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.

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