I previously wrote about how a long trip begins from Seattle. I didn’t have a car there either, but public transport required a high threshold of patience and pain. In Seattle it took up to two hours to begin a trip, which was especially interesting when the first flight was at 6:00 a.m.

From my new hub in Portland, much of the process is the same - except I don’t have to leave two hours before I need to be at the airport. Since I often take early flights that connect to L.A., Dallas, or the East Coast, this is good.

The night before I leave, I pack the bag according to this imprecise list (cat not included). It doesn’t take very long, but before a big trip, I take some extra time to make sure I’ve got what I need.

Sometimes I get greedy and try to pack the bag too full. This is always a mistake at the outset – better to go out with a bit more space. It’s not that I buy a lot of stuff along the way, but my packing gets less orderly as I go from stop to stop.

Public transport being improved in my new city, I can now walk directly across my street to the bus stop. The bus comes every 15 minutes and takes me to the train station in 10 minutes; the train deposits me directly at the airport 15 minutes later.

Total cost: $2.00. Total time: 40 minutes if I time it right, one hour if I need to wait for the train.

Ticket Reissuing

For two weeks I’ve been trying to reissue my round-the-world ticket to account for the fact that I’m going to Saudi Arabia instead of Sudan as I had planned a year ago. The change is easy to make over the phone, but then the physical ticket needs to be reissued at the airport. Since it’s a paper ticket, in this case reissuing means rewriting. The rewriting takes a while – we’re talking 16 flight segments that need to be carefully copied out by hand – so I left my ticket at the American Airlines counter while headed out to Utah recently, and arranged to pick it up the next time I was at PDX.

It turns out that I forgot to leave one of the flight coupons and a copy of the original itinerary, so on the next stop (back from NYC), I drop off the additional documents. On the third trip to the airport a few days later, my ticket is waiting for me. Awesome.

It takes 20 minutes to process the payment for the routing change, and there is some confusion – but compared to other experiences I’ve had, 20 minutes is nothing. I switched most of my flying from Star Alliance to OneWorld in 2008 after a frustrating evening standing at the United ticket counter in Seattle for nearly two full hours waiting for a change to be processed.

Anyway, this reissue goes well, but later that day I get a call – the AA rep forgot to validate the ticket, which only takes five minutes but needs to be done before I can travel.

Which Brings Us to Today

This time, the flight leaves PDX at 6:00 a.m. Anything that departs at 7:30 or later works nicely with the bus and train combo, but for a 6:00 a.m. departure, I need another plan. This time the plan is to rent a car through Priceline for $14 ($22.50 with tax) that I pick up the day before.

On Sunday I get up at 4:15, download my mail to Gmail Offline, grab the bags, and head out. I drive to the airport, refuel the car on 82nd street, and return it at the Avis counter.

I get a Delta boarding pass from the kiosk and look at the long line of sleepy people waiting to check their bags. Before heading through security, I stop off at the AA counter yet again. It’s 5:15 a.m. and no one looks especially happy, but someone validates the ticket and gives me a boarding pass for the Miami-La Paz flight tonight. I take the express line through security and head to the D gates.

Pre-Trip Anxiety

Traveling itself is great, but I feel anxious almost every time before I leave. A few days before departure, I start to feel overwhelmed at all the things that are left undone. I intend to get ahead on my writing, and it never happens. I intend to have all my reservations made, and I always end up doing it as I go along each week.

The more I travel, the more I realize that this kind of pre-trip anxiety is just part of how it works. I don’t love it, but I try to come to terms with it. Now that I’m more experienced, if I didn’t worry about something before leaving, I might worry – in other words, I’d think that I was taking it all too casually.

I run through a list of things in my head and try to identify the root of the problem. If I feel like I’ve packed everything, if I know what’s happening for at least the next few days, if I’ve thought through the upcoming challenges over the next 10-14 days (uncertain visas, overland trips, floor-sleeping, etc.), then I gradually realize that the anxiety is not related to anything specific.

Eventually I find peace, but it usually comes after I leave. If I’ve done things right, something changes on the first connecting flight. All of a sudden I feel alive, in a sense of being wide-awake that doesn’t come from coffee. This is why I do this, I think. Some people take drugs, I take Delta flight 1510 with non-stop service to ATL.

I fly to Atlanta, Miami, and La Paz, Bolivia where the trip officially begins. Hello, South America. Nice to see you again.

###

[Travel note: I work from wherever I am in the world, but comment moderation and email response is frequently delayed when I'm traveling.]

Did you enjoy this article? Please pass it on to others at StumbleUpon, or share your own thoughts in the comments section.

Portland Max Image by Beej

Last year at about this time, I took what I called the Monster Trip of 2008.

It involved four continents, driving through Italy in the middle of the night, visiting Iraqi Kurdistan, roaming by train and bus across the Baltics and Moldova, and finally coming home through Asia – where I mistakenly double-booked myself on two non-refundable tickets home from Japan.

What fun that was. Now it’s time to repeat the process, although with a completely different itinerary, and hopefully without getting stranded on a faraway continent three days before I’m supposed to come home.

Frequent questions I hear about this kind of travel:

Does it get tiring? Yes.

Is it worth it? Absolutely.

Why go to so many places on one trip? 1) that’s how Round-the-World tickets work, and 2) I’ve got less than four years left to achieve the goal.

In other words, don’t worry; I know what I’m doing. Usually.

Goals are funny things: as long as we’ve chosen them well in the beginning, they’ll be worth it in the end, but there will also be some hard times along the way.

Think about Lance and the Tour de France, Obama and the quest for the presidency, etc. The best things in life usually require ups and downs, sacrifice, struggle, et al. We are frequently better off in the end because of the struggle, not in spite of it.

