Hoehn’s Musings

Back in February, I was invited to speak at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh for their TEDx event. I accepted for a few reasons: (1) I’d been interested in seeing how well my written content would translate to video; (2) it would be delivered in a room of 400 attendees, which would be the most people I’d ever spoken in front of; (3) it would be a fun challenge — I hadn’t done any real public speaking, which I genuinely enjoy, for more than three years; (4) it’s TED. Tough to say no to those guys.

After checking out the lineup of speakers (which included the inventor of CAPTCHA, a human rights activist in Zimbabwe, and a doctor who discovers and cures extremely rare diseases), I quickly gained some perspective on how incredible my contribution to humanity has been. And by “incredible,” I mean “trivial.” Don’t get me wrong — I’m proud of the things I’ve worked on; I just felt like a tee-baller who’d been asked to suit up for varsity. I mean, I wrote an e-book… That about sums it up.

So I decided that, instead of trying to sound smart, I should focus on being relatable. Just like a politician. [Sidenote: I wish I didn't have to say this, but I have NEVER referred to myself as a "marketing genius." Ever. I did not suggest that title.]

This strategy resulted in a speech that has lowered the bar for every future TEDx speaker. For instance…

Here are six phrases that (until now) you’ve never heard in a TED/TEDx speech, and will probably never hear again:

1. “Scary as shit”
2. “Douchebags wearing Ed Hardy shirts snatch up all the hotties”
3. “Blog, blog, blog, dorky stuff, whatever”
4. “Charlie Hoehn equals drunk abortion”
5. “Bite me in the ass”
6. “Protestors are funny”

In spite of all this, the speech has been well-received (thanks to this writeup on Lifehacker). And while my presentation was far from perfect — I get it, I pace around too much — it was still significantly better than when I first started rehearsing. I know this because I filmed and reviewed all of my practice runs.

For your amusement, I have compiled a two minute clip with some of the outtakes:

As you can see, I was still doing re-writes in my hotel room in Pittsburgh. I submitted my final presentation at about 2am, the day of the event.

A few other speeches at TEDxCMU were particularly memorable for me. To start: two friends of mine, Jenny Blake and Amber Rae, both spoke at this event. Their speeches were equally impressive for different reasons:

1. Jenny’s keynote kept flicking off the screen the entire time she was presenting. It was ridiculously distracting for everyone in the audience, and even worse for her. Luckily, she had practiced a bunch without the use of her keynote, so she was able to successfully get through her whole speech without much help from a visual aid. She was also able to slide in some impromptu jokes about the whole situation that set everyone at ease. She wrote about her experience here (you can watch her speech here).
2. Amber never practiced her goddamn speech. Not once. Not only that, it was her first time giving a speech to a big audience! This blew my mind, as she delivered it almost flawlessly (watch it here). I am incapable of this, and so are most other people. Do not try to pull off what she did. PRACTICE.

My favorite speech from the event came from Luis Von Ahn, the inventor of CAPTCHA. He discussed how he was able to turn this necessary-evil into something positive: a way to crowd-source the digitization of books. He also talked about his next project, DuoLingo, which will make language learning free and easily accessible for everyone. Really cool stuff, and definitely worth checking out. His speech can be watched here.

Overall, it was a really fun event and I’m very glad I went. The team of people who put everything together — James Pan, Todd Medema, Mia Wang, Matt Katase, Brian Rangell, Bin Yang, Heidi Yang, Jeesoo Sohn — all did a fantastic job. Thanks again, guys.

And I continue to enjoy my sweet parting gift:

More photos from the event here.

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What I left out of my speech
====================

Near the end of my presentation, I said:

“And now there’s some bad news. America is in a tough time, and it’s going to get tougher. Honestly, we have to pay for our sins at some point. We can’t keep this up. And the economy is going to get worse. Jobs are going to be cut, jobs are going to be eliminated, jobs are going to be outsourced. It is a tough market for us.”

I originally planned on discussing this point at length, but ultimately decided to stick with a brief uplifting conclusion. In any case, here’s what I have to say about that…

In August of 2005, I was sitting on the carpet floor of my new apartment in Fort Collins, assembling my desk. I was entering my sophomore year of college, and was euphoric with the idea of creating three more years worth of fun memories with my friends. While I was putting in one of the screws, a quick thought randomly flashed into my mind: “You are going to die.” It seems funny typing it out now, but at the time, it truly shook me. Something I had known intuitively for 19 years had finally stuck, and it wouldn’t stop echoing through my head. Ironically, this moment of realizing my mortality while doing something so trivial is still far more vivid in my mind than so many of the great memories I made over those next three years. For the first time in my life, I understood that my years were limited, and everything would eventually come to an end.

A few months ago, I went through the same experience. Only this time, the thought was “America is going to collapse.” It was a notion I’d been reading about for years and one that I thought I’d come to grips with. Not the case. When that idea was fully realized, I had a tough time sleeping for weeks.

We are in a huge mess. To say “America is in a tough time, and it’s going to get tougher” is a severe understatement. The truth of the matter is this: our country is in for a very major kick in the teeth that’s going to last for decades. I am not an economist by any stretch of the imagination, but anyone with a pulse can take a passing glance at the numbers and see that this fairy tale ride we’ve been on for the last 40 years is coming to an end. The recession of 2008 was merely a sign of bigger things to come.

I don’t know what’s going to happen. No one does. Globalization, the Federal Reserve, our banking system, etc. have all made things so ridiculously complex and intertwined that it’s impossible to say how the next few years will pan out. But I do believe we are witnessing the fall of this country, and a lot of what Americans know and hold dear is going to fundamentally change or evaporate. Our expectations for what our futures hold will eventually derail, and it will suck.

This is scary, depressing stuff. I know. It’s especially scary because the economy is not something you have any control over; you can only mitigate against potential risks. I wish I had answers for every graduate about to enter the work force. I don’t. There is no easy answer for all of this. The only advice I can sincerely offer is: read more books, and get off the path if you hate it, especially if you know it’s leading you nowhere.

