Latest / The Overland Journal Podcast / Clay Croft on Doing Hard Things, Crossing Africa, and the new XOverland Ranch

Transcript

Clay Croft on Doing Hard Things, Crossing Africa, and the new XOverland Ranch · The Overland Journal Podcast

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to the Overland Journal podcast. I'm your
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: host Scott Brady, and I'm joined today by Clay Croft. Now,
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: Clay has been on this podcast many times because him
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: and his team at x Overland are truly an inspiration
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: to the industry and we always have so much discuss
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: Clay and our longtime friends. So we get the chance
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: to connect again at the Overland Expo West.
• 0:24
  Speaker 2: In twenty twenty four.
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: We talk about Clay's recent adventures in Africa. We talk
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: about doing the hard things in life to have the
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: rewards of those goals. We also talk about ways of
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: achieving balance and overcoming some challenges that both of us
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: have experienced in our travels around the world. Talk a
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: little bit about travel security, and we also talk about
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: Clay's recent addition with the ex Overland Ranch in Montana,
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: which is a very exciting development for the industry. So
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: please enjoy my conversation with Clay Croft, and a special
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: thanks to Real Truck for their support of this week's podcast,
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: Find Your Freedom and Follow your Own Trail and the
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: fresh air of vast Uncharted Places, Introducing the exclusive Real
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: Truck lineup of overlanding accessories designed to take adventurous explorers
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: like you into the furthest reaches with gear for camping,
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: off roading, and more, including the all new Real Truck
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: Go Rack, Go Tent and Overland Awning. And here's to
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: those inspired, self actualized souls brave enough to unplug and
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: check into pure wilderness. Bring your truck to life at
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: real truck dot com. Thanks again, Real Truck Play, thanks
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: so much for being on the podcast. Yet again, one
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: of our most regular guests on the podcast say yeah, well,
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: because you're amazing at them.
• 1:56
  Speaker 2: Thank you well.
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: And you do you do stuff, Clay that it inspires everyone,
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: including me. It inspires the new Overlander, it inspires the
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: long time Overlander. Your content is it's healthy and family friendly,
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: and you tell a great story of friendship and family
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: and adventure that is really hard to find.
• 2:19
  Speaker 2: So thank you.
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: You guys are an inspiration to so many your family.
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: I just think that it's a great modeling that society
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: needs to continue to see. Is you know a husband
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: and wife that are supporting each other, or partners that
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: are supporting each other, Kids that are being supported and
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: shown the world and given opportunities to learn and grow
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: and be a part of you know, a healthy part
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: of society, and you guys are modeling all that, and
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: it's harder and harder to find that kind of content.
• 2:47
  Speaker 2: So yeah, thank you. It's harder and harder to do. Yeah,
• 2:51
  Speaker 2: you know frankly, but yeah.
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: Controversy sells, and you know you can, you can, you know,
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: do a go selfie mode on your on your phone
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: and just churn up a bunch of controversy and you'll
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: get and you'll get a lot of a lot of views.
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: But to just tell really healthy, positive stories and let
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: that be the foundation of your business, I just admire it.
• 3:17
  Speaker 2: So thank you well to piggyback off of like Overland Journal,
• 3:21
  Speaker 2: the Coffee the Coffee Table magazine. Yeah, you know, the
• 3:25
  Speaker 2: one that you will pick up in five years and
• 3:27
  Speaker 2: still read like you know, and that I remember talking
• 3:31
  Speaker 2: about that years ago, like at when we started, and
• 3:33
  Speaker 2: I was like, I like that idea, you know, because
• 3:37
  Speaker 2: at the end of our career runs, what are you
• 3:40
  Speaker 2: going to have to show for it? Yeah? That's right.
• 3:42
  Speaker 2: You know. You you guys have this amazing catalog of
• 3:46
  Speaker 2: basically chron chronologically documenting the Overland journey in the world.
• 3:52
  Speaker 2: You know that you can go back and read it.
• 3:54
  Speaker 2: You know, it's like how that GEO was when I
• 3:57
  Speaker 2: was a kid, you could go read ahead all of them.
• 3:59
  Speaker 2: Yeah sure, now I feel that way about the OJS.
• 4:02
  Speaker 2: What was happening hair and yeah.
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: Yeah, So that's a big motivator, and we've seen it's
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: interesting because we've been doing it for so long now
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: that we've seen people coming into their career. We've also
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: seen people ending a lifetime of adventure and telling their
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: final stories or retiring or passing on. Now, so that's
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: been really interesting now that I'm you know, we've we've
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: been in business for twenty years now. It's been interesting
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: to see all of that evolution, you know. I mean
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: when I look at myself in the mirror, I see
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: a few more gray hair gray hairs than I had
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: when I started all this.
• 4:39
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: So so it's a it's a reminder that of in life.
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: It's a reminder that we have only a certain amount
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: of time, and the most important resource that we have,
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: period is the time that we spend. So I think
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: that it's important to not spend it frivolously. It's important
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: to really be mindful of of getting stuck in the
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: doom scrolling and a bunch of this other stuff that
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: just really takes a lot of your life away and
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: it doesn't add a lot back.
• 5:08
  Speaker 2: So it absolutely I've been dealing with that lately when
• 5:12
  Speaker 2: you get into stress and you want to get to that,
• 5:15
  Speaker 2: you know, and our life is on social media, it is,
• 5:18
  Speaker 2: you know, so you've got to go there. I've been
• 5:21
  Speaker 2: battling that too. Yeah, I took it off my phone.
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: I just had to take it off my phone, and
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: and I've had it off my phone for a long
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: time now, and I just use the I have an
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: iPad mini that I just keep the social media stuff
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: on and it's got you know, cellular connection, so you
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: can throw it in your messenger bag or whatever and you.
• 5:40
  Speaker 2: Can still do the things. You can still do the work.
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: That's right, but it isn't something that is where it
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: becomes such a Pavlovian response where the phone buzzes and
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: also turn off all your notifications that's really.
• 5:53
  Speaker 2: Important that it overrode adds exactly. I couldn't.
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: And they know that, yeah, but they know, like like,
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: we don't stand a chance against an army of of
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: you know, behavioral psychologists that are trying to manipulate every
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: moment of our day.
• 6:08
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and they're really good at they really are.
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: They really are, Which is why we're talking about real adventure,
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: which is why you create the content that you do,
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: and we create the content that we do is to
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: tell real stories about real people doing real stuff.
• 6:24
  Speaker 2: And that's the stuff of memories.
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: That's the stuff that when you're at the end of
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: your life and you look back when you and I
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: are sitting on a rock our rocker chairs, you know,
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: thirty years from now and we're talking.
• 6:33
  Speaker 2: Remember back in the day we did that.
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: Yeah, when we like when we cross Russia, Like you
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: couldn't do that.
• 6:39
  Speaker 2: You can't do that right now?
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: Yeah, or you wouldn't dare try. Yeah, yeah, nope, you
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: know what I mean.
• 6:46
  Speaker 2: So just Greenland thing, the trends Global car just got
• 6:49
  Speaker 2: shut down for Greenland for right now, which paused to
• 6:52
  Speaker 2: do that. Yeah, but yeah, you got to go do
• 6:54
  Speaker 2: the real adventures. I have this thing recently where you know,
• 6:58
  Speaker 2: because you get we all get in this, like they
• 7:01
  Speaker 2: gotta go make money because money makes the world go around,
• 7:04
  Speaker 2: you know, And that's what we're told. And uh, and
• 7:07
  Speaker 2: to some degree there's truth to it, because you need
• 7:09
  Speaker 2: you need resources to go do things, you know, but
• 7:13
  Speaker 2: I'm like, I just I don't want to be the
• 7:15
  Speaker 2: guy that dies rich with no stories. Yeah, I want
• 7:17
  Speaker 2: to be the guy that dies rich with stories. You know,
• 7:20
  Speaker 2: and that you're striking a balance, keeping that that balance.
• 7:25
  Speaker 2: So when how hard do you push at what time
• 7:27
  Speaker 2: and when you should get back off. My oldest son,
• 7:30
  Speaker 2: Cyrus is graduating high school week. Wow, that's incredible, and
• 7:34
  Speaker 2: you just go like, whoa you always hear like it
• 7:37
  Speaker 2: goes fast? Yes, it does. Yeah.
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: The first time I met your family, I mean, those
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: guys were all like, I don't know if all of
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: them we've even made yet, Like.
• 7:46
  Speaker 2: I think I was probably super fresh. Yeah, you know,
• 7:50
  Speaker 2: and man, holy cow goes fast. He's running the booth
• 7:52
  Speaker 2: over here. That's incredible in there checking merchandise. That's incredible.
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: So yeah, what are some things or some tools in
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: your toolbox or lessons that you've learned to help strike
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: a little bit of that balance now that you've got
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: some miles under your belt.
• 8:11
  Speaker 2: Uh. I think the the thing that has helped me
• 8:14
  Speaker 2: a lot is kind of reading a bit up on stoicism. Yeah,
• 8:18
  Speaker 2: that's that has helped. And it's you know, I grew
• 8:22
  Speaker 2: up in the Christian Church, and when you heard stoicism,
• 8:24
  Speaker 2: it was like, yeah, I had just like stigma to it.
• 8:28
  Speaker 2: But it's not religion, it's not that. It's just a
• 8:30
  Speaker 2: lot of stuff to think about, you know, and it's
• 8:33
  Speaker 2: said in a certain way. And so I have I've
• 8:35
  Speaker 2: taken some of these things and like I have actually
• 8:37
  Speaker 2: helped me just apply some thinking to my life. And
• 8:41
  Speaker 2: that thinking has led me to saying, I'm just really
• 8:44
  Speaker 2: diving into the time, money, family life balance. And then
• 8:49
  Speaker 2: going on a couple of trips with some really solid
• 8:53
  Speaker 2: guys like doctor John. You know doctor John. We we
• 8:56
  Speaker 2: were just in Africa a month ago and he was saying, yeah,
• 8:59
  Speaker 2: I've been at the the deathbed of a lot of
• 9:01
  Speaker 2: people that they don't want any they don't want more money,
• 9:03
  Speaker 2: they don't want more anything. They just want to spend
• 9:05
  Speaker 2: more time with the people they love.
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: Well, they would give up, they would give up all
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: the money that they had for one more day, for
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: one more day, you know, And how quickly we'll spend
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: a day right now.
