Latest / Adventure Sports Podcast / Ep. 1135: Adventure Life & Mongolia with Rory Ginsburg

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Ep. 1135: Adventure Life & Mongolia with Rory Ginsburg · Adventure Sports Podcast

0:06
[SPEAKER_00]: You're listening to the Adventure Sports podcast.
0:09
[SPEAKER_00]: Thanks for adventuring with us, as we discover what incredible athletes and outdoor enthusiasts are doing all over the world.
0:16
[SPEAKER_00]: Now here's your host, Kurt Linville.
0:20
[SPEAKER_02]: Hey friends, welcome to the Adventure Sports podcast again.
0:24
[SPEAKER_02]: I have Rowry Ginsburg with us today, and I'm calling Rowry the Mystery Man, and the reason is because I tried to research, you know, I like to know what guests have been up to a little bit, and I don't know much about Rowry, except he kept suggesting guests for the Adventure Sports podcast, and I finally said, well, Rowry, who are you?
0:42
[SPEAKER_02]: And he sends me a picture of himself riding on a rain deer in Mongolia.
0:46
[SPEAKER_02]: And I thought, OK, these got stories to tell.
0:50
[SPEAKER_02]: And turns out he's a real enthusiast in helping the everyday people find adventure.
0:56
[SPEAKER_02]: And so we're just going to wing it.
0:57
[SPEAKER_02]: We're going to learn about Rory and what he's up to and welcome to the Adventure Sports podcast.
1:02
[SPEAKER_01]: Hey, Kurt.
1:02
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm happy to be here.
1:03
[SPEAKER_01]: I've actually been a long time listener.
1:05
[SPEAKER_01]: Hence why I keep sending cool people your way.
1:09
[SPEAKER_01]: Because what better way to find out about my friends.
1:12
[SPEAKER_02]: First of all, where are you?
1:15
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm in San Diego, California.
1:17
[SPEAKER_01]: That's been my home for about seven years.
1:20
[SPEAKER_01]: It's pretty solid playground, if you've ever made your way down here.
1:25
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I've been to San Diego years ago, but regretfully, it was for a big corporate training and I didn't get to play much.
1:31
[SPEAKER_02]: So that's a bummer, but I have heard such great things about it, what a place.
1:36
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, it seems like it attracts a lot of people
1:40
[SPEAKER_01]: Chase lifestyle rather than work style, you know, and so that brings a certain certain kind of person your way.
1:48
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, for sure.
1:49
[SPEAKER_02]: And I like the way you said that lifestyle instead of work style.
1:53
[SPEAKER_02]: There are a lot of listeners to the Adventure Sports podcast that are doing both.
1:57
[SPEAKER_02]: And I had to throw myself amongst those people, right?
2:00
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm chasing lifestyle and work style, and I always have.
2:04
[SPEAKER_02]: And so this could be the episode for the every day people who want to do adventure, who haven't found a way to do it full-time professionally or any of those sorts of things.
2:14
[SPEAKER_02]: So we should dive into some of that.
2:16
[SPEAKER_02]: But first of all, let's get a little background.
2:18
[SPEAKER_02]: I jumped on your Instagram and I see you in places all over the world.
2:23
[SPEAKER_02]: Writing reindeer in Mongolia is one of those, right?
2:26
[SPEAKER_02]: Rafting the Grand Canyon is another one of those.
2:28
[SPEAKER_02]: Places I couldn't even identify.
2:30
[SPEAKER_02]: Who is Rory?
2:32
[SPEAKER_02]: Where do you up to?
2:34
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, I really live by that jack of all trades, master of non-modo.
2:40
[SPEAKER_01]: I always say I never want to be picked last.
2:41
[SPEAKER_01]: So I kind of have a pretty wide array of things I like to do without getting too focused on any one of them because to get pretty good at things is pretty not too hard to get really good at things, takes a lot of time.
2:56
[SPEAKER_01]: So, you know, I just wrapped up the Grand Canyon and it was amazing, but I'm by no means a professional
3:04
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, I love horseback riding, but you know, I'm not doing show jumping or anything like that.
3:09
[SPEAKER_01]: So really I just kind of like to think about what sounds fun and then I'll shape it and venture around that.
3:15
[SPEAKER_01]: So, you know, I I host an annual rafting trip and a bunch of my friends don't know how to raft.
3:23
[SPEAKER_01]: And so what better way to get them into rafting than to put these skills I'm I'm learning.
3:29
[SPEAKER_01]: to help them come, right?
3:30
[SPEAKER_01]: There's that, that same is saying that, you know, you've really, you've really got to know something well once you can teach it to others.
3:37
[SPEAKER_01]: And so I like to get out into places and learn things for myself and then take them to my community that I live in and help get other folks to join on adventures.
3:50
[SPEAKER_01]: I think that's a big, big calling of mine is to open up and venture to other people.
3:55
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay.
3:56
[SPEAKER_01]: And to join them with it, you know.
3:59
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, there are all sorts of barriers to having an adventure-focused lifestyle.
4:04
[SPEAKER_02]: For some people, the adventure is just in their heart.
4:07
[SPEAKER_02]: Nothing can hold them back.
4:08
[SPEAKER_02]: I get to feeling you're one of those.
4:09
[SPEAKER_02]: For other people, they need an invitation, you know?
4:13
[SPEAKER_02]: They might need someone to pave the road a little bit, show them the way, so is that what you're talking about?
4:20
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I say so.
4:21
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, it kind of dust them from my background.
4:24
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, just like you, I have a regular job, a couple of them, actually, San Diego is not the cheapest place to live, so I have a few different jobs and like the IT sector I work in and then I also run a nonprofit and we organize like large festivals and all sorts of kind of crazy experiences here in San Diego and everything from like 1,000 person, you know, events and art exhibitions and music festivals and things to, you know,
4:54
[SPEAKER_01]: Lake Powell retreats with a hundred people and a bunch of households and everything in between.
4:59
[SPEAKER_01]: And so, you know, if these two worlds, right, this world of ideating and creating unbelievable experiences and then the world of, all right, what's going on with your printer?
5:10
[SPEAKER_01]: Let's figure this out.
5:13
[SPEAKER_01]: Right.
5:13
[SPEAKER_01]: So, you know, I definitely find that, and I know a lot of folks find themselves
5:22
[SPEAKER_01]: is really well balanced when you have something to look forward to or something to build towards, right?
5:29
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm from Texas originally, you know, growing up there was a great experience, but it definitely is very much a lifestyle of work, get home, arts, throw on sports, maybe drink a beer, rinse for Pete, and you know, there's nothing wrong with that, but for me,
5:51
[SPEAKER_01]: The walls were closing in, right?
5:53
[SPEAKER_01]: And so, you know, I can do that that first half of the lifestyle work, get your things done.
5:57
[SPEAKER_01]: But for the second half, I need, I need an exciting thing to look forward to or something to build.
6:04
[SPEAKER_01]: I almost enjoy the thinking about and planning the adventure as much as actually doing it.
6:10
[SPEAKER_01]: And so, you know, I think a lot of people, even if they don't currently live their life that way, I think a lot of people,
6:18
[SPEAKER_01]: have that that drive, even if it hasn't been explored.
6:22
[SPEAKER_01]: And so yeah, I really excited to kind of talk about just how you can, does not have to be saying as crazy as writing a ranger Mongolia, but just how you can, you can pursue that lifestyle a little bit more in your day to day.
6:35
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, I think unless you live in Mongolia, just the word Mongolia sounds like an adventure.
6:41
[SPEAKER_02]: I've heard so many adventurers say it's a favorite place on earth and it's caught me amongst them.
6:47
[SPEAKER_02]: It's remote.
6:48
[SPEAKER_02]: It's uh, it's not necessarily caught up with a modern world.
6:53
[SPEAKER_02]: It's a place where you can have real meaningful cultural experiences.
6:58
[SPEAKER_02]: And I've also heard beautiful things about the people just being so welcoming and inviting.
7:04
[SPEAKER_02]: Let's start with adventure travel and what got you to Mongolia.
7:09
[SPEAKER_02]: Let's hear that as an example of the adventures that you like to do.
7:12
[SPEAKER_01]: Sure, so it's kind of an interesting story.
7:15
[SPEAKER_01]: I kind of chunk my life into little sections, right?
7:21
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm 31 now and so I feel like I kind of live my life in little five year sections.
7:26
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm like a goldfish, any more than that I can't even imagine what's around the bend.
