Interview: Born for This with Chris Guillebeau

You're listening to Optimize with Brian Johnson. More wisdom in less time.

Hi, this is Brian. Welcome back to the Optimal Living Interview series. Today I'm thrilled to be chatting with Chris Guillebeau, who is a fascinating guy. He's traveled to literally every single country in the world, which was one of his projects for a while. And he's written a number of great books, including the $100 startup, the art of Nonconformity, and the Happiness of Pursuit. I need to cover the first two. We have a note on the Happiness of Pursuit, which is phenomenal. And we're going to talk today about his newest book called Born for this subtitle. How to find the work you are meant to do. Purpose is one of the things that we're asked most often about with our membership program. And this book is just a great overview of how to figure out the work you were born to do. Chris, I appreciate you taking the time to chat. I'm excited to explore some ideas.

Absolutely. Thank you so much for having me, Brian.

All right, so let's start at the top. I always like to start with Born for this. Tell us about what you were thinking when you named the book that.

Yeah, okay, great. So when I think about, I always think about first, like, who am I writing to? And I think for years now, I've kind of focused on people who are interested in growth, interested in personal development, want to advance their career, etc. Etc. But I think I'm more interested in the values behind that. And the values are often freedom and independence and contribution, service, etc. So I wrote the $100 startup a few years ago, as you mentioned, and $100 startup is very, very much focused on entrepreneurship, on kind of quit your job and start this freedom business and do it full time. And over the years, like, I have a great community just like you do, and I travel a lot and meet with them. And, you know, I found that there's not like a one size fits all approach. And lots of people actually do kind of find the work they were born to do within an organization or within a company or maybe in some kind of hybrid approach. And so essentially what I hope to do with Born for this is to capture this element of, okay, you know, if we look at successful people, when I say successful, I don't mean just wealthy or famous or status or something, but people who are truly fulfilled, truly purposeful and happy, they tend to have a few things in common. And so I wanted to understand what that was. And those people also, when you look at them from the outside, you're like, they were kind of born to do this. That is the thing they were meant to do. So what do those people have in common? How can we, the readers, apply that to our lives in different ways?

Right on. That's great. And I just love the title. Let's step into what I thought was kind of the central theme of the book, the joy, money, flow nexus point. Can you talk to us about that?

Yeah. That's the model that I used to kind of share a lot of different lessons. I do. This research project usually takes about two years. And I talk with hundreds of people from lots of different backgrounds, men and women, different ages. Some are self employed, some work for other people. And then I kind of see, okay, what can we really take away from it? So it's not just platitudes. It's actually like a research based, fact based model. And what I saw is that people, regardless of their profession, regardless of what occupation they go into, what they're really seeking in life is kind of a synergy between these three qualities that you just named. So once again, they're joy, money, and flow. And we're kind of seeking a convergence between the things that we like to do, the kind of work that actually brings us joy and happiness, something that is financially viable, so not just a hobby. And then the third one, of course, is flow, which isn't talked about nearly as much as joy and money is. And so flow is the use of unique skills or doing something that comes naturally to you, that might be difficult for other people, kind of losing yourself in your work. And people who are truly happy and successful, as I said, they're much closer to that intersection than other people are. So in life, we have to sometimes settle, sometimes we have to compromise. And that's fine for seasons, but for the community of amazing people who's listening to this, they've kind of raised their hand and they're like, I actually am interested in growth and personal development. So the goal, Right. The goal essentially is to get closer and closer to that synergy or that intersection.

Yeah, I love it. And you talk about, you draw the little Venn circles. And obviously the intersection of those three is where we find what we're born to do. And then you talk about kind of some of the aspects where we almost get it, you know, we're missing one. Can you just walk us through that? Because I thought it was really helpful to kind of highlight the importance of each of the three elements.

