.
To me, it partly represented being in Southeast Asia, and I realized that what I was seeing looked almost exactly like the image I’d put on my vision board. I was experiencing that vision at that very moment.
It was surreal…
I set that intention, imagined it over and over again, worked toward it every day, and it became a reality.
I excitedly pulled out my phone and took a picture of that food stall, posted it on my Instagram story, and captioned it, “Vision boards really do come true.”
The image on my vision board.The stall I stumbled upon in KL.
And, of course, I bought myself a meat stick and snacked on it while I walked around, fully satisfied with myself.
That moment helped to solidify the idea in my mind that dreams really can come true. I was experiencing mine at that moment, and I couldn’t have been happier about it.
The next day, I decided to explore the city some more. I visited the famous Petronas Twin Towers in the city center, walked around the beautiful gardens, and found some good food.
Sitting outside the Petronas Twin Towers.
At night, I went back to my hostel, met some people, had drinks with them, and played pool at the rooftop bar.
Having observed how my friend became friends with practically the whole island of Koh Tao, I started emulating him and quickly got a cool group of people together to hang out at the hostel. This time, instead of people asking me if I wanted to hang out with them, I took the initiative.
I invited people to play pool with me, have a few drinks, and led the conversations to get to know one another. It was empowering to know that I could go into a new social situation without knowing anyone, hold my own, and even bring people together to have a good time.
As someone who was a 70/30 introvert/extrovert back then (70% introverted and 30% extroverted according to 16Personalities), this was a big deal to me.
As I’ve worked on my social skills and put myself out there more over the years, I’ve balanced out to be closer to 55/45, and the inner work I did in Southeast Asia was a big part of that.
After exploring the city, eating some amazing food, and meeting some cool people, I needed to do what I went there to do. I needed to get my visa sorted out.
The next morning, I got a Grab to the Thai embassy. After a hilarious conversation with my eccentric Malaysian driver, I arrived and stood in line.
The process involved filling out a form with all of your personal details. Then you had to give the form and your passport to the embassy staff. They then kept it overnight, and you would come back the next day. If approved, you would have your stamp.
I was a little nervous about this.
When you’re traveling, your passport is your lifeline. Losing it is a major hassle, so if there’s one thing I always wanted to either keep with me or have locked up somewhere, it was my passport.
Leaving it at the embassy overnight made me uncomfortable, but it was necessary to get my stamp.
In addition, there’s no guarantee I was going to get my stamp. They have the power to give it to you or deny it.
But these are the types of things you need to trust and have faith in when you’re traveling. It comes with the territory.
So I left my passport with them, relaxed about it, and trusted it would work out.
And it did.
The next day, I got my passport back and held my breath as I opened it and saw my 90-day Thai visa stamp.
Yes! I was good to go. My flight to Bangkok was still about a week away, so I had time to explore more places before heading back to Thailand.
I took a train to the 400-million-year-old Batu Caves, home to the largest Hindu temple complex outside of India.1
The stairs to Batu Caves.
I ate dinner at a revolving restaurant at the top of the tallest building in Southeast Asia and one of the tallest buildings in the world (Merderka 118).
The view from the revolving restaurant.
I even had tea at a local Malaysian person’s house with a friend I met in my hostel. Her cousin was married to a Malaysian woman and lived in Kuala Lumpur, and they took us to her mother’s home for tea and snacks.
This is one of the things I love most about traveling. I never could have planned anything like this. It was totally unexpected, and talking with her gave my friend and me an idea of what life is like in the city for a local who has lived there all their life.
This is why I like to go with the flow and not plan out every second of a trip. It creates space for unexpected, serendipitous experiences.
As my time in Kuala Lumpur started winding down, I was pleasantly surprised by what I’d experienced (having done little research beforehand).
The city is a conglomerate of three dominant cultures – Malay, Indian, and Chinese. In a 30-minute drive, you can immerse yourself in all three cultures.
Walking through the city, I could feel it.
You can hear the different music playing, smell each culture’s food, see the clothing people wear, and hear the Call to Prayer ringing through the city five times a day. I never expected this degree of cultural coexistence within a single Southeast Asian city.
The locals I met were also incredibly friendly and curious about me and my travels. And, of course, staying at Reggae Mansion was a blast.
Years later, I still think fondly of my time in KL.
It was short but so sweet – exactly what a visa run should be.
Wilding Out in Bangkok and Settling Down in Chiang Mai
When I landed in Bangkok, I’d been in Southeast Asia for about six weeks, and I was having the time of my life.
The experience was everything I’d imagined and more.
When people think about their goals and dreams, they sometimes fear their desires won’t be as good as they imagine them to be once they actually happen. They fear disappointment.
Or they build it up so big in their mind that when they experience it and it isn’t all rainbows and sunshine, they still end up not fulfilled or satisfied.
Then they become jaded and think that every goal or dream is like this, so they stop aspiring for new goals and dreams.
As I was living my dream, I realized that dreams can be achieved, and they can be just as amazing as you expect them to be.
But it’s the dreams that come primarily from your heart – your most heartfelt desires – that will be as good if not better than you imagine.
The desires that come more from your ego are the ones you will likely be disappointed by. These are the desires you’re using to fill a void, seek validation, or get other people’s approval – the more shallow ones.
My dream came from my heart. It was one of my most heartfelt desires.
I had zero fears or worries about it not living up to my expectations. Something inside me knew it would. This desire felt perfectly aligned with who I was and what I truly wanted.
Landing in Bangkok, this feeling really took hold.
I hadn’t left the US with “all my ducks in a row.” I hadn’t left at the “perfect time.”
Yet, somehow, everything felt like it was unfolding perfectly, like it was meant to be. I felt like I had still arrived at the perfect time even though it might not have seemed like it on the surface.
Knowing what I know now, it’s partly my joy that made it so. I was happy. I was fulfilled. I was loving my life, and this energy lit up the whole experience.
And I brought this energy with me to Bangkok – one of the most iconic Southeast Asian metropolises.
Anyone who has ever been to Bangkok will tell you that it’s freaking crazy. It’s exactly what you would expect a huge Southeast Asian city with millions of people to be like.
People everywhere.
Disregard for traffic “rules” (they’re more like guidelines).
Tempting food stalls scattered along the sidewalks.
Noise day and night.
Lots of energy.
And of course, parties!!
I chose a hostel that was one street away from one of the most famous party streets in the world: Khao San Road.
During the day, Khao San Road is quiet and almost deserted. At night, it becomes a totally different beast, and I wanted to experience it.
