Latest / The Overland Journal Podcast / Exploring Business and the World With Chris Van Dyke

Transcript

Exploring Business and the World With Chris Van Dyke · The Overland Journal Podcast

0:05
Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to the Overland Journal podcast. I am
0:08
Speaker 1: your host Scott Brady. My co host Matt Scott. He's
0:10
Speaker 1: not with me today. I'm up in Bend, Oregon, beautiful
0:14
Speaker 1: part of the country. I've picked up an earth Cruiser
0:17
Speaker 1: and I'm getting ready to head out into the Alvar
0:20
Speaker 1: Desert and the Stems Mountains for a few weeks of exploring.
0:24
Speaker 1: And being in Bend, Oregon gave me the opportunity to
0:28
Speaker 1: connect with a longtime friend and travel companion, Chris Van Dyck,
0:32
Speaker 1: who's going to be on the show with me today.
0:34
Speaker 1: Thank you for being on the show. Chris.
0:35
Speaker 2: It's my pleasure. It's a double pleasure. Can I get
0:38
Speaker 2: to see you.
0:38
Speaker 1: It's been a while, Yeah, it has been a while,
0:41
Speaker 1: and we enjoyed an amazing trip on motorcycles down in
0:44
Speaker 1: South America. But we're going to touch the very tip
0:48
Speaker 1: of the iceberg of Chris's life and his experiences in
0:52
Speaker 1: business and as a traveler. In business, Chris was the
0:56
Speaker 1: vice president of product development and Marketing for Patagonia. He
1:01
Speaker 1: worked for nearly two decades with Nike, both in their
1:05
Speaker 1: legal team and then as a product manager, and he
1:09
Speaker 1: helped found the now clothing brand, which is a premium
1:14
Speaker 1: line of both urban and outdoor related performance clothing. He
1:19
Speaker 1: was a district attorney as well. I mean, there's a
1:21
Speaker 1: lot of there's a lot of great stories that we're
1:23
Speaker 1: going to go through today, and he has some incredible
1:26
Speaker 1: insights related to not only travel, but also business. I
1:30
Speaker 1: was reminding Chris before we started the recording that there
1:34
Speaker 1: has been a few nuggets that he's given me of
1:36
Speaker 1: thoughts through the years that have stuck with me for
1:39
Speaker 1: literally for years and made a huge difference in my business.
1:42
Speaker 1: So thank you Chris again for being on the podcast.
1:46
Speaker 2: Couly my pleasure. Scott, thank you for inviting me.
1:49
Speaker 1: Well, I think it would be neat to first talk
1:51
Speaker 1: about the places that you've traveled. The sailing stories just
1:55
Speaker 1: sound fascinating, So tell us about where you sailed in
1:58
Speaker 1: the world with Chris, your wife and where you where
2:01
Speaker 1: you traveled, well.
2:02
Speaker 2: We took off for three years on our own sail
2:05
Speaker 2: boat and sailed it to Alaska to Mexico, spent several
2:11
Speaker 2: years in the Sia Cortes the coast of Mexico and
2:14
Speaker 2: South America, and then we crewed on a boat that
2:17
Speaker 2: we became kind of regular crew members. We crewed on
2:20
Speaker 2: a month long passage from Tahiti to Hawaii, and then
2:24
Speaker 2: we crewed on a month long passage down the coast
2:27
Speaker 2: of Peru from Portamont to Ushuaia, and then I did
2:31
Speaker 2: a five week trip from Huaya to Antarctica back. Oh,
2:35
Speaker 2: the culmination of my hair ball sailing.
2:38
Speaker 1: Ex So you've nearly sailed the Seven Seas, it sounds like.
2:42
Speaker 2: Pretty much. And we've chartered all around the world. We
2:44
Speaker 2: were rode out a hurricane in New Zealand on a
2:47
Speaker 2: charter boat and sailed in Thailand, Australia, New Zealand, sailed
2:53
Speaker 2: some in the in the Caribbean, Mediterranean, so just almost everywhere.
2:57
Speaker 1: So well, the timing of this conversation is around covid
3:02
Speaker 1: And and you want to talk about being able to
3:05
Speaker 1: socially distance yourself, Being on a sail boat would allow
3:08
Speaker 1: you to do that in ways that would be pretty
3:10
Speaker 1: pretty impressive.
3:11
Speaker 2: Yeah, for a month at a time, pretty Yeah.
3:14
Speaker 1: I was reading in the news just a couple of
3:16
Speaker 1: days ago about this guy who had been on out
3:20
Speaker 1: in the ocean for three months and he cruised, you know,
3:23
Speaker 1: he cruises into the port in New Zealand. Now he
3:26
Speaker 1: knew what was going on from some satellite communications, but
3:30
Speaker 1: they wanted to quarantine and when he showed up and
3:32
Speaker 1: he says, man, I've been quarantined for three months, so
3:36
Speaker 1: it was it was really it's pretty interesting to see
3:38
Speaker 1: how isolated. I mean, we think we can get isolated overlanding,
3:42
Speaker 1: but you can really get in the middle of nowhere
3:45
Speaker 1: on a sailboat.
3:46
Speaker 2: You can't. I mean, you can be a month from land. Wow.
3:51
Speaker 2: And and you know, rescue is a whole different proposition
3:54
Speaker 2: out of the ocean that you can hope for freighters,
3:57
Speaker 2: but sailors like to get out of the shipping lanes
4:00
Speaker 2: places of sail, so it makes the chances of rescue
4:03
Speaker 2: of needed even even more hazardous and remote. And you know,
4:08
Speaker 2: it's interesting because the time at sea is not only
4:10
Speaker 2: psychologically interesting, getting this small space with infinite horizon in
4:15
Speaker 2: every direction, but also physically here constant motion. You're never still,
4:22
Speaker 2: and to step off a sailboat after being on it
4:25
Speaker 2: for a month or two, you get land stick. You can't.
4:28
Speaker 2: You get nauseous from being still. It's just a opposite reaction.
4:33
Speaker 2: Oh that's fast, physical as well as psychological.
4:35
Speaker 1: And tell me about the trip that you did to Antarctica.
4:39
Speaker 1: What kind of a boat was it and what you
4:42
Speaker 1: experience in that five or six weeks down to Antarctica.
4:45
Speaker 2: It was It was a boat that was called Flyer one,
4:50
Speaker 2: a woodbread back in the seventies, and it was purchased
4:53
Speaker 2: and privately turned from a catch into a sloop and
4:57
Speaker 2: was doing a private high latitude sailing. And it's the
5:01
Speaker 2: boat we crewed on from Tahiti to Hawaii. Got to
5:04
Speaker 2: know the skipper and first mate and they wanted to
5:07
Speaker 2: go to Antarctica. They hadn't done it before, so they
5:09
Speaker 2: kind of scooped up crew that they had spent a
5:12
Speaker 2: month or more with to be very selective. Because you're
5:15
Speaker 2: twelve people in a sixty foot boat for five weeks
5:18
Speaker 2: is socially interesting at that Imagine the dynamics are really important. Sure,
5:24
Speaker 2: it's like bivving in a tent for three or four days.
5:26
Speaker 2: Imagine that for a month five weeks. So I was
5:30
Speaker 2: invited on the trip. My wife Christine, sailed down the
5:34
Speaker 2: coast of Chile in preparation that. We outfitted the boat
5:38
Speaker 2: in Ushuaia and left Sishwaya, went past Cape Horn, went
5:42
Speaker 2: down onto the Antarctic peninsula and sailed around down there
5:45
Speaker 2: until we were driven out by a really serious cyclone
5:50
Speaker 2: eighty mile an hour winds forty foot seas. The kind
5:53
Speaker 2: of fought our way back to to South America. But
5:56
Speaker 2: it was extraordinary. I mean, it's it's another planets.
6:00
Speaker 1: Yeah, genuinely is. And I've not been to the peninsula
6:03
Speaker 1: of Antarctica. And because there's so much wildlife there, were
6:06
Speaker 1: you able to interact with some of the wildlife.
6:08
Speaker 2: There intense, just the whales and the seals and the penguins.
6:12
Speaker 2: And the penguins they haven't seen people, so you get
6:15
Speaker 2: off the boat of land and they just sit in
6:17
Speaker 2: the middle of them.
6:18
Speaker 1: They don't care.
6:19
Speaker 2: The wolf seals are aggressive. You've got to be careful
6:22
Speaker 2: of your inflatables for those things. And whales everywhere. I mean,
6:26
Speaker 2: it's just it's extraordinary.
6:28
Speaker 1: Wow.
6:28
Speaker 2: The light, it's late twenty four hours a day, right,
6:31
Speaker 2: be a monkey with a camera and get good photographs.
6:35
Speaker 1: That's so true that that explains why I've gotten a
6:37
Speaker 1: few good photographs in my life. Good light when you
6:43
Speaker 1: when you were doing all of this sailing and then
6:46
Speaker 1: you started to do more overland travel, give us some
6:50
Speaker 1: insights into what you learned as a sailor. What were
6:52
Speaker 1: some of those takeaways that really helped prepare you for
6:55
Speaker 1: overland travel?
6:57
Speaker 2: Oh, interesting question. When I first started doing offshore passages,
7:02
Speaker 2: I started by racing up the coast of Washington, did
7:05
Speaker 2: the Swift Shore race out and arounds swift Sure Rocks.
