The School of Greatness - 678 Happiness Through Hardship with Chris Guillebeau

Episode Date: August 10, 2018

WHAT IS YOUR UNDERLYING MOTIVATION? We’ve all been through a lot in life. I know there’s been a lot of times you’ve felt tested, and even just beat down. As you’ve gone through these challenges you’ve acquired sets of skills to help you get through them. Those are important skills that have helped you along your journey, whether you realize it or not. Unfortunately, though, your skills may not help you with what’s next. Life is about continually growing your tool box and being adaptive and not giving up on what you were meant to do. Even though it may be hard to know what that is, you just have to follow your heart. Live for yourself, not for others. That doesn’t mean be malicious. You still need compassion and companionship. Just know you can do good for yourself and others at the same time. On this episode of 5 Minute Friday, I wanted to bring you back and episode from Chris Guillebeau. Chris is a NY TImes Best Selling Author, a modern day explorer, and has been to nearly every country in the world. He’s certainly faced an overwhelming amount of challenges, some we can only imagine. That’s why I felt he was the best person to dive even deeper into this lesson. Learn all about compassion and building your skill sets through your personal trials, on Episode 678. In This Episode You Will Learn: What makes a true quest (00:42) How to know when to continue the quest and when to stop (1:39) Why you need to keep building skill sets (2:24) Something you should give that’s better than advice (3:49) If Chris feels he’s been getting enough companionship (4:16) Chris’ definition of happiness (5:18)

This is 5-Minute Friday! I'm very excited to be on with you guys in this episode and thank you guys for being here. We've got my good friend Chris Guillebeau. For those who don't know who Chris is, he is a New York Times Best Selling Author and a modern-day explorer. He's traveled to every country in the world, and every summer in Portland, he hosts the World Domination Summit. He's also the founder of Pioneer Nation, Unconventional Guides, the Travel Hacking Cartel, and numerous other creative projects. I think, though, sometimes something unpredictable happens yeah in these situations like everything

you just expressed like it's going to be terrible then it's going to be okay but just like in a quest you know any good quest there's this progress toward a goal there is an end point etc but if it's a if it's a true quest something happens along the way that changes things and you don't you know you don't necessarily know what that is and despite all the skills that you have despite all the life experience that you have it's going to be put to the test actually because whatever this unpredictable thing is by its nature you didn't know it was going to happen and you didn't necessarily say okay here's you know here's where i was going to be sad or here's where i was going to struggle and then i'm going to be okay like you might think you're okay at a certain point and then something else.

Which brings me back to the point of born for this and giving up. If you're on a quest for something you're born to do and you believe in your heart, I'm born to do this thing. And then something comes at you and stops you or makes you go off track. How do you know when to continue the quest? And when, as it's part of the quest, as every quest has this, and when you're actually just supposed to give up. Sure. Well, I think it's important in these kind of situations to look at what is the underlying motivation? What is the goal?

Maybe what is the value? And if we talk about different things, like becoming a professional athlete you know what what was the the real goal wasn't the real goal greatness yeah essentially which is exactly what you have i don't want to just say parlayed it into because that's kind of like a career thing but i mean your life you know greatness was was the goal yeah writing books and hosting these events i mean ultimately the goal is community and serving humanity in some way. Connection. Connection, right? So I think sometimes you're working toward this thing. You feel like you're born to do it, but then you can't.

There's still some direction there as you go deeper, which is exactly what I'm learning to do. The tools and the skills and the resources that I have that have helped me throughout my life, that have helped me get into college without going to high school, get out of being a juvenile delinquent you know, throughout my life that have helped me like get into college without going to high school, you know, get out of being a juvenile delinquent, make something in my life, travel, be an entrepreneur, all these different skills, they are not sufficient for what I need to do right now. That's what I know. Interesting. So that kind of thinking, let me schedule it. Let me do this. Yeah, I like it. I want to do that. But what I'm saying is it hasn't quite worked. I've kind of run into this wall or this ceiling or whatever you call it, that barricade that I can't

apply the same reasoning to. Sure. My philosophy, which is true in life and career is you don't have to live your life the way others expect. Yes. You can do good things for yourself and for others at the same time. It's not a false choice. It's not a dichotomy. You know, this has been my message for a long time. I still very much believe in it. Now it's just a question of adding to that and applying that in a different way and realizing that the goals that I have now are not necessarily related to deliverables.

Because just as I like to schedule things on my calendar, you know, I also like to have a deliverable. Here's the next book. Here's the next thing. Here's the next whatever. But I don't see quite what the deliverable is here. I don't think I would give you advice. I would give you companionship and I would give you empathy. And I would say, I'm so sorry. I'm so, so sorry. And this is not okay. And yes, you should hang in there. Let us know what you need, etc. But that's going to sound very hollow to you.

So the biggest thing I could say is I'm so sorry. Have you been getting enough of that? Sure, I think so. You've been getting companionship? Yeah, I think a lot of people don't know what to do with this kind of stuff. I totally get it. It's tough.

Yeah, I get it. How do you yeah how do you do you don't sound sure like you said like hollow right right just like everyone says the same thing right right how do you truly because i think it's it goes against both walls it goes against the person's walls of not knowing how to deal with it of all the mixed emotions of understanding it to someone who's not going through with it. Well, this is uncomfortable for me too, because now I have to face things. I have to really go somewhere to be able to connect with someone at a level so that they feel loved and accepted. Yeah, but that's compassion.

It is compassion. That is compassion. A lot of people aren't good at that, though. Yeah. Well, compassion is a skill probably that you acquire as well. Yeah. And maybe you can acquire it through your own life trauma. Right.

Or you can also acquire it through caring and understanding that being there or being available or reaching out is good, not expecting reply or something. What's your definition of happiness? Forward motion. Continuously improving. forward motion, continuously improving, improving, you know,

my circumstances, my life, as well as improving others' lives. I like the word impact that you used. I like that. I think of influence. Same thing.

Not influence in like a celebrity way. Yeah. Influencers. But true influence. And probably a lot of the people who are listening, like if they don't have

blogs or podcasts or books, they still have a lot of influence yeah the community their friends and family and that influence is actually much stronger you know we're impacted much much more by the people who are around us yeah than by you know somebody who's out there doing something so i'm interested in influence you