Photo: Jeremiah Thompson

Before hiring one of my assistants, Charlie, I asked him where he wanted to be in 6 and 12 months.

I made him define what he wanted to have and what he wanted to do in both timeframes. At the top of the list was a mini-retirement to Thailand or South America.

Done and done.

Charlie just returned three weeks ago from Buenos Aires. It was there he developed a rather keen interest in Brazilian girls, who were visiting Argentina as tourists. Two weeks ago at around 2am, while preparing the new book launch at my house, he somehow accidentally (riiiiight) got stuck in a Flickr slideshow of Brazilian models.

The photos belonged to someone named Jeremiah Thompson.

Digging a little deeper, it turned out that Jeremiah had an incredible story. Two years ago, he decided he wanted to become a professional photographer of Brazilian bikini models. That, and he wanted to get married. Despite the fact that he was from Montana and had no training, he made both happen in record time.

This is his story…

An Interview with Jeremiah Thompson

What’s your background?

I was born in Missoula, Montana, a small college town in the heart of the Rocky Mountains. My Dad was a colonel in the Army so I grew up all over the place, including a couple of stints in Germany. I definitely have a strong entrepreneurial background and have been in business in one form or another all my life, starting at a very young age. The internet has helped me open up a number of businesses.

Did you have much experience as a photographer?

If I thought I could make it rich taking photos, I would have gone into this profession a long time ago. But really, photography has always just been a hobby.

How did you choose Brazil as your destination?

Learning how to surf was, believe it or not, a real stepping stone in my life. About four years ago, I learned how to surf behind an artificial wave put up by a wakeboarding boat. I really got into the sport and wanted to carry my surfing aspirations into the ocean. I narrowed my choices down to Australia and Brazil. A 15-minute phone call to Hans Keeling of Nexus Surf convinced me that Florianopolis, Brazil would be the perfect place for me to go.

[Editor: Some of you might recall that Hans, a recovered ex-lawyer, is a case study in The 4-Hour Workweek]

How did the calendar idea come about?

Arriving in Florianopolis in January of 2008, I was amazed by the sheer quantity of beautiful women — they were everywhere! I’d always had this dream of photographing models, so it was a perfect opportunity to make that dream come true.  I coined the calendar name “Girls of Brazil” and so the adventure began. Then I just needed to find the models.

Photo: Jeremiah Thompson

So, how and where did you find the models?

The first model really set everything into motion.

I was hanging out with Hans Keeling (the owner of Nexus Surf) at Praia Mole Beach, when we passed a super sexy woman working at a fresco paddle rental stand. I had already mentioned my swimsuit calendar idea to Hans, and he happens to speak perfect Portuguese. I asked him if he would help me talk to her and pitch the idea. At this point, I had no product or business cards — just a pair of board shorts, my camera, and some photos of wildlife I had taken in Montana. But that was all I needed. It worked. She agreed to meet me the next day! She was even going to hitchhike to my house at 5:00 AM! I convinced her to let me pick her up, and we shot the next day from 5:30 AM till 8:30 PM. It was a great start to my project.

Photo: Jeremiah Thompson

After that, I found most of the girls on my own, speaking to them in very basic (if not completely broken) Portuguese. I was able to find girls almost everywhere – at the beaches, clubs, supermarkets, walking down the street, and even online. It was too easy. Once I had a few great shots under my belt, I was able to show these same photos to other girls, and most wanted to participate just to get their own pictures taken.

Were they professional models?

The girls were, for the most part, your everyday gals. I did shoot one girl who was actually an international model. I found her while I was driving down the street. I jumped out of my car, chased after her, and asked if she wanted to participate. You would think someone like that would laugh at me, but she ended up making the photos:

Photo: Jeremiah Thompson

Quite a few of the models had experience as event girls. I had the best luck finding those girls online.

But my best photos came from the girls with no professional experience. They always came to the shoots with the most energy. Their openness allowed me more freedom to infuse my own ideas into the photo shoot. This definitely made things more fun, and the results were always great.

Did you pay them for the shoots?

During the first year, I never paid any of the models. By the second year, I started paying a little. I had been dating one of the models and she helped me realize that many of the girls were actually using their own money just to prepare for the photos. They were paying to get their hair done, manicures/pedicures, new bikinis, etc. It was expensive. I started paying them 500 Brazilian reais, which amounted to approximately $250 US dollars. And because I shot many of the girls multiple times, it was a very small price to pay. However, I’m convinced that even if I didn’t pay anything, I would have just as much success or possibly even more. The girls, especially in the first year, really got excited about the opportunity, even though there was no money involved.

Critics might say you were taking advantage of them. What would you say to that?

One of the cool things about this project is the success they’ve had using my photos afterward.

Four of the girls went on to pose for Playboy Brasil. One of the girls got hired on as a dancer for the top television show in Brazil on Sunday afternoons. Many got modeling jobs. And they’ve all appreciated the opportunity, so that’s one of the best things about doing this.

Furthermore, it is not as if I was making money myself. The first few years of this project were big losses. Frankly I couldn’t afford to pay the girls to participate. This was a project I started more out of my desire to be a swimsuit photographer than to make another dollar. The girls loved the project and the photos. Many participated in multiple years. There weren’t any victims here.

