A quest has a clear goal and a specific end point. You can clearly explain a quest in a sentence or two. Every quest has a beginning, and sooner or later, every quest will come to an end. (Not everyone will understand why you undertook the quest, but that’s another matter.)

Instead, Elise uses the secret that allows “makers” like her to thrive: She clearly defines her projects, and she breaks them down into multiple parts. When she has success with one project, she applies the same format to others. The medium doesn’t need to be the same, she told me, but the process for working on them can still be.

Perhaps reading about other people’s stories will prompt you to think about your own life. What excites you? What bothers you? If you could do anything at all without regard to time or money, what would it be? As you progress through this book you’ll see that it advances a clear argument: Quests bring meaning and fulfillment to our lives.

The lesson, as he explains it: “If I fail more than you do, I win. Built into this notion is the ability to keep playing. If you get to keep playing, sooner or later you’re gonna make it succeed. The people who lose are the ones who don’t fail at all, or the ones who fail so big they don’t get to play again.”

“It has become ever more clear to me that if I had spent my life avoiding any and all potential risks, I would have missed doing most of the things that have comprised the best years of my life.”

Dissatisfaction + Big Idea + Willingness to Take Action = New Adventure

Relax. Or don’t relax, because a quest is rarely about taking it easy. It’s about challenging yourself however you can, learning new things and exploring horizons outside your environment . . . even if you never leave home. You can do this no matter where you live and no matter how old you are. If you want to make every day an adventure, all you ha

Branching out beyond travel, the categories of learning, documenting, and athleticism were also fairly self-explanatory.

every single day, each of us gets to answer a far more interesting question: What’s worth living for? If you could only pursue one thing, what would you craft a life around and do every day? And what if real sacrifice was involved . . . would you stick with it?