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An Interview With The Practical Marriage Advisor And The King Of Fitness Products: Dustin Reichman

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Lifestyle Design Confessions Podcast Interview – Dustin Reichman

Rob: Hey everybody! Welcome to another edition of the Lifestyle Design Confessions Podcast. Today we have Dustin Reichman on the line. Dustin along with his wife is the co-creator of the www.fitmarriage.com and www.engagedmarriage.com ; those are two websites and today we’re going to talk to Dustin and find out what that’s all about. So without further ado, Dustin, are you there?

Dustin: I’m here Rob. I’m very excited to be here with you.

Rob: Cool! Did I say your name right?

Dustin: It’s actually Reichman (Rik-man). Everybody gets it wrong so no sweat.

Rob: I should have known better…okay, cool! Alright, so let’s kind of get into it; could you start off a little bit and explain what those 2 websites you have are and what they’re all about.

Dustin: Sure thing, yes. Engaged Marriage is all about helping busy, young couples. So it’s sort of coming from my own perspective you know, young children; I’ve been married 10 years now but kind of looking back into those newly-wed years, the first 5 years of marriage. So it covers everything from how to set up your finances the right way, to good communications, to parenting skills; so it’s really a content-oriented type for busy, young couples. By the way, Engaged Marriage is going on 2 years old.
Fit Marriage is only about 6 months old and it is a site that’s obviously about fitness; same target group though so sort of the same people who I love to serve my niche, these young, busy couples. In this case though we’re bringing in the message of health and fitness, why it’s so important within all the craziness that you experience at this part of your life and then how to make it happen. So that’s the synapses of those 2 sites.

Rob: Okay. So most of the people who are listening to this podcast are people that maybe read The Four Hour Work Week or they know that there’s something out there called the internet and people are making money on it and living a certain, sort of automated lifestyle, they can live anywhere they want in the world while their website is making money, etc. but I want to sort of like “peel the onion” back a little bit and I want to kind of start at the beginning. What was your lifestyle like prior to Fitness Marriage? I know that you have sort of a unique circumstance now where by choice, you’re an engineer and you really liked doing what you do so you’re continuing to do it. But you’ve also set something up where if you one day woke up and said, “I don’t want to do the engineering anymore. I just want to do this.” You have that option so you’re creating…which is a very engineering thing to do by the way (laughs). So tell me a little bit…let’s kind of start from the beginning. What was your lifestyle like prior to Fit Marriage and Engaged Marriage and what has motivated you to go online and create these businesses?

Dustin: Yeah, sure. So it all started with Engaged Marriage. In August 2009, my wife and I were vacationing; at that time we just had one child and we’re away from that child, we’re down in Cancun, along the beach and kind of enjoying that life for at least a week and I was just have this craving to do something a little different, do something creative. I’ve been an engineer all my career, I have a Masters in engineering and that has just been my thing and I’ve always been a left-brain thinker as you could probably tell. And so we’re down there and I’m reading a book called No More Mondays at that time by a guy named Dan Miller who’s a big career coach kind of guy and I haven’t yet found The Four Hour Week although I did later picked that up but the real impetus for Engaged Marriage is I was lying down there thinking, “You know, I want a creative outlet and I want a side income.” And you know, I’m technically savvy enough, I should be able to figure this stuff out and I have heard a little bit about internet business; I didn’t know what a “blog” was, I didn’t know anything specific about it but it made me sit and talk to my wife and I made the decision. And also the reason was Engaged Marriage initially was for 5 years prior to that, really our whole married life we’ve been kind of in a marriage ministry; we’ve been going and talking to engaged couples, doing marriage retreats and we just love interacting with other young couples and kind of sharing their struggles and giving them any advice that we have. So I was like, “You know, I should be able to kind of go ‘new school’ with that advice because so much of it was ‘old school’ through churches and things and let’s do this online.” So that’s really where Engaged Marriage came from. It was intended to be kind of a side business, a creative outlet and a way to further our marriage ministry all at the same time.

Rob: Now when you say ministry, obviously we’re talking spiritual, Christian type of stuff. Is that what you mean?

Dustin: Yes. That’s the context I’m using but then not so much that all I’m in is accept donations on the side. It’s not a ministry in that sense, it’s also a business.

Rob: You know, let’s talk a little bit about the lifestyle design that you guys have set up for yourself, you and your wife; and her name is Bethany, right?

Dustin: Yup.

Rob: Weird question I suppose but what’s it like running a business with your wife? You guys obviously…you’re working as an engineer so you’re at the office and she’s home. Do you guys sort of communicate throughout the day on the website or…how does that work?

Dustin: It’s kind of a mixed bag as well; with Engaged Marriage, I would consider her my business partner. I create the content. I’m more of an entrepreneur at heart, she’s not so much but she is very supportive particularly at that site because the topic is so near and dear to her heart. So her role is a lot more as idea-bouncer-offer, proofreader, she helps spread the word through social media in her own kind of Facebook networks and friends. And so there’s not a lot of active business things going on between her and I and that’s true with Engaged Marriage. Engaged Marriage also, with it being 2 years old, it’s a little more on auto-pilot at this point. We’ll talk I’m sure a bit more of the details…

Rob: We will…yes.

Dustin: Fit Marriage is completely different. At Fit Marriage, again she’s supportive of it but it’s not her thing and I actually have a business partner with Fit Marriage; a guy by the name of Tony DiLorenzo and he’s in San Diego. I’m here in Southern Illinois near St. Louis. So that creates a whole different dynamic where I’m maintaining a 40-hour plus career, I’m doing Engaged Marriage with Bethany and I have Fit Marriage going with Tony and it’s very much in a growth phase so there’s a lot of correspondence between us throughout the day, you know Twitter, direct messages, emails, popping on the phone now and then and it’s a real juggling act but it’s…and people, when I started telling them the things that are going on, they kind of look at me cross-eyed like, “Why do you do this?” And again we can talk about the “why” but you know I really enjoy it; I have a hard time seeing things any other way and I feel like I have found the right boundaries to make it all work.

Rob: You’re in sort of into a unique situation and that you have a job that you like; most people have a job that they hate and they want to get out of it and they try and do something online, create sort of a different lifestyle but you have both so I’d be interested to know what your thoughts are working in a company that you like and running a business online. Obviously there are pros and cons to both but you know, from your perspective, what’s the difference between sort of a brick and mortar, ‘I show up for work 40 hours a week’ versus having an online business?

Dustin: You know I would say lean more to the entrepreneurial side. However, what I do as an engineer…I don’t sit in a cube and crunch numbers; it’s also fairly entrepreneurial. It’s a fairly small company. I’m not the owner of that company, at least not yet but we are a consulting firm and I work a lot with like commercial developers. It’s pretty high at pace. I mean there’s a huge variety at day to day, it’s profit-driven also. You know the setting is obviously different. I have to work with team members there. Most of the things I do aside from working with Tony is pretty solo on the online business side.

Rob: How old are you?

Dustin: I’m 32.

Rob: You’re 32. So do you see yourself sort of as you’re getting older, leaning maybe more towards online or do you see yourself still sort of split? In other words, is there an exit strategy for you?

Dustin: That’s a great question. To exit, I have to get things up to another level online and I really thought Fit Marriage is at potential; in the 6 months it has been around, it’s grown like crazy. I’ve been very happy with that. So that’s the question I ask myself; as you can imagine I’m a real planner…you know with 3 little kids, I’m an engineer and I have all these things going on so I’m always trying to take that long horizon look. Frankly, right now I’m not sure. I mean I’m thinking 5 years I’ll probably still be doing the engineering gig hopefully at the same firm. I really love it and you know, maybe I’ll be in a little different position there. I can see myself going part time engineering or I’m still managing a group but I’m not doing any day to day projects and I’m taking more of that higher level role but on a part time basis, if that becomes feasible and then ramp it up online…it’s a tough question that’s why I still struggle with it so…

Rob: I’ll tell you from a perspective of a guy that’s close to 15 years older than you with now a teenager…

Dustin: Sure! (laughs)

Rob: And I’ll tell you that you know, at 32, what I thought I would be doing at 42 is completely different. So I wrote a great blog post called The Failure Of The 10-year Plan.

Dustin: I loved it.

Rob: And you know you have all these visions…you know I talk to all these 30 year olds, “This is my excel spreadsheet of the next 10 years.” (laughs) you know, and the reality is think about where you were when you were 22. You had no…you weren’t even close…you know what I mean?

Dustin: I do, not even close. And for that matter 2 years ago, I mean like I told you, this whole online world open up to me only 2 years ago with Engaged Marriage. And then Fit Marriage being only 6 months old and then being set up much more from a business standpoint. I’ve seen the power of that but yeah, I mean jeez…when I was 30 I had no idea what I’d be doing at 32. I would have never guessed I had 2 online businesses, one in fitness and one in marriage. I’m at a different firm on the engineering side as I was at that time, we had another child; so yeah, I mean life will do what life is going to do but we try to plan and we try to set things up to be in place when we get there.

Rob: So out of all the online businesses that you could have chosen to go into, you chose to go to the world of fitness. You know, I mean other than how to make money online, I can imagine that there is a more…maybe dog training but I can’t imagine there is a more competitive market. So what are your thoughts on it? Is it super competitive, is it difficult or is it just that you have a big passion for it and you don’t care?

Dustin: You know the way I look at it is, it is obviously a multibillion dollar industry but that’s a good thing to me. It means there’s obviously a need for that particularly in the U.S., I mean with the obesity epidemic and there’s a huge overall problem that needs to be solved. But the way I look at it is I’m not intimidated by the competition because I’m not trying to be the next beach body you know, the mimickers like P90X; I’m not trying to be that next big corporate, sort of everyone kind of company. Our whole mission and goal is to serve this audience that we understand very well which is these married couples, people with young kids who kind of lost that “before baby body” and they want to get it back. You know the guy’s 30 like me, he lost his step in basketball, he’s getting injured and they’re fed up with it and they want to rewind the clock 5 or 10 years on their fitness level. So we’ve defined a very specific niche, you know, very specific group of people and that we want to serve and there aren’t many people serving those folks online so I think we have a unique voice. So despite all the huge craze on fitness particularly online, we’re different and then we serve different clientele and I think that’s been the key to the growth so far.

Rob: So what advice would you give to someone that’s listening to this interview right now and says, “You know, I got an idea. I got an idea for something, I want to go online and I’m working. I may or may not like my job. I’m just kind of concerned about…I don’t know anything. I don’t even know what a ‘blog’ is. I don’t know how to get traffic to my site and I don’t know how to sell anything. This is so overwhelming to me.” What advice would you give to them?

Dustin: A couple of things…I think from the standpoint of an idea for an online business, without getting into the details, it’s very easy to do. It has virtually no barrier to entering. For under100 bucks you could be up and running. You do need some advice. I mean, Jet Set Money is probably a good resource for that. There are other ones out there. There isn’t a shortage of good advice for how to get started. But you kind of look in a little bigger than that…you know I would just make sure it’s something that you’re passionate about. I mean people have some success running little niche sites about products they don’t care about and that’s okay but you have to do a lot of that. For me the choice was more “who are the people I relate to the best and how I can serve them” and I have found two different ways so far to serve the same people. Eventhough it’s online, I mean people can really perceive passion and they can tell if you’re the real deal and that you really care about them just in the way that you conduct your business and that’s going to shine through a lot more than something you actually care about. So bottom line, find something that you actually care about, invest a little bit on training so you can get up and running pretty quickly and then work hard…I mean if you have a day job; I’m going through that still. I get up early, I work in the morning, I get my exercise ahead so I’m not a hypocrite and then I get to the other job and I do some at night. Usually more interviews and things like that. It is hard work and then if you’re married and you have a family, you need to communicate that upfront so your spouse knows what you’re getting into.

Rob: Alright, so we are going to find out the question that everybody wants to know, “How does Dustin make money?” so for now, I want to wrap up the first part of this interview for our podcast listeners and I want to take Dustin over to inside our Jet Set Money Membership to do the second half of our interview. And if anybody would like to become a Jet Set Money member, all you have to do is to go to www.getjetsetmoney.com and sign up. Dustin, if people want to follow you, get a hold of you, check out your website, what’s the best way that they can do it?

Dustin: Naturally I’m all over the place, on Facebook, Twitter and all those things but the easiest way, just come over to www.fitmarriage.com, and my email address is dustin@fitmarriage.com and from there you’ll find everything else.

Rob: Alright Dustin, thanks so much!

Dustin: Sure thing! Thanks for having me on.

Learn How Web Designer Justin Wright Scales Back His Life To Live The Lifestyle Design Of His Dreams!

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Rob: Welcome to another edition of the Lifestyle Design Confessions Podcast. I’m Rob Murgatroyd of Getjetsetmoney.com and today we have Justin Wright of www.Lifeafterthecubicle.com. Justin started out like most of us did. He went to college, he got a degree, he got a job and landed in a cubicle. He said, “Hell no! Something’s going to change here.” We’re going to get into all of that and exactly what he did to make the change. Justin, are you there?

Justin: Yep

Rob: So without further ado, I want to ask you a few questions. Just by way of background, could you take us from graduating college to the moment when you were sitting in your cubicle and you know, you hit that tipping point.

Justin: Yes. I graduated college and you know, you kind of feel like, “Okay, I finished that whole part of my life.” And now you’re kind of wondering where you’re going to go next; so I didn’t want most people did and started sending resumes everywhere and finally I got a job doing something related to my degree and at that time it paid very well to someone used to doing college-type jobs that the money was definitely something there that kind of attracted me. I took the job, started working there and at first it wasn’t so bad; it’s kind of nice having a real job, you know what people call them anyway and eventually after about 2 years of working in a cubicle, I started to get pretty much anxiety where I go into work and I’m just like, “There’s got to be something else to life.” Besides just sitting in this cube everyday and maybe working an hour or two of actual work every day and then the other 6 hours was just pretending to be busy, you know waiting for the clock to hit 5 so I could finally go home. And it just hit that point where I was like, “Something has to change.”

Rob: And so you made the change. You sort of refer to your lifestyle as a digital nomad. What do you mean by digital nomad?

Justin: To me digital nomad is basically just somebody that can you know, you can do whatever it is you like doing in terms of work but being a digital nomad means that you can bring your work with you regardless of where you are; you know if you want to travel, if you like to move a lot. So it kind of lets you be a nomad but you can use the digital aspect to keep doing whatever it is you enjoy doing and you can kind of move around and not have to be looking for jobs and finding a way to make money. So it’s kind of a term I really…I heard it somewhere; there’s a site like digitalnomad.com I think is where I first heard it and I really liked the phrase “digital nomad” so I try to use it as much as I can on my blog.

Rob: Alright. So now you got the freedom of time and mobility, could you describe what it feels like to have that and you know, how has your life changed as a result? What type of stuff do you get to do now and how many hours a week are you working?

Justin: At first it feels liberating. It feels like I can finally…you know I can do the things I enjoy doing and it’s not like you have a certain schedule where every Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday you have to be at work from this time but now I still work a fairly good amount; I probably work about 30 – 40 hours a week just like the other job but I work with clients. You know I help them build websites and stuff and the thing I enjoy is the fact that I can plan according to whatever it is that I want to do. So if I want to go on a backpacking trip for a week, 2 weeks, I can just put my work aside and pick it up when I get back and it just gives me so much more freedom to kind of do the things I enjoy and especially when it comes to moving and that’s one of the things that I’ve always enjoyed is I always have a hard time figuring out where it is that I wanted to live so as soon as I started making an income through the internet, I started moving around a lot. So I kind of moved to Hawaii and then I lived in Arizona and then Texas and now I’m in Florida right now…so it’s kind of nice being able to hop around and just enjoy everything that there is out there

Rob: So you made the decision how long ago to live a sort of a digital nomadic lifestyle? Was that about a year ago?

Justin: It’s been…let’s see, October will be the 2-year anniversary of me quitting my job so…

Rob: Okay, but who’s counting, right? (laughs)

Justin: Yeah (laughs)

Rob: Okay so two years ago and then…part of what you are able to do is you are able to get on a plane and…where are you from originally? Where were you living?

Justin: I am from Wisconsin.

Rob: Alright, so you leave cold Wisconsin and you head out for sunny Hawaii?

Justin: Yep! (laughs)

Rob: How long did you live in Hawaii?

Justin: I lived in Hawaii for about 6, 7 months.

Rob: Okay, so that’s quite a bit of time. Where did you live in Hawaii?

Justin: I lived in Waikiki and then right in the heart of the tourist section of Honolulu.

Rob: Okay. So you pick up, you moved all the way to Waikiki; is there a moment while you’re sitting out there going, “How did I get here?”? I mean like, “I’m a cheese head. How did this happen?” Did you kind of have those moments?

Justin: Yes, I’ve had those moments. You know it seems like every time I move somewhere I’m just like you know, “How did I get to the point where I can be here versus there?” it just doesn’t seem like moving is a big obstacle anymore because it’s so easy now that you know it moves a lot that it’s not like something where I have to plan ahead, you know a year in advance and get everything squared away before I can go.

Rob: When you moved to Hawaii, was there a specific purpose in living in Hawaii? In other words, were you just curious and you said, “You know, I like the weather and I just want to check it out.”?

Justin: Yeah…one of the things I hated about Wisconsin was the cold winters so the first thing that I wanted to do is go somewhere warm and Hawaii just seemed like a great place to start and check it out. At the time, you know I wasn’t really interested so much in moving abroad somewhere else. I was like, “Well I can live all the comforts of the U.S. without actually leaving.” So Hawaii was a really good starting point.

Rob: Was it what you thought it would be?

Justin: Yeah. I mean I really enjoyed it. It’s a little too “touristy” for me but yes, I loved it.

Rob: Okay. So it seems like you sort of following beach locations, is that right?

Justin: (laughs) Yep!

Rob: Is there a theme that I’m noticing in your life here?

Justin: Yeah, I loved Hawaii and I moved to Phoenix for 2 years where there was no water whatsoever and now that I’m in Florida, you know I’m kind of back to the beaches but I already got my next move which is going to be sort of away from the beach so…

Rob: Where is the next spot?

Justin: Portland, Oregon.

Rob: Portland, Oregon. Okay. I just got off the phone with somebody from Portland, Oregon and they absolutely love it. So I want to talk to you a little bit about lifestyle design. Obviously you’ve read The Four Hour Work Week, yeah?

Justin: Yes.

Rob: Alright. And so you’ve heard Tim use that phrase; he’s certainly the one I think who has attributed to it but maybe somebody else did, I don’t know but he’s certainly the one who made it famous. Everybody’s got a little different twist on it. What does it mean to you? How would you describe what lifestyle design is for you?

Justin: For me, I just think lifestyle design is all about making the choices for your life. It doesn’t have to be everybody else’s life. It’s just for you to sit down and really decide what you want out of your life. You know, do you want to open a bakery? Do you want travel a lot? It kind of allows you to kind of really think down deep and figure out what it is you’re looking to get out of life and what your passion is about, what you enjoy doing and more or less you just kind of create a step by step plan that allows you to go out and make your dream life; you know something that’s actually realistic and something that you can actually do. I like the term and I just think it really is nothing more than creating the design for your life.

Rob: Now do you use Tim Ferriss’s actual “dreamline” spreadsheet to map it out?

Justin: I did not use the actual spreadsheet at all.

Rob: So if I were to sort of ask you to give me a snapshot of what your personal lifestyle design looks like; it sounds like you’ve got a change in your life coming up where you’re getting ready to head out to Portland. What’s that look like? Is it to…if you talk about the things you want to have, be or do, obviously you know one of those things to do is to live in Portland. Is there anything specific that you go after when you make these moves?

Justin: Yeah. When I went to Hawaii I did learn surfing; that’s something that I have always dreamed of doing especially with the new stunts you see people surfing and you’re just like, “Oh, that looks lie fun!” and I think the main reason why I decided on Portland is because when I lived there in Phoenix, I really got into the whole backpacking, hiking and outdoors type of stuff and after living in Florida now for about 9 months and I don’t think there’s even a hill more than 100 feet tall.

Rob: (laughs) Right

Justin: I’m just missing the mountains and it just seems like up there in the Pacific Northwest is just one of the places where it’s just wide open and you got a lot of land; you know you can just go backpack for days and get out and enjoy the outdoors.

Rob: So you talk about creating your lifestyle design plan around things that you’re passionate about; do you feel that most people don’t include the passion part in their life? And if yes, then why do you think that is? Why is passion taken out of this equation so often with people that are just stuck in a cubicle?

Justin: I definitely think people do overlook the passion part. They might consider that a little bit but I think they tend to not focus enough on the passion part. And I think the real reason why people do that is because they’ll go out and instead of looking for things that they can enjoy to replace their job or replace their income, they just start looking for how to make money. You know they Google ‘how to make money’ and stuff then usually all it brings up is all these different techniques that people are trying to share and stuff on how to make money; and then instead of focusing so much on what you’re passionate about, you’re just trying to do things because they have the potential to make money but what you kind of realize is that a lot of times that if you’re not passionate about something it’s so hard to keep going until you actually get somewhere because it seems like the first obstacle you hit if you’re really not passionate about what you’re doing you get really stuck and then your motivation level just sinks. So I think passion is something that you really have to have because it keeps you going even when you hit those rough spots; where you wake up one morning and you’re like, “Am I really doing this? Should I really be out looking for jobs instead?” I think passion is just something that will keep you along your path regardless if you hit a lot of road bumps, if it takes longer than you expected and it just keeps you motivated to keep going.

