RPF0157-Greg_Denning

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00:00:29.200 | So you got a bunch of kids,

00:00:30.320 | that means automatically that your life is finished, right?

00:00:33.400 | You know, you got six kids,

00:00:34.760 | so you need to buckle down and live

00:00:37.600 | where you don't wanna live and, you know,

00:00:40.160 | take 'em, have a big house with a big mortgage

00:00:43.120 | and work a job that you don't wanna work

00:00:45.240 | simply to support your family, right?

00:00:47.400 | Sorry, not true.

00:00:51.000 | These are choices.

00:00:52.600 | My guest today, he and his wife have six kids

00:00:55.600 | and they're living on the road full-time,

00:00:58.560 | traveling the world with their entire family.

00:01:01.320 | It's pretty cool.

00:01:02.160 | (upbeat music)

00:01:04.720 | Welcome to the Radical Personal Finance podcast.

00:01:20.360 | My name is Joshua Sheets and today is Wednesday, Tuesday.

00:01:23.880 | Today is Tuesday, Tuesday, February 24, 2015.

00:01:27.600 | (Joshua laughs)

00:01:29.520 | I don't wanna miss a day, I don't wanna get to another day.

00:01:31.440 | Today is Tuesday and my guest is an awesome guy.

00:01:35.920 | I think you're gonna like him.

00:01:36.760 | His name is Greg Danning and he and his wife, Rachel,

00:01:39.240 | are doing exactly that.

00:01:40.240 | They're living on the road with their six kids.

00:01:42.760 | (upbeat music)

00:01:45.360 | I've been watching Greg and Rachel's website for years now.

00:01:54.040 | Their primary website is a site called

00:01:56.920 | discovershareinspire.com and it's just fascinated me.

00:02:01.440 | The lifestyle they've been able to build for themselves

00:02:03.600 | and I think you're really gonna enjoy this.

00:02:05.680 | Showing how you can build a life.

00:02:09.680 | That, I mean, I don't even need to go into it anymore.

00:02:11.600 | You can build a lifestyle that's your choice.

00:02:14.520 | It's your choice and that's what we talk about

00:02:16.680 | on this show every day.

00:02:17.780 | Choose the life that you wanna live and live it

00:02:21.280 | and there's all kinds of aspects to that

00:02:23.480 | which is what we talk about.

00:02:24.320 | We talk about the technical aspects of it.

00:02:25.880 | How do you actually technically accomplish it?

00:02:27.480 | How do you accomplish it in an efficient way?

00:02:29.200 | There's also the aspects of inspiration and encouragement

00:02:32.520 | and understanding how to go about things

00:02:35.600 | and understanding, frankly, that you have the permission

00:02:38.840 | to design things the way that you'd like to design them.

00:02:42.000 | And one of the things that oftentimes holds people back

00:02:44.960 | is kids which is, or excuse me,

00:02:47.880 | it's not an actually hold people back.

00:02:49.080 | People feel like they're being held back is by their kids

00:02:51.560 | and that was one of the reasons why I wanted to bring

00:02:54.240 | Greg on the show to share this story.

00:02:56.320 | Greg's an awesome guy.

00:02:57.360 | Again, he and his wife, Rachel, they have six kids,

00:02:59.560 | they're living on the road.

00:03:00.440 | He is one of the most enthusiastic people that I know

00:03:03.320 | and as you'll hear in the interview, it's not a front.

00:03:07.040 | Don't be, he actually is this enthusiastic all the time.

00:03:10.800 | But you know what?

00:03:11.840 | I'll just let him share his story with you.

00:03:13.960 | Greg, welcome to the Radical Personal Finance Podcast.

00:03:17.680 | I appreciate you being with me.

00:03:19.200 | - Oh, I'm excited to be here.

00:03:20.320 | Thanks for having me.

00:03:21.160 | - So dude, you are a radical kind of guy

00:03:23.360 | and I think you wear that badge pretty proudly

00:03:28.360 | but you certainly don't fall into the norms of society

00:03:32.280 | in just about any way, do you?

00:03:34.000 | - No, I was actually thinking about that the other day.

00:03:36.200 | I'm like, you know, I'm pretty unconventional

00:03:39.000 | and kind of out there.

00:03:41.320 | So yeah, it'll be fun.

00:03:43.440 | It'll be really fun to talk about.

00:03:44.480 | I think some of the things I might have to share

00:03:47.520 | might cause some thought and some,

00:03:50.480 | to see things a little differently.

00:03:52.480 | - Well good, that's what we're all about.

00:03:53.880 | So kick it off.

00:03:54.720 | I'd love to hear a little bit of your story

00:03:57.000 | with how you went from wherever you started

00:04:00.960 | to living this crazy lifestyle

00:04:02.800 | with your whole family on the road full time.

00:04:05.360 | - Yeah, it's actually a really great story.

00:04:08.080 | I grew up in a broken home.

00:04:09.920 | I ended up out on my own at an early age

00:04:11.920 | and sometimes with little to eat and nowhere to stay.

00:04:16.920 | And we went through some really hard years

00:04:19.360 | and so kind of fought through that.

00:04:21.040 | I knew I didn't want to stay in that kind of situation

00:04:23.880 | or that kind of poverty or ignorance or anything.

00:04:25.600 | I really wanted to create a great life.

00:04:28.120 | You know, and you see people and you're like,

00:04:29.840 | hey man, they're living a great life.

00:04:31.840 | If it's doable, I can do it.

00:04:33.760 | So I really went after it, you know,

00:04:35.200 | and kind of set a course of, you know,

00:04:37.560 | go to school, get good grades, get a degree,

00:04:40.000 | get a good job, and we settled into that.

00:04:41.760 | I had a great job and we, you know,

00:04:43.800 | picked up our mortgage and bought a little house

00:04:45.880 | and we're living, you know, the little American dream

00:04:48.760 | that it's kind of prescribed.

00:04:50.840 | And honestly, it was really good.

00:04:52.240 | We had a good life and we just kept reading and reading.

00:04:54.440 | My wife and I are voracious readers and learners

00:04:56.960 | and we came across some other ideas, you know,

00:04:59.280 | and some unconventional ideas.

00:05:00.720 | And at first you kind of reject it like,

00:05:02.760 | that's crazy, you can't do that.

00:05:05.000 | And we started to think differently

00:05:06.320 | and made some investments and did some different things

00:05:09.440 | and kind of, you know, really felt strongly

00:05:11.440 | that we wanted to go out into developing countries

00:05:15.040 | and try to make a difference, you know.

00:05:16.480 | I'd been through some tough times

00:05:18.000 | and I'd spent some time in Peru before I got married

00:05:21.120 | and thought, you know, honey, let's see if we can do this.

00:05:23.840 | And so several years ago, we did, okay,

00:05:27.200 | we're gonna go for it.

00:05:28.040 | We're gonna quit the paycheck that comes every other week

00:05:32.480 | and we're gonna sell our house

00:05:34.040 | and we're gonna sell our stuff

00:05:35.840 | and we're gonna try to live a different lifestyle.

00:05:38.320 | And it has just been one amazing adventure,

00:05:42.360 | ups and downs, but it's absolutely incredible.

00:05:44.520 | And so together, we have six children now.

00:05:47.440 | We started out with four kids and, you know,

00:05:49.720 | went and lived in Central America

00:05:51.760 | and then in the Caribbean and Dominican Republic.

00:05:54.440 | Then we went to India.

00:05:56.760 | Then we've driven really slow kind of overland travel

00:06:00.480 | through Alaska, the Yukon, Canada, the US, Mexico, Belize,

00:06:05.200 | Guatemala and Nicaragua and now in Costa Rica again

00:06:09.680 | where we're living now.

00:06:10.520 | And so it's been an absolutely wonderful journey

00:06:13.960 | and really unconventional, kind of crazy,

00:06:16.280 | but for us, it's been our dream

00:06:18.560 | and it's really been a wonderful, wonderful experience.

00:06:22.360 | - Why do you wanna live this kind of lifestyle?

00:06:24.720 | - You know, it kind of resonates to live deliberately

00:06:30.600 | and that's what Rachel and I like to say.

00:06:33.280 | We wanna live consciously and deliberately.

00:06:36.080 | We really resist what for us would be a humdrum existence.

00:06:41.080 | And man, I wanna be really, really clear.

00:06:44.120 | I don't recommend my life to anybody else.

00:06:46.560 | I just, I recommend that people live their dream,

00:06:49.480 | live their life, not my dream, but I say, you know,

00:06:51.760 | live your dream, whatever it is, live it.

00:06:53.520 | And for us, this is our dream.

00:06:55.040 | We wanna see this beautiful world

00:06:57.480 | and try to have a positive difference.

00:06:59.240 | We wanna have new experiences and grow and learn.

00:07:02.000 | Every time we go somewhere new,

00:07:03.880 | I feel like I've come back a better person.

00:07:05.680 | Like I've learned something and grown.

00:07:07.800 | And I just feel, I guess if I could just sum it up,

00:07:10.760 | I feel alive.

00:07:13.360 | I don't wanna get up and dread my life.

00:07:16.640 | Dread, I don't wanna go to a job I don't like.

00:07:18.400 | I don't wanna just live just to pay the bills.

00:07:20.640 | I wanna live deliberately.

00:07:21.940 | - How, when you originally set out and decided

00:07:27.520 | that travel was gonna play a big role

00:07:29.600 | in at least your dreams and then you were gonna try

00:07:31.640 | to build it into your lifestyle, were you rich?

00:07:35.440 | - Whew, no. (laughs)

00:07:38.100 | But you know what, I bought into the idea

00:07:40.580 | that you had to have lots of money in order to travel.

00:07:44.640 | And so we had quite a bit of savings

00:07:46.840 | and I had some investments in the stock market

00:07:49.000 | and in real estate.

00:07:50.120 | And so we went out initially that way

00:07:52.600 | and we were spending a lot of money

00:07:54.520 | and we had expenses back home.

00:07:56.600 | And then ended up, you know,

00:07:58.440 | when things kind of tightened up a little bit in 2007, 2008,

00:08:02.920 | we lost almost all of our investments.

00:08:05.700 | And so we had to refocus, we had to go back.

00:08:08.640 | And I'm grateful it happened because it forced us

00:08:11.160 | to question a few assumptions and a few common beliefs there

00:08:16.160 | and to revisit what's really necessary

00:08:19.920 | and what we really wanted as far as owning stuff and things

00:08:24.040 | and consumerism and what kind of lifestyle we wanted to live.

00:08:28.280 | And so, I really went back to the drawing board

00:08:30.600 | and revisited that and so, no,

00:08:32.400 | you know, there's a different way to do it

00:08:34.400 | and you don't have to be rich.

00:08:37.720 | To live your lifestyle, there's other ways to do it.

00:08:41.360 | Being rich is great, it's wonderful.

00:08:43.600 | And there's a way to do that as well

00:08:45.720 | but you don't have to be rich

00:08:47.240 | to live an unconventional lifestyle.

00:08:49.960 | - What did you do differently

00:08:52.480 | after your investments declined in value?

00:08:55.120 | What did you do differently from what you were doing before?

00:08:57.860 | - We became, in a way, minimalists.

00:09:00.560 | (laughing)

00:09:02.360 | We just thought, wait a minute, okay, you know,

00:09:04.080 | if we can clear out, I don't know,

00:09:08.440 | we just kind of came to the realization

00:09:09.640 | that everything you own or are buying

00:09:14.640 | or everything you have in your possession

00:09:17.640 | takes up thought or time or space or attention.

