Learning a new language is hard!

And shut-up to anyone who says it’s easy… 🙂

I recently completed my 30 Day Spanish Challenge, where my goal was to learn as much Spanish as I could in 30 days.

Inspiration for the challenge

I’ve been living in Central America since July 2014 and have been getting by on the basic Spanish that I learned in school 10+ years ago.

Sure I proved that I could survive in Spanish speaking countries–but living is much more than just surviving.

For me, to live is to communicate.

Communicating is about being able to express my ideas and understand the ideas of others. My basic Spanish vocabulary made me feel limited as to how much I was able to communicate with friends (and strangers) here.

Anyone who knows me can verify that I’m a talker–so a limited vocabulary is a big hindrance for me.

Without a solid grasp of the Spanish language, I found myself having the same conversations in Spanish over and over again with people. Essentially I was having conversations based around the words I knew, versus talking about the things I wanted to talk about that I didn’t know how to say.

My goal for the 30 Day Spanish Challenge was to help me communicate better on a more personal and intellectual level, not just on a survival level.

The Challenge

Every day for the 30 Day Challenge I did a combination of these things:

1) Learned 20 new vocab words

2) Translated a song or news article

3) Studied grammar via http://studyspanish.com

4) Practiced speaking & listening with friends

5) The rule was: When I’m not working, I’m speaking Spanish. 

The Biggest Obstacle

What turned out to be the biggest obstacle in the challenge was that… I’m always working!

Looking back at when I lived in Thailand 10 years ago, I remember picking up the language fairly quickly. The key difference was that I was “traveling” and my days were spent outside the house every day immersed with people who only spoke Thai.

Now things are different. I’m no longer 20 years old running around Southeast Asia. I’m 30 years old and have a business to run.

Even though I currently live in Managua, Nicaragua, I still work alone behind a desk Monday-Friday speaking in English with clients in the USA. (Need a website?)

And, as my officemates can testify, I often work morning to night, with only a few interruptions to eat and exercise. On weekends, I’ll often go out, but I’ve especially been busy the past couple months working on some new personal projects. So I don’t even go out every weekend anymore.

Ultimately, my schedule became the biggest obstacle in my challenge. I was doing a lot of studying, but not a lot of daily practicing. “Immersing” myself in Spanish mostly happened for just a few hours each weekend when I was with friends.

So what did I learn?

The Words I Learned

Here are my vocab cards. I learned just under 600 new words & phrases during the 30 Day Challenge.

There aren’t 600 index cards in that photo above because I would combine words within a theme onto the same card instead of using one card per word. For example, one card contained  the words winter, spring, summer, fall and on the flip side of that card, otono, invierno, primavera, verano.

I created a set of digital flashcards if you’d like to see every word I learned.

Grammar I Studied

I used the website http://studyspanish.com to take free grammar lessons. I found the lessons to be extremely helpful in learning about sentence structure. The website was also helpful in learning about idioms (expressions).

Below are a copy of the pages from my notebook. Click the link to open each image in a new window.

Verb Conjugation – ar, er, ir

Ser vs Estar 1

Ser vs Estar 2

Ser vs Estar 3

Negation

Questions 1

Questions 2

Possessive Adjectives

Tener Que vs Hay Que

Weather Expressions 1

Weather Expressions 2

Plural Nouns

Definite & Indefinite Articles

Hay

Adjectives

The Personal “a”

Contractions

Stem Changing Verbs

Estar, Ir, Dar

Ir a, Acabar de, Volver a + Infinitive

Comparisons of Inequality

Comparisons of Equality

Superlatives

Pronouns as Objects of Prepositions

Direct Object Pronouns

Indirect Object Pronouns 1

Indirect Object Pronouns 2

Verbs Like Gustar 1

Verbs Like Gustar 2

So what were the results?

The Good Results

I actually learned A LOT of Spanish! I learned hundreds of new words. I understand how sentence structure works better than I did before. I also learned a ton of Spanish euphemisms, or non-literal translations for phrases, which are the correct translations.

I understand more when people speak. Just by expanding my vocabulary, I am able to pick up more words in a sentence and use context clues to figure out what people are talking about. For example, let’s say before I was able to pick up 10-20% of the words in a sentence when someone spoke, now I may be able to pick up 20-30%, which makes a big difference.

I learned lots of bad words. After this challenge, I can officially make fun of my friends in Spanish now too.

The Bad Results

I didn’t learn as much as I had hoped. I had high expectations. I thought I’d be champion of the Spanish world after 30 days. Go from zero to hero. I dedicated about an hour a day to studying Spanish, but that still wasn’t enough to become fluent.

It’s kind of boring to study. To be honest, my previous challenges (30 Day Weight Loss & 30 Day Bikram Yoga) were much more fun! I’ve concluded from this Spanish challenge that I prefer challenges that get me away from the computer. I’ll keep that in mind for future challenges.

Conclusion

In the end… well, I still suck at Spanish.

Don’t believe me?

I took an online Spanish test before I started the challenge, and then I took the same test after. Here are my results.

Before The Challenge

After The Challenge

LOL – I got the EXACT same results! I was hoping I’d at least go up a few points.. but nope! Failing grade both times.

I wish I had better results for you, but it is what it is.

I know I’ve improved a lot conversationally at Spanish during the challenge, because I can definitely understand more Spanish when I hear people talk. On paper, however, I’m still a failing grade.

Looking back post-challenge, I’m happy that I decided to take this 30 Day Spanish Challenge. It jump started my Spanish learning… something I should have done 6 months ago.

Lesson For You

If you’d like to learn Spanish, here’s a lesson I learned:

Don’t buy anything yet.

If you’re a newbie, there are so many free resources available online to start with like the ones I mentioned in this post.

Purchasing an expensive course like Pimsleur or Rosetta Stone won’t make a huge difference for you at the beginning. It all comes down to taking the time to study and practice each day. If you won’t do it with free lessons, you probably won’t do it with a paid program either.

Practice, practice, practice.

Until the next challenge amigos!

Love,

PAUL

The post 30 Day Spanish Challenge Overview & Results appeared first on Adventure PAUL.

I read Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products by Nir Eyal at Barnes & Noble. It’s a 1 cup of coffee read.

I LOVED this book. I’ll start by saying that. And if you’re an online product or service creator, you will love this book too.

I read a LOT of books. And I get value from most of the books I read. However, not all of them keep me on the edge my seat like Hooked did. I was literally hooked as soon as I started reading this book.

It was his pragmatic use of studies mixed with definitions and explanations that resonated with me. And the book was a surprisingly quick read given the amount of information I extracted from it.

Here’s a summary of what I learned.

The Hook Model

Eyal defines the hook model as:

Trigger –> Action –> Variable Reward –> Investment

A trigger is the actuator of behavior–the spark plug in the engine.

The action is the simplest behavior in anticipation of reward.

In the variable reward phase, you reward your users by solving a problem, reinforcing their motivation for the action taken in the previous phase.

The investment occurs when the user puts something into the product or service such as time, data, effort, social capital, or money.

These experiences, or hooks as the author calls them, alter our every day behavior, to eventually, and potentially, form habits.

Why are forming habits good for business?

Eyal says, “Habit-forming products change user behavior and create unprompted user engagement.” He goes onto say that, “Fostering consumer habits is an effective way to increase the value of a company by driving higher customer lifetime value (CLTV): the amount of money made from a customer before that person switches to a competitor, stops using the product, or dies.”

Habits are tough to break, which makes switching to a competing product or service difficult. “The enemy of forming new habits is past behaviors,” Eyal writes.

He gives the example of Google vs Bing, which at this point, offer almost identical search services. Why then, are Google users so reluctant to switch?

Eyal writes, “Although many aspects of Bing are similar to Google, even a slight change in pixel placement forces the would-be user to leave a new way of interacting with the site. Adapting to the differences in the Bing interface is what actually slows down regular Google users and makes Bing feel inferior, not the technology itself.”

So in other words, in order for a user to switch to a competing product, it can’t just be a little better, it has to be A LOT better. The reason why many new products or services don’t make it is because the difference isn’t great enough between how much better the new product is versus how much users love their existing product.

Eyal writes, “A classic paper by John Gourville, a professor of marketing at Harvard Business School, stipulates that ‘many innovations fail because consumers irrationally overvalue the old while companies irrationally overvalue the new.'”

This is why understanding how the Hook Model works is crucial for new product survival. Eyal walks us in detail through the Hook Model, section by section in the book. I’ll provide a basic summary of each section.