Struggle or otherwise, I have a couple of things working in my favor this time:

First, I’ve improved. I make a lot of mistakes, but I don’t like to make the same mistake twice. The nice thing about travel is that the more you wander, the more experienced you become. These days, it doesn’t take me long to settle in anywhere.

I’m also a better writer and have learned more about what I can and can’t do. A friend of mine likes to say, “If at first you don’t succeed, destroy all evidence that you’ve tried” – but I’ve kept the evidence in the archives for transparency’s sake.

Second, more of you are interested, which creates more motivation. Last year I wrote for a small group of about 3,000 people. (Big thanks to everyone who’s been here for a while; I really appreciate you guys sticking around.) Now I have a much larger core group, in addition to another group of passive readers and those who read the syndicated content elsewhere. If I fail to cross a border or get tempted to take it easy somewhere, I can think about the story I’d have to tell.

The Itinerary

When this article is posted, I’ll be flying to La Paz, Bolivia. I made it to my starting point yesterday by flying PDX-ATL-MIA. Over the next 20 days I’ll be in four continents, starting with South America and ending in Asia before coming home.

For those who are airport code savvy, the first part of the trip looks like this:

PDX-ATL-MIA-LPB-LIM-BOG-SCL-JFK-AMM

Persian Gulf – As long as my Saudi visa comes through, I’ll be in Riyadh for a couple of days and Kuwait for a couple of days.

Malaysia – I leave Riyadh for Hong Kong and then hop over to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia for the final stop of the trip.

The second part of the trip looks like this:

AMM-KWI-AMM-RUH-HKG-KUL

Coming home from Malaysia, I’ll be traveling on my first-ever “mistake fare,” which is interesting enough to be a story all its own. I’ve been looking at mistake fares for years, but never managed to pick one up until I got this one two months ago. At some point during the trip, I’ll post more about how that works and the details of the flight home.

The Cost

Most of this trip is booked on a OneWorld Round-the-World ticket. I’m a huge fan of these tickets due to flexibility and overall economy. Pricing for RTW tickets is determined by country of origin, and this one began in Sri Lanka last fall. Even with taxes, the price per segment was just under $300 each, including all of the long-haul flights to and from continents.

Last spring, OneWorld announced that they would be shifting from a maximum of 20 segments to a maximum of 16. The deadline for getting a 20-segment ticket was June 1, 2008, so I headed up to Vancouver, B.C. on May 31 to pick up my ticket. Even at 16 segments, the tickets are still a good deal – but I didn’t want to pass up the chance to get a 20-segment one while I still could.

PDX-ATL-MIA

My last segment on the RTW ticket was the return flight from Haiti a couple of months ago. From there, I bought a one-way ticket to get home to Portland, and another one-way ticket to return to Miami yesterday.

Most of my domestic flights are booked on American Airlines, because I fly more than 100,000 miles a year on OneWorld and have the highest level of status with them. This time the Delta fare was much lower ($189), so I went with them.

Ironically, I’m a Platinum Elite flyer with Delta even though I rarely travel with any SkyTeam carrier. Last year when Delta began its merger with Northwest, I requested an elite status match with Northwest. The request was approved, so now whenever I fly with either carrier (Delta or Northwest) I’m automatically placed on the upgrade list alongside their most active travelers.

(I write about status matches in the two travel products in the AONC store. At some point I’ll be making a third one that will be a complete guide to Frequent Flyer miles.)

I found more irony in the fact that I was not upgraded coming back from New York last week on the U.S. airline I patronize most often (American), but Delta upgraded me three days prior to this trip on both segments.

I was really happy with the flights yesterday – it’s not like flying long-haul, but Delta’s domestic service certainly beats American’s. I wish SkyTeam had a better Round-the-World product to compete with OneWorld and Star Alliance.

Air Asia to Kuala Lumpur

My OneWorld ticket ends in Hong Kong (at least for now – there are still a couple segments I’ll pick up in late August), but due to the terms of the mistake fare, I had to get to Malaysia to resume my trip home. To do that, I booked a one-way flight on Air Asia, a low-cost carrier based in Kuala Lumpur that I’ve traveled with before. The ticket cost $59.

Accommodation

For a trip like this, I’ll stay in a variety of locations – hostels, guesthouses, hotels, and with friends. In Santiago the hostel is about $24 a night; in Hong Kong it’s about $40. Friends are putting me up in a few places (Bolivia, Peru, Malaysia). I also have several red-eye flights that save me the cost of lodging (MIA-LPB, JFK-AMM, RUH-HKG).

In Riyadh, assuming I get there, and in Kuwait City, I’ll be staying in hotels. Those places are not really known for independent travelers, and I’ll probably be needing a break at that point. In Bogota I’m also staying in a hotel partly because I don’t know much about Columbia and would rather choose a safe option for that country. In addition to the comfort factor on a long trip, staying in hotels from time to time helps me get more work done and catch up with my online life.

The Unknowns

I’ve never been on a major Round-the-World trip where something didn’t go as planned or there weren’t any challenges to overcome. My most obvious challenge at the moment is the visa from Saudi Arabia, which has been promised to me but I’m still waiting for.

Because I never know who’s reading along and I don’t want to jeopardize my chances of getting the visa, I can’t explain the whole story behind why this has taken so long. Suffice it to say that I’m really looking forward to visiting Riyadh, and I will certainly follow the laws and customs of the kingdom while in the country. I’m not a journalist and am mostly just trying to get to Hong Kong on my Cathay Pacific flight a couple of days later.

I’m making a quick trip through NYC in transit to Amman a week from today, and I really hope that my passport (and the visa) will be waiting for me there. If not, I have a couple of options, but none of them are that good – so let’s hope the visa arrives.

The Meetup Schedule

I don’t have any formal meetups planned like we did in NYC last week, but along the way I’ll be visiting friends and readers on a smaller scale. In Malaysia I’m excited about hanging out with Reese Spykerman, my superstar designer and friend, and her husband Jason. Reese and I have worked together virtually for a long time now, but we haven’t met in person yet.

