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“The cure for boredom is curiosity. There is no cure for curiosity.” –Dorothy Parker I strive to live in a sense of wonder, yet often I fail. Even on the road, where I feel most at home, I become acclimated to beauty and experiences. This champagne on my First Class flight is flat! … The…
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A while back I was emailing with Julien, and one of his questions reminded me of a story I like to tell… “A lot of people probably relate to the idea of leaving behind their responsibilities and heading out to a new life, but they’re not in the situation where they just say “screw it”…
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The problem is that you want a new life, or at least some kind of substantive change.
You look at what you have, what you do, or who you are, and you long for something else.
It may be a problem of the fortunate, in the sense that you don't have to worry about what you'll eat tomorrow, but nevertheless, it's a problem.
So that's where you're at. What do you do?
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I'm back on the road, talking with interesting people every night. Many of them ask questions about "changing the system.” Everyone agrees it's broken and frustration is expressed all around. But what is this system, why isn't it working, and how can we change it?
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This month I've been talking to people from all over the world, beginning the outlining and research for a new book. It's a long process and I have a long way to go. Nevertheless, a few observations are slowly coming through.
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Greetings from East 42nd Street in New York City. I'm here to begin a new journey as The $100 Startup goes out to the world tomorrow. Here are a few notes on the early beginnings. It all started back in 2009. I had established the blog and began a new way of life: writing for a living. Or mostly, writing because it was what I wanted to do more than anything else ...
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Happy with your life? Everything's perfect? That's great. This post is not for you.
Everyone else, keep reading.
There are two popular theories of change-making:
#1. Make small and incremental (but regular) changes. Mix it up.
#2. Do it all at once. Quit smoking immediately. Take cold showers. Enter boot camp for the soul—whatever you need to do, don't wait.
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I talked with someone who was in the process of calling fifteen people to get their opinions on a project. Why was any one of our opinions worth so much effort? I'm not sure, but someone had told her she should seek out as many opinions as possible before deciding what to do. The standard line is: Listen to what other people have done and avoid making the same mistakes.
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I talked with my seatmate Rachel on the flight to Singapore. She was 6G, I was 6H—Cathay Pacific Business Class. I was sitting up front thanks to my Platinum status and a big stash of Frequent Flyer Miles. Rachel was up front thanks to the global bank she worked for, which after a brief display of frugality was now back to flying even its junior employees in Business. Rachel was the same age as me. She had traveled to much of the world, but hadn't really seen anything. It was always running back and forth, flying to meetings, going to business dinners, arriving late at night back in the big Asian city where she was based before getting up early for more meetings.
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Welcome to Part IV of The Agenda. Here is Part I (Ask Why), here is Part II (The Individual as Hero), and here is Part III (The Need for Contribution).
Visiting every country in the world is getting difficult. I've almost completely ran out of “easy” countries. These days I spend as much time arranging visas as I do planning the actual trip. It takes time, energy, and money: even with my best travel hacking strategies, I expect the overall cost to increase in the final two years of the project.
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If you're trying to figure out how you'll leave your imprint on the world, start by thinking about what bothers you.
What do you not like about the world? What is irritating? What is unfair?
Keep calm and carry on was the message for people in Britain during World War II. I like get excited and change things better.
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Here in the Spring of 2009, it's easy to say that the financial crisis has decimated the global economy:
*Unemployment in the U.S. (and many other countries) is at a 25-year high
*An average of 40% of wealth has been lost by investors around the world
*Consumer spending is down almost everywhere
*Federal Interest rates are close to 0%
The gloom-and-doom is getting serious, people. Are you all ready to go down in the storm shelter and start putting gold under the mattress? Hopefully not, because we have something important to talk about today.
I’m not trying to make light of hardship in any way. I’ve previously explained that the recession sucks. All of us have been affected one way or another. If I had the choice, I’d prefer to have 15% gains for no work every year. Bring back the bubble!
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