The Trigger

As we learned, the trigger is what starts the process. Eyal explains that there are three core motivators that drive human behavior, “seeking pleasure and avoiding pain, seeking hope and avoiding fear, seeking social acceptance while avoiding social rejection.”

He uses the example of Instagram to explain how strong associations with internal triggers can become a routine.

With Instagram, Eyal writes, “It is the fear of losing a special moment that instigates a pang of stress. This negative emotion is the internal trigger that brings Instagram users back to the app to alleviate this pain by capturing a photo. As users continue to use the service, new internal triggers form.”

When Eyal refers to pain, it’s not as painful as it may sound. Not every pain we experience is excruciating.

Eyal writes, “It is important to clarify that the term pain, as it is frequently used in business school and marketing books, is somewhat hyperbolic. In reality, the experience we are talking about is more similar to an itch, a feeling that manifests within the mind and causes discomfort until it is satisfied.”

How do we discover the pain?

If the pain ultimately helps us discover the trigger, how can we as product creators find the pain?

One method of discovering the pain Eyal discusses is asking why as many times as it takes to get to an emotion. This technique is described by Taiichi Ohno, considered the father of the Toyota Production System, as the “5 Whys Method”, which Ohno described as the basis of Toyota’s scientific approach.

Eyal gives an example of this method in a fictitious scenario where we hypothetically develop the technology called “e-mail”.

…let’s say we’re building a fancy new technology called e-mail for the first time. The target user is a busy middle manager named Julie. We’ve built a detailed narrative of our user, Julie, that helps us answer the following series of whys:

Why #1: Why would Julie want to use e-mail?
Answer: So she can send and receive messages.

Why #2: Why would she want to do that?
Answer: Because she wants to share and receive information quickly.

Why #3: Why does she want to do that?
Answer: To know what’s going on in the lives of her coworkers, friends, and family.

Why #4: Why does she need to know that?
Answer: To know if someone needs her.

Why #5: Why would she care about that?
Answer: She fears being out of the loop.

Now we’ve got something! Fear is a powerful internal trigger and we can design our solution to help calm Julie’s fear.

External vs Internal Triggers

There are two types of triggers, external and internal, which work in conjunction with one another to drive users to take action.

“The ultimate goal of all external triggers is to propel users into and through the Hook Model so that, after successive cycles, they do not need further prompting from external triggers,” Eyal writes. “When users form habits, they are cued by a different kind of trigger: internal ones.”

Eyal discusses four types of external triggers:

1. Paid Triggers such as advertising or search engine marketing.
2. Earned Triggers like public and media relations, press mentions, featured placements.
3. Relationship Triggers like word of mouth of social sharing.
4. Owned Triggers such as app notifications, e-mail newsletters, and product notifications.

Eyal describes the relationship between the four types of external triggers. “While paid, earned, and relationship triggers drive new user acquisition, owned triggers prompt repeat engagement until a habit is formed. Without owned triggers and users’ tacic permission to enter their attentional space, it is difficult to cue users frequently enough to change their behavior.”

For example, a relationship trigger such as your friend using the service, is what may have gotten you onto Facebook in the first place. But once you’re an active member, and you install the app on your phone, the owned triggers, aka: Facebook notifications, are what keep you reengaged and coming back. Once you reach that point, the notifications bring you back more than the initial external trigger of your friend being on Facebook and encouraging you to join.

The other goal of external triggers, aside from triggering the user to take action, is to transition the user towards internal triggers. Eyal writes, “Once we’re hooked, using these products does not always require an explicit call to action. Instead, they rely upon our automatic responses to feelings that precipitate the desired behavior.”

In the example earlier with Instagram, the internal trigger is the fear of losing a special moment. This fear prompts the user to pull out their phone, capture a photo, and share it on Instagram with their network. This is the action.

In the other example of Facebook, the need for social acceptance, or the fear of being lonely, acts as the internal trigger that gets us to pull out our phones and scroll through the News Feed.

Actions

The second phase of the Hook Model is the action.

If the user doesn’t take action, the trigger is useless. So in order to maximize the number of users to take action, the action has to be easy.

Eyal writes, “Remember, a habit is a behavior done with little or no conscious thought. The more effort–either physical or mental–required to perform the desired action, the less likely it is to occur.”

Eyal discusses the Fogg Behavior Model, “which represents that a given behavior will occur when motivation, ability, and a trigger are present at the same time and in sufficient degrees.” This model was developed by Dr. B.J. Fogg, Director of the Persuasive Technology Lab at Stanford University, as a way to understand what drives our actions.

What is motivation?

Eyal writes that “Dr. Edward Deci, Professor of Psychology at the University of Rochester and a leading researcher on the self-determination theory, defines motivation as ‘the energy for action.'”

When the energy for action is met with the ability to take action, then the action can occur, if triggered.

What is ability?

Ability, according to Fogg, is influenced by six factors which are time, money, physical effort, brain cycles, social deviance, and non-routine.

Eyal writes, “To increase the likelihood that a behavior will occur, Fogg instructs designers to focus on simplicity as a function of the user’s scarcest resource at that moment.”

There are other factors which lead to action or inaction, such as perception, framing, and progress, which Eyal goes into detail about in this section.

Eyal writes that, “People often anchor to one piece of information when making a decision.”

The key for product creators when triggering action is focusing on the right piece of information, that is inline with their audience’s pain and/or goals. If the product creator is successful at creating user action, the next step in the Hook Model is the reward.

Viable Reward

In the viable reward stage of the Hook Model, Eyal writes, “you reward your users by solving a problem, reinforcing their motivation for the action taken in the previous phase.”

Eyal says that our brains are wired to seek rewards that make us feel accepted, attractive, important, and included.

Eyal explains viable rewards in terms of something we’re all familiar with, social media:

It is no surprise that social media has exploded in popularity. Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and several other sites collectively provide over a billion people with powerful social rewards on a variable schedule. With every post tweet, or pin, users anticipate social validation. Rewards of the tribe keep users coming back, wanting more.

Sites that leverage tribal rewards benefit from what psychologist Albert Bandura called “social learning theory.” Bandura studied the power of modeling and ascribed special powers to our ability to learn from others. In particular Bandura determined that people who observe someone being rewarded for a particular behavior are more likely to alter their own beliefs and subsequent actions. Notably, Bandura also demonstrated that this technique works particularly well when people observe the behavior of people most like themselves or who are slightly more experienced (and therefor, role models). This is exactly the kind of targeted demographic and interest-level segmentation that social media companies such as Facebook and industry-specific sites such as Stack Overflow selectively apply.

The reward can come in many forms though, not just social validation. You see many businesses and websites attempt to “gamify” their products and services with varying success.

FourSquare, for example, gives users badges the more they Check In to business locations. Mint.com helps users track their financial goals with a variety of goal tracking tools, charts, and graphs. StackOverflow.com users earn reputation points by convincing their peers that they know what they’re talking about. Reddit has Karma Points. Quora gives user credits for adding content. Khan Academy gives users badges for completing courses.

The examples of gamification are endless, and you are probably able to think of a few examples of products and services you use that attempt to gamify your experience (whether successfully or unsuccessfully).

Eyal writes, “Points, badges, and leaderboards can prove effective, but only if they scratch the user’s itch. When there is a mismatch between the customer’s problem and the company’s assumed solution, no amount of gamification will help spur engagement.”

“But You Are Free”

The most fascinating study I read about in Hooked was a French study where researchers discovered a technique to influence how much money people gave a total stranger in various circumstances. In the study, a stranger increased the amount of people who gave him bus fare by inserting just a few specially encoded words at the end of his request. The special phrase proved to be effective in other areas too such as increasing donations to charity and increasing participation in voluntary surveys.

Do you know what the phrase was? The person added to the end of their proposition, “But you are free to accept or refuse.”

Why does this simple phrase increase user action (ie: donations)?

Eyal writes, “The researchers believe the phrase: ‘But you are free’ disarms our instinctive rejection of being told what to do.” And we all hate being told what to do! (Or is that just me?)

He continues, “If you have ever grumbled at your mother when she tells you to put on a coat or felt your blood pressure rise when your boss micromanages you, you have experienced what psychologists term reactance, the hair-trigger response to threats to your autonomy.”

Investment

The fourth stage of the Hook Model is investment, which Eyal writes, “occurs when the user puts something into the product or service such as time, data, effort, social capital, or money.”

