The Happiness of Pursuit
Finding the Quest That Will Bring Purpose to Your Life
Chris Guillebeau is a brilliant guy and brilliant writer. He's also traveled to every.single.country in the world. (That's 193 for those counting.) In this great book we take a look at what it means to create an awesome Quest. The why's and how's and all that. What's your Quest? Ready to rock it?
Big Ideas
- What Is a Quest?A definition.
- DiscontentCan be awesome.
- What’s Your Passion?Time to follow your bliss!
- The B.S.Time to flush it.
- You Must Believe!Even when others don’t.
- The Long, Slow GrindOf hard work.
“In addition to satisfying my own curiosity, I wrote this book to inspire you to attempt something remarkable of your own. Look closely here and you’ll see a path you can follow, no matter your goal. Everyone who pursues a quest learns many lessons along the way. Some relate to accomplishment, disillusionment, joy and sacrifice—others to the specific project at hand. But what if you could learn these lessons earlier? What if you could study with others who’ve invested years—sometimes decades—in the relentless pursuit of their dreams?
That learning opportunity is what this book is all about. You’ll sit with people who have pursued big adventures and crafted lives of purpose around something they found deeply meaningful. You’ll hear stories and lessons. You’ll learn what happened along the way, but more important, you’ll learn why it happened and why it matters. It’s my job as the author to provide a framework and issue a challenge. It’s yours to decide the next steps.
Perhaps reading about other people’s stories will prompt you to think about your own life. What excites you? What bothers you? If you could do anything at all without regard to time or money, what would it be?”
~ Chris Guillebeau from The Happiness of Pursuit
“The Happiness of Pursuit.”
What a GREAT title. And an equally great book.
Chris Guillebeau is a fantastic writer/storyteller. He’s also traveled to every.single.country in the world. All 193 of them. That was his decade-long quest that led to a bunch of discoveries, a global community and a couple other great books: The Art of Nonconformity and The $100 Startup.
In this book, we get a backstage pass to learn from everyday heroes—awesome individuals committed to extraordinary quests that led to more happiness, meaning and mojo in their lives.
It’s REALLY inspiring.
If you’ve been looking for some insight into how you want to rock this precious life of yours, I think you’ll dig it. (Get it here.)
The book is packed with great stories and a ton of practical wisdom. We’re barely going to scratch the surface of all its goodness. My book is super marked up and we’re only going to explore a few of my favorite Big Ideas. Let’s jump straight in!
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Listen to the PodcastWhat is a quest?
“A quest, we decided, is something bigger. It takes more time and requires more commitment than general life improvement. Still, though, what exactly is a quest? How to define it?
. . . After much consideration, here are the criteria we settled on.
A quest has a clear goal and a specific end point. You can clearly explain a quest in a sentence of two. Every quest has a beginning, and sooner or later, every quest will come to an end. . .
A quest presents a clear challenge. . . .
A quest requires sacrifice of some kind. . . .
A quest is often driven by a calling or sense of mission. . . .
A quest requires a series of small steps and incremental progress toward the goal.
. . . To sum it up, a quest is a journey toward something specific, with a number of challenges throughout. Most quests also require a series of logical steps and some kind of personal growth.”
A quest!
That’s what this book is all about—helping us identify what OUR (next) quest may be.
A quest is more than a life improvement project like losing weight or doing a triathlon. We need a clear goal and a specific end point. Challenge + sacrifice. Perhaps we’re driven by a calling or sense of mission and we’ve gotta take a ton of little baby steps as we make incremental progress toward our goal.
It’s kinda like a modern-day hero’s journey!
Chris weaves the tales of a ton of various quests—from his own journey to travel to every country by the time he was 35 (= awesome) to a mom in Tulsa, Oklahoma who decided to cook a meal for her family from a different country every week for years (= wow)!
Then there’s the guy who decided to do 250 (!!!) (!!!) marathons in ONE YEAR. What?!
250 marathons. One year.
*rubs eyes*
All of those stories helped me get clarity on MY specific current quest.
I knew I’d be creating 250 new Philosopher’s Notes in 2015. (I’m writing this on February 14th, 2015 and it’s my 35th Note so far this year and my 219th total Note.) My confidence in my ability to hit my goal was pretty high and it became absolute after reading about our 250 marathon guy. Lol.)
After reading the book, my quest became clear: I will create 1,000 Philosopher’s Notes by January 1st, 2020. That gives me about 5 years to rock it. That’s a fun, focused quest. I’m giddy. Thank you, Chris. :)
How about you? You currently rockin’ a quest or have one in mind?