On my first night in Bangkok, I got some dinner, bought some beers, and met some people in my hostel who wanted to check out Khao San Road as well.
We got to know each other, had some good conversations, and then walked one street over to Khao San Road.
It was early, but it was already nuts. People flooded the street (cars were blocked from entering). Music blasted onto the street from open bars and clubs. On every block, they sold buckets of fruity alcoholic drinks (very popular in Thailand).
Before traveling to Thailand, I’d heard they sell bugs on the street that you can eat. We quickly stumbled upon a fried bug merchant and started daring each other to eat one.
With my fruity alcohol bucket starting to take effect, I went first and bought myself a scorpion-looking thing. It was crispy and weird. I knew it would be disgusting.
I ate it anyway.
Eating a bug on a stick.
When in Rome, do as the Romans do!
When in Thailand, eat a bug on a stick!
After my désert d’insectes, a few more people tried the bugs, and we all laughed as their faces contorted in disgust.
We walked up and down the street dancing, laughing, and having a good time. People poured in until the street was packed, and we stayed out well into the night.
The next day, I decided to do some sightseeing. I toured the city and ate at the first Thai street food restaurant to receive a Michelin star (Raan Jay Fai).
Touring Bangkok in a tuk tuk.
Jay Fai is the owner and head chef. She cooks in a huge wok with a beanie and ski goggles, and she’s famous for her delectable crab omelet.
I had to wait a few hours before being seated, but it was worth it. My only regret is that I didn’t order more.
Jay Fai still cooks every meal herself and doesn’t want to retire, even after winning a Michelin star for seven straight years.2
If you’re ever in Bangkok, make sure to check out Raan Jay Fai.
(And get some to go.)
I spent the next five days exploring Bangkok, hanging out with people in my hostel, and going to Khao San Road.
Granted, by the time I left Bangkok, I was starting to get partied out, and I was ready to get back into a healthier lifestyle and settle down somewhere.
Chiang Mai was the perfect place to do that.
Chiang Mai: Thailand’s “Rose of the North”
Chiang Mai is a city in Northern Thailand that I’d heard about since I first got into online business. Many people I’d been learning from had been there. It was and still is one of the biggest digital nomad hubs in the world, and I couldn’t wait to experience it.
I flew to Chiang Mai and called a Grab to take me to where I planned to stay for the next few months. For the first time since I landed in Southeast Asia, it wasn’t a hotel or hostel. It was an apartment complex.
The friend I’d made on Koh Tao who lived in Chiang Mai told me he lived there and it was great, so I decided to live there as well.
As an American, one of the most mind-blowing things about living in Southeast Asia is the cost of living. Can you guess how much my rent was for my one-bedroom apartment in Chiang Mai?
It was $110 per month, including internet and utilities.
A one-bedroom apartment where I grew up in the Bay Area would be more than ten times that without internet, utilities, or renter’s insurance.
My place in Chiang Mai didn’t have a kitchen, dining room, or living room, and I didn’t need them. I could eat out every meal and have delicious food for $1 to $2 per meal for something normal and $3 to $5 per meal for something fancy.
I was eating out three times a day and never had to cook, and I spent less than I spent each month on groceries back home.
Every meal was delicious. I was in food heaven.
My place was within walking distance from the restaurants I wanted to go to, two malls if I needed to buy anything, and a gym so I could get back into my workout routine.
If I wanted to go anywhere else, I could call a Grab and get a ride across the city for a couple of dollars, or I could hop in the back of one of the many red taxi trucks for even cheaper.
To work, I could work at the desk in my apartment if I wanted to, but mostly, I went to one of the many cafes or coworking spaces around the city to work around other digital nomads who were also working on their businesses.
I went from being the only digital nomad I knew back home to living in a city full of them. It was so cool.
I also spent a lot of my non-work time exploring the city.
Within a few minutes of showing up at my new apartment complex, a Brazilian guy approached me from across the street with a big smile and asked me if I needed help. I was waiting for the landlady to show up, but she wasn’t around. Clearly, I looked lost.
He was super friendly and said he lived in the complex. I asked him if he knew my Colombian friend I’d met on Koh Tao. His eyes lit up, and he said they were friends. Perfect.
He took me out to eat and showed me around the area, pointed me toward good restaurants, showed me where I could do laundry, and told me how to get around town. He told me everything I needed to know about daily life there. This was within a few hours of arriving.
One of the concerns people have when traveling and living abroad is figuring out how to find everything they need. They think they have to have everything sorted out before they leave:
Where to live.
Where to shop.
How to get around.
How to get their necessities.
Cool things to do.
How to meet people.
Etc.
What I’ve discovered as I’ve traveled and lived abroad is that you can figure most of it out when you arrive. Many times, you don’t even have to try. People will help you, like my new Brazilian friend did.
We became close friends for the rest of the time I was in Asia, talking about life, sharing our stories, and helping each other grow and evolve. He was also a digital nomad running an online business, and he was even deeper into personal development than I was.
Over time, he became kind of a mentor. He used to be a life coach and saw that I had some natural coaching ability. He encouraged me to become a coach and taught me how coaching worked, and he’s one of the biggest reasons I started coaching four months later.
Like on Koh Tao with my Colombian friend and British friend, we pushed each other to step outside of our comfort zones, learn new things, and develop into the people we wanted to become.
A big reason why I have the courage to do what I’m doing now is because of the growth I experienced in Southeast Asia with the friends I made there.
Facing our fears, changing our perspectives, letting go of what wasn’t serving us anymore, and becoming the versions of ourselves we intended to be – it was deep inner work, which wasn’t easy.
But it was invigorating and empowering. It laid the foundation for us to follow our inner callings and become who we felt we were meant to be.
My Colombian friend arrived back in Chiang Mai a few weeks after I did. We reunited and hung out every day.
We took a trip to Pai, a beautiful small town in the mountains north of Chiang Mai. It’s still one of my favorite places in the world.
After we got back from Pai, I got back into my gym routine, and my friends joined me. I got into a work routine as well, going to coworking spaces and cafes around Chiang Mai.
I met more digital nomads through my friends who already had connections in the city. I started dating a little bit as well and generally got settled into the lifestyle as if I’d been living there long-term.
Daily life in Chiang Mai was incredible. It was a high quality of life for me and very close to my ideal lifestyle, and every day felt like it was filled with meaning and purpose.
If Chiang Mai had been by the beach, it would’ve been perfect.
I took a Thai language class, went dancing at night, ate at different restaurants around the city, met new people, explored the temples, and worked on my business.
Taking a Thai language class.
I even did my first public speaking event at a place called The Healing House.
My first public speaking event.
