#001: Alastair Humphreys — Make a Living Writing About Your Life & Adventures

Apr 8, 2022

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Alastair Humphreys has built an impressive career as a creator using a simple formula:

Step 1: Go on an adventure.

Step 2: Write a story about it.

Step 3: Earn money from it.

Step 4: Repeat.

Sounds Simple. But far from easy.

In this episode, we dive into Alastair’s creative process – from planning, adventuring, writing to publishing and eventually, getting paid. We’ll also discuss how Alastair has navigated hard times to persist as a creator for 15+ years, his journey from teaching to writing to filmmaking to children’s books to podcasting, balancing family life with adventuring and creating, and tips for writing stories about your personal experiences that readers will love and publishers will buy.

Alastair Humphreys is a National Geographic Adventurer of the Year, podcaster, filmmaker, and author of 13 books. He spent over 4 years cycling around the world, a journey of 46,000 miles through 60 countries and 5 continents. More recently Alastair has walked across southern India, rowed across the Atlantic Ocean, run six marathons through the Sahara desert, completed a crossing of Iceland, and participated in an expedition in the Arctic.

In 2018, Alastair trekked over 350 miles across Spain in the footsteps of his adventurer-author hero Laurie Lee, feeding himself only with money he earned busking. He turned that story into the enthralling, raw memoir, My Midsummer Morning: Rediscovering a Life of Adventure.

SHOW NOTES

[05:07] Alastair's rowing experience across the Atlantic Ocean

[07:06] How to push yourself in your path of adventure by starting small

[09:48] Big adventures and how to turn them into micro-adventures when life gets in the way

[12:10] Alastair’s coping mechanisms during the pandemic including climbing a tree, plus the importance of passive income

[15:49] How to find an audience for your writings that's beyond friends and family

[18:24] Alastair’s love for travel books and what inspired him to write

[19:13] About Alastair’s busking adventure in Spain and how this led to this book, My Midsummer Morning, and balancing adventuring life and home life

[28:31] Alastair’s journey from having a publisher to self-publishing his own books

[33:22] On trying new things and becoming an expert in your own niche

[37:04] How to get paid gigs with brands & and how to approach brands

[40:11] On self-doubt and how to get past it

[42:53] What would your eighty-year-old self tell you to do today?

QUOTES FROM ALASTAIR

“There's a blog post called, The Long Tail, which shows you graphically like, how many times you'll hug your parents again, how many times you'll swim in the ocean again, and if you see it graphically, there are so few. And if he'd been so inclined, he could probably have written on his little bar chart: here are the books you have time to write in your life. And I suspect once you see that, your eighty-year-old self would suggest that you begin.”

“If you're a writer and you compare yourself to Shakespeare, it's pointless. If you're going to play football in the park and you compare yourself to Lionel Messi, it’s pointless. But we spend all our lives measuring ourselves against people like this. It’s ridiculous. So call yourself a working whatever, and then get to work and try and find a thousand people who read your books and then repeat the process and try and get 2000 for the next one. And you'll probably be alright.”

SELECTED LINKS FROM THE EPISODE

Connect with Alastair Humphreys:

Twitter: @Al_Humphreys

Instagram: @al_humphreys

Facebook: Al Humphreys Facebook Page

Website: www.alastairhumphreys.com

Wait but Why Blog by Tim Urban - The Long Tail

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