Agile Personal Development

As mentioned in a previous post, I’m compiling lists of the Top 10 travel locations in the world for different features. Here are the Top 10 travel locations for seeing nature. All of them are associated with natural World Heritage Sites. Some are ranked high for eco-tourism and others for guys to go check out on their next mancation. Each one contains a unique feature of world, such as glaciers, rainforests, everglades, coral reefs, and a big rock in the middle of nowhere. In alphabetical order, here are the Top 10 Nature Sites:

1. African Wilderness. When you think of nature in Africa, you probably think of vast expanses of grasslands with thousands and thousands of animals migrating across them. You also think of the “Big Five” animals that everyone hopes to see while on safari there. While there are a lot of locations within Africa to go on safari, Kenya (e.g. Masai Mara National Reserve) is the most popular, although Serengeti National Park is a World Heritage Site.
2. Alaska. This is a beautiful location (although a little cold) to see glaciers in their natural habitat. In particular, the Glacier Bay and Wrangell-St. Elias National Parks are where you should go. If you like huge mountains (some of the biggest in North America), you won’t be disappointed. While you are in the state, you might as well visit Denali National Park as well and check out the tallest mountain in North America (aka Mt. McKinley). You might also catch a glimpse of the powerful grizzly bear, although hopefully you’ll see one from a safe distance away!
3. Amazon Rainforest. The Amazon Basin (which drains into the Amazon river) has some of the most diverse species and is the largest rainforest in the world. By popular opinion, the best location to experience the Amazon is at Manu National Park in Peru. There are lots of different bird species here, in addition to more plant biodiversity than you can shake a stick at. The other interesting thing about this park is that it is so remote, you need to access it by boat - there aren’t a lot of roads leading there.
4. Everglades National Park. This area in the southern part of Florida is the most unique location in the world to see this type of marshy, swampy land that extends for over 2000 square miles (6000 square kilometers). And plus you get to ride around in boats with big fans on the back called airboats (imagine that!). If you visit here, you could probably swing by Disney World on your way. Not quite a nature spot, but if you have children, you don’t really have a choice.
5. Galapagos Islands. These islands off the coast of Ecuador are one of the key places in the world for studying how life evolves over time. You are probably familiar with Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection, which he developed during a visit here. Follow in his footsteps and come to see the large number of unique species.
6. Grand Canyon National Park. Have you ever seen something a mile (1.6 kilometers) deep? Step up to the edge of the Grand Canyon and you’ll get the picture. Or if you need a little more adrenaline, you can visit the nearby Grand Canyon Skywalk, and stand out over the edge of a side canyon at over 4000 ft (1200 m) . Many people hike down into the Grand Canyon, or raft down the Colorado River. Expect the Grand Canyon to show up on my Top 10 list of travel sites for sports as well.
7. Great Barrier Reef. As one of the largest and best examples of coral reefs in the world, this site off the coast of Australia is extremely popular for diving (also will probably make the Top 10 list of travel sites for sports). There are over a thousand types of fish you might see while diving here.
8. Iguazu/Iguacu National Parks. These twin parks contain the best waterfall (by popular opinion, although Victoria Falls in Africa is close) in the world. The waterfall and surrounding rainforest extend into both Argentina and Brazil. And best of all, you can check off two World Heritage sites at once!
9. Uluru / Ayers Rock National Park.  This site is famous for the large, huge, enormous, gigantic rock (aka monolith) sitting in the middle of the desert. In addition to the natural significance, it is also highly significant from a cultural perspective as well.
10. Yellowstone National Park. This park is unique for its geothermal activity, including the famous geyser, “Old Faithful“, that erupts at a very predictable frequency. You’ll also see a lot of wildlife in this area, with grizzly bears being one of the more unique types. Just in case you didn’t see enough of them in Alaska.

I’m sure you have different ideas for the best sites in the world to visit for nature, add your favorites into the comments.

OK, a little break from all the evaluations of personal development methods. Today marks about 6 weeks since I started this blog. This is an exciting milestone for me, so I thought I would share why I started this blog and the overall purpose.

First, I have always struggled with implementing the various personal development ideas I learn. I’ll read a great book, pull out some interesting ideas, and try to implement them. Then I’ll read another great idea on someone’s blog and struggle with how to combine the two different ideas into a comprehensive approach. This has gone on for years, with hundreds of different ideas. It was driving me nuts. I almost got to the point where I didn’t want to read anything more because it was so overwhelming. The problem is that there are some great blogs out there that I read daily, and I absolutely had to find a way to incorporate their ideas into my life.

Another key thing that happened was I ran across a Brazen Careerist blog post on starting your own blog. I really like Penelope’s ideas in that they make me think differently about balancing your life and career. Also, being in the Gen X crowd, her portrayal of my generation and how we feel about work/life balance is usually absolutely right on. One of her posts mentioned the importance of starting a blog, and referenced the post above. I knew that I wanted to get involved in this community, and try to contribute something unique from the millions of other people out there trying to do the same thing (but wait, I’ll do it differently!). What I was struggling with was what I would focus on.

The final thing that set everything into motion was a Wired article I read about David Allen and his “philosophy”. If you don’t know about his philosophy, then you probably ended up at this site completely by random, or this is your second day on the Internet. If so, he started a little something called Getting Things Done (one of the methods I still try to implement). The thing about this article that completely blew my mind was how it compared the GTD method to previous self-help methods like 7 Habits. Essentially, that GTD is a ‘bottoms up’ method, and that 7 Habits is a ‘top down’ approach. As I recovered from this incredible revelation, I realized that the key to leveraging all these great ideas was to develop some sort of framework that allowed for each of them to address their unique niche, but still be tied together into an overall comprehensive methodology.

I realized that I wanted to focus on developing a comprehensive methodology for developing and implementing your own personal development plan. I’d do the research and evaluation, pass along my thoughts to the world through my blog, all while putting some order into my own life. I went back to the Brazen Careerist post and tried to follow the suggestions. The one area I promptly failed on was ‘Post something right away’. Even though I wanted to get started, I also wanted to learn more about the details and make sure I was happy with the overall blog before I put it out to the world.

So, I spent the next 3 months (yes, not quite meeting the ’start blogging right away’ part of Penelope’s advice) learning about Wordpress, CSS, HTML, etc while tailoring my own blog design. I also spent a lot of time trying to come up with the right title. There are a lot of sites out there related to personal development - where did I want to focus? After reviewing about 200 different words that might be relevant, scrutinizing their meanings, putting them into different combinations, and finding out how the blog community viewed those words, I settled on Agile Personal Development. I ended up with the agile part towards the very end. I ran across the Agile Manifesto and related articles about this philosophy. I was already aware of it through my job (think of me as a Bill Lumbergh kind of guy), and what I really liked was doing quick studies of new methods, finding out what worked, and then ‘refactoring‘ my personal development plan to take advantage of the new idea. It really hit home that in the past, I have been trying to come up with the entire plan all at once, and then start implementing it. The problem was I could never get that total plan figured out, since my requirements kept changing. What I needed to do was start with an initial plan, try out new methods for implementing it, check on progress, revise the plan, and repeat. Call it a Spiral Personal Development Plan.

At this point, I’ve met Penelope’s rule of blogging for a month to make sure you’re serious about it. I’ve got a ton of ideas I want to try out, and I’m hoping over time you guys will provide even more. If you’re new to the site, check out the links across the top, particularly my current Agile Personal Development Methodology. Also, please leave some comments on areas you are interested in, tips on methods I should evaluate, or any ways you have been able to tie some of the key personal development methods together.