00:09:22.100 | You have to move it, clean it, insure it,

00:09:24.780 | take care of it, pay for it, fix it up.

00:09:27.420 | I mean, everything you have.

00:09:28.320 | And so, we kind of moved to this idea of,

00:09:31.320 | let's keep the stuff that really brings

00:09:34.360 | great value in our life

00:09:35.940 | and let's get rid of everything else.

00:09:37.600 | And so, we're not a kind of minimalist

00:09:39.000 | like sell everything and walk around

00:09:40.760 | in a loincloth and have nothing.

00:09:42.760 | But more so of, if it doesn't add real value

00:09:46.320 | to the kind of life we want to live

00:09:48.280 | or it ends up taking away time, attention,

00:09:51.480 | or resources from the kind of life we wanna live,

00:09:53.880 | then we're better off not having it.

00:09:55.880 | And so, we got rid of the stuff

00:09:57.480 | and we don't acquire much.

00:09:59.260 | We try to keep it real simple but we live,

00:10:01.020 | we still live comfortably.

00:10:02.280 | I still have my MacBook Pro and my iPhone 6

00:10:05.400 | and this microphone I'm talking into.

00:10:06.960 | I still got things that from work

00:10:08.480 | or for passion and purpose we use.

00:10:11.580 | But other than that, we try to live really simply.

00:10:14.380 | - What have you learned in trying to do that with kids?

00:10:20.120 | This seems to be the challenge.

00:10:21.180 | My wife and I, we have two kids.

00:10:22.480 | One is 18 months old and the other is on the way

00:10:25.440 | coming this summer.

00:10:26.600 | And one of the challenges is,

00:10:30.120 | and I know you, how old are your kids at this point?

00:10:32.820 | - So, first of all, congratulations.

00:10:34.460 | That's awesome. - Thanks.

00:10:35.820 | - Oh, and man, 18 months is fun, fun, fun.

00:10:38.800 | It's busy.

00:10:39.940 | So, my oldest is 12 and my youngest is,

00:10:42.860 | she just turned one.

00:10:44.380 | - So, you have them right in that stage

00:10:47.380 | is all the way from the one

00:10:48.300 | where there's all of the paraphernalia

00:10:49.820 | for we little ones to, I guess, just kids all along the way.

00:10:54.220 | And one of the biggest challenges,

00:10:55.400 | my wife and I are also aspiring minimalists.

00:10:58.260 | So, we try to keep just things simple.

00:11:00.180 | But man, at least in the US, kids come with a lot of stuff.

00:11:03.700 | Was your secret just to move out of the US

00:11:05.620 | where kids don't come with that much stuff?

00:11:07.260 | Or what strategies do you have

00:11:09.700 | to live this kind of lifestyle with kids?

00:11:12.540 | - No, you're right.

00:11:13.420 | It's kind of funny.

00:11:15.060 | So, we've been back and forth.

00:11:16.580 | Well, I haven't been back in the States now.

00:11:18.500 | Well, I go back for visits and things.

00:11:19.980 | I go to speak and go to conferences and things like that.

00:11:23.220 | But living in the States,

00:11:24.860 | the last place we lived was Alaska.

00:11:26.460 | And that's kind of different.

00:11:27.980 | It's kind of like its own country up there,

00:11:29.740 | which is really cool.

00:11:30.660 | I like Alaska a lot.

00:11:32.260 | But no, so I guess living in what the Alaskans

00:11:34.900 | call the lower 48, it's been a while.

00:11:36.620 | And yeah, we were practicing minimalists there too.

00:11:39.740 | And it was really, really funny.

00:11:42.100 | The neighbors would feel sorry for us.

00:11:44.980 | And they would, like literally, they'd be like,

00:11:46.740 | "Hey, do you want us to buy some things for your kids?"

00:11:49.100 | (laughing)

00:11:49.940 | And we're like, "No, no, no, no, no.

00:11:51.500 | "No, you're misunderstanding.

00:11:52.620 | "We're not a charity project here.

00:11:54.300 | "We're doing this purposely.

00:11:55.520 | "We don't have a lot of stuff."

00:11:57.660 | And yeah, it's easier abroad, I think.

00:12:01.220 | But to get caught up, a lot of us get caught up,

00:12:04.260 | we get consumed by consumerism, I like to say.

00:12:07.700 | And we get the stuff and the thing.

00:12:09.140 | And there's always an exchange rate for that.

00:12:12.620 | What we've found though, is the less we have

00:12:16.500 | in toys and gadgets and big bags and piles

00:12:21.500 | of things for the kids, the more creative they are,

00:12:26.340 | the more time they spend with each other and outdoors,

00:12:29.300 | which we're big, big advocates for spending time outdoors.

00:12:33.020 | And they'll be so creative.

00:12:34.540 | We'll buy them, like our little ones love to do clay

00:12:37.540 | and they'll make these amazing creations.

00:12:39.920 | I mean, it's some incredible stuff.

00:12:41.020 | And they spend more time painting and drawing

00:12:43.260 | and practicing musical instruments

00:12:45.340 | and building things with their hands and playing outside.

00:12:50.340 | And for us, that's a lot of value.

00:12:52.980 | Now, they still get on the iPad

00:12:55.540 | and they like to do their studies on there

00:12:59.140 | and some of those other things.

00:13:00.460 | But we found that even if we keep it simple with them,

00:13:03.540 | it makes their life more simple and more real.

00:13:06.620 | You know what I'm saying?

00:13:07.460 | And so you're more connected as a family

00:13:10.420 | and more connected to the people around you.

00:13:12.620 | - So explain to me your trip so far.

00:13:17.780 | You started in Alaska and you just drove south

00:13:21.700 | or where have you gone and where are you going

00:13:23.280 | at this point with your family?

00:13:24.900 | - Yeah.

00:13:26.180 | So this was crazy.

00:13:27.620 | We were in India helping people who have leprosy.

00:13:32.420 | And it was just such Southern India out in the rural,

00:13:35.760 | way out in the middle of nowhere.

00:13:36.940 | It was such a special experience.

00:13:39.220 | And we got pregnant with number five, Atlas.

00:13:42.900 | And we debated whether to have him over in India.

00:13:45.900 | It's pretty different over there.

00:13:46.980 | India's pretty different.

00:13:48.380 | I really love it.

00:13:49.220 | It's quite different.

00:13:50.300 | So we ended up, we said, you know,

00:13:51.740 | let's go back to the States somewhere

00:13:54.260 | and it just worked out to come back to have the baby.

00:13:58.180 | And so we thought, where should we go?

00:14:00.020 | Well, my mother-in-law had just moved to Alaska

00:14:01.900 | and neither of us had been there.

00:14:02.860 | We thought, boy, let's go to Alaska.

00:14:04.380 | So our flight was into Atlanta, Georgia.

00:14:07.100 | We got off within two days.

00:14:08.800 | I'd bought a van for our family and we drove across the US

00:14:12.860 | and up the Alcan Highway up to through Canada,

00:14:16.340 | British Columbia and Alberta and the Yukon, Alaska.

00:14:19.540 | Oh, it was wonderful.

00:14:20.660 | - Were you heading for a job or just,

00:14:22.140 | you decided we'll go and figure it out when we get there?

00:14:24.500 | - Yeah, just figured out when we get there.

00:14:26.260 | So we went up there and just, I mean,

00:14:28.540 | the goal was to experience Alaska and have a baby up there.

00:14:31.580 | So we got up there, ended up spending a year,

00:14:34.940 | had a really great experience, just love Alaska.

00:14:37.860 | And then we said, you know what, where do we go next?

00:14:42.220 | And we were, we were trying, you know,

00:14:44.340 | Thailand was on the radar and Columbia was on the radar.

00:14:47.180 | And we thought, you know what?

00:14:48.860 | We are all the way up the top here.

00:14:51.420 | And I've heard of people actually traveling

00:14:53.780 | from Alaska all the way to Argentina.

00:14:56.540 | And it was a crazy idea.

00:14:58.380 | I mean, it was nuts.

00:14:59.220 | And we're like, come on, no way, you know?

00:15:01.600 | But it started to grow on us and we thought, you know,

00:15:03.540 | we can do it slow and just kind of move along.

00:15:05.580 | And so we ended up buying a big truck.

00:15:08.500 | We changed out our vehicle and it just worked out

00:15:11.340 | just right to get a vehicle that would work

00:15:12.740 | for the overlanding.

00:15:13.640 | And so we pulled out of Alaska four years ago

00:15:17.780 | and just slowly started making our way South,

00:15:21.100 | you know, exploring and experiencing,

00:15:22.940 | visiting with people, building incredible friendships,

00:15:27.020 | meeting wonderful people,

00:15:29.140 | and seeing things we never knew existed

00:15:31.940 | and just slowly meandered through,

00:15:34.100 | like I mentioned previously,

00:15:35.220 | through Canada and the Western United States.

00:15:38.260 | Four months just meandering through Mexico

00:15:41.340 | and a month in Belize.

00:15:43.020 | Ended up staying a year and a half in Guatemala

00:15:45.220 | 'cause we set up a humanitarian organization

00:15:48.300 | to try to help them.

00:15:49.140 | They're pretty impoverished and undernourished there.

00:15:52.300 | And so that's still going.

00:15:53.260 | And so we stayed there for a while

00:15:54.580 | and then a couple months on the beach in Nicaragua.

00:15:57.300 | And then we've been here in Costa Rica for a year.

00:16:00.260 | And that's where number six was born down here.

00:16:02.660 | - And from here, are you gonna ship over,

00:16:06.460 | ship around the Darien Gap and start in South America?

00:16:10.740 | Or what's next?

00:16:11.580 | - So that was the plan.

00:16:13.460 | And we still wanna do that.

00:16:15.860 | So yeah, you drive into Panama,

00:16:18.300 | you go to Cologne, which is on the Caribbean side,

00:16:21.500 | just another side of Panama City.

00:16:22.740 | And you ship from Cologne into Cartagena, Colombia

00:16:25.980 | to get across the Darien Gap.

00:16:27.580 | And we will do that and then explore

00:16:29.660 | the rest of South America.

00:16:31.340 | We wanna see every country down there.

00:16:33.300 | But we really, I don't know,

00:16:34.900 | it just kinda, without planning,

00:16:36.620 | it just kinda popped up,

00:16:37.660 | this desire and kind of impression

00:16:40.140 | to go over to Europe and Africa.

00:16:43.060 | And so we actually, this year,

00:16:45.060 | our plan is to head to, we're gonna fly into Barcelona

00:16:48.460 | and spend a few months in Spain, Portugal, and France,

00:16:52.500 | and then do a few months in Morocco

00:16:55.140 | and spend some time in Africa.

00:16:57.180 | And then go over and maybe see a little bit

00:16:58.820 | of Israel, Egypt, Eastern Europe.

00:17:02.380 | And just kinda do that.

00:17:03.220 | We don't feel like that'll be long-term,

00:17:04.340 | but we just kinda go over there,

00:17:05.180 | we wanna experience that

00:17:06.100 | and get some different languages, different cultures.

00:17:08.180 | I've already started learning French now.

00:17:10.260 | I'm practicing that to get over there.

