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Life

Developing Your Own Philosophy of Travel

travel-philosophy
Image by Kurlvink

We all travel with expectations that may or may not be met when our imagination of a place meets the reality of actually being there. Traveling in Pakistan one week and Brunei the next, for example, I found my expectations upended.

Before going to both places, I expected that Karachi (Pakistan) would be a fairly rough place. The plan was to lie low for a couple of days, visit the market and mosque, maybe talk with a few people – nothing major. I do get tired fairly often while traveling, especially when I’m going between continents and to hot climates my body isn’t used to.

I figured I would “tough it out” in Pakistan and be rewarded with a few days in Brunei, a sleepy, oil-rich sultanate. Brunei was to be my last real stop on this trip before heading back to the States via Singapore and Tokyo.

If you expect to learn that my imagination did not match up to reality, you’re right: I greatly enjoyed my time in Karachi and found it quite relaxing (in an odd way), and I struggled with my weekend stay in Brunei.

Here’s why:

Getting to Pakistan was quite an adventure, mostly because I was unable to obtain a visa in advance, and they do not (usually) offer any visas upon arrival. That one was a real drama for a while, but after it was resolved, everything was smooth sailing. I could afford to eat whatever I wanted there, public transport was easy and cheap, I had good wi-fi access, and importantly, I felt completely safe for the whole visit.

After I went to Pakistan, I took off for Brunei, a small Islamic sultanate located on Borneo in Southeast Asia. Here’s a map, since not everyone knows where that is:

Map of Brunei in Borneo (Southeast Asia)

Part of the reason that Westerners don’t know much about Brunei is because it’s a small country. Another part of the reason is because, to be perfectly honest, there’s not a whole lot to do there for the average visitor.

During my weekend there, I naturally went walking, and naturally spent a morning at the local coffee shop. Picking up the local newspaper, this was the main story:

Imams Urge Decent Behavior: “Social ills and negative elements like intoxicating drinks, wearing indecent clothing, smoking and so on which are against the religion and culture [and] can be shielded by a knowledge of the religion,” imams said Friday.

A few other short headlines:

  • Prize Presentation for 10-Pin Bowling Competition
  • Police Recruits to Uphold Discipline
  • Racers All Set for Brunei Go-Kart Challenge
  • Fun Quizzes and Poetry Recitals to Be Held at Convention Center

(I thought some of those could probably come straight from The Onion… but this was actually a real newspaper. It gives you an accurate reflection of how sleepy Brunei is.)

The coffee shop featured a free magazine rack, but when I looked more closely, I discovered a McCall’s magazine from October 1999. Seriously, 1999 – nine years ago. I don’t always expect the latest Economist, but nine years is a long time in the life of a magazine.

Because of the country's vast oil wealth, Brunei is also pretty expensive. I quickly discovered I couldn’t afford much of anything, including food anywhere other than the coffee shop. By contrast, in Pakistan I could pay for breakfast – or any meal I wanted – in the nice hotel.

Before we go any further, I should provide the Obligatory Disclaimer: I’m not saying Brunei’s a bad place; I’m just saying that other than the entertaining newspapers, it didn’t really have anything that was appealing to me. If you live there or have visited and have a different impression, that’s great.

Your Mileage May Vary

None of my friends travel the way I do – and almost none of them travel the same way as anyone else. We all have different styles of travel, different things we enjoy, and different goals for our trips.

I’m pretty open-minded about all of this. There’s just one thing I don’t like to hear:

“You’re doing it wrong.”

That one bothers me. My view is that as long as your actions don’t hurt someone else (the basic “do no harm” principle), then it is up to you to figure out what you enjoy and appreciate about travel.

If someone tells you, “You’re doing it wrong,” you don’t have to listen to them. Maybe they’re doing it wrong, or more likely, they have not yet learned that people can do things differently without being wrong.

For example:

The people at Indie Travel Podcast are all about, well, independent travel. Their audience is mostly students (U.S., Canada, and U.K. primarily) and younger, adventure travel types.

I also read First Class Flyer every month to learn about strategies for upgrades and premium flights. Matt, the publisher, has a completely different audience than your average casual traveler.

There are people on FlyerTalk who fly all over the world and never leave the airport – they just enjoy flying. I like flying too, but not that much – I do like to get out and about for a while before getting on another plane.

These are just a few ends of the spectrum -- if you think about it, you can probably think of lots of other ways to travel.

What Is Culture?

For a while, I felt guilty if I went to a new place and didn’t “experience local culture” according to the way some people think you should.

I remember when I went to Tunisia in the late spring. Thanks to a friend’s help, I was able to spend a whole weekend with a host family. One of the highlights, believe it or not, was going to the grocery store on Sunday morning with them.

Some people might feel it is more important to visit the historical sites of Tunisia (there are many) rather than hang out at the grocery store, and they usually use the culture word to make their case. I enjoyed seeing a few of the sites, but I enjoyed my time with my host family even more.

To people who wonder about this, I ask, "What do you think people who live in Tunisia do all the time?" Well, among other things, they go to the grocery store. They watch TV. They live their lives.

Creating a philosophy of travel that works for you goes back to the two questions I wrote about a while back –

  • What do you really want?
  • What can you give?

Your individual answers to these questions can affect what you enjoy about travel, and if you spend some time on it, you can develop your own travel philosophy that is unique to you.

A Little of Everything

As for me, I kind of like to do it all. I’ve flown in Virgin Atlantic’s amazing Upper Class cabin and stayed in countless $10-a-night hostels. Using my Starwood points, sometimes I’ve been fortunate to stay in great hotels that otherwise cost hundreds of dollars a night… and then I check out after a day or two to move across town to a cheap guesthouse. I know most people would probably stay more at one end or another, but for me, I’m comfortable with both.

When I went down to El Salvador on the first part of my trip this week, I enjoyed the ironic fact that the taxi from the airport ($25) cost more than my room at the Hotel Happy House ($23). And by the way, there wasn’t a whole lot happening at the Hotel Happy House, but it had a nice vibe. If you head that direction, it’s not a bad place to stay for a couple of days.

Oh, and earlier this week, I slept on the floor of the Dallas airport. At least I tried to sleep for a few hours in between landing close to midnight and boarding the next flight at 5:30 a.m. It was pretty much as you’d expect – not a great experience, but it’s over now. No big deal.

The point is, I like mixing it up. That’s my style.

I stay in most places longer than the average jet-setter, but shorter than the average backpacker. Over the past few months, I’ve made some adjustments in my preferred travel style to allow me to visit more countries, especially the difficult ones like Iraq, Mongolia, and Pakistan.

I think of this as more of a lifestyle design issue – the goal of visiting every country is really important to me, so I've chosen to focus on it and occasionally push myself harder than I’d otherwise prefer.

Now I’m off to the Middle East and Persian Gulf again. I’ll be in Cairo most of next week, and I just realized that Ramadan is currently being observed. I’ve been in the region several times, but never during Ramadan... so I'm excited to experience it firsthand.

But anyway, that’s me…

The point is, I am resistant to people who try to put an agenda on the way other people live their lives, including their own preferences or styles of travel.

And really, life is short, right? Rather than do it someone else’s way, isn’t it better to figure out what matters to you and then pursue that goal?

