#findkevin

[findkevin-blog1]

2 weeks at Thich Nhat Hahn's Buddhist monastery...

I said bye to the Taxi Driver and shut the door behind me. I was finally here after a very long travel day with a taxi, a bus, a plane, and I even threw in a train for good measure.

I made it to Plum Village, about 5 years to the day after a good friend recommended the book ‘Heart of the Buddhas Teachings" to me.

I took a couple deep breaths as the Taxi Driver pulled away and I started walking towards what looks like the registration office.

A young lady from England greets me at the door with a puzzled look on her face(pretty standard for me with women :). I ask if I am in the right place and she informs me I am but I am a day early, as registration for the new week starts tomorrow.

A couple hours later, I am sleeping on the floor of the “Transformation Hall” on a mat with a sleeping bag and I guess what you would call a pillow. First day didn’t go quite as planned!

Honestly, nothing really went as planned and this is why it was one of the best 2 weeks of my life.

We ate our meals in silence, being mindful of every bite and feeling gratitude towards the food we are so lucky to be eating and compassion towards those that aren’t as fortunate.

There were days I felt peace like I’ve never felt before and there were days I wanted to leave early! When you have quiet time with just yourself you get a deeper level of awareness and that can be a good thing and bad thing.

I came to Plum Village wanting MORE.

MORE peace.

MORE serenity.

MORE happiness.

My entire life I’ve always wanted more, nothing was ever enough for me. It’s a rarity that I’ve ever been content with what I have.

I told a monk that 75% of the time I am good. I’m happy and have no problems but I want MORE peace. I want it 100% of the time.

He paused, smiled, looked at me and said, “you always want more, when are you going to be OK with just being?”.

“There is no way to happiness, happiness is the way.”

He told me I can have peace right now, I don’t need "more”, I already have it in this moment.

I felt a wave of emotions I haven’t felt in a long time. For as long as I can remember I always needed something I thought I didn’t have.

I wanted confidence. I wanted to be comfortable. I wanted peace. Each one of us has exactly what we are searching for inside of us already.

My last morning there, as I was eating my breakfast in silence, staring up at the sky, I had a negative thought. Instead of adding fuel to the fire and getting upset with myself for having that thought, I took a breath and let the thought drift away.

I started to get teary eyed because for my entire life I have destroyed myself in my head for having any negative thoughts.

To allow myself to just BE and stop trying to be perfect was groundbreaking for me. It is the beginning of something special.

I didn’t gain more insight, more courage, or more confidence. The 2 weeks there chipped away at the delusions that were hiding those characteristics from me.

Instead of getting more at Plum Village, I actually walked away with less.

Less fear. Less insecurity. Less anxiety. Less anger.

Most importantly, chipping away at these delusions allowed me to just be OK with who I am in this moment.

Since I recently saw the statue of David in person, this a perfect analogy. Michelangelo was asked how he created such an amazing statue. Michelangelo responded by saying, “I didn’t make David, I chipped away at everything that wasn’t David.”

The beautiful people at Plum Village helped me see I am already happy. I already have all the joy, peace, and serenity I could ever want. All I had to do was give myself a fucking break and I stopped demanding perfection. I stopped getting mad at myself for having negative thoughts.

It is one of the most phenomenal feelings you will ever experience when you realize you have all these qualities already.

All it takes is one breath to have all the happiness and peace you will ever want.

I showed up with this idea that I can have no suffering in my life. They assured me that will never happen.

I showed up wanting more peace, serenity, and happiness. They told me I already have every single one of those seeds in me. I just have to water them.

I know life isn’t about waking up and doing the same thing everyday, especially if you don’t like that thing you’re doing.

Life also isn’t about simply traveling for the sake of traveling.

I am a seeker.

I want to get in touch with what this life is all about.

2 weeks in a Buddhist Monastery was a great start. It’s just the tip of the Iceberg in my opinion.

It is time to start seeking.

India here I come.

Stay Tuned….

