Do you ever have the feeling that you’re leaving somewhere to which you’ll never return? You’ve been coasting along in the present, then all of a sudden—the future! Is here! There’s no going back, no matter how much you want to.

You walk out of the apartment and shut the door for the last time. You leave the university campus after years of study. You change jobs and say farewell to the workspace.

That place was so important to you, but now it’s no longer part of your life.

If you ever do go back, it’s never the same. You might feel like a conquering warrior (“I remember when I first arrived here, and look at me now!”) You might feel sad or regretful (“I wish I had…”), or you might have only good memories. Either way, change is the constant, and things are going to be different from now on.

***

Sometimes you don’t even see it coming. It just hits you all of a sudden: change is ahead! Be aware that this moment is passing soon, and your life will never be the same. Sorry, but you don’t usually have a choice in these matters.

When saying goodbye to a person or place, some think it’s best to leave things unsaid, or walk away without reflection. I’ve learned that this is usually a mistake, at least for me.

I say: hold on to the moment as long as you can. Fight for it if you have to. Get up early and stay up late. Be brave. Choose the raw emotion, even the awkwardness if necessary. If we must go on to something else, let’s at least think about what was and what could have been.

The more intense the feeling, the better. If synchronicity and the feeling of being part of something meaningful comes with sadness, loneliness, and disappointment, so be it. I just know that I don’t want the alternative—mediocrity, routine, the safe and the comfortable.

***

I often get this feeling when preparing to leave places as I roam the planet, even if I wasn’t that attached to them while I was there. Two years ago I went to Easter Island, thousands of miles out and six hours by air from South America. I enjoyed the visit, but as a tourist destination, it’s a long way to go for a small island with little to do.

I’m not buying a second home in Easter Island, in other words. But then—on the eve of my departure, I looked up at the sky and realized how far I was from everywhere else in the world. I also realized I would likely never return and thought, I’d better remember this.

I joke about collecting countries the way some people collect postcards, but really I’m collecting experiences like these. “Is it worth it to spend so much money on travel?” I’m sometimes asked. I don’t really think of it as paying for travel itself. I’m paying for memories, and when it comes to spending on memories, I say yes. Most definitely. I have no credit limit for memories.

I felt this way while leaving Tbilisi, Georgia a few months ago. It’s truly a beautiful city, and one of the best in Europe, no doubt. The intensity of it all was almost overwhelming to me.

I wasn’t ready to say farewell, but I also knew that staying another day wouldn’t make it any better. I ran ten kilometers the night before I left, trying to process the experience. The next morning, I rode in the mini-bus to Armenia, my next stop, and thought about it further for a good six hours or so.

I had been reading Don Miller’s new book on this trip. Among other things, Don says that meaningful lives do not just happen by accident. They require conflict, risk, striving, and overcoming. A good character in a story has to struggle, and so it is with all of us.

That’s why I think it’s good to embrace the transition points. Don’t go to sleep to dream. You can dream all day long without ever closing your eyes.

After making it to the next hotel, though, I laid down on the bed for a short nap at 4pm. I woke up 10 hours later, still feeling disoriented. I made coffee and did some writing.

Inevitably, I know that we all have to look forward instead of backwards. In the pursuit of growth, it’s better to choose the new than the old. But sometimes it’s also good to hold on to something for a while, and then you can treasure it as the memory it becomes.

Embracing reality may be exhausting, but I can’t imagine the alternative of avoiding it.

###

Image by Dariva

I recently met with a guy who’s trying to become a motivational speaker. He’s a good guy with good things to say.

But the thing is… how should I put it… the whole motivational speaker branding doesn’t give a good first impression. It’s old-school at the best of times, and just plain awkward the rest of the time.

And yet, we all enjoy motivation and inspiration. I read Runner’s World every month not because I need any help running (nothing much changes in the world of running from month to month) but because of the inspiring profiles they print. You’ve got the woman who lost 300 pounds by jogging three times a week, the blind guy who ran a marathon with his son, and so on. I’m a sucker for an inspiring story.