Yeah, well, I think that has to do with that aspect of compromise and settling. And you know, I don't want to say like, no one should ever settle because in life we sometimes have to, you know, make compromises or trade offs. Like When I was 15, I delivered pizza. That was not the work I was born to do. Right. But it was something that kind of was a means to an end and like it provided the money I needed to go to school or whatever. But in the long term, this is.

How you were aspiring to work at Burger King?

Yeah, exactly. Well, that was when I was six years old. Fortunately, I grew out of that dream. It's also okay to change your mind, which is good. So. Yeah, where were we talking about?

You were doing the pizza and we can't. Right, right.

I was settling and compromised. Yeah, sorry. So I think there's lots of different paths people could go down in life. Right. And it's born for this, the title where we started. I don't think that there is like a single thing necessarily that every person was born to do and they're a failure if they don't find it. But again, if you look at successful people, not just famous people, but people, you know, in your circle, when they have found that intersection of all three things, you know, they do kind of come alive and you can observe the from an outside perspective. You're like, wow, Brian has really found this thing. And sure, he could just work a job and kind of just go to work and pay the bills and be happy in the rest of his life, that's fine. And he could have a good job, but it doesn't pay well and he lives frugally and that's also fine. Or he could have both of those things, but it's not really using his unique skills. All those things are okay. But again, if we're talking about optimal living, if we're talking about the goal, like you really need all three of them, you really want. Most of us, I believe, want to use our skills. We want to be put to use. We want to contribute something to the world. And not just something generic or something random, but something that we feel like, okay, we're actually kind of putting our mark on this and this is something that we can help with. And other people struggle with this thing, but for us it comes naturally. And so sometimes it takes a while to figure out, okay, what is that? And how does that become a viable profession or occupation? And how do I identify the way that I work the best so that I am the happiest? It's a process of getting There. But I think spending time on this process and understanding it for yourself is probably the most important thing we can do for our career.

Yeah, that's awesome. I recently taught a class called Purpose 101, and I talked about Jim Collins's hedgehog concept. And in a note on the book, I mentioned some parallels that I saw with his idea of great companies and great people do something similar where they figure out what they love to do, what they can be truly great at, and how they're going to meet a need. I've personally done that exercise, probably more than any other, of trying to figure out what's at that nexus point and iterating on it. And you make the great point throughout the book that this isn't about brilliance or just kind of getting lucky. It's about trial and error and being willing to experiment. Can you talk to us more about that? And then I want to drill into a little bit on kind of exercises, which your book obviously is packed with.

Yeah. So in talking with all these people and kind of looking at the narrative of their lives, one thing that maybe was a little bit surprising, or perhaps it shouldn't have been, is that a lot of these people made a lot of mistakes in life, and they actually went down a lot of different paths. And they weren't afraid to kind of go back to where they started, or they weren't afraid to experiment, as you said, and when they came to a fork in the road, they pretty quickly made a decision to go either right or left. And if it didn't work out, they would go back and try again. So they didn't remain stuck. I thought that was interesting because sometimes we have this notion that the stereotypical aspirational, hugely successful celebrity or business leader executive has always kind of known this is their path, this is their mission, and they spent their whole life refining themselves to fill that position. I think those people are the exceptions. And it's much more common, you know, to find people who are very fulfilled and purposeful, but they've actually done a lot of different things. And what they. What they studied in college, you know, if they went to college at all, may not have anything to do with what they're doing now. And maybe they had a first career that then turned into a second career that, at least on the surface, is totally unrelated. So the willingness, you know, to kind of put yourself out there, the willingness to experiment, and not just experiment, but be willing to kind of walk things back and to say, you know what? That was okay, but I'm actually going to do something else. Now. I think that is kind of a precursor to success for a lot of people.

Yeah. That's awesome. This was going to be the final idea I wanted to chat about because it's your final chapter in the book. Let me check out the chapter title. Because it's. What is it? Winners Give up all the time.

Right. Right.

Just love it. Talk to us about that, for sure. Winners.

