Monasteries all over the world have been self-supporting for centuries, and the practice of monks running a small business is nothing new. Most of them, however, don’t end up experiencing 700% annual sales growth, selling 30,000 products, and competing with Fortune 500 companies.

Instead of baking fruitcakes for the occasional visitor, the monks from Our Lady of Spring Bank Cistercian Abbey sell laser toner and business supplies throughout the United States. They’ve creatively branded themselves as LaserMonks, but they offer more than just a great story. They also help businesses save an average of 40% off printer ink and toner, and in turn, the monks donate all of their profits to charity.

There is nothing conventional about the LaserMonks web site. Next to “fax supplies” and “inkjet cartridges” is a link to send in prayer requests. The content is devoted equally to product details and information about the monastery. In addition to business supplies, they also offer fun monastery items like “Benevelent Blends Coffee” and “Holy Hot Chocolate.”

The LaserMonks operation offers a genuine third model between profit and non-profit businesses, and I have been intrigued with their operation ever since first learning about it in a business magazine a year ago.

I recently caught up with Fr. Bernard McCoy, the CEO of LaserMonks who also uses the title “Steward of Temporal Affairs.” In the interview below, Fr. Bernard answered my questions about the toner business and the monastery.

Interview

When you started out meeting a need to provide recycled toner at reasonable prices, did you ever think that business would increase so quickly?

We did see the potential for growth, but never expected it to occur so quickly. Nearly every building, and certainly every business and institution had printers that could use our products – and save money by doing so – and help the environment. It was simply a matter of getting our story out there, and helping people to make a good decision.

What causes do you support through profits from LaserMonks?

We have consistently tried to find ways of providing charitable support in three categories: care of the body, care of the mind, and care of the spirit. At least once a month we find appropriate programs, non-profits, individuals, or even start our own projects that fit into these categories.

Examples include: domestic abuse shelters in the U.S., a school in Vietnam for orphans and street kids that teaches computer skills so they can get jobs and avoid prostitution and drug trafficking, equine therapy programs for kids as well as leadership development retreats for adults using horses, prison ministry support, scholarships for young people and adults, funding for micro business in the Dominican Republic, character building work and activities for disadvantaged kids in Wisconsin, medical and education support for the families that pick our coffee beans in Panama and Costa Rica, among many others.

Fr. Bernard with Prayer Book & Ink Cartridges

On your site you mention that the business grew too fast for a while and the monks were spending all their time packing up toner instead of attending to monastic duties. Can you give an example of the struggle between business and monastic life, and how have you been able to reconcile the two?

We never neglected our monastic duties – our times of prayer and study were always observed, because that is essentially who we are and what we do. But it was stressful trying to manage normal domestic duties, and I often didn’t get enough sleep. We had to step back and determine what we could do, what we couldn’t do, what we were good at, and what we needed to outsource. It was the outsourcing model that really was a “God-send” for us. And then when Sarah and Cindy appeared, Our Monk Helper Angels, it all fell into place.

The monks do well at telling the monk story, financial management, and behind the scenes work – photography, marketing ideas, media relations, etc. We outsourced the day-to-day work – answering phones, processing orders, vendor relations, etc. to Monk Helper Marketing, Inc. (Sarah and Cindy), used major wholesalers and fulfillment centers for product fulfillment, and focused on what we do best – being monks, marketing products under our Commerce with Compassion and Purchasing with a Purpose umbrella.

It’s also important to understand that monks are required by our monastic Rule (The Rule of St. Benedict) to be self supporting. Work is not separated from our life as a whole. Much like Adam and Eve, we tend and cultivate our garden to produce fruits for our table and many others that we support. It’s a labor of love and creativity that is part of the balance needed in any human life – meaningful work that is self-supporting, helps others, and develops our own gifts and talents.

Was there any resistance from anyone to the idea of building the business to the level it has reached? Did any other church leaders (or anyone else) ever feel that it was inappropriate for monks to be selling printer toner online?

The monks discussed the question of how big would be too big. This question was easily resolved by the fact that the growth of the company really didn’t affect the monastery as such. More money would be more to use for charitable works. Our lifestyle has changed little since the business started. Our European brothers always look across the big pond with curious expressions. “What are those Americans up to now?”

The interest was more in the Internet based business, which at the time was a really new thing for our more low-tech brothers over there. The marketing of toner (or office supplies in general) has never been a question for the monks. Keep in mind that my brothers 900 years ago were making their own paper and ink and copying manuscripts for pay. We’re just doing it a little more high-tech or efficiently today.

The lay and business public in the United States, however, often do a double-take. For most, monk products are limited to fruitcakes, candy, and retreat houses. Having a monastery that is a major competitor in a major product market is a little new in the New World. But keep in mind that Cistercians have always been on the edge of enterprise, commerce, and product marketing.

For example, we controlled probably 80% of the sheep/wool market in the British Isles for several hundred years. We were largely responsible for introducing milling (water wheels, etc.) into Europe. Today we have monasteries that have international ski schools, some of the world’s best beers, wines and liqueurs. (our Belgian beers are consistently the best in the world), health spas in Germany, etc.

Cistercians have always been enterprising. Most economic historians would agree that it was the Cistercians that really began to move Europe from feudalism into a market economy on a large scale. We were also among the first to implement modern accounting/bookkeeping techniques into our endeavors, along with being the first “multi-nationals” by using capital between abbeys/countries to maximize our enterprising efforts.

Americans are used to Franciscans and Dominicans, who are technically called “mendicants” — beggars. These “new” orders (13th/14th centuries) lived off donations and traveled about the country preaching and helping the poor. They did not have businesses. Monks have a vow of stability, stay put in monasteries, operate income producing industries, and do charitable work with the proceeds. We have a serious dedication to the pursuit of excellence in all aspects of human life – body, mind, spirit, art, study, and enterprise.

What’s an average day like for a LaserMonk?

We rise around 4am. Begin our prayers at 4:15. Have a break for an hour, another prayer at 6am, then another at 7:45. Work/study time 8-11, prayer/Mass at 11:15, lunch, siesta, afternoon prayer, work 2-5, prayer at 6 followed by supper, then final prayer at 7:30, in bed around 8-9. Recreation is fit into the schedule, desert days where a monk can have a day or two of solitude and no work are allowed once a month for each brother. We allow vacation time of 1- 2 weeks a year for appropriate time off (family, etc). So we spend about 5 hours a day in prayer/Gregorian Chant, and 5-6 hours in work.

What sacrifices have you made in building this project, either for the business or for abbey life?

Sleep is certainly one for me. At the beginning I had to work late nights trying to put it all together and make it work. Travel and talks that pulled me away from the Abbey more frequently than I would have liked – though I have been able to pull back from some of this over the past year. Having numbers/cash flow/bills/etc. on my mind when times were tough – can be very distracting.

What are the long-term plans for LaserMonks? Would you ever sell the business?

We will continue to grow our toner/inkjet market position nationally, and have even considered going international. We will continue to add ancillary product lines – products by other religious communities, other international products that help us continue our Commerce with Compassion / Purchasing with a Purpose endeavors. Other product lines that have an existing outsourcing industrial structure are being considered. We look to be kind of the social entrepreneurial version of Amazon.com.