What do you think -- and how do you like to travel?

###

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Products

The Unconventional Guide to Sleeping in the Dallas Airport

sleeping-in-DFW-airport
Image by nibag

Today’s (short) update comes to you live from DFW, also known as the Dallas-Ft. Worth International Airport. Last night I slept on the floor here after flying in from Seattle prior to a 6am connection this morning.

There’s not a whole lot to say about sleeping on the airport floor, at least in Dallas. Anyway, it’s over, and now I’m flying to Miami and beyond. At the moment I’m posting this, it’s 5:12 a.m. local time, and we’re boarding in 10 minutes. Eventually I’ll get to Cairo and tell you all about that.

But first, I have an important question for you.

In early October, I’m going to launch the next Unconventional Guide. It won’t actually be about sleeping on the floor of the airport – as mentioned, that would be a pretty short guide – but instead, it will be all about money and freedom.

Specifically, I’m writing an extended series of strategies and tactics about Earning Money Without a Job. So far I’m up to 45 pages, so I need to wrap it up soon… but I’m also going to include a series of audio teachings to complement the written materials.

Over the next week I’ll be outlining those audio segments, and I thought I’d ask you this important question:

What do you want to know about earning money without a job?

On any given day, we have a broad readership over here. Some people are already successful entrepreneurs, some people are in the process of starting something for themselves, and others aren’t really interested in that at all.

But for all those differences, a key similarity is that most people, at least those who have sent feedback somewhere along the way, are interested in freedom. For me, having the freedom to set my own schedule and focus on the things I enjoy is by far the greatest benefit of working on my own. As any self-employed person can attest, it's not always easy, but I think it's safe to say that it's always worth it.

I’ll tell you more about the guide in a couple weeks, but one thing I want to make clear is that creating a small, online business is not especially difficult. There are a lot of people doing this who aren't necessarily smarter than any of the rest of us.

HOWEVER...

It does require a fair amount of work. If there is a 10-minute secret to wealth creation, I haven’t discovered it yet. I know this project won’t be for everyone, but I do want everyone to know that creating a life of freedom is not an instant process.

***

If you'd like to contribute, please let me know any or all of the following:

1) Do you have any specific questions about starting an online business?

2) If you currently work at a “real job,” what is confusing to you about people who work for themselves?

3) If you currently work for yourself (in some form or fashion), what were the biggest challenges to getting your cash flow going?

Finally, if you think of anything else that is relevant, send that along too.

***

You can comment below and I’ll consider using your question or general feedback in the audio materials. RSS and Newsletter folks, that means you have to click through to the site.

(Note that I’m traveling today, so if comments aren’t posted right away, that’s why. They should be up within 24 hours.)

Alternatively, if you don’t want to comment on the site (less than 1% of readers do, but everyone is welcome), then write me from the contact form.

OK, I’m out of time – AA 925 is boarding right now. See you on Friday.

###

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Trip Reports

Next Stop: Land of the Sphinx


Image by Chris Chan
After a month at home, I’m leaving this afternoon on my final “big trip” of 2008 – I’m headed to Egypt, Qatar, and Sri Lanka over the next couple of weeks. This trip is part of my OneWorld Round-the-World ticket, so to get there, I have a bit of a circuitous route. I’ll stop off in Miami and Central America on the way, and return through Hong Kong and JFK. I’ll be back in the U.S. the last week of September, but of course I’ll be posting according to the usual schedule while I’m on the road. A couple of things you can help with, if you want: *Literary Agent. After a couple of false starts, I’m still seeking a fantastic, A-list literary agent to represent me for my first book. At least 10 friends have referred me to various people so far, but this is a tough business and I am still unrepresented. If you know someone who has relationships with major publishers and you feel comfortable connecting us, please let me know. *I don’t really understand LinkedIn very well, but I’m on there now. Add me as your connection (I am firstname.lastname@gmail.com) if you’d like, and I’ll add you back whenever I catch up on email. That’s it for now. Oh, and feel free to share the writing on StumbleUpon, Facebook, etc. About 20% of my traffic comes from those sources, and I appreciate your referrals. See you from Cairo! (But first, sleeping on the floor of the Dallas airport, running walking a half-marathon in Miami Beach, a swing through El Salvador, and a connection in Madrid. It’s going to be fun.) ###

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Life

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Swimming from Regrets


Image by NTMatt

The other day I was walking around the neighborhood and suddenly realized I had a big regret: for nearly two years, I had the chance to learn how to swim, and I kept putting it off. Now, my chance was gone, and I wished I could get it back.

Technically, I know how to swim. If you threw me in the water, I wouldn’t drown. I just mean that I’m a terrible lap swimmer. To recover from running injuries, I’ve sometimes added a weekly swim to my workout routine, but I’ve never enjoyed it. I’ve always known that a big part of my lack of enthusiasm comes from lack of knowledge, but I’ve never done anything about it.

Every academic quarter for the past two years, I thought about signing up for an intermediate swimming class, where I’d finally learn to breath better and correct a lot of my improvised (read: flawed) technique. But every quarter, something always came up.

A couple of times there was a schedule conflict. Once, the class filled up too quickly. Sometimes I didn’t realize when the deadline was, and by the time I thought of it again, it was too late. All good reasons (well, except for forgetting about it), but I believe that we make time for what’s important to us.

If it was important to me to become a better swimmer, I could have found a way to take the class.

But now, it’s too late. I’ve finished my graduate program and no longer have access to the nice university classes and the awesome student athletic center. I do pushups at home and run outside at least four times a week, so I’m keeping fit… but there’s no other Olympic-sized pool and amazing gym nearby.

It’s kind of sad. One of my most important values is to live life with no regrets, and while walking around my neighborhood the other day, I realized I had let one slip past me. I had let myself down; I saw it clearly this week, but I missed it when it counted.

***

I’m making a 5-minute internet movie that I’ll share with you when it’s done, but for now, the theme has to do with Time and Money. Another thing I believe is that in most cases, with most regrets we have, there is still enough time to do something about it.

We can’t change the past, and we might not be able to do exactly what we should have done a long time ago – I probably can’t take the University of Washington class, since I’m not a student anymore – but there’s often an alternative.

Sitting down on the curb outside my apartment, I composed this list of alternatives for my own situation:

  • There are two community pools within three miles of my apartment. They might not be awesome, but since I’m basically learning how to really swim for the first time, it shouldn’t matter that much.

  • There are YMCA classes I can take. Again, they’re probably not the same style as the university classes – but I’m a low-intermediate swimmer, not the next Michael Phelps.

  • Tim Ferris recently wrote about the Total Immersion method. His swimming story sounds identical to mine – he tried over and over on his own, but never got into it. This DVD helped him, so maybe I’ll check it out.

  • In his running/writing memoir, Haruki Murakami mentioned that he hired a private swim coach to help him improve the skill. A “private swim coach” sounds expensive at first glance, but I just need a couple of 30-minute lessons. That shouldn’t be too much, and if I’ve been putting this off for two years, it’s probably a good investment.

I’m not 100% sure which of these alternatives I’ll go with… but I will do something about my regret. I know that if I don’t at least try, I’ll always feel another twinge of regret whenever I hear someone talk about swimming.