Now, when you think of platitudes, right. When you think of traditional advice that's given, especially in our Western American entrepreneurial model, it's like persistence is the most important quality of success. I mean, that's like you put it on a motivational poster or you put it on Instagram and you'll get lots of likes. Never Give up. But Never Give up is actually terrible advice for a lot of people because, again, a lot of people who find the work they were born to do, they have tried a bunch of other stuff. They gave up on it, and then they eventually found that thing. So there's a story I tell in that chapter. It's this historical anecdote which has been told and retold many times. And I think it comes from Dale Carnegie, the story of Three Feet From Gold, which is about a prospector in the Wild West, California gold rush. And this prospector goes and invests in some land, and he spends months or years or some long period of time without striking any gold. So he finally sells the plot for a small amount of money and moves on with his life. And the very next day, the new prospector goes three feet over and strikes gold. He's rich or whatever. The way that story is always told is the guy gave up too soon, basically. And, like, if only he had stuck it out, you know, if only he had just, like, waited one day, he would have, you know, found the gold. But obviously the problem is, like, there's no way to know that. You know, there was no way for him to know. Like, oh, all I had to do was wait one more day. He could have waited months or more years or whatever, you know, Meanwhile, missing another opportunity. So. And you also don't know what happened to the guy who left. Like, maybe he actually went on to do something better. So, you know, winners give up all the time. Like, winners walk things back. Winners aren't afraid to say, okay, you know, even if it was going well, I'm going to give up, because it's not going great. You know, I'm interested in something great.

Yeah, that's awesome. You know, obviously there's the Distinction of, you know, are you giving up because you just got a little hard, you're not willing to lean into it, or are you choosing to look at it and say, you know, this just isn't. This isn't quite it, you know, and you make the funny analogy of Wayne Gretzky. You know, you miss 100% of the shots you don't take. Unpack that one for us a little bit, too, because I think it's.

Yeah, well, that's another great motivational quote. I mean, it's nice, but, you know, in sports, I mean, sports are by nature competitive, and so you don't have an unlimited number of shots, Right? Like, you can't just keep, you know, taking shots that don't go in. And I think I said something about if you're playing a team sport, you know, and you keep missing shots, pretty soon nobody's going to, you know, pass you the puck or the ball, and they're going to say, we miss 100% of the shots we pass to that guy. Right. So the lesson is not to. Not to stop trying. Right. A lesson is like, try, try again, but try something different. Right? You got to mix it up. It's not just about taking more shots. It's not just about working harder or being persistent, because that won't necessarily get you to where you want to be.

Yeah, that's awesome. So then backing up to the joy, money flow. What's your favorite exercise? If someone's listening and they kind of want to go through it, obviously they can get the book, and I recommend they get the book to go through. But what's kind of your favorite exercise to help people get more clarity?

Yeah, something I've been doing recently, and I find that this kind of resonates with people. This is a very, very simple thing. At the end of the day, you can take a journal, or if you're not a journal person, that's okay. Take a post it note and just write down your answer to this question. It's a very simple question. Did today matter? And when you do that, you know, write the answer out in your own words. You can kind of look back on your day and you know the answer. Like, you know, if today, you know, mattered, if it made a difference, or if you kind of got sucked into something, you know, you ended up responding and not initiating, you're able to kind of say like, yeah, today was a good day, or day wasn't a good day based on that. And then the goal is going forward. If we're making small Decisions. If we're making big decisions, trying to get more and more days that matter, and everybody's going to have a bad day, that's fine. But if I start having a streak of bad days, maybe it relates to this concept of joy money flow. Maybe something is off, like I've got off on one of the points, and maybe in some ways I'm more successful. I'm actually making money in something, but it's not making me happy. And so I need to kind of make a tweak there. And you can also ask, here's another thing. Ask yourself, like, what activities did I do today that gave me energy versus what drained my energy? And again, going forward, not everybody has 100% autonomy over how they spend their time, but most of us have at least some degree of control. So how can we choose more things that get us closer to the intersection?

