The One You Feed - Chris Guillebeau

Episode Date: September 10, 2014

[powerpress]  This week we talk to Chris GuillebeauChris Guillebeau is a New York Times bestselling author and modern-day explorer.During a lifetime of self-employment that included a four-year commitment as a volunteer executive in West Africa, he visited every country in the world (193 in total) before his 35th birthday. Since then he has modeled the proven definition of an entrepreneur: “Someone who will work 24 hours a day for themselves to avoid working one hour a day for someone else.”Chris’s first book, The Art of Non-Conformity, was translated into more than twenty languages. His second book, The $100 Startup, was a New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestseller, selling more than 300,000 copies worldwide. His latest book, The Happiness of Pursuit, was just released today.Every summer in Portland, Oregon, Chris hosts the World Domination Summit, a gathering of creative, remarkable people with thousands in attendance. Chris is also the founder of Pioneer Nation, Unconventional Guides, the Travel Hacking Cartel, and numerous other projects. In This Interview Chris and I Discuss...The One You Feed parable.What is a quest?Finding adventure and purpose.How a quest add meaning to our lives.How effort can be it's own reward.How an emotional awareness of our mortality can be motivating.Developing a sense of urgency and opportunity.How misadventure builds confidence. The difference between a hobby, a passion and a quest. How depressed people tend to have more generalized goals.How quests don't always wrap up cleanly.Creating meaning in our lives.Eric's free ticket to World Domination Summit.Chris Guillebeau LinksChris Guillebeau HomepageWorld Domination SummitChris Guillebeau on TwitterChris Guillebeau Amazon Author PageThe Happiness of PursuitThe $100 StartupThe Art of Non-Conformity Some of our most popular interviews that you might also enjoy:Kino MacGregorStrand of OaksMike Scott of the WaterboysTodd Henry- author of Die EmptyRandy Scott HydeSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Take on whatever is challenging and meaningful for you. You're the person in your own life who determines what that is, not someone else. Welcome to The One You Feed. Throughout time, great thinkers have recognized the importance of the thoughts we have. Quotes like, garbage in, garbage out, or you are what you think ring true and yet for many of us our thoughts don't strengthen or empower us we tend toward negativity self-pity jealousy or fear we see what we don't have instead of what we do we think things that hold us back and dampen our spirit but it's not just about thinking. Our actions matter. It takes conscious, consistent,

and creative effort to make a life worth living. This podcast is about how other people keep themselves moving in the right direction, how they feed their good wolf. I'm Jason Alexander. And I'm Peter Tilden. And together, our mission on the Really Know Really podcast is to get the true answers to life's baffling questions like why the bathroom door doesn't go all the way to the floor, what's in the museum of failure, and does your dog truly love you? We have the answer.

Go to reallyknowreally.com and register to win $500, a guest spot on our podcast, or a limited edition signed Jason bobblehead. The Really No Really podcast. Follow us on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Thanks for joining us. Our guest today is Chris Gilbeau.

Chris is an entrepreneur, author, blogger, and speaker. He's perhaps best known for his book, author, blogger, and speaker. He's perhaps best known for his book, The Art of Nonconformity. Keep an eye out for Chris's upcoming book, The Happiness of Pursuit, Finding a Quest That Will Bring Purpose to Your Life. Here's the interview. Hi, Chris. Welcome to the show. Hey, man. Thanks so much for having me. It's a big honor. Yeah, we're really glad to have you on the show and look forward to talking about your new book that's coming out. But let's start with the way we always do, which is that our podcast is based on the parable of two wolves where there's a grandfather who's talking with his grandson. And he says, in life, there are two wolves inside of us.