Photo: Jeremiah Thompson

For those who’ve dreamed about being a swimsuit photographer but have never had the chance, can you describe the atmosphere of a shoot?

The atmosphere is definitely one of the best things. It starts when the girls come to my house. I need to see them in their bikinis before we head out so I can prepare for the shoot. In the first year, all of the girls used their own bikinis and that worked great 90% of the time. But I started buying bikinis for the girls in year two. So the first step was always to pick out the best bikinis. We would usually find 2-4 bikinis that we would take to the shoot. After that, we either walked to a nearby local beach or took my car to a more private beach.

Usually, we would arrive before sunrise. This meant the girls had been up since 2:30 AM preparing! I typically rolled out of bed around 5:00 AM. Not an easy thing to do, but when the moment comes and those first rays of light hit a beautiful girl in a tiny bikini, it’s worth it.

Posing the girls was always the most difficult part. I wanted to bring out the best in each girl. I would put them through as many poses as possible, mentally noting how they looked best. Then when the best lighting conditions occurred, I would get the girls into what I already knew would be their best pose. This system worked great.

After the shoots, the first question from the girls was always: ”When will the photos be ready?”

They were thrilled to have shots for their portfolio that would otherwise have cost them at least a week’s pay.

Were there any methods you used to produce better results (i.e. humor to loosen up the model, etc.)?

I enjoyed bringing out the genuine smiles of each girl.

Most model photos always have that super serious look, which is supposed to be sexy. I don’t know if I’m different in this regard, but I always enjoy seeing a girl’s smile more. So for half the photos, I would get the girls smiling their biggest smiles possible, and the other half I would let them revert to that serious but “sexy” look you see in all the magazines. Getting the girls to smile was easy: I would just say “mais sexo!” For two years I thought that phrase meant “sexier!” but I guess it really means “more sex!” So it usually made the girls laugh before going into an even sexier pose. That’s how I discovered the girls’ natural smile and how great it looked in the photos.

What have been some of the more memorable moments from your shoots?

I’ve shot something like 30-40 girls now, and there are so many memories with each girl.

Fernanda was my first model and she will always be one of the best memories of this project. Actually, the first photo I took of her is, to this day, one of the best I have ever taken:

Photo: Jeremiah Thompson

Then there was Iris, who showed up an hour and a half late to our shoot. We jumped in my car and she changed into her bikini as I sped off. When we arrived at the beach, I quickly put her into a pose, and we made this photo [below] in about 10 minutes. It was not a minute too soon, as the sun set right after.

Photo: Jeremiah Thompson

When I think about how much preparation goes into a Sports Illustrated shoot and compare it to some of the photos I’ve taken, I’m amazed by the results I’ve had as a one-man operation. It really is a credit to the beauty of these girls and the environment I am working with down in Brazil.

Last but not least, there’s Dayana. 

She and I ended up getting married, so how could I not mention this as one of my best memories?!  We were really connected right from the beginning. It was a goal of mine to find a woman like Dayana to marry, so having this dream come true as a result of this project was incredible, to say the least.

Photo: Jeremiah Thompson

What sales channels have you used for distribution of the calendar?

I’ve never had the opportunity of getting into the main calendar distribution channels, due to my lateness of releasing the calendars.  I learned afterward that most calendars get released almost a year before the calendar year.

That meant the calendar had been shot as early as two years before. Since I was doing this more for fun than to make money, I decided to release the calendars as close to the calendar year as possible. The models were happy with this, as they didn’t have to wait two years to see their photos debut.  It wasn’t smart business on my part, but again, I wasn’t doing the project to make the most money.

Having said that, we’ve enjoyed being one of the top calendars through Amazon for a couple of years now. We’re giving “Sports Illustrated” a run for their money (at least with Amazon) and I feel a great amount of pride seeing that and knowing how small my operation is compared to them.

Have you done any unique promotions to get the word out?

In 2009, we sent 20,000 calendars to troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. In 2010, we sent approximately 3,000 (I was working with a bigger personal budget in 2009 than in 2010). I hope to get these numbers back up in future years if I stay involved in the project. I always get troop requests and have a list of soldiers who have already requested their copies for 2011. It feels great helping these guys out. Hopefully seeing the beautiful girls on their walls keeps them motivated to stay strong and finish out their missions safe.

What’s the “Girls of Brazil” contest you mentioned to me?

The idea behind the contest is to give someone the chance to live the dream of being a swimsuit photographer. There really is no better place than Brazil for this.

I’d help the lucky winner of this contest along with each step. First, we’ll recruit the girls and find the models he’ll be shooting. Then I’ll give him my camera equipment and teach him how to photograph the girls. The winner will be shooting the girls on his own, but I’ll be around if he needs my help. And afterward, we’ll celebrate the results “Brazilian style”!

The contest doesn’t exist yet, but I’m hoping to get sponsored by a magazine who can feature it. It would make a great story and fill several issues of their magazine with content guys will love.

That sounds like a once-in-a-lifetime experience. If a magazine doesn’t pick up the contest, perhaps we can make it happen :)

—

So, how did his calendars turn out? Take a look at Girls of Brazil website or visit Amazon.  If you want a taste of his photos on Facebook, here’s your fix.