That's awesome. And then, as you were describing that, it just made me wonder if you could share just kind of your own personal evolution, how you may have discovered a joy money flow nexus point at some stage, and then it kind of was no longer it. Is there anything that comes to mind that you can share on that?

Yeah, that's really great. So a lot of my worldview and initial life experience was formed. I spent four years living in West Africa. I was in Sierra Leone in Liberia as an aid worker in my early 20s. And it was just a great transformative experience. I learned a lot about life, a lot about service, a lot about travel in general, which later helped me go to every country in the world and do a bunch of other stuff. So that was just a wonderful thing. And I loved every, every minute of the first three years. And in that, that final fourth year, I kind of, you know, got a little bit distracted, and I was still there. I was, like, still kind of present and actually, you know, doing the work. But my mind was kind of thinking about other stuff, basically, so. And I had observed there were other people who had stayed a long period of time, some people 10 years, 20 years. And some of those people, of course, continued to find joy in it, but I noticed that some of them were kind of burned out, basically. And so I was like, I do not want to burn out doing this wonderful work, serving great people. So I'm going to actually kind of mix it up, and it's been great, but I'm going to do something else. And so then I left, went back to the States and went to grad school, eventually started the blog, ended up writing books, which I had no idea that was going to happen. But it was all because I think I was able, at least at that point, without having the vocabulary for it, I was able to pay attention to that shift and say, okay, let's do something else.

Yep. Yep. It reminds me of Joseph Campbell and his idea that the great life is one hero's journey after another and being willing to kind of complete it. You know, you go into the force of the unknown, you battle your demons and dragons, and you hopefully win and bring the boon back. And then what? Then it's time for the next one, right?

Yeah, exactly. And so if you don't go to the next one, then you get stuck. And I saw that with the last book and the whole focus on quests, once you wrap up a quest, you get a little bit of period, you get a little time, you get maybe a few months or whatever to live off that mentally or spiritually, but then you got to move on.

Yeah, that's awesome. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi in his book Creativity, says that about the eminent creators. They're always looking at the next project. What's inspiring me now. That's great. Thanks for sharing that. Another one of my favorite ideas is something along the lines of, if plan A fails, no big deal. You got 25 other letters.

Sure. I'm a big fan of backup plans. And I used to kind of be this forward charging person about there's no such thing as a backup plan, and my plan B is plan A. And again, these things make for great quotes online or something, but it's not necessarily a great way to live your life. And again, a lot of successful people, a lot of entrepreneurs, they are going into something believing it's going to succeed. They're definitely putting all of their energy and focus on it, but they're also kind of willing to say, okay, if it doesn't work out, then I'm going to create myself a backup plan. And I don't even have to share that plan with anybody else because I do believe in the vision that I'm pursuing. It's not like I'm manipulating the circumstance or something, but I'm going to think about, okay, if it doesn't work out, what's the next thing? And then what's the next thing after that? And what's that? So when we talk about giving up, obviously I'm talking about giving up on specific strategies, on specific opportunities. I'm not saying you should give up on your life vision. I'm saying that there's more than One way to accomplish that life vision. And if you have that, if you can adopt that flexibility, then I think you're just going to get further and further down the road to the intersection, to your life purpose, to whatever you want to call it. Satisfaction, Hero's journey.

Right on. Again, so much more we could talk about there, but let's talk about Warren Buffett and his goals. In your chapter, Chris has a chapter on, what do you call it? It's Jay Z basically coaching you.

Life coaching from Jay Z or something, which is awesome.

Expand and then contract. Talk to us about that.