I was nervous the entire week before the event, and just before they called my name up, I thought about leaving and chickening out.
But I didn’t. I faced yet another fear, took action anyway, and overcame it, and my talk set the tone for the whole event.
This process of feeling afraid, doing it anyway, and expanding because of it was a theme throughout my time in Southeast Asia.
Many times, I could’ve either chosen the easy route or the path of my personal growth. Each time, I chose my personal growth despite the discomfort and fear.
I became a more empowered person because of it, and it gave me the experience I needed to help others do the same.
Helping My Friend Change His Life (My First Experience as a Coach)
I was only in Southeast Asia for ten months, but six of my friends from home came to visit me at different times.
Four of them (two couples) traveled to Thailand at the same time and decided to come up to Chiang Mai to meet up. We hung out in Chiang Mai and Pai, and one of the couples got engaged in Vietnam.
It was a great time traveling and hanging out with them in a foreign country, but they were mainly there for vacation (as opposed to a personal/spiritual growth journey).
My other two friends visited for the latter. They came to Southeast Asia to travel, explore, and have fun as well, but their trips had another element to them.
Their trips became turning points in their lives and catalysts to change their lives for the better.
At the time, I was sharing a lot of content on Instagram – sharing life advice and inspiring people to go after what they wanted in life.
I was going through a lot of my own personal growth, and I was getting deeper into new concepts and tools people can use to empower themselves.
When one of my best friends from college messaged me and told me he was going through a rough time back home and wanted to come visit me in Thailand for a week, I said, “Hell yeah! Let’s do it!” Then I proposed sharing what I’d been learning with him.
You never know how receptive or resistant people will be when you propose something like this, but he’s one of my best friends, and I knew this stuff could help him. To his credit, he was enthusiastic about my proposal.
He was going to arrive in a few months, so each week before he arrived, I sent him exercises that would help him gain clarity about each area of his life, what he wanted, and what he needed to do to achieve it.
Without fully realizing it, I was getting my first experience as a coach.
Sure, I’d helped people before. I got into personal development in college when I was 19, and I often got into conversations with random people and friends and helped them with whatever problems they had in their lives.
I did it because it was fun, I was passionate about it, and it was a part of who I was, but I never did any ongoing coaching, and it was never formal.
At the time, I also wasn’t that confident I could help people change their lives one-on-one. My content was resonating with people, but I wasn’t sure if I could work with someone for an extended time and get results.
This experience of coaching my friend started giving me that confidence.
Not only was he open-minded and receptive, but he went above and beyond with each exercise I gave him. He put way more into it than I anticipated.
He was ready to change his life. He was willing to learn new things and do what he needed to make it happen. This is a key factor in anyone’s personal growth.
I could’ve given him every tool in the world, but if he wasn’t ready and willing to use them, it wouldn’t have mattered.
One benefit of hitting a metaphorical “rock bottom” in a person’s life is that there’s nowhere else to go but up.
Before hitting rock bottom, they might’ve put off doing the things they needed to do to change their life. They might have avoided these things, rationalized them away, or thought they were a waste of time.
But when you hit rock bottom, doing what you need to do to change your life becomes a necessity.
The people who care enough about their lives suddenly let go of the ego stuff that was holding them back, they become more willing to seek help and resources, and they start taking decisive action.
For my friend, I happened to be one of those resources.
No one could’ve changed his life but him, but I knew some stuff that could help, and I shared it with him. Then he took it all and ran with it.
Before even arriving in Thailand, he’d gained a lot of clarity and was starting to take some action to change his situation back home, but it was only the beginning.
Arriving in Thailand was a culture shock for him at first. He had never traveled abroad before this and didn’t know what to expect.
Southeast Asia can shock you if you’re not prepared. The lack of structure, the food, the way of life – it’s so different and runs counter to what people accustomed to their normal world expect life to be like.
Understandably, my friend didn’t sleep well that first night and woke me up at 6 AM to start our day.
But after his initial culture shock, he got settled in and began enjoying himself as we started having some fun exploring Chiang Mai and talking about things. The adventure had begun.
In the weeks leading up to my friend’s arrival, I’d been imagining all the conversations we could have and everything I could share with him. It was a lot, and I wondered how the hell I’d remember to share all of this and find the right time for it.
I didn’t want to make the whole trip about the empowerment stuff, either. We needed to have the right balance between talking about life and the deeper topics while also having fun and enjoying ourselves. I wondered how we would do this.
As I often do in these situations, I ended up just letting it flow and allowing the experience to unfold in its own way without trying to control everything. I set some intentions and then surrendered to the experience.
Like magic, my inquisitive friend asked me the perfect questions at the right times throughout the trip.
Through those questions, he pulled out all of the things I’d been imagining sharing with him.
I didn’t even have to try to remember or keep track of all of them, and he didn’t have to try either. It just happened naturally.
We talked about:
How the mind works, how he can reprogram his subconscious mind, and how this can give him power over himself and his life.
The power of daily routines (morning and night) and how to set up his day for success.
How to find and absorb empowering information, and I shared the books I’d been reading that I thought could help.
How to set intentions, visualize, and use manifestation techniques to create unique and interesting experiences (and bring an element of magic into his life).
How to clarify his desires and use vision boards to inspire him and bring his desires to life.
All the while, we were exploring Chiang Mai and Pai, having fun, and enjoying Thailand.
One of the things I introduced to my friend was how to read the signs and symbols from the Universe.
My friend wasn’t into spirituality before this, and if he hadn’t been in such an open-minded and receptive state, he would have normally disregarded something like this.
But he was in Thailand (an incredibly spiritual place). He was in a brand-new environment without the normal triggers of daily life back home.
And despite some initial resistance to some of the things I was sharing with him, he kept his mind open and was willing to play around with these more intangible concepts.
One of the signs I was into at the time was number sequences (often called “angel numbers”).
My Colombian friend had introduced them to me on Koh Tao, and I was fully immersed by the time my friend showed up.
I was seeing number sequences everywhere (111, 333, 444, etc) and starting to learn how to decipher them. Whenever a sequence was showing up a lot for me, I would look up its meaning and decide if the Universe was trying to communicate something to me.
I started seeing different types of sequences as well, like 211 and 69, which had different meanings for me, and I would point them out to my friend whenever I saw them. Soon, he started to notice them, too.
The numbers tended to show up in key moments. For example, when we had just finished a really important conversation or made a key point to one another, a number would show up as confirmation.
By “show up,” it could have appeared anywhere – the time, the price of something, a street sign, etc.
69 degrees in Pai. Coincidence? I think not!
