INTRO: This is part two of my interview with Taylor Wallace. If you did not yet listen to part one, I highly recommend you go back and do that first because it provides some really important context for this episode. If you have already heard part one, then please enjoy part two of my conversation with Taylor Wallace.

Taylor Wallace: And it’s not just Vietnam, Japan. I mean, fuck, that was another tough one going to the dome and just seeing what nuclear. Oh man, nuclear bombs are so destructive for a number of reasons, but they don’t actually hit the ground and detonate. It will detonate over X, maybe nothing, maybe a building or a home. And then from that epicenter there’s a 360 wave of destruction that goes out. And so, there’s like the initial impact and that will kill everyone and everything for X radius. And I say that because these two bombs were not the same size, so their impacts were different. But the space over where it detonates, it gets damaged boards or something will fall off. But it’s almost protected from the worst part of that first push.

So, in Hiroshima you can see this single dome because it is the spot above which the bomb detonated. So, the first wave is the physical destruction. And then there is the cloud, the radioactive particulates that are in the air that gets on your clothes or you inhale it. That’s like the slow impact of the radiation, but relatively speaking, not super slow. Those are the people who the skin melted off over the three to seven days after detonation. And then when all those nuclear radioactive particles fall, then they infect everything. So now the water is unpure, the ground is unpure. So, if you’re drinking from a well or a river, you are actively ingesting radioactive material. And I have a lot of contexts on this because our senior history capstone, the seminar everyone has to take History 401, Writing and Rewriting the Past. And so, throughout the whole course, we took just four historical events. And for each event, we would read anywhere between 12 and 24 sources, talking about one single thing and being able to identify all of the different perspectives and biases and really unpack it.

And so, our final was a single debate after the end of reading our 22 sources. And that event was the bombing of Hiroshima and Miyazaki. And we read this manga that’s a journey of a Little Boy who’s trying to find his mom after the bomb goes off. And he’s seeing his friends from school or his neighbor. And this person’s skin is melting off and this person’s house fell on them and they’re calling for help. And this is all in a graphic novel. So fast forward. We’ve all read the same sources, we’ve all had the same conversations in class. And so, the final project was a debate. So independently, we went home before our final. What happened? And our teacher asked us a simple question of did the U.S. do the right thing? Yes, or no? When you come into class tomorrow, we’re going to have a debate and that’s going to be your final. So went home. Everyone made their decision.

Get back to class the next day. And our class of 12, only myself and one other student said that it was the wrong decision. And the other 10 students all said that it was the right thing to do. And that just like. Because I feel like sometimes if you maybe consider yourself a logical or rational person, there’s this tendency to believe that people who are just so far on the left or right of whatever it is that you believe, they must not know. Because there’s no way that they could know what I know and still feel this way. So, like, let me educate them on why they’re wrong. It is like the human instinct, let’s debate instead of. Let’s engage in discourse. Because maybe I’m missing something that you see, even if we agree to disagree, we can understand each other better. And that’s one of the fundamental ideas of a school like Amherst. That’s why the classes are so small. We want to teach you how to think.

And so, this was the first moment of all of my time in university where I was. Oh, shit. It’s not different levels of knowledge. It’s just like a fundamental difference in values. It was very eye opening for me. So fast forward, because my first extended trip in Japan was the June after I graduated. So, it was somewhat fresh in my mind of learning about specifically the bombings. But obviously there’s much more that predated that. I studied Japanese for six years total. So, I always had this fascination, not like a Weeb level, of being culturally confused and watching an aggressive amount of anime. But I was very fascinated by going back to universal truths and values. For better or worse, Japan is definitely a country that has some fundamental understandings of what is proper and what is not, what is acceptable socially and what is not. Whether or not you agree with them, at least it’s clearly defined. It was almost kind of trippy because when you think about Japan now, you think about cute things and puppy cafes or I guess depending on the person. But I just like, oh, forget K Pop, I like J Pop or these little weird quirky things. Then you forget there’s this whole deep, dark history.