Question of the Day (QOD): If you’re happily married, how did you meet your husband or wife, and do you think someone could engineer the same? Share in the comments!

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Odds and Ends: Blogging Lessons and New Stickers

This post produced a lot of strong responses. Please see my comments below in orange, as well as Jeremiah’s. Related to that, here are a few guidelines I follow while blogging:

Blog Lesson 1 – Please Everyone to Interest No One

If this post put your knickers in a twist, before leaving a snarky comment, realize this: when everyone is your customer, no one is your customer. This is true in business and writing. Bloggers often make the mistake of trying to generalize every post to every person. This is slow suicide and results in plain vanilla posts that offend no one and interest roughly the same. Expect that blog to disappear within two years, whether from reader attrition or blogger boredom.

I prefer to write posts that strongly appeal to at least a portion of my readers, and simply rotate to hit different demographics/psychographics with different posts. If I perfectly hit the nail on the head by educating (or entertaining) 20% of my readership, and they share it with their friends, does it matter if I lose 2-5%? Not in my experience. From what I’ve seen, this is precisely how you build an uberstrong community comprised of readers who actually speak their minds and show an unusual degree of tolerance (by Internet standards, at least).

If you’d like to read the female perspective on the mating and marrying game, here’s another post on this very same blog.

Blog Lesson 2- Strategic Redating of Posts

Some of you have asked, where did the last two posts go? The posts on GetGlue stickers and book promotion parties?

Here’s the answer: I redated them in WordPress so they wouldn’t appear on the homepage. Once time-dependent promotional posts have been up for 48-72 hours, and my core audience has seen them, I redate them, as these posts aren’t valuable to new visitors. There’s only one chance to make a first impression, so I always want strong stand-alone content to dominate my blog homepage. I’d used redating in this fashion for more than two years. Some bloggers go so far as to ensure one of their most popular posts is always displayed first on the homepage, followed then by their most recent.

Hope that explains things.

Eat drink and be merry. Happy Thanksgiving!

New Stickers – The 4-Hour Body

The 4-Hour Body is almost exactly three weeks away, which means a new sticker from GetGlue! This one is of reader, Nathan. To learn how to get it (and all the others) for free, read this:

Rolf Potts is one of my favorite writers, and his book Vagabonding was one of only four books I recommended as “fundamental” in The 4-Hour Workweek. It was also one of two books, the other being Walden; Or, Life in the Woods, that I took with me during my 15+-month mini-retirement that began in 2004.

The following is a guest post from Rolf on the art and lessons of travel, all of which you can apply at home.

Enter Rolf:

Last fall I spoke at the excellent DO Lectures, which brings innovative thinkers from around the world for a series of talks in rural Wales (Tim was a speaker in 2008). My talk, which is available in full via the video link above encourages people to make themselves rich in time and to become active in making their travel dreams happen.

The talk itself contains essential advice and inspiration regarding travel — but what struck me on re-watching it was an improvised moment at the beginning of the talk, when I pointed out how “these aren’t really travel-specific challenges — these are things that can apply to life in general. Think of travel as a metaphor for how you live your life at home.”

Indeed, travel has a way of slowing you down, of waking you up, of pulling you up out of your daily routines and seeing life in a new way. This new way of looking at the world need not end when you resume your life at home.

Here are 5 key ways in which the lessons you learn on the road can be used to enrich the life you lead when you return home…

1) Time = Wealth

By far the most important lesson travel teaches you is that your time is all you really own in life. And the more you travel, the more you realize that your most extravagant possessions can’t match the satisfaction you get from finding new experiences, meeting new people, and learning new things about yourself. “Value” is a word we often hear in day-to-day life, but travel has a way of teaching us that value is not pegged to a cash amount, that the best experiences in life can be had for the price of showing up (be it to a festival in Rajasthan, a village in the Italian countryside, or a sunrise ten minutes from your home).

Scientific studies have shown that new experiences (and the memories they produce) are more likely to produce long-term happiness than new things. Since new experiences aren’t exclusive to travel, consider ways to become time-rich at home. Spend less time working on things you don’t enjoy and buying things you don’t need; spend more time embracing the kinds of activities (learning new skills, meeting new people, spending time with friends and family) that make you feel alive and part of the world.

2) Be Where You Are

A great thing about travel is that it forces you into the moment. When you’re celebrating carnival in Rio, riding a horse on the Mongolian steppe, or exploring a souk in Damascus, there’s a giddy thrill in being exactly where you are and allowing things to happen. In an age when electronic communications enable us to be permanently connected to (and distracted by) the virtual world, there’s a narcotic thrill in throwing yourself into a single place, a single moment. Would you want to check your bank-account statement while exploring Machu Picchu in Peru? Are you going to interrupt an experience of the Russian White Nights in St. Petersburg to check your Facebook feed? Of course not — when you travel, you get to embrace the privilege of witnessing life as it happens before your eyes. This attitude need not be confined to travel.

At home, how often do you really need to check your email or your Twitter feed? When you get online, are you there for a reason, or are you simply killing time? For all the pleasures and entertainments of the virtual-electronic world, there is no substitute for real-life conversation and connection, for getting ideas and entertainment from the people and places around you. Even at home, there are sublime rewards to be had for unplugging from online distractions and embracing the world before your eyes.