Okay, cool. So the Warren Buffett thing is just another thing that kind of annoys me. And it's very. It's like popular media and popular business media in particular. These articles, we see them all the time. It's like, here are the top 12 things that productive people do in the morning or something. And you kind of read them and you're like, well, if I don't do these things, I'm a bad person. Or maybe I'm not actually living my optimal self if I don't get up at 4 o' clock in the morning and I only check email once a day or whatever the thing is. And so a lot of profiles of popular business leaders, celebrities, athletes, kind of look at their lives and then give us advice as if we're supposed to do the same things that they do. So like, here's what Jay Z does in the morning or whatever. Here's how Mark Zuckerberg manages his team. Here's how Warren Buffett invests. So of course the problem is we are not Mark Zuckerberg. We are not Warren Buffett management. We don't have tens of thousands of employees reporting to us, at least most of us don't investing. We don't have billions of dollars like Warren Buffet does. So it's not just a question of intelligence or talent, even though those are both incredibly talented, intelligent people. It's a question of resources. It's a question of what is best for us. How do we get closer to our goals, not necessarily doing exactly what somebody else is doing. So I think the expand your options point was maybe thinking about either a young person or somebody making a big change going into higher education or a career shift. I think it's really important in the beginning to create as many opportunities as possible and to say yes more than you say no, and to have a little bit less of a filter. Be open to new experiences and ideas. And then as you kind of try different things, you go down different Paths. You kind of learn more about yourself and your skills. Then you start closing doors. Then you start kind of saying no and applying a stricter filter. But the problem is, a lot of this advice is like, say no all the time. Apply the filter. And if you do that in the beginning, you don't necessarily know what it is that you were born to do. So you may close the door on something that could have been amazing for you.

That's awesome. Yeah. And you shared the. The exercise that he recommends. So you kind of shared the. We aren't those people. Right. But here's a pretty cool exercise in terms of expanding and contracting, which I thought was pretty cool. The 25 and then 5. Do you want to show that one?

Yeah, 25 and 5. Actually, I'm forgetting what that is.

Awesome. It was just kind of side note, a sidebar thing. But I just thought it was really cool to capture that idea of expanding then contracting. It was something along the lines of Warren Buffett. His friend was struggling.

Oh, okay. Yeah. Okay. There you go. Thank you. So the exercise is essentially write down your 25 life goals and spend a little bit of time thinking, okay, what are the 25 things that I want to do and most want to accomplish? So it's a little bit like a bucket list, but it's not just kind of random stuff. It's like, here are actually things that I really would like to do. And the advice from Warren Buffett, which, as I said, may or may not work for you. The advice is you have the list of 25 things. Now you eliminate 20 of them, basically. So you pick five and you say, okay, these are the five that I'm going to focus on, and these are the five that are the most important. And maybe at some point I'll have to switch one out, or I choose to switch one out because my goals have changed. That's fine. But I'm not going to actually try to do 25 big things in my life. I'm going to try to do five really big things and do them well.

Yeah, that's awesome, right? I mean, to have that again, that expanding and then that contracting, and then the willingness to do both, to be open and then to know when to close and to focus. That's awesome.

I should say. Sorry that I haven't followed this advice very well myself because I continue to expand options and actually need to apply a little bit more of a filter because for me, my tendency is to just like, oh, here's a new thing. That's great. I'll do that, too. And that's not always the best, obviously.

Well, that's cool. And it's one of the themes that I really liked about the book is that it's find your own path. We're all going to have different paths at different times, and there's always that dynamic recalibration going on. I tend to go the other way, actually. I was. I went in my. In our last iteration of our business, we were doing way too many things, and it was. It was the, you know, time to quit. Right.

Yeah.

To step back and to say no, that was. We were doing too much and to focus on something else. And now I'm in that deliberate extreme, you know, hermit focused on. On the one thing.

Right.

Yeah. It's just a dynamic flow. And.

Yeah, it's the key is it took you some time to get there. Right. Like, you didn't know what that thing was, you know, five years ago or 10 years ago or whatever. So if you had gone back to yourself, you know, then and said self, like, only do one thing, you know, you wouldn't necessarily be in this place now.

