After selling his life on eBay, Ian Usher takes on bulls, haunted houses, and watching a baby being born.
Ian Usher selling it all / Photo: vnecono.vn
Some of you probably heard about the guy in Australia who was selling his entire life – house, furniture, car, friends – on eBay.
Along with the Russian girl selling her virginity in Germany, things didn’t go quite as originally planned. The bidders all dropped like flies once the person with the $400,000 winning bid couldn’t make it happen.
Nevertheless, the guy behind ALife4Sale, Ian Usher, is now cruising around the world in order to complete 100 goals in 100 weeks. These goals range from the life-selling-scheme, to nude sky-diving, to watching a baby being born.
He also includes some charity work, such as trying to raise $50,000 for bowel cancer research. Check out the full list here.
Of his decision to “sell his life” and take on the world, Usher says:
I have had goals and dreams for as long as I can remember, but like everyone else, I have found that living often gets in the way, and goals get put aside for too long! It’s time to start ticking off some goals. It’s time to challenge myself!
I have to admit, I was pretty impressed with some of his out-there endeavors, such as spending the night in a haunted house alone and driving a car off a jetty and escaping it as it sinks (ok, that probably would not make my list). He plans to see the Northern Lights, and just about every cool place you can think of in the world.
And he wants to secure a book deal. Ah, yes of course.
Photo: divemasterking2000
There also is the little tidbit about how the idea to sell his life came from his wife leaving him, which he has since written about in detail.
Readers were able to get the first part of the story on his in-depth website, but had to pay AUS$2.95 to find out how the story ended.
He’s also wrangled out quite a few sponsors, and Disney has optioned a movie deal about the eBay life-selling fiasco.
Don’t get me wrong, I understand that to take on 100 adventures all over the world, it can’t be just about making money. Adventure travel has to be in his heart to even have the energy.
But I wonder if we are getting to the point where every move we make is for sale, including our own suffering. Some could say he has turned heartbreak into something positive, but others might say he has exploited himself and his ex-wife in order to make himself famous and rich.
Do you think Usher is a spirited adventurer, or simply a smart businessman? Share your thoughts below.
Community Connection
What isn’t for sale in society today? Check out Asanas For Sale: The Privatization Of Yoga for a look at the yoga trademarking trend, and Nature For Sale: The Growing Trend Of Wilderness Consumption, which questions the commodification of nature.
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13 Comments... join the discussion!
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I’m not sure if he’s either, but it’s strangely fascinating nonetheless.
My question is how will he achieve the workplace romance if he hasn’t started yet? Unless it’s not actually romance he’s looking for …
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Why can’t he be both? A blog I follow has a couple cycling around the world. The stories they post is now generating enough traffic (and therefore ad revenue) to fund their adventure – surely this is pure genius rather than exploitation??
Good luck to him… great to see he has turned a life-changing negative (ie divorce) into a life-changing adventure.
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Voluntary action does not equal exploitation. You can’t exploit yourself.
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Yes, but you can voluntarily allow yourself to be exploited. It’s the heart and soul of reality TV.
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I would say Smart Businessman! His book, which he is already promoting, will sell itself.
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I don’t know if this is an “authentic travel adventure” or a ploy to make money but either way, I can’t think of anyone who wouldn’t want to travel the world and get a book deal to write about it! Taking your love of adventure, finding a way to finance it, living out your dream. It’s kind of inspiring.
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I think that he is probably both an adventurer and businessperson…it’s a common misconception that in order to do something truly meaningful you can’t make any money off it.
Why not have both if you can?! More power to him for doing so many things that many people would kill to do while at the same time securing his financial future.
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Anytime I see things like this, like visiting every country within 5 years, or whatever, I am very skeptical on the person’s intention. I think it’s mostly ego-tripping.
It’s good to have goals, but why limit yourself with time? How can you truly experience anything without the ability to savour it?
I don’t really respect people who do things just to “tick it off a list”. It’s like people saying “I did China”. Did you? Did you really?
I don’t know. Whatever. If he wants to do all that, and if people want to buy it, good for them.
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Agreed, Carlo! The issue that’s suspect here is authenticity. I’m not sure what’s in charge here: the list, the audience, or the traveler.
If it’s the list, then this trip is mainly a mission; if it’s the audience, then it’s mainly entertainment. But if the real focus is the unique take of the traveler – THEN we’ve got something real and uncompromised. Until then, the journey is unobserved and future-oriented.
Where travel really occurs is in the experience of the present moment – in which case, it doesn’t matter if you’re scaling Everest or licking stamps. If someone pays me to go to Paris and see nothing, it’s only travel in the barest sense: movement. If I go down the block and strike up a conversation of genuine investment, it’s travel in the purest sense: meaningful. That’s really what people are looking for. A “near-life experience”.
IMHO. Did I ramble again? Shucks…
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The market will decide if it wants to buy his book. If he can have the adventures he wants and make money off it, more power to him. No one is forcing him to do it and no one forcing anyone to buy his book.
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I am productivity expert and business coach who is working on a similar project (100 Goals in 1000 Days) and I applaud his ambition! While I have no plans to create a book from this project per se, there is no reason why he should not document his unique experiences and profit from those efforts.
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Of course “what goes around comes around” so all of these kind souls providing a free bed and breakfast to Ian Usher across the world will no doubt expect the favour to be returned tenfold when they take an Antipodean travel adventure of their own to Australia within the next few decades……..lets hope they don’t all decide to visit him at the same time!!!!!!!
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