Helmsley Media

I have been in Copenhagen for about a week now and have made a few interesting observations about the place and the people.  Spending time in different cultures is a sure way to open your eyes to different ways of doing things, but I have to say that young men walking around with beer cans still attached to the plastic rings is quite odd to me.  Also, really hot girls riding bicycles in summer dresses is not something you see in Edmonton.

Copenhagen feels like an English city at times, and everyone speaks English more or less, but it’s not an English city and sometimes I find I have to remind myself of that.  As a North American I have to remind myself occasionally that we are not the center of the universe (I’m Canadian so I’ve never really thought that, but nonetheless), and not everyone does things the same as we do.

My friends will get a good laugh from this, but you don’t know what I would do for a Booster Juice smoothie and a protein bar!  I’d settle for a Subway sandwich though.  All there seems to be here is pizza places and falafels, lots of them.  I am finding that I’m starting to get fat, only a week after arriving, but that’s my own fault since I have no clue how to cook anything worthwhile.

You sure do get a lot of opportunity to walk in this city, although if I actually had a car I might walk a lot less.  The transit system is unbelievably good, on par with almost any other major city I have ever been to.  Cities like Edmonton are so patheticly closed minded regarding public transit, or pretty much any major municipal projects.  Urban sprawl is a terrible thing, but when you have seemingly limitless land to develop why wouldn’t you?

I’m going to be in Copenhagen until the 24th of July it looks like.  I have this really cool 2 bedroom apartment, and no roommate, waste it seems.  I’m on a pretty sketchy street, well if you go the wrong way, but its also right in the heart of the city centre which is very convenient.  The train station is only a couple blocks away, and that allows you to get pretty much anywhere in the city and surrounding areas.

After Copenhagen I am probably going to go to Dublin, Ireland to visit family.  It has been 6 years since I was last there, which is hard to believe.  I used to go almost every year, so 6 years is far too long a time.  After Ireland I don’t know exactly what I am going to do, but coming back to Denmark to work some more on this project is definitely a possibility.  I have to say I am loving this vagabond lifestyle

I booked a flight to Copenhagen, Denmark for June 30th.  I also gave notice to my employer that June 29th will be my last day.  This may not seem like that big a deal, but frankly I spent the last 15 months or so working at a job that had absolutely no purpose other than to pay off debt, save money, and position me to get back into business again.  I haven’t really spent much time writing on here about my business plans or aspirations, although I’m sure you may have gotten that sense based on the way I talk about business within a lot of (all) of the posts I write on here.  The last 15 months I have felt like I was in prison, serving time for poor business decisions, and inexperience.  I have less than two weeks left to serve and I am getting antsy.

So what am I doing in Denmark?  I’m starting production on a badminton instructional program with Peter Rasmussen.  Some of you may know him, most probably won’t.  The point is I’m going all out for my dream.  Two years ago I read Tim Ferriss’ Four Hour Work Week, and I decided that I wanted to join him in the ranks of the New Rich.  I wanted to have the freedom to do what I wanted, when I wanted to, wherever I wanted to do it.  I’m going to do a terrible job defining for you what the hell I’m talking about here, but maybe if you read this post over at David Risley’s blog about Lifestyle Design, you might understand a little bit better.

I am scheduled to return to Canada on July 17th, but I am considering just staying there indefinitely.  Not really sure at this point, but the idea of just doing something major like that on a whim really excites me.  I have never really bought into the whole, get a job, build a career, retire at 65 thing.  I refuse to spend my life doing something because I need the money.  I don’t want to spend my days working so that I can have some freedom in the evenings.  I don’t want to work so that I can live, I want to live for my work.  I want to be passionate about what I spend my time doing.

Everyone I know is either in real estate, or oil and gas it seems.  That’s the case in Edmonton more or less.  The other alternative is a dentist, doctor, lawyer etc etc.  Not for me.  If you want to help people then by all means go be a doctor, but if you’re doing that because you want the money and prestige, I pity you.  Maybe you get off on the money and prestige, but there are easier ways to get money and prestige than going to school for that long.  There are so many things that I want to do with my life, and the idea of working for someone else forever just isn’t going to happen.

In no particular order here are some things I AM GOING TO DO:

• Play on the professional badminton tour – I used to dream of being world #1 when I was a kid
• Help to make badminton a REAL pro sport – I want it to be like tennis
• Learn chinese fluently – took it at school for a while, but never reached fluency
• Live in Barcelona for a while – loved it there for 4 days, maybe that’s all I need, but I want to go back
• Direct/Produce/Act in feature films – I went to film school, then dropped out because the school sucked, or maybe I was just scared??  And yes, I do want to act, in spite of my shy nature.  I want to make movies that shape the way people see the world.  I’m unlikely to be some activist, so this could be my way of making a difference

I know a lot of these may seem selfish and you don’t see “save the whales” or anything like that on here, but is that so horrible?  I’m only 26 years old, I hope I have another 74 or so years left, and perhaps when I get older I’ll have more of an interest in social issues, but for now being a pro badminton player and Hollywood film director seem like pretty cool aspirations.

Anyway, I’m going to Denmark to produce this badminton thing.  Thinking that I might just stay there til Christmas time.  Play some badminton, develop the badminton project, and have fun.  Check back here and you’ll find out what happens next, cause right now I don’t even know.