Synopsis

Like most of us, Jacqueline Jensen once believed travel was the answer to a richer and more meaningful life. Travel, as it turns out, is not the answer. Instead, the answer lies in living life every day with the mindset of a world traveler.

After talking to thousands of people across six continents who were convinced Jacqueline was living their dream life, Jacqueline started to see a theme: It wasn’t about the travel.

In Travel Isn't The Answer: Live With a Sense of Curiosity, Passion, and Awe Anywhere and Everywhere, Jacqueline guides readers to engineer the curiosity, passion, and awe many of us feel while traveling on a daily basis from anywhere and everywhere – no passport required.

This is not a travel manifesto.

Travel Isn't The Answer guides readers through life changing moments while living as a digital nomad and dissects how these moments shed light on universal truths that everyone can experience – even while staying put.

When Jacqueline started seeing her familiar hometown through the same lens she would view any exciting new city, her experience changed in an instant.

Jacqueline realized that a change of country – or continent – isn’t what a person needed to live their dream life. Travel Isn't The Answer is a vulnerable dive into cutting loose beliefs that hold us back, venturing courageously into the unknown, and experimenting with radical shake-ups so we live with purpose at our center and adventure as our guiding path.

Outline

The book includes a foreword and original sketches by Carl Richards, New York Times Sketch Guy columnist.

In Travel Isn't The Answer: Live With a Sense of Curiosity, Passion, and Awe Anywhere and Everywhere weaves together Jacqueline’s most impactful moments around the world, explores why our brains are wired to love new experiences, and details powerful principles to engineer radical shake-ups. Each chapter has a central theme with lessons and concepts that can be applied to a reader's lives directly.  This book stretches readers to rewire their brains to view day-to-day life in a new, inspired way.

Introduction: Travel Isn’t The Answer
In the introduction, the reader will be introduced to Jacqueline and learn more about how the idea for the book came to be. It’s time to shake up the idea Jacqueline heard from thousands of people around the world – travel isn’t the answer to living an awe inspired, passion fueled, and curiosity driven life. People can engineer this life – anywhere and everywhere.

Section 1: Curiousity
Chapter 1: Strengthen Curiosity  
Chapter 2: Redefine Routine
Chapter 3: Embrace Minimalism  

Section 2: Passion
Chapter 4: Uncover Passion
Chapter 5: Prioritize Gratitude
Chapter 6: Default to Courage

Section 3: Awe
Chapter 7: Chase Awe
Chapter 8: Seek Discovery  
Chapter 9: Engineer Serendipity

Conclusion: Hack Your Answer

Audience

The numbers tell the story: Of the 323 million United States citizens, a mere 30% have passports. Compare that percentage with Canada's 60% and the United Kingdom's 75%.

Americans are affluent, outsource jobs, buy imported goods, and at the same time, we’re nervous and scared to break out of our norm.

We’re a society where work is valued over balance – and we dub it American exceptionalism. Teenagers strive in high school to attend a great university just to leave that university worried about how soon they can pay off their massive debt. Then, a sought-after, demanding career kicks in.

The United States is practically the only developed country in the world that doesn't require companies to give their workers time off. In countries like Germany, Greece, and Italy, workers are guaranteed a month of time away from the office.

In the United States, we stand alone in giving workers absolutely zero guaranteed time off.

Our focus on hard work and career chasing doesn’t leave much room for a gap year, much less a balanced everyday lifestyle where values like curiosity, passion, and awe are at the top of the list.

Yet, while we have adapted to a life where hard work is placed squarely at the center, some of us also claim intense wanderlust – a deep-held dream always humming in the background. We descended from risk-takers who were welcomed by the Statue of Liberty and renegades who ventured out West. We follow travel bloggers on social media as they explore places we yearn to visit. A majority of millennials (70 percent) say the desire to travel is a primary reason to work, second only to paying for basic necessities. Some of us even claim to have the travel gene.

What if this strong desire to travel is actually a disguise for something we can engineer ourselves? What if the thing we thought travel could solve is something we can create anywhere and everywhere?

Promotion

Jacqueline Jensen has been invited by Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices to speak about her book topic at Sales Convention 2018 in San Antonio, TX on 6 March 2018. 

Jacqueline will share why Travel Isn't The Answer in a 60-minute presentation to all companies and agents in attendance.

Details on the above speaking engagement at http://capitalregionrevolution.com/convention-2016/

As a tech nerd at heart, Jacqueline is always excited to brace new online platforms. Her favorite place online to connect with others is on Twitter at @JackieMJensen where she has 33,000 followers. She is also a frequent writer on Medium with an audience of 7,800.

Promotional efforts for this book include guest writing on blogs, podcast interviews, and cross-promotional efforts with Carl Richards, New York Times Sketch Guy columnist.

