The School of Greatness - 89 Creating a Quest to Find Purpose with Chris Guillebeau

Episode Date: September 4, 2014

"A quest can improve your life. A quest can bring purpose and meaning to your life too." - Chris Guillebeau Free resources and links to everything in the show here: lewishowes.com/89

This is episode number 89 with Chris Guillebeau. Welcome to the School of Greatness. My name is Lewis Howes, former pro athlete turned lifestyle entrepreneur. And each week we bring you an inspiring person or message to help you discover how to unlock your inner greatness. Thanks for spending some time with me today. Now let the class begin. What is up, everyone?

Thanks so much for hanging out with me today on the School of Greatness podcast. I've got a friend on today. His name is Mr. Chris Guillebeau, and he is a really interesting guy, actually. If you don't know who Chris is, I'm just going to share a few interesting facts. One is that he's visited every country in the world, so 193 countries he's been to, and he's done it through travel hacking, which he talks about on his blog over at chrisguillebeau.com. He also hosts the World Domination Summit, which is in Portland every summer. And I think this recent year had like 5,000 people or something crazy like that. It's

a huge event. Lots of inspiring people come to that. He writes a number of books, including one called The $100 Startup and the one that we're talking about today, which is called The Happiness of Pursuit, finding the quest that will bring purpose to your life. Now, I'm a big believer in purpose. And my purpose, my mission is to serve 100 million people, to support them in discovering how to make a living around what they're most passionate about. Because I believe that's what's going to actually create deeper and more meaningful relationships. That's what's going to create healthy bodies. That's what people are going to feel good. They're going to want to work out more when they're doing what they love and they're making

money doing what they love. They're going to be deeper relationships. They're going to be less cancer, less stress, less heart attacks, all these diseases. There's going to be less of them because people are going to be fulfilled. They're going to be happy because they feel like they have meaning making money around doing what they love. Imagine if you could do what you love, hang out with the people you love, do the activities you loved all day long and get paid to do it. That's what I'm up to. I'm up to teaching people how to do that.

So we're here to talk about the quest and finding that quest that will bring you purpose to your life. So if you're trying to find that right now, you're in the right place. And I'm super excited to introduce to you to Mr. Chris Guillebeau right now. Welcome back everyone to the School of Greatness podcast. I'm super pumped today. I've got Mr. Chris Guillebeau on. What's up, Chris? Hey, man.

How you doing? I am doing well. And we met, I think it was probably three years ago, actually, with Jonathan Fields introduced us in New York City. And I've been following you ever since and was following you before then. And you're in the middle of your quest at this time, which was to visit every country in the world, correct? That's right. And do you remember how many countries you'd visited at that time? Oh, that's a good question. Yeah, three years ago, I was kind of on that final third. So maybe about 140, 150 countries or so. There's 193 countries in total. And then I did it over about 10 or 11

years. So I was probably in that final batch approaching some of the harder countries when we first met. The harder countries, meaning not as fun to be in or hard to travel to? What does that mean? Yeah, not necessarily not as fun, just a little bit more problematic or difficult to get to, challenging in terms of the flight logistics, challenging in terms of the visa permissions, things like that. There's a lot of countries in Africa, many of which are great and wonderful. There's also some that are run by some pretty corrupt governments that aren't super excited about letting foreigners in it's not just africa there's other places as well uh and so that can be an adventure on itself so it can still be fun but yeah it was uh it was a challenge for some of

them interesting yeah i'm actually going to ghana next month for the first time well ghana is one of the good countries really you'll have a great time i'm just worried i had to get my shots you know to go to get the visa and get get the visa for the passport or whatever. And I got like three different shots, and I got the flu like three days later. Yeah, because your immune system is compromised or whatever. Well, now you'll probably be good for like 10 years or something with those shots. That's good. That's good.

Yeah, I just don't want to get – mosquitoes love me. So the whole malaria thing is kind of like scary to me. So I'm glad I have. So you've got a new book out it's called the the happiness of pursuit and it's finding the quest that will bring purpose to your life and i believe this book has it all i really like this book and i'm excited about talking about this because you talk about the quest and this is this is kind of encompassing your story about your quest for all these different countries but then also a lot of different stories from other people on their own quest now my question is where did you first what made you want to go on this quest of going to see every country? Yeah, so for me, I initially loved traveling.

I just kind of loved being out in the world. And I actually lived in Ghana and Liberia and Sierra Leone for several years. Yeah, from 2002 to 2006, I lived in West Africa. Oh, wow. Yeah, I was volunteering for a medical charity there. And that was just a great experience. I kind of just transformed my life and gave me a new perspective on lots of different things. And I started traveling as part of that process, just around

the region and then in Southern Africa and then a bit in Europe as well. So I always liked traveling, but I'd also always been a goal setter. I always kind of liked, you know, like putting a target to something or I liked, you know, making lists of my projects and tasks. I really like, you know, making lists and crossing things off. That's how I've always kind of been motivated. And so at some point I kind of had this idea like, okay, traveling is fun, but what if I could create some structure to it? And I initially had a goal of going to a hundred countries. I thought this would be kind of fun to do this, like at some point in my life. And then, uh, I started getting closer to that. Like I'd gone from 50 to

like 75 or so. And, and then I said, well, for a real challenge, you know let's, let's try to go to every country in the world. And so that, that actually like that, you know, speaking of transformation, that also transformed a bunch of stuff for me because like just having structure to the, to the travel goal made so much more sense. And then I was like, I love the travel, but I also love the quest aspect. Interesting. Interesting. And how long did it take you to do the, once you decided to go on the quest? Cause he, I guess he'd visited a bunch of countries before then. Right. How long did it take? Yeah, I had been to like, yeah, like you said, between 50 and 75 countries or so. So the whole thing I say is about 10 years, but probably six years, like once I formalized it

and said, okay, I'm going to, you know, I'm going to actually try to go to all of them. And I didn't go back and go to the other 50. I wasn't starting over. I was like, I'm going to count whatever I've done so far. And how many days were you traveling in those six years, I guess? Or how many days per year on average? Maybe about 100 days on average per year. It wasn't full time, But it was pretty frequent.