My friend also set a few intentions of what he wanted to experience while on the trip, and those intentions manifested.
He joked that he wanted to meet 50 blonde girls, and a few days later in Pai, we met and hung out with a few blonde girls. We even sat next to more blonde girls on the bus ride back to Chiang Mai. It wasn’t 50 of them, but still.
But the final manifestation at the end of the trip sealed the deal for my friend and made him a believer in this stuff.
The numbers 211 and 69 had been showing up a lot for us while he was there. On his last day, I dropped him off at the Chiang Mai airport to catch his flight to Bangkok and then back to the US.
Shortly after I dropped him off, I got an excited text from him. He had sent me a picture of his ticket.
He’d been assigned section 211 in seat 69.
His ticket.
He couldn’t believe it. Even I was shocked.
It was the perfect way to cap off a transformative experience for both of us.
My friend arrived feeling the weight of his situation back home and had an immediate culture shock. But by the time he left a week later, he felt empowered and ready to change his life.
He knew what he needed to do to take control of his mind and his circumstances, and he had experienced some of the magic I was experiencing in Southeast Asia, which helped solidify his belief that things could and would get better.
And we had a blast exploring Chiang Mai and Pai together.
Within months after leaving Thailand and going back home, my friend quit drinking, started going to therapy, moved to the city of his dreams, and got a new job.
He made new friends in one of the most beautiful cities in the world and started a new chapter in his life.
And I learned that I had what it takes to help people empower themselves and change their lives, and I became more confident in my ability to follow this path.
Christmas and New Year by The Beach in Vietnam (and Deciding to Move There)
I was having so much fun in Chiang Mai, but my 90-day visa was running out, and I needed to do another visa run.
The end of the year was quickly approaching as well, so I needed to figure out what I wanted to do for Christmas and New Year.
A few months earlier, my Colombian friend had left Thailand. He went to Vietnam to do a visa run and never came back. He loved it so much that he just stayed there.
He was living in Saigon, a huge city in the south with a population of around 9 million people at the time, and he was loving it.
So my Brazilian friend and I decided to visit him for Christmas and New Year and do our visa runs at the same time.
I was super excited. Vietnam was high on my list of countries to go to in Southeast Asia. I grew up in a predominantly Asian part of the Bay Area, and most of my friends from home are Vietnamese.
(My high school yearbook has a few pages of Nguyens.)
My friends introduced me to pho in high school, and it became my favorite food. I love Bahn mis (Vietnamese sandwiches) and other Vietnamese food as well.
Going to Vietnam almost felt like visiting the motherland for me because my hometown’s culture had such a strong Vietnamese influence.
In addition, when I met other backpackers during the first few months of my trip, almost all of them said their favorite country they’d been to in Southeast Asia was Vietnam.
Everything pointed to Vietnam for this visa run, so my friend and I packed our bags and left for Saigon about a week before Christmas.
Even though I’d already been in Southeast Asia for four months, and I’d experienced the wild and craziness of Bangkok, I wasn’t prepared for Saigon.
Holy sh*t, what a city!
Saigon is a mindblowing place that will quickly challenge your idea of what life is like.
I arrived at the airport by myself after sunset (my Brazilian friend had left a few days earlier and was already in the city).
The taxi ride to the district where my Colombian friend lived gave me my first taste of Vietnam…
Swarms of motor scooters flooded the streets and moved in tandem like flocks of birds. Cars and buses were few and far between and seemed to be battling with the scooters for their share of the road.
The honking was constant and reverberated through the air across the city. I later learned that it’s used as communication between motor scooters, not just because you’re pissed off at someone.
The city shone with fluorescent signs hanging from incredibly tall modern buildings. Yet, at the base of these tall office buildings and high-rise apartment complexes, you could see remnants of the old city – small homes, restaurants, and shops that must’ve been there for decades as the 21st century built around them.
It was a different feeling from being in Bangkok or Kuala Lumpur.
Compared to Bangkok, despite having the same element of controlled chaos and high energy, Saigon seemed more polished. It was further along in its technical and infrastructure development.
After getting dropped off on a main road, I walked down a side street to where my friend’s place was hopefully located.
It was gated and locked, so I gave him a call, and he came downstairs to open it and let me in. I was in the right place.
He lived in a three-story townhouse squeezed into a narrow side street off one of the main roads. The townhouse was tall but not very wide.
The first floor had a small kitchen and dining table. The second floor had his room, and the third floor had his roommate’s room (one of our friends who’d moved with him). That was the whole place.
It was minimal, but it was perfect. In Southeast Asia, we rarely spent that much time at home because it was so easy to go out and do stuff.
We slept and relaxed at home, but we would go out to eat, work, socialize, and explore. We didn’t need that much in terms of household amenities or even space. The city was our home.
I reconnected with my friends, and we decided to go out to eat and meet up with our Brazilian friend who was staying in a hostel about 20 minutes away.
We ordered three Grab Bikes (Uber except on motor scooters), hopped on the back seat of our respective drivers’ motor scooters, and zoomed off into the night.
I’d been ordering Grabs since I got to Southeast Asia, but they were always cars. I’d never ordered a motor scooter before (besides the ride I got on Koh Phangan), and it was an experience in and of itself.
The motor scooter drivers in Saigon are incredibly skilled and kinda crazy.
For example, they will happily hop on the sidewalk at red lights and swerve between frustrated pedestrians to get to the front of the line.
One time, we were coming off a curb to get back on the road and my butt came a foot off the seat!
It’s a wild ride, but you can guarantee they’ll get you where you’re trying to go as fast as possible.
I freaking loved riding on those things…
Just getting around the city was an adventure. Before hopping on, I’d put in my headphones and blast music to pump me up as my driver and I whizzed through the city.
Every ride cost a dollar or less, even if I needed to go across the city for something, and it was super fun. It may sound funny, but riding on Grab bikes was one of my favorite parts of being in Saigon, and I wasn’t even driving!
I spent most of the first week in Saigon reconnecting with my friends, eating, exploring the city, and meeting people.
I had my first bowl of pho and Bahn mi in Vietnam, which were monumental moments for me.
I also started learning about what life was like in Saigon compared to Chiang Mai. Overall, life just seemed to have more layers to it in Saigon.
Chiang Mai was chill, easy, and simple. Saigon was big, exciting, and expansive. It seemed like there was always so much happening in Saigon, and I started to feel a little conflicted.
My Two Choices: Comfort or Growth?
I loved Chiang Mai. I loved my life there. I was comfortable, but I started to feel like there was more for me in Saigon.
