Latest / The Overland Journal Podcast / Zenvanz Founders Bryan and Jen Danger on Overcoming Fear and Living Your Dreams
Transcript
- 0:01Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to the Overland Journal podcast. This is Ashley,
- 0:06Speaker 1: Senior Editor, Overland Journal and Expedition Portal, and I'm here
- 0:10Speaker 1: at Overland Expo West in Flagstaff, Arizona, hanging out in
- 0:14Speaker 1: the Black Series trailer Slash podcast vehicle. And i have
- 0:18Speaker 1: two really special guests here today, Brian and Jen Danger.
- 0:22Speaker 1: I'm so excited to speak with you guys because you
- 0:25Speaker 1: were one of the couples that inspired Richard and I
- 0:28Speaker 1: to drive the Pan American Highway and we read your
- 0:30Speaker 1: blog back in the day. You guys have traveled a lot,
- 0:33Speaker 1: you have a lot of cool experiences, and you've contributed
- 0:36Speaker 1: to the community so much, so I'm so excited to
- 0:38Speaker 1: have you guys.
- 0:38Speaker 2: Welcome.
- 0:39Speaker 3: Thank you ash y Ah, You're so sweet and special.
- 0:44Speaker 3: Thanks to three to zero three Stable for supporting the
- 0:47Speaker 3: Overland Journal podcast. Rock crawling, incredible views, and real people
- 0:52Speaker 3: with a drive to leave the world.
- 0:54Speaker 4: Better than they found it.
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- 1:24Speaker 1: You guys started in a sixty seven Volkswagen bus.
- 1:27Speaker 2: A combe a combe.
- 1:29Speaker 1: And you redid the interior a little bit, a little bit.
- 1:31Speaker 1: And your background is in uh Ran, right, So that
- 1:35Speaker 1: influenced architecture and design perfect, and that influenced the interior
- 1:40Speaker 1: a lot, a lot.
- 1:41Speaker 4: How So it should have been simple, should have been.
- 1:43Speaker 1: Easy, as it always should be.
- 1:45Speaker 4: As it turns out, I don't do simple and easy. Well,
- 1:47Speaker 4: so we spent forever designing and forever building. And at
- 1:52Speaker 4: the point, to be fair, we were building with battery
- 1:54Speaker 4: powered tools down in old dirt road in Vancouver, BC,
- 1:57Speaker 4: And so we'd wait till five o'clock where we got
- 1:59Speaker 4: off work, and we'd run out as fast as we
- 2:01Speaker 4: could instead of saw hours at the tool. And you know,
- 2:03Speaker 4: I think we got like an hour to an hour
- 2:05Speaker 4: and a half before it got dark, right, raining. Yeah,
- 2:08Speaker 4: So it took a long I think a year and
- 2:09Speaker 4: a half.
- 2:10Speaker 2: Maybe our built took Yeah, we still had corporate jobs.
- 2:12Speaker 2: So it was a side thing that we were building
- 2:16Speaker 2: something to escape in the future.
- 2:19Speaker 1: Amazing, What were you doing? What were your corporate jobs?
- 2:21Speaker 4: Do we have to talk about that? No, sound so dirty?
- 2:24Speaker 4: Oh jobs? Yeah, I know.
- 2:26Speaker 2: Bri was a consultant for education for software for He
- 2:32Speaker 2: was pretty great at his job. I worked for outdoor brand.
- 2:36Speaker 2: I was okay at my job, but I worked at
- 2:38Speaker 2: really cool companies.
- 2:40Speaker 1: Nice.
- 2:41Speaker 2: So both of us had jobs that other people really
- 2:44Speaker 2: kind of dream about, but we were not feeling it right.
- 2:48Speaker 2: We were looking for something different for us.
- 2:51Speaker 1: And how did you decide that this project was.
- 2:54Speaker 4: The thing that was all her, that was one hundred
- 2:56Speaker 4: percent her. I was on the type AOC like I
- 3:00Speaker 4: had to have the desk job and have the security
- 3:03Speaker 4: and all. Luckily I fell in love with the organ
- 3:05Speaker 4: hippie next door, and so she was all about the
- 3:07Speaker 4: happiness and the freedom and running away. And I think
- 3:09Speaker 4: we just got to the point where I actually thought
- 3:12Speaker 4: she was going to go without me if I didn't
- 3:14Speaker 4: get busy and get ready to go. And so funny
- 3:16Speaker 4: it is, well I who knew at the time of
- 3:18Speaker 4: the design project for me, I think became the ideology
- 3:21Speaker 4: of the vision of that future thing that men we
- 3:24Speaker 4: could go and I failed, and we aborted a couple
- 3:26Speaker 4: of times, but we finally pulled trigger and said this
- 3:29Speaker 4: is good enough, it'll work, and we're going to go.
- 3:31Speaker 2: It started as what if we just like quit our
- 3:35Speaker 2: jobs and just go camping for like a year. We
- 3:39Speaker 2: chose Mexico because we'd been there a couple of times.
- 3:42Speaker 2: In Mexico's amazing simple and it's easy and it's affordable.
- 3:46Speaker 2: I mean really that's where it started. We're like, okay,
- 3:48Speaker 2: let's do one year.
- 3:49Speaker 4: But one year man, five years of planning and downsizing
- 3:52Speaker 4: and purging belongings and saving money, and I mean, it's funny.
- 3:55Speaker 4: We thought we were just trying to go do the vacation, right,
- 3:58Speaker 4: But honestly, looking back, those were the years I think
- 4:01Speaker 4: we did all the work that really made the difference. Right,
- 4:03Speaker 4: Those those things, well they seemed insignificant, actually were the
- 4:06Speaker 4: things they.
- 4:06Speaker 1: Were, right. I think you see people on the road
- 4:08Speaker 1: and you're like, wow, that's so amazing and they're so free,
- 4:12Speaker 1: but you don't necessarily see all the preparation and the
- 4:15Speaker 1: sweat and the hard work and the tears and everything
- 4:18Speaker 1: that happens before that, because you know, you're seeing the
- 4:21Speaker 1: grand adventure.
- 4:22Speaker 2: There was definitely a leap that we didn't know where
- 4:26Speaker 2: we were going to end up. We were like, let's
- 4:29Speaker 2: do this, but not without knowing how it's going to
- 4:32Speaker 2: end up or work out, or if we're going to
- 4:35Speaker 2: like it. Even maybe we want to stay in corporate
- 4:38Speaker 2: America working, but we didn't think we did. But we
- 4:42Speaker 2: were open to the fact that, you know, there is healthcare,
- 4:44Speaker 2: there is community there, that's what everyone else surround us
- 4:48Speaker 2: is doing. Maybe that let's just try this thing and
- 4:51Speaker 2: then see where we feel at the end.
- 4:54Speaker 4: I honestly thought it was horrible idea.
- 4:55Speaker 1: We're the words of persuasion.
- 4:57Speaker 4: Jen Oh, she's very convincing, mostly things she was going
- 5:00Speaker 4: to go with somebody else.
- 5:01Speaker 2: I think, No, I never said that you felt that
- 5:06Speaker 2: the words of persuasion weren't nature unset sunrises, jumped in
- 5:11Speaker 2: the ocean.
- 5:12Speaker 4: She's a very she's persuading me right now.
- 5:15Speaker 1: I'm like, yes.
- 5:17Speaker 4: I think at some point I was so stubborn that
- 5:20Speaker 4: I was like, you know what, we'll just do what
- 5:22Speaker 4: she wants. We'll save the money, we'll get ready, we'll
- 5:24Speaker 4: go and at the end of two years, because I
- 5:25Speaker 4: think we thought we had saved enough for a year
- 5:27Speaker 4: and a half to two years in Mexico, where we
- 5:29Speaker 4: know it is cheap, then I can actually say the
- 5:31Speaker 4: words I told you so, and that'd be so awesome.
- 5:32Speaker 4: It turns out, I mean, what was supposed to be
- 5:34Speaker 4: a year and a half is now ten years later,
- 5:36Speaker 4: which is a mind boggle. And she was one hundred
- 5:39Speaker 4: percent right every time, and that's actually a little frustrating,
- 5:43Speaker 4: but we won't talk about that here, but every single
- 5:45Speaker 4: time she was absolutely it was. It's so amazing that
- 5:49Speaker 4: once you make that hard leap for the right reasons
- 5:52Speaker 4: of freedom and happiness and ocean and all those things,
- 5:55Speaker 4: everything else just kind of starts to work out. Right, Yes,
- 5:58Speaker 4: these new things that I didn't know we're possible. Where
- 6:01Speaker 4: suddenly we're more aware and opportunities are flying by that
- 6:05Speaker 4: we were just too busy to notice before, much less
- 6:08Speaker 4: to grab onto.
- 6:09Speaker 2: As you like, go after something that you are dreaming
- 6:13Speaker 2: up that you think is in a silo, you realize
- 6:16Speaker 2: other people are dreaming the same thing or they have
- 6:19Speaker 2: done the same thing, and it's incredible, like once you
- 6:22Speaker 2: start going down that path, things start opening and you
- 6:27Speaker 2: see things that were always there. But you didn't see
- 6:29Speaker 2: them before. It's pretty incredible.
- 6:32Speaker 1: Were there any people that you saw that were doing
- 6:34Speaker 1: this that inspired you?
- 6:36Speaker 4: Very very few, sadly. Yeah. I mean social media wasn't
- 6:39Speaker 4: really around yet. I guess there was some Facebook. I
- 6:43Speaker 4: scoured looking for blogs. I mean, I was desperate for
- 6:46Speaker 4: somebody to just say it's okay and we survived. Like
- 6:49Speaker 4: that's all I need. I just need some kind of nugget. Yes,
- 6:53Speaker 4: I think Bumfuzzle was maybe the one that was out
- 6:55Speaker 4: there that had a blog. Yeah. Oddly enough, you know,
- 6:58Speaker 4: our first vehicle was sixty seven and Combe. They also
- 7:01Speaker 4: had had traveled in a Volkswagen, so we stumbled upon
- 7:04Speaker 4: them at some point. Ironically enough, they also spend time
- 7:07Speaker 4: in a boat, which we would get to later. I
- 7:09Speaker 4: don't know if we'll have enough hours to get to that.
