Greetings from my corner of the world in Portland, Oregon.

It’s Thanksgiving Day in the U.S., a time when the internet shuts down and we all eat pie. Everyone else, feel free to enjoy the internet to yourself and eat pie along with us.

Earlier this week I was in Cuba, my 174th country and final country in all of the Americas. I’ll have more to say about my adventure there next week, but in short, I had a fantastic visit.

I’m now home in 97214 and looking forward to a long run this morning, then a Thanksgiving lunch with Jolie. I try to live with gratitude every day, so I don’t have anything special to say on the fourth Thursday of November.

Otherwise, our only-once-a-year sale at UnconventionalGuides.com continues today and through Monday. Use discount code “CRANBERRY” to save 15% on all orders.

I’ll see you again after the weekend!

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Image: Sarah

I was planning to launch an online class today (“Working From the Road”), but when I heard the news last night, I knew it was better to wait.

For those who are interested, we’ll release the class tomorrow. Here at AONC, we never miss a scheduled post, so we’re putting this up today.

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Whenever someone I know or have heard of dies, I always think: “How does my life count? What am I really working for?”

It’s normal to feel sad at the passing of a legend. But in the long-term, the best response to grief is to change in response to the loss you feel.

I hope you will first think different about something today, and then take action to improve the state of the world.

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Image: MG

Three months ago, we brought together 500 people from a dozen countries for our inaugural World Domination Summit. You can see what it looked like in this brand-new video recap:

(You can also see thousands of photos from the weekend over here. A few of them are below, in case you missed the earlier recaps.)

Opening party at the Portland Art Museum

Pam Slim’s Keynote Address

Chillaxin’ in the Hammock Lounge

Attendee art from Mark Silver’s session

Travel hackers meet on the lawn

Jonathan Fields unveils his greatest work ever

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Today I’m proud to announce that #WDS2012 will be held in Portland from July 6-8.

This time, world domination can no longer be contained to a single art museum. Instead, we’re moving to the famed Newmark Theatre for our main stage events, and a number of additional venues for (expanded) workshops, breakout sessions, and meetups.

We have bands coming in from faraway lands. Our Bollywood DJ will return for an encore performance. The world’s finest hammocks will be hung throughout the lobbies. We’ll have yoga in the park, a 200-person photo walk through the Pearl District, a mass book signing with 20 authors, and an attempt to set some sort of Guinness world record.

It will be big… but not TOO big. A mobile site will allow attendees to connect with each other based on shared interests and location, ensuring that plenty of small-group gatherings can take place. A “highly-sensitive person” lounge will welcome the introverts among us.

Perhaps most importantly, the event will remain non-commercial and non-profit. I don’t think sponsors are evil, but I don’t want them for WDS.

But wait, I’m getting ahead of things…

The Registration Process

We’ll have plenty of interest, and I know tickets will go quickly. Last year we sold out five months in advance, even without a real plan. (Thanks to those who trusted us to come through.)

By the time the actual weekend rolled around, tickets were being scalped on eBay for a $300 markup. An unknown number of people without tickets came to Portland just to hang out. More than 60% of first-year attendees pre-registered to return next year.

In an attempt to keep things less manic, we’ll do registration in two phases this time: Wave I starts this Thursday, and Wave II will be in January 2012. (We’ll give first choice of workshop registration to Wave I and first-year pre-registered attendees.)

I’m thrilled to produce this weekend adventure, and look forward to welcoming many friends to our fair city again next year. Our newly-expanded action team is already meeting monthly at World Domination HQ to ensure we rock this out.

If you’d like to be part of an epic adventure and you want to meet like-minded people while learning in a fun environment, you should come to WDS. (And if it isn’t for you, no problem.)

Those who are interested can visit WorldDominationSummit.com this Thursday, September 8th… and don’t be late. We’ll release tickets first to year-one attendees and the waiting list, and if any are left over for Wave 1, they’ll go out to the public around 11am PST.

In short, all that’s missing is you. Will you save the date?

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I recently posed an open question to a few social networks and received hundreds of interesting responses.

I’ll republish the best of them for everyone to see at some point, but first I thought I’d ask YOU.

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Ready? Here’s the question.

