I never thought of myself as a writer. However, I started blogging about my travels in 2012 when I left my senior executive job to go backpacking around the world. I did keep a journal with me and used my phone to make notes. Throughout my travels, I wrote about 200 pages of thoughts, experiences and observations in my 12 months of exploring Southeast Asia, Central America and Western Europe.
I shared some of those notes on Facebook, and I began dreaming of writing a book about the year I went galavanting around the globe.
It was a year of growth for me. As I explored the external, I gained an appreciation for the internal.
I've shared my story dozens of times. It's been called a man's version of Eat. Pray. Love. Or “quite possibly the millennial generation's coming-of-age story.”
But the book I wrote this year isn't about those travels. It's about another important subject. The book I wrote is about the purpose I've chosen to serve when I returned from my year-long adventure. The book I wrote is about how you can live your dream lifestyle in this lifetime through a better understanding of money, a change of mindset from scarcity to abundance, and the power of financial education as a tool to live a purposeful life.
When I was working at my old job, I traveled all around the country conducting financial education seminars on basic personal finance, from budgeting to credit scores. I realized how so many people were struggling, but no amount of seminars or workshops was going to change their lives if we didn't address the root cause – their money mindset.
From personal experience, I've learned that our relationship with money – how we think and feel about money – impacts our financial decision making.
So when people say, money is just about the numbers. I want to tell you money is emotional and it is personal. When you try to take away the emotion, you're fooling yourself.
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So, this book I've written in the past few months, is aimed to help you understand your relationship with money and empower you to make the necessary changes by questioning your existing beliefs. It's going to challenge you to create a vision for your life and help you gain clarity of your values before you set financial goals. It's going to help you live more mindfully and learn how to spend on the things that matter.
This is probably the most open I've been about where I started and where I am today. My journey isn't complete. I'm still making decisions to live a more purposeful life.
You Only Live Once: The Roadmap to Financial Wellness and a Purposeful Life is out now.
On my epic road trip last year, The Road to Financial Wellness, where my team and I completed 10,218 miles, participated in 37 events attended by over 8,000 people, I was told by some that I was not an authority until I was an author. I didn't know that writing hundreds of blog posts, articles and talks did not qualify me as an authority.
Well, now, I will be a published author, and thanks to Wiley (yup, the same folks who publish the For Dummies books), I can say I am an authority in helping you live a more purposeful life. I'm excited and can't wait to hit the road again this summer to continue the conversation on financial wellness that we started last year and to share the principles I've written in this book.
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Order your copy of my first book, You Only Live Once: The Roadmap to Financial Wellness and a Purposeful Life and join us on a historic attempt to make financial education history this summer on The Road to Financial Wellness, as we attempt 50 pit stops.