Our charitable work will continue to develop in the body/mind/spirit categories, and we especially hope to assist other religious communities to become more self sufficient, along with encouraging other groups to find for-profit work to support their non-profit endeavors. I give talks nationally to business and organization leaders about our monastic enterprise example of social entrepreneurism.
Several offers have been made to buy the business, as well as encouragement to go public with an IPO. We really can’t sell the business because it is so tied with who we are as monks – and more importantly is a direct relation to the world in relationship to us – we couldn’t let an outsider “represent” us without our overseeing how they do business and relate to the world in general. The possibilities for bad pr are too great and quite frankly the business would lose its real essence if it wasn’t ours.

***

I really appreciated hearing the LaserMonks story direct from the source, and I don’t have anything to add to Fr. Bernard’s great story. The next time I need printer toner, I’ll definitely skip the Dell store and head over to LaserMonks.

What do you think?

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I recently got an email from a reader who said the best thing about the manifesto was that it kicked him in the ass and made him get back to working on what mattered to him.

I laughed and wrote back, “No problem. We all need a good ass-kicking sometimes.”

That’s exactly what I’m going to tell you about today—why being kicked in the behind can be a significant benefit for your productivity and focus.

I recently thought back on the areas in life I am somewhat knowledgeable about. Specifically, I thought about working with groups, writing, travel, and generally finding my own way to do things.

There is a very long list of things I know virtually nothing about—home improvement, car maintenance, higher math, oh, it could go on and on—but in a few specific areas, I’ve earned some decent qualifications over the years. The funny thing I realized while thinking about this is that with each of the areas of relative skill, the process of learning has usually been somewhat painful.

More often than not, I have learned far more from failure than from success… and I suspect that’s true of most people.

Consider this quote from Teddy Roosevelt:

Far better to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs even though checkered by failure, than to rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy nor suffer much because they live in the gray twilight that knows neither victory nor defeat.”

The principles and big decisions behind this statement have a lot to do with being remarkable, fighting against mediocrity, and so on. But they also have a lot to do with accepting challenges that are difficult by their very nature.

Getting your ass kicked is not only a result of serious failures. It also comes about through constructive feedback from people you respect.

Image by gorupix

In fact, the best leaders are the ones who regularly provide constructive feedback.

In my various professions of nonconformity—entrepreneur, jazz musician, aid worker, group leader, writer—I have always learned far more from people who have said, “Chris, you’re doing great, EXCEPT for this one thing” than from people who have said, “Great job!”

I haven’t ever had a real boss in the sense of having a real job, but I’ve worked with enough groups to know that there is a real leadership vacuum if no one is giving out constructive feedback.

If the band leader only says, “Nice job, guys” when everyone is playing badly, no one will ever improve. Instead, the undeserved compliment will reinforce a subculture of mediocrity. At best, the group becomes inefficient. At worst, the group falls apart because no one is holding up the flag of excellence and keeping people focused on the right goals.

Whether through failure or constructive criticism, ass-kicking reminds us we’re not alone in the world.

If people care about you getting your stuff done, that’s a good thing, because it provides effective reinforcement for the finished product. On the other hand, if no one notices or cares, you begin to feel as though you might as well not do it.

In my case, some days I am hopelessly distracted. The Gmail window is open, and I’m eagerly watching for any sign of the next message. There it is! Oh… it’s just a notice from a mailing list. Then I go over to CNN.com, which in many ways is worse than being completely uninformed, to spend more minutes reading the latest non-news.

This is called WASTING PRECIOUS TIME. I could be doing all kinds of productive stuff like writing and planning my world takeover. Instead I am reading the same things over and over and daydreaming about my Frequent Flyer miles.

(I also check the FailBlog, but that’s totally worth it. I swear.)

Mass Accountability

There’s a lot of you reading and sharing your own ideas through comments, emails, and other blogs, so I figured that you could be the best reminder of what I’m supposed to be doing.

So go ahead, hold me accountable… here are my goals for the next few months.

1. Get the book contract and start writing the book
2. Write a second manifesto that will be released in January
3. Keep writing quality essays three times a week, at least 750 words each time
4. Run the Portland Marathon on October 5th
5. Visit Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Qatar, and 5 other countries

If I don’t do these things, you have full permission to kick my ass, online or off.

Disclaimers

I thought about putting this section at the beginning of the article, but I decided if anyone was offended earlier, they probably wouldn’t make it to the bottom. So here it is, for those of you who stuck it out.

A lot of what I write is deliberately provocative. Some people appreciate this and others don’t—that is just kind of how it works. I wish I could tell you that there is room for everyone at the table, but trying to target everyone effectively means you end up targeting no one.

In most cases, I am the one who needs the ass-kicking most of all… but I suspect I’m not alone.

If the shoe fits, you know what to do. If not, I’m not offended if you find other sources of inspiration out there on the internet.

But for those of you in pursuit of your own significant goals, I’m writing for you. Do you agree that failure teaches more than success? What important projects are you working on that could benefit from a good, swift kick?

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I head out in the morning for what I plan as a 6-8 mile run. I’ve never been here before, so my route is somewhat flexible. I Google “Warsaw running” and find a couple of ideas, but mostly what I decide is to simply head north. I’ll run for half an hour or so, then change streets and run back the other day.

If Erbil is a city on the rise, Warsaw is a city that has already rose. There is little here to indicate that Poland was once a very poor country. Instead, it looks like any number of other European cities—Frankfurt, Paris, Brussels, or even London.

As I’ve been experiencing everywhere I go lately, life is pretty expensive for those of us on the dollar economy. Thankfully my hotel is free thanks to Starwood points—a welcome respite from the hostels and overnight train rides I’ve been taking recently–but my afternoon coffee and muffin stop costs $8 at the Coffee Heaven down the street. The next time I complain about the price of Starbucks, I’ll remember it could always be worse.

In situations like these, I resort to eating one or two large meals a day. It doesn’t matter when I eat them – they can be breakfast, lunch, or dinner – but afterwards, I try to skip the next mealtime or two. This isn’t the healthiest lifestyle, especially for someone with a special diet (vegetarian but high-calorie) and who tries to stay in shape for long-distance running. But it’s just part of the deal for the recession-impacted world traveler. I could always stay home, right?

Back to running. I’m having such a nice time running along the Vistula river that I keep going in one direction for almost 45 minutes. By now I’m out of Warsaw and in a large park somewhere north of the city. I try to keep the river on my right, but I realize it would be easy to lose my way.

The sun is out, I’m running well, and I’m feeling grateful for a day with nothing much to do. I’m not going anywhere until tomorrow, so what’s to lose? I keep running.

On every long trip I take, I set up an iTunes playlist that I use for long plane flights and my exercise breaks like this one. This time, the playlist features the new album from the amazingly-talented Jason Mraz, who has provided inspiration for me and thousands of other people for several years now. On this run I’m listening over and over to Make It Mine, the title track.

Wake up, everyone
How can you sleep at a time like this
Unless the dreamer is the real you?

Great stuff there, Mr. Mraz.