3) Slow Down

One of the advantages of long-term travel (as opposed to a short vacation) is that it allows you to slow down and let things happen. Freed from tight itineraries, you begin to see the kinds of things (and meet the kinds of people) that most tourists overlook in their haste to tick attractions off a list. A host of multi-million-dollar enterprises have been created to cater to our concept of “leisure,” both at home and on the road — but all too often this definition of leisure is as rushed and rigidly confined as our work life. Which is more emblematic of leisure — a three-hour spa session in an Ubud hotel, or the freedom to wander Bali at will for a month?

All too often, life at home is predicated on an irrational compulsion for speed — we rush to work, we rush through meals, we “multi-task” when we’re hanging out with friends. This might make our lives feel more streamlined in a certain abstracted sense, but it doesn’t make our lives happier or more fulfilling. Unless you learn to pace and savor your daily experiences (even your work-commutes and your noontime meals) you’ll cheating your days out of small moments of leisure, discovery and joy.

4) Keep it Simple

Travel naturally lends itself to simplicity, since it forces you to reduce your day-to-day possessions to a few select items that fit in your suitcase or backpack. Moreover, since it’s difficult to accumulate new things as you travel, you to tend to accumulate new experiences and friendships instead — and these affect your life in ways mere “things” cannot.

At home, abiding by the principles of simplicity can help you live in a more deliberate and time-rich way. How much of what you own really improves the quality of your life? Are you buying new things out of necessity or compulsion? Do the things you own enable you to live more vividly, or do they merely clutter up your life? Again, researchers have determined that new experiences satisfy our higher-order needs in a way that new possessions cannot — that taking a friend to dinner, for example, brings more lasting happiness than spending that money on a new shirt. In this way, investing less in new objects and more in new activities can make your home-life happier. This less materialistic state of mind will also help you save money for your next journey.

5) Don’t Set Limits

Travel has a way revealing that much of what you’ve heard about the world is wrong. Your family or friends will tell you that traveling to Colombia or Lebanon is a death-wish — and then you’ll go to those places and have your mind blown by friendliness, beauty and new ways of looking at human interaction. Even on a day-to-day level, travel enables you to avoid setting limits on what you can and can’t do. On the road, you naturally “play games” with your day: watching, waiting, listening; allowing things to happen. There’s no better opportunity to break old habits, face latent fears, and test out repressed facets of your personality.

That said, there’s no reason why you should confine that sort of freedom to life on the road. The same Fear-Industrial Complex that spooks people out of traveling can discourage you from trying new things or meeting new people in own your hometown. Overcoming your fears and escaping your dull routines can deepen your home-life — and the open-to-anything confidence that accompanies travel can be utilized to test new concepts in a business setting, rejuvenate relationships with friends and family, or simply ask that woman with the nice smile if she wants to go out for coffee. In refusing to set limits for what is possible on a given day, you open yourself up to an entire new world of possibility.

Naturally, this list is just a sampling of how travel can transform your non-travel life. What have I missed? What has travel taught you about how to live life at home?

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Footnote from Tim: Are you planning, in the middle of, or returning from a long journey? If so — and if you’d like your travel blog or lifestyle-design website to be featured as one of Rolf’s Vagabonding Case Studies — drop him a line at casestudies [at] vagabonding.net and tell him a little about yourself.

This is a short Random episode — 10:30 — and easily the most disgusting to date. I also think it’s the funniest. Imagine Anthony Bourdain’s No Reservations if he didn’t need to edit for cable.

This episode has some educational bits, but it’s focus is on enjoying the not-always-so-smooth experience of travel.

Not for the faint of heart.

From Glenn:

The following video segment is a continuation of the randomly shot randomian-thought random show project with Tim Ferriss and Kevin Rose. This time, we’re not in a library nor are we out on a boat dock fishing for fish – we’re on a street corner in Jinggu. At night. And it’s not really cold outside. It’s slightly humid with a dusty breeze coming out of the southwest.

Audio Note: Most of this was recorded with a Shure-VP88 stereo condenser mic (good with headphones). Apologies for when I don’t have it pointed in correct direction (sounds like they’re behind us).

To borrow from Gary Vee, here is the Question of the Day (QOD): What is the most disgusting or confusing travel experience you’ve ever had?

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Want to get Random episodes delivered to your iPhone or iPad? Now you can! Just subscribe to the podcast in iTunes (or get the audio-only version here).

Is it possible to become invisible without breaking the law? (Photo: gravitywave)

LOS ANGELES, MID-JUNE 2008

Sitting on a plush couch in the neon-infused nightclub, I asked again:

“What’s it about?”

Neil Strauss glanced around and looked nervous, which I found strange. After all, we’d known each other for close to two years now. In fact, he was – as New York Times bestselling author of The Game and others – one of the first people to see the proposal for The 4-Hour Workweek and offer me encouragement.

“C’mon, dude, give me a break. Don’t you trust me?”

“Guilt. That’s good. Use guilt,” Neil said. But the Woody Allen approach wasn’t working.

“I can’t let the meme out early” he said, “I trust you—I’m just paranoid,” he offered to no one in particular as he downed another RedBull. So I fired a shot in the dark.

“What, are you writing about the 5 Flags or something?”

Neil’s heart skipped a beat and he stared at me for several long seconds. He was stunned.