One is a good wolf, which represents things like kindness and bravery and love. And the other is a bad wolf, which represents things like kindness and bravery and love, and the other is a bad wolf, which represents things like greed and hatred and fear. And the grandson stops and he thinks and he says, well, grandfather, which one wins? And the grandfather says, the one you feed. So I'd like to start off by asking you what that parable means to you in your life and in the work you do. Yeah, I was looking that over today on the podcast description. And I really liked that parable. I've actually been thinking about it for the past 20 minutes or so. I can definitely recognize both wolves in my life. That's probably

the first thing that I think of is, you know, there's definitely a bad wolf, like all those negative emotions that you mentioned about resentment and greed and jealousy. Like I see those signs, you know, a lot. And then I also see like these signs of joy and greed and jealousy, like I see those signs, you know, a lot. And then I also see like these signs of joy and gratitude. And, and I say that I live, you know, by those signs. And then I, you know, I realized like on my website, it's like I live, I try to live a life of gratitude, but it's a good gut check because do I really, right. And, uh, I guess I, I struggle in the same way that a lot of creative people do with maybe feeding the wrong wolf. So I don't know how it applies to me, but I think I'm going to carry it with me, you know,

as I go preparing to go on this big tour and talking with readers about this new creative work. I'm going to be thinking about it more. Excellent. So let's talk about your new book a little bit. It is called The Happiness of Pursuit, which I, you know, obviously it's clever, clever flip on its head of the normal pursuit of happiness, which is something we often talk about here, which is that you can't always maybe go directly after happiness. And I think a lot of what your book is talking about is sort of that very idea that it's finding something that you are interested in, and that whole process, you really talk about everything around a quest being the things that tend to lead towards happiness. So maybe we could start off by you defining what you mean by the word quest in this case.

Yeah, great question. So the word quest or even the concept quest came to me through my own quest of visiting every country in the world. That's something I spent the past 10 years doing. But fortunately, I didn't want to just write a book about myself. It's not a memoir. And I connected with lots of other people who had also pursued their own quest in different ways. And part of that process was saying, OK, you know, what is a quest? Well, a quest has a few distinguishing features. A quest has a destination or a goal. Like there's, there's definitely something that

you're working toward. It's not completely open ended. Um, but there's also a long process and a journey and there's often twists and turns along the way. There's a lot of milestones, uh, you know, or, or kind of time points along the way. There's usually a challenge or sacrifice involved. Um, at least there's some sort of some form of trade-off in the sense that if you pursue a quest, you won't be able to do everything else. You can still do some things, but you can't do everything. And then often what we discovered is that sometimes something else happens along the way. Someone's kind of pursuing something, and then they are changed or transformed

throughout the journey. So I was interested in studying what that what's that all about, and how are people's lives changed as they pursue a quest? And the book talks about, you come out with a bunch of different lessons about the idea of a quest. And I thought maybe we could just run through what some of those main lessons are and maybe as we do that you could also, if you wanted to tell some of the stories about the people in the book because there's a lot of really interesting people in there. The one thing that I wanted to start with, which is that you start with something where you say adventure is for everyone and one of the things that I really liked about the book is there's an idea in general now that I think gets overpopularized to some extent, which is that in order for life to have meaning, you have to quit everything you're doing and only do the thing that you love all the time.

And for a lot of people, that doesn't seem to be a practical scenario in certain cases. But what I liked about the book is you had examples of people who found a way to give their life a lot of meaning through a quest, while not having to sort of drop everything else in their life. They were able to continue their life, whether that be a family or a job or a combination of those things, and find something important and meaningful. And that was one of the things that I liked the most. So maybe you could talk a little bit about that. Yeah, absolutely. And I would say that that scenario you described of not everyone can just abandon everything

and go full force into the jungle or whatever. It's not only that it's not practical, it's also not desirable for a lot of people. A lot of people want to have other things in their life. They do want to have balance. And I think that's fine. But I guess for me, the goal of adventure is all encompassing. It's not just about like there were a lot of incredible stories of like this dude who ran 250 marathons in a single year. Right. So I think that's pretty incredible story. But it's also one of those things that people are like, wow, that's great for him. But, you know,

I could certainly never do that. Or there's a guy who walked across America, a seven and a half month journey of just leaving his home in Maine, going to the San Francisco Bay Area. So I have my own biases and I'm initially kind of gravitated toward those stories. I think it's cool. But then the value of adventure for everyone. I talked with a woman in Omaha who knits hats and she had a quest or she still has a quest. She's in the middle of it of knitting 10,000 hats. And she has a family and she's always just been a crafter and she's made things. But then she came up with this idea of turning it into a quest and making it something really challenging.

