Sonia Marsh - Gutsy Living

Life's too short to play it safe

I’m in love with Annabel Candy and Chris Guillebeau

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I cannot hide my feelings any longer; I’m in love with two bloggers, one male and one female. Okay, so perhaps “in love” is a little too strong, but I feel connected, to these two people because of their passion for what they do, their authenticity, and the fact that I get goosebumps when I read their posts, and listen to their words on various podcasts.

So who are these two bloggers:

  1. Chris Guillebeau: The Art on Non-Conformity
  2. Annabel Candy: GetintheHotSpot

First of all, he’s real, he’s humble, he connects with people old and young, he’s open-minded, his motto: “live your life the way you want and help other people at the same time,” resonates with me. He’s a world traveler, he’s lived four years in Africa helping people, he’s young and energetic, and he asks the questions all of us are interested in, but rarely take the time to answer:


1) What do you really want to get out of Life?
2). What can you offer the world that no one else can?

As Chris says, “These questions are deceptively simple. It takes some people 10 minutes to get their own answers, and other people take years to figure out.”

In his book, The Art of Non-Conformity, Chris offers a ton of fascinating, yet simple ways of thinking about motivation and your life. One is his radical goal-setting, (pages 32-35,) where he gives help on setting One-Year, Five-Year, and Lifetime goals. For those of you who may be asking, “”Who am I to Tell You All This?” Chris says, “Let’s be clear about something: I adhere to a guru-free philosophy, and I don’t claim to have all the answers.”  

I can relate to Annabel as a woman who has lived in Africa, the UK, Costa Rica for Annabel, Belize for me, and has three children. Despite similarities in travel, Annabel is also authentic and has a strong desire to help people live their dreams. She writes about empowerment, blogging, Internet marketing, and entrepreneurship.
I recommend Annabel’s podcast where she talks about helping bloggers, especially small business owners, and writers, photographers and musicians who wish to improve their blogs. A few helpful tips she offers are:

  • Each line should have 80 characters or less, or it’s too difficult to read.
  • Stick with blogging for at least a year. You will start seeing the benefits.

Annabel always offers great content on her posts, and has a new e-book on Successful Blogging in 12 simple steps to help you become a successful blogger.

I am volunteering at Chris Guillebeau’s book tour on December 10th in Los Angeles. Can’t wait to meet him and everyone else attending. Hope to see you there.

 

Here is your chance to share the names and links of up to two bloggers who inspire you, make you feel connected, or simply entertain you and you cannot wait for their next post.

Are you fundamentally suspicious of happy people? Cultural differences.

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 world
Comparisons between the way Americans and Europeans think about work, food, dress code and manners, is something I find fascinating. I wrote a previous post entitled: What French Women Know, Can we Learn from them?
I am reading, Lunch in Paris, by Elizabeth Bard. She is a young American journalist who now lives in Paris, after marrying Gwendal, a French man whom she, “slept with halfway through our first date.” I am using excerpts from her delicious, fun-filled memoir that depicts cultural differences.
“Like most French people, I don’t think Gwendal ever expected fulfillment or recognition for his work. When he finally asked for a raise…the director told him he had taken on the extra responsibility pour plaisir–for fun. When he was bored or frustrated… I just couldn’t keep my big American mouth shut. ‘If you put all the time and effort you spend on your hobbies into your job, you’d have the cinema career you’ve always wanted.’ Gwendal’s response: ‘You are right…at least in the U.S. But here, working harder, faster, and better just makes people hate you.'”
Bard continues: “In the America I grew up in, little kids don’t say, ‘When I grow up, I want to be happy.’ That’s not the appropriate end to that sentence. We say, ‘When I grow up, I want to be a doctor, an astronaut, a fighter pilot.’ Happiness to me was something very abstract, the end of a long equation: initial self-worth multiplied by x accomplishments, divided by y dollars, z loans, minus f hours worked, plus g respect earned. Happiness, I assumed, would be the end result of a whole list of things I hadn’t gotten around to yet.”
“How is he ever supposed to be successful? He needs to be a little bit miserable, like us. It’s how you get to the next thing.” Bard says.
Finally, when Gwendal says he went to his high school library to look at All the Jobs in the World, he picks out two: scientific researcher and film director. The French school counselor says, “An non, You forgot to look at the key. Each job has a dollar sign and a door, explaining how much it pays, and how easy it is to get this job. Regarde, tu n’y arriveras jamais.” You’ll never get there. Gwendal says, “If you want to do something different, if your head sticks up just a little, they cut it off. It’s been like that since the Revolution. You know the saying, liberte, egalite, fraternite…Everyone has got to be the same.”
If you live in the UK, Sweden, Canada, Denmark, India, Botswana, Morocco, Australia, and of course, anywhere else in the world, including the U.S., what do you think? Do you feel there are limits on who you, your kids or your grandkids want to be? Are those limits part of your culture?