Matt Bowles: Can you talk about your earliest connection with Japanese language and culture and why you ended up studying it for six years and then your connection with Japan and some of your best memories as an adult?

Taylor Wallace: So, my best friend through high school, she just moved to the area. My middle school split into two, so my friend group splintered and we just happened to meet pretty early on and we just connected immediately. She’s half Japanese, half American and her parents have such a cool story because her mom was studying abroad from Japan in heavy Mormon country like Utah, met this Mormon guy and they fell in love. But she never wanted to become an American citizen and so she’s not. And so, from the beginning in meeting this new friend, she had a Japanese mom, her English was perfect. She was so fun and vivacious and encouraged us to take risks and do fun things. And just meeting her mom and her grandmother, I was like, this energy is just so cool. But it wasn’t until we started traveling together. So, both of our parents at this stage of life were doing these long-term trips and so our parents started to co parent us.

And so, if my parents were traveling for a long time, I would stay with her and her family and vice versa. And so, the very first trip was actually with my parents and it was for my birthday. So, this is the first big trip. So, we took a Mediterranean cruise. So, we flew out to Barcelona, I think he left from, and then we did Italy and Greece and we got to climb Mount Vesuvius. And there were these really cute guys on our cruise and Sydney didn’t speak Spanish or Portuguese and so he couldn’t talk in code. So, I was like, oh, okay, teach me some Japanese because no one speaks that. And that can be our secret language. But it was so fun. It literally is like a secret language. We could be right in front of someone, oh my God, this guy’s so annoying. I wasn’t that graceful, but I could say annoying. Like she’d like laugh. And so that was the first. Oh, this is cool. And so, she had been going to Japanese school every Saturday since. I think she could talk. And so, it was a thing.

As we started spending more and more sustained time together, our parents enrolled me in Japanese school because it made it easier for them to have our schedules as close as they could be. And so that was the first. Just like the Portuguese I had, the activation in my brain was, okay, we’re doing this. I was really engaged. So especially at that time, it was a nice stepping stool for our friendship because again, it was just us in school that would talk to each other. So, I had a built-in tutor and we’d partner on all the exercises. And I liked it so much that I stuck with it in college. And that was tough once I lost her. And shit was getting academic. And every test your teacher’s just standing over you because the stroke order matters. So even if you get something right, if you fuck up like one stroke order. So, I’m just failing test in real time, but I build character. I pass. So that’s something. And so, yeah, that journey to Japan was always going to happen. I’m just not sure when I imagined it happening with my best friend. But my brother was like, hey, you graduated. I’m doing this thing where in the next two years I want to do like a one-on-one trip with everyone in the family. So anywhere you want to go, anything you want to do, let’s do it. And I was like, Japan, let’s go to Japan. And so, it was a very special trip because it was almost like I got to curate the journey.

Matt Bowles: What are the highlights that you remember the very first time you went to Japan after you had studied all of this language and been exposed to all of this culture and you finally got to the country, what was it like?

Taylor Wallace: So, when we were in Kyoto for the first time, I could visualize what it would be like to move to Japan, where we rented bikes for the duration that we were there. And oh, let’s go to the grocery store. I could just see what a life could look like. And I think the coolest thing was just being able to order things and seeing the look on people’s faces when they’re like, oh my God, there’s not another ignorant American. Oh, phew, I don’t have to have an awkward exchange of charades to figure out what they want. So that was pretty cool of just feeling, don’t worry, I got you.

Matt Bowles: And years later, when you went back to Japan with a Remote Year program, what was your experience like going to Mount Fuji?