In La Paz, Lima, Bogota, and Santiago I’m meeting with readers who have contacted me recently. Santiago (Chile) is probably the best place to see a small group of people – I’ll be there the night of Thursday, July 2, so if you’re there, let me know.

A lot of folks have written in from Argentina and Brazil asking if I’ll by stopping over in their great countries. Unfortunately, I’m not – I was in Buenos Aires last year and agreed with other opinions that it’s one of the best cities in the world, but I won’t make it there on this trip. See the above notes on sacrifice and the overall goal.

I know there is a Malaysian contingent on my email list, but I don’t know who everyone is or if most of them are in K.L. or elsewhere. If you’re there, feel free to send me a note and we’ll see about setting up something while I’m in town (July 13-15).

Other Updates

I write a monthly newspaper column for the Oregonian and post more detailed travel updates on OregonLive.com/travel. Yesterday’s column in the paper has more info on the trip and can be read here. I’m also writing occasionally for Anderson Cooper’s 360 site and will let you know when something goes up over there.

Lastly, I post live updates from wherever I am on Twitter every day. If you happen to be in the same place at the same time as me, be sure to say hi from Twitter or send me a note from the site.

I fully expect this to be a tiring adventure, but I also expect it to be fun. Sometimes the two categories go hand-in-hand.

See you next from the road. Wish me luck!

###

[Travel note: I work from wherever I am in the world, but comment moderation and email response is frequently delayed when I'm traveling.]

Did you enjoy this article? Please pass it on to others at StumbleUpon, or share your own thoughts in the comments section.

La Paz Image by Guillermo

Greetings from the Atlanta-Hartsfield airport, home to Delta, Chick-fil-A, and a hidden post office in Terminal E.

I used to fly through ATL all the time, but since I’ve switched airline allegiance, this is the first time I’ve been here in nearly a year. Tonight I’m headed down to MIA and then further down to South America. I’m excited! But first, let’s catch up on the past week.

NYC Meetup

On Tuesday night after my visit to Seth Godin HQ, I headed over to midtown Manhattan to meet the rest of New York City.

I co-hosted this event with Jonathan Fields, fellow problogger, author of Career Renegade, yoga superstar, and all-around fun guy. The day before the meetup, Jonathan and I filmed a short video interview in Central Park that you can watch if you don’t mind all the random distractions - birds, children, and me.

Jonathan is on my short list of highly-trusted colleagues, along with Pam Slim and J.D. Roth, who I had the chance to hang out with on Friday after I came home from the trip.

The meetup was jam-packed with incredible people from all walks of life - HUGE THANKS to everyone I met that night. It was all a little overwhelming (so many people! $5 drink specials!), but in a good way.

At La Guardia airport the next morning I made a quick thank-you video and tried to mention everyone who wrote their name in my notebook. (Click the ‘play’ button below to view it - and thanks as well to everyone who was there but missed the notebook when it was passed around.)

Store Updates

If I had a bookkeeper, he or she would remind me that I’m supposed to be using this weekly update to talk up my products and the gradual growth of my business.

Oh, right. I forgot about that.

It’s hard to build a business while you’re hanging out with cool people and traveling the world, but somehow it must get done. Two very quick updates about that:

*Art and Money guide - The incredible Ali Edwards is now part of the project. Ali writes a Top 500 Technorati blog about art and creativity, and now she’s also in the guide as a new interview feature. (If you already own Art and Money, you’ll be getting an update with Ali’s interview this week. If not, well, here is all the info to get the product and get on the update list.)

*Working for Yourself guide - since the (small) price increase a few weeks ago, I’ve added even more materials to the premium version of the product. Once again, if you already own it, you’ll see these materials showing up in the email update series in the next 10 days or so. If not, here’s where you need to go to get in on it.

More fun things are in development for the business side of AONC, thankfully with partners who are less affected by ADD, Twitter, and world travel than I am.

Monster Trip

I realized I haven’t said much about my trip yet. I’m in transit today (PDX-ATL-MIA) and will be in South America tomorrow. Then, over the next 20 days I’ll be on various continents as I journey from the Americas to the Middle East before going on to Asia and eventually back home. Real-time updates are on Twitter, and more details and logistics will be posted tomorrow.

Every trip has its challenges. The big challenge with this one so far is that I still haven’t received my visa for Saudi Arabia, where I’m scheduled to arrive in about 10 days. I have two passports, so my main one is with me now - but the duplicate one is at the NYC consulate of Saudi Arabia.

It’s too soon to tell, but I’m hoping that they’ll finish their pre-screening of my application and come through a visa early this week. If not, we have a problem, but that’s just how it goes. I could always stay home, right?

Farewell, friends. See you next from Miami, La Paz, Lima, Bogota, etc.

###

Image of Chris and Jonathan courtesy of Emily

I returned to Portland late last night after a great visit to the great New York City.

I’ve needed to go to New York for a few months now - I wanted to meet my book editor and a few other people, but I kept putting it off. Since I travel so much internationally, I try to keep my domestic trips to a minimum.

However, when I received an invitation a couple of weeks ago to visit with Seth Godin and his remarkable Alternative MBA students, I knew it was time to break out the calendar and book a ticket.

The lesson is, when you get an opportunity like this, don’t hesitate. Do whatever you need to do to get wherever you need to be.

First, a Few Notes on Business School

If you don’t know the history of Seth’s audacious idea, here’s the original post. The short version is that most MBA programs are all about life avoidance and racking up debt before the students race back to the cubicles that they came from.

Graduate programs in the social sciences, like the one I did, are slightly different - there aren’t any cubicles to go back to, because everyone competes for the same limited jobs after they graduate.

