How to travel like a Hazardous Pioneer Part 4; Thoughts before Departure

Here is a rough guide to what has gone through my head – or there abouts – over the past few months before I have set off traveling somewhere.

This post is contains the most important information regarding how to travel like a Hazardous Pioneer, if that's your goal.
But it is also a template on how to calculate your mindset (and adjust accordingly) if you want to get things DONE in life.


A lot of people live with the idea that Biography = Destiny.
And it is, if you choose to live that way.
If you are someone that thinks that your background will determine your future, then it will.
But it doesn’t have to.

A lot of you that contact me, ask me mostly ‘How do you afford it?.
Although budgeting is an important subject, it is somewhat missing the point.
These are the blames that most of the people that ask me, are using. Guaranteed.
These are the most popular ones with regards to travel, ESPECIALLY MONEY and TIME.

Resources (Blames)
Time, Contacts, Money, Experience, Technology, Management etc

But these blames, like your background, will only shape you and your future, if you let them.
Instead of focusing on the blames, focus on what you can do to smash through them.
The verb of ‘smashing through the blames’ could be termed ‘Resourcefulness’.

Resourcefulness
Creativity, Determination, Curiosity, Passion, Resolving etc

The deciding factor is never resources (blames) unless you say they are.
Resourcefulness is the deciding factor.

With regards to the above and travel, are you DETERMINED enough to smash out of your shitty job, to seek something better and more exhilarating in life?
How PASSIONATE are you about getting off your arse to travel?
How CURIOUS are you to see what is really out there, regardless of what is or what isn’t in your wallet?

Emotion is the underlying factor in ‘Resourcefulness’. If you can get the right emotion, you can get through anything. Likewise, if you get the wrong one, it can pin you down.

Essentially, when you look at it, ‘Decisions shape destiny’.
There are 3 decisions we are making every moment of our lives:


1. What am I going to focus on? The past, the present, the future?
Focusing on different things / areas of your life, will produce different emotions.
Focus on the fact you have no money, you’re probably not going to travel anywhere but to your sofa to sit on your arse.
But focus on the fact you are DETERMINED to make you future a million times better than your past and present situations, all starting with traveling, and you will.
‘Focus = Feeling’.
Also, are you focusing on yourself or others? For traveling, I expect it is going to be yourself. However, this template does fit most things in life, not just traveling.

2. The second decision is spawned by this question; ‘What does it mean? Is this the end or the beginning? Are you being punished or rewarded?

3. The third decision; ‘What are you going to do? Are you going to give up or move forward?’
Hopefully, with your travels, you are going to move forward. You’re not going to give in to being a wage slave. You are going to decide to be disciplined enough to save enough money. You are then going to use that little cash wisely, and move forward with it.

The minute you decide to focus on something, you have got to give it a meaning. Whatever that meaning is, will produce the relevant emotion. And then the emotion creates what we’re going to do, or the relevant action.

Think back in your own life, from the last year to ten years ago, and think about all the decisions that shaped your destiny, whether they were for better or worse. Think to those decisions, that if you had chosen differently, you would be somewhere differently today.
We should all have many of these memories.

Lance Armstrong for example:
Diagnosed with testicular cancer.
He decided to focus on something (achieving sporting greatness). In this example his primary focus was himself.
It was the beginning of something great for him (indirectly affected millions of people that were inspired because of him.)
He decided to move forward.

What shapes us as people?
2 invisible forces

1. State (physical / emotional)

2. Long term – View of the world, world views will shape; your meaning, emotion and action!
Your view of the world / model of the world, is what shapes you long term. It’s what influences your decision making.
Your current view of the world will shape eventually, what action you choose to get traveling.

3 things that make up the influences of decision making:

1. Your target / your goals (NOT desires). It is your needs (your musts vs shoulds) of which there are 6 needs;

i. Certainty – Everyone needs certainty that they can avoid pain or at least be comfortable. How do you get certainty? Many ways. Smoking the cigarette, going to work, having a family, getting married, etc You could say that these certainties, are things that make you feel stable.

ii. Uncertainty – Because if you were certain about things all the time, you would be bored out of your mind. We need variety. We need surprises.
Do you like surprises? Lies. You like the surprises you want! The surprises you don’t want you call problems, but you need those too!
You should be looking at your up and coming travels as UNCERTAINTIES.
IT SHOULD EXCITE YOU.

iii. Significance.
We all need to feel special, important or unique. You can do it by making more money, by becoming more spiritual, by transforming your physical body into something rare (tattoos and piercings).
The fastest way to achieve significance, if you have no background, no cultural upbringing and no resourcefulness, is what we call ‘violence’.
If I live in the ghetto and put a gun to your head, INSTANTLY I have gone from 0-10 on the range of significance, and I am sitting at the highest level, 10.
How certain am I that you are going to respond? 10.
And what is the level of uncertainty? Probably about 8-9, so you are fulfilling 3 of the needs in one, by being violent.
This poses a good reason as to why we will always have violence in our world unless there is a mass consciousness change.

iv. Connection / Love.
Most people settle for connection, because love’s too scary. Myself included.
You can find connection through intimacy, friendship, walking in nature, prayer etc
Hopefully you will find your connection with traveling. And your significance in life too.