7:33
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, I had a very different life in my early 20s.
7:35
[SPEAKER_01]: I was in Texas, you know, college lifestyle, there's things.
7:40
[SPEAKER_01]: But at my mid 20s, I moved out here and really started pursuing this current lifestyle I have.
7:46
[SPEAKER_01]: And I just always knew I needed to do like a big, almost a year-long travel trip.
7:52
[SPEAKER_01]: I'd done a few sort of like that my younger days, but I really needed to do a trip to Asia.
7:57
[SPEAKER_01]: I'd never been.
7:58
[SPEAKER_01]: And so I told myself before I turned 30,
8:01
[SPEAKER_01]: either take a leave of absence from work or I would leave work one or the other and go just on a parts unknown nine to twelve month trip through Asia and everyone of my life was not surprised at all when I told them I was going except my work so they weren't so happy so I had to take what we call a leave of absence and yeah headed out for just ten months
8:28
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay.
8:29
[SPEAKER_01]: And ended up all over the place, many, many wild places, like tracking in the Paul and, you know, motor cycling through Vietnam.
8:36
[SPEAKER_01]: And I had never ridden the motorcycle before.
8:38
[SPEAKER_01]: What better place to learn than crazy is the craziest biking place on earth.
8:43
[SPEAKER_01]: And so, yeah, I did about two months and, you know, 3,000 miles of driving through Vietnam.
8:49
[SPEAKER_01]: And I should remember one day, I was, was looking Instagram after a very long day on the bike
8:59
[SPEAKER_01]: massive vistas and giant lakes and all sorts of things.
9:01
[SPEAKER_01]: I was like, what is this place I'm looking at?
9:03
[SPEAKER_01]: At the end it said, um, visit Mongolia.
9:06
[SPEAKER_01]: And I was like, you know, Mongolia was not at a halt on my radar, but well, what better time in my life will I have to go to Mongolia?
9:15
[SPEAKER_01]: And in this space about this three-minute thoughts, I then thought, well, I haven't written a horse since I was like 10 years old,
9:22
[SPEAKER_01]: I've always wanted to do that.
9:24
[SPEAKER_01]: What better place to ride across the country than Mongolia?
9:27
[SPEAKER_01]: And so in that three, but lock it up in three minutes, in that three minute period I decided I would a go to Mongolia, be by a horse and ride across the country, and see survive.
9:41
[SPEAKER_02]: So there are a lot of people out there who are cheering for you, Rory.
9:44
[SPEAKER_02]: They're going, yeah man, this is my kind of guy and there are other people who are going, you got to be kidding me.
9:49
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm I'm a pretty normal person.
9:53
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, it sounds fantastic.
9:55
[SPEAKER_02]: And sometimes it's those I'll call it a light bulb moment, but this just as flash of inspiration, sometimes we need to listen to that.
10:04
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes.
10:05
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes.
10:05
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes.
10:05
[SPEAKER_01]: So how did you do that?
10:07
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, I just want to say, you know, I'm I'm a big believer in epiphany and that's that's the light bulb moment.
10:11
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think life can turn on a dime with a good epiphany.
10:15
[SPEAKER_01]: Absolutely.
10:16
[SPEAKER_01]: And I've actually done a fair bit of research on epiphanys and, you know, letting your mind have space to just be open to the impossible or anything really is where those epiphanys happen.
10:29
[SPEAKER_01]: And when they strike, don't just brush it off with something else.
10:32
[SPEAKER_01]: So just give yourself some space to, you know, sit and think and be open to what comes.
10:38
[SPEAKER_01]: And if epiphany comes, it's there for a reason.
10:40
[SPEAKER_01]: And you can almost feel your, your
10:42
[SPEAKER_01]: your DNA level core changing towards that idea and a lot of energy and inspiration beauty can come out of those things.
10:51
[SPEAKER_01]: I've experienced that.
10:51
[SPEAKER_01]: I've seen it many times.
10:53
[SPEAKER_01]: So, for any listeners out there, if you get a good epiphany today, run with it.
10:57
[SPEAKER_02]: Pay attention.
10:59
[SPEAKER_02]: So, I think it requires putting the phone down, putting the screen down, and maybe being slightly bored.
11:08
[SPEAKER_02]: Yep.
11:09
[SPEAKER_02]: I think that we're missing out on something whenever we constantly distract ourselves.
11:14
[SPEAKER_02]: Is that a part of what you're talking about?
11:16
[SPEAKER_01]: 100% boredom.
11:17
[SPEAKER_01]: And I very much, that's struggling with this as well.
11:20
[SPEAKER_01]: But boredom is definitely something that's missing from our modern day lifestyle.
11:26
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, you're standing in line at the bank or you're going to the grocery, what do you have?
11:30
[SPEAKER_01]: You've had funds in your ears, if you're phone your hands,
11:33
[SPEAKER_01]: It's hard to break away from that, and I think living a life of inspired adventure starts with giving yourself just a little bit of space to dream up, to dream big, and dream up the adventures, you know, seeing them on Instagram is one part of it, but building them in the the theater of your own mind is a very large other part of that.
11:53
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay, we can we can quit the interview now, because that was a mic drop moment.
11:57
[SPEAKER_02]: I think everybody learned everything they need to know.
12:01
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, let's let's give people a little more, a little more, it's okay, we'll keep going.
12:06
[SPEAKER_02]: We'll keep going.
12:08
[SPEAKER_02]: Tell us about how you got from, what was it, Vietnam, to Mongolia?
12:12
[SPEAKER_02]: How did that happen?
12:13
[SPEAKER_01]: There was a few other, a few other sojourns to other countries in between, but I found myself in Indonesia kind of doing a lot of freediving and other sorts of things you do out there and that's a whole other episode of that paradise street.
12:26
[SPEAKER_01]: But yeah, I made my way to Mongolia and I'd been on
12:31
[SPEAKER_01]: three months of not even meet at this point heading and I don't drink much and so hadn't drinking alcohol quite a while and I'm heading to the land of meet, dairy, and tink of scone vodka and I'm allergic to dairy which does add a wrinkle to traveling in this country.
12:51
[SPEAKER_01]: But yeah, so
12:52
[SPEAKER_01]: I fly in and even through the window, I know I'm in another world because this place is just as far as the I can see rolling grass with distant hills and mountains and just massive
13:18
[SPEAKER_01]: And half the population lives in the capital city, Ulan, buttoir.
13:22
[SPEAKER_01]: So that means you've got one and a half million people in a place twice the size of Texas and it holds the distinction of being the least densely populated country in the world.
13:30
[SPEAKER_01]: A lot of room for activities.
13:33
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes.
13:34
[SPEAKER_02]: Wow.
13:34
[SPEAKER_02]: That's fantastic.
13:37
[SPEAKER_02]: So you land and then you said the goal was to write across it on a horse.
13:44
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, so I discovered that buying a horse and Mongolia cost about $300, which, okay, even if you're not making much money, $300 is a doable sum.
13:54
[SPEAKER_01]: Right away, I land and even even from the get-go, my taxi driver leans over while he's driving and pulls my pant leg up and starts touching the hair on my leg and he's just blown away.
14:08
[SPEAKER_01]: Because apparently, among goiants don't have much body hair, which in the cold winter, I bet they would prefer to have.
14:13
[SPEAKER_01]: But yeah, he's like touching that body hair, it's blown away, he pulls his leg up and he has me touch his leg and he's like, oh my god, I should add, he does not say anything in English because as they came to learn, among goiants know, very, very little English.
14:27
[SPEAKER_01]: And I get to go on botore and right away, it's not what I'm expecting.
14:31
[SPEAKER_01]: This is a massive, heavily polluted, very cosmopolitan industrialized city.
14:37
[SPEAKER_01]: at sometimes it has the worst air quality in the world because of burning lots of coal and done to stay warm.
14:44
[SPEAKER_01]: But when I was there in the summer, it was very lovely actually.
14:46
[SPEAKER_01]: And so yeah, my plan is to go on this grand adventure.
14:52
[SPEAKER_01]: And I had reached out to some Facebook groups, I discovered, if backpacks of Mongolia.
15:00
[SPEAKER_01]: I have to say across 10 months of travel, meeting
15:02
[SPEAKER_01]: probably thousands of travelers.
15:04
[SPEAKER_01]: I met not a single person who is going to Mongolia, which is at a very good or very bad side.
15:08
[SPEAKER_02]: Right.
15:09
[SPEAKER_01]: Turns out it was a good side.
