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Clay

Photo by Kirbmart1000
A few months ago, I met a guy named Leonard Knight who’s spent the last 20 years building a folk art masterpiece called "Salvation Mountain." Leonard lives in the back of his pickup truck and usually sleeps under the stars. Visitors bring him food, paint, and minor donations, and Leonard continues to work on his adobe mountain and ~200 other folk art projects meant to convey the message that "God Loves Everyone." Leonard’s mountain has been likened to an epic work of folk art “comparable to the Watts Towers,” is entered it into the Congressional Record as a national treasure, and was also featured in the movie Into the Wild.

While I don’t seek to emulate Leonard’s lifestyle, I very much respect him for having the guts to peruse his dreams. Leonard’s life is highly unconventional and wouldn’t work for most of us, but it got me thinking about . . .

The Diversity of Lifestyle Design

When I think about lifestyle design, I usually think about automated income, mini-retirements, making money online, traveling the world, and the 4-Hour Work Week. The truth, however, is that there are an unlimited number of tools in the lifestyle design arsenal.  Lifestyle design is as old as life itself.

The philosophy of lifestyle design is actually quite simple.  It suggests that there are limitless ways to arrange and configure your life and that the logistics of living are much more flexible than most of us can imagine.

There is one [movie line] that stands out for me. It comes from Oliver Stone’s Wall Street, when the Charlie Sheen character — a promising big shot in the stock market — is telling his girlfriend about his dreams. "I think if I can make a bundle of cash before I’m thirty and get out of this racket," he says, "I’ll be able to ride my motorcycle across China." When I first saw this scene … I nearly fell out of my seat in astonishment. Charlie Sheen or anyone else could work for eight months as a toilet cleaner and have enough money to ride a motorcycle across China. The thing is, most Americans probably wouldn’t find this movie scene odd.
-Rolf Potts

Rolf Potts has perfected the art of long term world travel, Dan Clements can run a business from anywhere while roving the globe with his wife and children, Lea Woodward has freelanced from every continent, Doug Mayle and his wife are traveling across the world in a sailboat, Mark Hayword runs a bed and breakfast on the Island of Culebra, and Tim Ferriss works the famed 4-Hour-Work Week. I admire the real-life adventures of these excellent writers. I also think it’s important to acknowledge that these stories only convey part of the picture.

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Photo by Chance Gardener
[Note: If you support this manifesto, please consider voting for it on ChangeThis.com (no login necessary)]

Since World War II, productivity in the U.S. has doubled. So we should be working 20-hour work weeks, right? Well, we’re not. We’re working more. In fact, we’re working more than medieval peasants, and the 40-hour work week hasn’t changed since 1940 even though productivity levels have been growing steadily since then. Productivity simply isn’t helping most people: it’s not making them happier or leading to more free time.

The Productivity Industrial Complex

You and your company need to get things done - lots of things[.] You have invested heavily in the human factor … but are you getting all the results from your people that you could? Are they maximizing their output?
-The David Allen Company

Photo by Stewf
The Productivity Industrial Complex is a marriage between corporations and an entire industry of productivity companies, gurus, consultants, and solution-makers who help corporations squeeze every ounce of productivity from their workers. Organizations like The David Allen Company, for example, make the bulk of their income from corporations looking to “maximize their employee output,” and it’s no surprise that they have a Fortune 500-studded client list which includes Lockheed Martin, Deloitte & Touche, and the U.S. Department of Defense (see here for more of his clients).

This manifesto is largely a response to the Productivity Industrial Complex . . .

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(Photo by  Steve Sawyer)
The battle for our minds usually isn’t a struggle against brainwashing (although most of us are mildly brainwashed). The battle for our minds isn’t usually about politics, consumer culture, and mass media. Nope. The battle for our minds is fought out every day in the workplace, and due largely to. . .

The Paradox of Intelligence

More intelligent people tend to have jobs that require very high levels of mental engagement (not to mention, longer work weeks). If you’re a doctor, lawyer, accountant, consultant, teacher, etc., then chances are your thoughts are consumed by work-related activities (and that you have less-than-average amounts of free time).

Highly intelligent people are more likely to exchange their brainpower for money, and less likely to retain much of said brainpower for themselves. They’re more likely to enroll in mentally demanding graduate programs and accept mentally demanding jobs. (In the western world we’re taught that if we have the capacity to be a doctor then it’s somehow a “waste” to work retail, make smoothies for a living, or become a farmer — even though a retailer worker, smoothie maker, or farmer get to own more of their thoughts).

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Photo by TravelTrailerSNZ.

[Note: I intentionally decided not to use a beach photo.  Lifestyle design means different things to different people; it isn’t just for middle-aged businessmen living as expats in coastal regions, although that is the stereotype.]

Lifestyle design (LD) has a lengthy past but a short history.  The art of (sometimes radical) lifestyle configuration, however, has been practiced for quite sometime by liberated people from all walks of life.