[findkevin-blog1]

2 MONTHS IN...

14 countries.

18 Planes.

15 Trains/Buses.

20+ Taxies/Ubers.

25 beds.

300 miles walked/ran/biked (500 km’s).

100+ people met along the way.

200 bug bites.

1 jellyfish sting later :)

I’ve had countless memories, countless spiritual experiences, and there have been countless times I’ve shook my head and said wow, is this really my life?

I have learned numerous things along the way, like if you are going to wait in line in Paris for the Foo Fighters concert for 30 minutes, make sure it is the right line, otherwise once you get all the way into the venue and try to find your seat they will kick you out, make you walk halfway around the stadium and wait in another line for another 30 minutes.

I learned that if your train leaves at 9, be there at 855, otherwise you are waiting for the next one.

Also be careful about Airbnb’s with no reviews, unless you really like adventure!

When you are traveling on your own for an extended period of time, something will go wrong. It is inevitable! The key to being happy while traveling is ACCEPTANCE.

I went to Malta for one reason and that was to scuba dive. 2 days into my trip I get a sinus infection and there goes MY plan.

I have missed trains, I have gotten off at wrong stops, I’ve messed up big time on the accommodations, I’ve walked so many miles in the wrong direction or the place I was walking to was closed. I can’t even tell you how many times I’ve been lost.

When I got to the airport in Istanbul, I was genuinely scared. There have been multiple terrorist attacks and I definitely had a little prejudice when I got there. By the end of my time in Turkey, I was walking the streets by myself, with no Americans for miles, and my prejudice and fear was completely gone.

I was walking those streets because I forgot where the metro station was and it ended up being a defining moment for me early on in my travels.

One of the greatest gifts I’ve learned, is acceptance is the answer to ALL my problems today.

How many times in our lives has something we thought was terrible happened to us only for something amazing to take place later on?

“Life is happening FOR US, not to us.”

I really believe that quote and it has allowed me to not get wrapped up in the things that don’t go my way. Rather if I can accept what happens, I open myself up for amazing things to follow.

If I got right in to that Foo Fighters concert, I never would have met the 3 guys from the UK, that I spent the entire concert rocking out with. 3 guys I keep in contact with and are now subscribed to my blog.

Everything that went wrong ended up giving me an opportunity to grow or actually put me in a much better situation than what I planned.

All the terrible things I was doing to myself, while drinking, had to happen for me to become the person I am today. Without all of that, I wouldn’t have the perspective and outlook I have today.

I am so grateful that this is the journey I’m on. I know things won’t always work out the way I want them to, but there is always something bigger and better for us on the other side.

If I got what I thought I wanted 6 years ago, I would have sold myself short BIG time.

The life I have today is amazing because I am in the flow of life. I am in acceptance and I no longer need to bang my head against the wall. I look forward to the remainder of my journey and can’t wait for the beautiful opportunities that come from the things that go wrong!

“ACCEPTANCE is the answer to ALL my problems today. When I am disturbed it is because I find some person, place, thing, or situation unacceptable to me. I can find no SERENITY until I ACCEPT that person, place, thing, or situation as being EXACTLY the way it’s supposed to be.” -Paul O

[findkevin-blog1]

“Don’t be afraid your life will end; be afraid that it will never begin.”

There was a hospital study of 100 elderly people who were nearing their last breaths. They were asked about any regrets they had in their lives. Almost all of them said they didn’t regret the things they did, they had regrets over the things they didn’t do. They regretted all the dreams they never followed, the passions they never pursued.

I think a majority of us have a fear of dying but we don’t act like it. Most of us live like we have an unlimited amount of time. We have the “I’ll do it tomorrow” mentality. In other words, we take our time here for granted.

My biggest fear isn’t dying, it’s getting to the end of my life and realizing I never truly lived. I fear “dying with my music still in me” as the late Dr. Wayne Dyer once said.

He believed that we all have a purpose but most people die without seeing it through.