“What do you know about the 5 Flags?”

I was in.

The 5 Flags

Neil’s new book, Emergency, teaches you how to become Jason Bourne.

Multiple passports, moving assets, lock-picking, escape and evasion, foraging, even how to cross borders without detection (one preferred location: McAllen, Texas, page 390)–it’s a veritable encyclopedia of for those who want to disappear or become lawsuit-proof global citizens…

I proofread the book months ago, and it’s been torture to keep some of the content from you, as I find the topics endlessly fascinating. For example, let’s take the concept of “geoarbitrage” to it’s natural but extreme extension: The 5 Flags. I was first introduced to the 5 Flags approach by a deca-millionaire in San Francisco, but here is Neil’s explanation:

“The way to break free of nationality, according to Schultz’s pamphlet, was to follow a three-flag system. The three flags consist of having a second passport, a safe location for your assets in another country, and a legal address in a tax haven. To these, Hill added a fourth and fifth flag: an additional country as a business base and a number of what he called ‘playground countries’ in which to spend leisure time.”

I never implemented the 5 Flags, but I fantasized about getting a second passport and the infinite options it could provide. Neil actually went out and did it.

I’ll get stopped at the airport in a lock-down; Neil won’t. If the FDIC collapses and bank withdrawals are blocked (as happened in Argentina in 2002 when the currency collapsed due to hyperinflation), I’m out of business; Neil has assets elsewhere.

Do I think the US banks are all going to collapse? Not at all. Do I think it’s intelligent to have a lot of options? Indeed. Do I think it’s fun to read about what billionaires and money launderers do, even if I don’t imitate them? Most definitely.

I’m very happy to offer you an exclusive first look at Emergency. Get this book. The following excerpts will set your mind spinning. Ellipses indicate skipped passages.

Lesson 22 – The Gone With the Wind Guide to Asset Protection

If you wanted to withdraw your entire life savings and move it to a bank in Switzerland, what would you do?

Now that I’d decided to hide my assets offshore, the information from the Sovereign Society conference about the government tracking withdrawals and transfers of more than $10,000 applied to me. It seemed impossible to get the money from my American bank to the Swiss bank Spencer recommended without ringing alarm bells. Even if I moved it in small increments, there would still be a paper trail detailing exactly how much money I’d transferred.

So I did what any resourceful American would do: I bought a book on money laundering.

After all, it isn’t a crime to move money secretly as long as the income’s been reported to the IRS and any other necessary reporting requirements are met. And my intention wasn’t to hide my earnings from the government, customs, or creditors, but to protect it from bank collapses, inflation, seizure, and lawsuits, which required leaving few traces of where it went.

Securing money overseas is not a new idea. Even in the novel Gone With the Wind, Rhett butler keeps his earnings in offshore banks, enabling him to buy a house for Scarlett o’Hara after the Civil War—in contrast to his Southern colleagues, who lose their fortunes due to blockades, inflation, and financial collapse.

For more practical, non-fictional inspiration, I bought Jeffrey Robinson’s 1996 book The Laundrymen. I’d always wondered how empty video stores renting movies for $3 a day could stay in business, and why I’d see Russian thugs running clearly unprofitable frozen yogurt stands on deserted side streets. According to Robinson, it’s because, in order to make illegal funds appear legitimate, crooks will slowly feed the money into the cash registers of a normal business.

“It’s almost impossible to spot an extra $500 coming in daily through the tills of a storefront stocked with 15,000 videos,” he writes. “Nor would anyone’s suspicions necessarily be raised if that same owner ran a chain of twenty video rental stores and, backed up with the appropriate audits, awarded himself an annual bonus of $3.96 million.”

Buried elsewhere in Robinson’s book was the answer I was looking for. The best legal way to surreptitiously move money, it seems, is to buy something that doesn’t lose its cash value when purchased. For example, there’s a black market for people who transfer money by buying expensive jewelry, art, watches, and collectibles, then selling them in their destination country for a small loss—usually no greater than the percentage banks charge for exchanging currencies.

So once AIG private bank in Switzerland returned my phone call—assuming that, unlike Spencer’s [a billionaire who appears earlier in the book] lawyer, they were actually willing to work with me—I planned to go shopping for rare coins.

But if it was all so legitimate, why did it feel so wrong?

While I waited to hear from the Swiss bank, I drove to Burbank to meet with the asset protection lawyers Spencer had recommended, Tarasov and Associates. The receptionist led me into a room with black-and-silver wallpaper where Alex Tarasov sat at a large mahogany desk with a yellow legal pad in front of him. With this pad, he would rearrange my business life forever.

“You did a very smart thing by coming here,” Tarasov said. Twenty- five years ago, he had probably been a frat boy. Maybe even played varsity football. But a quarter century spent sitting at desks scrutinizing legal papers had removed all evidence of health from his skin and physique. “By taking everything you own out of your name, we can hide it from lawyers trying to do an asset search on you.”

“So if they sue me and win, they won’t be able to get anything?”

“We can make it very difficult for them to find the things you own and get at them. It’s not impossible, but the deeper we bury your assets, the more money it’s going to cost to find out where they are. And if we can make that time and cost greater than the worth of the assets, then you’re in good shape.”