If there’s anything I don’t want, it’s a life of regrets. That’s why I started writing on this site, that’s why I travel, that’s why I do anything I can to avoid working a real job, and on and on. It’s not to say that anyone who makes different choices will regret them. But for me, I would not be content if I didn’t do these things.

Living life to the fullest while helping others is what it’s all about.

Some might view my failure to take swimming lessons as a small regret compared to what they consider to be more major life failures. In a way, it’s true – if my biggest regret right now is not learning to swim, I suppose I'm doing OK.

But on the other hand, small is not the same thing as inconsequential. When it comes to regrets, that old saying about how if you don’t deal with the small things, you’ll end up making bigger mistakes was in my mind as I thought about this. I’m not sure if it's completely true or not, but I don’t want to risk it.

Life is too short to miss out on learning and the living. We’ve got art to create, businesses to grow, worlds to conquer. And as for me, I’ve got some swimming lessons to go to.

My question for you is:

Do you want to live with no regrets? How’s that going?

###

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Personal Development

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Productivity and Vacations

productivity-and-vacations
Image by deqalb

Have you ever gone on a vacation only to come back feeling more tired than before you left? It’s not a good feeling to need a vacation from the vacation, but many of us have experienced that kind of let-down.

The secret to overcoming this feeling is planning some good, productive blocks of “work time” into your restful vacation.

No, I am not a workaholic. The key difference is that the work you do on vacation needs to be the kind of work that brings you energy… not the kind of work that tethers you to your cell phone or PDA.

While people not interested in lifestyle design may not appreciate this idea, I suspect that many AONC readers will not find the combination of vacations and productivity to be strange at all. The goal of most vacations is to relax, but we often go about it the wrong way. We binge on relaxation the same way we binge on work. It feels good the first day, but by the third day, you may have the same burned-out feeling you get from working too much.

Without a clear set of goals for your vacation, you may not come back feeling relaxed.

That’s why I advocate a process of goal-setting and GTD for vacations that is fairly similar to what I use for the work-week. The projects on the list are much different than work-week projects, but the system is the same.

At the start of any vacation, I set a few goals for myself -- usually just two or three big ones, along with a few small ones such as journaling every day. If you adopt this system, you should set goals that make sense for you, but feel free to steal some of my ideas if you’d like.

Here’s a Few Ideas

-Complete a bigger “weekly review” than usual. This could be a quarterly or yearly review. For several years now, I have completed a full annual review each December while on vacation. It is the most important thing I do that week, and I plan everything else around it.

Later this year, I'll explain more about that process in real time -- but for now, you can create your own review by looking at the major aspects of your life and planning anything you want to change. There are also many good books that can help with this - two of my favorites are Wishcraft and Finding Your Own North Star.

-Work on one or more writing projects. The good thing about being a writer is that I can work anywhere. I don’t even need a laptop all the time (although I do usually take one with me) because I do a lot of my initial work in a paper notebook before transferring it to computer. But even if you’re not a writer by profession, chances are you have some writing projects to work on, and these are usually a good fit for a relaxing week. You’ll likely find you get a lot more done without interruption, and the work is usually free of the stress that comes with being online all the time.

-Exercise Goals. I try to eat sensibly wherever I go, but I do usually end up eating a bit more while on a real vacation. That’s why I always make sure to set some simple goals of exercise during the week, which also helps maintain my regular habits of taking care of myself. I like to run, so my exercise goals revolve around that, but depending on where you are vacationing, you may also be able to swim, bike, or just take long walks.

Live from Alaska

By the way, I actually wrote the notes for this short essay in June while on vacation myself, from a cruise ship on the Alaskan inside passage. And in between all those big dinners and bread pudding desserts, I set aside a morning to run a full marathon (26.2 miles) while on the open sea. You can read the whole story here, but the short version is that it was an intense, crazy experience that I probably wouldn’t repeat, but I’m tremendously glad that I did it.

I knew I would have a good story to tell, and I enjoyed the bread pudding a lot more afterwards. Then, I went back to my room and did some more writing.

###

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Work

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15 Resumé Mistakes That Can Cost You a Job

As a self-employed writer and entrepreneur, I don’t normally have much to do with resumés. I do maintain one of my own, but it’s more of an academic CV that gets used only for academic applications. Otherwise, I’ve never really applied for a job or had a use for my own job-applying materials. I don’t do much hiring either, but every once in a while I get the chance to sort through applications for non-profit jobs. I got that chance last week, and I learned a lot through the experience. More than anything else, I learned a few things not to do if I ever apply for a job. And if you’re in that position, pay attention to this essay – I can’t guarantee that everyone will process resumés the way I do, but I’d expect that a lot of these principles will be universal.

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Travel

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The Perfect City by Personal Standards (Vienna, Austria)

Vienna, Austria
Image by Kliefi

The first time I went to Vienna, I didn’t expect to like it as much as I did. I was tired after a two-week trip to Africa, and headed back to the U.S. a couple days later. The dollar had hit another all-time low against the euro the day before my arrival, providing even less motivation for visiting an expensive European city I expected to find crawling with tourists.

All that to say that the city of Vienna completely surprised me by how truly beautiful it was. From start to finish, virtually everything about my stay went right. From the airport I took the express CAT train to the Landstraße station, where I changed to the underground metro. At the city station, an Austrian Airlines check-in desk allowed me to check in to my ongoing flight even though it was two days away. I took my boarding pass for a flight that wasn't leaving for 36 hours, which I didn’t even think was possible until they handed it to me.

Walking down to the subway, a guy approached me, saying something I didn’t understand. “Entschuldigung, ich spreche kein Deutsch,” I replied, using a full third of my German vocabulary.

“Oh,” he said in English. “Can you please spare 90 cents?”

I’m always impressed by multilingual panhandlers. In America they could work for the U.N., but elsewhere in the world they have to ask for spare change in the subway. Anyway, the metro line took me exactly where my directions said it would, and I found my hostel a few short blocks away.

If this sounds normal, it’s not—I have a recurring experience of getting lost nearly everywhere I go, usually with my bags and often for an hour or more. It’s a small miracle when I successfully arrive at my destination in an unfamiliar city without getting lost at least once.

The hostel was just what I needed: a small dorm room with a writing desk and a window that looked out over a pretty courtyard. After dropping off my bags, I walked to a bakery I had seen on the way in. The sun was shining and I sat outside for 40 minutes, sipping cappuccino and brainstorming some notes for a business project. Life is good, I thought.

That evening I did some more business work and went running along the river Wien. It was incredibly relaxing and served as a good capstone for my first day in the city.

***

The next day was much the same—perfect chocolate croissants, friendly people, fun streets to wander. The skies were overcast and it rained off and on throughout the day, but I live in Seattle, so that didn’t bother me.

At the end of the trip I decided two things: first, I love Vienna and will start using it as a Star Alliance hub city instead of Frankfurt from now on. Second, I realized that part of what I like or dislike about certain places has to do with fairly narrow, personal standards. Is it a nice country to run in? Are there fun discoveries to be made? Of course there always are, but are they my kind of discoveries?