Rob: When you talk about ‘voluntary simplicity’, what do you mean by that exactly?

Justin: I refer to that…it’s basically when you decide that you want to live a simple life; you want to just cut down and you’re choosing to more or less to have less stuff. You’re choosing to do less things, you’re choosing to have less and in exchange for having more time, more freedom to do the things you enjoy.

Rob: So would you say that right now you’re living like you’re retired? In other words, let’s say you move 30 or 40 years into the future and you’re…how old are you now by the way?

Justin: I’m 24.

Rob: Alright, so you’re 24…let’s say that you’re 64 and you’re getting ready to retire. Do you think that your retirement would look much different than your life does right now?

Justin: I don’t think so. I think it’ll probably be fairly similar and I don’t think there will be a lot of changes especially if I still enjoy doing what I’m doing and as long as I’m still capable of doing that which shouldn’t be too hard considering most stuff are done in the computer these days so (laughs)…

Rob: The next question I would ask is, you know you’ve sort of been flirting around with different states within the United States but do you have any plans on going abroad and living this lifestyle internationally?

Justin: I have thought about it, yeah, and I think it’s something that I definitely want to look into some time in the future. I’m not exactly sure where yet but definitely something that I want to get out and try.

Rob: Okay. So, you know so many people say that you could never make an income online to do what you are doing which frankly is the exact reason that we created getjetsetmoney.com to show by interviews like this that there are people who are living this lifestyle so if anybody is listening and wants to become a member so that you can learn how to create the cash, to create your own lifestyle design just like Justin is, just go to www.getjetsetmoney.com. But Justin, if somebody says to you, “You know I can’t do this. I’ve got this job, yes I’m in the cubicle but I don’t see a way out and I mean this is just all I see. I just don’t know what to do. I don’t know how to do this.” What would you tell him?

Justin: I would tell him, “You know, I think the best thing that we can do is get started, trying different things while you still have your job.” You know, while you still have the security of okay, you know where your goal money is coming from. And if you have to go home after work at 5:00 and sit on the computer and read books from 5:00 until 2:00 in the morning to learn a different hobby or a different skill that you can apply to making money online and then that may be what it takes. It’s kind of what I did where I started building my business for almost a year while I was still in the cubicle and you know I just sit there as soon as I got home, I did it in the mornings before work and yes, I worked…it seemed like 20 hours a day but eventually when I hit that point where, “Okay, I can replace the income from my day job and finally quit.” It just felt so liberating. So I think the most important thing is just to get started and don’t focus so much on having to quit your job tomorrow but focus more on, “How can I start making an extra $10.00 a month online?” and then, “How can I make $50.00 online?” and just kind of keep it going like that and just try different things on the side and eventually you’ll hit something that really works for you.

Rob: I know that you put together a book. It’s called Life After The Cubicle. Maybe you can sort of just describe what that book is and how people can actually get it.

Justin: Sure. Life After The Cubicle is a guide that I created mostly because I get a lot of people that would fill up my content for my web blog and then say, “Hey, I really like your blog. I like what you’re doing. How can I do more or less what you’re doing?” so I was like it’s time to put together a book that kind of cover everything. So everything that I did up to the point where I quit my job and then it covers all the different techniques that I’ve personally tried in terms of making money online and then I kind of shared a little bit into those and kind of show you how you can apply them to yourself. And then I also covered some of the escape route, is what I call it and that’s some of the things that I did leading up to finally quitting my job. I was like evaluating my expenses and setting up a nest egg in case things got slow for a little while and I just covered the whole journey that I took so you can kind of follow and do something similar with your own life.

Rob: Well you know what; I cannot thank you enough for taking the time with us today. I know you’ve a lot going on with your life so I don’t want to keep you on the line but if anybody wants to get a hold of you or purchase your book, what’s the best way that they can do it?

Justin: You can go to www.lifeafterthecubicle.com. It’s where you can find my book. Otherwise you can check out my blog at www.lifeofjustin.com.

Rob: Well Justin, thank you so much!

Justin: No problem!

Ruling The World With Professional Lifestyle Designer Jonny Gibaud

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Rob: Welcome to another edition of the Lifestyle Design Confessions Podcast. I’m Rob Murgatroyd with getjetsetmoney.com and today I have Jonny; I think I’m going to say his name right. He hasn’t coached me on it but I think its Jonny Gibaud of Thelifething.com. Jonny decided to drop his corporate 9-5 gig in cloudy old England for an adventure as a traveling entrepreneur. And today, were going to find out what that’s all about. So without further ado; Jonny, are you there?

 

Jonny: I am indeed. It’s pretty closer than the name. It’s Gibaud. You’re the closest so far.

 

Rob: That’s not bad. You know you really screwed me up because you took the “H” out of your name. Was there any reason why mom and dad decided to do that?

 

Jonny: I’m not entirely sure really. It’s one of those things when everybody spells with an “H” apart from me. We’re a dying breed; Jonny without the “H”.

 

Rob: (Laughs) Okay, so Jonny, just by way of background, can you tell us how you found yourself creating a blog called “The Life Thing”? In other words, what was the motivation behind coming up with this massive blog that you’ve now created?

 

Jonny: Okay, motivation-wise, I used to have my very first company outside of university. I set up a blog for that. I was told that it was the way to get business in and obviously, I’m all about making money so I set up a blog called “Naked Business” and I was fortunate I guess. A couple of posts that I wrote on that got very popular and I kind of got hooked on the whole meeting with people and having the blog post and having it sent on the internet; I kind of got hooked on that so I ended my company and thus the blog kind of fell apart. It had been a couple of years and I don’t know; I just decided “Alright, I better get started. What am I interested in?” and I set up a blog based on that.

 

Rob: You know you talk a lot about in the blog about expanding your reality. What do you mean about expanding your reality?

 

Jonny: Okay, so expanding my reality; the way I see it is so much of what people can achieve in life is purely based on what their used to so if you take for example; the reality of a rich person compared to a poor person for example. The reality that the rich person lives in is so different from the other guy’s reality and it’s the same very much for very many people and it’s really your reality that defines your life very much and so I’m very big on first of all, getting to the heart of what people’s reality is and then trying to expand it and then seeing their life kind of move in to that new reality.

 

Rob: Okay, so you took; you decided to pack it all in and leave your…in your words, your boring ass job in cloudy England, and head for a world of adventure. So tell me what was going through your mind when you said to yourself “That’s it. I’ve had enough. I’m in this corporate gig, I make a check every single week but this is just not fulfilling. I did what they told me to do. I went to school, I went to university and I got a job but this sucks. This is not what I’m after.” What was that moment like for you when you where you said “That’s it. I’m out of here.”?

 

Jonny: Scary.  Just “Oh God, oh God, oh God, oh God…” all the way through. Yeah, like you said; basically, I’ve done the university thing, I’ve kind of done pretty well in the whole, learn by rope, just do what you’re told and get the good marks. I got a decent job and it was a good job. I was enjoying it but there was something missing you know; there was so much more out there that I wanted to explore. There was so much more that I wanted to do and there are better ways of doing it.

So I made the massive mistake for any career minded individual which was to read Tim Ferris’s  book; The Four Hour Work Week.

 

Rob: Big mistake.

 

Jonny: Big Mistake!

 

Rob: (Laughs)

 

Jonny: If you’re focused on your career and you want to go up and up that ladder; do not read that book. It’s a big mistake of mine. So I read that book and suddenly I thought “This is ridiculous. I’m a drone.” And yeah; I made the decision right. I’m going to do something about it while I’m still young and can and can still walk properly.

 

Rob: Okay, so you made the decision, you’re like, “That’s it. I’m leaving England. This sucks!” You were living in England and then you started this adventure right?  Did I get that right?

 

Jonny: Yeah.

 

Rob: Where was your first stop?

 

Jonny: Okay, so the first stop really; if were taking it from when I quit my job, I kind of had a couple of tasty ones. I’ve been out and I lived in China for a while but I was still working at that time. I was kind of in between jobs. So when I decided to actually quit, I headed out to Bangkok.

 

Rob: Why do you think so many people make the decision to make that you know, if not their first stop, certainly the stop that is pretty prevalent within the first year of doing something like this? Is it just the; you know; to use the Tim Ferris speak, is it just the “Geo-Arbitrage” aspect of it?

 

Jonny: Yeah. There’s definitely a strong element of that. I chose it because I heard a lot of good stuff about it. I knew that the spending power I had over there was substantial, the weather is good, the people are incredible and the food is great. I mean it really is one of those stops that you have to make when you’re traveling I think and a lot of people do start with it just because it’s the one that everyone talks about. And I know when I talk to people, I always recommend that they should head out to Bangkok for at least a couple of months. So I guess in front of those things, it just gets passed down the social lines.

 

Rob: Which by the way was something…if you look back in history, maybe in the 70’s and even early 80’s; it was a very big backpacking stop and a lot of people just sort of made that a place to kind of hang their hat. But now, we get to have the power of the internet which will allow you to make money while you’re there and enjoy it. So you get the benefit of both which we are going to talk about in a little bit.

 

Rob: So, after Bangkok, where did you go? Give me a little synopsis of sort of like your trail over that year.

 

Jonny: Okay. So my kind of year wasn’t a whole year out. It was quite fragmented because of my job and my job being my companies that I’ve set up.

So what I did was…I was in Bangkok for a while and I used Bangkok as a base to travel around through Laos to Cambodia, Vietnam and all around those kinds of places. I then headed back to England for a month, a month and a half because obviously I have staff that ran over here in company and if you’re away for too long, people get antsy. So I was back to make sure things hadn’t fallen apart, bombs hadn’t gone off and my office wasn’t up in smoke. And once I had kind of put out all sorts of fires, I headed back to the states and I was in Kansas City for a while which was incredible and then I made another quick trip back over the Worcester and put out some more fires; made sure everyone was happy and then I headed out to India and I traveled around the south of India for a few months.

 

Rob: (Chuckles) From Kansas City to India. I mean that’s just unbelievable.

 

Jonny: Yeah, yeah it’s definitely a shock; the difference. Obviously I was in Kansas during the snow so I went from basically six to seven feet of snow where they bank it up on the corners and into huge cliffs of ice basically; straight over to the south of India which is slightly different.

 

Rob: I want to talk a little bit about sort of what “the day in the life” is like, a little bit of psychology and a little bit about “a day in the life”. I know that you have become rather deliberate about abandoning the traditional 9-5 set up. So sort of take me through a day in the life of a traveling entrepreneur. I know that; I look at one of your blog posts and it was kind of interesting. It looked like you were getting a lot of questions on that exact topic. What do you do when you’re in India for the day or Bangkok for the day while you’re running your company? You kind of posted something that I thought was really, really interesting. It started with watching “Ted” in the morning, going for a swim and having some lunch and going to work and going to dinner and then getting a massage and going clubbing at night, etc. Give me kind of a snapshot of what it’s like. Is it like that all the time or what has your experience been like around running a company virtually while you’re traveling around the world?

 

 

Jonny: Well, the blog post that you talk of; that’s quite a popular one and it’s one that I wrote and answered to like you said; quite a few people were emailing me and saying “Okay, exactly how are you doing whatever your doing?” So I tried to answer that in that blog post which was “A Day in the Life of an Entrepreneur” and basically what I tried to get across in that is; I’m a big advocate of testing the boundaries and testing…creating your own life. So my average day varies very much from day to day and week to week.

So the one that I wrote about which when I was living in Bangkok was; I was really talking about the importance of structure. Because even though; I think the biggest problem people have is that the minute they lose; well; not lose their jobs, because they ditch their jobs. They sooner realize that actually being motivated and having a structure is probably critical to creating your muse as you call it or your online business or whatever it is because very quickly without the structure of the job; everything calls apart. So I’m very big on creating structures and frameworks that work. When I was in Bangkok, that kind of blog posts was pretty much the structure I had for quite a while out there and I tried to make sure I got a plenty of reading time in, I watched a lot of “Ted” episodes; then I wanted to get the exercise in with the “swim”; I made sure that I try to keep some form of regularity on when I ate and I got my social side in, in the evening.

When I came back to England for four weeks, six weeks or so then it changes slightly and I started experimenting with different ways of working so I might spend the day out and about, come back, start working at about 10 o’clock at night and work till about five in the morning and then crash until midday. I do that for a couple of weeks and see how that works. I’ve experimented with having ten hours of sleep at night just to see how that should work then go all the way down to two hours at night for a week and see how that affects your work. I wouldn’t recommend the two hours a week or the ten hours a week. Neither are particularly helpful.

 

Rob: So you mean, of sleep; the two hours of sleep or ten hours of sleep?

 

Jonny: Yeah, yeah. I mean ten hours is way, way too much you actually surprisingly become more sluggish I found than when you have two hours. And, if you have anywhere less than about six hours of sleep; for me anyway; I just found that you end up turning into a zombie after about four or five days.

 

Rob: So do you consider yourself lucky or is this a deliberate design choice that you created? In other words; is it just where God just kind of like put his hand on your head and said “Okay; you’ve got his dream life now; you’ve got a business that’s making money; you’re traveling the world; you’re partying at night; you’re eating cheap; you’re making money in higher currency rates and taking advantage of that or; do you think that this was something that was very deliberate; that you created. You went through a lot of crap to do it and you made a lot of mistakes but you figured out how to do it. Is it more the latter?

 

Jonny: I’d like to say that it’s more of the latter but I think it’s a bit of both. I’m definitely lucky. I’m lucky in the sense that I was born a westerner and I was born with access to the internet so that makes me 90% luckier that most of the people out there. That being said; it was definitely a deliberate choice. I used to be a designer; I was an industrial designer by degree. I went through university; got the top grades there and was planning to go and work for Apple for a while until I made the decision that actually, I didn’t want to do that and I wanted to be an entrepreneur. I’ve spent many years creating businesses that have failed and have cost me a substantial amount of money which is obviously the opposite of what the opposite cash flow direction I particularly want. I quit my job and it was a good job; high-paid; well-traveled and it was a risk. So that was the deliberate choice because I’m a big advocate kind of leaving behind the good to go for the great. It sounds quite clichéd but the life that I had before I started going traveling and before I started my own company was the good life and a very fortunate life in fact but it wasn’t a great life. And I was quite willing to kind of sacrifice the good life even if everything went wrong in order to get the great life which is basically kind of life that I’m getting at the moment and who knows where it will go in the future. So I think it’s definitely both.

 

Rob: Where are you living right now? Are you back in England?

 

Jonny: Right now or the next month or so I’m back in England.  And again, we’re just starting a new branch off offices up in Liverpool. So I’m here trying to hire some staff and get some of the stuff sorted and once all that’s up and running and I’ve got potentially a manager in place then I’d probably head out to the Philippines.

 

Rob: The land of The Beatles. Not the Philippines; Liverpool.

 

Jonny: (laughs) Yeah; the land of The Beatles.

 

Rob: I know to get your mind right; you’re a big fan of podcasts and I kind of threw this question in here because I know that this is going to be released as a podcast and obviously the people who are listening to podcasts or interested in podcasts. So what are the hidden gem podcasts that you would recommend? What are some of your most favorite ones that you would like to listen while you’re on the road?

 

Jonny: Alright, I’m a bit of a sad case really in terms of podcasts. I listen to things like the economist podcasts and a lot of the business-minded ones. I basically go on to iTunes and download a whole load on the business side and the finance side. I listen to a lot of podcasts on money and finance and where we’re at in the world. I highly recommend “Rich dad, Poor Dad” as a financial book and he’s got a podcast out which is incredible. So in terms of kind of those ones, I’m pretty sad on what I listen to. However; I’d also kind of recommend The Bugle which is kind of a comedy. It’s a mix between some American guys; an American comedian and an English comedian and yeah; it’s very, very funny and very, very good fun.

 

Rob: Interesting! I wouldn’t have thought you’d say those two. That’s really interesting. I would’ve picked ten different ones for you. This is a good question. I’m going to keep asking that question. I want that.

 

Jonny: (Laughs)

 

Rob: So Jonny, the obvious question that everybody has is how; exactly how do you make the money to live this lifestyle design that you’ve created? Which we will answer in the second half of our interview for our JetSetMoney members and if you’re not a member and you’re listening to this right now and you want to become a member, all you have to do is go to getjetsetmoney.com. Jonny, before we go inside and go over to the member’s area, if people want to get a hold of you, what’s the best way for them to do it?

 

Jonny: The best thing probably to connect with me through my site which is www.thelifething.com and you can basically get through to me on the comment section. Send me an email and I have my personal site which is www.jonnygibaud.com and that’s got all my links to everything about on the web basically. That’s the easy way.

 

Rob: Jonny, thank you so much or doing this podcast.

 

Jonny: Hey you’re welcome!

 

David Siteman Garland Leaves Network Televison Behind To Live The Lifestyle Design Of His Dreams

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LDC PODCAST INTERVIEW: David Siteman Garland


Rob: Welcome to another episode of the Lifestyle Design Confessions podcast. Today we have David Siteman Garland on the line. For those of you who don’t know who David is; David is the creator and host of the podcast, the Rise To The Top which is a very cool, fluff-free interview style show. He has interviewed everybody from Patty Stanger from The Millionaire Matchmaker to Tim Ferriss of The Four Hour Work Week. He has written a fantastic book called Smarter, Faster, Cheaper. So without further ado, David are you there?

 

David: I am here Robert. Thank you so much for having me on. I was trying to think of how we can get Usher’s confessions in here but maybe we’ll skip that.

 

Rob: You know what, post production man. I could put anything in and I live in Atlanta and he lives a couple of blocks away so maybe I can get him to come in and actually do in the background.

 

David: Perfect! That sounds like a good game plan.

 

Rob: (laughs) so first of all, congratulations on getting married man.

 

David: Thank you. It was quite an adventure. We got actually hit by a tsunami in Hawaii on our honeymoon.

 

Rob: Oh my God.

 

David: And I actually just posted recently a story about me sort of getting into a fight in first class. I’m not a big fighter but I sort of gotten into a fight in first class, a little story I just posted about that but the wedding was amazing; excited to be married and thank you for asking.

 

Rob: Well you had the woman who was just giving you a hard time in first class and you had to throw a pillow, right?

 

David: I did throw a pillow at her, yeah…she wouldn’t switch! (Laughs). Well, we’re on our honeymoon…come on its ridiculous….we’re on our honeymoon and we have two different seats in first class and they just said, “Oh, just let people know. They’ll switch for you. You just say you’re on your honeymoon.” Okay, this lady would not move. So I ended up cursing and throwing a pillow and it worked. So that’s a lesson for the kids at home. If you don’t get your way just complain and cause a problem like throw a pillow and it usually works.

 

Rob: It seems to work, right?

 

David: Exactly.

 

Rob: Alright, first of all, thanks again for doing this. You’ve become quite the celebrity interviewer these days so we’re going to talk a little bit about that. I mean you’ve got some amazing, amazing people that you’ve interviewed which really is a testament to them trusting you. So what I thought we could do today is first start off by talking about this lifestyle design that you have, you’ve created for yourself and then in the second part of the interview for our people who are Jet Set Money members, we can talk about how you sort of figured out how to monetize this whole passion thing.

 

David: Absolutely.

 

Rob: So let’s start off with a little bit of background.

 

David: Sure.

 

Rob: I understand that you started out in television. Could you sort of take us from college to how you wound in the world of television?

 

David: Yeah, it’s kind of a little bit of a crazy story and a lot of it is a lot clearer like most people in retrospect. You know I really didn’t have a game plan or anything where I was saying I was going to do this and then that and then this to get to there. I really didn’t have a plan like that and I’ve always been really fascinated by media in all forms, you know whether in magazines, TV, broadcasting, whatever…when I was a little kid, I would kind of run around and had a little microphone and pretend I was announcing play by play at hockey games despite no hockey game being on so it was a little bit creepy on one hand and also a little foreshadowing on the other. And when I graduated, I went to Washington University in St. Louis with a degree in women’s studies…so a straight, white male in women’s studies…there’s not a lot of those.

 

Rob: Are you trying to pick up chicks? Or…how did you wind up in that world?

 

David: I don’t know (laughs). I was asking that question too. It’s funny…I took one class…I guess I’ve always kind of been in proponent of doing things differently; you know doing things a little bit outside the box literally and I didn’t know what I was going to do after college. I took one women’s studies class, I played hockey in college and I was also in a fraternity so this stuff doesn’t necessarily all meshed together. And I took one class, I thought I was going to hate it, ended up loving it and said; you know what? I’ve got four years to go to something that I find interesting; class everyday…I find this interesting. I’m going to do it.

And I think that’s been the kind of the way I live my life as well is not trying to conform and by trying to find things that sort of get me going. And; what happened was, after college, I really didn’t have a game plan and a lot of my friends and family wanted me to take on sort of like traditional jobs like work on real estate or be a lawyer or something like that.

It just wasn’t in my DNA to do something like that. And so, I was originally going to move to California and work on a hockey rink and do marketing for them but, two weeks before I moved out there; the rink closed and became a parking lot so I’m like: “Great! Now what do I do?”  And what ended up happening was this interesting blessing and curse is that I’ve interned all over the place. I interned in the now defunct FHM Magazine in New York and I interned at CBS Sports in Los Angeles and I’ve been trying all sorts of things in sort of trying to find my passion if you will and I got brought in on a pro in-line hockey league that has just come to St. Louis which was completely random.

