Sat 12 Apr 2008
If you're new here, you may want to learn what this site is about. I encourage you to subscribe to my RSS feed or sign up for free email updates. Thanks for visiting!
Hello everyone. This isn’t an essay—it’s a short note to each of you who have been faithfully reading so far.
Judging from the RSS feed, the newsletter list, and the daily site statistics, there are about 400-500 of you reading along every day so far. That’s great! I truly appreciate each one of you… please say hello in the comments for any post or on my contact form sometime if you haven’t done so already.
We’ve got a long road ahead of us, and I’m really glad that you’re on board.
I have a few important things to let you know about. The Art of Nonconformity site will be evolving in the next few weeks, and I thought that you should be the first to know what’s happening.
Profiles in Nonconformity
Over the next couple of weeks I’ll begin posting interviews with other individuals, charities, and companies who have chosen alternative life paths. I’ll do at least one of these each month, and my first profile is with the CEO of a billion dollar retailer that has focused on customer service to the exclusion of everything else. They have a unique story, and I look forward to bringing it to you soon.
Philosophy and Social Movement
I haven’t written extensively about my philosophy yet, but I’ll do so soon. The short version is:
1) You don’t have to live your life the way others expect you to.
2) The world is desperately waiting for you to figure out what only you can contribute to it.
I’ll be writing more on that soon, and in June I’ll be releasing a free PDF report called A Brief Guide to World Domination that outlines how you can rule the world and change the world at the same time.
The Last Very Important Thing
I believe in my own goals very much, and I’m glad that many of you are excited about my journey to every country in the world. But ultimately, even though I’ll be writing about that adventure (and other personal goals), this site will focus on personal development strategies that will help YOU achieve your own significant goals on your own terms.
I will need your help to make this happen.
The fact that we have 400-500 regular readers so far within five weeks and no advertising is pretty cool. But going forward, we’re going to scale it up.
My goal is quality readership that participates in the conversation, and I don’t want site traffic just for the sake of traffic itself. But I do know that there are many other people out there who will be interested in the message of nonconformity, and that’s why I need your help in getting the message out.
Here are a few options:
LINKS - If you have a blog or web site that deals with personal development, small business, travel, or the arts, please link to me and tell your readers. I would really appreciate that.
SOCIAL NETWORKS - If you are a member of StumbleUpon, Facebook, Twitter, or another social network, please submit, share, or vote for any articles I write that you feel are worthy of attention.
COMMENTS - Lastly, I’d like to increase the participation of our community in each essay I write. At the bottom of each post, please feel free to share your own experience, provide a complimentary or opposing point, or anything else that is relevant.
I recently installed a comment plug-in that lets you subscribe to follow-up comments when you write your own, so you can see what others have to say in reply (if you want to).
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OK, that’s all. Thanks again. Remember the words of Victor Hugo:
“One can resist the invasion of an army but one cannot resist the invasion of ideas.”
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April 13th, 2008 at 7:50 am
I would really like to know your philosophy. Maybe it would give me a good insight as to why you always travel
April 13th, 2008 at 9:17 am
Hi, I am a new member of the group that is interested in the kind of reflections on life you are making through your prolific writings. I am perhaps much older than most of your readers and my interest in your writings is more philosophical than of any materialistic ends.I may not be able to comment on your lively observations on a regular basis. But i am reading your writing regularly with great pleasure.
I have a brief comment to make on your central theme that you need not lead your life in the way others expect you to. It is an admirable observation, no doubt about it. But one wonders how an idea of any individual can be so original as to be free from the historical context in which he lives. I understand we owe a lot more to our fellow beings than many of the so called successful men care to grant. I mean to say that it is not altogether meaningless to be aware of the demands of the social context in which one lives and works.
April 13th, 2008 at 8:21 pm
Hi guys, thanks for your feedback. And thanks to those of you who emailed as well.
@Sampath - Yes, you are certainly correct that we can not ignore context, and also that we owe a great deal to others. In fact, I believe that individualistic goals are not as incompatible with service to others as
some people would have us believe.
My position is that both of those focal points– individual goals and service to others– are inter-related and that together they are the most important things we can work to acheive.
I’ll be writing more about this soon… stay tuned.
April 14th, 2008 at 5:41 am
Hi,
I love your site, and have become an avid reader because I’m in the process of doing exactly what you are.
One important difference - I have two toddlers. On the travel aspect of it, do you have any sites you’d recommend to families with kid friendly ideas. Maybe they’ll get more comfortable the more we do it, but there are some times you just can’t fly into town and look for a hotel because those kids are just worn out and melting down.
Any thoughts?