I don’t have any regrets about my education, but that’s also because I paid for it myself and didn’t have any expectations about career assistance. If either of those variables were different, then I might feel differently.

To counter the $50,000 tuition and two years of life avoidance that most business schools require, Seth has condensed the two years into six months and a bill of $0 for a few, carefully-selected applicants. Every day the group meets from 9am-2pm, and the agenda focuses mostly on the projects each student is working on. Once in a while they let a smart guest lecturer come in and talk, and once in a while they let someone else like me come in and talk.

What I Appreciate About Seth Godin

I’ve been reading Seth’s books since at least 2004, when I had a copy of Free Prize Inside! shipped to West Africa. There are a lot of things I could say about Seth, but what I appreciate most is his courage to continue challenging authority and providing a voice for excellence. A lot of my writing, especially about overcoming the norms of mediocrity and striving to be remarkable, is heavily influenced by Seth.

At his current stature in the world of business and blogging, Seth could still write good books and posts without challenging the status quo, but that would be the easy way out. Instead, he keeps speaking the truth no matter what the opposition thinks - see entries on textbooks, online advertising, telemarketers, and teakettles - just to name a few.

About 25% of the AONC readership has come from Seth’s two mentions of my work on his site, so I know that many of you feel the same way I do about him.

The Visit

I headed up to Hastings (about 40 minutes from Manhattan) from Grand Central Station and caught up with the group. In addition to the master himself, the group included the following great people:

Ishita Gupta (@ishitagupta)
Clay Hebert (@clayhebert)
Al Pittampalli (@pittampalli)
Susan Lewis (@susanvlewis)
Alex Krupp (@alexkrupp)
Rebecca Goldstein (@beccany)
Jon Dale (@jdale)

My philosophy in these kinds of meetings is to prepare as much as possible, but also make sure that everyone is comfortable with the agenda before proceeding to talk. I’m not the best speaker in the world, so when I get an opportunity like this, I take the process seriously, think a lot in advance about what the most important message is, and try to keep the focus on helpfulness as much as possible.

Here are a few things I talked about with the group:

• How you know when you’ve found something you’re really good at (hint: it involves waking up at night with ideas)
• When to leave the best job in the world (hint: right before you get tired of it)
• A comparison of my M.A. thesis (read by three people) and the World Domination manifesto (read by 100k people in the first six months)
• The joys and responsibilities of running your own monopoly (stemming from my belief that there is no competition)
• Why you need friends and enemies in building a community (see this post and this one for more background)
• The choice between abundance and scarcity, and the choice between hope and fear (if you’ve read AONC for a while, you probably know which side I’m on)

After my talk, Seth led the group in a 40-minute discussion about my upcoming book - you know, the one I’m supposed to be writing. He even designed a mock cover and printed it out while we were talking! What a cool guy.

Afterwards, Seth had to go to a TV interview, so the students and I went to lunch at a Mexican restaurant down the street, where we talked some more about their plans to take over the world and revolutionize various industries.

It was as inspiring as you’d expect, and I left the group feeling even more grateful than usual. Thanks, Seth and SAMBA students, for putting up with me. You’re so kind. I remain dedicated to helping out with your great projects any way I can.

Other NYC Events

It was such a busy three days that I think I’ll write up the rest of the NYC trip and include it in Sunday’s site update. Among other things, Jonathan Fields and I had a group meetup on Tuesday night that rocked my world and gave me a new perspective about what this is all about. It was overwhelming in a good way. Thanks in advance to the huge group who came out - and I’ll say more about it on Sunday.

Coming Soon

I’m back in Portland, and looking forward to the Escape from Cubicle Nation workshop with Pam Slim tomorrow. If you’re local in PDX, sign up here and use discount code “Chris” to get $30 off. (I don’t get paid for it; I just love Pam and know she can help a lot of corporate prisoners.)

Then, at 4:30 a.m. on Sunday, I return to my second home to leave for the biggest trip of the year. South America! Saudi Arabia! (If they give me a visa, that is.) Malaysia! And more.

Of course I’ll be writing from the road, like always. The journey is far from over, and after this week I’m more inspired than ever to keep going.

Thank you.

###

Did you enjoy this article? Please pass it on to others at StumbleUpon, or share your own thoughts in the comments section.

Have you seen the site Unnecessary Quotes? It’s fabulously sarcastic, offering a collection of signs that have quotation marks in all the wrong places.

I started thinking about other unnecessary things after a few people asked about my language skills for traveling. You can’t be a world traveler without speaking six languages, right?

Surprise! I’m not a language ninja. I speak bad French and awful Spanish.

Otherwise, I’m definitely not the guy you want to have around as a translator. (Airport codes and frequent flyer info, yes; translation at the next U.N. meeting, no.)

It’s not that I think everyone should speak English, or that learning other languages is unimportant. If I had kids, I’d put them in Chinese school in the morning with a Spanish-speaking nanny in the afternoon.

But you know what? Even though I’d happily accept the gift of magic language skills, I also know that my inability to cross most language barriers doesn’t really hinder me from going anywhere or doing anything. You don’t need to be a language ninja to travel. Sometimes it will be awkward and sometimes it will be funny, but your chances of starving to death on the road are quite low.

If I Could Only…

Focusing on something you don’t have (but think you need) can be a dangerous, common pattern. The pattern is to identify something you lack and use that as an obstacle that prevents you from doing what you really want.

With an obstacle identified, we feel better. No harm done, right? No harm except that nagging sense in the back of our brain that we really should be doing something differently. Not to worry: most people come to terms with it over time.

Fortunately, many of the obstacles we perceive are not really obstacles. Many of the things we think we need are unnecessary.

I don’t mean to discount handicaps, social disadvantage, etc., but the way out of most challenges was best defined by Oprah:

“We are each responsible for our own life; no other person is or even can be.”