15:11
[SPEAKER_01]: And so I posed to these Facebook groups and I'm like, hey, I'm thinking of, you know, writing across Mongolia, don't know much about horses, but I have a very can do attitude.
15:20
[SPEAKER_01]: And I do want to say one thing on that, a lot of adventures I do.
15:24
[SPEAKER_01]: I have to save a little bit out of my depth, the Grand Canyon experience, perfect example.
15:32
[SPEAKER_01]: I really try and let people know that I have a can do attitude and I'm down to learn and you know, I bring the stoke.
15:38
[SPEAKER_01]: I think I think anyone can bring the stoke.
15:40
[SPEAKER_01]: If you don't know how to do something, as long as you come excited, people who know what they're doing will be excited to have you around.
15:45
[SPEAKER_01]: So big piece of advice, which I would say is, you know, thank you to you make it, just show up excited to learn, absorb like a sponge and you know, things will probably work out for the best of the end.
16:02
[SPEAKER_01]: And I get a lot of people saying, good luck.
16:05
[SPEAKER_01]: But I do get this one person saying, hey, I am Mongolian.
16:11
[SPEAKER_01]: My family and I are Mongolian nomads.
16:13
[SPEAKER_01]: And we've always wanted to meet a Westerner.
16:17
[SPEAKER_01]: Would you like to come out to our nomadic, I'll call it a household.
16:22
[SPEAKER_01]: It's a gare, which we would probably know as a year interchangeable saying.
16:28
[SPEAKER_01]: But for this, don't know, a year is the traditional step.
16:32
[SPEAKER_01]: dwelling like domicile.
16:34
[SPEAKER_01]: So it's a large circular structure with a felt walls traditionally now they're a more synthetic material and then a roof and they're completely portable and people typically live in them for three to four months in one place and they pack up and move to another place and essentially what they're doing is they're chasing pasture land because you know it used to be the entire step stretching from Hungary to Mongolia was all this nomadic horse
16:59
[SPEAKER_01]: And up until the 1800s, much of the step was like that, and then with Soviet modernization and Russian Russia taking over a lot of these countries, things changed, and to my great delight, Mongolia is the one country that still maintains this nomadic course, pastoral lifestyle.
17:19
[SPEAKER_01]: So these people are still living in these dwellings that they've been living in for literally thousands of years in much the same way.
17:26
[SPEAKER_01]: And if she messages me, there's long messages like, why don't you come out to our home and we'll show you how we live.
17:32
[SPEAKER_01]: We'll show you the Mongolian like true nomadic lifestyle.
17:35
[SPEAKER_03]: Right.
17:36
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm over here like, whoa.
17:39
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay.
17:40
[SPEAKER_01]: And so I audible my plans, probably for the best, don't buy the horse.
17:46
[SPEAKER_01]: And that's the thing I would say also, is be very open to making an audible, changing plans the last minute, because having the freedom to make a change when some wild opportunity comes up, really opens you up to not being so tied to a set itinerary.
18:03
[SPEAKER_01]: And Mongolia is not the place to have itinerary, let me tell you.
18:07
[SPEAKER_01]: you know in Mongolia most tourists go with these tours and they are fabulous for those who don't want to do what I'm about to talk about the tours are incredible and much much easier and you'll still see the traditional lifestyle you'll get a stand beautiful years but hey I was a broke travel at this point and be I like to get a little off the beaten path so I told these tour guides
18:31
[SPEAKER_01]: They were pretty blown away, I must say.
18:33
[SPEAKER_01]: None of them had ever heard of a Westerner doing what I was heading into, as far as the ice, just being a random backpacker.
18:40
[SPEAKER_01]: So Mongolian businesses are vast.
18:42
[SPEAKER_01]: So I jumped in a bus and it was about a 27-hour bus ride to get to this, the nearest incultations town.
18:50
[SPEAKER_01]: And as I'm going at this point, I'm getting a little nervous because I'm by myself and I'm like, you know, what am I getting myself into?
19:00
[SPEAKER_01]: I miss it.
19:01
[SPEAKER_01]: Her name was Shishuke.
19:02
[SPEAKER_01]: Her name is spelled with about 24 letters.
19:06
[SPEAKER_01]: It does not look like Shishuke.
19:07
[SPEAKER_01]: I'll tell you that.
19:08
[SPEAKER_01]: It starts with a P and has several Z's and X's in it.
19:11
[SPEAKER_01]: Wow.
19:12
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm going as one of the most difficult languages I've ever come across.
19:14
[SPEAKER_01]: If not lemost.
19:16
[SPEAKER_01]: So there's not a phonetic, not a phonetic comparison.
19:21
[SPEAKER_01]: But I message her.
19:22
[SPEAKER_01]: I have to ask, how good is your English?
19:25
[SPEAKER_01]: And she messaged me because she's listening to me very long, messaged English.
19:29
[SPEAKER_01]: She messaged me back.
19:30
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, I speak knowing English whatsoever.
19:32
[SPEAKER_01]: And neither is anyone that you'll be with.
19:34
[SPEAKER_01]: And I'm like, ah, she's like, I've been using Google Translate.
19:38
[SPEAKER_01]: So I'm like, noted.
19:40
[SPEAKER_01]: So luckily, I had Mongolian download it as offline Google Translate, because service in Mongolia, understandably, iffy.
19:48
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes.
19:49
[SPEAKER_01]: And so I arrive in this dusty town, no paved roads,
19:55
[SPEAKER_01]: We get in this house and then I'm just we meet it's it's a little awkward at first, but we're very excited and then she's like, yeah, we're going to get picked up some time in the next three days to head into into the hinterlands and next three days, so this is a very quick understanding of how Mongolia travel Mongolia works.
20:15
[SPEAKER_01]: Things operate not on a one to three hour timeline, but a one to three day timeline.
20:20
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm just sitting in this house with this Mongolian nomad woman and her really lovely, really cute little daughter.
20:27
[SPEAKER_01]: And yeah, it was about two and a half days wait.
20:31
[SPEAKER_01]: And that's why I recommend if you're going to do Mongolia on a time crunch, like on a time crunch, do the tour.
20:37
[SPEAKER_01]: Everything operates on schedule more or less.
20:39
[SPEAKER_01]: If you're going to do the nomad route,
20:41
[SPEAKER_01]: it's a good exercise in patients.
20:43
[SPEAKER_01]: But we do, we get into what I discovered was the classic Mongolian countryside motor travel, which is the trustee Prius.
20:51
[SPEAKER_01]: I would say about 70% of the vehicles I saw in Mongolia were Priuses in the countryside.
20:57
[SPEAKER_02]: Really?
20:58
[SPEAKER_01]: The other 30% being motorcycles.
21:00
[SPEAKER_01]: So lots of Priuses, they're pretty hardy, I have to say, because you have huge distances between
21:06
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, okay.
21:08
[SPEAKER_01]: So yeah, we head into we head into the the countryside and immediately the second within one minute of leaving the town That's it no power lines.
21:17
[SPEAKER_01]: You are in it like in in just the wilderness I would best describe the country's different in different areas the far west is more mountainous the far south is large desert But where I was in the center of the north picture the world's largest golf course
21:32
[SPEAKER_01]: with just the most beautiful, you know, very small mountains and rivers you've ever seen.
21:39
[SPEAKER_01]: And it's illegal to fence most of the land in Mongolia.
21:43
[SPEAKER_01]: So there's no fences anywhere.
21:45
[SPEAKER_03]: Wow.
21:46
[SPEAKER_01]: The drinking water is very clean for the most part.
21:48
[SPEAKER_01]: And Mongolian nomads are a lot of set up their dirt.
21:52
[SPEAKER_01]: They're essentially anywhere.
21:54
[SPEAKER_01]: They pay an annual $500 tax.
21:56
[SPEAKER_01]: And that's it.
21:57
[SPEAKER_01]: You can set up your anywhere you want.
21:59
[SPEAKER_01]: And
22:01
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, do your thing and folks have cheap cheap rent cheap rent very cheap and you know, you're basically never going to get in a car with another car You will get in a wreck with a horse or a goat or sheep because you'll see these heards of tens of thousands of animals like You know, if you've ever seen a dog on you see this huge heards of horses, it's like that you're just to turn a corner and you see 5,000 horses just mowing about
22:26
[SPEAKER_01]: and so we start driving and then yeah we get to this get to this year and suddenly I'm in I had luckily gone to the Mongolian flea market in New York and Bator which if you ever want to outfit a cavalry army that is the place to go you will see just rows upon rows and saddles horse saddles bridles everything you need for for to to be out in the country so I'm fully kidded out in my Mongolian robe my boots everything and they loved it and I don't think most of
22:56
[SPEAKER_01]: a foreigner, at least a Westerner.