The growth of the Internet has enabled those loaded with cash to disconnect from the 9-5 without disconnecting from their Porches, Louis Vuitton gear, mobile cash cow businesses, and brokerage accounts.  The Internet’s rise has also allowed persons from less auspicious backgrounds (like myself) to live creatively without making seemingly prohibitive income sacrifices.  Indeed, if one plays their cards right, a mainstream Internet presence can eliminate the monetary drawbacks that used to come with a a non-mainstream lifestyle.  Technology has come a long way, and I’m glad that lifestyles are starting to catch up.

Here’s a list of lifestyle design resources that might be of help to the interested.

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Editor’s note: This is a guest post from Jonathan Mead of JonathanMead.com.

Boredom

In The 4-Hour Work Week, author Tim Ferriss suggests that the opposite of happiness is boredom and that what really drives our happiness is the ability to find continual excitement.

I’m in agreement with Tim; the opposite of happiness isn’t sadness, depression, anxiety, guilt or anger. These feelings aren’t desirable, but they’re also not the antithesis of happiness. Lack of fulfillment, I believe, is the opposite of happiness.

Many people have conceptually explored the path to happiness and I’m surely not the first to observe the importance of asking the right questions.  Our results are generally good when we positively frame inquiries by asking questions such as "what can I do to make things better?" or "what can I do to improve this situation?"  However, when we negatively frame our thoughts with questions like: "why do bad things always happen to me," or "why am I so unlucky," we only manage to reinforce our negative experiences.

Changing our Goals

Many societally conditionally goals — such as "get out of debt," "buy a new car," and "create a college fund," — can be fine and noble, but they often do not make us come alive.  What would really make your day, I mean, if you could do anything? Think about that for a second.

If you dig deep within to answer this question, I bet your answer might be something a little different than the average idea of a "great day." If you really answer this question from your soul, you’ll discover aspirations that really move you. Here are a few of mine:

• Ski down a killer slope in Park City, Utah
• Take a Tantra class
• Read a great novel for the first time
• Go on a group meditation or retreat
• Play music with others, lose track of time, and get lost in sound

You see, when all our goals revolve around efficiency, money, looks, networking, etc., we lose track of why we wanted these things in the first place. Indeed, we often envision such goals because we want more time and energy to do things that truly excite us and bring deep fulfilling happiness. I challenge you to incorporate goals and aspirations that really excite and move you. Don’t get caught up in mundane, socially acceptable goals. Find out what really inspires you and make a commitment to live your life with a deeper level of satisfaction starting today.

Jonathan is the author of the blog JonathanMead.com, focused on finding Authenticity, Clarity and Balance in all aspects of our lives. His articles include 10 Way to Make Time for the Important and 7 Lessons from the World’s Greatest Minds.

Technorati Tags: 4-Hour Work Week, 4HWW, continual excitement, goal setting, happiness, opposite of happiness, Tim Ferriss

Escape 101, by Dan Clements and Tara Gignac, is as much about boldly creating personal change as it is about escaping our comfort zones. The book is not another over-romanticized travel guide for 20-somethings. It is deeply grounded in reality, was written for everyone from business owners to parents, and provides a step-by-step plan for getting its readers on sabbatical.

Because I enjoyed the e-book so much (it’s also available in print), I’m honored to present this interview with Dan. (Please see this book excerpt and consider joining Dan’s mailing list if you’d like a deeper look). Escape 101 is a book that stands to blow open your reality and show you how to break the rules in all the right ways; I believe this interview provides a taste of that.

Let’s get started . . .

At its core, Escape 101 seems to be more about lifestyle design than anything else.  What are some of the more interestingly designed lives you’ve seen?

I’ve met gold prospectors, people who deliver yachts from island to island, surf instructors, and jungle animal workers. We’ve traveled with people who have been on the road for years, people who’ve climbed Everest, people who worked with the sick, the poor and the homeless, and freelance writers and journalists who interview the rich and famous and travel the globe. Read the rest of this entry »

Welcome to the inaugural edition of a series of tips, links, and reviews related to Lifestyle Design (LD) concepts. This series will cover such topics as:

• How to free up personal time
• Low information diets
• How to live anywhere, work remotely, and virtually manage a business
• How to take mini-retirements without sacrificing your career

Without further ado, here goes… Read the rest of this entry »

Yesterday I submitted a guest post to Dumb Little Man called How to Score Free Airline Vouchers by Reserving Overbooked Flights.  The article describes how to leverage airline overbooking — the practice of selling more tickets than available seats on a given flight — to gain free travel vouchers and roundtrip tickets.  If you’re a frequent traveler it might help out.

Because it hit Digg’s front page, the article received a lot of comments.  So if you want to see a real smackdown, as opposed to yesterday’s fake one, I’d head there (I was on the receiving end of the “smack”).