Pretty good businessman, huh?
Now, before you start asking for financial advice, there's something you should know.
I grew up on a cattle ranch in Colorado.
Which meant I learned, at a relatively young age, that money came from WORK.
Real work.
The kind that involves dirt, grease, sweat, busted knuckles, and occasionally an animal considerably larger than you deciding it has somewhere else to be.
You know.
Work.
So imagine my fascination when I discovered that a person could sit in front of a little glowing screen, push a few buttons, and somehow persuade money to appear.
From complete strangers.
While sitting in a chair.
In the house.
With AIR CONDITIONING.
Good Lord.
I'd discovered witchcraft.
Naturally, I had to investigate.
I'd read Robert Kiyosaki's Rich Dad Poor Dad—a book I found on my parents' bookshelf, of all places—and it had stirred up an idea I couldn't seem to put back to sleep.
Maybe there was a way to make a living that wasn't measured, quite so directly, in hours and aching muscles.
Online school had already shown me that a fellow with a laptop could do something rather different from what the conventional path prescribed. Then came another book about making money on the internet, and the possibility became irresistible.
So I built a website. Put some Google AdSense ads on it. Bought some traffic through Bing.
And one day the numbers said I'd earned $13.46.
THIRTEEN DOLLARS AND FORTY-SIX CENTS.
Not thirteen thousand. Not thirteen hundred.
Thirteen bucks. Plus change.
And I was thrilled.
Never mind that I'd spent somewhere around $40 or $50 on advertising to make it happen.
That's just a minor accounting detail.
Financially unsuccessful. Imaginatively devastating—in the best possible way.
Because after growing up surrounded by physical work, I had just watched a very different kind of system do something.
Not enough to make me rich.
Not even enough to buy back the money I'd spent.
But enough to make me ask a dangerous little question:
What else have I assumed was simply the way things had to be?
And once that question gets into your head...
Well.
Good luck getting it out.
At the time, I thought I was investigating a different way to make a living.
I didn't realize how much I'd end up questioning about the life I was trying to make.
And investigate I did.
Books. Courses. Websites. Seminars. Videos. Marketing. Psychology. Sales. Copywriting. Philosophy.
I became a collector of extraordinarily interesting information.
Eventually, I had spent more than $38,000 on my education.
Not in one dramatic moment. Over years, one intriguing idea led to another, and there always seemed to be something else worth understanding.
Read. Watched. Listened. Studied.
Filled notebooks.
Connected dots.
Found new dots.
Connected those dots to dots I didn't even know existed.
And occasionally wondered whether I'd lost my damn mind.
(A possibility I haven't entirely ruled out.)
The strange thing is that I genuinely loved the learning. Still do. Discovering a brilliant old thinker, following a curious idea into another discipline, finding a connection between two things that appear to have nothing in common—oh, that's good stuff.
But eventually an inconvenient question began following me around.
Was I learning because I was curious?
Or was I sometimes learning because being a student felt safer than being seen trying?
I suspect the answer was both.
And I think that's worth admitting, especially on a website devoted to discovering extraordinary ideas.
Because a good book can change your life.
It can also make a remarkably comfortable place to hide.
That's the peculiar trap: preparing for the life you want can quietly become a way of postponing it.
Some of the things I studied were about courage, self-belief, and taking action. Studying those things was not always the same as doing them. The irony is rather delicious.
But somewhere along the way, something rather unexpected began happening.
I started questioning the very thing I'd gone searching for.
You see, I thought I wanted money.
Well, I did.
Still do, actually.
Money's wonderful. Very useful stuff.
But underneath that, what I really wanted was freedom.
And at some point I had to wonder whether I'd made that freedom conditional on reaching a finish line that kept moving.
The freedom to decide what to do with my days.
To work on things I love.
To think. Create. Explore. Learn. Build.
To enjoy the people and animals and places I care about.
To be myself.
And perhaps most importantly...
To feel like I was doing alright.
Like I was enough.
Like I wasn't perpetually one achievement, one opportunity, one book, one brilliant mentor, or one mysterious missing piece away from finally getting to enjoy my own life.
Know the feeling?
Maybe you've had your own version of it.
You tell yourself you'll relax when the business takes off.
You'll be confident when you've accomplished something impressive.
You'll start doing what you really want when you've got more time, more money, more knowledge, more certainty.
And maybe some of those things really do need attention.
Bills are real. Responsibilities are real. Problems are real.
But here's an intriguing little possibility:
What if you didn't have to put your entire enjoyment of life on hold while you figured everything out?
What if you could be perfectly happy to be here...
And still want to see just how extraordinary things might become?
Not because there's something wrong with you.
Not because you're incomplete.
But because creating, discovering, growing, loving, and playing with possibility are some of the finest parts of being alive.
Hmm.
Now we're getting somewhere.
Because here's the part I find especially funny.
I started out wanting enough money that I wouldn't have to do the hard, blue-collar jobs I knew so well.
And then, after all that searching, I began to realize I might actually like doing some of that work—if I didn't have to do it for survival.
Same fence.
Entirely different life.
Now that's the sort of paradox that can keep a person happily thinking for a while.
Which brings me to another confession.
I'm a fairly private guy.
Most people who know me in the physical world probably just see a blue-collar fellow who works with his hands.
And that's fine by me.
But there's another side of my life.
A world of extraordinary teachers, unusual discoveries, old books, fascinating ideas, strange connections, and questions that occasionally keep me up far later than any sensible person should be awake.
A world where marketing can be an art.
Where philosophy can change the way you experience an ordinary Tuesday.
Where an old story about a stranger searching for diamonds can illuminate something you passed by yesterday.
And where you discover that some of the most valuable things you've been searching for may have been sitting right under your nose all along.
Funny how that works.
Anyway...
I'm Riley Younger.
I don't have everything figured out.
Not even close.
But I've discovered some awfully interesting things along the way.
And instead of keeping them all to myself, I thought it might be fun to build a little place where I could share them.
Stories. Letters. Ideas. Mentors. Experiments. Adventures.
Some practical.
Some philosophical.
Some a little out there.
All offered in the spirit of curiosity, independence, generosity, and having a damn good time while we're here.
No need to agree with everything.
In fact, I'd rather you didn't.
Think for yourself.
Take what you find useful.
Question the rest.
And if something you discover here makes your life a little richer, a little freer, a little more interesting...
Well, that's a pretty wonderful thing, isn't it?
Welcome to my little corner of the universe. Make yourself at home.
There's plenty more where that came from.
— Riley
Remember that $13.46?
Funny thing about it.
For years, I thought the exciting discovery was that I could make money without working the way I'd always worked.
Turns out, the more interesting discovery was that there might be an entirely different way to think about what makes a life rich.
But that's a story for another day...