- 7:11Speaker 4: Here we will, And so they were like the one
- 7:15Speaker 4: blog that we could find. Once we were on the
- 7:17Speaker 4: road and we were looking for more detailed information about say,
- 7:20Speaker 4: border crossings and others. We started to find a few others.
- 7:24Speaker 1: Nice.
- 7:25Speaker 4: But I think you guys remember this story. I mean
- 7:26Speaker 4: we didn't. We didn't know that overlending was a word
- 7:30Speaker 4: right time. We didn't know that van life didn't even
- 7:32Speaker 4: exist as a hashtag. We just literally wanted freedom, and
- 7:36Speaker 4: the beaches of Mexico were our vision, and so we're
- 7:39Speaker 4: that's enough and we'll do that. And then somehow that
- 7:41Speaker 4: turned into you know, continuing south through Central America and
- 7:45Speaker 4: we're just going to keep driving and they're like, oh, wait,
- 7:47Speaker 4: a dairying gap, Like what's the gap? We don't know
- 7:49Speaker 4: what that is. I guess we're not going to drive
- 7:51Speaker 4: all the way there, and so we just kept learning
- 7:53Speaker 4: as we go, which I guess is all we really do.
- 7:56Speaker 4: But now there weren't much right There wasn't There wasn't
- 7:59Speaker 4: a lot. And to this day I still feel, I
- 8:01Speaker 4: guess somehow indebted to Jen for freeing me and for
- 8:05Speaker 4: saving my life. And so I still want to share.
- 8:07Speaker 4: And we don't really know what that is often because
- 8:09Speaker 4: we hate microphones and camera but I do feel somehow
- 8:13Speaker 4: like we have to still share that because when we
- 8:15Speaker 4: left there just weren't there weren't a lot of options
- 8:18Speaker 4: for us to like speak to or listen to or
- 8:21Speaker 4: like go throw host to and be like thank you
- 8:23Speaker 4: for telling us it was okay.
- 8:25Speaker 1: Totally DoD I think one of the cool things about
- 8:28Speaker 1: your blog is that I felt like it was it
- 8:30Speaker 1: is not was is very honest, and it was a
- 8:34Speaker 1: very like real world perspective. It wasn't glorified. It was like,
- 8:38Speaker 1: these are the emotions we're going through, this is what
- 8:40Speaker 1: we're doing, These are the struggles we're having, These are
- 8:43Speaker 1: the epic moments we're having, and we really I remember
- 8:46Speaker 1: being at home and Richard introduced me to it and
- 8:48Speaker 1: we were both like, this is really cool. This is
- 8:51Speaker 1: a really real blog. This is like we felt like
- 8:54Speaker 1: we were with you in a way because it was
- 8:56Speaker 1: like that. It was very honest and real. So yeah,
- 8:59Speaker 1: I was very interesting.
- 9:00Speaker 2: When Brian was writing the blog, it was the idea
- 9:04Speaker 2: of it was for us when we're seventy years old
- 9:08Speaker 2: and our memories start starting to fail and we're drinking
- 9:11Speaker 2: nice tea on a front porch somewhere, we can remember
- 9:14Speaker 2: all the things that we experienced. That's that was the
- 9:16Speaker 2: intention of the blog. Because nobody really had blogs. They
- 9:19Speaker 2: had blogs for their family or for you know, it
- 9:22Speaker 2: wasn't really uh, let's share it with the world yet
- 9:25Speaker 2: sort of time. I remember like when Brian said, you
- 9:29Speaker 2: know what, actually, this is really therapeutic for me. As
- 9:32Speaker 2: I'm evolving, as I'm moving from this like super efficient
- 9:37Speaker 2: lifestyle where it's all about productivity and what you know,
- 9:41Speaker 2: what's my next move and things like that. That sort
- 9:44Speaker 2: of that was the world that we lived in. Now
- 9:46Speaker 2: it's like, Okay, I didn't have anything to do today
- 9:49Speaker 2: but make sure that I ate and drink water and exercised.
- 9:53Speaker 2: That was my day.
- 9:55Speaker 4: And it was the worst date. It was so stressful.
- 9:59Speaker 4: Looking back, it was just therapy. Like I I didn't
- 10:02Speaker 4: know at the time, but there are these things called journals.
- 10:04Speaker 4: I could have just written in a journal and it
- 10:06Speaker 4: would have.
- 10:06Speaker 2: Been instead of posting it, I don't have.
- 10:08Speaker 4: To post it to the world.
- 10:10Speaker 1: Thank you for doing so. No, I appreciate it. That's great.
- 10:15Speaker 4: The biggest regrets ever, like I don't just write a journal, Brian,
- 10:17Speaker 4: it so much better.
- 10:21Speaker 1: I love it. So the Coombe Beautiful project, I want
- 10:25Speaker 1: to know more about, like how your design came together
- 10:29Speaker 1: to form that project, and what kind of materials you used,
- 10:32Speaker 1: and what was the vision and what was the inspiration
- 10:34Speaker 1: for it, because you guys got it.
- 10:35Speaker 4: I think that's stupidity. Mostly. I mean, we we figure
- 10:39Speaker 4: out maybe sixty nine square feed the entire van much
- 10:42Speaker 4: less the actual living quarters, and so we were like, oh, yeah,
- 10:44Speaker 4: we're going to entertain and play games. We had these
- 10:47Speaker 4: visions of playing Katan with friends, and so we tried
- 10:49Speaker 4: to build like a lounge that converted into a bed.
- 10:52Speaker 4: It was going to be awesome, you know, but I
- 10:53Speaker 4: didn't know any that we'd never done any right. We
- 10:55Speaker 4: slept intense and backpacked, but that was it. Built it,
- 10:59Speaker 4: and there wasn't enough time to redo it. So we
- 11:01Speaker 4: just had to go and so we we literally, you know,
- 11:04Speaker 4: we built it. We moved into it, put all the
- 11:07Speaker 4: rest of our belongings, even after five years of downside,
- 11:09Speaker 4: and we're like, oh, there's no room for the dog
- 11:11Speaker 4: or us, and so we pulled under a canopy and
- 11:13Speaker 4: had to get rid of half of that stuff that
- 11:15Speaker 4: we thought was important. And then, you know, the first
- 11:17Speaker 4: night we made the bed, I laid down and once
- 11:19Speaker 4: I added the pellow, it was literally the dimensions of
- 11:22Speaker 4: my body. There was not enough root. And that was
- 11:24Speaker 4: with a cabinet that opened so my feet would stick
- 11:26Speaker 4: into the cabinet. There's nothing left in that. And so
- 11:29Speaker 4: we lived the next several years in that van with
- 11:32Speaker 4: two of us and a sixty nine pound dog and
- 11:34Speaker 4: we didn't fit. I mean, we didn't fit for one day,
- 11:36Speaker 4: but we just made it work right, and so when
- 11:38Speaker 4: one of us rolled over the other one after rollover,
- 11:41Speaker 4: one could sleep flat, the other had to be on
- 11:42Speaker 4: their side, and both of us kind of just gave
- 11:44Speaker 4: the dog whatever she wanted. We're like karma, you get
- 11:46Speaker 4: it all, and we'll just be uncomforted. I mean, it
- 11:49Speaker 4: was horrible. All the things we thought were important were
- 11:51Speaker 4: absolutely wrong. And you know, we redesigned not necessarily that van,
- 11:55Speaker 4: but all of our other vans so many times over
- 11:57Speaker 4: the years, and it was all just based on what
- 12:00Speaker 4: we did wrong the last time, and so we'd start
- 12:02Speaker 4: over every time based upon what was wrong, and you know,
- 12:05Speaker 4: you start to get better. But it was so bad.
- 12:08Speaker 4: It was so bad.
- 12:09Speaker 2: Well you say horrible, but in the moment, we were
- 12:11Speaker 2: like feeling high as can be because we're like every
- 12:16Speaker 2: day's an adventure. We're like reinventing ourselves literally, trying to
- 12:21Speaker 2: figure out what we want to do next, with no agenda,
- 12:25Speaker 2: just how are we feeling, checking in with ourselves, And
- 12:28Speaker 2: for me, it was pretty incredible. I felt free, really
- 12:31Speaker 2: free for the first time maybe my entire life. Except
- 12:35Speaker 2: for maybe when I was five or six and just
- 12:36Speaker 2: playing with weeds and bumblebees and you know, grasshoppers. Yeah,
- 12:41Speaker 2: but Bride did go through an evolution, so a.
- 12:43Speaker 4: Couple of them.
- 12:44Speaker 2: Yeah.
- 12:45Speaker 4: I asked in what her luxury item was. I think
- 12:47Speaker 4: Survivor was big at the time. I was one luxury item.
- 12:50Speaker 4: She's like, I need ice ic. I need a couple
- 12:52Speaker 4: of ice cubes for a cocktail at the end of
- 12:54Speaker 4: the day. And oddly enough, we have built several vans
- 12:58Speaker 4: now around the idea of just having like if we
- 13:00Speaker 4: have ice, were okay, everybody has ice, We're not okay,
- 13:03Speaker 4: Like that's our.
- 13:04Speaker 2: That's the line, right, Yeah, what's your life?
- 13:07Speaker 4: Anything else mine?
- 13:08Speaker 2: Yeah? Comfortable bed?
- 13:11Speaker 4: I think Jen is. I don't know, I've never thought
- 13:15Speaker 4: about it.
- 13:15Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, well next time we see you.
- 13:18Speaker 4: I mean I would like to say Wi fi, but
- 13:20Speaker 4: we never have that. That's not clearly not the luxury.
