Your very presence on this site tells me you and I share the view that entrepreneurship is good.  Working for yourself, making things happen the way you want them to, and living life on your own terms.  It’s a major part of my life and my identity.  However, at the core of entrepreneurship lies the innate ability to recognize and seek out unique opportunity, regardless of its source.  Last week my adventurous side saw a big opportunity.

Since I first heard the term ‘experiential marketing’, I’d been intrigued by the concept.  The process of connecting potential clients to a product or brand through a positive real-world interaction, struck me as something both exciting and with an awesome amount of potential. 

A few of my friends got involved with an experiential marketing company back when I was in high school and the concept was still in its infancy.  I can remember they did everything from handing out samples at grocery stores to promoting cell-phone companies at concerts (the latter being exponentially cooler and rarer).  My friends tried to get me to sign-on, but between 5 school sports and 3 rep/travel sports a year my time was scarce, and the idea of handing out free Cheese-Strings in grocery stores didn’t exactly create much pull toward the idea.  So my future as a brand rep vanished before it began.

That was until I was e-mailed a job description too good to pass up.

I had been ‘planning’ to read Vagabonding for over a year now, but was hesitant to actually begin reading, worried it would follow suit with many of the other travel books I’ve read.  These books seem to push the opinions, biases, and prejudices of the author so forcefully upon you that it becomes difficult not to absorb some of these notions.  Vagabonding was a refreshing change.

I was immediately impressed by how clearly and effectively Potts explained the difficult subjective side of travel.  To address the situations that don’t lend themselves well to words he instead used examples of his experiences while traveling. 

He never takes a superior or bragging tone, but it quickly becomes clear that the author has traveled and experienced and incredible percentage of the world.  I found the advice he gave very practical and informative.  I especially liked that he took the time to address restlessness while traveling.  He explained that at different stages of travel you’re going to want different things out of it.  Maybe after a long haul of partying you need a few weeks just to wander and live humbly, or perhaps after a length of living in densely populated cities you may want to escape to the back-country.

“After all your traveling, when it comes time to get married, where do you want to settle down and raise a family?” 

The question was sincere and direct; asked by a good friend who always seems genuinely intrigued, even delighted, to hear the unique and often peculiar answers I give to seemingly simple questions.

“The South”, I blurted out without needing time to consider the query.  “Austin, Texas maybe, but I’ve always leaned toward Savannah, Georgia”  While most people my age haven’t even considered this question beyond a passing thought, I’ve been sure of my answer for at least half a decade.  It’s not the sports or the weather or the incredible food that swayed my opinion, although they certainly didn’t hurt.  Instead, I explained, my choice was based on three characteristics deeply ingrained into the culture of The South- family, community, and strong values.

My friend turned to me with a puzzled expression strewn across her face and asked “But couldn’t you find those three things just about anywhere?”  My honest and unfortunate answer was “No”.

A fellow traveler recently turned to me and asked “Sunny, what is it about traveling that you love?”

My answer:  “The feeling”  The answer sounds so simplistic, but to truly understand it, you have to have done some off-the-beaten path traveling yourself.  Therefore, most people will nod in agreement, but not have a clue what I really meant.

It’s the feeling of of excitement that makes you leap out of bed while abroad.  The feeling of finding great pleasure in the simplest acts that you take for granted back home.  It’s a feeling that awakens incredible optimism and an anything-is-possible attitude.  It makes you appreciate meeting new people, push your limits, and try new things.  

Today (May 6), I was lucky enough to attend the Chick-Fil-A Leadercast event in London, Ontario.  The main conference was held in Georgia, but over 80 000 people across the country attended telecast events.

The physical event was loaded with forward thinking minds and the list of speakers and the topics they covered was truly amazing.  In the above audio I give my recap of the event.