But… there is good news, for all of you. I did mean what I said in my speech: As long as there are problems that need to be solved, there will always be work. And while the number of cushy no-value jobs will start to rapidly diminish (adios, social media experts!), the concept of doing real work will not.

You don’t have to know what you want to do for the rest of your life, but you do need to start working towards something. Free work is an easy way to start building a skill set that not only matters to you, but one that can actually deliver value to others. It is not about doling yourself out as a slave; it’s about offering help in exchange for priceless hands-on experience. Free work is a credo for advanced learning, and it’s one that I intend to practice for the rest of my life…

The way I put an end to my sleepless nights was quite simple, and it’s something I’ve continually returned to over the years. It alleviated my “You’re going to die” fixation, and it pulled me out of my “America is going to collapse” funk:

It’s just a ride.

###

Two final things… First, I did an hour long interview with Lewis Howes awhile back (full write-up at the link). It turned out well, so many thanks to Lewis for putting this together. And if you’ve ever dreamt of listening to me indulge myself for 57 minutes straight, you are in for a treat:

Second: My good friend, Jeff Waldman (who makes fun of me for only getting invited to speak at TEDx once — he’s been invited twice), recently spent a weekend hanging up 50 swings around the city of Los Angeles. He did this simply to inject a little spontaneous joy into people’s lives. The video he made about his experience is great (with over 190,000 views in less than two days) and it’s worth watching:

Jeff is currently raising money on Kickstarter for his next project: Swings in Bolivia. If you want to see more of this type of thing in the world, throw some money their way (even $5 helps). I’ve been friends with Jeff for about two years, and if there’s one thing I know about him, it’s this: the dude delivers. He will make this Bolivian swing project into something very cool. So check it out and help his cause.

###

To all my readers: Thank you again for the continued support. I don’t know what originally brought you here, but I hope you’ve enjoyed it.

If my guest post on Tim’s blog brought you here, I have some other fun articles you’ll enjoy:

• Recession-Proof Graduate – My free 30-page guide on how to get your dream job. It’s been read by more than 60,000 people.
• Thoughts on Tour – My most popular post. I discuss failure, and why I’ve chosen such a sporadic career path.
• Interview with Wisepreneur.com – A recent interview I did, published about a week ago.
• The easiest way to change your life – I elaborate on an underrated concept from The 4-Hour Workweek.

And if you like Tim’s writing, you might want to subscribe to my blog because I helped him put The 4-Hour Body together. I also work with the guy full-time, so I’ll occasionally impart some of the stuff I’m learning on this site.

Final note: I’m in Austin for SXSW.  It’s my first time here, so if you have any suggestions on cool panels to attend between now and March 15, let me know in the comments.

I’m still in shock.  The 4-Hour Body is the #1 New York Times bestseller, in the hardest category, at the most difficult time of year.

This was our Mount Everest, and we reached the peak.

I’m super proud of Tim, who’s been working on this forever and nearly killed himself in the process.  I’m extremely grateful that he allowed me to not only tag along during the last year and a half, but actually have free reign to make mistakes and learn during the making of a 600-page book.  Thank you again.  It truly was a dream job for me.

I’m not going to lie, this book was legitimately difficult to make.  I remember calling Ryan last year, as he’d worked with Robert Greene on one of his books, just to see what I was getting myself into.  I remember him saying that it consumed his life, but my experience might be different.  Nope.  He pretty much nailed it.  But as Ryan also noted, how often will you get to have another opportunity like this?

This project has made 2010 very special and memorable for me.  It unexpectedly helped both of my parents lose more than 25 pounds each, and regain their figures from their early 20′s.  It completely eliminated my back pain that’s bothered me since high school (I have spondylosis, scoliosis, and degenerative discs).  It made me a more energetic and happier person.  It opened countless doors for me, and allowed me to meet some amazing people.  But most of all, it’s been the type of project I’ve wanted to work on since the day I graduated.  In these last 20 months, it’s reinforced everything I believe in: work on stuff that matters to you, do something that will add value and help people, and try to disrupt the status quo and make things better for everyone.  This book hit on all cylinders.

There’s a lot more to come from me on just this one topic alone (some of which you’ll eventually see on Tim’s blog), but for now, all I have to say is…

Thanks for reading, Merry Christmas, and here’s to an even bigger 2011!

[Note: This post is a monster.  If you'd rather print it out, you can download the PDF.]

Two months ago, I relocated to Buenos Aires. I’d been wanting to take a break from the States for a long time, had met my travel budgetary goal months prior, and all of my work could be done remotely. The stage was set. I bought a RT ticket to depart on September 15th, with a December 12th return date. But… I actually ended up writing this post from Denver and San Francisco, as I had to come back six weeks early for the upcoming book launch. Some of this stuff just needs to be done from within the U.S.

While I came back quite a bit earlier than anticipated, I still returned with six weeks-worth of cultural observations and fun stories.  This post contains the experiences that I think you all will find to be the most entertaining.  There are no marketing musings to be found here; just a self-indulgent post with some fun travel tales.

And Brazilian girls. Lots of Brazilian girls.

Enjoy.

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10 Random Observations from B.A.
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(1)  If you’re trying to practice Spanish, a lot of Argentines will notice your accent / poor pronunciation and start speaking back to you in their broken English. They think they’re doing you a favor by speaking in your native language, but they’re actually handicapping your ability to learn. Ironically, it’s your English that actually gets worse as a result of these interactions, as you’re constantly having to dumb it down so it makes sense to them. The best way to counter this, which I discovered way too late, is to reply back in rapid, slang-riddled English. Kind of like the jive conversation in Airplane! Basically, you need to confuse them so they revert back to Spanish out of necessity. Then you can proceed.