00:17:12.700 | So just some different cultures,

00:17:14.420 | different customs, different languages,

00:17:17.220 | and then come back over

00:17:18.420 | and then finish the rest of this trip in South America.

00:17:21.620 | - So it sounds pretty cool,

00:17:23.220 | for those of us who are an adventurous sort.

00:17:25.860 | But how practically do you actually pay

00:17:30.100 | for your life on the road?

00:17:31.500 | Are you earning income?

00:17:32.820 | Is it all, do you have real estate in the US still?

00:17:35.380 | Or how practically do you pay for your life on the road?

00:17:37.740 | - Right.

00:17:38.580 | And I know this sounds crazy.

00:17:39.780 | Some people were like, that is nuts.

00:17:43.140 | And it is, I acknowledge that.

00:17:45.100 | It is a crazy lifestyle.

00:17:46.780 | But we'll rent a place.

00:17:49.300 | So we come down, we rent a place,

00:17:51.260 | a beautiful place on the beach or in the mountains.

00:17:53.460 | We enjoy the people and the culture

00:17:55.300 | and try to do some service and make things happen.

00:17:57.980 | And it actually is, it's slow, it's deliberate.

00:18:02.340 | We keep our family routines.

00:18:03.860 | We do the same thing,

00:18:05.660 | the same things whether we're moving

00:18:07.020 | or staying in a place.

00:18:08.380 | And so we live a life that, it's a great life.

00:18:11.340 | It really is.

00:18:12.620 | So the way we pay for it is,

00:18:15.140 | we've done several different things,

00:18:17.460 | but now I'm an educational mentor.

00:18:20.780 | And so I mentor mostly youth and young adults

00:18:24.100 | in a classical based education.

00:18:26.860 | And so I do, there's so many great softwares

00:18:30.380 | and so many great resources and technology

00:18:32.780 | that come along just even in the last five years

00:18:34.500 | that have made that possible.

00:18:35.900 | And so I meet with, on a daily basis,

00:18:38.260 | I meet with youth and young adults

00:18:39.620 | and some adults for educational mentoring.

00:18:42.580 | And that's the bulk of what we do.

00:18:44.980 | We've also started a site called worldschoolacademy.com,

00:18:48.740 | which really is just, it's helping parents

00:18:51.180 | with other options.

00:18:52.300 | We're so passionate about education.

00:18:54.420 | And so helping whether people homeschool or unschool,

00:18:57.340 | or they wanna travel or live abroad

00:18:59.180 | or whatever they wanna do, public school, private school,

00:19:01.380 | just give educational resources for families.

00:19:03.540 | So that's the bulk of what we're doing.

00:19:05.740 | My wife is also a web designer.

00:19:07.700 | So she does some web design when she wants to.

00:19:10.540 | And that's the bulk of what we're doing right now.

00:19:12.860 | And I can do that wherever there's

00:19:14.420 | a decent internet connection.

00:19:16.180 | - So this world, this tutoring,

00:19:19.380 | so essentially you're having Skype meetings,

00:19:23.100 | kind of coaching type of things.

00:19:24.760 | Parents will hire you to coach their children

00:19:27.260 | and to mentor their children.

00:19:28.560 | Is that the type of thing you're talking about?

00:19:30.460 | - Yeah, exactly.

00:19:31.420 | I do teach a couple leadership courses on an academy,

00:19:36.140 | the Williamsburg Academy.

00:19:37.220 | I teach a couple leadership courses there

00:19:38.940 | and really, really great stuff,

00:19:41.020 | classical based liberal arts stuff,

00:19:43.620 | and just studying the great things

00:19:45.300 | and really preparing youth and young adults to lead out.

00:19:48.060 | But yeah, the parents hire me to lead the educational

00:19:51.980 | and personal development pursuits

00:19:53.880 | for their young women and young men.

00:19:56.420 | - Did you have that established

00:19:58.240 | before leaving on your trip?

00:19:59.460 | Or was this something that you worked out

00:20:01.100 | while you were on the road?

00:20:02.220 | - No, I came along the road, yeah.

00:20:04.500 | And we've done several different things along the road

00:20:06.700 | and explored many different ideas.

00:20:08.660 | And actually started a few different companies.

00:20:11.160 | And we just kind of fell into this.

00:20:13.540 | And this for us, one of the things I guess I gotta share

00:20:17.860 | is that we think it's so important to live purposely.

00:20:22.320 | And I know people have strong feelings about that,

00:20:26.020 | but I feel like everyone has a purpose,

00:20:29.660 | a mission, maybe a gift, or like I like to call it,

00:20:32.580 | everyone has a song to sing, something they can offer.

00:20:35.820 | And so it's not merely about making money.

00:20:38.560 | It's not merely about having an income source.

00:20:41.140 | I think it's possible to earn an income, a good income,

00:20:45.260 | doing something you love to do.

00:20:47.780 | And man, I'm in my spot.

00:20:50.340 | I'm singing my song and I love it.

00:20:52.940 | And so it's a great way to earn a good income

00:20:55.020 | and to do something you really love

00:20:57.700 | and are passionate about.

00:20:58.940 | - On the road, I know you've been on the road

00:21:01.860 | for quite a while.

00:21:02.980 | You must have come across lots of people

00:21:06.260 | that are on the road and earning income

00:21:09.500 | and basically just weren't willing to wait

00:21:13.240 | until they were old and rich to head out.

00:21:16.000 | And I think if memory is correct,

00:21:17.840 | didn't you and your wife, I think you created

00:21:19.440 | a series of videos at some point

00:21:21.720 | profiling different people and their stories.

00:21:24.760 | Could you share some of the ideas

00:21:26.780 | and some of the different paths that you've come across

00:21:29.460 | of other families, how they've taken their families

00:21:31.760 | on the road and paid for it while they traveled?

00:21:34.880 | - Yeah, so I mean, we found an astoundingly

00:21:39.800 | a lot of people out doing this and living unconventionally,

00:21:44.240 | either living abroad or traveling full-time

00:21:47.180 | or even kind of nomadic, either as single people

00:21:51.080 | or couples or families.

00:21:53.040 | And we were shocked to find that many.

00:21:55.640 | So many of them who didn't have blogs

00:21:57.800 | were just out wandering the earth.

00:21:59.160 | And everywhere we went, we started meeting

00:22:02.640 | more and more people.

00:22:03.800 | And as we pulled out of Alaska with our website,

00:22:07.600 | people started to contact us all along the way

00:22:09.800 | and said, "Hey, we'll meet up here."

00:22:11.280 | And, "Hey, come stay with us here."

00:22:12.560 | And, "Oh, when you get there, we'll meet up there."

00:22:14.440 | And we've built some absolutely incredible friendships

00:22:19.160 | but also started meeting all these people.

00:22:21.600 | And of course I'm a very curious person.

00:22:23.280 | I wanted to learn.

00:22:24.480 | So I started just asking all these great questions

00:22:26.480 | and getting these excellent stories.

00:22:29.360 | I thought, you know, I gotta get this on video.

00:22:31.760 | I gotta record these things and share it with people.

00:22:34.280 | And so we did.

00:22:35.120 | We started a series there,

00:22:37.920 | just interviewing all the travelers we met

00:22:40.600 | and the curiosity of, well,

00:22:42.360 | how are you funding this lifestyle?

00:22:45.680 | How are you making it happen?

00:22:47.680 | And how are you building your life?

00:22:49.340 | And it was so fun and so insightful to see,

00:22:54.140 | a single guy who can live in Central America or Asia

00:22:59.000 | on as little as 500 bucks a month and live pretty well.

00:23:02.100 | I mean, you could do it.

00:23:04.120 | If you're a minimalist,

00:23:04.960 | you can live pretty well at a few hundred bucks up to,

00:23:07.440 | you know, I interviewed families

00:23:09.240 | that are making $75,000 a month.

00:23:13.560 | No, $30,000 a month and several, 20, $25,000 a month.

00:23:18.080 | And they're mobile.

00:23:18.920 | They're completely mobile.

00:23:19.780 | They can do their work from wherever they want.

00:23:21.600 | And so they choose where they wanna live

00:23:23.440 | just because they feel like living there for a while.

00:23:26.560 | And if they wanna move, they'll move.

00:23:27.780 | And so it was fascinating to see

00:23:30.080 | how they built their businesses,

00:23:31.560 | how they run their businesses,

00:23:33.420 | how they grow their businesses

00:23:35.360 | and how they build it around their lifestyle.

00:23:37.640 | And I guess that was a common thing

00:23:39.620 | that most of them chose a lifestyle

00:23:43.000 | and then built a business around that

00:23:44.720 | instead of choosing a career or having a career choose them

00:23:47.900 | and then building their life around that career.

00:23:50.080 | So it was a really unconventional idea

00:23:52.520 | and pretty fascinating and powerful

00:23:54.280 | and fun to explore and understand that.

00:23:57.080 | - So obviously all of the work was being done

00:23:59.680 | through an internet connection,

00:24:01.060 | but what were the types of actual careers?

00:24:03.160 | Was it all selling get-rich-quick schemes on the internet

00:24:06.280 | or were just some of them people

00:24:08.320 | had taken more traditional roles online?

00:24:10.440 | What were the types of jobs that people were doing?

00:24:12.920 | - Yeah, that's a great question.

00:24:14.280 | And a lot of people kind of jump on that

00:24:16.840 | and immediately assume, oh, it's probably some blogger

00:24:20.280 | blogging about their travels

00:24:22.600 | and trying to sell something.

00:24:25.720 | And what I found for the most part,

00:24:27.160 | actually, it was quite different.

00:24:28.800 | Almost none of the people we interviewed did it that way.

00:24:32.760 | They actually were doing things that were pretty normal

00:24:36.160 | and pretty simple.

00:24:37.040 | And some of them actually were in location.

00:24:39.780 | So there was a few of them that don't require internet,

00:24:42.480 | but nowadays, most of it's required internet.

00:24:46.320 | Let me think through a few of them.

00:24:47.840 | One of them, they were wholesale.

00:24:50.120 | They had set up wholesale accounts

00:24:52.680 | selling watches and jewelry.

00:24:55.160 | Another one sold electronic cigarettes.

00:24:58.680 | Another one, several of them actually

00:25:00.920 | have been virtual assistants

00:25:02.880 | where they do either marketing or web design

00:25:07.600 | or assistant type work for businesses and entrepreneurs.

00:25:11.340 | Some of the others, one of them ran a running company,

00:25:15.880 | had a running company.

00:25:17.140 | Some did some teaching.

00:25:19.800 | Some did multi-level marketing things

00:25:23.080 | or sold other products.

00:25:25.200 | Several of them did information products.

00:25:27.840 | They would create eBooks.

00:25:30.060 | Some of them were in travel, how to travel,

00:25:32.260 | how to travel with family, how to travel around the road,

00:25:35.540 | how to travel cheaply.

00:25:36.740 | Man, I'm trying to think through them.

00:25:39.120 | There were so many different options

00:25:40.700 | and so many different ideas.

00:25:41.800 | Well, several of them were investors.

00:25:43.960 | I interviewed several investors.

00:25:45.160 | One did Forex trading.

00:25:46.520 | One did just straight stocks.

00:25:49.580 | One traded options.

00:25:51.080 | Others did real estate investing or sold real estate

00:25:53.880 | in that country wherever they chose to go live.

00:25:56.760 | I mean, there's just so many different options.