He explains that “investments” aren’t always just monetary, but rather things users do to improve their experience with the product or service.

For example, Eyal writes that “inviting friends, stating preferences, building virtual assets, and learning to use new features are all investments users make to improve their experience. These commitments can be leveraged to make the trigger more engaging, the action easier, and the reward more exciting with every pass through the Hook cycle.”

Why do these small investments increase our loyalty and engagement in a product?

Eyal explains the psychological phenomenon known as the escalation of commitment. He writes, “The more users invest time and effort into a product or service, the more they value it.”

Eyal gives a perfect example of this with the furniture retailer IKEA:

IKEA, the world’s largest furniture retailer, sells affordable, ready-to-assemble household furnishings. The Swedish company’s key innovation is its packaging process, which allows the company to decrease labor costs, increase distribution efficiency, and better utilize the real estate in its stores.

Unlike its competitors who sell preassembled merchandise, IKEA puts its customers to work. It turns out there’s a hidden benefit to making users invest physical effort in assembling the product–by asking customers to assemble their own furniture, Ariely believes they adopt an irrational love of the furniture they build, just like the test subjects did in the origami experiments. Businesses that leverage user effort confer higher value to their products simply because their users have put work into them. The users have invested in the products through their labor.

Our investments increase the value we get from products and services, because we are often more likely to be consistent with our own past behaviors.

Eyal writes, “We change our preferences to avoid cognitive dissonance.”

SimplyPsychology.org defines cognitive dissonance as “a situation involving conflicting attitudes, beliefs or behaviors. This produces a feeling of discomfort leading to an alteration in one of the attitudes, beliefs or behaviors to reduce the discomfort and restore balance etc.”

A classic example of cognitive dissonance is most people’s reaction to alcohol the first time we try it.

Eyal explains, “Our innate reaction to these acquired tastes is to reject them, yet we learn to like them through repeated exposure. We see others enjoying them, try a little more, and over time condition ourselves. To avoid the cognitive dissonance of not liking something that others seem to take so much pleasure in, we slowly change our perception of the thing we once did not enjoy.”

Once we reach the point where we change our attitudes and beliefs to adapt to our preferences, we begin to rationalize our actions.

Eyal writes, “Rationalization helps us give reasons for our behaviors, even when those reasons might have been designed by others.”

When a product creator can successfully take a user through the Hook Model, the user begins to form habits, and the cycle starts over again. “Habit-forming technologies leverage the user’s past behavior to initiate an external trigger in the future,” Eyal explains.

Good or Evil?

Eyal ends the book discussing the responsibility product makers have when creating user habits. The ability to create habits could be used for positive or negative change.

At one point, a reader of Eyal’s blog NirAndFar.com wrote him an e-mail that said, “If it can’t be used for evil, it’s not a superpower.”

Eyal agrees. He writes, “Creating habits can be a force of good, but it can also be used for nefarious purposes.”

Manipulation often has a negative connotation. Even the word “manipulation” has an evil feel to it. But Eyal gives examples of when manipulation can be used for changing behavior for the better. He gives the example of Weight Watchers, “one of the most successful mass-manipulation products in history… Weight Watchers customers’ decisions are programmed by the designer of the system, yet few question the morality of the business.”

Ultimately the responsibility of using this knowledge of the Hook Model falls into the hands of the product creators. “When harnessed correctly,” Eyal writes, “technology can enhance lives through healthful behaviors that improve our relationships, make us smarter, and increase productivity.”

The post Hooked – How to Build Habit-Forming Products – by Nir Eyal appeared first on Adventure PAUL.

I read the book Mindset: The New Psychology of Success by Carol S. Dweck, Ph.D.

It’s about a two-cup-of-coffee read if you’re a fast reader like me. I read it start to finish in one sitting today at Barnes & Noble.

The author’s name is Carol S. Dweck. From the her website:

Carol S. Dweck, Ph.D., is one of the world’s leading researchers in the field of motivation and is the Lewis and Virginia Eaton Professor of Psychology at Stanford University. Her research has focused on why people succeed and how to foster success. She has held professorships at Columbia and Harvard Universities, has lectured all over the world, and has been elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

In her book, Dweck classifies a person’s mindset into two categories: fixed mindsets and growth mindsets.

She goes on to show how these two types of mindsets play a role in our lives, studies, careers, and relationships. Dweck gives examples of high profile individuals, like sports stars and CEOs, and how a fixed mindset or a growth mindset played a role in their careers, success, reputation, and overall impact on their community and the world.

Nature vs Nurture

For a long time, experts have debated whether nature or nurture played the biggest role in our growth and development.

Dweck says that “today most experts agree that it’s not either–or… From conception on, there’s a constant give and take between the two. In fact, as Gilbert Gottlieb, an eminent neuroscientist, put it, not only do genes and environment cooperate as we develop, but genes require input from the environment to work properly.”

She goes onto say that “scientists are learning that people have more capacity for lifelong learning and brain development than they ever thought.”

It’s not necessarily our God-given talents that determine whether or not we achieve success, as Robert Sternberg, the “present-day guru of intelligence” writes, “but purposeful engagement.”

Dweck wrote, “There were two meanings to ability, not one: a fixed ability that needs to be proven, and a changeable ability that can be developed through learning.”

She admits that when she first discovered mindsets, she immediately realized that she had a fixed mindset. “I realized why I’d always been so concerned about mistakes and failures. And I recognized for the first time that I had a choice.”

Fixed vs Growth Mindset

So what’s the difference between a fixed and a growth mindset?

“In the fixed mindset, everything is about the outcome,” Dweck explained. “If you fail–or if you’re not the best–it’s all been wasted.”

She goes on to say, “The growth mindset allows people to value what they’re doing regardless of the outcome. They’re tackling problems, charting new courses, working on important issues. Maybe they haven’t found the cure for cancer, but the search was deeply meaningful.”

In other words, people with a fixed mindset have already at some point in their lives determined an absolute truth as to what they are capable of. In relationships. Creativity. Business. Education.

Whereas people with a growth mindset aren’t consumed with absolutes. Success and failure aren’t the metric that people with growth mindsets use to determine their progress or impact.

I recently read a post on Ideas.TED.com entitled The Science of Setting Goals. One of the things the author, Nadia Goodman, said about setting goals was to focus on the process, not the outcome.

Goodman said, “When we set goals, it’s easy to fixate on that magical ending when we’ve reached the goal and everything is better. But we can’t control outcomes, and we certainly can’t will them into existence (though this writer has tried, many times). We have to inch toward them, one choice at a time.”

This type of person, the one who Goodman describes as “focuses on the process,” is who Dweck would put into the growth mindset category.

Why is this important?

As Dweck explains, “..when you enter a mindset, you enter a new world. In one world–the world of fixed traits–success is about proving you’re smart or talented. Validating yourself. In the other–the world of changing qualities–it’s about stretching yourself to learn something new. Developing yourself.”

So basically, a fixed mindset contributes to or limits your potential for excellence more so than your natural abilities, or lack of abilities. The need of a person with a fixed mindset to receive validation or confirmation hinders them from thriving at the opportunity to learn from their mistakes and grow.

Dweck writes, “I’ve seen so many people with this one consuming goal of proving themselves–in the classroom, in their careers, and in their relationships. Every situation calls for a confirmation of their intelligence, personality, or character. Every situation is evaluated: Will I succeed or fail? Will I look smart or dumb? Will I be accepted or rejected? Will I feel like a winner or a loser?”

“If,” Dweck says, “you believe you can develop yourself, then you’re open to accurate information about your current abilities, even if it’s unflattering.”

How does a person’s mindset contribute to their overall voice and thoughts? Dweck explains that when it comes to a fixed mindset…

It’s not enough just to look smart and talented. You have to be pretty much flawless. And you have to be flawless right away.

We asked people, ranging from grade schoolers to young adults, “When do you feel smart?” The differences were striking. People with the fixed mindset said:

“It’s when I don’t make any mistakes.”
“When I finish something fast and it’s perfect.”
“When something is easy for me, but other people can’t do it.”

It’s about being perfect right now. But people with the growth mind-set said:

“When it’s really hard, and I try really hard, and I can do something I couldn’t do before.”
Or, “When I work on something a long time and I start to figure it out.”

For them it’s not about immediate perfection. It’s about learning something over time; confronting a challenge and making progress.

Who’s more successful? Fixed or Growth Minded People?