(2)  You can order delivery from damn near every restaurant in BA (aside from the high end ones). Even Burger King delivers. A cool site you can use to get food delivered to your door is Buenos Aires Delivery.  It’s a fantastic service for English and Spanish speakers that’s run by its gringo creators in BA.

(3)  Need to get around the city but don’t want to keep paying for cab rides? Use this map, which will tell you all the different public transportation routes you can take to get from A to B.  This map is actually better than Google Maps, for Buenos Aires anyways.

(4)  I checked out a bunch of backpacker hostels around the city, and only a couple are worth mentioning:  (a) If you’re young, single, and wanting to meet fun people your age, go to Milhouse on Hipolito Yrigoyen. Constant partying (literally every night), plenty of good people, and lots of cute girls. There’s another Milhouse on Avenida de Mayo but it’s not as good.  (b) If you need a nice hostel that’s quiet and will help you relax, check out Portal del Sur just down the street. Gorgeous place that feels like a home. (Thanks to Maneesh for the recommendation).

(5)  If you’re looking to rent an apartment, get one in Palermo Hollywood or Palermo Soho. Lots of awesome restaurants nearby and really fun nightlife. I do not recommend getting a place in Congreso, as you will get very bored very quickly. Recoleta is pretty nice, but it’s for an older crowd with more money. There are other parts of the city that are legit, but I think Palermo is the best bang for your buck.  Use this site to find flats with roommates, or this site to find apartments if you want to live alone.  This site also has great prices, but appears to only work when you’re in Argentina.

(6)  Two touristy restaurants that are worth it: La Cabrera in Palermo, and El Desnivel in San Telmo. Order any of the enormous steaks at the former, and get bife de lomo pimienta at the latter.  Great steaks for $12 to $20.

(7)  On a related note: if you’re a vegetarian, do not go to Buenos Aires. You will fail. There’s fantastic beef everywhere you go – literally some of the best cuts in the world – and very few restaurants have decent vegetables. A Peruvian friend of mine was a vegan before going to BA, and she quit after a week and a half of eating house salads. I’m not a vegetarian, but having access to quality vegetables was one of the things I was looking most forward to upon returning to the States. There was one week where I went to four different restaurants and ordered a side of espinaca (spinach) from each of their menus. On all four occasions, the waiter would return to the table minutes later, and say they didn’t have spinach. This was not a coincidence. Vegetables just aren’t as commonly served. Expect to eat plenty of bread and meat.

(8)  Nightclubs: I’m a firm believer that you can always have fun, even if a place is terrible, if you’re with good company. You can also have a terrible time, even at the best place in the world, if you’re with a lame group of people. You shouldn’t worry as much about where you’re going, but rather who you’re with and whether they’re on the same energy plane as you. Having said that, the nightlife in Buenos Aires is pretty sweet. Even though I never go to clubs in the States, there are a couple clubs that are worth checking out (and a few you should avoid):

-  Crobar = Recommended. I had a blast every time I went there. It’s a huge place, the music is fun, there are tons of people, and it’s an overall good vibe.

- Asia de Cuba = Worth seeing once. A really nice club set on a river, but it’s pretty small and they charge crack prices for drinks. More of an upscale crowd, which isn’t really my thing, meng.

- Pacha = NOT recommended. This is apparently a very famous club all around the world. Well, the one in BA sucks. The music is intolerably trance-y, there are tons of guys wearing sunglasses, and it’s a dude-fest. Skip.

- Jet = I heard so many great things that I have to mention it. Right down the street from Pacha, Jet is supposedly awesome. I didn’t get a chance to check it out, but all of my friends gave it the unanimous thumbs up.

- Servino = Imagine only listening to bass music – not drums, just bass – for two hours straight. Pretty awful, right? Now surround yourself with 80 people who are dancing to it on acid.

(9)  This next observation is worth mentioning because it’s a hilariously accurate stereotype: Every young Australian guy I met who was traveling through South America either knew where to get cocaine, was currently holding, or was doing it on the reg. All of them raved about the book “Marching Powder” and planned on visiting the infamous prison in Bolivia, where guards give you a tour of the jail and allow you to purchase cocaine from one of the prisoners. Now, I’m not saying that all Aussie guys are rabid cokeheads. In fact, the majority of them were a lot of fun to drink with and very cool people. But it was clear that doing coke was a big priority for them while they were in South America.

(10)  My favorite thing about Argentina, and I suppose South America in general, is how affectionate people are towards each other. You don’t shake hands – you embrace and give a quick peck on the cheek. You don’t hide Public Displays of Affection – they’re completely acceptable. I dig this, and feel that it’s a much healthier vibe. Generally speaking, I think the US is a pretty sexually repressed country. South Americans do not hesitate to touch or kiss each other, and they lack any feeling of awkwardness about it.

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Ah, Brazilian girls
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You know how your money goes further in some countries? Well, so does your ability to attract the opposite sex. I knew this intuitively, but had never actually experienced it. Prior to Argentina, my only true international experience had been four months studying abroad in New Zealand. While I’d had a great time there, I never met a Kiwi girl that I’d want to bring home to introduce to my family and friends.

The dynamic was completely different in Buenos Aires, where I met tons of girls from all over South America: Peru, Colombia, Paraguay, Argentina, and my personal favorite… Brazil. I’m only going to talk about the latter, as I spent significantly more time with them than all the others.

The first thing you should know about Brazilian girls is that they are very quick to jump down your throat. I’ve seen guys walk up to them and be passionately making out within 30 seconds of meeting, to the extent that it looks like they’re going to rip each other’s clothes off right in front of you. This is not an exaggeration.