7:10
Speaker 2: I had a friend whose boat I crewed on that
7:14
Speaker 2: we met during several overnight passages. He had this story said, well,
7:17
Speaker 2: every boat has this black box down in the builch,
7:22
Speaker 2: and when you're off short night, that's when it happens. Sure,
7:27
Speaker 2: you can't see land. Everything's dark, it's storming, you're being
7:30
Speaker 2: thrown around. You're making withdraws from that black box. Okay,
7:34
Speaker 2: and that one with rollaby to have a part you needed,
7:36
Speaker 2: or one with rawllab something didn't break because you checked it.
7:39
Speaker 2: Those are all the withdrawals you make. You need to
7:42
Speaker 2: keep a net positive balance in that black box. You sink. Yeah,
7:47
Speaker 2: you put deposits into the black box with preparation and planning,
7:51
Speaker 2: and you literally think about every contingency on a sailboat, because,
7:56
Speaker 2: as I mentioned a minute ago, rescue is going to
7:59
Speaker 2: be far away, and a six foot boat can sink
8:03
Speaker 2: in two or three minutes the right size hole in it.
8:06
Speaker 2: So you need to stop that from happening. And so
8:10
Speaker 2: just preparation and thinking through every contingency prepares you for
8:16
Speaker 2: the trip. We my wife and I went sailing. We
8:18
Speaker 2: went down inside our boat, took pictures all around the boat,
8:22
Speaker 2: then turned the pictures upside down and said, if we
8:25
Speaker 2: rolled this boat, what would be flying around inside the cabin?
8:28
Speaker 2: And we thought we'd identified everything. We hadn't. Refrigerator lids,
8:33
Speaker 2: heavy toolboxes, things, batteries that were properly secured. They were
8:37
Speaker 2: held down from you know, moving around sideways. But bouncing
8:41
Speaker 2: a eight D battery upside down is going to create
8:44
Speaker 2: havoc inside a sailboat. So we literally spent a month
8:48
Speaker 2: just correcting things. In the unlikely event that you were
8:51
Speaker 2: to pitch, poll or roll the boat, it happens, you'd
8:54
Speaker 2: be safe inside.
8:56
Speaker 1: If the boat floats at the same place that can
8:58
Speaker 1: happen with a vehicle, you can easily roll it. You're
9:00
Speaker 1: so right, So securing all that stuff.
9:02
Speaker 2: Securing it, and then like a vehicle, where do you
9:05
Speaker 2: secure it? You know, how low in the boat are
9:07
Speaker 2: the heavy things? Where do you put the chain? How
9:10
Speaker 2: do you where do you put the batteries, where do
9:11
Speaker 2: you keep the tools? All of those you know, extra oil,
9:14
Speaker 2: the water, all of those things affect the balance of
9:18
Speaker 2: a sailboat and dramatically affected if if it's turned on
9:21
Speaker 2: its head. So thinking about those things there was We
9:24
Speaker 2: did our first offshore trip up the coast of Washington,
9:27
Speaker 2: and our sailboat has it's called a steering quadrant. The
9:29
Speaker 2: cable comes around the steering wheel, goes around pulleys, and
9:32
Speaker 2: goes back around the rudder. There's a big piece of
9:35
Speaker 2: bronze about three feet in diameter that the wire rope
9:38
Speaker 2: runs around and comes back to the police. And when
9:40
Speaker 2: you turn the wheel, it shifts this and this big
9:43
Speaker 2: iron thing turns the rudder shaft. Okay, the pulleys as
9:47
Speaker 2: they turn the cables, it turns a corner. There's bronze
9:51
Speaker 2: pulleys and there's just steel bearings that go through. I
9:54
Speaker 2: just before our trip said, you know, I think I
9:56
Speaker 2: better go stick check out the steering system on this
9:59
Speaker 2: and the steel pin the cotter pit had fallen out.
10:02
Speaker 2: The pin holding the pulley had backed halfway out. Was
10:05
Speaker 2: still holding the pulley on but a quarter inch The
10:08
Speaker 2: pit had come out. I'd lose my steering, not something
10:11
Speaker 2: you want to happen offshore. Wow, while you're sailing, you
10:14
Speaker 2: can lose total control of the boat. So you know,
10:17
Speaker 2: just the inspection, the preparation, thinking about contingencies. I think
10:21
Speaker 2: all of those are directly transferable into overland travel in
10:25
Speaker 2: a vehicle, on a motorcycle, name of your equipment, just
10:29
Speaker 2: thinking through where you're going, what you might need, and
10:33
Speaker 2: then prioritizing. You know, you can't take everything.
10:35
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was interesting when you just showed me the
10:38
Speaker 1: little walk through with your sprinter today. I immediately noticed
10:43
Speaker 1: that right behind the driver's head was a satellite phone,
10:46
Speaker 1: all of the communication devices, and a lot of times
10:49
Speaker 1: people will have a sat phone tucked into a drawer
10:52
Speaker 1: in the back of the vehicle, or they'll it'll be
10:54
Speaker 1: maybe in the drawer of a sprinter, but if that
10:57
Speaker 1: vehicle was to catch fire, you won't be able to
10:59
Speaker 1: get to the phone. So that to me, when I
11:02
Speaker 1: first saw that, I thought, this is somebody who has
11:04
Speaker 1: traveled a lot, and it makes sense. With the boat,
11:07
Speaker 1: you've got to be able to grab that stuff in
11:09
Speaker 1: a moment, absolutely.
11:10
Speaker 2: And you know, packing your life raft, I mean, what
11:13
Speaker 2: are the things you want in your little Pelican case
11:17
Speaker 2: inside that life raft and you've got to spend some time.
11:20
Speaker 2: And there's a lot of people have a lot of
11:22
Speaker 2: experience on this. You know, people have actually spent a
11:23
Speaker 2: lot of time in life rafts. You need to do
11:26
Speaker 2: the research. You need to look to the experts who've
11:28
Speaker 2: actually encountered these things and see what saved them, what worked,
11:32
Speaker 2: what didn't, what they've left home, what were the critical items?
11:36
Speaker 2: And I think you need to go through the same checklist.
11:39
Speaker 2: You know, on the water or on the dirt. Yeah,
11:41
Speaker 2: the same things apply.
11:42
Speaker 1: Oh that's fascinating. And I remember reading parts of Yvonne
11:47
Speaker 1: Schnard's book. I think it was let my people surf
11:50
Speaker 1: with Yeah. Yeah, And you know, in your time with Patagonia,
11:55
Speaker 1: how did you see that translation come across where they
11:59
Speaker 1: were able to row a company so successfully and have
12:03
Speaker 1: such an emphasis on quality and innovation but still let
12:07
Speaker 1: their people serve. If there was somebody listening to this
12:10
Speaker 1: podcast with a new business and they're trying to build
12:13
Speaker 1: that kind of a culture, what would be some things
12:16
Speaker 1: that you would recommend to them to think about and
12:18
Speaker 1: how to make that culture exist for them too.
12:21
Speaker 2: Now, and how to preserve it. But what happens with
12:23
Speaker 2: growth is those cultures die. Be successful as a business,
12:28
Speaker 2: but die as a culture. And that's a painful thing
12:31
Speaker 2: to see. And I've been blessed to have been a
12:33
Speaker 2: two kind of iconic brands, Nike, which focused on sport,
12:38
Speaker 2: and Patagonia, an outdoor gear, which both struggled with that
12:43
Speaker 2: through the growth phase. And both were founded by people
12:47
Speaker 2: who had had an overriding passion for the sports that
12:51
Speaker 2: they made equipment for. And Nike was running Avenger originally,
12:54
Speaker 2: but it became basketball and tennis and baseball and football
12:58
Speaker 2: and all the cleadd sports. Who was climbing and branched
13:02
Speaker 2: out into all sorts of alpine sports, and I think,
13:07
Speaker 2: kind of the hard way, through some rough times, both
13:09
Speaker 2: companies learned that protecting a culture is like protecting a relationship.
13:16
Speaker 2: It takes takes investment, takes time, it takes commitment, It
13:20
Speaker 2: takes making sure everyone knows what the where the guardrails
13:23
Speaker 2: are for the company and what their value, what the
13:26
Speaker 2: shared values are. And for Yvan, he has maintained his
13:31
Speaker 2: passion for surfing, climbing, fly fishing, traveling. That's what he
13:35
Speaker 2: does and he is quite literally a billionaire. He gives
13:39
Speaker 2: away a lot of his money to conservation environmental causes,
13:44
Speaker 2: but that is one big component of the values driven
13:48
Speaker 2: culture that he's created and nurtured. It's really worked to
13:51
Speaker 2: keep those values in place, because you know, it's like
13:54
Speaker 2: you start a company with three or four people, that
13:56
Speaker 2: it's twenty, that it's thirty, and oh my god, we've
13:59
Speaker 2: got more sales. We can make product for him. Pretty soon,
14:01
Speaker 2: you got one hundred. Well, the last eighty people don't
14:04
Speaker 2: know the stories. They don't know the hardships and the
14:09
Speaker 2: travel stories and the adventure stories that the founders knew.
14:12
Speaker 2: You've got to expend some effort to keep those elements
14:16
Speaker 2: alive in a culture so that people can can share
14:19
Speaker 2: the things we learned from them and ex effort. It's
14:22
Speaker 2: a lot of work.
