Latest / The Everyday Awesome Project / 64: Dreams That Won’t Die: Stop Ignoring the Vision That Keeps Calling You

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64: Dreams That Won’t Die: Stop Ignoring the Vision That Keeps Calling You · The Everyday Awesome Project

• 0:27
  Polly Mertens: hey, superstars, welcome back polly here and sam pruitt.
• 0:30
  Samantha Pruitt: What's up, beautiful humans, yo yo guys.
• 0:32
  Polly Mertens: So today's topic pretty interesting title we've given it.
• 0:36
  Polly Mertens: What the hell are we talking about today?
• 0:38
  Samantha Pruitt: dreams that won't die.
• 0:41
  Samantha Pruitt: Is that dramatic enough for you?
• 0:45
  Polly Mertens: Totally.
• 0:46
  Samantha Pruitt: I love it.
• 0:47
  Samantha Pruitt: I love it.
• 0:47
  Samantha Pruitt: Where are we?
• 0:48
  Samantha Pruitt: And the hilarity is.
• 0:50
  Polly Mertens: We're in person together right now.
• 0:51
  Samantha Pruitt: We're together in person, which is one of our favorite things to do in the world, and we're in Big Bear, california.
• 0:57
  Samantha Pruitt: So we're up, a little bit of altitude, a little bit of snow, definitely some chilly vibes going on here.
• 1:03
  Samantha Pruitt: It's still winter Altitude, a little bit of snow, definitely some chilly vibes going on here.
• 1:06
  Samantha Pruitt: It's still winter.
• 1:06
  Samantha Pruitt: And we decided to get together in person A because it had been far too long and we both enjoyed doing that.
• 1:11
  Samantha Pruitt: But really I believe we both needed a mental and emotional recalibration.
• 1:18
  Samantha Pruitt: And where do we do that?
• 1:19
  Samantha Pruitt: Polly In the nature.
• 1:21
  Polly Mertens: We do it in nature Wherever we can find it.
• 1:23
  Polly Mertens: If it's at the beach, it's at the beach.
• 1:24
  Polly Mertens: We do it in nature wherever we can find it.
• 1:25
  Polly Mertens: If it's at the beach, it's at the beach.
• 1:25
  Polly Mertens: If it's in the mountains, it's in the mountains.
• 1:26
  Polly Mertens: If it's in the desert, it's in the desert, but it's always outside, it's always in nature.
• 1:29
  Samantha Pruitt: Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's.
• 1:31
  Samantha Pruitt: It's just our home, really.
• 1:33
  Samantha Pruitt: It's where humanity was born, by the way, so it's everybody's home we have some fun things we've been up to.
• 1:39
  Polly Mertens: So today we just got back from a like-hour hike.
• 1:42
  Samantha Pruitt: We're out in the wilderness On the PCT, the Pacific Crest Trail.
• 1:48
  Samantha Pruitt: I couldn't be more stoked.
• 1:51
  Polly Mertens: Seriously Talk about a vision.
• 1:52
  Polly Mertens: You've been talking about this.
• 1:54
  Polly Mertens: Like I'm on the PCT.
• 1:55
  Polly Mertens: So tell people what the PCT is, in case they don't know what it is.
• 1:59
  Samantha Pruitt: Yeah, the Pacific Crest Trail is one of the many classic long trails.
• 2:03
  Samantha Pruitt: This one, in particular, goes from the border of Mexico, california, all the way through the state of California, all the way through the state of Oregon, all the way through the state of Washington to the.
• 2:15
  Samantha Pruitt: Canadian border.
• 2:16
  Samantha Pruitt: Oh my God, it's so awesome and I have had on my radar for a long time to do some of the PCT.
• 2:23
  Samantha Pruitt: You know I never really thought you know, drop out of life and do the whole thing.
• 2:26
  Samantha Pruitt: But I'm never going to say never At some point.
• 2:29
  Polly Mertens: If I have the opportunity I would really be thrilled to do that, but at this point in my life I feel like what I can afford time, energy resources, et cetera is to start doing segments and it's not like a huge, like some people just get that fire in the belly, calling like I gotta, I gotta do the PCT.
• 2:46
  Samantha Pruitt: Six months.
• 2:46
  Samantha Pruitt: They drop out of life for six months.
• 2:48
  Samantha Pruitt: It takes five to six months to do the entire thing.
• 2:53
  Polly Mertens: And what was it you said there's a day that they all start.
• 2:55
  Polly Mertens: Tell me about that.
• 2:56
  Samantha Pruitt: Yeah, that's coming up in April and at the Southern terminus.
• 3:01
  Samantha Pruitt: So the beginning of the trail head there in Campo is where they all get together and everybody camps and you know they wish off.
• 3:09
  Samantha Pruitt: Well, wish off the people who are starting their hike, and you can start at different times.
• 3:15
  Polly Mertens: You don't have to start on that day, but it's the official start of the season and you do have to have a permit to do this and so forth.
• 3:20
  Samantha Pruitt: So there's a giant community around Pacific Crest Trail and an entire organization behind it and you should definitely look into this.
• 3:29
  Samantha Pruitt: So we knew we were coming up here.
• 3:32
  Samantha Pruitt: Pct has been on one of my many bucket lists of things to be doing and I'm planning a couple segment hikes this year.
• 3:39
  Samantha Pruitt: So we're up here together.
• 3:41
  Samantha Pruitt: You're definitely up to your eyeballs in the work called Landmark Forum and doing some really incredible stuff right now.
• 3:51
  Samantha Pruitt: So we've got so much energy and creative juices flowing.
• 3:56
  Samantha Pruitt: But we went out onto the PCT.
• 3:57
  Samantha Pruitt: So, of course, as we're heading to the trailhead, you're like well, I have to look up the history of the PCT to see how it even came to fruition, and as we're driving to the trailhead, you're reading the history of the PCT to us.
• 4:17
  Samantha Pruitt: So I want you to share that a little bit with our audience, because this podcast isn't about the PCT, but what it is about and what we're going to talk about today is dreams and how dreams turn into realities.
• 4:33
  Samantha Pruitt: We could never in a million years fathom when that first dream is just sparked, the first idea, the first concept, the first dream, how it goes from that very sleepy little spark into a freaking inferno that changes not only our life but the lives of everybody that we touch.
• 4:52
  Samantha Pruitt: And since you're currently in dream building process and we'll get into that we thought this would be a good way to start the conversation.
• 5:01
  Polly Mertens: Yeah, yeah.
• 5:01
  Polly Mertens: And it was interesting because it was like, you know, I was just having fun.
• 5:04
  Polly Mertens: I fun, I was like, oh, it'd be fun to look up who are the founders of the pcg, with this thing that we you and I just for years have known about.
• 5:09
  Polly Mertens: And if you live in anywhere near california or if you're a big hiker, you've well I'm obsessed with the youtube videos.
• 5:16
  Samantha Pruitt: I mean, come on, yeah super fun, super fun.
• 5:18
  Polly Mertens: We're like what's going on?
• 5:19
  Polly Mertens: Who?
• 5:19
  Polly Mertens: Where did this come from?
• 5:20
  Polly Mertens: Like, is it been here a long time?
• 5:22
  Polly Mertens: How long has it been around?
• 5:24
  Polly Mertens: Come to find out.
• 5:25
  Polly Mertens: It's been.
• 5:25
  Samantha Pruitt: Come to find out.
• 5:27
  Samantha Pruitt: There's a story.
• 5:28
  Samantha Pruitt: Can you imagine?
• 5:29
  Samantha Pruitt: Every good thing starts with that, a very simple, simple spark of a conversation between two humans.
• 5:38
  Samantha Pruitt: So share it.
• 5:38
  Polly Mertens: We won't share the whole thing, but what's got us lit up that we you know, you know for three hours we just couldn't stop talking about you know well, we weren't talking about the pct, though.