If the answer isn’t obvious to you at this point, Dweck provides examples of CEOs, sports stars, and students of hers who have exemplified fixed or growth mindsets to illustrate the effect that their mindsets have had on their lifetime success or accomplishments.

“Many growth-minded people didn’t even plan to go to the top,” Dweck writes. “They got there as a result of doing what they love. It’s ironic: The top is where the fixed-mindset people hunger to be, but it’s where many growth-minded people arrive as a by-product of their enthusiasm for what they do.”

My favorite anecdote that Dweck told was a story about an unnamed taxi driver. It goes as follows:

I was once in a taxi, and the driver had an opera on the radio. Thinking to start a conversation, I said, “Do you like opera?” “No,” he replied, “I hate it. I’ve always hated it.” “I don’t mean to pry,” I said, “but why are you listening to it?” He then told me how his father had been an opera buff, listening to his vintage records at every opportunity. My cabdriver, now well into middle age, had tried for many years to cultivate a rapturous response to opera. He played the disks, he read the scores–all to no avail. “Give yourself a break,” I advised him. “There are plenty of cultured and intelligent people who can’t stand opera. Why don’t you just consider yourself one of them?”

The taxi driver was so consumed with the feeling that he needed to listen to opera that it never occurred to him that he didn’t have to if he didn’t want to. Somehow the taxi cab driver had equated not loving opera with being a less than an adequate person.

“Worrying about being a nobody is not the mindset that motivates and sustains champions,” Dweck later writes.

The Mindset of a Teacher

I consider myself a teacher, above anything else. When I was younger I used to think, “You can’t teach yet because you don’t know everything about a subject yet.”

As I got older, and began writing regularly, teaching seminars, and consulting with business owners, I learned that a true teacher is never finished learning. For me, teaching is part of my process of better understanding a subject. It’s the next level of learning.

Dweck learned from Seymour Sarason, one of her professors in graduate school that, “There’s an assumption that schools are for students’ learning. Well, why aren’t they just as much for teachers’ learning?”

Why do we have a fixed mindset?

“When people hold on to a fixed mindset,” Dweck explains, “it’s often for a reason. At some point in their lives it served a good purpose for them. It told them who they were or who they wanted to be (a smart, talented child) and it told them how to be that (perform well). In this way, it provided a formula for self-esteem and a path to love and respect from others.”

But unfortunately for us, that mindset was most likely created at one given point in time. And, as Dweck writes, “An assessment at one point in time has little value for understanding someone’s ability, let alone their potential to succeed in the future.”

How do we change from a fixed mindset to a growth mindset?

After reading Dweck’s book, I’ve come to believe that her definition of a mindset is similar to how I think of a habit. And we all know it takes time to break a habit. And often the best way to “break” a habit is to develop new ones in its place.

The first step to changing your mindset is recognizing that you have one to begin with. Our mindset helps create the life rules that we consciously or subconsciously live by.

“The growth mindset also doesn’t mean everything that can be changed should be changed,” Dweck explains. “We all need to accept some of our imperfections, especially the ones that don’t really harm our lives or the lives of others.”

The post Mindset – The New Psychology of Success – by Carol S. Dweck, Ph.D. appeared first on Adventure PAUL.

In honor of my 30th birthday, here is the most important blog post I’ve ever written. Thank you for reading and being a part of my life.

These are my Life Rules. The ones you’ve heard me talk about for so long. The ones you’ve heard me preach when you’ve needed to hear them. The ones that you’ve quoted back at me when I’ve needed to hear them.

I like rules. They save you time. They give you structure. You can play by your own. You can break them.

Right now, you have rules that you live by. You might not even realize that you have these rules, but you do. Some of your rules you’d change if you knew they existed.

Every action we take is based on a hierarchy of our wants and needs. Most of the decisions we make are subconscious, meaning, we’ve already predetermined the course of action we’re going to take when a situation arises. This is good news and bad news, depending on how you look at it. The good news is that these decisions, these rules, are changeable… but only if you recognize them.

These are my Life Rules. Take time to read them and think about them. Learn from them and then make them your own so that Future You can achieve fulfillment, happiness, and success.

I hope these rules help your life as much as they have impacted mine.

Life Rules by Adventure PAUL

• Do nice things for Future You whenever possible.
• Just because people are looking at you doesn’t mean there’s a reason to be embarrassed.
• There’s always time to pee.
• You can’t choose your biggest fans, but you can appreciate them.
• Never compare yourself to anyone except Past & Future You.
• One person doesn’t know enough about your life that their opinion matters.
• If you want someone to recognize what you’ve done, show them.
• Accept compliments with a “thank you”.
• Do what you want.
• Help others first, not in exchange.
• Relationships can be long or short as long as they have a positive impact on your life.
• I can do anything.
• The words “I’m sorry” should only always come right before a reason for apologizing.
• Shadows of doubt have no business at the forefront of innovation.
• The world is very transparent now. Be clear along with it and let your light shine through.
• Save judgement for everyone else, and never listen to it.
• Smile.
• Lead with the things you do, not the things you say.
• We will never meet amazing people keeping to ourselves.
• Everything is personal. Don’t pretend otherwise.
• Be deliberate with your actions, but not obvious.
• Law of Friendship: If you meet a new friend, and then you don’t talk again for a year, you’ve been friends for 12 months. Treat them that way.
• There’s no “I told you so” in a partnership.
• Relationships are the most valuable thing in life.
• Never go back the same way you came.
• Choose adventure.

Thank you for reading.

Love,

PAUL

The post Life Rules appeared first on Adventure PAUL.

As of right now, Nov 2014, it is better to purchase a physical copy of a music CD, DVD, or book for one big reason:

You own it.

If you own it, you can resell it when you’re finished using it.

If you own it, you can play it on unlimited devices (for music and movies).

If you own it, you can give it to someone else later as a gift.

If you own it, your spouse or kids can inherit it after you die.

This potential resale value and the ability to gift the item makes physical copies of intellectual property more monetarily valuable than digital copies. These are things you cannot do (legally) with a digital copy. At least as of now.

Why?

Currently, when you purchase a digital copy of an ebook, mp3, or movie, you are only licensing the product. Most (if not all) licensors, or companies that sell you a license to their products, prevent you from reselling your license in their end-license user agreement (EULA) which you agree to when you make the purchase.

Licensing, unlike purchasing a product, isn’t protected by the First Sale Doctrine, which only applies to physical copies. The First Sale Doctrine says that once a copyright holder lawfully sells a copy of their work, the new owner is allowed to resell it, rent it, give it away, or destroy it. However, the First Sale Doctrine does not give the new owner the right to reproduce the work.

Since companies are licensing you digital copies instead of selling you copies, you are not allowed the rights provided to you by the First Sale Doctrine.

Some people feel that publishers incorrectly sell license agreements to circumvent copyright laws. In fact, this is being fought in courts all over the world. In Europe, for example, the European Court of Justice ruled on July 3, 2012, that it is permissible to resell software licenses even if the digital good has been downloaded directly from the Internet. The court ruled that if the software was originally sold to a customer for an unlimited amount of time, that type of sale involves a transfer of ownership, making resale of the software by the new owner permissible.

This is not currently the case in the United States. However, we will absolutely see changes in the near future because people are fighting on both sides of the issue. Digital goods are still relatively new and not many precedents have been set yet in US courts–but that is changing.

So how much more valuable is a hard copy of a book versus an e-book?

Let’s look at the example of The 4 Hour Work Week by Timothy Ferriss. At the time I’m writing this post, the hardcover is available for sale at Barnes and Noble for $12.79, and the e-book is available for sale for $12.99. Also available on that same B&N listing is used copies of the hardcover, ranging in price from $7.25 to $23.20.

Now, don’t ask me how sellers of used books think they can sell a used copy for $23.20 when the new copy is only $12.99, because I have no idea! However, for the sake of this example, let’s just take the lowest price of $7.25.

So the hardcover is $0.20 less then the e-book, and I can sell the hardcover when I’m finished for $7.25.

And don’t be annoying and say, “Well what about shipping?” Let’s erase shipping from the equation and assume for this hypothetical example that shipping was free when you bought the book (which is common with B&N), and you charged the buyer shipping when you resold the book or you sold it locally.

So in the end, if I resold the book after I read it, I could potentially only spend $5.54 to read The 4 Hour Work Week.