So basically, they needed someone to do stuff for free. So I was a great candidate being that I’m living at home and stuff like that. They needed a jack-of-all-trades so we did a variety of different things because I love the sport and I love hockey. So I was brought in on this and ended up doing everything across the board and it was really like an entrepreneurial MBA because I did everything from cleaning the bathrooms to eventually ending up in a radio show in St. Louis called “Get in line” and that’s when I really, really continued to kind of fall in love with broadcasting when it all started that way.

So I did pro in-line hockey for two years; a little over two years and was ready to move on.  And Robert, I’m sure you’ve been like that.  In cases where sometimes you’re doing something and you’re thinking there’s no massive story and it’s just like I’m ready to do something else and this is not what I want to do for the rest of my life. And I think that’s okay. I think sometimes people are scared of that.

 

Rob: Yeah, because we want to hang on to what we know and what we’re secure with and the “unknowns” is more fearful.

 

David: Exactly! And pro in-line hockey was working in the sense of, I figured out how to sign sponsorships and that was my main revenue source for pro in-line hockey. They’re mostly local sponsorships. But I was working with everything from Pepsi to Anheuser- Busch which was locally where I’m from in St. Louis Missouri.

So there was money being generated but I can tell you the big lesson here and I think this is important; it was life is way too short to be working with jackasses. And for me, there were a lot of people involved that were not going anywhere either way. There were things in the organization that was really kind of a “drain” on myself you know; they were those type of exhausting…I call them “Nega-bots” right? They’re the people that wake up and when it’s 85, they’re complaining that it’s not 86 you know?

 

Rob: Right.

 

David: And so I wanted to move on and do something that essentially excited me more and also I could do a little bit more under my own control.  And that’s where “The Rise to the Top” was born.

Originally it was created as you mentioned, as a local television show in St. Louis Missouri. I had no T.V. experience but I had learned from radio that there was this interesting model where essentially, you could either trade or purchase cheap TV time to start. So I mean, you know, it’s nothing…kind of like what the late night infomercials would do right?

 

Rob: Yeah.

 

David: But instead of in infomercial, you actually do a show.

 

Rob: But like a real show? Not like a show where you’re selling hang nail cure.

David: Right. The goal was not to sell anything. The goal was to do a talk show. In the original days, it was a talk show about entrepreneurship right?

 

Rob: Uhuh.

 

David: So it was a combination of segments, interviews I brought in a lot of local people because it was locally based in St. Louis so I brought in everyone from the founder of Build-A-Bear workshops to the founder of worldwide technology. So I bring in guests, but we produced and created and did everything and I say it in kind of a royal way because I would hire contractors to do this but we had to do everything.

I mean sponsorships, advertizing, negotiating the TV deal and you know, looking back it was a interesting choice to go with traditional TV at that time because that was in mid-2008 when the internet was already booming.

 

Rob: So you know most of our podcast listeners; they’re people who, just to give you some sort of demo on them, they’re people who’ve read the “Four Hour Work Week “, they fell in love with the concept of lifestyle design but they’re having a challenge putting it all together. What do you think is the most important element for someone to consider when redesigning their life into their passion?

 

David: That’s a great question and it’s something that, first of all it’s not an on-off switch. That’s one piece of advice that I think…it’s not a case of that you’re just going to simply figure it out one day and then you’re off to the races. It’s a constant sort of process of experimentation to see what works and what doesn’t. Because I can tell you, I’ve made all kinds of mistakes and continue to everyday but certain things kind of move along the path. For example, I know that I love working from home right now.

 

Rob: Uhuh.

 

David: I don’t have kids yet or things like that and I really like having a home environment and working from coffee shops and being mobile. That’s something that’s important to me so now when I make a business decision I make sure to keep that in mind. And it’s a whole idea of creating the business around your life as opposed to your life around the business. And the other thing though is not to stay static. I mean I try different things. I come up weird stuff in the middle of the night and say I’m going to try this. Sometimes it works really, really well and I’m like, this fits into my life, this fits into the way I want to do things; other times, it doesn’t. But if you don’t try new stuff and kind of try to see what turns you on and what keeps you going, then you’re going to get stuck in that static thing of what if and I think that’s what you want to try to avoid.

 

Rob: Okay. Why do you think it is that you’ve rocketed from the top of the podcast charts as fast as you have? I mean you were a relative unknown and know you’re like, you know, there are a lot of people in this world that know who you are. How do you think it happened so fast?

 

David: Oh, I appreciate that. I don’t think anyone really knows me but, yeah, we went from just to give you a kind of a quick background on that for the listeners is that in 2008, we had three viewers; myself, my mom and my dad.

 

Rob: (Laughs) you told your mother right?

 

David: Right, essentially and Grandma; sometimes. That’s when we were doing well.

 

Rob: (laughs)

 

David: and then there was the whole TV medium and that’s another whole sort of a different story but now to fast forward, we’re now in 2011. Last year the show got about 3.7 million downloads.

 

Rob: Amazing!

 

David: And this year, it’s on pace to do even better than that. So there was obviously…I didn’t even spend any money. That’s what I find interesting. I did on the TV production at that time but I can tell you what the keys were. It’s really about kind of growing as one really consistent effort. I mean especially in… I would say in the end of 2009 and the end of 2010 was the tipping point.

 

Rob: Uhuh.

 

David: Because what happened was there was a lot of experimentation. I still do a lot of experimentation but at that point, I was really trying to focus on TV; quote- unquote and also on the online community. But then, I was like, screw TV; I want to do online community because that’s what I love. And so in 2010, I really got to focus on really building that community up online and I can tell you that there are a few different things that kind of built it.

Number one was consistently posting good stuff. So even in 2010, I even do a little bit less now than I might go back to do a little bit more. I would post five days a week on my website. Five days. For a while, it was a video every single day, Monday through Friday. And what happened is; people have started to understand that there is a consistent effort. It was like the “Oprah Effect” where people know when to show up.

 

Rob: Uhuh.

 

David: And so consistency was important. Number two; and you heard this from people that I’m sure that you follow and pay attention to like a Tim Ferris and also on the other hand like a Gary Vaynerchuk. I focused a lot of time really getting into the trenches of Facebook and Twitter. And those are the two that I really like the most so that’s why I spend time on them.

So that meant networking and schmoozing and hanging out and trying to talk to influential people and asking people for interviews and connecting with other entrepreneurs and all that kind of relationship building stuff that you hear about, I spent a lot of time.

I mean, hours a day on Facebook and Twitter, really getting to know people and sort of build that following. So that was kind of number two. Number three was I became a “media whore” in a big way.

 

Rob: Uhuh.

 

David: Big time “media whore”. And I would look for really any angle that you could get into the media with. Whether it’s a local media or a Blog or something like that. So I was a tech expert which I’m not at all, and I even told them that. I was a tech expert on a show called “Great day St. Louis” which was on channel four here on CBS. I got to go on and talk about some technology sometimes. I would write for things like small biz trends and other sites.

And so, everything was a step by step process though of trying to think “How can I gain visibility and attract the right people into my world?” Media was a big element of that as well. And just really; I did all on my own. I didn’t have a P.R. person or money to spend on it. It was just step by step starting with small Blogs, starting with small media sources and then building up to things like the New York Times.

 

Rob: You hustled.

 

David: And another element; and I would say that this one is what I would say overlooked by specially people on the online world and in the lifestyle design world which is the world I’m very passionate about like you are Robert…

 

Rob: Yup.

 

David: Is the face to face at a scale. So face to face is important. No one would argue I think against face to face but sometimes we like to hide behind our computers and that’s okay. That’s fine. But I got to a point where we need to get some more of just some kind of feelers out there, you know some feeling around the brand so I hosted about 26 events over two years in St. Louis and brought out entrepreneurs.

We did dinners, we did lunches, we did speed networking, and we did seminars. Anything that I could do and they were not money makers Robert. Really; if anything, they might have lost me a little bit of money at that time but they were great brand builders. They got people out, they got people shaking hands and they got people to kind of meet each other under the “Rise to the Top” brand.

 

Rob: Got it.

 

David: Which was something that was very important and it was time consuming and it was a little bit annoying; let’s just be honest because planning events so frequently was not easy to say the least. But I found that, plus speaking which I did for a while and I’m doing less of it now. But speaking was also something. So it wasn’t one magic pill.

And I think that’s one of the key takeaways. It was a combination of little tiny bricks. Little brick, little brick, little brick and the over time, things start to flood and I think that’s some kind of synopsis of it.

 

Rob: so you really went out on a limb when you first started out. I understand that you took your pile of Bar Mitzvah money and you set out after your dream. What was it like, I mean you know; you’re just starting out. You’ve got virtually no money other than the “nest egg” from your Bar Mitzvah which by the way I want to see a video of. And you… (both laughs)

 

David: There was a chimp at my Bar Mitzvah. My mom had a chimp at my Bar Mitzvah.

 

Rob: I totally believe it. I want to see the video.

 

David: It’s unbelievable.

 

Rob: So you know, what was it like; really the thrust of this question is how did you look at that fear and say “You know what? I’m going to do it anyway.”?

 

David: Great question. And that’s exactly what happened. It’s not an exaggeration. That’s absolutely no exaggeration. I took my Bar Mitzvah money and got going with this and I got my expenses down to as little as I possibly can and I said I’m going to make this happen because I knew CNN and stuff like that that had started and they lost like a hundred million dollars for like ten years or something like that.

You know, I said I don’t have that quite amount of cash so I got to keep this very cheap as possible to get started and I actually didn’t even go that cheap because I did TV. So I can tell you that what happened with me and this I think is one of the keys to success early on was that I just wanted to get through to 2008. I just wanted to survive 2008 and not be living on the streets.

Rob: Uhuh.

 

David: That was the goal.  The goal was, you know, I started this really first episode aired in St. Louis I want to say in early October 2008 and it was a 12-episode thing. So my goal was, to not be homeless by December 31st. (Laughs)

 

Rob: (Laughs) So much for stating goals in the positive, right?

 

David: You know what I’m saying? So the goal was, how can I just survive and to kind of show that it works. And if it works, then I can start in 2009 and go from there. And so what happened was, and this is where I had a little bit of an advantage; but I took the Bar Mitzvah money and then I had some existing sponsorship relationships because of pro in-line hockey for two years.

 

Rob: Uhuh.

 

David: And this is one of the key takeaways though is that relationships go with you no matter what you’re doing if you’re doing them correctly. You don’t leave them behind.

 

Rob: Yeah, because they’re tied to you.

 

David: Right. Exactly! So for example let’s just use a gas station that was “On the Run Mobil” because we did a lot of local advertizing in the early days. The gas station, On-the-Run-Mobil had a relationship with me and not pro inline hockey.

So whenever I shifted gears, there was a trust and relationship built up there that I was able to go to them and say “Look, I’m doing this show. It’s on entrepreneurship. Here’s what it is.” I had it all laid-out and it was very, very organized “This is when it’s going to be on. I’m putting all my money into it and I would love to get you guys at the early ground here as an advertiser and as a sponsor.” And they did. And I was able in those early days; to raise up to; I want to say about 80 grand in sponsorship.

 

Rob: Wow, that’s pretty good starting out.

 

David: Yeah, with nothing. We didn’t even have a demo or anything.

 

Rob: Right.

 

David: Nothing, I mean nothing. I was selling air. But, it was based on trust and relationships built up over time and I think that when you do something exciting and different, people are going to be more apt if you find the right types of people that are willing to take a risk. People wanted to support me and they saw my excitement and my passion for it and so I was able to survive that first six months or whatever you want to call it, basically through my own money and the sponsorship money were able to get me at least where it was going.

At least where I was making a little bit of money and also more importantly, I think gaining confidence that this was something that had at least someone else was interested in it. You know, there was someone else who said, okay, I’m willing to write a check and I don’t care if the check is for five dollars or for 15,000; I trust you. And I think that gave me the confidence to kind of get through those early days but I don’t want to give the illusion that this was something where there was no revenue on day one. It wasn’t a case of I’m just going to do this and see what happens later.

I had kind of a game plan to make money from sponsorships and it was lucky to kind of hustle my way through it at the beginning.

 

Rob: Were there ever moments when you sort of like, you know, because you’re a positive and you’re an upbeat guy, you know. Were there ever moments where you were like “What am I doing?” like, what is this “rise” idea like, “This is crazy” and you know, that voice, that negative demon that is talking in the back of your head? And if there was, how did you confront it?

 

David: Good question. I am a positive person and I think that’s one that’s for better or for worse. That’s the way. I could be in a fire and still say “Were fine” (laughs) but…

 

Rob: (Laughs)

 

David: That’s why my wife is the skeptical one. That’s why I call her “Skepti-Marcy” and she calls me “Trusty-Locks” so…

 

Rob: (Chuckles)

 

David: That’s a problem across the board but, you know for me, here’s the interesting part of it. I can’t think of a time where I was thinking that this is going to fail. But, the reason is not necessarily because I was so confident, but I was so busy early on. I know that sounds a little ridiculous…

 

Rob: No, it doesn’t. You were in it. You didn’t have time to be negative.

 

David: It was almost like, where’s the starting line? Were hitting go.

 

Rob: Yup.

 

David: And just as I was hitting go, there were so many thing to do; there wasn’t time to sit back and say “Oh god this is terrible. This is terrible.” There was not time. I was writing scripts, I was hiring production people, I was finding out all the annoying things about TV that no one would know like closed-captioning and what a pain in the butt that is; no offense to people that are hearing impaired but it’s a little pain in the butt.

And all these different things that I didn’t even get to sit there for five minutes and say “Oh man, this is a bad idea.” And even when the first episode aired on ABC which I have linked up somewhere and like hopefully buried, buried, buried. It is bad. It is not good, right?

Let’s just be honest. But it was done and it taught me a lot and I’m still alive and it was one of those cases where it’s a constant improvement over time. But for me, that negative juice really didn’t flow, I would even say till years later and sometimes even now it happens because I’ve got more time to reflect and early on it was on the ground and running.

 

Rob: So with all the Gary Vaynerchuks of the world and Tim Ferris and all these kind of guys, who do you look up to? Who’s the one that you look to and go “This guy’s got it going on.”? Like, this is somebody I aspire to.

 

David: Yeah, there’s so many. It’s a tricky question. It’s like choosing between children and in some cases…you know what? I’ve developed this recently and this is going to be the weirdest answer I’ll ever give you. I’ve got this question before and sometimes I give the Gary Vaynerchuk answer.

 

Rob: Uhum.

 

David: And sometimes I’ll give like a Tim Ferris answer. It just depends on my mood on that day but I got to tell you one that I admire and I admire for different reasons than one might think and that is Tucker Max.

 

Rob: He does not give a F***.

 

David: No.

 

Rob: (Laughs) let’s be honest. He just doesn’t.

 

David: Here’s what I can appreciate about Tucker. There are two guys that are on a parallel path, Tucker Max and Matt Inman who does the oatmeal, okay? So Tucker Max; for those that don’t know, and please, expletive warning of every type of warning before you go to his site…

 

Rob: You can’t possibly warn them enough.

 

David: tuckermax.com; he’s written two New York Times best sellers. “I Hope they Serve Beer in Hell” and “Assholes Finish First” so that should give you a good idea of what’s going on. And he writes this like, very fraternity style, drunken exploit, and crazy tales. And that’s not why I admire him. It’s not a case of sitting at home and be like, “God, Tucker. I wish I was you.” Because I really don’t and I’d probably kill myself.

So what I can admire is the path that Tucker has taken to success and this is what I find awesome. Tucker was an outcast in many cases. He was working at a Law firm, he hated it, he got fired. This guy is not built for corporate America. I’ll tell you that right now okay. He wouldn’t last. He actually got kicked out of his own family business which he told me about on the show when I interviewed him, which is hard to do when your name’s on the wall right?

Tucker though, started and had these funny stories that he would share with people; his friends via email. He would share these funny stories. It would just be like these drunken crazy exploits and just like friends passing around funny emails right? And someone kept saying to him “Oh, you should turn this into a book or you should turn this into a career.” And he thought that was ridiculous. How could he do that since he didn’t have any experience with that or whatever so eventually he was convinced to start sending them to publishers.

You know; send these stories and he literally sent a thousand to publishers and media sources everywhere. These drunken exploits if you will, got rejected; every single one. No one was interested in this.  So he said “You know what? Screw it! I’m going to post it up online at tuckermax.com. I’m going to start writing these stories; I’m going to post it for no money up on my website and I’m going to go from there.” And the rest of the story is history.

His website took off; the publishers that once rejected him came back and groveled at his knees, wanting him back and he’s built this like crazy career that’s evolving now into multiple books and he has a movie out and a variety of different things and so when you can get away from the content, because the content is not for everyone, right Robert?

 

Rob: Yeah, it’s not for everybody but it is certainly for; who it’s for.

 

David: Right; forget the content. The content is good for a specific audience of people and that’s important. But, I’m not even so worried about the content or the message that Tucker sends to people. I found it more inspiring; the path.

And the way that he did this, this is the way that people are making it as an artist and that’s the way that I see it. I see myself when I see a lot of people that hang out on my site, I see us as; yeah, were entrepreneurs doing things like that but we’re really artists in some capacity because you create something that’s interesting.

It might be a book, it might be a podcast, it might be a literal art and it might be something but I think the artistic perspective of making it and building that platform is something that we can all learn a lot from.

 

Rob: Okay, so the biggest question I get is; I’d love to do what lights me up; I’d love to do my passion but you know man; I got to pay the bills. In the second half of our interview for our GetJetSetMoney members, we’re going to talk about how David has managed to monetize his passion. But for now David; if people want to get a hold of you or follow you, what’s the best way for them to do it?

 

David: Sure. The easiest thing to do is if you go to “therisetothetop.com” which was completely redesigned actually so I’m very excited about the redesign…

 

Rob: Looks awesome!

 

David: Thank you! So if you go to therisetothetop.com, you can find everything that you want there. You can check out the episodes, you can find me on Facebook and Twitter. I’m at “the rise to the top” on Twitter and slash (/) David Garland and slash (/) rise to the top minus the “the”; that was stupid; on Facebook. But you can find all those links in case you don’t remember at therisetothetop.com.

 

Rob: Okay, and so if anyone wants to hear the second half of our interview with David, just go to getjetsetmoney.com.

 

 

Seth Hosko: The Mobile Entrepreneur That Makes It Happen From Cafe’s Around The World

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LDC podcast INTERVIEW:  Seth Hosko

 

Rob: Welcome to the Lifestyle Design Confessions podcast. I’m Rob Murgatroyd with www.getjetsetmoney.com and today we have Seth Hosko from www.sethhosko.com Seth is a brand strategist that knows how to live lifestyle design. In fact he’s been to 28 countries; he’s lived everywhere from Vancouver to Bangkok. And today we’re going to talk to him about how he pulls that off. So as you may be able to hear with some background noise, this man is living what he’s preaching. He is a mobile entrepreneur. I got him to pull over into a coffee shop to answer my questions. Seth, can you hear me okay?

 

Seth: Hi Rob. How are you doing? Yeah, I think I can hear you okay.

 

Rob: Okay, cool! Alright, so let’s just kind of get right into it. I understand that you just got back from a mini retirement, we’ll use Tim Ferriss’s term, in Asia. And a lot of people who are listening to this podcast would love to be able to take that kind of trip for that amount of time but they just either don’t believe that they can or they don’t have the money. You say what to that?

 

Seth: Yeah, actually I just got back from…I was living in Bangkok for a couple of months; I used to live there a couple of years ago so I just went back to visit but I’ve lived in maybe 4 different locations in the past year.  A little bit in Asia, some time in Canada, a little time in the States and I do come across a lot of people that either wish they could travel or don’t understand how I travel and…I do work at the same time. I don’t save up and then spend so…but I think, I tell anybody if they’re making more than 40,000 a year they can go anywhere they want in the world and be comfortable too. So it’s really what we throw our lives with we can make it possible.

 

Rob: Alright. So let’s kind of break it down for somebody who wants to do what it is that you did. What do you think is the most important thing that somebody has to understand before they step into a location-independent, global-nomad type of lifestyle?

 

Seth: That’s a good question. I think that what people have to understand that travel isn’t hard. It’s not a departure from real life. It is real life and I think when people travel, they think they have to bring a million things with them or they have to change their life in a massive way and it becomes a huge undertaking or they’re trying to take their whole life in a package and you bring it in a trip with them.

 

Rob: Right.

 

Seth: that’s really not going to work. I mean you can’t take your car with you or your dog. You have to understand that being flexible with your location you have to be light, not just with what you’re bringing with you but what ties you down to a location. I guess to say just light in general in a way. You know, car payment, gym membership, cable bills, whatever you have it’s going to be difficult to lift your whole life around with you if you want to be mobile. You know whether you want to travel for a whole year or just frequently on long weekends, your lifestyle has to constantly be ready for it.

 

Rob: So this last trip that you took to Asia, was this your first long term, we’ll call it “mini retirement” trip that you took?