Taylor Wallace: Fuji. That was so special. So I was back in Kyoto, which is already awesome, and my birthdays in November, and that’s the month that we were there. And it was my 25th birthday. I’ve never been a big age person of I’m getting old or whatever, but I was like, oh, shit, this is like a milestone birthday. Some call it a quarter life. And so, you know, at that point, I had been traveling for almost a year, and I was like, this has been a really huge year. I sold my company, I left the U.S. Things did not go according to plan, but I adapted. And just awesome experience and relationship and serendipity has been happening day after day, month after month. This could be a thing if I was like, okay, maybe I’m just high on life after being around these awesome people. Let me go check in with myself.

And so, I always had this poster that I got into, like, smaller versions so I could keep it with me. And it was this scene, it was a painting, but it looked very real. And it was Mount Fuji and then a very beautiful lake. And I’ve always been a sucker for mountainous lakes, but this was next level. And so, I was like, you know what? I’m going to find this view. This was before the days of Chat GPT or anything like that, obviously. So, I just was looking at reviews of places in the town around Mount Fuji, looking for certain terms in the reviews of the description. Return mountain, return lake, return peaceful. And I found this TripAdvisor of this Ryokan, which is a Japanese inn. So, you have Onsens, which are like the bath houses that are. Ryokan is a smaller, private. Maybe they’ll have three or six bedrooms, usually run by a family, and they’ll have these private baths.

And so, I found this one on TripAdvisor. And I was looking at the pictures, I was like, oh, my God, I have found it. My El Dorado. I’m totally going to this place. And then I looked it up and the journey to get there. So, I had to take the Shinkansen from Kyoto up to Tokyo, and then I had to take two separate buses because Fuji is between the two, but there’s no direct. And I was like, oh, there’s so many opportunities to fuck this up, get on the wrong train. Or the wrong bus. But I was like, you know what? I got this. Or if I don’t get it, it’ll be a fun adventure. And so, I got on the Shinkansen. And then when I got to the train station in Tokyo, the bus I needed left from that station, but it’s so large and the signs aren’t super clear. Yes, there is Japanese or English, but you got to know how to read the Japanese sense of direction, if that makes sense. So, I was like, oh, no, I’m going to miss my bus because I don’t know where to go. And they had this ticket and information counter, and I was like, oh, God, okay, I need help.

So, I get in line to ask where do I go? And there are these European backpackers in front of me, and they’re trying to communicate with the attendant of the window. And he was just not having it. Like, pointed them in a direction, and they’re like, so do we, like, go? And he just stopped talking to them. And he waves like, next pretty much. And I was like, oh, God, I got the asshole line. So, I get up to him and I’m like. Which literally translates to, I’m sorry for the inconvenience that my presence is causing. So, you know how, like, different languages have different forms of sorry. I’m sorry I hurt you. I’m sorry I bumped into you. So, Japanese has some fun ones. As soon as I said that, he looked up because before he was like, oh, God, another foreigner. He didn’t need to make eye contact. And so, I started to speak at him in Japanese, and I could just see his whole demeanor change.

Fast forward, I explained my question, and he literally comes out of the booth and walks me to the bus. And I was like, holy shit. Okay, I’m only going to speak in Japanese for the rest of this trip because clearly, it’s helpful. And so that kind of gave me some confidence. Whereas before, I was a little nervous of being in a situation where I had to speak it, and so got my swag. So, I get on this one bus, and then I get on the next bus, and I’m just walking with confidence because now I understand the bus signs. And so, from the second bus station, I had to take a black cab. So, I get in the cab and I show him, I don’t want to fuck this up, make this from going. He’s like, so we’re driving and we’re driving and we’re driving. And when I had initially looked at it, it didn’t seem like that long of a ride. But something had happened with the mountain. I don’t know if it was like wind or something, so he had to take a different way. So, we arrive at the inn. Now it’s really dark and it’s super small. And I’m like, oh my God, is this actually the right place? Walk inside and once again, I see the keeper’s face. Oh, God. As soon as I walk through the door.

