Jenny, my friend, has reinvented her life. In fall of 2005, after gathering up some savings, she left a successful career in publishing, and a probably-predictable life in the Untied States, and headed for Africa. Her multi-month backpacking trip has turned into a one-year-plus adventure that has now been extended to India.

During her travels with her companion Randy, an accidental A-Idea led to one of those stories that you can keep telling forever. After a 17-hour ride in a cattle truck into Kenya, they arrived in Nairobi ready for a decent night's sleep. Jenny and Randy looked for cheap accommodations. They found a place, but were discouraged from staying there by locals, who claimed that is was for "drunkards with a few pennies." Asserting that the description could occasionally fit them, the booked into a room. They learned afterward that they had ended up in a brothel! Jenny's and Randy's comments about it:
"Actually it wasn't any different from other cheap places we'd been - besides the ever-friendly loitering girls and a few strange bumps in the night. We stayed almost a week - with hot water at $3.50 a night (less than half we'd pay elsewhere in Nairobi), it was the best deal in town."

Their story is the perfect illustration (and more humorous than most) of reframing, appreciating and envisioning. They saw the brothel as a hotel by appreciating what was useful about it - a price that suited their budget, a solid roof over their heads and hot water (rather than focusing later on its questionable aspects) and envisioned how its positive characteristics could help them achieve the goal they desired, having an affordable place to stay during their visit to Nairobi.

They have also had some other brilliant ideas - for example, turning their travel blog, which was designed to stay in communication with family and friends back home, into a jumping off point for articles for an online travel magazine. Jenny also turned her knowledge of Africa gained by her travels into a volunteer position somewhere on the continent. The introduction to their blog (one of the consistently best I've ever read - http://www.travelblog.org/Bloggers/hellotrain/ ) - speaks volumes about their mindset as they set off to an unknown life. "Friends and family offer predictions from 'the best time of your lives' to 'the beginning of your rapid descent into poverty.' Lucky for us, they're not mutually exclusive."