Speaker 1: Take on whatever is challenging and meaningful for you. You're
Speaker 1: the person in your own life who determines what that is.
Speaker 1: Not someone else, welcome to the one you feed Throughout time,
Speaker 1: great thinkers have recognized the importance of the thoughts we have.
Speaker 1: Quotes like garbage in, garbage out, or you are what
Speaker 1: you think ring true. And yet for many of us,
Speaker 1: our thoughts don't strengthen or empower us. We tend toward negativity,
Speaker 1: self pity, jealousy, or fear. We see what we don't
Speaker 1: have instead of what we do. We think things that
Speaker 1: hold us back and dampen our spirit. But it's not
Speaker 1: just about thinking. Our actions matter. It takes conscious, consistent,
Speaker 1: and creative effort to make a life worth living. This
Speaker 1: podcast is about how other people keep themselves moving in
Speaker 1: the right direction, how they feed their good wolf YEA,
Speaker 1: thanks for joining us. Our guest today is Chris Gilbo.
Speaker 1: Chris is an entrepreneur, author, blogger, and speaker. He's perhaps
Speaker 1: best known for his book The Art of Nonconformity. Keep
Speaker 1: an eye out for Chris's upcoming book, The Happiness of Pursuit.
Speaker 1: Finding a quest that will bring purpose to your life.
Speaker 1: Here's the interview. Hi Chris, welcome to the show. Hey man,
Speaker 1: thanks so much for having me. It's a big honor. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we're we're really glad to have you on the show
Speaker 1: and look forward to talking about your your new book
Speaker 1: that's coming out. But let's start with the way we
Speaker 1: always do, which is that, uh, you know, our podcast
Speaker 1: is based on the parable of two wolves, where there's
Speaker 1: a grandfather who's talking with his grandson and he says,
Speaker 1: in life, there are two wolves inside of us. What
Speaker 1: is a good wolf, which represents things like kindness and
Speaker 1: bravery and love, and the other is a bad wolf,
Speaker 1: which represents things like greed and hatred and fear. And
Speaker 1: the grandson stops and he thinks and he says, well, grandfather,
Speaker 1: which one wins? And the grandfather says, the one you feed.
Speaker 1: So I'd like to start off by asking you what
Speaker 1: that parable means to you in your life and in
Speaker 1: the work you do. Yeah. I was looking that over
Speaker 1: today and the podcast description, and I really like that parable.
Speaker 1: I've actually been thinking about it for the past twenty
Speaker 1: minutes or so. I can definitely recognize both wolves in
Speaker 1: my life. That's probably the first thing that I think of,
Speaker 1: is you know, there's definitely a bad wolf, like all
Speaker 1: those negative emotions that you mentioned about resentment and greed
Speaker 1: and jealousy. Like I I see those signs, you know,
Speaker 1: a lot. And then I also see like these signs
Speaker 1: of joy and gratitude, and and I say that I live,
Speaker 1: you know, by those signs. I mean, you know, I realized,
Speaker 1: like on my website, it's like I live, I try
Speaker 1: to live a life of gratitude. But it's a good
Speaker 1: gut check because do I really write. And I guess
Speaker 1: I struggle in the same way that a lot of
Speaker 1: creative people do with maybe feeding the wrong wolf. So
Speaker 1: I don't know how it applies to me, but I
Speaker 1: think I'm going to carry it with me, you know,
Speaker 1: as I go preparing to go on this big tour
Speaker 1: and talking with readers about this new creative work, I'm
Speaker 1: going to be thinking about it more excellent. So let's
Speaker 1: let's talk about your your new book a little bit.
Speaker 1: It is called The Happiness of Pursuit, which I you know,
Speaker 1: obviously it's clever, clever flip on its head of the
Speaker 1: normal pursuit of happiness, which is something we often talk
Speaker 1: about here, which is that you can't always maybe go
Speaker 1: directly after happiness. And I think a lot of what
Speaker 1: your book is talking about is sort of that very
Speaker 1: idea that it's finding something that you are interested in,
Speaker 1: and that that whole process. You really talk about everything
Speaker 1: around a quest being the things that tend to lead
Speaker 1: towards happiness. So maybe we could start off by you
Speaker 1: defining what you mean by the word quest in this case. Yeah,
Speaker 1: great question. So the word quest or even the concept
Speaker 1: quest came to me through my own quest of visiting
Speaker 1: every country in the world. That's something I spent the
Speaker 1: past ten years doing. But fortunately I didn't want to
Speaker 1: just write a book about myself. It's not a memoir, uh,
Speaker 1: And I connected with lots of other people who had
Speaker 1: also pursued their own quests in different ways, and part
Speaker 1: of that process was saying, okay, you know what is
Speaker 1: a quest? Well, a quest has a few distinguishing features.