I mean, sometimes it was maybe half the time, but then there would be breaks to do other things. And then I kind of, you know, began a whole new career as part of this, which wasn't the intention at all in the beginning. And so that ended up kind of taking some some different time. And was that the travel hacking business? The travel hacking business, it's just starting writing a blog. I didn't have a blog in the beginning. I was just kind of doing my own thing. And then I started writing about it.

And then community and books and all that stuff kind of came later. So it wasn't like a strategic business plan to go to every country in the world. It was a personal mission. And then there ended up being some business goals along with it. Yeah. And for those that don't know Chris or haven't heard uh you know heard about his books and his his website and the world domination summit what i think had what like a thousand people at this year or oh we have about three between three and four thousand oh my gosh yeah i remember the first year was like 500 and then it was a thousand now it's four thousand and you had like the largest i think you i i still haven't been so hopefully

one day i can come and i would love to have you there. Love to come. And I think I saw online that you guys were going for the world record of the biggest yoga session or something like that. Did that happen? Yeah. So last year, actually, we set our first Guinness World Record for the longest human chain formed on the water. So we had about 500 people on the Willamette River forming this human chain, linking hands,

and we got great video of that. And so we decided once you do something once, it's a tradition, right? So this year we're like, well, we need a new world record. And it's kind of funny because people started asking in the fall, like, hey, what's the world record next year? And we're like, we didn't know that there was going to be an annual thing. We thought it was just once. But yeah, so everybody wanted one.

So this year, yeah, we set the world record for the longest yoga chain. So that was in Pioneer Courthouse Square, which is the main like downtown area of Portland, Oregon. And people did a series of poses, you know, like in sequence. It took up the whole area. We got some great footage of that too. So that was also fun. And that was, I think we had more than 800 people for that. Amazing.

That was fun. What happened to the other 3,000 people? Why didn't they do it? Oh, they didn't. I don't know. They just did. They were like, that's it. You know, like I want to come to the thing, but I don't want to set a real record.

Obviously, they're not allowed to come back next year. Nice. So you're married, right? I am. Now, did your wife go with you on this quest or was she more of a supporter from the sidelines uh she's a traveler herself you know she's been to more than 50 countries of her own um but most of the quest was just me most of the quest was you know my own kind of thing and and she was with me on some of these countries and and we lived together when we were

in africa we were married then and the quest kind of began afterwards so she she was super supportive okay and in the book you have lots of stories from different individuals about their quest and some really inspiring stories uh i remember one at the end with phoebe which is like a tearjerker i was like oh my gosh this is crazy um but where did you find the people that you featured in this book? So I wrote a previous book called The $100 Startup. And I used a case study model for that. And the whole perspective with that book was, okay, I want to tell people how I've kind of created my own freedom business or whatever.

But I don't want to just talk about myself because one, that's boring. And then two, not everybody can relate to one individual. So I really wanted to focus on a research process of going out and studying, you know, how people had built their businesses or achieve their freedom or whatever. And so it was kind of like from that model, I applied it for the new book, The Happiness of Pursuit. And I looked for people, you know, all over the world who had undertaken quests. And it was a little bit of a different process this time because if you look for people who started a business without spending a lot of money, it's a pretty clear and specific thing. And there are a lot of people who've done that in different ways. Whereas when you talk about quests, it's kind of like, well, what is a quest?

So what does that mean? And as you said, how do you find them? So I guess I began with people in my community. I began with people that I knew or I met on my travels. It is a pretty broad community now with WDS, with the folks coming. They tend to be really adventure-minded. So there's a lot of folks doing different interesting things. So I start with that. But then, again, I don't want to be too insular and just look at my own folks or my own readers. So we did a pretty broad call to action.

It was totally publicized. Lots of other blogs were writing about it. Some mainstream media was writing about it. And we get a lot of stories back. And many of them we can't use, and that's fine. But the whole approach is gather a lot of interesting data and then see what the most interesting and compelling and diverse stories are. Sure, sure.

So what is a quest then? Can you define it? Yeah, a quest is a long-term mission or goal or pursuit. It does have an end. A quest has a beginning and an end. We're all on a life journey. We're all doing lots of different stuff, but a quest is something that does have a destination in mind.

Even though it has a destination in mind, it is very much about the process. There's lots of incremental steps along the way. You don't usually begin a quest one day and then finish it the next day. There's usually some amount of sacrifice or challenge in it. There's an element of risk to it. And then usually what happens is, more often than not, the quester or the person pursuing the quest has changed in some fashion along the way. You're usually not the same person at the end as you were in the beginning. Interesting. Okay. So there's some type of transformation. Yeah. And sometimes you know what that transformation might be in the beginning and other times you don't.