Life is calling. How far will you go?

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Lately, I’ve noticed a trend in blog posts addressing the following questions:

  • How can I make my life more meaningful?
  • What is my life purpose and what can I do to make a difference?
At first I thought those questions were geared towards middle-aged and older people: those who start to re-evaluate their life after the kids leave home or they retire, but then I noticed how this question is becoming more prevalent in today’s youth.Perhaps a shift is taking place in the way people see their future life, the economy forcing people to rethink their short and long-term goals. It seems as if people are seeking alternatives to the 9-5 jobs?

What do you think?

Since our return from Belize in 2005, I have volunteered once with a group of nurses in a Mayan Village. Since that day, I’ve thought about joining the Peace Corps. Last Saturday a recruiter from the Peace Corps offered a seminar at Borders Books in Costa Mesa, California. I decided to attend. Here are a few points for those of you who might be interested.

  • There is no upper age limit for volunteers
  • Entire application process takes 1 to 1.5 years.
  • Safety and security of volunteers is highest priority
  • 27 month commitment, (includes a 3 month training period)
  • Living allowance covers cost of housing and other necessities
  • French and Spanish a plus
  • 48 days vacation to visit country or go home
  • Graduate school opportunities before and after
  • Develop skills for global marketplace
  • Receive advantages for federal employment
  • Earn $7,425 for transition when you return
  • Health and dental benefits, extended up to 18 months after your return
Peace Corps Programs:
Education 33%, Youth and Community 18%, Health and HIV/AIDS 18%, Business and IT 17%, Agriculture 8%, Environment 7%.Peace Corps Main Locations:
Africa 41%, Latin America 23%, Eastern Europe and Central Asia 17%, Asia 8%, Caribbean and N.Africa and Middle East 8%, Pacific Islands 3%.

The one comment I keep hearing from all Peace Corps Volunteers is: “I feel like I received more than what I gave.”

Your thoughts and opinions are truly valued.

Do you belong?

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Do you feel more secure when you belong to a group or a community?

Well, you’re not alone. Right from birth, children of every race, color, creed and background go through the same developmental stages, one of them being: establishing a personal sense of identity.

As we grow up we try to identify and discover the following:

  • Who am I?
  • What makes me me?
  • Where do I fit in my family and group?

Indeed, some of us spend a lifetime working on those discoveries.

Whether it’s your community, your neighborhood, your church, or perhaps your culture, most of us like the security we get from belonging to a group.

So what happens to those of us who feel like we don’t belong? Those who are minorities, or a mixture of different cultures, or who have been raised in many different countries, and call themselves TCK (Third Culture Kids.) Where do we fit in?


Well fortunately, there are groups for us too.

The one that caught my eye recently is called, “The Art of Non-Conformity,” and was created by a remarkable man named Chris Guillebeau. He blogs about unconventional strategies for life, work and travel.