Speaker 1: A quest has a destination or a goal, Like there's
Speaker 1: there's definitely something that you're working toward. It's not completely
Speaker 1: open ended, but there's also a long process and a journey,
Speaker 1: and there's often twists and turns along the way. There's
Speaker 1: a lot of milestones, uh, you know, or or kind
Speaker 1: of time points along the way, there's usually challenge or
Speaker 1: sacrifice involved. At least there's some sort of some form
Speaker 1: of trade off in the sense that if you pursue
Speaker 1: a quest, you won't be able to do everything else.
Speaker 1: You you can still do some things, um, but you
Speaker 1: can't do everything um. And then often what we discovered
Speaker 1: is that sometimes something else happens along the way. Someone's
Speaker 1: kind of pursuing something and then they are changed or
Speaker 1: transformed throughout the journey. So I was interested in studying
Speaker 1: what that what's that all about? And how how are
Speaker 1: people's lives changed as they pursue a quest. And the
Speaker 1: book talks about um you come out with a bunch
Speaker 1: of different lessons about the idea of a quest, and
Speaker 1: I thought, maybe we could just run through what some
Speaker 1: of those main lessons are, and maybe as we do that,
Speaker 1: you could also if you wanted to tell some of
Speaker 1: the stories about the people in the book, because there's
Speaker 1: a lot of really interesting people in there. The one
Speaker 1: thing that I wanted to start with, which is that
Speaker 1: you you start with something where you say adventure is
Speaker 1: for everyone. And one of the things that I really
Speaker 1: liked about the book is there's an idea in general
Speaker 1: now that I think gets overpopularized to some extent, which
Speaker 1: is that in order for life to have meaning, you
Speaker 1: have to quit everything you're doing and only do the
Speaker 1: thing that you love all the time. And for a
Speaker 1: lot of people that that doesn't seem to be a
Speaker 1: practical scenario in certain cases. But what I liked about
Speaker 1: the book is you had examples of people who found
Speaker 1: a way to give their life a lot of meaning
Speaker 1: through a quest while not having to sort of drop
Speaker 1: everything else in their life. They were able to continue
Speaker 1: their life, whether that be a family or a job
Speaker 1: or a combination of those things and find something important
Speaker 1: and meaningful. And that that was one of the things
Speaker 1: that I liked the most. So maybe you could talk
Speaker 1: a little bit about that. Yeah, absolutely, And I would
Speaker 1: say that that scenario you described of, you know, not
Speaker 1: everyone can just abandon everything and go full force into
Speaker 1: the jungle or whatever. It's not only that it's not practical,
Speaker 1: it's also not desirable for a lot of people. A
Speaker 1: lot of people, you know, want to have other things
Speaker 1: in their life. They do want to have balance, and
Speaker 1: I think that's fine, But I guess for me, the
Speaker 1: goal of adventure is all encompassing and it's not just
Speaker 1: about it. Like there were a lot of incredible stories
Speaker 1: of like this dude who ran two hifty marathons in
Speaker 1: a single year, right, So I think that's a pretty
Speaker 1: incredible story. But it's also one of those things that
Speaker 1: people are like, Wow, that's great for him, but you know,
Speaker 1: I could certainly never do that. Or there's a guy
Speaker 1: who walked across America, you know, seven and a half
Speaker 1: month journey of just leaving his home in Maine, you know,
Speaker 1: going to the San Francisco Bay area. So I have
Speaker 1: my own biases, and I'm initially kind of gravitated toward
Speaker 1: those stories. I think it's cool, but then, um, you
Speaker 1: know the value of adventure for everyone. Um. I talked
Speaker 1: with a woman uh in Omaha who knits hats and
Speaker 1: she had a quest or she still has a questions
Speaker 1: in the middle of it of knitting ten thousand hats
Speaker 1: and she has a family, Um, and she's always just
Speaker 1: been a crafter and she's made things. But then she
Speaker 1: came up with this idea of turning it into a
Speaker 1: quest and making it something really challenging. It's something that's
Speaker 1: going to take her a number of years to complete UM,
Speaker 1: but the structure to it kind of gave her life
Speaker 1: greater and meeting UM. There's one more story that I like.