14:23
Speaker 1: Yeah, I could. I can see that, and it's something
14:26
Speaker 1: that as the overland industry grows, trying to maintain that
14:30
Speaker 1: those ethics of being responsible travelers and being good guests
14:35
Speaker 1: in the countries that we visit, and being mindful of
14:38
Speaker 1: our impact both towards the environment and towards the cultures
14:43
Speaker 1: that we interact with, being very positive around that. And
14:46
Speaker 1: it was it's interesting when you read a little bit
14:48
Speaker 1: about Yvonne's history, he was a bit of an overlander himself.
14:53
Speaker 1: He ended up doing like a Volkswagen van trip down
14:56
Speaker 1: through the and a sailing trip through South America.
14:59
Speaker 2: Right he did. He traveled. They left in a Volkswagen bus,
15:02
Speaker 2: I'm sorry, a Ford van. Ford van. He was in contain.
15:05
Speaker 2: They had to. They took a transmission apart on the
15:07
Speaker 2: side of the road in Chile someplace and eventually sold it.
15:11
Speaker 2: But they were headed from California down to Climb Territory
15:16
Speaker 2: in Fitzroy in the tip of South America, and they
15:19
Speaker 2: went down. They bivied in a cave in a cave
15:21
Speaker 2: for a month before they made their assault. But they
15:24
Speaker 2: surfed in the northern part of South America, they climbed
15:27
Speaker 2: and skied in the mid part, and then did their
15:30
Speaker 2: famous climb down the tip of South America at the
15:33
Speaker 2: end of it. And it was a six month journey.
15:35
Speaker 2: So yeah, he's he's traveled all over the world. The
15:38
Speaker 2: only place I went first before him was Fanning Island.
15:41
Speaker 2: I got there on a sailboat to serf before he did.
15:44
Speaker 2: The only claim I have. The only place in the
15:47
Speaker 2: planet that I was first but yeah, he was a
15:50
Speaker 2: very experienced travel.
15:51
Speaker 1: Yeah, prolific right, yeah. And do you feel that those
15:55
Speaker 1: travels helped him shape his company as well? You think
15:58
Speaker 1: that that gave him maybe centered him or grounded him
16:01
Speaker 1: a little bit.
16:02
Speaker 2: Without question, No, I think the values of travel and
16:06
Speaker 2: the way he traveled was sparse. I mean, he took
16:10
Speaker 2: very little gear, lived off the land when he was
16:13
Speaker 2: the company who first started. They couldn't afford food when
16:16
Speaker 2: he was climbing in Yosemite, and they literally bought dented
16:20
Speaker 2: cat food. They couldn't afford full price cat food. They
16:24
Speaker 2: got dented cans of cat food and ate cat food
16:27
Speaker 2: while they're climbing in Yosemite back in the sixties. You know,
16:31
Speaker 2: I think living that way simply and focusing on the
16:36
Speaker 2: experience and not crowding it with extraneous challenges and problems
16:44
Speaker 2: and things you have to find solutions for. I think
16:47
Speaker 2: he still lives simply, even as a billionaire, and he
16:50
Speaker 2: runs a company simply. There's no offices, everyone sits in
16:54
Speaker 2: common areas. He spends. My first week there was comprised
17:01
Speaker 2: of I sat in the day with him in a
17:03
Speaker 2: blacksmith shop. He told me the history of the company
17:06
Speaker 2: is he made a piton which he made when he
17:08
Speaker 2: first time found the company, and then I sat in
17:10
Speaker 2: an office with him for another two days having him
17:13
Speaker 2: talk to me about the philosophy of the company. And wow,
17:16
Speaker 2: that's what he puts people through. He really wants everyone
17:18
Speaker 2: who works there and understand the values that have driven it.
17:21
Speaker 2: And frankly, it made the place so successful right that
17:24
Speaker 2: people know that Patagonia walks the talk and it's it's
17:28
Speaker 2: it takes some work.
17:29
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a fascinating story that someone at that level
17:33
Speaker 1: of leadership, within that size of an organization would take
17:36
Speaker 1: that amount of time. I don't think most do that,
17:39
Speaker 1: and I think that that's probably why those cultures get
17:42
Speaker 1: lost or they get reinterpreted as new people come on board.
17:45
Speaker 2: And now he's got people helping him, you know. I
17:47
Speaker 2: think you know, the company's tripled in size or doubled
17:49
Speaker 2: since I was there. But that just that exercise of
17:52
Speaker 2: introducing people to the culture, so that when reference is
17:56
Speaker 2: made in a catalog or Von makes reference to a
17:58
Speaker 2: story about something happened, there are these glazed eyes. People
18:02
Speaker 2: know what that story is about. And you know, there's
18:06
Speaker 2: a rich history with Doug Tompkins and Chris and all
18:10
Speaker 2: the people Rick Ridgeway that are really a part of
18:14
Speaker 2: the legacy of the company, and we've all played an
18:17
Speaker 2: important role in it. And he makes people familiar with
18:21
Speaker 2: their stories as well.
18:22
Speaker 1: And one of the things that I've taken away from
18:25
Speaker 1: a lot of your stories, Chris, is it looks like
18:27
Speaker 1: that you have had these chapters in your life where
18:30
Speaker 1: you get very focused on a business opportunity or maybe
18:35
Speaker 1: something that you want to create. You focus on that,
18:38
Speaker 1: and it seems like you understand the timing when you
18:41
Speaker 1: need to be done with it or move on from it,
18:43
Speaker 1: and then you go and you play. I mean, you
18:45
Speaker 1: go travel the world by a sailboat, or you go
18:48
Speaker 1: help the listener, maybe give some encouragement or some understanding
18:52
Speaker 1: around how do you do that? How do you accomplish
18:55
Speaker 1: that in your life where you can you can have
18:57
Speaker 1: these sprints as a business person and then fall up
19:00
Speaker 1: with a day that you leave and you go off
19:02
Speaker 1: on your sailboat.
19:03
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think initially that was simply a tention deficit
19:08
Speaker 2: disorder for me. I guess get bored easily that I
19:11
Speaker 2: like to play, and so I always wanted to do
19:13
Speaker 2: something new, but I think as I got older and
19:16
Speaker 2: you know, kind of became more senior in some of
19:18
Speaker 2: the positions I had in companies, it just became an
19:22
Speaker 2: element in our planning. You know, when we went sailing,
19:25
Speaker 2: that's not an activity that two people on a sailboat
19:29
Speaker 2: can do when they're eighty years old or seventy years old.
19:32
Speaker 2: We wanted to do it while we're young enough to
19:34
Speaker 2: physically be able to do it. And we said we
19:37
Speaker 2: can take time out, we'll come back, and we'll look
19:39
Speaker 2: for something else to do, and just made the decision.
19:42
Speaker 2: You know, there's a little bit of stepping off the
19:44
Speaker 2: edge when you leave that good job to go do something.
19:48
Speaker 2: I wouldn't trade the experiences I've had for anything in
19:52
Speaker 2: the world. And you know, had I stayed in some
19:54
Speaker 2: of these companies when I've been more senior and you know,
19:58
Speaker 2: had more responsibility, probably you know, you've got to make
20:02
Speaker 2: a trade in your life about you know, what sort
20:04
Speaker 2: of balance do you want if you want to be
20:06
Speaker 2: the CEO of a Fortune five hundred company or would
20:09
Speaker 2: you be happy to being a VP of marketing and
20:11
Speaker 2: then taking three years off to go sailing.
20:13
Speaker 1: Right?
20:13
Speaker 2: It was the latter for me, Right, So, you know,
20:17
Speaker 2: everything's a trade, and I think if you plan well,
20:21
Speaker 2: it's a it's a For me, it's been a really
20:23
Speaker 2: easy trade to make.
20:24
Speaker 1: Yeah. One of the things that's been so interesting for
20:27
Speaker 1: me in having these conversations for the podcast and the
20:30
Speaker 1: people that I've met in recent years in my life,
20:33
Speaker 1: it seems that across the board, there is this recognition
20:37
Speaker 1: that the one true piece of wealth that we have
20:40
Speaker 1: is time, and it seems like that we spend time
20:44
Speaker 1: with recklessness. It seems like that we're always convinced that
20:48
Speaker 1: we have more time, so we're we're very frugal with
20:52
Speaker 1: money even or we want to try to accumulate as
20:54
Speaker 1: much money as we can, but then we'll give away
20:57
Speaker 1: time like it doesn't have any value. And it's the
21:00
Speaker 1: only thing I mean from Bill Gates to me, there's
21:04
Speaker 1: Bill doesn't have any more time than I do in
21:05
Speaker 1: a day. He can't even being a billionaire, he can't
21:08
Speaker 1: buy more time than twenty four hours. So it's it's
21:12
Speaker 1: very finite. And it seems like that the more that
21:15
Speaker 1: I consider it, the more that I think about it,
21:17
Speaker 1: the more that I recognize that wealth for me is
21:21
Speaker 1: starting to look like how much time can I spend
21:25
Speaker 1: enjoying the world like it really comes down to time.
21:28
Speaker 1: Do I have enough money to take off for months
21:31
Speaker 1: or years at a time.