 

Seth: No. I guess (laughs)…I’m trying to think of where I’ve been and how long in the past. It all kind of blurs together because I don’t view my life as, “Hey, I’m working in a location and then a mini retirement.” I view it all as…I live a flexible life in general. I don’t hold down anything that keeps me tied to a location as much. I do in some regard but you know I don’t have mortgage I’m carrying or something like that.

 

Rob: Right.

 

Seth: I’ve lived off in Asia a couple of times. I’ve lived in Vancouver, in California and in Europe. So I guess maybe 3 or 4 times I’ve moved to another location for a long period of time. It’s funny you mentioned that actually because people ask me where I’m from and I seriously don’t have an answer and I kind of wish I did because once I start saying, “Well, I’ve lived here and here.” Their eyes rolls, “I don’t care.” (laughs) so…

 

Rob: Where did you grow up?

 

Seth: I grew up in Pennsylvania.

Rob: Okay, so you’re from PA but when did you sort of make the decision that you are going to leave PA and you are going to try and live globally? When did that start? What are were you and where did you go?

 

Seth: Well, I was about 18 and it was time to go to college. I wanted to go to college somewhere different so I went out to California and I’ve lived out there. And I’ve been meeting a lot of people that like to travel a lot and just been all over place. I guess being near major cities like New York and San Francisco I started to meet some really cool people. So that’s when I decided to go to Asia. I took a year off from school actually and worked over there. I constantly just kept meeting people that’s you know they weren’t on a trajectory of like getting married out of college and working at a bank or just having some stable income job but you know I wasn’t about to just buy a house with a picket fence and get a dog and that sort of things so…there’s so much in the world I wanted to experience and you know, I just think meeting people like that when I was 18, 19, 20 kind of set that off.

 

Rob: Did you have any fears or trepidations when you first set out, you know taking that first trip? Was there any part of you that was like, “What am I doing?” or were you like, “Game on, let’s go.”

 

Seth: Well, I guess when I first started just traveling around and wanting to live in different places for some amount of times, yeah, there’s a huge fear of the unknown. I remember the first time I went to Asia; when I was 15 or 16 I went to China and it was just a bizarre experience because it’s nothing that I’ve ever known. But I think you know there’s really nothing to be afraid of. I mean I’ve felt safer and more comfortable in parts of Asia than I ever have in Philadelphia or New York or Boston or you know, places in the U.S. where that we think that are so safe or you know, so easy. I think most recently it’s just been running out of money or something like that but this past year I was running company with a business partner and a good friend of mine David Walsh, actually I think you had him on your podcast.

 

Rob: Yeah, I have.

 

Seth: So luckily we were able to run a solid climb so running out of money really wasn’t an issue.

 

Rob: So out of all the places that you could’ve lived in the world, why Asia and would you do it again?

 

Seth: You know this was my third trip back to Asia and the reason why it was just…Asia is just a fascinating place. It really is. It’s truly fast paced. The cities are massive and there’s just a lot going on and a lot happening. It’s a very fast growing place in the world. The economies are booming. China is a massive place in general; so you know, just a very exciting place to be around. And some places in Asia are cheap, some aren’t. It depends where you go. But I think if I want to spend in a long term place anywhere else that’s not even in the States, I don’t think I’d go to Asia again. I think there are a lot of really cool things happening in India, in Africa; there are far more interesting places to see at the moment.

 

Rob: So you are currently, right now in a Stateside, right?

 

Seth: Yes, I am currently in New York.

 

Rob: You’re in New York. Okay and…it sounds like New York in the background (laughs). I’m from there so I understand. Where is next for you?

 

Seth: Where is next for me…well, I think that…I’ve never really defined what I’m doing in my life based on the location that I’m in. I’ve always been trying to figure out what I’m passionate about, how would I want to contribute to the world, what is the work I want. And you know, right now for me I’ve worked to start up companies, I’ve worked on different projects that’s been really, really exciting but I think looking further down the road in my life personally, there’s some really big things I want to do and I need to get some experience working with brands and strategic planning in different areas. So either way the next step for me is probably working with a consultant or an agency like an advertising agency or a brand strategy firm. There are a lot of companies that are doing some really awesome things that I want to be involved in and that’s what I’m doing here in New York.

 

Rob: How different is it for you? Right now you’re in New York, right? You’re in Manhattan?

 

Seth: Yes, I’m in Soho right now.

 

Rob: Alright. So how different is it for you to go from living in Asia to being in Soho? You know there are certain comforts that we all get used to, these things that we take for granted like having wifi and you know, all of those things. Do you come back from Asia let’s say and come back into Manhattan and go, “Thank God I’ve got an internet that works; I don’t have other than maybe braving the subway. I don’t have to worry about political unrest.” Or do you not see it that way? Do you get back and you go, “Okay, this is just different.”

 

Seth: You know it’s funny actually; I get back here to New York and I’m like, “Oh man I can’t take a taxi for 50 cents anywhere!”

 

Rob: Hmmm….interesting.

 

Seth: It’s sometime reversed but I think it goes both ways. I think any time you travel, if you’re from a place that you’re comfortable with you’re going to miss some of those comfortable things but I think that’s one of the reasons that I enjoy getting up and moving around; to experience new things and get a different perspective of the world that you live in. I mean for example in Bangkok, I’ve never cooked a meal in my life over there. I just either eat in restaurants or off the street vendors. I think you want to adapt. Adaptability I think is one of the most important things you can learn; not only for travel but for life in general.

 

Rob: Okay so you read The Four Hour Work Week and I’m sure that you had a vision of living Tim Ferriss’s lifestyle design type of life. How close was it from what you read in the book to you actually doing it or did you not see it that way?

 

Seth: (laughs) I don’t know if I really saw it that way. It’s interesting. I think the biggest thing that appealed to me in the book after I read it was how resourceful Tim was. I was never really into the idea of a “four hour work week” per se because quite simply, whatever I was doing I wanted for work, I wanted it to be awesome and that’s something I didn’t want to cut down into four hours so my life now consists of working full time at what I love when I can, actually just going to doing it whenever I wanted to. If that meant having a free time to be in another city or experience another culture or meet some friends across the country, great; if it meant holding up in an office with five brilliantly creative people for 80 hours a week, fantastic.

 

Rob: What do you think in your opinion is missing in that book? Because the sense that I got from you in your blogs and brief conversations and stuff is not that you didn’t like The Four Hour Work Week but you don’t seem to me to be the kind of guy that is a “lifestyle designer”. You know you’re not in a bat cave blogging about the accolades, you know giving the accolades to Tim Ferriss. It seems like you took it for what it was worth but there’s a part where it feels like maybe there was something that wasn’t communicated properly in that book. Am I sensing that right or not really?

 

Seth: Yes, I think you are. I mean I do have a bone to pick with “lifestyle designers”. Not all of them but…I mean I do have a lot of respect for Tim Ferriss and I like him but I think in general I think his whole book is a little misguided actually. I think the concept being sold is make passive income so you can do what you want. It separates work from life in a very big way and the manifestation is clearly obvious. I mean you have a bunch of travelers now that are doing what they’ve always done; they’re writing, they’re doing SEO work or web design or IT. They’re selling e-books and you know they’re doing this as they travel across Asia or South America and you know maybe they’re just outsourcing half of it and working half the time and following their websites. Frankly I think it’s bull really. Lifestyle design is doing what you love and making it valuable so others will pay for it. I don’t buy the idea that people just love travelling. I think deep down what people really want to contribute something meaningful to the world and I think the so-called lifestyle designers that quit their cubicle job and not blog about their travels weren’t contributing anything in their cubicle and they’re not really contributing anything while they travel so…

 

Rob: So all they did in essence was change latitude.

Seth: Exactly. I mean his book was great when it comes to resourcefulness in building a company, time management and etc. I mean stuff I learned from him I incorporate every day but I think it completely missed the actual life design part of doing something meaningful. I mean Tim Ferriss isn’t backpacking around Argentina anymore enjoying his passive income at cafes. He’s writing books, he’s an angel investor among other things, he’s doing things that are meaningful and that contribute to the world with stuff he loves. So there are far more ways to look life than in a cubicle and it think if you’re resourceful and creative and focused in doing what you love you’ll figure it out.

 

Rob: So the biggest question that everybody has is how do you generate the income while you’re partying abroad or you’re living this sort of lifestyle? However you slice it whether you decide that you want to move to Rome or you want to live in Asia or wherever it is, there’s always the issue of money so we’re going to talk a little bit about it. I know that you were a partner on creating some information products that help finance some of your lifestyle design while you’re out in Asia and we’re going to cover that second half of our interview for the getjetsetmoney.com members; and if you’re not a member, just go to www.getjetsetmoney.com to sign up. Seth, before we go over to the member area, if someone wants to get a hold of you, what’s the best way that they can do it?

 

Seth: They can reach out to me on Twitter. I’m on there like 25 hours a day so it’s just @shosko.

 

Rob: @shosko…I like that. Ok, cool.

 

Nikki Scott Leaves The Corporate World- Back Packs Across Southeast Asia- And Builds A Back Packing Empire!

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LDC Podcast Interview: Nikki Scott

 

Rob: Welcome to another edition of the Lifestyle Design Confessions Podcast. I’m Rob Murgatroyd with getjetsetmoney.com and today we have Nikki Scott with www.southeastasiabackpacker.com on the line. Nikki started out as most 20-somethings do. She got a job in a corporate world as an accounting executive in an advertising agency and before long she said, “You know what, this isn’t for me.” So she left dark and rainy Manchester, England and took another path. She decided to backpack across sunny Southeast Asia and actually wound up starting a backpacking magazine and we’re going to get into all of that today so without further ado, Nikki are you there?

 

Nikki: Yes I’m here. Hello!

 

Rob: Okay, Nikki just by way of background, catch us up a little bit for those that aren’t familiar with you or your company but let’s start kind of personally with you. Take us from graduating university to kind of saying, “You know, screw this. I’m out of here. I don’t want to do this anymore. I got my degree; I’m working on a cubicle. This isn’t for me.” Take me from that kind of spot.

 

Nikki: Well I finished university at an English university and I left that summer and did sort of work experience that you have taught and told to do from careers advisers and stuff and then I got myself a job at an advertising agency in Manchester. And I was kind of interested in sort of creativity in business so I thought that was a good place to sort of get to start my career kind of thing. So it was a really kind of high pressure environment, really long hours, working really hard and I started from accounting executive so it’s kind of dealing with clients and dealing with getting their adverts out in TV, radio, magazines or things like that. Really that’s a sort of high pressure, a lot of responsibility right from day one really. I mean I learned a lot from it. I was there for 2 years and I kind of got this thrown into it and before you know it it’s like, “Okay, you’re doing this. You’re on this project.” It’s like, “Woah! Woah! Okay.” I didn’t know if it was right for me. I was still kind of working really, really hard, getting really into it, I was taught to give a lot of time and dedication to it and I felt I didn’t have time to do anything outside of work, sort of exploring my outside, sort of outdoor pursuit as I was interested in climbing, mountain biking, I was playing the guitar, I used to go to open nights night, I enjoyed writing; just all of these kind was completely like taken up with my work. I didn’t have time to explore anything else. So I was 23 years old and I thought, “Okay, let’s take a break. Let’s see if there’s anything else out there.” Right before I sort of resigned myself from this corporate world. I’ve always wanted to go traveling. I was thinking of a gap year; in the UK especially there’s sort of a gap year culture before you start work and when you finish university. So I thought about it then but I didn’t feel it was right for me at that time. You need to obviously save up a lot of money before you go so I’ve been doing that during work and then I thought, “Okay, this is it. This is the time.” I sold my car, handed my notice in and such and said, “I’m up. That’s it.” I bought my round-the-world ticket.

 

Rob: So you know, what’s interesting to me is that you were doing something in the corporate world that you just sort of found yourself in and advertising s a little less corporate let’s say than manufacturing…

 

Nikki: Yes.

 

Rob: But you know it’s not where your passion was, it’s not where your heart was, it’s not what you know, lit you up and made you say, “Wow! This is an amazing life.” But you figured out pretty early on that there was something of unrest inside of you that said, “You know I just got to…I can’t do this. I just got to take chances.” But you know what I think is interesting, I think the term “gap” here, I think is a British sort of invention because in America, I think people listening to this have no idea what a “gap year” is or why people do it. It’s exactly what it sounds like but maybe you can kind of describe a little bit more about what that concept is and who takes a gap year.

 

Nikki: Yeah. It’s really interesting actually because there was a recent article in The Guardian in the UK about gap year travel and someone have actually…a reporter have come to the Full Moon party in Thailand here and had said, “This is what I used to doing on the gap year; getting drunk and all these kind of thing.” And it really annoyed me because it was someone coming from the UK, someone who had been to the university, done the work experience and got a job. So to tell that many people that you should do work experience and you should miss out on this gap year; it’s a really important part of our culture and I think it’s great that we have it and that we do it because you can leave England and you explore different opportunities while you’re away. And it’s not all about going to the Full Moon Party and drinking but that can be one part of it but you also go to Vietnam and go to museums and go to see Angkor Wat Temple in Cambodia and you do all the things and it’s a great thing to do before you start work; or a lot of people take a gap year or sabbatical and after they start work. A lot of people take out maybe 3, 6 months a year either in between college and university or after university and before they start work. So I think we should keep it up but we thought of the job market in the UK and things like that at the minute and I think people are a lot more scared to do it now because they feel like, “If I do take a year out and I’ve not got all these experience on my CV. Will I be able to come back and get a job or whether I start now or I should be going off exploring the world. I should be thinking about my career but…” It’s kind of we still don’t think we should do what other people tell us to do and we should keep it up. And so that’s…I wouldn’t be doing what I’m doing now if I hadn’t taken a gap year so…

 

Rob: You know we have all these “shoulds”. I was listening to Tony Robbins, the motivational speaker guy…

 

Nikki: Yeah.

 

Rob: And we was talking about “shoulds”. He said so many people “should” all over themselves (laughs) which I thought was…you know, “I should do this” “I should do that”…

 

Nikki: Yeah (laughs)

 

Rob: You know in America we take a little bit of a different approach. We get a job, you know, a minivan, go straight to the drive through at Mc Donald’s and go straight to the heart attack. You know we don’t even think about (laughs)…

 

Nikki: (laughs) yeah.

 

Rob: We don’t even think about taking the gap year but you know, obviously, before you set out on doing something like that, you’ve got to hit a point you know, where you were sitting in your office, where you said, “Oh what am I doing? Am I nuts? Am I really going to go backpacking across Southeast Asia? I’ve got an income now. My parents are going to be looking at me and going, ‘Isn’t it time you start your life? You’re not 17 anymore.’” Like what were those anxieties or fears like when you first started?

 

Nikki: Yeah. I mean I started travelling alone so I was kind of like…I’ve quit my job, I booked the flight to Kathmandu; that was my first place which sounds like, “Where’s that? What?!” (laughs) You know I’m not been always sort of organized plan person; I have missed planes in my life and lost my passport and all things like that so it was like, “Okay, this is it. I’m going off on my own. I can be independent. I can look after myself.” It was all those sort of first fears about you know, “Is my money going to last me this long? Am I going to get in debt?” but I think that you come to a point especially when I was working for 2 years and I wasn’t yet in that stage where I was earning sort of a great amount of money where I was like, “Oh God I don’t want to leave this whole comforts behind.” I haven’t got a promotion yet. It was kind of coming but I was like if I do get that then I’d get a nicer apartment, it’s going to get harder to leave and it’s like, “Right. This is it. I’ve had the taste of the corporate world and I want to see what’s different.” I could always come back to it; not that I think I ever will but (laughs)…it’s always there; you just got to do it.

 

Rob: Okay, so you pulled the trigger, get on the airplane, you go from I guess London, right? Heathrow?

 

Nikki: Yeah.

 

Rob: And landed in Kathmandu?

 

Nikki: Yes.

 

Rob: Okay (laughs). I’m not exactly sure where Kathmandu is. I’ve heard of it but I’m not sure I know exactly where it is.

 

Nikki: It’s the capital of Nepal.

 

Rob: Capital of Nepal, okay. Alright, so you land there. You’re completely alone, right? There are no friends with you?

 

Nikki: Yes. Waved my mum goodbye at the airport; it was very teary. I didn’t know when I was coming back.

 

Rob: Are your parents adventurous or did they think you were out of your mind?

 

Nikki: Well, some of them come too late but my dad…my dad actually lives in Thailand now and my mum lives in France so they’re not going off trekking backpacking but they enjoy travelling and they like exploring different cultures.

 

Rob: Okay so we’re definitely going to want to talk about that. Okay, so now you’ve landed, you’re in Kathmandu and did you know exactly where you’re going to be staying or did you have it all sort of charted out or did you just wing it?

 

Nikki: First, I sort of booked a first couple of days accommodation because I knew I’d arrive there and I’d be like, “Well, okay I just had a long flight and I needed to stay somewhere.” But yeah it was crazy; when I first arrived it was just so different than anything…I had a culture shock definitely. It was busy, there were rich shores and buffalos on the side of the road, people get their haircuts on the side of the dusty street and traffic was incredible and I was just like, “Oh what have I done. What is this?” (laughs). It was amazing. It was such a buzz and the excitements of it and I knew I sort of had a couple of days in Kathmandu, the actual city and I booked a hotel there and then I booked a trek into the Himalaya because that’s what I’ve always loved…the mountains. That was kind of my dream to go to the highest mountains in the world and I booked with a company so I know there would be people there. So it’s kind of a cushion at the beginning to get me into that. I was travelling alone and I sort of signed up with a group; there were 6 of us and that was…that got me into it. I made friends straight away and it made it a lot easier because we’d also share our anxieties about the altitude sickness and things like that at the very beginning but it was an incredible experience there.

 

Rob: So you’re in Kathmandu. How long did you actually stay there for?

 

Nikki: I was there for about 4 days at the beginning and we went on a 2-week trek to the mountains and then I was in Kathmandu for a week when I came back but we did a lot…I met a few friends while I was there; that’s the kind of you’re on your own for a few days and then you kind of approach someone and start talking to someone in a restaurant which is so alien from where you’re from. Like I remember going out for a meal for the first time on my own. When I first arrived I was like, “(gasps) everybody’s looking at me. I looked really lonely.” And I was trying to read My Lonely Planet and I was like, “Oh my God.” I was like started drinking a beer and I was like, “(gasps) people may think I’m weird drinking on my own.” And it was so strange because now it’s just like I just do it all the time and I don’t even think about it. But that first night I was really nervous about it; but yeah, I made a few friends there and went to see some of the amazing Hindu temples around there and it was just…I was just fascinated by the whole country and it’s so different than England. It was incredible.

 

Rob: Now the kind of people that you’re meeting there, are they people that are in…how old are you by the way?

 

Nikki: I’m 25; I’ll be 26 next month, yeah (laughs)

 

Rob: Okay, 26. So how old were the average people that you sort of ran into in Nepal?

 

Nikki: I would say Nepal’s…it’s an average; I mean I was travelling for the first couple of days I met a climber who was younger than me. He was 20 I think and he was from Holland and he just finished university there but then the people I was trekking with, I was the youngest and they were sort of ranged from 30’s to 50’s. It’s a real range. I would say that Nepal is a little bit older than the rest of Southeast Asia I would say. When I arrived in Thailand, in Laos, Vietnam and Cambodia it’s very much in early 20’s sort of that kind of age but it’s a real range; I mean I’ve met backpackers in their 70’s going around. A lovely couple I’ve met in Malaysia, two old women traveling together and they’re like in their 70’s and they left the husbands and going off backpacking for a couple of months.

 

Rob: Fantastic.

 

Nikki: You end up talking to people from all over the place.

 

Rob: Do you find that there are people who are either in their 20’s or their 70’s but not much in between?

 

Nikki: No, I think you’d find all ages. I think you got people doing other stuff like sabbaticals so people…a lot of couples maybe travelling in their 30’s and in Nepal there was…I was travelling with a lady from Sweden. She was 45 I think and she has children all grown up and she had been working and she always wanted to do this trip when she was sort of my age but got married young and had children and now this was her dream and she was travelling for years so…just all ages I think, definitely, definitely.

 

Rob: Okay, so now you’re in Nepal, now you’re trekking, you’re backpacking, you’re there for a couple of weeks; are you looking back on what you left in Manchester or are you saying, “Thank God I left! I’m just loving this.”?

 

Nikki: (laughs) yeah, it was the second one definitely.

 

Rob: Okay.

 

Nikki: The first couple of days, I remember the first day I arrived and as I said I was nervous about travelling on my own. I went inside of my room and I was like put a sturdy pair of sandals on and went back out into the streets and I was like nervous but it’s just so exciting. It was the first you know…I’ve rung my mum back home and after a couple of days I managed to find a scruffy internet café with a dodgy phone and I rung my mum and I was just like, “It was incredible. I wasn’t regretting it at all!”

 

Rob: So now you’ve got…you have no agenda. There’s no time line, you’re just sort of waken up and just living life the way you want to live it, right?