When we pass away, all of our dreams and passions we never pursued die right along with us. I can think of no greater tragedy than being blessed with life and never really living it.

Lets all take a look at our lives and really ask ourselves do we believe we are really living?

“Live every day as if it were your last and then some day you’ll be right.”

Realizing that death can come to any of us at anytime, even today, is a gift you need to give yourself.

If we believe we have an endless supply of time, we will consistently put off living. “Why do it today, when I can do it tomorrow?” 

We will continue to work jobs we hate, be out of shape and worst of all continue to put off our dreams and passions. This “I will get to it later, there’s always tomorrow” mindset is an epidemic.

If we believe that time is precious, everything gets better. Relationships are fuller, nature is more beautiful, we would put our passions ahead of mundane jobs. Resentments that we’ve carried with us for so long wouldn’t seem as important.

We would say the things on our minds. We would tell all the people in our lives we love them. We would experience more joy, peace, and happiness. 

We really are on the clock, every minute that passes is a minute closer to our last breath. Don’t wait until tomorrow to say what you have to say. Don’t wait until “later” to follow your dream.

Go do what makes you happy today, we may not have the opportunity tomorrow.

[findkevin-blog1]

1 IN 400 TRILLION...

Those are the odds for one of us being born!

I happened to be born in Orange County, California to loving parents. The odds of that have to be 100X greater. Now the fact I complain about anything is a fucking joke right?

I need constant reminders just how lucky I am because honestly I forget. I forget that life is a gift and I start taking it for granted and thinking I am the center of the universe. When something doesn’t go my way I throw my hands up and huff and puff.

The problem is we have what I call a “forgetter.”

I can easily forget just how short life is. I can forget that life is happening for us not to us.

WE ARE FUCKING ALIVE, that is beyond a miracle. The fact I am writing this in Portugal and currently on an adventure around the world and have eyes that can see all of the beauty around me is an absolute gift.

I forget that I was in $40,000 credit card debt, living with my Dad at 24, unemployed, and slowly killing myself with alcohol. I should jump for joy everyday from where I came from!

But why do we forget?

The answer is GRATITUDE.

Answer this question honestly. Do you think more about what you have or what you don’t have? I would say 80-90% of people think more about what they don’t have. I am definitely guilty of this at times.

Society has created in us a more, more, more mindset. We have an insatiable appetite for external pleasures that will NEVER be filled.

When we constantly crave the next best thing, we forget about what we ALREADY have.

We forget that we are 1 in 400 trillion, that the fact we are even walking around this beautiful planet is a miracle.

We get one life, one shot to live a life of our dreams and we get wrapped up in distractions that at the end of the day won’t fucking matter.

If I am living in gratitude, I will no longer be affected by all the petty bullshit I worry about from day to day. Gratitude allows us to focus on what actually matters and everything else just dissipates in the background.

Every morning when you wake up, instead of checking your email, social media, or PRESSING SNOOZE, come up with 3 things you are grateful for.

If we believe life is a gift our first decision when we wake up can’t be to sleep more! When your alarm goes off, FORCE yourself to get into gratitude.

Starting your day in gratitude is the first key to living a happier life.

“Grateful people are happy people and those that aren’t, aren’t".

[findkevin-blog1]

1 MONTH IN...

It’s officially been one month since I packed my entire life in a backpack and left the only place I’ve ever lived to follow my dream of traveling around the world.

Writing this reminds me of what I wrote a couple days before I left a month ago. Click here to read it.

I still remember the complete fear I felt walking into LAX after giving my Dad a hug goodbye. I’m surprised I didn't faint!

I have never experienced emotions quite like that before. It was surreal. Pure exhilaration and then utter terror! Will Smith has an amazing quote, “God put the greatest things in life on the other side of maximum fear.”

Even though I was completely scared and had no idea what I was getting into this has been the best month of my entire life. The growth you experience by being completely self reliant while being outside of your comfort zone is remarkable.

This has also been the most challenging month of my life.