So motivation is good—it’s just the branding of motivation that’s awkward. What’s to be done? My friend Colleen, AKA The Great Communicatrix, explained it best one day while we were hanging out in Austin a while back:

You can’t just BE A MOTIVATIONAL SPEAKER. No one likes that shit. What you should do is BE PASSIONATE ABOUT SOMETHING. Show up and talk about something you give a damn about. Your passion will be motivational in itself.

I think Colleen’s right. If you want to be a speaker, you can go to Toastmasters meetings and learn how you are supposed to hold your hands, the right way to make eye contact with the audience, and so on. But I think it’s better to live an active life and figure out what you’re really passionate about. Then, talk about that.

You’ll get better as you go along. If you give a talk and forget something, if you say um or you know too much, if you break some kind of “rule” of speaking protocol, people will get over it.

It doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t try to improve on the technical things. It just means that the message is more important than the presentation. Between passion and presentation, passion wins every time.

“Motivational speakers” try to manufacture motivation, and this doesn’t usually work. Colleen’s way (the better way) is to introduce your passion to the world around you instead. The right kind of passion is both infectious and contagious. Motivation made easy!

How do you want to change the world? Why not take that thing with you everywhere you go?

Get that right first. Then, even if you’re only talking to one person, you just might be a motivational speaker.

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Image: Adam

A couple weeks ago I went to Powell’s and heard J.D. Roth talk about taking personal responsibility over your financial life. “No one will ever care about your money as much as you do,” he said.

Very true. And you can say the same about your career, your dreams, your goals, and pretty much anything else that is personal and important. When we stop waiting for someone else to come along and make something happen for us, everything moves a lot quicker.

The reasons we fail to begin are frequently cited as: time, money, or something else external. The reasons we actually fail to begin are often: fear, inertia, or something else internal.

It’s socially acceptable to blame our indecisiveness on a lack of resources. Everyone understands when you say you’re waiting for a change in situation before beginning. But in fact, it’s relatively easy to deal with the lack of resources. What’s harder is taking the first, critical steps toward overcoming the internal obstacles.

The act of beginning something is powerful. Putting words to page, setting an unbreakable date on the calendar, making a firm commitment.

Therefore the important question is: How can you start something today?

For a long time I wanted to be a writer. Then I finally realized the obvious: if you want to be a writer, start writing! Writing is free, and no one needs to bestow a title of WRITER upon you to begin writing. The same is true with art, business, travel, and plenty of other things.

If you want to start a business, all you need is one idea. The idea doesn’t need to be big; sometimes small ideas make great small businesses. Think about one thing you know how to do that other people would also like to know how to do. Set up shop as a “very small consultant” offering help with that one thing. Make it easy to get paid. Put a PayPal button on your site and say “I do this thing. Hire me if I can help you.”

Have you ever visited another country, even just one? Chances are, someone out there wants to know how it works: what they need to do before they go, what they should do when they get there, and so on. I certainly don’t have that market covered—go ahead, do that. Become the “untourist” expert on wherever you’ve been. Alternatively, if you have a hometown, you can do the same thing in reverse. Become the world’s leading expert on Minot, North Dakota and find a way to do something with it.

If you want to display your art, start on your street. Almost every one of the coffee shops where I live, including the big chains like Starbucks, hangs art by local artists on their walls. If I were a visual artist, I’d take a day and invest $30 on buying coffee at at least 10 different shops. At every one I’d ask how the artist got her art on display. You’ll probably hear about some manager you need to talk to, so I’d get a card and politely follow-up. I’d set a goal of being in at least one shop every month for the next twelve months. If you live somewhere that doesn’t have coffee shops, go to every restaurant. Or go somewhere. The point is that it’s either free or cheap ($3 coffee) to do this. You can start today.