21:32
Speaker 2: It's about setting priorities and what's the most important thing
21:36
Speaker 2: to you. And I lost kids in my life who
21:42
Speaker 2: didn't get to grow up, and you know, the losing
21:45
Speaker 2: an only child, I think reset all my value points
21:50
Speaker 2: about time being the one asset that we have, that's
21:54
Speaker 2: the only thing we have even a slight bit of
21:56
Speaker 2: control over, sure, and you start making decisions based on that.
22:01
Speaker 2: When we did the video for the South America trip,
22:06
Speaker 2: at some point someone has asked me, so, why in
22:08
Speaker 2: the world are you doing this trip? You know you're
22:11
Speaker 2: you're way over your head. This is way beyond what
22:14
Speaker 2: a sane person would do with the writing abilities that
22:16
Speaker 2: I possess. And I really meant it when I said that.
22:20
Speaker 2: You know, I'm not going to be laying on my
22:22
Speaker 2: deathbed wishing that I had worked more days. That's not
22:26
Speaker 2: going to be I know for a fact, that's not
22:28
Speaker 2: what I'm going to be thinking about. But I don't
22:30
Speaker 2: want to be laying there regretting the things that I
22:32
Speaker 2: would have liked to have really done and didn't simply
22:35
Speaker 2: because I got my priorities wrong. And I think it's
22:39
Speaker 2: it's about making decisions of what your priorities are and
22:43
Speaker 2: once you do that, the rest is easy. You know,
22:44
Speaker 2: that's the decisions no brainers.
22:47
Speaker 1: Yeah, it seems like regret is the most difficult pill
22:51
Speaker 1: to swallow because you can't It's like it's the things
22:54
Speaker 1: you can't undo or you can't fix because it's already
22:56
Speaker 1: the ship has sailed, right.
22:58
Speaker 2: Funny things. Okay, you can make more money, but like
23:00
Speaker 2: you said, time is funny, you just don't create more
23:04
Speaker 2: for yourself.
23:05
Speaker 1: Well, and that brings me to the trip that we
23:07
Speaker 1: did to South America. So this was Expedition sixty five.
23:12
Speaker 1: It was put together by a mutual friend of Chris
23:14
Speaker 1: and mine, Jim Hide from raw Hyde, and they conduct
23:19
Speaker 1: premium BMW motorad training. So if you're a big bike rider,
23:24
Speaker 1: or even if you're not, and you'd like to see
23:26
Speaker 1: how it is to learn how to ride a big bike,
23:29
Speaker 1: they do a great job of training. It's just we
23:31
Speaker 1: don't have any affiliation with them. This is just a
23:33
Speaker 1: personal recommendation based upon the learnings that I've had with
23:38
Speaker 1: Jim and his team. But Jim pulled together a small
23:40
Speaker 1: group of people. I think there was maybe eighteen of
23:42
Speaker 1: us total.
23:44
Speaker 2: I think we start with thirteen thirteen okay, good, they
23:46
Speaker 2: had a driver, we had to other people, but I
23:48
Speaker 2: think you're thirteen riders.
23:49
Speaker 1: So it was a little bit bigger than you'd normally
23:52
Speaker 1: have in a group of buddies. But by the end
23:55
Speaker 1: of it, we all were a group of buddies. But
23:58
Speaker 1: it was such a an eclectic group of folks. And
24:02
Speaker 1: we left Cartagena, Colombia, and the intention was for the
24:07
Speaker 1: group to go all the way to Ushwaya. And there
24:10
Speaker 1: wasn't a lot of folks that actually made it to
24:12
Speaker 1: the end, not because they got sick or injured, but
24:14
Speaker 1: I think that the timing they ran out of time
24:17
Speaker 1: maybe right.
24:18
Speaker 2: Well, No, two people, Chris White and Bill Whittaker, had
24:21
Speaker 2: to leave the group early to make a run for
24:23
Speaker 2: you Shwaya because you want to miss it, got it.
24:26
Speaker 2: Their trip was cut short while we were exploring some
24:29
Speaker 2: of the mountain regions at southern Chile. But everybody made it.
24:32
Speaker 2: Other than the one injury we had. Everyone made it
24:34
Speaker 2: to Ushuaya.
24:35
Speaker 1: Yeah.
24:36
Speaker 2: I think twelve riders made it down there at different paces.
24:39
Speaker 1: But and that was at the longest trip you've ever
24:41
Speaker 1: done on a motorcycle, without question.
24:43
Speaker 2: That was eleven three d and some miles in about
24:48
Speaker 2: two and a half months.
24:49
Speaker 1: And what did you take away? I mean you having
24:52
Speaker 1: traveled in sailboats and tacomas and expedition vehicles, what did
24:57
Speaker 1: you learn traveling on the motorcycle. What was your big
25:00
Speaker 1: take away from the bike?
25:01
Speaker 2: Oh, my gosh, Well, the takeaway from the bike was
25:05
Speaker 2: a twelve hundred cc bike is capable of riding a
25:09
Speaker 2: ride like that, as you know, a lot of it
25:11
Speaker 2: off road and some pretty severe terrain.
25:14
Speaker 1: Yeah, we were really off road in.
25:16
Speaker 2: If you train, I had ridden motorcycles my entire life.
25:19
Speaker 2: I wrote bikes from the time I was twelve thirteen
25:22
Speaker 2: years old, and I had never been trained how to
25:25
Speaker 2: ride a five hundred and sixty pound bike in the dirt.
25:29
Speaker 2: And I did a couple of courses with Jim. I'd
25:31
Speaker 2: learned more in three days. And I'm not affiliated either,
25:34
Speaker 2: I'm just a happy former customer. But for that training,
25:38
Speaker 2: I would not have been able to successfully do this ride.
25:42
Speaker 1: Yeah, some of that stuff we did in Ecuador was
25:44
Speaker 1: pretty technical.
25:45
Speaker 2: That was my goodness. It was, you know, and there
25:48
Speaker 2: were we had the Colin Evans, and Colin became a
25:53
Speaker 2: good friend and along with everybody else, but Colin lives
25:56
Speaker 2: in Oregon, so I see him more. But we had
25:59
Speaker 2: the DFU number for all these elements were on don't go. Yeah,
26:05
Speaker 2: and the Death Road, which is supposed to be the
26:08
Speaker 2: ultimate df HE road that was like a six or
26:10
Speaker 2: a seven right here on roads that put that thing
26:12
Speaker 2: to shame. I mean literally, you remember there were six
26:16
Speaker 2: seven foot wide rocky off camber, totally ten degrees downhill
26:21
Speaker 2: and thousand foot drop offs. I would be nervous walking
26:25
Speaker 2: on some of those roads.
26:26
Speaker 3: Yeah, they were intense, and we were taking big bikes.
26:29
Speaker 3: We were taking big bikes, bikes and just don't look.
26:32
Speaker 3: I mean the lesson don't look where you don't want
26:35
Speaker 3: to go. I'm going to tell you how many times
26:37
Speaker 3: that went through my head.
26:38
Speaker 2: Don't look where you don't want to go, Don't you
26:40
Speaker 2: don't want to go?
26:41
Speaker 1: Target fixation, Really you don't want to go there. Well,
26:45
Speaker 1: and I think that it was the last night that
26:47
Speaker 1: I was with the group. We were way up in
26:50
Speaker 1: the mountains in Peru. I think we were maybe fourteen
26:54
Speaker 1: thousand feet and that was one of the coldest nights
26:57
Speaker 1: I have had camping in my life. I was had
27:00
Speaker 1: all the gear I needed on the bike, and I
27:02
Speaker 1: think that that's one of the things that I love
27:03
Speaker 1: about the motorcycle is it reminds us of how simple
27:07
Speaker 1: life can be if we allow it to be. So
27:10
Speaker 1: I traveled for months off of that motorcycle with everything,
27:14
Speaker 1: you know, just a few items. If you think about
27:16
Speaker 1: it, it would all fit in the passenger seat of a car,
27:18
Speaker 1: everything that I had. But I was cold that night,
27:22
Speaker 1: and that was such a neat spot. Was beautiful by
27:25
Speaker 1: that lake and everything stunning.
27:27
Speaker 2: Right, and it was like a gold mine or something.
27:29
Speaker 2: It was. It wasn't that, it was, you know. I
27:32
Speaker 2: think the other big takeaway for me was, you know,
27:35
Speaker 2: follow as closely as you can to riders that are
27:37
Speaker 2: better than you and watch them. I mean, just pay attention.
27:41
Speaker 2: And you know that the few times I could catch
27:43
Speaker 2: up to you watching you as one of the people
27:46
Speaker 2: I watched this, you know, but Jason and Chris White,
27:50
Speaker 2: some of the riders on on this trip were extraordinary,
27:55
Speaker 2: not just good, you know, Tyberio, Yeah, really, and these
27:58
Speaker 2: guys are world class and there's nothing better if you
28:01
Speaker 2: can can finagle your way into a group of riders
28:04
Speaker 2: that much better than you are. Just pay attention to
28:07
Speaker 2: what they're doing and don't be shy about asking. Yeah,
28:10
Speaker 2: I learned a ton just from the people on the ride.
28:12
Speaker 2: It's just really, really good.