22:58
[SPEAKER_01]: So it was a great cultural exchange on both sides.
23:05
[SPEAKER_01]: And one thing I want to say for listeners is, I do this for all countries I visit now.
23:10
[SPEAKER_01]: Do yourself a favor when you're going to a new place, read a book that's about the country, watch a movie that takes place there.
23:15
[SPEAKER_01]: From Angolia, I read a book on customs and
23:19
[SPEAKER_01]: you know, how to be polite there, which served me very well.
23:21
[SPEAKER_01]: There's many intricacies to no mad culture, like not stepping on the entrance with, not stepping on the entrance mantle, things like that.
23:30
[SPEAKER_01]: So a lot of faux pas you can avoid.
23:33
[SPEAKER_01]: And I did make one and it was very embarrassing.
23:34
[SPEAKER_01]: So I sat behind, I had read that book.
23:37
[SPEAKER_01]: But yeah, you know, from the moment I stepped into that year, it was completely transported to a world that existed for thousands of years.
23:46
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, we were sleeping on the floor every day, 12 to 15 of us in this relatively small circular building.
23:55
[SPEAKER_01]: Every morning we're up at 6 a.m. milking yats, yaks and hurting goats on horseback.
23:59
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, there's a million things I could talk about.
24:02
[SPEAKER_01]: Mongolian children don't really wear pants, which is all other, all other things.
24:08
[SPEAKER_01]: But you know, I saw, and I helped with, you know, these folks essentially their diet is
24:15
[SPEAKER_01]: about 30 to 40% dairy and about 60 to 70% meat.
24:19
[SPEAKER_01]: All right, there is not really any fruit, maybe an apple.
24:23
[SPEAKER_01]: And vegetables are seen as horse foods.
24:25
[SPEAKER_01]: Very little vegetables.
24:27
[SPEAKER_02]: Right.
24:29
[SPEAKER_01]: And so I can't eat dairy.
24:31
[SPEAKER_01]: So I was such a eating meat every meal for every day, which some noodles are rice, occasionally thrown in.
24:36
[SPEAKER_01]: And so you know, you're living off the land.
24:39
[SPEAKER_01]: So when you need to get some meat, you go get a goat and you pull it in and then you solder it right there.
24:45
[SPEAKER_01]: And they slaughtered these animals in a surprising human way.
24:48
[SPEAKER_01]: I, I can't believe it.
24:49
[SPEAKER_01]: I'll talk about it now.
24:50
[SPEAKER_01]: I am true.
24:51
[SPEAKER_01]: Essentially lay it down and they put a small slit in its ribs and then reach their hand inside of it while it's still alive.
24:57
[SPEAKER_01]: And the animal where they do it doesn't even notice, like, doesn't make any noises.
25:02
[SPEAKER_01]: And they pull a small valve on its heart and it dies within two seconds.
25:06
[SPEAKER_01]: And it's pretty unbelievable thing to see.
25:08
[SPEAKER_01]: And then they use it's fur.
25:11
[SPEAKER_01]: It's skin, essentially, to make tarp.
25:14
[SPEAKER_01]: And then completely disassembled the animal right there.
25:16
[SPEAKER_01]: Sometimes in the year, and every single part of the animal is used.
25:22
[SPEAKER_01]: And it's actually a pretty beautiful thing to see compared to our somewhat sanitized way of eating meat in the U.S.
25:29
[SPEAKER_01]: And yeah, I mean, I'm not a huge fan of organs, but organs too, fresh out of the sheep is pretty tasty.
25:36
[SPEAKER_01]: I must say.
25:37
[SPEAKER_01]: And yeah, so this life kind of continued for a few weeks.
25:42
[SPEAKER_01]: I spoke zero English the entire time, getting by with a very, very bad Google translate, but I got very good at charades.
25:51
[SPEAKER_01]: And just some reflections I had,
25:55
[SPEAKER_01]: living this nomadic lifestyle is that you know we we we think we have it all here in the west and there's this and I myself are very much a consumer that the stock of Amazon boxes on my my doorstep get a test of that but we're always looking for that next thing right we think this next next product will make us happy this next job this next car whatever it is even this next trip
26:21
[SPEAKER_01]: Living in this lifestyle really showed me what a, for lack of a better word, a simple lifestyle can, can do as far as clarity and connectedness, you know, I, I went to this place with journals and books thinking I'd have a bunch of free time to myself and to reflect and I was most worried about being bored and I think my first, the first time I had even five minutes to myself was about a week into this experience, you know,
26:48
[SPEAKER_01]: You've got 12 people living in one year together, so there's always something to do, whether it's doing work out with the animals or getting water or just sitting and talking and laughing.
27:01
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, the amount of laughter I heard and this year is unbelievable.
27:05
[SPEAKER_01]: And I would say that
27:12
[SPEAKER_01]: I had some of the most clarity of mind I've ever experienced out there and that's something I trace in all of my ventures is that sense of stillness that comes when the wind stops and your heart stops racing and all you can hear is like the clicking of your own thoughts right and that's where it's a difficult place to get to and I think that when our monkey mind is occupied whether it's
27:37
[SPEAKER_01]: thing as simple as meditation or something as exhilarating as galloping a horse across the field, there's really pure moments of clarity that come from that.
27:47
[SPEAKER_01]: And yeah, so if I find this lifestyle leads so a lot of that.
27:53
[SPEAKER_01]: So anyways, we went through all, you know, many, many things happened.
27:57
[SPEAKER_01]: I did learn the parallels of writing among Goli and Saddle.
28:01
[SPEAKER_01]: Among Goli and Saddle
28:06
[SPEAKER_01]: space for gentlemen writing it to have any sort of a breathing room you might call it.
28:12
[SPEAKER_01]: So that was one of the most painful experiences of my life.
28:14
[SPEAKER_01]: I switched to the Russian saddle after that, which is a piece of iron with a piece of leather across it.
28:20
[SPEAKER_01]: Much more comfy.
28:23
[SPEAKER_02]: So iron more comfortable than wood.
28:26
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes.
28:26
[SPEAKER_01]: Much more comfy.
28:27
[SPEAKER_01]: Mongolian legs very strong because they stand in the saddle the whole time.
28:36
[SPEAKER_01]: Mongolians are historically the best, like most accomplished similar wrestlers in the world and there's a reason because anytime you make a stop, you're wrestling.
28:45
[SPEAKER_01]: And so I put in myself surprisingly well against some of them.
28:51
[SPEAKER_01]: I also got tossed a lot.
28:53
[SPEAKER_01]: And you know, the horseback riding is known adventure, but the pre-estriving is an adventure as well because there's no roads out there.
29:00
[SPEAKER_01]: You're just driving on the land.
29:04
[SPEAKER_01]: At one point, we had 11 people in a Prius, and they drive the steering wheels on the right side.
29:11
[SPEAKER_01]: And at one point, they're like, they automated to me, do you want to drive?
29:13
[SPEAKER_01]: I didn't driven in 8 months at this point, and I was like, sure.
29:16
[SPEAKER_01]: So I did an off-roading Prius adventure with 11 people in my hands.
29:22
[SPEAKER_01]: They also don't really use maps, Mongolian folks.
29:26
[SPEAKER_01]: I couldn't get to very good at this, but they just look at distant mountains and somehow know where they are.
29:30
[SPEAKER_01]: And I saw time and time again, I thought we were going the wrong way, but they knew where we were going.
29:34
[SPEAKER_02]: Wow.
29:35
[SPEAKER_01]: So all this leads to a really great adventure that I'd heard about, which is getting to the far northern steps of Mongolia to meet the last indigenous reindeer herders in the country.
29:48
[SPEAKER_01]: So some of my Mongolian friends and I, at this point we've got to know each other pretty well.
29:55
[SPEAKER_01]: We head out to make it to this very distant land, which means, of course, another long bus ride.
30:01
[SPEAKER_01]: The worst bus ride I have ever experienced, it was a old Russian 4x4 van, six seats, 12 people, 15 hours of bone-jarring off-road riding.
30:13
[SPEAKER_01]: Once again, the tour does, during the tour style, it does come with its own benefits.
30:17
[SPEAKER_01]: And we get to this place.