I say this wearily now, almost jaded by the fact. But there was a brief period when I could barely comprehend it. Here’s how I first made the discovery:

About a week after arriving in Buenos Aires, I went to Crobar with two Brazilian girls I’d met earlier that night. We were walking through the crowd towards the bar, when I noticed a random Argentine girl making eye contact with me from about 10 feet away. Because I’m a weirdo, I always have to lock eye contact with people who do this to me until they look down (submission, baby!) But as I walked past, this girl did not break. She just kept staring. Filled with shame for having been bested by a Porteña, I broke eye contact and continued to walk with my Brazilian amigas (normally I would have stopped and talked to the girl, but my Spanish was nonexistent). One of the Brazilian girls turned back to me:

Her: “She liked you.”

Me: “I think so. That was kind of intense.”

Her: “You should have walked up and kissed her.”

Me: “… Uhh, I think you’re forgetting that I don’t speak Spanish.”

Her: “That does not matter.”

Me: “… As much as I enjoy the taste of pepper spray, I’m pretty sure I’d need to lead up a bit before kissing a complete stranger.”

Her: [Confused look, shrug]

We stepped up to the bar, got in line, and another random Brazilian girl walked up to us a minute later. What followed was our EXACT interaction, verbatim:

Random: “Hola! De donde eres?”

Me: “Soy de Colorado.”

Random: “Ah, Colorado!” [Smile, lunge to make out]

Apparently, that’s all the lead up you need.

It was the first time I had experienced this social norm of making-out-before-talking. I was so taken aback by it that I couldn’t help but start laughing after a few seconds. Naturally, the girl swiftly ran off, as she thought I was laughing at her.

When I asked my Brazilian guy friend the next day what the deal was, he explained it as such: “Why would they want to make small talk in a club? There’s plenty of time for that later on… It’s not uncommon in Brazil to kiss five girls in one night.”

Brilliant. The Brazilian girls operated with the American guys’ mentality! I remember thinking that if Neil Strauss had grown up in Brazil, his best-selling book “The Game” would have never been written. This theory crystallized in my brain as “fact” later that week…

I had just met two very cute Brazilian girls in a loud bar. When presented with similar situations in the States, I’d often speak with the less attractive of the two first, while making the other girl wait. It’s a strange counter-intuitive step in the dance, but it helps more often than not. So after a minute or so of this, I went to talk to the other Brazilian. She introduced herself, then said, “You like my friend?” I shrugged, and said “Sure,” thinking she was just making polite conversation.  Her response: “You need to kiss her then.” I leaned back with a confused look. She nodded assuredly and gestured for me to make the move. Lesson: There’s not as much need for strategically sequenced conversations or all the other mind-gaming nonsense with Brazilian girls. If you see a girl you like, be direct and go for it.

This “Cut to the chase” mentality was not reserved to the girls; Brazilian guys were just as bad, if not worse, in many instances. This one time, I’d been sitting in the hostel lobby working on my computer, when a Brazilian guy approached a couple of blond Aussie girls. Immediately after introducing himself, he pleaded them to kiss each other. I found this amusing, as he made no segue into the request. He also said it with a fairly serious delivery, clearly expecting them to comply. When they resisted, he purposefully moved in to kiss the taller one. She turned him down as he was reaching to grab her face. He tried and failed two more times, then finally accepted defeat. I looked down at my cell phone. It was 1:00pm.  Good lord.

Witnessing this aggressive behavior from Brazilians was pretty great, but what made it so much fun were three other ingredients, the first being a well-known stereotype. (1) Brazilian girls are, in many cases, extremely good-looking. My attraction to nearly all of them ranged between “Aww she’s adorable” to “Stunning… gorgeous… most attractive girl I’ve ever seen.” (2) They’re really sweet and friendly. This was what made it lethal for me; a beautiful girl who’s also genuinely sweet is my Achille’s heel. In the six weeks I was down there, I never had an interaction with a Brazilian girl where I thought, “Man, she’s kind of a bitch” (comparatively speaking, there were plenty of Argentine, Aussie, American and English girls who repeatedly triggered that judgment). Perhaps I was wearing rose-colored lenses around Brazilians, but they were all (even the guys) very warm, happy, and fun to be around. (3) Brazilian girls REALLY like guys with non-brown eyes and non-black hair. Having green eyes has never helped me in the States. Ever. It’s just not a big deal – they’re common. But for Brazilians, green and blue eyes are very rare, and therefore remarkable.

[Note from my friend Colin at expat-chronicles.com:  "I learned what a novelty my blue eyes were in Latin America soon after arriving in Peru. I was having lunch with a few university girls and the conversation switched to my eyes. The girls talked about and analyzed my blue eyes for a full few minutes. One said she "loved" the color and the way they blink. I'm a moderately handsome guy, so such attention was something new for me.

After getting accustomed to it, it's no longer surprising when strangers comment on them in the street. Old women, young women, all kinds of women compliment my blue eyes. One woman smiled and said "escaparon del cielo." They escaped from the sky (or heaven depending on the translator)."]

The beauty of this equation can’t be fully appreciated until you compare it with home.

Now, Colorado girls are very down-to-earth and genuinely good people, and I say this with 100% sincerity. I don’t dislike them at all. It’s just very rare to come across a girl in my home state whom I have a strong primal attraction towards. There aren’t a whole lot of them, and the scarcity can be exhausting.

Compared with Brazilians: high concentration of stunning girls with warm/friendly personalities, and when there was a mutual attraction, they were frequently the aggressors. To top it off, they never once held it against me for showing affection early, as they often did it themselves without batting an eye.  This was an immensely refreshing change.

So, America or Brazil… Tough choice, but for now, my vote lies with Brazil.

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Leaving the candy store
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If it’s not painfully obvious by now, I fell in lust with a lot of the girls I met in Buenos Aires.  Yet there were two in particular that stood out, with whom I felt a stronger connection with.  I don’t say this very often, but I could have pictured myself dating either one.

The first is worth mentioning because she was so gorgeous that other guys in the hostel, whom she’d never met, were approaching her with flowers and gifts. She was a lethal combo: beautiful, really affectionate, and not clingy.  She also taught me that Brazilian girls flip the hell out if you give them a playful slap on their ass in public. It’s a big no-no if you put a hand on that area, even briefly, when you’re around other people.  Strange, but consider yourself warned.