• 5:47
  Samantha Pruitt: It was simply resonating so deep within us that we were on this magical land, sharing this moment in nature, which you know really lights a sunfire, but that you're also in the middle of this work yeah, the creation of a dream that has been sparked and flamed, and sparked and flamed and just won't die.
• 6:10
  Samantha Pruitt: It's a dream that won't die, and now is the time for it to become real, yeah, and you're bringing it to life.
• 6:15
  Polly Mertens: That's the things dream, yep, yep.
• 6:17
  Polly Mertens: So just real, briefly.
• 6:19
  Polly Mertens: And you know, please look up the pct.
• 6:22
  Polly Mertens: It was fascinating.
• 6:22
  Polly Mertens: There's was fascinating.
• 6:23
  Polly Mertens: It was like PCTAorg is where we're getting some of this from, but there's like an app for it and all that stuff.
• 6:30
  Polly Mertens: But it was like Catherine Montgomery had a woman the female identified human, catherine Montgomery, was up in Washington State.
• 6:40
  Samantha Pruitt: What year is this?
• 6:41
  Polly Mertens: 19.
• 6:41
  Polly Mertens: Well, they said that she told someone her idea.
• 6:44
  Polly Mertens: She's like yo.
• 6:45
  Polly Mertens: I think we should consider a trail that goes from Mexico to Canada.
• 6:51
  Polly Mertens: Yes, in 1926.
• 6:53
  Samantha Pruitt: 1926.
• 6:55
  Polly Mertens: Nearly 100 years ago 1926, Catherine says to a fellow nature lover there weren't even automobiles Like I'm not even sure there was automobiles floating around, like she's like.
• 7:03
  Polly Mertens: What do you think about the fellow nature lover?
• 7:03
  Polly Mertens: There weren't even automobiles.
• 7:04
  Polly Mertens: I'm not even sure there were automobiles floating around.
• 7:04
  Polly Mertens: What do you think about the idea of this love trail?
• 7:08
  Polly Mertens: There was nothing like this.
• 7:09
  Polly Mertens: What the hell was going on?
• 7:11
  Samantha Pruitt: I mean in 1926, people were trying to survive.
• 7:15
  Polly Mertens: Soup lines and stuff like that was on the verge of the Great Depression was around the corner.
• 7:20
  Polly Mertens: Little did they know.
• 7:21
  Polly Mertens: Bad times, world War II, all that stuff exactly but this 1926 catherine says hey, you know, I think we should talk about this.
• 7:30
  Samantha Pruitt: And then a couple other people sparked with it and she creates, she you know she gets a few others, and then this guy's like we should have a conference so this guy I want to get his name, if I can find him, but anyway, well, if we can possibly do this, we need to have a conference where we can bring all the powers that be together and talk about how to get it done.
• 7:50
  Samantha Pruitt: You know, he's the strategy and the execution, she's the visionary.
• 7:54
  Samantha Pruitt: Okay, keep telling the story.
• 7:56
  Polly Mertens: So we just we started reading the story and there's this one article it was like oh my God, and then this guy did this.
• 8:01
  Polly Mertens: And then they got.
• 8:02
  Polly Mertens: It was like oh my god, and then this guy did this and then they got you know they went to the president and then it turned into this and then they got the ymca people involved and, like the boy scouts and and then you know lbj and all, and it was like this is fast and it was just beautiful because you and I both.
• 8:13
  Polly Mertens: We love learning and history and stuff like that, but we got to this point where we're just out in nature and we're learning or we're on our way to the trail before we got you know, literally the drive to this.
• 8:24
  Polly Mertens: I'm reading you this article and we got to this point in this article and I just want to share one paragraph from it because it was a little bit of the spark like by the time we got to the parking lot, you and I were like, oh my god, this aligns so much with things that you and I have been talking about.
• 8:37
  Samantha Pruitt: I was ready to sprint all the way to the mexican border.
• 8:40
  Samantha Pruitt: We're in Big Bear.
• 8:41
  Samantha Pruitt: That was going to take a while, let's go.
• 8:44
  Samantha Pruitt: I was like I gotta go.
• 8:46
  Polly Mertens: I can't stop.
• 8:48
  Samantha Pruitt: Okay, so some of these names.
• 8:50
  Polly Mertens: Just ignore the reference or whatever.
• 8:51
  Polly Mertens: You'll recognize whatever, but anyway, but just get.
• 8:54
  Polly Mertens: The context of this is an article that a gal in present day I think it was 2016, was writing about what she had learned about the PCT.
• 9:03
  Polly Mertens: So she did this summary article of like, oh, this person did this and they had this influence.
• 9:07
  Polly Mertens: She went to interview the visionaries and the people moved that ball down the field.
• 9:14
  Samantha Pruitt: And she's like who are these people?
• 9:16
  Samantha Pruitt: What was going on?
• 9:17
  Polly Mertens: She called, one of them hung up on her you know whatever.
• 9:19
  Polly Mertens: Yeah, we're calling her today, by the way, when we were done with this podcast.
• 9:22
  Polly Mertens: So in one of those articles, one of the things that you and I got lit up by that has to do with these dreams that won't die.
• 9:30
  Polly Mertens: It was like so, um, referencing this person, udall, um, who's a writer, as I understand it, something like that behind the scenes in writing speeches for Congress and you know powers that be and whatnot.
• 9:44
  Polly Mertens: So Udall's ideas about quality, meaning quality aligned with the concerns LBJ Lyndon, b Johnson and his wife, lady Bird, had about ugliness and natural beauty.
• 9:58
  Polly Mertens: While these might sound like frivolous concerns in a time of great strife, these concepts had serious implications.
• 10:05
  Polly Mertens: You guys, just keep in mind this was the 1960s.
• 10:09
  Polly Mertens: We're talking Vietnam.
• 10:10
  Polly Mertens: You know there's like struggles, you know all that stuff.
• 10:12
  Polly Mertens: Natural beauty was linked to mental health, and mental health was sorely needed by a troubled nation Johnson's natural beauty message of 1965.
• 10:24
  Polly Mertens: So he had a speech that he gave to Congress in 1965.
• 10:28
  Polly Mertens: Look up the speech.
• 10:28
  Polly Mertens: Look up the speech.
• 10:29
  Polly Mertens: Yeah, it's beautiful.
• 10:30
  Polly Mertens: And so the quote from that that had you and I just about to pull off the road was the beauty of our land is a natural treasure.
• 10:37
  Polly Mertens: Its preservation is linked to the inner prosperity of the human spirit.
• 10:42
  Samantha Pruitt: Inner prosperity.
• 10:44
  Polly Mertens: That's why it is precisely at such moments of strife and anxiety that outdoor recreation outlets become so critically needed, and one of the things you and I were talking about before we started this was, like you know, we're hearing that our federal government right now is shutting down parks and firing, you know, people in the national park service.
• 11:00
  Samantha Pruitt: And I was like things are going to start closing left and right.
• 11:03
  Polly Mertens: This is, this is, you know, the direction that these folks in 1965 were like.
• 11:07
  Polly Mertens: We need to protect and preserve these natural lands, you know, for people's wellbeing, mental and emotional health, the state of our nation and it's humans.
• 11:17
  Samantha Pruitt: Yeah, yeah, it just was like a foundational right of human beings.
• 11:23
  Polly Mertens: Yeah, and they just go on to talk about LBJ recognize that as people had gotten more and more out of the work in nature.
• 11:30
  Samantha Pruitt: you know their work wasn't working on farms, you know they were.
• 11:32
  Samantha Pruitt: Yeah, now it's online, but more indoors, yeah.
• 11:35
  Polly Mertens: We're spending.
• 11:35
  Polly Mertens: I mean, look at us now.
• 11:36
  Polly Mertens: We've spent Extreme indoors, yeah, screens indoors, all that stuff, disconnected from each other, like we just had a pandemic.
