Latest / Is Your Way In Your Way? / Sell Everything For The Dream

Transcript

Sell Everything For The Dream · Is Your Way In Your Way?

0:31
Cassandra: Is your way in your way?
0:33
Cassandra: And for those new listeners, my name is Cassandra Crawley Mayo, and I am your host.
0:40
Cassandra: And the podcast is derived from my book.
0:43
Cassandra: And the title of my book is Is Your Way in Your Way?
0:48
Cassandra: And this podcast is about freedom.
0:51
Cassandra: It's about freedom to uncover those barriers so that you can start moving toward a more purposeful, authentic life, whereas you will have more courage and you're going to act on these things because there's going to be something said on one of my podcasts that you're going to have an aha moment and/or an epiphany.
1:12
Cassandra: And you're like, you know what?
1:13
Cassandra: I think I'm going to do this thing.
1:15
Cassandra: I'm going to do something that I've always wanted to do.
1:18
Cassandra: I'm going to start living my best life on my terms.
1:22
Cassandra: And today I have a question though before we get started.
1:26
Cassandra: What dream have you put on hold while waiting for the right time?
1:33
Cassandra: Now think about this.
1:34
Cassandra: I remember, you know, when I wanted to write my book, I'm like, oh, it's not the right time.
1:38
Cassandra: You know, just certain things, oh, it's not the right time to move.
1:41
Cassandra: Oh, it's not the right time to do this or that.
1:44
Cassandra: So when have you said that?
1:46
Cassandra: Now the the lady that I am going to interview today, her name is Alison Geechin.
1:52
Cassandra: And Alison sold everything.
1:55
Cassandra: And discuss and we're going to and discovered what could happen when you finally gave her dream a chance.
2:04
Cassandra: Now, this part, I've been so excited for her because I'm just in awe about what she's why she sold everything and who she's about and the story she's going to tell us.
2:15
Cassandra: And the title of this podcast is What Can Happen When You Get Out of Your Own Way?
2:24
Cassandra: Welcome, Allison.
2:25
Cassandra: How are you?
2:27
Alison: I am outstanding, Cassandra.
2:29
Alison: Thank you for having me.
2:31
Cassandra: Oh, I'm so glad that you're on today.
2:34
Cassandra: And I can't wait to individuals, all my listeners, hear where you are and what you're doing.
2:40
Cassandra: So before we get started, I want to read a little bit of your bio because I want my listeners to understand what qualifies you to do what you're currently doing.
2:56
Cassandra: Now you may hear a little noise in the background, and I don't know if that has anything to do with the speakers or whatever, but you want to tell me based on where you're located.
3:06
Cassandra: Okay.
3:08
Cassandra: Yes.
3:08
Cassandra: Okay, now Allison is known as a nautical novelist.
3:14
Cassandra: She is a former teacher and internationally successful equestrian coach who spent 30 years building an equestrian equestrian programs about horses.
3:29
Cassandra: Then she and her husband sold everything to pursue their shared dream of sailing around the world.
3:39
Cassandra: 50 countries, five continents later, he turns that adventure into fiction.
3:46
Cassandra: I'm like, what?
3:48
Cassandra: And she does children's books, memoirs, and her journey invites us to ask, what becomes possible when we get out of our own way?
4:00
Cassandra: Again, Alison, welcome.
4:03
Cassandra: Thank you.
4:04
Cassandra: What tell my listeners what that noise may be, just a little bit.
4:13
Alison: Okay, so I'm recording this from a cabin in our sailboat on our 43-foot sailboat.
4:20
Alison: And we are on a remote island that's actually an eight-hole, which is a reef with a little bit of land in the middle, a very flat piece of land in the middle, which four families live on.
4:31
Alison: And it's called the island of Palmerston.
4:34
Alison: And we just left the waters of French Polynesia and we are entering new waters.
4:40
Alison: So we came here on an emergency status because we had a problem with our our we ripped our sail and had some other issues.
4:48
Alison: So we came here at 9 a.m.
4:50
Alison: yesterday morning, having to do this emergency contact through the through emails and stuff to get here.
4:57
Alison: And we are on this little tiny mooring ball on the outside of this at hole, and the winds are 25 knots.
5:04
Alison: They're blowing heavily, which is another reason we came here because the waves were 12 feet out there and the winds were in the 30s, and it was terrifying.
5:13
Alison: We had to get off the ocean.
5:15
Alison: So the noise that you hear is the wind blowing through the rigging and the ringing, rigging you know, moves and shifts and the boat rocks and creeks.
5:24
Alison: So normally when we're at anchor or on a morning ball, it's nice and quiet and peaceful, but this is one of the rare exceptions today.
5:31
Cassandra: Okay, okay.
5:32
Cassandra: Wow.
5:33
Cassandra: Well, look, Allison, tell us a little bit about your backstory because I want to know, and my listeners want to know how did you get to where you are?
5:43
Cassandra: And obviously, in your backstory, you always had a dream.
5:46
Cassandra: Tell us about that.
5:49
Alison: Okay.