I turn around after a while longer and head back, keeping the river to my left this time. Miraculously, I don’t get lost at all. I’m back in the center of Warsaw at about mile 10, and I run through the old town, past the Soviet War Memorial, and on through to the Centrum area where my hotel is located. My watch reads 1:48:20 as I approach the hotel, so I decide to make it an even two hours.

I’m fairly tired by this point, but also excited about running, Warsaw, travel, all of you who are reading, and life in general.

It starts to rain exactly three minutes before I finish. Before then, I’ve been wearing sunglasses the whole time. It’s a cold, unpleasant rain, but I feel like it’s arrived just in time for me to finish.

I stretch for a few minutes against the building, then walk inside. Everyone else is in business clothes. I’m wearing a tank top, shorts, and tennis shoes. I get in the elevator with three business types and ride to the 17th floor to my room that overlooks this beautiful city.

It’s only 9:15 a.m. What’s next?

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I do. It gets lonely out there traveling by myself, spending entire days without talking to anyone sometimes, hanging out in countries where I don’t speak the language and am obviously a foreigner.

My work suffers and I make a lot less money than I could if I stayed in one place for a while; sometimes I don’t make any money at all. It’s funny how people expect you to do something for them when they pay you.

Sometimes I feel like the restaurant critic who knows that no one will understand the challenges of his work. “But you get to eat for free all the time!” his friends will protest when he tries to tell them he gets tired of it or that it can be hard.

Yes, I am so fortunate that I get to write and travel. Believe me, I love it. But like that guy who eats at nice restaurants all the time, it doesn’t always work out the way everyone else imagines it does.

Sometimes the hours go by in a blur, on red-eye flights to Frankfurt and Hong Kong where the continents drift by on the navigation screen in front of me. But other times the time passes very slowly.

I sit in bus stations and third-world airports and on park benches all over the world, waiting for something to open or for someone to help me figure out how to get to Bucharest or Lagos or San Jose.

I try to make good use of the time reading and writing, but when I’m tired and jet-lagged, I mostly just wait. There’s no expense account to pay for drinks and nice meals, and finding healthy food on a budget can be challenging in some countries.

***

Dealing with critics, as any good leader has to do from time to time, makes me tired, too. It’s true that the more impact you have, the more you will be criticized. Expect it. Unless you’re hiding out in average land, the critics will find you and tell you why you’re wrong, unimportant, irrelevant, and so on.

I realized recently that my greatest weakness as a leader is insecurity. Sometimes, I’ll admit to those of you who are following this adventure, I care more about what people think of me than I care about making the right decision. I know that’s not good, and I’m working on it.

A 4-Step Encouragement Mantra for the Journey

(Note: I wrote this in first-person, for myself… but please steal and modify it for yourself.)

1. I can do it.
2. I could always have a regular life somewhere.
3. But I’ve chosen a different path.
4. And I won’t give up.

My friend Jove is running a 100-mile trail race this Saturday. I’m a runner too, but not like Jove. He runs at least 50 miles a week on average and is nice enough to let me come along for a “short” 10 mile run once in a while whenever we’re both in town.

One recent weekend, he ran 18 miles on Friday, then hiked 13 miles on Saturday with a 50-pound backpack, ran 18 more on Sunday before hiking 7.5, then hiked 6 miles back out on Monday.

Jove runs without music, and he runs almost every day. I asked him the other day, how do you stick with it? This is what he said:

I haven’t really found a lot of times where it’s not enjoyable, but this year the few training down spots I’ve hit I’ve just tried to remind myself what a monumental task a 100miler is. Also, if I get out the door and start running, I usually feel better about running. If I’m a couple miles in and still feel bad about running that day, I’ll put the long run off for another day. I haven’t really had to do that too much this year though.

The past two 50ks I’ve run, I’ve hit a low spot around miles 15-17, where the initial steam starts to fade. Luckily, I’ve managed to catch people at this time in both runs, which puts some wind back in your sails and reminds you that 50k isn’t easy for anyone.

OK, that’s cool. I don’t think that will help me run 100 miles at once, but I can use it for a marathon. Or perhaps for the train ride from Moldova to Romania when the customs guys barge in and turn all the lights on at exactly 3:00 a.m.

Two Steps Forward

Oh, one more thing. Sometimes we fall back on our world takeover plans. Things go wrong, Bangladesh doesn’t issue a visa, we get tired, etc. The only response is to keep going; the only trick is perseverance. You may take a step backwards, but you have to keep taking steps forward.

Yes, I feel like giving up sometimes. But I know I won’t. And I hope you’ll stick it out too.

Speaking of that… how about you over there on the other side of the screen? How do you keep going when you feel like giving up?

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My friend Jonathan Fields wrote a post once about how the road to blogging success is paved with insanity. Being a conventional blogger is not only boring, as Jonathan noted, but it also fails to lead to much attention.

The same is true in most small companies and organizations. If you’re running Proctor & Gamble, you might be able to get away with being boring. But if you’re a solopreneur or small business owner, boring is unremarkably average.

In this essay I’ll explain nine insane ways to transform your business. Technically, they’re not all insane—but applied correctly, they will all transform your business. Even if you don’t have a business, you can use some of these tactics to be remarkable in your current job or in your general approach to life. Feel free to adapt them in a way that makes sense to you.

To start with, here’s the list:

• Raise Prices, and Keep Raising Them
• Fire a Customer
• Create Something Crazy (that no one will buy)
• Hold a Fire Sale
• Set up a Continuity Service
• Call Bangalore
• Create a Premium Version of Anything
• Expand Your Sales Channels
• Create Affiliate Products with Huge Payouts
• (And a bonus, really important one at the end of the essay)

Important Disclaimer: sometimes when information is presented this way, we become overwhelmed with all of the different ideas. It’s usually better to look for the ONE THING that will help you at this time.

***

Raise Prices, and Keep Raising Them. Customers should be trained that price increases are regular and necessary to maintain the quality of your product and service. Have a big sale before the price increase for your most loyal customers.

While you’re at it, never compete on price; compete on quality and innovation. United Airlines and All Nippon Airways (ANA) fly the same routes between Japan and the U.S. United sells their premium tickets for $2,000-3,000. They compete on price. ANA sells their premium tickets for $4,000, $5,000 and even more. The same routes, similar schedules, even the same airline alliance. But ANA is a much better airline, and has no trouble selling tickets at a higher price.

Fire a Customer. One of my business mentors, Perry Marshall, once wrote an essay called “Sometimes You’ve Just Gotta Fire a Customer.” In this essay, Perry told the story of an incredibly belligerent customer who kept making all kinds of unreasonable demands. When the guy started mistreating Perry’s staff, Perry could take it no longer. He fired the customer, refunded all the money that had been paid (about $2,000, I think, so it wasn’t a small amount), and banned the guy from contacting his staff or buying anything else.

Perry said later that firing the customer was one of the best business decisions he had ever made, and the essay based on the experience has become one of the most popular in his membership group.

Create Something Crazy (that no one will buy). You know how every once in a while you hear stories about £750 cocktails or the world’s most expensive cheeseburger? We love to be shocked at that information… and then we love to tell everyone about it, which is great P.R. for the businesses who created something crazy. The cheeseburger and the cocktails are taken, so think of something else that suits your business. You don’t have to actually sell any of your crazy concoctions, you just need to announce their availability.

