Andrew Hogan: The Path of Effortless Success [Podcast Ep. #4]

Transcribed from the episode audio by AI, so it may contain mistakes.

Ravi0:00Welcome to the Motivated Life podcast. I'm Ravi Raman. On today's episode, I'll be having a conversation with Andrew Hogan. So Andrew has been my coach for the past few years, and it's awesome that I was able to track him down because he is location independent, traveling all over the country in his airstream travel trailer with his wife and three dogs. running his business while on the road. And he is holed up in Texas for a little while, and I was able to reach him and have a conversation that I think will be very interesting to many of you.

Now, on this podcast, I just want to give you a quick heads up that there was a bit of an audio issue. Now, I decided to go ahead and release it anyway because I think the content is very important, and the issue is pretty minor. You'll hear a few scratches as if a microphone rubbing against a shirt and a bit of a low-level hum that I wasn't able to fix in post-production. But again, I don't think it's too big an issue. Please spare me any negative comments in your reviews on this issue.

I know audio quality is super important and I'm doing my best to make every episode as high quality as possible, though I do hope you agree with me that the content is is well worth it. Now, what we're going to talk about today is an important topic for anyone that's working in a company or running a business. It's a topic of how to be successful, but not in the way that you will typically see this topic talked about online or in business books. because we go into the topic of effortless success, what would it be like for each and every one of us to find greater success in whatever we do without feeling like we have to work harder and harder in order to make it happen?

Now the idea of effortless success sounds like an oxymoron because in our modern world we are trained to believe that if we don't work harder and harder, the results won't come. But the truth is and Andrew and I discuss the reality that much of life is not up to us, that while we can control the actions we take, many of the results and the success that happens seems to happen on its own. It isn't always connected to all of the actions we take. I know I've seen this in my life and Andrew has seen it in the past 20 to 30 years of coaching people in companies as well as business owners.

So we talk about this idea, effortless success, what is it, and how can we find a little more progress and joy in the work that we do? So I hope you enjoy this episode. And with that, I bring you, Andrew Hogan. Andrew, how are you doing?

Andrew3:25I'm great. Thanks, Ravi.

Ravi3:27So, what part of the universe are you in right now?

Andrew3:30Well, I'm in what they call the hill country of Texas, somewhere between San Antonio and Austin. It's called Curville. Hmm.

Ravi3:43Lots of land to park your airstream, I'd imagine. Oh, yeah.

Andrew3:48I haven't really spent a lot of time here before. It's gorgeous. Yeah, it's rolling hills. There's beautiful lands and ranches. and then there's really cute towns. Yeah, it's a really beautiful part of the country. So

Ravi4:03how long have you been, I guess, on this adventure with, in a way, I guess being location independent, traveling around?

Andrew4:13Between two and a half and three years, so for a little bit. Yeah,

Ravi4:18for a little bit. And that whole time you've been active as a coach, so you're not just traveling around, you're also helping. your clients, serving your clients, working with companies, is that right?

Andrew4:30Yes, I do most of my work through video or audio conferencing, and then sometimes I'll go and visit a client, and sometimes I'll fly there, and sometimes I'll just hook up my airstream travel trailer and go visit someone.

Ravi4:50So we'll come back a little bit to your lifestyle because I think it's really interesting. But I do want to talk about coaching because, well, the listeners will know, because I'll put an intro in. But you know you've been, I know you've been coaching before. Coaching was a thing I mean before the word, before. Really, I think the industry really got off the way it is now. I mean now at least most professionals under at least know of coaches. They may not quite know what they do, but they know of coaches.

Tell me a little bit about what motivated you to get into coaching. What was that journey like also as you first started out?

Andrew5:34Yeah, so I used to grow companies and then sell them and then grow them and sell them. And one of the last companies that I did that with, I had a business partner, and he and I were getting into kerfuffles. I like to say kerfuffle, it's a nice word. And my office manager at the time said, you guys need a coach. And I'd never heard of that. I'm like, what's a coach? And she explained a coach. And I said, get me two. One for us, me and my business partner, and one for me.

And so that was the first time I experienced coaching. And I absolutely loved it. I ended up through the coaching experience, got clear that I didn't really want to have that business anymore. So I sold that business to my business partner. And then I spent nine months in exploration with myself and my coach about what would be next. And that's when I birthed the first business idea, which was making people's dreams come true. So I was going to call dream makers. And I launched that program.