And that's part of embracing the uncertainty of a quest, or even if some of the listeners don't relate to the word quest, you know, I do believe that all of us can embrace this value of adventure and maybe creating some structure around that value of adventure. Got you. Okay. So, you know, some might say, well, just traveling to all these different countries, it sounds just like a hobby, something you like to do, but there's a distinction between, a difference between hobby and quest. Yeah, I think so. I think so. I mean, I think like a hobby, yeah, something you like to do, I mean, and you like to travel. I mean, for me, maybe travel was initially a hobby. It was something I liked to do, but then I kind of created that focus or that structure around it. Again, it's not something that everyone can relate to, which is why, like for the book and for the

study, I didn't want to just look at travel quests, you know, and that is my inclination. Since I'm a traveler, I naturally kind of gravitate towards stories of, you know, there's a guy who walked across America, you know, over seven and a half months. There was a young woman who sailed around the world and kind of circumnavigated the globe in a small sailboat. And she was the youngest person to ever do that. So I tend to like things like that. But I also wanted to focus on lots of different things. So there's some humanitarian quests, there's some academic quests,

some quests in the arts, people just kind of pursuing something. I guess it's kind of pursuing something to the exclusion of everything else, or maybe not everything else, but you are making trade-offs and choices to pursue that dream. You are saying no to some things in order to pursue this thing.

There's a sacrifice. Yeah, definitely. There's a sacrifice. I read the story about the man who runs over 250 marathons. I was just like, I haven't even run one. It's incredible. I know.

I can't relate to that either. I have run one marathon, but yeah, that's totally different than 250. So it's kind of interesting because I had a lot of stories like that in the first draft of the book, and we did keep many of them. on but like yeah that's totally different than 250 so it's kind of funny interesting because i had a lot of stories in the like that in the first draft of the book and we did keep many of them um but i got some feedback from my editor and he said like that he's like most people are not going to be able to to relate to this at all he's like you know they're going to read the story

of the dude who ran 250 marathons and be like that's awesome like good for that i could never do that right exactly and so i tried as well to say, like, hey, here, most of these stories are actually ordinary people, you know, who have just chosen to do something remarkable, like they have been courageous, they have been brave, but they're doing something that you could do, too, you know, and the central message of the book and the whole message I'm trying to put forward is not just a sociological study. It's I'm trying to actually say a quest can improve your life. A quest can bring purpose and meaning to your life too. Absolutely. We had a little confusion on how I was going to get the book from your publisher.

I got two copies actually on the same day. I gave one to my assistant and said, I want you to dive into this and let me know what you think and she was like it really got me excited because she's she lives a great life but she didn't have she wasn't on a quest and she really got excited you know not thinking like i'm gonna go run 200 marathons i'm gonna do some crazy adventurous thing but she was like i think i feels like i want to go sew a hat for every person that i know and i want to like do something craftsy and like and get into this goal-setting quest, this journey where I create something for people. Something like that where it's not like this, you know, I'm going to run across the world or sail a sailboat type of adventure. But it's a different type of quest that really speaks to her.

And that's why I think it's really cool because it gives people a deeper sense of purpose, a deeper sense of meaning. And I'm always on a quest. Right now, I'm on the quest to make it to the Olympics. Right, right. That's fantastic. There's definitely been sacrifice. I moved states twice. I travel all over the world. I invest a lot of my own money in the training. I don't go to business events so that I can be with my teammates and all these different things. And there's definitely been injuries where I've been like, this sucks and do I want to keep going? Right, totally. So I get it.

But what I love about the book, it's not just a bunch of cool stories about people, which it has, about other people's quests and adventures. But it really helps evoke people getting figuring out what their own quest is, what calls them. And that's what I'm super pumped that it did for my assistant, Sarah. That's great. So what are – one question. Can anyone take on a quest? Well, first, that's a great story about Sarah. Thanks for sharing that. So my best to her. You know, I feel like a lot of people are coming to this

message. And again, it's not just my message, but a message of improving your life through some specific action. I think a lot of them come to it out of a sense of discontent or dissatisfaction. And it's not to say that they have a terrible life. Like you said, like Sarah's got a great life, but yet she still wants more, you know? And I think probably most of the people listening to this podcast are in the same place where they want to improve their lives. That's why they listen to the school of greatness. You know, they want to, they want more, they want to challenge themselves. And, and so that's what this is about. It's, it's about, you know, just creating greater happiness and not just happiness, but meaning and purpose by pursuing a quest. So can anyone do it? Well, of course, you know, it's not to say that everyone

should, you know, I'm not a big fan of saying like you should do this. But I can just say like from my life, like when I thought about doing this, like way back, you know, I was intimidated by it. I was, I was a little bit afraid of it in some ways, but I also couldn't stop thinking about it, you know? And I knew like, if I never did it, then I would, I would regret it. I was, I was a little bit afraid of it in some ways, but I also couldn't stop thinking about it, you know? And I knew like, if I never did it, then I would, I would regret it. You know, if I never attempted it, then I would always have that in the back of my mind, right? Like, what do you, I could have done that. Right. And maybe you felt the same thing about, you know, going for the Olympics, you know, it's like, it may work, it may not. And that's exactly how I felt about the, the going to every country. Like I could get stopped along the way that would suck, but that would be better than, you know, looking back, you know, 10 years and