In a similar vein, you can create something of value that sounds crazy but actually makes sense. Crystal at Big Bright Bulb recently opened a new consulting service with the option of providing mini-critiques through Twitter, the social networking service that limits each update to 140 characters or less.

The price for Crystal’s service? Just $9.95, or 8 cents per character. I don’t think she’s going to get rich on $10 clients, but if she markets this well, I think she’ll get some good P.R. for launching the service.

Hold a Fire Sale. Have you ever noticed how furniture stores and mattress shops are always “going out of business” and that they seem to catch on fire every year? These businesses are masters of event marketing.

You don’t have to start a fire in your warehouse to take advantage of event marketing. In fact, your event sale will be even more successful if it’s both believable and insane. Yanik Silver, an internet marketing expert, frequently produces event sales celebrating the birth of his children, Halloween, and all kinds of other events that are not usually associated with the sale of marketing products. Yanik and other marketers who do this make these events fun, and if you do the same, you’ll build goodwill with your customers while making sales you did not otherwise expect.

Create a Premium Version of Anything. A surprising number of customers will pay for the perceived exclusivity of a Gold, Platinum, or other “Premium” version of the same product or service you already sell. Even if most customers continue to choose the basic version, the increased profits from the premium version will greatly increase your average sale.

Look at it this way:

$49 product

Sell 5 $49 products = $245

Sell 4 $49 products and one $79 premium version = $275, or $30 more

Revenue per sale with one-level pricing: $49
Revenue per sale with premium version: $55 ($6 more per sale!)

Not only that, but by offering a premium version, other customers will be more comfortable purchasing the standard version to “save money.” It’s a winner all around.

Expand Your Sales Channels. Take what you already sell, and sell the same thing (or similar versions) in other venues. By doing so you’ll reap more revenue with little extra labor. Here’s a few examples:

You don’t have to be an eBay Powerseller; just put one auction up at a time, or even one a month, of whatever you normally sell elsewhere.

If you make anything homemade, you can sell it on etsy.

If you offer any kind of information product, you can sell it through Clickbank.

Get an Amazon seller ID and your product can be listed with the millions of others.

You can sell on your local Craig’s List or through the newspaper classified ads (yes, people still do this).

Call Bangalore. It is now possible, and not that difficult, to outsource unwanted tasks and projects to more affordable workstations around the world. Be forewarned—there are some fairly negative sides of outsourcing that aren’t usually mentioned when proclaiming the virtues of outsourcing. But if you’re up for it, elance and Rentacoder are great resources to test the water.

The first time I put a web project on elance for bidding, I was amazed. Within three hours of posting, I had 12 bids from India, Argentina, Romania, and elsewhere. Again, outsourcing isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, but it can definitely transform your business if you plan to do it well.

Set up a Continuity Service. This is huge. Create something that people will pay an ongoing fee for, usually on a monthly basis. Make it easy to sign up for and easy to cancel. You’ll need a powerful offer, because it can be difficult to get people to sign up for continuity services. Also, a lot of them will drop out by the third month even if you’re providing great service. But a significant percentage will continue, bringing you recurring income over and over as you go on to do other projects.

Create Affiliate Products with Huge Payouts. Most affiliate products suck because they make far more money for the merchant than for the affiliate. That’s why you should give away as much profit as you can (50%, 75%, etc.) with the affiliate products you create.

Also, note that the 80/20 rule is in full force with affiliate marketing. Most affiliates will never sell anything at all, and a few good ones will do all of the work. Focus on the high performers.

You can set up as a merchant with ShareaSale or CommissionJunction, but as noted—to get noticed, set your commissions high!

***

The Bonus Insane Strategy

All of these strategies will reap large rewards in the average business. As I said in the beginning, look for the one or two ideas that “stick” with you. But while all of the strategies above will help, I believe there is one strategy that can be the most effective of all.

Are you ready? It’s very simple.

Ask your customers what they want, and then give it to them.

This overlooked method is the biggest secret of all to the transformation of most businesses, because most businesses don’t do it.

Here’s how to ask:

1. Contact your customers however you normally contact them (let’s say email, because that’s easiest)

2. Explain that you need their help, and send them to an online survey

3. Create good, thoughtful questions (no more than 5-7)

4. Ask them specifically, “What needs do you have in the (your industry here) area that are not being met?”

Tip: use Survey Monkey to make this process easy—it’s just $19.95 a month, and better than services that cost much more.

Don’t forget the next crucial steps:

5. Make the product or service your customers ask for.

6. Sell it to them.

***

Over to You

Which of these strategies do you like best? Can you think of some others? And for those of you without businesses of your own, does anything on the list help you with something else?

Feel free to share your thoughts, and feel free to vote for this on Digg or StumbleUpon if you think it’s worthy of greater attention.

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***

Additional Resources

Beginning with this essay, some posts will include a number of resources you can follow to read more about the subjects mentioned.

Affiliate Marketing – Shareasale, Clickbank

Continuity Programs – PayPal (choose “Subscriptions” from the merchant area), 1ShoppingCart, Membergate (expensive but good)

Surveys – SurveyMonkey , FreeOnlineSurveys

Outsourcing – Elance, Rentacoder

Hello everyone, here are the details behind my secret stopover while on the Baltics and Beyond trip. I had a stop on this part of the trip that I deliberately chose not to publicize in advance. The secrecy was partly for safety concerns, but just as much because I wasn’t sure it would work out.

Breaking off from my exploration of the Baltics and Eastern Europe, I traveled to the Kurdish region of northern Iraq last weekend. Yes, I made it there and made it back with no problems, and with even more of an appreciation for how people live their lives with profound optimism in the midst of all kinds of trying circumstances.

I was worried about how I would be able to take Iraq off the list, but now I can say with integrity that I’ve done it. Here is the whole story, but first…

A Quick Geography Lesson

Kurdistan is not Kyrgyzstan or Kazakhstan (you know, where Borat is from). It is a northern region of Iraq that was occupied and repeatedly attacked by Saddam Hussein prior to his demise. Unlike the rest of Iraq since then, Kurdistan has been peaceful and largely unaffected by the sectarian violence in the rest of the country.

Even though they live within the political borders of Iraq, the Kurdish people have their own identity. For the most part, they don’t really want anything to do with the “other” Iraqis who live in Baghdad, Mosul, and the rest of the country. They fly their own flag, speak their own language, and pretty much do their own thing.

In other words, Iraqi Kurdistan probably should be a sovereign, independent country, but because of how politics works, it is instead a semi-autonomous region that is still accountable to the Iraqi government.

OK, that’s the geography. And now, on to the trip!

A funny thing happened to me on the way to Kurdistan. The leading political party sent me a personalized welcome message.

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote to the Kurdish Democratic Party to ask about the visa situation. Most of what I read indicated that I could get a visa on arrival at the airport, but a couple of conflicting reports said that it had to be arranged in advance. I wasn’t sure the Kurdish Democrats would even reply, but they did so within 24 hours, telling me that it would be no problem at all to receive a visa on arrival.