- 13:23Speaker 2: Yeah, that's the dream, that's the future.
- 13:25Speaker 4: I'll get back to you.
- 13:26Speaker 1: So how long did you spend on the road in
- 13:30Speaker 1: your kombe?
- 13:30Speaker 2: So we left Vancouver, BC. We did about a year
- 13:33Speaker 2: and a half down to Panama and then we decided
- 13:36Speaker 2: to or Costa Rica. Actually we dipped into Panama, but
- 13:40Speaker 2: we left the van in Costa Rica. We flew home
- 13:43Speaker 2: to Oregon to see some friends, and we thought we'd
- 13:46Speaker 2: spend a month, and we realized we really love the
- 13:49Speaker 2: Pacific Northwest. Our time in Mexico and Central America has
- 13:53Speaker 2: been like transforming. We feel different. Our friends are having
- 13:56Speaker 2: kids and we don't have kids. Yeah, and our you know,
- 14:01Speaker 2: dogs being reunited with dogs that she grew up with
- 14:04Speaker 2: and like silly things like that, and we're drinking wine
- 14:07Speaker 2: and playing games on front porches with our loved ones
- 14:10Speaker 2: and we're like, oh, this is what's really fueling us
- 14:13Speaker 2: right now.
- 14:14Speaker 1: It changes.
- 14:15Speaker 2: Yeah.
- 14:16Speaker 1: The cool thing about that, you guys, is you've pivoted
- 14:19Speaker 1: based on what feels right. And I see that that
- 14:22Speaker 1: is that felt like home to you.
- 14:23Speaker 2: That is just one hundred percent well said. So we
- 14:26Speaker 2: had won an award for like being like nomadic for
- 14:29Speaker 2: a really long time or whatever, and but we're like, oh,
- 14:31Speaker 2: this is crazy, because what we want right now is
- 14:34Speaker 2: to like be in this neighborhood where our loved ones
- 14:37Speaker 2: are three blocks that way and two miles that way
- 14:40Speaker 2: and we can walk. We are going to do that
- 14:43Speaker 2: for a little bit and following our heart. I think
- 14:46Speaker 2: came really easy for us because it sort of reinforced
- 14:50Speaker 2: like what we're looking for is happiness, peace, balance, joy,
- 14:56Speaker 2: feel like we're really living our true so else not
- 15:01Speaker 2: like do we have a goal to accomplish or so
- 15:03Speaker 2: we stayed in Oregon for that a year before we
- 15:07Speaker 2: went back and got our bus and we brought it
- 15:10Speaker 2: back to the Pacific Northwest.
- 15:12Speaker 1: And did you have a big design project? Was that
- 15:14Speaker 1: when that happened? Yes, tell us about that.
- 15:17Speaker 4: Now it did? We?
- 15:18Speaker 1: Yeah?
- 15:18Speaker 4: Oddly enough, we rented a house because our house was
- 15:20Speaker 4: rented house. We rented a say a house, a tiny
- 15:23Speaker 4: condo two blocks from home. And there's that weird feeling.
- 15:26Speaker 4: I'm in my neighborhood and I got my friends, but
- 15:28Speaker 4: I'm renting a home and I have no furniture, so
- 15:30Speaker 4: it's like an inflatable mattress on the floor and to
- 15:33Speaker 4: camp chairs. And we walked by our house and see
- 15:35Speaker 4: people there that are happy. And so one night we
- 15:37Speaker 4: woke up and we're like, oh my god, like our
- 15:39Speaker 4: garage is completely onion, and so what if we just
- 15:42Speaker 4: moved into the garage so they can keep paying the mortgage?
- 15:44Speaker 4: And somehow that turned into realizing that's actually legal now
- 15:48Speaker 4: and the world has changed and eccexor dwelling units are
- 15:51Speaker 4: a thing. And the idea was just pull the combe
- 15:53Speaker 4: in and have a toilet and have a sink in
- 15:54Speaker 4: the corner, and good.
- 15:56Speaker 2: An oven so we could have nachos and pizza whenever
- 15:59Speaker 2: we wanted.
- 16:00Speaker 4: You do sell that very nice, and so it started
- 16:03Speaker 4: very simply right, and we like, we'd already spent most
- 16:06Speaker 4: of our money driving south, and so I spent the
- 16:08Speaker 4: rest of that money building this garage out into kind
- 16:11Speaker 4: of a tiny home, a place that you know, at
- 16:14Speaker 4: some point we just realized we might have to live
- 16:16Speaker 4: here until we're ninety, like if we don't find other jobs,
- 16:19Speaker 4: like this is all we might get. And so the
- 16:21Speaker 4: design room went kind of nuts and spent the rest
- 16:24Speaker 4: of our travel money and built a home out of
- 16:26Speaker 4: a four hundred and eighty square foot garage.
- 16:29Speaker 2: The shower had two shower heads, and it was gigantic
- 16:32Speaker 2: and it was so spa like, and it's in this
- 16:35Speaker 2: little tiny it's you pitsy garage renovation, which is hilarious.
- 16:39Speaker 4: It's funny how priorities change, you know, like you don't
- 16:42Speaker 4: get a real shower for two years and you're like, okay,
- 16:44Speaker 4: dual showerheads and four hundred and eighty square feet, suddenly
- 16:47Speaker 4: it seem important. But yeah, we did that, and suddenly
- 16:50Speaker 4: we're like, okay, now we have no money. We have
- 16:52Speaker 4: to live here forever. But then one of our neighbors
- 16:54Speaker 4: was like, have you heard of airbnb? No, what's airbnb?
- 16:57Speaker 4: So they coached us and we listed it and then
- 17:00Speaker 4: oddly enough, it booked out and paid for our flight
- 17:02Speaker 4: back to get the bus right, and then we drove
- 17:04Speaker 4: the bus home, but we didn't know what we were doing,
- 17:07Speaker 4: so it kept booking. So when we got the bus
- 17:09Speaker 4: back to Portland months later, we had no home. And
- 17:12Speaker 4: so oddly enough, we just spent all this time and
- 17:13Speaker 4: money to build a home and we're still living in
- 17:16Speaker 4: our neighborhood right, and so I don't know it just
- 17:18Speaker 4: it was a really interesting twist that happened. And then
- 17:21Speaker 4: we somehow realized in the middle of that that a
- 17:24Speaker 4: little bit of money is a good idea, like, we
- 17:25Speaker 4: need that, And we started planning our travel schedule around
- 17:28Speaker 4: when people booked our garage and why people wanted to
- 17:31Speaker 4: book our garage. I have no idea, it wasn't finished yet,
- 17:33Speaker 4: but it just had a look and feel that I
- 17:35Speaker 4: guess people wanted.
- 17:36Speaker 1: Was that the one that won award and like an
- 17:38Speaker 1: award or was it a fancy magazine or something.
- 17:40Speaker 4: It oddly got a little bit of media. Yeah, I
- 17:43Speaker 4: don't know how, but we actually ended up in the
- 17:45Speaker 4: New York Times.
- 17:46Speaker 1: You're so hilarious right now. Oh I designed this thing.
- 17:50Speaker 1: It's yeah, I don't understand why people liked it. Oh,
- 17:52Speaker 1: it was in the New York Times.
- 17:55Speaker 4: I appreciate that. It's funny. We do things because they
- 17:58Speaker 4: make us happy, Like that's it. Just make decisions because
- 18:01Speaker 4: at the time, it's what we have to do. But
- 18:03Speaker 4: it's weird how many of those things happen to fall
- 18:06Speaker 4: into niches of other movements or ideologies that are happening.
- 18:10Speaker 1: Do you think there was like a certain design aesthetic
- 18:13Speaker 1: that led to that or because it was a tiny
- 18:15Speaker 1: home that was designed in a certain way.
- 18:17Speaker 4: You don't know, no idea. I mean I would love
- 18:19Speaker 4: to take full credit. I mean, yes, I have all
- 18:20Speaker 4: these tears of education. Well I have an opinion it
- 18:25Speaker 4: must be me.
- 18:25Speaker 2: But no, in this sense, Brian's a designer. He doesn't
- 18:28Speaker 2: see it like the rest of us. But in my perspective,
- 18:32Speaker 2: I designed this super unusual, unique, industrial rugged. It's a garage.
- 18:39Speaker 2: You can work on your van, or you can cook pasta,
- 18:44Speaker 2: you can have a spall like shower, or you can
- 18:47Speaker 2: you know, watch a football game or like whatever. I mean,
- 18:51Speaker 2: it was really beautiful, cool, different than anything we'd ever seen.
- 18:55Speaker 2: Weird people found it. Weird people. We are weird, so
- 18:59Speaker 2: we say weird in a very like, very positive way,
- 19:02Speaker 2: a loving way. Yes, weird people found it. Weird. Creative
- 19:06Speaker 2: types found it. It won some awards, it got in
- 19:09Speaker 2: some magazines, and we were so stoked because we literally,
- 19:14Speaker 2: Brian designed it and we built it for us and
- 19:17Speaker 2: our lifestyle and what we thought would be make us
- 19:20Speaker 2: the happiest.
- 19:21Speaker 1: People loved it.
- 19:22Speaker 4: I mean, it turns out later on this is a
- 19:24Speaker 4: reoccurring theme. We have no idea what we're doing. We're
- 19:27Speaker 4: very honest about the fact we have no idea what
- 19:29Speaker 4: we're doing, and we literally just designed something that is
- 19:33Speaker 4: perfect for us. Right. We don't care if it matters
- 19:36Speaker 4: to anybody else. We just designed what's going to make
- 19:38Speaker 4: us happy and comfortable. But oddly enough, yeah, it seems
- 19:41Speaker 4: to also resonate with other people. What's going with like
- 19:44Speaker 4: minded rather than weird maybe while, but yeah, it just
- 19:48Speaker 4: somehow resonates and that has been very fortunate for us.