5:49
Alison: So I grew up on a farm in upstate New York, a hundred-acre farm in the middle of nowhere, the Catskill Mountain Valley area.
5:59
Alison: And on this 100-acre farm, I was the last of six kids.
6:02
Alison: My two sisters weren't even living at home anymore.
6:04
Alison: So I had three older brothers.
6:05
Alison: So I was pretty much an only child because they wanted nothing to do with me.
6:09
Alison: So I spent all of my time outdoors and playing and with my horses because we had horses on this farm.
6:15
Alison: And one day I was walking barefoot through the grass on my way to the garden to go pick some green beans from my mom.
6:20
Alison: And I had this like epiphany.
6:23
Alison: It was like a dream, but being awake.
6:26
Alison: And it just halted me in my tracks.
6:28
Alison: And I felt myself standing on a boat and sailing across the water and being powered by the sails and just flying across water.
6:35
Alison: And I had never been on a sailboat, so I don't know where this came from.
6:39
Alison: And I thought this is the coolest feeling in the world.
6:41
Alison: Like I want to learn how to do this.
6:43
Alison: And then I thought to myself, how cool would it be to sail all the way around the world around the world on a sailboat?
6:50
Alison: Like that would be the coolest thing I could ever imagine in my entire life.
6:54
Alison: So fast forward to however many years later, and I'm in a sailboat race.
7:00
Alison: And this guy, my cousin, brought down a friend of his that he worked with at the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard.
7:06
Alison: And he came to be a ringer on my mom's boat because he was a three-time national dinghy champion.
7:12
Alison: And we had a three-day weekend together, and we just did every one of my activities that I ow up.
7:17
Alison: We scuba dived, we windsurfed, we sailed, we canoed, we we just we had this most wonderful time.
7:23
Alison: And he's he's getting ready to go 11 hours back to Philly.
7:25
Alison: And I'm going back to the UNCC to finish my senior year in college.
7:29
Alison: Because, you know, my dream is to sail around the world someday.
7:32
Alison: And I'm like, oh my gosh, mine too.
7:34
Alison: We have to get married.
7:35
Alison: And so we did.
7:39
Cassandra: Get out of here.
7:41
Cassandra: Oh my gosh.
7:42
Cassandra: So but you were but you spent 25 years teaching, right?
7:47
Cassandra: Prior to this.
7:49
Alison: Absolutely.
7:50
Alison: So when when I got we got married like less than a year later, and I did graduate, and I had to move up north where he was because he had the job.
7:58
Alison: I just fresh out of college and I had horses, so I brought horses with me.
8:02
Alison: And he built me this from scratch because we didn't have enough money to buy a horse farm.
8:07
Alison: You know, we dug every fence post hole by hand and put in the fence posts, and we put up the riding rings, and he and he built our own house with his own two hands and the barns and everything on the property.
8:17
Alison: And it took us 30 years for me to have my three kids to make this equestrian program to get my teaching degree because I didn't graduate with that.
8:24
Alison: I had to go back to school.
8:26
Alison: And and then, you know, I don't know how many years later.
8:30
Alison: I guess it was almost yeah, 30, 30 some years later when we finally just sold everything and followed our dream.
8:37
Cassandra: Wow.
8:38
Cassandra: So let me talk a little bit about our title.
8:42
Cassandra: What was in your way prior to you?
8:46
Cassandra: I know it's it's a no-brainer, but maybe it's not.
8:50
Cassandra: Prior to you, first of all, you met the guy of your dreams.
8:54
Cassandra: Like, imagine that he wanted to do the same thing that you wanted to do.
8:58
Cassandra: That was a dream of yours, and then you guys moved.
9:02
Cassandra: You you were you were a teacher, and I'm fascinated that you took care of horses, and even to learn how it's something about horses because I remember going to Marivelle.
9:18
Cassandra: Marivel is a retreat, it's a resort, and I took advantage of going to this place where there were horses, and how it said the horses will let you know how they feel about you, you know, something about them very intuitive.
9:35
Cassandra: And I'm like, really?
9:36
Cassandra: So, I mean, how their character, they in other words, they have character without prejudice, you know, and they respond to honesty, trust, humility, and knowing that and the experience you had, was that was that hard to leave them?
9:54
Cassandra: I mean, that was that you love them, right?
9:58
Alison: And I I never I was never without a horse at any point in my life up until then.
10:02
Alison: Like, even when I was in college, I brought my horse with me.
10:05
Alison: Like, I never did not have a horse in my life, my entire existence.
10:10
Alison: And the funny thing is, is that I watched how much horses impacted other people and how it soothed their souls and it brought children to life that were had been abused.
10:21
Alison: And I had, you know, I worked with a lot of disadvantaged children.
10:24
Alison: And so many times in my life, I watched horses make a difference, and which is why I wrote my book, The Seven.
10:31
Alison: And the entire premise of the Seven is that horses can see inside the souls of humans.
10:35
Alison: And so it's it's it's a very deep dive for me to go down there.
10:42
Alison: So I'm not gonna, you know, go into it, but the original question was what how did I let go of all of that to undertake this journey?