30:20
[SPEAKER_01]: And out there, there's no let calling ahead for how I was doing it.
30:23
[SPEAKER_01]: No calling ahead, just you just show up.
30:25
[SPEAKER_01]: So we just show up at this place and my Mongolian friends, book us some horses, and we start riding.
30:31
[SPEAKER_01]: And the Siberian nomads of no idea were coming, of course.
30:35
[SPEAKER_01]: So we just start riding.
30:36
[SPEAKER_01]: And eight hours of riding that day.
30:38
[SPEAKER_01]: And it's getting pretty dark.
30:40
[SPEAKER_01]: It's like 11 o'clock.
30:41
[SPEAKER_01]: And I'm like, we're on the side of a mountain.
30:44
[SPEAKER_01]: And there's a lot of snow up ahead.
30:48
[SPEAKER_01]: well keep on writing so we ride through the night through over these snowy overpasses i one point i had to run my headlamp and they're like no no no no they just point at the moon which was full so no headlamp used the moon and so about 12 hours that first day of writing over a snowy pass it's like
31:04
[SPEAKER_01]: 3 a.m. we make it into this, we could see these teapies in the distance and we write up and these massive Mongolian mastiffs, which are trained to kill wolves, they're trained to fight up the three wolves at a time.
31:15
[SPEAKER_01]: These huge Mongolian mastiffs go crazy at us and my friends just point forward and they're like just keep riding.
31:22
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, I assume that's what they said.
31:23
[SPEAKER_01]: So we just keep riding while these doctors napping at our heels and we get to this
31:32
[SPEAKER_01]: open it up and this this really lovely like she could have been 50 she could have been 80 I have no idea older going in grandma opens up it's like oh come in come in starts making us food it's 3 a start making us food it's like do you want to eat some food going it's eat on no set eating schedule it could be 6 p.m. it could be midnight whatever tile it's time for tea it's time for dinner
31:55
[SPEAKER_01]: And so I was like, I just want to go to bed.
31:58
[SPEAKER_01]: So we drink some tea and then we get our little beds and she tucks me in.
32:02
[SPEAKER_01]: It was so lovely.
32:04
[SPEAKER_01]: It's not like a baby.
32:04
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm in a legitimate TV, like picture native American TV.
32:07
[SPEAKER_01]: That's what we're sleeping in.
32:09
[SPEAKER_01]: And I wake up and as I open my eyes, the tent flop opens and a fully mantleed rain deer walks in.
32:17
[SPEAKER_01]: And I don't think.
32:19
[SPEAKER_01]: Where am I?
32:20
[SPEAKER_01]: And then my goal and the nomadic woman comes over and feeds the reindeer with some little sugar cubes and we start petting it.
32:28
[SPEAKER_01]: And at that from that point on it was a whole different world I step outside and there's just hundreds of reindeer everywhere and they're milking reindeer and I'm mind blown.
32:38
[SPEAKER_01]: And so we kind of see how they live up there and it's it's a typical existence I will not lie like the land up there is not.
32:49
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, the reindeer are basically their source of life, both for meat, dairy, even clothing, things like that.
32:58
[SPEAKER_01]: And so I got to learn a lot about how this lifestyle works.
33:03
[SPEAKER_01]: And then we put saddles on the reindeer, which I did not know you could do.
33:07
[SPEAKER_01]: And we proceeded to ride the reindeer.
33:09
[SPEAKER_01]: And I have some hilarious videos.
33:12
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, I'm with these expert nomadic horsemen.
33:16
[SPEAKER_01]: 50 generations of riding horses and they're over here trying to ride these obstinate creatures trying to get them to go in a straight line in a zigzag formation and we ride these reindeer to a huge waterfall which just that sentence alone makes me smile every time I think of it yeah seriously and so jump any time but I'm I'm just uh
33:39
[SPEAKER_02]: now you're doing great.
33:40
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm enjoying this so much.
33:42
[SPEAKER_02]: So ride the reindeer to the waterfall.
33:46
[SPEAKER_01]: So yeah, so we spent a few days with with with with with among Mongolian folks and eventually they tell my friends, like hey, we're going to go ride to the next reindeer the rick's reindeer tribe, which is another day's ride.
33:58
[SPEAKER_01]: And then okay, we actually need to deliver some of these reindeer to then.
34:02
[SPEAKER_01]: Can you just take them for us?
34:03
[SPEAKER_01]: So now we're on a now now now now now now we take a few of the ranger with us.
34:08
[SPEAKER_01]: We're back on our
34:11
[SPEAKER_01]: I wish I could send a photo to everyone this name because just picture Massive as far as they I can see valley and we're on the top of this hill with mountains ringing it and a massive river cutting straight through and there's not a ounce of development not a piece of trash Clear skies as far as they I can see and then in a very very distance a little village of TPs with smoke coming out of them
34:38
[SPEAKER_01]: It's like something out of, out of, you know, a novel.
34:41
[SPEAKER_01]: And Mongolia's nickname is, I believe it's the land of the Great Blue Sky.
34:46
[SPEAKER_01]: And it has that nickname for a reason.
34:48
[SPEAKER_01]: So you ride to this next village.
34:51
[SPEAKER_01]: And I had an interesting experience in this one because at the previous village, I felt so connected and everyone was so connected to their life.
35:03
[SPEAKER_01]: And I felt just they had a sense of purpose
35:07
[SPEAKER_01]: And in this village, some of the folks had a solar pan with a little satellite dish and a little very small TV.
35:13
[SPEAKER_01]: And one thing I will say about Mongolia, almost everyone has a cell phone.
35:18
[SPEAKER_01]: People love Facebook, they love, it makes that, it's like everyone else everywhere.
35:23
[SPEAKER_01]: So that is a thing, people have cell phones, it's not.
35:27
[SPEAKER_01]: It's not completely disconnected, but the TVs are a lot less.
35:30
[SPEAKER_01]: And in this village, they had this TV.
35:32
[SPEAKER_01]: And everyone was glued to this TV when they were watching it.
35:35
[SPEAKER_01]: And it really struck me in that moment what impact Western society has on these types of these types of environments.
35:43
[SPEAKER_01]: And I'm not, you know, people get bored out there.
35:46
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm not, I don't want to
35:48
[SPEAKER_01]: say anything one way is wrong or the other way, but for me and the space I was in, it really was very obvious what an impact these TVs, I think we watched home alone too, which honestly, great movie, but it was, it was a very different experience in this village.
36:05
[SPEAKER_01]: I'll say that.
36:06
[SPEAKER_01]: But we delivered the prize reindeer and we headed up, so each day we're doing about eight to 12 hours of riding.
36:13
[SPEAKER_01]: And this next day,
36:18
[SPEAKER_01]: and we've made a little fire with some twigs.
36:20
[SPEAKER_01]: We pulled out some dry deacme, and we poured some river water in it, and made lunch, and we collected some wild green onions, and that's how we did each day.
36:27
[SPEAKER_01]: We would just gather our food, and, you know, usually what I do, do backpacking here, it's like, I've got my free-striped food, and it's already going, I pour hot water with my jet boil, and some of these advanced tools to get to the same,
36:39
[SPEAKER_01]: to the same result, which was we had a pot, we had a bag of dry meat, and we had some river water, and that's got all you need.
36:47
[SPEAKER_02]: Very question for you, I don't want to gloss over the TV experience, because I have a suspicion that that experience probably changed your future, how you perceive entertainment and what you do with your time.
37:03
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, Kurt, you know, I have to say that it's a very, it's a very apt question task because before I did this, you know, I was I certainly like to indulge in the comforts of the Western world and you're completely right.
37:17
[SPEAKER_01]: This, that that moment was very pivotal for me for changing how I spend my leisure time and I did after this trip.
37:28
[SPEAKER_01]: I did delete Instagram for my phone.
37:30
[SPEAKER_01]: I keep it on my computer because it's really good for communicating with folks and, you know, people might say, well, you know, I want to post things, right?
37:39
[SPEAKER_01]: I'll be honest, I love posting things too.
37:41
[SPEAKER_01]: When I post things, I download the app, post it, and delete it again.
37:44
[SPEAKER_01]: Because... Wow.
37:45
[SPEAKER_01]: I have tried so many ways of limiting it, okay, every other day, or 10 minutes or 10 minutes there.
37:50
[SPEAKER_01]: The algorithms too strong.
37:51
[SPEAKER_01]: Other people might be able to, I am too weak to beat the algorithm.
