I have had more than my fair share of interesting experiences in my life – mostly self inflicted 
. One thing that I have learned is that life is what YOU make of it. You can’t control all the events in your life, but you can control your willingness to participate.
Since I have written almost exclusively about technical aspects of hosting for the last several entries I thought it would be fun to share a few strange personal experiences that have happened to me over the years. I won’t go into a ton of detail, but everything listed below is 100% true.
* I was hit by a bus while riding a bike in Taiwan – TWICE!
* I have sat on the shoulders of a 7 foot tall African Chief in Kenya.
* I have been held at gunpoint by South Korean military police.
* I have had the FBI and local police raid my house and confiscate all my computer equipment (Hey, I was still a minor!)
* I was bitten by a monkey while living in Saudi Arabia (Jeddah).
* I was beaten by a 10 year old girl at the table tennis US Open (Yes, there really is a US Open for Ping Pong!)
* I’ve spent 8 hours in the Disneyland police station
…. AND LOTS AND LOTS OF GOOD STUFF TOO!!!!
My point is that life has all kinds of interesting experiences in store for us, but we have to be willing to stretch ourselves. Next time you ask yourself “Why would I want to do that?” instead ask yourself “Why not?” Life is short, make the most of it!
Matt Heaton / President Bluehost.com
I could not agree more Matt. Life is about choices. We make choices every day and have to live with the consequences. Our life’s journey results from the choices we make.
So be smart and make some good decisions – and take chances in life.
In most of the times,various kinds of happenings and experiences in our life unknowing convey a sort of lesson/learning to us. Mostly it is not possible to avoid what we don’t want/expect. If a person is inclined to its inner truthfulness to be inspired with not only in its practical/external/social life but also in its emotional and spiritual life, he/she can find some meaningfulness in this life by believing/feeling the eternity of one’s inner truthfulness. I do feel your positivity in your professional life, to some extent is contributed by your unknowing learning from such strange and happenings. May God bless you! Regards
Extremely interesting facts about your life! The theme you are using is very boring however [and the sidebar does not show with individual posts on this default theme].
Interesting person; boring theme!
I could not agree more Matt,too.Mybe you Life is very exciting.
In a rush to choose and there are so many web host companies that all seem the same, but I just read what you’ve do with your life and I am sold. One new customer for Bluehost.
hey Matt, i think your experiences are quite the Xperience of a lifetime. i mean not all people can deal with all the things you’ve been through! but more power to you and may god protect you always (i really mean it)chow!
Love it, and so true. It kills me when I am at, oh lets say Wal-Mart and see a mother with about 5 kids and is yelling, breathing heavy, not really looking very classy if you know what I mean, and just overall miserable. And, really, I think this person is in the situation because of the choices they have made. Perhaps I could be wrong and they can be very happy, but lots of people that pull the “why me” card all the time, usually has no one to blame but themselves. Life is truly what you make it. Every action has a reaction….
Care to share why was your computer equipment confiscated by the FBI?
Were you trying to start a web hosting company?
lol
This post made me realize how boring my life really is.
yeah life really is too short. so enjoy each time you can. Good reflexion Matt
Better than the North Korean Police. . .
Pretty awesome list there Matt! I have to agree with Rishi’s statement a bit
Did the monkey bit hurt?
Wow! Impressive and pretty funny – though some of it wasn’t at the time, I’m sure! Lots of people would have just stayed indoors after the second bus hit them. How much time elapsed between the two?
As a new Blue Host customer it’s nice to read about the person behind the business.
There are things in life that we cannot control and we should not too worry about it. Anyway, you have a great experience that make your self valuable.
FBI!?!? WTF!, your experiences sounds interesting.
Makes me wonder how interesting life can be..