Here is a list of the speakers today:

Seth Godin
Entrepreneur, Marketing Expert, & Best-Selling Author of 12 Books Including “Linchpin”

John Maxwell
Leadership Expert & Best-Selling Author of The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership

Mack Brown
Head Coach of the Texas Longhorns, 2009 Big 12 Coach of the Year

Suzy Welch
Best-selling author, television commentator, and noted business journalist

Erin Gruwell
Founder & President of Freedom Writers Foundation

I have a lot of things I’m passionate about.  Playing sports, music, discovering opportunity, the list could continue for miles.  However, if I had to narrow it down, pick only ONE thing that I truly love on this planet the choice would be easy—travel.

Of course travel is the obvious choice; how couldn’t it be?  It encompasses so much.  New experiences, new people, new cultures, exotic foods, curious customs, beautiful and ever changing scenery.  Freedom, liberation, success.  It’s a single word that contains the very best the world has to offer.

Of course, that realization came to me while sitting in-front of a computer screen pounding away at the keys.  My time stretched thinly between studying for a Real Estate course, working on an InDesign project, and coordinating a way to escape the boredom of the standard 9-5 system that I ideologically reject.

BUT through the fog an end is in sight!

Roadtrips down the east coast to outrun Canadian winters.  Sailing prohibition-era bootlegger boats alongside massive pods of dolphins in the Sea of Cortez.  Surviving three-months in the Mexican wild with little more than a knife and faded map.  These are stories of modern day adventure, pulled directly from my life. 

I’ve always sought-out these exciting and uncommon opportunities.  Partly because I love the thrill of new experiences, but mostly because I don’t believe men are supposed to be stuck behind a desk 40 hours a week, wasting away the best years of their lives.

However, the past year has placed incredible demands on my time.  First the push to complete university (thankfully accomplished), and now real estate school has let the dullness and numbness of conformity creep into my life—and it’s left me incredibly restless.   Don’t get me wrong, I recognize the importance of formal education and the necessity of formalized work structure, but I can also see that if it’s not exciting—it paralyzes me.

Well no more!  It’s time to aim higher.

Lessons From A Life Of Entrepreneurship

 As I sit to write this article, a strange and unfamiliar thought passes through my mind—aren’t you a little young to be writing this?  It is true, if you glanced at my license it would betray my mere 24 years on terra firma. 

 However, since before my first steps I’ve lived within an immersion of business education.  My curriculum didn’t come from a book or formal classroom; in fact, you couldn’t find the lessons I’ve learned in any academic setting.  They weren’t derived from theory; instead they were borne of application.  You see, I come from a family of entrepreneurs—on both sides.  I’ve spent my life listening, asking questions, absorbing.  My family, whether they know it or not, have given me something that can’t be bought—a real world MBA. 

It’s incredible to think how quickly technology has changed things.  For instance, even at my mere 24 years, I grew up understanding business as something that was done largely face-to-face.  Where you looked into the eyes of your customer and you often knew them by name.  Perhaps even stranger, when my father, uncles, or grandfather gave their word and shook someone’s hand you knew it was as concrete as any contract. 

When I look around now, I realize I’ve been thrust into a very different world. 

Radical

There’s nothing more I love than to meet other people who are doing incredible and exciting things.  One common thread I’ve found between myself and other young entrepreneurs and creative types is that the people surrounding us generally don’t ‘get it’. 

When people ask about my life, I’ll share things like: “I run a blog about travel, adventure, and entrepreneurship”, “I want to travel the world with just a backpack”, or “I’m trying to make earn a living online through a sustainable automated business model”.  Confused faces ensue, and generally there’s a long silence, which I let linger, before someone asks the question that used to deflate my enthusiasm; “why?”…  If you’re a forward thinker, you know exactly the skepticism I’m speaking of.

If you don’t have the good fortune of living in an ultra-forward-thinking start-up culture, it can be especially difficult to meet other people who share this passion for new and innovative lifestyles.

Thank goodness for the geographically liberating power of the internet…