I hope I’m not becoming materialistic. At any rate, I do try to find beauty wherever I am. And by these admittedly personal and quirky standards, Vienna is beautiful. I spent my last morning at my favorite café, where I had gradually become amazingly fluent in ordering various kinds of coffee and croissants. This might not get me a job at the U.N., but it’s a good skill for my own travel needs.

When I went back to the airport, I headed straight to departures thanks to the boarding pass I received two days earlier. I left Vienna and traveled further east to Romania, which I expected to be a fairly direct contrast to everything I found in Austria.

###

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Work

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United Airlines and the Case for Value

I read an interesting article about Applebee’s last week. Personally, I don’t like Applebee’s or its numerous imitators – not eating burgers, chicken tenders, or something they call “riblets” kind of limits the menu of the average Americana-themed restaurant for me – but I enjoyed the analysis of how these kinds of places are trying to survive in an economically challenging environment.

My favorite part was when the CEO was asked why Applebee’s and IHOP (also owned by the company) don’t have healthier choices on their menu. People are more health-conscious than ever, right?

“What people want and what they say they want are different,” she said, and as much as I wanted to disagree, I couldn’t.

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Life

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Video Update: Whole-Wheat Bread and 8 Olympic Gold Medals

Friends and readers, in celebration of the Phelpsian (this is a newly created adjective; Google returns 11,000+ results for it already) achievements that you and I are on track for, I thought it would be important to show how winning eight Olympic Gold medals in nine days is still not enough to please everyone.

Check it out in the three-minute video below.

(Newsletter and RSS readers, I have no clue how this will display in your browser. If you don’t see anything, just click through to the site.)

If you can’t see it for some reason, try using this direct link from Google Video.

***

The last time I posted a video update, I got good reviews from everyone who was able to view it, but naturally some readers with slow connections were not able to do so. There’s really no easy way to fix that.

The reason I make videos is because it’s a different medium than writing, and different people like to consume different forms of media. Think about podcasts, books, magazines, blogs, etc. If you can use one more than one form of media in your army-building, so much the better.

With the help of Ken the professional videographer, I’ve recorded one more update like this that should go up in a couple weeks. After that, we’ll make more based on how you all like them.

Oh, and speaking of Michael Phelps, have you all heard the news about how he has been returned to his tank at Sea World?

###

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Travel

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The Ancient Hotel in the Ancient City of Valletta

Valletta, Malta - Land of Anachronisms
Image by GordonMcKenna
You might expect that a hotel which offers its cheapest room for €299 ($440) a night would be pretty luxurious. Here in the city of Valletta on the island of Malta, I’m staying at the Le Meridian Phoenicia, where I noticed the room rates sign at the check-in desk.

Of course, I’m not paying €299; I’m staying here for free using my Starwood points, where the same room goes for a bargain rate of 7,000 points a night. This turns out to be a smart decision for more reasons than one.

From the web site, the place looks gorgeous. Visiting in person, it looks like it was possibly gorgeous about 30 years ago.

I’m given a real key to my room instead of a room card, and when I get there via the creaking elevator that holds a maximum of three people, it doesn’t work. I head back downstairs with my bags for an apology and a new key.

My dusty room has a no-smoking sign on the wall and an ashtray on the desk, which of course I find amusing. I drink three glasses of water from the tap, and it tastes like drinking straight out of a swimming pool. As I set the glass down for the third time, I notice a picture near the sink that seems to imply that the drinking water is unsafe. Too late for that, and I’m sure not opening the mini-bar to pay for mineral water.

The Cocktail Party

At check-in, I was also given an invitation to a “Management Cocktail Party” at 6:30 that evening. I’m not sure what to expect, but on the principle that you should never turn down a free drink from a $400 hotel, I decide to attend. After resting in my room and watching French TV for an hour, I put on my nicest clothes (which aren’t very nice after a week of traveling without any laundry opportunities) and head downstairs to the lounge.

I take a free glass of bad chardonnay and check out the room. In a full ballroom, I observe that I am the youngest person by about 80 years. Okay, maybe it's more like 30 years… but it certainly seems like everyone else here has come straight from the nursing home for cocktail night at Le Meridian.

There is a French corner and a British corner, but other than the language, you couldn’t tell them apart. Every single person is white, old, and looks strangely comfortable in this ancient hotel. It’s like a reunion of the Greatest Generation from both sides of the channel. I try to take a quick photo as inconspicuously as possible while balancing my chardonnay and a handful of peanuts, but it doesn't come out well. A waiter gives me a bad look, so I put the camera back in my pocket.

a•nach•ro•nism. noun. something or someone that is not in its correct historical or chronological time, esp. a thing or person that belongs to an earlier time.

Later I run four miles around the city and down by the seaport. The hospital ship I worked with for four years in West Africa was registered here in Valletta, and more than 20 years ago it had docked in the city for registration and maritime certificates. I enjoy running along the docks of each side of the water, wondering which quay our ship had docked at and thinking about my memories of those amazing days from 2002-2006.

Afterwards I wander through the town, eventually buying an olive calzone to take back to my room at the hotel. The next day I run some more, explore the fort, and after another night of takeout olive calzone (no free drinks on your second night, apparently) I check out of the anachronistic Le Meridian.

I ignore the taxi drivers waving to me outside and take the bus back to the small airport. I'll be flying back to Vienna, and the strange visit now feels eerily comfortable to me, just as it apparently does to the centenarians at the hotel. I'm writing these short notes in the departure lounge, and now it's time to leave this island nation behind and return to the continent.

###

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Entrepreneurship

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Price and Value: A Marketing Lesson for Life

Price, Value, Shopping
Image by Armel
I have survived as an entrepreneur for 10 years not because I am inherently good at most aspects of running a business. I am a terrible salesperson, I get bored easily, I don't like busy-work or higher math, and I have the classic ADD personality.

None of this is tremendously helpful in business, and in a lot of ways, it's made things more difficult than they are for other, more balanced people.

Instead, I trace my success at survival to two key skills: first, I am a decent copywriter. Writing well really does help you do a lot of things. Second, I have a fairly good understanding of the twin concepts of price and value.

There are some other "life skills" that are also important -- notably, persistence -- but in terms of specific business skills, that's pretty much all I've got. And for the most part, it works just fine, if a bit haphazard at times.

Today I thought I'd tell you about the second skill of understanding price and value, and I'll do so with a real-life case study from the launch of my first AONC product. I'll tell you what I did wrong, what worked well, and why I chose to market the product the way I did.

Ready?

First, all understanding about the whole subject of pricing comes from one critical principle:

Whenever we spend any amount of money, we undertake a complex, emotional analysis of price and value.

This process is hard to overstate, and few of us are immune. In fact, it is pretty difficult to buy much of anything without going through the process. It's often subtle or even subconscious, but it's definitely real. We often have expectations for how much something should cost, and when our expectations are unmet, we respond with emotion.

  • BAD Feeling (skepticism, uncertainty) - "Wow, that's so expensive. Is it really worth it?"

  • GOOD Feeling (happiness, fulfillment) - "Wow, it's on sale! I'm getting a great deal!"

These feelings are not always rational -- have you ever known someone who will drive 30 miles to save a couple dollars? Or someone who uses coupons to buy products they don't like?

Like I said, our expectations of value are not entirely rational, but they are very real nonetheless. From a $4 latte to an $8 movie to a $15,000 car, we evaluate purchases based on the expected emotional benefit in exchange for the money we give up to receive it.

