The Art of Non-Conformity: Unconventional Strategies for Life, Work, and Travel

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As part of your independent-minded journey, many people will oppose you along the way. Some will oppose you by saying that you “can’t” do the things you’ve planned. Others will try to impose their own arbitrary rules on you. Others will be jealous of your success and try to bring you down to the level of average.

Having a strategy to deal with all of these critics is critical.

Without a strategy, you’ll have a lot more stress and doubt. The critics may even succeed in bringing you down. With the right strategy, you’ll rest easy knowing that you won’t be taken out so easily. Possible options for your own strategy include ignoring, confronting, presenting yourself as above the level of discussion, diffusing the argument… or something else, but whatever you choose, you do need a strategy.

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In 2007 I visited 26 countries, including 15 that were new to me. This year I hope to be on track for at least that many, although as the years go by it will become more and more difficult to get to the “new” places.

For the past two years, almost all of my overseas travel has been by myself. Once I get to a starting point, I sometimes travel with others that I meet along the way, but most of the time, it’s just me. One of the things I realized along the way, whether through my 100 Countries or an SUV experience, one of my many overnight flights from Africa, or somewhere else, is that the actual process of traveling is critical to appreciating travel itself.

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I read a lot of personal development books—probably at least two a month. Like most books of any kind, each one usually has some things worth learning and some things that aren’t valuable to me.

If there is one common theme to most of these books, it is that “following your passion” – or doing what you love to do—is the most important work we can focus on in life. According to this thinking, work should involve a number of things you really like to do and are really good at, not simply a series of tasks you do to make a living.

So far, so good, right? But sometimes the thinking goes even further. Not only will you feel better about yourself and provide more value to others, you’ll also end up making more money.

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Live from L.A

This month’s Site Update takes place from Los Angeles, where I’ve been hanging out at a conference for entrepreneurs that I’ll write about soon.

Each month I look back at what’s happened with ChrisGuillebeau.com in the previous month. If you’ve missed some articles, you can catch up here.

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