It's something that's going to take her a number of years to complete. But the structure to it kind of gave her life greater meaning. There's one more story that I like. Another woman in Oklahoma City, Sasha Martin, grew up overseas, but wasn't able to travel a lot. Now she married this guy has a kid. And she wanted to raise her kid with an international perspective. And so she wasn't able to visit every country in the world. But she had a culinary arts degree. And she decided to cook a meal from every country in the world. And so she wasn't able to visit every country in the world, but she had a culinary arts degree and she decided to cook a meal from every country in the world. And this became her project, her quest, a three and a half year journey. And she began it, you know, just as her daughter was

about six months old. So, you know, her daughter's entire early childhood has, you know, consisted of learning about the world basically. And so I love these stories almost in more, in some ways, I love the stories of ordinary people doing interesting things even more than the stories of like the guy who runs the 250 marathons in a year. I mean, they're both interesting in different ways, but I feel that some are more relatable. Yeah, I really liked the story. I think you just said her name was Sasha in Oklahoma City, because that was a, you know, one of my favorite quotes of all time is I think it's by Arthur Ashe. And it's, it's, you know, one of my favorite quotes of all time is, I think it's by Arthur Ashe, and it's, you know, start where you are, use what you have, do what you can. And I think there's a, for a lot of people, it's sort of an all or nothing. If I can't live this

extraordinary dream life where I do all these things, then I'm just going to live a perfectly plain and boring life. And there's a whole world in between those two. And that's what I liked about the story of the woman in Oklahoma. She said, all right, here's where I'm at. Here's what my constraints are, so to speak. And yet I'm still going to find a way to do something really interesting and extraordinary. All right, to live a meaningful life. Exactly.

I think that's the goal, right? The goal is to live a meaningful life, to bring greater purpose to our lives, regardless of our background, regardless of these constraints, as you mentioned, I do believe that's something that is accessible, at least to everyone who's able to listen to this podcast. Yep. So one of the other themes that came up in the book, I always sort of tie things back to themes that come up on the show a lot here, but one of them was effort is the reward. And, you know, we talk sometimes on the show, you know, Lewis Howes was the one who introduced us. And when we had Lewis on the show, he talked a little bit about some athletic achievements where, you know, when he finally achieved them, he sort of sat there and felt empty at the ceremony.

Or we talk about how often we get the thing we want, and it doesn't turn out to really be the moment we expected. So talk to us about the effort being the reward. Yeah, I think, I think the way I phrased it was effort can be its own reward, you know, if we let it, but I don't necessarily think it always is. Because as you said, there's, there's lots of stories of people who are very much focused on that goal or destination, and then they kind of experience this moment of alienation or disappointment or loneliness, you know, when they come to the end, and maybe they realize they missed, you know, something along the way. And I felt that in different ways, you know, too, at different

points along the quest. So I think the idea is, you know, to value the effort, to value the process. You know, in my request to go to every country in the world, you know, I was sometimes criticized for not being a great travel writer because I'm not a great travel writer. It's completely fair criticism. I'm not really good about, you know, writing these detailed, like long essays about, you know, places and people. I read when other people do. And I'm like, that's great. That's fantastic. That's not me. But I actually enjoy the process of travel.

I actually like, you know, being disrupted from a routine at home and going from place to place and being on the roads. And I think we're actually recording this while you're on the road. So I don't know what your thoughts are on that. But I guess embracing the process and seeing that there's actual value in the process of doing it, regardless of what happens at the end. Yeah. I like the balance of you've got a quest, which is to accomplish something, but along the way is being able to appreciate those things as they come. And I'm a frequent offender of having my eye on something that's out in the future and you know days and weeks slide by where i'm not even present at all to what's going on in my own

life and uh and i do like being on the road also i like traveling i like the disruption of it to some degree I'm Jason Alexander. And I'm Peter Tilden. And together on the Really No Really podcast, our mission is to get the true answers to life's baffling questions like why they refuse to make the bathroom door go all the way to the floor. We got the answer. Will space junk block your cell signal?

The astronaut who almost drowned during a spacewalk gives us the answer. We talk with the scientist who figured out if your dog truly loves you and the one bringing back the woolly mammoth. Plus, does Tom Cruise really do his own stunts? His stuntman reveals the answer. And you never know who's going to drop by. Mr. Brian Cranston is with us today. How are you, too?