Not only that, but they had also gone to my web site (thanks to Google, I presume, since I didn’t include an email signature with my message) and copied my photo into the reply, along with a nice welcome message that read:

“WELCOME CHRIS GUILLEBEAU TO KURDISTAN!”

I was pretty amazed at that. Thanks, guys. You definitely have my endorsement for whatever political platform you’re running on. Feel free to use my name and image in your campaign posters.

The welcome message set me at ease for what I was otherwise a bit nervous about, because even though I knew it was peaceful, after all, it is still IRAQ. Most people do not just fly in over there for a couple of days of independent touring.

But that’s exactly what I did, and it worked out even better than expected.

I arrived at Erbil International Airport (EBL) and was impressed with the facilities from the beginning. The immigration guy stamped my passport right away, and didn’t say anything about a visa. The customs officers (all women) waived me through with a smile.

On the other side of arrivals, I was given a free map of Kurdistan (I noted that the word Iraq was nowhere on the map), and helped to a taxi outside the door.

One company has a monopoly on taxi service at the airport, and they have the great name of “Hello! Taxi Company.” They told me it was a fixed rate of $25 to the city, which sounded high since I knew it wasn’t far away. There is another option to take a bus to a security checkpoint and then negotiate with a street taxi from there, but since I had never been there before, I decided to play it safe and take the Hello! taxi.

The taxi was a brand-new LandCruiser that reminded me a lot of my years in post-war African countries. It was 90°F outside, but as soon as the driver fired up the engine, a huge blast of air conditioning immediately cooled the vehicle. The driver got on the shortwave radio to tell his base about my drop-off, and off we went.

After riding for less than fifteen minutes, I told the driver to let me out at a small, two-star hotel called Shahan, where I booked a room for $23 a night. (I thought it was funny that the room cost $23 and the taxi to get there cost $25.)

I could have stayed in any number of cheaper places down the street, but I decided that $23 was a fair price for my own room. Besides, every hotel I had read about on the internet was for military contractors and U.N. people, and they charged $200 a night.

Photos (click to enlarge): Snacks and juice; cool statue; icons for sale

I spent the afternoon, evening, and most of the next day wandering around the city on foot. I never once felt unsafe or hassled in any way. I bought some almonds and cashews for a light dinner, which I had back in my room at the Shahan.

I visited the NasDak (I think it’s supposed to be like Nasdaq) shopping center, which still has a way to go before becoming a Dubai-style mall. The NasDak has five floors, but only the middle two have any shops in them, giving it the vibe of a downtown mall that has seen better years.

Just like most developing countries, fake DVD shops were in full abundance, selling collections of Angelina Jolie “master sets” and the latest blockbusters from both Hollywood and Bollywood for $2 each.

Walking around the citadel at the top of the city on my second morning, I met a soldier who came over to chat. It was a short conversation, since we had no common language. In situations like this, I’ve learned through many such exchanges, smiles and handshakes go a long way. He pointed to my camera and for a moment I worried that I was in trouble, but it turned out he just wanted his picture taken.

I was happy to oblige:

Interesting Notes

Erbil is truly a place on the rise. The kingdom of the Golden Arches hasn’t made it here yet, but with impressive infrastructure going up all over the city (and the whole region, or so I hear), it’s clear that the Kurds have big plans. My guess is that more development will come to Kurdistan than anywhere in Iraq proper.

The comparison to a U.N. republic ended at the airport. In the rest of the city, I saw plenty of Kurdish policemen and a few Kurdish soldiers (like my citadel friend above), but almost no international peacekeepers. A small force of South Korean U.N. soldiers is bunkered down with a Kurdish force somewhere outside the city, but the local joke is that the Kurds are there to make sure nothing bad happens to the Koreans.

***

For my evening reading, I picked up a copy of The Kurdish Globe, an English-language paper published “from the heart of Kurdistan region.” Readers of my recent essay on patriotism may be interested to know that Kurdistan, of all places, is planning to abolish the death penalty sometime next year.

By the way, for those of you who asked if I am going to start writing about U.S. politics, my answer is “not really.” My writing is non-partisan and I have friends of all political backgrounds. I am far more interested in writing about the whole world, and how remarkable people can achieve their own highly significant goals.

But I am not going to hold back from speaking the truth as I see it, and I do have some experience in looking at the world from divergent perspectives.

If a semi-autonomous region in the Middle East can make plans to abolish the death penalty while America continues to put prisoners to death every year, I think it’s valid to question which place really understands criminal justice.

To provide fair and balanced reporting, I should note that the same paper discussing the abolishment of the death penalty also has an article praising the fine sport of cockfighting, which takes place six days a week in Erbil for a $1 cover charge. My favorite sentence in the article was, “For those involved in rooster fighting, it’s not just the battles that attract them to the sport. They also admire the beauty and height of the special roosters.”

I’m not a big fan of cockfighting, but I thought that description was hilarious.

Photos (click to enlarge): Cool road sign with directions to Baghdad and Mosul; taxi roundabout in central Erbil; Erbil Int’l Airport

Getting to Erbil (and getting back)

Perhaps it’s obvious to say that this kind of travel is not really for beginners. Virtually everyone else on the flight from Vienna was Kurdish or with some kind of military group. The ticket usually costs more than $1,000 for a three-hour flight. Thankfully it cost me only about $320, since I used it as part of my first Round-the-World trip that I paid for more than a year ago.

(Side note: I know that a lot of you—several emails a day, on average—want to know more about how I’m able to travel to places like this for so little money. I promise to provide the full, unedited details soon for those who are interested.)

Even though it’s perfectly safe, there is not a whole lot to do in Erbil besides visit the NasDak and check out the fake DVD shops. I hear the Kurdish region beyond the city is probably worth exploring more, but since this was my first trip to this part of the world, I wanted to stick with Erbil and make sure I was comfortable. It was definitely worth it!

On the return trip to the airport, I made my own taxi arrangements. As I suspected, this was a much better option. I offered the driver $5 to take me, and he immediately agreed — which meant I probably could have paid less. Having paid $25 to go the other way a couple of days prior, I was happy with the $5 fare. At the drop-off point, I gave him a dollar tip and walked to the first security check-point, located about half a mile from the terminal.

Three times in a row, beginning at the first check-point, continuing to the one in front of the terminal, and finally at the one in front of the gate, all passengers go through a full security routine: belt off, watch off, laptop in case, mandatory pat-down, etc. At the third and final one, two contracted security agents searched through my bag by hand. They confiscated the batteries from my electric razor (disposable batteries are not allowed on the flight for some reason) and tried to take my contact solution, but relented when I protested about that.

The airport itself is a bit sparse, but isn’t bad otherwise. I was pleased to find out that they had free wi-fi, something my home airport in Seattle doesn’t provide. I waited two hours until the Austrian Airlines jet landed on the huge runway, discharged its passengers, and welcomed the half-filled planeload of those of us returning to Vienna. We took off right away, and I said goodbye to the land of the Kurds.

***

Now that I’m back in Austria, I think I’ll go have some strudel at the nice café by the river. Thanks for reading!

Oh, please share your feedback or any questions about the trip in the comments section below. That’s why it’s there.