Speaker 1: Another woman in Oklahoma City, Sasha Martin, grew up overseas
Speaker 1: um but wasn't able to travel a lot. Now she
Speaker 1: married this guy, has a kid, and she wanted to
Speaker 1: raise her kid with an international perspective, and so she
Speaker 1: wasn't able to visit every country in the world. But
Speaker 1: she had a culinary arts degree and she decided to
Speaker 1: cook a meal from every country in the world. And
Speaker 1: this came her project, her quest, three and a half
Speaker 1: year journey, and she began it, you know, just as
Speaker 1: her daughter was about six months old. So you know,
Speaker 1: her daughter's entire early childhood has you know, consisted of
Speaker 1: learning about the world basically. And so I love these
Speaker 1: stories almost in more In some ways, I love the
Speaker 1: stories of ordinary people doing interesting things even more than
Speaker 1: the stories of like the guy who runs the two
Speaker 1: or fift marathons in a year. I mean, they're both
Speaker 1: interesting in different ways, but I feel that some are
Speaker 1: more relatable. Yeah, I really liked the story. I think
Speaker 1: you just said her name with Sasha in Oklahoma City,
Speaker 1: because that was. You know, one of my favorite quotes
Speaker 1: of all time is I think it's by Arthur Ashe
Speaker 1: and it's it's you know, start where you are, use
Speaker 1: what you have, do what you can, and and I
Speaker 1: think there's a for a lot of people, it's sort
Speaker 1: of an all or nothing. If I can't live this
Speaker 1: extraordinary dream life where I do all these things, that
Speaker 1: I'm just going to live a perfectly plain and boring life.
Speaker 1: And there's a whole world in between those two. And
Speaker 1: that's what I liked about the story of the woman
Speaker 1: in Oklahoma is she said, all right, here's where I'm at,
Speaker 1: here's what my you know, my constraints are, so to speak,
Speaker 1: and yet I'm still going to find a way to
Speaker 1: do something really interesting and extraordinary, all right, to live
Speaker 1: a meaningful life. Exactly. That's the goal, right, The goal
Speaker 1: is to live a meaningful life, to bring greater purpose
Speaker 1: to our lives, regardless of our background, regardless of these constraints.
Speaker 1: As you mentioned, I do believe that's something that is
Speaker 1: accessible at least to everyone who's able to listen to
Speaker 1: this podcast. Ye. So one of the other themes that
Speaker 1: came up in the book, I always sort of tie
Speaker 1: things back to two themes that come up on the
Speaker 1: show a lot here, but one of them was effort
Speaker 1: is the reward? And you know we talked sometimes on
Speaker 1: the show. Um. You know, Lewis House was the one
Speaker 1: who who introduced us, and when we had Lewis on
Speaker 1: the show, he talked a little bit about some athletic
Speaker 1: achievements where you know, when he finally achieved and me
Speaker 1: sort of sat there and felt empty at the at
Speaker 1: the ceremony. Or we talked about how often we get
Speaker 1: the thing we want and it doesn't turn out to
Speaker 1: really be the moment we expected. So talk to us
Speaker 1: about the effort being the reward. Yeah, I think, Um,
Speaker 1: I think the way I phrase it was, effort can
Speaker 1: be its own reward, you know, if we let it.
Speaker 1: But I don't necessarily think it always is, because as
Speaker 1: you said, there's there's lots of stories of people who
Speaker 1: are very much focused on that goal or destination and
Speaker 1: then they kind of experienced this moment of alienation or
Speaker 1: disappointment or loneliness. Uh, you know, when they come to
Speaker 1: the end and maybe they realized they missed you know,
Speaker 1: something along the way. Um, and I felt that in
Speaker 1: different ways, you know, to at different points along the quest.
Speaker 1: So I think that the idea is, you know, to
Speaker 1: value the effort, to value the process, you know, in
Speaker 1: my quest to go to every country in the world.
Speaker 1: You know, I was sometimes criticized for not being a
Speaker 1: great travel writer because I'm not a great travel writer.
Speaker 1: It's completely fair criticism. I'm not really good about, you know,
Speaker 1: writing these detailed, like long essays about you know, places
Speaker 1: and people. I read when other people do and I'm like,
Speaker 1: that's great, that's fantastic. It's not me. But I actually
Speaker 1: enjoy the process of travel. I actually like, you know,
Speaker 1: being disrupted from a routine at home and going from
Speaker 1: place to place and being on the road. And I
Speaker 1: think we're actually recording this while you're on the road.
Speaker 1: So I don't know what your thoughts are on that,
Speaker 1: but um, I guess embracing the process and seeing that
Speaker 1: that there's actual value in the process process of doing it,
Speaker 1: regardless of what happens, you know at the end. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I like the I like the balance of you've got
Speaker 1: a quest, which is to to accomplish something, but along
Speaker 1: the way is being able to appreciate those things as
Speaker 1: they come. And I'm a frequent offender of having my
Speaker 1: eye on something that's out in the future, and you know,
Speaker 1: days and weeks slide by where I'm not even present
Speaker 1: at all to what's going on in my own life.