Hello, my friend. Wayne Knight about Jurassic Park. Wayne Knight, welcome to Really No Really, sir. God bless you all. Hello, Newman. And you never know when Howie Mandel might just stop by to talk about judging. Really? That's the opening? Really No Really. Yeah, really. No really. Go to

reallynoreally.com and register to win $500, a guest spot on our podcast or a limited edition signed Jason bobblehead. It's called Really No Really and you can find it on the iHeartRadio app, on Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Every Day Matters. That was another one that you had, and you talk about being conscious of our own mortality. I discovered that as I talked to all these different people, you know, many of whom

came from various backgrounds, men and women, young, old, different countries pursuing different quests, they did have a few things in common. And one of those things was I noticed, surprisingly so, this wasn't something I expected or even asked about. A lot of them, you know, spoke about this concept of urgency. And a lot of them spoke, of them spoke using the same kind of language about how I just want to make my life count, and I realize that life is short. And so then I started asking about it more, and I noticed that there was sometimes a distinction between people who pursue these kinds of really big projects and those who don't. And it's not 100%. But just generally speaking, I feel like a lot of people who are pursuing these quests or adventures, they have what I called an emotional awareness of mortality. And the distinction there is that everyone has an intellectual awareness of mortality in the sense that we know that everyone dies. But an emotional

awareness to mortality is just more a conscious awareness of the fact that someday I will die. awareness to mortality is just more a conscious awareness of the fact that someday I will die. And I heard that expressed a lot, not in a super negative or depressing way, but almost as a motivator for a lot of these people, you know, as a motivator of like, I'm just aware that, you know, today is almost over, you know, tomorrow's a new day, I'll never get back, you know, today again. So what am I going to do tomorrow that's going to help me build toward the future while also hopefully, as you alluded to, still living in the present and enjoying the moment. So I felt that a lot of people were very conscious of this. Do you have any thoughts on how people become more conscious of that? Because you're right,

it's pretty easy to say, yes, I know I'm going to die. Getting that awareness in a more tangible way, in an emotional way, like you say, is harder to do. Certain Buddhist traditions have people meditate in the graveyard, which might be taking it a little bit far, but I'm wondering if you got any ideas between meditating in the graveyard and not thinking about it. Yeah, that's funny. There's actually a cemetery in my home neighborhood of Portland, Oregon, that I actually enjoy walking in and running in. I don't actually find it depressing. So maybe it's kind of like that. I think a lot of people I talked to who first mentioned it, there often was some kind of defining moment that led to that. Maybe it was the passing of a close friend or a family member, especially an unexpected passing, like someone who

died in an accident. There were a couple of stories of people who had received like their own terminal diagnosis for some kind of illness. In one case, there was a woman who was really into birdwatching. And she just discovered this hobby or this passion, you know, a bit later in life. I think she was in her mid 30s, early 40s. And she just kind of started pursuing it. And then she received what was initially a terminal diagnosis. And her very first thought was, oh, no, there are so many things left that I still want to do. I feel like I haven't used my time well or something. And fortunately, in her case, the diagnosis was premature. She went on to live almost three decades longer after that. And she devoted the rest of her life, you know, to pursuing this quest of seeing more birds

than anyone else. But, you know, I don't think that we have to receive that terminal diagnosis, right. You know, to, to somehow adopt that model of urgency. And that's kind of, that's the word that I think of more than mortality so much is, is urgency is, you know, urgency and opportunity, you know, to bring it back to the wolves that we talked about in the is, you know, urgency and opportunity, you know, to bring it back to the wolves that we talked about in the beginning. You know, I guess the way that I try to feed the good wolf is, you know, by recognizing and acknowledging in my life with gratitude, all the different opportunities that I have and all the privilege that I have. And with that comes responsibility. With that comes, okay, great. What am I going to do with this? You know, it's amazing that I was able to travel to all these places. Like, you know,