 

Nikki: Yeah, pretty much. I had a flight booked to Bangkok and then I had a flight booked to Perth after that so it was Kathmandu, Bangkok and then Perth but of course I never made it to Australia. And then so it was a month in Nepal and had my flight booked to Bangkok; that was sort of another change of pace going from Nepal to Bangkok because it was a lot more modern than expected, Bangkok. So going from Nepal, a tiny little airport in Kathmandu and kind of a bit of a rougher travel and then I arrived in Thailand; it’s like shopping malls and motorways and…that was another culture shock so yeah, I kind of…apart from that I had no itinerary in between. It was just sort of I knew roughly what countries I wanted to go to so…Thailand, Laos, Vietnam, Malaysia, Indonesia, Cambodia but hadn’t really had a length of time I wanted to spend in each country or my plans change with people I met so if there was somewhere or something interesting going on or some events then we’d go there for that. So it’s the best way definitely. I recommend people travel like that.

 

Rob: So if you run into people there and you say, “You know what, I think I want to stay another week or two. I really kind of digging the spot.” Do you do that?

 

Nikki: Yeah, definitely. That was the best thing. You also end up going to places you never even thought you’d go to. One of my favorite places in Southeast Asia, in Sumatra which is part of Indonesia; it’s the largest island in Indonesia and it’s a little bit off the beaten track. I never even imagined I’d go there. I remember me and my friend were in Malaysia and we didn’t realize it was the monsoon season and we sat there in the rain and we were like, “Oh, what should we do? Where should we go?” and she said, “Should we go to Sumatra?” and I was like, “Okay.” And then you just end up talking to someone and then going somewhere different but yeah, that’s the beauty of travelling independently. If you like somewhere you stay or if you don’t, if you feel like the buzz of the city you go, if you feel like you need a beach…the beauty of Southeast Asia is it’s so diverse so you’re only an overnight bus ride away from the beach, the city, a rainforest, a volcano, surfing, rock climbing; there’s so much to do. There’s no point staying in a place you don’t like (laughs).

 

Rob: So what was your favorite? You know it looks like you’ve been to like Nepal and Thailand and Vietnam, Malaysia, Indonesia; what was your favorite and why was it your favorite? I know it’s a tough question to ask.

 

Nikki: Yeah, it is definitely. Well I’ll highlight some. As I’ve said Sumatra; I’ve climbed volcanoes there and went to one of the largest volcanic crater lake in the world, in Lake Toba which was an amazing place. And I thought Hanoi, the capital of Vietnam was a really interesting, buzzing city with narrow streets, an incredible architecture and just a real, real life to it. Nepal, the mountains obviously I loved but it really depends on…especially when you’re travelling on your own. I think all backpackers would agree; it really depends on who you meet and what activities you got to go to there that makes the place for you. So it’s so random that it if you meet a group of people and you all clicked together and you all want to do the same things and you go hike on motorbikes and you go exploring. That’s what you always remember from a place.

 

Rob: Is it difficult to connect with people and then have to say goodbye?

 

Nikki: Yeah. I’ve read articles about this in a magazine but that’s one of the things that I found hard when I was travelling. You have sort of in-between periods where you’ve met a great group of people, you all get on really well and then everyone goes off their separate ways. It’s so transient, the nature of travel; you’re all “Hello! Goodbye! Hello Goodbye!” and it’s difficult because you find yourself on your own again and you think, “I’m never going to meet people like that again and I’m never going to make friends like that.” But then the next day you do. You sit on a bus and you meet people. And I think that’s one great thing about it because it’s like your millions of holidays and millions of lives all crumbling into one time and you meet people and you make friends with them so quickly and you learn so much about them in a week; you feel like you’ve known them forever. And then they move on and it’s…I mean you keep in touch and I’ve kept in touch with travel friends but I think you just need to embrace that, the transience of travel because that’s the thing.

 

Rob: Yeah, it’s difficult. You know we travel all over the world as well and you know when we bump into people, you make incredible, amazing friends and you try and do the best you can to connect with them let’s say on Facebook and you do for a minute but you know, life goes on and you’re in one country, they’re in another and it’s tough to continue the relationship you know.

 

Nikki: I think at the beginning when you first start travelling it’s, “Oh, let’s stay friends on Facebook.” In your best intentions and you’re like collecting Facebook friends and you’re like, “Woah!” but I think once you’ve been travelling sort of 6 months a year or more it’s just someone who made your travel experience really into that time and you’ve got that and they’ve got that and if you do meet again it would be fantastic but there’s so many interesting people and so many experiences people have when they travel and it’s a shame to stick with a group all the way around because you end up not talking to people then.

 

Rob: So which country was your least favorite and why was it your least favorite or which place was your least favorite?

Nikki: Oh, that’s really difficult. I wouldn’t say there’s a specific place that’s my least favorite. Maybe sort of at times, I remember once in Phnom Penh, the capital of Cambodia, I stayed in a really awful hostel and there was a pet rat I had outside my room jumping in and out of the bin every time I walk out (laughs). I just hated it; I could hear it scuttle and I just couldn’t sleep and it’s just awful but…so that was it, a bad time but Phnom Penh was a big sort of “dirty city”. It’s a really interesting place. I wouldn’t stick around there for sort of…I wouldn’t like to live there for months and months but it’s an amazing place. The people are lovely and friendly but I would say maybe the time there was difficult; I was travelling on my own for awhile and it was kind of when I was thinking about the idea of the magazine so I had my mind on something else as well and then it was…yeah, I’d say that was the most difficult.

 

Rob: So what was it really like versus what you thought it would be like? In other words, when you were back in Manchester, you had a vision when this sort of popped in your head about what this experience would be like both the positive parts, the fears, the apprehensions, etc. But my experience when you actually lived something it’s sometimes different than you thought it would be and a lot of times the fears are not nearly what you thought the fears would be and etc.; so what was the difference between what you thought it was going to be like and what it was actually like?

 

Nikki: I would say definitely my fears were a lot greater before I left. I thought that travelling on my own, it’d be a lot harder to meet people. I’d be on my own a lot more. I thought that it would be a lot less…Southeast Asia so Laos, Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, I thought it would be a lot less westernized than it is, a lot less home comforts. When you first packed your backpack, you pack everything for jungle exploration, there’s your mosquito spray, travel wash and you make sure everything’s there and when you get here you realize that you can buy everything and if you lost your whole you can be completely fine, you can get everything here. It’s just the fear before you go of, “Oh my God I’m leaving England! It’s going to be completely wild.” But it’s a different story. Pretty much any situation that happens to you there’s always people to help, there’s always English speaking people that you can go to or you can find a lot friendlier people that…people help you here so much more than they even would in Manchester at home. I feel a lot safer here than I did in Manchester (laughs).

 

Rob: So what do you think about when you get on a train or you pass an airport and you see the girl coming off the plane, train or automobile with high heels and 17 pieces of luggage; you know when you see that girl?

 

Nikki: (laughs) today actually, there was a girl coming from…I’ve just been in Ko Tao which is an island close to Ko Pha Ngan and I’ve got my little bag and she got a bright pink, huge suitcase (laughs); the Thai people were trying to get off the truck and it was quite funny.

 

Rob: It’s hysterical, right?

 

Nikki: Yeah, we call those “flashpackers”

 

Rob: Flashpackers…is that as in flashy?

 

Nikki: It’s just they don’t like to sort of compromise on their home comforts. They like to bring all their mascara with them (laughs) and things like that. That’s flashpacking. They like to stay in a bit nicer hostels and stuff but I do sometimes…I can see that you need you a bit of luxury every now and again but you need to earn your backpacker stripes first and go to some dirty hostels (laughs).

 

Rob: So now you’re out of the hostel world and you are…did you get an apartment or…where are you living and what kind of set up do you have?

 

Nikki: So I backpacked for 6 months properly, travelling and then I was living in Bangkok in an apartment with a housemate for awhile, for about a year and now I’m living in Ko Pha Ngan which is an island down the south of Thailand and it’s very different because my view now is like all the beach and it’s a really beautiful island; it’s countryside, lots of beaches. It’s quite westernized with its restaurants and things like that but it’s a bit more laid back, well, a lot more laid back than Bangkok.

 

Rob: Is Bangkok just over-the-top parties?

 

Nikki: Not all the time (laughs); we have a lot of parties yeah. There’s a great expat community there in Bangkok so there’s always someone arriving, someone leaving, someone’s birthday, some party going on; it can be hard to…there’s also networking events and things like that so it can be hard to say, “No, I’ve got to do work tonight. I’m sorry.” Because there’s always temptations but it’s a great city. It’s a really vibrant, buzzing city with lots going on.

 

Rob: Tell us about the Full Moon Party. Everybody has on their bucket list to attend the Full Moon Party. What is it?

 

Nikki: (laughs) it’s funny you should say bucket list actually because have you heard of buckets here in Thailand?

 

Rob: No…

 

Nikki: Alright. Okay, so buckets are all everybody drinks in the Full Moon Party…

 

Rob: Oh that’s funny…

 

Nikki: It’s like…it’s a bucket full of Coca-Cola, whiskey and lots of alcohol and ice and things that people drink here. It’s funny you should say bucket (laughs).

 

Rob: Have you heard the term “bucket list”?

 

Nikki: Yeah, I have.

 

Rob: Okay.

 

Nikki: It’s every month here in Ko Pha Ngan and it’s kind of what the island is famous for but it’s just one tiny part of the island really because it’s in a place called Haad Rin which is southwest of the island. It’s just a tiny village and it’s on every month and it’s just a huge, big rave party on the beach with up to 30,000 people I think it gets in the high season so it’s a serious, serious party. I’ve only been once; I live here now and I don’t even hear about it. The only thing that happens here is the beach the next day is completely empty and I have it all to myself so that’s the only thing I hear of it now but…there’s The Full Moon, there The Half Moon Party, there’s The Black Moon, Shiva Moon; there are so many moon parties now (laughs).

 

Rob: Okay, so let me make sure that I get this right. So you’ve got 30,000 people that come down to the beach in a rave type set up and for those of you who are old like me and have no idea what a rave is…a rave is, imagine 20-somethings with glow sticks in their hands listening what all call techno music with a high beats per minute thing going; it usually involves ecstacy and some other kind of drugs that are keeping people just pumping all night long. Did I get that close?

 

Nikki: Kind of…I mean it’s not as underground as people think it is. So there is a DJ playing The Killers and cheesy music and things so it’s like if you…you can do it however you want. There is a rave side of it where people have glow paint all over their bodies and it’s like they’d go until 6:00 in the morning but if you just want to go with friends and have a couple of beers you can do that as well. Yeah, it’s really over-hyped a lot the Full Moon Party and people say, “Oh my God the Full Moon Party!” but it’s just a big party on the beach and if you’re in a good mood for a party it’s brilliant, if you’re not I wouldn’t go (laughs).

 

Rob: Interesting. Okay, that really helps. I’ve always wondered what that was like. So we’ll go from Full Moon Parties to your parents (laughs). Tell me about your parents. You have one parent that’s living in Thailand, is that right?

 

Nikki: Yes.

 

Rob: How did that happen?

 

Nikki: Well my dad actually…he came here first. I didn’t follow him here (laughs). I was just travelling. I went to Nepal and my dad’s been living in Thailand for a couple of years. He’s retired here and he came to Thailand on a golfing trip and just fell in love with it and wanted to stay. He lives a couple of hours away from Bangkok near the coast and there’s just amazing golf courses here and great restaurants and so I came to stay with him after I left Nepal and it was my birthday so I stayed with my dad for 2 weeks; I got looked after and taken to some nice restaurants and stuff and then I left again on my backpacking trips so he’s just been based here but it was a great sort of…a bit of a comfort zone for me. I always knew wherever I was in Southeast Asia, my dad was here and he knows Thailand and stuff as well so…

 

Rob: Did you ever think that your dad would retire in Bangkok?

 

Nikki: No. I never thought that (laughs). Well he went travelling when he retired; he had his own business in England and when he retired he went to South Africa and then he came to Thailand and he’s always told me ever since I was young, “Get out of the UK…Get out of the UK. There are lots of places to travel. Go and do something different.” So…

 

Rob: Let me tell you what I find interesting. You know your dad obviously worked many years; you know let’s call it 20 years in the business in the UK…

 

Nikki: Oh, 30.

Rob: 30, that’s right? Okay, so he reaches the end of that portion of his life and where does he go? He goes to Bangkok. Well, you make the decision…you know Thailand, Southeast Asia, what you call it…you make the decision to, “You know what, I’m not going to put in 30 years because I can do it right now.”

 

Nikki: Yeah. It was an interesting conversation…my dad always encouraged me to go travelling. The way he was brought up…they never had a gap year culture; it was unheard of. You know you get a job straight from school and you work hard for 30 years and then you get rewarded. So it’s completely different. When I was saying to my dad I’m going off travelling and it was like, “Well life isn’t just a dream. You know you can’t just completely do…” you know but I think it’s just a different generation. I don’t know how old he is…56 or something…I hope he’s not going to listen to this (laughs) but that was very much…he had his own business, he was so ready to leave the UK. He was so, so fed up of work in his job at the end of it.

 

Rob: And what about your mom?

 

Nikki: She lives in a farmhouse in France. I’ve just been talking to her actually, just a minute ago before you rang. She left the UK; she just loves the countryside and she lived in Ireland for awhile and she lives with her boyfriend in Ireland. It rained too much there so she wanted somewhere like Ireland but was sunny so she went near the south of France. So she’s living there at the moment. She’s got horses and a vegetable patch and going to painting classes and things like that.

 

Rob: So awesome! So she is…is she like near St. Tropez that way or?

 

Nikki: No, she’s at…the actual nearest town, not many people, it’s Limoges is the nearest town. It’s really out in the countryside; there’s lots of sort of wine groves and it’s really sort of French little towns and it’s lovely, it’s really nice. I’m going to visit her over Christmas.

 

Rob: You should have your mom listen to the first podcast in the series. I did an interview with a lady who was married for I think 20 or 30 years here in the States in Iowa and she always had a dream to live in the south of France and so she did. She fulfilled it and now she’s living in the south of France so I think your mom would really dig it too.

 

Nikki: Yeah, yeah.

 

Rob: So what advice would you give someone who’s in your shoes; someone who doesn’t like their job, wants to see the world but is just scared? You know they’re like, “I got this paycheck.” What would you tell them?

 

Nikki: I think the worst thing for me was having them working and then regretting not doing it is that fear of, “What if something happens? What if…?” You can’t not do it; the worst thing is sit in there and thinking, regretting that you’ve not done it.  There’s this famous quote, the “20 years from now you will regret the things you didn’t do more than the ones you did do.” And I so believe in that. It’s the fear that you have like the things that could happen that you read about in guidebooks and you scare yourself reading things on the internet and travel warnings. It’s not half as scary when you leave. One of the things that I was paranoid about when I was first planning my trip was a bus trip in Nepal that I have to take from Kathmandu to a place called Pakari which is in the mountains which is before I started my trek and I remember the guidebook that said you will not pass one mile stretch of road without seeing burnt our carcass of a bus crashed into the canyon below and I was absolutely terrified that the bus was going to crash on the way to the mountain and I looked it all online and I was like, “Oh my God!” you know but actually getting there and standing at the bus stop and getting on the bus and chatting to people all the way…it was a little bit hairy in parts but it was so not as bad as I read about and I would have so regretted not doing the 2-week trek in the Himalayas which has the most beautiful scenery I have ever seen in my life if I hadn’t gotten on that bus and it was completely fine (laughs). So the things that you scare yourself about before you go…you just got to do it.

 

Rob: Great answer. I bet actually I never heard that Mark Twain quote which is really great. I just wrote it down.

 

Nikki: Yeah, there’s another one as well. I heard someone tweeted it the other day. I think it’s Rich Bronson who said, “The brave may not live forever but the cautious do not live at all.”

 

Rob: (laughs) that’s great! That’s absolutely great. So the next question that everybody has is, “You know I’d love to do this but I need some kind of money to pay for this.” And you had figured out a way to handle that. You decided to start your own magazine and create an income doing what you love. And we’re going to get into all of that in the second half of our interview for our Jet Set Money members. If you’re not a member yet, you can get your risk free trial by going to www.getjetsetmoney.com but for now if our podcast listeners want to get in touch with you or sort of follow your adventures, what’s the best way for them to do it?

 

Nikki: The website is www.southeastasiabackpacker.com so you can find my email address on there, it’s info@southeastasiabackpacker.com and I’m on Facebook; it’s just southeastasia backpacker on Facebook or on Twitter, I’m Nikki Backpacker. There are millions of ways (laughs). I’ll reply anyway so that’s fine.

 

Rob: Awesome! Well Nikki, thank you so much for doing this interview with us.

 

Nikki: Okay. Thanks a lot!

 

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LDC Podcast Interview with Corbett Barr

Rob: Welcome to another edition of The Lifestyle Design Confessions podcast. I’m Rob Murgatroyd of getjetsetmoney.com and today we have Corbett Barr on the line of freepursuits.com. Corbett splits his time between San Francisco and the sunny beaches of Mexico. Corbettt is a former corporate ladder climber turned lifestyle designer and today we’re going to talk about what living lifestyle design means for him. So without further ado, Corbett are you there?

Corbett: Yeah. Hey Rob, how’s it going?

Rob: Good! I’m sorry I just have a little trouble speaking today. I don’t know what it is. I think I’m just jacked on coffee or something…sorry!

Corbett: (laughs) no problem.

Rob: Okay, so Corbett, just by way of background, could you tell us why you went from the corporate world to living the life you want and living part time on the sunny beaches of Mexico.

Corbett: Yeah, sure…definitely. I spent quite a bit of time, maybe close to a decade working in sort of a traditional corporate world, helping out Fortune 500 companies and so forth; and there was always this sort of voice in the back of my head, I think maybe even as a teen, there is the idea that I will be an entrepreneur at some point. And I just could never really shake that voice in the back of my head and at some point I decided to jump in and give it a try. Once I got a feel for the freedom being an entrepreneur can bring and the excitement of creating something for yourself and the fulfillment that you get from having so much direct influence over your income and over what’s going on; once I got a taste for that, there was no question that I wanted to make it work no matter how much time or effort it took and it does take quite a bit of time and effort but I’ve had a really good time in doing it so…

Rob: What is the name of your blog freepursuits.com mean?

Corbett: Well, I started Free Pursuits because I took a sabbatical in Mexico a couple of years ago and we met a lot of people down there who were living really interesting, unconventional lives and I started the blog really to sort of chronicle that trip and to tell people about these interesting folks that we met and to me, the ultimate freedom is the freedom to make decisions for yourself, to have options and to be able to pursue whatever it is that you are interested in. And I think you know, that the logical conclusion is that it takes either unlimited funds or some sort of a flexible career that can provide the income you need and the time and the location independence that you need to pursue whatever it is that you’re interested in. And so that’s really what Free Pursuits means to me.

Rob: When you talk about an unconventional life, you say that an unconventional life unlocks that lifestyle of the rich and retired now while you’re still in your working years. Could you explain a little bit more about what you mean by that?

Corbett: Yeah. So the idea is…I mean it would be great if we are all rich, right? You didn’t have to worry about what your income is coming from although there’s an argument that just being rich and not having something to work on isn’t necessarily all that fulfilling to begin with aside from that, if we can all be rich or retired it would be fantastic and you can jet set around the world and do what you wanted. But the fact is, most of us aren’t rich and retired and so the point of lifestyle design and the point of what I blog about is to learn how to work for yourself and make that lifestyle, make the time and the accoutrements of being rich possible for you now without having to just focus all of your effort on work and just trying to get rich basically.

Rob: Well, let’s talk about the term lifestyle design for a minute because so many people are using it. You know a “buzzillion” people have read The Four Hour Work Week particularly in your neck of the woods in San Francisco.

Corbett: Yeah.

Rob: Yeah, so I mean it’s a word that I thought Tim Ferriss came up with himself but I learned through reading your blog that it’s not something that he came up with and it’s something that has been around ever since the American dream; what did you mean by that? I’m not sure I totally understood.

Corbett: Well, I’m not sure…I don’t know about the specific term “lifestyle design” but the concept behind it, the concept of living unconventionally and sort of pursuing something alternative to the traditional work for the years, doing something you don’t necessarily enjoy and then hope for retirement one day. Alternatives to that have existed forever. I mean you can read about like the beat generation and how they travel across the country riding and pursuing other things so that they could really live the life they wanted to on a day to day basis. And so the concepts I don’t think are new but we have to give Tim Ferriss credit for popularizing it and for sort of putting the hope or this idea, this sparkle in people’s mind about what might be possible and to sort of awakening people to these alternatives. I mentioned before that we have met a lot of people in Mexico who were sort of living these alternative lifestyles and the fact is none of them have heard about The Four Hour Work Week or read it but they were living basically what Tim was talking about; you know, the ability to travel, to live as if you are wealthy without really being wealthy. Just engineering some sort of flexible career for yourself that allows you to do those things and that’s really why I started the blog about and I actually didn’t find out The Four Hour Work Week for a couple of months after that until someone mentioned the term “lifestyle design” to me and it really just cemented everything that I was hoping to learn about.

Rob: But it seemed to me that you sort of found his concept to be a little bit radical or maybe you didn’t find it radical. I think that what you were trying to say was lifestyle design doesn’t have to be radical in sort of the way that the book talks about. What do you mean by that?