- 19:52Speaker 4: I mean, it's helped us get over those humps where
- 19:54Speaker 4: we don't know what's next and we don't know we're
- 19:55Speaker 4: doing and we don't know how we're going to pay
- 19:57Speaker 4: for it. And so somehow this turned into you know,
- 19:59Speaker 4: we would put it on a BnB and let it
- 20:00Speaker 4: rent out for three weeks a month, and then we'd
- 20:03Speaker 4: book one week for us so we could be there,
- 20:05Speaker 4: and then we would travel the other three in our van,
- 20:07Speaker 4: and we just decided to be at home. But now
- 20:09Speaker 4: we're like, but that's kind of fun. We want to
- 20:11Speaker 4: be traveling, exploring the Pacific Northwest. We've never done that before.
- 20:14Speaker 4: And then the longer it went, the more we would
- 20:16Speaker 4: just let it book because I always needed a home base.
- 20:19Speaker 4: I think the thing I was missing throughout those therapy
- 20:22Speaker 4: Bog sessions that we're talking about, and he was always
- 20:24Speaker 4: missing was a home base. I needed it at a
- 20:26Speaker 4: very deep luve I didn't understand. And once we built it,
- 20:28Speaker 4: I was like, I'm good, Yeah, let's travel again, let's
- 20:31Speaker 4: just go yes, And so we just started actually traveling
- 20:33Speaker 4: more and more despite the fact we just built a
- 20:35Speaker 4: home base, which I will never understand. But it turns
- 20:38Speaker 4: out I don't have to understand. We just go with it.
- 20:40Speaker 1: Yes, So jumping a little bit ahead, then you'll see
- 20:43Speaker 1: we saw this happen again with your zen Van's build.
- 20:47Speaker 1: Another great example.
- 20:48Speaker 4: Yeah, I had actually forgotten a lot of the details
- 20:50Speaker 4: of this until today when a lot of people came
- 20:52Speaker 4: and asked questions. Yeah, but we were still in the Kobe.
- 20:55Speaker 4: Not so great in the Northwest. You know, rain's outside,
- 20:58Speaker 4: rains inside, still breaking down every three days, which we
- 21:01Speaker 4: had gotten used to. But we we got a letter
- 21:04Speaker 4: from our credit union that was like, you guys are
- 21:05Speaker 4: preapproved for a car loan at one percent.
- 21:08Speaker 2: But it has to be a brand new vehicle.
- 21:10Speaker 4: And we're like, we haven't had a check in like
- 21:12Speaker 4: three years, Like what's wrong with you guys. But those sprinters,
- 21:15Speaker 4: those new sprinters, those look really good, like you can
- 21:18Speaker 4: stand up in them like modern man. And so we
- 21:20Speaker 4: bought a new sprinter olly, thinking like even as we
- 21:23Speaker 4: drove it home with a hammock in the back, somebody's
- 21:25Speaker 4: going to come repossess this because they're going to find
- 21:26Speaker 4: out that we will not have jobs.
- 21:28Speaker 2: Backing up just a second, Bride was looking at there
- 21:30Speaker 2: were a lot of food carts in Portland, Seattle at
- 21:33Speaker 2: the time, and there were these taco trucks that looked
- 21:36Speaker 2: really big and beautiful, and like, we're like, that's like
- 21:39Speaker 2: three times as big as our Volkswagen. What if we
- 21:41Speaker 2: got one of those and lived in those, you know,
- 21:43Speaker 2: for a bit. They were like, you know, four or
- 21:45Speaker 2: five thousand dollars and that doesn't seem like a lot
- 21:48Speaker 2: of money. But we didn't have that. So then the
- 21:50Speaker 2: credit Union was like, but if you buy something new,
- 21:53Speaker 2: it's like one percent interest. Bry's like, let's get a
- 21:57Speaker 2: big giant van, and let's designed something really cool on it.
- 22:01Speaker 1: Which you did.
- 22:02Speaker 4: We did. Yeah, you kind of kept doing the same thing.
- 22:04Speaker 4: So we would design and build and then the designer
- 22:07Speaker 4: in me was like, no, that's not right, and we'd
- 22:08Speaker 4: rip it out and we'd rebuild, and we keep doing
- 22:10Speaker 4: it again and again. And so I think over the
- 22:12Speaker 4: next two or three years, while we're living in it
- 22:14Speaker 4: full time, essentially because we needed the money from the
- 22:17Speaker 4: airbnb and we wanted to travel, so we're living in
- 22:19Speaker 4: it full time, we're trying to build it. It's failing.
- 22:22Speaker 4: We're changing things, and eventually, I don't know, the designer
- 22:25Speaker 4: of me was just like, there's got to be a
- 22:27Speaker 4: better way, right, So rather than self tapping screws and
- 22:30Speaker 4: turning the van into Swiss cheese, what if we just
- 22:32Speaker 4: bolted things to factory holes. Then I could rip it
- 22:35Speaker 4: out a thousand times without damaging the van. And there
- 22:39Speaker 4: was this epiphany like, oh my goodness, that'd be awesome.
- 22:41Speaker 4: We could do that. And oddly, at the same time,
- 22:43Speaker 4: we got invited to come to o run Nexpo interesting
- 22:45Speaker 4: place to do this interview. They just invited us to
- 22:48Speaker 4: come speak as feature travelers. And you know, we'd already
- 22:51Speaker 4: had this experience in home depot, parking lots or campgrounds
- 22:54Speaker 4: where we open the doors and people just gather around
- 22:56Speaker 4: and they're like, can you help us? Can you do this?
- 22:58Speaker 4: And we kind of do the same thing with our
- 23:00Speaker 4: where we help neighbors do the same thing just because
- 23:02Speaker 4: they saw it and they came in, and you know,
- 23:04Speaker 4: we wanted to share the happiness and the freedom and
- 23:06Speaker 4: the extra money. And so while we were here, people
- 23:08Speaker 4: were begging and throwing checks at us, and we're like,
- 23:10Speaker 4: we don't do that. We travel. We really like to travel. Yeah,
- 23:13Speaker 4: And eventually we just kind of started to break down
- 23:15Speaker 4: and realize, wait, we kind of just turned this into
- 23:18Speaker 4: a system that might work, kind of started doing both.
- 23:20Speaker 4: We were still building our band full time while living
- 23:22Speaker 4: in it. But we're also like, but what if we
- 23:24Speaker 4: made tweaks that would allow others to do the same
- 23:26Speaker 4: thing and to start to travel and feel the freedom
- 23:29Speaker 4: and happiness and all the things that we had fought
- 23:32Speaker 4: so hard for.
- 23:32Speaker 2: And I think one thing that we were super aware
- 23:35Speaker 2: of when we had full time jobs and we were
- 23:39Speaker 2: very busy all the time, we didn't have enough time
- 23:42Speaker 2: to really think about what we really wanted in life.
- 23:45Speaker 2: Now we had free time, Brian's able to be creative
- 23:49Speaker 2: with different designs. One thing that we realized was really
- 23:52Speaker 2: we valued that was really important to us is how
- 23:55Speaker 2: do we somehow share with other people that are too
- 23:58Speaker 2: busy to really think about what they want. Know that
- 24:00Speaker 2: if you have time to think about what you want,
- 24:02Speaker 2: you can make what you want happen. If you can
- 24:05Speaker 2: step back a little bit, be like, oh man, I
- 24:07Speaker 2: want to take six months off and travel Africa or
- 24:10Speaker 2: you know you can do that. You just have to
- 24:14Speaker 2: go for.
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- 24:58Speaker 4: It is quite weird how you take the thing that
- 25:01Speaker 4: always for me was terrifying, right like for her it
- 25:03Speaker 4: was easy. It's like, that's just happiness. We're just going
- 25:05Speaker 4: to quit our jobs money and nobody needs it.
- 25:06Speaker 2: It's super easy for me and I just I.
- 25:09Speaker 4: Think I just spent the last two hours like trying
- 25:11Speaker 4: to convince two different couples to quit their jobs or
- 25:14Speaker 4: find a way to keep their job and work remotely
- 25:16Speaker 4: and run away. And every time I'm like, wow, I'm
- 25:19Speaker 4: literally just talking. I'm just talking as super gen right now,
- 25:23Speaker 4: I'm just telling you, I'm just for all the same
- 25:26Speaker 4: things that she told me for years, right and I
- 25:28Speaker 4: didn't believe any of them. And suddenly, now you know,
- 25:30Speaker 4: we're ten years in, it's so easy to take the
- 25:33Speaker 4: other side and be like, look, I know it's scary.
- 25:35Speaker 4: I know you don't know the answers, you don't know
- 25:37Speaker 4: what the way out is yet, but it will be there.
- 25:39Speaker 4: Like there is an option after you leave, and if
- 25:41Speaker 4: there's not, you can always go back.
- 25:44Speaker 2: You can always go back, you can always go back.
- 25:46Speaker 4: It was so terrified that we can never go back.
- 25:49Speaker 4: Going back is so easy, Like you already have that thing,
- 25:52Speaker 4: you already know how to do those things. Leaving is hard,
- 25:55Speaker 4: but going back's easy because you know what we want
- 25:57Speaker 4: to do it.
- 25:58Speaker 2: I know what's going back. You know what it feels like,
- 26:00Speaker 2: you know what that looks like. It might not be
- 26:02Speaker 2: the same job in the same city, you know what
- 26:07Speaker 2: the perks will be. You know what the advantages will be,
- 26:10Speaker 2: you know what the disadvantages will be. You can choose that,
- 26:14Speaker 2: and you can you can you can create that again
- 26:17Speaker 2: for your life. But going into the unknown, that's the
- 26:19Speaker 2: scary part. I mean, we're huge believers, Like, it doesn't
- 26:23Speaker 2: matter if you want to be in a Volkswagen or
- 26:25Speaker 2: a sprinter overland or on a boat or whatever. Whatever
- 26:29Speaker 2: you feel is going to make you feel like you
- 26:33Speaker 2: are living. This is good. I'm doing, I am doing
- 26:36Speaker 2: what I should be doing. Go do that. It doesn't
- 26:39Speaker 2: matter what it is, Just go do that.