WOW! Your life is probably twice as exciting as mine, granted I am young! I trained with Shaolin Monks in China, was held at gunpoint by Chinese military at the Forbidden City for yelling “CHRISTMAS!”. Korban and I witnessed 50 million dollars of Cocaine delivered out of the Ocean into Mexico by gun wielding drug lords while on a scuba diving excursion (and we could have easily been killed). I was questioned by FBI for trying to sell an Emergency vehicle to the head Colonel of Security of Qatar and was placed on a terrorist watch list. I was buried in an avalanche head down while snowboarding and dug myself out. I took 420 volts to the heart while testing a UPS system. I accidentally detonated 24 car batteries inside a warehouse with a negative->positive connection…and lived to tell about it.
Life is awesome and you should live it to the fullest, because you never know what fluke moment in life will be your last!
[...] about the president of BlueHost, a company which offers aFree Domain With $6.95 Hosting Package. CLICK to see all of Matt’s blog entry. It’s nice to see Matt giving a face to a typically [...]
amazing experience in your life… Its very inspiring…
much more better than Indonesian police… Im serious…
I’m listening to the 40′s blues on bluebeat.com. This is really pleasurable. It’s almost midnight here in Jinan, China, and I’m just chilling out before going to bed.
Let’s see, I could probably match some of these stories, like the time I got slammed against the wall by a lightning strike when I was just washing my hands in my hometown of Lansing, Michigan, or getting a concussion falling off a motorcycle coming round a bend down Mt. Wilson in California, then another gash to the head not paying close enough attention driving my friend’s VW bug on the Toronto grapevine, talking to a hitchhiker. Or the bad falls I took from careless motorists when I used to bicycle for transportation in Southern California (I still feel those!)… or getting thrown across a Russian van in Mongolia last summer when our driver stopped suddenly to avoid a truck in a countryside that did not have another vehicle in sight.
On the up side, I got to swim in the Piscine Deligny, a nude swimming pool that used water from the Seine in Paris and had a really hot love affair with an artist I met at the Louvre. I studied Spanish in Saltillo, Mexico and learned to dance the Jarabe Tapatillo (Mexican Hat Dance) and landing on the bended knee of my handsome Mexican partner at the end. I also learned how to dance the Tarantella Pizzica with Alessandro Belloni at a dance workshop in San Francisco, a dance to heal sexual trauma. As she was teaching, I got to dance with her very handsome Brazilian partner, the very best dancer I’ve ever danced with.
Oh and I’ve got to mention the dragon I saw in Tokyo in the moat of the Emperor’s Palace the day of an earthquake… and the sea creature I sighted at Lake Tahoe and the Washoe legend about it I learned from a medicine man, Golden Eagle, who later taught me a drumming ceremony to call in the spirit of the bears at Golden Gate Park in San Francisco. I’ve been working my way around the world for a few years now, and I’ve had adventures I’m still not ready to write about… but I will eventually because I remember my past lives as I travel and reconnect with past loves, so there’ll be a book some day, “Men I’ve Known Over the Centuries.”
I don’t have any money. I don’t even have a job right now and I’m stuck here in Jinan in China, but I do have memories.
Sounds like you were quite a terrific kid
Hi Matt,
I like this post! You are absolutely right. It is all about feeling the fear and doing it anyway. Life has so many fun opportunities for us to explore. Saying yes to life is very important. Stretching and reaching out of the your comfort zone.
Thanks Matt for that reminder.
Keep stretching:)
I wonder how you got hit by a bus. Didn’t you know that Taiwanese treat traffic rules as recommendations only ? Didn’t you know that the primary traffic rule in Taiwan is that all rules are invalid in the absence of traffic enforcers?
You seem like you are always in the wrong place at the wrong time. Mind you I have had my moments too.
I couldn’t agree more, life is what you make it, and the last few years have been good because I have just gone for it. Hopefully the next few years will be even better.
Great post, all the best
Mike
How very true. Life is definitely what you make of it–we all have choices and sometimes circumstances that we don’t like help us to make decisions that bring us wonderful changes.
Agree with Russ – our life – our choice…
Sometimes asking the Why not question yields some valid answers, too. But it is still all about our choices in life.
well said and soooo trueee!