• 9:16
  Speaker 2: So when you hear that, like even on the other side,
• 9:19
  Speaker 2: if you're hearing this in your car or in your
• 9:21
  Speaker 2: headphones or whatever, like you can go in one ear
• 9:23
  Speaker 2: and out the other. Yeah, but if you stop and
• 9:25
  Speaker 2: really think through this, take a minute, and it can
• 9:29
  Speaker 2: be scary place to unlock that door, Yeah, and to
• 9:32
  Speaker 2: let yourself go in there, because it might start to
• 9:34
  Speaker 2: mess up what you got going on, because you had
• 9:37
  Speaker 2: certain priorities and certain drivers, and that thought could mess
• 9:42
  Speaker 2: up what you're doing. But it's worth looking at.
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: I think, so. I think it's good to do those
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: thought exercises. I remember seeing that you had bought that
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: poster momento memory, which is that remembering that we're all
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: going to die and we've only got so much time
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: on average. I mean, you're younger than I am, and
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: you may benefit from some medical advancements that keep you
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: around a couple of decades. But they're thinking that, you know,
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: we're talking about one hundred and twenty years or so
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: is about as far as they're going to be able
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: to stretch things, at least for the time being. So
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: we've only got so much time. Yeah, And every time
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: you check off one of those weeks.
• 10:21
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I just did. My birthday was a few days ago.
• 10:24
  Speaker 2: I just checked off another line. Yeah, it's finished. Yeah,
• 10:27
  Speaker 2: I'm forty two. I'm working on year forty three now.
• 10:31
  Speaker 2: And it is humbling, and it is really The good
• 10:35
  Speaker 2: thing is I feel like I've gotten after life as
• 10:38
  Speaker 2: hard as I could. And it's certain, not for sure,
• 10:40
  Speaker 2: but I look back on them like, no, those are good. Yeah,
• 10:43
  Speaker 2: those are good years. You know. The time's going to
• 10:45
  Speaker 2: pass anyway, can't stop that. So I look back on
• 10:49
  Speaker 2: it like that's good. Okay, Now I need to make
• 10:51
  Speaker 2: a few more changes so that as they get into
• 10:53
  Speaker 2: these older years I can keep at it. Yeah, you know,
• 10:57
  Speaker 2: we you and I have always talked about our health
• 10:59
  Speaker 2: and trying to stay in better shape and stuff than
• 11:03
  Speaker 2: That's always been a challenge for me. Something has for
• 11:05
  Speaker 2: me thinking about that and focusing on that because I
• 11:08
  Speaker 2: started to say, you know what, I'm starting to say
• 11:10
  Speaker 2: no or not really thinking about certain adventures because of
• 11:13
  Speaker 2: my condition. Yeah, you know, and I'm like, that's messed up.
• 11:17
  Speaker 2: You know, the future is to be seen. Yeah, but
• 11:21
  Speaker 2: that's what I'm thinking right now, Like I want, I
• 11:23
  Speaker 2: want to make those changes and stuff. But yeah, just
• 11:28
  Speaker 2: I'm always trying to think that. Way to answer your
• 11:30
  Speaker 2: question is I think that's.
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: Good though, And I remember, I remember one of the
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: things that was the most powerful for me around the
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: whole stoicism concept was this realization that the only thing
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: that we can control is our reaction. Like we can't
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: control our health, like even the healthiest person can get sick,
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: get cancer or whatever. You know, you can't control the
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: actions of others. You can't control what the stock market's
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: going to do. Like we spent a lot of energy
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: trying to control things that we can't, But actually the
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: thing that we spend the least amount of time is
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: the only thing that we can control, and that's our
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: reaction to things. So when I when I read that,
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: it's funny how things stick with you. But when I
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: read with that, when when I read that, I'm like,
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: you know what, I'm not going to have any more
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: bad reaction days. I can have bad days because there
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: are things that happen that are out of our control
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: and tough. And maybe I'm tough, maybe it's tough, maybe
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: I'm exhausted or whatever, but I'm not going to take
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: it out on other people. I'm going to be really mindful.
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: And I've always been pretty calm, yeah, and as kind
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: as I can be, but now I try to be
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: even more so because I realized it's actually the only
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: thing in my life that I have any control over
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: is how I react. And that's pretty powerful once you
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: realize that it is, and it does, and it really
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: in a positive way, affects those around you. When when
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: you're not yelling at your kids, when you're not you know,
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: barking at your employees, when you're not being unkind and
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: yelling at yourself, which I know I do that.
• 13:03
  Speaker 2: That's a tough one.
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: I do that a lot more often than I would
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: ever do it to someone else. I can be really
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: hard on myself, and it's I mean, maybe I am
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: a perfectionist. I don't consider myself one, but it's that
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: I get. I just get disappointed in myself and then
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: I get really I can be really negative towards myself,
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: like things I would never in my lifetime say to
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: another human being.
• 13:29
  Speaker 2: But you'll allow myself to say it to me.
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: So I'm working on that too.
• 13:33
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a good one to work on on that
• 13:34
  Speaker 2: way too, Right. I think anybody who's pretty driven that
• 13:39
  Speaker 2: wants to be stuff is part of the territory. Uh,
• 13:43
  Speaker 2: some of it can be used for good. I can
• 13:45
  Speaker 2: say that there's sometimes that, but is it the idea?
• 13:49
  Speaker 2: Like I did a lot of stuff that I wouldn't
• 13:52
  Speaker 2: have done because I knew there would be a spanking
• 13:53
  Speaker 2: on the other side. So there there still is some
• 13:58
  Speaker 2: degree of the concert question. But yeah, man, giving ourselves
• 14:05
  Speaker 2: grace is I've been working on that too, and for joy,
• 14:11
  Speaker 2: trying to bring more joy back into because there is
• 14:14
  Speaker 2: a mountain of work to do and as you achieved it,
• 14:17
  Speaker 2: what is it this tripical force? Whatever things spin up further,
• 14:20
  Speaker 2: like the momentums and the pressures get all later and yeah,
• 14:25
  Speaker 2: I kind of hit a point where I was like,
• 14:27
  Speaker 2: all of this is still impacting my daily happiness a lot,
• 14:33
  Speaker 2: you know, because I'm letting it. I'm letting it and
• 14:37
  Speaker 2: I want to be happier. So I got to just
• 14:39
  Speaker 2: tell myself, I got to be happier because life's good.
• 14:43
  Speaker 2: I don't need to put all this pressure on myself.
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: And it's so funny how saying no can really can
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: lead to a lot more joy, because I think we
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: say we say yes to a lot of things that
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: aren't a hell yes in our life, and I think
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: the more often that we just are like, all right,
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: is this the hell yes? And if not, it's going
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: to have to be a no or a nott right
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: now because the fomo is strong, especially in the society
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: the way that it's structured with Instagram and everything else.
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: You want to always be putting up the putting up
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: this view of life or this vision of life. But
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: I think we get a lot more joy when we're selective,
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: when we do the things that really matter to us,
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: Like you guys have done, You've you've done a really
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: good job of staying true to your core values. You
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: only work with high quality companies, you know. It's It's
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: one of the things that I believe is important when
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: you're sponsored, is be sponsored by high quality products that
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: you would have used yourself anyways.
• 15:42
  Speaker 2: And a lot of people don't do that, you know.
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: It's like, is that one hundred and ninety nine dollars
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: Chinese fridge? Is that really something you want to tell
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: somebody to go spend their hard earned money on it,
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: you know, or trust it to get them, you know,
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: keep their tacos fresh all the way down to Baja.
• 15:59
  Speaker 2: You know, it's just not going to it's not going
• 16:00
  Speaker 2: to happen. So and it is, you know, on the
• 16:03
  Speaker 2: sponsorship front, And like any business, I guess there's a
• 16:07
  Speaker 2: whole lot of opportunity in that area. You know, you
• 16:10
  Speaker 2: can there's a lot of people trying to make it
• 16:13
  Speaker 2: to try to get up to become a bigger company
• 16:15
  Speaker 2: or a better company. And so there's that's where people
• 16:19
  Speaker 2: are spending a lot of money because they're trying to
• 16:21
  Speaker 2: gain that ground. So you can go that way pretty easy.
• 16:23
  Speaker 2: It's the path at least resistance, and it it has
• 16:26
  Speaker 2: taken a lot of i don't know, self discipline because
• 16:31
  Speaker 2: there's been offers in the years past and are like,
• 16:33
  Speaker 2: that's great, that's it. No, that's that's pretty attractive, and
• 16:37
  Speaker 2: you know, it's just not in line with what we do.
• 16:39
  Speaker 2: And you can't sell your integrity, you know, because it
• 16:43
  Speaker 2: can be gone and you can't get it back. You
• 16:44
  Speaker 2: can't get it back.
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: So when you recommend someone go buy a Forerunner, it's like,
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: that's the same car that we recommend and you know
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: we're not sponsored by Toyota, but it's the same answer
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: because it is the right answer. And then and it
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: makes it a lot easier to stay true to your
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: values when you're working with great, great companies. Yeah, you know,
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: and the companies like Toyota, they probably wouldn't work with
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: you if you were working with the cheap tire company
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: or the the third third rate whatever. It's like the
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: stuff that you put on your trucks is also high quality.
• 17:19
  Speaker 2: Yeah, APEX companies want to work with APEX companies. Yeah
• 17:23
  Speaker 2: for sure.
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it just helps them control the downsides, you know,
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: any of those those potential implications towards their brand. They're
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: going to be really guarded around that.
• 17:33
  Speaker 2: And I'm the same way. Yeah, we have to be.
• 17:37
  Speaker 2: You absolutely have to be. What a funny thing to navigate.
• 17:40
  Speaker 2: That's but it's as old as the old as time.
• 17:43
  Speaker 2: It really is. It really is.
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: And that's but that's what business still comes back to,
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: is how we treat others, our reputation, doing what you
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: say you're going to do and the best way that
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: you can and if you're going to screw up, if
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: you screw up, take ownership for it. Yeah, especially as
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: a leader.
• 17:58
  Speaker 2: I just had to own up for a thing this morning,
• 18:03
  Speaker 2: and I was like, I had talked to the president
• 18:05
  Speaker 2: like I I'm messed up, and it was tough, you know,
• 18:09
  Speaker 2: but this is on me. I'm sorry, this cost this
• 18:12
  Speaker 2: is actually costs you quite a bit of money. I'm
• 18:14
  Speaker 2: pretty sorry. Yeah, you know, let me know what it needs,
• 18:16
  Speaker 2: what I need to do to make it right, and
• 18:19
  Speaker 2: it comes along and just got to own it. Take
• 18:22
  Speaker 2: your pills.
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: Yeah, because people make mistakes.
• 18:24
  Speaker 2: We all do, we all do.
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: So yeah, if you do it with a bit of
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: grace and some humility and take responsibility for it, you know.
• 18:32
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: Like even this morning, right before we started the podcast,
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: we were struggling with our point of sale here at
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: the Overland Expo and this customer was waiting for me
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: to try to get it. I just looked up in
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: him and I'm like, you know what, man, I'm going
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: to give you a free subscription. This is not your problem. Yeah,
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: this is not this is my fault. This is my problem.