The second girl was a very intelligent, sweet, and passionate architecture student, who was obsessed with Jack Kerouac and raved about the quality of American literature. She was easily in my top 3 favorite people I met. I still talk with her regularly, and she recently sent me what’s probably one of the best messages I’ll ever receive: “Num deserto de almas também desertas, uma alma especial reconhece de imediato a outra” (“In a desert of empty souls, a special soul immediately recognizes another.”)

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DISCLAIMER
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I would be remiss if I didn’t mention what you’re getting into with Brazil.  Almost every American I spoke with about Brazil, including people who grew up there, said something to this effect: “Brazil is f-ing dangerous.  If you look the way you do (light hair, green eyes) and clearly don’t speak Portuguese, you are a sitting duck.”  A friend of mine told me he had 3-4 near death experiences while he was there.  Another said his family was robbed a minimum of six times per year growing up, a la gun to the face. But then again, I’ve heard several others say things like “I backpacked there for 12 weeks and didn’t have any problems.”  Obviously, people have varying degrees of luck during their travels, but based on everything I’ve heard, planning a trip to Rio is not something to take lightly.

I’ve never been to Brazil, of course, but I’d imagine there’s a lot of truth to this statement: “You can either have expensive and safe, or cheap and dangerous.”

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Tran-spotting
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Argentina was not all rainbows and kittens for me. I had countless failures with females, including a disastrous 3-hour blind date with a psychotic Porteña, among others. But one particular incident is burned into my memory…

One day, a New Yorker checked in to the hostel I was staying in. He was a good guy who wanted to experience the infamous nightlife and cut loose from the drudgery of his Wall Street job. When we went to the club, he brought along a Brazilian girl whom he’d met earlier that night. As he was dancing with her, I looked across the room and saw an incomprehensibly stunning Argentine girl, dressed in very provocative clothing. The most beautiful girl I’d seen in months was a mere 40 feet away, talking and drinking with her girl friend. I walked over, took note of her fake breasts, said ‘hola’ to them (the girls, not the breasts), and the three of us started dancing together. I danced close to her, we exchanged seductive looks with one another, and I quickly became intoxicated by her beauty.

Ten minutes later, I felt a tap on my shoulder. I turned around to see ol’ New York, grinning from ear-to-ear, with the Brazilian under his arm. “She’s got something to tell you, bud.” I looked to the Brazilian, who leaned towards me and nervously mumbled a line I’ll never forget:

“I don’t know how to say… Not all girls are girls.”

It took about 10 seconds for me to register what she was implying. New York cracked up as the look on my face shifted from confusion to pure terror.

I didn’t have the sense of humor or presence of mind to calmly turn around and give her the Dundee test.  So in a drunken haze, I made a mad dash for the exit. If I couldn’t tell guys from girls – nay, if I was actively trying to seduce transsexuals – it was time to call it a night. I went back to the hostel, took a cold shower, then lay awake for an hour, wondering how “This chick might be a dude” never once crossed my mind. What an amazingly convincing surgery.

Thankfully, I did not kiss her/him, but I got close enough to do psychological damage.

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The open-mic
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I stayed in Milhouse hostel for a while, which typically had about 150-200 residents, ages 18 to 27, on any given night. Every Sunday, they’d have a “jam session” where a local band would come in and play from 11pm to 1am. Everyone would sit around, drink a few beers, and listen to the band before going out to the clubs. It was pretty fun, and they allowed anyone to get up and play.

I’ve been playing guitar for about four years now, but I’d never played in front of strangers. Guitar has always been something I did by myself, for my own amusement. So on jam night, I had no intention of performing… until I heard the Indian.

He ran up and grabbed the guitar, sat down with a smile, then looked around and realized how big the group actually was. You could see his confidence drain within seconds. He was so nervous and awkward when he started playing that people had to restrain their laughter. I felt kind of bad for the guy, but even more than that, I felt a need to destroy him. No matter how poorly I played, I would sound ten times better than I actually was if I immediately followed his embarrassing performance. So, courtesy of impulsivity, alcohol, and a sweaty Indian kid, I found myself playing and singing Tom Petty’s “Running Down a Dream” in front of 60 drunken travelers.

When the song was over, I barely had a chance to blink before the band’s lead singer ran up to me: “Keep playing man, but you have to sing into the mic. You’re too far away. Sing right into it.” Ah. No wonder I couldn’t hear my own voice. “You’re also strumming WAY too hard. The guitar is amped, so everyone can hear you fine. Strum quieter, sing louder.” Got it.

The next song I played was an abridged version of Don McLean’s “American Pie.” The abridgement was to spare the crowd’s ears: I needed to cut 8-minutes of singing time down to 4-minutes.

Now, I know I’m not a good singer. Nor am I a very good guitar player. And I’m not saying this with a false sense of modesty; I am very mediocre by American standards. But there I was in Argentina, completely taken aback by the response I was receiving. The crowd clapped and sang along, and then applauded in such a way that made me think, “Wow, maybe I could pursue this down here.” Of course, I have no plans to pursue music seriously at any point, but the experience I had was a blast (and a fantastic adrenaline rush).  It would not surprise me at all if I found myself at another open-mic in the near future.

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What I’d do differently
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I did very little in the way of preparing myself for those six weeks in Buenos Aires. I also didn’t really make plans for anything that was more than 48 hours away once I was down there. This was a fun experiment, but it also lead to some problems. Here’s what I’m going to do differently for the next time I go down to South America:

(1)  Clear my work schedule. I knew going down that it wasn’t going to be a vacation, where I could take days off to explore the countryside. I had plenty of work to do. But after a few weeks, it was tough to hear about all these multi-day adventures other travelers were going on. Granted, if I hadn’t been hanging out with people who were traveling around, it wouldn’t have seemed like such a big issue.  But next time, I definitely want to explore.  I’ll be sure to clear the slate and take a brief hiatus from computers.