• 11:42
  Polly Mertens: Remember that we're deeply disconnected and it's like nature is for our wellbeing, our mental health, our inner, you know, prosperity of our spirit.
• 11:51
  Polly Mertens: And I was like holy cow, and this just ties in so much with the vision that you and I have of the things that we've wanted to help people get back into nature, camps that we would like to do and whatnot.
• 12:02
  Polly Mertens: So I don't know, do we want to transition to my where we're at now, or yeah?
• 12:07
  Samantha Pruitt: because that's just a little bit of the like background of where we are now, and why we wanted to kind of bring this message home to the audience is you are currently in the middle of doing some really significant life work, which is, you know, taking one of your dreams and bringing it into reality, and ours too.
• 12:30
  Polly Mertens: Yeah.
• 12:31
  Samantha Pruitt: Oh, we've been scheming on this idea for a long time, but so we've had, conceptually, these ideas for Wouldn't it be nice if Over five?
• 12:40
  Samantha Pruitt: Years, for sure, quite a long time, maybe longer than that.
• 12:42
  Samantha Pruitt: Longer than that, oh, no, longer than that, no Longer than that.
• 12:45
  Samantha Pruitt: Yeah, and rough concept was we're going to bring people together in circles for outdoor experiences in nature where they can work on their business, their health, their mental and emotional well-being, their relationships, et cetera.
• 13:01
  Samantha Pruitt: So basically like intensives, weekends or week-long retreats, if you will and you know, life happened.
• 13:08
  Samantha Pruitt: We never really got these things off the ground, but we've always had these ideas.
• 13:11
  Samantha Pruitt: We keep talking.
• 13:12
  Samantha Pruitt: You know other versions of it and what?
• 13:15
  Samantha Pruitt: About this and what about that, and you know, maybe we're just going to focus on the c-suite people, or maybe we're just going to focus on this kind of business, or maybe we're just going to focus on this kind of business or maybe we're just going to focus on women or whatever, but you know, life's gotten in the way.
• 13:27
  Samantha Pruitt: However, the dream never died.
• 13:29
  Samantha Pruitt: So here you are, in the middle of this work and you came to me and said remember that dream.
• 13:38
  Polly Mertens: Gotta pull this one off the shelf again.
• 13:40
  Samantha Pruitt: Right.
• 13:40
  Samantha Pruitt: So why are you drawn to bringing this dream back to life?
• 13:45
  Polly Mertens: Well, so a little backstory, and I think we shared a little bit about this in some recent episodes, so I don't go too much into that, but I was reignited by my work in the landmark education world.
• 13:54
  Polly Mertens: I spent February of 2025, recently, engulfed in you know, a few seminars, workshops, whatever you want to call it on communication right, speaking, listening.
• 14:03
  Polly Mertens: You know a few seminars, workshops, whatever you want to call it on communication, right, speaking, listening, you know, communicating and now launched into a year-long team program, team managers and leadership program.
• 14:12
  Polly Mertens: And what's beautiful is it's a structure for launching your dreams.
• 14:17
  Polly Mertens: Like launching, like you, literally they call them games.
• 14:20
  Polly Mertens: Like you literally get up to games in the world.
• 14:23
  Polly Mertens: They call it Like hey, like hey, take a project that you put on the shelf or something that just won't die or is calling you, or it could be in your everyday life.
• 14:31
  Polly Mertens: Like you know, you've got a business and you want to grow some sales.
• 14:33
  Polly Mertens: You know, or you want to build a team around it, or you want to expand, or, or, or whatever.
• 14:39
  Polly Mertens: And at the time, you know I didn't.
• 14:40
  Polly Mertens: I don't have a.
• 14:40
  Polly Mertens: You know, other than coaching that I do, we do it's.
• 14:42
  Polly Mertens: I don't have a you know, other than coaching that I do, we do.
• 14:44
  Polly Mertens: It's like I don't have a oh, this is the programs that I have, or whatnot.
• 14:48
  Polly Mertens: So I was like what would that be?
• 14:49
  Polly Mertens: And just started envisioning and going back to where we've talked in the past, Like well, if I could do anything, if we could get up to anything, it was like what if we wanted to get up to what do we care the most about?
• 15:01
  Polly Mertens: Like what do we?
• 15:02
  Samantha Pruitt: Exactly what do we care the most about?
• 15:04
  Samantha Pruitt: Not where can we make the most money?
• 15:06
  Samantha Pruitt: How can we become famous?
• 15:08
  Samantha Pruitt: How can we do no?
• 15:09
  Samantha Pruitt: Where can we have the biggest impact?
• 15:12
  Samantha Pruitt: Where can we fill the needs of our souls, our life here, our purpose here, as well as the humans that we come into contact with, who we share circles with.
• 15:25
  Polly Mertens: What matters and what's meaningful to us.
• 15:27
  Polly Mertens: Exactly Right, and so what the format of this year-long program has given me?
• 15:32
  Polly Mertens: They teach us a bit about how to build a team and how to get people enrolled in the game that you want to play.
• 15:39
  Samantha Pruitt: How to get people to buy into your dream Dream To start it?
• 15:42
  Samantha Pruitt: Yeah, so they can be with you, dream weaving.
• 15:45
  Polly Mertens: Yeah, yeah, and you know I'll tell you and you know this is, I think, easy to see.
• 15:51
  Polly Mertens: So, you know, in MBA school they taught us how to strategize, how to build a business plan, whatever.
• 15:55
  Polly Mertens: And I've been marching around teaching people that and I'm like hold up, hold up this.
• 16:07
  Polly Mertens: You know, like this back.
• 16:07
  Polly Mertens: You know there's a step behind this and it's that vision and getting not super clear, but like getting in touch with the possibility.
• 16:10
  Polly Mertens: And as you and I were out on the trail today, it was like you know, I came with two days ago.
• 16:12
  Polly Mertens: This is this muddy little clay lump, if you can picture, you know, like an idea or a new vision is like, hey, I threw some mud on the clay table and I'm like, well, maybe it's a little bit like this.
• 16:22
  Polly Mertens: And then I kind of molded it over here and I told you a little bit about it.
• 16:24
  Polly Mertens: I was like, maybe it's like the.
• 16:26
  Polly Mertens: I wanted to have the word alliance in it and here's why because you know me and definitions I'm like alliance is like people come together for the betterment of each other, right, and I'm like that's meaningful to me.
• 16:36
  Polly Mertens: That speaks to how we see collaboration and cooperation, not competition and, you know, angst against each other's more.
• 16:45
  Polly Mertens: We'll all do better if we all do better, exactly so I was like, okay, alliance.
• 16:50
  Polly Mertens: And then we're like, was it thriving?
• 16:52
  Polly Mertens: Is it whatever?
• 16:53
  Polly Mertens: And who are the people that come together in this alliance?
• 16:56
  Polly Mertens: Yeah, well, because you and I have such a business background, we're like I think we can have an impact on business people.
• 17:02
  Polly Mertens: We speak that language makes natural sense.
• 17:04
  Samantha Pruitt: You know we're not community leaders.
• 17:06
  Polly Mertens: Yeah, you know it's not like you and I are soccer players.
• 17:09
  Polly Mertens: It's like we're not going to just leap over and start being experts in soccer playing, but it's like we've got a long history of, you know, working with people in business and coaching.
• 17:17
  Polly Mertens: And then just what naturally arises out of that behind our commitment to our vision, our values, people that we care about, circles that we've already played in and it just started on foot, that little piece of clay was like, and then you put a little bit on it and morph in it and then what did we come up with this morning?
• 17:34
  Polly Mertens: Oh, how did we get the visionaries?
• 17:35
  Polly Mertens: Where did that come from?
• 17:36
  Polly Mertens: So it was like, oh, I said, the thrive alliance, I think, is where we got to, Cause we're like people need to be thriving in their businesses but we're so committed to getting them outside.