At the same time, I knew being in Saigon would challenge me, not so much the lifestyle and daily life, but the opportunities for personal growth and expansion.
My friend was already getting further out of his comfort zone in his work and personal development, and I knew being there would challenge me to do the same.
Personal growth is rarely easy.
It comes with facing your fears, overcoming perceived limitations, letting go of things that aren’t serving you anymore, and stepping further outside your zone of comfort and familiarity.
It’s the price you pay for becoming a better version of yourself – more confident, empowered, and fulfilled with who you are as a person.
I knew that moving to Vietnam would cause me to face even more fears than I’d already faced in my journey so far. I knew it was the path of my personal growth, and I’ll be honest, it scared me.
Staying in Chiang Mai/Thailand meant being comfortable, but it also meant not growing and expanding as much. It also meant not taking the next step to being who I wanted and felt I was meant to be.
One evening, faced with these two choices rolling around in my head and heart, I took a walk through the city.
I didn’t know where I was going. I wasn’t going anywhere. I just walked and let these two choices sink in.
I needed to make a decision, and I needed to make it soon. I didn’t want to stay in a state of indecision, feeling pulled toward two paths at once.
I walked around for 45 minutes and then sat down on a curb, trying to sort my feelings out. In the end, I couldn’t decide what I wanted to do. I didn’t have enough clarity yet.
So I decided that I would forget about it for now and wait for the right moment. I would wait for a moment or a sign that would give me clarity on what I wanted to do.
Over the next few days, I spent time exploring the city on my own, working at different coffee shops and trying new restaurants. This gave me more time to reflect and get a feel for the city.
Did I want to move here? It was a big decision, but I wasn’t quite ready to make it.
My friends and I continued the magic we’d cultivated while in Thailand together.
We started manifesting some cool experiences and people, including a rich, older real estate investor who invited us to a private rooftop party in the city.
I knew that this type of experience was pretty much impossible for me to have in Chiang Mai.
Maybe something similar could’ve happened, but it was less likely and would’ve occurred on a much smaller scale if it did happen. Again, things were just bigger in Saigon.
We got dressed up and prepared ourselves to go to one of the fanciest parties we’d ever been to. Remember, we were digital nomads and backpackers in our mid-twenties. Going to an upscale event like this was pretty out of the ordinary.
We arrived feeling sort of out of place. Everyone there seemed to be in the city’s upper class. But as we sat down at our new real estate investor friend’s booth and started chatting with him and his friends, we realized they were just people, and we got comfortable.
We were in an outdoor bar/club on the roof of a nice hotel with a beautiful view of the city. It was nighttime, so the city lights shone for miles in every direction.
There was plenty of space. Booths and tables were scattered around the edges. The DJ was in the center, along with three girls in tight outfits dancing on a stage. People hung out with drinks in their hands in a glimmering pool in front of them.
As I stood near the edge of the roof and looked at the view of this amazing city, I took a deep breath and appreciated where I was and what I was doing.
I reflected on what I’d experienced in Saigon so far. Within a week, I was experiencing something that never would’ve happened in Chiang Mai.
I was having a blast with my friends, and we were experiencing bigger and bigger things together. I knew that if I moved there, it would only continue.
And the thought of it made me incredibly happy and excited.
On that rooftop, I decided to move to Vietnam. It felt right. I felt like I’d experienced enough of the city to make that decision with no regrets.
I told my friends shortly after. My Brazilian friend decided that he would move as well, and the three of us started preparing ourselves to move in together (our other friend ended up moving to Bali).
We planned on going back to Thailand for a few months before making the move to Vietnam. Until then, we still had more than a week left in Vietnam, including Christmas and New Year.
For Christmas, we manifested another magical experience. Another wealthy friend we’d made owned a home by the beach in Ho Tram. He was supposed to go with his other friends, but they all canceled, so he invited eight of us to spend Christmas there with him – all expenses paid.
We got catering every day, played volleyball on the beach, went out to nice restaurants, swam in the pool, and enjoyed a more lavish lifestyle than the one we were used to staying in hostels and tiny apartments.
To top it all off, I won my fantasy football championship against my friends back home. Could you ask for more?
It was an amazing Christmas.
After leaving Ho Tram, incredibly grateful for our friend who’d provided that experience for us, we only had a few days left until New Year.
Some of us decided to go to the beachside town of Mui Ne to ring in the New Year. We went back to the hostel life, rented motor scooters, went surfing, and took joy rides around the area, visiting different beaches and sites.
The weather was a little overcast and gloomy, but we had fun.
We spent New Year’s Eve at a crowded beachside club, danced away 2018, and welcomed 2019.
I’d been in Southeast Asia for a little over four months, but I felt like I’d had years’ worth of experiences already. I was living fully. I was living my dream, and it was everything I’d anticipated and more.
I set my intentions for the new year, as I always do, and got ready to go back to Thailand and prepare myself to move to Vietnam.
I was still nervous about what moving to Vietnam might have in store for me, but I’d made my decision. I was going no matter what.
I flew back to Chiang Mai after a transformative and incredibly fun few weeks in Vietnam and started getting ready to make the move.
My last night in Saigon overlooking the city before going back to Thailand.
Saying Goodbye to Thailand (And Hello to Vietnam)
As I got settled back into the Chiang Mai life, I got myself into kind of a rut.
I wasn’t putting myself out there as much. I wasn’t socializing as much. I started spending more time by myself and fell back into some old, overly introverted habits.
I got out of the habit of hanging out and connecting with people and into the habit of just doing my own thing, which led to some loneliness.
On top of that, the closer I got to moving to Vietnam, the more I started overthinking things and imagining everything I might have to face there.
I was fully aware of my fears, and I was aware of the types of opportunities I would have there and how I’d have to overcome those fears to take advantage of them.
I started anticipating scenarios and situations in my mind way before potentially experiencing them, and these thought patterns started generating a lot of anxiety within me.
I was worried about meeting new people again. I was anxious about potentially getting invited to be a guest on podcasts and how I would perform under that pressure. I was worried about potentially doing another public speaking event.
All these old social and performance-related fears started coming back up in the months leading up to going back to Vietnam.
I never thought about not going, but I needed to get myself recentered emotionally. Living in fear and anxiety about the future all the time is no way to live, and it wasn’t good for my nervous system.
I’d dealt with these types of fears since I was a teenager, and it was time to start reprogramming them so they wouldn’t have such a strong hold on me anymore.
I started listening to affirmations every day, intentionally visualizing myself performing well in all these scenarios, and I started putting myself back out there again to meet people and socialize.