10:53
Alison: And I guess when my daughter got to be the age where she got married and moved away, and she was, you know, my youngest and my my horse enthusiast.
11:03
Alison: And then I had this program and I was doing it for other people, and I was doing it for other reasons at that point, and it was no longer for me that I had another personal setback.
11:13
Alison: I guess this is going down another slippery slope, unfortunately, but my life is very complicated.
11:18
Alison: Um six miles away, they built a $25 million horse park.
11:23
Alison: And I had been a school teacher for you know 25 years or so, and I got offered a job to run a $25 million horse park.
11:33
Cassandra: Oh my goodness.
11:34
Alison: Six miles from my house.
11:36
Cassandra: Yes.
11:36
Cassandra: Imagine that.
11:38
Alison: I left my teaching job, my tenure teaching job, and I went and I had my master's in administration and leadership and my principal certification.
11:45
Alison: So I was all ready to move up the hierarchy in the school system.
11:48
Alison: Yeah.
11:49
Alison: But I took this job on a leap of faith, and it turned out the men who were running it were corrupt as heck.
11:54
Alison: They were awful, they were villainous, they were misogynistic.
11:57
Alison: And after a year, five of the five women who worked there all we made a lawsuit against these people and won hands down.
12:05
Alison: It was just, but the abuse and the the emotional trauma and the things they said and they did to me were so devastating that I lost who I was inside.
12:15
Alison: And it broke my heart.
12:17
Alison: It just broke my heart.
12:18
Alison: And so after the lawsuit, we were not allowed to work there anymore.
12:21
Alison: We won't lose, but we couldn't work there.
12:23
Alison: So now I couldn't go back to teaching because I was tenured and they wouldn't take me back at my current salary, right?
12:29
Alison: So I was lost, and my husband just looked at me one day and he saw that I was just floundering and he goes, You know what?
12:35
Alison: It's time, and I said, Time for what?
12:37
Alison: Because we're gonna do it.
12:38
Alison: And I'm like, We're gonna do what?
12:39
Alison: He goes, We're gonna sell everything, and we're gonna sail around the world.
12:44
Cassandra: Wow, wow.
12:46
Cassandra: So it sounds like you always had this dream, but you had a love for horses and teaching, and and then all of a sudden you found that it wasn't where you wanted to be.
13:00
Cassandra: You were helping other people, and then you made a decision like I'm gonna do what I want.
13:05
Cassandra: How did I mean which how did that transpire?
13:08
Cassandra: Was it because your husband said, Okay, it's time, or do you think it was all the trials that you had gone through to say, okay, this is it?
13:18
Alison: Well, I think it was a combination, but he had to be the factor that was willing to do it.
13:22
Alison: He had to be the one because I couldn't ask him to leave an engineering job, you know, for the the the US Navy to you know sell everything and sail around the world.
13:34
Alison: And he he's a much better sailor than I.
13:36
Alison: And he he he sailed from a very early age, and sailing was always part of his life, so it really was his dream as well.
13:42
Alison: But I think he did it for me.
13:44
Alison: I think he did it for us, and he just saw it was a time and it was a lot of work.
13:50
Alison: We had to we had to make a five-year plan.
13:52
Alison: I mean, getting out of your own way to move on is not an easy task.
13:56
Alison: There's a lot, a lot going on in life that you have to be willing to wrap up.
14:00
Alison: We had to educate ourselves on on how to sail around the world, what we needed to do, the skills we needed to have.
14:06
Alison: We had to put everything up for sale, our property, our car, like everything that we owned, we had to get rid of.
14:13
Alison: And to pair your life after you lived in the same place for 30 years down to one suitcase that you can carry on a boat is just it's a very, very daunting task.
14:24
Alison: But we did it.
14:26
Alison: We we finished in in less than five years, found our boat, moved aboard, and the day that we took the dock line off and sailed off from that, like is a is a memory that will be in my mind forever.
14:38
Alison: That that moment when we took the dock line off and said, This is it, this we're out of here.
15:06
Cassandra: Wow, what a story.
15:08
Cassandra: So, what in your your story on your sailing where you know without a shadow of a doubt, this is what it is that you all want to do.
15:21
Cassandra: Because it sounds like to me, not that it was easy, but you guys are really living your best life on your terms.
15:31
Alison: Oh, I mean, it's it's incredible, and the part that gets that still astounds me is that we've been out almost nine years, okay, from not having a home.
15:43
Alison: And there are still moments when I wake up and I am just breathless, like I look out at what's around me, and there's no change in the excitement level or in the awe, because I mean, we're just seeing places that few humans ever get to see, and the beauty is is just undescribable, like absolutely undescribable.
16:09
Cassandra: Now, do you have because you have family, do they come out and see you?
16:14
Cassandra: Like, how does that?
16:15
Cassandra: I mean, are you with I know you you're in a place now where there are people, but what about your family?
16:21
Cassandra: Do they ever come out to see to see you?
16:25
Alison: Well, that's a very good question.
16:27
Alison: And I have five grandbabies.