So, I get there, I see his face and I’m like, don’t worry. And the same thing. Hi, good evening. My name is Taylor. But once again, just a big smile. And he calls his wife and his son and they introduce themselves. They give me this huge room which is definitely larger than the one I paid for. With the room you get to book two blocks. So, at the roof of this building, there’s two separate big wooden baths. On the east, they’re divided, you can’t see. And so, each day you’re allotted one hour in the morning sometime and one hour in the evening. And they let me stay four hours. I signed up for my block, had a little piece of paper, and he points to the paper like more. And I’m like, I can. Oh. So, the day of my actual birthday, I convened with nature and I sat in this beautiful wooden tub overlooking the lake with Mount Fuji in the background. And I feel like so many things in life just clicked in that moment. I was like, holy shit. This is manifestation. I did it. I did it. And so, it was a really awesome, confidence boosting, self-actualization experience. And what a way to bring in 25. Honestly, I feel like I could have lived in Japan forever.

Matt Bowles: Well, we need to talk about Remote Year. Can you share a little bit though, in terms of background about your entrepreneurial journey becoming a digital nomad and then what your Remote Year experience was like for people that don’t have context on this? Remote Year no longer exists. But it was an international work travel program that ran for 10 years where you travel the world with a community of other remote professionals. And so, I did a 12-month Remote Year program in their very first year of operations, which was incredible. And then subsequently I joined in for one month here, one month there of other 12-month programs. And then eventually I did another four month All Africa program with remote Year. So, I have patronized them many times over the 10 years that they were in business. But for you, Taylor, give folks a little bit of your background about how you became a digital nomad and then what was your remote year experience like?

Taylor Wallace: I grew up in a family of entrepreneurs. So my dad started a company, my older brother started a company, and my middle brother started a company that had a pretty large in public acquisition. I think he had sold his company one or two years before I graduated. So, I got this point as well. It’s when you’re fresh out, maybe you need to recharge a bit and then you start to miss certain parts of the startup life and grind. And so he saw the project that me and some friends were working on and had some thoughts and was still in touch with the developers that he had used back in Serbia or something. And so I moved to Boston because I had a really awesome job offer to work with a general contractor out there. And one of the businesses my family’s in is commercial solar. I’m also the only non-formal engineer in my family. So having this opportunity to dip my toe into the waters of this family business in a program that was designed to teach was a really attractive opportunity. But I never stopped tinkering.

So, I would still go to a lot of entrepreneurial events. Boston being Boston. Harvard hosted a lot of stuff. MIT hosted a lot of stuff. So, I ended up acquiring some friends that were like, yeah, I’ll tool around with this with you. And we applied for an accelerator based in New York and were accepted to that program 2017. And so, we moved to New York, we went through the accelerator, my team shifted a bit as we started getting deeper into our customer discovery. Basically, we built an engine, a predictive analytics tool that the interface would operate like tender with the objective of reducing the limitations of tag-based search. So, there were a lot of potential areas where we could apply that technology. So, we kind of tooled around with wedding planning and we were doing some customer discovery for the wedding idea just to get some input from brides that were actively in the planning process for their weddings. And one of the brides that came in, when she was walking us through the process of choosing a venue and all these things, eventually the conversation turned to the difficulty that she was having finding a wedding dress or bachelorette outfits and all of these things because she was a plus size woman.

And so, seeing how her emotions shifted from people get excited talking about their wedding, like oh, we found this great venue or and then once we got on the topic of the other side of her experience, it was so palpable how much it impacted her. I really noticed it and I just kept getting deeper with my questions of have you always had experiences like that? Do you consider yourself a fashion centric person? And she was like, well, yeah, I’m a creative, but I’ve never in my whole life really had the opportunity to really express myself in that way because the options don’t exist. I’ve never bought clothes in a physical store. I was like, I’m sorry, come again? She was like, yeah, stores, they have straight sizes. I’ve never in my life been able to walk into a traditional store and find clothes that fit me. And that blew my mind. I’m someone that wears the same three things over and over again. So, it wasn’t necessarily the fashion that I cared about, but just seeing the impact of this limitation on people. This is her wedding. I wonder how many other people just in their day-to-day life just feel like this world is not for them, does not accept them, does not include them.

