By After years of owning DanielDragan.com domain name, I finally decided to actually post something here. As I’m about half way through my journey around this world, I feel that I’ve got some things I’ve learned, some experiences I need to share, some lessons I have to teach, some thoughts I need to write down, some dreams I need to sort out, a few goals I still need to chase.
Who am I?
I’m a husband, a son, a brother, a friend, a traveler, a marketer, a mentor, a hero. (Ok, maybe not all that, although I did wear a cape a few times in my life and some people did say to me “You’re my hero!” – and they seemed to really mean it :).
Born in Romania during the worst of the communist regime, I had always dreamt of seeing what’s beyond the horizon. In my early twenties I had spread my wings leaving my birth country and never stopped exploring.
On my journey I was so lucky to find my soulmate, Melanie: my wife, my friend and my travel partner. If you follow our travels you’re probably familiar with our joint blog/travel vlog EnterTheDragons.com
An economist by trade (there is a fun story in there, I’ll write about it one day), I always liked to be involved in the world of marketing and used these skills to finance my travels around the globe. In the last 20 years I have developed a few brands like LifeGuy, Financial Guards, Marketing Dragons and got involved in many charitable efforts including Clean Our World.
What makes me tick?
Traveling and exploring have always affected my life, directing my steps towards unknown roads. Growing up I was fascinated by the tales of explorers, vividly remembering the stories of Roald Amundsen and his conquering of the South Pole, as well as fictional travel stories of the heroes in 1001 Nights. Later when I had to decide what high school I wanted to go to, I naturally picked “Liceul de Marina” in my town (School of Marine Technology) but my father made me choose anything else but that one, since in his opinion my dream of exploring the seas was not compatible with a “normal life”. (insert here story about picking the Economic High School with my eyes closed, from a list of schools in my town). So, after becoming an economist and briefly working as an accountant in my home town, I soon took advantage of a job offer as a photographer on a cruise ship across the world, since photography had been one of my old passions inspired by my own dad who even had a dark room setup.
After the cruise ship gig and my move to the States, I started focusing on marketing for insurance agencies, where I have learned a great deal of the industry and found that the lack of public awareness about all insurance benefits and secrets, therefore “LifeGuy” was born to help my peers avoid financial disasters and protecting
their families. The next logical step was to put my marketing skills to use, by helping many other businesses through “Marketing Dragons“, a joint venture with my brilliant wife, Melanie.
In between the periods of hard work in marketing and insurance fields, I continue exploring the world together with my wife with the goal to visit all of the countries on this Earth and do the best we can to clean our world before our time here expires.
Welcome and enjoy the journey into my life!
D.D.