16:29
Alison: Oh, and now that my daughter just last month got on a plane from California where she lives, and she flew into Tahiti, and we had to get a ferry to Tahiti and pick her up and put her and her three and five-year-old boys on the ferry, this big ferry, and get to our little island of Wahini, which was the inspiration for the movie Moana.
16:51
Alison: So it's a very beautiful little island.
16:54
Alison: And those boys spent a week on our boat and had the absolute times of their lives.
16:59
Alison: These little boys woke up every morning and they were just there.
17:04
Alison: They could look dolphins came and swam right up next to our boat, and they got to look over the water and see dolphins, and they got to snorkel with all the beautiful fish and build sand castles on the beach and take dinghy rides and eat a coconut from a coconut tree.
17:18
Alison: And and every time that my daughter calls, because we do a lot of FaceTime, and they're and they call us, they call us boat grandma and boat grandpa.
17:26
Alison: They're like, Boat grandma, when can we come back?
17:28
Alison: When can we come back?
17:30
Cassandra: Wow.
17:30
Cassandra: Wow.
17:31
Cassandra: I know you have a what was what was your most as you can think of, you've been out there a long time, your most challenging piece about your sailing around the world.
17:45
Cassandra: What was the most challenging thing for you guys?
17:51
Alison: The challenging part is the weather.
17:54
Alison: Trying to get from point A to point B and all that we have to do to make sure that we're safe.
18:01
Alison: And even when we try our hardest, it doesn't always work out.
18:04
Alison: And this week has been probably one of the most challenging we've had since our very first ocean crossing, which we ended up in.
18:11
Alison: I don't know if you've seen the movie A Perfect Storm.
18:14
Cassandra: Yeah.
18:14
Alison: But we got well, we ended up in a perfect storm trapped between storm fronts, and we had 18 20-foot waves crashing on the deck of our boat.
18:22
Alison: It did $14,000 worth of damage.
18:24
Alison: We had to turn around and did an 800-mile loop, ended up back where we started with $14,000 worth of damage.
18:30
Alison: And I thought we were gonna be lost at sea.
18:33
Alison: It was horrific.
18:34
Alison: And that was my first ocean crossing.
18:36
Alison: So that was horrible.
18:38
Alison: But I mean, my that's why I have my third book coming out because the stories are so in nine years, there are so many stories and so many difficulties, and so many beautiful things, so many.
18:50
Alison: That's why I have to write it all down.
18:51
Alison: So my my third book, Riding the Ways of Reality 3, is actually, I just sent my author copy to a friend to look it over, and we're getting ready.
18:59
Alison: That's gonna go live this week.
19:01
Cassandra: Okay.
19:02
Alison: But um this week has been the week from hell.
19:05
Alison: I mean, we have just faced monstrous seas, huge waves, can't get where we need to go.
19:10
Alison: We've got to get across to New Zealand before hurricane season, and all these storms that aren't supposed to be here are here threatening everything and everybody.
19:18
Alison: So this has been a really, really difficult week.
19:21
Cassandra: Oh my gosh, we're talking about carriage.
19:23
Cassandra: Oh my goodness, and your husband definitely has the sailing skills, and plus being an engineer, so he knows because at one time you had a pump or something, a motor to go bad, and you all were just stagnant for several months because of it.
19:38
Cassandra: Seven months.
19:39
Cassandra: Oh my gosh, wow, seven months.
19:42
Cassandra: So you were stationary in one area for that long.
19:47
Alison: We were in the island of Nuku Hiva in the Marquesa Islands in French Polynesia.
19:52
Alison: But the problem was it was a very roly harbor, and so we meet people and we make friendships, and we all seem to travel in the same circles and running each to each other over and over again.
20:02
Alison: And all of our friends came into the harbor, they're like, Oh wow, we're not staying here, this is terrible.
20:06
Alison: And they all turned around and left within like you know, a week or two because they couldn't handle it, and we had to be there for seven months in this awful harbor.
20:13
Alison: But our engine was was made back in the 1980s and they don't make the parts anymore.
20:19
Alison: So when a part went bad, we're like, Well, we can repair it, but we can't, we couldn't find a new one anywhere.
20:26
Alison: In fact, we paid money for somebody in Europe who said they had one, and then after we paid them, three weeks after we paid them, they go, Oh, we don't have that part.
20:35
Alison: So we spent three weeks waiting for them to ship it, and then them telling us, Well, we don't even have it.
20:40
Alison: Okay.
20:41
Alison: So then we had to take the part out of our boat, and we had to put it on a boat and send it to Tahiti, where they said, Well, we'll repair it.
20:49
Alison: Well, they get it, and then they take some weeks to open it and look at it.
20:53
Alison: Then it said, then they said, Well, okay, well, we have to order parts for it.
20:56
Alison: So now they're waiting for parts from somewhere else in the world, which takes weeks for them to get.
21:01
Alison: Takes them weeks to put it in, then they ship it back to us.
21:04
Alison: We put it in and it doesn't work.
21:05
Alison: They didn't fix what needed to be fixed.
21:08
Alison: So then we had to pull it out again, and then my husband had to order his own parts, do his own work, fix it himself, and put it back in the boat.