So, I landed on the idea of creating something that would add an element of body positivity and inclusivity in the world of fashion, because I could feel the impact that it could have. But being not of fashion, not knowing anything about fashion, or necessarily caring about it, I realized quickly that I would need a counterpart. Not to mention that I am like 5, 2 and very much not plus size. So, I would go to these curvy fashion week events and they call me Skinny Minnie. It was almost like being an ally even in the LGBTQI world. It’s like a known and accepted thing that allies have their place, but you will never fully understand the experience of the true people for whom this is their identity. And it was the same thing with the curvy and plus size fashion, because it wasn’t even just the fashion. It was the reality of the day-to-day life. And I couldn’t fully appreciate it. So, I went on a hunt and I found a really awesome curvy and plus size influencer. So, we met up, I told her about the product, and fast forward ended up hiring her as the creative director.

And so now she was the one going to all of these in person New York fancy events. And I was like, awesome, now I can stay home in my PJs and work on the back end. And then I was like, wait, why the fuck am I paying New York rent when I could be investing this money back in the company and literally living anywhere else. And so that epiphany happened in August and I booked a one-way flight that departed New Year’s Eve to Buenos Aires. And so that was where my nomadic journey started. And I heard about these different nomad coordination companies. They kind of took the stress out of the process of we know where the best workspaces are, we know where there’s good apartments with good amenities and things that matter to nomads. So, we’ll take care of all the stuff. You just come and bring your job and we’ll travel. And so, I joined a company that reached out to me and was like, hey, you can travel with us for free if you do some social content. And so, I had built up a decent following by that point and I was like, ooh, if it’s free, it’s for me. And so that was the company I ended up choosing to start the nomadic journey.

And we ended up overlapping with Remote Year Month four in Colombia. We were working out of the same Selena Co-working space. And every cool person that I met in the bullpen was from this company called Remote Year. And I was like, what the fuck? Wait, you guys do the same thing, but you’re all cool and hip. Not that my program didn’t have some amazing people, but most of them were not entrepreneurial. Maybe they worked in sales or something that allowed them to be remote, but they didn’t have the schedule flexibility or some of the financial flexibility or certain things that can really impact your ability to share experiences when you’re traveling like this. And so, the Remote Year folks really stuck with me. But again, I was traveling with this program for free and I felt pretty comfortable in South America and in Europe. So, I was like, well, if it sucks, I’ll just leave and do my own thing and that’ll be okay too. But I didn’t have the chance because the company went out of business in the middle of what was meant to be a yearlong trip. So, I kept my itinerary. I was like, I’m not ready to go home.

We sold our company in April, or specifically our IP. That wasn’t the plan, but it was a really great offer and opportunity. And at that point we were a team of seven. And so, I was young and didn’t have a family or a mortgage or anything. I was like, nah, fuck them, let’s keep going guys. And then I realized everyone else in my team was not young and did have families and mortgages. And so, I kind of had to have that honest conversation of, oh, damn, how would I feel if I push this and we lose everything. So, I’m young, I can build something else. This was a good practice. So, yeah, that was four months into what was meant to be a full year of building this single focus, which was the company or the product. And I was like, okay, this is kind of a point of inflection at this stage. A lot of my friends are going to B school or moving up and whatever bank or consulting firm they went to after school. And so, I kind of had that fear of falling behind. So, I’m like, oh fuck, am I out of sync or am I setting myself up for some sort of deficit by not going back and adulting?