- 26:41Speaker 4: It's funny that this is the part that I think
- 26:43Speaker 4: once we learned what the word overland meant, we always
- 26:46Speaker 4: felt like we didn't quite fit in, even though we
- 26:48Speaker 4: were doing it. Always been about just take whatever's in
- 26:50Speaker 4: the driveway, just go, like, find a way to go.
- 26:52Speaker 4: You can figure the rest out. But for us it
- 26:54Speaker 4: was so clear right we already had a van that
- 26:56Speaker 4: most people would never choose to take. It broke down
- 26:58Speaker 4: every three days. We didn't know how to fit. Everything
- 27:00Speaker 4: was going wrong, but we were happy. And somehow when
- 27:04Speaker 4: we looked at the highway from the beach that we
- 27:06Speaker 4: were camping, on. We were getting passed on the pan
- 27:08Speaker 4: am by like tricycles and fiats and like people that
- 27:13Speaker 4: you shouldn't even trying to sleep in your vehicle, and
- 27:15Speaker 4: they're passing us, and we're coming back after going all
- 27:17Speaker 4: the way south. I don't know, somehow just drove that
- 27:20Speaker 4: vision deeper and deeper deeper, like it doesn't matter, just
- 27:22Speaker 4: find a way to take one step and the rest
- 27:25Speaker 4: of the steps will helphind you. I'm still not a
- 27:27Speaker 4: trusting person like I this is really hard for me,
- 27:30Speaker 4: Like I'm not fully adopted and adapted yet. But it
- 27:32Speaker 4: is amazing the ways that we, you know, we have
- 27:35Speaker 4: had to continually reinvent ourselves over the last ten years.
- 27:38Speaker 4: But it is not without opportunities and ideas and things
- 27:42Speaker 4: that also feed in and help along the way. Like
- 27:45Speaker 4: somehow we don't have to just go from zero to
- 27:48Speaker 4: one hundred. There's something that comes along that's like, oh,
- 27:51Speaker 4: you know, like a letter from your credit for example,
- 27:53Speaker 4: I guess.
- 27:54Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm curious because you guys went from then travel
- 27:58Speaker 1: and made the leap into sailing. And so there's another
- 28:01Speaker 1: example of you, you know, leap in the net where
- 28:04Speaker 1: it will appear or the boat will appear or whatever. Yeah,
- 28:08Speaker 1: what was that transition like? And why did you choose
- 28:10Speaker 1: to leave.
- 28:11Speaker 4: Land for c Again purely accidentally as we do things,
- 28:15Speaker 4: I think, so we had just decided to eventually not
- 28:19Speaker 4: say no to helping other people build vans. We said yes,
- 28:22Speaker 4: So we decided to make a couple of diy kits
- 28:24Speaker 4: and see if it was a business that did not
- 28:26Speaker 4: go according to plan at all early on, And so
- 28:29Speaker 4: we came to Expo and we presented it and feedback
- 28:32Speaker 4: was amazing. I mean, we got a lot of great
- 28:33Speaker 4: free media. Again, people were thrilled. I mean to watch
- 28:37Speaker 4: people be excited about something you design and build is fulfilling.
- 28:41Speaker 4: It never gets tiring, right, I mean, it's just magical.
- 28:44Speaker 4: So we walked away this long list. But then when
- 28:46Speaker 4: we looked at each other and we're like, hey, we
- 28:48Speaker 4: have to finish these two out of three vans we
- 28:51Speaker 4: just started, and we're already exhausted. So I think all in,
- 28:53Speaker 4: we spent six months of twenty two hour days just
- 28:57Speaker 4: working on this project. And so when we really checked
- 28:59Speaker 4: in ourselves and we're like, okay, what do we want
- 29:01Speaker 4: to do? We got all these new clients. We want
- 29:03Speaker 4: to run away because that's what we're good at. And
- 29:06Speaker 4: so we just kind of got into our van. We
- 29:08Speaker 4: want to go camping, and we just drove north right
- 29:10Speaker 4: and like Alaska was always on the list, and so
- 29:12Speaker 4: we drove north through BC and Alberta in Northwest Territories,
- 29:15Speaker 4: into the Yukon, up the Dempster and you know, got
- 29:18Speaker 4: to the Arctic Circle and drove over to Alaska. And
- 29:20Speaker 4: we're like, oh my god, dream trip. This is amazing.
- 29:23Speaker 4: And every time we'd get back into cell range, we'd
- 29:25Speaker 4: get like twenty calls that would pop in and we're like,
- 29:29Speaker 4: I'm afraid to call them back because we just walked away,
- 29:32Speaker 4: like we don't know what this is yet. We have
- 29:34Speaker 4: to find our balance, and somewhere along the way we
- 29:37Speaker 4: I think in Alaska is where we you know, we
- 29:41Speaker 4: always found ourselves kind of camping at marinas and on
- 29:44Speaker 4: the ocean, like we just were always drawn to the sea.
- 29:46Speaker 4: And we're at a campfire with this guy. It's midnight,
- 29:48Speaker 4: so the sun's still out in Alaska. We have our
- 29:50Speaker 4: shades on and he's just miserable. I mean, he's bitter,
- 29:53Speaker 4: he's he's mad, and we're kind of checking in like hey, man,
- 29:56Speaker 4: like this is really great, isn't it. He's like, no,
- 29:58Speaker 4: this is horrible. I'm a sailor. I want to be
- 30:00Speaker 4: on my boat. Why aren't you on your boat? And
- 30:02Speaker 4: he's like, well, I'm too old, my body's breaking down.
- 30:04Speaker 4: I have to move on to the next phase. And
- 30:06Speaker 4: our entire life we had dreamt of being on a boat,
- 30:08Speaker 4: but it was too much money, it was too far away.
- 30:10Speaker 4: We didn't not sail it. It was always this like later later,
- 30:13Speaker 4: and for whatever reason, we drove away. And this guy's
- 30:15Speaker 4: just hit us really deep. And so we made an
- 30:18Speaker 4: offer on a boat three days later that we had
- 30:20Speaker 4: never even seen before.
- 30:21Speaker 1: From all three days later.
- 30:24Speaker 4: Yeah, well, past lessons come true. What we now realize,
- 30:27Speaker 4: once we make a decision about what we want.
- 30:29Speaker 1: It's go time like now, and.
- 30:31Speaker 4: So that means literally like within sixty.
- 30:33Speaker 2: Seconds and kind of circling back what we said earlier.
- 30:36Speaker 2: We knew we could always go back to the van
- 30:38Speaker 2: we loved. We love overlanding. Let's try overwatering, I guess
- 30:44Speaker 2: if that's even a word. And when we jumped into
- 30:48Speaker 2: that path, we didn't know if we'd get seasick, we
- 30:51Speaker 2: didn't know if we'd love it. We didn't know if
- 30:53Speaker 2: our sweet precious dog, who is like our tribe, you know,
- 30:57Speaker 2: part of our tripod, if she would like it. And
- 30:59Speaker 2: we were willing to readjust if we got on this
- 31:04Speaker 2: path and decided not to because we knew, well we
- 31:07Speaker 2: are happy camping and driving around to remote locations and
- 31:12Speaker 2: living out of our vehicle. That it turned out that
- 31:15Speaker 2: we really liked it. That was almost four years ago, right,
- 31:19Speaker 2: three and a half years.
- 31:20Speaker 4: Ago, yeah, almost foraging. I remember we made an offer
- 31:23Speaker 4: on the boat, and then in that period where you
- 31:24Speaker 4: can still run away, right, had this conversation. We're like,
- 31:28Speaker 4: we've read about this enough, like we don't know a lot,
- 31:30Speaker 4: we don't know how to say it at all, but
- 31:31Speaker 4: we've read about boats because it's always been a dream.
- 31:33Speaker 4: And so if we do this, we're probably going to
- 31:36Speaker 4: lose a lot of money. Like we just came into
- 31:38Speaker 4: money for the first time in years, right, so we
- 31:40Speaker 4: finally had something in the account and we're like, okay,
- 31:43Speaker 4: if we spend all this money on the boat, we're
- 31:44Speaker 4: going to lose this many dollars. And it was a
- 31:46Speaker 4: big number, like I don't know how many figures were anyway,
- 31:50Speaker 4: Like that's a six figure number. If we if we
- 31:52Speaker 4: did this for a year or two and we lose
- 31:54Speaker 4: that many dollars, are we okay? Would we still do it?
- 31:56Speaker 4: And we're like yeah, like we're doing it right. And
- 31:59Speaker 4: so we did it, and then we kept expecting like
- 32:01Speaker 4: something to fall through, It won't really happen. It did happen.
- 32:04Speaker 4: And then literally at the day were arriving, like we
- 32:07Speaker 4: drove coss we silber van, moved into a rental van,
- 32:10Speaker 4: drove cross country and as we got to like maybe
- 32:12Speaker 4: New Orleans, reality started to set in and we're like,
- 32:15Speaker 4: oh my god, what have we done? Like what if
- 32:18Speaker 4: we get see sick? What if the dog hates it?
- 32:19Speaker 4: Like we're in trouble. And then we move aboard and
- 32:21Speaker 4: we started to look around and we're like, wow, it's huge,
- 32:25Speaker 4: Like this is going to be easy to live in.
- 32:27Speaker 4: Have you figured out how to turn the lights on?