21:15
Alison: And that whole process took seven months.
21:19
Cassandra: God bless you guys.
21:20
Cassandra: I just can't imagine.
21:22
Cassandra: I'm actually visioning you guys out there.
21:25
Cassandra: Do you think do you have a timetable?
21:29
Cassandra: Like, okay, we will stop sailing at a certain time in life.
21:33
Alison: Well, when we die, it'll definitely be the end.
21:36
Cassandra: So you're gonna do this until you're you're both gone.
21:41
Cassandra: Well, one of you.
21:43
Alison: I would like to say we have a plan.
21:44
Alison: And originally when my husband we laid all this out, I gave him 10 years.
21:48
Alison: I said, 10 years is enough to get around the world.
21:50
Alison: Like we'll do this for 10 years.
21:51
Alison: But I realized that things like that go right out the window when you're on a sailboat because the first thing that happened was we get to Ireland and COVID hits, and we're stuck in Ireland for two years.
22:01
Alison: We couldn't leave because you weren't allowed to sail anywhere, you weren't allowed to go to land on any shores in any other countries.
22:08
Alison: And then after that, we probably did not make get to any, because you know, he mapped out specifically where our what our route would be and where we would be going, and we didn't make it to one single place at any close close to the time frame or when we thought we would be there.
22:26
Alison: So, you know, my motto now is we're exactly where we are when we are meant to be there, and I don't struggle, I don't fight over that.
22:36
Alison: I just I don't anticipate.
22:38
Alison: We we are where we are when we're meant to be there, and you just have to go through life.
22:42
Alison: So I don't know where the end is.
22:43
Alison: Original like that, well, we'll you know, when we Finish, we'll maybe get a motor home.
22:48
Alison: And my daughter lives in California and my boys live on the East Coast.
22:51
Alison: So we could happily go back and forth between the different families with a little motor home and see the country and be a lot easier than sailing a boat.
22:59
Alison: Um but at this point now I don't even I have no expectations for my future.
23:05
Alison: I don't even I don't even want to think about it.
23:07
Alison: Well, I'll know when I get there.
23:09
Cassandra: Sure.
23:10
Cassandra: Okay.
23:10
Cassandra: So how long have you guys been without nothing?
23:14
Cassandra: You left everything how long ago now?
23:17
Cassandra: Almost nine years.
23:18
Cassandra: Nine years.
23:20
Cassandra: Wow.
23:21
Cassandra: Wow.
23:22
Alison: Nine years next week, my husband says in the background.
23:26
Cassandra: Okay, nine years next week.
23:27
Cassandra: I and and and who's counting, right?
23:30
Cassandra: I'm not anymore.
23:33
Cassandra: Right, right.
23:35
Cassandra: That's that that's incredible.
23:39
Cassandra: That's incredible.
23:40
Cassandra: Now, how do you all get like survival skills like your food and your clothes and so all that was planned as well, right?
23:50
Cassandra: Where you're gonna eat, what were you gonna what you're gonna cook?
23:55
Alison: Uh that's that's a again a very evolutionary process.
24:00
Alison: When we started out and we were in mainstream areas of Europe, let's say, getting food is wasn't a problem because you get to a harbor, you know.
24:10
Alison: If you're doing a long passage where you're gonna be out to sea for several weeks, you go out and you provision before you leave, and you've got a lot of dry goods, seafood flour and pasta and rice and cans of vegetables and stuff.
24:20
Alison: So that if you run out of your fresh food, we catch fish.
24:23
Alison: So we put, you know, when we catch fish, we put fish in the freezer and we have fish.
24:27
Alison: I keep lots of stuff in the freezer.
24:30
Alison: But that all changed when we got to the French Polynesians because many of the places we went did not have stores, they did not have places you could go buy anything.
24:40
Alison: And we really learned uh to live off the land.
24:44
Alison: I mean, there were days when we would go on a hike and we go up into the mountains, like on that island that I told you about, that we were there for seven months, and I would come back with coconuts, mangoes, avocados, star fruit, you know, like seven different fruits and vegetables just from taking a walk up through the islands and stuff.
25:04
Alison: So you you just adapt to wherever you are.
25:06
Alison: And here again, there are no stores anywhere that we are or going to be for quite a while.
25:12
Alison: So I'm down to really being creative with what I can try to cook.
25:18
Alison: We haven't even been able to catch a fish, so we're down to very little at the moment.
25:24
Cassandra: Okay, okay.
25:25
Cassandra: So you all are going to before the storm, because we keep hearing well, wherever you are in the world, on this part of the world, like the east, they're talking about a storm, a northeaster or or or something like that.
25:40
Cassandra: And I have no recollection where you all are.
25:44
Cassandra: You've named some places that I have no idea.
25:49
Cassandra: I not even have heard Tahiti, yeah, I've heard of that, and the polynomial, I've heard of that, but so okay, so when you when there was COVID, you all had to stay in one place.
26:02
Cassandra: So now you all are even planned this, but you your plans were stopped for a minute because of uncontrollable things.