Like Spencer had said, this was just insurance. The cost of setting this up would be like taking out a policy against lawsuits.

“So what do you own?” he asked.

I laid it all out for him. “I have a house I’m still paying for. I have some stocks and bonds my grandparents gave me when I was a kid. I have a checking and a savings account. And I have the copyrights to my books.” I paused, trying to remember if I owned anything else. I thought there was more. “I guess that’s about it. I have a secondhand Dodge Durango, I guess. And a 1972 corvette that doesn’t work.”

In truth, I didn’t own that much. But ever since my first college job, standing over a greasy grill making omelets and grilled cheese sandwiches, I had started putting money in the bank. Since then, I’d saved enough to live on for a year or two if I ever fell on hard times or just wanted to see the world. I didn’t want to lose the freedom that came from having a financial cushion and not being in debt for anything besides my house.

“Here’s what we can do,” Tarasov said. He then sketched this diagram on his legal pad:

The stick figure was me. as for the boxes, I had no idea what those were. “These are boxes,” Tarasov explained. I was clearly getting the asset-protection-for-dummies lecture. “Each box represents a different LLC”—limited liability company. “If we can wrap everything in an LLC, and then all those LLCs are owned by a holding company, and that holding company is owned by a trust that you don’t even technically own, then you’re safe.”

I liked that last word. But I didn’t understand the rest of it.

“So we’re just basically making everything really complicated?” I asked.

“That’s the idea. We’ll even put your house in a separate LLC, so that if someone trips and falls, they can’t get at anything else you own.”

When Tarasov was through explaining everything, I couldn’t tell whether I was protecting myself from being scammed or actually being scammed myself. But I trusted Spencer, because he seemed too rich, too smart, and too paranoid to get taken in. So I told Tarasov to start wrapping me up in LLCs until my net-worth was whatever spending money I had in my pocket.

“Once we have these entities set up, we can talk about transferring them to offshore corporations,” Tarasov said as I left.

…

Lesson 54 – Secrets of Escaped Felons

Kelly Alwood didn’t say a word as he handcuffed my hands behind my back, opened the trunk of a rental car, and ordered me to get inside. With his shaven head, which looked like it could break bottles; his glassy green eyes, which revealed no emotion whatsoever; and the .32 caliber pistol hanging from a chain around his neck, he didn’t seem like the kind of person to cross.

As he shut the trunk over my head, the blue sky of Oklahoma City disappeared, replaced by claustrophobic darkness and new-car smell. Instantly, panic set in.

I took a deep breath and tried to remember what I’d learned. I curled my right leg as far up my body as it would go and dipped my cuffed hands down until I could reach my sock. Inside, I’d stashed the straight half of a bobby pin, which I’d modified by making a perpendicular bend a quarter inch from the top. I removed the pin, stuck the bent end into the inner edge of the handcuff keyhole, and twisted the bobby pin down against the lever inside until I felt it give way.

As I twisted my wrist against the metal, I heard a fast series of clicks, the sound of freedom as the two ends of the cuff disengaged. I released my hand, then made a discovery few people who haven’t been stuffed inside a trunk know: most new cars have a release handle on the inside of the boot that, conveniently, glows in the dark. I pulled on the handle and emerged into the light.

“Thirty-nine seconds,” Alwood said as I climbed out of the trunk. “Not bad.”

I couldn’t believe classes like this even existed. In the last forty-eight hours, I’d learned to hotwire a car, pick locks, conceal my identity, and escape from handcuffs, flexi-cuffs, ducttape, rope, and nearly every other type of restraint.

The course was Urban Escape and Evasion, which offered the type of instruction I’d been looking for to balance my wilderness knowledge. The objective of the class was to learn to survive in a city as a fugitive. Most of the students were soldiers and contractors who’d either been in Iraq or were about to go, and wanted to know how to safely get back to the Green Zone if trapped behind enemy lines.

The class was run by a company called onPoint Tactical. Like most survival schools, its roots led straight to Tom Brown. Its founder, Kevin Reeve, had been the director of Tracker School for seven years before setting off on his own to train navy SEALS, Special Forces units, SWAT teams, parajumpers, marines, snipers, and even SERE instructors. As a bounty hunter, his partner, Alwood, had worked with the FBI and Secret Service to help capture criminals on the Most Wanted list.

…

As the sun set, we drove to an abandoned junkyard, where Reeve let us practice throwing chips of ceramic insulation from spark plugs to shatter car windows, using generic keys known as jigglers to open automobile doors, and starting cars by sticking a screwdriver in the ignition switch and turning it with a wrench.

As I popped open the trunk on a Dodge with my new set of jigglers, I thought, This is the coolest class I’ve ever taken in my life.

…

Over a barbecue dinner later that night, Reeve asked why I’d signed up for the course. “I think things have changed for my generation,” I told him. “We were born with a silver spoon in our mouths, but now it’s being removed. And most of us never learned how to take care of ourselves. So I’ve spent the last two years trying to get the skills and documents I need to prepare for an uncertain future.”

I’d never actually verbalized it before. I’d just been reacting and scrambling as the pressure ratcheted up around me. Reeve looked at Alwood silently as I spoke. For a moment, I worried that I’d been too candid. Then he smiled broadly. “You’re talking to the right people. That’s what we’ve been thinking. Kelly has caches all over the country—and in Europe.”