Let’s say you were short on cash and had to make an extra $300-500 in the next 30 days. You can’t rob a bank (or do anything else illegal), and you have no access to an existing email list or website. What do you do?

Now it’s your turn, and you can answer in the site comments below. I’d love to hear how you’d solve this problem.

Oh, and to make it fun: I’ll pay a $100 bounty on Thursday afternoon to the person who posts the best idea as chosen by our small crew of biased judges. There are no set criteria as long as you answer the question in some fashion—it’s totally up to you.

So… how do you earn the extra money?

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Travel Note: I’ve just arrived in Asia after a 16-hour flight, so I’ll be sleeping while many of you are commenting. It will take a while to post all of the comments, but check back in a bit if yours doesn’t go up right away.

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Image: LON Studios

I recently received a notice from American Airlines, letting me know I had achieved million-miler status. I’ve been working on this for about two years, but the real goal is two million miles—then I get lifetime Platinum status.

As regular readers know, I’m a travel hacker—I earn hundreds of thousands of miles every year and redeem them for high-value trips all over the world. I’ve been traveling actively for ten years, and travel hacking for at least five… it’s made my life MUCH easier, especially on my quest to visit every country in the world.

Travel hacking is about more than just miles—I also use Round-the-World plane tickets, mistake fares, elite status matches, cash-and-points redemptions, and more—but miles are the most important component. Therefore, this post will break down the general idea and several specific scenarios for using Frequent Flyer Miles to go anywhere.

First, don’t waste your miles

Most frequent flyer miles are wasted. Stop mileage waste! Don’t let good miles die! In almost every major airline program, miles only expire when there has been no use in the account for a year or more (sometimes a lot more). It doesn’t take much to keep your accounts active—in some cases all you need to do is complete a survey, join an email list, or transfer 100 miles in or out of the account to reset the clock.

Miles are also wasted for low-value redemptions and expensive “Standard” awards designed by the airlines to reclaim your hard-earned mileage currency. Don’t give in! Use your miles only for “Saver” awards that would otherwise cost a lot of money.

Next, learn the basic rules…

The basic goals of award redemptions are a) always consider partner airlines when redeeming miles, and b) always try to get the best possible value for your miles. To accomplish both of these goals, you’ll want to familiarize yourself with the tools of the trade: route maps and award charts.

Route maps will show you where any particular airline flies, as well as the total coverage for any of the three major alliances. Award charts will tell you how many miles are required for any particular redemption. Matching these tools together is the key to your adventuring success.

You can see the route maps for the two largest airline alliances here:

Star Alliance Route Map

OneWorld Route Map

Basic but very important fact: you can earn miles on any carrier in the alliance, and redeem them on any other carrier. Earn AA miles, redeem them for Cathay Pacific. Earn United miles, redeem them for Swiss Airlines… and so on.

Route maps are fun for dreaming and education—you need to have a destination in mind, and you need to educate yourself on how you can get there. There is often more than one way to get there, and it comes in handy to be aware of the options when looking for availability.

The next step is to look at specific awards charts. Unlike route maps, there is no single “Star Alliance award chart” or “OneWorld award chart”—instead, you need to find the one for the specific airline you’ll be using miles from, NOT the airline you plan to actually fly. Here are a few links to current ones:

• AA
• United/Continental
• Air Canada
• US Airways
• British Airways
• Qantas
• Lufthansa

If you don’t see the one you want, just Google “[airline name] frequent flyer award chart” or check the website for the specific program. Every program has one except Delta, which lives in a world of its own (long story). The more you familiarize yourself with the awards charts, the more you’ll understand where miles can take you.

A Few Examples

The best value of Frequent Flyer Miles lies in international trips—especially to destinations that are either far away or cost-prohibitive.

You can get to Easter Island, one of the most remote places on earth, by paying thousands of dollars. Or you can use AA miles to book yourself down to Santiago or Lima and then over to the island. As far away as it is (in the middle of the Pacific ocean, 2300 miles from Chile), it still counts as a “South America” award.

You can go to Brunei, a small kingdom hidden away in Southeast Asia, by using miles from Air Canada, United, or U.S. Airways to book flights on Singapore Airlines.