And I It wasn't successful because we were going to take people's dreams and they were going to submit them by the Internet. We were going to take people's dream. This was in the early 90s, mid-90s. We were going to take their dreams and make them come true for them. And I did a couple of test runs. And it turns out that it's not very successful when you make other people's dreams come true for them. They don't want it. That's what I discovered. Really? Yeah. So I went back to the chalkboard, the virtual chalkboard, I eat long walk, sitting in my hot tub, going sailing, doing what most people would say is nothing, but I was spending a lot of time in reflection.

And then that's when I came up with visioneers. And visioneers just came to me and I thought, you know what would be really helpful is if we help people get clear about what they want. And then I didn't really understand coaching at that point, and then help guide them, coach them, facilitate them, and having that if they want or not. It's up to them, not up to me. But my job would be to help chart the path, as it were. And so, Visioneers was born, and I got a couple of really lucky breaks, some people would say, and often I've been doing it ever since.

Ravi8:22So you say that you wanted to help people chart a path that was up to them, not up to you. And I think some people might think of a coach as someone who's going to tell me what to do, give me the 17 steps to success. Maybe if you can talk a little bit about that, why are you trying to help people find their own path when you clearly have grown businesses and you could probably tell people, hey, here are the 10 things you can do that they're doing wrong.

So why are you maybe coaching differently?

Andrew8:54Yeah, and this has evolved over the 20 years, roughly about 20 years since I've been coaching, and I do no telling now. Because what I've discovered is that people have their own innate wisdom, their own internal GPS system, their own access, to creativity and insight, intelligence, and their path most certainly is not going to be the same as my path or your path, or anybody else's path, even if they're wanting to do the same thing in very similar ways. How they're going to go about it, how their best to go about it is their own way.

And so for me as a coach, my primary job is just to wait. them up so they listen to their own internal wisdom and guidance and follow that so

Ravi10:06how would you just how would you describe your coaching coaching method and then you sort of just said it in the sense of okay I'm waking people up to their own internal wisdom is there anything more is there anything more to it is there any other method behind how you do what you do

Andrew10:26Well, like you said, it's kind of a tricky question. So if someone were observing me, they might say, oh, he's doing this method or he's doing that method. But truly, there is no method. Other than the fact that, you know, if you gave it a label, I would say I'm a transformative coach. And all that means is I help people look at a certain direction. and then they see whatever they see in that direction. So if there is a method, which there really isn't, the method would be I'm a pointer.

I point them in a direction, and then they look or they don't look, and they see what they see. And what they would see might be similar to what I might see, but it certainly wouldn't be the same. It might be completely different.

Ravi11:23And I can imagine how it. For some people it might be frustrating because they want the answer, and this is something as a coach myself. I witness people, particularly if they either want to achieve something or they maybe are in some pain, they're dealing with a terrible boss or they're struggling to grow their team or their business they really want the answer. What I'm hearing you say is you're not. You know you're giving them the fishing rod, you're not giving them the fish and they're coming asking for the fish.

Andrew11:54Yeah, we could use you and I an example when you hired me to coach you to grow your business. I help a lot of coaches grow their businesses. How I grow my business is very different from how you grow your business, as you know and you're a very successful coach. I probably wouldn't be successful if I did it the way you did it or do it. Nor would you probably be successful if you did it the way I did it, because it's my own unique way.

Although there's something about what we do is the same, and that's the pointing in the right direction. And all I mean by that is it's helpful to know if you want to be a coach, that somehow you have to be available and communicate with people and let them know that, hey, I'm here and available to help you, you know, whatever you're trying to do. me I'm trying to wake people up and point him in the right direction so that's probably what I would say you might say differently it doesn't matter but how you go about that there's a million ways to do that

Ravi13:01Right, I'm sort of laughing because when I, when I first hired you, when I was growing my coaching business, you know you had built your coaching business through a number of years in relationships and working with people in person, whereas my my entire business was getting built coaching people all over the country, not for not face-to-face, and also using online tools, you know blogging and LinkedIn and social media, And so the tactics were very different. But what I what you helped me see and were pointing out was there was a possibility for me to do it and that I did know how to do it.

I just had to, you know, sort of go with it and figure it out. And our conversations gently nudged me in the right direction and really trust that I would figure out a way. If I just showed up and did the work, that I would figure it out. And I ended up figuring it out and you're right, how I built my business is very different than you did, but it worked. So what I want to do is talk a bit about a topic that's been on my mind because it comes up in conversations I have with clients a lot.