28:14
Speaker 1: There's so much that we can take away from keeping
28:17
Speaker 1: that mindset of being a student right, of always of
28:20
Speaker 1: always learning. And I learned so much on that trip
28:22
Speaker 1: from all of you that I that I was with,
28:25
Speaker 1: and the importance of the importance of training, especially on
28:28
Speaker 1: something very I mean, motorcycles fall over, and that's what
28:32
Speaker 1: I think people get away with a lot of stuff
28:34
Speaker 1: in for WL drives because they don't typically fall over, right,
28:38
Speaker 1: But you can't fake it on a motorcycle. You you
28:41
Speaker 1: either get the skills and you learn how to ride one,
28:44
Speaker 1: or you don't, or they fall over.
28:46
Speaker 2: So no, And there were sections. We were fifteen thousand
28:52
Speaker 2: plus feet in Bolivia and we had about twenty miles
28:56
Speaker 2: of there really wasn't a road. There were tracks through
28:59
Speaker 2: two mile wide sand for twenty miles and I'm not
29:03
Speaker 2: I'm a lover of sand. And I was struggling. I
29:06
Speaker 2: went down, you know, twenty times if I went down once, sure,
29:10
Speaker 2: and Evan firstman wrote. Finally wrote up to me as
29:16
Speaker 2: I was laying under my motorcycle, saying, someone just shoot
29:20
Speaker 2: me at that altitude picking your bike up?
29:22
Speaker 1: Oh man, I was moked.
29:23
Speaker 2: I was so toasted. Yeah, and Kevin kind of shuffles up, say, Chris,
29:27
Speaker 2: how many pounds air you got in your tires? I'm
29:30
Speaker 2: my air down. I'm down to like twenty one pounds.
29:32
Speaker 2: He said, that's ten pounds too many, and he literally
29:35
Speaker 2: took my tires down to twelve eleven twelve pounds. I
29:40
Speaker 2: rode right out of there. You know, it was just
29:42
Speaker 2: little things like that. Someone won't stay on the rim.
29:45
Speaker 2: He said, that's the least of your problem. Bro.
29:47
Speaker 1: He's right, He's right.
29:49
Speaker 2: I'm not going to hit a rock, not in that stuff, right,
29:51
Speaker 2: And I was able to totally ride out. You know.
29:53
Speaker 2: The lesson of the day that's, you know, saved the
29:56
Speaker 2: rest of that week for me, was simply, you know,
29:59
Speaker 2: when you get a really extreme conditions, you got to
30:01
Speaker 2: make extreme adjustments. And I just those people knew that stuff.
30:04
Speaker 2: I didn't. It was really it was fabulous.
30:07
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I think for me, one of the other
30:08
Speaker 1: lessons that I really took away from that trip is
30:11
Speaker 1: the importance of not writing at night. It doesn't mean
30:15
Speaker 1: that that doesn't happen on occasion, or you have a
30:18
Speaker 1: flat and you got to fix it, or you have
30:20
Speaker 1: a you know, a GI issue because of a bad
30:23
Speaker 1: taco and you know, you end up coming into camp
30:25
Speaker 1: or into a hotel late at night. But that was
30:28
Speaker 1: definitely a lesson from that trip. There was just too
30:31
Speaker 1: many nights that we came in late, and there were
30:34
Speaker 1: people that were very tired, limited visibility at night into
30:37
Speaker 1: developing countries'.
30:38
Speaker 2: Rain yeah, yeah, no, it was you know, things happen,
30:42
Speaker 2: right they do. Tires get flat, you get lost, you
30:46
Speaker 2: have some mechanical problem. But we rode too many nights
30:50
Speaker 2: that we could have planned around. You were the result
30:53
Speaker 2: of bad planning, not unforeseen events. And I think particularly
30:57
Speaker 2: in literally third world countries like that, at too many variables,
31:02
Speaker 2: you just it doesn't matter how good a rider you are,
31:05
Speaker 2: those things happen. And I think I finally got to
31:09
Speaker 2: the point I said, when the sun goes down, Chris
31:11
Speaker 2: goes down, Yeah camping, Yeah, so you guys can go on.
31:15
Speaker 2: I'll catch you tomorrow. That was not the lone ranger.
31:18
Speaker 2: This just wasn't me. There was you know, a split.
31:20
Speaker 2: Some people just have a higher risk tolerance, sure, and
31:23
Speaker 2: that's my risk tolerance was unforeseen consequences writing a night
31:28
Speaker 2: don't go there.
31:29
Speaker 1: Yeah. One of the the closest I like, in my memory,
31:32
Speaker 1: one of the closest I went to really having a
31:35
Speaker 1: bad accident was on that trip and it was at
31:37
Speaker 1: night and I was following behind a car and you know,
31:42
Speaker 1: the car passes over this manhold what I thought was
31:46
Speaker 1: a manhole cover, but there was no cover there, and
31:48
Speaker 1: of course the front end of the bike went and
31:50
Speaker 1: I just had a split second to try to add
31:52
Speaker 1: some throttle to the loft the front end a little bit,
31:55
Speaker 1: which maybe helped, but I ended up with, you know,
31:58
Speaker 1: a high speed you know, pinch flat. Lost air immediately,
32:02
Speaker 1: and I was lucky that I didn't go down from
32:04
Speaker 1: the impact itself, because the whole back of the bike
32:06
Speaker 1: came up and then you know, and of course the
32:09
Speaker 1: rear barely made it out of the hole, and then
32:13
Speaker 1: I ended up with a flat on the side of
32:14
Speaker 1: the road with really not enough room to pull out.
32:17
Speaker 1: I was really right on the side of the road,
32:19
Speaker 1: as you guys remember, And that was just for me.
32:22
Speaker 1: It was definitely a lesson of if it had been
32:25
Speaker 1: the daytime, I would have seen it, Yeah, easily seen
32:28
Speaker 1: the shadow and how the light was casting into the
32:30
Speaker 1: hole and known that that wasn't a man manhole cover.
32:34
Speaker 1: And yeah, definitely those are listening. If you can at
32:37
Speaker 1: all avoid riding or driving at night, you'll hear it
32:42
Speaker 1: time and time again. But it's actually one of those
32:43
Speaker 1: great truths. I think it's real.
32:45
Speaker 2: It's real, and you know the hazards. You know, the
32:48
Speaker 2: people down there tie their cattle and horses up on
32:51
Speaker 2: thirty foot long ropes by the side of the road.
32:53
Speaker 2: That's where the grass is going, and the horse walks
32:55
Speaker 2: across the road and right about throat level is a
32:58
Speaker 2: piece of rope coming. You know, we I ducked under
33:02
Speaker 2: ten of those writing at night, and had they been
33:05
Speaker 2: three inches lower right off the bike, I mean, you know,
33:08
Speaker 2: you just you don't see them, and in the daylight
33:09
Speaker 2: you can see the animal, you see the rope. It's
33:11
Speaker 2: just for sure, it's a different thing. The moderate risks
33:15
Speaker 2: become severe in the dark. Can you You got to
33:17
Speaker 2: accept that.
33:17
Speaker 1: Yeah, you really got to look at it like Russian roulette.
33:20
Speaker 1: How many bullets do you want to put in the cylinder, right,
33:23
Speaker 1: and if you and I and if it's you know,
33:25
Speaker 1: one out of every thirty days that you have to
33:27
Speaker 1: write at night, then it's your risks are pretty low.
33:30
Speaker 2: How many times you want to spin it?
33:31
Speaker 1: That's right? Yeah, exactly exactly. And on that trip, actually
33:35
Speaker 1: after I had left the group, I started listening to
33:39
Speaker 1: a book on tape called Shoe Dog and it was
33:42
Speaker 1: based upon your recommendation, and that was Phil Knight's book
33:46
Speaker 1: about starting and running and growing the Nike organization. How
33:53
Speaker 1: was that experience working for Nike?
33:56
Speaker 2: I think more than anything else, it's the job that
33:59
Speaker 2: changed my life. You know. I was there longer than
34:01
Speaker 2: any place else I worked. I went to schools trained
34:04
Speaker 2: as an attorney. Right before I was at Nike. I
34:07
Speaker 2: was actually a district attorney. I was elected when I
34:09
Speaker 2: was thirty years old. I had no business doing that.
34:12
Speaker 2: At the end of the term, Nike recruited me to
34:15
Speaker 2: be a lawyer and to go back to Washington, d C.
34:18
Speaker 2: And to carry on the fight that had been happening
34:21
Speaker 2: with US customs. And Shoe Dog ends the book with
34:25
Speaker 2: the battles going on with this particular customs agent that
34:28
Speaker 2: is fighting with the now publicly traded small company Nike.
34:33
Speaker 2: So I was the next attorney in line to go
34:35
Speaker 2: back and do battle with US customs. So I was
34:38
Speaker 2: hired as an attorney and went back to d C
34:41
Speaker 2: for a couple of years and tried a big case
34:44
Speaker 2: before the International Trade Commission and got a really big
34:47
Speaker 2: settlement duty claim settlement out of Customs and brought the
34:51
Speaker 2: check back to Night and he said, Okay, you're coming
34:55
Speaker 2: back to Beaverton and you're going to be in charge
34:57
Speaker 2: of investor relations and PR. I'm a lawyer. What do
35:01
Speaker 2: I know about the best relations PR? Nothing. I don't
35:05
Speaker 2: think anyone in any job had ever done their job
35:08
Speaker 2: before at Nike at that time, that was just the culture.
