I developed my creator skills by having fun with friends in high school. After a brief stint working a 9-5 I decided I'd rather be broke than sell my time, so I spent 12 years traveling the world making videos with people.
With no stable source of income and never more than a few hundred dollars to my name, I discovered the value of a sovereign mindset: anything is possible, but only if we go for it.
My goal was to become a YouTuber, but life had other plans.
Instead, it was my creator skills that supported me. Everyone wants and everyone needs video, and many are willing to trade room & board for it!
So I developed humility, and by doing so created opportunities for myself throughout the Americas, Europe, Africa, and Asia doing what I love.
But then, quite suddenly, a different sort of love found me.
In 2020 I became a husband and a father.
We decided to do it the hard way, so now we're building a homestead in volcanic Hawaii:
Whoops!
I was a creator long before there was an economy for it. As a father, musician, podcaster, and filmmaker, I've never known a life not full of creation.
Since 8 years old I've had a camera in my hand, and I thought that after college I'd become the professional film director of my dreams.
But as it goes, instead of following a focused career path I chose to travel the world with little money on a thrashing journey of self-discovery.
I dove head-first into life without a care for the consequences: I saw the places, experienced the people, and explored my passions.
Throughout that time, I was always busy with some new project: YouTube channels, Instagram, innumerable website ideas, and I even started a non-profit to help low-budget organizations get media made.
Of course, nothing ever stuck. Beyond having no strategy, I also had no goals.
I was fully content with living in the moment.
Now, after 15 years of flopping around the world as a digital media maker, I've finally put the pieces together:
And that includes making mistakes.
Over the years I sold my time for money or room or board, dabbled in social entrepreneurship, explored handy (and trendy) new technologies, and even attempted to be a social media person with something to share.
It's great trying to achieve lofty ambitions for the world and all, but I was actually living in a dream land.
A pure heart meant very little for me when I was not providing value to the world.
Eventually, my chaotic lifestyle began to culminate with me surrendering to "love." After my first ayahascua ceremonies, I could recognize the lack of boundaries and self-victimizing tendencies that I carried with me, restricting me from developing any further until I finally took responsibility.
I was learning to love myself.
That's about when I met a woman who helped reflect what "loving oneself" really meant. Since I was practicing what it meant to put my own well-being first, for the first time I was actually able to fully receive someone else's love.
Within a few months, we had a child on the way. It was the most unexpected surprise I could have ever asked for.
Everything started to change in 2017, when the small amount of Bitcoin I'd bought back in 2014 was suddenly worth something significant.
I started to feel empowered by having the weight of a little funding behind me, and by 2021, my new family and I were moving to Hawai'i to start an off-grid homestead.
I learned a lot out there, and now that I'm settled into the family life here in volcano land, I find that the main principle I live by is pretty simple: true freedom starts from within.
No one else is ever going to come save me, it's up to me to do the real work.
What you can find on this website.
There's a lot going on here. Most of it is all here to provide inspiration or entertainment value in one way or another.
Books
- The Legend of Bruce Hard (fantasy)
- Summer in a Prologue (sci-fi)
Travel Memoirs
- The Post-Bohemian Chronicles:
- The Ex-Backpackers of Bangkok (I),
- Transcription of Transformation (II)
- Death of a Traveler (III)
- Locked Down in Argentina 2020
- Jordan's Blog Abroad: France 2007-2008
Graphic Novels
Films
And there's plenty more where that came from (unlike time, which is needed to get the rest of it formatted for the internet!).
So enjoy yourself, and thanks for visiting! I always cherish new connections and feedback, so please feel free to get a hold of me if you so desire.
Jordan Urbs, 2023