- 32:28Speaker 4: Like do you know how to flush the toilet? Like
- 32:31Speaker 4: we didn't know anything, right, We'd never really even been
- 32:34Speaker 4: on boats, and so we just spent a long time
- 32:37Speaker 4: kind of figuring out just how to live, much less
- 32:40Speaker 4: how to sail, which we eventually had to learn. So
- 32:42Speaker 4: we just adopted this like one new thing and so
- 32:45Speaker 4: in the beginning that was like how to turn the
- 32:46Speaker 4: lights on, how to flush the toilet, how to do whatever,
- 32:49Speaker 4: how to open a door, and then eventually it was
- 32:51Speaker 4: like how to start up the dingy motor, how to
- 32:55Speaker 4: raise the sail, which was literally, you know, we found
- 32:58Speaker 4: ourselves in the ocean because we were too orf I
- 33:00Speaker 4: to go back and dock the boat again. Mostly like that.
- 33:02Speaker 4: Leaving the dock was easy. Going back was like, no,
- 33:04Speaker 4: we're not doing that.
- 33:05Speaker 1: Where was the dock that you were leaving from?
- 33:07Speaker 4: Or you're a Fort Lauderdale, Okay, time is where we
- 33:09Speaker 4: picked up the boat, gotcha? And so we were just like,
- 33:11Speaker 4: I don't want to go back to you anyway, Okay,
- 33:12Speaker 4: we'll keep going. So we went through a couple of bridges,
- 33:14Speaker 4: got out to the water and we're just sitting there bobbing,
- 33:17Speaker 4: and we're like, whoa, yes, we could raise the sails,
- 33:20Speaker 4: like that was like three weeks from now we could try.
- 33:22Speaker 4: So we poured out the binoculars and we're like looking
- 33:24Speaker 4: at the top, like trying to follow the colors. We're like,
- 33:27Speaker 4: what are these ropes? Oh wait, we can't say ropes lines,
- 33:30Speaker 4: they're lines. Which line does what? And we finally picked
- 33:33Speaker 4: it up and we raised the sails and we're like yes,
- 33:36Speaker 4: and we looked around the boat. It's not going anywhere,
- 33:38Speaker 4: and I'm like, oh, I thought that's how you said
- 33:40Speaker 4: our boat just you put the things up and it goes.
- 33:43Speaker 4: But that's we started that right like that far down
- 33:46Speaker 4: the rope that we had to learn literally everything about
- 33:50Speaker 4: how to how to live this lifestyle.
- 33:53Speaker 1: And also the thing that's great as you took it
- 33:55Speaker 1: in bite sized chunks, so you weren't completely overwhelmed at
- 33:58Speaker 1: the beginning and you're like I can't, I'm done, Like
- 34:00Speaker 1: this is too much, so taking it a little bit
- 34:03Speaker 1: at a time.
- 34:04Speaker 2: Yeah, well said, well, yeah, we.
- 34:06Speaker 4: Were still terrified. Let's be clear, we tried. We would
- 34:09Speaker 4: tell ourselves that for a security blanket. We did still
- 34:12Speaker 4: have a date where we had to move off that dock.
- 34:14Speaker 4: Like our lease or whatever they call it on the
- 34:17Speaker 4: dock was expiring. We had to be gone, and so
- 34:19Speaker 4: we're like, okay, like let's take this real slow, but
- 34:21Speaker 4: also we have to go, and so we kind of
- 34:23Speaker 4: just kept doing that. I think our third or fourth
- 34:27Speaker 4: sail ever was across the Gulf Stream.
- 34:29Speaker 2: And from Florida to the Bahamas.
- 34:31Speaker 4: And at that point we didn't even know what that meant.
- 34:33Speaker 4: We're just like, it's a body of water, it's fine,
- 34:34Speaker 4: and people are like it's kind of a big deal,
- 34:37Speaker 4: like you should know what you're doing. So we started
- 34:39Speaker 4: learning how to I should say, Jen started learning how
- 34:42Speaker 4: to read, whether figure out what the right timing is.
- 34:45Speaker 4: You need a big window to make sure there's no
- 34:47Speaker 4: storms coming. And to be clear, Jen's the captain of
- 34:49Speaker 4: the boat, right, Like this is philosophical boats that we've
- 34:52Speaker 4: been talking about for a while now is all driven
- 34:55Speaker 4: by Jen, and so Jen's the captain. Jen became responsible
- 34:58Speaker 4: for learning how to read, rather how to steer the boat,
- 35:02Speaker 4: how to do all the things, because I'm still busy
- 35:04Speaker 4: doing business things. I guess even though we swore there
- 35:08Speaker 4: was no business. It's funny. We got to this port
- 35:10Speaker 4: where most people pop off from to go to the Bahamas,
- 35:12Speaker 4: and we're looking for anybody to just say like it's okay,
- 35:15Speaker 4: it's okay. We're still looking for that blog that's you're
- 35:17Speaker 4: going to survive, yes, And we found one boat that
- 35:20Speaker 4: was from Portland, Organ and we're like, oh, it's going
- 35:22Speaker 4: to r We dingy around their boat. We knock on
- 35:24Speaker 4: the boat. We yell at them, there's uber high uber low, which,
- 35:28Speaker 4: as it turns out, is a theme in living on
- 35:30Speaker 4: a boat. Could not find them. I guess they were
- 35:31Speaker 4: at the bar or something else. And it turns out
- 35:33Speaker 4: he's a meteorologist. And so we rode eventually and said
- 35:36Speaker 4: we're going to cross tomorrow. What do you guys think?
- 35:39Speaker 4: And we didn't get their email back until we're halfway
- 35:41Speaker 4: across the Gulf stream when they responded, whatever you do,
- 35:45Speaker 4: do not cross tomorrow. And so we I don't even
- 35:48Speaker 4: know how we got cell service.
- 35:49Speaker 2: That was a lovely crossing, though, I have to say,
- 35:51Speaker 2: I mean, I don't know what our expectations were, but
- 35:54Speaker 2: it felt safe, and I mean it felt big. We're
- 35:56Speaker 2: on the open ocean.
- 35:57Speaker 4: Everything felt it was pretty amazy. I were big. There
- 36:00Speaker 4: were things that were kind of a gulp moment, but
- 36:02Speaker 4: overall was fine compared to whatever we built ourselves up for.
- 36:05Speaker 4: And so we got their text, I'm like, oh my god,
- 36:06Speaker 4: we need to turn around, but we're halfway. What if
- 36:08Speaker 4: it's behind us. We just kind of had to keep
- 36:10Speaker 4: going and we would learn days later that they actually
- 36:12Speaker 4: decided to cross on the same day, just ten hours
- 36:15Speaker 4: behind us or something. It was fine. There's a lot
- 36:17Speaker 4: of a reaction when you're reading weather and things like that,
- 36:19Speaker 4: and so it's just I don't know. It's just another
- 36:21Speaker 4: example of how at some point you just have to leep.
- 36:24Speaker 4: You got to leap, right, you got to make the jump.
- 36:25Speaker 4: There are things that are almost builty and that will
- 36:28Speaker 4: terrify you along the way, and you just kind of
- 36:30Speaker 4: got to keep going. And in this particular case, on
- 36:33Speaker 4: the other side of that leap was idyllic beaches and
- 36:37Speaker 4: sunsets and all the things that we'dn't.
- 36:40Speaker 2: See turtles and dolphins and whales and shark.
- 36:43Speaker 4: So anyway, I mean, terrifying start, and we just kept
- 36:46Speaker 4: going from there. We basically just went down throughout the
- 36:48Speaker 4: entire Caribbean and kept learning as we go. And to
- 36:51Speaker 4: be honest, we still know. I think most sailors would say,
- 36:53Speaker 4: we know nothing, but we're better than we were, and
- 36:56Speaker 4: we wouldn't change the thing. I mean, it's it's oddly
- 36:59Speaker 4: oddly similar to life in very many ways.
- 37:01Speaker 1: I was going to ask about that, Yeah, I.
- 37:03Speaker 4: Mean the lifestyle of you know, moving to smaller spaces
- 37:06Speaker 4: and kind of figuring out life as you go and
- 37:08Speaker 4: having to deal with your own repairs and having to
- 37:10Speaker 4: cross a lot of borders. I mean, there are oddly
- 37:13Speaker 4: a large number of similarities. We somehow always keep catch
- 37:16Speaker 4: ourselves saying that the only difference is the highs are
- 37:18Speaker 4: way higher and the lows are way lower, and they
- 37:21Speaker 4: tend to come with about thirty seconds of warning between.
- 37:24Speaker 4: You feel you're having the best moment of your life,
- 37:26Speaker 4: and it is almost certainly going to be followed with
- 37:28Speaker 4: like the largest.
- 37:30Speaker 2: Fear rainbow, dolphins jumping, you catch a tuna, and then
- 37:36Speaker 2: here comes a storm, like not like a huge storm,
- 37:39Speaker 2: but the squall that's going to hit you for a
- 37:43Speaker 2: good five minutes and you're going to be in a
- 37:46Speaker 2: tail spin for about five minutes, and it's pretty stressful.
- 37:49Speaker 2: And other thing is maybe when hardware falls off somewhere
- 37:54Speaker 2: at the top of your mast and you're like, was
- 37:56Speaker 2: that important? Because I just heard something fall, Like what
- 37:59Speaker 2: was that?
- 38:00Speaker 4: What do you think this piece goes? No?
- 38:03Speaker 2: Seems important, And then you have to investigate every single
- 38:07Speaker 2: part and like, just oh man, it's praty. It's a
- 38:10Speaker 2: lot like overlanding, right.
- 38:11Speaker 1: I was going to say that maybe the risks I
- 38:14Speaker 1: don't know. I've never sailed but I would imagine.
- 38:16Speaker 4: You're going to change that in the next couple of
- 38:17Speaker 4: months or weeks. Right, Yes, I got the commitment on courting.
- 38:23Speaker 1: By the way, it's as evidence now exactly. Oh, I
- 38:28Speaker 1: was going to say, it seems like the risks are
- 38:31Speaker 1: more intense maybe on a boat in some way.
- 38:34Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean our so our original I guess. We
- 38:37Speaker 4: drove south to Panama. Our our bus literally broke down
- 38:40Speaker 4: about every three days. But honestly it was good for us.