very few people could do that. So what's next? I feel that that helps me a little bit. One of the other lessons that you came up with was that smaller goals can expand. You talked about how people often start with, I think you described yourself, you didn't intentionally start out to travel every country in the world. You started out traveling because you found it enjoyable and you build on that. And I thought that was really interesting, A, in the way that quests work and B, in the way that really building anything works. You know, is that idea of on the show we often talk about sort of starting small and connecting the dots, you know, is that idea of on the show, we often talk about sort of starting small and connecting the dots, you know, over time. So maybe you could elaborate more. Yeah. I like, I like spreading small and connecting the dots. That's, that's a good

analogy. In my case, I don't think I ever would have had the vision to visit all 193 countries. You know, if after I took my first overseas trip, you know, and I went to my second or third country, someone said, Hey, Chris, wouldn't it be great for you to do this? You know, if after I took my first overseas trip, you know, and I went to my second or third country, someone said, Hey, Chris, wouldn't it be great for you to do this, you know, spend the next 10 years of your life. I don't think I ever would have had that that vision or been able to take that on. And so it was, it was a thing of as I traveled, I lived in West Africa for a few years, was traveling in some regions that are a little bit difficult. And I became comfortable with that. I just thought that was normal. So that's how it works you know. Then I set the first goal of going to 100 countries. And at the time, that was like this huge, audacious goal for me. And then I realized, like, well, that's only half

the countries. And the real challenge, of course, would be to take on, you know, all of them. But again, the confidence came through, like, the more I did, the more I worked towards something, the greater confidence that I had as I went along. And the other thing I felt that produced confidence, I don't know how you feel, was that misadventures, as I call them, or mistakes, or even so-called failures, all of these things actually kind of worked for my benefits as I went along. Because at first, if I would travel to a new place or something, I was super careful and I was even like nervous and just checking things all the time. And then things started to go wrong because they always do, you know, when you travel.

And at first, you know, I'd be in some situation where I was really worried and how am I going to get out of it? And, and you just go, you go through those things and it's usually okay. And the worst case scenario usually doesn't happen. And, uh, I guess by the end I was actually making more mistakes because I was, I was, I was careless, you know, cause I gained confidence, you know, through all the things going wrong through the fact that I was, you know, two thirds of the way through or whatever. So I'm a big believer in like, just identify the goal that you can accomplish, you know, I mean, stretch yourself a little bit, obviously you should challenge yourself. Um, but take on whatever is whatever is challenging and to put it. The other is that we interviewed Krista Tippett from the show On Being, and we talked about the idea.

She's got in one of her books where she talks about people who are great, you know, pick your Gandhi or your Martin Luther King or your – and they didn't become great in spite of their disadvantages and challenges they became great because of them because i think we all try so hard to avoid the things that are hard and um it's i think there's an old there's an old quote that's coming to mind now that i can't quite get but it's basically about you know good weather doesn't make good sailors something to that that extent what is something that people can do if they want to, obviously, they can read your book. But what are some ways that they can start to think if they think that a quest might be something for them? Where are some places they can go to start learning more about

that or to think more about it? Yeah, I think they can go within themselves and they can go and say, okay, what are some things I'm interested in? You know, what, what are some things that I'm excited about? What am I motivated to do? And then how can I, you know, create some kind of packaging or wrapper for that? That's what a quest is all about. That's the distinction between, you know, a hobby and a passion or a quest. I think I use this, uh, you know, analogy of golf in the book, uh, just kind of funny. Cause I don't really play golf. I don't know anything about it, but I said, you know, analogy of golf in the book, uh, just kind of funny. Cause I don't really play golf. I don't know anything about it, but I said, you know, if you like golf, like if you go out to play golf once in a while, great. It's a hobby. Um, if you go out, you know, if you, if you really start focusing on your game and playing more frequently, maybe getting some coaching or

something, maybe it's turning into a passion. If, uh, you decide to go and play like every golf course in Scotland, which I'm, I'm understanding that there's quite a few of them there and you have a specific deadline. I'm going to do this within two years or something. That's, that's when it becomes a quest, right? And so I feel like what, what helps with the quest is to have that wrapper, to have that packaging, because until I had that, I was just traveling and that's fine. But I was really motivated by goal setting. I was really motivated by making lists. That's another thing a lot of people had in common in the book. They all like to make lists and, you know, write things down and check them off. Not all of them, but a lot of them. And I guess for me, like once I found the parameters or the constraints, to use that word again, just the logic of saying, OK, I'm traveling.