Plus I can gift it to my friend to read. And he can gift it to his friend. And finally that friend may gift it back to me and I can resell it. All which have social and reciprocal value (beyond monetary value) that I’m not permitted with a digital license to the book.

“But digital copies are portable and take up no actual space. I can carry my whole book, music, or movie collection on one device.”

I hear what you’re saying. Plus, don’t forget, digital copies can be stored in a cloud, so in the event of a fire or flood, you don’t lose all your stuff. And they are easier to browse, search through, filter, etc.

The point of this post IS NOT to say that physical copies are better than digital copies IN EVERY WAY! Because that is not true. Both have their advantages and disadvantages over the other.

I merely wanted to show you one way that physical copies are better than digital copies, because perhaps you were unaware that you don’t actually own your digital books, music, and music.

And maybe, just maybe, this post will make you appreciate the books that you own a little bit more…

The post 1 BIG Reason Why Physical Copies of Books, Music, and Movies Are Better Than Digital appeared first on Adventure PAUL.

I had posted a few photos from the property and some of my friends asked me if I was living in the jungle! Close enough I guess.. but jungles don’t usually have grocery stores or restaurants within walking distance.

Here’s a video I made showcasing the property for those of you who wondered where I’ve been for the past 30 days.

And here’s a photo of me and Lisa, the owners granddaughter, who helps her run their online presence, including the AirBnB listing where I found them.

If you’re considering moving to Costa Rica, read my post called Things to Know about Living and Working Remotely in Costa Rica.

The post Norma’s Villa in La Garita, Alajuela, Costa Rica appeared first on Adventure PAUL.

I develop websites for a living and all I need to operate my business is a laptop computer and a high speed Internet connection. There are thousands of people like me (probably more) who also work remotely. This list is specifically for you mobile entrepreneurs, although anyone traveling to Costa Rica for the first time should find this post helpful.

Here goes…

You can stay up to 90 days

To stay longer than that, you have to border-hop and reenter the country with a new stamp for a fresh 90 days. I’ve read that now you have to stay outside of the country for 3 days now before re-entering. This is Costa Rica’s attempt to prevent “perpetual tourists”. If you plan on living here long term or permanently, check with your country’s embassy and take the proper steps.

The airline WILL CHECK to make sure your return ticket is within 90 days. Otherwise they get fined by the country for letting people in. My name was called by the airline to approach their counter before my flight to San Jose because the flight attendant was having a hard time doing math correctly. She originally added the number of days I was staying incorrectly and I had to show her that I was only staying 84 days.

If I were you, I wouldn’t plan on staying 89 or 90 days. To avoid potential problems, I’d give yourself a week buffer (or at least a few days) so that if your flight was cancelled or delayed, you are not in the country illegally.

You need a return ticket to enter the country

Additionally, an onward ticket elsewhere works too. For example, a ticket to Brazil (or any other country) is fine instead of a return ticket, as long as it’s within your allowed 90 days.

Gone are the days when you can just enter a country on a one way ticket and figure out your next step later like when we were young! A lot of countries around the world are cracking down on this. I’ve heard of people entering countries with a one way, but as far as I’m concerned, it’s cheaper to have an onward ticket than it is to be denied entrance into a country and have to fly back.

Renew your passport if it’s close to expiring

Did you know that many countries won’t let you enter if your passport is going to expire within a year? And there are even a few countries that won’t let you enter if your passport is going to expire within 2 years!

I did not find that Costa Rica had any mention of this on their official website, but to err on the side of caution, you should renew your passport before you go if it’s close to expiring. Plus, you never know where your life will lead you, so better to have a fresh 10 years ahead of you.

The Internet is slower

Let me repeat that. The Internet is slower. Before I came to Costa Rica, I e-mailed the landlord of the house I rented to inquire if they had high speed Internet and she said yes.

You must know that definition of “high speed Internet” is different in other countries outside of the US. In America, we take for granted our 60mbs Internet for $30 a month, but that doesn’t exist in Costa Rica.

When I arrived at my house in La Garita, Alejuala, I discovered that “high speed Internet” in Costa Rica meant 1-2mbs. And barely that sometimes. I doubled the speed to “4mbs” for an additional $10/month, but the slower speed still takes some getting used to.

I find similarity between the slower pace of life here, and the slower Internet. I’m curious to see in our lifetime if faster Internet speeds around the world equate to a faster pace of life in those countries. Maybe speed of Life and Internet go hand in hand, as in, one causes the other. Or maybe they are both side effects of something else.

Regardless, if you require fast Internet to work like I do, before you rent a place in Costa Rica, e-mail the landlord and ask “How many mbs is your Internet?” and even “Who is your Internet provider?”. That way you will know ahead of time.

I am e-mailing a few landlords before relocating to a beach next month to find out what their Internet speed is and how fast I could upgrade if I wanted.

FYI – You will need at least 4-5mbs consistently to have stable Skype calls. Skype’s website says you only need 30kbs to have voice calls, but they are out of their freaking minds. Maybe if you like voice calls with a 10 second delay…

Download an offline GPS app for Costa Rica on your phone

I brought my Samsung Galaxy Note II, but I didn’t activate international roaming with Verizon Wireless. It’s too expensive, doesn’t work as well as it should, and it isn’t necessary. I’ll explain my phone set-up in a moment. But, understand that your Google Maps app, and most GPS apps, require an Internet connection to initially load the map and route. Once you do that, the route is stored temporarily in your cache, so you can continue to use it after you leave your Wifi spot. However, if you go off route, or require a new route, you will need Internet again to load the maps.

GPS is a free service provided by satellite, so the Location finding itself doesn’t need Internet, just the loading of maps. If Google actually kept a copy of the entire world map on your phone, you’d need a lot more storage space. This is why your app loads maps and routes as needed. However, I found an app that has Costa Rica’s entire country pre-loaded. This app allows me to use GPS from anywhere in the country without an Internet connection.

The app is: Costa Rica Travel Guide by Triposo

It allows for offline GPS in Costa Rica, has a currency conversion tool, and some built in travel guides.

How to use your American cell phone number in Costa Rica

Most of the methods I researched about how to use your US cell phone number in Costa Rica were outdated, so here’s an outline of my current setup. I use Verizon Wireless, which has an international roaming plan that would allow me to send/receive calls at $2.89/minute. Texts cost $0.05 to receive and $0.25 to send. Mobile data is something outrageous like $20/mb. They do have an international subscription feature you can add to your plan that gets these costs lower, but the expense wasn’t necessary as you’ll discover below from my current setup.

WARNING: Verizon Wireless DOES NOT allow you to turn off international roaming if you’d like to keep your cell service active. So immediately upon getting onto my flight from Ft. Lauderdale Airport, I turned my cell phone onto Airplane mode and it will remain in airplane mode for the duration of my stay in Costa Rica. I also turned off Mobile Data, just in case my phone got turned off of Airplane mode. God forbid, some apps start auto-updating at $20/mb!

In my telephone setup that you’ll read below, my phone is in Airplane mode with WiFi turned on.

FOR TELEPHONE CALLS

Verizon Wireless offers free call forwarding, and I have an unlimited minutes package, so forwarding my calls to a VOIP number was a no brainer. There are lots of options for VOIP, however, I’m already a Skype user, and they have servers world wide for fast connections, so I stuck with what I know.

First I purchased a Skype Number. It costs $60/year and they had a special for $30 for the first year when I purchased mine. By default, you have a free Skype Screenname when you join, but people can’t call that from telephones. I ordered a US number because I have unlimited calling from Verizon Wireless to USA. Even though I’m physically located in Costa Rica, it’s free to forward my calls to my Skype because of my US Skype number.

Second I purchased a Skype Calling Package for $2.99/month which allows me unlimited minutes to US & Canada numbers. They also offer an International package for $13.99/month to call To & From any country in the world. I communicate with everyone I work with overseas via Skype (screenname) or Google Hangouts, so I opted not to purchase the international package even though I think it’s a great deal.

Third I setup my Skype Number to “ringout as my cell phone number.” This means that when I call people, they see my Verizon Wireless phone number on the caller ID and not my Skype number, even though I’m technically calling them from my Skype number. I did this because 1) I’ve had my same phone number for over 10 years and it’s the only number I’d like to give out, and 2) people will recognize that it’s me calling and not some new phone number.