When we go to Starbucks, we complain about the $4 latte... but then we go back the next day or next week. Apparently, the latte is worth the price even though we feel a little guilty about the $4.

There is a lot to this - the great book Influence covers the topic in far more detail.

The important thing to understand is that buying something is not simple. There's a lot going on, and that's why it's critically important for businesses to get the pricing right.

If you price something too high, you alienate buyers. People will kick the tires, but most of them won't take the car off the lot without more persuasive selling. That may seem fairly obvious, but the opposite is true as well.

If it's priced too low, this is also a big mistake, because perceived value is directly related to price. People are skeptical of advice on the cheap. Free is good, and reasonable-to-expensive is good, but cheap is bad.

What if you heard about a consultant who works for $9 an hour, would you think, "Wow, what a deal?" I suspect that most people would think, "Wow, they must not be very good."

Again, this may not reflect reality -- perhaps there's an awesome consultant out there who just likes pricing at the low-end -- but true or not, it reflects how we perceive value. When you hear about a $300 an hour consultant, you might not be able to hire her, but you usually respect her. The perception is that a $300 an hour consultant is much better than a $9 an hour consultant.

For another example, say you walked into Best Buy and saw a $99 iPod killer on the shelf. Would you buy it right away?

I suspect not. You'd automatically think it couldn't possibly be as good as a real iPod. You'd be very suspicious, because you expect iPods and even iPod knockoffs to be more expensive because they're worth more.

Those are somewhat hypothetical examples, but you get the idea. Let's take a look at a real-life, recent, highly-personal example.

Discount Airfare GuideThe UGDA Case Study

As many of you know, last week I released my first commercial product, the Unconventional Guide to Discount Airfare. This was definitely a labor of love and an emotional investment for me, because I've spent a lot of time working on the AONC site and building an audience over the past five months.

For anyone who believes that bloggers shouldn't sell things, let me assure you that there are a lot easier ways to make money. But on the other hand, I passionately believe that artists should be allowed to make money. (I wrote that post in part to preempt complaints about creating an online shop in addition to my free essays and other content.)

Since I've been an online entrepreneur for ten years, I'm not normally indecisive with pricing. I can usually look at something and know fairly quickly how much it should cost. But since this was a new market and my first "branded" product, I was a little nervous.

Before the launch, I sent off some emails to people I know and trust to get their advice on pricing. Unfortunately, there was no consensus.

My internet marketing friends, who sell ebooks every day for $67, $79, or $97, took a look at the guide and said I should price at $49. "Look at what you are giving people," said one.

"You're telling them how to get access to airline lounges, the truth and lies about upgrades, how to get elite status without flying, and on and on. This is worth hundreds of dollars."

Yes, that's all true. But I felt uncomfortable pricing at the $49 point -- I really wanted it to be more accessible. On the other hand, a few other respected experts said I should price lower than I expected.

$14.95, said one. $18 max, said another.

Yikes - I was equally uncomfortable with that idea. There is real value in the information I provide, and if I was selling it on the cheap, I'd rather just give it away. I'm not a mass-marketer; this is a niche product, and the average airfare costs $413 in North America. If someone can't afford $25, I don't mean to be insensitive, but they probably don't do much flying.

Thus, I had to make my own decision, and as much as I dislike the middle ground, that's what I went for - $24.97. I might sell more copies at a rock-bottom price point, and I might make more money selling at a higher price, but such is life with pricing decisions. You just have to make a decision and see how people respond.

So, how was the response?

Well, I won't be retiring to Monaco anytime soon, nor can I rely on this as anything close to a full-time income... but I think I have the potential to build a nice little business over the next year.

There were a couple people who complained about the price, and a couple people who said after reading the guide that they gladly would have paid more. I can live with that kind of healthy tension.

Oh, by the way - social proof is another important part of the price and value correlation. We'll have to cover this later, but in short, social proof is the public display of what other people think about your work.

Here are the early reviews, from real-life people:

I feel like I’ve stolen the book for that price. Well worth the investment. -Elliot Webb

And here's another, from Naomi who writes from Ontario over at Ittybiz:

"While I admit it takes a shotgun to my head or a hefty handful of Xanax to get me on an airplane -- I seriously considered taking a boat to Bali for my honeymoon -- sometimes it has to be done. This book actually makes flying seem kind of fun. Very informative, value packed, no fluff. The guide to airport lounges alone was worth the cover price. If you don't save money after reading this book you are quite frankly too stupid to be allowed on a plane without a chaperone."

(You may have noticed that Naomi is quite a direct person. Don't be offended. She's a friend.)

I have a lot more feedback like that, and I'll publish some of it on the product page over the next week or two. Elliot wrote his note to me at the same time someone else (who did not purchase) sent me a long rant telling me how expensive the guide was and how I was doing a disservice to the world, all marketing an evil, etc. I appreciated reading Elliot's note right after hearing from the unhappy person.

Despite the fact that the launch went well, there's always a few things you can learn from any success.

Here's my list of what-to-do-better in the future:

  • I should have included a 2-page sample. Someone said that they would like to know more about what they are getting. You guys are correct, and I've fixed that. Here's the sample. The sample is representative of the practical information included on each page of the guide.

  • The length could have been extended. This is the ultimate pricing paradox, and I've thought a lot about it. I've bought a few dozen ebooks over the years, and about half of them have cost me $49 or more. Almost all have provided good value, but almost all have been a bit too long for my taste.

There is inevitably a lot of good content but also a lot of fluff in the average ebook, and I wanted to avoid that with mine. I focused entirely on practical strategies and tactics, and left the fluff out. (There's no blank pages for notes, for example, or long checklists that take up extra pages.)

However... I now realize that some people decide on value based on a price-per-page basis.

If you think about it, this is highly irrational. If someone drew you a treasure map, would you worry that it was only on one page? But as noted previously, most purchase decisions involve more emotion than rationality. Thus, even though I offer free lifetime updates and will be adding more to the guide in the future, I probably should have had a few extra pages in there. Point noted.

  • Lastly, I couldn't do it this time, but in the future we'll do a better job with segmentation. I got emails from the U.K. and Australia asking for localized versions. I got emails asking for a higher-priced, higher-end version for business travelers most interested in flying First Class. I got emails from India and elsewhere asking for a bare-bones (but cheaper) version.

We're working on these ideas. I have to find the right balance there (i.e., I don't want 10 different guides for the same subject), but it's on my mind. For now, I have a makeshift solution for those international readers who are interested. If you're one of them, write me and I'll give you the details.

For the next guide, I'll take each of these lessons to heart and see how to make it even better. I'm working on it already, but it won't be coming out for a while. Like the first one, it's better to do it right than to do it quickly.

***

Getting Back to Basics

There's no way to eliminate the emotional process of buying something, but I recommend taking the process into the open. Asking serious value questions - not "What color is it?" or "How many pages is it?" but "How will this improve my life?" helps reduce the tension and ensure better choices. Another good question is, "Do I value this item (or service) more than I value the x dollars it will cost me?"

When I started thinking more about this, I started making different life choices. I made my decision to visit 100 countries by thinking about price and value. I entered and completed a Master's Degree program by thinking about price and value... but then I turned down a Ph.D. program by thinking about the same thing. It wasn't the right time for me.