saying like, I had this idea, never did anything about it, you know? Exactly. Yeah. Um, so what are some questions you ask the reader so they can start thinking about their own quest? What excites you? What motivates you? Uh, is there something that you'd like to do that no one else understands? That's actually a pretty common thing in quests. A lot of, a lot of things that people really kind of pursue or go all out in, you know, it's something that they really love. And maybe the passion is kind of infectious. Like we, we can watch it from the outside. We're like, that's pretty crazy, but we wouldn't necessarily want to do it ourselves, you know, whether it's knitting the 10,000 hats, you know, or the guys with the marathons are running across America or whatever. Um, is there something that, that you're really

into that nobody else is? Um, if that line of thinking isn't helpful, maybe also think about, uh, what bothers you, what troubles you, right? Like what, there's all these problems in the world. Like, which is the one that, that really troubles you the most and what can you, what troubles you, right? There's all these problems in the world. Which is the one that really troubles you the most? And what can you do something? What can you kind of take on maybe as part of your challenge? And you're pursuing your own big dream, but you're also making the world a better place at the same time.

A lot of people kind of find their answer in that line of thinking. I was going to ask about that question because a lot of people ask, what are you passionate about? What excites you? But I like the question, what bothers you? And that's what I lot of people ask you know what are you passionate about what excites you but I like the question what bothers you and yeah that's what I asked you about because you know if there's something that's kind of nagging you in the back of your your head constantly or your body feels just like nagging this of something that bothers you then I feel like that's a great reason to go towards the quest at that moment is so it's a

stirring it's a stirring that you have maybe it's even a calling or something you, you're, you're the one who's qualified to do something about it, right? If you're the one who's most bothered by it, you know, I really believe you're qualified to do something about it. Right, right. What were one or two of the most outrageous stories you heard in this search? Maybe that you used or maybe that you didn't use? Outrageous stories. Okay, that's interesting. We talked about, you know, the 250 marathon guy who ran a marathon every single day for a year, just about. There's also the story of John Francis, who was bothered by something. He was an environmentalist, and he was really troubled by this oil spill in the San Francisco Bay. And he decided to stop using motorized transport. And he just decided, I'm going to stop using cars.

I feel like I'm contributing to this problem in some ways. I'm going to stop. So he did that for a little while. And then he realized he was only going like halfway there because he would meet people and he would explain that he felt like felt like they're like they felt like he was judging them you know and he was kind of being judgmental about this and so he decided to provide an even better life example and he stopped speaking and so he took a vow of silence that lasted for more than 17 years wow so for more than 17 years you know he didn't speak and he didn't use motorized transport he walked all across America. He actually earned a master's degree and a PhD without speaking as this whole, whole protest ended up, you know, changing a lot of policy, um, bringing a lot of people on board for this environmental crusade

that he had. So that's a pretty outrageous story. It's also maybe a little bit unrelatable as well because nobody wants to take a vow of silence. Right. So if I could give you one more story, Because nobody wants to take a vow of silence, right? So if I could give you one more story, maybe it's not super outrageous, but again, interesting and relatable. I like the story of Sasha Martin, who is from Oklahoma, and she grew up overseas. She had a family that kind of lived in Europe in different places, but then relocated to Oklahoma. She married this guy and had a kid and wasn't able to travel, but she did want to kind of bring her family up with an international perspective.

And so she had a degree in culinary arts and she thought, well, I can't visit every country in the world. Um, but she decided to cook a meal from every country in the world. And she did it like with a full on production. You know, it was like every Friday night, like she would be researching throughout the week. She would be getting recipes, you know, she would post a photo of the flag and play music from that country. So it became like this whole thing that involved her family. Other people started getting interested in it. She posted the recipes online. People started following. I really, really loved that project because again, you know, she did this from her home in Oklahoma. It brought a lot of meaning and transformation to her life. And then other people started caring about it as well. I like that one a lot.

Yeah, that was a really cool story. What is the difference of intellectual awareness of mortality and emotional awareness of mortality? This was something that I noticed as I talked with all these different people who had done these crazy projects. I noticed that they had a few things in common, some of which I didn't really expect going in. And this awareness of mortality was something that a lot of these people doing these projects had. And when I talk about the difference between intellectual awareness

and emotional awareness, I guess the intellectual awareness is something that all of us have. We know that everybody dies. We know that life is short. We know that, you know, we're here for a while and then we're gone. And, you know, what happens after that is up for debate. But the emotional awareness is more personal. It's more, okay, not just everybody dies, but someday I will die. You know, my days are numbered and, you know, every day gets closer to the end. And it's not meant to sound, you know, terrifying or bad or something, but a lot of people I talked to just were kind of focused on this point of urgency, uh, focused on this, this reality of like, Hey,

I've got this limited time here. I don't even know exactly how long it is. Right. And how can I, you know, put that to best use? And that's why they kind of chose to do things like Phoebe wanted to see more birds than anyone else in the world and kind of structured her whole life around that for decades. And she received a terminal diagnosis of cancer, which fortunately was inaccurate, and she was able to live for many years after that. But when she received that diagnosis, the first thing she thought was, oh no, there's so many more things I still want to do. So a lot of people were just driven by this urgency of, you know, I want to really make

my life count. Yeah. And which way do questers see mortality then? I think they, they see it as, um, something to be mindful of, you know, not necessarily something to be afraid of, but something to be aware of, something to be, you know, maybe, maybe just kind of not focused on all the time, but just kind of there in the back of the mind. Right, right. How are, what do people have, um, in common who go on personal quests? Some of the things that we've talked about, they are passionate or excited about something or bothered by something. They do tend to be pretty focused on this thing. Early in the interview, I mentioned making lists.

