The Art of Non-Conformity: Reviews, reactions, and excerpts

Having read Tim Ferriss's Four-Hour Work Week, I had a point of reference for The Art of Non-Conformity (TAoNC). That point of reference: People who call their own shots are egotistical, worldly, unattached figments of the imagination.Surprise! Chris Guillebeau is none of those things. He seems like a regular guy, except that he writes books and does whatever he wants all day every day. TAoNC began as a website, which interests me, and turned into a life plan, which interests me less. And that may explain the disconnect I found in some chapters, mostly the ones where Guillebeau cheerleads and romanticizes. The only time that has ever interested me was in the movie Bring It On.Still, my overall impression of the book was a good one, and I actually found myself recommending it to friends. The money-management advice and career planning were my favorite parts. In short, spend money on the things you like and get your money from doing what you love. I love writing, so I guess it doesn't work for everyone. But one can dream!

The game of mediocrity (p. 5)

"If you've ever completed a task for the sole purpose of making yourself look better without any improvement being produced for others (customers, colleagues, etc.), then you've been a participant in the game of mediocrity. Similarly, if you've ever been to pointless meetings that drag on far too long, this description should come as no surprise."

Four Keys to non-conformity (p. 7)

1. You must be open to new ideas
2. You must be dissatisfied with the status quo
3. You must be willing to take personal responsibility
4. You must be willing to work hard

Relevance (p. 8)

"Whether it's this book or any other resource, almost nothing you encounter will ever be 100 percent relevant to your situation. The goal is to focus on on what is relevant and apply those key ideas to your life."

The One-Year, Self-Directed, Alternative Graduate School Experience (p. 118)

• Subscribe to the Economist and read every issue religiously. Cost: $97 + 60 minutes/week.
• Memorize the names of every country, world capital, and current president or prime minister in theworld. Cost $0 + 3-4 hours once.
• Buy a round-the-world plane ticket or use frequent flyer miles to travel to several major world regions, including somewhere in Africa and somewhere in Asia. Cost: variable, but plan on $4,000.
• Read the basic texts of the major world religions: the Torah, the Ne Testament, the Koran, and the teachings of Buddha. Visit a church, a mosque, a synagogue, and a temple. Cost: materials can be obtained fre online or in the mail + 20 hours.
• Subscribe to a language-learnign podcast and listen to each 20-minute episode, five times a week, for the entire year. Attend a local language club once a week to practice. Cost $0 + 87 hours.
• Loan money to an entrepreneur through Kiva.org and arrange to visit him or her while you're abroad on your big trip. Cost: likely $0 in the end, since 98% of loans are repaid.
• Acquire at leat three new skills during your year. Suggestions: photography, skydiving, computer programming, martial arts.The key is not to become an expert in any of them, but to become functionally proficient. Cost: variable.
• Read at least 30 nonfiction books and 20 classic novels. Cost: $750.
• Join a gym or health club to keep fit during your rigorous independent studies. Cost: $25-$75 per month.
• Become comfortable with basic presentation and public speaking skills. Join your local Toastmasters. Cost: $25 once + 2 hours a week for 10 weeks.
• Start a blog, create a basic posting schedule, and stick with it for the entire year. Cost: $0.
• Set your home page to Wikipedia's random page. Read it. Cost: $0.
• Learn to write by listening to the Grammar Girl podcast on iTunes and buying Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott. Cost: $0 for podcast, $14 for Lamott.
• Instead of reading the entire Encyclopedia Britannica, read The Know-It-All by A.J. Jacobs. Cost: $15.

Creating followers (p. 131)

To move prospects from window shoppers to followers, you'll need to focus on asking and answering the "reason why." The "reason why" refers to the question we all ask when we check out a new person, organization, or even a general resource such as a book or website. The question is: "Why should I care about this?" or, phrased differently, "What's in it for me?"

Sustainable income on 1,000 true fans (p. 140)

Kevin Kelly, Wired essay ... possible for a musician, band, or almost any artist to earn a good, sustainable income with a fan base of just 1,000 true fans. Remember that a true fan is someone who will buy almost anything you produce. These fans will drive long distances to concerts, actively post reviews of your work, debate critics on your behalf, and regularly tell their friends about you

Happiness versus income (p. 153)

"... studies have consistently shown that there is a relatively low limit beyond which happiness and income are not directly related. To take one estimate, after a person earns around $40,000 a year, the amount of happiness doesn't increase very much. The goal is to know where you fall on the money and happiness scale, so you can then plan your life acordingly."