When you’re trying to reprogram a subconscious habit, like fear or anxiety, it’s helpful to do it from both sides: the mental and the physical.
You can reprogram the mental side using techniques like affirmations, visualization, meditation, etc. You can reprogram the physical side by taking small actions that your ideal self would take and gradually increase the size of those actions as you get more comfortable and confident.
I’d done this on and off in different periods of my personal growth journey, and it was time to strap myself up and do it again.
Gradually, I got out of the rut I’d gotten myself into. I started socializing and meeting people again, I felt less and less anxious about going to Vietnam, I started living in the present moment again, and I got my emotional state back in order.
This period was probably my lowest period in Southeast Asia. Yet, at the same time, through everything I was learning while I was out there and everything I’d learned in my journey so far, I was fully equipped to handle it.
I knew what to do to get myself out of this rut and back on track.
The value of learning these tools is that you always have them in your back pocket whenever you need them.
Each time you use them to overcome something, it gets easier and easier to do it until, eventually, you overcome the obstacle entirely.
I was still nervous about what I might have to face in Vietnam, but I wasn’t consumed by it. I was ready.
In my last few weeks in Chiang Mai, I just enjoyed and appreciated it as much as I could.
I went to all of my favorite spots to eat and hang out. I enjoyed the lifestyle. I appreciated the friends I’d made. I even went back to Pai again just before leaving.
My time in Chiang Mai was wonderful, but it was time to say goodbye (or “see you later”) and move on to the next chapter in my journey.
It was time to say “yes” to my personal growth once again.
Living in Vietnam for Four Months (And Finding My Purpose on a Warm Sunday Evening in Saigon)
Everything over the last six months had led to this…
I was living in Saigon, Vietnam.
My two friends and I had upscaled a bit and moved into a three-bedroom apartment in a good location with a few amenities (a gym, pool, etc).
The view from my room.
I’d found my favorite spots to eat within walking distance from where I lived. There was a Bahn mi stand right outside the apartment complex. I ate there almost every day.
Within a week, I’d gotten settled into the lifestyle:
Ordering Grab bikes to venture around the city.
Working at the kitchen table in our apartment, at cafes, or in coworking spaces.
Meeting other digital nomads and entrepreneurs who live in the city full-time.
Upgrading my wardrobe to reflect my new, big-city life.
Going out to restaurants, bars, and clubs around the city. (I was close to quitting drinking by this time, but I still liked to go out and dance. I’d become a vegetarian as well.)
And, of course, my friends and I started diving into our growth and development, helping each other work on our goals and ourselves.
When the three of us got together, it was like an explosion of knowledge and wisdom. We turned that apartment into a personal development retreat, and our first order of business was to start our mastermind.
A mastermind is a group of people who come together for a specific purpose. They meet regularly to have discussions, share knowledge and wisdom, and progress toward their goals. Napoleon Hill’s Think and Grow Rich popularized the concept.
Every Monday through Friday morning, we met for 60 to 90 minutes at our kitchen table.
We would do a short meditation and breathing exercise. Then we would start the meeting.
Those meetings turned into some of the most powerful discussions and growth experiences I’ve ever had.
We became each other’s coaches and support system for our personal growth and advancement.
We got vulnerable. We shared our fears and anxieties with one another. We shared our shortcomings. We shared the things we knew were holding us back, even if they were difficult to admit.
We created an environment where we wouldn’t judge one another. Instead, we would ask, “How can we support you in this?”
We did our best to leave our egos at the door because so many of the things that were holding us back and had kept locked up inside were ego-related, and it was time to start shedding them.
We had put on masks to protect our identities, but through those meetings, we gave each other the space to take them off and work on what lay beneath. The more we did this, the more we stepped into our true power as individuals.
And we had fun, too.
We laughed, joked around, and played music. We talked about the funny and crazy dreams we had the night before. We talked about girls and life. We told stories and hung out like friends do.
But we pushed each other forward, as well.
Insecurities, fears, doubts, worries, limiting beliefs, subconscious paradigms, and perspectives that weren’t helping us – we shone a light on all of them and gave ourselves space to work through them and become more of who we intended to be in the process.
It was an intense period of growth and transformation that lasted for the entire time I was there.
It was also one of the happiest periods of my life.
I arrived in Saigon nervous and anxious, my ego mask fully on to protect myself.
But the more I took off the mask and worked through these things, the more empowered I became. The more empowered I became, the more confident and happy I became.
I became happier with myself and who I was developing into. I became more comfortable in my own skin. I became more sure of myself.
I also became more aligned with who I’d imagined myself becoming since graduating from college.
My self-esteem grew. My confidence in my ability to perform in social situations grew (without using alcohol as a crutch like I used to).
Teaching personal development concepts.
I got interviewed on a podcast and performed great. I met lots of new people and made new friends. I didn’t do another public speaking event, but I would’ve if the opportunity arose.
I wasn’t held back by my fears and anxieties anymore. I was able to act despite them while calming them down (my friend introduced me to a technique called Tapping that helped a lot).
I was able to just live freely without these mental and emotional barriers limiting me.
Throughout my life, I’d felt like there were many situations where I just couldn’t be myself. I was too scared about what other people would think of me. I was afraid I wouldn’t perform well. I was anxious about not being liked or accepted.
But during this period of growth and transformation in Saigon, I worked through these things I’d been carrying with me since childhood, and they started to melt away.
Not completely. Not to the point where they were entirely non-existent.
But to the point where they weren’t holding back my happiness or self-expression like they had in many periods of my life.
My friends worked through their own stuff, as well. Sometimes, we had to work on the same things. Sometimes, they were unique to us individually. But we supported each other the whole way.
Few people have had the opportunity to experience something like this.
For the most part, people shy away from working on their issues. They’re afraid to face them. They’d rather distract themselves or find ways to avoid them because it’s easier that way.
Or, if they’re willing to work on these things, they haven’t found a support system like the one we created, where the lines of communication are open and the environment is safe to share deeper things.
But if you do find the opportunity to experience something like this, it can be life-changing.
For us, this was an important chapter in the overall stories of our lives. Much of what I’m doing now is a result of the growth I went through back then.
It gave me the courage and personal empowerment necessary to do something that scared me and act despite that fear once again.
Following your dreams isn’t always going to be easy. In fact, it may be the path with the most challenges.
But the spiritual and personal benefits you gain from it stay with you for a lifetime, altering the trajectory of your entire life for the better.
You come out the other side a more empowered person than you ever would’ve been, happier with yourself, and more confident in your ability to navigate life.
As I was going through this period of deep transformation and happiness, my higher purpose showed up in my life as well.
