We didn’t buy it, but we did in fact rent it out. Today I was working on my quarterly taxes and smiled when I saw the charge for the Oregon Zoo from last year. Aside from my house, the zoo was the largest thing I’ve ever paid for—and the largest credit card charge by far.…
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One week ago we kicked off our inaugural event for solopreneurs, Pioneer Nation. Here's a very short recap of how it went.
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For years I've wanted to produce an event more specifically focused on independent entrepreneurs and people who work for themselves. This is it! Tickets are completely sold out and we're already underway. A few photos from our opening party (last night!) are below, and I'll share more news about the event next week.
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If you only do things where you know the answer in advance, your company goes away." -Jeff Bezos. I don't run an operation the size of Amazon.com, and you probably don't either. But all of us have responsibilities. We have commitments, goals, hopes, and dreams.
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Greetings from the home base in Portland, Oregon.
It's a holiday today, or so I've been informed as I've gone about the usual business of running World Domination HQ.
Three quick things I'd like to pass on to you -->
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I wrote in the original Brief Guide to World Domination manifesto:
We overestimate what we can accomplish in a day, but underestimate what we can accomplish in a year.Read More
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You may be familiar with the story of Hernán Cortés and his arrival in Veracruz. In order to prevent his crew from turning back from battle out of fear, he ordered them to burn their ships. That way, there was no return—the only way out was through. No going back! There are a least a…
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After a long delay, my new project Adventure Capital will be launching tomorrow in beta. A lot of people have asked for more info on it, and a few people have also asked, “What took so long?”
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left Norway and began a slow journey home via the Pacific. I'm writing these notes from a Cathay Pacific flight to Tokyo, where I'll transfer on to Los Angeles after staying one night.
After the end of the world in Oslo, a lot of people have been asking:
How does it feel to visit every country in the world?
How does it feel? It feels good. I'm the same person as I was last week, and I haven't been equipped with magical powers or instant sagacity—but it's fun to know that it all worked out.
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Dear friends and readers,
Last week I made it to Norway, my final country after more than a decade of going everywhere.
Such an occasion deserved to be shared, so that's just what we did. First, a group of 16 friends, family members, and readers joined Jolie and me for a two-day tour from Oslo to Bergen.
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"It was true: the entire ball game was what you gave attention to vs. what you willed yourself to not." -David Foster Wallace There are many things on the typical daily list of tasks and appointments that can be ignored or mindlessly plodded through. For best results, don't just make a to-do list; make a to-stop-doing list. I wrote about to-stop-doing lists in the original AONC book.
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If there's something you need to do, but you keep putting it off—or if there's something you'd like to do but don't seem able to push through, there's at least one easy way to fix it. The solution begins with understanding why we procrastinate. The simple answer is: because we can. To solve the problem, therefore, we need to eliminate the ability to defer. If the task is short but dreaded (a phone call you don't want to make, for example), you can simply decide not to leave the room until it's complete.
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Have you ever pulled up to a stoplight and waited ... and waited ... while there was no other traffic in sight?
Three minutes later, the light finally changes, and you pull away ... with no other traffic in sight?
A couple of years ago, this happened to me late at night while I was traveling in the midwest. I sat there and kept thinking: what a useless stoplight. What am I waiting for?
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If you want to change the world, follow a dream, or otherwise find your own identity, you need to be able to do big things. In addition to being a prerequisite for growth, doing big things is also a lot of fun. But how do you do them? What steps do you take? Thankfully, much of the work required to do big things relates to the mindset of deciding to do them. With that in mind, consider these suggestions for your own pursuit of meaning and adventure ...
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Have you ever withdrawn $100,000 in cash from the bank? Me neither ... until last week. This post includes a video from last weekend's World Domination Summit, and a brief explanation on why our team invested $100 in each WDS attendee.
A number of people have asked me to share more about the surprise we unveiled at the end of WDS 2012. As mentioned on Thursday, you can read the experiences of many other people who were at WDS all over the internet. (This list will be updated soon, since there are now more than 150 posts.)
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