Fourth, I created a voicemail greeting on Skype. My Skype voicemail e-mails me whenever someone leaves me a message. Originally I had my Skype # forward to my Google Voice number (which I use for voicemail in the US) to that I could continue to use my same voicemail service, but that became complicated because of how long calls ring before being forwarded. Not every call was reaching my Google Voicemail. So while I’m outside of the country, I use my Skype Voicemail, and when I’m back in the country, I’ll be back to using my Google Voice for my voicemail again.

With this telephone setup, I can send and receive calls as normal from my same cell phone number, as long as I have an Internet connection. At my house in Costa Rica, I have WiFi, so I can use my cell phone as normal. When I’m away from the house, I have to rely on free WiFi signals to send and receive calls.

If I decide to get a local Costa Rica cell phone, I can also download Skype on that new phone and have the option of sending and receiving calls via my Costa Rican data connection. Alternately, without an app, I could dial a special Skype phone number in Costa Rica from any local phone line, and enter the telephone number I’d like to call. This re-routes my call to my Skype account so it appears as if I’m calling from my same US cell phone number.

FOR TEXT MESSAGING

I hate text messaging, so I wasn’t sad to see it go if there was no way around it. Fortunately/unfortunately, Verizon Wireless has a new service which allows me to receive text messages via WiFi connection.

In the “old days”, your phone had to actually be turned on and in service to receive text messages. Verizon allowed you to forward your calls if your phone was off, but not your texts. Your texts just remained in queue for a few days until you turned your phone back on or had a signal again and then they’d all pour in at once. This meant that I wouldn’t receive text messages so long as my phone was in airplane mode, and by the time I was back in the State, most of the texts in my queue (less the last few day) would have expired.

Note: There are third party apps that can forward your text messages. An app wouldn’t work for me, however, because I have my cell phone physically with me in Costa Rica. Those apps I’m talking about require your phone to receive the message first, which my phone would not do since I have it in airplane mode.

The Solution… Verizon Wireless has a new software (very, very new) called Verizon Messages which basically allows you to send/receive text messages from a WiFi connection on your phone, tablet, or desktop. FINALLY!! Woohoo! Even though I hate text messaging, I wouldn’t want to miss anything important that was sent to me via text.

Here’s the link: Verizon Messages App (Android/iPhone)

In order for this to work, you need to replace your default Messaging app on your phone with the Verizon Mesages app. DO THIS FIRST. It took a hot minute for me to get this working because I downloaded the program to my desktop computer first, and it wouldn’t connect. As it turns out, I had to Activate the service first by downloading the mobile app. Then I could connect via my desktop program. So do this BEFORE you leave the country.

With a fast enough WiFi connection in Costa Rica, you should have no problem using the setup I described above and your friends, family, and clients will have no idea that you’re thousands of miles away in a different country. Unless you’re like me and write posts about Things To Know About Living and Working Remotely in Costa Rica. Then they’ll read your blog and figure it out. 🙂

Money conversion can get expensive

Costa Rica uses colones (CRC) as their currency. The conversion rate is about 540 CRC = $1 USD.

DO NOT CONVERT A LOT OF MONEY AT THE AIRPORT

You should convert a little bit of money so that you don’t enter Costa Rica without any colones to your name, but not too much because the exchange rate at the airport blows. I laughed when I saw a sign that read “NO FEE CONVERSION” because the “fee” is built into their conversion rate.

The conversion rate should be about about 540 CRC per $1 USD like I mentioned above, but the place at the airport only offers 460 CRC per $1 USD. So if you converted $1,000 to colones at the airport you’d receive 460,000 CRC. If you do it elsewhere at the normal rate of 540, you’d receive 540,000 CRC. That’s a difference of 80,000 colones which is about $148 USD. That’s a big freaking difference on $1,000! “NO FEE CONVERSION” my ass! That’s almost a 15% conversion fee!

I converted $200 at the airport because I didn’t want to leave empty handed. I had read that most everywhere in Costa Rica accepts USD (which has proven to be true so far), but I wanted to play it safe and have some colones in my pocket. The guy at the airport exchange counter tried to convince me to convert $400 for a “better rate”. The better rate was only marginal.. 463 CRC per $1 USD, so I said “no thank you.” Then the guy says, “Only $200 though? You will go through $200 easily in one day in Costa Rica.” to which my response was, “I better not! Just $200.”

Note that if you choose to spend American USD at places in Costa Rica, you will sometimes receive changes in colones because they will need to break a $1 bill, or they won’t have enough American currency to give you change. Typically when you deal with vendors, the accepted standard exchange rate is 500 CRC per $1 USD. They aren’t trying to rip you off, it’s just easier to do math at 500 CRC than 540 CRC. The difference is only $0.07 per $1 which isn’t a lot on a small scale. I keep meticulous track of my money though, and for me every cent counts. $0.07 on the dollar is 7%. So that’s why I choose to pay for things here in colones.

For the sake of math and quick conversion in my head, I use 500 CRC per $1 USD.

Another trick I learned is to “double it and remove the 000’s”.

For example, if the sign reads “18,000 CRC” then double it to “36,000” and remove the “000’s” and you get $36 USD.

Alternately you can reverse that trick and calculate USD to CRC by “half it and add 000”.

For example, if you have $10 USD, then half it to “5” and add “000” and you get “5,000 CRC”

US BANKS WANT TO FUCK YOU

Did you know that your US bank will most likely charge you an additional flat fee AND a conversion transaction fee as a percentage on top of that?

Like I said, I am meticulous with tracking my money. You don’t get rich by giving away 3% or 7% just to spend your own money. So I called my banks to find out what their international fees were. Here they are for the three banks I use.

Capital Bank

This bank charges .80% on everything, plus an additional:

-1% – ATM withdrawals
-1% – Signature transaction (running card as credit)
-2% – Debit transactions (where you type in your PIN # at a merchant)

Wells Fargo

This bank charges:

-$5 ATM fee (flat fee w/ no additional percentage)
-3% transaction fee on Debit/Credit card purchases

PayPal

This bank charges:

1% Conversion Fee on everything (ATM, Debit, Credit transactions) plus:
-$1.50 fee on ATM withdrawals

*PayPal charges $1.50 per ATM withdrawal EVERYWHERE, even in America. They don’t have a relationship with ANY bank or ATM machine to allow free withdrawals which means that you pay the $1.50 at any ATM, since there’s no physical PayPal banks or PayPal ATMs anywhere. In comparison to another digital bank, Simple.com has a relationship with Allpoint®, the country’s largest surcharge-free ATM network, which means that all of their 55,000 ATMs are transaction free for Simple customers. Why does PayPal not do this? That’s a topic for a different blog post…

WHAT CONVERSION RATE DO BANKS USE?

Don’t forget that transaction fees aren’t the only thing that can eat away at your money. The CONVERSION RATE matters too. I discovered that most banks have not changed their rate for USD to CRC in 8 years. It remains at 520 CRC per $1 USD since 2006. However, I’d call your individual bank and find out what rate they use because things might change, especially given the ongoing decline of the USD.

I discovered that PayPal uses MasterCard’s Global Exchange Rates to determine their exchange rate. However, Costa Rica is not listed on that. I called MasterCard’s 1-800 customer service number to inquire about Costa Rica’s rate, which automatically transferred me back to PayPal customer service. So I asked what their current exchange rate is for Costa Rica and the PayPal representative did not know.

Here’s what I found on MasterCard’s FAQ:

Q: As an Issuer, how can I access the rates for other currencies not displayed on the Currency Conversion Tool?

A: Issuers can retrieve the MasterCard exchange rates for other currencies from the T057 Currency Conversion Rate File. To sign up for receipt of the T057 Currency Conversion Rate File, please contact your Customer Support liaison.

I asked PayPal for their T057 Currency Conversion Rate File. The PayPal representative had never heard of it. I asked her to do some research and ask her superiors. Finally after 20 minutes she comes back and informs of that the rate hasn’t changed from 520 CRC per $1 USD since 2006. So that’s the best answer I could receive and it was good enough for me.

DON’T FORGET ATM FEES

Since none of my banks have physical locations in Costa Rica, I am also required to pay the ATM Fee on whatever ATM I use. For example, most ATMs charge between $2-6 to retrieve money with a card from a different bank.

HOLY SHIT THIS GETS EXPENSIVE

Here’s an example of how much it costs to remove $200 USD from an overseas ATM that charges $3.00/transaction for using their ATM machine. This is how much I net from my $200 withdrawal:

• Capital Bank: $193.40
• Wells Fargo: $192.00
• PayPal: $193.50

GO WITH YOUR LEAST EXPENSIVE BANK

If one bank differs drastically from another with regards to transaction fees and currency exchange rate, you might want to transfer money to the bank with the lowest overall fees and primarily use that debit card overseas.