This trip is 24/7 outside my comfort zone! Which is actually the most positive part and at the same time the most negative part. There’s no timeouts out here. There’s no feeling safe by hanging with my friends and family. I don’t have my comfy couch and 65’ TV anymore and Netflix has been cancelled.

There are no longer any safety nets out here.

We all experience challenges that make us feel uncomfortable. Most people give up, but in order to feel comfortable you have to stay the course.

My biggest challenge so far is I love to let things come to me, I've been that way my entire life. I expect to walk down the street and have every local and every traveler come up to me and want to hang out!!

I know being 6′5 and a man, with tattoos and a shaved head, no one is really going to approach me. It’s up to me to approach locals, tourists, and other travelers. No one is going to make this easy on me and I wouldn’t want them to.

The people I’ve talked to back home ask me about loneliness. I am not going to lie and say that I haven't felt lonely at times. The reason is I left such an amazing group of friends back home and I miss them and my family. However, the thoughts of loneliness are very fleeting.

5 years ago, if I had to be by myself this much I would have drank myself to oblivion because I couldn't stand the person I was. Wayne Dyer said "You cannot be lonely if you like the person you're alone with." The starting point to the happiness I experience on a daily basis is the love I have developed for myself.

“Live every day as if it were your last and then some day you’ll be right.”

I have been brought to tears about 30 times so far this trip. The beauty I've experienced and the people I've met will be with me forever.

I get teary eyed more for how grateful I am that I took this opportunity. I was living a lie for years and kept convincing myself it was normal. I am so grateful my dream is now a reality.

Life is too damn short to be doing something you don’t want to do. Telling yourself you don’t have a choice is the worst part.

You ALWAYS have a choice. You just have to be brave enough to make it.

I am so proud of myself for taking this leap. I start laughing sometimes when I think about where I am. It still blows my mind that I’ve been to 9 countries in 30 days and I’m writing this in Prague! I pray for that feeling to never go away!

There is nothing better than knowing you are living your passion day in and day out. It's unbelievably freeing.

Every single person, whether you have money or not, have kids or not, are younger or older, it doesn’t matter, you can still have whatever life you want.

It's whether you believe you can. That's it.

I believe in you, hopefully that's the start you need to take the first step.

[findkevin-blog1]

HOW DO I GET PEACE OF MIND?

I am sure at one point in time we have all been a little annoyed at that voice inside our heads.

Whether it’s complaining. Stressing out over things that are out of our control. Or telling us that we aren’t good enough or we aren’t worth it.

What is the real reason we complain so much?

Why do we settle in life, when we have the potential for so much more?

Why do we give up so soon after we are so excited for our New Year’s resolutions!?

Are we in control of our minds or is it the other way around?

I believe for the vast majority of humanity, their minds are controlling them.

Try and see if you can shut off your head. Stop reading this and try and not think for 1 minute. If you’ve never tried this before, you are going to be floored by the results.

Not only did your thoughts not shut off but you either started planning something or remembering something that already happened.

Our head either wants us in the future or in the past. It is up to us to practice living in the moment.

That leads us to MEDITATION, the biggest gift I’ve acquired for getting peace of mind.

I still haven’t figured out how to shut off my thoughts completely, or if that is even possible but what meditation does for me is it turns down the volume.

It keeps me in control.

2 men are sitting on the same bench in Laguna Beach, overlooking the ocean. One of them, is complaining that its too hot, the sun is too bright. He hears the kids playing in the sand and thinks how loud and obnoxious they are. He is stressing about a work project that’s not due for another month. He is completely in his head and doesn’t notice the beauty around him.

The other man is sitting in awe of how beautiful it is. He feels the suns heat warming his face. He hears the kids playing and he remembers how freeing it is to be young with not a care in the world. He smiles and he feels grateful for being alive.

This is the best way I can describe the results of meditation.

How often are we stressed out?

Or feeling guilt or remorse for something that happened yesterday, last week, or even 5 years ago?

How often are we the first person I described who has all this beauty around him and doesn’t see a damn thing?