But I was like, eight months is not going to make or break things, so let’s ride this out. I had already scheduled to attend a startup grind event in Berlin and I was talking at something else in Thailand. So, I kind of had some commitments that made it a little bit easier to justify writing it out and around. It was in Budapest, maybe month six. I was still in touch with some of the Remote Year folks that I met and they were just telling me where they were. I think at this point they were in Croatia or something, sending pictures and just on boats and then really cool co working spot. I was like, that looks pretty fucking awesome. And they asked me like, where I was going and I was like, well, I know I want to finish the year in Asia. It’s probably the part of the trip I’ve most been looking forward to, but also the part that I find the most intimidating. So, I need to figure out how I can make it work without me being too anxious about it, where I start to track weird things, because that’s totally a thing. And my Remote Year friend was like, dude, Remote Year is kicking off its first four-month Southeast Asia trip in August. Okay, hold on. And he sends me an email where he’s cc’d their VP of operations. And he’s like, yeah, let’s schedule a call. I was like, okay. So, he hopped on the phone and he offered me an opportunity to join that remote year program. And he was like, I like you, Taylor. Like, you need to go on this trip.

And the first person I met from the airport walking to where they were waiting for us with a sign, I was like, this is going to be a good trip. And it was really, really, really awesome. And similarly, to you, after those four months, I did a ton of citizen drop in. So, once you graduate from a program, you become a citizen. And if there’s a certain cohort that’s not full, then they have extra apartments in City X and so they’ll offer it to citizens at a discount. And so, I was in Turkey and my niece was studying abroad in Spain in Barcelona. And so, during a random week, her and one of her friends decided to go to the Canary Islands or somewhere, not realizing that the next week was Semana Santa. So, they land back to the mainland and they miss their bus to get back to Barcelona. And it was the last bus of that day and there were no other buses running for the next three days.

And they were in Valencia, which is a remote Euro city. And so, I posted on the Slack Channel. Yow, shot in the dark. But is anyone in Valencia or have friends in Valencia? My sophomore age niece and her friend are stranded. I told them to go hide out in a movie theater, but that’s not going to last forever. And within 20 minutes I got a message back from the program coordinator. Yow, what’s their address? I’ll come pick them up. They can stay with our cohort over the weekend and if they want, they can come with us to this hike. I was like, holy shit, that’s a community, dude. Not only were they willing to help, but it was so fast and so thorough. And now my niece likes being so I’m totally the cool aunt. It worked out in all the ways. So yeah, Remote Year really has a special place in my heart.

Matt Bowles: That’s so amazing though. What a great story. Well, Taylor, you have done a lot of consulting with other entrepreneurs at this point, and you teach a concept called The Fit Founder Lifestyle. Can you share some of your best tips for blending entrepreneurship with intentional living with world travel?

Taylor Wallace: Yeah, but I want to highlight the fact that I’m very clear or transparent that the content I write and the information I share is purely based on my experience. One thing I learned very quickly is everybody is different. And then when you add the stress of running a company with the unique stressors of different countries or cities and the energy of those places just something to keep in mind. But I would say there are some fundamental isms that I think apply to every country or city and any stage of your business, or whether you’re an entrepreneur or remote worker or someone on sabbatical. I think the first tip is drinking enough water, especially if you’re in a country where getting water is not super easy. So, like places where you can’t drink water from the tap, it’s really easy to buy bottles of water and then you go out for a full day of walking in the sun or doing these activities and you just forget to drink. Whether you’re really engaged in whatever it is that you’re doing or some climates, you don’t necessarily feel thirsty as you’re losing those liquids.

And I just have a whole list of ailments that arose at different points in my travels that could all be traced back to dehydration. From some skin issues in certain climates, to poor sleep, to moodiness, especially when you’re traveling in a group. And there’s a lot of stuff going on. And I had no idea the extent of how many systems is impacted by dehydration. So, I think that’s a really big one. I personally have a massive reusable bottle, and I just know at what frequency I should be finishing this bottle. So even if I get a big water jug from the store, or even, I hate to say it, reusable bottles, but it is what it is. Some places I’ll always pour the water into my tangible, familiar thing. And I just know at certain intervals to drink. But some people are just more disciplined than they remember. But this is what works for me. And then along that same vein, getting adequate sleep. I think we have a tendency, especially if you’re early in your nomadic journey. Everything is new, depending on who’s around you or where you’re staying. If you’re traveling around, so you’re in City X, you’re in Lisbon, you have a home base in Lisbon, but you maybe want to see some different parts of Portugal, but you still have to work.