00:25:58.760 | That's what astounded me is you kind of roll out

00:26:01.640 | thinking there's probably only a couple ways

00:26:04.280 | to really make money online.

00:26:05.360 | And the truth is there are more and more ways every day.

00:26:08.760 | And in fact, the variety of ways to do it

00:26:10.760 | was as unique as the people who were doing it.

00:26:13.480 | - Right, that's exactly kind of where I was hoping

00:26:15.080 | you would go because the trend I see is in the early,

00:26:18.560 | so-called, we're still in the early days,

00:26:20.200 | but a decade or so ago,

00:26:22.600 | if you were gonna make money online,

00:26:24.760 | it was probably gonna be something relating

00:26:26.960 | to teaching people how to make money online

00:26:29.280 | or selling an info product or something like that.

00:26:31.840 | And nothing wrong with that.

00:26:32.860 | That can be hugely valuable.

00:26:34.560 | But I see a couple of trends.

00:26:35.960 | Number one, if you have a physical job,

00:26:37.880 | many physical jobs are very much in danger

00:26:41.120 | of being outsourced.

00:26:42.280 | And so you need to be careful

00:26:43.480 | of the type of physical work you have.

00:26:45.440 | If you're working in a factory

00:26:46.640 | or if you're working in a warehouse or something like that,

00:26:49.120 | it's only a matter of time

00:26:50.160 | until many of those jobs get outsourced.

00:26:52.640 | If you're driving a truck or driving a car for a living,

00:26:55.320 | it's only a matter of time, I don't know,

00:26:56.960 | a decade or two before all of those things

00:27:00.360 | will be self-driving.

00:27:01.960 | But many jobs that have been traditionally done in offices

00:27:04.800 | have easily made a transition to being done

00:27:08.040 | just simply through the internet connection.

00:27:09.960 | So whether it's the type of work that I do

00:27:11.960 | with this podcast, with this show,

00:27:14.840 | whether it's the type of work I do as a financial advisor,

00:27:17.240 | whether it's, you know, there's just so many things

00:27:19.720 | where it's getting easier and easier.

00:27:21.520 | And so I think more and more jobs or businesses

00:27:25.600 | that people are already engaged in

00:27:27.900 | can simply be moved virtually.

00:27:29.400 | And you might have to shuffle some clients around.

00:27:32.020 | You might have to fire a few and get a few new ones

00:27:34.540 | that are willing to work with you in that way.

00:27:36.200 | But there are so many options open to people at this point

00:27:41.120 | that never existed before,

00:27:42.780 | where simply location is not that big a deal.

00:27:45.620 | And so you can, the world is truly open to you.

00:27:50.620 | - Oh, absolutely.

00:27:53.080 | I'm so glad you brought that up

00:27:55.160 | because it's critical that people understand that.

00:27:57.880 | And in fact, you kind of sparked the memory

00:28:00.240 | of several people we interviewed who actually,

00:28:03.200 | you know, they asked their employer,

00:28:05.040 | "Hey, could I work remotely?"

00:28:07.780 | And in many cases, reporters are like,

00:28:09.980 | "Well, let's give it a try."

00:28:11.000 | And it worked.

00:28:12.200 | And then there's big, big organizations

00:28:14.800 | that have huge calling centers.

00:28:17.560 | They're just saying, "You know what?

00:28:18.480 | "Let's figure out how we can get people

00:28:20.440 | "to answer the phones at home."

00:28:22.120 | And so they're getting rid of these huge office building

00:28:24.680 | and they're getting rid of all the overhead

00:28:26.560 | and the commute time and all these other obstacles.

00:28:29.380 | And they're moving things to, yeah, to the digital life.

00:28:32.520 | So you can do it from home

00:28:33.960 | or you can do it wherever you are in the world.

00:28:36.080 | And it's changing.

00:28:37.200 | You know, and I love to think about that whole idea.

00:28:39.760 | You know, five years from now,

00:28:42.280 | there's gonna be something that we depend on

00:28:44.440 | that doesn't even exist today.

00:28:46.400 | And we're gonna be, you know,

00:28:47.480 | using things that don't exist

00:28:49.280 | that we're gonna say, "We gotta have that."

00:28:51.080 | I mean, new technologies are gonna come out

00:28:52.480 | and they're gonna offer so many more jobs

00:28:54.960 | and so many more opportunities,

00:28:56.360 | but people have got to be willing to change

00:28:59.280 | and explore new ideas and stay current with things

00:29:02.000 | and with their own growth and their own skills

00:29:04.680 | and abilities and their knowledge.

00:29:06.480 | I mean, think about how movie rental stores

00:29:10.360 | seemed like such a solid investment.

00:29:12.400 | Like, you know, people will always watch a movie.

00:29:14.240 | Let's open a movie rental store.

00:29:16.440 | They're gone.

00:29:18.600 | They're gone.

00:29:19.960 | It went from video cassettes to DVDs

00:29:22.400 | to now you just, you click a button on your computer

00:29:24.920 | and you can rent a movie.

00:29:26.320 | And it's just fascinating.

00:29:28.000 | So you gotta be able to change and adapt

00:29:30.640 | to these exciting times we live in.

00:29:33.320 | - You tried a few different things,

00:29:34.960 | and you've tried many things,

00:29:35.920 | and I'm sure you'll try more

00:29:36.800 | before you've found what's currently effective for you,

00:29:39.040 | which is this online tutoring and mentoring, right?

00:29:42.240 | - Right.

00:29:43.080 | So I just wanted to make that point

00:29:44.760 | because that's also something I've seen and heard,

00:29:47.840 | or I just have observed.

00:29:50.160 | There's a very uncomfortable,

00:29:53.240 | the transition that's happening in our society

00:29:55.360 | is very uncomfortable.

00:29:56.840 | So some businesses, I think it was a year ago

00:29:59.080 | that Yahoo was famous for kind of revoking

00:30:00.920 | a lot of their work from home stuff

00:30:02.280 | and saying we've got to come back in the office.

00:30:04.280 | And so some things are working, some things aren't working.

00:30:07.240 | Some jobs and businesses, people are finding,

00:30:10.320 | no, I really do need this in-person interaction.

00:30:13.400 | And some people are finding, no, I really don't.

00:30:15.680 | So I would just say if you're gonna pursue

00:30:17.720 | this type of alternative lifestyle,

00:30:19.240 | be flexible and be willing to work at things

00:30:21.620 | and adapt and change and don't feel like

00:30:24.600 | if you do something and it doesn't work,

00:30:27.120 | that's the end of your life.

00:30:28.240 | You can find a way to make,

00:30:29.800 | you can find a way to press through

00:30:32.080 | and assure the dream

00:30:34.640 | if you're willing to keep working at it.

00:30:36.760 | - Oh, absolutely.

00:30:38.520 | And it's almost essential, I would say.

00:30:41.320 | In fact, I'd be bold enough to say

00:30:42.720 | that you kind of have to fail a couple times.

00:30:45.640 | You have to fail forward, you have to try stuff.

00:30:47.480 | Like I mentioned, I'm a voracious reader.

00:30:49.040 | I read biographies, autobiographies, and studies.

00:30:52.320 | And so many of the very successful people

00:30:56.320 | we look at and admire had failures, even bankruptcies.

00:31:00.600 | I know several multimillionaires who said,

00:31:03.120 | yeah, two or three bankruptcies,

00:31:04.560 | kind of the norm before you really get going

00:31:08.080 | and get humming.

00:31:09.040 | And they fail forward, they try things that don't work out.

00:31:11.720 | And a lot of people we interviewed said,

00:31:13.080 | yeah, we tried this, we tried that, it didn't work,

00:31:15.360 | but we learned so many great lessons.

00:31:18.080 | And because of those lessons,

00:31:19.440 | we were able to start it up again and really make it happen.

00:31:22.520 | So there's almost this failing forward process

00:31:25.480 | that I think you try things

00:31:27.240 | and don't throw in the towel, don't give up.

00:31:29.120 | And like you were saying, be very flexible

00:31:31.040 | and be able to move with what's happening

00:31:33.320 | in the current demographics and in society.

00:31:36.800 | - Greg, what makes people willing to fail?

00:31:39.000 | - A vision.

00:31:44.600 | And I think where people lack a vision,

00:31:48.160 | they're afraid of failure and be willing to quit.

00:31:52.960 | Either one, not to try at all, or two, to give up,

00:31:56.240 | but you've got to have a clear vision

00:31:58.680 | of where you're going and what you want.

00:32:00.680 | 'Cause failing's not easy, and man, is it uncomfortable.

00:32:06.280 | And it's brutal, but you have to be willing to fail,

00:32:09.280 | learn from your failures and get up,

00:32:10.520 | dust yourself off and do it again.

00:32:13.240 | And I think one of the main things,

00:32:15.400 | you've got to have a vision of where you're going

00:32:17.040 | or else you just can't stick through it.

00:32:19.360 | - Reason I say it's interesting because to me,

00:32:22.880 | in my work, both in my own personal life

00:32:25.080 | and then in my work with financial planning clients,

00:32:28.240 | I think this is one of the areas

00:32:29.760 | where we could use some enhancements

00:32:33.480 | on I guess the literature that's available.

00:32:35.840 | 'Cause what I was always frustrated, I read a lot as well,

00:32:38.800 | and one of the things that always frustrated me

00:32:40.880 | was reading about people talking about,

00:32:42.720 | oh, failure is gonna be valuable for you.

00:32:44.600 | And to be fair, very few authors say that failure is fun.

00:32:48.120 | It's certainly not fun.

00:32:49.000 | Most people acknowledge that it's not fun.

00:32:51.080 | But many times, people, authors or things that you read,

00:32:55.720 | they kind of just gloss over,

00:32:57.520 | I guess the reasons why you would be willing

00:33:02.000 | to accept failure.

00:33:02.960 | And I know for me, I've watched so many people

00:33:05.200 | where I look at their situation,

00:33:07.080 | I say, look, it's simple, just do this, this, this, this.

00:33:09.360 | And no, I can't guarantee it's gonna work,

00:33:11.400 | but it's probably gonna work.

00:33:12.880 | But then I look at my own personal journey

00:33:14.560 | and I closed my financial planning practice

00:33:16.560 | to start Radical Personal Finance.

00:33:18.440 | And there was zero chance of, excuse me,

00:33:20.320 | there's zero assurance of success.

00:33:23.000 | In fact, it's probably the most difficult,

00:33:27.440 | risky business venture that I could imagine doing.

00:33:31.480 | But I just came to the point where I didn't,

00:33:33.680 | I was more, I'm more, I still am.

00:33:36.480 | I'm more willing to just simply accept failure.

00:33:39.800 | I'm more willing to sell my house.

00:33:41.440 | I'm more willing to go into debt.

00:33:44.400 | I'm more willing to, shoot, if I wind up bankrupt,

00:33:47.080 | whatever, I'll deal with it.

00:33:48.480 | And I just got to the point where I just didn't really care,

00:33:51.080 | meaning I do care.

00:33:52.040 | I'm not, my word is good.

00:33:54.240 | It's very important to me to do things well.

00:33:56.220 | But I got to the point where I feared not trying

00:33:59.920 | and regretting something more than I feared

00:34:02.800 | trying something and failing at it.

00:34:05.800 | And it's hard to articulate that

00:34:09.360 | because it's a very transformative experience.