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: Just give us your name and address. We're going to
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: take care of you. So, but because I didn't have
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: that one thing ready to go, so that was all.
• 19:04
  Speaker 2: Right, that's right, well good right on. So it makes
• 19:08
  Speaker 2: good companies. You gotta do that, right.
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: So now let's talk about great trips. So the last time,
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: well we saw each other last night, but the last
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: time that we had seen each other before that, we
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: were in Johannesburg and you guys had rented this very
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: cool place outside of town. And I rode I think
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: I think I was on a triumph. I rode a
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: motorcycle out there to go hang out with you guys.
• 19:33
  Speaker 2: That's that was. That was amazing. House was awesome that
• 19:36
  Speaker 2: we were staying at such And wasn't it.
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: Like the owner that was making the pizzas or.
• 19:40
  Speaker 2: Something, his name's Rodney and he's the South and he's
• 19:43
  Speaker 2: kind of an Overlander himself. Yeah. Think he was super
• 19:46
  Speaker 2: pumped to just be around a group of people that
• 19:48
  Speaker 2: were into what he's into too, So he was playing pizzas.
• 19:51
  Speaker 2: They were really good. It was super good. Yeah.
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: So we were having pizzas and gin and Tonics and
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: talking about Africa, and you guys were actively trying to
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: adjust your schedule because of some delays with the trucks,
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: and I was dealing with the same exact thing. So
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: my truck was in was in customs jail, you know,
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: at the same exact time. So the Grenadier was in
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: customs jail. So we yeah, we got it. That was
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: the last time we got to see each other. And
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: then you guys went on one hell of an adventure.
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: And for those that are listening, you know, please check
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: out the ex Overland Africa Series. It's available on your
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: channels and it's also available now on YouTube if I understand, it's.
• 20:33
  Speaker 2: All on YouTube now. Yeah, yeah, yeah, and it's and
• 20:36
  Speaker 2: it's great.
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: I mean, the the cast of characters, the fact that
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: you had your family with you, and some of the
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: like are the really new vehicles, so you got a
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: new Sequoia that's in it, you know, so you can
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: really see how these vehicles perform.
• 20:48
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it was a it's an epic trip. I wouldn't
• 20:52
  Speaker 2: say that every day was the best day of our life,
• 20:56
  Speaker 2: but we we came off of what were some of
• 20:59
  Speaker 2: the challenges. It just uh, the biggest one that we
• 21:07
  Speaker 2: ran into was our build process. It. We've done some
• 21:14
  Speaker 2: expeditions like say like Nordic Series the year before, a
• 21:18
  Speaker 2: lot of pavement, a lot of pretty good gravel roads.
• 21:21
  Speaker 2: Even Iceland has its rough spots, but it's pretty good traveling,
• 21:25
  Speaker 2: you know, uh, pretty fast. And then you get to
• 21:28
  Speaker 2: Africa and everything you shook apart. Like it's there's only
• 21:34
  Speaker 2: a few other places that I can think of in
• 21:36
  Speaker 2: the world that have rough as rough roads as that.
• 21:38
  Speaker 2: Some sections of Baja so Australia, Australia, corrugations of Australia. Yeah,
• 21:44
  Speaker 2: I mean it just just shakes the trucks apartment and
• 21:47
  Speaker 2: it exposes endless. It's endless, endless, endless. You never get
• 21:52
  Speaker 2: past it, and you think it's bad, and then it
• 21:54
  Speaker 2: gets worse, and then you think it's worse, and then
• 21:56
  Speaker 2: it gets really worse. You know. So it just the
• 22:00
  Speaker 2: good part of all that is it exposed, like, hey,
• 22:03
  Speaker 2: we've got to change something. You got to think a
• 22:05
  Speaker 2: little different. When you get into the real stuff, the
• 22:08
  Speaker 2: real real stuff. You can get a lot, you can
• 22:10
  Speaker 2: get away of a lot in America. Not doing torquing
• 22:13
  Speaker 2: a bolt just right. That's why.
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: Like people would ask me and like, how come you
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: guys didn't do this on the East seven trucks. How
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: come you didn't do this on the East seven the
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: Lan cruisers for those that are listening, the Lan Cruisers
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: that we used on Expedition seven. At the end of
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: the day, I'm like, it's going to all fail, it's all,
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: it's all. It will all fall.
• 22:30
  Speaker 2: Apart, it all shake and become weak, yeah and bend
• 22:35
  Speaker 2: yeah or yeah. I mean vibration. If you haven't experienced it,
• 22:40
  Speaker 2: you did. I mean, I don't know how to explain it.
• 22:42
  Speaker 2: It literally shakes your teeth though it does, and you
• 22:44
  Speaker 2: feel like you're damaging the vehicle every second. That's right,
• 22:47
  Speaker 2: you know, it's to that degree.
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: And there's really not like a way to make it easier.
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: Like I was thinking about, like the section that I
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: did through Tanzania where we were going from and goor
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: Goro into the Serengetti. It was the worst road condition
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: I'd ever been on in all of my travels, wow,
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: because it was a combination of extremely deep corrugations with
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: embedded rock. So you couldn't, like, if you're just on
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: a corrugated road, like take Australia for example, air those
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: tires down, get up to about seventy kilometers an hour
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: and just kind of try and let the vehicle float
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: on top of it as much as you can. But
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: in that one, in that section, I couldn't do that
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: because there was rocks everywhere embedded between the corrugations and
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: it was just absolutely abusive. And I'm like, if there's
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: anything that's going to break this granade here, it's going
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: to be this road.
• 23:46
  Speaker 2: It was breaking us. You know.
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: It was like I was like, it's when you want
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: to go to when you go up to eighty miles
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: an hour just to.
• 23:53
  Speaker 2: Make it stop. Yeah, make it stop.
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: Just make it yeah, usually make it so like whenever
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: I get thinking that way, I'm all right, we're gonna
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: pull over. We're gonna stop for a second. We're not
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: gonna get too far away from the vehicles because the
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: lion will eat us. But like we're gonna like we're
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: gonna like get out of the car for a second.
• 24:09
  Speaker 2: Maybe go sit on the roof rack.
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you just take take a beat, Yeah, take a beat.
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: But you're right, those roads are so tough on the cars.
• 24:18
  Speaker 2: Yeah, So we found what works really well, Like our
• 24:21
  Speaker 2: suspension worked really well, or you probably a lot it did.
• 24:25
  Speaker 2: I mean, we had thinking this weird. So we did
• 24:27
  Speaker 2: a couple of things. We ran the CDEV Electric shock
• 24:32
  Speaker 2: from Icon that that's a newer product. It's a newer
• 24:35
  Speaker 2: product so you can adjust it on the fly with
• 24:37
  Speaker 2: your phone. I mean, yeah, I think it's a total
• 24:41
  Speaker 2: way to go if you're listening out there and you're
• 24:42
  Speaker 2: on the fence, go that far because you actually really
• 24:45
  Speaker 2: use it all the time and you can adjust stuff
• 24:48
  Speaker 2: on the fly and the pitch and roll of the vehicle.
• 24:51
  Speaker 2: You can set these different parameters and stuff. So we
• 24:53
  Speaker 2: were just messing with that, constantly defined the sweet spot,
• 24:56
  Speaker 2: and eventually you did and you're like, okay, that's as
• 24:58
  Speaker 2: good as we're gonna be, as good as we're gonna get,
• 25:00
  Speaker 2: and now we just got to manage our speeds and
• 25:02
  Speaker 2: tire pressures. We went with thirty five inch tires before
• 25:06
  Speaker 2: we went over there. They did look really good. We
• 25:10
  Speaker 2: knew that there was going to be some complications if
• 25:11
  Speaker 2: we needed more tires, which we ended up needing more
• 25:14
  Speaker 2: tires towards the on the next trip that we'll talk about,
• 25:17
  Speaker 2: but they would have been a nice to half well.
• 25:21
  Speaker 2: We ended up running the same tires on both trips,
• 25:26
  Speaker 2: but we went with an eighteen inch wheel because we
• 25:29
  Speaker 2: had a power break system and we go around and
• 25:33
  Speaker 2: around on this because we needed an eighteen inch wheel
• 25:35
  Speaker 2: to fit the power break. Tell me what a power
• 25:38
  Speaker 2: break is. So power breaks are just you know, a
• 25:40
  Speaker 2: performance break upgrade kit. Out of South Africa. They're the
• 25:43
  Speaker 2: same guys that build the Toyota Racing Team breaks.
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: Oh have you been in the Toyota Racing Team facility
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: in South Africa?
• 25:51
  Speaker 2: Ye?
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: Miss that that's where they build. That's where they build
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: the car trucks, it's just gosane. So these are the
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: break companies that provide those breaks.
• 26:00
  Speaker 2: That's awesome. We put those on our trucks. That is
• 26:03
  Speaker 2: a very good move. That was a really good move.
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: And it works with the abs and everything else.
• 26:07
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Wow, phenomenal. They're not cheap, they but they like
• 26:11
  Speaker 2: you can stop a fully loaded Tundra with all the
• 26:14
  Speaker 2: gear on a dot like did you tires?
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: Did you install that on the Tacoma as well?
• 26:20
  Speaker 2: Every truck had it, including Sequoia. Wow. So we could
• 26:23
  Speaker 2: run hard and stop fast. Wow. And but you get
• 26:28
  Speaker 2: past that. I think you guys have it as your
• 26:31
  Speaker 2: build spec that you want your rim side your tire
• 26:34
  Speaker 2: size to be twice the diameter or twice the spect
• 26:37
  Speaker 2: of the rim right. Yeah, so when you go to
• 26:38
  Speaker 2: the thirty five and eighteen you're out of spec there. Yeah.
• 26:42
  Speaker 2: And I could tell so it would have been the
• 26:45
  Speaker 2: ideal scenario would have been power breaks that would fit
• 26:49
  Speaker 2: inside a seventeen inch wheel with a thirty five inch
• 26:51
  Speaker 2: tire for that sexual density. Yeah sure. And when we
• 26:54
  Speaker 2: went in that eighteen inch wheel, you could you could
• 26:57
  Speaker 2: just tell that that loss what is that like an
• 26:59
  Speaker 2: inch of loss? Yeah?
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: You can feel it, but as a percentage of the
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: carcass height, it's actually quite a bit. Yeah, so because
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: the carcass height is only so tall, and if you
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: take an inch out of that section height, it's it's
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: as a percentage, it's more than you think.