When I stopped focusing on the past and the future my vision completely changed. I began to witness the beauty that is all around me. We don’t have to be in a picturesque place like Laguna Beach to notice how beautiful the world is. We can notice the beauty no matter where we are.

All it takes is one breath!

One focused breath to bring you out of your head and into the now, thats it.

Have you ever said, “I will NEVER do that again or from now on I will start doing this” and you did that one thing again or you stopped doing that one thing you said you weren’t going to stop? I think it’s safe to say that we have all done both of those scenarios.

Why does this happen?

A better question is why do we continue to let this happen?

Most people will go through life with absolutely no clue that their minds are controlling everything they do.

So how do we take back control?

The first step is to learn how to turn down the noise in your head that constantly tells you lies and wants to hold you back.

Meditation is the key to a life beyond your wildest dreams. A life of true happiness, contentment, and complete freedom.

Why doesn’t everyone meditate then?

Its because they aren’t in as much control as they think they are.

Tim Ferris has a book called ‘Tools of the Titans’ where he documents hundreds of his interviews with extremely successful people from billionaires, entrepreneurs, athletes, actors, you name it. One characteristic between 95% of them is they do some form of meditation everyday.

I dare you to try it for 30 days straight for 5 minutes a day and just see what happens.

What do you have to lose?

“If you can’t find time to meditate 20 minutes a day, you need 2 hours.” -Russell Simmons

***If you have never meditated before, here is what to do. There are thousands of different ways but this is a great way to get into it and will give you all the benefits I’m talking about.

Get to a comfortable spot, make sure you are sitting down, not laying down. You can sit in your bed, against the wall, in a chair, it doesn’t matter just make sure you are comfortable.

Close your eyes and the only thing I want you to focus on is your breath. Thats it.

Focus on your breath going in and going out.

Thoughts will arise. When they do your mission is to become aware of them as soon as you can. When you recognize a thought, try and get back to your breath.

Breathing in and breathing out, slowly and deeply.

Every time another thought pops up, do the same thing and get back to focusing on your breath.

I like to meditate in the morning before I get out the door to start my day, but as long as you get 5 minutes a day it doesn’t matter when you do it.

5 minutes is all it takes to start to change your life.

[findkevin-blog1]

What is FEAR?

I was on a boat in the middle of the ocean in Belize. You couldn’t see land in either direction. The locals were throwing chum in the water. After a few minutes ten sharks had the boat surrounded. Then they looked at me and said the unthinkable, “jump in!”.

I paused and said, “fuck that! You jump in!”

They all laughed and then one of them, dove in head first over the sharks.

I gulped, took a deep breath and dove in after him.

My typical reaction to things outside of my comfort zone, is to say “fuck that”.

I can’t imagine all the things I would have missed out on if I didn’t push through my fear on a daily basis.

I definitely wouldn’t be writing this, staring at the blue water with Greek Islands as my backdrop.

This is what I believe FEAR really means:

False Evidence Appearing Real

Think about this. How is it possible that two people can look at the same situation differently?

How can one person skydive, bungee jump, go approach a member of the opposite sex, take a risk and start a business, follow their dreams and the other person can’t.

The answer is perception.

Our circumstances really don’t matter. The only thing that matters is how we perceive the events that are happening.

Our brains have a survival instinct that makes us want to feel safe. It’s evolved tremendously from the days of telling us fire is hot, don’t touch!

Now our survival instinct wants to keep us trapped in jobs we hate. Relationships that aren’t right for us. It keeps us in our comfort zone. It keeps us “safe”.

Away from risk, from adventure, from truly living life.

My biggest fear was being myself around other people. For the first 25 years of my life I was extremely uncomfortable in my own skin and I didn’t like who I was.

My survival instinct told me to isolate. It told me I wasn’t good enough. It told me to not go after anything worth while because I would fail.

Being myself was a crippling fear I had.

I now love the person I am. I’m traveling the world by myself. Meeting all types of different people. I am writing genuine thoughts for other people to read. I am being who I really am.

My fear that I once had is gone. I now realize I only had that fear because I told myself over and over again that I had to be afraid.

FEAR is bull shit, it isn’t real.

When we think about going after that job we really want, starting a business, asking that girl out, jumping out of that plane, following your true passion, not caring what people think, getting out of your comfort zone, loving yourself, and in my case quitting your job, selling everything, and traveling the world and that fear arises, we can look at it and laugh.

Because we know there is no basis for that fear. If one person has done it before you, then you can also do it.

Do not let your head tell you otherwise.

Do not put limitations on yourself or this beautiful life we GET to live.

Do not let fear hold you back from what you truly want to do.

Because there is no better feeling than looking fear in the face and pushing it to the side!

“Twenty years from now you’ll be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do, than by the things you did.”

[findkevin-blog1]

START CHOOSING TIME.

I use to make fun of the sales guys who lived paycheck to paycheck and partied every weekend and never saved a dime.

This was my thought as a 22 year old with 50k in the bank and starting to look at buying my first house. A couple months later my mom got sick again and before I could realize what happened I was one of those guys.

Every weekend was filled with thousands of dollars spent and an unrelenting amount of guilt and shame.

You couldn’t pay me enough to go back to how I felt waking up Monday mornings. I feel sick just thinking about it.

It was 8 in the morning on a Wednesday, I was standing in line at 711 behind people getting their coffees before work. I was buying beer and still awake from the night before. A few hours later I remember staring at myself in the mirror. I was disgustingly skinny with a beer belly, bags under my eyes, skin was yellow, totally unemployable, and incredibly lonely.

I remember thinking what are you doing kevin? Is this really your life?

I was a college athlete. I was great in sales. I was raised the right way, yet I was not a very good person. I was unemployed, in serious debt, and had a major drinking problem.

How did I get to this point?

My mom died a couple months before, I finally got fired after countless second chances, I was using my credit cards like free money while moving from a weekend partier to an every day drinker/drug user.

It was not long after that moment that I was overdosing in the back of a taxi cab at 430 in the morning on my way back from Hollywood. I remember praying in the back of that cab for my mom and whatever God I thought was out there to save me. All I wanted was to wake up because I honestly thought I wasn’t going to.

“To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people just exist”

-Oscar Wilde

As I reflect on my life on my 31st birthday, it is almost as if I went from one end of the spectrum to the polar opposite.

I went from a life that had such darkness to a life that is beyond my wildest dreams. I am someone who now sees just how precious life is and it shouldn’t be wasted.

I was the ultimate time waster but now I am DONE wasting time.

By some miracle, I have 5.5 years of sobriety. I recently walked away from a job and industry where I made nearly half a million dollars in 2 years because I didn’t believe in it anymore.

I don’t believe you should work in a job you hate just to make money and that was the only reason I was there. What kind of life is that?

We only have a limited amount of time on this planet, I don’t want to look back at a life of what ifs. A study said that 85% of the workforce is unhappy with their job. That’s ridiculous! There has to be more to life than working, watching TV, waiting for the weekend, and paying bills.

Here is a terrifying statistic. In a 65 year lifespan the average American will end up spending 9 of those years watching TV and another 4 years looking down at their phone!

The point I want to make by sharing some of my past, is for you to look at areas in your life where you are wasting time.

Life is short, way shorter than we think and we don’t have an unlimited amount of time to finish our “bucket list”.

On our deathbed are we going to wish we had more money or that we had more time? We would wish for more time! We would trade it all to have one more minute on this beautiful planet.

Fortunately, we are here now, we don’t need to be on our deathbed or to have near death experience to wake up. We can wake up right this second! And when we get to the end of our lives we can have a smile on our face because we stopped wasting time, we got everything out of life we possibly could, we have zero regrets.

If there is a passion or a dream you have and you just haven’t done it yet because the conditions aren’t perfect, stop waiting and please from the bottom of my heart go do it.

If not now, when?