Exactly. It's. Yes. And what's interesting is that it's kind of like, you know, Emerson talks about, like, you go far enough back and you can see that thread that was going. I've known for a very long time that I love doing what I now do, and there were different times where I just didn't have the clarity or the courage to pursue it. So it's a fascinating thing. You know, it absolutely took a ton of trial and error. And when I look back, there was. There was more clarity than, again, I had the ability to see or to.

Follow, but you had to acquire something. You had to acquire some sort of resource. And I don't just mean, like money or something. You had to acquire some kind of capacity or you had to go through some experience in order to see the clarity. Like, the clarity was always there, but for whatever reason, you didn't have access to it until you did something else.

That's exactly right. Yeah, exactly. And then I think your important point is what I used to do, and I think what a lot of people do is kind of beat ourselves up when we don't have it all figured out, then compare ourselves to the ideal version of ourselves or whoever else we admire who's done whatever by 10 years younger than us, you know.

Right. Which is always just depressing, you know. You know, ultimately, I think we put too much pressure on people, you know, in our society, especially, you know, people who are like going into college and going into their careers for the first time. It's like you must know what your life purpose is. And obviously you don't know what your life purpose is. Or most people don't, you know, at that age until they walk through different experiences and they don't even really necessarily have the best idea of what their profession or their occupation or their vocation, any of that should be. Because you don't really know what it's like. Like you have an inkling, like maybe I have an aptitude for something, but there's probably multiple ways that that aptitude could be applied. And it's very likely that I'm going to change my mind in five years or 10 years and that's fine.

And go test it, go test it. Be willing to experiment and to take the data in and get us get a little bit closer day in and day out. What have we not talked about that you think is really important to discuss?

I think this has been great so far. I mean, I think the key focus is most people do not follow linear path. Most people make a lot of mistakes. They go back, they kind of regroup, they are kind of focused on this question of joy, money flow. Maybe they don't call it that. But the point is there's a synergy that they're looking for. They're looking for this intersection, a place to come alive. I think we haven't talked about whether people are employees or self employed. I know your audience is probably some of both. One thing I always say to people who, who do find their calling in an organization or a company, I say, well that's great, but you should think of yourself as a self employed employee. And I wrote about this a little bit in the book and as a self employed employee, you're saying, okay, at this season of my life, the best thing I can do is kind of lease my talents out to this organization or company. And when I say that, I don't mean that you're doing them a disservice. Like you're actually going to make sure you do a great job in that role and you're going to add a lot of value and make them really happy that they hired you and feel like they haven't paid you enough. But at the same time you're kind of thinking about yourself because no one else is going to look out for your career the way that you will and as much as you will. So you're building your skills, you're maybe creating what I call a side hustle a side business that you do that will give you additional security, additional confidence that will expand your options to do something different later. And if it turns out that you love your job, that's great. Then you go to work because you want to go to work, not because you have to go to work.

Yeah, that's great. And again, it's a nice balance of wherever we are at different life stages and different contexts. How do you optimize? And so many great mini chapters on how to go about doing that. One of the big things with our series is kind of the fundamentals and personal practices that people do to stay plugged in. Are you open to sharing some of the stuff that you do that keeps you really optimal?

Yeah, sure, Yeah. I mean, it depends on how we want to kind of focus it. I have kind of a nomadic life, so, you know, I have a home in Portland, Oregon, and I'm home about half the time. But you know, literally 50% of the time I'm out and about around the world. I go to 20 countries a year and like, you know, pretty soon doing this 30 city book tour for the, for the new book. So I kind of have to take my routine with me essentially. And the routine is a little bit flexible, but for me, the routine is focused not on time so much, but more on deliverables or outcomes because I might be doing my work at different times a day or something. So for me, I'm always kind of thinking about, okay, what am I making, what am I contributing to? And when I look back at the end of the day and I'm like, did today matter? The way that I answer that question is, did I do some writing? Did I just end up kind of digging myself out of a hole in my email or whatever, or did I make progress on my goal? So that's probably the main thing, and I have some matrix for that. I try to write a thousand words a day pretty much every day, and sometimes I'll miss a day, but it's like exercise. If you miss a day, it's okay, but if you start missing a few days, then you kind of feel it, so you want to get back to it.