• 27:14
  Speaker 2: So I think that came into play when we were
• 27:17
  Speaker 2: airing down and trying to rip on these roads. And
• 27:20
  Speaker 2: there is a debatable if the thirty five was a
• 27:24
  Speaker 2: better tires choice and size because it didn't match the
• 27:28
  Speaker 2: corrugations very well. The frequencies were off. Yeah, so if
• 27:32
  Speaker 2: we'd have gone to like a thirty four, Oh interesting. Yeah,
• 27:36
  Speaker 2: So I'm like, I still kicked this around my head,
• 27:38
  Speaker 2: like because we got the spots where like the thirty five,
• 27:41
  Speaker 2: like nothing harmonically lined up, got it? I don't know,
• 27:45
  Speaker 2: But I don't know if that's how the math works.
• 27:46
  Speaker 2: It's just these are just theories. No.
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: There is where you get out it really out of
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: sync is when you don't match the other vehicles that
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: are on the road that travel that same road. So
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: you guys would have had a totally different wheelbase than
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: the land Cruiser seventy series that will normally be on
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: those roads or at least the majority of the traffic
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: is going to be a land cruiser seventy and I
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: experienced that even with the Grenadier, so different wheelbase, longer wheelbase.
• 28:14
  Speaker 2: Gotcha, that makes sense. And they all run like a
• 28:17
  Speaker 2: thirty two and a half thirty fran inch tire. It's tops,
• 28:20
  Speaker 2: don't There's not a bigger tire in Africa. So, by
• 28:22
  Speaker 2: the way, if you're out there listening thinking you have
• 28:24
  Speaker 2: to have all these big tires, they're a nice to have.
• 28:27
  Speaker 2: They're not a requirement. All of the Africans, all the
• 28:30
  Speaker 2: African overlanders, they're ripping around on thirty bre inch tires. Yeah.
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I was run running a two sixty five seventy
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: or seventeen on the Grenadier. Is just the stockpire. Just
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: ran the Stockpire the whole time. Yeah, and just aired
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: it down anytime I got into technical stuff. I just
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: just really make sure you air down. And then you
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: got front rear lockers, which make a huge difference. But
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: you guys have those in the trucks. We just weird
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: lockers were lockers. That's me.
• 28:58
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's enough. Yeah, it's great. Yeah. So we learned
• 29:01
  Speaker 2: a lot about traveling. I hadn't been on rough roads
• 29:05
  Speaker 2: like that for a while. I mean, bah, you get it.
• 29:09
  Speaker 2: Alaska doesn't have roads like that. Yeah, they're a special
• 29:13
  Speaker 2: breed of road, which is really fun.
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: And there's also this heightened awareness of the fact that
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: if something breaks, there's just not much support. It's very
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: hard to get something repaired. Whereas if you're on a
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: road in Baja, it's like, within two days somebody's driven
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: that fancy special part down to you.
• 29:33
  Speaker 2: You can get it.
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: You can get it, or you can DHL it down there,
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: like whereas if you're on Benzel's Pass in Northern Namibia,
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: which you guys did, Yes, there is nothing around there.
• 29:43
  Speaker 2: That is one of the most remote places you could
• 29:45
  Speaker 2: be in a vehicle.
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: There is nothing around there. It's pretty remote and it's
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: technical like it's it's like a legit road, like especially
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: you guys towing a trailer and stuff like that.
• 29:55
  Speaker 2: It was probably pretty sporty, it was. It was it
• 29:58
  Speaker 2: was fun and Cyrus drove it down the eighteen year
• 30:03
  Speaker 2: old kid rather with the trailer full of fuel down there,
• 30:09
  Speaker 2: but there right there, So is.
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: There still like all the carcasses of the vehicles that
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: are rolled down there.
• 30:15
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's like constant reminder of like, don't mess up exactly.
• 30:21
  Speaker 2: It's gret that maybe is fantastic.
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: It's just one of the best. It's literally one of
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: the best.
• 30:26
  Speaker 2: I'll go if you say, hey, I'm going to maybe,
• 30:29
  Speaker 2: I will cut you off. So yes, yes, yes, yes,
• 30:36
  Speaker 2: it's so cool.
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: I think it's one of the I think it's one
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: of the best places to overland in the world. If
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: you love deserts, it's the oldest desert in the world.
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: It's the highest sand dunes in the world. Yeah, that's
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: for sure.
• 30:48
  Speaker 2: Holy cow.
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: And a quick announcement of our new Tires for Overlanding
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: educational series that is going to be brought to the
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: Expedition Portal YouTube channel. This is a six part series
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: that is going to be released over the months of
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: May and June and it features detailed insights on mud tires,
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: all terrains, airing, down driving insand vehicle preparation, tread lightly
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: and more. And we're grateful to Handcook Tire for helping
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: to support this new series. So take a look at
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: the Expedition Portal YouTube channel for more details.
• 31:25
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: So when you go to sosis play and all I
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: mean just and then you guys got a chance to
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: do part of the Skeleton coast, didn't you.
• 31:32
  Speaker 2: Yeah, we looked at doing what you guys did on
• 31:35
  Speaker 2: the E seven section, what that would take, and it
• 31:38
  Speaker 2: was just going to take too much time because it
• 31:40
  Speaker 2: takes like six days or something. It was long trip. Well,
• 31:43
  Speaker 2: it's a lot of desert time, and so we had
• 31:45
  Speaker 2: to compromise between we want to spend that much time
• 31:48
  Speaker 2: in the dunes or do we want to spend time
• 31:49
  Speaker 2: other places, because you know, you're down a limited schedule.
• 31:52
  Speaker 2: So we did two days in the dunes and Benzel's
• 31:56
  Speaker 2: was worth it. I mean it was worth yeah.
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: And I didn't do that on the seven trip, So
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: we even made those same cons you know, compromises, so
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: I was able to do Benzel's at a later date.
• 32:07
  Speaker 2: But very cool. Yeah, it's that's a cool one to
• 32:11
  Speaker 2: check off if you're out there, listen, go to go
• 32:13
  Speaker 2: to northern Namibia.
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: It's amazing, well and it's just easy to travel there.
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: You fly into Vinta, it's a super safe, really pretty city,
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: tons of infrastructure, great restaurants and everything else. Yeah, and
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: you pick up your you can go to Avis and
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: pick up your high Lux with all the stuff in it.
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: And like you're off on your adventure. If you go
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: go any direction you want to go, you just need a.
• 32:36
  Speaker 2: Lot of gas. Yeah, make sure you got a lot
• 32:38
  Speaker 2: of gas. Whatever you pick, you need a lot of fuel.
• 32:41
  Speaker 2: This is a long ways up.
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: And how was that? How did that work out? Because
• 32:44
  Speaker 1: that was one of the things that you and I
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: riffed on quite a bit before you left, was how
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: much fuel to take? How to carry it?
• 32:51
  Speaker 2: How did you guys find that you had enough fuel?
• 32:53
  Speaker 2: It was okay, we did, so what we made pretty
• 32:57
  Speaker 2: big consider our modifications to the convoy. So we took
• 33:02
  Speaker 2: an at trailer flatbed that Mario had built for me
• 33:05
  Speaker 2: like three years ago, and we just like, we got
• 33:08
  Speaker 2: to put a fuel cell on this. So we bought
• 33:11
  Speaker 2: a fuel cell off at Amazon with a fuel pump
• 33:13
  Speaker 2: in it and kind of took some of the experiences
• 33:16
  Speaker 2: that we had from the East seven world of fueling trucks,
• 33:20
  Speaker 2: and we got to do this. We just got to
• 33:22
  Speaker 2: content put all the fuel in one spot, manage it
• 33:24
  Speaker 2: in one place as much as possible. So we bought
• 33:27
  Speaker 2: a ninety one gallon fuel tank with a toolbox on top,
• 33:31
  Speaker 2: plumbed it into an Anderson cable directly off the tow truck. Nice,
• 33:35
  Speaker 2: so you just plugged it in, ran your pump, yep,
• 33:39
  Speaker 2: filled up stuff and we didn't have to modify fuel tanks.
• 33:43
  Speaker 2: We didn't have to change a wee fuel tanks. But
• 33:45
  Speaker 2: that was enough. The ninety gallon, that was enough to
• 33:48
  Speaker 2: keep with us. We carried four Jerry's on the roof
• 33:53
  Speaker 2: of Tundra, a Jerry on the two Jerry's on the
• 33:56
  Speaker 2: back of Sequoia, and a Jerry on the back of
• 33:59
  Speaker 2: the lamp or the Tacoma that had a long rangeot
• 34:03
  Speaker 2: about of tank. But then we bought those trail tanks,
• 34:07
  Speaker 2: the plastic ones that go in your spare tire. We
• 34:10
  Speaker 2: hit six of those, but.
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: Yet, how did those work. That's a really clever product.
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: And it's the say it's for water, but everybody knows.
• 34:20
  Speaker 2: We put fuel and uh so that was our last
• 34:23
  Speaker 2: resort that we are harder to get to it. Yeah,
• 34:27
  Speaker 2: it's like you gotta drop a spare tire, you gotta
• 34:29
  Speaker 2: that's the whole process, right, So we only loaded those
• 34:32
  Speaker 2: up when we they were empty half for more than
• 34:36
  Speaker 2: half the trip before we got to the Benz. Was
• 34:39
  Speaker 2: that Benz aisles and sales fans sales. It looks like
• 34:44
  Speaker 2: xiles anyway. So we had we used all that fuel,
• 34:52
  Speaker 2: all of it, wow, to make that convoy work. Plus,
• 34:56
  Speaker 2: so we needed a thousand kilometer concoy range. That's what
• 35:01
  Speaker 2: you need.
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: And a lot of people don't rep and a lot
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: of people don't realize that, but you never know when
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: it's going to happen.
• 35:07
  Speaker 2: Yeah, And we got the one spot and they didn't
• 35:09
  Speaker 2: have fuel that that's right. That we had to go
• 35:11
  Speaker 2: in another two hours sex month and then you know which,
• 35:15
  Speaker 2: we had enough reserve. Plus you got to carry reserve
• 35:17
  Speaker 2: capacity on top of what you think you'd need. And
• 35:20
  Speaker 2: then when you're filming, you go back and forth and
• 35:22
  Speaker 2: do run over here and do that thing, and so
• 35:24
  Speaker 2: you need contingency field too, that's right. So I love
• 35:28
  Speaker 2: that cold game. It's fun, so much fun. It's hard
• 35:32
  Speaker 2: to find it.
• 35:33
  Speaker 1: Yeah, Like when I was in Malawi, there was just
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: no fuel, no petrol available, So like, a know, I
• 35:39
  Speaker 1: did do a thousand kilometers with just the fuel in
• 35:42
  Speaker 1: my vehicles.