In my case, PayPal charges the least amount of fees to use my own money. The difference is only $0.10 between Capital Bank and PayPal in the example above, but PayPal is the bank I use most anyway so this works out okay for me.

However, keep money in all your banks so you have access to your funds in the event of an emergency, a card gets shut off, or you lost a card.

MANY PLACES IN COSTA RICA TAKE CARD

I like to keep a little cash on me, especially in a foreign country, but I’ve discovered that many places take cards as payment. Even small sodas (restaurants) have machines now-a-days. Not as many places in Costa Rica accept cards as compared to the US, however, most Costa Rican grocery stores, restaurants and tourist attractions do. Most hotels will also have merchant services for hotels and ATMs in-hotel – allowing you to use your credit card freely there.

Call your banks to inform them you are leaving the country

Even if you’re not like me and you don’t care about transaction fees or conversion rates, you should call your bank anyway before you leave the country to inform them of your travels so the bank can notate your account. This will (hopefully) prevent your bank from flagging your card as stolen. At this point, most of us have had our debit or credit cards turned off by our banks for some reason or another, so informing them of your overseas travel will help prevent problems before they happen.

Learn these conversions to make your life easier

Like the rest of the civilized world, Costa Rica is on the metric system. Gas is sold in liters. Directions are given in kilometers. Here are some quick conversions to help you succeed in Costa Rica:

• 1 kilometer = .62 miles
• 1 meter = 3.28 feet
• 100 centimeters = 39.37 inches
• 1 liter = .26 gallons
• 1 milliliter = .033 ounces
• 1 pound = .453 kilograms

Costa Rica uses the same electric outlets as the USA

You can use your same plugs for your cell phone, laptop, and appliances in Costa Rica as the US. You won’t need a converter. However, you might grab one 3-prong to 2-prong converter if you’ll be staying at in an old house in Costa Rica that doesn’t have 3-prong outlets. Most do that I’ve seen though.

Your health insurance provider might cover you here too

I use Blue Cross & Blue Shield of NC which provides coverage for when I travel. The coverage is limited, however, to certain doctors and facilities, most of which center around San Jose in Costa Rica. I found out which doctors and hospitals I am covered in BEFORE I left and saved the list to my phone/computer for quick reference.

Before you go purchasing “International Health Insurance” from a 3rd party carrier, call your current health insurance company to find out what your coverage is overseas.

Also be sure to ask, “Does my coverage include emergency evacuation to a US hospital?”

Hopefully you won’t need that, but it’s nice to know that the option is there in an emergency.

Costa Rica has universal healthcare. If you decide to stay here for the long term, you should look into getting onto their universal healthcare policy. I read that it costs less than US insurance and it allows you to get healthcare anywhere. However, it’s not something you’d consider for a short visit.

Your life insurance provider might NOT cover you here

Did you know that your life insurance has restrictions on where you can die? Check your policy or call your insurance agent before you leave the country to find out if you’re covered.

I use AAA Life Insurance which covers me worldwide. I discovered, however, when I was shopping for new life insurance, that many companies DO NOT cover you overseas, or they have a limited list of countries in which they provide you coverage.

I was speaking to an insurance agent in Asheville NC who asked me where I was going this year. I said, “Costa Rica.. Philippines.. Thailand…” and started naming off a few places on my agenda. She came back a few days later after doing some research and told me that in some countries, only PARTS of the country are covered. In the Philippines for example, there is a very small region where I am permitted to die and my beneficiaries can still collect.

Who knew insurance companies could be so difficult? (kidding.. we all know)

Many Costa Ricans speak English, but probably just as good as your Spanish

I speak Spanish better than I understand it. This means that I can ask someone in perfect Spanish where the bus stop is and then not understand a word they say in response. The language barrier hasn’t proven to be a problem yet. I’m a fast learner and lots of people speak English. However, you can’t rely on that.

My advice to you is that you should learn the fundamentals. Numbers, directions, colors, etc. Especially learn how to say words relating to your dietary restrictions or medical conditions if you have any. If you can’t eat pork, for example, you better know how to ask if something has pork in Spanish.

Tourists pay more for the same things than locals

This might be obvious, and it’s also true of anywhere in the world. Tourists, or foreigners living in Costa Rica, traditionally are charged higher for the same items then Costa Ricans.

A good way to avoid this from happening is to 1) shop at places where the prices are listed on the menu or on the items, and 2) ask what the price is ahead of time. It’s hard to negotiate the price of a sandwich after you ate it.

Everything is negotiable

This isn’t a Costa Rica lesson.. it’s a life lesson. So remember it: Everything is negotiable.

If you don’t like the price of something, don’t buy it. Make an offer. Or better yet – just say no and let the merchant negotiate with themselves. Suddenly the price lowers when you begin to walk away.

Not just souvenirs or food is negotiable.. so is lodging. If you use a website like AirBnB.com (like I did) to find a house for rent, don’t be afraid to e-mail the host directly and see if they offer a better rate depending on the time of year. In the slower season (summer time), housing becomes extremely affordable and negotiable.

Costa Rica is small (geographically)

The Pacific Coast is about 500 miles long and the Caribbean Coast is about 300 miles. You could get to most places in Costa Rica in a day’s drive. Some of the roads are not that great though. Highways do not connect everywhere yet so you will take small roads and that takes a lot of time. In general though, I have been able to get around by bus very easily throughout the central valley.

You can drink the water

Despite what Dave Matthews says, you CAN drink the water! It’s not advised to drink the water in most Central American countries, unless you’re a fan of projectile vomiting and diarrhea, but the water is clean in Costa Rica.

Just to be on the safe side, I purchased bottled water my first day (expensive!), and then the next day I started with one glass from the tap to “test the waters”. Even though water might be clean and drinkable, water from different countries has different bacteria and probiotics that could affect your stomach differently than the water you’re accustomed to. So I started with one glass, the next day had two, and I had zero negative effects. So now I exclusively drink tap water to spare the expense of bottled water.

Just to be on the safe side, I recommend that you start with one glass your first day and move up incrementally before committing to a gallon a day. Or maybe you don’t drink that much water anyway.. but I drink a LOT of water.

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That’s all for now. I’ll update this list with more great information as I learn it. If you have any suggestions or advice about living and/or working in Costa Rica, leave me a comment below.

Share this post with your friends who are considering traveling to Costa Rica.

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Update August 12, 2014:

Costa Rica doesn’t use street addresses

In America we’re accustomed to hearing “124 Example Street, City, State Zip Code” and then putting that address into our GPS and easily driving there. In Costa Rica, there are no street addresses. So finding places becomes a challenge, especially if you’re not familiar with the area. You have to be a little creative sometimes.

So if they don’t have addresses, what do they use?

Giving directions sounds something like this.. “In La Garita heading towards Atenas, go until you see the soccer field on your left. The house is 200 meters past that on the left.”

Or sometimes like this… “At the church in the town center, head towards the giant tree, then take a right and go about 300 meters and you will see a sign on your left.”

Are you kidding me??

haha no! I’m serious! That’s what directions are like here. There are some areas that actually have street names, but there are rarely street signs, and no-one ever refers to things by street name. My friend taught me about this and I said, “That is a bad way to do things.”

There really is no debating it.. the system of street addresses here is BAD, but I work with what I’ve got.

In the future, as more and more people in Costa Rica have Androids, iPhones, and GPS units in their car, we might see a bigger adoption of the use of actual street addresses.. but that’s still a long time coming because giving directions like I described above is part of the culture here.

Update Sep 1, 2014:

Food is crazy expensive

I’m serious.. I was NOT expecting how expensive the cost of eating in this country is. A can of peas and carrots cost $2-3. Name brand potato chips can run you up to $5-6. Mediocre sushi will cost you $50-60 for a dinner for two. I was definitely thinking “southeast Asia prices” in regards to eating here, but I was mistaken.

Average meal at a soda for a hamburger and fries is about $4-6 dollars in the central valley and $5-7 near the beaches. And that’s just eating in dive restaurants. A fine dining meal will run you almost similar prices as USA. $13-20+ for a steak dinner. $10-20 for seafood (depending on the fish of course).

I might talk about the cost of living too much in this post, but that’s what many people are interested in knowing before they arrive.