If you want to see the world, find a way to go on some kind of trip. Here in Portland I see that Alaska Airlines is offering 25,000 miles for any round-trip flight that includes PDX on the itinerary. So if you live here, you take a quick $89 trip to Seattle or elsewhere nearby, and then you have a free ticket to Washington, D.C., Chicago, Orlando, Vancouver, or wherever. Done.

I know that most of you don’t live in Portland, but hopefully you get the idea. These are examples, so as always, if they don’t fit your situation, think about where you are and what you’re trying to accomplish. Don’t look at what you think you lack; look at what you have and find a way to make it work.

And just like with J.D.’s book about money, no one will ever care about your goals as much as you do. Don’t wait for someone to get you started. Start yourself.

What are you trying to do? How can you get closer to it… today?

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Image: Mugley

Back home in Portland, I went to my first yoga class in several weeks and immediately noticed that something was different.

This class is kicking my ass! I thought—but then I looked around, and everyone else was doing just fine. The same thing happened during my 40-minute run the night before: 20 minutes in, I was ready to give up.

My most recent epic journey was fairly intense. Among other challenges, I slept in a different bed every night for 10 nights in a row. I hadn’t planned it that way—I was in Cyprus for three nights, but I changed rooms one night and hotels the other night. Because of the complex itinerary, I had a lot of transit stops—one night in Munich, one in Miami, one in Heathrow, and so on. Living out of a suitcase can work for a while, but it does wear you down over time.

Flying home to the States from Germany, I was preparing for two big projects—speaking at Carnegie Mellon in Pittsburgh, then launching the Empire Building Kit on board the Empire Builder westbound train from Chicago. I had started working on each of them two weeks before, but Parkinson’s law of “work expands to fill the time allotted to it” kicked in. The night before the talk, I was still shuffling the slides around. Then a few days later on the morning of the launch, I was up at 5:30 a.m. in North Dakota trying to update all the site files before going live.

The two big projects, the hopping around Europe with a bonus trip to Cape Verde, the 46 hours on Amtrak, and everything else contributed to my feeling pretty worn down by the time Portland’s Union Station came into sight. On Thursday I said I was ready for a five-hour nap, but I probably could have used about 50 hours.

Don’t get me wrong—the trip was 100% worth it. I wouldn’t have done it any differently.

I’ve come to believe more and more that saying yes is better than no, an active life is better than a passive one, and embracing adventures are all important aspects of what make many of us happy. If you’re out there doing fun stuff, you can usually ignore people who tell you to “slow down and take it easy.”

Nevertheless, I do get tired doing these things, and I also believe it’s important to rest and recover. Here’s how I do it.

Sabbath Day

I go around the world at least four or five times a year, but home in Portland, I’m kind of a homebody. I don’t go out much, and when I do, I don’t go far. Not owning a car confines me to a 15-block walking radius and wherever the bus or bike will take me, but that’s perfectly fine. I live right in the middle of the city for a good reason.

I generally work six days a week, but on Saturday or Sunday I take most of the day off as a Sabbath day. There are different ways to observe the Sabbath, and I tend to believe that the principle is more important than the “rules” (which is kind of what I believe about everything). The principle is that our bodies and minds need rest, so we should plan a regular winding-down period to ensure we have the strength to keep going.

When I’m traveling, I don’t worry about a day of rest. Sometimes rest just isn’t possible on the road, and other times it will happen naturally at one of the stops. At home, though, I usually take a modified Sabbath from Saturday evening to late Sunday afternoon. During this time I don’t use the computer for much of anything, and it’s the only time during the week when I don’t check email at all.

(I know that other people advocate spending even more time away from the computer, but that doesn’t work for me. I also don’t find that being online all the time is especially draining or disheartening.)

Recovery versus Rest

While rest may be a passive activity—for me it’s reading books and hanging out in coffee shops—recovery is both passive and active. Recovery activities consist of things that help us recharge and get ready for the next thing.