These are clients that are looking to get bigger results at work. They're looking to achieve more. They want to be more productive, be more impactful, influential, grow their teams. And for many of my clients, they feel like they're in a bind. They're in a trap because we seem to live in a culture that really praise to the altar of hard work. and many people I worked with, and even in my own corporate career, worked with a lot of people, almost everyone who was working really, really hard.

And that hard work did yield a certain level of success. The problem was it wasn't sustainable. So I'm sure there's many people listening right now who feel like they're either burning out or they just don't feel like their current work is being done in a sustainable way. And so maybe something for us to explore is, is there a different way to get results? Do we have to work harder and harder to get success, or can we actually work easier and still be successful? Because that seems to be counter to what popular wisdom is.

That's all about hard work and putting in the hours and, you know, sacrifice to get ahead. So I guess let's just talk about that. I'm curious your perspective on the problem and what you've seen in your coaching end in life.

Andrew15:38Now that's. That's one that, um, I coach a lot of folks on, just like you've, runy, and I like to call it and I think you call it the same thing effortless success. And boy, when you say that to people, they're like oh that's, that's not even possible. What are you talking about? But there's something that I've discovered, and lots of folks in this area of transformative coaching have discovered, is that where success actually comes from, Where does intelligence, insight and wisdom, where does it come from?

And when I look at the nature of success, of course I've worked very hard in my life, efforting and efforting and efforting and efforting. And just like you said, eventually, I have a very high threshold, but eventually I get tired and burn out, or my work isn't as good as it could have been or should have been, or I get frustrated or angry, you know, like, oh man, I just did this great report, and people aren't appreciating it. I put in so many hours, you know, like that.

It comes from a confusion of where that actually comes from. Where does success come from? And what I've discovered is there's an unlimited pool of insight and wisdom and success. The harder you push, the harder it is to dip into that pool. Then it becomes all on you versus allowing it to come through you. So I work with a lot of creatives as well, a lot of business people. And when they learn this effortless success, it becomes very easy. And I'm not saying they're not working, but it just, their work flows through them versus them doing, you know, so, I'm going to really push hard today.

There's no, I really, in fact, if you're feeling that, you, I tell them all the time, if you feel like you have to push hard, that's the time to take a break. Because now you're just efforting. Of course, effort can produce results, but it's not sustainable. So if you're in a relaxed state, a relaxed state of mind, what I've discovered and the people that I work with have discovered is that things just start to flow or naturally, innately come through you. So you could call it instead of effortless success, natural success or innate success.

Ravi18:22You know, you briefly touched on something, this idea of, you know, are things up to us? And, you know, I wonder if there's something there because in a world where people work harder and harder thinking that's the only way to get success, that does come from a place of thinking that all the results are up to us. But what I'm hearing and what you share is in your coaching and working with you is that it's not all up to us. and that if we think that, you know, our 10 units of effort yields 10 units of results, that doesn't seem to be how the world works.

Would you agree?

Andrew19:07Oh, this is a conversation that we talk great length with my clients, because most people are not clear about what part is up to them and what part isn't, And so if you don't know what part's yours, you end up putting. Most of us end up putting a lot of effort in lots of areas that aren't up to us and once you realize most of it isn't up to you, then there's no sense putting any time, energy or effort or worry or fretting or having any anxiety or any of that about that at all.

It's not up to you, there's nothing for you to do about that. And then discovering the parts that are up to you and then there, there, it's a lot less than you think and gives you a lot more freedom and a lot more ease and grace to actually allow yourself to do the part that's up to you versus you know well, I'm going to make the sun spin in the opposite direction today. That's not really up to me. Right. You know, but what's up to me is if I want to be in this, let's say it's going to be a sunny day and I want some sunshine, it is up to me to go outside.

But I don't make the sun shine. I'm pretty clear about that. I know that's a silly example, but some of the stuff that people are efforting on, it really isn't up to them at all. Yeah.

Ravi20:35You know. One of the examples in my experience I'd love to hear if you have one from your experience to illustrate that point is when I first started my coaching business. For a while I was really concerned with the result in terms of, oh, I need this much income, this many clients, the outcomes. And I also started to worry about is this going to be my forever job? Like, is this business going to be the only thing I do? Is it my destiny, these crazy things?