00:34:13.520 | But it's something I think a lot about

00:34:16.760 | and try to help, how to help people,

00:34:18.920 | not pursue something that's not gonna work,

00:34:21.040 | but be willing to have something that you want,

00:34:24.800 | that you're willing to pursue enough

00:34:26.280 | so that even if it doesn't work,

00:34:27.600 | you're still satisfied with your choice to pursue it.

00:34:30.560 | - Yes, amen, amen.

00:34:33.960 | To be able to kind of put it on the line

00:34:37.320 | in order to live a better story,

00:34:41.200 | to take the risk to, well, like I mentioned,

00:34:44.760 | it being to live deliberately,

00:34:46.120 | to step out there and make it happen.

00:34:49.400 | Yeah, oh, it's what I call the exchange rate.

00:34:53.040 | What are you willing to exchange your life and time for?

00:34:55.720 | And are you willing to take those risks

00:34:59.280 | in order to build something great,

00:35:01.960 | in order to build a life that you absolutely love?

00:35:05.920 | And part of that is that, well, I guess my favorite saying

00:35:08.700 | is that failure is fertilizer.

00:35:11.120 | (laughing)

00:35:13.360 | And it stinks, but man, it's good.

00:35:17.100 | It gets the work done.

00:35:19.200 | And I love your story.

00:35:20.680 | That's a great story where you just,

00:35:22.120 | you gotta put it on the line and face the consequences

00:35:24.720 | or the potential consequences

00:35:27.000 | and say, I'll deal with that if it comes,

00:35:28.480 | but I'm willing to put it on the line here

00:35:31.560 | and to get, like Theodore Roosevelt says,

00:35:33.280 | to get in the arena and get dirty

00:35:35.960 | and maybe a little bloody,

00:35:37.280 | but to get in there and not be with those timid souls

00:35:40.840 | who know neither victory nor defeat.

00:35:43.720 | - Love that quote.

00:35:44.640 | And again, it's not that good planning isn't important.

00:35:48.600 | You know, I certainly, I don't,

00:35:49.840 | I have zero intention of winding up bankrupt.

00:35:53.440 | I acknowledge that it's a theoretical possibility,

00:35:56.120 | but good planning can avoid that for the most part.

00:35:59.720 | And so I have zero intention

00:36:01.080 | of ever winding up in that place.

00:36:03.000 | I guess the point is you get to a scenario,

00:36:06.040 | you get to a place in life where you just realize,

00:36:08.760 | no matter what, this is something that needs to be pursued.

00:36:11.600 | And I think there's a real joy in the work.

00:36:15.520 | There's a real joy in the struggle

00:36:18.720 | that we don't often discuss in our society.

00:36:22.720 | It seems as though in our modern era,

00:36:26.520 | we look to pleasure as a source of happiness.

00:36:29.960 | And we assume that if life is easy

00:36:32.200 | and if life is pleasurable,

00:36:34.360 | then that's gonna be what's truly joyful.

00:36:38.040 | But the reality is there's a great joy in victory.

00:36:40.400 | And my proof for that is look at all the people

00:36:42.240 | that wake up at five in the morning

00:36:43.640 | and go out and run every day.

00:36:45.100 | Look at all the people who sign up for an extreme sport

00:36:47.960 | or who sign up for a triathlon.

00:36:49.480 | Look at all the people who are looking desperately

00:36:52.760 | for this sense of accomplishment

00:36:56.040 | that comes through doing something that's difficult.

00:36:59.280 | And I would never tell someone where they should

00:37:01.720 | or shouldn't find it,

00:37:02.800 | but you can find it in running a triathlon,

00:37:04.720 | and you can also find it in building a business.

00:37:07.040 | You can find it in traveling in a different country

00:37:09.840 | where it's a little bit more difficult

00:37:11.160 | to travel comfortably.

00:37:12.780 | And there's a real joy that I find, at least,

00:37:15.080 | being out there and working hard at something

00:37:17.480 | that's difficult because you get that sense

00:37:19.360 | of accomplishment, which it's easy not to get

00:37:21.960 | in modern Western society.

00:37:24.400 | - Oh, man, I love that.

00:37:27.160 | It really resonates with me.

00:37:28.760 | And not even, the accomplishment's amazing,

00:37:32.480 | but some of us thrive on the challenge

00:37:36.200 | and the difficulty and the struggle.

00:37:39.000 | And I think that's what you mean by the accomplishment.

00:37:41.080 | Like you did something really hard.

00:37:43.200 | And I did triathlons for years,

00:37:45.240 | and so I'm sitting here, you're naming these things,

00:37:46.840 | and I'm like, oh, yeah, those were brutal.

00:37:48.760 | And I get up every day at 4 a.m.

00:37:50.880 | So I can study and exercise, and I love pushing myself.

00:37:55.000 | And you're right.

00:37:56.740 | So I gotta share this 'cause it just changed,

00:37:59.720 | it changed my whole reality.

00:38:01.520 | It's a phrase called bread and circuses in Latin.

00:38:05.200 | I'm gonna kill the Latin, but it's panum et circensis

00:38:09.120 | is what it is, the bread and circuses.

00:38:10.880 | And what it did, it brought about the fall of Rome.

00:38:14.320 | And it was the idea that came in,

00:38:18.040 | these politicians came in, and they wanted to win the votes.

00:38:19.880 | And the idea was, look, if I give,

00:38:22.240 | if we get the people to have food and entertainment,

00:38:26.200 | so bread and circuses, right,

00:38:27.720 | if we give 'em food, cheap food and cheap entertainment,

00:38:31.840 | right, then they'll have the, we give 'em,

00:38:36.280 | I'm quoting here, "The satisfaction

00:38:37.960 | "of the immediate shallow requirements of the populace."

00:38:42.240 | And so you just kinda get 'em to settle in and be content.

00:38:46.600 | It's a means of appeasement, public approval.

00:38:49.940 | And it just kinda sets it open.

00:38:51.720 | So a lot of us, we settle in and we're like,

00:38:53.720 | well, no, let's find something that's easy and comfortable.

00:38:57.800 | Right, we love ease and comfort, we love entertainment.

00:39:00.800 | And I think sometimes we can really miss out

00:39:02.880 | on the great parts of life if what we often seek

00:39:07.680 | is food, cheap food and cheap entertainment.

00:39:10.920 | And that brought down, Juvenile said

00:39:13.520 | this brought down the fall of Rome.

00:39:15.640 | It was that movement toward just,

00:39:18.000 | if we got food and we have entertainment, we're good to go.

00:39:19.880 | But I think you're absolutely right,

00:39:21.280 | that we can push ourselves and be wise and plan

00:39:25.000 | and prepare, you don't have to be crazy.

00:39:26.880 | But to be willing at some point, you say,

00:39:29.840 | okay, it's never gonna be a perfect time.

00:39:32.480 | You gotta just take a step into the darkness and go for it.

00:39:35.440 | - How do you keep your energy high?

00:39:38.200 | And what I mean is that you are an extremely energetic

00:39:42.920 | and effusive person.

00:39:46.960 | And if I weren't familiar with your work,

00:39:48.760 | I would think in many ways that it was a front.

00:39:50.880 | But having seen your work over the years,

00:39:52.920 | I'm convinced that it's actually probably

00:39:54.960 | how you express yourself on a daily basis.

00:39:58.000 | How do you keep your energy so high?

00:39:59.800 | - That's funny, Josh, you bring that up.

00:40:03.760 | It's true, a lot of people are like,

00:40:06.000 | man, are you being fake?

00:40:07.160 | Are you putting, is this your microphone voice,

00:40:09.480 | your camera face or whatever?

00:40:10.600 | But this is how I live.

00:40:11.440 | I just, I'm a really excited and excitable guy

00:40:14.680 | and I live with high energy.

00:40:16.320 | Some of my friends call me the,

00:40:18.080 | it's like I'm a walking anti-depressant.

00:40:21.080 | (laughing)

00:40:23.600 | I just love life.

00:40:24.640 | And like I mentioned at the beginning,

00:40:26.120 | I came from a dark place, man.

00:40:28.960 | And those were some hard years

00:40:30.720 | where I had no friends around, no family,

00:40:33.600 | just some real struggles in some tough areas.

00:40:35.960 | And I thought, life doesn't have to be like this.

00:40:38.000 | Life can be great.

00:40:38.920 | And I live with a deep sense of gratitude.

00:40:43.120 | For me, my alarm clock is an opportunity clock, sincerely.

00:40:47.360 | I mean, I'm grateful to be alive

00:40:50.600 | and to count those blessings,

00:40:52.480 | to have my health and a family

00:40:55.400 | and be able to live and do things that I love to do

00:40:58.200 | and make a difference in the world, to live on purpose.

00:41:00.920 | So how do I maintain the energy?

00:41:05.400 | I view myself as a holistic person, as a whole person.

00:41:08.480 | And it's spiritually, emotionally,

00:41:11.720 | mentally, physically, and socially.

00:41:13.640 | It's balancing those things,

00:41:16.080 | giving each of them not equal attention,

00:41:18.320 | but appropriate attention,

00:41:20.480 | as much as each of them needs to be healthy and well.

00:41:22.880 | But too many of us get, we get burned out

00:41:26.320 | one way or the other.

00:41:28.160 | Maybe we don't have the physical health

00:41:30.160 | or the emotional strength or relationships are hurting

00:41:32.840 | or we neglected the spiritual side of ourselves.

00:41:35.920 | And so if we keep all those in an appropriate balance

00:41:40.240 | and we spend time each day

00:41:42.160 | working on our highest priorities,

00:41:44.400 | I eat very, very well.

00:41:46.080 | I exercise vigorously every day.

00:41:48.400 | I spend time in meditation and prayer,

00:41:51.760 | work on emotional mastery and greatness and relationships.

00:41:55.280 | Man, it just makes for an absolutely fantastic life.

00:41:58.480 | And it's not a front.

00:41:59.840 | And I'm glad you have that experience with me

00:42:02.520 | to go know if to have time that this is consistently

00:42:05.840 | who I am and who I try to be.

00:42:07.320 | And I really am excited and happy.

00:42:08.920 | And I sincerely love life.

00:42:11.760 | It's not a show.

00:42:12.600 | I just, I'm like this.

00:42:13.680 | My kids will tell you that.

00:42:14.640 | My wife will tell you that.

00:42:15.480 | My friends will tell you that.

00:42:17.000 | But it's, for me, it's a great way to live.

00:42:19.320 | I really live with enthusiasm.

00:42:21.600 | And I just wanna be happy all the time

00:42:25.000 | and really, really not miss out on a fun day of life.

00:42:29.360 | - What were the catalysts in your early life?

00:42:31.600 | You said twice now that you said you came

00:42:34.400 | from a really a tough starting place.

00:42:37.680 | What were the catalysts in your early life

00:42:39.480 | that kind of made a real difference

00:42:42.040 | in the direction of your life?

00:42:44.160 | Were there people?

00:42:45.000 | Was there influences?

00:42:46.640 | Was there books?

00:42:48.120 | What made a real difference in your life

00:42:50.160 | in those early years?

00:42:51.480 | - Oh man, that's such a great question.

00:42:53.520 | There was, I was reading great books.

00:42:57.480 | I realized that life didn't have to be that way.

00:43:01.160 | At some point, I don't even know

00:43:02.560 | if I would have cognitively have stated it this way,

00:43:04.560 | but at some point I kind of came to the realization

00:43:06.280 | that life is exactly what you make of it.