26:12
Cassandra: So now, what is your plan next?
26:15
Cassandra: Where are you heading to next?
26:18
Alison: New Zealand is our goal.
26:20
Alison: Our our future goal is to get to New Zealand.
26:23
Alison: Now, there are a couple of islands between us and New Zealand.
26:26
Alison: Um, you've probably heard of Tonga.
26:27
Alison: Have you heard of Tonga?
26:29
Cassandra: How do you spell that?
26:30
Alison: T-O-N-G-A.
26:32
Cassandra: No, I'm not.
26:34
Alison: Okay.
26:34
Alison: Um so Tonga is the next sort of big island that people may or may not have heard.
26:41
Alison: And we're on some tiny islands that are up above Tonga.
26:44
Alison: And originally we're just going straight to Tonga because they have grocery stores there, which I would be able to put stores back on my boat to make the jump to New Zealand.
26:54
Alison: And that's a very notorious crossing with a lot of bad weather and storms.
26:59
Alison: And, you know, I really wanted to take a breath and be able to regroup and say, okay, this looks like a good weather window, we're gonna go for it.
27:07
Alison: And we have several friends, one who just arrived in New Zealand yesterday who just made this crossing.
27:13
Alison: And we could have been with company because it's always nice if you sail to know that there are your friends are out there somewhere next to you, that you know, if anything goes wrong.
27:21
Alison: But they two of our good friends have just arrived in in New Zealand already, so now we're gonna have to make it all by ourselves.
27:26
Alison: But the goal is somehow, if these storms that are around us right now abate, which doesn't show any signs for the next 10 days, it's supposed to go on for another 10 days that we get to Tonga, we fill up our fridge in our freezer, and we get to New Zealand, and then from there we're gonna be there months because then the hurricane season is upon us and we can't be out sailing to new places.
27:53
Cassandra: Exactly.
27:53
Cassandra: Exactly.
27:55
Cassandra: Is there a I mean what you all are doing is incredible, and I've I've done a lot of reading about you, but what I have not seen is there's somebody recording your journey like a documentary or a show or geographical something, because you all, this is amazing to me, what you've all like for nine years.
28:20
Alison: Yeah, but you know what?
28:22
Alison: There's a lot of other people out here that are doing the exact same thing, and we meet them all the time and see the same faces and the same people, and we all have our own little sets about so we met these really we the thing when you meet these people, you you are like brothers and sisters because you are sharing the ocean is your home.
28:40
Alison: Everybody who's doing this is most everybody has sold their homes, and this is their homes, and we share the same struggles and the stream invention, and when we meet, we we're like instantly bonded, and we share each other's pain, we share each other's successes.
28:55
Alison: And I don't remember what your original question was because I got so sidetracked with myself, right?
29:02
Alison: But right.
29:04
Alison: So, anyway, we met this this really great couple, John and Shannon, who we love, and they are just landed in New Zealand, but when they were here, right around these islands, she was putting out her anchor chain and her thumb got stuck in the anchor, and it ripped her thumb off at the knuckle, and it was just hanging by a piece of skin.
29:25
Alison: And so she's bleeding all over, her thumb is just dangling, and the emergency efforts of the people here were absolutely incredible.
29:33
Alison: So, this is what brings up the whole humanity thing.
29:36
Alison: It doesn't matter where you are, people are amazing and incredible.
29:40
Alison: And they airlifted her, and the plane didn't have enough fuel to get all the way to Haiti where the hospital was, so I had to stop on another little tiny island.
29:49
Alison: And when she got off the plane for them to refuel, and she's got her thumb in the bandage, you know, and she's waiting to get to the emergency room.
29:56
Alison: There are 143 people that live on that island.
29:59
Alison: All 143 came to the runway and started praying for her and singing.
30:03
Alison: So he got back on that plane and they brought her to Haiti and they sewed her thumb back on, and then they dropped her back off on her island to continue her journey.
30:13
Cassandra: Right.
30:14
Cassandra: So it's kind of like we're more alike than we're different.
30:17
Alison: Oh, absolutely.
30:19
Cassandra: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
30:20
Cassandra: Yeah, and and and and the question that I asked based on what you're doing, I'm like, is somebody recording?
30:26
Cassandra: Is there a docuseries?
30:28
Cassandra: And you were like, Well, we're not alone, it's a bunch of us out here, which I would never ever think of that.
30:34
Cassandra: But it's part of it's your tribe, so you're really not alone, you know.
30:40
Cassandra: Although we're here on land and we can get to some things, but we still have struggles, we still have parts in our homes that break down.
30:48
Cassandra: I mean, it's still just that you're on an ocean that that that that's so different, and this is something that you guys wanted to do.
30:57
Cassandra: And based on that, I I for those individuals like my listeners who really have a dream, and it may not be yours, like that's not my dream to go sailing, but I have dreams, right?
31:11
Cassandra: Would could you impart some wisdom to them to help them to start living their life like they so desire?
31:22
Cassandra: You know how we look so good on the outside, but in the inside, we're really not.
31:27
Cassandra: Uh-uh.