• 17:44
  Polly Mertens: Oh, you know what One part of that little clay start was?
• 17:48
  Polly Mertens: I had told my so I got a coach in this program and I was sharing with him.
• 17:52
  Polly Mertens: I was like, well, you know, it's like there's this organization that already exists in the world for 40 years YPO, young presidents organization, beautiful organization If you're of a certain age and of a certain size, business and whatever young and presidential and, by the way, your business is probably five million ten.
• 18:11
  Polly Mertens: You know, like bigger businesses if you will beautiful suit and tie situation yeah, and they're going to luxury resorts and they're having, you know, cocktail parties and whatever, and you and I are just like nope and there's other visionaries out there that that's just not their cup of tea.
• 18:25
  Samantha Pruitt: Oh my God, the majority of visionaries, that isn't the life that they're living.
• 18:28
  Polly Mertens: Right, and you and I are so committed to what we have seen in our own life that the outdoors and the nature and being in nature has such an impact on us and our mental health.
• 18:38
  Polly Mertens: It's got to be a part of it.
• 18:40
  Samantha Pruitt: And our leadership skills and our connectedness within our own physical body and the health of our well-being that allows us to even be out in the world, creating building businesses, building communities, making money, whatever the things are Like.
• 18:57
  Samantha Pruitt: The physical body and the mental body's health are the foundational.
• 19:02
  Samantha Pruitt: You can't build anything without it, and if you're successful and wealthy and famous or whatever all the things are, but you don't have your physical or mental health, you have nothing.
• 19:12
  Polly Mertens: You have nothing.
• 19:13
  Polly Mertens: Yeah, you have nothing.
• 19:14
  Polly Mertens: You have no fulfillment, no chance of fulfillment.
• 19:17
  Polly Mertens: And if you build a billion-dollar business and you wipe yourself off your health game over, like oh well, that was fun, maybe, I mean, come on right.
• 19:26
  Polly Mertens: And so you and I've always had this like try.
• 19:27
  Polly Mertens: Oh.
• 19:28
  Polly Mertens: So here's the thing.
• 19:28
  Polly Mertens: We had this inspiration.
• 19:29
  Polly Mertens: So the pct has a logo, I'll call it, or an emblem, and it's sort of like a three, it's like a triangle, but a little bit morphed, kind of fat triangle badge, and we're like what?
• 19:41
  Polly Mertens: And then you came up with the words life, work, nature.
• 19:46
  Polly Mertens: We're like we're gonna put that on that badge, and you know.
• 19:49
  Polly Mertens: And so we just started, what about this and what about this?
• 19:51
  Polly Mertens: And then we said who are these peoples?
• 19:53
  Polly Mertens: And somewhere we came up the visionaries.
• 19:55
  Samantha Pruitt: Yes, because that visionaries, and everybody can be a visionary, but there's a certain type of personality in the universe and you know who you are.
• 20:06
  Samantha Pruitt: If we're talking to you right now, you can't turn that off.
• 20:09
  Samantha Pruitt: It's just like it's in your dna, like you have a vision for not just your life, for getting up to big things, for having an impact on the world, for doing great work that contributes to society, to the natural environment, to animals, to all of it, to the economy other things.
• 20:28
  Samantha Pruitt: Yeah, yeah, children, whatever visionaries, are the ones and we just talked about the visionaries who created the pct out of just literally a conversation, right, you know, as an example of that, and you and I are definitely visionaries and we love to hang out with visionaries, so we're like let's do this work for those people.
• 20:44
  Samantha Pruitt: What could that look like?
• 20:46
  Samantha Pruitt: And we'll start probably with females, since we identify as females, but we also understand how challenging it can be to be a visionary in a female body.
• 20:56
  Samantha Pruitt: And how can we support them?
• 20:59
  Samantha Pruitt: What can that look like?
• 21:00
  Samantha Pruitt: Making sure that all the pillars are being met, you know, and really just creating health in all areas of that human's life so they can really do their best work and fulfill their personal visions.
• 21:16
  Polly Mertens: And I think you know one of the things that, as I looked at the YPO format or business model, you might say I'm like great business model you know I just don't kind of care that they are held in you know big conference centers and you know over you know big luxury places, whatever that's beautiful.
• 21:34
  Polly Mertens: I would love the you know beauty of it and stuff, but it's just people are indoors Over a piece of steak and a cocktail, yeah, and they're just like in you know know conference rooms and they're pretending to be something and dressing up and stuff and I was like let's just kind of not strip that away, but let's turn that or pivot that to people really getting.
• 21:53
  Polly Mertens: You know, we were talking.
• 21:53
  Samantha Pruitt: I do want to strip them down and I already told you that.
• 21:56
  Samantha Pruitt: And, okay, I want people to show up as their most raw, authentic self, with all their quirks and bumps and bruises and whatever, and all their background and history and stuff.
• 22:07
  Samantha Pruitt: Because if you really want to get up to creating something big, whether it's your business or whatever your thing is, fill in whatever and you have a dream and a vision for that, the whole you is coming with.
• 22:23
  Samantha Pruitt: So, pretending that you're somebody else whether it's how you dress or how you want the world to perceive you, or how you post yourself on social media, or how you say this or how you do these things, how you want to quote, unquote, be seen that's not who you really are right.
• 22:39
  Samantha Pruitt: That is a part of your image that you put out into the world, but your gifts really lie on that deep, deep level of truth about who you really are.
• 22:51
  Samantha Pruitt: You're really, really perfectly in perfect self.
• 22:55
  Samantha Pruitt: Yeah, and the only way for a human to really get in touch with that and really be able to foster and fully explore that so they can use all their gifts, is just by showing up and being real.
• 23:05
  Polly Mertens: Yeah, and you know one of the things that in this article that that we had and I'll have to look it up and see if I can find it again, but it was talked about you know one of the things that you and I in that triad, where it's life, work, nature, it's, they're all important, right?
• 23:22
  Polly Mertens: Yes, the the importance of this planet and the creatures on it and the beauty of it feeds this human and and we're not here to take from it and just human gets bigger and the work gets bigger.
• 23:36
  Polly Mertens: It's like we work with all three of those the life of the human, the businesses survive and but and nature is Whatever their professional calling is yeah, yeah yeah, and really what we want to create and inspire with this is people's lives.
• 23:52
  Polly Mertens: Are, you know, their health, their well-being, their life, everything, their relationships, all of it?
• 23:57
  Polly Mertens: Are they alive?
• 23:58
  Polly Mertens: Alive while they're alive, right, so really living their work thrives because they're thriving right, they're showing up their best selves, and nature also is a part of all of that.
• 24:10
  Polly Mertens: in that circle there's not, you know, oh, you know, a lot of people I would say give up maybe their life or their nature for their work to succeed, right, or they ignore their work and they're so passionate in the other ones and then they like run out of money or something or whatever right, or they're not even on the seen, like it's just work is all it is right.
• 24:32
  Polly Mertens: It's like business can't be the only thing.
• 24:34
  Polly Mertens: There's got to be this balance between nature and the human that's behind it and that's just part of who we are in our values and when we say nature, we do mean the wilderness, being out in nature.
• 24:50
  Samantha Pruitt: We find that's where we do our best work and we're most connected or recalibrated mentally and physically, the health of our bodies, et cetera and creative.
• 25:00
  Samantha Pruitt: But we also mean the nature of the person.
• 25:04
  Samantha Pruitt: So what is your true nature, polly?
• 25:07
  Samantha Pruitt: What is your true nature, sam?
• 25:08
  Polly Mertens: Who are?
• 25:09
  Samantha Pruitt: we at our absolute essence.