Nelson Mandela spent 27 years in a prison cell on Robbin Island. He got out and led South Africa on a path of forgiveness and transition. Viktor Frankl created a philosophy on finding personal meaning while imprisoned in a concentration camp.

When I think about people like that, I become less tolerant of other excuses. If you can emotionally thrive in prison, even more things become unnecessary. Let’s look at a few of them.

You don’t need experience. Experience can sometimes get you in the door, but what really matters is what you’re doing now. The past belongs on a resumé; the future is only partially in your hands. Today is the only day we are fully in control of.

You don’t need a mentor. No one will ever be as invested in your success as you. You can’t outsource the responsibility for planning the course of your life.

You don’t need paperwork. Paperwork includes degrees, certificates, endorsements, licenses, recommendations, referrals, and so on. Please note: it’s not that some of these things (or the other things) are unhelpful. It’s that they are unnecessary.

You don’t need to pay for access or information. I realize the irony: I sell information products on the right side of the screen. But if you want to break things down to the simplest level, almost all information is freely available. If you live in Iran or China, some information may be kept from your view - everywhere else, whatever it is you want to learn, go and learn it. If you have no money, go to the library. Go to the bookstore and read books in the cafe.

***

If you want to start a business…

The list of things you don’t need grows longer. You don’t need to move to Silicon Valley; you don’t need to pitch to venture capitalists; you don’t need to borrow money.

This part could go on for a while – you don’t need an office, you don’t need a MacBook Pro, you don’t need to outsource, you don’t need business cards.

From time to time I’ve been asked about my productivity habits. Here is my primary GTD workstation, pictured below for all posterity:

Technical Specs:

Spiral-bound
College-ruled
Three-sectioned
120-paged

No instructions are included, but it’s pretty basic. GTD is a great organization system because you don’t need much of anything to use it. The principles of GTD as I use it are:

1. Write stuff down
2. Do easy stuff quickly
3. Review big stuff periodically

As I said, basic but life-changing. But enough about notebooks and venture capital – let’s get serious. Are you ready? Here we go:

You don’t need other people’s permission.

If you’ve heard the one about forgiveness and permission – how it’s easier to say “Oops, sorry” than it is to get something cleared in advance – this is totally true. This principle helped me finish college in two years and sneak into graduate school without taking the GRE. (It certainly wasn’t high intelligence or aptitude for study.)

However, you also don’t need permission for much of anything. You don’t need permission to be happy, for example. Just be happy.

Where’s the line? The line is where your actions cause harm to someone else. My view is that as long if you stay behind that line, you don’t need permission. Thankfully, I don’t know many people who want to intentionally harm someone else. We just want freedom to pursue our own choices without being held back by anyone else.

***

What You Really Need

If you don’t need most of those things, what do you need?

You need passion. You need to be absolutely passionate about what you believe in. If you don’t feel passionate about something, chances are you haven’t discovered it yet. Keep looking.

You need a vision and a task. The vision tells you where you are going; the task tells you what to do next.

You need the two answers. What do you really want to get out of life? How can you help others in a way that is unique to you?

You need commitment to stay the course. Most people give up at 5,000 hours; the winners continue to 10,000 and beyond. I liked what Seth said about the 3,000 posts he’s written: the first 2,500 were the hardest.

Very Important: What’s the difference between the things you need and the things you don’t need?

All of the things in the first category are up to you. Most of the things in the second category come from other people.

Mostly, you need enough. You need enough money, enough time, enough courage. What is enough? That’s for you to decide.

But don’t worry about what you don’t have. When you let go of all the things you don’t need, a lot of other things become much easier.

###

Did you enjoy this article? Please pass it on to others at StumbleUpon, or share your own thoughts in the comments section.

Also Read:

A Short Collection of Unconventional Ideas
How to Be Awesome

Unnecessary Bubble Tea “Image” by Adam Kuban

Hey everyone, business has been good and I’ve bought a second home. You can see it here on Google Maps.

It’s a shared home – my part is usually located in the arrivals side just before security. The only problem is that someone keeps sitting on my couch when I get up to get coffee. I know, I should put up a sign or something.

Today I’m en route to La Guardia via Dallas for a couple of days of meetings in New York. To keep things simple, I’m combining multiple updates and announcement into today’s post, so that we can save the week for the articles.

***

NYC Meetup Reminder

If you live in the city or nearby, come and say hi on Tuesday night, Disiac Lounge on 402 West 54th Street, 7:30-9:00 p.m. It sounds like we’ll have a good-sized group in attendance, and the word on the street is that Disiac serves good sangria.

***

Affiliate Program (it’s still low-key, but lots of people are asking)

I’m really busy these days and haven’t been able to upgrade the Unconventional Guide affiliate program as much as I’d like to.

For now, the way I think about affiliate programs is as follows:

1) Most affiliate programs suck. They are not usually a good way to make money.

2) For an affiliate program to NOT suck, both the merchant/publisher and the affiliate have to be willing to change the rules of the game.

3) In effect, the merchant has to pay a decent commission (I pay 51%, on the principle that affiliates should make more than I do), and the affiliate has to provide some kind of value-add to stand out.

I want to improve this even further in the future, but it probably won’t be in the next 30 days since I’ll be traveling so much. In the meantime, if you want to join the program, feel free to email me and let me know how you’ll promote the guides. For the time being, I’m mostly looking for established web sites that have some experience in doing these things.

(This is not because I’m a snob; it’s because I want everyone in the program to actually be successful. I assure you that in the world of affiliate promotion, widespread success is unusual.)

I can’t promise much hand-holding at this point, but I’m happy to send out money on the first of every month like I do for 20 other active affiliates so far.

***

Pamela Slim in Portland, Friday the 26th

Lastly, my friend and book mentor Pamela Slim is coming to town later this week, right after I get back from the East Coast. Among other things, she’s doing a one-day workshop to help people plan their escape from traditional employment.

