Born for This: An Interview with Chris Guillebeau

Strongie, I have a very special guest here today: my friend, mentor and all-around amazing person, Chris Guillebeau!As you'll hear (or read; the transcript is below) on the interview, Chris has changed my life a few times over. His latest book, Born for This: How to Find The Work You Were Meant to Do*, is bound to continue the trend.Living without purpose was something that plagued me for years before I met Chris. My life was nebulous; a haze of actions taken day in and day out because they were what I thought I "should do." With his help and the help of people I met at his first annual World Domination Summit, my entire life and perception of what was possible changed forever.If you're struggling with lack of purpose, it is my wish for you that something in this interview will spark you to grab the book. It offers a practical, straight-forward process to align yourself with what really lights you up, feels good to do and makes you freaking money!Without further ado (and before I give the whole thing away), let's start the interview and get you one step closer to finding the work you were put on this Earth to do!

Click the image below to play my interview with Chris Guillebeau.

Amy: Welcome, Strongies! I have a very, very amazing person here today to talk to us about his new book, "Born for this- How to Find the Work You Were Meant To Do." Chris Guillebeau, welcome!

Chris: Awesome. Thanks, Amy.

Amy: Thanks so much for being here. I just want to dive in to some of the amazing lessons that you have in your book. You talk a lot about the Joy Money Flow model. I think that's just an amazing model. It actually prompted me to go a little bit further into my own work, and how to bring a little bit more joy, money and flow into my own work. You say that that's like a really great guide to the work that you were meant to do. Can you talk a little bit about that system, maybe explain it to us?

Chris: Sure. Well, it's a conceptual model that came out of all the research I did. It's been about 2 years, looking at more than 800 people from all walks of life, men and women, different ages, different backgrounds, who had all found or created what they called their dream job. Where they talked about winning the career lottery, or I found this work that makes me come alive. It's not just a means to an end. It's something that I actually believe in. They were quite different in lots of ways. They had a few things in common. That's where I was interested in.

Joy Money Flow, this whole model, was one of them. If you picture maybe 3 overlapping circles, or people that go to your show notes, they might see it there. One circle is joy. One circle is money. One circle is flow. Joy is something that you love to do. Money is something that's sustainable, or financially viable, and flow is something that you're really good at. It's a skill that comes natural to you, the kind of work that you get lost in for a couple of hours.

People who are successful or purposeful, they tend to have all 3 of these qualities. They actually are doing something that they love. It is financially viable. It's also something that they're good at. As you make decisions in life, you can ask yourself like, "Okay. I come to this path. I could go this way. I could go this way. Which choice will get me closer to more joy, more money and more flow?"

Amy: That's great. It's a really simple way to look at it, but comprehensive at the same time. I think that it can really help a lot of people who read Strong Inside Out because lacking purpose is one of the main triggers for falling in to depression and anxiety and something that Strongies face on a daily basis. A lot of them feel really just stuck or lost, especially when it comes to work. You say something in your book that I thought was really, really amazing. I wanted to share it with readers here today, is that you can learn something from any job, of course. Most of the time, we learn as much about what we don't want as what we do. I think that's such a great quote directly from your book, because it really leads us to a place of finding purpose in our mistakes, or "Mistakes" here in not so great situations. It takes pressure off of making a choice at all.

That's something else that you say in here is that the point is that remaining in paralysis is often worse than making an actionable choice. I wondered if you had anything to say about that?

Chris: Of course. Well, you used that word, pressure, that's a good word, because that's something that a lot of people feel, especially young people. Even throughout life, we feel this pressure to have everything figured out. We're supposed to know what our life purpose is from a young age. We're supposed to know, "I'm going to be an expert in this one thing. I'm going to choose this niche." Most of us don't really know. It takes some time. We have to go down different paths. We have to make those mistakes, as you said. You can learn from every job, or every experience. I tried to study accounting in college. I was terrible at it. I got up 2 semesters, and realized I'm not going to be an accountant. I tried lots of different career paths. Some of them failed spectacularly. Then, they all lead me to what I'm doing now.

If you don't experiment, then you won't actually get to that. You might find something that's okay. You might find something that works. Is that really the goal? I think if you're listening to Strong Inside Out, if you're part of this community, you're already like, "No. I actually want something more. I want purpose in my life. Actually, I do want to be happy in all aspects of my life." I think you have to go down those roads.