Your mileage, as they say, will vary. You might not do the same things or make the same choices - in fact, I hope you'll do whatever it is you want to - but when you think carefully about price and value when buying (or selling), you'll usually make wiser decisions.

Good luck out there.

###

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Life

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The Care and Feeding of World-Changers

pile of books for world-changers
Image by Paul Watson
I spent the evening at Barnes & Noble last night, and did a lot of reading in the café area. I spent most of the time reading the first part of Haruki Murakami’s new book, What I Talk About When I Talk About Running. It’s part running log, part self-help guide, and part writing memoir. I love it.

I read a few other things too – the BBC Focus on Africa magazine, a travel guide for Sri Lanka, and a quick look at a memoir of someone who spent two years at Harvard Business School.

I tend to spend a lot of time reading like that, although recently I’ve cut back. That’s not a good sign – I believe reading is one of the most important things we can do every day – so I’m working on fixing it.

The regular intake of valuable resources, especially books, is crucial to the development of any committed world-changer.

In this post I’ll share more about why reading is so important, and let you know about a few other materials I’ve been checking out recently.

First, let’s say you’ve got your two answers to the most important questions in the universe, you’re building a small army, and preparing to launch a plan of attack (or scale up your current plan). How do you keep the momentum going?

Without regular doses of the right resources, your world-changing will be limited, and that momentum will shift downwards. Since we live in an age where access to information has been democratized (at least for everyone able to read this essay), there’s no real excuse for not taking the time out to learn.

Good resources can inform, inspire, or entertain. These goals are not mutually exclusive; some resources can accomplish more than one at the same time.

Fiction

I try to read at least one work of literary fiction a month. I recently read Never Let Me Go and Baudolino, both of which I’d wholeheartedly recommend. Earlier this year I read The Rector of Justin and re-read A Wild Sheep Chase, another Murakami book. I picked up Harbor for the last trip, but it didn’t arrive on time, so I’ll have it for the next one. For less intellectual entertainment resources, I check out the Fail Blog, GraphJam, and a few online comics.

Non-Fiction

Some of my all-time favorites are linked on my Inspiration page. In addition to those, recently I’ve discovered The Power of Full Engagement and have been slowly reading that.

Earlier this year I also read The 7 Habits for the first time ever. For some reason I missed it in its original shining hour, but reading it felt very familiar. I realized that I lot of the principles and examples in the book have been adapted (and sometimes stolen without credit) by many other writers and teachers in the personal development field.

I have to admit that I thought a bit less of the people I’ve learned from who used Stephen Covey’s stories without any attribution. Maybe I should read The 8th Habit next and see what else has been stolen.

(Note to Prospective Gurus: if you want to become a self-help teacher, by all means, use the best stuff that’s out there. But you should also create your own material, and credit what you do end up borrowing or adapting.)

Alternative Learning Styles

I’m an old-school fan of traditional books, and probably always will be. For me, there's something about holding the paper and ink in my hands that isn't easily replicable with other mediums. But it’s true that not everyone has the same learning style, and it’s always good to mix it up a bit. When I’m running I usually listen to a 20-minute language learning podcast before switching over to high-energy music for the rest of the run. I’m not an inherently good language learner and don’t always enjoy the process, but once I start the podcast I can usually stick with it until the end.

In addition to language learning, the iTunes directory has an increasingly large selection of free educational resources. There are also video podcasts, which don’t work well while running (I’ve tried and it isn’t pretty; trust me) but can be fun to check out on the bus or airplane.

For paid products, the Teaching Company has some fun courses which I’m sure you can learn a lot from. If I don’t sound too certain, it’s because this is definitely not my learning style. I have a hard time listening to lectures.

(One tip: these DVD and CD products are pretty expensive. You can get a better deal by shopping on eBay for used copies.)

Eliminating Distractions

While I advocate taking in many diverse sources of information, I also agree that you should eliminate as many unimportant distractions as possible. For me, the biggest distraction is internet surfing. I have an incredible ability to spend hours in front of the computer doing nothing of value. An hour will pass and I don’t even remember what web sites I’ve been reading. Yikes—that’s not good.

To end, or at least cut back on this bad habit, I’ve had to set rules for myself. The current ones are:

  • Gmail three times a day (no more)

  • News-reading twice a day (no more)

  • Try to initiate at least one minor-to-moderate project a day (instead of continually responding to other things)

  • Complete at least one task towards each major project

  • Spend time writing first thing in the morning

  • Never feel bad about stopping work to exercise

Speaking of the Murakami book, one passage I read last night was especially relevant.

I’m struck by how, except when you’re young, you really need to prioritize in life, figuring out in what order you should divide up your time and energy. If you don’t get that sort of system set by a certain age, you’ll lack focus and your life will be out of balance. I placed the highest priority on the sort of life that lets me focus on writing… I felt that the indispensible relationship I should build in my life was not with a specific person, but with an unspecified number of readers. As long as I got my day-to-day life set so that each work was an improvement over the last, then many of my readers would welcome whatever life I chose for myself. Shouldn’t this be my duty as a novelist, and my top priority? My opinion hasn’t changed over the years.

Except for being a novelist, that’s pretty much exactly how I feel about what I want to do. But I know I have a lot to learn, so that’s why I keep reading.

What Resources Do You Rely On?

I included some of what I’m reading these days in case you’re looking for referrals, but it’s important to read according to your own preferences.

What’s on your bookshelf – or your iPod, your Kindle, or whatever – these days?

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Travel

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Lost in Singapore


Image by tobym
First – thank you to everyone so far who has purchased my first product, the Unconventional Guide to Discount Airfare. I am truly grateful.

If you weren’t here yesterday, you can read more about it in the expected location. Against the conventional wisdom of scarcity, I plan to keep selling and improving it for a long time.

And now -

This is the story in which I am provided a geographic tour of Singaporean prostitutes, reflect on the biggest travel month of my life, and sleep in Changi airport prior to heading back to Hong Kong on the ultimate no-frills airline.

It’s a bit long—if you’re not interested in my travel diaries, you might not like this one. But if you’re up for it, here it is.

The last time I was in Singapore, things didn’t go so well – I walked into the glass door of a Starbucks on Orchard Road. My head recovered quickly, but my pride was wounded for the rest of the day.

Today I’m between Brunei, an odd little country completely surrounded by Malaysia, and Hong Kong on a nice 36-hour transit stop. I arrived mid-afternoon, which means I officially have one-and-a-half nights to spend before catching a 6am flight back to HKG. The first night I had planned to stay in a budget hotel, and the second night I expect to hang out at Changi Airport.

Singapore is the Asian city all travel writers love to hate.

Almost any commentary on visiting here is filled with references to canings and chewing gum. The implication is that Singapore is uptight, militant, and boring. Mention you are going to Singapore among established travel writers, and many will roll their eyes. “Why don’t you go up to Malaysia or down to Indonesia for some real culture?”

Yeah, yeah. Actually, I like Singapore just fine. It has a culture all of its own. Sure, part of that culture is somewhat manufactured – but that doesn’t mean it’s not culture in its own way.