35:11
Speaker 2: It was a bunch of accountants and lawyers who were
35:14
Speaker 2: track and field guys who loved sports, were competitive as hell,
35:19
Speaker 2: wanted to make better products and started this company. And
35:21
Speaker 2: then time I joined the company was about four hundred million.
35:26
Speaker 2: You know, now they're pushing forty billion, insane. They grew
35:30
Speaker 2: from first two years I was there, they grew from
35:33
Speaker 2: four hundred million to eight hundred million in one year,
35:37
Speaker 2: from eight hundred million to one point six billion, and
35:41
Speaker 2: then had their first big stumble you know, there's stock
35:44
Speaker 2: lost half half its value. They sales went backwards. Nike
35:48
Speaker 2: almost got wiped out in the mid eighties, and I
35:50
Speaker 2: had a ringside seat in my role as investor relations
35:54
Speaker 2: in PR to kind of how does a young hot
35:58
Speaker 2: brand like this get their mojo back? And yeah, it
36:01
Speaker 2: was the education of my life. I got the free
36:04
Speaker 2: NBA if not PhD and how does a startup get
36:08
Speaker 2: back on track? And what I learned watching them get
36:12
Speaker 2: themselves out of that hole literally shaped my professional life
36:16
Speaker 2: from then on.
36:18
Speaker 1: What were some of those key takeaways? What were those
36:21
Speaker 1: some of those big learning events that you saw. How
36:25
Speaker 1: did they get their mojo back? What were some of
36:26
Speaker 1: the meeting the main things they did, recognizing how they'd
36:29
Speaker 1: screwed up. What's the main thing? You know, they were
36:31
Speaker 1: publicly traded. They had been doubling their sales and earnings
36:35
Speaker 1: every year for ten years.
36:37
Speaker 2: Do the math. Yeah, they started one hundred thousand. I
36:40
Speaker 2: mean you get to a billion really fast. Well, the
36:43
Speaker 2: shareholder expectation then becomes you got to double your sales
36:47
Speaker 2: every year. Well that's not sustainable, right right, But they
36:49
Speaker 2: were trying to do it, and they did some stupid
36:52
Speaker 2: They started making moon boots for Michael Jackson. They started
36:56
Speaker 2: making fashion shoes. Their arrogance made the believe that they
37:00
Speaker 2: could put a swish on it, they could sell it,
37:03
Speaker 2: and they were wrong. You know, they're the franchise for
37:06
Speaker 2: that brand. Their customer was an athlete, and when Nike
37:09
Speaker 2: started making moon boots and fashion shoes and leather shoes,
37:15
Speaker 2: people left them like the plague. And they recognized they'd
37:19
Speaker 2: gone off track. They said, athletes got us to where
37:21
Speaker 2: we are. We are a sports and fitness company. We're
37:24
Speaker 2: not going to do with this other crap. Let's figure
37:27
Speaker 2: out how we kind of recommit to sports and fitness
37:31
Speaker 2: and the three things they did just do. It was
37:34
Speaker 2: born great slogo, Michael Jordan was signed, and cross training
37:39
Speaker 2: as a category was created. And they haven't looked back.
37:43
Speaker 2: You know, they were eight hundred million when that fiasco happened.
37:47
Speaker 2: I wrote the annual report that year. That was an experience.
37:50
Speaker 2: They're now forty billion dollar brand and every eighteen months
37:54
Speaker 2: two years Nike has an off site with the senior
37:57
Speaker 2: one hundred people and they literally recommit to the values
38:03
Speaker 2: that got to the company where they are. They look
38:05
Speaker 2: back and say, what's happened? This year. What do we
38:08
Speaker 2: have to do differently, What is the basis of our success?
38:11
Speaker 2: How do we get to where we are? What is
38:14
Speaker 2: the franchise we have? Why are people loyal to us?
38:16
Speaker 2: Why do we have a franchise with our customer? Let's
38:19
Speaker 2: make sure we never lose that. And they've done it
38:22
Speaker 2: ever since and that process of kind of I call
38:25
Speaker 2: it renewing your vows. Yeah, it's like a marriage that
38:29
Speaker 2: last forty years. You know, good brands stick around because
38:32
Speaker 2: the people that run the place renew their commitment to
38:36
Speaker 2: the underlying values that kind of grew them to where
38:39
Speaker 2: they are. Watching Nike do that kind of you know,
38:44
Speaker 2: swallow the hard pills of recognizing the mistakes fire a
38:48
Speaker 2: lot of people, you know, kind of they had fifty
38:50
Speaker 2: million pairs of shoes they had to get rid of
38:53
Speaker 2: at cost. You can imagine what that does to your
38:55
Speaker 2: bottom line. Sure, they bit the bullet for about three
38:58
Speaker 2: years and they've been a leader in the industry since.
39:02
Speaker 2: It was an amazing, amazing thing to watch.
39:04
Speaker 1: Yeah, I remember for me, that just do it slogan was.
39:10
Speaker 1: It was definitely an impact on me, you know as
39:12
Speaker 1: a young as a young person, I was a triathlete
39:14
Speaker 1: at the time, and I wanted to just do it.
39:17
Speaker 1: It definitely resonated with me, So that was it worked
39:21
Speaker 1: on me as a customer.
39:22
Speaker 2: It's a war cry for a company, but it's also
39:26
Speaker 2: a personal one of motivation. Yeah, when you're training and
39:29
Speaker 2: you don't feel like doing anymore, you need you know,
39:31
Speaker 2: you need to do that extra lap, you need to
39:33
Speaker 2: do the extra ten miles on the bike, you need
39:35
Speaker 2: to run the extra four You do it because you
39:38
Speaker 2: know you're committed to it. And I it's it's worked,
39:42
Speaker 2: you know, in the eighties, and it's still working into
39:44
Speaker 2: the twenty twenties.
39:46
Speaker 1: And and after you left a Nike, did you immediately
39:49
Speaker 1: go back to work or did you get a chance
39:51
Speaker 1: to do some adventuring after that stint?
39:54
Speaker 2: No? That was well, that's another funny story because I
39:57
Speaker 2: we had one to go sailing. We had bought a
40:00
Speaker 2: purchased sailboat, we had paid for it, we were living
40:02
Speaker 2: on it. We came back, we'd been living in Hong
40:05
Speaker 2: Kong for four years, came back and retired and took
40:08
Speaker 2: off for Alaska on the sailboat. And while in Alaska,
40:12
Speaker 2: I was contacted by Yvon Schanard, who said, hey, Chris
40:16
Speaker 2: hear you left Nike. We're having some problems down here.
40:20
Speaker 2: We'd love to have you come down run product and marketing,
40:23
Speaker 2: would be willing to come out of retirement. While we
40:25
Speaker 2: had just set off on our five year dream, and
40:30
Speaker 2: Christy and I spent a lot of sleepless nights, a
40:33
Speaker 2: lot of pino was consumed thinking that one through on
40:36
Speaker 2: the sailboats sailing back through British Columbia, decided to do it.
40:40
Speaker 2: It was, you know, Patagonia was a brand that I
40:42
Speaker 2: had admired. Schanard was a man I'd admired. It was
40:47
Speaker 2: the business to me that demonstrated that you can do
40:50
Speaker 2: well in business by doing good in the world. And
40:54
Speaker 2: so I came back, took the boat down to sail
40:57
Speaker 2: the boat down to Ventura and worked for Patagonia for
41:00
Speaker 2: a few years. And then when I was done there
41:02
Speaker 2: and kind of gotten done what I wanted to do,
41:03
Speaker 2: we continued our sailing sailing adventures out of Ventura.
41:07
Speaker 1: And how long did you work for Patagonia.
41:09
Speaker 2: About four years and a half years? Okay, yeah, And
41:12
Speaker 2: it was you know, they they had gone through exactly
41:16
Speaker 2: what Nike did you know, Yvonne came to realize that,
41:19
Speaker 2: you know, at three hundred million, if it was at
41:21
Speaker 2: four hundred million, he could give away another thirty million
41:24
Speaker 2: bucks to conservation. So they started doing stupid stuff. Yeah,
41:28
Speaker 2: and consumers coined the phrase Padagucci because Patagonia was making
41:33
Speaker 2: a lot of expensive fashion stuff. They lost their franchise
41:37
Speaker 2: with their core customer. People thought they weren't committed to
41:40
Speaker 2: outdoor sports, and Patagonia had to go through a period
41:44
Speaker 2: of recommitment and I help help lead that process. They
41:48
Speaker 2: had all the answers. I mean, they knew what they
41:50
Speaker 2: were doing wrong. They just had to kind of swallow
41:52
Speaker 2: it and get back on the right track. It was
41:54
Speaker 2: it was fun to watch they have they haven't made
41:56
Speaker 2: that mistake again. It's really it's it's kind of a
42:00
Speaker 2: great company.
42:00
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's fascinating to see how nimble a company that
42:04
Speaker 1: size can be if they really commit to it.
42:07
Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, it's it's privately owned, you know, they don't
42:10
Speaker 2: have shareholders, you know. Sure, Yvonne is been offered a
42:13
Speaker 2: lot of money by private equity companies and by I
42:17
Speaker 2: actually orchestrated a conversation between Phil Knight and Avon Schnard
42:21
Speaker 2: about a purchase Devon just went, I can't go there.