It was yet another magical experience in a string of magical experiences that showed up in my life as a result of this adventure.
My higher purpose is to experience joy and serve the world by helping people achieve their dreams lovingly, joyfully, and happily. I’m still following this purpose years later (this article and my blog are expressions of it).
Shortly after this, another friend from home came to visit me and go through his own personal/spiritual growth journey (similar to my friend who came to Thailand).
He was at a crossroads in his life, as well. He wanted to take the next step to achieve his goals and dreams, but he felt weighed down by doubt and fear.
Over the month he was in Southeast Asia, we explored Saigon and took a trip back to Thailand for the Songkran water festival and to visit Pai.
Shooting a bow and arrow in Pai.
I taught him how to set goals, how to set intentions, and how to receive signs from the Universe to help him make big life decisions.
I showed him how vision boards work and gave him examples of manifestations I’d received from using them, and I helped him create a clear vision of what he wanted that would inspire him to move forward.
I also shared my experience of following my heart, going after what I wanted, and all of the magic that had occurred since. He wanted to take the leap of faith as well.
He wanted to become a chef, and he was debating whether or not he should take a huge leap of faith and go to Denmark, try to intern at his dream restaurant, and work for one of the top chefs in the world.
This would be a huge step for his career and toward his dream of running his own restaurant, but he had no idea if they would accept him or what he would do if they didn’t.
So he set an intention to let the universe send him a sign of what he should do. In a wonderful moment of synchronicity, when we were in Pai, I woke up one morning and my friend had a huge smile on his face.
He told me he knew what he was going to do. He’d met a guy the night before who had lived in Copenhagen, the capital of Denmark, where the restaurant was located.
They talked for a long time, and during that conversation, my friend had a strong feeling that he should go to Copenhagen. He made his decision on the spot.
When he got back to the US, he created his vision board and waited for the right time to leave for Denmark.
Six months later, with no idea where he was going to live or if he would be able to get a job in the restaurant, he took the leap of faith and left for Copenhagen.
A day after arriving, he walked into the restaurant and asked if he could intern there. As it turns out, the timing couldn’t have been better.
They’d just lost four interns and accepted him on the spot, and he began working in one of his dream restaurants.
After his six-month internship was over, he got another position in another one of his dream restaurants. This time, it was in Japan. Unfortunately, Covid hit shortly after he started working there, and he decided to go back home.
But when he got back home and looked at his vision board again, he couldn’t believe his eyes.
He had forgotten the exact images he’d put on it, but when he looked at them again, he realized he’d taken photos exactly like the ones that were on his vision board.
Including Japan! And he hadn’t even planned on going there!
By this point, with all of the experiences I’d manifested and seen others manifest, I wasn’t surprised.
After my friend left back home, with a few successes under my belt, I decided to officially become a coach.
I started coaching some of my Instagram followers, helping them find their purposes/passions, start businesses, master their minds, and empower themselves.
By this time, my time in Southeast Asia was starting to come to a close.
I decided that I would go back to the US to attend my friend’s bachelor party, go to his wedding, and see my parents and friends from home again.
I’d been in Southeast Asia for almost ten months, and it had been a wild journey.
But before leaving, there was still one more place I wanted to go…
11 Magical Days in Bali (The Island of The Gods)
When I left Saigon after almost ten months in Southeast Asia, I was a changed person.
I’d experienced so much…
I’d learned so much…
I’d grown so much…
I had made so many memories…
I’d experienced challenges, too. A lot of them.
But I faced them, overcame them, and became a more empowered person in the process.
As the trip was about to come to a close, I decided to take everything I’d learned and apply it in Bali to make it one of the best experiences of my life.
Bali is an Indonesian island paradise. It was another digital nomad hub I’d heard about over and over again in the four years before leaving for Southeast Asia. Like Thailand, it sounded magical, and I had a strong feeling I would love it there.
In the weeks leading up to Bali, I set strong intentions for what I wanted to experience and the version of myself I wanted to be while I was there.
I wanted to be totally free in how I expressed myself and engaged with people, with no social anxiety holding me back.
I wanted to have tons of fun.
I wanted to meet people and bring people together to have an amazing time.
I wanted to be fully confident in myself.
And I wanted to experience as much as I could in the eleven days I had there before my flight back home.
I wrote down all of my intentions in clear detail, knowing that this energy would go forth ahead of me and start arranging the experience for them to manifest.
I decided to stay at a digital nomad hostel close to Canggu. Canggu is one of the most popular areas on the island, filled with restaurants, bars, clubs, shops, and a beautiful coastline.
Canggu, Bali.
I wanted the experience to unfold naturally, so I planned nothing beyond this.
I landed in Bali, exchanged some money, bought a SIM card, and called a Grab to take me to my hostel.
As I looked out the window of the car, I started to feel the same excitement I felt as a kid right before going on a fun trip. Already, I loved the energy of the place.
They call Bali “The Island of the Gods.” It’s an incredibly spiritual place with religious/spiritual signs and symbols everywhere you look.
It’s a small island just east of Java, the main island where the capital of Indonesia, Jakarta, is located. Despite being so close to one another and part of the same country, the people of the two islands speak different languages and practice different religions.
The dialect spoken in Java is Bahasa (or Javanese), and the primary religion is Islam, while the dialect spoken in Bali is Balinese, and the primary religion is Hinduism with some Buddhist influence.
You can see and feel the Hindu influence throughout the island, coupled with an economy substantially driven by tourists who are, for the most part, completely ignorant of the local people’s deep religious practices.
For most tourists and backpackers, life on the island is party time, beach time, surf time, and relaxation time.
For most of the local people, life on the island is centered around family, religious practices, and work (mostly tourism and farming/agriculture).
I arrived at my hostel just before sunset. It was in a more local area, about a fifteen-minute ride from the main hot spots in Canggu.
Just behind the hostel was a beautiful rice paddy, which made for a gorgeous view.
Behind the hostel.Another view behind the hostel.
The hostel was made for digital nomads, with individual workstations and fast internet. You could even order full meals there. I paid about $7 a night to stay there.
A healthy meal at the hostel.What an office.
After I got settled in, it was time to head down to the main area of Canggu near the beach to find some dinner and see where the night took me.
I rented a motor scooter from the hostel, strapped my helmet on, and joyfully zoomed through the winding island streets toward the coast.
The closer I got to the coast, the more young backpackers I saw. They started flooding the streets, walking toward the bars, clubs, and restaurants near the beach.
I parked my scooter and found an empty bar to chill in and have a beer. Then I walked a few minutes down the street and found a restaurant to have my first meal in Bali.