You can go anywhere in the South Pacific for the same price in miles as going to New Zealand or Australia. Therefore, book your award with a stopover in Auckland (for example) and then to Fiji, Vanuatu, Samoa, or Tonga. Two countries for the price of one!

If you’re using U.S. Airways miles, in fact, you can route your South Pacific award from North America via Asia, going through Thailand, Japan, or Singapore en route to your “real” destination.

Pretty much anywhere you want to go, miles can get you there. For the exceptions, miles can get you close—and then you travel overland to your final destination, or fly on the one airline that goes there.

Free Help! Ask Your Question Below

I often get behind on responding to site comments (although I do read all of them, and I reply to all emails). For two days, I’ll answer any question or review any draft itinerary that comes from a comment on this post. And even better, many of our readers are highly skilled travel hackers, so they can help as well.

Whatever you don’t understand about using Frequent Flyer Miles to go anywhere, post it up and you’ll get a reply. Meanwhile, I’ll be working on a plan to get my second million miles from American Airlines…

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Update: I’m finished answering questions on this post, but I’ll still help whenever I can on Twitter. Happy travels, everyone!

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Image: Dave

One year ago, I began planning last weekend with a small group of trusted friends. As the time drew closer, we transitioned from a planning team to an Action Team. Then, as the weekend really drew closer, we expanded to a much larger Action Team.

When the big day finally arrived, more than 40 people worked closely together to provide a gathering space for the 500 awesome people who came to town, more than half of whom were visiting Portland for their first time. Everyone involved was a volunteer—no speakers were paid, and attendees themselves contributed much of the weekend as we went along.

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It’s going to take me more time than expected to process last weekend’s epic adventure, but I’ll share a few specific stories and video clips over the next few weeks. In the meantime, you can read attendee wrap-ups here, here, here, here, here, and here (this is a small selection that can lead to many others if you’re interested).

Here are a few highlights from the main event…

Pamela Slim performed an unexpected martial arts demonstration during her opening keynote talk. I said in my intro that “Pam could kick my ass”… not knowing she was actually going to prove that as part of a demonstration for all of us! Nice work, Pam.

I asked Pam to open and Jonathan Fields to close for a reason—I trusted them, and I knew the audience would be in good hands. Jonathan gave a preview of his latest and greatest work, all focused on turning fear and doubt into fuel for brilliance.

Also speaking from the main stage, Leo Babauta skillfully executed a moonwalk and set of pushups for us—nice job. When he wasn’t exercising in public, he shared how he transformed his life through a series of small steps that created significant results.

While Danielle LaPorte was speaking to a standing-room only crowd, I was handed a note that said a fire alarm had been triggered outside and there was a slight chance they would need to evacuate the entire building. Yikes! For 10 minutes I wondered how that would work, before being handed another note saying all was well. (I thought the firestarting thing was just branding… but obviously not. Use your powers only for good, Danielle.)

Late on the first day, Jodi Ettenberg talked about how she went to law school because someone bet her she couldn’t get in, and then moved to New York on a similar bet. Later that night I got a note on Twitter: “Chris, will you bet Jodi she won’t go out with me tomorrow night?” I said I’d stay out of that one.

John T. Unger played the harmonica and talked about his disaster-and-recovery story. Preceding him, Andrea Scher and Jen Lemen earned a standing ovation after hand-writing a personal message to all 500 of our attendees and taping it on the bottom of their chairs. For a great conclusion on Saturday night (and before hundreds of people went out on various city tours) Karen Walrond talked about the beauty of different, probably a better showcase of non-conformity than I provided in my own book.

The Surprise Bollywood Dance Session

We brought in “DJ Prashant and the Bollywood Dreamers” to lead the group in a Bollywood dance lesson. For the rest of the weekend, everyone was walking around performing their best Indian dance moves. (By the way, you should definitely NOT watch this video of two professional bloggers attempting to follow along. When you don’t watch it, you’ll notice that J.D. Roth was cleverly avoiding his own dance attempt… no fair.)