• 25:12
  Polly Mertens: I did find one of the other quotes from this article and it says, quote one of the paradoxes of American society is that, while our economics and this was talking about back in the 60s, when they were founding this right Before this hellfire- we're in now Right, like it kind of sounds familiar, like you and I were like wow.
• 25:28
  Polly Mertens: I think we're doing that again.
• 25:29
  Polly Mertens: One of the paradoxes of American society is that, while our economic standard of living has become the envy of the world, our environmental standard has steadily declined.
• 25:38
  Polly Mertens: We are better housed, better nourished and better entertained, but we are not better prepared to inherit the earth or to carry on the pursuit of happiness like we're out of balance.
• 25:50
  Polly Mertens: Oh, that's an understatement.
• 25:52
  Polly Mertens: Things are out of balance.
• 25:53
  Polly Mertens: Humans like whoa that's an understatement.
• 25:54
  Polly Mertens: Things are out of balance.
• 25:54
  Polly Mertens: Humans Like whoa let's go, let's go, yeah.
• 25:57
  Samantha Pruitt: And for many years I basically used nature and being out in the wild, doing all these crazy things that I have done, as like ways to round myself and kind of try and get back into joy, happiness, you know, connectedness with myself and my own thoughts and ideas and you know like disconnected from the everyday life and all of that kind of stuff.
• 26:24
  Samantha Pruitt: But why should I have to choose?
• 26:26
  Samantha Pruitt: Why should anybody have to choose that it's either I'm doing that or I'm doing this.
• 26:32
  Samantha Pruitt: I'm doing this or I'm doing this.
• 26:33
  Samantha Pruitt: I'm doing this or I'm doing that or someday I'll do that.
• 26:36
  Samantha Pruitt: Yeah, we're talking about the integration of these three things as an everyday way of living.
• 26:41
  Polly Mertens: Yeah, yeah, as a way of living, and that's the foundation of where we're going with this is like, all right, we're going to help people, you know, through coaching programs, through adventure.
• 26:53
  Polly Mertens: Help people, you know, through coaching programs, through adventure.
• 26:54
  Polly Mertens: You know we've got all kinds of fired up ideas and we're seeking, you know, people who want to be on this adventure with us, right, like we're actively recruiting.
• 27:01
  Polly Mertens: I might say it's like you know whether you're a visionary that wants to be in it.
• 27:05
  Polly Mertens: So the Visionaries Alliance is where we are with the name of it the.
• 27:08
  Polly Mertens: Visionaries Alliance.
• 27:10
  Polly Mertens: That's going to be so fun, like when you and I were on the trail and we said that and we both turned around and went, stopped.
• 27:16
  Polly Mertens: That's it, the Visionaries Alliance.
• 27:19
  Polly Mertens: Because then it got big enough.
• 27:20
  Polly Mertens: It was like where is this going?
• 27:22
  Polly Mertens: What are we talking about?
• 27:22
  Polly Mertens: We're like work and this, and we were a little bit.
• 27:25
  Polly Mertens: What I was stumbled upon was that strategic level and we needed to go up above it a couple thousand feet, 10,000 feet, like what is it that?
• 27:34
  Polly Mertens: The game?
• 27:35
  Polly Mertens: We're really up to right.
• 27:36
  Polly Mertens: It was like the Visionaries Alliance and it's holding space.
• 27:39
  Polly Mertens: We picture the business owners, people that have visionaries in their own life.
• 27:45
  Polly Mertens: They've created something or they're wanting to get up to something, but most likely they have a business, and we feel that the people that are going to be attracted to this already understand that nature is important.
• 27:58
  Polly Mertens: Yeah, I mean, I don't think we're convincing people, but they'll be attracted to this because you know giant conference centers in las vegas or you know dallas or something that's not attractive to them.
• 28:07
  Samantha Pruitt: But take me to the outdoors and they either have a curiosity there or they know that that's a powerful place for them and they want to get back to it.
• 28:15
  Polly Mertens: All right, yeah, and they recognize if their health isn't a priority, they want to put that leg under the table and they want to make it a priority.
• 28:23
  Polly Mertens: But in this alliance it's we support all of that.
• 28:27
  Polly Mertens: You know, you being in the outdoors, you being well thriving, your business is thriving.
• 28:31
  Polly Mertens: So it's like, with all of that, like what could we get up to?
• 28:34
  Samantha Pruitt: you know, like, how can these people play with others like them?
• 28:37
  Polly Mertens: yeah, hence alliances, right yeah, alliances, I'm gonna look that one up again, but I know yes yes, so alliances is well, I'll look it up again, hold on.
• 28:50
  Polly Mertens: And then we?
• 28:51
  Polly Mertens: Then we said what was it?
• 28:52
  Polly Mertens: The aligned?
• 28:52
  Polly Mertens: What are we calling it?
• 28:54
  Samantha Pruitt: Aligning things yeah.
• 28:57
  Polly Mertens: A union or association formed for mutual benefit especially between organizations.
• 29:03
  Polly Mertens: So especially between businesses.
• 29:04
  Polly Mertens: So it's an alliance of business owners.
• 29:06
  Polly Mertens: So we picture, you know, the start of this.
• 29:09
  Polly Mertens: You know, like I said, this is clay on the table and we're morphing it as we go is like in the YPO organization.
• 29:15
  Polly Mertens: How they do it is each entrepreneur has other members of the organization on their board virtual board, if you will, not, their technical board or whatever.
• 29:27
  Polly Mertens: They could have that also.
• 29:28
  Polly Mertens: But these people um, give them direction and strategy and ideas and network and resources, and in YPO they don't give suggestions.
• 29:39
  Polly Mertens: They tell stories that help people find their own way, because they're all empowered, you know.
• 29:43
  Polly Mertens: But then they give them trainings and coaching and all this stuff, just like pouring into each other's business.
• 29:51
  Polly Mertens: So you have a playing field of people at your level these are all business owners, and then you're helping each other's business.
• 29:53
  Polly Mertens: So you have a playing field of people at your level these are all business owners, and then you're helping each other's business.
• 29:58
  Polly Mertens: Then you're in a wider web of the alliance of the the greater good.
• 30:02
  Polly Mertens: Coaches are surrounding you, programs and then adventures to get you back out into nature.
• 30:07
  Polly Mertens: Remember your vision, you know, get more training and stuff like that and create an awesome network of friendships and, exactly yeah, supporting the whole human right super fun, super fun.
• 30:19
  Samantha Pruitt: So why we think this is so important?
• 30:21
  Samantha Pruitt: I mean, we're not, you know, launching the program tomorrow, I'm telling you, trying to sell you on this idea.
• 30:25
  Samantha Pruitt: We're basically showing you a first-hand example iterative, yeah exactly.
• 30:31
  Samantha Pruitt: We're living it in the moment, in real time, of the rebirth of a dream and the continued nurturing of this idea.
• 30:41
  Samantha Pruitt: This spark, we're fanning it, we're adding oxygen, we are really looking to pour some gasoline on it pretty quick.
• 30:48
  Samantha Pruitt: But why is it so important that everybody do this?
• 30:52
  Samantha Pruitt: Like it's not acceptable to us that people have their own dreams and they let them die within them.
• 31:01
  Samantha Pruitt: Right, right.
• 31:03
  Polly Mertens: Or they go to the grave without it.
• 31:04
  Polly Mertens: It breaks my heart just thinking about it.
• 31:06
  Samantha Pruitt: Yeah, I grew up.
• 31:07
  Samantha Pruitt: My parents were immigrants and my dad was a total character where he was always inventing something in the garage with scraps of whatever, and then, if he wasn't doing that, he was figuring out what business he was going to open next.
• 31:20
  Samantha Pruitt: Wow, awesome.
• 31:21
  Polly Mertens: I mean just a total character Going for it.
• 31:23
  Samantha Pruitt: Yeah, Trying to figure out, you know.
• 31:26
  Samantha Pruitt: And that's just how his mind worked and what brought him joy, you know.