On the train from Changi Airport, I listen to my iPod and say silent prayers for being finished with Brunei and on my way back home. In Singapore I have no schedule or major travel mysteries to solve, and I am happy for that.

The Red-Light Hotel 81

For my one night in the city before sleeping in the airport the next night, I’ve booked the cheapest hotel I could possibly find. Times are hard these days, and that’s just how it goes. The YWCA I stayed in before goes for $90 a night, but I’ve found a cheaper place further out of town in the Geylang district – which also happens to be the red-light district.

When I learn this information about my neighborhood, I’m a little surprised. I had no idea that Singapore even had a red-light district, but indeed they do. I get out of the train and hail a taxi to take me to the hotel. Along the short journey, the driver gives me an unrequested run-down on the prices of the local prostitutes.

“This area here, this is Chinese area. Chinese prostitutes, very expensive—maybe $80!” he says. ($80 in Singapore dollars is about $60 U.S.). He looks back at me for encouragement, but I don’t give him any. Nevertheless, he keeps going.

“Indonesian prostitutes over here—they go cheaper, lah. Maybe $30!”

I tell him I’m only interested in sleeping in my room tonight, but he doesn’t take the hint. “Over here, Malay prostitutes, over there, Thai prostitutes…” and on it goes.

It’s like the ASEAN of prostitutes in this neighborhood, with every nationality assigned its own couple of blocks. When I check in to the budget hotel, a Chinese guy next to me is paying for a stay of two hours. A sign reads “Only two people are allowed in the rooms after 11pm.”

Well, this is definitely not the vibe I get up at the YMCA, which does stand for Young Men’s Christian Association, after all. But the room is clean, and I take a quick shower, leave my bags, and head out to the parts of the city I’m more interested in.

The rest of the day, I walk. First I take the MRT over to Little India, a great neighborhood I’ve never managed to explore before.

Unlike a lot of Chinatowns, it really is like its own, well, little India. After a late lunch of potato curry, I head over to Orchard Road, Singapore’s central shopping area and also a nice place to walk in the early evening. I had just ran about 13 miles in Brunei the evening before, so my legs are pretty tired. I walk along at a slow pace, thinking about the whole trip that will be coming to an end soon.

The next day I head out to Changi Airport for an overnight stay before a 6am flight. I’ve decided to save money again and sleep on the airport floor, which at Changi is usually not as bad as it may sound if you haven’t been there.

Changi is frequently voted the #1 airport in the world, and for good reason. Transit passengers have access to free Xbox gaming consoles, internet-enabled PCs throughout the airport, nice relaxation rooms, a movie theatre, and even an outdoor garden you can sit in to pass the time. If you’re transiting in Singapore between 4 and 24 hours, the city will even send you on a free tour into the city, or give you a complimentary transfer shuttle so you can make your own tour.

In short, if you are going to sleep on the floor of an airport, Singapore is one of your better choices. I had planned to hang out in the garden, get caught up on emails, have a nice dinner at the vegetarian restaurant (yes, they have one of those too), and then crash out down by the Oasis lounge, where reclining chairs are freely provided.

There was just one problem… as there often is when traveling.

I do most of my long-haul travel on the Star Alliance and OneWorld networks, with major airlines like Cathay Pacific, Austrian, Thai, and so on. But I do a lot of side trips on low-cost carriers, which are ubiquitous throughout Asia and Europe.

On this side trip, I was traveling between Singapore and Hong Kong on JetStar Asia, a budget carrier in the truest sense. On JetStar Asia, you can’t even get a cup of water without paying extra for it… and they don’t allow you to bring your own food or drinks on board.

I know, I know – it’s almost as bad as Air Canada or any major U.S. airline. But the most troubling thing to me was that in addition to charging $1.80 for a cup of water, JetStar also does not allow anyone to check-in for a flight more than two hours prior to departure.

I didn’t realize this before I got to the airport, because I frequently get boarding passes for up to 36 hours in advance from other airlines. Then I’m free to cross security to the transit side, hang out in the lounge if I have access, or do whatever I want.

Anyway, I found out about 2pm that afternoon that I would not be able to get a boarding pass for my flight until 4am the next morning. This was definitely an unexpected disappointment, because it meant that my whole plan of spending the night in the transit area would not be possible now.

Happiness and Expectations

Writer Gretchen Rubin is publishing a book on the search for happiness next year, and I’m eager to hear what she has to say about it when the time comes. For me, I’ve learned through travel that happiness is largely related to expectations and perception.

I had been looking forward to the meal and the relatively comfortable place to sleep on the airport floor. With that plan, I’d get up about 5:15 in the morning and walk straight to the gate with boarding pass in hand. But without the boarding pass, of course, none of that was possible.

I’d have to fend for myself in the check-in area (which had less comfortable chairs and no carpeting, just a hard floor), and I would also have to wake up at 4:00, queue for the check-in, go through immigration and security, and then have another hour to wait until the flight actually boarded.

With my expectations dashed, I felt disappointed and unhappy. But when I thought about if further, I realized I had been in far more serious situations before. I mean, just last week I arrived in Pakistan without a visa. This should be easy, right?

I gave myself the “get over it” talk – also known as ass-kicking – and realized further that it was 2pm and I hadn’t eaten anything all day. (The lovely Hotel 81 in Geylang offers the option of two-hour rooms, but no complimentary breakfast.) After I ate some nice fried noodles with chili sauce, I immediately felt better about the situation.

I left my bags at the drop-off office downstairs, and went back into town on the MTR. After walking around Raffles Place for a while, I took the long way back to Changi. There wasn’t anything waiting for me there, and besides, I like to walk. For about an hour and a half, I walked through downtown, going along the Singapore river and then the Boat Quay area. Singapore is usually hot and sticky, but halfway through my walk, it cooled down.

Goodbye, Southeast Asia

My trip was coming to an end, and I was heading home. At 6am I’d be back on the no-frills flight to Hong Kong, then a connection to Tokyo and a long-haul flight across the Pacific the following morning. This trip had been far more tiring than usual, but I also made some good progress towards my long-term travel goal.

I realized I had been in a lot of places recently:

Pakistan – where I arrived without a visa, but then had a great week hanging out in Karachi.

Brunei – which was not really my kind of place, but I did have a great two-hour run and saw The Dark Knight with some Malaysians at the theatre in Bandar Seri Begawan.

San Marino – where I rented a car from the Rome airport and drove 12 hours round-trip to visit the Europe’s smallest republic. What, you don’t remember that story? It’s probably because I haven’t written about it yet. In fact, I may never write about it, because it didn’t go very well. But I did it, and I’ve been to San Marino now.

Mongolia – where I was evicted from my guesthouse—a first for me. It’s over, so that’s good. But it was also cool to see the Genghis Khan Brewery and other interesting cultural sites.

Poland – where I had another great run, also about 13 miles or so along the Vistula riverbank in Warsaw. I also learned I had made my biggest travel mistake ever, but I’ve gotten over it by now.

Northern Iraq, AKA Kurdistan – where I took off from my time in Eastern Europe to visit over a weekend. I was impressed with the culture and felt completely safe the whole time I was there.

Russia, Moldova, and Beyond – where I trekked through the Baltics, on to Russia, on Moldovan Airlines to Chisinau, and a train to Bucharest… before flying back to Vienna.