Lesson 28 – Calculate the Odds That You’re In Jail Right Now

ST. KITTS, EASTERN CARIBBEAN

In a few days, I’d be committed to an expense of over half a million dollars, which was more money than I had.

And what was it all for? Symbolic paper. A passport, which is just a teeny little booklet that means nothing to the universe. Realistically, the world wasn’t likely to end in my lifetime. And if it did, everyone on St. Kitts would be just as dead as everyone in America.

If there were a smaller-scale world disaster, things would probably be even worse on an island in the Caribbean, where I was more likely to be a victim of food shortages, droughts, hurricanes, blackouts, and tsunamis. There’s nowhere to run and nowhere to hide on an island—especially one in the smallest country in the Americas. I’d become so focused on my search for a passport—so consumed with escaping the blowback of American politics—that I’d forgotten the survivalist lessons I’d learned on Y2K and 9/11.

Soon, the whole endeavor began to seem like the biggest travesty ever. If something horrible happened in America, would a St. Kitts passport even get me out during a state of emergency? What if it was confiscated by customs agents? Or what if Victor, Maxwell, and Wendell were in collusion and just ripping me off? I didn’t have anyone to protect me here.

Once I’d ridden out that wave of anxiety, a new one formed. I began worrying that I’d blabbed my name and occupation to too many people. If they Googled me and saw the filth I’d written, they might not sell me the apartment or give me a citizenship. And then I’d be stuck in America if anything bad happened.

And so it went, all night, one wave of anxiety after another—half of them spent worrying that I wouldn’t get a passport, the other half spent worrying that I would.

I fell asleep around dawn for a few fitful hours, until I was woken by my cell phone. AIG Private Bank was finally returning my call.

Every day, my small savings were dwindling as the dollar dropped relative not just to the euro, but even to the Caribbean currency here. I never thought I’d see the day when Eastern Europeans came to the United States for the cheap shopping.

“I’d like to inquire about opening a private banking account,” I told the woman.

“Great,” she said, with barely a trace of a Swiss accent. “Let me ask you a few questions.”

“Sure.”

“Are you an American citizen?”

“Yes, I am.”

“We don’t deal with American citizens for a few years now.”

“But my friend Spencer Booth is American, and I think he has an account with you.”

“It’s likely an older account. We don’t do business with American citizens anymore. Sorry, good-bye.”

Before I could respond, she had hung up. I felt like an outcast. I couldn’t believe a bank wouldn’t take my money solely because I was American.

I’d noticed that many of the banks I’d researched had special policies for dealing with United States citizens. Even some of the online companies selling vintage travel documents said they no longer shipped to America because U.S. customs agents were opening and confiscating the packages. The government seemed to be sticking its nose everywhere.

In the meantime, I’d discovered a few other interesting facts: according to a report issued by Reporters Without Borders, the United States was ranked as having the fifty-third freest press in the world, tied with Botswana and Croatia. According to the World Health organization, the United States had the fifty-fourth fairest health care system in the world, with lack of medical coverage leading to an estimated 18,000 unnecessary deaths a year. And according to the Justice Department, one in every thirty-two Americans was in jail, on probation, or on parole.

Rather than having actual freedom, it seemed that, like animals in a habitat in the zoo, we had only the illusion of freedom. As long as we didn’t try to leave the cage, we’d never know we weren’t actually free.

That phone call was all it took to let me know I was doing the right thing.

Before going home, I had dinner with Wendell at a restaurant called Fisherman’s Wharf [in St. Kitts, not San Francisco] and thanked him for his help.

After the meal, he patted my shoulder and smiled. “Next time I see you, you’ll be a citizen of St. Kitts and Nevis just like me,” he said. “When you get married, your wife will be a citizen. And when you have kids, so will they.”

He stepped into his SUV, started the engine, then unrolled the window and concluded his thought: “One day,” he said, beaming, “when you come back to America, no one will recognize you. You’ll be a Kittitian.”

At the St. Kitts airport the next morning, I felt like I was returning not to a country but a fortress. “Your country is so tough to get into,” the ticket agent complained as she checked my documents for the flight home. “They make it so hard for us.”

She looked up at me and said it louder, almost with venom, as if it were my fault. “They make it so hard for us.”

She wasn’t alone in her opinion. A survey released the previous month by the Discover America Partnership had found that international travelers considered America the least-friendly country to visit.

“That’s why,” I told her, with the newfound pride that Wendell had instilled in me, “I’m moving here.”

Lesson 59 – Iceland is the New Caribbean

Maybe it was when Bear Stearns became the first brokerage house to be rescued by the government since the Great Depression.

Maybe it was when IndyMac became the fifth American bank to fail in recent months.

Maybe it was when the government gave customs agents authority to confiscate, copy, and analyze any laptop or data storage device brought across the border.
…

Maybe it was the unshakable sense that the worst was still to come.

But I was no longer alone.

It was a hot summer, and pessimism hung thick in the air. Most people I talked to felt as if they were inching closer to some darkness they couldn’t understand, because they’d never experienced it before and didn’t know what it held.
…

Even Spencer’s housemate Howard, who had once made fun of us for taking precautionary measures, was now looking into Caribbean islands. As it turned out, he would beat all of us there when his company collapsed and he had to hide from possible indictment.