• 31:29
  Samantha Pruitt: But it's in all of us.
• 31:33
  Samantha Pruitt: I mean, I've had countless businesses, right, you've had countless businesses and experiences too, where we've had a dream, we launched a dream.
• 31:42
  Samantha Pruitt: I mean, everybody has something.
• 31:44
  Samantha Pruitt: It doesn't have to be work specific, it can be a passion around you know, youth or the environment or their own community or whatever, we don't care.
• 31:54
  Samantha Pruitt: You have a damn dream and we know you do.
• 31:56
  Polly Mertens: You cannot hide from us, yes, yes, and if you're listening to this, this is your reminder.
• 32:01
  Polly Mertens: Wake up, ding dong.
• 32:02
  Polly Mertens: Hello, your dream is still there.
• 32:04
  Polly Mertens: Yeah, I say, if you had that dream, it was given to you for a reason.
• 32:10
  Samantha Pruitt: Exactly, it was planted in you.
• 32:12
  Samantha Pruitt: You're exactly, it's planted.
• 32:16
  Polly Mertens: It was planted in you.
• 32:17
  Polly Mertens: You're the one that holds it right.
• 32:17
  Polly Mertens: It's yours to bring to fruition.
• 32:18
  Polly Mertens: Only you can do it right.
• 32:19
  Polly Mertens: So let's walk them through the steps a little bit well, and you know, here's us just iterating it ourselves.
• 32:23
  Polly Mertens: You know, and one of the things that you were saying is this program that I'm in through landmark, the team, you know, manager and leader program is giving me structure, right, it's.
• 32:32
  Polly Mertens: It's giving me structure, accountability, like get up to those things.
• 32:37
  Samantha Pruitt: It's gasoline.
• 32:38
  Samantha Pruitt: You're pouring the gasoline now.
• 32:39
  Polly Mertens: Yeah, it's like, oh, you're doing this thing, right?
• 32:41
  Polly Mertens: So when I used to teach my entrepreneurship classes right?
• 32:44
  Polly Mertens: So people would be out in the world and like have an idea or whatever, and they just didn't have the structure.
• 32:49
  Polly Mertens: So they'd sign up for my classes it was like I'm going to have a business plan, like that was my promise.
• 32:53
  Polly Mertens: You'll have a business plan when you walk out of here, walk you through each week.
• 32:55
  Polly Mertens: You got to do your homework.
• 32:56
  Polly Mertens: If you do your homework, you will have a business plan at the end, right?
• 32:59
  Polly Mertens: And that's a little bit of what this 90-day team is like Get in, start having conversations, whatever, and then in 90 days, you know, putting it on the back shelf, right.
• 33:12
  Polly Mertens: So one of the things we talked about is the first step Dust it off.
• 33:18
  Polly Mertens: Yeah, like get that.
• 33:19
  Polly Mertens: Speak it out loud.
• 33:20
  Samantha Pruitt: Yep, exactly, speak it into reality, speak it into the dang world.
• 33:26
  Samantha Pruitt: Don't keep it in your freaking brain.
• 33:27
  Samantha Pruitt: Just tell some people yeah, one person, anybody, anyone, a friend, a family member, a total stranger.
• 33:36
  Samantha Pruitt: Hey, I got this crazy ass idea.
• 33:38
  Polly Mertens: Want to hear about your thing exactly and you and sometimes I think people have a fear of like oh, then I gotta be on the hook about it.
• 33:46
  Polly Mertens: What if you just start talking about it and see how it made you feel?
• 33:49
  Polly Mertens: Does it enliven you?
• 33:50
  Polly Mertens: Yeah, if it scares you, you probably need to get up to it.
• 33:53
  Polly Mertens: I mean, that's where you and I would be like like I think about this thing, and as you and I were talking about it and it just got bigger and bigger, I was like this is a freaking global thing.
• 34:01
  Polly Mertens: What the hell are we like?
• 34:02
  Polly Mertens: All of a sudden, it went from let's just get 20 people and then it was like I could just see this so much bigger.
• 34:08
  Polly Mertens: And that's where it's like this is like the start of the movement, yeah, and you don't have to go there.
• 34:14
  Polly Mertens: But if it scares you, it's probably something you should be getting up to, so talk it out loud.
• 34:18
  Polly Mertens: Share it with another that care, that you care about and we'll keep that, will support you, not somebody that pooh-poohs everything.
• 34:24
  Polly Mertens: You say like oh yeah, I mean, you know who to share your dreams with people.
• 34:28
  Samantha Pruitt: Come on, or share them with us and then start doing some outreach.
• 34:31
  Samantha Pruitt: Is there anyone doing anything like this?
• 34:34
  Samantha Pruitt: Is there anyone that I could connect to in the entire globe?
• 34:38
  Samantha Pruitt: By the way, you don't have to just think about your own damn backyard or your co-workers or whatever, wherever you're at your family members.
• 34:43
  Samantha Pruitt: Yeah, like think big, who could you talk to?
• 34:47
  Samantha Pruitt: Yeah, who has maybe done something similar or something not similar at all, but they inspire the hell out of you, and that's one of the things.
• 34:54
  Polly Mertens: So I wanted to double click on that for a minute.
• 34:56
  Polly Mertens: So one of the things that started to like in the back of my mind.
• 34:58
  Polly Mertens: I don't want people to get into the rut of like oh, I found a forum and I just talked to other people about talking about things, Not what we're talking about.
• 35:06
  Polly Mertens: Or you know like oh, there's this thing I've been thinking about for 20 years and I'm still thinking about it and talking to you guys about it, but I'm not doing anything about it.
• 35:12
  Samantha Pruitt: It's like people are just puking their ideas left and right.
• 35:15
  Polly Mertens: So we're going to get your neck out there a little bit, Right.
• 35:19
  Polly Mertens: So I think, joining a circle or um, you know, there's uh, you know, you and I've done with like a, maybe a coach that you start working with, like kind of put that clay on the table and start working with a coach about it.
• 35:31
  Polly Mertens: Or maybe there's meetup groups in your area.
• 35:34
  Samantha Pruitt: That are about those things.
• 35:35
  Polly Mertens: Or you and I said you know well, maybe you go join somebody else's movement, maybe you're lit up by it, but you're like I don't really want to head this thing, but I want to be in the conversation and maybe I can share my dream inside of that and it can grow.
• 35:47
  Polly Mertens: It's like I don't think I want to get up to creating the whole thing, but if I go over there where a lot of these people are like-minded and there's a little momentum, I share my dream in there and I can build a team around it, inside of it as well.
• 36:02
  Samantha Pruitt: It could be a shared experience.
• 36:04
  Samantha Pruitt: Collaborations are the best and you're doing all this work right now.
• 36:09
  Samantha Pruitt: Just on the team piece, I mean you have to have people that buy into this vision and this dream for you and it can be a shared vision, and but there's a team that it's going to take an army to get this thing to become reality.
• 36:22
  Polly Mertens: it's going to do yeah, but don't be overwhelmed well, and the first thing you and I were thinking about on their trail today we're not first thing but, like one of the things we said on the trail say okay, so part of the structure that they teach us in this program is you need six people to be on your team and you start talking to them and meeting with them regularly and they can be who knows what they are to you?
• 36:38
  Polly Mertens: Yet you may not have a clue.
• 36:40
  Polly Mertens: You're like, ok, I just need six people.
• 36:41
  Polly Mertens: All right, could it be this and that and make a big, long list of who those six people might like?
• 36:55
  Polly Mertens: You know the possibility of you know one of our, some of our words were like like my big word this year that I'm just giving me lots of juice is aliveness.
• 37:00
  Polly Mertens: I'm like imagine the visionaries alliance and inside of that people feel like we the aliveness.
• 37:07
  Polly Mertens: Because you and I were like well, you know those businesses, that things are happening in the business, but the people aren't very alive.
