Hey everyone!  I am back from my honeymoon in St. Lucia, and super excited to be saying hello to you all again!  I picked up a cool couple of lessons while living there, and I figured I’d share them all with you!

Try New Things

Seriously, if you haven’t picked this up from the blog yet, this is probably the most important lesson to leave with today.  Try.  New.  Things.  Every day, if you can help it.  Sure, sometimes it may end a bit poorly, but most of the time, it will be FANTASTIC, or at least mildly interesting.  While on the island, I tried tons of food I’d never eaten before, went snorkeling for the first time every, zip-lined through the rainforest, tried EVERY fruity tropical cocktail they had at the bar, and I even won a limbo contest!  Sure, sometimes the new food wasn’t great, and I got sunburned while snorkeling, the rainforest made me sweat like crazy, I had to spend a “man card” or two when I ordered pink drinks, and…well, okay, there was no negative to being the limbo king, but the point is even though most of those had occasional negatives, the experiences were AMAZING, and helped me grow as a person!

Meet New People

You may be an introvert, and that’s cool.  Maybe you’re more of an extrovert, like me.  That’s cool, too.  But wherever you fall on the scale, you shouldn’t let yourself use it as an excuse to not meet new people.  There’s a whole world of interesting people that want to get to know you, if you give them the chance.  Sure, like trying new things, you might get burned once in a while, but the good drastically outweighs the bad.  We met people from South Africa, England, Sweden, and, of course, tons of St. Lucians.  Getting a chance to converse with people from other countries and cultures was awesome.  We didn’t have to, we could have spent the whole honeymoon by ourselves on the beach (and, in fact, we spent most of our time doing this), but making a little time to reach out to other people made it a much more interesting, fun, and rewarding experience for us.  You haven’t lived until you’ve invented a reality TV series with someone from South Africa over cocktails.

Travel

Now, you’re probably going to say “traveling is too expensive!”  You’re absolutely right, traveling is expensive.  Maybe you can’t afford it right now.  But if you can, I really, really encourage you to.  One of the guys I met that worked at the resort traveled to Canada last year, he’s hitting up England next year, and the US the year after that.  Now, keep in mind, St. Lucia isn’t the wealthiest country in the world (21% unemployment rate), but even so, he’s managed to put his feet on foreign soil.  This was my first time out of the country, myself, which was very exciting.  Traveling to a new place (even within your own country), really helps you expand and grow as a person in a way nothing else can.  I sincerely believe if more people put money into visiting other countries, rather than small entertainments and personal escapes, that the world would be a more unified and peaceful place.

Don’t Laugh While Snorkeling

Seriously, just…saltwater…everywhere… X__X

That’s it for today!  Oh wait, also this:

Jackie’s wedding gift to me was this fantastic pocket watch.  On the front is inscribed, “Live boldly & change the world,” and on the back, “Continue to be you.  Your loving wife, Jaclyn”

I love this woman.  Truly.  I suppose my last lesson for the day is…

Find a True Partner in Crime – And Never Let Them Go

That’s really it for today!  Tomorrow we start with a new character, Isaac Clarke from the Dead Space series, as suggested by Champions Guild member Phillip Culley!  If you haven’t joined The Champions Guild yet, head on over and sign up now so you can be kept current with what’s going on with the blog!  You’ll also get two free eBooks written by yours truly.  Check it out!

Also, please don’t forget to like the blog on Facebook, and follow on Twitter and Tumblr.  While you’re at it, if you enjoyed this post, please share/retweet it to your friends!    As always, remember to live boldly, change the world, and continue to be awesome.

Dan “DaRatmastah” Wallace