Speaker 1: And uh, and I do like being on the road also.
Speaker 1: I like traveling. I like the disruption of it to
Speaker 1: some degree, everyday matters. That was That was another one
Speaker 1: that you had, and you talked about being conscious of
Speaker 1: our own mortality. I discovered that as I talked to
Speaker 1: all these different people, you know, many of whom came
Speaker 1: from various backgrounds, men and women, young, old, different countries,
Speaker 1: pursuing different quests, they did have a few things in common.
Speaker 1: And one of those things was I noticed, surprisingly, so
Speaker 1: this wasn't something I expected or even ask about. A
Speaker 1: lot of them, you know, spoke about this concept of urgency,
Speaker 1: and a lot of them spoke, you know, using the
Speaker 1: same kind of language about how, you know, I just
Speaker 1: want to make my life count. And I realized that,
Speaker 1: you know, life is short, and so I started asking
Speaker 1: about it more, and I noticed that there was sometimes
Speaker 1: a distinction between, you know, people who pursue these kinds
Speaker 1: of really big projects and those who don't. And it's
Speaker 1: not a percent, but just you know, generally speaking, I
Speaker 1: feel like a lot of people who are pursuing these
Speaker 1: quests or adventures, they have what I called an emotional
Speaker 1: awareness of mortality. And the distinction there is that everyone
Speaker 1: has an intellectual awareness of mortality in the sense that
Speaker 1: we know that everyone dies, but an emotional awareness to
Speaker 1: mortality is just more a conscious awareness of the fact
Speaker 1: that someday I will die. And I heard that express
Speaker 1: to a lot not in a super negative or depressing way,
Speaker 1: but almost as a as a motivator for a lot
Speaker 1: of these people, you know, as a motivator of like,
Speaker 1: I'm just aware that you know, today is almost over,
Speaker 1: you know tomorrow's a new day. I'll never get back
Speaker 1: you know, today again. So what am I gonna do
Speaker 1: tomorrow that's gonna help me build for the future, while also, hopefully,
Speaker 1: as you alluded to, still living in the present and
Speaker 1: enjoying the moment. So I felt that a lot of
Speaker 1: people are very conscious of this. Do you have any
Speaker 1: thoughts on how people become more conscious of that, because
Speaker 1: you're right, it's pretty easy to say, yes, I know
Speaker 1: I'm going to die. Getting that awareness in a more
Speaker 1: tangible way, in an emotional way, like you say, is
Speaker 1: is harder to do. Uh. The certain Buddhist traditions have
Speaker 1: people meditate in the graveyard, which might be taking it
Speaker 1: a little bit far, But I'm wondering if you've got
Speaker 1: any ideas between between meditating in the graveyard and and
Speaker 1: not thinking about it. Yeah, that's funny. It was actually
Speaker 1: a cemetery in my my home home neighborhood of Portland,
Speaker 1: Oregon that actually enjoy walking in and running and I
Speaker 1: don't actually find it depressing. So maybe it's uh, maybe
Speaker 1: it's kind of like that, I think. Uh, you know
Speaker 1: a lot of people I talked to you have first
Speaker 1: mentioned it. There often was some kind of defining moment
Speaker 1: that led to that. Maybe it was the passing of
Speaker 1: a of a close friend or a family member, especially
Speaker 1: an unexpected passing, like someone who died in an accident. Um.
Speaker 1: There were a couple of stories of people who had
Speaker 1: received like their own terminal diagnosis for some kind of illness.
Speaker 1: In one case, there was a woman who was was
Speaker 1: was really into word watching, and she just discovered this
Speaker 1: hobby or this passion, you know, a bit later in life.
Speaker 1: I think she was in her mid thirties, early forties
Speaker 1: and she just kind of started pursuing it and then
Speaker 1: you know, she received what was initially a terminal diagnosis,
Speaker 1: and her very first thought was, oh, no, there's so
Speaker 1: many things left that I still want to do. You know,
Speaker 1: I feel like I haven't used my time well or something. Unfortunately,
Speaker 1: in her case, um, the diagnosis was premature. She went
Speaker 1: on to live almost three decades longer after that, and
Speaker 1: she devoted the rest of her life, you know, to
Speaker 1: pursuing this quest of seeing more birds than anyone else.