In my case, I go for a long run every week, usually on Sundays. I also review my lists of projects and tasks at least once a week, usually on Friday or Saturday night. I ask: Am I on track? Does something need to change? Am I forgetting something?

This weekend I realized that I haven’t been writing as much as I would like over the past few weeks. It’s a natural consequence of the big launch and all the travel, but I don’t want to lose the habit. Getting back to the writing is a recovery activity. I opened up the files for a couple of big writing projects and immediately felt better. “This is why I do what I do,” I said to myself. “I need to recover so I can do more of it.”

My favorite book about this concept is The Power of Full Engagement, which is a a great response to more traditional “time management” books. I’ve always been skeptical of the idea of managing time—time exists independently, and we can’t tell it what to do—but until I read Full Engagement I didn’t have a good alternative.

In the book, the authors show that instead of trying to manage time, we should be conscious of managing our energy. At different points in the day we have more energy than others, and we’re also motivated to do certain things at peak moments. They key is working with what you’ve got, and planning your work times around when you expect to have creative energy. (This is also a good reason to never answer the phone—but that’s another story.)

Whenever I try to motivate myself to do something, I encounter a great deal of resistance. Whenever I do what I’m already motivated to do, I work much better and get much more done.

***

At TEDx in Pittsburgh I talked about the idea that many of us live our lives waiting for someone else to give us permission to be ourselves. I know that I’m wired for an active life and I wouldn’t be happy with anything less.

That said, I do get tired—sometimes even exhausted. On Thursday I came home and slept away the afternoon. Friday was OK, but on Saturday after yoga I took another two-hour nap. All three days were low on productivity, and I think I still need a bit more recovery time.

It’s good to rest, in other words. But I think it’s even better to have something to rest from. With that in mind, I’ve got more adventures planned, very soon. But first, another nap. zzzzzz…

How about you—how do you rest and recover?

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Image: Esther

From time to time, it’s good to have a conversation with yourself—maybe even an interview. This is how you do it.

First, sit yourself down wherever you like to sit. Get coffee or your drink of choice. Turn off the distractions and take it seriously. (Wouldn’t you take another interview seriously?)

Then you open the conversation like this:

Dear self, you are x years old. What do you have to show for it? Are you living the dream?

As you look back on your life, what are you most proud of, what do you regret, and how do you feel about each of those things? Here are a few follow-ups:

• What’s next, self?
• Why do you do the things you do every day?
• What do you really believe in? (What do you know to be true?)
• Where do you find your security?
• What bothers you, and what are you doing about it?
• What worries you?
• If you had one year left to live, how would you spend it?

***

Of course, when you interview yourself, you can customize the interview however you see fit. The point is to make sure you know why you’re doing what you do, and if you should make any changes. Simple, except when it’s not.

Here’s wishing you all a great Monday. Over here, I’m working full-time on a single project this week. Rare for me, I know, but once in a while I manage to take the time to focus. It’s kind of like asking questions of yourself: hard but good.

Are you satisfied with your answers?

###

Image: DH

Like other Gmail users everywhere, I’ve been experimenting with Google Buzz over the past few weeks. I’m not sure I love it yet—in fact, I’m pretty sure I don’t. It has numerous issues and annoyances.

At this point, it’s definitely not the greatest thing since sliced bread. (Which begs the question: what was so great before sliced bread?)

The thing is, though, it’s Google. And it’s 100% integrated with Gmail, which I use as a base for 100% of my email. Whether you use Gmail as much as I do or not, if you care about reaching people for life or work, you should check it out. If you end up hating it, well, don’t use it. Nothing is mandatory.

The best justification I’ve heard for Google Buzz thus far comes from Thomas Hawk, a great photographer I’ve been following for a while. Thomas says that the reason you should care about Google Buzz is because you want to be where the ball is going, not where it is now.