• 37:14
  Polly Mertens: It's not, the business is alive right, there's no energy there.
• 37:19
  Samantha Pruitt: Right, if anything, it's an energy drain.
• 37:21
  Polly Mertens: And what if the people that out of the visionary alliance, their business and the people inside of it, felt aliveness, like if the people in your business felt aliveness, what could your business create?
• 37:34
  Samantha Pruitt: Exactly Imagine if your coworkers, irrelevant of what your position is, or your team, under you or above you or whatever, they're just like whew.
• 37:42
  Polly Mertens: We're fired up.
• 37:43
  Polly Mertens: Every day they're like fired up, I'm alive.
• 37:45
  Polly Mertens: Seriously, sales through the roof Unbelievable, yeah Well.
• 37:49
  Polly Mertens: Performance, ideas, creation and metrics who, yeah Well?
• 37:52
  Samantha Pruitt: performance, ideas, creation and metrics.
• 37:53
  Samantha Pruitt: Who gives a shit You're going to crush that People are so overwhelmed by like this is our goal this week or month or quarter or whatever.
• 38:00
  Polly Mertens: No aliveness.
• 38:00
  Polly Mertens: How are we going to get there?
• 38:01
  Polly Mertens: This sounds awful.
• 38:03
  Polly Mertens: Let's go talk about it.
• 38:03
  Samantha Pruitt: By the water cooler yeah.
• 38:05
  Polly Mertens: No aliveness, no aliveness.
• 38:07
  Polly Mertens: So, like sharing that possibility of aliveness, we said prosperity because we want people to prosper.
• 38:12
  Polly Mertens: Like businesses need to be making money, need to be thriving, these humans need to get paid people.
• 38:17
  Polly Mertens: Yeah, you're going to create jobs, you're going to create opportunity, all of that like there needs to be prosperity, right, and then you and I are all about adventure, so we're like adventure yeah, we've rebuilt our bodies and brains using wilderness, as you know, our playground basically.
• 38:34
  Samantha Pruitt: Yeah, I mean today, literally walking on the pct, I felt like I'm walking on the land of gods like this is to me magical soil, yeah.
• 38:42
  Samantha Pruitt: Yeah, the whole planet is full of this if we take care of it.
• 38:49
  Samantha Pruitt: Yeah, and the animals are out there and they need us.
• 38:52
  Samantha Pruitt: There's just so many reasons for us to be outside, connected to ourself and to mother nature.
• 38:57
  Polly Mertens: Yeah, and you know, and who knows where this little lump of clay that we're starting to form is going to go.
• 39:03
  Polly Mertens: Like we're speaking it right now oh Picasso.
• 39:05
  Polly Mertens: This is going down.
• 39:09
  Polly Mertens: Oh yeah, stuff's going to be flying colors.
• 39:12
  Polly Mertens: Woo yeah, fly the flag, all of that.
• 39:15
  Polly Mertens: So you know some art of living.
• 39:17
  Polly Mertens: I will say that.
• 39:18
  Polly Mertens: Say more about that, tell them about that well, I'm studying buddhism and I'm going to a monastery.
• 39:22
  Samantha Pruitt: This next weekend and I'm reading about this author right now that I discovered anyway, um, in this current book that I'm reading of hers and sister d.
• 39:32
  Samantha Pruitt: Some people might know who that is, but you can just Google that.
• 39:35
  Samantha Pruitt: Anyway, she doesn't know.
• 39:37
  Samantha Pruitt: I'm about to be her new best friend when I roll on into this.
• 39:39
  Samantha Pruitt: If I come back with a shaved head, don't freak out about that.
• 39:42
  Polly Mertens: I'm all for it.
• 39:43
  Polly Mertens: I'll donate my hair.
• 39:44
  Polly Mertens: I'm all for it.
• 39:44
  Polly Mertens: I say get it off, go for it.
• 39:54
  Samantha Pruitt: But I have not been attracted to religion for a lot of reasons, personal reasons and otherwise.
• 39:56
  Samantha Pruitt: And she states in there very clearly Buddhism is not a religion, it's a practice.
• 39:59
  Samantha Pruitt: And it's simply a practice in the art of living.
• 40:05
  Polly Mertens: Let that sink in for a minute.
• 40:07
  Samantha Pruitt: It's simply a practice in the art of living.
• 40:09
  Samantha Pruitt: Well, last time I checked, that's what we're all doing.
• 40:13
  Samantha Pruitt: Well, some of us us sometimes we're not practicing we decide to sit on the damn bench of our own life, default.
• 40:22
  Samantha Pruitt: I can't have it.
• 40:23
  Samantha Pruitt: Yeah, I feel so alive with that, but also like for my fellow humans I.
• 40:30
  Samantha Pruitt: I'm coming for you.
• 40:32
  Samantha Pruitt: Nobody's going to sit on the bench.
• 40:34
  Samantha Pruitt: This is the one life that they get.
• 40:36
  Samantha Pruitt: It's the one body, the one chance.
• 40:39
  Samantha Pruitt: Oh it just, yeah, like that, shit lights me on fire dude, liveness dude.
• 40:44
  Polly Mertens: Yeah, big time.
• 40:45
  Polly Mertens: We're just like all right.
• 40:46
  Polly Mertens: So if you get behind this, so I'm studying Buddhism and you're over here doing this totally radically- different thing and we come together for three days on the PCT in Mid-Bear and we go ba-bam, yeah, yeah, because dreams don't die.
• 41:00
  Polly Mertens: Yeah, and we both felt that when we were out there.
• 41:02
  Polly Mertens: You know the PCT.
• 41:03
  Polly Mertens: I think we were talking about the Appalachian Trail, which is the East Coast version of the PCT, you might say which is I think you've done part of that as well, as I remember and it's a lot of wooded trees, not a lot of vistas and views, right?
• 41:17
  Polly Mertens: Well, pct is wonderful because it goes up and down and over here and around there Through all the different climates all the different mountain ranges, desert, everything, all the extremes.
• 41:26
  Samantha Pruitt: Right I mean up to Washington with all the beautiful trees, common life.
• 41:29
  Samantha Pruitt: It goes through all the extremes.
• 41:31
  Polly Mertens: We're doing the PCT.
• 41:31
  Polly Mertens: I think we might be at the end of this.
• 41:33
  Polly Mertens: We might talk ourselves into it.
• 41:34
  Polly Mertens: I think they're all coming with us.
• 41:35
  Samantha Pruitt: Well, we decided we were going to have a relay on the PCT.
• 41:38
  Samantha Pruitt: We'll get back That'll be a fundraiser for this new nonprofit, but a relay on the PCT?
• 41:44
  Samantha Pruitt: We never even heard of that damn thing.
• 41:46
  Samantha Pruitt: But in studying the history we found that that was actually a thing that happened at one time.
• 41:57
  Samantha Pruitt: Yeah, with the ymca you know.
• 41:57
  Polly Mertens: So that is freaking happening.
• 41:59
  Samantha Pruitt: I gotta do it I have to do it so good, and we should wrap this party.
• 42:01
  Polly Mertens: So we're on, while we're on these, the, we're looking at these vistas and views and just the ideas are just bounding out of us, right, and that's, I think, what I love about getting up higher outside of your you know, like, yeah, you can sit in a conference room and a boardroom and you can have bounce.
• 42:17
  Polly Mertens: You can we're all for bouncing ideas around in a conference room and a bit or whatever, and God bless zoom calls right.
• 42:27
  Polly Mertens: Whiteboarding stuff.
• 42:28
  Polly Mertens: But, like you know, we had our phone with us, so if we got an idea I could capture it Right.
• 42:39
  Samantha Pruitt: And the more we walked and looking rocks and we're looking at the trees and the sunlight and look at that, Just the vistas, the open space.