(2)  Learn Spanish. Being monolingual has been one of my single greatest sources of embarrassment over the last several years. This feeling is only magnified around my Dutch friends, who tend to speak a minimum of five languages. I met a 17-year old girl who spoke eight languages, and I quote: “But two of them really don’t count because they’re dead languages.” Almost everyone speaks a bit of English, which was both convenient and frustrating. I wanted to practice my Spanish in BA, so before I left, I bought Michel Thomas’ 8-hour audio course. This helped TREMENDOUSLY when I first arrived, as I was able to communicate what I needed 95% of the time. But being able to speak Spanish was not as useful as comprehending people’s responses, which I found to be very difficult, if not impossible. My lack of listening comprehension was, without a doubt, my biggest source of frustration/anxiety. It truly sucked. However, there were a couple things I found that helped a lot, and I would focus much more on practicing them next time. The first was watching movies and TV shows I loved, like Los Simpson (The Simpsons), in Spanish. Los Simpson in particular was great. It’s always entertaining, the characters speak relatively slow, and you can usually figure out what they’re saying. The second thing was staying the hell away from people who spoke English fluently. I remember having to buy a cell phone, and feeling like I was going to pass out from exhaustion. It was a half hour conversation in Español – not a single word of English – and I understood maybe 10% of what was being said to me. But I walked away having learned several new words and phrases, and felt more motivated than ever to learn the language. That motivation easily got buried again once I found myself among English speakers. Next time, I’m keeping my distance from Aussies, Brits, Dutch, etc. and sticking more with the locals.

(3) Couchsurfing. I’d planned on doing this, but didn’t end up getting around to it. I decided to rent an apartment instead, which allowed me to regain focus on work. But I would have loved to meet a bunch more Argentines. I plan on hosting and going to meet ups when I move at the beginning of next year.  Why not, right?  You get to make friends with people from around the world, all for free!

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Lessons learned
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Short-term travel is both a tease and a fantasy. You meet amazing people, hope to reconnect at some point and go on more adventures together, but you both know deep down that you might never see each other again. In a way, that’s heartbreaking. When I meet people I really enjoy, I want to keep them in my life and bring them closer. That’s extremely difficult to do when you’re traveling. You know that your return to the real world is inevitable, and that usually means saying goodbye for a long, long time. It’s quite sad to meet someone, get emotionally attached, and have to part ways indefinitely after a few days. But it’s mind-numbingly exhausting when you have to do it a half dozen times in a week.

Of course, that’s not to say that it isn’t worth it. Travel is the only time where you can meet tons of folks who are completely relaxed and open-minded, and you frequently come across individuals whose love for life and people just pours out of them. These are my favorite types of travelers, because they fill you with energy and happiness, and effortlessly bring out the best in others. I don’t know why it’s so rare to encounter this type of person back home. Perhaps it’s because all travelers share a mutual thrill for experiencing something new together (everything around them is exciting!)  They also seem less prone to being judgmental, simply because everyone around them is in a perpetual state of analysis and they’re all learning about each other. If someone does something strange, you tend to dismiss it more readily (“Maybe that’s normal where they’re from”).

Whatever the case, the random people you meet is what makes travel worthwhile. If you’re anti-social, traveling will bring out your inner extrovert.

What you also notice after awhile is that travelers – whether they like it or not – are ambassadors for their cities, states, and countries. Your interactions with others will almost always shape what they think of “your people.” This became very clear to a friend of mine while he was traveling around Asia. He noticed that people in North Vietnam looked down on Americans for many reasons, but were particularly unforgiving because they had never had any American friends when they were growing up. Many of the people in South Vietnam, however, had developed close relationships with Americans more than 30 years prior. The memories of their old friends remained fresh, and their attitudes towards Americans were passed along to their children. This cycle, if strong enough, can facilitate an entire culture’s hatred or adoration for foreigners. So do your duty as an American, and don’t be a douchebag overseas.

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Final thought
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No matter how safe you think your city is, there are people in this world who are too scared to visit it.  The media heavily colors our opinions of other countries, coupled with the extreme stories we hear from our friends and relatives.  Of course, we usually only hear about (and remember) the crazy bad stuff. It’s not fair, but that’s the way it works.

Remember to emphasize the positive and encourage people to travel, so they won’t be so damn paranoid.

To my handful of real life friends who read this whole post: let’s start planning our Brazilian adventure.

###

The book I’ve been helping with for nearly two years is available for pre-order. It’s already hit #1 on Amazon’s Health and Fitness category and #1 overall on Barnes & Noble.  You’ll be hearing a lot more about it in the coming weeks.

UPDATE: There’s a fun post on Brazilian models that Tim put up on Thanksgiving.  There are two quick things I want to mention: the introduction, and the response.

The intro Tim wrote is a funnier (and more concise) story than how I actually discovered Jeremiah.  Here’s what happened… One night in Buenos Aires, I met an Australian guy at a restaurant who had been living in Brazil for three years with his girlfriend.  I told him how much I wanted to visit, and he said, “The first place you have to go to is Florianopolis.  I’m going to give you my email address so you can thank me when you’re there.”  The next day, I searched for ‘Florianopolis’ on Flickr.  I looked at pictures of the beaches, which were nice (but not quite as beautiful as Thailand’s).  In the bottom-right corner, I saw related images of girls in swimsuits.  Naturally, I clicked through to check them out.  The beauty of the girls was no big surprise, but I was genuinely impressed with the quality of the photos.  Under each one was a paragraph outlining Jeremiah’s story — a regular guy with a camera who decided to pursue his dream of becoming a swimsuit photographer in Brazil.  Very cool.  After returning to the States, I went to work at Tim’s house and mentioned how I’d stumbled across a great 4HWW story.  We both thought it would make a cool blog post, and that was that.  Not quite as humorous as me ogling Brazilian chicks at 2am when I should have been working (seriously, who uses Flickr to search for pictures of hot girls?), but so it goes.