Every human being finds a way to get the first four needs. Everyone that is alive today has these four needs in their life. Not all of them are genuine results to their needs, (a lot of it is pretending to one’s self that they are fulfilling their needs and it is only a matter of time before they have the ‘sledgehammer to face’ moment of realization,) but for the present time, they think they have the first four needs covered.

You could say, the first four needs, are the needs of the ‘Personality’.
Traveling can actually cover all 4 of these needs, that’s why it is such a great ‘liberator’ for people that go about it properly, not the flashpacker types.

These last two needs, you can call the needs of the ‘spirit’.
And it is from these last two needs, that you will achieve ‘fulfillment’.
You won’t achieve genuine fulfillment from the first four alone. You will find a way (trick yourself) to get it, you’ll drink, smoke, drugs, sex, eat, violence etc the list goes on.
You may genuinely fulfill the first four with traveling. But you will need to include the last 2 to truly fulfill yourself as a person.

v. Grow.
It is the underlying law of nature. Anything that does not grow, does not survive. If your spirit does not grow (to a certain point), it does not survive. It doesn’t matter how popular you are, how many people love you, how successful you are, how much money you have, how much money you don’t have, if you don’t grow as a person (spiritually), you feel like shit (eventually).

And the reason we all grow? Because we all have something to contribute. There is no natural organism that does not contribute or act in a mutual relationship with something else, indirectly or directly. Everything interacts with everything. As humans, we grow, because we have something to give.
Traveling allows your spirit to grow like you wouldn’t believe. Especially traveling on your own.
If you don’t look to grow spiritually though, you won’t. Flashpackers fit this mold perfectly.

vi. To contribute beyond ourselves.
We all know the key life isn’t me, it’s we. Giving is the way forward, even though the cliché ‘Giving is greater than receiving’ sounds cheesy, it’s very true.
Human beings get excited to contribute, once they EXPERIENCE and FEEL what contribution does for you own spirit. Those of who have already taken the step to serving others more than yourself, can honestly say it’s buzz. It’s a step I have taken and it is what gets me out of bed in the morning.

This can be your goal later on in traveling. For me, it comes in the form of a genuine want to do voluntary work for the helping and bettering of others, in turn allowing my spirit to grow as a result.

So choosing your target is what shapes you.
I.e. what is your list of priorities for the above 4-6 needs? Are you a certainty freak? Or an uncertainty freak? Do you love knowing what’s coming next, or do you live for the adventure? What ever your order is of these needs, whichever ones you value most, will shape your emotions. You emotions lead to your direction and your direction leads to your destiny.
Think carefully what shapes your emotions and your actions (or lack of) at present.
Now re-list them if you were to succeed in your dream of going traveling. What priority order would you place them in now, if you were leaving next week?


2. What’s your map / belief system, which is guiding you/telling you how to get those needs?

There are 7 different beliefs.
1 of these is time. People’s perception of time is different, and this will affect your destiny.

3. Your Fuel / your emotion.
There are 6000 different emotions that we have words for in the English language. There are however, only 12 dominant emotions that the average person experiences in one week. Of those 12, 6 of them make you feel shit.

When do people really start to LIVE (on average)? When they face death (of the soul or the physical body.)

Explore your web, that block that sits on top of your shoulders. Explore your beliefs, your values and your emotions.

For 2 reasons:
1. So you can give more.
2. So you can appreciate (not understand, understanding is merely intellectual) what is driving other people.

And if you’re blown away by the above, or just thinking ‘I am bloody confused’, watch this video below.
This is where I got the above text from.
The video will hopefully help clarify a lot of the above. It will take 20 mins of your time. Watch it, then go through the above whilst, or after you have watched it.

WARNING: (Anthony Robbins is trained in NLP. He knows what he is doing, and is very good at it. He is an addictive speaker, and speaks truth with regards to spiritual development etc.
BUT, his political motives are FUCKED. He’s mates with Clinton for god’s sake, and he’s high fiving Al-Gore on the front row in this video. He has many mansions and limo’s. I question his personal spirituality entirely, and I don’t trust the fucker as far as I could throw his hench frame. However, he speaks sense when figuring out the spirit on paper. So that’s all you should take this for, a formula of figuring out what you want. I have tried to adapt his words towards traveling, as what he is talking about makes sense. But don’t get too wrapped up in him. He doesn’t need your attention or money anyway, he made $400 million in one day, he don’t need no more!)




Hope this helps to clarify your traveling goals,
And if you ask me how I did my trips, I will guide you to this post first and foremost,
YOU have to be the one to put the work in, on paper if necessary, to working out your current mindset, and how you are going to CHANGE it to achieve your goal of traveling.

Peace and Rice,