I've always been a list maker, and I was pleasantly surprised to see that a lot of the people I talked to were also list makers. They really liked documenting their progress. You know, they, they liked kind of like making notes and being able to see like, okay, today I did this and then the next day I did this and here's how I'm, you know, far along I'm getting in my goal. Um, those are the first few things I think of. And how important is belief? I think belief is, is important and you, you have to believe in the project or the quest or whatever it is you want to do even if no one else does. So sometimes a lot of people we talk to experienced their own personal doubt. Maybe they experienced naysayers.

In some cases, their friends and family were supportive of them. In other cases, they weren't. In some cases, friends and family were downright negative. And that's a whole issue of its own. But I think as long as they believed in it, that was the most important thing. They certainly needed support in some fashion, no doubt. But the primary thing is you have to believe in this, even if no one else does. Yeah. I mean, obviously, a quest, a lot of the times, is probably doing something that people aren't going to understand

why you're doing it, it sounds like. And so you mentioned that people are going to judge you and have judgments on the quest. And you mentioned that people say one of two things. If it's successful, they'll say you were brave, courageous, confident. If it failed, then they'll say you were stupid, it was risky, you're naive, and arrogant. So how do people deal with, or how did you deal with judgments of people, supportive or negative, I guess, along your journey?

Yeah, I thought about that a lot as I was undertaking the quest, especially when I was going places like Iran or Eritrea where I was deported, or Pakistan where I arrived without a visa. And I was okay. Some bad things happened to me along the way where I was deported or Pakistan where I like arrived without a visa. And, and like, I was okay. Like, you know, some bad things happened to me along the way. I was okay. But, uh, you know, there was a chance that, that something might not have been okay. And I, I like it really not okay. And I realized, you know, like if, if something really goes wrong, there are going to be a lot of people who just say, he's so stupid. Right. You know,

he's just crazy to take on that. Like, what was he thinking? Like going to these places, like for no good reason, you know, I realized that. And then of course, like, you know, I finished everything's okay. And they're like, wow, so brave, you know? So the judgment is always applied, you know, afterwards. So, you know, I guess, I guess you just try to hold it all lightly. You try to hold like the praise and the criticism at a little bit of a distance, you know, and, and really focus on what are the core motivations? Like, you know, for me, I thought a lot of times, why am I doing this? I really need to be clear on why I'm doing this. If I'm doing this for any other reason other than the personal challenge that it invokes

in me and how I feel when I think about taking on this challenge and going to every country, if I'm doing it for any other reason, that's really dangerous. It's really unhealthy, I think. Mad Fientist You mean if it's like, oh, I want to do this to make money or to start a business, sort of praise or ego. Yeah, exactly. Praise or ego would probably be the biggest thing. Like, there's people watching me, so I got to do this.

I just feel like that's a little bit dangerous. Mad Fientist Interesting. You talked about goals. How important is it to have sub-goals in a quest? Because you talk about kind of breaking down a whole continent and countries, inside of the countries and all these different things. How important are the sub-goals in a quest? Because 250 marathons, I'm like, how do you even imagine and fathom how long that will take you?

Sure, sure, sure. So any good quest involves challenge or sacrifice, as we mentioned. And if your quest is to go to the corner store and get coffee or something, it's not really a quest. And if it's going to take years or whatever the time period is, then it's extremely helpful to have some milestones along the way. So in my case, it was like, okay, every country in the world, 193 countries. Well, those countries can be divided into region. You know, they can be divided numerically. Like the milestone is the first 100 countries.

Like I remember going to Sri Lanka and walking on the beach at midnight there. I was super jet lagged, but I was also really excited because I was like, this is 100. Like this is a huge milestone. And I feel like those stepping stones just give you confidence as you go along. You know, if you can divide things, you know, into those sub goals or sub processes, it just kind of helps you like, you know, keep that momentum as you as you move along. There's one other story that, you know, when I was first starting, this guy posted this negative comment for me. And he was like, well, it just takes enough time and money, you know, to go to every country in the world. Not a huge deal, you know? And at first I was really offended,

you know, like you are when you get a negative comment. I was like, oh, I can't believe this guy. Like it's one person out of thousands. I know. Like what a jerk or whatever. Right. But then I actually kind of like, okay, like, so forget that guy who cares about that guy, but let's think about the comment. Um, time and money actually is kind of helpful, you know, to break things down and to look and see, okay, what is involved? What is involved? How much time will this take?