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Greetings, friends and readers. As part of the continuing development of the project, I will be creating a Frequently Asked Questions page here on the AONC site.

I get emails and comments throughout the day now, and I’ve noticed a fair amount of repetition in the questions that are being asked. Hopefully, the FAQ page will provide some needed background for all our new readers. Before I create it, however, I’d like to know… what’s on your mind?

Some questions I already have on the list are listed below:

• How do you pay for your travel? (I have discussed this briefly before, but some people are asking for more information)

• What will you do after you’ve finished visiting every country?

• If everyone becomes a nonconformist, then won’t everyone be conforming?

• Why so much talk about world domination?

• What did you do in Africa from 2002-2006?

• How do you find volunteer opportunities?

Those have come up a lot, but I want to give everyone a chance to add their own questions as well.

Please post your questions in the comments below (click through if you are using RSS, and I will use many of them as the basis for the FAQ page.

Thanks in advance!

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Last year, Sean Aiken from Vancouver, Canada, graduated from college with a business degree and wasn’t sure what he wanted to do next. Like a lot of us of all ages, Sean had a good work ethic, but was uncomfortable with being locked into a career that offered little variety. Sean was also a bit of an adventurer, so he decided to do something different for his first year of full-time employment.

Instead of working only one job, Sean would work 52 jobs—a different one every week for a full year.

After getting the first few jobs set up, Sean headed out to get started. Every weekday, Sean would work at a new job, then spend the evening arranging logistics for the next week’s job while also hanging out with new friends and hosts he met along the way.

Most of Sean’s jobs were in Canada, but at mid-point in the job journey, he picked up a few jobs in the U.S. as well. Along the way, Sean raised funds for a campaign to combat domestic poverty in both countries.

Interview with Sean

I caught up with Sean recently to learn more about the 52 jobs experience, which will soon be chronicled in a book.

*At the beginning of the project, you had a crazy idea to go out and work 52 jobs. Once you were underway, you received a great deal of media coverage. What were the most important steps in between?

“The most important step was to keep taking it one step at a time, as cliché as that sounds. I had the idea, I thought that it was a good one and I thought it would work, though I was scared to actually go through with it. I created the website with my best friend, Ian Mackenzie who is a web developer. If people were going to offer me jobs they would have to hear about the project. So, I emailed all my friends and family and told them to pass it along. Also, I emailed all major papers and news networks to tell them what I was doing. A few picked it up right off the bat and away I went.”

*Do you have any regrets of disappointments about the experience?

“Nope, it was an awesome experience. I had a lot of great offers and wish I could have done many of them, though 52 was enough for one year.”

*How has your worldview changed as a result of the project?

“I have always had a very positive world view, though this re-enforced my belief that the majority of people in this world are good. The kindness of people to so willingly open up their homes and lives is what truly made this experience memorable.”

*A lot of people ask me what my favorite country is, and I never know how to respond since I like so many and each experience is different. What is your standard answer when people ask if you had a favorite job during your 52 weeks?

“My answer usually changes every time, though some of the memorable ones were: Air Force, Firefighter, Brewery (Steam Whistle Brewery), and Volcano Park Ranger.”

*What was the hardest thing about the year?

“Constantly being on the road was tiring. Also, organizing all the logistics was tough. I was always trying to figure out week to week where my next job was, how we were going to get there, and where we were going to stay once there.”

*Not everyone can work 52 jobs in a year. What would you say to someone finishing their education who is not excited about the prospects of traditional employment?

“I think a mistake many people make when deciding what they want to do for a living is to focus on an title and ignore the characteristics that a particular career and its lifestyle would entail. “I want to be a doctor, a lawyer, a teacher …” After having then gained the knowledge or expertise to get there, we might come to realize this is not what we are truly looking for.

Focus on learning more about yourself, the more you do this the better understanding you will have of what you need in a career to be happy. Perhaps go traveling. Make a promise to yourself that you will be in a job that you love doing. Once you make that promise to yourself, with every decision that comes your way, you will be asking yourself whether this will still keep you on the path to making this situation become a reality.

I would also say, relax. There is no rush. Most adults still don’t know what they want to do. Enjoy the ride!”

*What are you most grateful for?

“I am most grateful of all the people who so willingly got involved, offered me jobs, a place to stay, rides to other towns, sent emails of encouragement… the project would not have been possible without them.”

*Lastly, what’s next?

“I am writing a book about my experience and all that I learned over the past year making the transition from school into the professional world. It will be published in Spring 2009 in the U.S. by Random House and in Canada by Penguin Books. We are also working on the documentary and are going to be pitching the reality show.”

***

I appreciated Sean’s advice about alternative approaches to work. As noted above, most of us probably can’t work 52 jobs in one year, but I do believe that all of us should strive to find work we enjoy that also makes a difference in the lives of others.

By being willing to immerse himself in so many different environments in such a short time, Sean had an excellent, crazy experience over the past year that will help him do anything else he wants to in the future. Look for his book early next year!

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Previous Trip Reports:

Getting to India
Five Journeys to Cotonou, Benin
Easter Island to Beirut, Lebanon
Leaving Hong Kong
Homeless in London
Full Archive

***

In the parts of the world where globalization has truly set in, skill with languages is becoming increasingly irrelevant. In some cases, I’ve learned, it’s better to play dumb even if you really do understand what’s going on around you.

Naturally, large international airports are some of the most globalization-infiltrated centers of colliding worlds. Today I’m back in Amsterdam’s Schiphol airport for the first time in a couple of years. I used to fly in out of here at least once a year, but since I shifted airline loyalties away from SkyTeam and started using Round-the-World tickets, I hardly ever come back this way.

Except, of course, for trips like this one. I arrived in the late morning after flying through the night from Minneapolis. Even though the Netherlands is one of my favorite countries, I’m not in Amsterdam to sightsee. I’ve been here many times, and most of my travel time is now devoted to going places I haven’t been before.

I’m here instead to connect on to Riga, Latvia, using the return leg of a ticket I booked nearly a year ago to get home from Bucharest. I asked Delta to change the return destination to Helsinki (Finland), Vilnius (Lithuania), or Riga (Latvia), and Riga won the Delta lottery of limited awards seats.

Latvia is in the Schengen zone of European travel, so we have to go through a security check to get out of the E.U. concourse and over to the Schengen one. What this means in practical terms is that whatever you have successfully smuggled through one security checkpoint is now at risk of being confiscated in another one.

In front of me in the line is a guy carrying two liters of duty-free liquor with him. The bottles are carefully wrapped with “plane-friendly” stickers on them, but the airport is not Schiphol—he bought them from his original airport on another continent, and is now connecting to the Schengen zone. I wince as I know how this is going to go over with security.

Duty free man puts the scotch in the basket for iPods and laptops as I follow behind. Not going to work, dude I think as we go through the screening. Sure enough, on the other side a guy is already holding the basket. Duty free man and security guy have a long, heated argument that is not hindered at all by the language barrier (duty free man is from somewhere in Latin America and not fluent in English). This is partly what I mean about language being somewhat irrelevant.

