Steve Kamb - Level Up Your Life: How to Unlock Adventure and Happiness by Becoming the Hero of Your Own Story

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION:

THE ORDINARY WORLD

BOND. JAMES BOND.

SEAN CONNERY, DR. NO

M onte Carlo Casino, Monaco. 2 a.m.: Hit me.

I sat at a blackjack table in the most famous casino in the world, and my heart started pounding. After splitting my hand three times and doubling down twice, I struggled to stay cool and calm under pressure; after all, although it wasnt a tremendous amount of money, I had nearly as much riding on that one hand of blackjack as I had spent in the entire previous week. I ordered another cocktail (shaken, not stirred), adjusted the bow tie on my tuxedo, and cracked a corny joke to my new friends from Ireland sitting next to me. The rest of the table played their hands, then the dealer slowly turned over his cards, hit, and busted. The table exploded with applause, and I calmly collected my chips while internally dancing a jig and freaking out.

After partying into the wee hours of the night with new friends, I returned to my hotel on the Mediterranean, literallythe Fairmont Monte Carlo is actually on stilts over the water. I awoke the next morning, enjoyed a breakfast watching billion-dollar yachts pulling into Monacos harbor, and proudly crossed a massive item off my gamified bucket list, appropriately named Steves Epic Quest of Awesome: Live like James Bond for a weekend.

I doubt anybody who had seen me that night in the casino would have believed who I really was and how my life had changed over the previous year. They probably werent aware I had rented my tuxedo from an actual costume shop in the next town over, or that my hotel was paid for with hotel points and cost me nothing. Nor would they know that despite the lavish weekend, I was actually quite frugal and thanks to my run of luck at the tables I had managed to make money on the weekend! Lastly, who would expect that the witty (hopefully) charming gentleman in the tux gambling at the Monte Carlo would return the next day to a cheap hostel in Nice and return to life as a risk-averse, shy nerd?

How I lived out this double-life would surprise anybody, especially considering my starting point. Like many young people growing up in the 1980s, I spent most of my life occupied with my favorite books, video games, and movies for one key reason: escape. Escape from another day at school in which I wasnt challenged, wasnt captivated, and didnt grow. Escape from another day at a job in which I wasnt engaged, stuck in a position that didnt line up with my strengths. Escape from another day in life that wasnt nearly as interesting as the lives lived by the heroic characters in the games I played.

Why bother spending time in the real world, where I had to deal with things that made me miserable, where I was unhealthy, unhappy, uninspired, and where there wasnt any real excitement? Why bother with any of that when I could simply hop on my computer or game console and live out my fantasies as an epic, all-powerful badass capable of world domination? In real life I was a skinny twenty-something with no savings, no true direction, and mounting social anxiety. In a game world though, I could slay freaking dragons. It wasnt long before real life became the boring parts between the hours I spent plugging myself into adventures on the screen.

After all, its fun to get lost in a book or a movie, or to jump into a video game world where you get to be the hero. I imagined myself as Indiana Jones, Jason Bourne, Neo from The Matrix, and even Link from the classic Nintendo game series, The Legend of Zelda. And theres nothing inherently wrong with any of that. I still love those games and movies and enjoy the entertainment they provide. Theyre a part of who I am as a person. The problem was that they had become a way to avoid the unhappiness in my real life while also allowing me to continue doing nothing about it.

And one day, something changed. Instead of losing myself in games and using them to escape, I put the wheels in motion to start doing all the amazing things I used to dream of. I turned my life into a giant video game, and lived out the fantasies of the characters I adored.

When I was 25, I had never once traveled outside of North America; since then, Ive traveled to more than 20 countries, hiked the Great Wall of China, tracked wild animals in South Africa, explored the ruins of Angkor Wat in Cambodia, and gotten into the best shape of my life. When Im not on an adventure, I volunteer my time regularly and play music every day. Most important, Im happy.

And thats just a small part of what Ive done. A friend and I hiked in the early morning hours up to a viewpoint overlooking the ancient ruins of Machu Picchu in Peru, which gave me the courage to take another big leap that resulted in a 2-year around-the-world adventure.

I woke up one morning on a bus in New Zealand and overheard the bus driver saying something about a stunt plane. Less than 24 hours later I was completing barrel rolls and corkscrews in a stunt biplane (with the help of a copilot), living out my childhood fantasy of keeping up foreign relations just like Maverick did in the movie Top Gun.

A few days after flying an airplane, I jumped out of one. Two days after that? I jumped off Kawarau Bridge, birthplace of the bungee jump, and plunged myself waist-deep into an ice-cold river before shooting out of the water like a rocket into space.

There was that one night when I went scuba diving with sharks on the Great Barrier Reef. We sat on the boat preparing to dive, with rain pouring in sideways and AC/DC blasting over the boats PA system, as large sharks circled the boat. I felt like I was living out a scene from a Tom Clancy novel. After surviving that adventure, I spent the next day exploring a vividly colored coral reef that housed a bright pink anemone and an adorable little clownfish. Thats right: I found Nemo. Mission: complete!

In addition to my traveling adventures, Ive found other ways to level up my life by implementing game mechanics into the rest of my life too. While writing this book, I also managed to pack on 15 pounds of muscle, learned to play the violin, dabbled with swing dance lessons, and volunteered every Thursday at a local childrens hospital. Its been a rewarding, challenging, and fulfilling experience and Im damn proud of it.

Im not telling you all of this as someone whos been predestined for a life of adventure, or even to boast about how great my life has become. Quite the opposite, actually. Instead, Im telling you all this as a risk-averse, picky-eating introvert who felt more at home in front of a computer than in public, and who has since become a world traveling adrenaline junkie. How did I do it? By hacking my source code and rewriting the expectations that others had for me (and the expectations I had for myself). By implementing cheat codes and shortcuts wherever possible to achieve results faster. By putting steps in place to move me a little bit closer each and every day from the life I lived to the life I wanted to live. I essentially reverse engineered my life around my Epic Quest of Awesome, systematically eliminating the unimportant and unnecessary so that I could focus on living the game Id dreamed up while still living a relatively normal life as a writer, nerd, and gamer.