Hey everyone, the SIDE HUSTLE book is out!
"We'll have to repent in this generation not merely for hateful words and actions of bad people, but for appalling silence of good people.” Martin Luther King, Jr.I’ve been traveling this week but also seeing the news from home. I’m not sure I have much of substance to what’s already been said. I just want to affirm the obvious: perhaps America has received the leader we deserved, not the one who was competent, but that doesn’t mean the good people of our country should go down without a fight. I don’t support this administration and I wish I'd done more to stop it. To those like me with all the privilege in the world, try to consider how you’d feel without it. And if it’s impossible to have that kind of empathy, at least acknowledge your privilege. It's a start. Read More
Last week I hosted WDS 2017, our seventh annual gathering of awesome people in Portland, Oregon. This year we focused on the theme of “Building a Better World.” The intention is to encourage and empower everyone to take action that helps others. We can’t solve every problem in the world, but that doesn’t mean we should hold back from helping.
The event unfolds in a few different settings:
One time I went to Dubai for my honeymoon, except it wasn’t really my honeymoon. I was traveling with Stephanie, my longtime friend, travel hacking colleague, and frequent travel companion. Even though she is basically a member of my family, Stephanie and I aren’t partners in the romantic sense—which occasionally leads to humorous encounters when we travel.
For some reason, our hotel in Dubai had gotten the idea that it was our honeymoon. When they assigned us a luxury three-bedroom apartment as our room, we may have failed to correct their impression. We did, however, express our gratitude for the free champagne they also gave us. Read More
On September 19th, my new book, Side Hustle, will launch—and I can't wait to share it with you!
After much debate, here's the cover, as selected by a panel of readers who had a lot of strong opinions. 😃
The book builds on the lessons of my daily podcast, Side Hustle School, and presents a step-by-step, 27-day plan to help you create a new source of income without quitting your day job.
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As mentioned a few days ago, WDS 2017 is sold out, but you can still register for Academies. These are half-day workshops on a variety of topics, ranging from productivity to wellness and everything in between.
We've noticed that Academies are one of the most popular parts of the WDS experience. You'll learn new skills and make new friends. Oh, and if you're traveling in just for Academies, you won't be the only one—every year there are a lot of folks who make the trek. --> Check out the lineup and join us in Portland next month! Whether you're part of WDS or not, here are two other events you should consider attending. Read More
In January of this year, I heard from Emily Rudow in Toronto. Emily had just finished running 10k (6.1 miles) every day for 31 consecutive days. I thought that was pretty cool!
But it turns out she was just getting started. Emily is now undertaking a much bigger quest: to set a Guinness World Record by running a half-marathon for more consecutive days than anyone else. Read More
"What do you want to be when you grow up?"
Have you ever wished that you could decode people? Do you want a formula for charisma? Do you want to know exactly what to say to your boss, your date or your networking partner? You need to know how people work.
As a human behavior investigator, Vanessa Van Edwards believes that people skills should never be considered "optional." Over the past decade, she's studied the hidden forces that drive our behavior patterns in her lab, the Science of People, and she's developed shortcuts, formulas, and blueprints for getting along with absolutely anyone you may encounter.
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What should we do about the world falling apart? You know—the rise in hate crime, marked partisanship, loss of democracy, weakened institutions, and so on?
Yeah. It's tough. Let me know when you figure it out. In the meantime, I've been following a crowdfunding campaign for a product I really like. Check out the video to see what it's all about: Read More
Link: Freedom Calculator
Will you be ready to retire when the time comes? To some of us, it sounds like the beginning to an ad, or a question from another era. Personally, I don’t care much about the idea of retirement. I believe in finding meaningful work that you’re excited about! Why would you stop doing something you look forward to every day? Read More
I used to read the news every day—a lot of news, from a lot of different sources. But after the election, quite frankly, reading the news made me depressed. I went on a media fast and put my head in the sand, largely out of shock and dismay but also for general self-preservation.
As time went by, I struggled a bit with this position. I definitely felt better in not knowing which particular racist or anti-science person was being appointed to various positions of high influence on any given day. And all of a sudden, I had a lot more time! Still, I didn’t want to be completely uninformed, especially in the midst of our country’s institutions being torn to shreds. Read More
“Everything worth doing takes time. You have to write a hundred bad songs before you write one good one. And you have to sacrifice a lot of things that you might not be prepared for. Like it or not, you are in this alone and have to follow your own star.”Read More
Link: The Earth Awaits
If you could live anywhere, where would it be? Oh wait... most of us can live just about anywhere.
Sure, you might not be able to pack up and leave tomorrow (or maybe you could), but with enough resourcefulness, with the right passport it’s not that hard to leave your home country and establish a new life elsewhere. Many readers have done it.
A new free site called The Earth Awaits offers to help you kick the planning into another gear. You tell it which factors are important to you, and it gives you customized recommendations.
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If you've read my blog for any amount of time, you've probably heard me mention Jonathan Fields. He's been a good friend of many years and we've been part of many events together, from speaking at SXSW in Austin to all six (!) WDS's from 2011-2016 in Portland. I've probably learned more from him than anyone else in the world of publishing and community building—and I know a lot of people!
His new book is out today, and it's great. Instead of asking for his life story or what we can learn in this book, I wanted to ask him three simple questions: why this message, why this book, and why now?
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