42:24
Speaker 2: I can't turn my brand over to somebody else. So
42:27
Speaker 2: it's still a family owned business. That's fascinating A billion
42:30
Speaker 2: dollars because he knows or he believes that only he
42:34
Speaker 2: can can kind of protect that what he's built. Yeah,
42:37
Speaker 2: he's probably right here, a family member. Yeah, and that's
42:40
Speaker 2: the difficulty. How how do you maintain that legacy? Yeah,
42:44
Speaker 2: we have to be willing to say, I'm in a
42:46
Speaker 2: billion dollars right now, I've made some mistakes. I'm perfectly
42:50
Speaker 2: happy taking this company backwards to six hundred million and
42:54
Speaker 2: do the right thing and then rebuild again, because that
42:56
Speaker 2: out of any shareholders, the mode and grown right. I
42:59
Speaker 2: own this this bad boy, and I'm going to do
43:01
Speaker 2: what I want. And he's you know, he's made some mistakes,
43:04
Speaker 2: but you know, ninety nine percent of the time he's
43:06
Speaker 2: he's done the right thing afterwards. It's it's been fun
43:09
Speaker 2: to watch. No, that's a real model.
43:11
Speaker 1: That's impressive and and it's certainly that that realization that
43:16
Speaker 1: things need to evolve and change. I mean, you've you
43:20
Speaker 1: have owned a bunch of different vehicles and we first
43:23
Speaker 1: when we first met you were you were building a
43:26
Speaker 1: Toyota Tacoma, and I think yours took a similar path
43:30
Speaker 1: to mine, where it got very heavy, very heavy, and
43:33
Speaker 1: a little a little overbuilt like mine was. I can
43:36
Speaker 1: certainly recognize that in my first Tacoma project. And then
43:40
Speaker 1: you had a tundra next, is that right?
43:41
Speaker 2: Right? Right? Yeah? And I I think I modeled mine
43:44
Speaker 2: a lot of the things you did.
43:45
Speaker 1: But yeah, sorry about that.
43:47
Speaker 2: It was well, it was it was bomber, but it
43:49
Speaker 2: was you know, it was getting eleven miles of the
43:51
Speaker 2: gallon and I was I was pushing a lot of
43:53
Speaker 2: steel down the road. Yeah, And you know I built
43:56
Speaker 2: the tundra. I thought, you know, weight, it's going to
43:59
Speaker 2: be a fact here, even though things already big and heavy, right,
44:02
Speaker 2: but when you had three thousand pounds and you're way
44:05
Speaker 2: over GVW and you got to do the suspension just
44:07
Speaker 2: to carry the weight to get something, something's wrong with
44:09
Speaker 2: this picture. And so it was a little different philosophy
44:13
Speaker 2: approaching the bills. I want to go a little lighter.
44:14
Speaker 2: What do I really need and can I use materials
44:17
Speaker 2: that are lighter? I mean I really need steel, skid plates,
44:22
Speaker 2: little things. You know, you start thinking about how much
44:25
Speaker 2: water do I have to take? And how much fuel?
44:28
Speaker 2: I mean, how many times did I actually run out
44:29
Speaker 2: of gas that I needed to custom build a thirty
44:33
Speaker 2: five gallon to gas tank? I mean little things like
44:35
Speaker 2: that and turned out differently, you know. And but like
44:39
Speaker 2: you and I were talking before, all these things are
44:41
Speaker 2: trade offs. There's no right answer here. Sure, how are
44:44
Speaker 2: you going to use it? Where you're going to go?
44:46
Speaker 2: What is your style of overlanding? You know? How what
44:49
Speaker 2: are the conditions going to be in and you're going
44:52
Speaker 2: to be in when you're using it? How close is help?
44:55
Speaker 2: All those things you think about?
44:57
Speaker 1: And right now it looks like you gave me little
45:00
Speaker 1: tour of your of your sprinter. Tell me about your
45:03
Speaker 1: current overland vehicle.
45:05
Speaker 2: Yeah, I started with the base is a short, low top,
45:10
Speaker 2: four wheel drive sprinter sportsmobile built out for me. I
45:13
Speaker 2: had owned a E three fifty van when they're back
45:17
Speaker 2: in the early two thousands of theirs. I liked their build.
45:21
Speaker 2: They were willing to work with me on customizing it
45:23
Speaker 2: the way I wanted Because I having time spent time
45:26
Speaker 2: on a sailboat, I had a way I like to
45:28
Speaker 2: use small space, both my living space and my storage space.
45:31
Speaker 2: So they were totally open to accommodating that. So I
45:35
Speaker 2: thought about what I wanted to take with me, what
45:37
Speaker 2: I was going to put it in. I had experimented
45:41
Speaker 2: with the first Sportsmobile and the Tacoma and with the
45:43
Speaker 2: tunder I knew what I wanted and needed to take,
45:46
Speaker 2: So I built the van around how I wanted to
45:48
Speaker 2: live and what I wanted to take. So, you know,
45:51
Speaker 2: Agile has done all my suspension upgrades. It looks great
45:54
Speaker 2: they're doing They're doing really good stuff. And I've you know,
45:57
Speaker 2: we spent two and a half months in Alaskan in it.
45:59
Speaker 2: We've been we spent two winners and behind it. Now
46:02
Speaker 2: we've gotten ourselves into things that I would not have
46:06
Speaker 2: expected that construction vehicle to be able to handle, and
46:10
Speaker 2: was absolutely fine. It is, you know, the proper modifications.
46:15
Speaker 2: It's a very worthy off road vehicle. You just have
46:18
Speaker 2: to know how big it is and how long the
46:20
Speaker 2: wheelbase is, sure where the low spots are. Yeah, it's
46:24
Speaker 2: just you gotta be careful.
46:25
Speaker 1: Yeah, be a little gentle with it. One of the
46:27
Speaker 1: things I noticed when I looked inside your van that
46:29
Speaker 1: I really liked. You have a garage configuration in the
46:32
Speaker 1: back that looks like it can also be a small
46:35
Speaker 1: bed and that gives you a ton of storage at
46:38
Speaker 1: the rear. Then it looks like you went with just
46:41
Speaker 1: a two person dynet, and that looked really smart, where
46:45
Speaker 1: you can still sit and work and enjoy a meal,
46:48
Speaker 1: but you're not taking a bunch of extra space with
46:51
Speaker 1: a four person dynet. I thought that was really smart.
46:53
Speaker 2: Yeah, we made the driver's seat in the passer seats
46:56
Speaker 2: swing around so if people ever in the van with
46:58
Speaker 2: us should seat four people. But we're just not going
47:01
Speaker 2: to have for us again back to our use, we're
47:04
Speaker 2: not going to have more than the two of us
47:06
Speaker 2: eating in it. And you know it actually drops down
47:09
Speaker 2: into a little single bed there never used it that way. Sure,
47:13
Speaker 2: the table swings out of the way and the seats
47:15
Speaker 2: are actually this is the only little argument I had
47:18
Speaker 2: with sportsmobile from sailing. You can't have too much water
47:22
Speaker 2: and you can't have too much solar panels. Sure solar panel.
47:25
Speaker 2: So we got forty gallons of water and it sits
47:27
Speaker 2: under the two seats, so the seats were dimensions were
47:31
Speaker 2: determined by twenty gallons of water.
47:33
Speaker 1: That makes a lot of sense.
47:34
Speaker 2: So it's a perfect place for one person to sit.
47:38
Speaker 1: And they're with them both being water tanks, and it
47:40
Speaker 1: equalizes the weight a little bit left right very well.
47:44
Speaker 2: And they're just foward to the rear wheels, so it's
47:46
Speaker 2: kind of in the center. So it helps with as
47:48
Speaker 2: are the batteries underneath. So sure put all the heavy
47:50
Speaker 2: stuff in the middle and low. Yeah, it looks it
47:53
Speaker 2: looks great.
47:53
Speaker 1: I'll try to include an image of the van and
47:56
Speaker 1: the show notes for everybody to see it. It's a
47:58
Speaker 1: really smartly designed vehicle that it looks like it's got
48:02
Speaker 1: everything you need. And you know your motorcycle travels have
48:05
Speaker 1: influenced that no doubt as well. But so a couple
48:08
Speaker 1: questions for you that come to mind. Something that I
48:11
Speaker 1: like to ask those that are on the podcast, But
48:14
Speaker 1: what would you say are the top one to three
48:17
Speaker 1: books in your life that you have that has really
48:20
Speaker 1: influenced you where you'd recommend someone to read, or the
48:23
Speaker 1: gift the books that you like to gift to others.
48:26
Speaker 1: What are some of your favorite books that you like
48:28
Speaker 1: to read?
48:29
Speaker 2: You know, I as a kid, I went to thirteen
48:32
Speaker 2: elementary schools all over the country, so I kind of
48:35
Speaker 2: started adventuring in elementary school. Being the new kid. Thirteen
48:39
Speaker 2: years out of thirteen schools out of six years, you
48:42
Speaker 2: learn to adventure. But I traveled a lot. And when
48:46
Speaker 2: I graduated from high school, when I was just sixteen,
48:49
Speaker 2: so I went to Europe. I traveled around Europe and
48:52
Speaker 2: with my brother who was just fifteen, the two of
48:54
Speaker 2: us loose in Europe for three months.