37:55
[SPEAKER_01]: I can't beat it, so I have to just not have it.
37:57
[SPEAKER_01]: So I got rid of Instagram, I got rid of basically all social media off my phone.
38:01
[SPEAKER_01]: You can see right here, this is my TV now.
38:03
[SPEAKER_01]: It's just a gong on the wall.
38:05
[SPEAKER_01]: So we got rid of all the TVs in the house.
38:10
[SPEAKER_01]: I have to say, um, I've never been happier, it, it really, um, you know, and, and either there's, there's, there's middle ground you can have right?
38:19
[SPEAKER_01]: We have a projector.
38:20
[SPEAKER_01]: So, you know, having a movie that with friends is great.
38:22
[SPEAKER_01]: So, just remove, make add a few obstacles to, or a few barriers to entries when I would say, you know, when things are at our very fingertips, we're always using them.
38:33
[SPEAKER_01]: But if it's a little more difficult to get to, then it's more of a treat.
38:36
[SPEAKER_01]: And so, yes, this experience impacted me pretty greatly in really prioritizing being present with my experience of life, both in my day to day and especially on adventures.
38:51
[SPEAKER_01]: because the truth is a lot of these places I was reading no journal from this experience for this interview and I think I read, wow, what a once-in-a-lifetime thing, at least 20 times and you know, life should be made of once-in-a-lifetime things.
39:04
[SPEAKER_01]: People always say, gosh, where the time goes, how time is flown?
39:07
[SPEAKER_01]: Everyone's had this experience where a unique, amazing thing in their life has lasted like, it's almost like a lifetime.
39:14
[SPEAKER_01]: And if you fill your
39:18
[SPEAKER_01]: You get a lot more out of life than you're sitting at watching rewatching an old season of that show you love so I'm not you know, I love watching a movie.
39:26
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm not going to hate anyone's decisions, but I think there's a lot of I live by this motto in life, which is to taste the marrow of life, right, to really get everything out of every experience.
39:38
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think that there's a lot that can be that can be found and seen and enjoyed if we just look beyond
39:46
[SPEAKER_01]: the lowest hanging fruit.
39:48
[SPEAKER_01]: Hmm, we're like another.
39:49
[SPEAKER_02]: Right.
39:49
[SPEAKER_02]: I have a parallel story.
39:50
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm going to share just because it's meaningful.
39:53
[SPEAKER_02]: I was in Kenya years ago.
39:55
[SPEAKER_02]: And most villages didn't have televisions or TV or anything like that at the time.
40:01
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm sure they probably do now.
40:02
[SPEAKER_02]: And cellphones didn't exist in Kenya at the time either.
40:05
[SPEAKER_02]: So it was like no electronics, but in Nairobi, a young man found us and dragged us to
40:15
[SPEAKER_02]: And this is a sidebar, but he had a bunch of buddies that were behind the bushes waiting to jump us, and he called them off.
40:24
[SPEAKER_02]: And I was like, oh boy, that was close.
40:27
[SPEAKER_02]: Anyway, we got to his house and somehow he had a small television.
40:31
[SPEAKER_02]: And it was playing MTV, which, you know, that's not really a thing now.
40:35
[SPEAKER_02]: But imagine scantily-clad women doing sexual moves to heavy beat music, you know, and he kept pointing at it and begging us to take him there.
40:45
[SPEAKER_02]: And you know, we have a language barrier.
40:46
[SPEAKER_02]: We're like, dude, that doesn't exist.
40:49
[SPEAKER_02]: That's entertainment.
40:51
[SPEAKER_02]: It's not real.
40:52
[SPEAKER_02]: And we could not convince him that life was better.
40:55
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, living it maybe the way he was living it, that that was a fantasy, not a real world.
41:03
[SPEAKER_02]: And I just couldn't believe how heavily impacted he was because he got a small taste of Western entertainment.
41:11
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, I'll guess where a lot of people I met both among Goliath and in my travels
41:19
[SPEAKER_01]: when they visit America, Las Vegas.
41:22
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes.
41:23
[SPEAKER_01]: And so, you know, it's kind of almost like, this is what we're packaging and selling around the world.
41:28
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think one of the most beautiful things of travel is that I feel like, you know, for the listeners, myself, you, everyone, we have almost a duty, you know, we're showing who our society is, right?
41:42
[SPEAKER_01]: So when we travel somewhere else, this, we might be the first person from the United States or Europe or wherever that they've ever met.
41:49
[SPEAKER_01]: And if I had come in, like some, you know, stuck up, you know, needy person, that's what they would think that all Westerners are.
41:59
[SPEAKER_01]: And instead, I'm like, all right, six a.m. Let's move to my access to this thing.
42:03
[SPEAKER_01]: So I think that how we, how we hold ourselves during travel goes a lot to that cultural exchange.
42:11
[SPEAKER_01]: Because, you know, there's actually a big, you know, a lot of articles about this, this idea that travel, even travels becoming this very commercialized package thing
42:19
[SPEAKER_01]: I sell this on Instagram, I need this exact experience, and we're going and consuming.
42:23
[SPEAKER_01]: And yet, just because we're going somewhere new, doesn't mean that we're going just to consume the experience of this place.
42:29
[SPEAKER_01]: We're also bringing our own selves, right?
42:32
[SPEAKER_01]: And so I think it's really nice if people go in with the mindset of, wow, how can I not just experience this place, but add to what it is, right?
42:43
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think that's a powerful thing.
42:46
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, the cultural exchange, part of that, I just want to highlight it.
42:50
[SPEAKER_02]: So important, and at that time, Kenyans didn't know Westerners, and they had expectations, you know, based on false information, and just our exchanges with the people that became great friends.
43:02
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, just love the people, love the country, but they were shocked that we were human.
43:16
[SPEAKER_01]: So, I take it y'all weren't, um, scancily clad dancing to, no.
43:20
[SPEAKER_02]: This isn't something we tried to be a little bit more real than that.
43:24
[SPEAKER_01]: And do you think, do you think that that made an impact after the fact of how they viewed Westerners and Americans?
43:32
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, I, I humbly hope.
43:35
[SPEAKER_02]: that we gave them food for thought that they realized it the impression once we got to know people well enough that they were willing to share with us was they thought that westerners wall rich that they didn't work that they played all the time and they had more money than they knew what to do with and it was it was just kind of the mindset from watching
43:56
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, Hollywood productions that show our, you know, a lifestyle at the top point, one of the top point, one percent of the world or something, and they thought that all Westerners were that.
44:08
[SPEAKER_02]: And when we explain, no, we work really hard.
44:11
[SPEAKER_02]: And we're human too, and, you know, it was, it was, I think it was healthy for both of us.
44:17
[SPEAKER_01]: Absolutely.
44:18
[SPEAKER_02]: That's my hope, right?
44:19
[SPEAKER_01]: I think that's just a great example of the, the power
44:25
[SPEAKER_01]: just for everyone, right, for ourselves and the folks that we meet along the way.
44:29
[SPEAKER_01]: And you know, just like that, you know, staying open to, hey, let's go on some random side adventure that I could and poorly, but could end great for us, like being open to that.
44:38
[SPEAKER_01]: And I bet y'all were pretty excited and I bet the person you're with really liked y'all because of that.
44:42
[SPEAKER_01]: So that's why he called off his good friends.
44:44
[SPEAKER_02]: I think so.
44:45
[SPEAKER_01]: I suspect there's a few times I've avoided a good stirring shake down just by kind of winning over
44:54
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, you know, just being friendly and letting them know that you're there with them and that you're human too and that you care about people and yes.
45:04
[SPEAKER_01]: One way.
45:06
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
45:07
[SPEAKER_01]: And so, I mean, just to close out the Mongolia thing, there was, I could talk at Nazium, but, you know, the end of that reindeer experience was we geared up and we had a long eight hour ride with a lot of galloping.
45:24
[SPEAKER_01]: like they can get like in right hard, like 30 miles.
45:26
[SPEAKER_01]: It's unbelievable.
45:27
[SPEAKER_01]: And so we did some hard writing that day.
45:30
[SPEAKER_01]: And I just remember putting my headphones in and listening to Lord of the Rings as I'm just dead galloping his horse in my robe.
45:37
[SPEAKER_01]: And just thinking of myself in that moment like, this is a peak life experience.
45:42
[SPEAKER_03]: Yes.
45:42
[SPEAKER_01]: Where do I go from here?
45:45
[SPEAKER_01]: And so I did that day.
