Site Update: April 2009

This morning I ran 14-15 miles through Mount Tabor Park here in Portland (see photo). It was my longest run of the year so far, and I was definitely helped by the fact that the weather was perfect.

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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.

Writing

LIFE – I wrote about Glory Days, Influential Following, How to Write a Life List, and Welcome to The Real World.

WORK – I wrote about Going Pro, Good Things About the Recession, and posted a profile of the Anarchist Professor.

TRAVEL – I wrote about Homecomings, Short Notes from Namibia, and What First Class Travel is Really Like.

STORE UPDATES – I wrote about Fishing for a Million Dollars, Case Studies for the Working for Yourself Guide, and said Goodbye to Consulting for now.

(P.S. Thanks to everyone who has been participating in the comments section. There are some GREAT discussions going on, including several where the commentors have added much more value to the original article.)

Travel

In March (and late February) I completed my first Round-the-World trip of the year. I started out in Washington, D.C., and then went to Southern Africa via Qatar and London. After working off the jet lag, I traveled to Mauritius, Namibia, Mozambique, and Swaziland – four new countries for me. I came back home via Asia, stopping off in Hong Kong for a day.

The Frequent Flyer Challenge

I haven’t posted an update on the 5 Million Frequent Flyer Challenge in a while, but people are still finding the original article and telling me about miles they’ve earned. I’m really excited to say that our total is now at least 1,400,000 miles. Even with a highly conservative valuation, that represents at least $29,000 in free flights for everyone who has attempted their own variation.

For now, here are the links if you haven’t seen it before:

The Original Post
Update #1
Update #2

What’s Coming Next

Travel – In a couple of weeks, I’ll head out again – this time to Haiti, the Dominican Republic, and what I call the three mysterious countries of South America: Guyana, Suriname, and (hopefully) French Guiana. In fact, that reminds me – I need to send my passport off to the Surinamese embassy ASAP.

Essays – New articles will continue to be posted every Monday and Thursday. I also started publishing a new “Sunday Store Update” where I share a few updates on the small business I’m building to complement the site.

This month I’ll write about the following topics, among others:

• Do All Real Jobs Suck?
• 279 Days to Overnight Success
• Does It Really Take Money to Make Money?
• The Year of Convergence

I hope you enjoy my writing, and I always welcome your feedback.

The NEW Unconventional Guides

A couple of very fun things are in the works. I’m busy writing my book (or so I say – some personal ass-kicking definitely needs to take place soon), but I’ve found a way to involve some other smart people as partners in slowly expanding the business.

Our two upcoming projects are:

Unconventional Guide to Art and Money – all about the link between making art and making money. How can artists make money without “selling out”? What separates financially successful artists from starving ones?

Unconventional Guide to Freelance Freedom – there’s good freelancing, where you create freedom for yourself and diversify your income, and there’s bad freelancing, where you essentially end up creating a job for yourself. This guide is all about the good kind of freelancing – whether you work for someone else or are self-employed.

Each of these products has a co-author (they are incredibly brilliant people, you’ll see), and I’ll introduce them when the time gets closer. Both projects are about 4-6 weeks off in the future, but I wanted you to know they were coming up.

Also, you can help. Seriously. I’ll tell you more in a week or two, but if you’re eager, write to guides@chrisguillebeau.com – you’ll get a real response, but it might take a few days.

Audience Participation

You can participate in the development of this project in several ways:

Join my newsletter announcement list or add me to your RSS reader.

Follow my real-time updates on Twitter. I regularly solicit input on the articles published here, as well as send out links to other people’s great content. A “Daily Ass-Kicking” is included at no additional charge.

Send other feedback. Use my contact form here to tell me what you think so far.

I appreciate the time you spend here. Don’t forget to change the world the way you think it needs to be changed.

-CG

Catch up on Previous Updates Here:

March 2009 (Portland)
January-February 2009 (Tokyo)
November-December 2008 (Seattle)
October 2008 (Seattle)
September 2008 (Seattle)
August 2008 (Seattle)
July 2008 (Karachi)
June 2008 (Amsterdam)
May 2008 (Vancouver)
April 2008 (Syria)
March 2008 (Los Angeles)
February 2008 (Seattle)

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Mount Tabor Image by This Is Awkward