“And will you succeed? Yes indeed, yes indeed! Ninety-eight and three-quarters percent guaranteed!” ~ Dr. Seuss.

KNOW THIS: You are a Speck.

In the scheme of things you are nothing.  An ant.  A piece of sand.  Dust.

As you read this today there are about 7,000,000,000 (that's 7 BILLION) people alive on the Earth.

In total, there have been about 100,000,000,000 people who have lived on the earth since it began.

For most these can be tough numbers to grasp.  Do you really have any idea what 100 Billion is?

Well, if you live to 80 you will have:

- breathed about 1 billion times.

- chewed about 900 million times.

- lived slightly over 4 million minutes.

and . . .

although this is debatable,

- had sex about 4,000 times.

It's a fact. No matter what you do.  No matter how hard you try.  You are, and will always be, a speck.  You are ONE among BILLIONS.

And it gets worse!

There are 70 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 (that's 70 sextillion) estimated stars in the universe and each of these stars may have planets with life on them.  And who knows how many billions of life forms live on these sextillions of planets.  You're a speck among undiscovered specks!

For many, the knowledge of this can be disconcerting.

But for you it is enlightening.

Know it.  Embrace it.  Think about it often.

It is after all, the key to your success.

THE FREEDOM FROM FAILURE

Think about it.  You're nothing. I am nothing.  So answer me this:

What happens when a speck, who is nothing in the scheme of things, makes a mistake?

You know what happens?

NOTHING!

The world and the cosmos and everyone in it goes on just like it did before.

You know why people fail?

People fail because they are scared to fail.

They never try.  They are fearful of what might happen.  They second guess their instincts.  They make excuses.  And most of all, they worry about what everyone else is going to think.

Until a few years ago, I worried about every little decision.  I was always thinking about what others thought, about perceptions and outcomes.  I wasted so much time thinking instead of doing.  I spun my wheels and I got nowhere.

Then I realized it doesn't matter if I fail.  Who cares?  My wife and kids probably, but it is almost impossible for me to fail in their eyes.  I just figured it was about time I got over myself.  None of us are that special.  No one really cares if we go big and come up short.

The Internet really helped me realize this.  Once I started blogging on The Great Family Escape, I quickly learned I didn't need to please everyone.  2 million people could glance at my posts and have zero interest in them.  They could even call them crap if they wanted.  It didn't matter.  As long as I had a few 1,000 people who wanted to spend more time with their kids, find a new career, travel the world and live a fantastic life, then I would be all set.  Not only was I free from the fear of failure, but I was almost guaranteed success if I put in a little work.  My world had just become HUGE!

Look at online dating.  People struggled for years in local bars and went home dejected night after night.  Then Match.com comes along and the same people all of a sudden have to learn how to juggle 3 boyfriends at once.   Nothing changed.  The world is still the same as it always was.  We are just using it differently now.

Today anyone can succeed.  The math class loser can have 5,000 Facebook friends in Japan.  The Japanese businessman can have 5,000 clients in Europe.  And the European Traveler can arrange  500 free nights on a couch in America at couchsurfing.com.

Use the web wisely, without fear, and success is yours.
 

STOP TRYING TO SAVE THE WORLD

The web has a funny way of convincing specks that they need to do everything and be everybody.  Fitness, Politics, Music, Food, Movies, Books, Travel, Cars, Current Events.  The web can cause you to get sidetracked.  You need to know you can't be an expert on everything.  You can't save the world.  Superman couldn't save 7 Billion people.  Unless of course there was an asteriod heading towards earth and the Governme. . .

See . . . .

Sidetracked.

My family now lives with only Four Goals which you can Check Out Here.

This website has only two goals:

1)   To create the opportunity for my family to spend more time together, learn together, and essentially pack up and do whatever we want.

2)  To help create opportunities for other families to spend more time together, learn together, and essentially pack up and do whatever they want.

Look, as specks there is only so much we can do.  Someone once noted that the best thing you can do for the world is to take care of yourself and then help everyone else.  This is true.  A tough task for a speck, but true.  The key is to take care of yourself and make sure there is enough left for everyone else to take care of themselves as well.  My family is very conscious of this and we feel that The Great Family Escape, with all it's simplicity and adventures, can help us and others live up to this model.

The key to our success is to put this speck driven internet machine to work for us.  Anyone who wants to break free of their job, their daily routine and try something new should start producing on the web.  TODAY!  LIKE RIGHT NOW!

You don't need a degree, you can be any age, you can work from anywhere in the world, you have the largest customer base on earth, and it cost less than a new suit or monthly bus pass.  If you have an idea in that speck head of yours, use it.

Log In and Get Moving.
 

5 SPECKS THAT ARE DOING SOMETHING GREAT

I wanted to introduce you to 5 specks who know they are specks and really don't care.  5 specks who didn't care what anyone else thought and had the confidence to do what they wanted.  They had an idea, they went out and did it, and they use the internet to attract and inspire thousands.

ALMOST FEARLESS by Christine Gilbert

Christine had a decent job somewhere around Boston, MA which she quit.  She now travels and blogs with her husband and their new baby while they film a documentary on world travelers. Christine is currently living in Goa India, but that will change soon I am sure.

ADVANCED RISKOLOGY by Tyler Tervooren

Tyler is a risk taker.  He took a risk quitting his job and starting his own blog.  He travels around the world running through the Sahara and flying planes over Portland, OR.  Who knows what Tyler will be doing next, but it will be what he wants to do.

CHOCOLATE AND ZUCCHINI by Clotilde Dusoulier

Do yourself a favor and visit Clotilde's site and go back to her first posts in 2003.  No grand expectations.  She just started writing about what she loves. Food!  2 books in and about 6,000 friends on Facebook, I would say she doing it pretty well.

THE ART OF NON-CONFORMITY by Chris Guillebeau

Chris is the guy who started it all for me.  I stumbled upon his site and just couldn't believe what this guy was doing.  He had essentially created his own online world and had developed a legion of followers.  Chris has a book out and you need to check it out.

S-V TOTEM by The Giffords

The family who is living the dream.  Sailing around the world. Eating fresh sushi each day caught at the hands of their three children. The Gifford's live on $20,000 a year and cruise the world in style.  Thanks for the overwhelming inspiration.

There's no secret ingredient that makes success for these people possible.  They just do it.  They are specks just like you and me, and yet here they are doing what you and I probably wish we were doing.  They didn't care what people would think.  They didn't worry about failure.  They just blazed a path in front of the biggest audience in the history of the world.

My family decided a while back that if we were specks, we were going to be happy specks.  We were going to do what we wanted to do and the internet was going to make it all possible.  No more wishing.   No more excuses.  It was time to start doing.

And now, here we are.

And you can be here too.

Just take that idea you have, remember you're just a speck, and Start Doing Today!

The Great Family Escape is working to to help families do what they love.  You can follow us on Facebook and Twitter and make sure you CAST YOUR VOTE for where we should Travel IN SEARCH OF THE PERFECT PLACE TO RAISE A FAMILY

Thanks to Mouser NerdBot for the Pic on Flickr

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