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What Happened at the World Domination Summit

I've been having a hard time writing up my experience at the second-annual World Domination Summit last weekend. I feel exhausted, but mostly in a good way. Our team did a fantastic job, with more than 80 volunteers working together to put on an epic weekend adventure, complete with block parties, dunk tanks, keynote sessions, dozens of workshops and presentations, and ... so much more. I'll be going away for a few days to reflect more on the experience, but I don't want to keep you waiting on a recap—so I'll send you to a few of the 100+ reviews and writeups that have been published by others in the past few days.

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Life

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The Reward for Conformity

"The reward for conformity," Rita Mae Brown said, "is that everyone likes you but yourself."

Thankfully, it's not always quite that bad.

Things are super busy here at World Domination HQ. I'm getting ready to roll out a book tour schedule, a book trailer, a giveaway for 100 free books, and several other fun things ...

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Life

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“There’s plenty of time.” (But what if there’s not?)

I've been working on a new, non-profit writing project that I'll share tomorrow. Here's a preview of the concept—for more on the project itself, see the note at the end or check back tomorrow.

A specter is haunting the internet. Everywhere you go, you hear about how you should slow down. First it was slow food (a good thing). Then there was slow living (not so good) and the rejection of striving and effort (even worse). The central part of this message is: “There's plenty of time. Stop hurrying and take it easy. Bake cakes, play in the forest, do what you want.”

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Travel

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173 Down, 20 To Go: The Plan for the Final 20 Countries

I started AONC in 2008 when I had been to only 65 countries. Thanks to consistent effort, dedicated travel hacking, and significant amounts of coffee, I've now been to 173.

In fact, we're now down to the final twenty countries. Only twenty!

Of course, twenty countries is no small endeavor, especially when there are no more backup plans: I simply have to make it to these particular stops, one way or another. Some of these places aren't easy, and I could still run into difficulty with an especially obstinate country.

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Life

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The Quest

At first, you weren't sure you had it in you. Fear, doubt, naysayers, and what-ifs threatened to hold you back. You left anyway, determined to see it out. The people around you talked about consequences and the risk of uncertainty. Wouldn't it be safer not to go? Wouldn't you be better off homebound, shut off from the world in the comfortable setting you knew so well? You smiled and went anyway, knowing the real truth: consequences can just as well be positive. Unexpected surprises can be good. But if you don't go, you'll never know for sure.

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Life

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Not Realistic

Realistic is the adjective of cynics. Wherever you encounter skeptics, naysayers, and charlatans, you will always encounter this word. I'm not saying it's a bad word, that there's no logic to it, or that it's completely irrelevant. I'm just saying... who cares whether something is realistic or not? You might as well leave this word to the cynics—let them have it. Let them own it. It won't do you any good anyway. Realistic is used to do two things simultaneously: one, to criticize. Two, to justify.

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