“I’m so glad we started preparing ahead,” Spencer told me over dinner at the Chateau Marmont, where he was staying in Los Angeles.

Having struck out with the Swiss, I took Spencer’s advice and opened an account with a Canadian bank that had a branch in St. Kitts. Since both Canada and St. Kitts are part of the British Commonwealth, he’d explained, I would have easy access to my money if anything happened in America. Unfortunately, in the process, I discovered that keeping international accounts secret is now illegal: the IRS requires Americans with over $10,000 in foreign accounts to file an annual report disclosing not just the amount of money and the banks it’s kept in, but the account numbers.

Meanwhile, Spencer was moving forward with his ten-year plan. He started an Internet business in Singapore, enabling him to open a private banking account in the country, which he claimed was fast becoming the new Switzerland. Though he hadn’t gotten his St. Kitts passport yet either, Spencer had done more research into buying an island.

“I’m looking at islands in the north, around Iceland, because no one will think of looking for anyone there,” Spencer said, his thick lips spreading into a self-satisfied smile. “If I can get some other B people [billionaires] to go there with me, we can build underground homes and use geothermal energy.”

“What about your submarine?”

“It’s a great way to move between islands undetected, but we’re running out of time. We need to move faster. This is only the beginning.”

“How bad do you think it’s going to get?” Spencer seemed to understand the economy at a higher level than most people did, perhaps because he knew so many of the people who ran it.

“I don’t think the whole country’s going to collapse, but we’re looking at the worst economic disaster in America since the Great Depression. What I’m also concerned about is the increase in violent crime that’s going to accompany this.”

Everywhere I went that summer, the demon of Just in Case seemed to follow me, growling in my ear louder than it ever had, its jaws terrifyingly close to my jugular. I’d learned so much, changed so much, tested myself so much. It now was time to stop preparing, turn around, and face the demon—and my fears—head on.

And a musician would lead me there.

###

Exclusive first-run excerpts from Neil Strauss’ Emergency: This Book Will Save Your Life. Used with permission.

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Many a false step was made by standing still.
-Fortune Cookie

Named must your fear be before banish it you can.
-Yoda, Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL

Twenty feet and closing.

“Run! Ruuuuuuuuuun!” Hans didn’t speak Portuguese, but the meaning was clear enough—haul ass. His sneakers gripped firmly on the jagged rock, and he drove his chest forward towards 3,000 feet of nothing.

He held his breath on the final step, and the panic drove him to near unconsciousness. His vision blurred at the edges, closing to a single pin point of light, and then… he floated. The all-consuming celestial blue of the horizon hit his visual field an instant after he realized that the thermal updraft had caught him and the wings of the paraglider. Fear was behind him on the mountain top, and thousands of feet above the resplendent green rain forest and pristine white beaches of Copacabana, Hans Keeling had seen the light.

That was Sunday.

On Monday, Hans returned to his law office in Century City, Los Angeles’ posh corporate haven, and promptly handed in his three-week notice…

For nearly five years, he had faced his alarm clock with the same dread: I have to do this for another 40-45 years? He had once slept under his desk at the office after a punishing half-done project, only to wake up and continue on it the next morning. That same morning, he had made himself a promise: two more times and I’m out of here. Strike number three came the day before he left for his Brazilian vacation.

We all make these promises to ourselves, and Hans had done it before as well, but things were now somehow different. He was different. He had realized something while arcing in slow circles towards the earth—risks weren’t that scary once you took them. His colleagues told him what he expected to hear: he was throwing it all away. He was an attorney on his way to the top—what the hell did he want?

Hans didn’t know exactly what he wanted, but he had tasted it. On the other hand, he did know what bored him to tears, and he was done with it. No more passing days as the living dead, no more dinners where his colleagues compared cars, riding on the sugar high of a new BMW purchase until someone bought a more expensive Mercedes. It was over.

Immediately, a strange shift began—Hans felt, for the first time in a long time, at peace with himself and what he was doing. He had always been terrified of plane turbulence, as if he might die with the best inside of him, but now he could fly through a violent storm sleeping like a baby. Strange indeed.

More than a year later, he was still getting unsolicited job offers from law firms but by then had started Nexus Surf, a premier surf-adventure company based in the tropical paradise of Florianopolis, Brazil. He had met his dream girl, a Carioca with caramel-colored skin named Tatiana [bottom right here], and spent most of his time relaxing under palm trees or treating clients to the best times of their lives.

Is this what he had been so afraid of?

These days, he often sees his former self in the under-joyed and overworked professionals he takes out on the waves. Waiting for the swell, the true emotions come out: “God, I wish I could do what you do.” His reply is always the same: “You can.”

The setting sun reflects off the surface of the water, providing a zen-like setting for a message he knows is true: it’s not giving up to put your current path on indefinite pause. He could pick up his law career exactly where he left off if he wanted to, but that is the furthest thing from his mind.

As they paddle back to shore after an awesome session, his clients get a hold of themselves and regain their composure. They set foot on shore, and reality sinks its fangs in: “I would, but I can’t really throw it all away.”

He has to laugh.

###

Excerpted from The 4-Hour Workweek, Chapter 3: Dodging Bullets – Fear-setting and Escaping Paralysis