After dinner, I walked further down the street until I got to the beach. I heard music blasting and saw a DJ with hundreds of people dancing in front of him in the sand.
To my left and right were bars and clubs packed with people. I wasn’t feeling that social at this point, so I just walked around, sat down near the beach, and soaked it all in.
I was in Bali, baby!
After an hour and a half chilling by myself, I started to get tired. So I started walking back to my motor scooter to head back to the hostel.
As I was walking to my scooter, I looked to the right and saw a big outdoor club with tons of people dancing and having fun. I wanted to go to bed, but I got a strong feeling that I should go in and check it out before leaving.
I said, “Screw it, I’ll just go in for a bit before heading back.”
I went inside, walked to the dance floor, and started doing my thing. Then I saw tons of people crowded around a beer pong table watching people play, so I peeked my head over the crowd to take a look.
Beside me was an Indonesian girl and her friend. I said something to her about the beer pong (I forgot what I said), and she laughed. Then I went to the bar to grab a beer.
As I left the bar, I saw her and her friend standing by a table, so I went up and introduced myself to them and we started chatting. They lived in Jakarta and were in Bali for vacation.
We hung out the rest of the night. Sticking to my intention to express myself freely and confidently, I did my usual thing of being super silly, getting them to dance, and making them laugh.
At the end of the night, we exchanged Instagrams and parted ways.
The next day, she hit me up to hang out again that night. We went out to a few bars and clubs and got to know each other better.
Then we hung out the next day, and the next day, and the next day, and the next…
One of my intentions in going to Bali was to have a travel romance. Not only that, but I wrote out a huge list of the things I wanted in a woman and in a relationship.
I’d been thinking about these things for a long time, and I finally decided to clarify them and write them down. I used this list as an intention for the woman I wanted to attract into my life.
The more we hung out and got to know each other, the more I realized she was checking item after item off the list.
This was no ordinary list. Some of the items were a full paragraph with details about how we would interact with one another. Even these subtle details were starting to reveal themselves in our interactions.
For the first week we hung out, I didn’t mention the list. I just wanted to let the experience unfold.
Besides hanging out with her, I also met up with my British friend from Koh Tao. He was traveling with his girlfriend, and we happened to be in Bali at the same time. Hanging out with him both at the beginning and at the end made the trip feel like it had really come around full circle.
I also met up with my friend’s college roommate who happened to be in Bali at the same time, as well, and I brought all of them together to hang out for a bit.
My British friend, his girlfriend, and I went on an awesome tour to check out some hot springs, a volcano, and the famous Tirta Empul temple where people bath in the holy spring water.
The more I saw of Bali, the more I felt like this place was like heaven on earth.
The Indonesian girl and I decided to stay in Ubud for a while, a highly spiritual area in the inland part of the island.
We visited the Monkey Forest, a huge forest with monkeys everywhere and walking paths.
The Monkey Forest.
We stayed in a beautiful hotel nestled in the forest. We checked out waterfalls, visited temples, took yoga classes, and ate delicious food. It was an amazing time.
Hotel in the forest.
Every day, I was more and more surprised by how much this experience with her matched up with what I’d written down in my list. It was almost spot-on.
We finished our time in Ubud and took a taxi back to Canggu. I only had a few days left in Bali before my flight back home.
During the taxi ride, I decided to tell her about the list.
She was a little hesitant to hear it at first, but she said, “Sure, why not?” So I started reading each item.
As I got deeper into the list, she couldn’t believe what she was hearing. It described our experience together almost perfectly. Yet, I’d made the list weeks earlier.
She couldn’t believe it. If I hadn’t been so deep into manifestation for the last 10 months, I might not have either.
By the time I finished reading the list, which had about 30 items on it, 95% of it described the experience we were having together.
We got back to our hotel in Canggu and hung out for my last few days there.
On my last morning, after only eleven days together, we said goodbye.
When I landed in China to catch one of my connecting flights, I felt a subtle longing and realized that I already missed her. She texted me later and told me she cried after I left.
We had formed this connection and had such a powerful experience in only eleven days.
This, coupled with everything else I’d experienced in Southeast Asia, solidified my belief in the magic of life – that life can be truly wonderful and magical.
After a long flight back across the world, I landed in L.A. and met up with my friends from home. We took a flight to Costa Rica for a week to celebrate my friend’s bachelor party.
(Little did I know at the time, but three years later, I would end up living in Costa Rica for eight months.)
After an awesome trip reconnecting with my friends, I flew to my parents’ place and reunited with them.
The trip had officially come to a close, and what an adventure it had been.
When I left ten months earlier, I never could have imagined everything I experienced there. It was beyond my wildest dreams.
I kept in touch with some of the friends I’d made out there. I also kept in touch with the girl from Bali for three months, but when it looked like I wouldn’t be back anytime soon, we fell out of touch.
Six months after getting back to the US, I began a healing journey. I described this journey in the story of how I found my purpose, and I will do a full article on it sometime.
Covid also hit a few months after that, so I ended up being in the US for three years, despite desperately wanting to go back to Southeast Asia and travel again.
However, I also knew that everything happens for a reason. I continued to trust my path, and I often reflected on what I’d experienced in Southeast Asia to remind me how good life can truly be and to inspire me through my healing journey.
Now, I’m working on more dreams. This blog is one of them.
I’m still planning to travel all around the world. Living in Southeast Asia and Costa Rica felt like tastes of it, and my wanderlust is stronger than ever.
My dreams are still alive and well inside me.
As my dad told me, “Dreaming never stops. When you accomplish one dream, you just move on to the next.”
Continuing to go after more of my dreams doesn’t mean I’m not fulfilled. Far from it, in fact.
I feel immensely fulfilled by what I experienced in Southeast Asia. I feel immensely proud of myself for going for it, making it happen, and for how I expressed myself while I was there.
I will carry that experience with me forever. It’s forever a part of me. I will tell stories from that time for the rest of my life.
And the experience lights me up inside whenever I think about.
Dreams are meant to be achieved. I believe that wholeheartedly.
I’m going after more of my dreams because I want to and I love it. It’s a part of who I am.
Michael Karp is a personal development blogger and self-published author. He started his personal development journey in 2011 as a sophomore in college.
Since then, he has self-published several books, started an online business and became a digital nomad, achieved his dream of moving to Thailand and traveling around Southeast Asia, built a following on Instagram sharing life advice, became a life coach, found his life purpose, and healed his body with the power of his mind.
With a deep passion for serving others, Michael continues his hero's journey on a mission to help people around the world to empower themselves, realize their true potential, and achieve their dreams.
