The same day I handed in my master鈥檚 thesis in electrical engineering at MIT in 2004, I left Boston for Santa Cruz. By 颅August I had a job in Silicon Valley developing flash memory for computers. It was straight out of Office Space: I worked in the basement, and I hated it. Three months later, my father had a stroke. When I was with him in the hospital, I asked myself, Is this really what I want to do with my life? I never went back to that job. I took out a loan and in early 2005 founded 国产吃瓜黑料 Out to teach what I really love: surfing, climbing, and wilderness survival. I lived in my childhood bed颅room for that first year, drove all over California, and taught 250 people by myself. Last year my 20 employees and I had more than 4,000 students, and about a third of them were groups from corporations and schools. The work ethic I learned at MIT is actually a large part of why we鈥檙e successful鈥擨 still put in 12-hour days, but what I do doesn鈥檛 feel like work.
HOW YOU CAN DO IT: Get training from an established program like NOLS (look into the outdoor-颅educator courses listed at nols.edu), then scout out an ideal location for your base of operations. You want to be next to public lands that you know intimately鈥攁nd that have permits available for guiding services (quotas often fill quickly). Approximate income range: $20,000鈥$150,000 a year.