Speaker 1: But you know, I don't think that we have to
Speaker 1: receive that terminal diagnosis, right, you know, to to somehow
Speaker 1: adopt that model of urgency. And that's kind that's the
Speaker 1: word that I think of more than mortality, so much
Speaker 1: is is urgency is you know, urgency and opportunity. You know.
Speaker 1: To bring it back to the wolf that we talked
Speaker 1: about in the beginning, you know, I guess the way
Speaker 1: that I try to feed the good wolf is you know,
Speaker 1: by recognizing and acknowledging in my life with gratitude all
Speaker 1: the different opportunities that I have and all the privilege
Speaker 1: that I have, and with that comes responsibility. With that
Speaker 1: comes okay, great what am I gonna do with this?
Speaker 1: You know, it's amazing that I was able to travel
Speaker 1: to all these places, like you know, very few people
Speaker 1: could do that, So what's next. I feel that that
Speaker 1: helps me a little bit. One of the other lessons
Speaker 1: that you came up with was that smaller goals can
Speaker 1: expand you talked about how people often start with I
Speaker 1: think you described yourself. You didn't intentionally start out to
Speaker 1: travel every country in the world. You start out traveling
Speaker 1: because you found it enjoyable, and you you build on that.
Speaker 1: And I thought that was really interesting, a in the
Speaker 1: way that that quests work and be in the way
Speaker 1: that really building anything works, you know, is that idea
Speaker 1: of on the show, we often talk about sort of
Speaker 1: starting small and connecting the dots, you know, over time,
Speaker 1: So maybe you could elaborate more. I like, I like
Speaker 1: starting small, connecting the dots. That's that's a good analogy.
Speaker 1: In my case. I don't think I ever would have
Speaker 1: had the vision to visit all a hundred ninety three countries.
Speaker 1: You know, if after I took my first overseas trip,
Speaker 1: you know, and I went to my second or third country,
Speaker 1: someone said, hey, Chris, wouldn't it be great for you
Speaker 1: to do this. You know, I spent the next ten
Speaker 1: years of your life. I don't think I ever would
Speaker 1: have had that that vision or been able to take
Speaker 1: that on. And so it was. It was a thing
Speaker 1: of as I traveled. I lived in West Africa for
Speaker 1: a few years, was traveling in some regions that are
Speaker 1: a little bit difficult, and I became comfortable with that.
Speaker 1: I just thought that was normal. It's how that's how
Speaker 1: it works, you know. Um. Then I might set the
Speaker 1: first goal of going to a hundred countries, and at
Speaker 1: the time that was like this huge audations goal for me.
Speaker 1: And then I realized like, well, that's only half the countries,
Speaker 1: and the real challenge, of course, would be to take
Speaker 1: on you know, all of them, and but I don't. Again,
Speaker 1: the confidence came through, like the more I did, the
Speaker 1: more I work towards something, the greater confidence that that
Speaker 1: I had as I went along. And the other thing
Speaker 1: I felt that produced confidence, I don't know how you feel, um,
Speaker 1: was that misadventures as I call them, or mistakes or
Speaker 1: even so called failures, all of these things actually kind
Speaker 1: of worked for my benefits as I went along, Because
Speaker 1: you know, at first, if I would travel to a
Speaker 1: new place or something. I was super careful and I
Speaker 1: was even like nervous and just checking things all the time.
Speaker 1: And then things started to go wrong because they always do,
Speaker 1: you know, when you travel. And at first, you know,
Speaker 1: I'd be in some situation where I was really worried
Speaker 1: and how am I gonna get out of it? And
Speaker 1: that you just go, you go through those things and
Speaker 1: it's usually okay, and the worst case scenario usually doesn't happen.
Speaker 1: And I guess by the end, I was actually making
Speaker 1: more mistakes because I was I was careless, you know,
Speaker 1: because I gained confidence, you know, through all the things
Speaker 1: going wrong, through the fact that I was you know,
Speaker 1: two thirds of the way through or whatever. So I'm
Speaker 1: a big believer in like, just identify the goal that
Speaker 1: you can accomplish, you know, I mean, stretch yourself a
Speaker 1: little bit. Obviously you should challenge yourself, um, but take
Speaker 1: on whatever is is challenging and meaningful for you. You're
Speaker 1: the person in your own life who determines what that
Speaker 1: is not someone else. That was another one of the
Speaker 1: ones from your lessons that I had highlighted that I
Speaker 1: wanted to talk talk about was the misadventures produce confidence
Speaker 1: because I'm I'm interested in that overall theme of you know,
Speaker 1: misadventures producing confidence is one way to put it. The
Speaker 1: other is that we interviewed Krista Tippett from the show
Speaker 1: on Being and and we talked about the idea she's
Speaker 1: got in one of her books where she she talks
Speaker 1: about people who are great. You know, pick your Gandhi
Speaker 1: or your Martin Luther King or your and they didn't
Speaker 1: become great in spite of their disadvantages and challenges. They
Speaker 1: became great because of them because I think we all
Speaker 1: try so hard to avoid the things that are hard
Speaker 1: and um it's I think there's an old there's an
Speaker 1: old quote that's coming to mind now that I can't
Speaker 1: quite get, but it's basically about, you know, good weather,
Speaker 1: it doesn't make good sailors. Something to that that extent.