00:43:09.000 | And if other people were living happy, successful lives,

00:43:11.880 | then I could too.

00:43:13.520 | And I came to the realization

00:43:14.920 | that nothing will get better until I do.

00:43:17.880 | And that's just a great truth there,

00:43:19.240 | that nothing gets better until you do.

00:43:20.840 | And then everything gets better as you do.

00:43:23.280 | And that I wasn't a victim.

00:43:24.520 | And so along the way, there were, yes, of course,

00:43:27.520 | there were great people who reached out

00:43:29.200 | and helped and mentored, led me.

00:43:31.320 | And then great books that started to shift my reality.

00:43:35.600 | And I just came to this clear idea that I was accountable.

00:43:40.600 | Yes, people had done things to me.

00:43:42.880 | Yes, my parents had made mistakes.

00:43:44.600 | And yes, I'd been wronged.

00:43:46.240 | And that was my past.

00:43:47.640 | But living in the past wasn't gonna help me.

00:43:49.640 | And I came to this day where I just realized,

00:43:52.120 | you know what, I am accountable from this point on,

00:43:54.960 | I am accountable for how my life turns out

00:43:57.720 | and I better make it awesome.

00:43:58.800 | Why not?

00:43:59.640 | You know, if I get to choose, then choose awesome.

00:44:01.880 | And so I just said, I'm gonna go after it vigorously.

00:44:04.600 | That was 20 years ago.

00:44:06.360 | And I have been studying voraciously

00:44:08.800 | in personal development and history and great classics

00:44:12.280 | and the best books and the great questions

00:44:14.320 | and really pushing after personal development

00:44:17.040 | and trying to make the most of myself.

00:44:18.680 | And I believe, I guess I would say

00:44:21.200 | that the greatest tragedy in the world

00:44:23.900 | is when a person, you or I,

00:44:25.760 | does not reach their full potential.

00:44:27.960 | And so I go after it vigorously,

00:44:31.720 | trying to be my very best self.

00:44:34.400 | And when we take full responsibility for our lives

00:44:38.000 | and we make a clear plan to build life

00:44:41.000 | as we wanna live it, then there's a path and there's a way.

00:44:44.720 | And it's awesome.

00:44:46.760 | It's not all roses and not all fun.

00:44:49.720 | There's always challenges and obstacles.

00:44:52.480 | But man, life is great.

00:44:53.960 | - When you and your wife originally had the idea

00:44:57.880 | to start traveling, was one of you really the champion

00:45:01.440 | of that idea and had to get the other person on board

00:45:03.480 | or did you come to it together?

00:45:05.720 | - Fortunately, because we both read so much, it was easy.

00:45:09.720 | It wasn't one of us convincing the other.

00:45:12.600 | We both had come across all these different books.

00:45:16.160 | We'd say, hey, this great book, why don't you read it?

00:45:17.520 | And we'd read it and go, oh, hey, that's a great idea.

00:45:19.360 | And we kinda discussed these ideas.

00:45:20.760 | And so luckily, really from the time we were married,

00:45:24.040 | we've grown together in our vision.

00:45:26.480 | And fortunately, we both felt strongly about this

00:45:29.760 | and we've read the same books and had the same discussions

00:45:32.280 | and really same experiences and come

00:45:34.640 | to similar conclusions at least.

00:45:36.280 | We don't agree on everything,

00:45:37.280 | but we really came to these conclusions like,

00:45:39.300 | yeah, there's a different way to live.

00:45:41.480 | There's an unconventional way to live.

00:45:43.040 | And at least for our family,

00:45:45.080 | we wanna grow up with a global perspective

00:45:48.920 | and get out and see this beautiful world

00:45:51.280 | and make a difference while we're doing it.

00:45:52.680 | So it's just been a really great blessing

00:45:54.400 | that most of those things we've seen eye to eye

00:45:56.160 | have been able to move together.

00:45:57.760 | And man, it's so much better

00:45:58.640 | when you can move together like that.

00:46:00.160 | - Absolutely.

00:46:01.480 | A couple of final questions here.

00:46:03.340 | And I wanna probe just a little bit with regard to,

00:46:08.340 | let's start with just some of the, let's start with this.

00:46:13.280 | What is the biggest challenge

00:46:14.960 | or a few of the biggest challenges?

00:46:16.840 | And I understand that it's great and it's exciting

00:46:19.200 | and it's really wonderful,

00:46:21.320 | but every lifestyle that we choose

00:46:24.440 | certainly has things that are difficult.

00:46:26.600 | What are the biggest difficulties and challenges

00:46:28.480 | of the lifestyle that you've chosen?

00:46:30.280 | - So I guess I would have to say conveniences is what it is.

00:46:36.320 | Especially if people are interested in traveling

00:46:41.180 | or living abroad long-term or kind of traveling long-term.

00:46:43.920 | And I guess that's kind of our lifestyle.

00:46:46.260 | In each place, it's very different.

00:46:48.160 | And if you go in with certain expectations

00:46:50.560 | or you want every place to be,

00:46:52.000 | say, for example, you want every place

00:46:53.260 | to be like the United States.

00:46:54.480 | Well, you know, you say, hey, well, back in the States,

00:46:56.080 | we do it like this, we do it like that.

00:46:57.820 | But you can drive yourself crazy going, ah,

00:46:59.960 | always comparing to how it is somewhere else.

00:47:01.800 | And I think there's just inconveniences.

00:47:03.760 | And my wife and I were talking about that last night.

00:47:05.920 | So, you know, it's just, it's absolutely worth it for us.

00:47:08.560 | And for some people it's not worth it,

00:47:09.700 | but for us it's worth some of the inconveniences

00:47:12.560 | with different visas

00:47:14.040 | or the inability to get different products.

00:47:16.380 | You know, in some of the countries,

00:47:17.480 | it's really hard to find the things you're after.

00:47:19.660 | Whether it be books or certain appliances

00:47:22.280 | or getting your computer repaired or something.

00:47:23.840 | There's some of those things that just come with travel

00:47:26.360 | that are some of the inconveniences,

00:47:27.500 | but too big of an exchange rate to be inconvenienced.

00:47:30.520 | But I would say for us personally, I would say that's it.

00:47:33.580 | We clearly, the school or what we call world school,

00:47:37.860 | our children, and so the schools hasn't been a big issue,

00:47:41.220 | but it is for some.

00:47:42.200 | But yeah, you know, and you're away from family

00:47:46.220 | and there's a lot of, you get a lot of criticism

00:47:49.800 | for living unconventionally.

00:47:51.440 | And that you have to be able to handle some of that too

00:47:53.680 | as it comes in.

00:47:54.520 | - Are you concerned about your children and your family

00:48:01.200 | not feeling a sense of community as they get older?

00:48:05.960 | - Oh, really great question.

00:48:07.960 | And we are very passionate about that

00:48:11.540 | and very intentional about that.

00:48:14.200 | We want to raise leaders who have great social skills

00:48:21.240 | and a great education and are willing to

00:48:24.400 | and able to communicate effectively and relate

00:48:27.080 | to both young and old and rich and poor

00:48:31.080 | and black and white and everything in between

00:48:33.760 | and every race and religion and to really connect.

00:48:36.920 | And it's been fun as a family to connect

00:48:39.600 | in the communities where we've had.

00:48:40.960 | So we don't have an in-person really long-term connection,

00:48:45.520 | like we don't spend 10 years in one place,

00:48:48.180 | but we've connected deeply with a lot of people

00:48:53.180 | in a lot of places.

00:48:54.880 | And literally it's been fun.

00:48:56.360 | We have friends all over this world

00:48:58.360 | and our children have friends all over the world.

00:49:00.400 | And it's just a great experience.

00:49:02.980 | And now technology is so good that we can do video,

00:49:06.240 | video conferencing constantly with family and friends

00:49:09.760 | all over the place.

00:49:10.600 | And so, no, I'm not concerned about that lack of community

00:49:12.840 | because wherever we are, we dig in and we connect.

00:49:17.360 | And when we stay connected to our close friends

00:49:19.060 | and where travel has become inexpensive and easy,

00:49:23.320 | we're constantly all over the place and connecting.

00:49:25.140 | So, no, I'm not concerned about that with them.

00:49:27.700 | - If you were gonna pick a day and not the ideal day

00:49:31.640 | that if you were gonna write a blog post

00:49:33.080 | about the ideal day to tell people why travel is so great,

00:49:36.960 | but an actual day, I'm interested to know what,

00:49:41.500 | for you as a father with six active children

00:49:45.460 | and your wife and you both have a lot of responsibility

00:49:49.900 | and you're trying to earn an income and manage your children

00:49:52.860 | and learn where to go to get the type of shampoo

00:49:55.940 | that doesn't make your hair flake

00:49:57.260 | and all of that kind of stuff.

00:49:59.360 | What does an actual day look like for you

00:50:03.380 | as far as how you run your schedule at this point

00:50:06.580 | with your family and your online work

00:50:08.620 | and all of your responsibilities?

00:50:10.520 | - Yeah, awesome, awesome question.

00:50:13.740 | And you have to be pretty intense about it.

00:50:16.580 | If you wanna stay prioritized,

00:50:18.180 | you have to stick to your things

00:50:20.060 | because there's so many distractions.

00:50:21.940 | And that's true whether you move or you stay in one place.

00:50:25.680 | There's always the laundry, the dishes,

00:50:27.860 | the people calling here, the little urgencies,

00:50:30.340 | the fires to put out.

00:50:31.180 | You have to be intense about

00:50:32.780 | reaching your biggest priorities each day.

00:50:35.420 | So, like I mentioned, I wake up really early,

00:50:37.540 | usually around four, and I spend time doing meditation

00:50:41.700 | and planning goals.

00:50:43.080 | I read scripture and I read great books.

00:50:46.500 | I do all my studying and just kind of my personal priorities

00:50:48.980 | and I get some exercise in.

00:50:50.420 | That's what we do first thing in the morning.

00:50:51.460 | And then we have a morning devotional that we do.

00:50:54.300 | And we always stick to it where we sit down as a family.

00:50:57.140 | We have all our meals together as a family.

00:50:59.060 | But in the morning, we do our studying,

00:51:00.740 | we do our memorizing as a family,

00:51:02.100 | we memorize great things.

00:51:03.900 | And then they jump right into the education.

00:51:07.300 | And that's where I'll go do my mentoring and my work,

00:51:09.280 | and my wife will spend time then

00:51:11.140 | the first few hours of the day

00:51:12.900 | helping each kid get their education

00:51:14.700 | and work on each of their subjects

00:51:16.580 | and kind of dig into that.

00:51:18.700 | And then we always try to,

00:51:19.660 | and they'll do that for several hours.

00:51:22.020 | And then they get their playtime, their adventure time,

00:51:23.700 | they get out and run around in the rainforest here

00:51:25.940 | and play and have a good time.

00:51:26.860 | And we always like to do,

00:51:29.060 | we always like to do some kind of adventure,

00:51:30.580 | either to go for a run or a hike or run down to the beach.

00:51:33.420 | I like to go down early in the morning.

00:51:35.760 | Sometimes I'll go down and surf with my sons

00:51:38.980 | just a couple of weeks ago, we were surfing

00:51:40.880 | and these baby sea turtles swam past us.

00:51:44.020 | We grabbed one and played with her for a minute.

