You Should Read the Art of Non-Conformity

On Tuesday my husband and I had the best date night ever. We drove about an hour and a half to go to the Unconventional Book Tour and meet Chris Guillebeau.

Chris Guillebeau writes at the blog the Art of Non-Conformity. He writes about setting your own rules and living the life you want. He also has a remarkable travel goal: To visit every country in the world by the age of 35.

I was very excited to meet Chris, but I also wanted to meet other people in Maine that embraced an unconventional lifestyle. I met Elisa who organized the event. She quit her job 10 days ago in order to freelance and blog full time. She is amazing and it turns out she was a roommate of a really good friend of mine. (I told you Maine is small!)

Chris came all the way to Maine without concern about costs. He was funding most of the book tour out of his own pocket since the publisher didn’t believe it was necessary. He is extremely dedicated to his cause of creating a small army of remarkable people.

The event was in a very small bookstore and they had a good turn out. I was really impressed to see Christine Northrup (an accomplished author) and her daughter.

After meeting Chris the main idea I thought was, no wonder why he is so popular. He is genuine and actually cares. There are few people that I have met that truly gave each person individual attention and cared about each one of them.

Art of Non-Conformity Book

I was extremely excited to have a signed copy of the book. Though I had no idea why he stamped No Monkey or why he wrote, Grab the Bananas on the inside cover until I read it. (you’ll have to read the book to find out too.)

After meeting Chris, I was inspired. I loved that we shared a lot of similar beliefs. In reading his book I really felt connected to his cause.

Some of his beliefs include:

No one else will be responsible for you or care about your well-being as much as you.

Your behavior with money has to match up with your overall values.

All of those good things you’ve done are nice, but the future can be even better. Focus on that.

Chris believes in you. (Even when you’re shaking in your boots and aren’t sure!) Inspiration pours out of him and fills your cup. I can only imagine how many cups Chris has been filling over the years of writing and traveling.

Non-Conformity and Personal Finance

The book includes a chapter called the Personal Finance Journey. A lot of us can understand that talking about living the life we want and helping others is great, but we need to make sure our families can eat first.

He highlights Adam Baker from Man Vs Debt and describes how his family started digging out of over $80,000 in debt. They decided to pack everything up and travel to New Zealand with their young daughter Milligan. (I need to make sure I ask Baker a ton of questions about traveling with kids at Blogworld!)

Chris’ thoughts about personal finance are similar to a lot of us. He thinks you should spend consciously on the things that really improve your life, and don’t buy things that aren’t important to you.

I really enjoyed the end of the chapter where he goes into more detail about his giving strategy. His goal is to invest 20% of his income helping others.

Overall the biggest message I see is that Chris has worked extremely hard to figure out how to live the life he wants. He set his priorities and works to achieve his goals. He’s a normal guy that is doing extraordinary things. He thinks other normal guys can do it too.

And I believe him. 🙂

Please get the book or read the blog if his philosophy fits with you. Though I can’t guarantee you’ll be the same when your done.

Tags: Debt Free, debt freedom, Goal Setting, Lifestyle, Non-Conformity, Personal Finance

Categories: All, Business, Business Model, Debt Freedom

---