Chris Guillebeau's Blog, page 80
October 16, 2014
6 Discoveries From Near and Far: Volume XV
I. Around the World
Things I found on long walks in foreign cities, or perhaps when someone posted them on Twitter.
How Benny Hsu Profited $100k Online In Just Five Months — A case study of how a serial experimenter made $101,971.36 in less than one year by designing t-shirts
8 Ways to Visualize Your To-Do List — From whiteboards to priority brackets, there’s more than one way to think through your day
Who Drew the Rooster on the Siracha Bottle? — The case of the missing logo designer
The Downside...
20,000 Miles & Countless Life Lessons: Tom Allen’s Global Adventure
This is a quest case study. ( Read others or nominate yourself . )
More than two years ago, I met Tom Allen in California when I was on tour for The $100 Startup. He’d just finished a big tour of his own, and had a project he was working on: the screening of an all-new documentary about an extended journey.
Tom and I have kept in touch since then, and I used his story as one of the central case studies in The Happiness of Pursuit.
Tell us about yourself:
I’m Tom. Since 2007, I’ve been leaving home...
October 15, 2014
“Maybe you didn’t need that treasure after all”
Once you go down the road of adventure, you don’t always know where you’ll end up. This video of a cartoon quest made me smile.
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The Happiness of Pursuit
My new book, The Happiness of Pursuit, tells the story of my journey to every country in the world, along with the stories of dozens of other people who've undertaken quests and adventures of all kinds. Now a New York Times Bestseller!
Lissa Rankin on Finding the Quest
When I was writing my new book, I received a detailed note from longtime friend Lissa Rankin. She gave me some advice that stayed with me throughout the writing process, and I’m including it here with her permission.
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I am assuming that your book will include some of your personal story—your own quest—and I assume that you are in some way suggesting that our lives are better if we’re on some sort of quest—that this is the value proposition for the book. I assume this book is suggesting that...
October 14, 2014
Can You Get More Than One Chase Ink Card?
Link: 70,000 Point Bonus for Ink Plus
After a false alarm last week when we thought the latest mega-bonus would end, we learned that it was actually extended for at least another few days. There’s still time to take advantage of 20,000 extra points!
A number of aspiring travel hackers asked if they could get this small business card if they didn’t own a business. The answer is yes, probably—and I wrote a whole post on it last week.
Since that post I received a couple of other questions, specif...
The Trans-Americas Journey: On the Road with Karen Catchpole & Eric Mohl
This is a traveler case study. ( Read others or nominate yourself . )
Seeing the world means different things to different people. For Karen Catchpole and Eric Mohl, it means taking a deep dive roadtrip throughthe Americas, from top to bottom. After over seven years and 150,000 miles, they still have most of South America to drive through.
Tell us about yourselves.
We’re a traveling couple. Between us we have more than 25 years of travel experience through Asia and Europe, and most of it we’ve don...
October 13, 2014
Lessons from the Journey: “It Feels Good to Check Things Off a List”
From my own 193-country journey to the stories of many other people who were kindly willing to share, The Happiness of Pursuit attempts to extract and convey the lessons of modern-day quests. This series explores some of these lessons.
Lesson: We are motivated by progress and achievement. It feels good to check things off.
Lists are both fun and motivational. We enjoy breaking things down step-by-step and incrementally conquering big challenges.
In 1994, 16-year-old Kristen Goldberg made her fir...
October 12, 2014
Mini City Guide: Dublin, Ireland
I love big cities, and always enjoy returning to Hong Kong, New York, and Sydney—among many others. But what about those unknown gems that are off the beaten tourist path… those obscure places that are just waiting to be explored by real travelers?
Our new “Mini City Guides” are here to uncover those gems, and we’re looking to our favorite explorers—AONC readers—to give us the inside scoop.
Nominate your favorite obscure destination. The destination this week, nominated by reader Harry Guinness...
Framing Decisions in the Context of Future Regret
The “Will I regret it in the future?” mindset can be very helpful in making decisions.
From a New York Times article on protests in Hong Kong:
“I’m not sure if this protest will really affect the decision by China, but I’m sure if I don’t come I will regret it in the future,” said Cathy Lee, a 21-year-old criminology student at City University. “I have to join this protest in order to fight for democracy in Hong Kong.”
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October 11, 2014
When Writing, Ask Yourself: “Why Would Anyone Want to Read this?”
From David Mitchell, the author of Cloud Atlas and The Bone Clocks:
“One of the questions I always try to keep in the front of my mind is to ask why would anyone want to read this, and to try to find a positive answer for that. People’s time, if you bought it off them, is expensive. Someone’s going to give you eight or ten hours of their life. I want to give them something back, and I want it to be an enjoyable experience.”
Link: Soul Cycle
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