I am on a flight from Phoenix to Boston so I can be the MC at a Catholic youth rally tomorrow. I don’t know how this weekend will turn out, but I always;feel better leaving home for a weekend when I know the event is planned well. I really have traveled an insane amount over the past four and a half years.

My life is changing, and I am happy to have these changes. The most drastic change is cutting back on traveling. I traveled an average of 35 weekends a year for the past five years, and now I am cutting it down to about one weekend per month. Although the number of flights has cut down, I am still reaching a lot of teenagers because the events are quality.

I am thankful that my friend Mark Hart set up the Inspiration Tour each year during the fall, because I am able to connect with over 10,000 teenagers in five quick trips with my friends. Aside from the Inspiration Tour, I am speaking at our summer camps in Georgia (close to my parents) and Arizona (close to my home.) I’ll always spend a week at the LTND conference because it’s such a phenomenal five days. Then I will speak at larger events—1500+ attendees–throughout the year.

It’s quite beautiful to watch this transition in my life. As my MTV fame has passed, my online influence through lifeteen.com has grown tremendously. Since we launched Version2 in February, the popularity of the site has grown immensely. We averaged 650,000 page views per month on the old site, now we average 2,200,000 per month. That’s a 360% increase. Our average visitor comes to the site 4.8 times each day.

Those are excellent numbers that point to one thing: the people who come to our site love it. Now the goal is to get more people to come to the site. And that’s where my traveling becomes so important. I am a walking promotional campaign for lifeteen.com.; This is a success story already, but it will only get better. We have ten projects planned for this school year that will push the site to become more of an online community. The results will be staggering.

I am enjoying being a grownup. Although my experiences on MTV were exciting and glamorous, I did very little to earn those delights. Could something that came so quickly stay that long? After the show, I had so much opportunity in my hands, and I wasn’t sure what to do.

Fresh off The Real World, I took an honest look at my skills, and figured out that I don’t have what it takes to make it in Hollywood. I can’t sing, dance, or act. I have a fun personality and enjoy making people laugh, but I could never cut it as a comedian or hold captive an audience in a talk show. Good looking people can do okay, but they’ll soon be replaced by someone who is younger and better looking. So what’s left in Hollywood for me? Maybe another reality show, but what after that? Not much.

I believe I made a good decision to bail out on the chase for fame and fortune in Hollywood. I fought through two years of hell to get that website up, and it’s proved to be well worth the fight. The success of lifeteen.com has really helped me self-esteem because it tells me I made the right decision.