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The keynote talks were complimented by dozens of workshops, breakout sessions, parties, meetups, tours, and numerous informal activities throughout the weekend. We ended on Sunday night with a massive afterparty on the other side of town, where shuttle buses ferried our group back and forth until 10:30pm. (And apparently the parties continued after that, but by then I was in bed…)

WDS 2012: The Sequel

Yes, we’ll do it again next year, and yes, we’ll need a bigger venue. The team is taking some much-needed down time to work on other projects during the summer, but we’ll regroup and begin planning WDS 2.0 this fall. For our inaugural event we experienced extremely high demand (every ticket sold out five months in advance), and as the word gets out, we expect even more interest next year.

I offered the inaugural attendees a special advance registration for next year, and nearly 70% of them signed up—not a bad conversion rate. More than a year in advance, we already have 285 people confirmed to return, without having a real registration process or even the exact date. So far, so good. The early-early notification list for everyone else is over here, but please note that I don’t expect to offer tickets until at least September.

In their own words, here’s how one of our attendees explained his return to life at home after the weekend:

“Even though I had to take power naps at two rest stops around 1AM to keep from falling asleep at the wheel on the way back to Seattle, it was worth it.

The five-minute walk from my car into work on the day after the summit felt longer and harder than the four hour, mini nap infused drive coming back to Seattle from Portland in the dead of night. Leaving a place and event filled with people that aren’t content with being normal or simply fitting in, brought a tinge of culture shock upon me.

The walk to my cubicle brought me back to normal, but because of WDS, I had a renewed vigor to be different and make my dreams become a reality.”

We had a media team on site, and they’re creating an entire documentary about WDS. For now, you can see initial photos here. Video, speaker interviews, and attendee contributions are in the works and expected to be completed in about 4-6 weeks.

A Personal Note

A few months ago I realized I had underestimated some of the costs of putting on such a production. Registration fees were approximately $125,000, and the expenses at last count—before I started paying invoices without looking at the numbers on them—were approximately $145,000. (Free business tip: ideally, these numbers should be reversed.)

Well, no need to feel sorry for me—I can’t begin to tell you how happy I am to have made this investment. It feels a lot like a non-sensible, self-funded, 63-city Unconventional Book Tour that was also awesome and completely worth it in every way.

I said at the beginning of our time together on Saturday that WDS was not a “motivational conference”—a phrase that a media article had used in describing our adventure. I’ve never been to such a thing and have no idea what happens there, but my impression is that you go to a “motivational conference” if your life sucks and you need someone to inspire you. Instead, this was a gathering of awesome people working on remarkable things, all learning from one another.

As someone put it on Twitter, it was “a heart attack of awesome.” Another person called it “the grown-up version of summer camp, ” and someone else said “WDS was like walking into a room with 500 of your new best friends.”

Here in Portland, we’re deep in thought and introspection over where to take this next year and beyond. But rest assured—the best is yet to come.

Thanks to everyone who made WDS an epic adventure. We’re looking forward to doing this again!

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Images: Armosa Studios

I visited a large company to give a talk about non-conformity and adventure. From all appearances, it was a well-run company doing good things.

Many of the employees came up to me afterwards to chat, and I asked each of them, “How are things at _____?” Most of them said that things were good, and I had no reason to doubt them.

Others had a different response, and either from what they said or how they acted, it was obvious that they weren’t happy. Several of them talked with me confidentially and said variations of the following:

It’s not a bad job, but my creativity is very limited.

I liked it here at first, but now I feel stifled.

These statements were invariably followed by something like: “I shouldn’t complain, because everyone tells me how good I have it. Lots of other people have been laid off or can’t find a job in the first place. Besides, I have good benefits here.”

Hmmm. Yes, it’s good to be grateful for what you have. Lots of people do have it hard these days, and that’s unfortunate.

But here’s the thing: it can be a good job at a good company, but that doesn’t mean it’s good for you. In fact, if you’re constantly daydreaming of something else, having a good job can be dangerous. A good job can keep you from a big life.

Sometimes what makes sense during one season doesn’t make sense in another; a commitment that was fulfilling at one time loses its allure. In these situations, pretending all is well is usually the wrong answer. If you’re discontented, it’s up to you to make a change. And if it really is a good company or organization that has treated you well, you’re not serving it well in return by giving it less than your best.

Aside from remaining stagnant and trudging along, when you find yourself in a good job that no longer meets your needs, there are only two options:

1) Find a way to bring the joy back to the good job.

2) Find a way to say goodbye to the good job.