If you’re in Portland, this is definitely worth coming to. Check out all the details here:

Escape from Cubicle Nation - PDX Workshop

This is for all of you guys here in my city working in cubicle land and trying to escape. I give Pam’s work 4-stars, and if we’ve ever met, you’ll be happy to know that she is much better than me at explaining how to make the transition from corporate prisoner to free agent. Also, I’ll be there for the first half of the workshop, so if you’re coming, be sure and let me know so we can meet up too.

She’s even given me a deal for you guys – use the discount code “Chris” and you’ll get $30 off, the same as the early-bird price which has already expired. (In case you’re wondering, I don’t get paid to shill for Pam. I’d probably pay her if she asked, which would be an interesting business model.)

Wrap-Up

That’s it for me. Hope to see you NYC folks on Tuesday night, a few PDX folks on Friday, and then I’ll be off to see the rest of the world a week from today.

###

PDX-NYC Image by Mmm…Fiber

In this video update, I give my answer to a good question I recently received from a reader: how do you convince someone to change their mind?

My answer is, “You don’t.” At least, not easily.

Convincing someone to change their mind is like selling vacuum cleaners door-to-door. It’s not impossible, but why try? I think it’s better to recruit than to evangelize.

Although I definitely prefer recruitment (connecting with people who are predisposed to an idea) to evangelism (knocking on doors to sell vacuum cleaners), my answer isn’t the only answer. Feel free to share your thoughts and let me know if you’d answer it differently.

###

Did you enjoy this article? Please pass it on to others at StumbleUpon, or share your own thoughts in the comments section.

I spent most of last week in and around Park City, Utah on a family vacation. I usually run in Portland, Oregon, where the elevation is about 230 feet (70 meters) above sea level. In Park City, the elevation is about 7000 feet (2134 meters) above sea level.

Among other things, the altitude adjustment makes for one tired runner. I felt like I had picked up a pack-a-day smoking habit just before setting out to run a 10k.

Aside from the only near-death experience I’ve ever had while trying to run a few miles, Utah was fun. I’m back home now before picking up the travel pace in about a week. Coming soon: NYC, South America, Saudi Arabia, and so on.

But First, Let’s Talk About Sufficiency

Ever since I published 279 Days, where I wrote briefly about how much money I make, I’ve had a number of good conversations about personal income with people from all kinds of backgrounds. As I said in the manifesto, the challenge with talking about money in specific terms is that it’s entirely relative. I have friends who earn more than a million dollars a year and friends who are currently unemployed, earning virtually nothing. The more important discussion, I think, is to consider what money can be used for.

Some people assume that choosing to be content with a limited income naturally limits my choices as well. The perception seems to be that I have given up more income to obtain a more simple life. In some cases, this is true – I’ve made more money in the past than I do now, and I regularly choose to pass on opportunities to increase my income so that I can focus on building my writing career. However, as true as that is, it’s not really the whole story.

To get the whole story, I have to say honestly that I don’t feel limited at all. Most of the time, I do what I want with very few limits.

I like the fact that I can take off on Southwest Airlines to see my family without counting vacation days and arranging time away from a job. (I still work every day no matter where I am, but since I like my work, that’s OK.)

At the end of the month, I’m embarking on my biggest trip of 2009. The journey will take me to four continents over a couple of weeks. I don’t have an unlimited budget, and there will likely be some airport-floor-sleeping somewhere along the way, but that’s part of the whole experience. If I didn’t want to go, I wouldn’t.

It’s not just the big things. Small things are important, too:

• I pay all of my bills the day they arrive.
• I visit the great Chipotle several times a week, where they know my name and start making my vegetarian burrito before I order.
• I usually exercise before dinner, but if I want to I can go for a run or to the gym at any time during the day
• I go to the coffee shop every afternoon and the Waffle Window every Sunday.

I could go on and on, and in my own personal notes, I have gone on and on to a very detailed level – because it’s important to know what sufficiency means.

What Sufficiency Means to Me

First, here a few definitions, courtesy of my good friend Dictionary.com.

Sufficiency:

1 - a sufficient number or amount
2 - adequate provision or supply, esp. of wealth
3 - adequate means to live in modest comfort

As I see it, sufficiency simply means enough. It means having everything you need and not lacking for anything.

Right now, that’s exactly how I feel - I’m not getting rich, but I really do have everything I need. It’s a pretty good feeling. I also know that there have been other times in life when I’ve had more money but felt less secure about it. This tells me while money is an important part of the answer, I also know that sufficiency is not all about money.

Give Me neither Poverty nor Riches

Is sufficiency all about giving up opportunities to have a higher income? No, not really. I think it’s all about making deliberate choices. Here is the difference as I see it:

Would I accept more money if it fell down from the sky? Yes, of course. Free money is good. However, would I walk very far to pick it up? No, probably not.

I haven’t taken any vows of poverty, and I believe that making money is generally a good thing. It’s just that I’m more interested in thinking about what happens with the money.

I also don’t have any illusions about poverty, even the relative kind of poverty we have in North America. I’ve been relatively poor before, and while I never truly lacked for anything, there were definitely some limitations on my choices.

Right now, being neither rich nor poor feels like a good place to be. I probably couldn’t go out and buy a castle, but I’m not limited in the life experiences I value. (I also believe that if I really wanted my own castle, I’d GTD it out and find a way to get one.)

Sufficiency, Scarcity, and Abundance

It’s important to think about sufficiency because if you don’t know what it looks like for you, you can easily fall into scarcity. The thing with scarcity is that you operate under the principle that resources are limited and that we can never truly have enough. We’d better work as hard as we can to ensure that we don’t lose out to someone else.

This is the default mode of operation for most of us. The challenge is to be self-aware and rise above it.