Speaker 1: What is something that people can do if they want to?
Speaker 1: Obviously they can read your book, Um, but what are
Speaker 1: some ways that they can start to think if they
Speaker 1: think that a quest might be something for them, where
Speaker 1: some places they can go to start learning more about
Speaker 1: that or to think more about it. Yeah, I think
Speaker 1: they can go within themselves and they can go and say, okay,
Speaker 1: what are some things I'm interested in? You know what,
Speaker 1: what are some things that I'm excited about? What am
Speaker 1: I motivated to do? And then how can I you know,
Speaker 1: create some kind of packaging or rapper for that. That's
Speaker 1: what a quest is all about. That's the distinction between
Speaker 1: you know, a hobby and a passion or a quest.
Speaker 1: I think I use this, uh you know analogy of
Speaker 1: golf in the book just kind of funny because I
Speaker 1: don't really play golf. I don't know anything about it,
Speaker 1: but I said, you know, if if you like golf,
Speaker 1: like if you go out to play golf once in
Speaker 1: a while, great, it's a hobby. Um, if you go out,
Speaker 1: you know, if you if you really start focusing on
Speaker 1: your game and playing more frequently, maybe getting some coaching
Speaker 1: or something, maybe it's turning into a passion. If you
Speaker 1: decide to go and play like every golf course in Scotland,
Speaker 1: which I'm understanding that there's quite a few of them there,
Speaker 1: and you have a specific deadline, I'm gonna do this
Speaker 1: within two years or something, That's that's when it becomes
Speaker 1: a quest, right, And so I feel like, what what
Speaker 1: helps with the quest is to have that rapper, to
Speaker 1: have that packaging, because until I had that, I was
Speaker 1: just traveling. And that's fine, But I was really motivated
Speaker 1: by goal setting. I was really motivated by making lists.
Speaker 1: That's another thing a lot of people had in common
Speaker 1: in the book. They all like to make lists and
Speaker 1: you know, write things down and check them off. Not
Speaker 1: all of them, but a lot of them. And I
Speaker 1: guess for me, like once I found the parameters or
Speaker 1: the constraints to use that word again, Um, just the
Speaker 1: logic of saying, Okay, I'm traveling, but according to this
Speaker 1: specific goal, and here are the number of countries, and
Speaker 1: here's the deadline that I set for myself, you know,
Speaker 1: eight years into the future of my thirty fifth birthday. Um,
Speaker 1: that's when it became much more real to me. So
Speaker 1: I guess I would encourage them. Um, let's think about
Speaker 1: all the things that you're interested in. How can we
Speaker 1: take them to the next level? You know, that's what
Speaker 1: a quest or or a big adventure as if I
Speaker 1: was kind of like leveling up. Yeah, I like that.
Speaker 1: And I and I was working on writing an article
Speaker 1: today and I came across a study that just made
Speaker 1: me think of this and it basically said that depressed
Speaker 1: people tend to have very general goals and so kind
Speaker 1: of to the point of what you're talking about, a
Speaker 1: generalized goal would be something like I like to travel,
Speaker 1: I want to travel more, right, Whereas when you when
Speaker 1: you start to get really you put a package around it,
Speaker 1: to use your words, you it gives you direction and drive.
Speaker 1: And I think that's one of the things that I
Speaker 1: think depression can cause. Is very difficult to make choices.