• 35:42
  Speaker 2: How did you do it?
• 35:44
  Speaker 1: It only has a ninety liter tank, so I had
• 35:47
  Speaker 1: two five gallon Jerry cans on the on the top.
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: So that's another you know, forty leaders there, and then
• 35:54
  Speaker 1: I had another forty leaders in these rollable giant loop
• 35:58
  Speaker 1: fuel bladders, gotcha and and that got me there, and
• 36:03
  Speaker 1: I drove really slow. I was I just became very
• 36:06
  Speaker 1: conscious of my of my range, and I didn't do
• 36:10
  Speaker 1: the side trips that I wanted to do until I
• 36:13
  Speaker 1: was within striking distance of the border. And fortunately one
• 36:16
  Speaker 1: of the places that I really wanted to see was
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: closer to the border. So I was like, Okay, I'm
• 36:22
  Speaker 1: gonna make it.
• 36:23
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I got it. Then I can go do it. Yeah.
• 36:25
  Speaker 1: So otherwise you're buying it on the black market and
• 36:29
  Speaker 1: there's just no guarantee around fuel quality. And this is
• 36:31
  Speaker 1: a new vehicle. It's not you know, it's not like
• 36:33
  Speaker 1: it's a carbureted f J forty or something.
• 36:36
  Speaker 2: So and you can get one bad thing and like
• 36:39
  Speaker 2: wreck it. Yeah.
• 36:40
  Speaker 1: And for you guys, you could affect the entire convoy.
• 36:43
  Speaker 2: Yeah. And we were running so many people. Here's another
• 36:47
  Speaker 2: risk factor that we decided to take. We couldn't fit
• 36:50
  Speaker 2: the entire group of people in two cars. We had
• 36:54
  Speaker 2: to have sure cars. Sure, I mean, you could have
• 36:57
  Speaker 2: made it work here in Africa, You'll make it right,
• 37:00
  Speaker 2: But we had nine people, and that's a huge crew.
• 37:04
  Speaker 2: There's a big crew, there's a lot. I don't recommend
• 37:07
  Speaker 2: nine people.
• 37:08
  Speaker 1: You know.
• 37:09
  Speaker 2: We had to do it because we had a family
• 37:10
  Speaker 2: of five and needed. Uh. The magic number is still
• 37:13
  Speaker 2: three trucks, seven people if you're filming. Three truck six
• 37:16
  Speaker 2: people if you're not filming, is ideal. Yeah, it's you know,
• 37:20
  Speaker 2: or comparison per vehicle, and it's.
• 37:23
  Speaker 1: And there's there are quite a few advantages to three trucks.
• 37:27
  Speaker 1: I'm actually to the point now where it's like I
• 37:30
  Speaker 1: want to be in one vehicle or I want to
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: be in three vehicle because the two it just it's
• 37:36
  Speaker 1: a little bit better. But then you're just dealing with
• 37:39
  Speaker 1: just the complications of other people's plans and then another
• 37:42
  Speaker 1: vehicle and everything else. You don't actually have that true
• 37:45
  Speaker 1: redundancy because if one of the vehicles breaks in, you
• 37:47
  Speaker 1: still got to leave it at the side of the road.
• 37:49
  Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, And the three vehicles three turns into a convoy. Yeah,
• 37:53
  Speaker 2: that's right. And then so you have coms mentality and
• 37:56
  Speaker 2: you can move like a team to hand, but it's
• 38:00
  Speaker 2: still not the same effective. Yeah. Yeah, threes of the
• 38:03
  Speaker 2: magic number.
• 38:04
  Speaker 1: And speaking of kind of the group, the size that
• 38:07
  Speaker 1: you had, and the fact that the convoy. It does,
• 38:10
  Speaker 1: in my mind, add security to a trip. We experienced
• 38:13
  Speaker 1: that on E seven. When you've got you know, three
• 38:16
  Speaker 1: or four white Land cruisers going down the road filled
• 38:19
  Speaker 1: with a bunch of military age males, you just don't
• 38:22
  Speaker 1: attract a lot of theft or or other You don't
• 38:26
  Speaker 1: attract a lot of that kind of stuff. But I know,
• 38:30
  Speaker 1: you guys had a little bit of a conversation with
• 38:32
  Speaker 1: Jonathan from Kenya, and one of the things that stood
• 38:37
  Speaker 1: out in my mind and his recommendations, was that you
• 38:40
  Speaker 1: guys were in a really good space because you had
• 38:43
  Speaker 1: so many people. Yeah, it was such a large group
• 38:47
  Speaker 1: that it just was going to significantly improve your security.
• 38:51
  Speaker 2: And your safety power numbers, I would say, numbers, I
• 38:54
  Speaker 2: would say, So we factored that, you know, we had
• 38:56
  Speaker 2: two younger kids with us, and then we had two women. Yeah,
• 39:00
  Speaker 2: so we just it ever really became a deal. You know,
• 39:05
  Speaker 2: your spidy senses are up, you're thinking through things, but
• 39:08
  Speaker 2: you're also saying, no, I think I'm good, We're good good.
• 39:11
  Speaker 2: There's only maybe one time where I was like, let's
• 39:14
  Speaker 2: have the kids and the ladies stay in right, now
• 39:16
  Speaker 2: let's just have dudes get out sure, you know, once
• 39:20
  Speaker 2: in two months, you know, And that was just precautionary.
• 39:23
  Speaker 2: It's just like, let's stay as precautionary as we.
• 39:26
  Speaker 1: Can't remember when we were we were leaving that super
• 39:28
  Speaker 1: sketchy city in Russia.
• 39:31
  Speaker 2: And I had us on the burning the lawns. Yeah,
• 39:35
  Speaker 2: and I.
• 39:35
  Speaker 1: Had us do the as a convoy. We went past
• 39:38
  Speaker 1: our turnoff in all of the dust, and we backed
• 39:41
  Speaker 1: up in the dust and then went down the side trail.
• 39:43
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, that was pretty fun. That's I love that
• 39:48
  Speaker 2: the game. You know, it's a game until it's not,
• 39:51
  Speaker 2: but I love those things.
• 39:53
  Speaker 1: Yeah, just little little things to be mindful of. It
• 39:56
  Speaker 1: was really interesting.
• 39:57
  Speaker 2: Without the lights on. Yeah, we rolled for the a
• 40:00
  Speaker 2: while in the dark. Yeah, that's right. What I have
• 40:04
  Speaker 2: to never ask you about that? What gave you that
• 40:07
  Speaker 2: at that time? What? What was the arm? What was
• 40:10
  Speaker 2: the alert there?
• 40:11
  Speaker 1: The first thing that I look for around security is
• 40:14
  Speaker 1: the presence of women and children. There were no women
• 40:17
  Speaker 1: and children present in that town. And the men that
• 40:21
  Speaker 1: were there were very, very interested and not friendly at
• 40:26
  Speaker 1: all when they looked at long face, looking at very
• 40:29
  Speaker 1: studying us closely, and and again no women and children,
• 40:34
  Speaker 1: which just means that like families aren't out and about.
• 40:37
  Speaker 1: The women and children don't feel safe. You know, they're
• 40:39
  Speaker 1: there because there's you know, but they don't feel safe
• 40:42
  Speaker 1: to be out and about. And there was just a
• 40:45
  Speaker 1: lot of abandoned vehicles. There was fires actively going with
• 40:50
  Speaker 1: trash and lawns, and and then there was that one
• 40:53
  Speaker 1: like community building and that the whole thing was on fire.
• 40:57
  Speaker 1: It was so yeah, it was it was out of
• 41:00
  Speaker 1: a movie. It was right out of like, yeah, Central Casting.
• 41:04
  Speaker 1: So for me, it would just ticked off all of
• 41:08
  Speaker 1: those concerns. We were very very far from anywhere else too.
• 41:13
  Speaker 1: We were a long ways from any other city and
• 41:17
  Speaker 1: help and things like that. So, yeah, when I feel
• 41:20
  Speaker 1: that strongly about something that I did, I take action
• 41:23
  Speaker 1: on it. And that's not because you know, I'm you know,
• 41:27
  Speaker 1: James Bond or something like that. It's just I've I've
• 41:29
  Speaker 1: talked to enough people that say, when you're feeling unsafe,
• 41:35
  Speaker 1: do something about it. Yeah, change your course, stop, go
• 41:40
  Speaker 1: communicate with others around you. Don't just sit on that
• 41:43
  Speaker 1: feeling because it's there for a reason.
• 41:45
  Speaker 3: Yeah, we have a group rule that if anyone at
• 41:51
  Speaker 3: any time no matter what it feels unsafe, you can
• 41:54
  Speaker 3: speak up and the entire group will act on it
• 41:57
  Speaker 3: with our questions, right.
• 41:59
  Speaker 1: Because then everybody feels that they're heard.
• 42:01
  Speaker 2: Ye have an out. Yeah, And I trust everyone's got
• 42:03
  Speaker 2: Spidey senses and everybody's got different degrees of radar, you know,
• 42:08
  Speaker 2: and they might be picking up on something that is
• 42:10
  Speaker 2: just in my blind spot, and we need to act
• 42:13
  Speaker 2: on that because the risks are far too high, they
• 42:15
  Speaker 2: really are, and none off it's worth it, Like, why
• 42:17
  Speaker 2: would you push it?
• 42:18
  Speaker 1: We're we're out adventuring. We're not you know, we're not
• 42:21
  Speaker 1: saving the world or anything like that. You know it,
• 42:23
  Speaker 1: just like we'll come back another day, exactly exactly. And
• 42:26
  Speaker 1: I think that you showing that as a leader is
• 42:30
  Speaker 1: really important because then your whole team knows that they
• 42:33
  Speaker 1: can raise their hand and ask for help.
• 42:36
  Speaker 2: So there's been only a few times when that's been activated.
• 42:40
  Speaker 2: And what are some that come to mind? One was
• 42:43
  Speaker 2: in South America had some spicy spots every now and
• 42:46
  Speaker 2: then Central America too, But rolled into a campground one
• 42:50
  Speaker 2: night and did a loop through there and Ty was
• 42:54
  Speaker 2: just like, no, something's up. This is just no, You're
• 42:58
  Speaker 2: like when we were all tired, we all wanted, we've
• 43:01
  Speaker 2: been pushing hard to get there that day, drove another
• 43:04
  Speaker 2: hour and a half after that to find a better spot.
• 43:08
  Speaker 2: We got there, We're like, no, this is good, good call.
