Chris Guillebeau Quotes

“Catch a man a fish, and you can sell it to him. Teach a man to fish, and you ruin a wonderful business opportunity.”

“Never despise small beginnings, and don't belittle your own accomplishments. When you venture outside your comfort zone, wherever the starting point may be, it's kind of a big deal.”

“Say yes to everything you’re excited about or afraid of.”

“We often feel paralyzed by choice and make no choice. But the thing is, no choice is a choice. If you’re not doing something about it, you’re doing something about it.”

“What can you offer the world that no one else can?”

“You don’t have to live your life the way other people expect you to.”

“Even if you’re earning a steady paycheck, you are essentially self-employed in terms of being responsible for your career.”

“A hustler represents the ideal combination: work and talk fused together.”

“As you begin to think like an entrepreneur, you’ll notice that business ideas can come from anywhere.”

“Ask three questions for every idea:
a. How would I get paid with this idea?
b. How much would I get paid from this idea?
c. Is there a way I could get paid more than once?”

“If you make your business about helping others, you’ll always have plenty of work.”

“In the future, marketing will be like sex: Only the losers pay for it.”

“Passion or skill + usefulness = success”

“Plans are only good intentions unless they immediately degenerate into hard work.”

“The new reality is that working at a job may be the far riskier choice.”

“Value is created when a person makes something useful and shares it with the world.”

“Your quest for personal freedom lies in the pursuit of value for others.”

“11 ways to be unremarkably average

1. Accept what people tell you at face value.
2. Don’t question authority.
3. Go to college because you’re supposed to, not because you want to learn something.
4. Go overseas once or twice in your life, to somewhere safe like England.
5. Don’t try to learn another language; everyone else will eventually learn English.
6. Think about starting your own business, but never do it.
7. Think about writing a book, but never do it.
8. Get the largest mortgage you qualify for and spend 30 years paying for it.
9. Sit at a desk 40 hours a week for an average of 10 hours of productive work.
10. Don’t stand out or draw attention to yourself.
11. Jump through hoops. Check off boxes.”

“If you’re stuck in the cage, it’s time to smash the glass around you and crawl your way out. You don’t need anyone’s permission to climb the ladder, and you don’t need to apologize for escaping. If the sleepwalking life is the real world of the unremarkably average, the clear alternative is the living world of adventure.”

“Unreasonable, unrealistic, and impractical are all words used to marginalize a person or idea that fails to conform with conventionally expected standards.”

“What if you save for 40 years, putting off all kinds of opportunities, then get hit by a bus the day before retirement?”

“Every good goal has a deadline.”

“Everyone is busy, yet we all have access to the same amount of time.”

“If you want to achieve the unimaginable, you start by imagining it.”

“If you want to make every day an adventure, all you have to do is prioritize adventure. It has to become more important than routine.”

“It’s better to be at the bottom of the ladder you want to climb than the top of one you don’t.”

“So many people live within unhappy circumstances and yet will not take the initiative to change their situation because they are conditioned to a life of security, conformity, and conservatism, all of which may appear to give one peace of mind, but in reality nothing is more damaging to the adventurous spirit within a man than a secure future.”

“The awareness of our own mortality can keep us focused.”

“The outside world judges our actions based almost entirely on results–even though the results aren’t always up to us.”

“There are few goals worth pursuing that are totally risk free. Sometimes life itself is risky.”