Corbett: Well, I think really at its core, I think it just means living purposefully, right? It’s about questioning the structures that society has created and that sort of expects everyone to fit into; questioning whether or not you fit into those normal structures and whether or not you should be doing something to consciously create the lifestyle you want for yourself. And sort of the radical part I guess for the extreme aspects about the things that Tim Ferriss talks about in terms of like Geo Arbitrage and moving where the money is cheaper and travelling around the world. I think a lot of people can benefit from just the concept of living consciously and designing your life but that doesn’t necessarily mean travelling the world. It can also mean just working for yourself and not having to work so much so that you can spend time with your friends and family or pursuing other things that you want to. That’s my individual definition.

Rob: Okay. Let’s talk about you specifically. Could you describe what your personal lifestyle design means and what would it look like when it’s accomplished or would you say that you’re already there and you’ve accomplished what you want? Let’s say you know, for 2010.

Corbett: So for me again I think the ultimate is on having freedom and options so that you can pursue whatever you want and change quickly from one thing to another. For me, my definition of lifestyle design is always evolving and I’d say ultimately, what I would like is to be happy at any one time and that doesn’t necessarily have to do with lifestyle design. That’s also sort of a mental process of understanding where you’re at and being comfortable of where you’re at and realizing that having goals doesn’t necessarily mean that your happiness is tied to making those goals because that just delays happiness basically. But aside from that, I mean I would say that I have achieved a lot of the things that I set out for myself about 18 months ago with regards to lifestyle design because I was at a crossroads and trying to decide if I wanted to go into the traditional startup world where you raise venture capital and take on investors and have employees and advisors and a board of directors and all that sort of thing which I’ve done before and the question was, do I want to do that again and basically take a shot at getting wealthy? You know, sort of a low probability shot or moderate probability shot; or do I want to do something that I can build overtime and gives me more freedom now whether or not it makes me wealthy? And because of this sabbatical I took in Mexico and the introspection that I did and the people that we met, I decided on the latter. And to get there, I started blogging and have built an income around blogging and affiliate marketing and so forth. And I have come to the point now where I’m self sufficient and I’m actually supporting those things that we want to do and we’re able to travel around and basically live from anywhere in the world that we choose.

Rob: You know you have eluded something that I think a lot of guys struggle with which is, you know, they create a list of goals of what they want to accomplish for the year and they believed they’ll be happy when X, Y, Z is accomplished. And it sounds like you sort of recognized that that is an issue and you’ve made a conscious decision to accomplish the goals but not be so tied to having your happiness be around the achievement of it.

Corbett: Yeah, really. This sort of gets in the core of philosophy which has been around for thousands of years; the thing is, if you think about it, happiness is really a balance between being mentally okay with where you are at any particular moment as well as having goals and trying to pursue something and change your environment so that you like it because if you think about it, if happiness was only mental, then what would be the point of pursuing anything, right? If happiness was only a mental game, then you could be just as happy living in prison as you could be living on the beach in Mexico, right? So I don’t think happiness is completely a mental game. On the other hand, like you mentioned, if happiness is completely tied to your goals and you’re always setting the bar for yourself and trying to achieve that thing, then because you learn that happiness is tied to achieving goals, then you always have to be trying to achieve goals to achieve happiness. And so it’s kind of a never ending treadmill that you’re on. And so I think that you really have to do both. For me, lifestyle design and trying to pursue living unconventionally is ½ of the puzzle and the other half is really, for me it’s become about Eastern philosophy and about learning how to be thankful for the things that I do have right now. So it’s really a balance.

Rob: So living your life from a place of gratitude.

Corbett: Exactly. That’s right and feeling a sense of abundance instead of scarcity as well.

Rob: Is that a struggle for you or does that come naturally?

Corbett: It’s a struggle I think because I grew up in the U.S. and that’s not the mindset that most of us have, right? We’ve evolved into a society that’s really about competitive consumerism if you will and always trying to have more. So from that aspect it’s a struggle because that’s how I grew up but over the past couple of years since I’ve stepped away from the traditional corporate world, I have been able to recognize those things and have made progress for myself.

Rob: You know I recently, a couple of months ago, I was in Florence, Italy. We were shooting a video there and I had one of our fixers to take us around to one of the museums and during some down time we were just kind of talking about life and stuff and I said, “So what is the biggest difference for you from the American that you take around and show them the city versus the average European?” She said, “I can tell you instantly.” She said, “When I ask an American, you know, making small talk, what is it that you’re trying to do with your life? What are your goals? They’ll always say something along the order of a big house, a big car and a million dollars in the bank. When I asked somebody from Europe the same question, it’s invariably to have a wonderful life, to have a great family, to have great food and always some kind of enjoyments.” And you’re right. We just look at things very, very differently here.

Corbett: Right. Exactly, and I hope that’s what people are getting from lifestyle design. It’s not about the traditional path that we’ve learned in the Western world or in America and that you can find happiness in other ways and that it doesn’t have to involve more cars and more stuff. I think that’s why minimalism has become such a popular topic recently as well.

Rob: Yeah, just by default it had to.

Corbett: Yeah.

Rob: So let’s talk a little bit about sabbaticals. I know that sabbaticals are important for you. In fact I had to wait to do this interview because you’re on a digital sabbatical. Could you describe for us why sabbaticals are so much a part of your lifestyle design?

Corbett: Sabbaticals to me come in a couple of forms. It’s just any time that you’re taking a break from your normal routine. In some cases, you know, a vacation could be a sabbatical although I think traditionally it generally means something a little bit longer than that. The traditional sabbatical I was referring to a few weeks ago was just the fact that I wanted to unplug from the internet completely and so for a few days I didn’t touch the computer, I didn’t log in to the computer, use email or the internet or anything. I think that was a healthy exercise for me just because I get a little bit too connected online and start to really deriving my gratitude from work or my gratification from being on the computer. But in terms of longer or more traditional sabbaticals, I mentioned that I took one in Mexico. It was actually about a 7 month long trip. My wife and I packed up our car including our dog and set off on a road trip and drove all around Mexico throughout the Western U.S. and up to Canada. That sabbatical was really important for me because as I’ve mentioned I was at a crossroads of trying to decide what I wanted to pursue next and I think it’s important to step away from all of the normal influences; influences of your friends, your family or co-workers, society, television, advertising and the media wants you to believe and to buy into. Step away from that so you can clear your head and really see what might be important to you on a deeper level and really getting away for a period of a month or two or something is the only way I can think to do that. You might be able to do it at home if you really unplug for awhile but on our sabbatical, it took me at least 4 – 6 weeks just to unwind and just connect from all of that and start doing some real introspection that I hadn’t really done before. And that’s what led me to start pursuing this journey that I am on now and to also looking for ways to be happy on a day to day basis.

Rob: Are you still splitting your time between Mexico and the U.S.?

Corbett: Yes. Generally right now, what we do is we live in San Francisco. That’s sort of our permanent place. I call myself location-flexible. I’m not entirely location-independent because we do have a fixed address in San Francisco and that kind of gives us the best of both worlds. It gives us an apartment to call our own to return to on a regular basis. And then from there, each winter we spend a period of time in Mexico from 3 – 6 months basically and there’s a little town that we’ve come to enjoy that we return to where we can do surfing. We have an internet connection there so that I’m able to get some work done; but that allows us to enjoy the sun and live a different pace of lifestyle down there where people aren’t focused on the same things and to explore different cultures so we really like doing both.

Rob: Is it expensive where you are in Mexico? Because I know the closer you get to let’s say San Diego, the higher the price of real estate is or the cost of living, etc. or where you are, is it inexpensive?

Corbett: It’s really inexpensive. We’re on the beach so there’s some price built in to the beach but there are a lot of little towns on the beach once you get outside of the tourist areas. So as long as you avoid Cavo or Ensenada or something like that, you can find inexpensive U.S. when we’re in Mexico so we’re actually saving money when we do that.

Rob: Alright. So speaking of money, the biggest question that everybody has at this point is, “How do I create the income to pay for the kind of lifestyle that you’re living?” and we’re going to cover exactly how Corbett does it in the 2nd half of our interview for our Jet Set Money members. If you aren’t a Jet Set Money member and you want to be, just go to getjetsetmoney.com. Corbett, before we head over to the member’s area, if people want to get a hold of you, how can they do it?

Corbett: The easiest way is probably through one of my blogs. I run 2 blogs. The first one you mentioned is freepursuits.com and that’s all about working for yourself and living the life you want. And the second one which is maybe a little bit more advanced; it’s for people that already have a website or something; that blog is called thinktraffic.net and that’s all about how to build a high traffic website or blog. And there’s contact information for me on either of those sites.

Rob: Corbett, thank you so much!

Corbett: Yeah, thank you!

Clay Boeschen On Leaving His Job and Living His Dreams in Central and South America

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LDC Podcast Interview:  CLAY BOESCHEN

Rob: Welcome to another edition of The Lifestyle Design Confessions podcast. I’m Rob Murgatroyd of getjetsetmoney.com and today I have Clay Boeschen on the line. Clay recognized pretty early in his life that he was a bit bored with it. He wanted to shake it up and kind of hit the reset button. He quit the dreaded 40 hour a week job, headed out for an international journey that began in South America and he worked his way all the way to Asia so we got a lot to talk about. Without further ado, Clay, are you there?

Clay: Yeah, I’m right here Rob.

Rob: Okay, cool. So Clay, just by way of background, could you tell us how you went from UCLA to a full time job and then saying, “Screw it. I’m outta here. I’m going to Central America, I’m going to South America, and I’m doing anything but this.” What happened there?

Clay: Actually I can remember when I first graduated in UCLA, I was in my last year at UCLA and I think every single one of my friends already had a job lined up, they had something for them by the beginning of our last year and I was getting nervous. I was thinking I got to be responsible, I got to get a job; by the time when our graduation came around, pretty much all my friends were set and I said, “Well, I guess I got to get something going for me.” So I went out, I found a job. It’s a text support job. I don’t love text support but I was good enough at it to do it. That allowed me to sign up, get a lease on an apartment with a friend. Basically right after college, I just jumped right into the real world. I worked there…worked that job for about 2 years so even though I didn’t care about the job that much, I worked my butt off and I kept moving up and up; and the further and further up I moved in that job, the more I kind of realized, “This isn’t for me. I don’t know why I’m doing this; why I’m spending all my time and all my efforts and all my energies working up in this job that’s not going to lead anywhere.” I guess it’s a little bit of a cliché by now but when I realized I wanted out, the book that landed on my lap was The Four Hour Work Week. I’ll be honest…I don’t think I’ve ever read the 2nd half of that book which are all the practical stuff like ‘here’s how you make your money’, the first half of that book ended up being the biggest inspiration to me, ever. I’ve probably read the 1st half of that book about 5, 6 times and every time it gives me another push. And it was just kind of the first thing that made me realize that I don’t need to be working my job or really any full time job. It made me realize that my only needs really are food and shelter and I can get those. I mean it didn’t hurt that while I’m at my job, I mean it’s a retail job, there’s a text support in a retail store; I was able to save up a bit of money to be able to travel. I didn’t realize it at that time I just have to live frugally but I just realized, “You know what, I just can’t say ‘screw it’. I can’t go out and travel. I’ve never travelled. I’m moving up in a job I don’t care about. Why don’t I just do this?” so I wanted a life experience. I did it.

Rob: Yes. I kind of personally think that the 1st half of the book…the book is more of an inspiration than anything else. I think the 2nd half of the book, you know if I have to rate the 1st half from 1 – 10, I give it a 20; the 2nd half I’d give it 3 or 4 which is frankly one of the reasons why we created getjetsetmoney.com because there really wasn’t a lot of tactical advice that people can actually use. So I completely agree with you. I mean I’ve probably red the 1st half so many times; I think the difference with you is that you actually did something about it. You didn’t just read it and say, “I’m going to change it.” I mean you really did something about it. So I want to talk to you a little bit more about that. What was kind of going on in your head after you read it, after you went through the text job and you’re like, “That’s it. I’m getting out of here. I’m going to travel.” You know obviously a lot of people read the book and if they don’t read the book, they meet guys like you or they see something on TV or there’s just something inside of them that’s nagging and going, “You know what, I’m just not doing what I want to do. I really want to be doing x.” And what stops them is what stops everybody which is fear. So talk to me a little bit about you know, those sort of fears, anxieties, trepidations you have; what was going on through your head if you can remember when you actually made the decision like, “That’s it. I’m not doing it. I’m out of here. I’m quitting, I’m packing up and I’m moving to Central America.” Talk to me about that time period.

Clay: You know when I first decided, I was just excited because my job…I kind of have been looking at other prospects, other ideas, other jobs but nothing really had come up at that time so I was just stuck with what I had but when I finally just kind of realized, “You know what, I have the money saved up. I don’t need much money. I have enough to at least get me out for at least a month or two.” It was just pure excitement. And then when the time came around, the hardest part for me…I still get butterflies in my stomach thinking about it was really just quitting my job. It was just leaving the job. That was the hardest part. But it wasn’t because of money or because I go, “Oh I can’t believe I’m throwing this away.” It was…this was the dumbest part, I know there are people like this and I need not tell you don’t be like this; it’s because I felt like I was screwing the people at my job over. I felt like I’ve gotten so involved in the day to day operations that they just wouldn’t be able to function without me and I gave them I think like 6 weeks notice so they can transition better from having me there; I mean I’ve talked to other people too that have the same problem but listen, if you’re job is going to crumble without you there, it’s going to crumble with you there eventually too. It’s not a very well set up business. So there really shouldn’t be any kind of guiltiness, any kind of feelings of guilt when you’re trying to leave your job. I mean that’s what I realized too. It took me about a month or two after I actually left the job, I realized, “You know what, they’re going to move on. They’re just going to be just the same without me.” I mean if they’re a business that needs me there, it’s not a very good business if they can’t function without me. I mean beyond that though, to be honest I was just psyched to be gone. I got rid of all my stuff. I just felt good. And honestly once you really get into it, once you know there’s nothing else there stepping in your path, it’s the best feeling in the world.

Rob: Okay, so now you quit the job, you’re dealing with the anxiety of feeling like you’re letting the team down and all that psychology stuff that you’re battling in your head. You get on the road, you’re now in Central America; are you thinking, “What the hell and I doing here? How did I leave Southern California and I’m in the middle of freaking Central America? I don’t know anybody I don’t really speak the language like a native. What am I doing here?!” Was there any of those moments or it was just pure adrenaline?

Clay: To be honest it was pure adrenaline. I expected those kinds of moments. I completely expected them. They never came. At least as far as I can remember, they never came. I mean there was more to me, before I left, the biggest thing and the other thing that I kind of got from The Four Hour Work Week was I don’t have any life experience. And to me I saw it more as I’m in Central America and I’m actually gaining life experience for once. I’m actually kind of stepping outside my comfort zone. I just kind of fled off from all of it. I mean, I guess I’m just kind of methodical on how I see my personal development and this is another thing that I kind of realized before I left the job, before I made all these plans. I just kind of felt like, “You know what, I can’t move on in my life. I can’t do other big, important things until I get some life experience.” And every time I felt some kind of discomfort and kind of new challenge, it was just, “This is life experience.” That’s the kind of feeling I have the whole time.

Rob: So how old were you when you started?

Clay: I was 24 years old.

Rob: You were 24. Okay, so you really started gaining life experience much, much earlier. You know what, it’s interesting…I’ll be 44 next week and you know, at 24, I have to be honest with you, I don’t know that I would have the balls that you had. And also you know, when I was 24, there was no internet so a lot of those things didn’t exist so perhaps, I don’t know, maybe you can process things differently then somebody could’ve 20 years ago…

Clay: Yes. Well, I guess another thing for me was because of the internet, I kind of seen making money online as a goal. So I wasn’t this afraid of leaving the job and I was more realizing I can travel the world and hey, there are other ways to make money while I’m travelling. So that’s something that gave me confidence to do this.

Rob: Got it. So in a nutshell, what was that 9 month experience like crossing Central America and South America?

Clay: I set a goal for myself right now. When I try to describe this and answer this question without using the phrases ‘life changing’, ‘really up in my eyes’ or ‘change me’ because those are kind of backpacker clichés and they all apply here and it’s too easy way out. I plan to maybe be gone 3 to 4 months tops. That’s it. But as the time passed, as we kept moving, as we kept seeing country to country, people to people, that realization that we didn’t have to limit ourselves just kind of set in and we just kept moving and exploring. I actually went out with a buddy of mine, there are two of us and we went from just showing up in Panama, getting comfortable kin d of seeing what the land was like and we were living kind of in the jungles for our bus ride to take us to super hot beaches and then one night we just said, “Hey, you know what, going to Colombia might be fun. Hey the flight is 99 bucks. Let’s go in a week.” And so we went there, we settled down, got an apartment for a month there when we found out we loved it. I went out and I saw pretty much all of Argentina by bus. All of this was kind of a week or two planning. I mean it was…I never had felt that kind of freedom before. I guess that’s the best way to put it. It’s just being able to go out there and being able to just, on the way I say, “Hey, you know what, I want to learn Spanish a little better. I’m going to go live with a family in Ecuador.” and doing that; in a week, to have that ability is ridiculous. I mean it’s just saying the idea of, “You know I’m kind of bored with this country. I want to do something else in another country.” And then being on a plane actually doing it immediately, I kind of opened my eyes and realized, “This is the kind of freedom. This is the way that life is supposed to be.”

Rob: Alright. So let me unpack that a little bit. So you’ve expanded…they say that you know, once you expand your reality, if you blow a balloon up, it gets bigger and bigger and it can never go back to its original size because it has expanded; once you’ve expanded that reality that you’ve expanded, does it now become difficult for you as you’re sort of back into, we’ll call it ‘real life’ to say, “You know this is the way I want to live my life. If I want to get on a plane and I want to learn Thai, I want to go to Thailand and learn it.” Is there a part of you that says, “You know, I’m going to get married, I’m going to have kids someday and this just isn’t going to be as easy as it was back then.” Or you’re saying the opposite. You’re saying, “No, it’s expanded this way and this is the way it’s going to be. I’m going to set my life up so that this is something that can continue.”

Clay: That’s exactly what happened. It expanded. I just realized, “You know what, I can design my life around that kind of reality.” I hate using those phrases but that’s what it was. It was a new kind of way seeing the world for me. And I thought about these things and you know what, it’s something that you can easily design your life especially as you’re kind of moving up around. You can easily have kind of a home based and still have a way to travel on a whim. I mean you can still get married, have kids; it’s kind of something I realized this was just a new way of seeing the world. It’s nothing else and I still kind of easily fit into that traditional world that I find very attractive.

Rob: So part of doing that trip allowed you to have some experiences that were not just you know, travel experiences; they were experiences where you were doing something, let’s call it kinesthetic or visceral. For example…or physical, maybe is a better word…you did a 2 thousand mile bicycle tour…what was that like?

Clay: That…oh man (laughs)… I’m getting kind of giddy just thinking about it! That was maybe the maybe the best experience I’ve ever had in my life. It was about as ‘spur of the moment’ as you can get to…I remembered one night back in my apartment in Medina, I came back and saw my friend Derek that was living there with me and he was super psyched. He just ran across someone’s blog and they were talking about maybe doing a bicycle tour and the idea stuck with him. It turned me on. Neither of us has ridden any bicycles maybe in about 10 years, never ridden more than about 10 miles in our lives; didn’t even own bikes but just the idea of a bicycle tour turned us on. It was just so amazing. And so it was a month later where back in the States, both of us just kind of got settled back in where we’re staying at each of our parent’s house at those times because we didn’t have apartments and I said, “Screw it.” I called up Derek and I said, “Screw it. Let’s go on that tour in a month. That should give us enough time to prepare.” (laughs) I can tell you most people doing bicycle tours are taking about a year to prepare from my experience. I don’t think I ever rode more than about 30 miles in preparation; only did that like once or twice. I actually sprained my ankle playing basketball the week and a half that we’re supposed to leave and there are all kinds of things working against us and we just said, “Screw it. Let’s go.” And we went from Canada to the Mexico border in San Diego, California and I have to tell you it was about 4 weeks; it was…if I was talking about freedom being in South America and kind of being able to move around, that was true freedom. And we reached days where we had no idea what day it was; Derek would guess it was Saturday, I would guess it was Wednesday and it turned out it was Monday. We had no idea what time of day it was…I mean it’s just we’re on our bikes, we would stop to get food once in awhile, we would look around the world that we’re seeing, we’d go to bathrooms and we’d sleep on campsites. That was our life. We were like babies on bikes. There was nothing else to do. It was the simplest…I don’t know, that kind of existence I can’t wait to do another bike tour. That’s something that I can tell you if you’re thinking about doing it, trust me you don’t need preparation. You will get in shape on your way there. It will change you. That’s something I can’t wait to do again and I guess the best part of that was that right before we left for the bike tour, I had actually been setting up affiliate websites, you know that online experiments making some money and the 4 weeks that we were gone, I ended up making about 4,000 bucks. I had no access to a computer. I had nothing. I just one day…I had an iPhone with me and the battery was out the entire time. I charged it one day and checked and I had $2,000 that I made completely passively from these sites while I was gone. So in a way I was paid to do that tour. It was…

Rob: We’re going to get into that in great detail because that’s one of the biggest questions but I’m turning around…I’ve got this massive map in my recording studio over here of the world and when you said you went from Canada all the way to Mexico, you know in my brain I’m going, “Is he kidding me?” I’m looking down at the map…Jesus! I mean like that’s nuts! That is absolutely nuts!