Click the photo below to see my Comida de Costa Rica album on Facebook.

Central Valley weather is perfect. Beaches get hot!

I just arrived in Playas del Coco in Guanacaste, Costa Rica a few days ago and I was surprised at the heat! Having lived in La Garita for the month of August and experiencing perfect temperature weather, I was expecting something similar here in Coco, but I was mistaken. It’s almost uncomfortably hot here.. and that’s coming from a guy that LOVES hot weather.

What I’ve learned in Coco is that exercising outdoors happens before 8am or after 5pm. During the day, I work out of my house with two fans running, every window and the front door open for a draft. I have an air conditioner in this condo, but using it during the day time is futile. It’d cost a fortune in electric fees and it’s barely more comfortable than keeping everything open. Although, I have learned a trick from PortableACNerd.com, it is to turn on the unit when the temperature is at it’s coolest, it is easier for the air conditioner to maintain a cool temperature rather than to bring it down.

Now I realize first hand why expats gravitate towards the Central Valley. That “perfect weather” I read about only exists there. Don’t get me wrong.. these beaches are BEAUTIFUL and I am enjoying my stay here. I am just trying to write objectively about what to expect because you might not be able to work from a bathing suit like me.

The post Things To Know About Living and Working Remotely in Costa Rica appeared first on Adventure PAUL.

I’ve driven across the country more times than I can remember, but the actual drive always seems like a blur.

If someone asks me, “How long did it take?”

My answer is usually something like, “I don’t know. A couple days?”

“No way!” I’m usually told. “It takes longer than that…”

So I decided to put it to the test and keep a log of my trip from Los Angeles, CA to Asheville, NC.

Note that I didn’t rush my way across the country. I wasn’t trying to set a record.

I rarely drove more than 5-10 mph over the speed limit because on a trip this long, it’s not worth having to look over my shoulder for cops the whole time.

However, I did try and minimize stops by combining gas, bathroom breaks, and food. This means that I filled up my gas tank while peeing on the cement and eating a sandwich.

haha j/k

What it actually means is that whenever I stopped for a bathroom break or food, I also filled up on gas, no matter how big or small the fill-up. That’s why you’ll see so many small gas bills on my trip log below.

Trip Log

Car: 2007 Ford Focus

Man: Adventure PAUL

Tuesday, May 27, 2014

8:15am – 0 miles – Pull out of my driveway

8:20am – .3 miles – Gas (4.65 gal x $4.058/gal = $22.95)

12:23pm – 272 miles – Gas (8.233 gal x $3.539/gal = $29.14)

Lunch ($3.47) – ate while driving

3:57pm – 512.3 miles – Gas (7.597 gal x $3.659/gal = $27.80)

5:12pm – 591.3 miles – Gas (2.753 gal x $3.699/gal = $10.18)

Snack ($1.49) – ate while driving

8:14pm – 809.6 miles – Gas (6.496 gal x $3.289/gal = $21.37)

10:17pm – 946.6 miles – Gas (4.013 gal x $3.359/gal = $13.48)

Wednesday, May 28, 2014

1:32am – 1170.9 miles – Rest Area (Nap)

5:18am – Back on road

5:41am – 1182.0 miles – Gas (6.701 gal x $3.359/gal = $22.51)

7:39am – 1304.8 miles – Gas (3.621 gal x $3.369/gal = $12.20)

7:48am – Breakfast ($4.93) – ate in restaurant

8:02am – Back on road after breakfast

12:00pm – 1573.6 miles – Gas (8.941 gal x $3.339/gal = $29.85)

Lunch ($3.47) – ate while driving

2:10pm – 1709.2 miles – Gas (4.016 gal x $3.359/gal = $13.49)

Snack ($3.95) – ate while driving

2:30pm – 1717.0 miles – Traffic Jam (construction)

3:40pm – Traffic Jam Over

7:38pm – 1996.1 miles – Gas (9.205 gal x $3.389/gal = $31.20)

7:44pm – 1996.7 miles – Dinner ($17.73) – ate in restaurant

8:28pm – Back on road

9:18pm – 2047.9 miles – Rest Stop (nap)

Thursday, May 29, 2014

5:45am – Back on road

6:05am – 2068.4 miles – Gas (2.301 gal x $3.399/gal = $7.82)

6:10am – Breakfast ($5.58) – ate in restaurant

6:18am – Back on road

9:31am – 2273.4 miles – Arrive in Asheville NC

Final Gas: 6.846 gal x $3.599/gal = $24.64

Summary

Total Miles: 2273.4

Total Gallons: 75.373

Average $/gal: $3.49

Average mph: 30.16

The post How long does it take and how much does it cost in gas to drive across the country? appeared first on Adventure PAUL.

I arrived in Santa Barbara CA and decided it was time to get in shape.

During the past 11 months, I had gained what I jokingly refer to as the Relationship 15. I struggled with losing that weight throughout 2013.

Now I was a single adventurer again about to tackle the unknown. I was ready to make a serious and dramatic change. That’s when I turned to Bikram.

Now, it’s not just for the weight loss aspect that I chose to start Bikram Yoga again after reading a few articles from http://www.yogaburnreviews.com/. If I were solely interested in weight loss, I would have done a strictly aerobic exercise regime for 30 days, like walking, jogging, and hiking. Like the time I lost 20 pounds in 30 days.

I turned to Bikram for the therapeutic benefits.

Yogis refer to the practice as a “90 Minute Open Eyed Meditation” — and I agree with that definition.

After going through a big transition in my life (a break up, moving to a new city, best-friend / biz partner moved across the country), I needed to get grounded again.

2013 was a fantastic, beautiful, turbulent, life changing, stagnant, incredible, eye-opening year mixed together. In hindsight, it feels like I lived a lifetime in that one year. I went through a period of months where I was depressed and it was hard to snap out of it. Lucky for me I had a wonderful girlfriend who was there for me, a great circle of friends, and my amazing family who helped lift my spirits each day.

I also did a tremendous amount of reading and personal enrichment. I actually hit one of the goals on my bucket list and read over 60 books last year! I practically lived at the Barnes & Noble in the Glendale Americana about 1-2 days a week in 2013.

In that same year, I took a tv hosting workshop with Marki Costello. My brother came to Los Angeles to visit. I walked great distances. I donated my hair to charity!

And so after a transformative year like 2013, there was nothing I needed more than some time alone to get back on track for the final year of my 20’s. And that’s how life took me to beautiful Santa Barbara, California. A small town on the beach that reminds me of my hometown, Asheville, North Carolina.. except with better weather and an ocean!

The day I arrived, I Google searched the local Bikram Yoga school in Santa Barbara and bought my first month’s unlimited pass. I was ready to start immediately.

Unfortunately, that very same day, the school was closed!

But then look what I saw right underneath that post…

The entire school was about to begin a 30 Day Challenge at the same time as me!

Talk about good timing!

Over 50 people at the Santa Barbara location had already signed up for the challenge.

This is the second time I’ve ever done a Bikram Yoga 30 Day Challenge.

About 3 years ago, I did a 30 Day Bikram Yoga Challenge to help me quit smoking cigarettes. I’ve never smoked a cigarette since.

I could already testify to how transformational Bikram Yoga can be… but 3 years and 20 pounds later, I wasn’t sure what to expect.

Here’s My Story…

Day 29 is a video. Click the image below to watch the video on Facebook.

Before & After Pics

I don’t have a before nudie pic.. I had forgotten to take one. But here’s a photo of me and the lovely Liza that was taken on January 4, 2014. You can see how heavy I was just from my face.

And here’s me after the last day of the challenge.

I started out weighing in at a shocking 201.5 lbs, and I finished at 187.2 lbs.

My Thoughts

Your Thoughts

What do you think? Have you done a 30 Day Bikram Yoga Challenge before? How did it make you feel?

I’m going to reach out to a few other folks at the Santa Barbara location who just finished their challenges alongside with me and see what they have to say now that it’s through.

Please leave your thoughts, questions, and comments below.

The post My 30 Day Bikram Yoga Challenge Journal + Before & After Results appeared first on Adventure PAUL.

Here is a video of the first speech I ever did about Choosing Adventure. The video was filmed in March 2014.

I hope that this video inspires you to choose adventure, so that one day you can look back at your life and remember the things you did, and not the things you didn’t do.

The post Choose Adventure – My Inspirational Toastmaster Speech appeared first on Adventure PAUL.