Discontent can be awesome
“If you’ve ever felt a strange sense of sadness or alienation, there’s a potential way out of the confusion—just shift this feeling to a sense of purpose. It’s not all about happiness, although happiness often results from doing something you love. Instead, it’s about challenge and fulfillment, finding the perfect combination of striving and achievement that comes from reaching a big goal.
Metaphorically, discontent is the match and inspiration is the kindling. When discontent leads to excitement, that’s when you know you’ve found your pursuit.”
Discontent.
It can be one of the triggers to discovering our quest.
It’s also an important quality of an overall healthy life—if we allow it to be. Too often we think it’s *all* about happiness. It’s not.
Martin Seligman walks us through the science of it all. After writing Authentic Happiness (see Notes), he wrote another book called Flourish (see those Notes as well) where he moved from happiness as being the end-all of Positive Psychology to a sense of WELL-BEING or flourishing as the ultimate aim of a well-lived life.
Here’s how he puts it in Flourish: “Here then is well-being theory: well-being is a construct; and well-being, not happiness, is the topic of positive psychology. Well-being has five measurable elements (PERMA) that count toward it:
• Positive emotion (of which happiness and life satisfaction are all aspects)
• Engagement
• Relationships
• Meaning
• Achievement
No element defines well-being, but each contributes to it.”
A quest isn’t always sunshine and rainbows (aka “positive emotion”). There are plenty of unpleasant moments. (If we don’t have times when we feel stretched and challenged and even overwhelmed that in itself is a pretty good sign we’re not challenging ourselves enough!)
But when we’re on a quest, we have a deep sense of engagement + meaning + achievement—which are *HUGE* catalysts to an overall sense of flourishing and well-being.
So…
Are you feeling any discontent in your life? Can you use that as a catalyst to create a quest? Or see it as part of an overall life of meaning and growth if you’re on a quest?!
Here’s to a PERMA grin that only comes when we engage and pursue meaningful achievement! (Aka quest! :)
What’s your calling?!
“In an interview for Rolling Stone, Bob Dylan was asked about the word calling. “Everybody has a calling,” he said. “Some have a high calling, some have a low calling. Everybody is called but few are chosen. There’s a lot of distraction for people. So you might not ever find the real you. A lot of people don’t.”
When asked how he would describe his own calling, here’s how he answered.
Mine? Not any different than anybody else’s. Some people are called to be a good sailor. Some people have a calling to be a good tiller of the land. Some people are called to be a good friend. You have to be the best at whatever you are called at. Whatever you do. You ought to be the best at it—highly skilled. It’s about confidence, not arrogance. You have to know that you’re the best whether anybody else tells you that or not.
Embracing a calling is about being the best at something, or doing something that you feel no one else can do. Not necessarily in a competitive manner, where you have to beat someone else, but according to your own standard of what you know is true.
Some of us discover a quest, and sometimes the quest discovers us. Whichever is the case with you, once you identify your calling, don’t lose sight of it.”
That. Is. Awesome.
Reminds me of Martin Luther King, Jr. And Joseph Campbell.
First, MLK. He tells us: “Be an artist at whatever you do. Even if you are a street sweeper, be the Picasso of street sweepers!”
Amazing. What are you called to do? Are you committed to being the best you can be?!
Now, Joseph Campbell. Campbell was the world’s leading mythologist who helped us unpack the universal themes of a good hero’s journey.
All hero’s journeys begin with a calling. The metaphorical phone rings. We are called to adventure. We can choose to answer that call or not, of course, but it’s always wise to answer and go on our quest.
One of Campbell’s guideposts for the proper calling was his admonition to “follow our bliss.” He saw our bliss—our joy, our passions!—as a jumping off point into not only our hero’s journey but enlightenment itself.
What do you LOVE?! Where is your bliss in your life? Are you receiving a calling to go out and quest?
*ring ring*
Time to answer the call!
Flushing the B.S.
“Remember the words of Kathleen Taylor, who worked with hospice patients in their final days. Once you’re near the end, there’s no time for bullshit. But what if you decided there’s no time for bullshit—or regrets—far in advance of the end? What if you vow to live life the way you want right now, regardless of what stage of life you’re in?
To truly live without regrets, pay attention. Ask yourself hard questions and see where they lead. Do I really want this job? Is this relationship right for me? If I could do anything, would it be what I’m doing today . . . or something different?
People who live their lives in pursuit of quests or adventures understand they have to be deliberate about doing things that matter.”
“Once you’re near the end, there’s no time for bullshit. But what if you decided there’s no time for bullshit—or regrets—far in advance of the end?”