Clay: We ended up averaging…you know the first day, I mean I crashed the first day. That was because…this is a hot tip for anyone doing this…eat junk food. I was just trying to do the healthy thing, I was thinking, “I want to eat fruits and nuts.” You have to eat junk food. I thought I was going to die the first day when we first left Canada and we went from Vancouver actually so near the top of Canada or near borders of the U.S. we did up 50 miles and I thought I was going to die. I ate about six bags of candy corn; I was a new man. And for the rest of the trip we ended up averaging about 80 miles a day. Again, this is with absolutely no bike riding experience. We’re nothing special. Anyone can do this. It took about 4 weeks.

Rob: Yes, I’ve got some friends who were ultra marathoners who are iron men and they all say the same thing.

Clay: Okay, I don’t believe that (laughs). I don’t believe that for a second (laughs)

Rob: Oh, the ultra marathon you mean?

Clay: Yeah (laughs)

Rob: No, no, no. They all say the same thing in terms of junk food.

Clay: Oh, the junk food!

Rob: Yeah, because when you’re burning up probably 5,000 or 6,000 calories a day, you’ve got to feed it. You’re killing the sugar and a lot of the ultra marathoners order pizza, you know, on the run which is really, really crazy.

Clay: That’s what I heard, yeah.

Rob: So what was your favorite country in Central America or in South America and why?

Clay: Actually that’s easy…it’s Colombia. For sure it’s Colombia.

Rob: That’s interesting. Why is that?

Clay: I’m in the stereotype of Colombia. It seems to be kind of lifting off now as a dangerous, scary place; I can tell you I never felt safer. That was the safest country to me but that’s not the reason why I loved it. The reason why I loved it was the people. The women were incredible. The people in general were the nicest people I’ve ever met anywhere. They were just psyched that you even came to their country. You were wind to be there and look around; they welcome tourists with open arms and they loved having you there. I actually spent about two and a half months in the city of Medellin alone which used to be one of their more dangerous spots; now it’s a bustling, modern city. It was easy to live in. we got an apartment immediately that was super cheap but super nice, high rise apartment overlooking the entire city.

Rob: I got a personal question for you. We’re looking for a spot in Colombia to do New Years eve. Where would you think beaches, parties, sexy, jet set…where would you recommend that someone go?

Clay: Let’s see, because if you want beaches, there’s a city Cartagena which is actually in November, they do this thing called the Miss Colombia pageant which I’m trying to price out tickets to go there this November because that was the most fun I’ve ever had in my life. It’s basically 2 weeks street party during the day or it’s basically the people in the street are having fun, throwing paint at each other and going nuts while beauty pageant contestants drive by in floats. That’s it, 2 weeks of that is the most fun I’ve ever had. Cartagena is the city. I would warn you it can get during these times, during New Years and all that time, a little “touristy” so…I mean you can’t spend 5 minutes on the beach without someone walking out trying to sell you something.

Rob: That’s true for anywhere though.

Clay: Yeah, I guess that’s anywhere but Cartagena, awesome place to go.

Rob: What about your least favorite? What did you honestly say, “You know what, I just didn’t like it.”?

Clay: Well, I’m going to get a lot of crap for this but Argentina. Argentina was my least favorite. I mean I want to go back someday; don’t get me wrong but the only word I can think of, and again I accept any crap people want to give me over this…overrated. I thought it was completely overrated.

Rob: That’s interesting.

Clay: Before I left, I went straight to Buenos Aires and I end up seeing the entire country. I went by bus, I flew down to the various side of the country, went by bus and basically saw the whole thing; I’m basically not a bus guy but I figured, “Why not? It’s a big country.” I always heard, this is the spot, this is the greatest place on earth, it’s incredible, blah, blah, blah; I don’t know, it was nice…but to be honest, I went directly to Argentina from Colombia which was heaven on earth to me, to most people over there was heaven on earth. I think heading out to Colombia, once you’re out there, you’ll bethinking, “I’m going to stay for a week or two.” You end up staying for as long as your visa would let you. But what came about in Buenos Aires was it was almost a total opposite of Colombia. The culture was there but it felt more like I was in a westernized version of South America. So it wasn’t like I was really experiencing anything different than when I was at home. I mean it was different but it wasn’t this whole new world like everything else has been. And I have to be honest, the people just aren’t as…you know Colombia probably wound it for me but the people aren’t as warm and as friendly. I met some people but on a whole they didn’t really seem to be as happy to have foreigners coming in. I mean it’s hard to say but I’d love to go back to Buenos Aires someday. I love beef, the greatest beef I’ve ever had in my life in Buenos Aires.

Rob: You come to B.A. with me and I promise you you’ll never say that again.

Clay: See that’s the feeling I get (laughs).

Rob: Trust me. Go on my site and watch my Buenos Aires video.

Clay: I’m afraid to do that because it’ll probably make me want to leave right now (laughs)

Rob: Hindsight being 20/20, if someone wants to do what you did, what’s the best piece of advice that you could give them?

Clay: Alright, now this is assuming you can somehow save, I’d say just get $10,000 saved. I know it sounds like a lot but live at home, get a job, whatever; I made not that much money. I worked in retail. I was able to save more than $10,000 in about 2 years. I mean, I’d rather save about $10,000 a year. So I know this is something I know you can do. Just do that and then don’t rationalize anything. Just go. Just do it. Don’t plan anything, don’t think about it; don’t think ahead of time, “I’m going to…you know I’m going to do this in 6 months.” Buy plane tickets anywhere that sounds attractive to you and just go, just do it even if for one week. Don’t rationalize it. Everything will work out fine. Trust me. Just go.

Rob: Alright. So playing devil’s advocate for a minute, what’s going to happen? Everybody’s going to say, “Yeah, yeah, yeah $10,000, okay. I got the $10,000, I decided to do it but I’m going to run out of that $10,000.” So the most obvious question that everybody wants to know is how the heck did you create the income to pay for this and we’re going to find out exactly how Clay did it in the 2nd half of our interview for our Jet Set Money members. So if you’re not a member yet, just go to getjetsetmoney.com and you could sign up and become a member. So Clay, before we go over to the members’ area, if people want to get a hold of you and find out how you did what you did or just kind of keep up with you, what’s the best way for them to do it?

Clay: Actually I don’t have any blogs or anything up. I kind of like to lay low at the moment. So the best way would be to email me. Just send it to mail@clayboeschen.com

Chris Brisson: Dead Broke To Travelling The World!

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INTERVIEW: Chris Brisson

Rob: Welcome to another edition of Lifestyle Designs Confession Podcast. I’m Rob Murgatroyd from GetJetSetMoney.com and today we have Chris Brisson on the line. Let me tell you a little bit about Chris. He’s a 28 year old entrepreneur based out of Del Rey Beach, Florida. He made a decision really early in his life to create an automated, scalable business that gives him the income to fund all of the things that he loves to do like travelling. So as a result, just to give you a little bit of idea, Chris has made a bunch of money. In fact, he’s made over $250,000 in his first year to do things like funding his travel around the world. So we’re going to get into all of that stuff with him. And so without further ado, Chris, are you there?

Chris Brisson: I sure am. Thanks Rob!

Rob: You’re welcome. So Chris thanks for taking the time with us today and I want to kind of get right into it. I know you’re a busy guy and you got a lot going on. So let’s kind of just jump right in. How would you describe what lifestyle design is? We’ve all heard the term and many of the people listening have either heard about or read Tim Ferris’ 4HWW where it’s where that term really started. What does that mean to you and how would you define it?

CB: Yeah, well I really think that for me, it’s creating a business that can be run anywhere. You know, it’s working for yourself; number one. If you’re working for somebody else, it’s possible but to truly live the life that you want and to have the things that you want to have, places that you want to go and really just a lifestyle. I think creating a business specifically on the internet that you want to run virtually anywhere with an internet connection. You know I think that is the core of creating a lifestyle business. So you could be anywhere in the world, hop on the internet from your iPhone or iPad or laptop or go to an internet café and see how your business is running. I think, just not, you know, you don’t have to have a home base. You could be anywhere, anytime and easily just run your business from an internet connection, virtually.

Rob: Let’s talk a little bit about psychology because what you just described there with lifestyle design is, in a loose sense, it’s a psychology that you’ve adopted. It’s a belief system that you have in place but it’s not easy for a lot of people, a lot of twenty something’s or even thirty something’s who have the traditional, “I’m going to work for this company for 30 years, get a gold watch and die.” You have a different psychology so one of the things that I observed in doing my pre-research for this interview with you is that whether you’re aware of it or not, I’m sure you spend a lot of time and a lot of money to make sure that your head is in the right space. So you and I have some mutual people in common. For example, guys like Tony Robbins, Yanik Silver and Frank Kern. Tony Robbins from the psychology standpoint that most people listening to this, know who he is. In fact he’s got a T.V. show on one of the major networks called “Breakthrough” right now which is outstanding and guys in the internet world who are at the peak, who are making just sick, stupid amount of money, you know millions of dollars in three days, and you know Frank Kern, Eben Pagan and those guys. But you spend time, energy and money on those things and I want to talk to you a little bit about how you’ve adopted that and why you think that’s important and what kind of things you’ve put in place to do that.

CB: Sure. It really starts with your mindset and what you think you can achieve; you can do. And to think that for a lot of people, the first thing that comes into your head is whether you can do something or you can’t. So it’s just friends and people that I know, I think, you can do anything that you really want to do in life and go and achieve anything that you want and so many people strive for that middle kind of mediocrity level…

Rob: That lukewarm place. Yeah.

CB: I mean, because it’s easy you know. And if you look at it, actually, it’s not. If you look at the top, you have a certain few people that are reaching for the top and then you have this huge world of the middle where everyone is reaching towards, right? So you have this 1% or 2% that are going after what they want and making it happen but then you have so much competition of people going towards the middle and then you have the huge, lower part. So I think you know, if you’re going to spend any sort of energy or effort in achieving something, go towards the top. But the first thing is obviously the mindset. So you know, Tony Robbins, Jack Canfield, he has a really great book called Success Principles which I’ve probably read maybe 10 times…

Rob: Yeah, I’m looking at it on my bookshelf right now. I would say it is the definitive collection of success principles. I completely agree with you.

CB: Yeah, I mean it’s just a great book from setting your goals to turning where you want to go and sticking to it through mind maps, through mind movies and vision boards because I think it’s important. When you know where you want to go, you can reverse engineer the steps that it takes to get to that goal but if you have no idea what you want to achieve and where you want to go, then you’re just going to be blindly kind of just slogging through life and setting goals but true attainable goals and then goals that just may seem completely out of the question that you want to achieve but at least something that gives you some sort of drive.

Rob: Yeah and I don’t even know how much “woo-woo” is involved with things like the secret and you know, just speaking it into existence. I think it’s more about what you just described, which is knowing where you’re going to go and that we’re nothing more than elimination creatures. We’ll just pull everything out that doesn’t relate to that and we’ll just laser beam what we’re after and then all of a sudden things start to appear.

CB: Uh-huh.

Rob: You know. So if you were to give somebody some advise on tactically which one of these seminars to go to because you know, number 1: there’s a lot of them, number 2: they’re very, very expensive and number 3: a lot of people are full of sh** and you don’t know who’s good and who isn’t. If somebody were to ask me, I’d say go to “Unlimited Power” weekends and go to “Date with Destiny” for Tony. What would you say?

CB: Same thing. You know, I went to “Unleash the Power Within” (U.P.W.) as it’s the code word it’s called. I went to that. I also went to “Date with Destiny” which was whew, that was…that was unreal!

Rob: Beyond words; worth every penny.

CB: Yeah, and then I went to “Business Mastermind” it was kind of a closed-door thing specifically for business but U.P.W. it’s kind of that introduction and I mean Tony has been doing it for a long, long time. It’s just hard to deny the proof of what people have been able to achieve and the information he’s given the people to control their lives. “Date with Destiny”, I would definitely, definitely recommend that. That was just an eye opener and I mean you really just break through and I think a lot of people have these beliefs that they can’t do that or “I can’t make that much money or I can’t create a business” or just all these beliefs that we have in our head like “Oh, I have to go to college to do that or Geez, I got to get my M.B.A.” and all these false beliefs that we have in our head that we think we need to achieve but in the end, I mean it’s just B.S.

Rob: It’s so funny. I was out to dinner the other night with a guy who’s a super, super success. He’s made millions and millions of dollars and he was joking because we were out to dinner with a couple of doctors and stuff like that. He says, “It’s a good thing I didn’t become a doctor. I’d only make $200,000 a year.” And I thought that was hysterical. (Laughs) you know what I mean? Because we spend so much focus on getting that M.B.A. or getting that degree but what does it really buy us? It certainly doesn’t buy us results.

CB: Yup. The only question after that is “then what?”

Rob: Yeah “then what?”, right?

CB: You know, you’ve got it awesome but guess what? You’ve spent eight years of your life getting this, you’re hugely in debt and now you just bought yourself a hundred-hour-a-week job.

Rob: That’s exactly right. You know, as a side which I think you’d find kind of…I did my first Tony Robbins seminar in 1984. It was $99. It was the “Fire Walk” is what he called it at that time.

CB: Right, right.

Rob: And he only had it; check this out, he only had it on Friday night. They closed off like a good chunk of the street in Manhattan where we did it. The police were there, the fire department, you know how it is when he does the “Fire Walk”. It was $99, at the end of the Fire Walk we went back into the room and Tony and his then wife, Becky at that time were in the back of the room and tried to sign you up for $200 to come to Saturday and Sunday.

CB: Wow!

Rob: How much has that changed? (Laughs)

CB: Hmm, a lot!  It’s multiple thousands of dollars now. You know it’s kind of funny you mentioned the Fire Walk. So I did it in 2008; the end of 2008 on Halloween night, we walked across the fire.

Rob: Oh, it’s always magical. I want to do something with him in his island in Fiji.

CB: Yes, that’s great!

Rob: Okay, switching years a little bit, were not…for his portion of the interview, were not going to go too much in detail about how you create the income and live the style. That’s for our Jet Set Money members which we’ll get into but if someone were to say, “Okay, I’ve done the Tony Robbins seminar, my psychology is right. I just want to know like, who is the guru on the internet to go to that is really, really credible. Somebody who has spent the money for the seminar; went to it and it was totally worth it; where I was able to leave the event, do something that I have learned from the event that was actionable and created an income as a result.” I know you’ve been to Frank Kern’s events, I know you’ve been to Yanik silver’s events. Which one would you say is the most credible and the one that you would recommend that somebody who’s just starting out in this world, plunk the money down and go to?

CB: Hmmm. You know I would uh…Frank Kern’s events are just awesome; number one. It’s not necessarily about…you know there’s a part of you that goes to learn content but you know, I’ve tried to invite a lot of my friends to go to just any event because it all starts with just meeting other people and then giving them believability that, “Holy crap! This person is doing it too? I can do that.”  So I think, you know, the content is great and you learn some stuff but chances are of you actually implementing some of the stuff you’re going to learn is very slim to none. The biggest benefit is just meeting other people, building relationships and finding people that are doing what you’re doing and when you have that little community. I mean if you are just starting out, the biggest things is meeting other people that are actually doing it and making money online or created businesses online. That’s the biggest proof because it’s just hard for people to believe, “Really? You work from anywhere you want and you make money on the internet? How do you that?”

Rob: See, I think this is the very interesting point that you’re making and I think that it’s very honest of you. I mean you’re saying that, “Yeah, you can go to a Frank Kern event; it’s an awesome seminar and you’ll probably learn some content that you can use.” But the likelihood of you using it is probably pretty small but the upside is who you meet in the hallways.

CB: Yup.

Rob: That’s interesting. I’ve never actually heard anybody say it that honestly.

CB: I mean think about it. You got all these events; maybe you’d go for a couple presentations and take a couple of notes. If you’re diligent, you’d probably write the stuff down and put it in a Google doc and actually go back and implement stuff. Sometimes you do them but a majority of times, you don’t. But it’s always the relationships that you bring back from. I think that’s the most important thing.

Rob: Okay. So I interviewed Yanik Silver a couple of weeks ago. He’s a totally, real, cool guy and I know that he has a seminar that you went to. Is that one of those; I know you mentioned Frank Kern; is that something that you would recommend as well? I think he calls it “Underground”.

CB: Yeah! You know, I went to Underground and then Frank’s. Yanik’s, I think what Yanik does very well is that first of all, he’s an extremely nice and personal guy and he brings out people that are the “underground”. Not the typical circuit presenters and speakers but these are people that are “underground”, they’re making money on the internet but they’re just not talking about it. And Yanik finds these people and brings them out. So again, that goes back down to the proof and the believability that, “Oh wow! This guy has a cat site and he’s making money with that” or “Oh, this guy has a blog and now he’s a super success.” So these are the regular people; everyday people that you’d probably see at Starbucks. This whole Starbucks society and internet millionaires working out of Starbucks; those are the people that are at Yanik’s event and those are the people that you want to stay in touch with and those are the people that are onstage. They’re not the “big circuit” persons. So Yanik’s event, hands down definitely.

Rob: You would definitely recommend that event. And would you be doing one of those soon?

CB: I can’t wait to do Yanik’s trips. You know the maverick adventure.

Rob: That’s a big deal.

CB: Yeah. I got to get to that level first. (Laughs)

Rob: Yup. Are you going to do the next underground event?

CB: Probably. Again, I think the connection is really where it’s at and you know. You just meet a lot of great people, you have a lot of great time and it’s always good info of course.

Rob: Alright. So now we’ve got the psychology in place; so let’s talk about what that psychology could actually do for you. Let’s say that you want to move to Buenos Aires with your girlfriend and say, “Hey honey. You know what? I want to learn how to tango. I dance like a white guy and I want to learn how to tango.” I’m going to pick up. I’m going to, move to the middle of Buenos Aires and I’m going to spend three months learning tango. If you did that, what would happen to your current monthly income?

CB: Well, I think I don’t even know what time zone changes out there…

Rob: Not much. It’s actually shockingly… yeah; it’s an hour or two depending on the time of the year.

CB: Yeah, okay so, well get into the call later but I was in Brazil and the time zone was maybe two hours or something like that. I mean, I do my business on the internet. Through email, through Skype and that’s all you need. It’s not that it’s going to drop dramatically. All of my sales and profits and everything or even business is done virtually. So it’s done through the internet, it’s done through Skype which we’re talking on now which is free. Skype to Skype so there’s no cost it that in as far as long distance phone calls. Everything is web based and all I need is an internet connection so it’s kind of…it’s actually kind of cool; the whole Brazil thing. You know I think it really won’t suffer. I’m doing my business online now. I work out of Starbucks, I work out of my house and I’ll probably get an office soon. But the question here really is that “Man, do I really need that stuff?” or “Do I really need an office?” because literally I talked to Alex saying “Hey baby. You know, we could… or work off the internet.” So it’s not like it’s going to change at all because I’m already doing it. It’s not like I physically need to be somewhere for business to get done and sales to happen. Give me a phone, give me an internet connection and give me an email regardless of where I’m at.

Rob: So let’s talk a little bit more about that. So I understand that you took a trip to Brazil, speaking of; and while you were there for about a month, you worked maybe five hours; put together a total of $13,000 while you were gone but I’m sure before you took that trip, there was some fear and anxiety like, “Oh sh**. What’s going to happen? I’m in Brazil. I’m here for a month. Am I going to make money?” But the reality was that you actually wound up making a bunch of money. So talk to me a little bit about some of the fears you had before you left and what you learned from that experience of being able to sort of disappear for five weeks and really only work a few hours.

CB: Yeah, prior to going to that, it was really kind of the first experiment in my business and going to Brazil; actually my girlfriend at that time; we went to Brazil. She’s actually from Brazil and so we planned this whole 35-day trip and I was scared. I was like, “Oh my gosh! What am I going to do? How am I going to answer customer support? How am I going to do this and respond to email?” because you know, we’re all addicted to email. I’m addicted to email. I need to be at my computer all the time. So it really was a great experiment and getting away from that; unplugging and realizing that the things that you do are really important; checking your email for five to six times a day. When you look at it four days later, you realize that 90% of this is junk anyways and maybe two or three are actually something of importance, you really get an understanding of how you can step away and control your life. And not let the internet take over. Some of the fears were that. How am I going to manage the business? How am I going to stay on top of this stuff? It’s kind of funny how it all just kind of played out. So prior to that I kind of set-up some automated things, some automated campaigns through my email auto-responder. It really just set things up. I’m not going to be able to check my email for seven days, let me set up some things that would go out automatically so I don’t have to be there. I don’t have to check the emails. I just check the sales reports and see how many sales I got. But it’s all going out on auto-pilot without me actually being there.

Rob: So it looks like you’ve got multiple online businesses that are generating the cash for you to fund this really incredible lifestyle that you live and we’re going to go a bit more in depth about how you create the automated income to travel in the second half of our interview. It’s the version for the Jet Set Money members. All the Jet Set Money members will be able to get inside our membership. If you’re not a member, you can just go to GetJetSetMoney.com but before we move over to the member’s area, if people want to get a hold of you, what’s the best way for them to do it?

CB: Yeah, they can go to my site chrisbrisson.com its c-h-r-i-s-b-r-i-s-s-o-n that’s my main blog.

Rob: Oh, and by the way, I apologize for calling you Brisson. It’s the American in me. It sounds like its French.

