It's amazing how things can change.

With a little bit of work, flexibility, and faith - you can flip the world upside down and see it again for the first time.

Nothing stays the same.  All rivers dry up; all mountains crumble.  And yet, with change comes the new.  Dried up rivers become beautiful canyons, and crumbled mountains become new playgrounds for my kids to explore.  Change is inevitable.

And so we have a choice.  We can stand on the mountain as it crumbles and cross our fingers, or we can bravely climb down and start exploring the worlds we only ever had the courage to view from a distance.

Got to make a choice.  What do we do?

Two puffs of smoke, stale booze, and a prostitute greeted us as we stumbled into Vegas for my daughter's birthday.

Not exactly what mom and dad had in mind when we decided to take the kids to the city of bright lights, but hey - that's travel!

We can't plan for everything in this world.  We don't know what's going to happen next.

There is now.  Now is it!  Now is all there is.  And as long as you have a now, whether it be good or bad, you have a chance - especially in Vegas!

14 years ago my wife and I were fresh out of school, newly married, and hungry.  We wanted something; we wanted change.  So we decided to pack up all our belongings and head west to California.  We had no jobs, no money, and no real idea of what we wanted to do, but none of this mattered.  To us, the west was a dream . . . and we were dreamers.  Nothing was going to stop us.

As we crossed the state border into California after our 3,000 mile journey, we pumped our fists and staked our claim on the promises that lay before us.  We'd made it!  We'd done good.

15 minutes after we'd finished patting ourselves on the back, the engine of our tiny Nissan Sentra seized and we were stranded in the middle of the Mojave Desert.  No phone, no money, and now . . . no car.  All we had was some clothes, a TV, and 2 months paid rent at some place in the not-so-lovely portion of North Hollywood that we had never seen.

And so starts the curse of California.

This is not a race.

You're not competing against anyone.  There's no finish line.  No one gets a trophy.

This is simply life.  And although sometimes it may seem that others are often holding the golden tickets, the reality is that those who have what they want just figured out how to make IT happen.

Sure, some have to follow a longer road than others, but in the end it is all the same.

We need to take what we have and find a way to turn it into what we want.

Don't tell the kids this, but Willy Wonka isn't real.  Believe me - I've looked into it!

No, all we can do is get down to it.  Look around at what we have that's good, get rid of the bad, and see what we can create.

I have to come clean and admit that at one point I had packed it in.  I remember sitting back and saying to myself,

Put the dream away.  Save for retirement.  You've got a good thing here.  Buy a new TV.  Enjoy your family.  Relax.

This is how I felt a few years ago.  My life was just too busy.  I had just had my second child, work was constantly building up, and by the day's end I was done.  I couldn't see the point in trying anymore.  I had chosen my path and that included being a father, husband, and worker.  All the rest of the of things I wanted out of life would have to wait until my kids were grown.  Finding the time just seemed impossible.

Fast forward 2 years later.

My family hasn't changed.  I still go to work everyday.  I still get tired at the end of the day.  All the things I had in my life before that I blamed for bogging me down - they're all still here.  And yet, so much has changed.

I created this blog.  I've written hundreds of articles.  Together, my wife and I completely paid off all our debt.  We also managed to save and generate enough money to travel the world for at least 2 years while we work on sustaining our travel lifestyle.

Now, I'm not saying that what we've done is all that special.  Anyone can do what we do.  All it takes is a little change and commitment.

So what is the secret to living the life of your dreams and escaping your drudged-out routine?  Well, it might just be a bit of self-control.

Have you ever heard of the Marshmallow Test?

Back in 1972 an experiment was done at Stanford University that tested the self-control of young children.  In the experiment, each child is given a marshmallow to enjoy at their leisure.  However, if the child is able to sit in front of the marshmallow for 15 minutes without eating it, they will then be given a second marshmallow to enjoy.  Torture I know, but the results are very interesting.

You can't underestimate the power of people.  For better or worse, we make things happen.

If there is one outstanding lesson I've learned since starting this blog, it's that everything is easier when you have good people around to help you out.

Whether through books, blogs, or Facebook, we all learn from each other.  We give and we get, and that's how big things happen.

I've decided to open up the blog a bit and start building up this great community of escapists.  Below you will find 3 ways in which you can start getting connected and working on that dream of yours.  I'll make no secret of it - we need your help.  But, we are probably able to help you out as well.  Let's get connected and see where the road leads us.

"How would someone make a pizza, if they didn't know how to make pizza?"

At 7, these are the questions my daughter is now firing at me.

Well, I guess they could look up how to make one on the internet.

But what if they didn't have any internet?

Then I guess they could look it up in a book.

But what if they didn't have any books, or any libraries?

Then I guess they would have to ask someone to teach them.

But what if no one was around, or no one would help them?

Well . . . I guess then they would have to just start guessing at how to make a pizza and keep trying until they got it right.  That's probably how they invented pizza in the first place.

Yeah.  I guess you're right.

Success sometimes doesn't mean what we think it means.

Every time you achieve something you set out to achieve, you're a success.  If you tell yourself you're going to go jogging for an hour and you do it, then you have succeeded.

Too often we associate success with money and careers.  You can be successful at anything.  Parenting, painting, cooking, dieting.  It doesn't really matter what it is as long as it is what you want.

When we started this adventure we wanted to do 2 things successfully.

1) Create the opportunity for our family to travel the world together as a lifestyle.

2) Create a blog that worked and could potentially open doors and create opportunity in the future.

Well, I'm happy to say we have succeeded.  Are our successes big successes?  Sure, why not?  All successes are big.  I'm not going to compare or downplay what we have done, and you shouldn't either.  If we all took pride in our small, daily success stories, then the world would be a better place!  So go ahead, and embrace your success.

So here we are.

Today we woke up, we got dressed, we ate.

Maybe today we went off to some job we've been working at for the past 5 years.  Or maybe we worked on putting some value back into that dream house of ours.

Maybe we kissed loved ones goodbye.

Maybe we sat on our butts and watched TV all day.

Whatever you did, good or bad, I'd like for you to answer one question.

How did you get to where you are today?