And somehow in our conversations I started to realize look, I have no idea. I have no idea. I mean, I have no idea how I got into the college or ended up going to the college I went to, how I ended up going to the company I worked at before I started my business is how I chose Colorado as a home after leaving my old home in Seattle. Things just sort of happened And when I realized that those outcomes I don't have control over and I'll deal with stuff as it happens and I'll just focus on what I can do, which is emailing friends, you know, writing a blog post, emailing my email list, doing basic things, improving my skill as a coach then life will just show up and I'll deal with it day by day.

Now that happened to lead me in the direction of building a coaching business, but maybe it would have led me, or maybe in the future it leads me somewhere else. I don't know. But I guess to the point of it's not all up to us, I mean, I just see that happens so often. In almost everything I've done, I can't, I couldn't have predicted how I got where I was, but it happened. And to me, it's just really liberating to know that I don't have to do it all.

That would get me really stressed out if I had to do everything. Right.

Andrew22:29I remember us having those conversations. Like you said, it's so liberating. You know, I love that example that they use. It isn't up to you. You know, if you listen, because my experience about receiving real-time guidance is it's in the moment, right? If you listen carefully, just like your GPS in your car, if you listen, it says turn left, you turn left. You don't think, I wonder what I'm going to do, you know, 15, 20 turns from now or next week, you know? Because that you would probably get in a car accident.

Here's one example that I like to use. I've coached a lot of people in Hollywood and actors and whatnot. It's clear that getting the part in general, unless there's something funny going on, is not up to the actor. You know, it's clear that it's not up to them. In fact, most auditions, they don't tell them what they're looking for on purpose. And so the actors that are really successful learn this pretty quickly. And they don't get nervous at all, because as soon as they get nervous, they don't do a very good job.

So they show up, they just do their best acting, whatever that is for them, be their best acting, and then forget about it. It's not up to them whether they get chosen or not. The funny thing is that they do that really well, they get chosen more often. And they get someone to say, oh, yeah, we're not actually looking for you for what you offer for this kind of movie, but I've got someone who's doing another kind of movie that you'd be perfect for. And so those kind of opportunities start happening.

But see, if they got all worried, and I worked with a lot of them, a lot of them are worried, I've got to get this audition, or I really want this thing, because this is the movie for me. and then they get in their head and then they don't do a very good job in the audition and then they don't get chosen. And so that's kind of like all of life for us. We don't really know what's next. We don't know what's going to happen. I've been coaching for quite a long time, but I don't know if I'll be a coach for the rest of my life.

Who knows? I don't even know if I'll be a coach next week. You know, it looks like it, but something could happen that would change that.

Ravi24:45So someone who is you know, they've got, they've got 35 meetings this week. They they are, you know, working 7 am to 7 pm. They're on email in the evenings, they are struggling to ship a product or serve their clients and they're, they feel like you know, but it's gotten them somewhere good, they've achieved some level of success. How does that person, how does that person get out of that trap where they feel like they're just constantly thinking, oh okay, I've got to do this, I've got to do that.

I have a team that depends on me. I mean, they might be listening to this and thinking, wow, that, okay, that sounds great. Here, Ravi and Andrew, they're both. You know, they've quit their, you know, they've redefined their life. Here's Andrew in an airstream. Here's Ravi. You quit his job, traveled for a year and started a business. So this works for them, not for me. What would you say to that kind of person? Well,

Andrew25:45yeah. So the, One of the first things that I work with people on is understanding where our feelings come from, where our thoughts come from. And that's a big deal because I'm sure you're familiar with and your listeners are familiar with. We're having thoughts and feelings all day long. And how most of us were taught is those thoughts and feelings are related to somehow caused or. related to the things that are going on around us. But that's actually not true. Because if that were true, then yes, you would have to attend to all those things, all those feelings and all those thoughts, like, I'm, I'm not going to do very good at this meeting or I've got this meeting.

If I don't do well, I won't get my promotion or I won't make a partner, or I won't get my annual raise or whatever it might be. But see, those thoughts and feelings really are your own. You live in your own separate reality, as everybody, everybody does. And to start to learn to identify what I was calling earlier insight or wisdom or creativity that's coming through you versus your own personal thinking, so one I would call impersonal thinking, one's personal thinking. Most people are trapped in their personal thinking, which keeps them the you know, the hamster wheel of life going, and if not only in their mind but also in their activity.

So I work with a lot of folks who are saying, man, I'm working all day long, every day, every night, all weekend long. I don't take vacations trying to make partner, I'm trying to get you know whatever, whatever they're trying to make right. And once they start to see where all that's coming from, coming from their own thinking and my experience with my own thinking is sometimes my thinking is really crazy, like I wonder if Ravi's going to like. Me. I wonder if I'm doing a good job on this podcast.