Speaker 1: It's very difficult. I'm I'm not sure, maybe I'll do this,
Speaker 1: maybe I'll do that. Whereas if you're getting more specific
Speaker 1: and a quest could be a way to do that,
Speaker 1: it sort of keeps you moving in the right direction. Yeah,
Speaker 1: well that's what that's what the whole point of, you know,
Speaker 1: using a quest or an adventure or whatever term you'd
Speaker 1: like to use, you know, to bring purpose and meaning
Speaker 1: to your life. You know, I've also struggled with depression
Speaker 1: in my life. I'm doing general care right now, you know,
Speaker 1: but from the top time to time, like I experience
Speaker 1: anxiety or whatever, and it was it was really helpful
Speaker 1: over that ten year process. Like I was doing lots
Speaker 1: of other stuff, it wasn't my only thing. But over
Speaker 1: ten years, like I kind of knew more or less
Speaker 1: what to do next, you know, I kind of knew like, OK,
Speaker 1: you know, well I've got this. You know, next year,
Speaker 1: I gotta do fifteen countries. You know, here are the
Speaker 1: fifteen I think I to do. Here's more or less,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm going to plan my life around. I
Speaker 1: kind of like that. You know, it wasn't I don't
Speaker 1: mean to say it was a diversion. I don't mean
Speaker 1: to say it was something like to you know, keep
Speaker 1: my mind occupied when I should have been thinking about
Speaker 1: something else, Like, it was actually really helpful and actually,
Speaker 1: and throughout the process that I'm gaining that confidence that
Speaker 1: we spoke about, it's it's helping me in other ways
Speaker 1: and I'm really just experiencing my own little personal change
Speaker 1: and transformation. So that's that's kind of what I mean
Speaker 1: by just you have this thing, and you know, here's
Speaker 1: what I'm working towards, and you're building. You're building something
Speaker 1: that you believe in, your building something that matters to you.
Speaker 1: So that was great, greatly helpful for me. You wrapped
Speaker 1: the book up by saying that you know, quests don't
Speaker 1: always tie up in a clean way, maybe share a
Speaker 1: little bit about a couple of the stories there and
Speaker 1: then also maybe for you when you hit the last country.
Speaker 1: So if you study you know, quests historically, Um, most
Speaker 1: of the narrative is all about the process. Most of
Speaker 1: the narrative is all about the journey. And sometimes, uh,
Speaker 1: the beginning is you know, super short. It's just like
Speaker 1: all of a sudden things were disrupted. Why were they disrupted?
Speaker 1: Why did the aliens you know, invade the earth? We don't,
Speaker 1: we don't know, but there they are. We gotta do
Speaker 1: something about it, right, Um. Why you know, why did
Speaker 1: this person have to to go and save his village
Speaker 1: or reclaim the magic item or whatever. Um. And the
Speaker 1: ending is also you know often kind of like and
Speaker 1: that was it, you know, we say the village things
Speaker 1: were good, right, So it's all about that middle portion. Um.
Speaker 1: They don't always tie up so well in real life.
Speaker 1: And you know, often, as you alluded to with with
Speaker 1: Lewis and his story, like you come to the end
Speaker 1: and you're kind of like huh, okay, or you go
Speaker 1: home and people don't relate to it, your friends or
Speaker 1: family or somebody who wasn't a part of that direct experience,
Speaker 1: UM kind of ask you to be like, what's it like?
Speaker 1: And the way that they're they're asking you is kind
Speaker 1: of like just asking you to describe, like, you know,
Speaker 1: last night's TV episode or something like what was it like?
Speaker 1: You know, how do you how are you supposed to
Speaker 1: distill this? And so um, you know, there is kind
Speaker 1: of a season, I think, not just a moment, a
Speaker 1: season of figuring out, Okay, you know, how what am
Speaker 1: I doing now? Um? And I experienced that. I think
Speaker 1: almost almost everybody I talked to in the book one
Speaker 1: way or another did my My season for that came
Speaker 1: a bit before the Quest came to an end. It
Speaker 1: was kind of the last year essentially that it just
Speaker 1: kind of hit me. It was like, this has been
Speaker 1: my identity for a long period of time. You know.
Speaker 1: If I meet somebody or somebody hears about me, there's like,
Speaker 1: here's this guy. His name is Chris. We can't pronounce
Speaker 1: his last name, but he's the guy who's going to
Speaker 1: every country in the world. Right It's been like my
Speaker 1: little one letter that's whatever, you know. So I don't
Speaker 1: want to live in that forever, you know, I don't
Speaker 1: want to and like, for a few months maybe afterwards,
Speaker 1: or a little maybe now with the book or something,
Speaker 1: it's like, oh, that's Chris. You know, he's the guy
Speaker 1: who went to every country in the world. But I
Speaker 1: guess long term, um, I don't want to live. I
Speaker 1: want to have something, you know, I always want to
Speaker 1: be working on something new. I wanted to continually be
Speaker 1: forging a new identity. So a little bit of struggle
Speaker 1: with that. But then again, like what's the alternative. You know,
Speaker 1: the alternative would be to not undertake the question in
Speaker 1: the first place, to not have these incredible experiences all
Speaker 1: over the world, you know, to not meet all these
Speaker 1: other people pursuing quests. I think we always have to
Speaker 1: continue to try and find meaning in life, and it's
Speaker 1: not always while you have the quest going. That's a
Speaker 1: good way to give give life meaning, but there's always
Speaker 1: a period where we have to continue to search. And
Speaker 1: that was one of the things I liked about the
Speaker 1: concept of the Quest was, Um, I think it's easy
Speaker 1: to get hung up on what's the meaning of life?