• 43:10
  Speaker 2: Time you did it right. You know, there's never questioned again,
• 43:15
  Speaker 2: but just things that you know, there's a guy standing
• 43:18
  Speaker 2: out there, and there's this thing and the gate didn't
• 43:21
  Speaker 2: seem to be really a gate at all, and right, yeah,
• 43:25
  Speaker 2: this just isn't adding up right, Gotta go. The biggest
• 43:29
  Speaker 2: one was when we were held up by gunpoint by
• 43:32
  Speaker 2: police in Peru. We went around and around on if
• 43:35
  Speaker 2: we should go or stay. Yeah, and we decided to stay,
• 43:38
  Speaker 2: and that was I think also a good move in hindsight.
• 43:41
  Speaker 2: I was kind of prone to move, but I think
• 43:44
  Speaker 2: staying was the right call.
• 43:46
  Speaker 1: But yeah, and you can't always get it right, and
• 43:49
  Speaker 1: you can't you don't always know, but I think you're
• 43:51
  Speaker 1: right just being open with your team, having that good communication.
• 43:56
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah. The security side of things is people say,
• 44:01
  Speaker 2: ah that we get it on YouTube all the time,
• 44:03
  Speaker 2: like you guys are just worried. What are you worried
• 44:05
  Speaker 2: about them? Like, well, I'm not really worried about anything.
• 44:08
  Speaker 2: Until all of a sudden, I have to be really
• 44:10
  Speaker 2: worried about something, you know, just kicks off like that. Yeah.
• 44:14
  Speaker 1: People, you know, they'll ask me like what what what animal?
• 44:17
  Speaker 1: Were you the most afraid of human? Human that are
• 44:21
  Speaker 1: a mosquito. Actually, in groups that are a mosquito, those
• 44:24
  Speaker 1: are the two things that will kill you in this lifetime.
• 44:28
  Speaker 2: So yeah, I.
• 44:29
  Speaker 1: Think I think that ninety nine point nine to nine
• 44:32
  Speaker 1: percent of travel is very safe. And I feel very,
• 44:36
  Speaker 1: very comfortable traveling all by myself and just about anywhere.
• 44:40
  Speaker 1: But I also accept the fact that I'm taking a
• 44:43
  Speaker 1: lot more risk than some people may feel comfortable doing.
• 44:46
  Speaker 1: You know, it doesn't it Actually it doesn't make me brave.
• 44:49
  Speaker 1: It probably makes me stupid, you know.
• 44:51
  Speaker 2: So one life to live.
• 44:53
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean for me, I feel comfortable. Yeah, I
• 44:56
  Speaker 1: just like, I know, I'm not gonna nobody escapes this
• 44:58
  Speaker 1: life alive. So I just I'm choosing my path.
• 45:01
  Speaker 2: I rarely ever would I don't know if I ever
• 45:03
  Speaker 2: have criticized somebody on their security thresholds. Yeah, because everyone
• 45:06
  Speaker 2: has different circumstances. They grew up in different households, they
• 45:09
  Speaker 2: had different fathers, they had different uncles, they had different
• 45:12
  Speaker 2: schools that you know that all of these things that
• 45:16
  Speaker 2: can put impressions of security and risk on you. You know,
• 45:21
  Speaker 2: so like, hey, if you're not comfortable with that, I understand, Well,
• 45:24
  Speaker 2: I mean I don't understand, but I understand that you
• 45:26
  Speaker 2: are that way, and that's important to you. That's you
• 45:29
  Speaker 2: do you, I'll do me, you do you, And.
• 45:33
  Speaker 1: And the reality is is things things do happen. There
• 45:36
  Speaker 1: was just there was just the three gentlemen that were
• 45:39
  Speaker 1: killed in Baja a few weeks ago. You know, they
• 45:43
  Speaker 1: resisted during a robbery. And that's one of the number
• 45:47
  Speaker 1: one rules. There's nothing that you own that's worth it.
• 45:50
  Speaker 1: The only time that you resist is if there's the
• 45:52
  Speaker 1: threat of kidnapping or if you know, like if someone's
• 45:55
  Speaker 1: taking your partner away, then you everybody find can't fight.
• 46:01
  Speaker 1: But if they just want to take your truck or
• 46:03
  Speaker 1: your camera or whatever, it's like a big deal, you know,
• 46:07
  Speaker 1: of course, you know, just or even if it's not,
• 46:09
  Speaker 1: like it's just like let.
• 46:10
  Speaker 2: It go, let it go.
• 46:12
  Speaker 1: So and then you know, in Kenya when when I
• 46:15
  Speaker 1: was there, there was a British military man that was
• 46:20
  Speaker 1: out traveling in the same way that I was, and
• 46:23
  Speaker 1: he got held up.
• 46:24
  Speaker 2: He fought back. They killed him. Wow, you know, right there.
• 46:28
  Speaker 1: So, you know, I think so, I think the lesson
• 46:31
  Speaker 1: is is that there's nothing that you own that's worth
• 46:33
  Speaker 1: dying for. So if you if someone has a gun
• 46:38
  Speaker 1: and they ask you for something, you give it to them.
• 46:42
  Speaker 2: You give it to them, and that their value of
• 46:44
  Speaker 2: life is different.
• 46:45
  Speaker 1: It's totally different. It's a different culture. And and so
• 46:48
  Speaker 1: you you know, look, show humility, show submissiveness, look down,
• 46:54
  Speaker 1: look away from the assailant. Hand them anything that they
• 46:57
  Speaker 1: asked for. They asked for your phone, you give them
• 46:59
  Speaker 1: their own, You ask whatever they asked for. You know,
• 47:02
  Speaker 1: it's a good idea to keep your passport in another pocket.
• 47:06
  Speaker 1: They don't care about your passport. They want your money
• 47:08
  Speaker 1: and your phone, your car. So keep your passport if
• 47:11
  Speaker 1: you can, in a separate pocket, because that's going to
• 47:15
  Speaker 1: make life a lot easier to lose all your stuff.
• 47:17
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 47:19
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, it's definitely not the reason not to travel,
• 47:21
  Speaker 1: but it's just something to be aware of.
• 47:23
  Speaker 2: Just be aware of, train for it, think it through,
• 47:25
  Speaker 2: have a plan that's giving it up is part of
• 47:29
  Speaker 2: a plan, yeah, you know, and and then go travel,
• 47:33
  Speaker 2: go see the world.
• 47:33
  Speaker 1: Yeah, go do it and then you'll get more comfortable
• 47:37
  Speaker 1: as time goes along, and your spidy sensors will be
• 47:39
  Speaker 1: a lot more attuned to it.
• 47:41
  Speaker 2: Yeah. First you're all over the place. Yeah, you know,
• 47:43
  Speaker 2: and then pretty soon when you what is it? You
• 47:47
  Speaker 2: learn the man, You learn the tone of the place.
• 47:53
  Speaker 2: So I can't think what that's called. There's a name
• 47:54
  Speaker 2: for it. The baseline. You learn the baseline of a
• 47:58
  Speaker 2: of a country or a location. Oh, this is all normal. Okay,
• 48:01
  Speaker 2: Now your.
• 48:01
  Speaker 1: Spidy senses are even more accurate, and this is not normal.
• 48:05
  Speaker 2: And then when you those kick off, you act think yeah,
• 48:08
  Speaker 2: you really do need to take action. That's one of
• 48:09
  Speaker 2: the most important lessons to remember. So let's go. Let's
• 48:13
  Speaker 2: pivot a little bit.
• 48:14
  Speaker 1: So let's talk about the ex Overland ranch. Yeah, so
• 48:20
  Speaker 1: it looks stunning, and of course it's in Montana, which
• 48:23
  Speaker 1: is stunning.
• 48:23
  Speaker 2: It is is right next to John Dunton, you know,
• 48:26
  Speaker 2: at the Elstone. Sure, we bought this ranch. So the
• 48:31
  Speaker 2: whole idea of the branch is a five year vision
• 48:34
  Speaker 2: that took nine months and it wasn't by choice. We
• 48:40
  Speaker 2: don't know. About a year and a half ago we
• 48:42
  Speaker 2: were sitting down, you're doing your three year year two year,
• 48:44
  Speaker 2: your one year three to five vision now, and we
• 48:47
  Speaker 2: were like, you know, we think that we would really
• 48:50
  Speaker 2: like to have some sort of a campus where people
• 48:53
  Speaker 2: can learn to overland and get all these skill sets
• 48:57
  Speaker 2: and build into leadership and uh work with our business partners,
• 49:01
  Speaker 2: et cetera. We think this is where we need to
• 49:03
  Speaker 2: go to help build the industry and keep it healthy
• 49:06
  Speaker 2: and from ours from our side. And so I started
• 49:12
  Speaker 2: working it backwards. All right, So if we want to
• 49:14
  Speaker 2: be operational five years, we need to probably start. It'll
• 49:18
  Speaker 2: probably take us three years to build something and get
• 49:21
  Speaker 2: everything going with permitting, because Skeleton County is the fact
• 49:24
  Speaker 2: one of the fastest growing counties in the country, so
• 49:26
  Speaker 2: resources are tough and we have to find the lane.
• 49:29
  Speaker 2: We've got to start looking now. We got to buy
• 49:32
  Speaker 2: something by the end of the year land wise and
• 49:33
  Speaker 2: get going. It'll just take this long to achieve a
• 49:36
  Speaker 2: five year goal. And so we said okay, and we
• 49:39
  Speaker 2: started looking around and all of a sudden, this property
• 49:42
  Speaker 2: pops up. I saw it the same day that Ryan
• 49:45
  Speaker 2: saw it. We all shared this thing. We're like, you're
• 49:47
  Speaker 2: seeing this, you're seeing this. Yeah, it's thirty minutes out
• 49:50
  Speaker 2: of Bozeman, they wanted to a ton of money for it.
• 49:53
  Speaker 2: At the time, we thankfully were able to work a
• 49:57
  Speaker 2: much better deal. But h it had. It was five
• 50:02
  Speaker 2: hundred acres, it had a huge round barn for community center.
• 50:06
  Speaker 2: It was a high end wedding venue as it was.
• 50:08
  Speaker 2: And then COVID came in and the family was like,
• 50:11
  Speaker 2: you know, I think we we just don't want to
• 50:14
  Speaker 2: so they put it up for sale. And so I'm
• 50:16
  Speaker 2: looking at it and I'm saying, this is the perfect spot.
• 50:18
  Speaker 2: It's already built. We don't have to go there. Right
• 50:21
  Speaker 2: on the river, it's right right across the rail tracks
• 50:24
  Speaker 2: from mile six and fifteen minutes off of I ninety,
• 50:29
  Speaker 2: and it feels like you're in the middle of nowhere.
• 50:30
  Speaker 2: You're isolated up in there. It's this little spot of
• 50:33
  Speaker 2: Montana that really in Galvin County that doesn't get touched.
