Often, we think the way to stand out from the pack is to be better. And sometimes that is the answer: to become an improved version of who you were yesterday, to do what the “other guy” is doing with a few added features.

However, this is often a losing strategy, as you are making iterative improvements on someone else’s work. A better way to become world-class at what you do is to change the game completely.

Don’t be better; be different. 

I've often wondered what would it be like to be a nomad and travel the world. I did this for a brief time in my early 20s and then stopped, and recently I've been falling back in love with travel.

I’ve bumped into some really interesting people who have traveled the world. I've learned that travel is not so much about the places you go or the people you meet, but instead, it's about the person you become.

In this episode of The Portfolio Life, I talk with Matt Kepnes, aka Nomadic Matt. Matt spent 10 years of his life traveling the world. He's the New York Times bestselling author of How to Travel the World on $50 a Day, as well as a follow-up book he just published called Ten Years a Nomad.

In this interview, Matt and I discuss:

• How a movie changed Matt’s trajectory and a vacation led to a new career
• What is means to like the “art” but not the “job” of being a creative professional as well as the difference between a hobby and a profession
• How travel and a change of environment makes you uncomfortable and why you should lean into that
• Why you should travel alone at least once
• How familiarity leads to complacency
• Why one of the greatest gifts of travel is learning to be your own best friend

"Just be yourself" is probably the worst advice we could ever receive or give a person.

Few of us actually know who we really are. And yet, if we can acquire this art of self-awareness, everything changes.

Ralph Waldo Emerson once wrote, "To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment."

But how do I do that?

For full show notes, click here: https://goinswriter.com/unbearable-lightness/

Recently while speaking on stage, I heard myself say something I didn’t plan on sharing.

I didn’t rehearse it. I didn’t have it in my notes. It just came out.

The line was:

“Sometimes, the good has to end before the better can begin.”

Full shownotes available here: https://goinswriter.com/pruning

The best marketing you can do for your work is not to build an empire, but to find a few friends who care.

We all want to reach the masses and see our work get into the mainstream. We want to have an “impact.” But the only way to reach the many is to first reach the few.

This is all marketing is:

Finding a handful of misfits who appreciate your work before anyone else does, then giving those people the tools to help spread the message.

The way we get a Harry Potter, Apple Computer, or Amanda Palmer is not by trying to reach everyone all at once. Quite the opposite in fact.

Full shownotes available here.

Whether you want to write books, make art, or share your music with the world, having an email list of fans is a must.

Email is the most effective way to communicate with your people.

Social networks come and go.

Marketing trends fade.

But email is forever.

Today, I want to share with you how to pull all of this together.

Full show notes here: https://goinswriter.com/elist

It’s one thing to understand the importance of email marketing and quite another to actually build an email list that allows you to reach a large audience.

One of the best things I ever did as a blogger was to build my own email list.

It gave me the power to no longer beg for attention, but be able to communicate regularly with an audience of people who wanted to hear what I had to say.

Not only that, it changed my life and work forever.

Full show notes here: https://goinswriter.com/email-list-build

Over the years, I’ve seen all kinds of marketing fads come and go.

• MySpace
• FriendFeed
• Xanga1
• Google Plus
• Blogging
• Podcasting

Some of these have come and gone and come back again.

And some have stayed gone.

But do you know what has always remained?

Email.

Email marketing is the best, most reliable way to grow and communicate with an audience online.

Full show notes here: https://goinswriter.com/enewsletter/

You need an email list. It's just that simple.

If you want to write a book that sells thousands of copies or more, you need people paying attention to your work.

If you want your message to spread, you need people's permission to communicate with them.

And if you want your words to change something, then you need an audience.

The best way to do all that is by building an email list.

Full show notes here: https://goinswriter.com/email/

Is it possible to live life on your own terms?

Can you do what you want when it defies the expectations of others?

Is the way you’re living right now a story that others would want to tell?

And how do you do all this with bills to pay and responsibilities to manage?

In this episode of The Portfolio Life, I talk with my friend Lex Latkovski (who also happens to be a member of my Tribe Writers Mastermind).

Lex has been to 80 countries, all 50 U.S. states, lived as a Zen monk for 16 months, and recently launched a successful Kickstarter campaign that led to his first book Passport Forward.

Full shownotes here: https://goinswriter.com/lex-latkovski