45:47
[SPEAKER_01]: We actually met
45:52
[SPEAKER_01]: He had a horse with all this gear and he was doing exactly what I had wanted to do, riding a horse across the country.
45:59
[SPEAKER_01]: And I remember he asked how far to the next village and we told him about seven hours of hard riding and this four-learned objective look comes over his face.
46:06
[SPEAKER_01]: And in that moment I was like, boy, I sure I'm glad I didn't go with that first play.
46:12
[SPEAKER_02]: The guy's probably not eaten in days.
46:14
[SPEAKER_01]: It looked, well he made a tragic mistake which is, you need two horses.
46:18
[SPEAKER_02]: One to carry your gear, one to carry his.
46:22
[SPEAKER_01]: So, but yeah, so, you know, many more things went down to Mongolia and ended up getting a motorcycle and off-road motorcycleing for weeks, crossing some pretty treacherous flooded rivers on that.
46:34
[SPEAKER_01]: And when about a month without speaking English, except for here and there, and I went to Tokyo after it, I'll tell you this, going from Mongolia to Tokyo is quite the culture shock.
46:46
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, but yeah, so I would say if you've ever thought
46:53
[SPEAKER_01]: go now before the secret gets out.
46:56
[SPEAKER_01]: It is still very much a raw experience.
47:00
[SPEAKER_01]: And you don't have to go doing things crazy as I just said, even the tours are a unforgettable experience.
47:05
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
47:05
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay, that was beautiful.
47:08
[SPEAKER_02]: You just gave us such an amazing taste of what real adventure travel is about.
47:15
[SPEAKER_02]: And so many tips in there that were nestled in the stories about how to make it, what it can really be.
47:21
[SPEAKER_02]: And I'm kind of blown away by it, Rory, just to be candid.
47:25
[SPEAKER_02]: But why?
47:30
[SPEAKER_01]: Why?
47:30
[SPEAKER_01]: It's a good question.
47:32
[SPEAKER_01]: It's a good question.
47:35
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, I ask myself this, I ask myself this as well, and I think it ties a lot back into what I was saying of breaking from the norm, breaking from the routine.
47:47
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, Mongolia is just one great example of what that looks like, right?
47:55
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, what I really want to talk about in here was how
47:59
[SPEAKER_01]: anyone can find great adventure and this is just it, you know, we work our day-to-day jobs, we save up money, we do the things we need to do because life is made up of a lot more than just filing your TPS reports and making dinner and going to bed and rinsing and repeating.
48:20
[SPEAKER_01]: There's very few places that you can experience things that are so unlike what you do in your
48:28
[SPEAKER_01]: than by simply getting on a plane or getting in a car and just going to a totally different place.
48:33
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, even in America, you could drive to rural Arizona or you could go to Alaska or anything in between.
48:41
[SPEAKER_01]: Right.
48:41
[SPEAKER_01]: And experience a totally different world.
48:44
[SPEAKER_01]: And what it brings for you, I find every time I do a grand adventure, I come back.
48:49
[SPEAKER_01]: with the deep sense of appreciation for a staff for my life because you know, I don't wanna sugarcoat things.
48:54
[SPEAKER_01]: That traveling Mongolia, and much the travel I've done, is extremely uncomfortable and extremely arduous at times.
49:00
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think to myself, wow, when I get through this, I'm gonna appreciate the this experience and my life so much more.
49:07
[SPEAKER_01]: And that's the truth, and you get that buzz and that glow afterwards.
49:11
[SPEAKER_01]: Part of it is that just getting, getting that sense of fulfillment.
49:18
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, I have a good friend who said at the end of the day, life is all about the stories that we can tell both ourselves and tell others, right, and our life is made up of these various stories of what makes up our life.
49:31
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think there's a lot of truth to that that being able to to look back on life without regret is a really beautiful thing and how many how many times we hear stories of the richest people in the world being mired in depression, right.
49:47
[SPEAKER_01]: It's because that's been their focus, right?
49:49
[SPEAKER_01]: And when people focus their lives around building community and building family and chasing things that get them excited, that's for me as a recipe for a really happy and fulfilled life.
50:01
[SPEAKER_01]: And for me, they go hand in hand, right?
50:06
[SPEAKER_01]: Thinking up these crazy experiences and then bringing people in my life on them, right?
50:11
[SPEAKER_01]: That's that shared experience.
50:16
[SPEAKER_01]: that really envies a sense of fulfillment and meaning into life.
50:23
[SPEAKER_01]: even the difficult stuff.
50:24
[SPEAKER_01]: Sometimes the most difficult stuff is the best part, you know, if you can persevere through a 15-hour off-roading excursion, then suddenly, you know, waking up early to go to the gym is a little less hard to ascertain.
50:36
[SPEAKER_02]: Right?
50:36
[SPEAKER_02]: A little bit easier to do the small challenges in everyday life when you know that you can do the big challenges.
50:44
[SPEAKER_02]: That's one of the benefits of adventure sports as well.
50:48
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, memories are worth a lot more than things.
50:51
[SPEAKER_02]: I believe that.
50:52
[SPEAKER_02]: And I think it's something worth pondering.
50:55
[SPEAKER_02]: If you're going to spend your money, spend your money on memories, because they'll travel with you everywhere, and they won't load you down, and I really believe in that.
51:05
[SPEAKER_02]: And there's so many organizations out there that are trying to sell you an experience.
51:11
[SPEAKER_02]: And like you said, the tourists, buses are great, but you have found a way to go have the experiences instead of trying to buy one.
51:22
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, absolutely, and we'll just just just just to a point on the memories, you know, memories I totally agree in some ways they last much, much longer in some ways they last shorter and that is that, you know, for me, my memory is not that not that great.
51:38
[SPEAKER_01]: So I think when you're making those memories, you know, do yourself a favor.
51:43
[SPEAKER_01]: Take some photos make a little video journal journal the experience journal what you're feeling in that moment and I can't tell you how many times I'll look at a decade old journal and read a single line and that whole memory will come back fully formed to me so if you're traveling do your self a favor I know you we always say it I need to be turning to your self a favor keep that journal even if it's just bullet points even if it's in your phone it it'll last a lot longer here's another one I got it I got to add to that yeah
52:09
[SPEAKER_02]: Do the journal absolutely, I've done it, I agree 100%.
52:12
[SPEAKER_02]: But as you travel, take a moment to memorize the experience.
52:17
[SPEAKER_02]: You take a, you take a, I call it a memory photo.
52:21
[SPEAKER_02]: look at the area around you and close your eyes and imagine it and then open your eyes and see how close you were and do that three or four times and then soak in the smells, the temperature, what you fill on your skin, feel it, absorb it, observe it and it's a memory photo that you can revisit.
52:40
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm laughing because I do that to the T exact same thing and I've never had a name for it and I now have memory photo to attach to it.
52:48
[SPEAKER_01]: So thank you very much.
52:50
[SPEAKER_01]: I will second that it is.
52:52
[SPEAKER_01]: I, yeah, you put it perfectly.
52:54
[SPEAKER_01]: That is one of my favorite things to do.
52:56
[SPEAKER_01]: And when I describe that vista among all, yeah, I was going back to that memory photo.
52:59
[SPEAKER_01]: So it really does work.
53:00
[SPEAKER_02]: I love it.
53:00
[SPEAKER_02]: I love it.
53:02
[SPEAKER_01]: But yes, I mean, I'll touch on a few things.
53:04
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, there's some, there, I want to go a couple, a couple of different things to mention on this.
53:09
[SPEAKER_01]: One is, if all of the people you say, you know, I think we're a composite of the five people we surround ourselves most with with our own sense of self mixed in, right?
53:17
[SPEAKER_01]: And if all you surround yourself is with people
53:21
[SPEAKER_01]: don't want to do adventure and don't want to do new things and are completely uninsured in getting outside the norm.
53:27
[SPEAKER_01]: And if that's what you like also, that's totally fine.
53:30
[SPEAKER_01]: But you're listening to this podcast.
53:31
[SPEAKER_01]: So you're probably at least a little interested in getting out there and going for it.
53:35
[SPEAKER_01]: So surround yourself with people like that.
53:38
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, I love surrounding myself with crazy people who go think big and go big because no matter how crazy
53:49
[SPEAKER_01]: If there's that person you've met and they did some crazy stuff invite them to go get some coffee go go meet them, you know, ask them about how they do stuff and
53:57
[SPEAKER_01]: Put in the little idea of, hey, next time you're doing some cool thing, let me know.