CB: Yeah, don’t worry, everyone gets it.

Rob: You got to have that Brisson. (Laughs)

CB: Everyone says it some way the same or the other so…it’s okay.

Gary Arndt Travels The World Three Years Straight and Becomes Time Magazine’s Top 25 Bloggers

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INTERVIEW: Gary Arndt (Everything Everywhere)

Rob: Welcome to another edition of The Lifestyle Design Confessions Podcast. I’m Rob Murgatroyd of getjetsetmoney.com and today we have a super exciting guest. His name is Gary Arndt and he was voted by Time Magazine as one of the 25 Best Blogs of 2010. This is Time Magazine, the real deal. Since March of 2007 Gary has been travelling around the globe visiting more than 70 countries and territories and on March 13, 2007 he handed over the keys to his house, he put his possessions in storage and headed out to travel around the world with nothing but a back pack, a laptop and a camera. 3 and a half years and 70 countries later, he’s got the equivalent of Phd in general knowledge about people, places and this thing we call planet earth. Without further ado, Gary, are you there?

Gary: Okay, so Gary just by way of background, could you tell us what led up to the decision of travelling around the world. In other words, what kind of work were you before this and what was the trigger that led to this all happening?

Gary: I had a very little internet consulting firm. I have started a company online and back before even Netscape was released; and one of my college roommates designed a product called Cold Fusion which is now owned by Adobe, which was designed to copy database to websites easily without having to do any formal scripting. So what my firm did was…today was really kind of pretty standard, is web application development using a database. So today we use Php or even like WordPress. At the time everybody was just doing static web pages. So we were developing applications, systems for newspapers and publishing houses. I sold that company in 1998 and one of the companies I sold it to which had offices around the world was to send me to all their various offices to talk about the internet so I got to go around the world for this first time and it was really my first trip out of the United States other than Canada and I really enjoyed the experience and after that I started a couple of other companies. One of which I sold again, another I was just an investor in; and I was looking for something to do with my life. There were no businesses I certainly wanted to invest in so I decided to travel.

Rob: When we hear about selling companies, you know some people sell companies into the millions and millions of dollars in them and other people don’t. So just to kind of give things a proper  perspective, this wasn’t something for you where you were like you know, Mark Zuckerberg on Facebook, was it?

Ryan: No, it wasn’t that much but it was enough where I could live quite comfortably.

Rob: Okay, so take me back to the moment when you said, “That’s it. I’m outta here.” What were you feeling emotionally? What was going on in your head when you were kind of playing with this idea and in that moment you went, “Okay, that’s it. I’m going to do this.” What was that like?

Ryan: It all really happened in an instant. Like I said, I took a trip around the world. I’ve done some other trips since then. I went to Iceland in 2005. I went with a scientific group to Argentina to do a project and I enjoyed doing it all the time and it was you know, kind of these moments when like, “What do you want to do with your life?” and I said, “I’m going to travel.” And once I made that decision and it all kind of happened in an instant, it was just a matter of how to make it happen at that point and it took about 2 years to unwind everything, to sell my house, to take care of all my affairs.

Rob: And is this sort of within your personality when you make a decision, you do it big or is this sort of unique on how you do things?

Gary: This is pretty much how I do it. I mean, even when I decided to start a blog…I mean I have been blogging before blogs are called blogs; I have a personal website and about 9 months in to my trip, one of the companies I started after I sold my firm was a gaming company. Our network was doing about 50 million page views a month to give you an idea of the size of it. So I knew what good traffic was and I was not doing good traffic. I would have maybe a hundred people a day visit my blog, that’d be a good day and I knew that if I was going to do this seriously, I needed to take it seriously as a job or I needed to stop doing it. And it was 9 months in and I was in Hong Kong at the time and since then I started to change my approach and yeah, it was sort of grew bigger when I got home.

Rob: What was your biggest fear when you started this? What was the one thing that you had to wrestle to the ground in your head before you actually said, “Okay, that’s it. I’m selling the house, I’m unwinding everything and out of here.”

Gary: This probably will come as a surprise or maybe people won’t believe it but there really wasn’t. I mean once I made up my mind, that was it. I wasn’t married, I didn’t have any kids, I didn’t have any relationships that I have to worry about, I didn’t have to worry financially how I was going to pay for it, I had enough money saved away; a lot of people when I tell them what I do they say, “Oh, you’re so brave.” I never think of it in those terms. It was just something I did and I understand that for most people it might not be like that but for me it was just…once I made up my mind I did it.

Rob: What do you tell people when you bump into them? Like where are you right now? We’ve got a bit of a spotty connection so when people are listening…obviously you’re travelling around the world and the internet isn’t always great. Where are you at this moment?

Gary: I’m one block away from Waikiki Beach in Honolulu.

Rob: Okay. And where were you say 2 weeks ago?

Gary: 2 weeks ago I would have been in Curacao or Aruba.

Rob: So when you bump into somebody and you were having a chat with them over maybe a cup of coffee and they ask you, “Are you in Hawaii on business or are you here on pleasure?” What do you tell them?

Gary: I say…well, actually I am in Hawaii right now for work. I’m so backed up on photos and articles that I wanted to write but I just say I’ve been travelling around the world for 4 years and that starts off a whole line of questioning like, “How do you do it? It’s amazing.” And I get that almost every day. So I have a business card and I thought of what I should put in my business card…blogger because that always starts a conversation because these people like, “A traveler? You can’t be a traveler as a career.” and starting that conversation is what I always enjoy.

Rob: (laughs) I bet you do. You must see these looks that run anywhere between you know, jealousy, excitement and everything in between. Now you’re not doing this with somebody else. You’re doing it alone and I’m sure that you got asked this question a lot but was that by design when you said, “I just want to do this by myself. I want to experience the world alone.” because I’m sure that it’s a much different experience doing it alone than perhaps with someone else.

Gary: I actually asked one of my friends to come with me and I offered to pay her entire way and she didn’t want to do it. So to give you an idea, there are lots of people who wanted to do something like this but when it comes time to pull the trigger, their fears and doubts kind of get in the way; from either I do this alone or I don’t do it at all so doing it alone it is.

Rob: How has packing changed for you? In other words, have you added or deleted certain things that you thought were important and now they’re just not or do you have more stuff or you have left stuff or…what’s different?

Gary: I took a bag of like you know bandages and ointments and all these other things you’d think you need and I realized you can get that stuff anywhere. If you need to buy medicine on the road, you don’t have to carry that stuff with you. The amount of shoes I carry and clothing has probably gone down. The amount of electronics I carry has probably gone up. That’s actually the biggest I carry, is electronics.

Rob: What has been your biggest expense travelling around the world and how have you reduced those costs?

Gary: Well, there are only 3 real expenses…well maybe 4 but you have transportation cost, you have lodging and then you have food; and then I suppose you also have miscellaneous cost…going out for drinks, entrance fees to certain locations. At the beginning of my trip I actually started going through the Pacific so I went to all the little island countries like Samoa, Conga, Vanuatu, Micronesia and transportation costs in that part of the world is very high and I knew it’s going to be very high to that’s why I went there first because if I ran to money problems on the road, at least I had that out of the way. The biggest thing to reduce your cost is to go to a part of the world that’s cheap and don’t move around a lot. The more you move around, the more you’re going to be paying; don’t just be moving every couple of days.

Rob: Okay. So you’re going to be in Hawaii now for how long?

Gary: I’m here until the 19th and then I go to Bangkok.

Rob: Okay. So when you go to Bangkok, how long will you be there?

Gary: Probably about a month.

Rob: About a month. Okay. So just kind of take me through the thought process. You’re in Hawaii now and I guess your total time there will about 2 weeks?

Gary: A little under that.

Rob: A little under. Okay. So do you do some pre-trip planning before you get to Hawaii? In other words when you’re in Curacao, were you on the computer searching for a spot to go to or do you just turn up or…how does that work?

Gary: I almost always show up a lot. I had no place to stay until literally I had a 3 hour lay-over at Kona Airport. I reserved a hotel while I was in Kona. Unless it’s on major cities like London, New York or Tokyo where I’ve had problems reserving a room in the past, I usually just show up to a place without any reservation.

Rob: So is there a particular type of hotel that you’re looking for when you get there so when you get to Hawaii, do you say, “Well, okay I stay at Best Western, I stay at Marriott’s.” What’s your protocol to find something?

Gary: Usually you can find like a 2-star hotel or a guest house. Those are going to be your most affordable options. Right now I have a private room at a hostel in Waikiki which ended up probably being the cheapest option for me for this area. It’s kind of the high season so you’re going to be paying more as opposed to if I was here in say August.

Rob: Okay. So how old are you now by the way Gary?

Gary: I’m 41 now.

Rob: Okay. So when you think hostel obviously you think teenagers backpacking through Europe and things like that. Do you run into people in your age group in hostels or is it mostly young?

Gary: It’s a mix now. I’m seeing more and more older people. I’ve been at some places where there are younger people there actually; a lot of people who are retired and want to travel on a buck will go to these places because you can cook your own food. They have a kitchen and it’s cheap.

Rob: Okay. Now have you been able to leverage the power of the celebrity that you’re creating to get hotels?

Gary: Yeah. Over the last say 6 months, as my website become more…one of the things I should note is that even though I live a life that a lot of lifestyle design people you know, try to go after, I don’t write about lifestyle design. I have a travel blog. I focus on photography, places I visit and it’s only been recently the travel industry has been waking up to bloggers so for example, earlier this year in Spain, I was invited by the tourism people there and so I was in Spain for several weeks. I went to Africa a few months ago, I was in Canada, my trip to Curacao and Aruba so yeah, I’m doing more and more of these trips and even my trip to Thailand is being paid for by Tourism Thailand.

Rob: So is that something where you reached out to Tourism Thailand and said, “Look, I want to come there, I want to help promote you on my website.” Will you take care of this or…?

Gary: They come to me.

Rob: They come to you. So you got an email saying, “Can you come?”

Gary: Yeah. I can think of maybe one example where I’ve ever reached out and asked someone for some assistance. It usually occurs where I am getting requests from people to do x, y or z.

Rob: And what type of things when you go to Bangkok, what’s the tourism industry looking for you to do? Promote Thailand specifically, restaurants, hotels, nightlife or just blog about them? What’s the exchange?

Gary: Well, for the particular trip I’m going, it’s about medial tourism. So if you’re aware, you can go to Thailand and actually I travelled with doctors and it’s extremely cheap compared to what you pay in the United States especially for very standard procedures like dentistry, you know things like that. So it’s going to be help promote that and Thailand has had a lot of problems with the political protests and such over the last year, so they’re looking to kind of restore their image and I should say I was in Thailand for like 3 months earlier last year and I was there during the protest and unless you happen to be in this several block radius where the protesters are, you had no idea anything was going on. Of course they only care for that few block area and that’s what everyone saw. So yeah, I just go and I blog about what I experienced and the very interesting thing is you’re usually in a much tighter schedule when you go on trips but you get to do things you otherwise won’t be able to do or would be very expensive. So when I was in South Africa, I got to go to a great white shark dive where I went in a shark cage and they chum the water and great white sharks came up to the cage…

Rob: Now did you know when you said “out on this journey” that people would be reaching out to you because you got the eyeballs now on your blog. Did you know that they would reach out to you and would say, “We’ll pay for you if you’re willing to come here.” Is that something that you planned on or hoped for?

Gary: No. I had no clue how the tourism industry works. In fact, I’m still rather a novice in knowing how the industry work.

Rob: You mentioned you don’t talk about lifestyle design and I know that you recently just did a post on probably the guy who coined the phrase “lifestyle design”. I’m sure there’s a bit of a debate about that but I think we can all agree that Tim Ferriss is the one who made it.

Gary: I should know I started travelling before his book came out.

Rob: Oh, that’s interesting. I wouldn’t have thought that. My next question was going to be, did he inspire you to do this and obviously…which makes this even more authentic. Okay. Why do you not blog about lifestyle design? We are in sort of similar worlds I suppose because of travel and there are so many people that are now blogging about lifestyle design but very few people are actually really do…I mean there’s almost nobody doing what you’re doing, I’m sure on that scale but very few people are really living true lifestyle design but there are zillions of people blogging about it. Is that sort of the reason why you’re staying away from the lifestyle design world and keeping at travel?

Gary: What I find interesting are the places I go and the things I see. That’s what people are fascinated by. They want to travel, they want to see the world, they want to see these things. That is what really motivates most people. And talking about things like the business of blogging, I almost always with a few exceptions keep that off of my site because that’s not why people go there. I like talking about it and I have no problem talking about it in other forums like you know, on this podcast but I keep the website about travel, about exploration and adventure because I think that’s what motivates people. And as far as lifestyle design, most of the things I read are all these meta 30,000 foot you know “break away from your cubicle”, “live your life like you want” and they’re all these motivational posts that all kind of just reiterate the same point over and over and over. What they don’t talk about are the logistics and the micro things of like you know, “how do you do this? How do you set up a bank account in another country? How do you run a business in another country?” There are some places that do that but for the most part it’s all just the same motivational things over and over and over. And I should say I like all the lifestyle design people I’ve met; I think they certainly have their heart in the right place but for me at least, it’s not the motivation, it’s not that macro level stuff that really is interesting and as important. And you talked about Tim Ferriss and I’ll give him this much; when he does write about things, he writes about you know weight loss, or how to hack a language or these how-to things that aren’t just these mile- high motivational types of posts.

Rob: So you choose to go more vertical than just staying at 60,000 feet because at some point you go, “Yeah, yeah I get it. We all want to live a lifestyle design but let’s talk about something more meaningful like what it is actually like being in Bangkok and how do you unwind things to do this, etc.”

Gary: Yeah, exactly. And by putting myself as a travel site, a lot of the things we’ve talked about in terms of press trips become available to me, whereas if you just talk about break away from the cubicle over and over, those things will never become available to you. I get emails every week, you know about once a week from people who say, “Gary, I’ve never commented, I’ve never written to you before. I just want to say that I just sold my house and I’m going to go travel around the world for a year and I just want to say thanks for being an inspiration.” I don’t think you have to do hard sell. I think by just doing what I do and showing people…you know I do a lot of photography…by showing them pictures of the world and talking about the places I’ve been, that provides inspiration in itself and I don’t need to beat people over the head with it.

Rob: Now do you also get emails from people that say, “Okay, I’m in. I love what you’re doing. I want to do it. I don’t have a house. I’m 25-something and I don’t have a lot of cash. Is there any advice that you can give me so I can make some kind of automated income that Tim Ferriss talks about to be able to do this. It’s a money-block issue for me.” Do those questions come up, and if they do, how do you handle it?

Gary: They do. You know, somebody could set up a system while they’re making money online, that’s great. But if they want to start travelling now, I would suggest that they get a job working on the road; teaching English or something like that. It’s certainly much quicker to get going. You’ll have money flowing in right away and while you’re doing that you can do side projects.

Rob: Have you actually worked over the last 3 or 4 years? When I say work, I mean doing something like you just mentioned.

Gary: No. I have enough money saved up and I focus solely…in fact, if you go to my website you won’t even find any advertisements; not even monetizing my website even though I’ve had months where I’ve had a quarter million ‘uniques’ just because I’ve been focusing just on building an audience.

Rob: Is that a plan down the road once you hit a certain level?

Gary: I’m almost there. I’ll be releasing an iPhone app in 2011. I hope later in 2011.

Rob: Okay. What’s the biggest question that you got asked because I’m sure you got asked all the time; What is that?

Gary: What’s my favorite place.

Rob: Yeah, I get asked that one too. My answer’s the next one. What’s yours?

Gary: I say that asking me my favorite place is like asking their mother what her favorite child is.

Rob: You just can’t answer it, yeah. What’s the one question that you just hated when you get it?

Gary: Probably the same question. What’s my favorite place.

Rob: So if someone wanted to set out on this journey and they were just afraid but they need a little bit of a push to do it. What advice would you give them now that you’ve got 3 years under your belt here?

Gary: You know, do something. Take some act, maybe selling off some stuff; maybe it’s taking a spontaneous trip somewhere and it could be as simple as going to Des Moines, you know or some place as boring as that without a hotel reservation. That might be scary to some people to show up some place unprepared but just do it and see what happens.

Rob: How have you changed? You know, personally. In other words if I met you 3 years ago and we were friends back then, and you know I hadn’t seen you in awhile, 3 year later we met again; what would be different about who you are?

Gary: I don’t think I’ve changed that much. This was never intended to be some sort of spiritual journey for me. I know a lot of people travel for that reason but it was never why I did it. If anything, I did it more as an intellectual thing. Just to learn because whenever you’re in a new place, you’re learning something else. I’m probably much more patient than I was before. When you have to deal with flight delays or mistranslations, things like that, you just sort of learn to take it all in strife after awhile. And my sense of time is certainly a lot different.

Rob: How so?

Gary: I think of things in terms or weeks and months now; whereas when you’re living at home, every day is kind of the same so I realized you know, “I’m going to be here for a week. I have certain things to do.” I’ll be here next month.” When I meet people, I meet people on the road and sometimes I’ll meet them in different places and I don’t usually remember when I met them. I remember where I met them.

Rob: Do you think you’ll ever be able to go back to living in one spot?

Gary: No. in fact my state of goal is not to get rich off of this. It’s simply to just be able to keep doing it for the rest of my life. At some point I could see myself maybe getting an apartment but I’ll certainly be travelling for 9 or 10 months out of the year.

Rob: Does it become difficult when you’re in the spot for awhile and you make friends that you become more meaningful? Is it difficult to leave them?

Gary: it’s not so bad. I made a lot of friends when I was in Bangkok. I get in touch with them all the time online and I think that’s one of the great things about the internet. If you asked me that question maybe 20 years ago, it might have been a different story but today you can keep in touch with people no matter where you are.

Rob: Now the Brits have a term for it. They call it the “gap year” but we don’t have anything like that in the States. Why do you think that is?

Gary: I think there’s a lot of pressure to get into a school when you’re in high school. Once you’re in school, you have a lot of pressure to graduate as quickly as you can because it’s expensive; once you get out of school, you got debts so you need to start paying it off. So there isn’t usually an opportunity to have that gap here.

Rob: So in other words the Brits don’t have the debt load that we do with college so they can afford to backpack for a year, etc.?

Gary: Right. There are also maybe cultural reasons that have to do with the English colonies and having more people stay overseas for longer periods of time. It’s a much more common thing. When Americans go overseas for business, even if they’re in the military it’s usually a very short stint and then they come back right away.

Rob: You’re originally from…you lived in Seattle, is that right?

Gary: No. I lived in Minneapolis for almost 20 years before I started travelling. I’m originally from Wisconsin.

Rob: Okay. Do you, during the holidays, Christmas, etc., birthdays or whatever, do you ever come home to visit family?

Gary: In the last year or so I have. I spent actually quite a bit of time in Wisconsin this year. My father was in the hospital and passed away this summer so I was in the States for about 4 months and I’ve been trying to come back between trips just to be there for my mom and my family.

Rob: How much do you sketch out your trips? Are the sketched out over the next year? Do you know where you’re going to be or you just kind of do it every month or so?

Gary: I don’t really have a clue. I might be in Thailand again. This whole tourism thing is actually a contest and the winner of the contest is determined by the amount of blog traffic they get. I think there’s a good chance I might win. So if that happens I may end up getting another flight to Bangkok in January and then I plan on going to The L.A. Times travel show in February and then I plan on going to South By Southwest in March and then I have an invite to go to Puerto Rico some time in February and then there’s a cruise and a trip to Spain, there’s a cruise like Venice to Barcelona around Italy that I might be doing in May and some other things so that’s really all I have planned so far.

Rob: So what’s the reason for going to the L.A. Times travel show and South By Southwest? Is it to sort of make a presence there or is there more of a stated goal?

Gary: South By Southwest is pretty much for the experience of going to South By Southwest. The L.A. Time travel show is actually more of a consumer-oriented show but a lot of the destinations that the people involved with marketing destinations are there. And while the travel industry is waking up to bloggers and social media, they haven’t been very fast about it. So what I wanted to do is to go there and introduce myself to some people and make them aware of my site.

Rob: Is there any particular place that you’ve been that you just didn’t want to leave or you said, “My God, this is just so beautiful. I love it. I just want to stay.”

Gary: Oh there’s been lots of places like that. I’m a very big fan of a lot of the islands in the Pacific. Many of which nobody ever goes to because it’s rather difficult to get to; it’s a long flight, usually kind of expensive but there weather is nice, the people are nice and it’s very easy. I mean there’s a reason why everybody ends up going to Thailand because the people are nice and it’s cheap and they have a relatively good infrastructure for a place that’s cheap. It’s not a 3rd world country but it’s not really a 1st world country either so it has some of the benefits of both.

Rob: Gary I cannot thank you enough for taking the time with us today and if people want to get a hold of you, what’s the best way for them to do it if they want to follow you? Is it Twitter, Facebook or what is it?

Gary: Just go to my website. It’s www.everything-everywhere.com. If you don’t put in the dash, you’ll go to a UK mobile phone company. They just picked the name. T-Mobile and Orange merged earlier this year and they picked the name Everything, Everywhere. If you go to my website you’ll find links, RSS, email, Twitter, Facebook, everything.

Rob: Awesome. Gary, thanks again!

Gary: Thanks for having me!