Yes, it was quite the journey. As I write this out in my journal this afternoon, I realize there’s a good reason why I’ve been so tired lately.

Thankfully, being tired works in my favor when nighttime comes, at least tonight in Singapore. I go back to Changi and enjoy a surprisingly good meal in the subway area below the airport. It also costs half the price of the $9 meal in the real airport, so I’m doubly-content. I buy a beer at the downstairs grocery store (they have one of those at Changi too) and head up to the check-in area, where I’ll make my “bed” on a couple of plastic chairs.

It’s not comfortable and they never dim the bright lights even after the last flight has left, but because I’m so tired I manage to sleep about four or five hours. I wake up sleepy-eyed, but ready to check-in and move on at 4:00 a.m.

I fly back on the uneventful JetStar Asia, but the good news this time is that the flight is half-full. I have a row of three seats to myself, and right after takeoff I fall asleep across the whole row. Nearly three hours go by before I wake up as we descend to Hong Kong, and I’m very thankful for the extra sleep.

Home from Japan

And then, a few hours later, I was heading back to Tokyo on the wonderful Japan Airlines, which provides consistently great service. Hot towels are brought out to everyone in all classes, and everyone gets a welcome drink. The 15 flight attendants, who are all women, are super-polite.

“Excuse me, sir,” says one of them as we are all boarding. “Is it alright if I ask you to please turn off your iPod before the departure?”

Being asked like that puts you in a great mood for the flight. Yes, it is quite alright. Thank you for asking so nicely.

The next morning, I'm on the way across the water, and I watch Kung-Fu Panda and type up these notes for everyone. Next stop, Seattle, my home city. It’s nice to travel, and it’s nice to come home.

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Entrepreneurship

Art and Money

Art and Money
Image by Jblndl
Lately I’ve had a lot of reasons to think a lot about the relationship between Art and Money. There's a lot to say about that subject, and we'll cover it from different angles over the next few months. To kick off the series, here's a quick story from the archives of unhappy people on the internet.

Andrea Scher writes over at Superhero Designs, where she also sells homemade jewelry and does commercial photography. For five years and counting, she’s provided regular inspiration for a hyperactive community of women, fellow artists, and self-proclaimed superheroes.

So anyway, last week Andrea announced that she would be doing a site redesign, and the new site will include a few spaces for sponsors in the right column. This is the normal protocol for full-time bloggers – build a community, write for free, and have some advertisers on the right-side that help pay the bills. That’s not my plan here, but I have no problem with people who do it that way.

No big deal, right? Well... in the comments section of an otherwise tame blog, a few people felt like the world had ended. Here’s what some of them had to say:

  • “it is not right to put an ad on your beauty. it is not healthy for everything to be for sale. this is a cultural sickness.” -kelly

  • “I really never thought I would see ads on your Superhero Journal. I won't read it anymore because I am tired and sickened by the selling of America. You can paint it and dress it in pearls but that's what this is. ADS. Ads. ads. I feel so sad.” –penelope

  • “i am opposed to advertising impacting every aspect of our existence and I wish more of us would keep boundaries around our creative space and say ‘this is not for sale!’" -katie

Someone even compared Andrea to a cocaine dealer and email spammer – yes, seriously. It reminded me of this article in my favorite non-newspaper, The Onion.

Really, putting an ad on a blog is as bad as selling cocaine? It seems that the hyperbole of the internet takes over in full force with some blog commentors, who strangely enough don’t usually provide links to their own blogs.

Of course, most people aren’t that silly. There were dozens of positive comments posted on Andrea’s blog supporting her decision, with 95% of the people expressing their appreciation for all of the free inspiration she continually brings to her community. In the end I have no doubt that she will benefit more from the exchange than if no one had complained at all.

But most of us tend to focus on – and worry about – the complainers who want to hold everyone down to the level of average.

I talked to someone from San Diego the other day and mentioned the singer-songwriter Jason Mraz, who lives there. “I really like his music,” I said.

“Yeah,” he said. “Although now that he is all famous and everything, he no longer plays coffee shops, so I don’t like him as much.”

You hear this kind of attitude a lot about musicians. Now that he can afford to have a house and buy health insurance for his family, Dave Matthews sucks. Coldplay was cool before they started selling out arenas, but now they are the band everyone loves to hate.

(The funny thing is that Coldplay’s new album has been #1 for weeks in most countries that track record sales… so if everyone hates them, who is buying the album? Hmmm.)

When you are a starving artist that lives by donations, that’s cool too. But when you become successful enough that more people want to appreciate your art, all of a sudden you become the target of jealousy and resentment from less successful people.

Unfortunately, it’s not only the critics who feel this way—some artists have a similar complex of their own that holds them back.

I usually end up meeting artists whenever I travel, and I've noticed that some (certainly not all, but a significant minority) seem to have a fear of letting money come anywhere near their art. They think that selling something, anything, is the same as “selling out.” They worry that people will criticize them if they decide to go commercial – and as we can see from Andrea’s recent experience, they’re probably right.

Paradoxically, by not taking the next step in their art, they are severely limiting themselves. Bill Cosby said once, “I don't know the key to success, but the key to failure is trying to please everybody.”

Being 100% non-commercial is safe and easy – no one can complain, because you work for free. To take it up a level, you have to enter the marketplace.

My Upcoming Cocaine Dealership

Talking about Art and Money is not a hypothetical discussion for me. I won't be putting ads on the site because that’s not really my style, but as I have said from the beginning, I have no objection to people earning money from their art form.

With that in mind, I’m creating a series of Unconventional Guides that will be offered for sale here on the site. The guides will feature 100% practical information focused on specific topics related to Life, Work, and Travel. In the guides I’ll explain exactly how I travel around the world, pay relatively little for airfare, earn money without a job, and so on.

More importantly, I’ll explain how you can do the same, or even better—how you can use the strategies to do whatever it is that you are interested in.

The first report is called the Unconventional Guide to Discount Airfare and will launch on Wednesday morning. I’m pretty excited about it. In 31 pages of specific strategies and tactics, I’ll tell you exactly how you can become your own travel guru and pay a lot less for plane tickets than virtually everyone else out there.

Of course, the guide will be professionally designed, include free updates for life, a complete satisfaction guarantee, coffee refills at Starbucks, etc.*

(*The coffee refills may not happen. But everything else will.)

I already know that some people will love this. I get emails every day asking for this kind of information, and I spent a lot of hours writing the Discount Airfare guide. I'll be surveying the readers who purchase it to determine which guide I should write next, and to keep it as accessible as possible, I'll price the guide a lot lower than market value.

Other people won’t love it or just won’t need the information, and that’s fine too – that’s why it’s a paid product, so that those who can benefit from it will buy it, and those for whom it is not relevant for can sit it out. No problem. Assuming this guide is well-received, I’ll be making more of them, and maybe something else will be a better fit for you. Or maybe not, and that’s also OK, because my writing on the site will always be free.

But if someone thinks I’m as bad as a cocaine dealer for selling products that improve people’s lives, well, they’ll just have to think that, because I could probably not convince them otherwise.

For everyone else, I hope you like it. I’ll see you on Wednesday with more details about the guide, and an order link for those who are interested.

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