But according to this specific goal and here are the number of countries and here is the deadline that I set for myself, you know, eight years into the future, my 35th birthday, that's when it became much more real to me. So I guess I would encourage them, let's think about all the things that you're interested in. How can we take them to the next level? You know, that's what a quest or a big adventure is about. It's kind of like leveling up. Yeah, I like that. And I was working on writing an article today and I came across a study that just made me think of this. And it basically said that depressed people tend to have, uh, very general goals. Yeah. And so kind of to the point of what you're talking about, a generalized goal would be something like, I like to travel. I want to travel more, right? Whereas when you,

when you start to get really, you, you put a package around it to use your words, you, it gives you direction and drive. And I think that's one of the things that I think depression can cause is very difficult to make choices. It's very difficult. I'm not sure, maybe I'll do this, maybe I'll do that. Whereas if you're getting more specific, and a quest could be a way to do that, it sort of keeps you moving in the right direction. Yeah. Well, that's what, uh, that's what the whole point of, you know, using a quest or an adventure, whatever term you like to use, you know, to bring purpose and meaning to your life. You know, I've also struggled with depression in my life. I'm doing, doing okay right now,

you know, but from time to time, like I experienced anxiety or whatever. And it was, it was really helpful over that 10 year process. Like I was doing lots of other stuff. It wasn't my only thing, but over 10 years, like I kind of knew more or less what to do next. I kind of knew like, well, I've got this. Next year, I've got to do 15 countries. Here are the 15 I think I've got to do. Here's more or less I'm going to plan my life around. I kind of liked that.

I don't mean to say it was a diversion. I don't mean to say it was something to keep my mind occupied when I should have been thinking about something else. It was actually really helpful. And throughout the process, then I'm gaining that confidence that we spoke about. It's helping me in other ways. I'm really just experiencing my own little personal change and transformation. So that's kind of what I mean by just you have this thing and you know here's what I'm working toward. And you're building.

You're building something that you believe in. You're building something that you believe in. You're building something that matters to you. So that was greatly helpful for me. I'm Jason Alexander. And I'm Peter Tilden. And together on the Really No Really podcast, our mission is to get the true answers to life's baffling questions like why they refuse to make the bathroom door go all the way to the floor. We got the answer.

Will space junk block your cell signal? The astronaut who almost drowned during a spacewalk gives us the answer. We talk with the scientist who figured out if your dog truly loves you. And the one bringing back the woolly mammoth. Plus, does Tom Cruise really do his own stunts? His stuntman reveals the answer. And you never know who's going to drop by. Mr. Bryan Cranston is with us tonight.

How are you, too? Hello, my friend. Wayne Knight about Jurassic Park. Wayne Knight, welcome to Really, No Really, sir. Bless you all. Hello, Newman. And you never know when Howie Mandel might just stop by to talk about judging. Really?

That's the opening? Really, No Really. Yeah, really. No Really. Go to reallynoreally.com. And register to win $500, a guest spot on our podcast, or a limited edition signed Jason Bobblehead. It's called Really, No Really, and you can find it on the iHeartRadio app,

on Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. You wrap the book up by saying that, you know, quests don't always tie up in a clean way. Maybe share a little bit about a couple of the stories there, and then also maybe for you when you hit the last country. Yeah. So if you study, you know, Quest historically, most of the narrative is all about the process. Most of the narrative is all about the journey.

And sometimes the beginning is, you know, super short. It's just like all of a sudden things are disrupted. Why were they disrupted? Why did the aliens, you know, invade the earth? We don't know, but there they are. We got to do something about it. Right. Why? You know, why did this person have to go in and save his village or reclaim the magic item or whatever? And the ending is also, you know, often kind of like and that was it. You know, save the village. Things were good. Right. So it's all about that middle portion. things were good, right? So it's all about that middle portion. They don't always tie up so well in real life. And, you know, often, as you alluded to with with Lewis and his story, like you come to the end, and you're kind of like, huh, okay, or you go home, and people don't relate to it, your friends or family or somebody who wasn't a part of that direct experience, kind of