Mybe you Life is very exciting
Where in Kenya,perhaps?
Karibu (welcome) again.
Julius
Nairobi
KENYA
As a technically challenged person, I’m glad you have the “human” side articles you wrote. Always interesting to read….. Keep them coming.
So, Life Is Life and nothing more…
Extremely interesting facts about your life!
I think that most have had many mountains climb and bad things to happen throughout our lives. the one thing i always try to keep in mind is that if you look around hard enough you will find someone that has it worse than you and by trying to help that person will seem to make it better for yourself. I love these post Matt keep up the good work!
Steveyb
http://www.netmenz.com
http://www.attorneyseomarketing.com
thanks for share your story, it’s really inspiring me. awesome
Hi,
Life is all about, how we are reacting to the situation. Enjoy all the seconds its full of thrill.Take your own decision and put it into action.
I agree. E everything in life depends on how you look at it . If you want to take it the wrong way, then everything looks wrong. And all problems do have solutions unless they are major health issues. So i think we should look at it in a calm manner and look for solutions.
Russ, That comment was amazing, I have to give a speech about ‘lifes what you make’ it and you have just helped me alot! Thanks!
LOL: “I was hit by a bus while riding a bike in Taiwan – TWICE!”
I think if you ride a bike in Taiwan than you should be lucky just be hitted twice… but the rest you told is absolutely right:
Life Is What You Make Of It!
Greetings from Germany!
Sascha
LOL: “I was hit by a bus while riding a bike in Taiwan – TWICE!”
I think if you ride a bike in Taiwan than you should be lucky just be hitted twice… but the rest you told is absolutely right:
Life Is What You Make Of It!
Greetings from Germany!
Not sure if I agree, sometimes life just happens, though how you react to it is down to you… though I never give in and have an almost stupid level of good Karma.. sometimes life in this mad little world is so strange that even you yourself thinking that is not right.. myself I have had an amazing little ride though not as cosmopolitan maybe just a little bit more strange.
I used to go to my local pub and have groups of people coming to me for the latest update on the soap opera that is my life.
Here is a small percentile of that little world in which I live in:
Was sold as a kid by my father in exchange for not seeing me, he kept the family riches which he drank away (how you can loose millions on booze still confuses) in exchange for not seeing me
Been rich, and poor to both extremes
One minute I was doing the websites for the biggest companies (Guinness, Burberry, Pfizer to name a few) in the world then find myself living with a cult (kicked out in the end for being honest and counselling rather than preaching)
Got back there again managing sites for yet more of the biggest (Coke, Sony to name a couple more) then ended up homeless and living on the streets
Girlfriends from around the world, from a kinky phd graduate Brazilian of model standard to a chubby but lovable crazy American lass (and Russian, Jewish lass, brainy Dutch lass x2, a mortuary assistant, a straight forward loving teacher, from 26 years older to 16 years younger from all walks of life and a *cough few more*.. and I miss them all)
I am a trained Psychology, philosophy, computing nut who excels when he wants to but fails more than he should through an in built lazy chilled attitude.
I have helped so many it is silly yet never taken advise (was the agony aunt for many in my years even in a cult they came to me for spiritual advise)
Lost the love of my life to an aristocrat , but broke a few hearts myself so was just my Karma
My mum, sister and me see dead people and that is not a joke
And honestly hand on heart this is me..
But have the most wonderful thing in the world my little kid is a star in the making.. My little Lucianna (now 7) will be a star in what I consider a fading world
At the end of the day I can say one thing.. do live your own dreams? remember half the time the people you talk to are either as scared as you or simply set in their own ways which happens with life. Basically love everyone their flaws are not their fault, their dreams normally inherited, their ambitions restricted by those closest to them but treat them as you would want to be treated yourself (ever sat somewhere being sad.. and needed a friend, be that friend for those you see needing that little smile and it will come back to you in buckets).
V
I have had my share of fun yet chaotic times.. Turns out that 99% of them happen away from our screens!
which leads me the believe maybe its time to step away from mine.