The $60 liquor is confiscated, and the man is not happy. Because the rules about liquids are inconsistently enforced anywhere I’ve ever been, this scenario might play out differently in a different airport. But in the Netherlands, rules are rules, and no illegal scotch will be carried through the check-point.

I’m not a big duty-free shopper, so I’m not affected by any threats of confiscation, and the rest of the transit passes uneventfully. I end up flying to Riga on a KLM commuter jet feeling tired, but knowing I need to keep up my strength for the upcoming travels throughout the region. I have an overnight bus ride, a three-hour ferry, a 7-hour early morning train, a flight on a crazy airline, and a 14-hour overnight train ride ahead of me over the next week.

***

Since I’ve done a lot of traveling, I can usually go to places like Holland and not feel that differently about where I am. Even in countries with widely different cultures, my brain switches over right after arrival. Culture shock is for travel novices, I sometimes think.

But then there are the places I go where things really are a lot different. I experienced this in Taiwan last year—even though I had traveled a lot in Asia, including the predominantly-Chinese cities of Singapore and Hong Kong, I hadn’t been in China since 2002.

Yes, I realize Taiwan is not the Chinese mainland either, but culturally they are pretty similar. When we touched down in the city of Taipei on the Asiana flight from Tokyo, I wasn’t feeling anything special. But when I walked out into the night and looked around for my transport options, I suddenly realized: oh yeah, this is China. Wow. I had forgotten about the crowds of people and the spitting and the August heat. I remembered that I really don’t know how to speak Mandarin, aside from my name and where I’m from.

I feel similarly on most trips to Africa, but I kind of expect it there. When I came into Russia via Helsinki, Finland the other day, I noticed the same phenomenon, and this time it was unexpected. I left a place that was relatively familiar – despite the fact that I’d never been before, I felt comfortable in Helsinki – and entered a land that was definitely unfamiliar.

Helsinki – St. Petersburg

I took the Sibelius train over to St. Petersburg, which leaves Helsinki every morning at 7:25. I had been up since about 3:00 a.m. due to jet lag, so I took my time wandering over to the train station from the Eurohostel near the ferry terminal. The train arrived on time, and I took my seat in coach 5 at the end of the platform.

An hour later we left Finland with an efficient and uneventful immigration check. A Finnish officer without a gun stamped my passport after looking for the Russian visa everyone is required to have before leaving Finland. At first I thought he was from the Russian side, since I fly so much and had forgotten about the need for dual passport checks on the train. When the train announcer said something about the Russian border ahead of us half an hour later, I realized there would be more to it.

Before we got there, we heard a whole series of announcements about the border. During the stop, the toilets and the dining car would be locked. We would be entering a border area that is not technically part of Russia, so that if we are not permitted entry to the country we can be kicked out without formal deportation proceedings. The whole time we are stopped, we are not to get out of our seats.

This sounded more like the Russia I had imagined, and I wasn’t disappointed. Whereas the Finnish immigration delegation consisted of two bored guys who ambled down the aisles looking haphazardly at travel documents, the Russians arrived in a contingent of 10 officials. They entered in one car and marched down the aisle together before two of them were assigned to each compartment.

Our two officials walked throughout the coach inspecting passports, but upon verifying that the photo matched the passenger and that everyone had a visa, they kept the passports and walked off to another car.

Half an hour later, they got off at an intermediate stop and the conductor returned our passports to us. Since the guards were gone and all the buildings outside had Russian script, I decided I had made it. Country #84! Rock on.

We had a few more hours to go, and I spent the time reading Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro (as usual, I am behind the rest of the world—but it’s a great book) and napping against the window. A woman with a mobile ATM came wheeling through the train offering to change money for passengers. I had never seen one of those before, but I decided to wait until arrival in St. Petersburg before getting my stash of rubles.

***

St. Petersburg – Chisinau (Moldova)

I had a good time in Russia itself, although it was somewhat disorienting. I’ll write more about the visit in a future essay.

On my day of departure, I had so many adventures and misadventures that it’s hard to put them down in the right order. I took the metro to the stop I thought I needed, but it turned out to be the wrong one, so back I went. At the right metro stop I got out and headed for what looked like a bus stop. I asked a few people, “Airport? Pulkovo?” but no one responded to me. Oh well. I finally made it to the domestic terminal, which turned out to be where my Air Moldova flight was leaving from.

When I checked in for the flight, I asked for an aisle seat close to the front. “Yes, okay,” said the guy. You can probably guess how that worked out—I ended up in a window seat, all the way in the back.

Air Moldova isn’t the greatest airline. I’ve flown on worse, certainly, but since I have no plans to return to Chisinau, I can safely assume I won’t be flying with them again. The seat pitch was incredibly tight, but I enjoyed talking with a guy in the middle seat who spoke English and had never flown before.

Check out these photos from my not-so-great window seat in Row 28:

Chisinau – Bucharest

From the railway station in Chisinau I boarded the daily train to Bucharest. It was 32°C (89.6°F) in Moldova that day, so the non-air-conditioned train was incredibly hot. As soon as we started moving, the breeze helped cool things down, but we stopped frequently to allow police and border officials to board.

In each country they looked at my passport (I used the duplicate one, so there weren’t a lot of stamps or extra pages to draw too much curiosity) and asked the usual questions.

“Why you come to Moldova?”

“Because I wanted to see it.”

The honest answer is usually the best, but it does tend to confuse people sometimes. The agent stared at me as if no one would ever want to visit her country, but then stamped my passport and handed it back.

During this train ride I saw something I’ve never seen before. Just before sunset at 9:30 p.m., the train ground to a halt before proceeding to make a lot of noise for the next 45 minutes. We shifted back and forth for a while, and each time we stopped, it sounded and felt like we had crashed into another train.

I looked outside and saw a crew of engineers jacking up each carriage of the train and replacing the wheels. The train tracks in Moldova and Romania are completely different systems, and completely incompatible. Twice a day, every single day, engineers meet at the transfer point and exchange the wheels of the train. In our case, off went the Moldovan wheels and on went the Romanian ones. It was kind of like changing a tire, except a lot more complicated.

Check out this video someone else took of the process from the Bucharest-Chisinau side:

(If you have problems with the embedded video, use this direct link.)

After we had the new wheels on and had cleared all the immigration and custom stops, I slept through most of the night. I woke up about 5:00 a.m. and ate a banana and some bread I had bought at the train station the night before.

We arrived at the Bucharest Gare du Nord just after 7:00 a.m., only about half an hour late. Being only half an hour late was a personal record for me and Eastern European trains, which usually arrive at least two hours late. It’s funny how when you are used to being much later, you get excited about the “bonus” of being just a little late. This reminds me of the attitude of the major U.S. airlines these days—“just be happy we got you there.”

Bucharest – Bucharest Airport

I’ve been to Bucharest before, and didn’t feel like there was anything to do in the city, so I decided to see if I could get on the earlier flight out to Vienna. The only problem was that the earlier flight was scheduled for 8:00 a.m., which was less than an hour away… and the airport was at least half an hour from the train station.

I decided to go for it, because the idea of hanging out with my bags and no place to stay for 10 hours wasn’t that appealing. By the time I changed money and went outside to get a metered taxi (ignoring the guys inside, as always), I had less than 45 minutes until the plane was supposed to take off.