- 38:43Speaker 4: A lot of the fears we had about Mexico turned
- 38:45Speaker 4: into us feeling more protected and safe than ever because
- 38:48Speaker 4: there was always some community or some person that was
- 38:51Speaker 4: willing to come out and save us, literally save us,
- 38:54Speaker 4: because we had no idea what we're doing. But on
- 38:55Speaker 4: the boat, there's just nobody there, right, I mean, there's
- 38:57Speaker 4: nobody that's going to pass because there's not a road
- 38:59Speaker 4: that you all have to follow. You're just in the
- 39:01Speaker 4: middle of this giant body, figuring it out on your own.
- 39:04Speaker 4: And to be fair, I didn't know how to fix
- 39:05Speaker 4: the multipagon engine either, but I certainly don't know how
- 39:08Speaker 4: to fix the diesel engine, and now I'm trying to
- 39:10Speaker 4: fix it. Well in ten foot seas in the middle
- 39:13Speaker 4: of an ocean, it just the bar gets raised fairly
- 39:16Speaker 4: significantly in ways that we didn't expect.
- 39:19Speaker 2: But and then you see your rainbow, golphins jumping. This
- 39:23Speaker 2: is really freaking cool.
- 39:25Speaker 4: Or you pull into port and you get to stay
- 39:28Speaker 4: for several weeks because you're totally self sustaining, and you
- 39:31Speaker 4: get to enjoy all of those things which we now
- 39:33Speaker 4: realize we've always been driven by. We've always basically driven
- 39:37Speaker 4: the ocean roads. We've always camped on the beach. We've
- 39:40Speaker 4: always sat there looking and staring and wondering what those
- 39:43Speaker 4: people on the boats were doing. Once we get to
- 39:45Speaker 4: our destination, there's no question this is our perfect life.
- 39:48Speaker 4: We are literally living what we would have written down
- 39:51Speaker 4: and actually did in some of Gen's daydreaming events. We're
- 39:56Speaker 4: living our vision quest. Right. It's beautiful. It just comes
- 39:59Speaker 4: with of really terrifying, harrowing moments in between those beautiful events.
- 40:04Speaker 1: Right. What are some differences I guess a few more
- 40:08Speaker 1: differences between overlanding and sailing. Do you think in terms
- 40:13Speaker 1: of even the vessel or imagine it's different because you're
- 40:17Speaker 1: popping via different islands and how often do you have
- 40:21Speaker 1: to land? You know and encounter other people are more isolated.
- 40:25Speaker 2: I think one of the most impactful differences to us
- 40:29Speaker 2: because the lifestyle is very similar. We still seek out
- 40:33Speaker 2: remote locations. We did that on land, we do that
- 40:37Speaker 2: by sea. We still make our own power, make our
- 40:40Speaker 2: own water. We didn't make our own water, you know,
- 40:42Speaker 2: on land, but we carried our own water. And low
- 40:46Speaker 2: impact on the ocean, low impact when you're camping. But
- 40:49Speaker 2: the thing that is so much different is that the
- 40:52Speaker 2: salt water the ocean, it's so intense and things deteriorate
- 40:57Speaker 2: and corrodes so much faster than store altitude or like
- 41:02Speaker 2: the things that we've experienced, you know, being a problem
- 41:05Speaker 2: in our vehicles, you know, are electronics failing because too
- 41:10Speaker 2: much salt, the bottom of the boat corroding. Basically animals
- 41:15Speaker 2: like be deciding they want to live on the bottom
- 41:17Speaker 2: of the boat. Like what would you say, Brian, that
- 41:19Speaker 2: was my p.
- 41:20Speaker 4: It's almost like everything is suddenly against you, right, I mean,
- 41:22Speaker 4: the ocean will destroy anything that it gets its hands on,
- 41:26Speaker 4: and so we're suddenly like, oh, we have to have
- 41:27Speaker 4: a backup laptop, we have to have a backup GoPro,
- 41:30Speaker 4: we have to have a back Oh we can't afford
- 41:31Speaker 4: any of them, much less replacement oil filters and fuel
- 41:33Speaker 4: filters and things that matter impellers, and so we're just
- 41:36Speaker 4: we find ourselves so deeply over our heads, which should
- 41:40Speaker 4: be tremendously stressful, but we are literally living our best life.
- 41:44Speaker 4: And so it's like, how do you balance these two things?
- 41:47Speaker 1: Right?
- 41:47Speaker 4: And so we try to get better at Like when
- 41:48Speaker 4: we get into a port that has things, we just
- 41:51Speaker 4: go guns blazing, like we have to get all the
- 41:53Speaker 4: things as fast as we can, and they're never all
- 41:55Speaker 4: of the things, but you get as many as you can, right,
- 41:57Speaker 4: and then we try to order as much as we
- 41:59Speaker 4: can from home. Shipping is a complete nightmare. All the
- 42:01Speaker 4: things that we always took for granted, like if you
- 42:03Speaker 4: break down, there's Triple A, or there's a gas station
- 42:06Speaker 4: within range, or even in Mexico at least with the Boltswagon.
- 42:10Speaker 4: If guy knows how to fix the toaster, he knows
- 42:11Speaker 4: how to fix your van, you're gonna be fine. Suddenly
- 42:14Speaker 4: there's just nobody there. And so it's this very odd
- 42:17Speaker 4: dichotomy of like, I've never been happier in my life.
- 42:20Speaker 4: There's no way I'm giving this up. And yet we're
- 42:22Speaker 4: in constant risk of just drifting in the open ocean, right,
- 42:25Speaker 4: Like it's just this weird combination. But yet we wouldn't
- 42:28Speaker 4: change a thing. I mean, here we are. The last
- 42:30Speaker 4: six weeks, we came back to the States for the
- 42:32Speaker 4: first time in four years, moved back into a van,
- 42:35Speaker 4: which at this point is a company van, and you know,
- 42:37Speaker 4: had weird things we never had in our van, like
- 42:39Speaker 4: plumbing and hot water showers and just you know, things
- 42:43Speaker 4: that are too good for humidity to endure. Yeah, we
- 42:45Speaker 4: still miss it. We're loving every minute that we're in
- 42:47Speaker 4: a van. And I think that the lesson here is
- 42:50Speaker 4: that at some point the perfect balance is to have both.
- 42:53Speaker 4: Like I think we're becoming more aware of that, but
- 42:54Speaker 4: we also just miss every day that we get to
- 42:58Speaker 4: I think we're Murphy. I mean, I think I think
- 43:00Speaker 4: we've actually decided that we're more people. I mean, in
- 43:03Speaker 4: our best when I wasn't working too much and things
- 43:06Speaker 4: like that, we were in the water like six to
- 43:08Speaker 4: eight hours a day, wow, circling, diving, underwater, just meeting
- 43:13Speaker 4: local sea creatures and like that is, as it turns out,
- 43:16Speaker 4: that is our happiness, right, I don't know, it's funny,
- 43:19Speaker 4: And now we're talking about crossing the Pacific, which I
- 43:22Speaker 4: think we all know is way above our pay grade,
- 43:24Speaker 4: Like we are not even close to ready.
- 43:26Speaker 2: That's like thirty days of sailing without potentially seeing anybody, Wow,
- 43:32Speaker 2: no place to stop. I mean maybe even thirty five days.
- 43:37Speaker 4: It was probably forty forty. But at some point we
- 43:39Speaker 4: just admit, like, nobody's coming. You have a we have
- 43:42Speaker 4: kind of a phone tree. We do have a satellite,
- 43:44Speaker 4: so if something goes wrong, it'll text our friend. And
- 43:46Speaker 4: our friends are like, hey, so who do we call?
- 43:48Speaker 2: Honestly, there is no one to call. We just want
- 43:52Speaker 2: to say goodbye.
- 43:54Speaker 4: I honestly think it's just us being polite and saying, hey,
- 43:57Speaker 4: don't know what's gonna happen from here, Like I don't
- 44:00Speaker 4: think I want to be on the phone tree anything fair,
- 44:03Speaker 4: So yeah, I don't know. It's just so interesting that
- 44:06Speaker 4: it is. I look back at the things that terrified me,
- 44:09Speaker 4: and I have no idea why I was so afraid
- 44:11Speaker 4: of those things, Like that was just change. That was
- 44:13Speaker 4: just being afraid of not normal. This is actually terrifying,
- 44:18Speaker 4: But we wouldn't change it for anything. I mean, it's
- 44:21Speaker 4: just once we in between islands. When we're on and
- 44:24Speaker 4: we have to be sailing and we're dealing with weather
- 44:26Speaker 4: like that is truly terrifying. Once we get to an island,
- 44:29Speaker 4: I mean, we wouldn't change anything, right. We would import
- 44:32Speaker 4: our friends because obviously COVID men, we haven't still anyone
- 44:35Speaker 4: for four years. We would change who we get to
- 44:37Speaker 4: spend it with and share things with. But in terms
- 44:39Speaker 4: of lifestyle, it's uncanny. And you know, we still think
- 44:42Speaker 4: back to that guy at the campfire. Life is short.
- 44:44Speaker 4: We have no idea what's coming for any of us
- 44:46Speaker 4: or when it's coming, and so it's all about living,
- 44:49Speaker 4: you know, the happiest and the freest and the best
- 44:51Speaker 4: we can every day. And so while we're still thinking
- 44:53Speaker 4: about that, like we have found it, there's no question
- 44:56Speaker 4: that this is it. It's very remote, it's a little lonely,
- 44:58Speaker 4: but it's so good in every way, right, And so
- 45:01Speaker 4: it's coming from the guy that wrote because he was
- 45:05Speaker 4: terrified and was trying to do therapy for himself. It's
- 45:08Speaker 4: really funny to realize that you've kind of gotten to
- 45:12Speaker 4: this place which we wouldn't change anything about it.
- 45:15Speaker 1: I think people see that through you and they're like Wow,
- 45:18Speaker 1: this is possible, and so yeah, you.
