I wake up to the sound of roosters crowing and dogs barking as they rise with the sun and shake off the morning dew. I walk out of the two room concrete bunker I share with seven others. Bathing and breakfast will come later; first I must run. I am living in a Muay Thai camp in the hills of Northern Thailand. I sleep on a concrete floor in a row of other people. There is one bathroom which consists of two garbage cans filled with water, a toilet and bare concrete. I am happier than I have ever been.

This may not sound like a life one would voluntarily choose, but to me it is paradise. I had a great GPA from George Mason University in Fairfax, VA. I was in the military, a medic with combat experience, I speak three languages, and I have had a lot of international experience. I could be working my way into a high paying job with one of the government contractors around here. I could be going the “practical route,” and sit in traffic for 3 hours every day. I could have restricted my daily scenery to perfectly manicured grass and sleek SUVs with busy professionals inside zipping past drab strip malls. I could have restricted my human interaction outside of work to once a week for a couple of hours and spent the rest of my time watching TV.

No way. Not for me.

There is a new way to work now and it means having the ability manifest your creative potential.

I was being hounded by friends and family wondering why I wasn’t doing the practical thing. I would get lines like “You know you can’t just have fun, right?” I was shocked by that statement. Why not?! Oh wait, that’s right – I’m supposed to be miserable at least half the time, too, wondering when the day will be over so I can go home and veg out in front of the latest reality show. Forgot about that one.

I believe that people can do anything they want to; as they say, where there is a will there is a way. Now, technology is making this axiom even more applicable to people all over the world. Over a year ago, I physically freed myself from the suburban grind of the Metropolitan DC area. Over the course of that year I learned to free my mind of any preconception that I had to do things a certain way, the same ways other people had done them. I was a healthy, happy human being with the most powerful tool in the entire universe – an imagination. With this imagination all I have to do is think of what I want and how I want to get there and apply myself to the tasks needed to accomplish my goal. That will take me exactly to where I want to be. Thanks to technology, someone on the other side of the globe right now will do in days what would take me weeks if not more likely months to do.

Manifest your creativity. No one needs to be stuck anywhere they don’t want to be.

Now, I am back in the USA. I came home with 5 dollars in my bank account but with the knowledge of what I needed to do so that I could live the life I had been living for the past year and a half – this time indefinitely. I have dreams and goals and I am excited to slowly watch them be created. I know that with two months of a part-time job while harnessing the power of the internet I can set big things in motion. One f the major weapons in my arsenal is currently E-lance, a networking tool where those who need work done can post their projects to be bid on by freelancers around the planet. Web design, logos, translation to illustration, if you need something done, chances are e-lance has someone with the skills to do it.

The great thing, in fact the best thing to me about e-lance, is that it puts at my disposal instant creation of any idea I have. I am an idea person; I love being creative and thinking of new ideas and putting new spins on old ones. But having an idea is not enough, it needs to be put into motion. I can think of a great idea that could make me some money, but then comes time to make a website, write a plan, design a logo, and I can’t do any of those things myself and unfortunately I don’t have a large company with a staff to do my bidding. In fact, all I have is an idea. But that’s ok! That’s no problem at all – believe in yourself and hire someone to do the specialized tasks required for very reasonable amounts of money.  Manifest your creativity.

I will be going to South Asia this winter to start a Mixed Martial Arts school in Lahore, Pakistan to begin forming the first generation of Pakistani MMA fighters. I started this dream in December 2007 when I came to Pakistan with nothing but an idea. I formed a little MMA training group and now two years later I am ready to take things to the next level. I owe a lot of this to e-lance. I knew that I needed to set up an online presence to get the word out but I did not know how to do it. I gave e-lance a shot and 50 dollars later www.pak-mma.com was born. This will become a milestone in my life for sure. Once the website was up, MMA Pakistan grew from being just a small training group in Western Punjab into a national organization that was getting emails from Pakistanis all over the country and around the world wanting to know how they could help out. I was truly humbled with how things had progressed. Despite taking only baby steps, the progress set alight a fire inside me when I considered the potential of where I could take this thing. I started thinking bigger; not only could I make an MMA school with an MMA team but  I could offer MMA training, along with side classes in computer skills and English so that these guys could also have a future with the opportunities the internet brings to the entire planet.  I have a dream of a community center where along with martial arts, job skills could be taught. Similar to the youth boxing programs we have in the United States that focus on at risk youth. I could pursue the life of my dreams and give others the opportunities they need to help themselves and their families and pursue a life of their dreams.

A Martial Arts school in Pakistan was something I thought I was going to pursue when I retired. I wanted to have a small school and be a Pakistani Mr. Miagi, teaching youth martial arts techniques and helping them in their lives.  But then I realized that there is no reason for me to drudge through a tolerable life to have the reward at the end. Who says it has to be that way? I can do what I want to do in life NOW, and I don’t have to wait.

I also have the flip side of free lancing on the internet to look forward to. The insurance and comfort of knowing that wherever I am in the world, as long as I have an internet connection I have a way to make money. With a plane ticket and a couple hundred dollars I can go anywhere in the world and do freelance work on  e-lance to earn extra money to continue living my dream life, which to me is one long adventure. And believe it or not you don’t need much money for adventures. In fact, having “not enough money” is almost a prerequisite for a true adventure.

This is the new way to work. You can define work as you choose. Why work on something you hate, or don’t understand, or can’t do? Why work for someone else? Have someone work for you. Why not? Do you need a huge company to get others to do your work? No. Why should you put in years of your life setting the foundation for your dreams when you can spread the work around and lighten the load and enjoy your life? With e-lance, the new way to work is to share the load and let each person function in their most efficient capacity. I have good ideas, but I won’t be designing a website any time soon. Now, I can function doing the things I do best and allow others to do what they do best to help me. I don’t even consider it work.

I’m not a millionaire story,  even if I never become one I really don’t care. I’m not after money, I’m after experiences and the best thing about e-lance it gives me the freedom to get just that. That being said I am enjoying watching my projects come alive. I am watching my creativity manifest itself. To give you an example of what I have meant by “manifesting creativity” here is something I could never do myself but what was floating inside my head, trying to get out. It’s a picture that I will be using to promote my Muay Thai and MMA Brand “Somchai.” Done by contractors by the name of Graphics Manufacture which I got from, you guessed it, e-lance. This is just one example of something I would have wanted to create but didn’t know how.

So it’s now 2 weeks before I leave for Pakistan. A one way ticket, a few grand, and an internet connection is all I need to keep my confidence and focus strong. Power shortages, bombs and general chaos won’t stop me from logging onto e-lance for even a few minutes to award a job or take a job so I can go on towards manifesting my creativity.

Our world today does not just give us a new way to work, it gives us a new way to live.