I wonder if you know well his clients like.

Ravi28:07terrible Andrew you're doing terrible

Andrew28:08yeah we all have those thoughts but at least I know now that I don't have to pay any attention to those because they're just it's just random thoughts going through my head whatever so

Ravi28:19the thoughts don't have meaning so do these thoughts thoughts, okay, the thoughts, hey, how's this podcast going to go? What am I going to say? Does it make sense? So are those thoughts? Should we ignore them? Should we change them? Do they have any meeting? Should we be selective and only take the positive thoughts?

Andrew28:40That's a really good question, Ravi. So most of our thinking goes up and down, left and right, and it does that all day long every day. And as far as I can tell, a lot of the time when we're sleeping or we wake up to it, you know. And as I have learned and I help other people learn, that's just the design of human beings. We're designed to think. And then we actually feel our thinking. So if I think, oh, I'm doing a bad job, I start feeling bad.

I don't feel bad indiscriminately. I feel bad because I'm thinking those thoughts. No need to try to change those because that's just effort wasted. And now you're into the efforting world. But if you just knew that that's just like the wind blowing, sometimes it blows and sometimes it doesn't. It's not up to me to kind of change the wind. It does whatever it does. I don't have to pay attention to it. But what I pay attention to is insight, wisdom, creativity, Hmm. I have to say I have this thought, hmm, it's really fun to write a blog post today on effortless success.

That sounds like fun. So I would do that because that's, that's what occurs to me. But if I thought, oh my gosh, I really supposed to write a podcast today on effortless success, so otherwise my clients aren't going to be happy or my boss isn't going to be happy, that's that's efforting. That's efforting. And so I don't do that.

Ravi30:23You mentioned wisdom and insight and so we have thoughts and you know the last number I saw was we think 70,000 thoughts a day. Who knows how many we really think, but it's a lot. So we have a lot of thinking going on. We can notice it or not, but the truth is our feelings come from our thinking. So that's one piece. And then the second is, well, we have wisdom and insight that's available to us. So how does one know, all right, this is really insight?

It's not it's not just a bunch of thinking. I'm dressing up and pretending because I know for me sometimes my thinking seems so real. And it really does say, hey, I should just work the extra hour or just suck it up and deal with the problem and just work harder and harder. Sometimes that's, you know, my thinking. What's the difference between wisdom and insight? insight and our thinking.

Andrew31:23Yeah, and I struggled with that at first as well, Ravi, and that's a question that a lot of people ask. So absolutely, our thinking looks real. That's the design of it. I mean, if it didn't look real, we'd probably be laughing all the time. Like, oh, that's an interesting thought, ha-ha. No, it looks really real. Like when I get upset, say, my wife and I are having something and I get upset with her, It really looks real to me in the moment, right? Of course. But fortunately, I know that's not.

So I can have a little chuckle with myself wow, that one really looks real, but it's not. So how do you tell the difference? Well, that's the real game. My experience is the impersonal thinking has a different flavor to it. It has a different sense or smell of. A coach friend of mine described intuition as a tingle that's how it shows up for him like, not a shouting, like if there's a shouting going on, usually it's my, you know impersonal thinking, or it's really oh, I really must you know like there's no flexibility in it.

There's, there's lots of little indicators, but, um, yeah, the wisdom, the insight, the clarity, it's more like a whisper versus a hurricane and always has a good feeling with it. So that's another thing. And I don't mean good like positive affirmation thinking, not that I feel good when I, when that thought is there, when it comes through me, it actually feels good. I'll go back to my example. Like I need a podcast, I mean a blog post today on effortless success. And when I think that, when that comes through me, if it feels like, oh, that sounds, that sounds good, like a good meal or a good, like brandy or whiskey, like a really fine brandy or whiskey, you know, or whatever.

Oh, man, that seems like wonderful. If it comes through like, oh, God. Yeah, I got that to do today. that's definitely not intuition or wisdom okay

Ravi33:57Well, let's. Okay, let's camp out on this point. So let's suppose it's a good meal and it feels good. I like that that sort of metaphor. But first you got to go and chop chop a bunch of wood. Okay, so you have an obligation. You got to go chop wood, you got to go to the well I don't know where you get your water from pump it. You got to do a bunch of stuff and that feels terrible. So should you just not do the terrible stuff and do the good stuff?