Chris Guillebeau is a writer, entrepreneur and world traveler. He started the movement, The Art of Non-Conformity based on the principle that, “Once in a while it really hits people that they don’t have to experience the world in the way they have been told to.” One of his goals is to visit each country in the world, (192) by the time he’s 35. So far he’s visited 151 and he’s 32.5 years old. He is an honest, kind and down-to-earth, type of guy, who is passionate about the movement he has started.

If you’re a writer, a world traveler, or simply a person who feels different in their outlook on life, and needs a place to belong, you might want to watch the interview with Chris Guillebeau on David Garlands’s Risetothetop. 

Talk about a creative person, Chris Guillebeau has launched his own book tour around the fifty states in the U.S. called the: “Unconventional Book Tour.”

Unlike traditional book tours, Chris talks about his book for only seven minutes at each stop, then lets the audience talk about whatever they want. Since he’s a world traveler, most of the time conversations range from Frequent Flyer Miles to business startups to blogging… and a range of other things. If you’re a writer you may want to get ideas from his own success. Chris believes, “Publishers (and some authors) think that book tours are no longer practical. I think it’s because they’re doing it wrong, and I’m setting out to prove my case.”

Thanks for reading and for your all your comments. Please comment on whatever sparks your interest.

I’d love to get more readers, so if you like my posts, please return the favor by using the icons below. I don’t want to be tacky, only Gutsy so I’m following in the footsteps of another one of my female role models, Annabel Candy in Australia. I subscribe to her awesome blog: GetintheHotSpot, Annabel Candy.

Why everyone should take a one year sabbatical

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I agree with Matt Koenig, “Everyone should take a one year sabbatical.” Next year in June, Matt and his family, plan on taking one year off. I love the way his blog has the countdown to the day with minutes and seconds.

Matt gives four reasons why and I agree with his reasons, but being older than him, I’d like to add a fifth one.
1)      Find Your Purpose
2)      Health and Rejuvenation
3)      Family Time
4)      Travel & Experience the World
5)      Live your life today. Don’t postpone by using excuses of kids, health, money, elderly parents to take care of etc.
I would argue that too many people put off doing what they want to do, until retirement. How many times have you heard people say, “We can’t move now, the kids would hate to leave their friends.”  Or, “We can’t move to (name favorite place you’d like to move to) until we retire.
Before my family moved for a year to Belize, (both my husband and I craved adventure and change) we heard different comments like, “What about your kids? What do they say?” To which we responded, “It will be good for them to experience life in another country.” Now that we’re back in the US, I would do it again in a heartbeat.
My mother died when I was 25. For those of you who have lost a parent at a fairly young age, I believe you gain a different perspective on life.
Many people go through life unhappy. Get up, go to work, and as Matt puts it, “live for the weekend.”
We expect our kids to go to school, get a good education which we hope will lead to a good job, purchase a nice house and car and then save until retirement. (I might be a little guilty of that myself, as far as my sons getting a good education, however, if they choose to live abroad, or do something they’re passionate about in a third world country, that’s fine with my husband and me. We just want them to find their own thing.)
As Matt says, “It’s the typical delayed or deferred life plan that all of us are so familiar with. And there is absolutely nothing wrong with that. For many it works. The thing is for others like me it is what makes us so miserable.Would I ever find the thing that I was truly passionate about and then be able to turn that passion into a life quest?”
Matt mentions what Chris Guillebau says in his life manifesto, “The Art of Non- Conformity: “Once in a while it really hits people that they don’t have to experience the world in the way they have been told to.” 

Now Chris Guillebau is a man I truly admire. I just listened to a half hour interview with Chris Guillebau on David Garland’s blog: The Rise to the Top.
There is so much good stuff for writers and bloggers building a platform and for those who want to travel to each of the 192 countries around the world, like Chris. The difference is he’s visited 151 countries so far, and will achieve his goal by the age of 35.
But enough for today. Chris Guillebau, has such a fascinating outlook on life, and as a person who loves to live a Gutsy Life, I shall talk about him on Thursday. Hope you join in the discussion:
Do you agree with taking a one-year sabbatical?
Why? or why not? If so, what would you do, and where would you go?

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