What is the financial cost? And what are the other costs? There's probably some uncertain costs. There's probably some other things I haven't considered. But actually, thinking logically really helped me a lot as I worked through the journey. Interesting. And let's just talk about the criteria for you for being in a country. Was it you had to be there for 24 hours? You had to see a landmark? You had

to speak to someone and have a meal? What was the criteria? I didn't have a ton of specific criteria. I didn't count layovers or airport stops. I actually had to be in the country. And in most cases, I'm staying at least a few days. I mean, as I mentioned, I also lived in West Africa for years. I lived in the Philippines for two years when I was younger. Some countries I'd been to for several months or several weeks. But then there's also a number of places that I went to for a short period of time, a couple of days. And I'm okay with that. It's fine. I mean, for me, I wasn't, the goal wasn't trying to be an expert on all 193 countries, you know, in the world. Um, so I'm, I'm much more of a generalist. Gotcha. And do you speak any other languages? Not very well, you know, really not well. I mean, I speak conversational French from having lived in Africa and, um, Spanish when I have to,

but, uh, I'm really not, not skilled in that area. You can get around if you need to. If I need to, yeah. And I feel like that's a valid criticism, maybe some of my travel. But I also feel like I would say, well, okay, sure, I should be better at that. I agree. But I would also say you shouldn't let anything hold you back. I was able to do this without that skill. And that wasn't your goal, to learn 100 new languages or whatever.

Who's the guy who does that? Yeah, there's a few different guys. Benny something. Benny Lewis is one of the guys who's done, I don't know, 8 or 10 languages. Probably another language since we've started this podcast. That's crazy. But yeah, there's some people that are really into that, so that's great. So what's the biggest skill that you've developed over these six years while traveling?

Confidence, probably. The ability to know that I would be okay. The ability to know that I would be able to figure anything out. I could make all kinds of mistakes, and I actually made more mistakes at the end of the journey than I did in the beginning which I thought was interesting because in the beginning I was super like careful about you know like checking everything in advance and like packing and repacking and like worrying a lot and making sure I had information in multiple places like those things you do when you travel right and and toward the end I just didn't care you know it's gonna be fine you know it's gonna be fine like if something can go wrong and I'll figure it out. So, so for me, the biggest skill wasn't learning languages or learning

something practical. It was maybe just, just that confidence or that ability to know I'd be okay. So did that confidence actually create laziness towards the end of the journey or the course? Perhaps. Perhaps. Sure. Yeah. No, that's, that's also a valid point. Yeah. In some ways, in some ways I think I could also say I took parts of it less seriously towards the end. I don't want to say like I phoned it in. I just didn't care or something. That would be an exaggeration. But I do think, you know, it was kind of like after the first 160 countries or something, I mean, like the final, you know, 30, it is kind of like, well, today I'm going off to Chad. I'm not really thinking about that. I'm thinking about my other stuff and I'll think about Chad when I get there. Maybe that's probably also why it's good that the quest has an end because I don't think I would have wanted to keep doing it for 400 countries if there were 400 countries, let's say.

I think maybe it's good that I had that end in sight. Wow. What was the biggest lesson you learned? I would say confidence would be like a skill. What would be the biggest lesson you learned about the world and then the biggest lesson you learned about yourself? Yeah, that's a great question. I guess to start with the obvious is I think all of us have our own worldview.

And that's fine and normal. It's based on our own worldview. And that's, that's fine and normal. It's based on our own culture, our own experience, our own upbringing, etc. And then, you know, once you start traveling, I mean, one of the beautiful things about traveling, especially if you, if you really go to experience other cultures, you know, if you really do, you know, make an effort to speak with people and go and see what life is like in different religions, or just different institutions, you kind of just realize like, okay, actually, maybe my way is not right or maybe my way is right for me, but there are other ways, other ways of thinking, other ways of life. And that's actually really interesting. I really feel like the novice traveler always goes out and

has some experience and says, wow, people everywhere are just the same. People in China, they think just like us or in India. I really don't think that's true. I actually think people really have unique culture and identity around the world, and that's the fun part of it. That's what's interesting and good. So I guess just kind of a general humbling is how I would put it. I would say, wow, life is really different in West Africa. You'll see when you go to Ghana. And that's great. I'm so glad that life is not the same everywhere around the world.

Interesting. So we're always told to think outside the box. We hear this, think outside the box. But you talk about getting in the box idea. Can you talk about what getting in the box idea is? Getting in the box is about restricting your creativity and restricting your ideas because we all have so many ideas and sometimes that leads to stagnation or to not doing anything. Too many options means no decisions. Yeah, exactly. guess for me part of what's helped in into the creative process in general whether it's it's writing books or something like a quest is is to restrict those options and to to kind of you know

paint some corners around myself and say okay here here is the box right like everybody's always saying as you mentioned like get out of the box you know blah blah blah um but for the quest it's helpful to have these parameters here's what a country is you know i get questions about this too like how many countries are there i'm like well, well, I use the, the UN list. You know, I use the list of United Nations member States. There are other lists out there. There are other places, other geographical places, which are kind of debatable. And like, it's this geopolitical conflict over whether they are a country or not. That's totally fine. But I feel like you need to have a box. You need to have a parameter. So for me, like that's the parameter I chose. And, you know, I feel like, I feel like this is helpful in life is to say like,

here are, here are the guidelines or the rules in which I'm going to live my life or pursue this project. And I'm the one who's making those, right? That's what you should do for your life. Like no one else is doing this, but I feel like if it's self, if it's self-applied, then it's good. You've got to create that. Yeah. Um, So how many other countries or sort of countries are there on different lists that you haven't visited? Yeah. So it depends on the list. The UN list, 193. There's other places like Kosovo, which are recognized by some governments and not by others.

