I've mentioned that virtually all of those on the trading floors rarely went onto better things after leaving the pit but one who has is Patrick Schulte who used to trade soybean options then left after a few good years to sail around the world in 2004 and seemingly hasn't stopped traveling since. Back in '98 he was the clerk at the Minneapolis Grain Exchange for the same company I clerked for simultaneously at the Kansas City Board of Trade before both of us made our way to the Chicago pits. Obviously he did better a lot quicker than I did and remember my old boss in KC mentioning about this crazy idea him and his wife had about circumnavigating the globe.
Even though I didn't really know Pat, occasionally I'd check their blog, bumfuzzle.com, for some armchair travel and for a while I've been meaning to read the book he wrote about their circumnavigation named after their boat, Bumfuzzle. Just coming off a long flight to Asia last night, I finally got around to reading the book and it's AWESOME!!! Definitely this is a book that leads others to think about their own dreams and ultimately how it's important to be master of your own destiny by reading about how Pat and his wife followed their own whims. Bumfuzzle is a book that'll make you want to travel and had I not had the ground moving beneath me already, would've resulted in booking a trip ASAP.