• 42:42
  Samantha Pruitt: We just feel open, Freaking, magnificent.
• 42:43
  Samantha Pruitt: Yeah, yeah, Our brains literally opened up and we're pretty open on the regular yeah, but our heart, our soul, our spirit, our brains just went ba-bam.
• 42:55
  Polly Mertens: Yeah, and that's the beauty of the and so you guys, we can't wait.
• 42:59
  Samantha Pruitt: There'll be an invitation coming soon.
• 43:00
  Polly Mertens: We can't wait.
• 43:01
  Polly Mertens: So the the Visionaries Alliance is coming together.
• 43:06
  Polly Mertens: It's happening.
• 43:07
  Polly Mertens: We would love for you guys to share about that.
• 43:10
  Polly Mertens: If you listen to this and you're like I don't know what I should do, or here I want to, I want to like raise my hand and be a part of that, or maybe they want to be part of it.
• 43:16
  Polly Mertens: Yeah, we're all for it.
• 43:17
  Polly Mertens: And what is so?
• 43:19
  Polly Mertens: Visionaries, alliances, and you know, alliance of visionaries, whatever, and we're all can be that, because we all have a spark, a dream or something like that.
• 43:26
  Polly Mertens: But we just want to invite you to dust off yours, so like what's your thing, what's your thing, what's what's?
• 43:34
  Polly Mertens: And maybe you're already up to it, fantastic.
• 43:37
  Polly Mertens: Or maybe it's been quiet and you know it's like a silent skeleton in your closet.
• 43:42
  Polly Mertens: That's like, hey, bring me out, bring me out Like I want to.
• 43:44
  Polly Mertens: I want to play, I want to, I want to bring this to life.
• 43:46
  Polly Mertens: There's a dream in there.
• 43:49
  Samantha Pruitt: Every person has at least one, if not a handful.
• 43:52
  Polly Mertens: There's no doubt in my mind, yeah, yeah, and which one just excites you a little bit more than the other ones right now, and maybe a little fear, like, oh, I don't know if I did that one, you know whatever.
• 44:01
  Polly Mertens: Okay, well, we just ask you to take the first step, start sharing it.
• 44:05
  Polly Mertens: Share it with a couple of people, share it with us.
• 44:07
  Polly Mertens: Share it with us, yeah, totally, speak it, share it with us.
• 44:11
  Samantha Pruitt: Speak it out loud Post about it.
• 44:12
  Polly Mertens: If you have an audience or a platform.
• 44:14
  Samantha Pruitt: Message us, tell us what the heck it is.
• 44:16
  Polly Mertens: Talk to some friends, talk to whatever.
• 44:18
  Polly Mertens: Right, we'll throw some pixie dust on that.
• 44:20
  Polly Mertens: Yeah, hell, yeah.
• 44:21
  Polly Mertens: And can you start getting around people that that conversation would be welcomed Like this?
• 44:39
  Samantha Pruitt: week, when I was talking to the guy who's been through all this trauma and death and really hardships and recently bought a business, and he's like I want to be a standup comedian what the heck?
• 44:42
  Samantha Pruitt: I was like, yeah, pixie, everybody has something, it's so beautiful, it's so good.
• 44:48
  Polly Mertens: I can't wait to hear from these people what theirs is.
• 44:49
  Polly Mertens: Let's hear it.
• 44:50
  Polly Mertens: So you know.
• 44:50
  Polly Mertens: Dust it off, speak it out loud to a few people, get in a circle, get around.
• 44:53
  Polly Mertens: Some people like get, get, get into action.
• 44:54
  Polly Mertens: Dust it off, speak it out loud to a few people, get in a circle, get around.
• 44:54
  Polly Mertens: Some people like get, get, get into action, get into something.
• 44:58
  Polly Mertens: Something that like and there's a mentor I'm listening to right now that says follow the excitement, what, what is just, even if it's like 10% more exciting than the other thing you could do, it's, it's.
• 45:10
  Polly Mertens: You know.
• 45:10
  Polly Mertens: So when I was so literally well, it can be 1%, but if it just excites you a little bit more.
• 45:16
  Polly Mertens: So when I was coming up with my game in the world, you know, batting around little ideas and I can tell you, for 24 hours I was like what is my game in the world?
• 45:24
  Polly Mertens: What's my game in the world, what's it going to be?
• 45:26
  Polly Mertens: What do I want to play with?
• 45:27
  Polly Mertens: And I kept thinking oh, this, and it just feels resistance and resistance.
• 45:32
  Polly Mertens: I'm like that's not it.
• 45:33
  Polly Mertens: It just didn't feel enlivening, like aliveness wasn't present.
• 45:36
  Polly Mertens: And then, when I opened the door to well, what if it's like a YPO for people who love nature and we're thriving and we're all doing it, I was like oh.
• 45:45
  Polly Mertens: I felt energized.
• 45:46
  Polly Mertens: There was no resistance.
• 45:48
  Polly Mertens: I was like, oh, I could do that, or what's this idea.
• 45:52
  Polly Mertens: But there wasn't that like I didn't shrink back, I actually leaned into it and I was like, well, I'll tell two people and then I'll go over here, and then you know.
• 46:00
  Polly Mertens: And then it's only been like 48 hours since this is starting.
• 46:03
  Polly Mertens: But follow that excitement.
• 46:06
  Samantha Pruitt: I mean, there really are no bad ideas here.
• 46:09
  Polly Mertens: There just aren't Because they're your damn ideas and it'll take you I'm sorry, there's no bad ideas and it'll take you to the next thing, the next thing.
• 46:17
  Polly Mertens: But follow the excitement, follow the right and, as far as you can go with it, and then how it starts is not how it's going to end.
• 46:23
  Samantha Pruitt: Yeah, we don't even know where this is going to go.
• 46:26
  Samantha Pruitt: We are just literally scratching at the door, and everybody deserves to scratch at the door, yeah.
• 46:33
  Polly Mertens: So what?
• 46:34
  Polly Mertens: What steps can you start with?
• 46:35
  Polly Mertens: Take those steps.
• 46:36
  Polly Mertens: What accountability can you give yourself right, or can you be accountable to somebody that's like?
• 46:41
  Polly Mertens: You know what I'm going to call my friend, cause I know that friend will tell you know if I say we'll keep you accountable.
• 46:46
  Polly Mertens: You want to make some traction, so, and maybe you join a team.
• 46:52
  Polly Mertens: Maybe it's like I don't want to do all this stuff, but I want to join a team that's up to something, because I want to be a part of a bigger thing than I have been.
• 47:01
  Polly Mertens: So, whatever that looks like, it could be a work team, it could be a nonprofit something.
• 47:06
  Polly Mertens: Start now, get into it, get into it.
• 47:08
  Polly Mertens: We hope this has been fun for you guys.
• 47:10
  Polly Mertens: We are just.
• 47:11
  Polly Mertens: You know.
• 47:12
  Polly Mertens: It's good to be together, as we always enjoy it.
• 47:14
  Polly Mertens: It's good to be.
• 47:15
  Samantha Pruitt: We're pouring gasoline on the freaking inferno.
• 47:17
  Samantha Pruitt: Boom, yeah.
• 47:17
  Samantha Pruitt: Oh, it's a thing, it's coming.
• 47:21
  Samantha Pruitt: Bring the fire and the stewardship.
• 47:22
  Samantha Pruitt: Stay tuned, stay tuned.
• 47:24
  Polly Mertens: So all right.
• 47:25
  Polly Mertens: So what's your thing?
• 47:27
  Polly Mertens: Yeah, what do you want to remind our beautiful humans?
• 47:29
  Polly Mertens: I want to remind our beautiful humans.
• 47:31
  Samantha Pruitt: I don't care what your life looks like, I care how it feels.
• 47:35
  Polly Mertens: How your life feels is more important than how it looks, and every day is your opportunity to find your awesome.