Chris Guillebeau's Blog, page 18

Limited Time: Born for This Is Just $1.99 from Major Booksellers

Link: Get Born For This for $1.99

I just heard from my publisher that they’re running a promotion to discount the digital version of Born for This to just $1.99. The book has never been discounted before, and it won’t be repeated anytime in 2017 (and maybe not after that).

Order from Amazon Order from Barnes & Noble Order from iBooks

This is the most personal book I’ve written, but it’s not really about me—it’s about how to find the work you were meant to do.

Here’s a video featuring...

Advice for Students and Jobseekers: When Experience Comes Your Way, Take It

“Whatever hands-on experience you can get, take it, and take more than you think you can handle. Don’t limit your writing experience to the typical classroom workshop environment, where egos can be fragile and stakes are low.”

In this advice, Jane Friedman is specifically referring to undergrad students who are pursuing a creative writing degree. It’s good advice for them, and there’s more from her here.

I think this lesson applies to beginning careers of all kinds: When you’re starting...

Brand New: Get 50,000 Southwest Airlines Points with the Just-Announced “Plus” Card

Link: 50,000 Rapid Rewards Points (Brand New Offer)

Out of the blue—we just heard yesterday—Southwest Airlines has introduced an all-new awards card, the Southwest Airlines Plus.

This card offers a a 50,000 point bonus after a low $2,000 minimum spend. Southwest also promises that these points will count toward Southwest’s always-popular Companion Pass, where you can take the companion of your choice with you on every trip for an entire year.

This is the first big travel hacker offer of th...

How an Investment Banker Quit Her Job to Travel the World Solo

This is a reader profile. (Read others or nominate someone to be featured.)

Kristin Addis seemingly had it all: lucrative banking job in sunny Southern California, and all the things that go with that life. Yet something was missing. The money and apparent professional success weren’t as fulfilling as they were supposed to be. So she saved up some money, quit her job, and bought a one-way ticket out of the country.

Here’s her story:

My name is Kristin, I’m a travel blogger and Instagrammer,...

Announcing SIDE HUSTLE SCHOOL: A Daily Project for 2017

Hey everyone!

Short version: I’m starting a daily podcast called Side Hustle School. It’s for everyone who wants to create a new source of income without quitting their day job. It will be published, well, every single day in 2017.

Subscribe in iTunes Get daily emails Suggest a city for a new workshop series

I’ve been working on this for a long time and it will be my #1 project in 2017. I’d love for you to be part of it—and if you’re not interested yourself, I’d be grateful if you’d tell...

Instead of Manufacturing Hype, Just Start Doing Great Work

I got a call to do some filming for a marketing agency in Los Angeles. I had the date open and it sounded interesting, so I decided to go. The filming took place in a Beverly Hills mansion, probably the largest single-person home I’ve ever been in. On the way in I waved awkwardly to the car valet who was hosing down a Porsche, then said hello to the personal chef chopping vegetables in the kitchen.

All over the studio, which looked vaguely like what I’d imagine a porn set to resemble, there...

2016 Annual Review: Let’s Look Forward to Big New Things!

In this (very abbreviated) Annual Review series…

Decide Now How You’ll Evaluate Yourself Next Year Why I’ve Resisted My Annual Review for the First Time in 10 Years

I’ve never really had writer’s block. I think it was Seth Godin who said something about how writing is the only profession where it’s acceptable to stop working because you can’t be “creative.” There’s no such thing as nurse’s block, for example.

But … for much longer than usual, I didn’t know what to say about my review this...

Ultimate 30 Day Challenge: One Man’s Quest to Eat and Train Like Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson

This is a reader story. ( Read others or nominate a friend or yourself .)

One of the best things about embarking on a quest is that it helps you create new habits and change your routine. Sometimes, it even forces you into a new routine. For 30 days, Mark Webster went from “ordinary tech guy” to “following in The Rock’s fitness regime guy.”

Here’s Mark’s story:

At the end of 2015, I read Jesse Itzler’s Living with a Seal. Itzler wrote: “I felt like I was drifting on autopilot in my life. Wake...

Looking Back on 2016 (All in One Post!)

I mentioned that I felt some resistance to this year’s review, so I ended up doing it differently. Not surprisingly, some things will be different about my recap process as well.

The biggest difference is that I’m pretty much entirely focused on the future at this point. I call it the review, but it’s much more of a forward-looking, goal-setting practice. I typically spend one day looking back and the rest planning ahead.

This time I didn’t even look back at all. It wasn’t until I started w...

Why I’ve Resisted My Annual Review for the First Time in 10 Years

For the past 11 (!) years, I’ve spent the majority of a week in December thinking about my life and planning a series of goals for the following year.

As I’ve said before, I can trace whatever success I’ve had to instituting and diligently following this practice. It’s helped me write books, travel to every country in the world, start various businesses, produce events for thousands of people, and so on. After feeling that my life wasn’t well-aligned, I recently added more categories focus...