Triathlon Training and Six Life Lessons Learned
November 14th, 2008
I just wrote a guest post for Leo Babauta of Zen Habits discussing some of the life lessons that I learned (or re-learned) during a couple of months of triathlon training as I prepared for the Miami Man:
Six Life Lessons Learned from Triathlon Training
Highlights include:
- Get started (NOW!)
- You have to do the miles
- Some days it’s going to rain
- Put your head down and take it one step at a time
- Find sources of inspiration
If you find the post valuable, I’d really appreciate it if you helped spread the word by sharing it on StumbleUpon or Digg.
What is one thing you have always wanted to do in your life but have not done yet?
November 2nd, 2008
I have many things that I would still like to do and accomplish! And I assume you do too. Perhaps you would like to change the world, launch a new project, or do something as (seemingly) simple as attending a conference and vowing to make some new connections…
Everest image source: twiga_269
This week I am heading to Miami to compete in the Miami Man International Distance Triathlon (swim .6 mile, bike 24 miles, and run 10k) on November 9th as part of my commitment to Train for Humanity.
Not many people actually know this about me, but I have wanted to do a triathlon ever since I watched Julie Moss (see video below- watch it!) collapse on T.V. at the Hawaii IronMan triathlon and then crawl across the finish line in 1982. Yikes that’s over 20 years ago…
While certainly not IronMan distance, the Olympic distance tri should give me a good feel for the event. Really, I would like to make it to, and compete in, the Hawaii IronMan event someday, but I am not sure that my knees necessarily agree with me.
One Month After the Train for Humanity Launch: Ten Lessons Learned
October 30th, 2008
Do you have an idea for a business that you would like to create, a vision that you want to pursue, and goals that you would like to accomplish? Or, are you looking to launch a non-profit organization?
Just about one month ago Leo Babauta, Dan Clements, Andrew Flusche, and I launched Train for Humanity, an innovative new humanitarian project to try and generate some awareness and raise funds for folks who are facing a dire situation.
We are bound in our belief that with a little creativity and independent thinking individuals can make a difference and effect positive change in the world.
In addition, we realize that many people are looking to capitalize on the web and use it as a tool to launch, promote, or grow a new or existing business. Train for Humanity, is of course, a non-profit, however, launching a humanitarian site it is pretty much just like trying to launch any other type of organization or business.
As such, we felt that a one-month recap might be useful to you and help to give some initial insight into some of the mistakes we’ve made and what is working well.
You can read the rest of the post at Train for Humanity: One Month After Launch: Ten Lessons Learned and if you gain any value from the post please consider giving it a Stumble, DIGG, or Reddit.
Blog Action Day 2008 - Please Help to Eradicate Poverty
October 14th, 2008
Poverty and Hunger Statistics - Provided by Global Call To Action Against Poverty
- Over 1 billion people live on less than $1 a day with nearly half the world’s population (2.8 billion) living on less than $2 a day.
- From 1990 to 2002, in sub-Saharan Africa, although the poverty rate declined marginally, the number of people living in extreme poverty increased by 140 million.
- More than 800 million people go to bed hungry every day… 300 million are children. Of these 300 million children, only eight percent are victims of famine or other emergency situations. More than 90 percent are suffering long-term malnourishment and micronutrient deficiency.
- Every 3.6 seconds another person dies of starvation and the large majority are children under the age of 5.
- An estimated 824 million people in the developing world were affected by chronic hunger in 2003.
- In the early 1990s, the number of hungry people in Eastern Asia declined, but again it is on the rise.
- Every hour more than 1,200 children die away from the glare of media attention. This is equivalent to three tsunamis a month, every month.
- In 2001-03, FAO estimates there were still 854 million undernourished people worldwide: 820 million in the developing countries, 25 million in the transition countries and 9 million in the industrialized countries.
- Every year six million children die from malnutrition before their fifth birthday.
- The overwhelming majority can be traced to a single pathology : poverty.
I think the world would be a much better place if we all increased our compassion, and willingness to help our fellow man.
If you are a regular reader of mytropicalescape.com then you might know that I am a former U.S. Peace Corps volunteer and hold a master’s degree in International Development and I am strongly committed to the principles of local empowerment through compassion and participatory development practices.
One of the major factors that can help to alleviate poverty is personal empowerment, which can be defined as “the process of increasing the capacity of individuals or groups to make choices and to transform those choices into desired actions and outcomes. Central to this process are actions, which both build individual and collective assets, and improve the efficiency and fairness of the organizational and institutional context which govern the use of these assets.”
However, it is difficult for empowerment to survive if there is not a concerted effort amongst government leaders, and a lasting POLITICAL WILL that helps to support, nurture, and promote effective change.
Poverty Reduction, on a global scale, is a difficult topic to process, and also to write about because it encompasses many different levels, facets, and meanings. Making the issue even more difficult to grasp is the fact that the financial means currently exist to eradicate this global epidemic, which is largely dependent upon where you were born, or where you happen to live on the planet.
So how can we in the global internet and blogging community help to make an impact and alleviate the issue of poverty?
Two words - Compassion and Action
According to Wikipedia, “Compassion is often characterized through actions, wherein a person acting with compassion will seek to aid those they feel compassionate for. Acts of compassion are generally considered those which take into account the pain of others and attempt to alleviate that pain.”
Two organizations that are working diligently to alleviate the pain and suffering of poverty around the world are Make Poverty History and Global Call to Action Against Poverty.
If you would like to support either one of these organizations in their quest to reduce poverty I strongly suggest you spend some time today visiting their websites.
YOU Have the Power to Change the World!
October 8th, 2008
Do certain local or global issues affect you deeply? Would you like to take action and help?
In my continuing efforts to help promote Train for Humanity, I just wrote a guest post for Liz Strauss and her very popular Successful Blog titled, Kindness in Action - You have the power to change the world.
You have the POWER to change the world! Sounds cliché, but please read those words again and think about what is important to you, to society. In this blogging and social media age you don’t have to be associated with a huge humanitarian organization or educational foundation in order to take action.
In fact, if you would like to create your own non-profit group to assist a particular cause, opportunities abound for you to make a positive and lasting change. The best part, most of the technology needed to help spread the word is available for free or at a minimal charge.
Head on over to the Successful Blog to read the rest: Kindness in Action - You have the power to change the world.
If you find the guest post valuable, I’d really appreciate it if you helped spread the word by sharing it on StumbleUpon or Digg.
Train for Humanity Launches: Creating a Bottom-Up Online Humanitarian Movement
September 9th, 2008
Those of you who have been hanging around MyTropicalEscape for a while now know that I have had a project on the back burner for quite a few months.
Today, I am really happy to announce that after a tremendous amount of hard work, Leo Babauta, Dan Clements, Andrew Flusche, and I (with design assistance from Joshua Clanton and Sean Hodge) are launching the online non-profit humanitarian organization:
TrainforHumanity.org - getting fit + social media + blogging = social good
Background Story – Train for Humanity
While I was serving as a Peace Corps volunteer in the jungles of Papua New Guinea ten years ago I was present the evening that the young woman below died from the effects of cerebral malaria simply because the proper medication was not available in our village. Following that incident, I didn’t know how I was going to do it or what I would create, but I new someday I would start a humanitarian organization.
Of course, life moved on, I went and got a master’s degree in International Development, continued to travel and live in various countries, and worked my way through numerous jobs. But, the idea to create “something” that could assist those who are facing humanitarian crises was always in the back of my mind.
