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

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After you make a decision to be remarkable and recruit a small army, you need a plan of attack. How will you accomplish your world takeover goals?

There are lots of ways to formulate a plan of attack. My own planning is usually constructed through mind-maps and process-oriented thinking. I work backwards from the goal, considering the step I need to take that directly precedes the desired result.

You Can Start Planning Right Away

I use Mindjet software (free trial here) to help with this, and you can see a real world example below of how I first began brainstorming the development of this web site.

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Entrepreneurs are a diverse bunch of people, but when you ask them to tell you the greatest benefit of being self-employed, you’ll usually hear the same answer over and over. That answer is FREEDOM, and rightly so. When you work for yourself, no one tells you what to do—at least not in the same way a boss would.

Even if you freelance or have clients or customers, those people don’t usually set your hours for you, tell you what to wear, approve your vacations, or any of the other hassles you deal with at a “real” job.There’s no time sheet to fill out, and no H.R. department hounding you for staff reviews. Presumably, there are a lot less useless meetings too. (If you set your own useless meetings with staff, suppliers, or clients, that’s your fault!)

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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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I lived in Seattle for a year before I went to my first professional sports game last summer. I’m not usually a big fan of watching sports, but it was fun to go down to Safeco Field and hang out with friends at the Mariners’ game.

Getting to the game could have been difficult for me. Despite living in Seattle for 18 months without a car, I still have no clear understanding of how the bus system works. I take the bus to the university almost every day, but it’s always the same bus. I know how to get downtown and to Sea-Tac airport for my frequent trips, but otherwise, I’m lost in the city. In this case, I arranged to travel with a friend down to the game, so I didn’t worry about which buses to take and where to transfer.

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A little knowledge is a dangerous thing…
Alexander Pope, 1709
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Thanks to the use of Frequent Flyer Miles, I flew back to New York City from Bucharest last year in Delta’s nice BusinessElite cabin. Hanging out in the airline lounge before the flight, I met up with another traveler, a professional musician from New York named Hannah Chang.

Hannah was the only person I had ever met that was carrying tickets for two confirmed BusinessElite seats all to herself. Technically, she didn’t use both of them for herself—instead, one was for her and one was for her cello, which traveled with her wherever she went.

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