• 50:36
  Speaker 2: It's kind of like a little Heidi hole. Wow. And
• 50:40
  Speaker 2: so we're like, okay, well, we should probably figure this out.
• 50:43
  Speaker 2: And then it went went off the market for a
• 50:48
  Speaker 2: while and we're like, okay, it's probably gone. And then
• 50:52
  Speaker 2: we got word that it was probably going to go
• 50:53
  Speaker 2: back on the market soon. Then it hopped up on
• 50:56
  Speaker 2: May first, and it was going to go to auction
• 50:58
  Speaker 2: May thirty May. Now June's out, there's going to go
• 51:00
  Speaker 2: to auction. Oh wow. So all of a sudden, we
• 51:02
  Speaker 2: had thirty days to figure this out to buy this place.
• 51:05
  Speaker 2: And long story short, there is miracle upon miracle upon
• 51:09
  Speaker 2: miracle that happened to get us here, and we have
• 51:12
  Speaker 2: family members and other investors that came in to support
• 51:14
  Speaker 2: this project and we were able to buy that place.
• 51:19
  Speaker 2: And so through the last year, we eight months or so,
• 51:24
  Speaker 2: we've completely got it. It went from wedding land to like
• 51:28
  Speaker 2: ex overland overland, sure, you know. So we put in
• 51:33
  Speaker 2: a shooting range, We've got eight miles of driving course
• 51:36
  Speaker 2: on there, We've got a closed course, eight miles, eight
• 51:39
  Speaker 2: miles of trails on on campus. I've already specked out
• 51:44
  Speaker 2: that there's probably at least fifty campgrounds there, camping spots,
• 51:48
  Speaker 2: and we're gonna build it the way you would for
• 51:51
  Speaker 2: overlanders like you see in Africa camping spots in Africa,
• 51:54
  Speaker 2: and the way they've got that set up. That's we're
• 51:56
  Speaker 2: going to adopt that here. Awesome. It's you know, not
• 52:00
  Speaker 2: really seeing that way here in the US, but it
• 52:02
  Speaker 2: works for trucks and vehicles, and it's got an amazing
• 52:07
  Speaker 2: what we call the roadhouse. It's got a coffee shop
• 52:09
  Speaker 2: in it and it's like clubhouse, and then tim cabins
• 52:14
  Speaker 2: around it. It's awesome. It is just everything. And then
• 52:17
  Speaker 2: the round barn can hold five hundred people and cook
• 52:20
  Speaker 2: for five hundred people.
• 52:21
  Speaker 1: And you you've already had at least one event there.
• 52:23
  Speaker 1: You had GMC, Yeah was there.
• 52:26
  Speaker 2: Yeah, So we uh GMC selected the ranch as their
• 52:29
  Speaker 2: location to launch the the twenty thirty five hundred diesels
• 52:34
  Speaker 2: Silverado eighty four eight evs day flew in. He landed
• 52:38
  Speaker 2: his airplane on the airstrip there, and we live an
• 52:41
  Speaker 2: airstrip on an airstrip. Yeah, we have a bush plane airstrip,
• 52:45
  Speaker 2: so you better be good landing on. It's only nine
• 52:48
  Speaker 2: hundred and seventy feet long and the first half is
• 52:51
  Speaker 2: real good, the second half. But Dave was in there.
• 52:55
  Speaker 2: He landed in there. He came in there two three times,
• 52:57
  Speaker 2: and we held this great event launch that tra and
• 53:01
  Speaker 2: now we've kind of kind of put pause on a
• 53:03
  Speaker 2: lot of other events other than our own for the
• 53:06
  Speaker 2: remodel period. That's all finished and now we're full on
• 53:12
  Speaker 2: booking it out as far as the can so where
• 53:14
  Speaker 2: it is incredible. Put a rad classroom in there, like,
• 53:19
  Speaker 2: we want a classroom that you actually want to go
• 53:21
  Speaker 2: sit in, sure and learn this stuff. And so we
• 53:23
  Speaker 2: got sweet got your picture up there of doctor John
• 53:27
  Speaker 2: like filling fuel tanks on Arctic trucks and airplanes and
• 53:30
  Speaker 2: big wall wraps and sure, it's a really cool place
• 53:33
  Speaker 2: to go off. Awesome. So yeah, that's the ranch. And
• 53:37
  Speaker 2: then the quote is come inspiredly, be quicked. I like that,
• 53:42
  Speaker 2: and we just get as many people through there as
• 53:45
  Speaker 2: you can.
• 53:46
  Speaker 1: Well, yeah, I guess watch this space, huh, because you're
• 53:49
  Speaker 1: going to start announcing things that will be coming up
• 53:51
  Speaker 1: and other opportunities for overlanders to engage with your property
• 53:55
  Speaker 1: and to come and learn and be inspired.
• 53:58
  Speaker 2: Yeah please, Yeah, we need the overlanding community to get
• 54:02
  Speaker 2: behind it. This is how it's going to financially work. Yeah. Sure,
• 54:05
  Speaker 2: you know, none of us are here to make bazillions
• 54:07
  Speaker 2: of dollars. We just want to see this work. Yeah,
• 54:09
  Speaker 2: and uh do well for investors. We have to do
• 54:12
  Speaker 2: that to business side. But it's the first property in
• 54:15
  Speaker 2: the country that I know of that is built for overlanders.
• 54:19
  Speaker 2: So cool.
• 54:20
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm stoked. On of course, I'm super well. I
• 54:23
  Speaker 1: hope to see it next month. So yeah, come on,
• 54:26
  Speaker 1: it's gonna be. It's gonna be soon. So and speaking,
• 54:29
  Speaker 1: the next month, you guys are starting a little bit
• 54:32
  Speaker 1: of an alternative adventure. It's an extension of the E
• 54:35
  Speaker 1: seven vision. So Greg Miller said, hey, I want to
• 54:39
  Speaker 1: I want to take a boat the length of the
• 54:42
  Speaker 1: Mississippi to the what you know.
• 54:43
  Speaker 2: Into the Missouri. So last October Greg and Oakley came
• 54:48
  Speaker 2: up his son to the ranch to see it, and
• 54:52
  Speaker 2: we were sitting in there and he's like, wait a minute,
• 54:53
  Speaker 2: this is the headwaters right up here of the Missouri River.
• 54:57
  Speaker 2: They're like, yeah, that's mile zero. This is where the Gallaton,
• 55:00
  Speaker 2: the Madison, and the Jefferson River converge and start the Missouri.
• 55:03
  Speaker 2: And then it's three thousand some miles to the Mississippi
• 55:06
  Speaker 2: and the Mississippi clear out to the bottom. Do you
• 55:10
  Speaker 2: think we get a jet boat up then? And I
• 55:12
  Speaker 2: was like, we might be able to. We should look
• 55:14
  Speaker 2: at that, and then the idea just kind of went away.
• 55:17
  Speaker 2: We you know, chatted through it that night, dreamed a
• 55:19
  Speaker 2: little bit. It has a ton of historic significant Yeah,
• 55:23
  Speaker 2: Lewis and Clark, especially with Missouri and everything.
• 55:25
  Speaker 1: Which a fun little fact about Lewis and Clark. So
• 55:29
  Speaker 1: the Clark of Lewis and Clark, Stephanie Brady or designer,
• 55:34
  Speaker 1: she is a Clark, Wow, directly descended from Clark of Lewis.
• 55:38
  Speaker 2: And that is amazing. That fun. So Jimmy Lewis, who
• 55:42
  Speaker 2: is on our podcast, Jimmy Lewis, no way, he is
• 55:47
  Speaker 2: a Lewis. Oh my god.
• 55:49
  Speaker 1: Yeah, So that's incredible. So we got it all covered crazy,
• 55:52
  Speaker 1: that is kind of crazy.
• 55:53
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so that you know, the genealogy is still out
• 55:56
  Speaker 2: there Lewis and Clark and I love that. So yeah,
• 55:58
  Speaker 2: they camped right across we think, right across from where
• 56:03
  Speaker 2: the ranch is now the day before they've found the
• 56:05
  Speaker 2: headwaters wow, in eighteen oh five. So yeah, so we
• 56:10
  Speaker 2: used like we should run a river trip, an E
• 56:12
  Speaker 2: seven river trip from the bottom of the Mississippi clear
• 56:15
  Speaker 2: to the headwaters of the Missouri. And so we leave
• 56:18
  Speaker 2: next week. Yeah, we're gonna do that.
• 56:21
  Speaker 1: That's gonna be so funny. You're gonna do a little
• 56:23
  Speaker 1: video on that as well.
• 56:24
  Speaker 2: We'll put together either a one a film or a
• 56:28
  Speaker 2: three part series. Is kind of what I was seeing.
• 56:30
  Speaker 1: Now, it looks like there's been a few changes in
• 56:34
  Speaker 1: the Overlander Network now being called the ex Overland Network.
• 56:38
  Speaker 1: So talk a little bit about what some of those
• 56:40
  Speaker 1: changes are. Why is it important for people to subscribe.
• 56:47
  Speaker 1: I think you're even running a little bit of a
• 56:49
  Speaker 1: special right now. So let's talk a little bit about
• 56:52
  Speaker 1: the network. I just I'm so excited by the fact
• 56:55
  Speaker 1: that there's a premium content channel that is available where
• 57:01
  Speaker 1: it's all overlanding all the time, and it all reflects
• 57:05
  Speaker 1: that level of quality and those values across all of
• 57:07
  Speaker 1: the content. So it's something that we believe is really
• 57:11
  Speaker 1: important to support. So let's talk a little bit about that.
• 57:14
  Speaker 2: Sure, so it was the Overlander Network. The reason it's
• 57:18
  Speaker 2: not the Overlander Network anymore is we went through some
• 57:23
  Speaker 2: trademark battles for years. Actually long story, but anyway, we
• 57:28
  Speaker 2: just decided at the end of the day, we should
• 57:30
  Speaker 2: all instead of having a house of brands, we should
• 57:32
  Speaker 2: be a branded house. Yeah. Sure, so instead of having
• 57:35
  Speaker 2: Overlander clothing line and an Overlander podcast and an Overlander
• 57:40
  Speaker 2: network but ex Overland thing, we should just pull it
• 57:43
  Speaker 2: all under one thing and work through the has its
• 57:46
  Speaker 2: own problems by doing that, but we should all work
• 57:49
  Speaker 2: on one brand. Just do that. So that's why you've
• 57:52
  Speaker 2: seen a naming convention change. Nothing else change, just X Overland.
• 57:57
  Speaker 2: We have all those trademarks. We're one hundred percent locked
• 58:00
  Speaker 2: into all those things. They can't be taken away or
• 58:03
  Speaker 2: contested at this point, which is great. So that's all
• 58:06
  Speaker 2: been settled. Now we're moving down the line as a
• 58:09
  Speaker 2: branded house of X over Lance. So that's why X
• 58:11
  Speaker 2: Overland branch, X Overland Podcast and now the Exleblant network. Ye.