Amy: Yeah. Completely. I've experienced the same thing. For so long, I wanted to be an actress. Then, I was so angry. It wasn't working out. I wasn't feeling any joy from it, but I’d always told myself I was going to do it. Then, when I finally released that and allowed myself to be lead into the work I was meant to do, and really follow my joy, and follow flow and also money, that's when all the magic started to happen. I think that's really, really an amazing tip, and just theme in looking for purpose in every single situation we find ourselves in.

Another thing that I loved about your book that I think is so important to say, is that I love that you don't beat around the bush with what you call “economic imperative,” or needing to make money. So many people who preach about living their dreams don't even discuss it at all. I just want to just do a little bit of kudos your way, that you mentioned that.

Chris: Well, it's important. It's critical. It's not something that's secondary. If you're talking about a hobby, or something, that's great. That's fine. Like, you should have a hobby. You should do things that you love, that aren't for money. I'm trying to help people with their career. I'm trying to help people with their work, which is a major part of their life. It's a third of our lives, we usually spend, typically, at work, at our jobs and our career, whatever. It has to be sustainable. That's going to help you do other things, as well. It's going to help you have more hobbies. It's going to help you have a better life. It's not about trying to become a billionaire, or something. I do think there's lots of things we could do with our careers. Why not choose one that we do like to do and we're good at, but is also financially sustainable? Like, when we can make those choices, why not?

Amy: Yeah. That's the dream. It can be a reality, especially with following the process that you have in your book. You make it so easy to follow. Not necessarily easy, because the choice is making those choices themselves, can sometimes be very courageous, and take a lot of looking fear in the face. I think it's practical, the information that you put out there. I just really appreciate it, because I think it's going to help so many people. To wrap up today, do you have any advice for listeners who do need to make money, need to make the big bucks, but don't like their job right now?

Chris: Yeah. Absolutely. Well, you used that word, easy. I wouldn't actually use that myself. I would say it's worth it. First of all, it's possible. It is possible. It is not just possible, because I say so, or you say so. It's like we can look at all kinds of different people from different backgrounds who've been able to do this in their own way. We can understand what they did and what went wrong, and what went right. It's possible. Then, secondly, whether it's easy or hard, even if it's hard, isn't it worth it? Isn't it like this is your life? You are in this self-identifying group. You have had struggles, like we all have. Where you want to come out on the other side? I guess a lot of what I try to do, in the book, and in my other work is encourage people to invest in themselves.

There's lots of different ways to invest in yourself. You can improve the kind of skills that are actually helpful in a job, which are very different from your technical skills, usually. I wrote a lot about this, about improving soft skills, like communication, facilitation, negotiation. You can start a side hustle. There's a whole chapter in the book about that. About even if you love your job, even if you want to be an employee, that's fine. You should have more than one source of income. I think everyone should learn to think entrepreneurially, even if they don't want to be an entrepreneur.

I think that's something that's important. Then, just every day, asking yourself, "Where am I going? What's next? Maybe I am stuck. That's okay. I'm going to acknowledge that. I'm not just going to punch fear in the face, or whatever." Fear is a part of our lives. We're going to integrate it. We're not going to allow fear to make our decisions for ourselves. That's something that I've always tried to do, because I've had a lot of fear, and insecurity, and anxiety, and continue to. I also keep moving forward, because there are things that I value more than remaining stuck in those things.

Amy: Yeah. Such wonderful tips here. Strong Inside Out started as a side hustle!

Chris: Yeah. Awesome.

Amy: It's really great tips here. I think so many Strongies are going to be able to relate with this, and really make practical use of this book. Guys, Born for This- How to find the work you were meant to do. Go grab it from Amazon. We'll have the link here in the show notes. Thank you again, Chris, so much for being here.

Chris: Thank you, Amy.

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If you haven't already, go check out Born for This on Amazon* or at your local bookstore. Fair warning: expect for it to shift your life into one with more joy, money and flow if you plan to act on what you learn. It already has for me!

Click here to grab Born for This: How to Find the Work You Were Meant to Do from Amazon!

Wishing you the realization of your purpose, Strongie!Stay strong,Amy*Links to Amazon are affiliate links. If you choose to buy through my link, I will receive a small commission. If it weirds you out, just search in a different tab without clicking my links. Don't let it stop you from buying this transformational book!