How do people deal with that conflict when they're at, say, the workplace and they've got eight things they don't want to do, and they've got one thing they want to do and they're just trying to figure out how to spend their time because they're burning out?

Andrew34:34Well, it's a funny thing, Ravi. I know I get asked this a lot. It's a funny thing. When you start getting a glimpse of this and sort of catching on to this, things seem less burdensome. And if they continue to feel burdensome, maybe those are things that you. You know, maybe that's a message to you that you might want to shift things up a bit or change it in some way. I don't know. I'll give you an example. So I used to own, well, before I owned this company, I worked for this other company a long time ago, and I had an assistant.

And I had to write reports. And one of the parts of the reports I had to do with a really fancy Excel spreadsheets with these super fancy graphs. the CEO and the chairman of the board, they wanted to see those. They liked those things for some reason. I put them in one of my reports and they're like, oh, we want to see more of those. I'm like, great. I hate to do it on them. I'm like, oh, God. But it turns out my assistant, my second assistant, she loved doing that.

She'd love doing it. And I said, I'll make you a deal. You do that for me because that was my job. And I'll do something for you, which I can't remember what it was, something. I think it might have been some filing or something. I'll do that. You do that. And everybody will be happy. And so I just listened to my intuition, my wisdom. I didn't really want to do those. I could have forced myself to learn how to do them better and smarter and all that stuff that you hear people say.

But honestly, I don't really care about doing those graphs. And they had to be done. So I found a creative way to get them done. So when you open yourself to creativity and insight and wisdom, one thing that I can say is it always has to be done. you're back. It's always there for you. There will be a solution. I don't know what it'll be. I don't know when it'll show up. I don't know how it'll show up, but there'll be a solution. If you pay attention, you pay attention.

It'll be a solution that is in my experience in everybody's best interest, as my simple example showed. My secretary ended up getting promoted. I left, started my own company. She ended up getting promoted into, I think, my position. And then I hired her eventually to be one of my top employees at a company that I created. She was so phenomenally good at what she did, and she loved it. And she did things for me and my company that I didn't want to do, and she absolutely loved him.

And she went on to have a very, very successful career. So that's just as a simple example of following. You don't know, because everybody would tell you, the normal. people would say don't let your assistant back then we call them secretaries I'm sorry but don't let your assistant do that your boss will find out and you'll get fired and they'll hire you know whatever all these bad things will happen and I'm like well I'm listening to my intuition

Ravi37:35right so you made a point there around creativity and that we'll figure it out and if we if we choose not to follow the path of just working ourselves into the ground or doing the things we really don't want to do that, that continue to be stressful things. If we move in a different direction, that creativity will show up because we are creative as human beings, and we might figure out a way, well, we will, we'll figure out some way forward if we're able to trust in that creative process.

Is that what you're saying, that we have this creative potential and we need to lean on that, we get to lean on that and figure out a different way?

Andrew38:17Yeah, I, you know, we all see it differently, so I'll just say it's slightly different, not that it is different. I'm just saying I have a certain way of seeing it and saying it. So what I would say, I would say, I would say yes, and how I would say that is there is a creative potential out there that we all have equal access to. It's always on. It's like the radio waves. They're always there. You can choose to tune into it or not. You can tune into it slightly and can be kind of scratchy, or you can, you know, get a really strong.

signal, it has the same strength for everybody. And it's up to you. That's where your free will comes in. It's up to you to listen to it or not listen to it. I choose to listen to it and people hire me to guide them to learn how to listen to it more. Life seems to work out much better for them, their families, their co-workers, their businesses. I work with CEOs, executives, employees, non-profits, it works out better for everybody when we're listening and being guided by that.

It doesn't say, you know, wisdom doesn't say, oh, you know, tell your boss that she or he's, you know, off their rocker, it doesn't say stuff like that.

Ravi39:36Right, so you're saying, wisdom, you know, wisdom doesn't scream in your face, and it doesn't send you a text message with what to do. It's more of, I think you said, a tingle or a sensation or a sense or an inner-knowing. It's more of a whisper than a shout. That's how it shows up, you know, in what you've seen. And what would someone, someone who wants to know, okay, okay, this is all well and good. How do I practice this in my life? So I'm listening to this on the way to work.

Now I've got to go into work and deal with the terrible boss or maybe just the stress of work. how can they apply something we've talked about to be more successful with less effort?