Taiwan is an independent entity in many ways, but some governments and not by others. Um, Taiwan, you know, is an independent entity in many ways. Um, but it's not a UN member state, um, Palestine, places like that. I've actually been to most of those, most of those disputed areas. Um, so if you count maybe 200 ish countries, I've probably been to 198, 199. Wow. Where have you not been? Uh, actually, so I mentioned Palestine actually have not been to Palestine, so I would love to go there at some point. Western Sahara is essentially its own state. It has been for decades, but it's just not able to gain recognition because of Spain, because of Morocco. It probably never will, at least not for the foreseeable future.

I haven't been to Western Sahara. Gotcha. So there's a number of places like that. And then there's some broader lists. For people who really get into this, there is a list called the Traveler Century Club, and that lists a whole lot of islands. It lists islands that kind of belong politically to some country somewhere, but they're essentially independent because they're so geographically remote.

And I've been to a number of those places, but there are many more. Got you. There's a great quote in the book that says, it's better to be at the bottom of the ladder you want to climb than to be at the top of the one you don't. Can you speak into that for a moment? Yeah, I think that was from a guy who was a musician. And when he first started his music career,

he talked about how excited he was to play a gig when there'd be like five people there or something you know he's making like 10 bucks or nothing you know and he talked about how in many ways like you could look at that and say like he's he's unsuccessful or whatever like this is not much of a start but he was super excited because he was like this is what i want to to do and this is what I want to be. And I'm willing to start at the bottom. You know, he said, it's better to be at the bottom of the ladder and climb than to have some job that sucks or not to say that every job sucks, right. But to be on some trajectory that is not what I want to do, even if I'm successful at it, I'd much rather be struggling, you know, working my way up something that I believe in than to be really successful in something I don't. Yeah, that's pretty cool. Nice. Is there ever a time to quit a quest?

Sure. I think so. I think, um, you know, I don't think, I don't think the advice of like, just keep going, you know, universally applies. I think, I think it depends on a lot of things. I think maybe it depends on how far along you are, right? So for me, the quest was 10 years. How long is the quest for the Olympics? How much time have you put into that? Well, it's been, shoot, since 2008, I started, I guess, the quest. And so I don't even know, what is that? Six years so far?

Yeah. And the next Olympics is 2016 in Rio. We have a very small chance of qualifying. So I'm on the Olympic team for the USA, but they only take one country from North and South America. So there's a lot of countries in South America that are better than us right now, so we'd have to do something incredible to make it possible. But I'm going to keep going for as long as my body is able to go.

Sure, of course. And so it may take another four, eight years. I don't know. to make it possible. But I'm going to keep going for as long as my body is able to go. Sure, of course. And so it may take another four, eight years. Yeah, definitely. I guess when I say it depends on how far along you are, first of all, you have to still believe in it. I think there are plenty of times when you say it sucks, right? There's something about it that sucks.

But that's different from not believing in it. Sure. And I also focus on that question of regret that we touched on earlier. Like, you know, I think it's always helpful to ask yourself, okay, if I stopped now, would I regret it later? You know, and if you're able to honestly answer and say like, actually, no, I don't think I'll like, this is something I wanted to do for a while, but now I want to do something different. I don't think I'll regret it later. Then you might as well stop, right? Why kill yourself? You know, if it's not something that you believe in, I guess, you know? Right. And so that's why I think the timeframe matters a little bit

because if I felt that way in year one, you know, of the 10-year quest, then I probably should have quit, right? Because why kill myself for 10 years for something I didn't believe in? But, you know, if I felt that way in year nine, maybe my advice to myself would be like, just suck it up, you know, because the end is in sight. You know, you've made it this far.

You don't want to be like the guy who went to like almost every country, you know, like doesn't sound so good. Exactly. So obviously your story took, you know, a decade. A lot of stories took a number of years in the book. So how did you feel when you accomplished it? And is there a sense of sadness or pure excitement at the end? It's complicated. I felt I did feel excited and proud. And but I also felt kind of weird. You know, I felt kind of like, OK, like now what? You know, because I had worked toward that for such a long time. And and this was actually

something that was really quite common. And, and this was actually something that was really quite common. Like, I feel like I didn't do the greatest job answering that question earlier. A lot of people, as they approach, you know, the end of their quest, um, there was a, you know, kind of a sense of sadness or alienation or kind of like what's next, you know, a little bit of confusion. So I experienced a lot of that. It's a complicated thing when you work towards something for a long period of time, you know, and then you achieve it. It's great.

So I think it helps to kind of, you know, decompress and debrief for that a little bit. And then I guess, you know, before too much longer, you got to think, okay, what's next? You know, I don't want to live in that identity of something that's already in the past. You know, I want to live for the present and build for the future. Yeah. So where was the last country that you visited? The last country was Norway, actually. And we chose Norway because maybe about 30 countries prior to that, I realized that Norway was the last European country that I hadn't been to.

It's a very safe and stable country. It's really easy to get to. I didn't want any uncertainty as I approached the end. The whole goal was to end on my 35th birthday. I had planned it that way for seven years. I didn't want to be in Sudan or something on that birthday. Also, a bunch of my friends and readers wanted to come along too. I didn't want to be responsible for bringing them to a war zone or something. We chose Norway and that's where we ended just last year. So on the last Day in Norway as you're flying home or wherever you're flying to next What was coming up for you as you're packing up?