54:00
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm totally game.
54:02
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm sure I'm good at whatever you're going to do.
54:04
[SPEAKER_01]: And then if they invite you, you know, I always want to learn to sail and then I got invited to go sail.
54:09
[SPEAKER_01]: I had no idea how to sail.
54:10
[SPEAKER_01]: So I watched a bunch of YouTube videos and then got there and pretended I knew what I was doing and eventually they put me on their sailing team.
54:17
[SPEAKER_02]: So nice.
54:18
[SPEAKER_01]: That's just one example of fake it so you make it.
54:20
[SPEAKER_01]: So that's one thing.
54:21
[SPEAKER_01]: Just decide what it is you want to do and then go out.
54:24
[SPEAKER_01]: There's groups called Meetup.
54:26
[SPEAKER_01]: there's things online.
54:27
[SPEAKER_01]: Go online and find the groups that are doing what you want to do.
54:29
[SPEAKER_01]: Go that, that's one way or if it involves travel, travel there and look for a Facebook group of people who are doing what you're doing and meet people that way.
54:38
[SPEAKER_01]: A big one is I, it's almost a game for me to see how affordably I can do epic adventures.
54:47
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, you can make travel for anyone who says that travel is too expensive.
54:51
[SPEAKER_01]: You can make travel very, very affordable.
54:53
[SPEAKER_01]: If the flight's expensive, you know, get some credit, get some credit card points.
54:57
[SPEAKER_01]: If the travel is expensive, go the local route.
54:59
[SPEAKER_01]: I guarantee you if you're in a place and the locals are traveling, there's a way to do it cheaply because that tourist bus that's $300 is probably about $6 if you're willing to rough it for the tourist for the local one.
55:10
[SPEAKER_01]: And let me tell you, it's not going to be a C, but when you're wedge between chicken crates and a bag of potatoes, you're going to get the local experience.
55:17
[SPEAKER_01]: And in the moment, it might not be that cool that afterwards, you know, you're not going to remember the AC, you're going to remember that wild locals only experience that you had.
55:26
[SPEAKER_01]: So that's a big one.
55:28
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think a really big one is just, you know, we talked about a
55:35
[SPEAKER_01]: And a critic, I had a big epiphany when I was younger.
55:38
[SPEAKER_01]: And believe it or not, I used to be huge cars potato.
55:40
[SPEAKER_01]: I just laid around watching TV all day.
55:44
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, it was very messy, unorganized.
55:46
[SPEAKER_01]: And I had this epiphany in my early 20s that anything that we want in life is achievable.
55:53
[SPEAKER_01]: That's just it.
55:53
[SPEAKER_01]: And all it takes is the activation energy.
55:57
[SPEAKER_01]: to make it happen.
55:58
[SPEAKER_01]: And the more people that we can get involved on whatever it is we're trying to do, the more activation energy and the more bandwidth we have.
56:04
[SPEAKER_01]: And in that moment, I just realize, you know, I have a lot of crazy adventures I want to do.
56:09
[SPEAKER_01]: I have a lot of these wild ideas.
56:11
[SPEAKER_01]: I'll put in the activation energy and I'll make it happen.
56:13
[SPEAKER_01]: And since that I've really lived by this idea of thinking of something and getting people involved in it to
56:26
[SPEAKER_01]: All that is to say, if you have a wild idea, be that spark of energy to activate it, right?
56:31
[SPEAKER_01]: If you have some cool trip in mind, don't sit back and wait for others to do it, start planning it, put it together.
56:39
[SPEAKER_01]: ChatGPT, honestly, your AI is a great tool for this.
56:42
[SPEAKER_01]: It can help you lay out what organizing this would look like.
56:47
[SPEAKER_01]: And then you can get your friends involved, right?
56:50
[SPEAKER_01]: Some things can be so cheap, if you split up between 10 people.
56:54
[SPEAKER_01]: even if it's just renting a van and driving through the national parks, unbelievable adventure awaits when you do that kind of thing.
57:00
[SPEAKER_01]: We, even our own country, we live in a place of unbelievable natural splendor.
57:05
[SPEAKER_01]: And anytime I travel, I get this same question, which is, why are you traveling here?
57:10
[SPEAKER_01]: I see the photos of America, and it's my dream to go there.
57:13
[SPEAKER_01]: Why would you even leave?
57:14
[SPEAKER_01]: And there's truth from that.
57:15
[SPEAKER_01]: We have so much in our very fingertips to go and see.
57:18
[SPEAKER_01]: You don't need to fly across the world to get there.
57:20
[SPEAKER_01]: It's right in your backyard.
57:23
[SPEAKER_01]: So my the biggest thing I would say is right out and visualize what adventures you want to do make a bucket list of adventures and start checking them off one by one, you know, maybe that means you're going to do one small adventure a month and one big adventure a year, we guess what 20 years that's about.
57:38
[SPEAKER_01]: 240 small adventures and 20 large adventures, and that's enough to throw in the lifetime.
57:44
[SPEAKER_02]: Awesome advice.
57:45
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, it's not going to surprise anyone when I say this.
57:48
[SPEAKER_02]: I can't go look at something.
57:50
[SPEAKER_02]: I have to go do a place.
57:53
[SPEAKER_02]: And so that's, that's my word of advice as well.
57:56
[SPEAKER_02]: Don't just go see it.
57:57
[SPEAKER_02]: do it.
57:58
[SPEAKER_02]: Whatever is there.
57:59
[SPEAKER_02]: Go do it.
57:59
[SPEAKER_02]: Don't just see it.
58:00
[SPEAKER_02]: Do it.
58:00
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, get out in it and experience it.
58:03
[SPEAKER_01]: Absolutely.
58:04
[SPEAKER_01]: I'll add, actually, just as one fun thing people can try.
58:06
[SPEAKER_01]: I literally just got back this weekend from London.
58:09
[SPEAKER_01]: And I randomly supply for game shows.
58:12
[SPEAKER_01]: And I got on this game show and they flew me out there for this all expense paid trip to Europe.
58:16
[SPEAKER_01]: And I competed on this wild trivia game show.
58:19
[SPEAKER_01]: And
58:20
[SPEAKER_01]: This is a perfect example of just think outside the box, you know, um, I'm sure you're if you're listening to this, I'm sure you have tons of amazing things you can talk about, apply to game shows, go volunteer for some, you know, national parks hike, do whatever, if you just go online and say, what should I do for this?
58:38
[SPEAKER_01]: You're going to get a blog post that 10,000 people have read and have also tried to do.
58:42
[SPEAKER_01]: A big thing is think outside the box and finally off the beaten pack.
58:47
[SPEAKER_01]: path, you know, two roads I've originally forced.
58:50
[SPEAKER_01]: Instead of going on either one of them, go on your own.
58:53
[SPEAKER_02]: I love it.
58:54
[SPEAKER_02]: That's beautiful.
58:55
[SPEAKER_02]: Rory, I wish we could talk for hours more.
58:58
[SPEAKER_02]: But tell you what, we'll have you back on at some point and we'll just pick up where we left off and keep going because this is great stuff.
59:06
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I'll have some new adventures to Regale.
59:09
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, the beauty of it is, two thoughts come to mind, but one is, you know how because you went and you did.
59:16
[SPEAKER_02]: And sometimes the doors open when we start going.
59:19
[SPEAKER_02]: If you try to pre-plan too much, it might be overwhelming you may never go.
59:24
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, it turns into armchair travel and not much else, and sometimes you just have to get on the bus, get on the plane, start the adventure, and let it unfold.
59:33
[SPEAKER_02]: And I can tell that you've done that, and wow.
59:38
[SPEAKER_02]: fantastic.
59:39
[SPEAKER_02]: I just want to say thank you for sharing today, you know, the Mongolia stuff that there's so many other things I know, but I want to trip on an epic life experience and the things you learn from that that you share with us, meaningful things about how to live a better life.
59:54
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, I really appreciate you having me on court.
59:57
[SPEAKER_01]: I appreciate all of the all the access to adventure that this podcast provides.
1:00:02
[SPEAKER_01]: And, you know,
1:00:04
[SPEAKER_01]: there's so many sources of inspiration both for myself and for everyone listening that come from this so I'm excited to keep listening to future episodes as well and get my own inspiration I got to make sure I take my own advice right?
1:00:16
[SPEAKER_02]: Well that's fantastic well thanks man and for all the listeners out there wow this was fun get out there and have your own fun just do it appreciate a card you bet.