Discretionary spending (p. 153)

"After paying the rent and other recurring bills, the way I approach my discretionary spending is outlined below.

1. I happily exchange money for things I dtruly value.
2. As much as possible, I don't exchange money for things I don't value.
3. All things being equal, I value life experie ces more than physical possessions.
4. Investing in others is at least as important as my own long-term savings.

On retirement (p. 158)

"Retirement for many of us is an old-fasioned idea - we may want to retire from a particular job and then move on to something else, but we don't necessarily want to stop working altogether."

Bill Gates and radical exclusion (p. 176)

"... Bill Gates famously did this during his 'Think Weeks,' where twice a year he would shut out all distractions and head into a room of reading material for several days at a time. An aide would bring in grilled cheese sandwiches and diet soda twice a day, and Gates would plot the future of Microsoft's world domination strategy."

Living simply (p. 178)

"David committed to living with only 100 items in his possession ... David published his 100 things list online at GuyNamedDave.com."

Legacies (p. 210)

The following are legacy project characteristics for Chris's Art of Non-Conformity website.

• Vision: to empower people to live unconventional, remarkable lives
• Beneficiaries: A grou pof at least 100,000 passionate individuals who want to live differently and change the world
• Primary method or medium: Writing
• Output: At least two articles each week, one book per year, regular guest columns, 300,000 annual total words
• Metrics: Site visitors / subscribers / page views / social networking stats / nice emails

On editing (p. 217)

"The creative diversity definitely helps me going. Note also that the editing process inevitably cuts a lot of the initial output. I follow a classic rule of writing and editing: when writing, don't hesitate to include something; when editing, don't hesitate to throw it out."***

Exercise No. 1: A day in the life ... (p. 31)

Create your ideal world: Write out your idealized, perfect day in great detail, beginning from what time you get up and what you have for breakfast all the way through what you do for each hour of the day and who you talk to. The more detail you add to the plan, the better.Sleeping, sleeping, sleeping ... Wake up when I'm done sleeping and not because an alarm went off or I have something to do ... Take a shower.... Wear my Idaho Physical Therapy t-shirt and my new jeans ... Either be told I look good by LL or think I look good when I catch myself in the mirror ... Eat whatever I feel like for breakfast and be completely unaware that I have anything else going on the rest of the day - OR - make LL something for breakfast and while I'm cooking, she does something she enjoys ... Play a video game while listening to fun, new music that I never knew existed before ... Spend an hour or two writing something clever and entertaining ...Meet my parents for lunch at Idaho Pizza Company ... Get the buffet ... Make it so that there is always fresh pepperoni pizza available ... Have our meal comped ...Get a group of people together to play an active game outdoors or indoors, kind of like P.E. or intramurals but better because I know everyone ..Make sure the game is not too competitive and there are sugar-free PowerAde drinks that taste like real PowerAde in a cooler somewhere ... Purple ....Take a nap ...Work on a 5,000-piece puzzle with Lindsay while watching a TV series on Netflix or DVD ... Preferably a sitcom, but I can be talked into something else ... Have someone sort the puzzle pieces for us ... Go to a matinee movie at the theater with free movie passes ... Sneak in chocolate covered peanuts ... Eat some, but not enough to ruin dinner ...Order takeout from a favorite restaurant, like Hong Kong or Applebee's ... Invite friends or family over to eat with us ... Play a card game together ... OK, play Rook ... Have no awkward moments of conversation whatsoever ... .Hang out around the house with Lindsay ... Watch the sunset ... Read a magazine ... Blizzards! Delivered! ... Stay up late watching football with no commercials ...Go to bed when I'm tired, and not a minute earlier!

Exercises No. 2 and 3: Life list and radical goal-setting (p. 33)

Life list / bucket list: Spend an afternoon, or even just half an hour, listing out a range of activities and experiences you'd like to have sometime. The typical life list contains a wide variety of goals, ranging from the trivial ("try 100 fruits") to the difficult ("camp on Antarctica").