I totally agree. Even if the service isn’t amazing yet, it has real potential. If you have a blog, a business, a project, you are in the business of building relationships. Google Buzz isn’t the only way to do that, of course, but it’s one easy way. I suspect in the future that Google will improve the service as more and more people adopt it, so you might as well get in on it now.

Anyway, if you want to give it a try, log-in to your Gmail and join me here.

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Image: TDR

Sorry I was rude to you the other day, someone said. I’ve just been so busy.

Guess what: we’re all busy!

Every one of us. It’s not a very exclusive club.

And here’s another reality check: because we’re all busy, no one really cares about how busy someone else is. One way or another, we all make time for what’s important to us.

In a group project, a person who freaks out about being busy will stall, defer, and generally keep everyone else waiting on them. They use busyness as an excuse for poor performance. Sometimes it’s faster to put this person in a room by themselves and let them whine while you do their job for them.

A person in control of being busy will keep the project moving forward at all costs. They like deadlines, direct communication, and tough assignments. That’s the kind of person you want on your team. If you’re serving on someone else’s team, that’s the kind of person you should be.

The strategies for dealing with being “so busy” are pretty basic:

1) Be less busy. If being busy really prevents you from doing something you want, stop being so busy. It’s not that complicated.

2) Stop complaining and enjoy it. Personally, I like busy. I had fun visiting the islands last week, but islands can be sleepy little places. In Fiji I sat by the pool for an hour, but then I got bored and went back to working on my projects.

I wrote to Pam, my partner on the upcoming $100 Business Forum: “What do you think about starting three weeks early?”

Pam wrote back: “Bring it on!”

And thus we’re starting on February 1 instead of March 8. I already knew she was the right partner for this project, but that was good confirmation. Busy people tend to do more, not less — but either way, being “so busy” that you become overwhelmed doesn’t help anyone.

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P.S. Wondering how to help with relief efforts in Haiti? Partners in Health has been one of the most well-regarded charities in the country for two decades, with a wide network of clinics and local staff. Join me in making a donation here.

Image by La Nina

From January to September 2009, 21,833 people died in my home state of Oregon. Just like that, each one of them left the world—here one day and gone the next.

Several weeks ago, three hikers also died on our nearby Mount Hood in a tragic accident.

After their deaths, there was the usual pontification about what they could have done differently. Despite the fact that they were all experienced climbers, and despite leaving for the hike when weather conditions were good, some people blamed their “risky behavior” and suggested various reforms that wouldn’t have made any difference in their case.

While I was away for my end-of-year vacation, I scanned through the comments on our newspaper’s website. “I don’t want to say they deserved to die,” one person said, before going on to explain why they deserved to die for pursuing their passion.

Fatal accidents are sad. I wish they wouldn’t happen, and I wish we could bring back the lost hikers. But I also don’t think they should have stayed home, and I don’t think they are that different from the 21,833 others who died earlier this year.

I propose that the greater risk is to play it safe all the time. Properly experienced, life is a very risky behavior.

***

I recently read Christopher Reeve’s autobiography, Still Me. He wrote about how during his years playing Superman, he worried about dying in a “dumb” accident. Superman Hit By Bus, he imagined the headline. Later, he fell off a horse and was paralyzed for the rest of his life.

The book is a fascinating account of his first two years adjusting to a very different (and extremely limited) way of living. He was angry, bitter, and at times wished he had died in the accident. But he didn’t regret riding the horse that day his life changed forever. As he put it, if he knew when he got on the horse that he would be thrown, he would have slept in that morning. But there’s no way to know something like that in advance; you just have to live your life, risk and all.

From time to time people send me stories like the Mount Hood climbers, or something bad that happened to another traveler somewhere. I don’t have a death wish with anything I do, and I don’t think that world travel is particularly unsafe. Like Superman, I could get hit by a bus right down the street from my home.

But if something ever does happen to me, all of you can tell the real story to anyone who asks: Chris didn’t want to take any risks on missing out. That’s why he climbed the mountain.