That’s really powerful. Fast forward to the end of your life. Right before you take your last breath. All the B.S. is gone. You’re free to be YOU. All of you. Now, look back on your life.
Wish you did anything a little differently?
As Mark Twain tells us: “Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.”
← Great pre-quest pep-talk, eh?
So, we’re eventually going to flush the B.S. down the ol’ toilet. Why wait?
You must believe!
“You must believe that your quest can be successful, even if no one else does. You can deal with setbacks, misadventures, and even disasters as long as you still believe you can overcome the hardships and see your way to the end…
Whatever your quest, you, too, must believe…
A desire for ownership and accomplishment, the fierce desire for control over one’s life—these are powerful forces. Being told you can’t do something is supremely motivating. There is joy in retelling of the stories. At one point in my research I talked with someone who ran fifty marathons in a year. “According to conventional wisdom,” he said, “You’re just not supposed to run a marathon every week. But that’s why it’s so satisfying.””
As Chris tells us: “Whatever your quest, you must believe!”
Ford reminds us: “Whether you think you can or think you can’t, you’re right.”
Scientists echo this. Self-efficacy is what they call this belief. It’s HUGE.
And, it’s even more fun to rock it when other people don’t believe we can do it.
Little story: When I was 24, I had recently dropped out of law school (go Boalt class of 2000!). It was 1998. I had an idea to create technology that would power youth sports teams—like Little League baseball teams, AYSO soccer teams, that kinda thing.
I wanted to serve 1 million teams in 5 years.
My parents were super conservative, blue-collar folks (my dad worked in a grocery store for nearly 40 years and my mom raised the five kids, plus ran day-care at home) so I felt pretty excited when I got the chance to chat with the dad of a friend of mine from UCLA who happened to be an uber-successful biz guy and Chairman of a huge company.
I told him my idea.
1 million teams! All using our technology platform in 5 years to do *everything*—check out schedules of upcoming games, get directions to the field, pictures grandma and grandpa could check out. Kinda like an ESPN for your kids! It’ll be awesome! Like super awesome!!! :)
He told me that rule #1 of business is to make sure there’s a need and that there sure didn’t look like there was one in my case. I said, “Well, they may not know it now, but they’ll love it!”
Not a passing score.
Then he asked me who I thought I was to build something like that. I had no business experience (true), no money (true), no contacts (true). It would cost me millions to do it (that’s a lot).
Then he told me I should (I quote): “Take another hit off of that pipe” if I thought I could do it.
Now, he wasn’t being mean-spirited or anything, just reflecting his thoughts (and probably trying to keep me safe). I was genuinely grateful that he was taking the time to support me.
AND…
That comment to “take another hit” fueled me to go out and crush it.
Long story a little shorter. My 22 year-old tech genius co-founder and I wound up cracking open our $5k 401k piggy banks, building technology that supported thousands of teams on $10k, won the UCLA Anderson School’s biz plan competition, raised $5 million of capital, hired the CEO of adidas to replace me as the 25-year old CEO, and went on to sell the biz to a company that went public. And, eteamz now serves over 3 million teams around the world.
He was right though. We didn’t get to 1 million teams in 5 years.
It only took us 4.
#howdoyoulikethemapples?! :)
(As Chris says, so fun to re-tell that story. :)
Back to you: What’s your quest? Time to go out and crush it?
The long, slow grind of working hard
“The long, slow grind of working hard toward something is all about loving the process. If you don’t love the process, the grind is tough.
The grind is also a dangerous time. It’s when you’re tempted to give up, call it a day, or at least cut corners. Steven Pressfield, author of a dozen books, says, “The most important thing about art is to work. Nothing else matters except sitting down every day and trying.” So, too, for a quest. The most important thing is continuing to make progress.”
← That’s powerful.
Chris tells us that, on his uber-Odyssey-quest, Odysseus spent 7 years (!) in prison. And countless months simply sailing. The story is punctuated with “heroic” battles but there’s a whole lotta nothing going on for most of the 20 year adventure.
Again, it’s not all about sunshine and rainbows. It’s about a lot of monotony. The grind. (In addition to telling us to follow our bliss, Campbell also advocated following our grunt.)
As masters on our hero’s journey, THAT’s what we want to embrace.
Making the process primary. Taking the next baby step. Doing the work. Day in and day out—whether we feel like it or not. Especially when we don’t feel like it.
Then our quest becomes a reality and we get the deep-rooted PERMA-grin of knowing we’re living a life of meaning and purpose as we optimize our lives and actualize our potential.
So… Here’s to your quest!!
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