00:51:45.700 | It was just, it was epic, man.

00:51:48.140 | It was awesome.

00:51:48.980 | Watch the sunrise,

00:51:49.800 | play with a little sea turtle on the surfboard there

00:51:51.180 | with my son who's 10.

00:51:53.020 | And have those bonding experiences,

00:51:54.900 | it was a great experience together.

00:51:55.740 | We'll go jump in a waterfall down here

00:51:57.820 | or just go do something fun or we'll go surf.

00:52:00.620 | And this isn't every day,

00:52:01.660 | but we try to throw this in where we go out

00:52:03.460 | and serve someone who's in need, go visit someone.

00:52:06.740 | And then every night before bed,

00:52:08.920 | I read to the kids.

00:52:09.860 | And so that's kind of these rituals we stick to

00:52:12.220 | and then they change.

00:52:13.060 | You gotta run to town for the,

00:52:15.260 | get the groceries in the open markets here.

00:52:17.780 | You gotta go down and visit with some friends or something.

00:52:21.220 | But for the most part, that's usually how the day goes.

00:52:25.740 | - Do you restrict your work to those hours in the morning

00:52:28.460 | in which your kids are studying?

00:52:30.060 | - Yes.

00:52:32.220 | For the most part, my schedule is usually from like

00:52:36.100 | eight to two, eight to three.

00:52:40.600 | Now I do a ton of reading.

00:52:42.800 | And so I'll, in the morning or in the afternoons,

00:52:46.400 | late afternoons, I'll sit down and do some reading

00:52:48.200 | or some studying or prep work, which is part of my work.

00:52:51.800 | But I count on being interrupted.

00:52:53.440 | Little baby needs to be held

00:52:55.080 | or a little boy wants to show me something he's working on

00:52:58.000 | or my daughter wants to do something,

00:53:01.100 | go share me, show me something or have a little venture.

00:53:03.040 | And so I plan on being interrupted,

00:53:04.200 | but I spend some time and I'm with them.

00:53:06.420 | And I guess that's cool.

00:53:07.340 | That's kind of lifestyle we've kind of designed

00:53:08.980 | that I'm here and I can be sitting there doing some reading

00:53:13.460 | or some studying or prep work,

00:53:14.560 | but I'm right here and I can be interrupted.

00:53:16.900 | - Why, is it a big deal to you that you and your wife

00:53:20.540 | are involved with your kids' educations?

00:53:22.860 | Is it just circumstantial because that's the way

00:53:25.140 | you have to do it if you want to travel?

00:53:27.060 | Or was that important to you even if you weren't traveling?

00:53:30.340 | - Yeah, absolutely.

00:53:32.740 | Right after we got married,

00:53:33.800 | we decided that's the way it'd be.

00:53:35.480 | That's not something we wanted to outsource completely.

00:53:39.560 | Now, obviously there's tons of resources

00:53:41.960 | and we like hiring tutors to come in

00:53:44.400 | and help with specialties that we may not cover as well.

00:53:47.560 | Or often, sometimes your child respond better

00:53:50.040 | to a third party than to you.

00:53:52.480 | But we want to be hands-on with our kids' education

00:53:55.120 | because it's so important to us that they get

00:53:57.920 | literally a world-class education and a leadership education.

00:54:01.920 | And so we are hands-on to that and always involved

00:54:04.940 | and always will be.

00:54:05.780 | That's important to us and has been from the beginning.

00:54:08.660 | So if we were back in the States just living out

00:54:10.780 | the life that we were doing before,

00:54:13.180 | we'd still do the same thing.

00:54:15.340 | - Practically, there in Costa Rica,

00:54:18.900 | how practically are your kids studying right now?

00:54:21.420 | Do you have a bunch of books

00:54:23.180 | and they're working their way through books?

00:54:24.660 | Are they all sharing one computer?

00:54:26.440 | Do you have six iPads floating around the living room?

00:54:28.900 | How do you practically do it?

00:54:30.500 | (laughing)

00:54:31.640 | - Yeah, it's awesome.

00:54:32.920 | And it's funny.

00:54:34.760 | We pack hundreds of books all over the world.

00:54:37.480 | I feel like a pack mule sometimes moving the books.

00:54:40.320 | But we feel it's important to have books in hand.

00:54:43.360 | And yes, we have lots of digital books

00:54:44.880 | and lots of audio books.

00:54:45.960 | We use all three media there,

00:54:48.160 | but we definitely are using paper books,

00:54:51.820 | have lots of them, we pack them all over.

00:54:54.120 | So, and ours is a classical-based curriculum,

00:54:59.680 | I guess you could call it.

00:55:00.920 | So a lot of great books,

00:55:02.420 | the best books that have been written throughout time.

00:55:05.400 | We also do have the iPad, the iPhone,

00:55:09.240 | couple computers, a couple Kindle Fires.

00:55:11.840 | And so the kids will do like Khan Academy,

00:55:14.460 | excellent resource.

00:55:15.500 | They do Duolingo,

00:55:16.680 | which is also a phenomenal resource for languages.

00:55:19.720 | They'll get on, they'll do math games.

00:55:21.180 | And we do a lot of researching for the sciences,

00:55:25.840 | the arts.

00:55:27.400 | I kind of think like there isn't anything

00:55:29.380 | you can't do with YouTube.

00:55:31.560 | You can learn almost anything.

00:55:33.040 | It's really great.

00:55:34.440 | And then, we can do some tutoring

00:55:36.200 | and meet up with other people.

00:55:37.080 | You can do a Skype session or something

00:55:38.600 | with someone who's got a gift.

00:55:40.260 | You can even take music lessons online or other resources.

00:55:43.760 | So it really is, it's such an exciting time to be alive

00:55:47.600 | because with some books in hand

00:55:49.800 | and access to the internet and a computer and iPad,

00:55:52.460 | you can really get access to just about

00:55:56.560 | anything you need to for a great education.

00:55:59.620 | - So my final question is this.

00:56:02.580 | I'm a big fan of travel and at this stage in my life

00:56:06.380 | and with my family, we've decided it's not something

00:56:08.620 | that we're pursuing at this stage,

00:56:11.980 | but it may in the future.

00:56:12.960 | We'll see how time works out.

00:56:14.620 | But one of the things I think is most valuable

00:56:17.660 | about travel that many people don't talk about

00:56:21.300 | is everyone focuses on perhaps,

00:56:24.560 | many people focus on the romance of travel,

00:56:26.660 | the idea of doing something different.

00:56:29.280 | But I think there are some lessons from travel

00:56:31.060 | that could be applied when you're living in one space.

00:56:34.580 | So I'm curious to know, if I put a situation in your life,

00:56:39.580 | let's say that you had ailing parents,

00:56:42.060 | either you or your wife or a relative

00:56:44.320 | that you needed to be close to and you were gonna be in

00:56:46.680 | and I were gonna bring you back to the United States

00:56:48.540 | and put you in a place that you were familiar with

00:56:51.420 | and you were gonna be there for a few years.

00:56:53.500 | I'm interested to know, after all your years on the road,

00:56:55.900 | how would you structure your days?

00:56:58.540 | How would you structure your life?

00:57:00.140 | And what lessons would you apply to that more common,

00:57:05.140 | so to speak, type of life, more conventional looking life?

00:57:10.680 | What lessons would you apply to that type of lifestyle

00:57:12.620 | that you've learned from your time on the road?

00:57:14.900 | - Woo, man, that's a really great question.

00:57:18.260 | That's well thought out.

00:57:19.180 | I like that a lot.

00:57:20.380 | My initial reaction to that would be like, no!

00:57:24.620 | I can't do it.

00:57:25.860 | Except for what's called adult ADD,

00:57:28.340 | adventure deficit disorder.

00:57:30.100 | (laughing)

00:57:31.420 | - Like it.

00:57:32.340 | - I gotta get out and play.

00:57:33.580 | So no, but I've thought about that often

00:57:35.020 | and I have a lot of friends and people who contact us

00:57:37.440 | constantly on our websites and say,

00:57:38.740 | you know what, we're not gonna get out.

00:57:40.740 | How do we, yeah, basically what your question is,

00:57:43.660 | what do you apply all these things you've learned,

00:57:45.140 | how do you make it happen?

00:57:46.380 | And here's what I would do

00:57:47.620 | as I've thought through that often.

00:57:49.140 | I've literally thought about that question often.

00:57:52.380 | I think we all need novelty, new experiences.

00:57:57.380 | And actually, you can study this physiologically.

00:58:02.100 | There's neural connections that happen with novelty

00:58:05.780 | and there's actually dopamine and serotonin

00:58:09.180 | and endorphins that get released into your body

00:58:11.140 | as you're having new experiences.

00:58:12.740 | And I think one of the things we miss out

00:58:14.100 | if we're staying in one place

00:58:15.180 | is we don't create enough new experiences.

00:58:17.580 | We get comfortable with one thing

00:58:18.740 | and we kind of settle in,

00:58:20.180 | sometimes mentally, emotionally, socially, physically,

00:58:22.860 | we just kind of settle in and we stay.

00:58:24.900 | And that doesn't have to be the case

00:58:26.940 | even if you live in the same place.

00:58:28.680 | You can go to new restaurants,

00:58:29.940 | you can run at different places,

00:58:31.840 | you can go out and meet new people,

00:58:34.340 | you can have new experiences.

00:58:36.160 | And I would just say you'd have to be,

00:58:37.860 | and I especially would have to be very deliberate

00:58:41.940 | about having adventures and challenges.

00:58:45.700 | I would be signed up for all kinds of different races.

00:58:48.740 | I'd sign up for a decathlon or something,

00:58:50.340 | just something to challenge me in all kinds of levels.

00:58:53.120 | I would get involved in community projects

00:58:56.200 | or organizations or groups

00:58:57.560 | that were challenging me mentally and socially.

00:59:00.320 | And I would be planning, I'd be very, very strategic.

00:59:03.820 | I'd plan out a year and do one small adventure a week,

00:59:07.580 | one pretty great adventure a month,

00:59:09.700 | and one epic adventure every quarter

00:59:12.880 | to make sure that I personally am feeling alive

00:59:16.260 | and getting out and connecting.

00:59:18.860 | And I would be intense about learning another language

00:59:22.780 | and practicing it with anyone I can find,

00:59:24.540 | taking new classes, and especially in the States

00:59:26.940 | because we miss that down here.

00:59:28.260 | I'd be spending a lot of time at the library.

00:59:30.300 | - Right, right.

00:59:32.420 | Yeah, I think it's,

00:59:33.260 | and that's why I wanted to wrap up on one of those places

00:59:35.980 | because oftentimes,

00:59:38.180 | that's why I wanted to wrap up with that question.

00:59:41.020 | Oftentimes we romanticize another person's life.

00:59:44.540 | We romanticize another person's experiences.

00:59:47.660 | And I think each of us hopefully

00:59:50.500 | should just be focused on living the life

00:59:52.700 | that is right for us.

00:59:54.400 | But I'll tell you,

00:59:55.860 | one of the, for me, I've been blessed at a young age,

00:59:58.460 | and I'm almost 30,

00:59:59.540 | and I've been blessed to be able to visit a lot of places

01:00:02.300 | and do a good amount of travel.

01:00:04.100 | And I'd like to do it,

01:00:05.260 | I'd like to do more in the future,

01:00:06.400 | but for me, some of the most transformative experiences

01:00:09.980 | of my life have occurred because of the travel.

01:00:12.980 | And it wasn't necessarily the travel of itself,

01:00:15.620 | but rather it was the change of mindset.

01:00:18.060 | So whether it's my ability to feel content

01:00:21.540 | with my standard of living,

01:00:23.500 | I'll tell you, for our honeymoon,

01:00:25.340 | my wife and I, we went to the Dominican Republic

01:00:28.700 | and then to Haiti.

01:00:29.860 | And every time we travel in a place like that,

01:00:32.780 | we spent several days in Haiti,

01:00:35.060 | and you spend time in a place like that,

01:00:37.480 | you come back home and we started off our life

01:00:41.260 | in a little 200, I think it was 234 square foot

01:00:44.660 | studio apartment after we were married.

01:00:46.820 | But we had just come back from Haiti

01:00:48.180 | and that apartment was beautiful.

01:00:50.500 | And I had friends that would say to me,

01:00:52.340 | like, "How on earth can you live in this place?"

01:00:54.100 | And I'd just say, "Listen, what on earth more do I need?

01:00:57.020 | I have a bed, I have a chair, I have a table,

01:00:59.460 | we have a kitchen and have a bathroom and a closet,

01:01:03.100 | a place for our clothes.

01:01:04.020 | We're two people, why do we need anything more?

01:01:06.500 | Why should I spend to fulfill this external expectation

01:01:11.020 | of the US American culture?

01:01:12.900 | After all, I'm thankful.

01:01:14.260 | You don't know where I just was.

01:01:15.540 | I'm thankful to be in this situation.

01:01:18.460 | I'm thankful to have such a beautiful place to live

01:01:21.740 | where it's clean and it's bright and it's pretty

01:01:23.740 | and it's beautiful and it's safe and it's easy.

01:01:26.700 | I turn on the tap and there's hot water

01:01:28.340 | and I plug something into the wall and there's electricity.

01:01:31.340 | And so that would be an example for me.

01:01:33.780 | Or another one is that I have to continually

01:01:37.500 | remind myself of, I'm very, me personally,

01:01:39.980 | I'm very much a people pleaser and it's difficult

01:01:42.620 | for me to go against the grain.

01:01:43.940 | So I'm heavily influenced by peer pressure.

01:01:47.140 | And so it's easy for me to feel like I've got to keep up

01:01:50.580 | with everyone else.

01:01:51.420 | I've got to have the fanciest toy.

01:01:53.300 | I've got to drive the fanciest car.

01:01:55.300 | I need to look like everyone else.

01:01:58.480 | But when I travel sometimes and all that's stripped away

01:02:02.100 | and I don't ever have to compare myself to the other people,

01:02:05.140 | then I learn to be a little bit more confident in me.

01:02:07.300 | And so as an example, one of my visions for my life

01:02:11.940 | is I don't want to be disconnected from my family.

01:02:14.900 | I don't want to live this common existence where I wake up

01:02:18.740 | early in the morning and I scarf down a bite to eat

01:02:21.620 | and then I'm away from my family for the next 10 hours

01:02:24.060 | and I come home exhausted at 6.30 at night

01:02:27.980 | or 7 o'clock at night, maybe my kids are already in bed

01:02:30.540 | and I scarf down some food and flip on the TV.

01:02:33.420 | To me, that's not living.

01:02:35.900 | So I've worked hard and I'm working hard on creating.

01:02:39.260 | I'm able, in the US-American context,

01:02:42.660 | I have three meals a day with my family.

01:02:44.340 | I wake up and I work from home and I do work that I care about.

01:02:47.860 | And then I still need to work on--

01:02:50.620 | and we try.

01:02:51.660 | This afternoon, as soon as we finish up interviewing,

01:02:53.940 | it's a beautiful day here in South Florida.

01:02:55.980 | And I've got some more work that I probably should do.

01:02:58.180 | But you know what?

01:02:58.940 | It can wait.

01:02:59.900 | And I'm going to take my family on a little adventure

01:03:02.140 | and figure that out.

01:03:03.780 | So these lessons from travel can be applied in any context.

01:03:09.260 | And you don't have to just be on the road.

01:03:12.860 | You don't just have to live in an RV to live simply.

01:03:15.140 | You don't just have to go to Costa Rica to learn Spanish

01:03:17.780 | and engage with new cultures and new cuisine.

01:03:20.280 | You don't have to go and eat street food in Nicaragua

01:03:25.100 | to eat street food.

01:03:25.860 | There's street food everywhere.

01:03:27.620 | You can make a choice other than TGI Fridays.

01:03:29.500 | And that's a lesson that I think we don't talk enough about.

01:03:33.580 | Man, I so agree.

01:03:35.020 | That is such a beautiful paradigm

01:03:38.080 | you have across the board there.

01:03:40.020 | And I think that's the perspective

01:03:41.580 | you gain from getting out and having new experiences outside

01:03:44.060 | of our common experiences.

01:03:45.180 | It makes you just come back with a different perspective.

01:03:47.560 | I love that.

01:03:48.420 | Oh, I love that.

01:03:49.620 | I guess that's one thing I might add to that.

01:03:51.700 | I think I would come back and try

01:03:53.900 | living in one of those tiny houses that are becoming

01:03:56.500 | popular, just to say, hey, we did it.

01:04:00.980 | I don't know.

01:04:02.100 | I think your wife is an adventurous sort.

01:04:04.020 | But unless that tiny house is parked on the beach with six

01:04:07.180 | kids and the two of you, I think you need something

01:04:09.700 | a little bigger, at least a fifth wheel.

01:04:12.700 | Everybody is going crazy.

01:04:14.580 | I floated that idea with my wife.

01:04:16.860 | She didn't fly for it.

01:04:19.580 | So I'm thankful.

01:04:20.860 | And I'm thankful for it.

01:04:21.980 | If I were a single person, maybe.

01:04:24.500 | But like I said, we've got two kids.

01:04:27.840 | And we're hoping for more in the future.

01:04:30.020 | That's awesome.

01:04:31.540 | So you need a little bit of space.

01:04:33.980 | So Greg, we're-- let's see, discovershareinspire.com.

01:04:36.900 | And then was it gregdenning.com?

01:04:38.700 | What are your websites?

01:04:39.980 | Yep, discovershareinspire.com, gregdenning.com,

01:04:43.420 | and then worldschoolacademy.com.

01:04:45.940 | Man, I appreciate it so much.

01:04:47.060 | You're coming on the show today.

01:04:47.980 | This was super fun.

01:04:48.940 | And I would encourage people to check out

01:04:50.740 | some of your adventures and others of your riding.

01:04:53.060 | And I'll make sure to link to all that stuff in the notes.

01:04:55.260 | Awesome.

01:04:55.760 | Thanks, Joshua.

01:04:56.420 | This was really enjoyable.

01:04:58.900 | Now, what do you need to apply from this to your life?

01:05:03.500 | Take it and apply it.

01:05:05.500 | I think probably the biggest gem might be even there

01:05:08.180 | at the end.

01:05:08.780 | Just because you're not traveling

01:05:10.220 | doesn't mean you can't live the life of adventure.

01:05:13.060 | Plan it out.

01:05:14.500 | Think it through.

01:05:15.580 | Make a plan for how you can accomplish

01:05:17.460 | your personal adventure goals.

01:05:20.060 | It really is pretty inconvenient in many ways

01:05:22.020 | live on the road.

01:05:23.940 | A lot of benefits from it.

01:05:25.020 | But it's also pretty inconvenient.

01:05:27.020 | And if you can take the desire for adventure

01:05:31.020 | and apply it to your situation, it

01:05:33.260 | might bring a little bit more zest to your daily life.

01:05:36.740 | Just a thought.

01:05:38.020 | Walk around your town.

01:05:38.940 | Schedule a tour with a tour guide of your town.

01:05:42.420 | Walk around your town with your phone

01:05:44.580 | and do a photojournalist shot.

01:05:47.860 | Take pictures of interesting things.

01:05:49.820 | I'm always a little bit envious of photographers

01:05:51.820 | because they seem to just notice so many interesting things

01:05:53.980 | because they're always looking through the lens of a camera.

01:05:55.860 | Interesting buildings and interesting just stuff

01:05:59.620 | everywhere.

01:06:00.500 | So how can you apply that to your life?

01:06:03.580 | I'm working on applying it to mine.

01:06:05.380 | Thrilled to be here sharing the journey with you.

01:06:07.420 | Thank you so much for each of you

01:06:09.220 | who are supporting the show.

01:06:10.380 | Again, as mentioned in the beginning,

01:06:12.380 | if you'd like to make sure we keep the show here

01:06:14.540 | free of corporate interest, please

01:06:16.100 | go to radicalpersonalfinance.com/patron.

01:06:18.420 | I would be thrilled if you would do that.

01:06:20.140 | It would help so much.

01:06:21.340 | By June 1, the goal is by June 1,

01:06:24.220 | we need to get the show to $6,000 a month,

01:06:26.140 | and I can avoid taking advertising.

01:06:28.540 | That would be in excess.

01:06:30.420 | If I-- under the rates today of the listenership of the show,

01:06:34.340 | that's basically the number that I

01:06:37.260 | could get from advertisers with the number of shows

01:06:39.420 | that I do and the frequency.

01:06:40.580 | It would be about that $5,000 to $6,000 a month number.

01:06:44.900 | So that's why it's one of the goals.

01:06:46.580 | If we can get to that with listener support,

01:06:48.380 | I would really love to do that.

01:06:49.660 | So I just ask you for your help.

01:06:51.100 | radicalpersonalfinance.com/patron.

01:06:53.180 | Tomorrow, I'll be back with a special show.

01:06:55.220 | If you are a patron of the show, check out the Patreon page,

01:07:00.060 | the activity feed, for the details of that,

01:07:02.060 | and you can have input into it.

01:07:04.220 | That's it.

01:07:04.720 | See you all tomorrow.

01:07:05.600 | [MUSIC PLAYING]

01:07:08.940 | ,

01:07:32.660 | Thank you for listening to--

01:07:35.380 | Thank you for listening to today's show.

01:07:37.580 | If you'd like to contact me personally,

01:07:39.700 | my email address is joshua@radicalpersonalfinance.com.

01:07:44.900 | You can also connect with the show on Twitter, @radicalpf,

01:07:48.340 | and at facebook.com/radicalpersonalfinance.

01:07:52.140 | This show is intended to provide entertainment, education,

01:07:56.500 | and financial enlightenment.

01:07:59.100 | But your situation is unique, and I cannot deliver

01:08:02.500 | any actionable advice without knowing anything about you.

01:08:06.780 | Please, develop a team of professional advisors

01:08:11.260 | who you find to be caring, competent, and trustworthy,

01:08:15.700 | and consult them, because they are

01:08:18.260 | the ones who can understand your specific needs,

01:08:21.740 | your specific goals, and provide specific answers

01:08:25.980 | to your questions.

01:08:27.820 | I've done my absolute best to be clear and accurate

01:08:30.620 | in today's show, but I'm one person, and I make mistakes.

01:08:34.580 | If you spot a mistake in something I've said,

01:08:36.820 | please help me by coming to the show page

01:08:39.260 | and commenting so we can all learn together.

01:08:42.460 | Until tomorrow, thanks for being here.

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RPF0157-Greg_Denning_Interview