31:28
Alison: Well, I can I can definitely tell you from personal experience that when you get to that moment where you actually make that transition and do what you want to be doing with your life, you will have so much gratitude, and you will never be the same person again because it's such a rarity that people actually follow their dream.
31:50
Alison: And yes, it's a lot of work and it's an uphill struggle, but when you get to that mountaintop, let me tell you what the view is amazing, and you will never have a moment regret, even if things go wrong, and like you often you your soul is happy, and you can take you can shoulder that those burdens because you're where you want to be in life, you know, you're doing what you want to do, you're following your dreams, and there's just there's no replacement for that in this life.
32:18
Alison: There's nothing, nothing like it.
32:21
Cassandra: Well said, well said.
32:22
Cassandra: I was talking to somebody the other day, and they did some research that said only about 15 to 20 percent of people globally reach their dreams, so that's a lot of people that's not living their dreams, you know, and if you could do it and you and your husband, oh my gosh, you know, well, it's a lot of a lot easier dreams than ours to achieve.
32:46
Alison: So you guys have no excuses, you know, if your dream is tenable, if it's something that you can grasp within your grasp, you need to give it a go.
32:55
Alison: You need to go for it because you only get one shot at this.
32:58
Cassandra: That's true.
32:59
Alison: And would you rather, would you rather, you know, to spend your final days regretting that you didn't go for it?
33:04
Alison: That's right.
33:05
Alison: Or would you rather go, you know, thinking, I did what I dreamed, I did it, I made it, I achieved this.
33:11
Alison: And there's just such a happiness and a fulfillment to your heart and your soul that you know you need to try, really need to try.
33:21
Cassandra: Right.
33:21
Cassandra: And I I encourage my listeners, you have a quite a few books, and the books I think you said it was one book you didn't expect to write, something like that.
33:30
Cassandra: You said.
33:31
Alison: Yeah, well, the seven, the seven is was in a dream.
33:35
Alison: I had a dream because I had a horse farm, I own horses all my life.
33:38
Alison: So when I dream at night, I am still feeding horses.
33:40
Alison: I have to go out and I have to give them hay, and it just bothers the heck out of me because here I am on a sailboat and I'm still taking care of horses every night when I sleep.
33:47
Alison: And then one night I in my dream, it was about horses, but it was horses I didn't know, which was really strange.
33:54
Alison: And then during the process of the dream, I realized they could see inside the human heart and they could tell if we were good people, if we appreciated the gifts of the earth, if we were good people or if we weren't.
34:05
Alison: And it was a different dream.
34:07
Alison: It was like it was a dream, but there was purpose to it.
34:11
Alison: And I knew that when I woke up.
34:13
Alison: And I told my husband the next day, I said, I have to write a book about this dream because the concept was just unbelievably divine and divinely inspired, is all I can say.
34:22
Cassandra: Yeah.
34:23
Alison: And so if you were to read any one of my books, it should be the seven, because it ties in a lot of different factors about life and about humanity and what horses have given to humans because they've been around since the beginning of man.
34:37
Alison: Horses have been around us since the they're the reason we are civilized.
34:41
Alison: You know, they brought us transportation, they plowed our fields, they brought travelers to be able to explore countries, they've done all the things to carry humans on their backs through history, and yet most people now are more afraid of walking up to a horse and petting them than they are getting in front of a in a car, a several thousand-pound vehicle and driving it 90 miles down an hour down a road.
35:04
Alison: And that's that separated man from nature.
35:08
Alison: And so this book is about bringing man back to the gifts of the earth and appreciating what we have on this earth.
35:15
Cassandra: So, what's the name of that book?
35:18
Speaker 1: It's called The Seven, the Seven Odyssey of Seven, Seven Humans, and I'm sorry, seven horses and seven souls.
35:30
Cassandra: Is that available now?
35:32
Alison: It's on Amazon.
35:33
Alison: And I because I am I I wrote that book while I was sailing a couple years ago, and it's so hard for me to publish my book.
35:43
Alison: I can get them published, but do to do the advertising publishers and the marketing.
35:49
Alison: I can't, I my hands are really tied being in this lifestyle.
35:53
Alison: So I did submit it to Readers' Views, and it won a silver medal in the classic religious fiction category.
36:01
Alison: I mean, it won a silver medal.
36:03
Alison: So and I got a five-star, like you can also pay to have them review it, and they gave me a five-star glowing review and said this book is phenomenal.
36:11
Alison: So I have a lot of good feedback from professional sources, but to get the word out about the book or to to promote it is the hard part for me.
36:20
Alison: And I just I just wrote the sequel to it, finished it last week, and I sent it to my sister, and my sister just read it, and she just said, Allison, all I can say is wow.
36:32
Alison: And she says, I absolutely love your sequel.
36:35
Alison: So I have the sequel written, even and okay, okay.
36:38
Alison: I and then Riding the Waves 3, we're finishing that up.
36:42
Alison: So I actually have am publishing two books this month that I have written in the past several months.
36:47
Cassandra: Wow, no, you certainly have the time, right?