Getting ready to realize that this is your last flight for this quest heading away from the last country Yeah, it was weird. It really was weird because yeah, I'm just, I'm just packing my bag. Like I've done like every single day, essentially, you know, for the past 10 years, I've been on the road a hundred, a hundred days a year or whatever. And, but, uh, you know, you're right. There's, there's no new country coming up, you know, like I'm going home through Hong Kong and I've been to Hong Kong many times. So that's, that's fun. Um, but they've always been, there's always been like something ahead, you know, it's always like, even if I'm going home to Portland, Oregon, where I live, there's going to be another country the next month. Uh, so it was,

it was just a reflective, reflective time. But I think ultimately, like hopefully, you know, what I do with my life will be greater than just visiting every country in the world. So I guess, so in some ways I was happy to just say, okay, you know, mission accomplished, what's next. Right. So, so would you say it's important to debrief after a quest and, um, you know, to make sure that there's no quest hangover, so to speak, or, you know, I think it's hard to avoid the quest hangover. I definitely had that. And most people do in some way. Um, it's important to process. And people process differently. Some people do process through debriefing, through talking it through with others.

Maybe some people are more internal processors. Maybe some people are writers. I do think it's important to think it through one way or another. So what's the next unreasonable quest for you? The next unreasonable quest? I don't think... I'm not going to go to don't think I'm not going to go to the moon. You know, I'm not going to go like outer space. I mean, probably like a million people

have said like, Oh, you know, Richard Branson, he's got this thing where you can go to space, you know, like, that's awesome. That's cool. But I don't think that's that's me right now. I think that for me, you know, the journey was transformative in lots of ways. And one of the ways was, in the beginning, I was really focused on myself. And I was really focused on doing my own thing. And that was fine. But, you know, thankfully, throughout the process, so many other people came along to engage and participate and be part of this, you know, thing called community, which I really didn't understand before. And I feel like, you know, the next focus, at least for me, not sure how the quest aspect will come into play. But the next focus is definitely on that community element, on helping people live unconventional

lives, whatever that looks like for them. I think, hopefully, ultimately, that will be, as I said, even more meaningful than going to every country or whatever. Interesting. It's really about serving others to achieve their own quest and discover that, explore that, and create possibilities for people to do that, which I think is pretty cool. So you don't see yourself doing a journey or a quest. Maybe a different kind.

Maybe a different kind. Yeah. Maybe I'll knit 10,000 hats. We'll see. I like it. Yeah. In page 219, I'm looking at it right now. You've got a timeline of disasters and pitfalls and mistakes. A little graphic

I think is pretty cool. There's lots of good stuff in this book. I want people to make sure to check this out. Where can they check this out? Where can they go to? They should be able to ask for the happiness of pursuit at any bookstore or on Amazon.com. They can connect with me

at ChrisGillibo.com, which no one can ever spell. You can connect with me at chrisgillibeau.com, which no one can ever spell. But you can put up a link somewhere. I'll link it up. Yeah, if they type in anything close to it on Google, they'll probably come to me. Sure, yeah. I'll make sure to have it all linked up in the show notes.

A couple last questions for you. Sure. What are you most grateful for? I'm grateful for a lot of things. I'm most grateful for freedom and independence. I'm most grateful for the ability to make my own choices and to not be constrained by poverty or by choices other people have made. I'm grateful to be able to make my own choices. What do you feel like is your biggest gift to the world?

I really have no idea. That's a tough one. I feel like somebody else has to answer that. How do you know what's your greatest gift to the world? I'm not sure. Okay. And final question then. We'll get back to that. I'll ask other people what your greatest gift to the world is. Final question then. It's what I like to ask all my guests at the end. Oh, it's a great question. It's what is your definition of greatness? Continuously improving your circumstances. Continuously improving your circumstances and the circumstances of others. Maybe always trying to do better. I love it. Chris Guillebeau, you are a gem of a human being. I appreciate you. I acknowledge you for taking on your own quest, even as unreasonable and crazy it may sound for a lot

of people and for completing it and for sticking it out and for serving a new world of possibilities for people in a community that is able to take this on in their own life now. So thank you so much for all that you do. The pursuit of the, I wanted to say the pursuit of happiness, the happiness of pursuit, finding the quest that will bring purpose to your life. Everyone go check it out. I'll have it linked up in the show notes. Awesome read, highly recommend it. Buy a copy for your friends as well and pass it out specifically to someone who you think doesn't have a purpose in their life yet. So Chris, I appreciate you so much, my man. Thanks so much. Thank you so much, Lewis.

It's a huge honor. Thank you. I hope you guys enjoyed this episode with Chris and make sure to go back to the show notes over at lewishouse.com slash eight nine. You're going to get all the links. You can check out his book, see Chris's site and connect with him over on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and all that good stuff. If you guys haven't yet, please subscribe to us over on iTunes. When you hit the subscribe button in your podcast app, it really helps increase the rankings. It helps

spread the message to other people who might be interested in the School of Greatness and its message. So it would mean a huge, it would mean so much to me if you did that. And leave us a review if you have yet to leave a review. I appreciate you guys so much. It means the world to me. I get constant messages from listeners in my inbox and over on Facebook and Instagram from people listening and the difference it's making in their lives by what they're receiving from the guests I bring on. So thank you guys so much for taking the time to send those messages. And it just really means a lot to me. So I really appreciate it. I post some of them every now and then on Facebook. I'm just so touched by what you guys say and how it's supporting you that it really wants

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And I'm very, very grateful and blessed for all of you. Again, thank you guys so much for all that you do, for making this show incredible. And you guys know what time it is. It's time to go out there and do something great. Thank you.