You might think that leaving is hard. Of course it’s hard—it would be much easier if it were a bad job. Then the situation would become urgent and you’d do everything you could to get out as soon as possible. But because it’s good enough, you stick around.

That’s why, one way or another, something has to change.

Question: Have you ever found yourself discontented in a good job? What did you do?

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Image: Dick

Out of that experience I took a serious look at my life, determined I was unsatisfied, and resolved to make some changes. Jolie and I had been in New York the week prior, and the experience was naturally reflective.

Was I ready to die? Was I satisfied with what I had done in life thus far? The answer was clear on both points: absolutely not. I had to find a way to do something much more meaningful than I had done up to that point.

Let’s be clear that there was nothing good about the murder of thousands of innocent people. Without the tragedy of 9/11, however, it’s very likely that I wouldn’t be writing this now, as my life would have been very different.

So what do I think about the death of Osama? Well, I like this quote from Mark Twain:

?”I’ve never wished a man dead, but I’ve read some obituaries with great pleasure.”

As President Obama explained in his address last night, this man was not a Muslim leader but rather someone who killed Muslims all over the world. The 9/11 attacks took the lives of citizens from more than 90 countries.

The best thing we can do to preserve “our” way of life—and by that I mean all of us who love freedom, whichever passport we hold—is to be a force for good in the world. I think America is at its best as an entrepreneur-loving nation, one that welcomes foreigners and seeks to contribute to global concerns rather than dictate terms to its friends and allies.

Therefore, I don’t rejoice in the killing of anyone, because it doesn’t undo what happened almost ten years ago. But in this situation, it seems that there was no real alternative. OBL was not the kind of person who goes quietly, so if that’s how it had to be, so be it.

At any rate, my appreciation to the unnamed military personnel who brought some degree of closure to those who lost much more than me so many years ago.

Grace and peace to all of you today.

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The second-best advice I ever heard about writer’s block came from a quote in last month’s Atlantic Monthly, where Sandra Tsing Loh said, “When faced with writer’s block, lower your standards and keep going.”

The best advice I ever heard is to pretend it doesn’t exist. There’s no such thing as “plumber’s block,” right? Just sit down and do what you need to do.

Both of these ideas owe much of their genesis to the work of Steven Pressfield, whose War of Art is one of my favorite books of all time. (I’m not alone in this, of course—it’s on a lot of “favorite book” lists, and for good reason.)

Today Steven released the sequel, Do the Work!, available exclusively through Amazon.com and Seth Godin’s Domino Project. If you’re not interested in overcoming resistance, you shouldn’t read this book. If you want to do some kind of creative work but often get stuck, however, this means two things:

1. You are human.

2. You can learn from Pressfield’s worthy example, so you should check it out.

Congratulations to Steven, Seth, and the whole Domino team on the release of another great resource. Keep ‘em coming!

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A quick note on site performance: we experienced massive outages yesterday due to no fault of our own or our great readers. We expect to return to full strength soon, but you may notice some hiccups for a while. Rest assured our Jedi mind ninjas are working on it.

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Image: Inger

It’s actually been sold out for several weeks, but I’ve been laying low and letting it ride for a while. On the advice of my great team, however, I can do so no longer.

Five months in advance, we are (beyond) filled to capacity with more than 450 attendees from all over the world, in addition to the 40 speakers, workshop leaders, action team members, and “ambassadors” who will help us produce the summit to the high standard it deserves.

The site is still here, but registrations are no longer being accepted. There is a (very limited) wait list in case of cancellations, so please join it only if you’re serious about coming and just weren’t able to register in time.

If you missed out, I’m sorry, but I’ve actually tried to avoid promoting the event recently because so many people were signing up without any AONC promo. In fact, most of the final 150 slots came entirely through attendee buzz… which is great, but it also means we really are completely full.

Those of you who are signed up, I’ll look forward to seeing you in Portland for the best weekend of June ever. We’ll be sending more info about flights, housing, cupcakes, and other important matters soon.

Everyone else, I hope to see you another time, and thanks for being a part of the community from wherever you are. The greatest benefit of the weekend will be the chance to talk with like-minded people in real life, but we’re also working on a few ideas to involve the rest of our group from a distance.

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Image: Monkey