Andrew40:18Yeah, so that's a great question because I get that one a lot. So the real answer for me is there's no application necessary, which is the good part. Again, no effort necessary to apply it. What's useful is to go look for yourself. Each person goes, you know, look in that direction and see if you can see, or hear or feel those whispers, those tingles. They get louder, by the way, and clear over time because you start to tune out the noise, like white noise, you start to turn out the personal thinking and you tune into the other, and it gets very clear.

But go see for yourself. My experience, every human being I've ever talked to anywhere, even children, everywhere. have an experience of inner knowing, inner guidance, hearing that whisper, that tingle, whatever you want to call it, go see for yourself and start listening to that and see where that leads you.

Ravi41:36And I know here in our last few minutes, maybe we could talk a little bit of you and your path and how you following this path is seemingly, well, it's led you to, live a lifestyle now where you're traveling all over. You're building and growing your business and your, you know, location independent. So maybe we can switch gears a bit and talk about that because if you spend any time on Instagram, you're going to see hashtag van life sprayed across a whole bunch of photos, at least amongst my network.

And I actually have a friend from Golden, Colorado, who did leave his job. He bought a sprinter van, fitted it out, and he's traveling all over. You know, my wife and I took a gap year and are, you know, a few years ago and travel. And I think a lot of people are out there and they really dream of having this kind of freedom. Maybe if you could share a little bit, I'm curious for you, you know, what's the good, bad, and ugly? What have you experienced, or maybe it's all good in terms of your last two to three years of traveling all over, growing your business and also being location independent.

Andrew42:45Yeah, it's an extraordinary experience For me. I listened to The Whisper. I love adventuring and traveling. I always have, And so whenever I can, I try to do that. I happened to get married not too long ago. I've been on the road for about two and a half almost three years and I've been married for three years. So I got married about just a little over three years ago and I didn't want to go by myself on these adventures, and I have now three dogs. I had one and she had two, so now we have three dogs and I really love my dogs and it's like my family.

And so I just got quiet and I came up with this idea of buying a travel trailer and I particularly like Airstream. So I bought an airstream and remodeled it so I had an office and all that made it just perfect for ourselves. And so we could continue to travel, take, my wife and I could go together, our dogs could go with us, and we could go wherever we wanted, whenever we wanted, we were free to go. And I love working, so I don't have to stop working, so I outfitted it with all high-speed internet and all that kind of stuff.

And I love going to visit my clients, and my clients sometimes come visit me, and it's really kind of cool. So I just, you know, when I came up with that idea, my wife said, oh, really not going to buy onto that at all. And then, you know, I said, okay. And we just kept chatting. And then she got on board. And then I remember telling my father-in-law for the first time. And he's like, oh, I'm 100, 100 percent, 100 percent against that. And now he loves it.

He totally supports us. And he has a map up in his office and he puts little dots, you know, little pins wherever we are. So like that, it's just wonderful. So I get to go spend time with friends and families and clients and go get to see all these wonderful things. That part is just absolutely extraordinary. I'm always at home, wherever I go, and I have my office wherever I go. It's just so convenient and so wonderful. And then there's, you know, the good, bad and the ugly, there's, you know, oh my gosh, living in 200, square feet.

It's plenty of space for us, but I remember this this morning, I said, I got to get ready for this podcast. And my wife, I said, you were going to leave at 930. It's 945. I've got to get my gear hooked up. And I'm like, what are you doing in there? Get out. And so she's like, I'm going, I'm going. We're not really arguing, but I'm like, it's a tight space, right? So you have that. Three

Ravi45:29dogs too. They're awful quiet right now.

Andrew45:32Yeah, well, I asked her to take the dogs so they'd be really quiet. But yeah, three big dogs. People think we're crazy. We really love it. But you know, sometimes we can't find a place to park the trailer because it's all booked up, Everybody else is. You know, it's a holiday weekend and we forgot to make a reservation. There's all sorts of things. It's just like any life, any life that you choose. There's always stuff right And you can decide to make that. You know, I have people that have, like you said, friends that have done the van, life stuff and they've lasted two months.

They're like, oh, this is horrible, I hate it, you know. And we're, we're, we're at two and a half years plus and I I thought it would be two years, my wife thought it would be one. At two year mark I said, hey, I think we're done and she said, oh, no, so we bought a, we sold our trailer, bought a new one and as far as I can see, you know could end tomorrow. But as far as I can see, we're going to keep going.

What.