ask you to be like, what's it like? And the way that they're asking you is kind of like just asking you to describe like, you know, last night's TV episode or something, like, what was it like? You know, how are you supposed to distill this? And so, you know, there is kind of a season, I think, not just a moment, a season of figuring out, okay, you know, what am I doing now? And I experienced that. I think almost everybody that I talked to in the book one way or another did my, my season for that came a bit before the quest came to an end. It was kind of the last year essentially that it just kind of hit me. It was like, this has been my identity for a long period of time. You know, if I meet somebody or somebody hears about me, there's like, here's this guy,

his name is Chris. We can't pronounce his last name, but he's the guy who's going to every country in the world. Right? That's been like my little one letter. That's whatever, you know. So I don't want to live in that forever. You know, I don't want to in like, for a few months, maybe afterwards, or a little maybe now with the book or something. It's like, Oh, that's Chris, you know, he's the guy who went to every country in the world. But I guess long term, I don't want to live with I want to have some, you know, I always want to be working on something new. I want to continually be forging a new identity. So a little bit of struggle with that. But then again, like, what's the alternative? You know, the alternative would be to not undertake

the quest in the first place, to not have these incredible experiences all over the world, you know, to not meet all these other people pursuing quests. I think we always have to continue to try and find meaning in life. And it's not always, while you have the quest going, that's a good way to give life meaning, but there's always a period where we have to continue to search. And that was one of the things I liked about the concept of the quest was, I think it's easy to get hung up on what's the meaning of life. And I'm a fan of Viktor Frankl. I don't know if you call a guy

who went through a Holocaust if you're a fan of his, but yeah. I've got his posters up in my bedroom. But he talks about how there isn't a meaning to life. We all have to create our own meaning. And that's what I thought was really, this quest was a way to create that meaning and put some structure around it. What's that other quote by Joseph Campbell? He said, you know, I don't think people are looking for the meaning of life. I think they want the sense of being alive. Yep. That's another one of my favorite ones. So what is next for you?

Obviously, you've got this book tour coming up. You're promoting the book, but I'm sure you've got something else brewing. So the book tour is not really just a book tour. It's a series of community events. And my whole project began from community. And I started writing about the journey to every country a few years ago and started doing meetups with my readers all over the world. And I really realized they were the greatest part of the quest, essentially, because I was just an independent traveler doing my own thing. And then I started connecting with all these great people.

So it's not so much about promoting the book, you know, on the tour. It's more about hearing their stories and maybe sharing this message, hopefully kind of nudging people toward pursuing their own adventure and nudging them toward embracing the value of adventure in their lives. And I see that as a kind of a mini quest of its own. You know, I'm doing 40 cities to start out with, but then I hope to add another 30 cities later. I hope to do this for a while. It's something I really enjoy doing. And, you know, we also have an annual event that we put together in Portland, Oregon. It'd be great to have you guys out sometime. That's like a week-long event with thousands of people. Again, it's very much focused on community. So I guess whatever it is that I'm doing next, you know, various business

projects and books and things like I'm hoping that's that's kind of the value that shines through all of it is, is it's not just about Chris, he's trying to do something that you know, to bring like minded people together or to encourage people along the way. Is it true that anybody that interviews you for a podcast gets free tickets to the World Domination Summit? Or is that just something I dreamed up in my head? You must have seen that on Twitter or something somewhere, but that's great. I would love to have you guys. We'll figure it out. I would love to get out there. I hear wonderful, wonderful things about that event. Well, I think that takes us near the end of our time. Is there anything you want to talk about and related to Quest that you don't think we covered or any other thoughts on the theme?

This is great. This is really thoughtful questions. You know, it's so much better than like going on the radio for like a two minute segment. So when you're like, Chris, tell us everything like right now. I'm like, I don't know what to do. No, I'm really honored to be on this great, thoughtful podcast. If I can ever help you or any of the listeners with anything, please feel free to contact me. All right, Chris. Well, thanks so much for your time. And hopefully we will get to see you while you're out on the road. Awesome. Sounds great. Thank you. All right. Take care. Okay. Take care. Have a good night. Bye-bye. you can learn more about chris gilbo and this podcast at one you feed.net slash chris that's chris