For me, the most important principle of personal finance is self-awareness. The values of frugality and generosity are also important to me, but I don’t think either can be consistently practiced without first being self-aware. Both frugality and generosity have to be related to a deeper value of clearly understanding how we think about money.

To become self-aware, it helps to know exactly what sufficiency looks like for you. How much money do you really need to a) meet your basic obligations, and b) do the things you want to do?

Once you have that amount, you have the walk-away number. That’s the number with which you can comfortably walk away from any commitment that is incompatible with who you are and what you really want. You can start to focus on building a life more than building a bank account. You learn to value experiences (things you do) more than possessions (things you own).

***

One of the best feelings in the world comes from the awareness that everything will be okay. If you have that feeling, you know exactly what I mean.

If you don’t have it, it’s not that difficult to get to it. It just involves a shift in thinking, a desire for change, and the courage to be different. Like a lot of unconventional choices, not everyone will relate. Some people won’t get it at all, others will get it but be unable to let go of deeply-held beliefs about scarcity, and a few will embrace sufficiency and experience a life of purposeful adventure.

I know which group I want to be in.

###

Did you enjoy this article? Please pass it on to others at StumbleUpon, or share your own thoughts in the comments section.

Zion National Park Image by Alaskan Dude

Greetings from SLC airport in Salt Lake City, Utah. Some airports have rules about carry-ons; this airport requires passengers to bring at least five children with them for their flight. It’s been a good week, but I’ll be glad to get home.

***

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.

Writing

LIFE – I wrote about Building Influence to Gain Authority and Keeping It Real.

WORK – I wrote about Why People Hate Marketers, and The Secret Connection Between Art and Money.

TRAVEL – I wrote about Overland Travel from Guyana to Suriname, French Guiana and the $100 Question, My Unexpected Trip to the Cook Islands, and The Outsider’s Guide to the Cook Islands.

SITE AND STORE UPDATES - I wrote about Creating a Location Independent Business, and Home Again, Good Marketing, and the Waffle Window.

(P.S. Thanks to everyone who has been participating in the comments section. You guys are incredibly smart.)

Travel

I went on two personal trips - one short vacation with Jolie, and another for both of us to meet up with family here in Utah. Otherwise, I didn’t plan on going anywhere in May, but Air New Zealand called me up and asked if I could hop over to the Cook Islands for a few days. Sure, no problem. That was fun.

The Unconventional Guide to Art and Money

I launched my first new Unconventional Guide in several months. Art and Money is all about the link between making art and making money. How can artists make money without “selling out”? What separates financially successful artists from starving ones?

The project was created together with Zoë Westhof, a freelance writer and fellow non-conformist living her own unconventional life in Chiang Mai, Thailand.

The response from the artist community has been great - in fact, it’s even better than I expected. Zoë is working on interviewing other artists to add even more perspectives and resources to the guide, and both of us are glad that so many people have been enjoying it.

The Unconventional Writing Contest

I kicked off a writing contest last week with great prizes and the chance for the winner’s work to be featured here. A “Supreme Court” of volunteer judges will recommend a shortlist of finalists for my review.

The contest is open to all! Feel free to enter. I’ll post an update in another week or two, but keep in mind the deadline is Saturday, July 11.

What’s Coming Next

Travel – I’ll be in New York City on a working trip from June 22-24. NYC friends, I’m doing a joint meetup with Jonathan Fields on the evening of June 23rd (location TBD).

After that, I get ready to begin what I’m calling the “Monster Trip of 2009.” This trip will be my longest of the year and will take me to four continents and fully around the world. I hope to complete all of my South American countries, a couple of new spots in the Persian Gulf, and head over to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia before I head home.

Expect a full report with itinerary, cost breakdown, and adventures along the way. That kicks off on June 28th.

Small Business - I’m developing two more products with co-authors that are scheduled to launch sometime over the summer. I’ll tell you more when the time gets closer. Also, I’ll have an announcement about the Unconventional Guide affiliate program on one of the upcoming Sunday Store Updates.

Articles - This month I’ll write about the following topics, among others:

* All the Things You Don’t Need
* Around the World in Business Class for $1,000
* The Quest for Sufficiency
* Some of the People, All of the Time

I hope you enjoy my writing, and I always welcome your feedback.

Audience Participation

You can participate in the development of this project in several ways:

Leave a comment at the bottom of any article. Feel free to add to the discussion at any time, and include a link back to your own site if you have one. (Note that the link goes in the “web site” field, not the big text box where you write your comment.)

Join my newsletter announcement list or add me to your RSS reader.

Follow my real-time updates on Twitter. I regularly solicit input on the articles published here, as well as send out links to other people’s great content. A “Daily Ass-Kicking” is included at no additional charge.

Send other feedback. Use my contact form here to tell me what you think so far.

Tell your friends, or tell the world by submitting my articles to StumbleUpon or other social networking sites.

I appreciate the time you spend here. Don’t forget to change the world the way you think it needs to be changed.

-CG

Catch up on Previous Updates Here:

April 2009 (Dominican Republic)
April 2009 (Portland)
March 2009 (Portland)
January-February 2009 (Tokyo)
November-December 2008 (Seattle)
October 2008 (Seattle)
September 2008 (Seattle)
August 2008 (Seattle)
July 2008 (Karachi)
June 2008 (Amsterdam)
May 2008 (Vancouver)
April 2008 (Syria)
March 2008 (Los Angeles)
February 2008 (Seattle)

###

SLC Airport Image by FoshyDog

It’s here by popular demand! Today I’m opening a new writing contest to feature the unconventional ideas of other great people from our community.

The winning entries will be published on the site for all to see, and naturally I’ve got some (other) great prizes as well. Here are all the details.