48:55
Speaker 1: Oh that's perfect.
48:56
Speaker 2: It was fabulous year. About five dollars a day. You
48:59
Speaker 2: could do it back then. But one of the places
49:02
Speaker 2: we went we went to Germany, was to Docou and
49:06
Speaker 2: read Victor Frankel's book The Man Search for Meaning. And
49:10
Speaker 2: I think I have reread that book probably four times
49:13
Speaker 2: about man struggle to find meaning in the worst of
49:19
Speaker 2: situations and the importance of a relationship and responsibilities to
49:23
Speaker 2: one another. That I think shaped a lot of my
49:26
Speaker 2: thinking about the role of government, about how you treat
49:30
Speaker 2: people in a company that you run, just all of
49:34
Speaker 2: your interactions. It shaped it a lot. I think one
49:38
Speaker 2: of my favorite outdoor books is The Emerald Mile. I
49:41
Speaker 2: just think it's history, it's geology, it's conservation, it's adventure,
49:46
Speaker 2: it's river running, all rolled into the one book. It's
49:50
Speaker 2: just fabulous. And Edward Abbey desert solitaire. I think it
49:56
Speaker 2: was fueled my love of the desert. I've been living
49:59
Speaker 2: in the desert from the High Desert here in Oregon
50:01
Speaker 2: ever since I read that book. With the law school
50:03
Speaker 2: in the desert, moved here. That's where I go to
50:06
Speaker 2: vacation and play. It's kind of my happy place.
50:09
Speaker 1: So those are great suggestions too. And if you were
50:14
Speaker 1: if someone that was getting new into travel came up
50:17
Speaker 1: to you and they asked you, what advice do you have?
50:20
Speaker 1: What would be your first piece of advice that you
50:22
Speaker 1: would give someone that wanted to go travel the world.
50:26
Speaker 2: That most fun I've ever had is when I planned
50:29
Speaker 2: to get outside my comfort zone to have a little
50:33
Speaker 2: bit of anxiety about what was in store for me,
50:36
Speaker 2: a little bit of anxiety about are my plans altogether,
50:41
Speaker 2: anxiety about the culture, anxiety about sometimes the risk or
50:45
Speaker 2: the danger. I've grown the most, I've learned, the most.
50:48
Speaker 2: I've had the most fun when not what I've gone
50:50
Speaker 2: and done something that was kind of easy and planned
50:53
Speaker 2: and totally predictable, it was more unpredictable.
50:59
Speaker 1: Stretched you a little bit, stretched me a.
51:00
Speaker 2: Little bit, and you don't you don't have to stretch
51:03
Speaker 2: with physical danger I mean, there's there's there's cultural things.
51:06
Speaker 2: I mean, I mentioned I worked in Hong Kong for
51:11
Speaker 2: a long time for Nike. I was supposed to go
51:13
Speaker 2: to Europe and run the marketing and product development for
51:17
Speaker 2: the European headquarters, and the last minute they said, no,
51:19
Speaker 2: the growth areas Hong Kong, go there, and I went, oh, man, Asia,
51:23
Speaker 2: that's kind of weird. I've never been to Asia. That
51:26
Speaker 2: really uncomfortable. I think it was that the lack of
51:30
Speaker 2: feeling your complete equilibrium that made the three four years
51:34
Speaker 2: I spent in Asia so much fun. You know, you're
51:37
Speaker 2: in a different place, and I think I probably learned
51:40
Speaker 2: more and experience more and had more fun being off
51:42
Speaker 2: balance a little bit on that. I mean, the latitude's
51:47
Speaker 2: sixty five. I mean I was way out over my
51:50
Speaker 2: skis and I had never ridden anything close to that,
51:54
Speaker 2: And there were times when I'm wondering what the what
51:58
Speaker 2: the hell I was doing? That true, but in retrospect,
52:02
Speaker 2: and ninety five percent of the time it was kind
52:04
Speaker 2: of just taking the chance to go a little beyond
52:07
Speaker 2: what do you think your capabilities are. Doesn't mean don't plan,
52:09
Speaker 2: doesn't mean don't be careful, doesn't mean don't, you know,
52:12
Speaker 2: try to imagine what can happen, but just accept that
52:16
Speaker 2: that level of discomfort is what brings the fun to it.
52:19
Speaker 1: Yeah, and it's what helps us grow. I think even
52:21
Speaker 1: if you think about exercise, it requires that stretching of ourselves,
52:27
Speaker 1: that soreness that comes from pushing a little bit more
52:30
Speaker 1: weight today than you did yesterday. That helps make us stronger.
52:34
Speaker 1: And I think the same thing applies in most of life,
52:38
Speaker 1: certainly with travel, and it becomes a bit addicting in
52:41
Speaker 1: a way because you recognize that, Wow, what's what's that
52:45
Speaker 1: other culture like? And then what's that one like? And uh, yeah,
52:49
Speaker 1: it's certainly been transformative.
52:50
Speaker 2: Can I just find myself? Oh? Have I not had
52:54
Speaker 2: an experience like that? I'm just I start getting fidgety.
52:57
Speaker 2: I Christine, she's hard to hear me say it. I
53:01
Speaker 2: need an adventure. I need we need to plan something,
53:04
Speaker 2: we need to do something, and it could be a
53:06
Speaker 2: short thing. I was just down in Yosemite with a
53:08
Speaker 2: buddy who has climbed all of his life, and I,
53:12
Speaker 2: you know, I do one or two pitch routes, you know,
53:16
Speaker 2: here and there. Bolted stuff got smith rocks pretty lightweight climbing,
53:20
Speaker 2: and he said, we're going to Yo seventy We're gonna
53:22
Speaker 2: do a big wall. We're gonna do royal arches, seventeen
53:25
Speaker 2: pitches fourteen hours. I said, David, there's no there's no
53:29
Speaker 2: friggid way. And he said, we're gonna get a guide.
53:31
Speaker 2: We're gonna get a yosemity guide. We're gonna go down
53:33
Speaker 2: there and do this. And so six o'clock in the morning,
53:36
Speaker 2: we're in the in the lodge now it's called the
53:39
Speaker 2: Iwani again, thank god. Guide comes up to us, the
53:42
Speaker 2: only ones there. We're standing around our harnesses and our
53:45
Speaker 2: climbing gear, and he looks around and looks at us,
53:47
Speaker 2: looks around, looks at us, and comes up to He says,
53:49
Speaker 2: are you Chris and David. David, by the way, is
53:52
Speaker 2: seventy seven years old. He says, how old are you guys?
53:56
Speaker 2: He said, have you ever done anything like this? David said,
53:58
Speaker 2: I've climbed this route three or four times, as I haven't.
54:02
Speaker 2: He said, you'll be fine. You could see this poor guy.
54:05
Speaker 2: I was thinking, oh my god, what have I gotten
54:07
Speaker 2: myself into. But fourteen hours, seventeen pitches later, we made it.
54:11
Speaker 2: I had no skin on my hands, my feet, my elbows,
54:13
Speaker 2: on my knees, because one of those things about halfway through,
54:16
Speaker 2: I just, you know it said, I just do it.
54:18
Speaker 2: I'm going to finish this. I've never been in so
54:22
Speaker 2: much pain. There was just one exciting moment after another
54:27
Speaker 2: on that.
54:27
Speaker 1: But that's fascinating.
54:29
Speaker 2: At the moment, I regretted it, but looking back, I
54:32
Speaker 2: would have missed that for the world is one of
54:34
Speaker 2: those things.
54:35
Speaker 1: Oh that is so cool. Chris, thank you so much
54:38
Speaker 1: for the time today. You've always been an inspiration and
54:42
Speaker 1: you've always been so so gracious with your time. Chris
54:46
Speaker 1: has helped me with overland Journal through the years with advice,
54:50
Speaker 1: and I've learned so much from you. Chris, thank you
54:52
Speaker 1: so much for the time on the podcast today. And
54:57
Speaker 1: maybe we'll get you on at some other cool location
55:00
Speaker 1: in the world and we'll talk a little bit more
55:03
Speaker 1: about adventure in your travels. But I'm really grateful for
55:06
Speaker 1: your time.
55:07
Speaker 2: This is a total pleasure, and you know you you
55:09
Speaker 2: are personally responsible for me being involved in most of
55:12
Speaker 2: this overlanding stuff. But it is the journal, it is
55:15
Speaker 2: the vehicles you built, it is the time I spent
55:18
Speaker 2: at the expo all those things you've could hear, you've
55:21
Speaker 2: You've been, uh a inspiration and a teacher for me
55:25
Speaker 2: and this, so thank you. It's applications great, it is.
55:29
Speaker 2: I've learned so much from what I consider one of
55:32
Speaker 2: the best publications on the planet. So thank you for
55:35
Speaker 2: the work you do there. It's fabulous.
55:36
Speaker 1: Well, I'm so grateful for the team. I wouldn't I
55:38
Speaker 1: wouldn't have any of it without a bunch of people
55:41
Speaker 1: that are much smarter than me behind the behind the helm.
55:43
Speaker 1: So thank you for again for the time today, Chris
55:46
Speaker 1: and and it was nice to see you.
55:48
Speaker 2: Great to see you all right. Enjoy that Earth Cruiser.
55:50
Speaker 1: Yeah you got it. Thanks