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Motivation and Product Launches

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For a few months I used this image as my laptop background. Why do you do the things you do? is always a good question to ask yourself, whether in business or in life. This is the Sunday Store Update, where I write about the business side of AONC. Earlier this week I had the quietest product launch in world AONC history. A few weeks beforehand, we took over the internet with a barrage of announcements and reviews for the Empire Building Kit.


Free Advice

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Free advice is often worth less than the price. Much of the time, you already know what you need to do about something—you just need to do it.

Nevertheless, I hear a lot of things being repeated, and I get asked a lot of the same questions... so here's my less-than-$0.02 for anyone who cares. As the saying goes, take it or leave it.


Empire Building Kit: Take III

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Two months ago, the Empire Building Kit launched out into the world. Thirty days later, we did it again, in one crazy launch with 30+ partners. Today, it's going out again -- once and for all. As of today, the EBK will be permanently available on UnconventionalGuides.com. Empire building for everyone! Yay.


Fear and Permission

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When you speak at a Carnegie Mellon University event with Fearless as the theme, you've got a couple things to consider. One: it's TedX! It's Carnegie Mellon! Yikes. Intimidating audience of extremely smart people with high expectations. But two: since the event is about overcoming fear, no one will be surprised when you admit to your own fears ...


Revenge of Empire Building – The Final Saga

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Greetings, friends and readers.

I made it back to America after the latest Round-the-World journey. People sometimes ask how jet lag affects me as I roam from continent to continent. Here's the general rule, Twitter-style:

Jet lag day 1 = zzzz. Day 2 = worst day! Day 3 = don't fall asleep! Day 4 = almost normal.


Transitions

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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.


The Final Fifty

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Greetings from Terminal 1 in Singapore's Changi Airport—or perhaps HKG, or NRT, or en route to LAX depending on when you read this. I'm on the way home from my latest global adventure. A long time ago—five years, to be precise—I had an idea to visit every country in the world. I like travel, I like big goals. Smash the two together and you get: 192 official countries, plus a bunch of other places.

Defeated by Belarus Again + Early Retirement

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Twice in the past two months I've tried to make it to Belarus, and twice I've failed. The first time I was volcanoed, stuck in Vancouver and unable to fly to Europe. This time, I was stuck in Zurich, shut out by a Kafkaesque visa system that denied me entry one day before I was supposed to arrive ...


Good Writing Tips

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I don't claim to be an expert, but I've been writing 1,000 words a day almost every day for the past 120 weeks. That's the most important tip of all—to be a writer, start writing. You'll figure out a lot of things along the way.

But for all of you overachievers out there, here are some other ideas that may help.


Equatorial Guinea on $508 a Day

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A few people asked me to say more about the high cost of visiting Equatorial Guinea. Yes, a basic hotel room really does cost $400-500 a night, and sometimes much more. There are no hostels with merry young backpackers hanging out at the beer garden, and no home exchange vacationers looking to trade housing from an offshore oil center with an apartment in a hipster neighborhood in Portland, Oregon ...


High Points, Low Points, and the Perfect Trip

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Greetings from the open road. I'm in what I call real Africa all week, having fun exploring two new countries.

Condé Nast Traveler publishes a feature called “The Perfect Trip Every Time.” It's a good headline, but I wonder about the subtext: is it really possible to have a perfect trip where nothing goes wrong? I take at least twelve overseas trips a year, and none of them are ever perfect ...