36:49
Cassandra: I do so Seven Horses, Seven Souls.
36:56
Alison: Well, that the title is just the seven, and then seven horse is your husband helping you.
37:05
Alison: Yeah, he's helping me.
37:06
Alison: Oh, I got a book.
37:08
Cassandra: I got I got the book right here.
37:10
Cassandra: I want to promote it.
37:12
Alison: Seven, the seven, yes, an Odyssey of Seven Horses and Seven Souls.
37:19
Cassandra: Okay, Odyssey of Seven Horses and Seven Souls.
37:23
Cassandra: I am definitely gonna put that in the show notes.
37:26
Cassandra: And when I said, Yeah, and Allison, and one when I said to you, is somebody doing a docuseries or something?
37:33
Cassandra: And you're like, Well, not really, but you know what?
37:36
Cassandra: There are whole, I'm gonna use this analogy.
37:38
Cassandra: There are a whole lot of people that can sing, but everybody doesn't make it, you know what I mean?
37:45
Cassandra: They they're not at the top or whatever, and so there are a lot of people doing what you're doing, and I'm seeing you that somebody's going to see and hear your story, and I'm so hopeful that none of this has been done in vain.
38:01
Cassandra: I really feel that because I am so excited about what you're doing, and I think it's something people should know about here, read your book, witness, and determine you know what?
38:14
Cassandra: I am gonna get out of my way and I'm gonna dream so that I won't have any regrets, none whatsoever.
38:21
Cassandra: So when it's all done, you can say, Well done, my good and faithful servant.
38:26
Cassandra: So I applaud you and your husband.
38:29
Cassandra: I am I I'm I'm your biggest cheerleader, trust me.
38:33
Alison: Oh, thank you.
38:34
Alison: And I love the name of your podcast, I really do.
38:36
Alison: I'm like, I I've done so many of these now, and I feel like your theme and the things that you're saying and promoting are more connected with me than any podcast I've ever done.
38:49
Cassandra: Oh, thank you so much.
38:50
Cassandra: Thank you so much.
38:52
Cassandra: So I'm gonna send this to you when it goes live next week, and I know that you're gonna get so many views and people are gonna hear about it, and I'm gonna promote your book.
39:06
Alison: Well, thank you.
39:07
Alison: That means a lot to me.
39:08
Cassandra: Yeah, you are very welcome, and I'm going to follow you.
39:12
Cassandra: I always want to know what's going on, you know.
39:16
Cassandra: So don't be surprised if I email you every now and then to see how you guys are doing, where you are.
39:22
Cassandra: Okay, and what's your husband's name?
39:25
Cassandra: Daniel.
39:27
Cassandra: And tell him I said hello.
39:29
Cassandra: He's waving.
39:32
Cassandra: Oh, good, good.
39:34
Cassandra: But Allison, thank you so so much.
39:37
Cassandra: And I would love for us to stay in touch.
39:40
Cassandra: So you're gonna hear from me.
39:42
Alison: Well, when we get to New Zealand, if you want to do do one from there, I can tell you all about New Zealand.
39:48
Cassandra: Okay, okay.
39:50
Cassandra: Well, thank you, and all my listeners.
39:53
Cassandra: Please share this podcast.
39:56
Cassandra: It is just unbelievable to for me, as you can tell, I'm super excited because they're doing something I would never do.
40:05
Cassandra: So I admire what they do, and plus it was a dream of hers.
40:10
Cassandra: And I'm just I'm just in awe.
40:12
Cassandra: So I encourage you listeners to get her book to follow her, please.
40:17
Cassandra: Allison, how can they follow you?
40:22
Alison: So I am on every, well, not every, but all the major social media platforms.
40:27
Alison: So if they're Facebook people, they can just look up Allison Geeshin, Instagram.
40:32
Alison: Um I'm on we have our YouTube channel with videos.
40:36
Alison: Okay.
40:37
Alison: So Sailing Equus.
40:40
Cassandra: Okay.
40:40
Alison: Now the name of her boat is Equus, which is Latin for horse.
40:44
Alison: And you obviously understand that I gave up my real life horses, so now my sea pony takes me around the world.
40:49
Alison: So Sailing Equist EQ S is our YouTube channel.
40:55
Alison: And Instagram is sailing or sailmates is my other brand name because as a as a travel blogger, I have a website, Sailmates, S-A-I-L-M-A-T-E-S.org.
41:06
Alison: Okay.
41:07
Alison: And I write stories about everywhere we are.
41:10
Alison: So I give the history of these islands that we're going to and the adventures that we have and put in pictures.
41:15
Alison: So that's my sailing blog.
41:17
Alison: And then my author website is allisongeon.com, and that has all my books.
41:24
Cassandra: Okay.
41:24
Cassandra: Okay.
41:25
Cassandra: Well, thank you so much.
41:27
Cassandra: Thank you for your time.
41:28
Cassandra: My listeners, after this podcast, I'd like for you to like it and subscribe so you can hear some more exciting adventures of individuals who have gotten out of their way and doing some mighty things in their lives.
41:44
Cassandra: Again, Allison, thank you so much.