We drove through the city and it was nice to see the tree-lined streets I had walked on a year ago. Arriving at the airport, I was able to get on the earlier flight in part because the schedule had been changed to 8:35 a.m. instead of 8:00. (I went through security and immigration at 8:10, so it’s a good thing the time had been changed!)

I’m now resting in Vienna and getting ready for another couple of stops, including one unpublished place on my itinerary that I’m especially excited about. If all goes well, I’ll report back about that as soon as I return later in the week.

What’s Coming Next

On Wednesday I’ll post the latest in the profiles series.

On Thursday I’ll be asking for your questions as I prepare to create a FAQ page for the site.

Later in the week, or early next week, I’ll post more about my time in Russia and Moldova, as well as the secret stopover I’m headed to now.

For now, please feel free to share your comments, stories, and suggestions in the comments below. Enjoy your week, wherever you are.

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Happy 4th of July, everyone, live from the Russian Federation, en route to the new Republic of Moldova. I’ll tell you more about this part of the world soon, but for now I thought I’d say a few things about my homeland, the much-loved and much-hated United States of America.

International readers, the 4th of July is America’s independence day. We usually celebrate it at home by drinking beer and eating large cupcakes with frosted flags on them. In the evening we watch fireworks and drink more beer—it’s not a bad day, all in all.

Even though I enjoy the beer and cupcakes, I’m not a big fan of the 4th of July holiday. For the past five years, I’ve managed to be out of the U.S. and in the following countries instead:

2007 - Montenegro
2006 - Lesotho
2005 – South Africa
2004 – Tenerife (Spain)
2003 - Holland
2002 – China

I have quite a streak going there, so I decided I’ll keep it up as long as I can. More importantly, I’ve found that thinking about America from the unique perspective of being an American who spends a lot of time around the world has helped me gain a balanced perspective on my own country. Yes, perhaps it’s clichéd, but the more you travel, the more you learn.

In case this essay is going to offend anyone, I might as well give you a quick summary of my views on patriotism in the beginning:

• I don’t really think that my country is the greatest country in the world (I don’t really think any country is)

• Like many others of all political persuasions, I am embarrassed at the unilateral actions of the U.S. in the Iraq war and virtually everything related to the Bush administration

• At the same time, I don’t hate America either, because there are a lot of cool things about our country

You can probably see why I don’t get invited to many political rallies. Anyway, since we’ve started down this road, we’ll continue. After all, it is the 4th of July, and I can’t find any cupcakes here in Russia.

Let’s Do the Bad News First

Looking from the outside in, America can seem like a truly awful place. The United States has more people in prison than any country in the world, and regularly puts some of those prisoners to death while holding others without trial.

The U.S. leads the world in obesity rates, and fails to provide healthcare coverage for at least 16% of its citizens. Mentally ill people can easily buy guns, and then when they use them to kill people, the gun industry claims that the problem is not the guns.

Due to how our electoral college works (read a summary here), one person’s vote doesn’t usually count for much of anything. A candidate for president can even win the popular vote and still lose the election, as infamously happened in 2000.

Anyway, there’s more that could be said about all of that, and it can be depressing. But focusing on only the negative misses the point– just because America can be a crazy place doesn’t mean it’s all bad.

I am grateful for the chance to live there, and I’m thankful that I have a U.S. passport to travel with. There are a few countries that are hard for me to get into (Libya, Iran, Sudan, etc.), but the majority of places in the world are remarkably open to the idea of an American coming around to say hello for a few days. My friends from Africa and the Mid-East often remind me of how privileged this kind of welcoming is, and they are right.

Having It Both Ways

Thanks to the exports of Hollywood, I regularly meet people around the world who think that every U.S. city is run by drug lords and that we are in the midst of a gang-led civil war.

Dear international readers, please let me assure you that while Grand Theft Auto can be fun to play, it is not a realistic video game. As a matter of protocol, we do not usually shoot each other on the streets to settle disputes. If you are ever visiting the U.S. and find yourself without transport, please do not steal a police car and take it to a bank robbery.

Hang on, it gets better. A friend of mine who works in Korea likes to tell the story of the ironic anti-American sentiment in the university where he teaches. In polls, a large majority of Korean students say they have an unfavorable opinion of the U.S. A common after-school activity involves going to demonstrations where American capitalism is denounced with much chanting and fist-pumping.

That’s pretty serious, right? But wait—

After the demonstration, everyone heads over to Starbucks so they can sip espresso while exchanging songs on iPods. Business is booming at the Gap store next door. Nike and Reebok are the most popular shoe brands, and the dream of every upper-middle class Korean family is that their brilliant son or daughter will win a scholarship to a U.S. university.

Good Things About America

You could tell a similar story about a lot of places in the world these days. America is much-loved and much-hated at the same time, but here are a few good things about America that I hope we can all agree on.

• The underdog can still win. See Barack Obama and John McCain. I think it’s amazing that both of our presidential candidates came from far behind to defeat the establishment candidates in their own parties.

(I am also pleased that both candidates have pledged to close the Guantanamo Bay detention center and end any ambiguous practices of torture.)

• Human rights are now universal for everyone except Muslims and homosexuals. America has made great strides in civil rights, and opportunities are widely available to all. This does not mean that there is no discrimination; it just means that, more or less, the protection of human rights and civil liberties is the norm.

(If you are Muslim or homosexual, sorry—human rights have not yet arrived in full for you. Perhaps in Patriotism 3.0 you’ll get your chance.)

• Just like men, women can now get paid millions of dollars for bad leadership. Equal rights for incompetence have finally arrived, and being a woman is no longer an obstacle to destroying the value of a great company. See Carly Fiorina.

• When politicians get caught committing crimes, they are usually punished. The importance of this can not be overstated, because in most places around the world, politicians are effectively exempt from the criminal justice process.

(Note that lying, for the most part, is not a crime. If it was, then perhaps all politicians would be in jail.)

• It is now acceptable, and even trendy, to show concern for the environment. You can drive a Prius (or even take the bus… shudder), order tap water in a restaurant, recycle your paper products, and generally be concerned about the world outside your door. A South African I recently met told me that she never thought she would see the day when average Americans cared about their individual impact on the whole environment. But yet, here we are.

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Those are a few short things I thought of while taking the ferry from Tallinn to Helsinki the other day here in the Baltics. If you have some more, feel free to contribute to this essay’s comments section.

I Pledge Allegiance to a Country without Borders

Because I am neither a warmonger nor an anarchist, I’ve decided to believe in a new patriotism. This kind of patriotism is proud of the country we are citizens of (in my case, America) while also strongly respecting other countries and cultures. A more understated patriotism, in other words, that understands its role in a broader world.

Winston Churchill once said, “The Americans can always be counted on to do the right thing, after they have exhausted all the other alternatives.”

That’s a good quote for Patriotism 2.0. Our countries, whether the U.S. or others, have done a lot of things wrong, but if we believe in them and try to make them better, they’ll eventually get it right.

With that in mind, here’s to America. And here’s to all of you, readers and friends, from downtown St. Petersburg in the real-life Russian Federation. Funny, they have a Starbucks and a Nike store here too.

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