The response to the post has been fairly predictable.  98% of the readers love it, and 2% are completely disgusted.  This was both expected and intended.  I’ve read all the comments, and have seen the word ‘misogyny’ thrown out a few times.  While this is amusing to me, as it’s clearly a gross misunderstanding of the word, I would like to come to Jeremiah’s defense.  I’ve spoken with the guy, and he has nothing but love and respect for Brazilian people and the girls he works with.  If you missed this, then you brought your own interpretation to the table before you even read what he had to say.

Oh, hey again.  I know, it’s been awhile.

I’ve been building up a large collection of random thoughts and sticking them in the reserves for future posts, but I truthfully haven’t had the enthusiasm to write on here for quite some time (many reasons, some of which I’ll lay out below).  It’ll be easier for me to just do one atrociously long, disorganized post that clears the slate, rather than reflecting and redeveloping thoughts I had months ago.  You have been warned.

For those who haven’t yet developed internet-onset ADD and can make it through this entire assortment of musings, I salute you.  Here we go:

• The most time-consuming project I have been working on over the last several months is Tim Ferriss’ next book.  It’s been a long and tedious process, but I’m extremely proud to have been a part of it.  Once it’s all finished and is about to be released, I’ll share some fun stories about the process of making it, as well as some of my results from testing.  But for now, all I can say is: (1) I have a deeper respect for any author who can stomach writing a big book and getting it published, and (2) I am beyond excited to see how it’s received.

• One of the reasons I stopped writing on here was because I revisited my archives.  My beloved readers (that’s you!) have been kind enough to sing this site’s praises, but frankly, I was put off by quite a few of the things I’ve written.  It was kind of like reading an essay that you wrote back in middle school.  A part of you enjoys the naive enthusiasm, another part of you thinks “Christ, this can’t be me… Is it?  Damnit, my name is on this.”  As a result of this evaluation period, I started noticing a lot of blogs that seemed more like jaded Yelp reviewers, writing about trivial nonsense.  And I saw a lot of myself in their writing.  I’m very privileged to sit around and talk about fun marketing and cool receipts at restaurants (Not that I’ve lost my enthusiasm for those topics by any means — my Twitter feed is a testament to this).  But going forward, I’m going to keep working on becoming a better filter of my own content on here.  The posts that have resonated most with me and others are the ones where I’ve been reflecting on the topic for months.  I want to try to maintain that personal level of quality as much as possible.  I’m not promising brilliance obviously; just a bit less impulse behind my writing.

• A few of my policies are changing this year.  First, I will be saying “no” A LOT more.  Up until now, I’ve jumped at damn near every opportunity that seemed like a fun / interesting / good learning experience.  It was well-intentioned yet semi-reckless behavior that finally caught up with me. Several months ago, I bit off way more than I could chew, and that lead to me feeling constantly overwhelmed and scrambling to get things done.  A big part of this has definitely been my approach, which has always been: feel the pressure, then get it done.  That mentality has reached its limitations, and I realized I’m definitely not as good at staying organized with a variety of tasks as I once thought I was.  And in spite of what several friends and colleagues have advocated, I’m not into outsourcing.  I prefer to do the things I’m hired for (a novel concept, I know).  But juggling too many things all at once has taken its toll.  So from now on, I’m going to tackle a couple projects at at time, not several.

• I did a little bit of consulting for awhile, but that is a no-go after this year.  I’m 24 for chrissakes, I’m still dumb in more ways than I can count.  I have a few solid experiences under my belt that I’m happy with, but it’s not enough to build a house on.  Plus, consulting sucks.  It really does.  You’re not learning, you’re just regurgitating lessons on what you’ve been lucky enough to succeed with or (even worse) talking about what’s worked for other people.  No more.

• Word-of-mouth is tough, but I still think it’s the best strategy to pursue.  If your product or service isn’t being shared, perhaps the problem doesn’t lie with the people you are chasing after.  Start asking yourself “Why isn’t this good enough” instead of “Why aren’t people eating what we’re trying to shove down their throats.”

• I could not be more bored by Facebook fans, Twitter followers, and Youtube views.  They do not mean anything.  They are low-hanging fruit, not metrics for success.

• My favorite passage from What I Learned Losing a Million Dollars was about how the greatest investors (Warren Buffet, Peter Lynch, etc.) all have contradicting advice on how to make money: “If imitating the pros was supposed to make you rich and not imitating them was supposed to make you poor, then each one of these guys should have lost all his money because none of them imitated each other.  They all should be flat broke because they very often did things opposite of each other.  It finally occurred to me that maybe studying losses was more important than searching for some Holy Grail to making money.”  So many of us search for the easy route to making money, then abandon ship when things get too hard.  There are countless ways to make a lot of money, only a few ways you can lose it, and no shortcuts to success.

• This may seem ironic, given that last point, but one of my favorite articles I’ve read this year: 10 Reasons You Should Never Get a Job by Steve Pavlina.  A related tweet from Nassim Taleb: ‎”The three most harmful addictions are heroin, carbohydrates, and a monthly salary.”

• My single biggest turn-off: those who cannot laugh at themselves.  Not surprisingly, many of my closest friends and favorite people use self-deprecating humor constantly, and have no hesitation in telling embarrassing stories about their childhood.

• I’ve posted about this on Twitter a few times, but I will say it again: creating an emergency account is one of the smartest things I’ve done (thanks, Ramit).  Unpredictable emergencies have been some of my biggest expenses, and that “Black Swan fund” has saved me on multiple occasions.  Go to ING Direct, create a savings account, and start setting aside a chunk of each paycheck for emergencies.