In May 2017, Jacqueline filmed a Skillshare course at Skillshare’s NYC studio. The class, focused on the power of visual communication, attracted over 2,000 students in its first 30 days.

In December 2012, Jacqueline delivered a TEDx talk entitled “Playing nicely with fellow entrepreneurs pays off.” View it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZeKBquRKa-w

SPEAKING 2017

December 2012 
Las Vegas, Nevada 
TEDx 
"Playing nicely with fellow entrepreneurs pays off"
Audience: 100 in person, posted to TEDx YouTube channel afterward 

August 2013 
Las Vegas, Nevada 
SXSW V2V (SXSW secondary conference) 
"#UPGlobalLIVE" panelist featuring founders and startup ecosystem leaders 
Audience: 250

May 2015
Las Vegas, Nevada
Web Summit's "Collision" Conference
Stage emcee for start-up pitch competition
Audience: 2,500

March 2016 
Austin, Texas 
SXSW 
"Startup Hubs Outside the Valley: Southeast Asia" panel moderator featuring founders and startup ecosystem leaders 
Audience: 200

June 2016 
Reno, Nevada 
Public Relations Society of America 
Topic: visual storytelling
Audience: 250

September 2016 
Manila, Philippines 
Youth Congress on Information Technology
Topic: visual storytelling
Audience: 7,000, main stage talk

October 2017
Barcelona, Spain
7in7 Digital Nomad Conference
"TaaS: A Deep Dive into the Innovation and Challenges of Travel as a Service" panel moderator
Audience: 100

October 2017
Podgorica, Montengro
Digitalizuj.me Monthly Speaker Series
Fireside chat guest
Audience: 75

Competition

1. You Are a Badass: How to Stop Doubting Your Greatness and Start Living an Awesome Life

By Jen Sincero

Publisher: Running Press (April 23, 2013)

Bestselling author, speaker and world-traveling success coach, Jen Sincero, cuts through the din of the self-help genre with her own verbal meat cleaver in You Are a Badass: How to Stop Doubting Your Greatness and Start Living an Awesome Life. In this refreshingly blunt how-to guide, Sincero, serves up 27 bite-sized chapters full of hilariously inspiring stories, life-changing insights, easy exercises and the occasional swear word. 

2. The Suitcase Entrepreneur: Create Freedom in Business and Adventure in Life

By Natalie Sisson

Publisher: North Star Way (September 5, 2017)

Now in its third edition, The Suitcase Entrepreneur teaches readers how to package and sell their skills to earn enough money to be able to work and live anywhere, build a profitable online business, and live life on their own terms. With new material pertinent to today’s business world, readers will receive the blueprint to create their ideal lifestyle and become their own digital nomad.

3. Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear

By Elizabeth Gilbert

Publisher: Riverhead Books; First Edition edition (September 22, 2015)

She discusses the attitudes, approaches, and habits we need in order to live our most creative lives. Balancing between soulful spirituality and cheerful pragmatism, Gilbert encourages us to uncover the “strange jewels” that are hidden within each of us. Whether we are looking to write a book, make art, find new ways to address challenges in our work,  embark on a dream long deferred, or simply infuse our everyday lives with more mindfulness and passion, Big Magic cracks open a world of wonder and joy.

4. Unlikely Destinations: The Lonely Planet Story.

By Tony Wheeler and Maureen Wheeler 

Publisher: Periplus Editions (May 5, 2017)

After thirty years in the business the Wheelers have an unrivalled set of anecdotes which they share in Unlikely Destinations: The Lonely Planet Story. They have been hassled by customs, cheated by accountants, let down by writers, banned in Malawi, berated for their Burma guide and had books pirated in Vietnam. Tony has been gored by a cow in Benares, declared dead around the world in an assortment of gruesome and greatly exaggerated accounts and their company has been accused of the "Lonely Planetization" of the world.

5. Living Curiously: How to Use Curiosity to be Remarkable and Do Good Stuff

By Beck Saltzman

Publisher: Oomau Media (May 20, 2016)

Living Curiously: How to Use Curiosity to Be Remarkable and Do Good Stuff, is the actionable guide and curiosity tool to help you experience things most people never experience, and do the good stuff that will define your remarkability.

6. Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead

By Brene Brown

Publisher: Avery; 1 edition (September 11, 2012)

Every day we experience the uncertainty, risks, and emotional exposure that define what it means to be vulnerable or to dare greatly. Based on twelve years of pioneering research, Dr. Brené Brown dispels the cultural myth that vulnerability is weakness and argues that it is, in truth, our most accurate measure of courage.<br><br> Brown explains how vulnerability is both the core of difficult emotions like fear, grief, and disappointment, <i>and</i> the birthplace of love, belonging, joy, empathy, innovation, and creativity. She writes: “When we shut ourselves off from vulnerability, we distance ourselves from the experiences that bring purpose and meaning to our lives