Ravi46:29Would you say to someone who's seriously thinking about they have a trailer and they do weekend trips here and there and they're thinking about making the leap what would you, knowing what you know now you know, what have you learned that you would provide as advice? I know you're not big on giving advice, but I'm asking you so I give you a free pass what advice would you give, say, to your former.

Andrew46:53Self. Yeah. So ravi knows me well, I don't give advice. I, if I give advice, I always put this caveat my advice is worthless, absolutely worthless. Don't trust my advice. You know, figure out your own way. But with that caveat, given, one thing that we did was we moved, we sold, you know, the house and everything and we moved into the airstream when it wasn't completely done and so we were remodeling on the road would not recommend that. So make sure that, whatever sort of vehicle that you choose, if that's how you're going to do it, make sure you get it all set up before you take off, because there's still going to be lots of maintenance and things that you're going to want to change.

But everybody knows, you know, remodeling your house and living it in the same time is hard, but remodeling a trailer and living in it or a van, it's very difficult. So I wouldn't do that.

Ravi47:51what's been your favorite spot i

Andrew47:52think practicing you know taking some trips is really a good way to see if you like it we have so many favorite spots bend oregon is one we absolutely love Colorado anywhere in Colorado. The problem with Colorado though in the summertime is that everybody else likes Colorado too and so it can be kind of crowded you have to kind of get off-grid. Winter time's a little cold in Colorado. I wouldn't do it in Colorado. BAMF in Canada, Vancouver Island, Sandpoint Idaho, Cape May, believe it or not, in New Jersey we really like.

Tennessee, all of Tennessee. Tennessee has some beautiful parks. I'm actually like in the hill country. We just got here, but I think it's. It's pretty, pretty neat, gosh. We were in Asheville, South Carolina, for a while. We one other thing everybody's different, so when we started we would the longest we ever stayed at a place was three nights, and and now the shortest we like to stay is a month. So we we like to go slow, but that's just us. I know some people like to go fast.

We prefer to sort of settle in, relax, and get to know a place.

Ravi49:09I don't know. What's next for you? What's your next stop? Are you just playing by year?

Andrew49:14So this is the greatest thing. You know, we happen to make reservations because a lot of people, you know, snowbirds and all. So we're, we don't measure, make reservations at all, usually. But we made a reservation here. But our reservation runs out February 1st. And I was just talking to my wife, who knows where we're going to go. Last night, someone emailed, I was talking to a friend of mine, emailed me, hey, you should come to Phoenix, you know, like the second week of February, we're doing this thing and you can hang out with all these people and we've got a perfect place for you to park your trailer.

And I'm like, okay, maybe we're heading to Phoenix next. So that's kind of

Ravi49:51how we do it. Oh, nice. Awesome. Well, you're walking the talk, you know, you are trusting and you're living a life that is, you know, in line with what you want to do and how you want to be. And just thanks a lot for taking the time and chatting with all of us. And where can people find you if they want to get in touch with you or maybe even look into coaching and work with you? Yeah.

Andrew50:18I'm happy to have a conversation with anybody. The best place to find me is at go-visioneers.com. V-O-V-I-S-I-O-N-B-E-R-S.com. That's the best place to check me out. And I'm happy to chat with anybody at any time. You know, I have a way that people can get a hold of me. So that would be great. And I encourage, here's, if we're sort of closing up, my parting message would be for anybody who's listening. And, Robert, you know, I've told you this, is. spend some time noticing, listening for, looking for that whisper.

And it might not be a whisper for you. It might be something else. It might show up some other way. That's just a metaphor. That tangle, that knowingness. And if there's something that it's whispering you that's to be done, then do it. Sometimes there's nothing to be done, then don't do anything. But just have a listen and follow that and see what that's like for you. Because to me, that's the most important thing that anybody can do is to tap into their own connection with innate health, wisdom, creativity, like that.

That's my message for everybody, because it's a wonderful, life, not always. It's a wonderful life. But when you're guided like that, it seems to work out pretty well.

Ravi52:04Well, Andrew, that's a wonderful place to leave it. And thanks again for everything. And we'll see each other soon. I hope. If you'd like to find out more about what Andrew is up to and connect with him, visit his website at govigioners.com. That's go. G-O-V-I-S-I-O-N-E-E-R-S dot com. And if you enjoy the podcast, it would mean a lot to me, if you would share it with your friends. And if you feel up to it, leave a review on iTunes or wherever you listen. Thanks a lot and have a great day.