My best advice for newly minted graduates: Dance your way around the world and chase your dreams while you’re young.

Zach Benson didn’t tell me that in so many words. He merely outlined his lifestyle as a “digital nomad” in which he has strung together a globe-trotting career as a self-described “entrepreneur, hustler, connector and professional dancer.”

For him, it all began with dancing.

He has danced and taught people around the world how to dance, from Mexico to India to South Korea. He also works as a social media consultant, helping companies build their followings on Instagram and other apps.

Benson, 31, migrates every few months, and in recent weeks has been back in the Des Moines metro where he grew up.

He was 4 months old when he arrived from South Korea and was swept into the arms of his adoptive parents in Des Moines.

He felt out of place as “pretty much the only Asian kid” at Rolling Green Elementary in Urbandale.

He also was haunted by his inability to pronounce the letter “r,” even after his parents enrolled him in speech therapy.

Benson’s dad, Paul, would hear his son practicing saying “r” for hours in his bedroom, in the shower, wherever possible.

“I didn’t say any word that had the letter ‘r’ in it until my 20s,” Benson said.

I can’t imagine how that riddled his everyday life with anxiety.

So maybe it’s no surprise that Benson poured his passion into the nonverbal communication of dance. He became a self-taught hip-hop break dancer by learning from DVDs and YouTube videos.

He followed a group of high school friends to Central College in Pella, where he began to assert himself.

It was during a leadership conference in 2007 at Upper Iowa University that a student from another school handed him an encouraging note. She wrote to him that she couldn’t even tell that he had a speech impediment. What you have to say matters, she insisted, and your ideas need to be heard.

It was as if the note flipped a switch in his head. That fleeting moment of kindness from a stranger, whom he could accept as more of an objective observer, made a difference. Benson stopped avoiding the letter “r." He expanded the scope his ambitions as he finished his degree in Spanish and health promotion.

One of his key mentors at Central was Brandyn Woodard, the director of intercultural life who now fulfills a similar role at the College of St. Benedict and St. John’s University in Minnesota.

Woodard remembers Benson sitting in his office as a senior as he began to counsel the student to take practical steps after his May 2008 graduation.

But 15 minutes later, Woodard contradicted himself: Disregard what I just said, Woodard told Benson. Follow your dreams. Give it your all.

That sudden turnabout was triggered, Woodard said, by “listening to how (Benson) was able to articulate all the hurdles and obstacles he had overcome.”

And Benson’s life ever since has been “a consistent reminder to me, just on a human level, of what it looks like when you actually follow through on your own commitments to yourself.”

From Atlanta to reality TV to Korea

After college, Benson followed his idealism and Christian faith to Atlanta, Georgia, where he was team captain for an urban ministries program that helped refugees settle into homes and jobs.

A year later, he traveled to Korea to find his birth mom who had given him up for adoption when she was 20. The reunion has been hard work — more real life than storybook. But it's important to him to nurture the relationship.

Benson returned to Iowa in 2011 and worked as a personal trainer at a fitness center in suburban Des Moines while also honing his dance moves. His older clients echoed the advice of his college counselor: Do what you want. Just go for it.

That spurred him to repeatedly try out for the reality TV show "So You Think You Can Dance." He had auditioned for the first time 2010 and he kept at it until he made it to the fourth round.

He was disheartened ultimately to hear that he lacked formal training in ballroom and other partner dances to succeed on the show. But he also received encouragement from a veteran dancer: You have skills, Benson was told. Go out and make a name for yourself, develop your brand.

So Benson moved to Los Angeles, signed with a dance agency, ended up in a music video and TV ads and says he was on the cusp of major gigs with pop stars.

But he felt adrift from his core values and sense of purpose.

He moved to South Korea and for three years worked as a resident adviser and taught at a private international Christian school in Daejeon. In his first year he met a woman, Hyelim Park, who became his girlfriend.

During summer vacations, he began to piece together his side hustle. He founded Assistagram to help companies and brands grow their social media following, primarily on Instagram.

He works with a staff of freelancers in the Philippines, the same country from which he received much of his social media training. But he has reached the point that his dad, a 60-year-old retired tax accountant who worked for the Ruan company and Iowa Department of Revenue, is helping him to set up his own LLC.

Benson has pushed through plenty of failure and missed opportunity. He injured his back in India and didn’t take it seriously until a second operation. Only now is he regaining his full strength.

But he sees a clear path ahead.

His girlfriend works at an international school in China and next month will join Benson in Iowa. Then the couple will travel to her family’s home on Jumundo, an island with about 400 people within sight of North Korea. Old missiles litter the beach, Benson said, while Park’s grandfather casts his fishing line to catch dinner.

Then it's off to Bosnia and Croatia in August and Dubai in September.

"Dance is freedom to me," he said.

Benson's meandering the last decade shows more than a thirst for freedom. He's figuring out how to balance the need for a practical plan with the less tangible benefits we get from leaving ourselves open to life's serendipity.

So I say to the Class of 2017: If you can find a dance that moves you, go for it. If you wobble, don't worry. Just try to stay on your feet, and eventually you'll find your way.

Kyle Munson can be reached at 515-284-8124 or kmunson@dmreg.com. See more of his columns and video at DesMoinesRegister.com/KyleMunson. Connect with him on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram (@KyleMunson).