Speaker 1: And and I'm a fan of Victor Frankel. I don't
Speaker 1: know if you call a guy who went through a holocaust,
Speaker 1: if you're a fan of his But but but you like,
Speaker 1: like I got his posters up in my my bedroom. Um,
Speaker 1: but he talks about how there isn't a meaning to life.
Speaker 1: We all have to create our own meaning. And that's
Speaker 1: what I thought was really this quest was a way
Speaker 1: to create that meaning and put some structure around it.
Speaker 1: What's the other quote by Joseph Campbell? You said, Um,
Speaker 1: you know, I don't think people are looking for the
Speaker 1: meaning of life. I think they want the sense of
Speaker 1: being alive. Yeah, that's another one of my favorite ones.
Speaker 1: So what is uh next for you? Obviously you've got
Speaker 1: this book to our coming up. You're promoting the book,
Speaker 1: but I'm sure you've got got something else brewing. So
Speaker 1: the book tour is not really just a book tour,
Speaker 1: you know, it's it's a it's a series of community events.
Speaker 1: And my whole, my whole project, you know, began from community.
Speaker 1: And I started writing about the journey to every country
Speaker 1: a few years ago and started doing meetups with my
Speaker 1: readers all over the world, and I really realized they
Speaker 1: were the greatest part of the quest essentially, you know,
Speaker 1: because I was just an independent traveler doing my own thing,
Speaker 1: and and then I started connecting with all these great people.
Speaker 1: So it's not so much about promoting the book, you know,
Speaker 1: and the tour. It's it's more about hearing their stories
Speaker 1: and maybe sharing this message hopefully kind of nudging people
Speaker 1: towards pursuing their own adventure and help and nudging them
Speaker 1: towards embracing the value adventure in their lives. And I
Speaker 1: see that as as kind of a mini quest of
Speaker 1: its own. You know, I'm doing forty cities to start
Speaker 1: out with, but then I hope to add another thirty
Speaker 1: cities later. I hope to do this for a while.
Speaker 1: It's something I really enjoy doing. And you know, we
Speaker 1: also have an annual event that we put together in Portland, Oregon,
Speaker 1: and be great to have you guys out sometime. Um
Speaker 1: that's like a weeklong event with thousands of people. Again,
Speaker 1: it's it's very much focused on community. So I guess
Speaker 1: whatever it is that I'm doing next, you know, various
Speaker 1: business projects and books and things like, I'm hoping that's
Speaker 1: that's kind of the value that that shines through all
Speaker 1: of it is is it's not just about Chris. He's
Speaker 1: trying to do something that, you know, to bring like
Speaker 1: minded people together or to encourage people along the way.
Speaker 1: Is it true that anybody that interviews you for a
Speaker 1: podcast gets free tickets to the World Domination somewhe or
Speaker 1: is that just something I dreamed up in my head?
Speaker 1: You must have you must have seen that on Twitter
Speaker 1: or something somewhere. But that's great. I would love to
Speaker 1: have you guys. We'll figure it out. I would love
Speaker 1: to get out there. I hear wonderful, wonderful things about
Speaker 1: that event. Well, I think that takes us near the
Speaker 1: end of our time. Is there anything you want to
Speaker 1: talk about and related to quests that you don't think
Speaker 1: we covered, or any other thoughts on the theme? This
Speaker 1: is great. This is really a thoughtful questions you know,
Speaker 1: it's so much better than going on the radio for
Speaker 1: like a two minute segments when like Chris tell us
Speaker 1: everything like right now, I'm like, God, I don't know
Speaker 1: what to do. No, I'm really honored to be on this,
Speaker 1: you know, great thought podcast. If I can never help
Speaker 1: you or any of the listeners with anything, please fread
Speaker 1: to contact all right, Chris, Well, thanks so much for
Speaker 1: your time and hopefully we will get to see you
Speaker 1: while you're out on the road. Awesome sounds great. Thank
Speaker 1: you all right, take care, okay, take care of a
Speaker 1: good night. You can learn more about Chris Gilbo and
Speaker 1: this podcast at one you Feed dot net slash Chris,
Speaker 1: that's c h r I s