- 45:21Speaker 4: Mean they're like, Wow, this guy's almost human. Now he's
- 45:23Speaker 4: not like freaked out all the time. It's more fun
- 45:26Speaker 4: to be around. I hear that.
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- 46:29Speaker 1: Yeah, I usually ask people like what's your what's your
- 46:32Speaker 1: favorite book? Or where is the place that you would
- 46:34Speaker 1: go if you could travel on your right now? But
- 46:37Speaker 1: I want to touch on something before we wrap up
- 46:39Speaker 1: that you guys once said that totally resonated with me,
- 46:42Speaker 1: and I think Brian you said it. You said we're broken,
- 46:45Speaker 1: but in the best possible way. Does that sound familiar?
- 46:49Speaker 4: Funny how this term is stuck?
- 46:50Speaker 1: It has?
- 46:51Speaker 4: Yeah, No, when we I think this fully hit when
- 46:54Speaker 4: we first came back from Panama, Costa. Rica left the
- 46:57Speaker 4: bus when we came home, and we actually had a
- 46:59Speaker 4: common on the plane and we're like, okay, we can
- 47:02Speaker 4: fit in, Like we can make this work. Although all
- 47:05Speaker 4: of our friends are having kids, we're gonna have kids, I think,
- 47:07Speaker 4: So we're ready, right, We're going to do this thing.
- 47:09Speaker 4: Peer pressure is going to be big. We're just going
- 47:11Speaker 4: to commit to normal. We're gonna have kids, We're gonna
- 47:13Speaker 4: we're going to do this. Yeah, and we both agreed, well, yeah,
- 47:16Speaker 4: I think I think it's the time, like we're in
- 47:18Speaker 4: we're to be normal. And it could not have been
- 47:20Speaker 4: clearer once we landed and got back home, like every event,
- 47:24Speaker 4: every conversation, every parent that pulled us aside to say
- 47:27Speaker 4: please never have kids, don't do it. We were broken, right,
- 47:30Speaker 4: We could not. As hard as we tried, it was
- 47:33Speaker 4: just square peg, roundhole, like we could not fit in.
- 47:36Speaker 4: And so we kind of just started saying we're broken.
- 47:37Speaker 4: And then we started realizing, hey, broken doesn't have to
- 47:39Speaker 4: be bad, like it could be a good word, right, Yes,
- 47:42Speaker 4: And I think we actually shared around a campfire like, well,
- 47:45Speaker 4: at some point we should just have like a self
- 47:46Speaker 4: help group where all of all of those of us
- 47:50Speaker 4: that just can't seem to fit in anymore because we
- 47:53Speaker 4: made this leap and we've seen the other side. We
- 47:55Speaker 4: just need to band together, right because there are others
- 47:58Speaker 4: of us out there. It's just not normal. It's just
- 48:00Speaker 4: not common. And the further we go, the further we
- 48:03Speaker 4: get away from normal. I think, the more this term
- 48:06Speaker 4: really sinks in. I mean, I try to describe it now,
- 48:09Speaker 4: but I just feel like there was this wall that
- 48:11Speaker 4: was built around normalcy that once was terrifying to climb
- 48:15Speaker 4: that wall or break through it, but once we got
- 48:16Speaker 4: on the other side, you're like, oh wait, there's other
- 48:18Speaker 4: people already over here, and they seem okay. And then
- 48:22Speaker 4: like now that we move into sailing, granted, most of
- 48:24Speaker 4: the people that are sailing have retired to get there,
- 48:27Speaker 4: or they've done very magical things to get there. But
- 48:30Speaker 4: now we spend a lot of evenings talking with people
- 48:33Speaker 4: that are living full time this very removed lifestyle that
- 48:36Speaker 4: we honestly never thought we would see in our lifetime.
- 48:38Speaker 4: We just never thought we'd find the magical equation to
- 48:41Speaker 4: get there. And all we do is talk about, well,
- 48:43Speaker 4: why can't everybody else see that this is possible. We
- 48:46Speaker 4: literally sit around talking with groups of people about how
- 48:48Speaker 4: do you convince other people that there is no magic
- 48:51Speaker 4: and there is no thing holding you back. You just
- 48:53Speaker 4: have to have the faith to get And it's so
- 48:55Speaker 4: very polarizing from what I remember very distinctly being on
- 49:00Speaker 4: the other side of that wall, going there's no option,
- 49:02Speaker 4: there is no way to get out of this, there
- 49:03Speaker 4: is no freedom, and there's just there's also no way
- 49:06Speaker 4: to do that. Because I could talk to my younger
- 49:07Speaker 4: self today I still don't know the words. I still
- 49:10Speaker 4: don't know what to say that would have made him
- 49:11Speaker 4: feel free, other than oh, I love her and she's
- 49:14Speaker 4: gonna go without me. I should probably get on this.
- 49:16Speaker 4: It's really interesting to have come so far away in
- 49:18Speaker 4: some so full circle. I guess and know that it's there,
- 49:22Speaker 4: but also still not know how to talk about it,
- 49:24Speaker 4: and I actually blog less now. I don't need the therapy.
- 49:26Speaker 4: I guess I probably still need the therapy very deeply,
- 49:30Speaker 4: but I also just don't know the words, right. I
- 49:31Speaker 4: don't know. I don't know what to say to those people.
- 49:34Speaker 4: I don't know what to say to me ten years.
- 49:36Speaker 1: I think too, like you guys are really good about
- 49:38Speaker 1: posting on Instagram and sharing kind of your day to
- 49:41Speaker 1: day realities, and maybe that's another form of blogging, just
- 49:45Speaker 1: in a different way.
- 49:46Speaker 4: So I think it is. It's a little less wordy,
- 49:49Speaker 4: which it would be bad before, as you'll attest, and
- 49:52Speaker 4: now I think it's it's more just a photo album.
- 49:53Speaker 4: It's a great way for us to look back and
- 49:55Speaker 4: remember how far we've come, right, and to kind of
- 49:58Speaker 4: remember if we look back over the last couple of years,
- 50:01Speaker 4: it doesn't seem like our life. Right, we're looking at
- 50:04Speaker 4: photos that are all blue.
- 50:05Speaker 1: Ye your boys. Yeah.
- 50:08Speaker 2: What I think is really beautiful about our journey that
- 50:12Speaker 2: I think is super relevant for other people is that
- 50:15Speaker 2: we didn't know ten years ago that we would be
- 50:18Speaker 2: where we are right now today. We knew ten years
- 50:22Speaker 2: ago where we wanted to be in a year, and
- 50:24Speaker 2: then after that year was over, we were like, where
- 50:27Speaker 2: do we want to be for the next six months
- 50:28Speaker 2: or a year or two years or whatever, And so
- 50:31Speaker 2: we constantly checked in with each other and it's been
- 50:34Speaker 2: an evolution, it's been change, it's been different than what
- 50:37Speaker 2: we expected. And I think that other people could really
- 50:41Speaker 2: benefit if that felt right for them to also just say, Okay,
- 50:45Speaker 2: where do I want to be in six months? Where
- 50:47Speaker 2: do I want to be in a year, because sometimes
- 50:49Speaker 2: five years, ten years, those goals are like they're beautiful
- 50:52Speaker 2: because you can think so big, like I want this
- 50:55Speaker 2: is what I want to do, and I definitely want
- 50:57Speaker 2: to achieve this, or I want to go here, But
- 51:00Speaker 2: it's also really hard to kind of bridge that gap
- 51:03Speaker 2: of where I am today where I want to be
- 51:05Speaker 2: in five years. But if you just take those baby steps,
- 51:09Speaker 2: reevaluate in the moment, continually ask yourself like, am I
- 51:13Speaker 2: feeling fulfilled? Am I on the right path? Is there
- 51:18Speaker 2: something I want to be doing instead? And just going
- 51:21Speaker 2: after that? I think there's something really sweet about that.
- 51:25Speaker 1: Absolutely. I think I wanted to just say thank you
- 51:29Speaker 1: guys so much for coming on this podcast, and I
- 51:32Speaker 1: think that those life lessons gained over a more than
- 51:36Speaker 1: a decade of experience definitely probably will resonate with a
- 51:40Speaker 1: lot of people. So thank you so much for sharing
- 51:43Speaker 1: all your story with me.
- 51:45Speaker 2: You're a men.
- 51:46Speaker 1: Thank you and the listeners. And also where can people
- 51:50Speaker 1: find you if they're interested in zen Vans or in
- 51:53Speaker 1: your sailing journey?
- 51:54Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean our personal stories. We still have the blug.
- 51:57Speaker 4: We occasionally get back there, but it is not as
- 51:59Speaker 4: frequent visited. But it was just the dangers with the
- 52:02Speaker 4: Z at the end. Dot Com now Instagram is probably
- 52:05Speaker 4: the most current, which is the dangers as well at
- 52:07Speaker 4: the dangers with a Z. And then zen Bands is
- 52:10Speaker 4: oddly turned from a passion project into a real business.
- 52:14Speaker 4: And so that's just in bands dot com with a
- 52:15Speaker 4: Z on both the front and the back. And be
- 52:18Speaker 4: very clear, if you tune into any of those channels,
- 52:20Speaker 4: we still have no idea what we're doing. There is
- 52:23Speaker 4: no there's no good answer here. We've just, I think,
- 52:26Speaker 4: both together, grown into a comfort of not knowing and
- 52:29Speaker 4: being comfortable. We're mostly just a really bad influence.
- 52:32Speaker 1: I think nonsense.
- 52:33Speaker 4: I think you're a good influence and you're very sweet.
- 52:37Speaker 1: Well, thank you guys so much for coming on. I
- 52:39Speaker 1: really appreciate it and enjoy the rest of the expo
- 52:42Speaker 1: and best wishes on your next sailing adventure. And yeah,
- 52:47Speaker 1: all the Overland Journal podcast listeners out there, thank you
- 52:50Speaker 1: so much for tuning in and we'll catch you next time.