Becoming a Mind-Ninja in LA, Floating on Water in Austin, and Diving the Bahamas

So it’s been a while since my last update – and man – we’re done a lot of stuff in the last month. Ashley and I drove out to Hollywood & LA where I took a weeklong NLP practitioner course. Then we hopped over to Austin, TX to hang out with our friends at the floathouse, and now I’m writing this email from a cottage in the Bahamas.

Hollywood & LA

A few weeks ago we stayed with my friends from the Art of Charm in Hollywood – Jordan Harbinger is one of the funnyest people I know (and he doesn’t even try). I picked up some of his lingo like saying “up in this piece” alot (up in this piece). He and I took the NLP practitioner course, so once I take the test I will be a certified NLP practitioner and a certified hypnotherapist. Bonus!

NLP is some awesome Matrix “bend-the-spoon” mind stuff. It’s a way to break down all your behaviors, patterns, and an amazing way to figure out how your brain encodes things so you can make things work in your life. Our teacher Nicholas Rave was our Morpheus and he’s amazing at NLP (it’s evident he has a passion for this stuff). As a matter of fact, he just launched an online training program with a really sweet deal (for a limited time) so check out his online NLP Training.

Here’s a video of Darren Brown in the UK using NLP:

[metacafe]http://www.metacafe.com/watch/1110165/derren_brown_hypnotizes_people_on_a_train_learn_nlp_hypnosis/[/metacafe]

Austin, TX

Right after LA, Ashley and I flew to Austin, TX where we spent a few days at the Floathouse, which is literally a house that floats on a lake (an interesting architectural feat). We had a blast tubing, boating, partying, playing games, and making interesting hats.

Duane, Emily, Willie, and Barnes (only two of them are hairy) were our gracious hosts, celebrating Duane’s 30th birthday. Among our friends we got to catchup with Nick Reese (one of my best buds who recently launched Becoming Bold) and Derek Halpbern (who is also super smart and just launched a cool new site called Social Triggers).

While in Austin, we spun the proverbial “where should we go in the world” wheel in our minds and it looked something like … click, click, click, Costa Rica, Hawaii, Canada, click, click, click … Bahamas! It landed on Bahamas! (Or at least Ashley found some good flights there) so we decided to head to the Caribbean.

Flying out of Austin, we got a glimpse of the Gulf Coast oil spill slick from our plane. You can see a bigger picture of it here.

Nassau and Harbour Island, Bahamas

Once we landed in the Bahamas we found a place to stay in Nassau – cuz that’s just how we roll (on impulse up in this piece). Had the cab driver drop us off at Crystal Palace casino where I used my newly acquired iPad and the internets to book the hotel at a discount right in front of desk woman (two shouts for technology! whoop whoop!)

We enjoyed the next day hanging out at the pool, drinking yellow birds, and napping. But since Nassau is a bit touristy we decided to get off the island and check out someplace a little more Bahamian. Ashley ended up finding a place we can rent through VRBO for a week for $800 on Harbour Island (a small island off Eleuthera) and we took the ferry out here to check it out. Most other places were $3K-8K per week so we really scored on that one.

When we arrived, we rented a golf cart at the dock for a week and headed to our new cottage. As soon as we got to the island, we stumbled upon a dive shop that was going out on a dive in 10 minutes. Ashley was a bit apprehensive (never having dived before), but since Shawn the dive instructor said the magic word – something about “impulse” we decided to go ahead. We dove and had a great time checking out the fishies (and Ashley did awesome).

We spent the rest of the week going to the Pink Sands beach, sampling all the wonderful food that’s on the island, and hanging out. After the third night we heard some rumbling upstairs and since it sounded like rats or cats (or hell, it could have been chickens) so we had to move – but since there was nothing close to that price range on the island, we got upgraded to a place overlooking the water on the southern end of Harbour Island.

So today I’m out interviewing some people on the island, visiting our favorite lunch restaurant / bar Sip Sip and enjoying our last few days on the island. Where are we off to next? … Who knows

Here is a slideshow of my Flickr photostream if you wanna see more pics: