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Long Way – Coaching Lesson

Hi, I’m AJ. Welcome to this month’s lesson, Long Way. The name comes from Long Way Down and Long Way Round, which are two documentaries, basically, which we talked about in our conversation where Ewan McGregor and Charlie Boorman took these long motorcycle trips.

One was around the world from…almost around the world…from England through Kazakhstan and Mongolia and Russia and then North America over to New York. And then the second trip they did was starting in England and then they went down. So they went down through Europe, crossover to Africa and then down to the bottom of Africa, South Africa.

Now, usually its my job, I try to make it my job in these coaching lessons to give you very practical information and to tell you why this topic is practically useful to you and your life and will help you achieve more success and all of those things and I enjoy doing that. But this time I’m not going to do any of that because for me this is just a purely romantic topic because I just love this kind of travel.

I loved both of those shows and I didn’t love them for any practical reason. It’s not going to give you a better job. It’s not going to give you a better career. You’re not going to have a better relationship because of this. You’re just going to have fun, okay? That’s what this is about to me. It’s just this…this excitement and love for exploring and traveling. That’s what I get from Long Way Round and Long Way Down. And I find it super romantic. It’s just a very romantic thing for me.

I mean I think back to my very first trip abroad outside of the United States, in India. Fairly soon into my trip I was in a place called Jaisalmer. Now Jaisalmer is this romantic place because it’s out in the desert.

It’s kind of…I mean it’s not Arabic, y’know, it’s in India but it kind of conjures up some of the same romantic images in my mind, some of the same mythology.

So the…it’s in this are of India called Rajasthan and the Rajasthanis, the people who live there, historically were these very romantic characters, y’know? They were…they were supposed to be these very noble fighters, very kind of romantic colorful and chivalric people. And indeed they are very colorful still. They still wear very colorful clothes. They wear these turbans that are extremely colorful. The women wear saris which are bright and multicolored.

And so you’ve got all this color in the markets on the people’s clothes. And then it’s set in this desert so it’s just this desert, y’know, it’s kind of a sandy tan, light browns, all these very soft colors. And then out of the desert there’s this big kind of mountain, not quite a mountain but a huge hill. And this huge hill just comes up out of the desert and then on top of it they built this really big castle. And it’s also built of stone that’s the same color, just kind of sandy, y’know, sand-colored stone.

So you’re out in the middle of nowhere, way out in the desert. It’s dry. There’s camels still. They still use camels to transport things and to get around. I took a camel ride in the desert. It’s one of the little touristy things you can do. So it was like three nights, I believe, three days in the desert riding on camels through the desert, going through little tiny villages, eating with the camel drivers, the guys who took care of the camels, the guides of the trip.

All of to me it was just super romantic, especially when I was young and traveling for the very first time in my life. The first time to leave the United States and I’m in this location that for me was very exotic. So different, so completely unknown to me compared to my suburban American life that I had always had.

And it’s hard to even clearly identify all the ways that changed me.

But the sum total of it was basically I became hooked, like a fish. In other words, I became, got positively addicted to travel, especially international travel and, for me, especially travel in Asia. I love that part of the world. And it’s the colors and the sounds and the energy and all of that which is so different from the United States. And I love it. It just fits me somehow. I love the people. I love the food, the spices, mostly the smells, not all of them but most of them.

And it’s just an amazing experience. It just opened my whole life and my mind and it changed my life completely. Because up ‘til then I’d never left the United States and I was sort of just doing the normal American life and…trying to, at least…and then after that I just continued to travel. That’s when I decided to try teaching English. One year later I went and lived in Korea and then I lived in Japan and then I lived in Thailand. And I have never stopped traveling since then. And now I have this very nomadic international life. And for me these journeys have many benefits and many great things. I don’t know if they’re practical but they are enjoyable.

Number one, I love journeys especially. And that’s the thing about the Long Way Down and Long Way Round shows. They’re not just vacations. They’re not going to some resort, sitting in a chair and swimming around in the beach. Nothing wrong with that, that’s nice to do sometimes.

But what I really love though, and am inspired by, are these kind of long journeys through unknown lands.

Y’know, that’s what they did on their motorcycles. That’s what I did in India at that time. And the thing about a journey is, number one, it’s just exciting. Y’know, it’s exciting because it’s all different and new. It can be scary sometimes but it’s not boring. And that’s one of the things I love most about taking a journey like that.

Along with that, and maybe one of my favorite things about that kind of travel, taking a big long journey, a challenging journey in through the unknown, is the fact that it’s unknown. The thing I love the most about it is that you never quite know what will happen that day. Right now, while I’m in San Francisco just doing work, I pretty much know exactly what’s going to happen today and tomorrow.

I know tomorrow I’m going to wake up and I’m going to eat breakfast. And then I’m going to get on the computer. Then I’m going to do some work. And then I’m going to go to the coffee shop. I’ll do some more work. Maybe go for a walk and then come home. And most days are quite similar. That’s okay, but it gets kind of boring sometimes. And there’s no adventure in it, right?

So it’s so exciting to me to go off on a journey where you’re just…you’re going, y’know, for an extended period of time and it’s not so planned. So again, it’s not a vacation, it’s not a guided tour or some guide is taking you every day, every hour, telling you where to go and what to do. No, no, no. It’s more like what Charlie Boorman and Ewan McGregor did.

They don’t know what’s going to happen and some days it’s a disaster and all these terrible problems happen. And their motorcycles broke. And then there’s a river and they can’t get across the river. And what are they going to do? And every day is sort of a surprise. And it was the same for me in India, y’know. I was, one day I’m riding camels and the next day I’m sick and in the hospital. And the next day I’m riding a train. And then the next day I’m meeting unexpected people. And every day something happening kind of unexpected and it makes you feel more alive when you’re doing that. You can start to feel dead if things become too predictable. That’s another great thing about travel that I love.

I kind of alluded to this just now but another thing I love about it is the kind of unexpected encounters with people. You just, you can meet some very fascinating people that you probably would not meet in your normal life. Because again, in my kind of average life, my normal day, working day, y’know, I tend to see and talk to the same people. I talk to my best friends. I talk to my wife. I talk to my family. And, y’know, that’s…and I talk to business partners or people who are helping me in my business, who are working for me. And that’s my normal social circle. And that’s great and I, y’know, I love my family and friends obviously and all that’s fine, but there’s, again, not a lot of newness.

And so what I, one thing that I love about traveling, too, is that you kind of can bump into some amazing interesting people, kind of unexpectedly. I was in Nepal one time, for example, and staying in this town called Pokhara, and I was actually a little bit sick at the time. But in my same guest house I met these two really interesting guys.

One guy was from South Africa, he was a veterinarian, extremely interesting guy. Another guy was a psychologist from, and a counselor, from England but he had all these kind of really interesting, almost crazy, ideas about psychology. And I just had fascinating discussions with these guys. And it was such an interesting experience. And those are two guys I never would have met at home in my normal life.

Great experience and a great conversation, and again it kind of opened me up and gave me a lot of excitement and passion to meet those kind of people.

And that leads me to my next point, the next thing that is so great about these kind of journeys, is that it mentally opens you up. It’s almost impossible not to be affected in this way. It is possible to travel without being open. Again, if you go and you just take a guided tour, you sign up for some guided trip.

And then you go and then the guides are telling you where to go all the time. Again, there’s nothing wrong with that. If you just want to do that for a vacation.

But what I’m talking about is something a little more romantic and adventurous than that. And that’s where you just go off to somewhere in a foreign land that’s totally different. And you’re just…y’know, ideally you’re taking some journey from one point to another or it’s…it’s a much more intense experience but it’s also very much more romantic and adventurous.

And the result of that, of exposing yourself to that and doing that, is that it opens your mind. Getting all these new ideas, all these new people, all these new sights, all these new sounds. Everything coming to you every day, it’s unexpected. Your mind opens up. And what happens is then you just start getting all kinds of new ideas. They just start popping into your head like crazy. It’s a very creative process. You become very, very, very creative.

My wife and I did a long journey around an island in Japan called Shikoku. And it was about a month journey and we walked the whole thing. And it was amazing because after a few days of doing that, suddenly I was just getting all these incredible ideas. And they were just coming so fast I couldn’t even remember all of them. So fascinating. It’s great.

And I guess the other thing is it just gets you out into the world, y’know. We get so stuck in our normal lives doing the same thing all the time. And it’s just fascinating to just get out there, y’know, instead of being indoors all the time and in the same places. Get out there. There’s a whole huge world out there.

So when I think about Charlie and Ewan, I realize that they probably did it for exactly the same reasons.

When you watch the documentary you can just see that. You can hear it in their voice and the things they say. You can tell that’s why they’re doing it, too. I mean, those guys are rich, especially Ewan McGregor.

He’s rich. He’s famous. He’s a movie star.

And yet, he decided to get on a motorcycle and ride it across all these very tough roads, put himself into these dangerous tough situations, go into all these unknown areas, faced with all these challenges. Why did he do it? For all the reasons I just mentioned to you. And this is something that I think that all kind of adventure travelers or kind of romantic travelers have in common. I think these things are common to all of us.

So this is my favorite part. The part where I recommend something to you because I have a question for you, and that is what is your dream journey? Y’know, something romantic. Not, oh I want to go to the beach and lay around all day because I’m tired. If you need a vacation then go do that. But that’s not what we’re talking about here. I mean something grand, something terrifying and exciting at the same time.

What is your dream adventure? If you just sit back right now and just started dreaming, just start writing down what grand amazing trip would I love to do? If I knew I would be safe, what would I want to do? I can think of 10 right now, off the top of my head. For one thing, I would love to do a motorcycle ride like Ewan and Charlie did. They inspired me. I can ride a motorcycle. I’m not very good at it but I can do it.

So I’d love to especially do something like that.

They also inspired me to explore Africa. I’ve never been to Africa so I’d love to do some big long journey through Africa at some time. Joe and I are doing the Camino de Santiago, which is this walking pilgrimage path through northern Spain. There are so many great ones out there. There are trails through the Himalayan mountains, going up to the base of Mount Everest. There are many, many, many.

What’s yours? What’s the one that just gets you excited and dreaming, that when you think about it, y’know, you just get kind of crazy almost thinking about it because it seems so exciting and so scary.

Maybe it seems a little impossible to do but that’s the one for you. So think about it. Just have fun this month, okay? This isn’t a serious topic. It’s not going to make you more money. It’s not going to do anything practical for you except give you an incredible exciting amazing experience.

So step one, write down…write more than one. Like I said, I can make a list of lots of them that I would like to do. But write at least one that makes you crazy excited that’s this huge adventurous amazing journey that you want to do.

Step two, research it. Get some guide books. Get online. Find out all you can about it.

Step three, schedule it. That’s when it becomes real. Schedule it. Decide when you’re going to do it.

Now these kind of journeys take a…they usually take a month or more, so you’re going to have to, y’know, really plan this, especially if you have a job, a demanding job or you have kids or something.

Then it’s going to be challenging so maybe do it a year from now or a year and a half. And you have to call people and get people to watch the kids and you’ve got to do a lot of different things to get it all scheduled and planned, but do it.

And then, finally, of course, go and do it.

So this is a topic I really want to hear about from you. I want you to write about your dream journey or trip or adventure. Write on our social site, our Ning site, about this topic. And the reason, I have a very selfish reason for wanting you to do this because I want to see your ideas because I might learn something and I might see some that I don’t know about that I might want to do someday. So please write them on the…on the site because I really want to read them and maybe I’ll do them at some point, too.

Alright, this is a fun one this month. All about fun and being romantic. So let your romantic side out and just choose that romantic inspiring amazing journey that you’ve always wanted to do.

Alright, see you next time. Bye-bye.