The Background

People ask me every week about writing a guest post for AONC. I’ve never said yes, mostly because I want to be careful about managing the workload. Most bloggers I know who regularly work with guest writers say that editing the guest posts takes as much time as writing their own posts.

I have enough writing projects right now to know that I can’t become an editor, and I also don’t want to get into the messy (but necessary) role of saying yes to a few people and no to a lot of other people.

Therefore, I still won’t offer traditional guest posts here, but my hope is that the writing contest will allow a few more voices to be heard without my taking on a new job as editor.

How It Works

You write a short essay of 500-1200 words describing an unconventional life topic of your choice. A panel of anonymous judges (I’m calling them the Supreme Court) will review the entries and select a short list of finalists for my review. I’ll choose the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place winners. The winning essays will be posted on the site for all to see, and there will also be some great prizes.

Theme

Remember, this is an unconventional writing contest and the site is called the Art of Nonconformity – so you don’t really need a lot of instruction. Do what you want; just make it excellent.

However, if you’re stuck, think about these principles:

*Essays should be helpful in nature and seek to explore provocative issues. Don’t be boring.

*How have you or someone you know successfully challenged authority or overcome adversity?

*How can other people make unconventional choices? How can people overcome the fear of change?

*Highly practical, interesting lifestyle design content is also welcome.

(Again, those are guidelines, not rules. The Supreme Court will award the short list designation to the best possible essays based on content and original ideas. )

The Deadline

You have until Saturday, July 11th to submit your entry. Don’t wait too long!

How to Submit

Include your essay in the body of the email (not as an attachment!) and include the following info at the top:

1. Your Name
2. The Title of the Essay
3. Your Web Site (if you have one)
4. A Two-Sentence Biography

Send the info to this email address (the address is really long – blame Google).

Alternatively, if you already use Google Docs, you can also upload the file to your own account and then share it with aonc.contest@gmail.com. Either way works just fine.

The Exposure

I’ve never had a guest post here, so the winning contest entries will be the first ones published here in our 16-month history. The site is currently ranked in the top 10,000 blogs by Technorati and slowly inching towards the next 5k benchmark. For the past three months there have been more than one million pageviews each month.

After it’s posted, the winning essay will go into the AONC archives for all of eternity the foreseeable future. The posts will include a link back to the writer’s site, and I’ll also promote them through Twitter, LinkedIn, on billboards throughout each major city in North America, etc.*

*The billboards may not happen, but everything else will.

The Big Prize

I know that people would submit entries without a prize, but I also think that a great contest needs a great prize. Therefore I decided to “go big” and give away something that will have a real impact.

Grand Prize Winner: Complimentary Business-Class upgrade on any American Airlines flight.

If you’re going to fly on a U.S. airline, you might as well do so at the front of the plane. This upgrade is valid on any long-haul flight in the AA network, and can also be applied to domestic connections that get you to the hub where the long-haul flight originates from.

If you’re traveling between the U.S. and Europe, the U.S. and South America, or the U.S. and Asia (Tokyo and New Delhi) in either direction over the next year, this upgrade will help you arrive in style. Lounge access in any OneWorld airline lounge is also included, so you can hang out, drink free cocktails, and watch the planes go by in a quiet place before your flight.

Depending on how you use the upgrade, it’s worth anywhere from $500-2,000. I’ll also provide free travel optimizing services to the winner. [Click here to read more about AA's Business Class.]

(Alternative prize: If the winner has no current plans to travel, I’ll give them 25,000 Frequent Flyer Miles on American, Air Canada, Delta, or United, which they can use for a round-trip domestic ticket anytime in the next two years. If the winner lives outside of the U.S. or Canada, no problem - we can use the miles to book a codeshare flight on British Airways, Cathay Pacific, Qantas, or almost any major airline.)

The Grand Prize Winner will also receive:

The “I Want it All” combo pack that contains the complete versions of all the Unconventional Guides. This currently sells for $197.

The Combo Pack includes Working for Yourself, Art and Money, Travel Ninja, and Discount Airfare.

***

A new journal from Piccadilly Journal. This moleskine-alternative is what I’ve been using recently. It’s better than moleskine and half the price, which makes my life easier since I’m paying for the prizes.

I do most of my writing with pen and paper before transferring it to a computer. Even if you don’t operate the same way, these notebooks are fun for journaling, to-do lists, or looking cool in the coffee shop.

Props and respect from the universe. You’ll get the table by the window wherever you go, and the only tradeoff will be all the autograph seekers. (Value: Immeasurable. You’ll be famous! Sort of.)

***

Second Prize Winner: *The “I Want it All” combo pack that contains the complete versions of all the Unconventional Guides.

Third Prize Winner: A free copy of the complete version of any one Unconventional Guide (winner’s choice).

The Fine Print

1. Your essay must be completely original. This means it can not have been published elsewhere, including on your blog.

2. If your essay is selected as one of the winners, you grant AONC non-exclusive rights to publish it. All winning essays will be edited prior to publication.

3. If your essay is not chosen as one of the winners, the rights will return to you and you can post it on your blog or send it somewhere else.

4. Winners are responsible for any taxes associated with a prize.

5. A note to American Airlines employees - I verified my ability to offer the Grand Prize upgrade as a gift for the winner through the Executive Platinum desk earlier this week. The upgrade can not be transferred further. If you have any questions, please contact me at the phone number listed in my profile.

Wrap-Up

My goal with the contest is to add quality ideas and content to the site by promoting original voices. I’m looking forward to what some of you have to say!

Oh, one more thing - if you have any questions, please post them in the comments section here. To be fair to everyone else, I probably shouldn’t offer specific feedback by email. For the same reason, I won’t review entries prior to submission. Just make it excellent and you’ll stand out.

What do you think — are you in?

###

Did you enjoy this article? Please pass it on to others at StumbleUpon, or share your own thoughts in the comments section.

‘Letter Writer’ Image by RitaB