Greetings from the mobile version of World Domination HQ, currently roaming throughout South America on my recent tour of the known universe. Thanks to everyone I’ve met so far on this trip – Alastair, Karen, Ryan, Angela, Gabe, Toby, Ellie, Alan, Emily, Eileen, Gonzalo, and Alberto. Traveling is a lot easier when you have friends…
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I previously wrote about how a long trip begins from Seattle. I didn’t have a car there either, but public transport required a high threshold of patience and pain. In Seattle it took up to two hours to begin a trip, which was especially interesting when the first flight was at 6:00 a.m.
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Last year at about this time, I took what I called the Monster Trip of 2008.
It involved four continents, driving through Italy in the middle of the night, visiting Iraqi Kurdistan, roaming by train and bus across the Baltics and Moldova, and finally coming home through Asia – where I mistakenly double-booked myself on two non-refundable tickets home from Japan.
What fun that was. Now it's time to repeat the process, although with a completely different itinerary, and hopefully without getting stranded on a faraway continent three days before I'm supposed to come home.
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Greetings from the Atlanta-Hartsfield airport, home to Delta, Chick-fil-A, and a hidden post office in Terminal E. I used to fly through ATL all the time, but since I've switched airline allegiance, this is the first time I've been here in nearly a year. Tonight I'm headed down to MIA and then further down to South America. I'm excited! But first, let's catch up on the past week ...
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I returned to Portland late last night after a great visit to the great New York City.
I've needed to go to New York for a few months now - I wanted to meet my book editor and a few other people, but I kept putting it off. Since I travel so much internationally, I try to keep my domestic trips to a minimum.
However, when I received an invitation a couple of weeks ago to visit with Seth Godin and his remarkable Alternative MBA students, I knew it was time to break out the calendar and book a ticket.
The lesson is, when you get an opportunity like this, don't hesitate. Do whatever you need to do to get wherever you need to be.
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I'm definitely not the guy you want to have around as a translator. (Airport codes and frequent flyer info, yes; translation at the next U.N. meeting, no.)
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Hey everyone, business has been good and I've bought a second home. You can see it here on Google Maps.
It's a shared home – my part is usually located in the arrivals side just before security. The only problem is that someone keeps sitting on my couch when I get up to get coffee. I know, I should put up a sign or something.
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I spent most of last week in and around Park City, Utah on a family vacation. I usually run in Portland, Oregon, where the elevation is about 230 feet (70 meters) above sea level. In Park City, the elevation is about 7000 feet (2134 meters) above sea level.
Among other things, the altitude adjustment makes for one tired runner. I felt like I had picked up a pack-a-day smoking habit just before setting out to run a 10k.
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Greetings from SLC airport in Salt Lake City, Utah. Some airports have rules about carry-ons; this airport requires passengers to bring at least five children with them for their flight. It’s been a good week, but I’ll be glad to get home.
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Each month I look back at what’s happened with ChrisGuillebeau.com in the previous month. If you’ve missed some articles, you can catch up here ...
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Wherever I go, I meet a lot of interesting people, but this doesn’t usually happen the way you might assume.
More often than not, I don’t meet anyone through a careful effort to be social (I’m naturally introverted) or through any deliberate attempt at tourism. Instead, it just happens while life is underway.
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It's time for the Sunday Store Update. I use this time every Sunday afternoon to tell you more about the small business I'm building to support the rest of the site.
This week I'm headed out to a family trip in Utah. All posts will continue as planned. Life is good.
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Every day I get emails from all kinds of fun people who are getting started on the journey of building an online community. Some of them want advice, and I'm happy to help wherever I can.
I always say to take my $0.02 for whatever it's worth, and ignore me if something works better for you. Also, I'm focusing here on online communities, but they share many of the same characteristics as offline ones.
In the 279 Days report, I wrote about the practical aspects of community building. We looked at RSS vs. email, how to create an e-book, and so on.
This post will look more closely at the underlying philosophy of a community. First of all, what makes a community? Definitions abound, but here's mine:
A community is a group of people united through a common struggle with the same stories.Let's look at the definition and related features in more detail. Read More
Greetings once again from my corner of the world, also known as the hipster zip code of 97214. For everyone who's NOT an artist, thanks for your patience during the launch week for my new product. We'll be back to regularly scheduled programming tomorrow.
We launched up Art and Money on Thursday morning to a great response, including several people who were chatting about it before it was even released. Check out this partial selection of feedback and buzz from the first few hours. I was really glad to see that people are excited about it.
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My new product, the Unconventional Guide to Art and Money, attempts to break down the difference between successful and unsuccessful art marketing.
It's for artists of all kinds who want to support themselves with their art through new media.
It's not for non-artists (obviously), anyone who doesn't know how to use the internet, or anyone looking for the quick fix.
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Let's be clear: there's no real secret. I subscribe to the 10,000 hours theory. When I wrote about it six months before Outliers came out, I called it the 14,600 hours to virtuosity.
Then Gladwell's great book arrived, everyone started talking about 10k hours, and I thought, “Awesome. Now we can all save 4,600 hours!”
Anyway, the secret connection between art and money involves working hard on the same thing for a long time.
There you go! Get to work. By the time evening rolls around, only 9,992 hours will remain.
HOWEVER...
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