• Speaking of backup plans, Ben Casnocha reminded me (a very long time ago) to back up your Delicious bookmarks.  For some reason, I’d never even considered it, but it’s a smart thing to do.  If you use it as much as I do, I highly suggest setting up a repeat reminder in your calendar to back up on a regular basis.  Just go to ‘Settings,’ click ‘Export / Backup bookmarks’ then email the file to yourself.  Done.

• RPGrad update: I’ve stopped publicly tagging a lot of the articles I’m reading for the future version of RPGrad, because I’m not planning on releasing anything anytime soon. A lot of the people who read it still run into trouble with creating free work opportunities, or are quickly lost after trying things out.  Perhaps my ideas are flawed or incomplete, or maybe most folks are in a much tougher situation than I give them credit for.  Whatever the case, I don’t want to take it too lightly and assume I know more than I do.  I also want to expand the scope to something bigger than “how to get free work!”  The more I’ve dug into the ideas behind RPGrad over the last year, the more I’ve become skeptical of the true state of this globalized economy.  I’m still confused about the recession and I’m attempting to wade through this sea of (mis)information, but I tend to believe that things are going to get significantly worse.  This is the beginning, and jumping to conclusions on anything right now seems shortsighted.  RPGrad will be a very long-term side project, and I want to make it extremely valuable.  That involves a ton of research, finding case studies, more experimentation, etc.

• A side project I’ve been working on for several months is an iPhone app that Ramit and I will be releasing this year.  I won’t say what it is just yet, but the goal was to create a very useful app on the cheap.  We’ve had two dozen testers try it out, and the average savings for the group was $168.  I want to dedicate a few posts to this project in the future, as it’s been a really fun learning process for me.  Stay tuned.

• Free idea: What if non-profits like DonorsChoose made personalized videos for each major donor?  Suddenly, the results of their donations would be in vivid color and sound, and they could truly grasp the impact they’ve made.  And they could share it with / brag about it to their friends!  It’d be more work for these organizations that are stretched thin as it is, but would ultimately lead to greater loyalty from those who contribute the most.

• One of my favorite people I had a chance to meet over the last several months is Noah Kagan.  While his career path is impressive (worked for Facebook in its early days, helped successfully launch Mint, turned down $100K salary from Yahoo because it wasn’t right for him), the thing I liked most is that he’s a very genuine and passionate person (which you can quickly see in this video).  He’s sharp and a worthwhile guy to follow, so check out his blog.

• The most amazing/humorous story I heard recently was from a guy who created a peer-to-peer network nine years ago and was sued for $250 BILLION by dozens of the world’s biggest media companies.  One person… being sued for $250,000,000,000.00.  After having his company auctioned off in court, he used his knowledge of P2P and created a new service that would benefit the same media companies that had sued him.  Six months later, 80% of them had become his customers.  Incredible.

• During my freshman year of high school, my friends and I were absolutely enamored with this gorgeous junior.  She would literally stop us in our tracks: we’d never seen a person in real life who’d been dealt a genetic royal flush.  Girls like her, we’d assumed, had a tremendously strong “bitch shield,” but she seemed to be a genuinely sweet and happy person who was well-liked by all of her peers.  A couple months ago, she committed suicide.  Time and time again, I’ve come to realize that we never see the full picture of anyone’s lives but our own — not even our family or our closest friends.  Sizing people up is awfully tempting, but a lot of us are hiding deep-seated issues that rarely see the light of day.  We are all flawed and insecure on some level that only we know about.

• Everyone seems to dread their 10-year high school reunion.  I suppose the fear comes from the idea that you’ll get to see how successful everyone is and compare them to what stage you’re at in your life.  Facebook is an everyday high school reunion, where you’re casually observing the life developments that your friends (or “friends”) are going through, except it’s on an unnecessarily detailed level that’s always filtered through our egos.  I’m not sure what the implications are, but I do think it’s strange how comfortable I am with saying to someone at a bar, whom I haven’t seen or spoken to in a year, “I saw that you got a puppy!”  It’s even stranger that this sort of comment is never met with a suspicious look.

• If you were able to make it this far, I’ll give you a special reward, and that is “How to win a Tim Ferriss contest.”  The first part of the equation: measure your damn results.  I’ve had to pick the winners a few times on posts like this one, and about 95% of the people who think they are competing automatically eliminate themselves because they write things like “I tweeted this out and posted on Facebook.”  Great, that tells me nothing.  The irony, of course, is that measuring your results is something that is emphasized over and over again on that blog, yet almost none of the people who leave comments do it.  It’s a lot easier to win these contests than you’d think.  The competition, although seemingly abundant, is minimal.  So use bit.ly to your advantage, and share your results.  The second part of the equation: do something different.  Literally everyone does the Facebook and Twitter routine, and that’s fine if you get some results.  But when people write that they were able to get the contest attention on a radio station, or they printed out 100 flyers, or started a separate related contest with their friends, we pay attention.  That may be less effective, but it at least shows that you put more than 3 seconds of effort into it.

And now, some videos!

• “The Unsettling Truth about Life” by Trey Parker and Matt Stone:

• This video is a highlight reel I made for Bill Dawes, the comedian who was with us on the I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell tour.  It’s pretty funny, check it out:

• I put this together when AwayFind released its gadget on the Google Apps Marketplace.  The 3-second time lapse at 0:07-0:10 took more than an hour to make.

• One of my biggest regrets over the last few months was not seeing John Butler Trio (my favorite band in college) live at Red Rocks.  Literally everyone I’ve spoken to who went — young and old — said it was, by far and away, the best live performance they’ve ever seen.  I’m still bitter at my decision to stay in that night, in favor of seeing another concert the following week.  Foolish, foolish, foolish.  Here’s their closing song from that night:

Whew!  That’s all for now.  Thanks again to all who continue reading, I truly enjoy the interactions I continue to have with you guys.  More exciting posts to come in the next few months!