• 58:16
  Speaker 2: The network is really important because there hasn't been a
• 58:22
  Speaker 2: way for high performing video series to do well outside
• 58:27
  Speaker 2: of television. YouTube is not the best place for that.
• 58:31
  Speaker 2: We fight it all the time. If you want to
• 58:34
  Speaker 2: win a YouTube, you produce the fastest, cheapest content possible
• 58:39
  Speaker 2: and you put it out as quick as possible, and
• 58:40
  Speaker 2: that's how you win it to YouTube. Get That's I'll
• 58:44
  Speaker 2: bet you could argue that pretty well all day.
• 58:47
  Speaker 1: Yeah, there's very few examples, very few outliers that are
• 58:50
  Speaker 1: contrary to that.
• 58:51
  Speaker 2: So you know, there's a reason movies don't put their
• 58:55
  Speaker 2: stuff on YouTube. It's all behind paywall off because YouTube
• 58:58
  Speaker 2: just does not pay to to the necessity, necessary levels
• 59:04
  Speaker 2: to accommodate a high end productions.
• 59:06
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, you're lucky to make a couple of grand
• 59:08
  Speaker 1: a month, which this isn't enough.
• 59:10
  Speaker 2: It's just not enough. So we fought it forever, and
• 59:13
  Speaker 2: we want to see higher end content. So we were like, Okay,
• 59:16
  Speaker 2: we have to build something that'll wet incubate more high
• 59:21
  Speaker 2: end content. Sure, so it has to come in through
• 59:24
  Speaker 2: a payball and at least that's the current working model,
• 59:30
  Speaker 2: and I think so.
• 59:30
  Speaker 1: And I think if people want something of quality, they
• 59:35
  Speaker 1: recognize that it isn't free. Otherwise we have to remember
• 59:39
  Speaker 1: if you're enjoying something for free, you're the.
• 59:42
  Speaker 2: Product that's right.
• 59:44
  Speaker 1: So if you're consuming content on Instagram and you're in
• 59:48
  Speaker 1: doom scrolling mode and you're like, oh, it doesn't cost
• 59:51
  Speaker 1: me any money, well that's because you are the product
• 59:54
  Speaker 1: that's being sold. You're the one. You're the thing that's
• 59:56
  Speaker 1: being sold. Your time and your eyeballs are the thing
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 1: that's being sold. So I think that a paywall model
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 1: is it's not only very ethical, but it helps to
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 1: guarantee those values are reflected.
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and it allows you, as a creator, so many
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 2: more options you can think different. You know, YouTube is built.
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 2: Just look at it. It's pretty obvious how it's built
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 2: to make them money. That's right, whatever, I have a
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 2: lot to YouTube. YouTube's great, but it has this limitation there,
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 2: so this is a navigation around that. So, yeah, it
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 2: costs money because I've got to make money to do
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 2: the thing.
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 1: It's some one of that creators should be paid. It's
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 1: only fair there that people that are working that hard
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 1: get compensated.
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 2: You know.
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 1: I'm surprised oftentimes by the people that contribute to Overland
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 1: Journal and they're like, you're gonna pay me. I'm like, yeah,
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 1: we pay everybody who produces content.
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 2: So say with X Overland, we even everybody that's on
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 2: a trip is paid because we believe that that it's important.
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 2: It's the right thing to do. Sure, it is the
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 2: right thing to do. Takes money, yeah it does. Well,
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 2: that's excited the money.
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 1: Yeah, well, you know, I mean, I think it's just
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 1: important for those that are listening check out you know,
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 1: the X Overland network. Take a look. I think you
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 1: guys have a little bit of a promo going.
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 2: Yeah two months free right now.
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 1: Yeah, two months free right now, which is a big deal.
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 1: So go on and check it out and if you
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 1: like it, then support You know the great companies like
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 1: x Overland that are supporting the industry, So make sure to.
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 2: Check that out.
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 1: We've we've asked you all of the standard questions in
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 1: the previous podcast. We've learned a lot about your life
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 1: and your other adventures where you started from. But you know,
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 1: you've you've gone through a lot in your business, and
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 1: you've gone through a lot with your family, and you've
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 1: gone through a lot with adventures recently. Are there a
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 1: couple pieces of advice or maybe a few learned things
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 1: beyond what we talked about with some of the stoicism
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 1: and that that you'd like to share with the audience.
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 1: That's a good question, Things that that might inspire people
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 1: to live their life a little different.
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 2: I didn't necessarily buy into that the time is the
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 2: most precious thing you got. I didn't buy into that, Mesty. Well,
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 2: maybe I just didn't. When you're young, yeah, because you do,
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 2: you think you do, and then you have a friend
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 2: pass away, or you have a family member pass away,
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 2: or someone gets sick, and then you start to.
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 1: Go, oh yeah, for me, it was my mom. You know,
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 1: It's like when my mom passed away. I was like, oh,
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 1: that's yeah, there's like one step removed for me from
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 1: my own mortality. She was the one who made me,
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 1: and now I'm next.
• 1:02:32
  Speaker 2: You're next, you know. So the sooner you can understand that,
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 2: the better. And then I've been balancing time spent with
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 2: family and work life, balance all that stuff, also with
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 2: making sure that I can leave something for my kids.
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 2: There's a legacy, and there's a part of legacy that's
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 2: ego driven, but then there's a part of legacy that's
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 2: like there's even a biblical standpoint on it, like leave
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 2: something for your children's children. Yeah, you know, And it's
• 1:03:02
  Speaker 2: it's all about like managing the talents, right, what you've
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 2: been given, managing it well so that your kids' kids
• 1:03:09
  Speaker 2: can have something. And I am. I am a product
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 2: of that. My great grandfather did things that benefit me. Yeah,
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 2: you know, that's part of why actual world even exists.
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 2: I have my great grandfather to think for that, you know,
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 2: because of how they manage things. And so I feel
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 2: that pressure too, and I still think that's important. Those
• 1:03:28
  Speaker 2: are these are big topics. No matter what you go do,
• 1:03:31
  Speaker 2: adventure or whatever. I think adventure makes you a better
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 2: person that helps you with these bigger ideas and think
• 1:03:38
  Speaker 2: about these ideas, and.
• 1:03:40
  Speaker 1: Don't you think that we're supposed to be under that pressure.
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 1: It just seems like people work so hard to make
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 1: their life as easy as possible, which we shouldn't do
• 1:03:49
  Speaker 1: hard things just to make our life accomplish it. But
• 1:03:53
  Speaker 1: I do believe that hard things create better people. I agree,
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 1: And I think I don't think that being a day
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 1: it was ever supposed to be easy. I think it's
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 1: one of the hardest things that somebody can do well.
• 1:04:05
  Speaker 1: And kids need their dads around, and they need their
• 1:04:08
  Speaker 1: moms around, and they need their uncles and everybody else.
• 1:04:10
  Speaker 1: Everybody's got to show up and do the hard things
• 1:04:13
  Speaker 1: to give those kids a chance at life. So what
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 1: you're doing isn't easy, and I don't know that it's
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 1: ever supposed to be.
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 2: It's accept the hard. Pick your hard. That's that's been
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 2: a thing that I've been working through too. Like you
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 2: can be lazy and fat and that's hard, or you
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 2: can go to work, you can work out and that's hard.
• 1:04:33
  Speaker 2: You feel better, you know, and that applies to all things.
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 2: You know, you can go make a bunch of money,
• 1:04:39
  Speaker 2: but you don't raise your kids anw they're a mess your.
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and you pick your idols too. I mean if
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 1: you look at some of the some of the most
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 1: incredible achievements in the world are done by people that
• 1:04:52
  Speaker 1: compromised everything else in their life to get to that state.
• 1:04:57
  Speaker 1: And so you you really do have to decide what
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 1: it's important. Otherwise you can you can leave a lot
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 1: on the table of the things that matter.
• 1:05:05
  Speaker 2: Yeah. So you know, they they.
• 1:05:07
  Speaker 1: Say it's like hard today, easy tomorrow, easy today.
• 1:05:11
  Speaker 2: Hard tomorrow.
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 1: So if we don't like you, and I've talked about
• 1:05:14
  Speaker 1: with health, it's like if we don't take care of
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 1: ourselves today when it's much easier to do it because
• 1:05:18
  Speaker 1: we're younger.
• 1:05:19
  Speaker 2: Yeah, then by the.
• 1:05:20
  Speaker 1: Time we get older and we really want our bodies
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 1: to still perform and we want to go see the world,
• 1:05:25
  Speaker 1: it may be too late.
• 1:05:26
  Speaker 2: Too late, and there is a clock. Yeah this stuff,
• 1:05:28
  Speaker 2: there's there's pressure there. I agree. Pressure is good. Yeah,
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 2: I think pressure, and if you're trying to avoid pressure,
• 1:05:34
  Speaker 2: that's probably a red bag. Yeah, just pick you know,
• 1:05:38
  Speaker 2: think through the pressure. What's the good pressure?
• 1:05:41
  Speaker 1: What do they say is is the great is found
• 1:05:44
  Speaker 1: in the thing that you're trying to avoid.
• 1:05:47
  Speaker 2: Oh really, yeah, really, it's true. It is so true.
• 1:05:51
  Speaker 2: I think about that for a second.
• 1:05:52
  Speaker 1: Yeah, the stuff that you keep putting off or avoiding
• 1:05:55
  Speaker 1: or whatever. It's like like like exercise or whatever. I mean,
• 1:05:58
  Speaker 1: the greatness is found in those things work so hard
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 1: to avoid so or put off or procrastinate on or whatever.
• 1:06:07
  Speaker 2: And you know, go build something too. Yeah, and I
• 1:06:10
  Speaker 2: guess not everybody's built for that. But what are you
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 2: can build? Relationships you can build? Ask yourself what are
• 1:06:16
  Speaker 2: you building? Yeah for sure? Yeah, and why all kinds
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 2: of stuff today? Well, Clay, thank you man.
• 1:06:23
  Speaker 1: I love you, Yeah, you do. So appreciate everything you do.
• 1:06:27
  Speaker 1: Thank you for being an inspiration to the community, to
• 1:06:29
  Speaker 1: the industry as a whole. So proud of what you
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 1: and your family have accomplished. And it's always an honor
• 1:06:34
  Speaker 1: to have you on the podcast. Heck, yeah, anytime, right,
• 1:06:37
  Speaker 1: Thanks Clay, and we thank you all for listening, and
• 1:06:40
  Speaker 1: we'll talk to you next time.