Instead of trying to live a risk-free existence, let me tell you a few things that are truly worth worrying about:

The road not taken.
The destination not explored.
The adventure not pursued.
The life unlived.

If we’re going to lose sleep over something, it seems to me that those are the things that should keep us awake.

Life is dangerous. It’s risky. It’s worth it.

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‘At Your Own Risk’ Image by Todd.

Dear friends,

This photo from Ivan reminds me yet again what it’s all about.

Thanks for an amazing 2009. I can’t wait to hear your stories of awesomeness in 2010. I know you’re up for it, and everyone will be watching.

Happy New Year’s,

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If you’re involved in any kind of creative work, you and inertia are probably well acquainted.

I wish I were an exception, but no—inertia and I are mortal enemies. Every day I get up and fight a battle against that beast. Sometimes I win; sometimes I lose.

Sometimes we get “stuck” in something and have a hard time figuring out what to do next. If you’re feeling stuck, try one or more of these ideas.

Initiate instead of responding. Move the ball forward. Somehow, do something to advance the cause. Review existing projects and find one single action you can do to keep things moving along. If that doesn’t work, start something new.

Don’t be insane. Remember Einstein’s definition of insanity: “Doing the same things over and over while expecting different results.” For different results, try something new. Ironic, isn’t it? Inertia loves doing the same things over and again.

Continually question the status quo. Are things good enough? No? Then see the previous idea. Could they be better? Change it up! Do something completely different.

Carry a notebook everywhere you go. One of the most important principles of GTD as I practice it is, “Write everything down.” I don’t actually write long blog posts and manuscripts when I’m constantly on the go—I find it hard to concentrate in short bursts of a few minutes. But I do outline, and I do write everything down.

Give up. (Temporarily.) Step away, purposefully. Take a meaningful break. Think about what really needs to be done, then step back and do it.

Put on the running shoes. There’s an old saying about running and motivation: “50% of running is putting on your shoes and getting out the door.” I’m not sure it’s a full 50%, but hey, it’s something. In other words, resistance prevents us from getting started. Once we’re underway, it’s a lot easier.

If nothing else, help someone. I wrote about this during the Annual Review and a lot of you liked it: if you get up in the morning and can’t think of anything to do, spend your time helping someone. What that looks like depends on who you are and what you do. It sure beats reading the online news over and over while waiting for emails to arrive.

Do something that creates a deliverable or outcome. Productive online tasks include:

• Uploading photos to Flickr
• Writing a recommendation for someone on LinkedIn
• Leaving comments (non self-promotional ones) on someone’s blog
• Listing something for sale on eBay
• Writing a note to your newsletter

• And so on… if those don’t apply to you, think about what does.

Apply for a scholarship, competition, or contest. Someone has to win all of those awards. The old Wayne Gretzky advice applies here: “You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.” Therefore, take shots.

When considering different opportunities, don’t wait too long to decide. Should you learn Spanish or Chinese? Well, if you think about it for a year, you’ll have lost a year’s worth of learning. If you really can’t decide between two options, you can either a) flip a coin, or b) find a way to do both. Better to start, then change later if you want.

Set a $100 hour. I’m grateful to Barbara Winter, one of our group and a fabulous author with her own tribe, for this concept. When you set a $100 hour, you spend as long as you need (up to an hour) brainstorming different ways to make $100.

Yes, I know that life is not all about making money, but if you’re an entrepreneur or otherwise self-employed, you have the imperative to bring in the funds. Also, once you figure out how to make $100 from a new source, you can probably increase the amount with less effort. It’s a fun exercise—learn more here.

***

Just as we all fight inertia in some form or another, we all get stuck. When it happens, the choice is to waste a workday (or more), or find a way out. Let’s not waste any time. Let’s get out of being stuck!

Feel free to add your own tips, and I’ll update the post to reflect any especially good suggestions.

Happy New Year’s week, everyone.

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Image by Azzief