That's awesome. How long have you done that?

The thousand word, let's see, probably about six years now since I first started blogging and writing books. And 1000 words is not a huge amount, but over time, if you can consistently do that, then you can write a book a year. You can write a lot of content for your blog or for your membership site or your course or whatever. Probably not everybody listening wants to be a writer, so that's fine. But maybe there's a way you can apply that matrix in some different way. What are you creating? Whatever that is. And how can you break that down and then give yourself this little mini goal that you have? And then when you have a streak, it becomes really powerful and you're like, oh, I don't want to break my streak. So it's like self motivation.

I love it. That's great. Fantastic. Well, I like to wrap these chats up with this question, which is, if you could only share one piece of wisdom with people listening, what would that one piece of wisdom be?

Man, you have. You have kind of dug a lot out of me. And not to say that everything I've shared has been, you know, wise, but hopefully something. Hopefully, something helps people. I would just. If I could share one thing, I'll go back to kind of my life philosophy and what I've built the art of nonconformity around, which is, in essence, you don't have to live your life the way others expect. And, you know, most of the people listening to this have probably already kind of bought into that, and they're like, yeah, I don't have to live my life the way others expect, you know, and I'm already kind of moving down that path. And so I would just affirm that for them, and I would say, good for you. And at each stage of your life, whenever you make decisions, evaluate based on that model, am I doing this because it's best for me, or am I doing it because someone else just wants me to do it?

That's awesome. I just was looking through the note to find the quote to capture that too. You said the first step, and then you said different people found their path in different ways, but the first step was to identify what you really want and to trust that that's a worthy and noble thing to pursue. Fantastic. Well, thank you, Chris. Where can people connect with you best? What's the best place for them to.

Awesome. Yeah, thanks so much, Brian. It's a huge honor. So they can find me@chrisgillebo.com which is a little bit harder to spell than Brian Johnson, I realize, but I'm Chrisgillebo on all social media. Or they can go to bornforthisbook.com and learn about the book and the tour.

Okay, cool. So bornforthisbook.com and then I'm gonna spell your name just so people know it, Chris, which is pretty straightforward. C H R I Guillebow. Is G U I L L E B e a u chrisgillabow.com Chris appreciate you and all your work.

Awesome man.

Really excited about your new book.

Thank you so much Brian. Huge honor. I appreciate it.

Isn't it a bit odd that we went from math to science to history but somehow missed the class on how to live? For some wacky reason, optimal living 101 never made the schedule. Of course, it's too late to go back and change that and you're too busy to read full time to catch up yet. If you're like us, you're all about optimizing your life and actualizing your potential. So imagine this. Imagine having someone read the best books on optimal living and pulling out the big ideas that can truly change your life. You know those sections you asterisk and underline and mark all up? Then imagine that guy me connecting those ideas to other great books and helping you apply them to your life today. Well, that's what I do with something we call Philosopher's Notes where I break down each course great book into a simple 6 page PDF, 20 minute MP3 and 10 minute Philosopher's Notes TD episode. Then imagine me taking the absolute best big ideas from those great books and sharing them with you in fun, inspiring, super practical optimal living 101 classes on stuff like purpose 101 confidence 101, business 101 meditation 101. That sort of thing. You've got a personal trainer? I'm kind of like your personal philosopher. Ancient Wisdom plus Modern Science plus Common Sense plus Virtue plus Mastery plus Fun. That's what our optimized membership program is all about. We'd love to have you join us. Check us out at Brian Johnson Me Join.