• Write a book about my dad
• Learn to play the piano
• Learn Spanish
• Start a brain cancer non-profit
• Compete in a Hearts tournament
• Participate in National Novel Writing Month
• Start a website for our son
• See a US soccer game live
• Attend the World Cup
• See a hockey game in Europe
• Get access to Boise State practices and skybox
• Get good at photography

Take the overall list and break it down into measurable goals with an approximate deadline.One-year goals: This list gets reviewed a few times a year, and I create next year's goals each December. I break this list down into further specific categories. Some of mine are Writing, Health, Business, Friends, Family, Service, Travel, Income, and Giving.

• Learn Spanish
• Start a brain cancer non-profit
• Compete in a Hearts tournament
• Participate in National Novel Writing Month
• Start a website for our son (done)
• Get good at photography (sorta done)

Five-year goals: This list gets reviewed once a year and contains some of the "big things" you hope to do in the near future. Note that as some of the goals on the one-year list are completed, other goals from the five-year list shift down.

• Write a book about my dad
• Learn to play the piano
• See a US soccer game live

Lifetime goals: This list gets reviewed once a year and includes everything that you want to do, but either don't have a timeline for or will take a long time to accomplish.

• Go to the World Cup
• See a hockey game in Europe
• Get access to Boise State practices and skybox

Exercise No. 4: The To-Stop-Doing List (p. 177)

An important principle of life planning is that you can have anything you want, but you can't  have everything at the same time. To be able to devote most of your time to projects and activities you enjoy, you'll need to be forceful about droping a lot of other activities.The best way to stop spending time on unnecessary distractions is to make a "to-stop-doing list." This is better than a to-do list, because it helps you see what's bringing you down. Your to-stop-doing list is exactly what it sounds like: a list of things you simply don't want to do anymore.Think about the tasks that drain your energy without contributing to anything worthwhile. There will always be tasks that drain your energy for outcomes you believe in - it takes a lot of energy to be a social worker, for example - but the to-stop-doing list is for tasks that bring you down without giving you joy or helping anyone else.Try to come up with at least three to five things you currently do that drain your time and keep your focus away from more important tasks. The first time I made a to-stop-doing list, I realized that I was spending at least five hours a week on things I derived no value from. While life is filled with some things we don't like to do, the principle is that many of these things can be left undone or removed from our weekly activities without much repercussion.

• Yard work
• Shaving
• Haircuts
• Talking on the phone
• Junk mail
• Home Depot projects

Lindsay's answers

I'm not sure about the ethical ramifications of my deciding what Lindsay would prefer in life, but here goes nothing. It's either adorably sweet for me to do this or heavy-handed and totalitarian. YOU WILL ENJOY YANKEE CANDLES!!Lindsay's perfect daySleep ... Wake up when she can't sleep any more ... Lie in bed for awhile ... Take a shower ... Have clean-shaven legs without having to shave ... Put on the purple lumberman shirt and comfy pants ... Watch cartoons (Looney Tunes, maybe Horse Land or Arthur) and eat warm pancakes for breakfast ... Get ready for the day ... Go on a bike ride with Kevan on the greenbelt in Nampa or Boise (Boise is only an option if we can teleport) ... Meet a group of puppies while biking ... Get a Starbucks drink on the way home ...Have lunch with friends at her favorite restaurant ... Use a coupon and have it all be free ...Play Harry Potter video game for an hour or so ... Bake a pie for friends or family to eat later ... Get a massage ... Read books for the rest of the afternoon ...Invite friends or family over to grill pizzas ... Use ingredients from her garden for the pizza ... Not have to clean the house ... Laugh with friends or family ... Play games (Settlers of Catan) with friends or family and watch them eat pie ... Go on an adventure with Kevan, Scott, and Hannah ...  Shop online ... Watch a new episode of Modern Family .while taking a bath ... Go to bed ...Lindsay's life list

• Get a master's degree in counseling
• Start a family
• Wish lanterns on the beach
• Own an iPad
• Own a dog
• Travel to the East Coast
• Watch a meteor shower
• Spend more time outside
• Plant new vegetables in the garden
• Pergola
• Visit family in Montana

One-year goals: Start a family, wish lanterns on the beach, own an iPad, watch a meteor shower, spend more time outside, plant new vegetables in the garden, visit family in Montana

Five-year goals: Master's degree, pergola

Lifetime goals: Own a dog, travel to the East Coast

Lindsay's to-stop-doing list

• Couponing
• Going to Valley Shepherd services
• Cleaning the bathrooms
• Sitting in traffic / driving