So, you go to Porto and you expect to work during mornings and travel a bit. But if you’re staying at some hostel, even if you have a private room in that hostel every night, people are going to be going on bar crawls or having a kickback in the patio. And it’s so easy to just be like, ah, I can suck it up. Like, I don’t need that much sleep or I’ll make it up, or whatever logic you use. And I went to a silent meditation retreat when I was living in Thailand, and it was five days. It’s the longest time I’ve ever gone without talking. Although I cheated, I definitely talked to myself in the bathroom and stuff. But at the end of the silent part, there was probably two hours where the monks were just talking about different things and what did you notice and how did your body feel and all this stuff. And that was the first time I learned about the concept of sleep debt, which basically means when your body does not get the rest that it fully needs, it adds to the deficit in your bank account of the baseline of being fully rested.

So, it’s not like you can stay up super late, sleep for two hours, drink a cup of coffee, and you’re back to square one. No, your body missed those six hours and it remembers it. And this debt accumulates over time. So even if you’re like, no, but Saturday, I’m going to sleep in. And if it doesn’t meet the deficit of the sleep debt, you’re still operating in the negative. I had no idea that was a thing. I was the queen of the coca leaf tea or the Vietnamese coffee. I’m like, I can power through anything. Not realizing that I was just slowly just dragging out the degradation. So, yeah, I think really learning how to get out of the FOMO mindset and get into the JOMO. So, the FOMO, the fear of missing out, and the JOMO is the joy of missing out because it makes your experience so much more significant when they’re intentional versus fueled by something that you’re not really into. There is nothing worse than getting to bed at 3am After a nothing night. Yeah, we went to some bars and heard a mediocre DJ and then my friends got burgers and now I’m back. It’s like, why the fuck? What happened? How did we get here? So, yeah, just learning to be intentional with how you spend your time and attention.

I’ve seen a lot of founders burn out because whatever system they had back in New York or back wherever they lived in the US it was exactly that. It was a system every day, wake up at the same time, go to the same gym, have the same breakfast. Most founders I know that are exceptional operate in that way because it’s efficient. When you’re a nomad, unless you’re a proper slow mad, it is very difficult to maintain a schedule as rigid as that. And it’s not an issue of dedication or discipline. It’s the world is worlding. You may show up to your co working space and there’s no Internet. You’re like, okay, well, I guess we’re reading today, there’s just more shit coming at you. You have to adapt. And so, if you’re someone that can only function in this predetermined, predictable space, nomading may not be the right thing for you. It can really impact your business, and especially if you have a team or other people depending on you to still be exceptional, you really have to have an honest conversation with yourself as to whether or not it makes sense to continue or enter into this lifestyle as a function of what your most pressing goals are in that moment or stage of life.

So, if you’re like, I want to get this company built and acquired in the next five years or 10 years, and you got to reverse engineer from that goal, and sometimes that’s tough because again, the FOMO. You see people on Instagram working with their laptop on a beach, and you’re like, the, I could do that. I’m disciplined, and I have a passport. But it’s so much more than that. And I think just having realistic expectations is incredibly important. And you got to seek out diverse perspectives because you were just looking on Instagram, everything looks awesome, but you really got to reach out to people that are in that world or have some epic burnout story that you find on their blog. You’re like, okay, this is the person I need to talk to. So, listening to the right people and the last piggyback on that is guard your mind. So, the nature of nomading, you’re constantly around new and different people.

So, there are people who are working and living remote. There are people that are on vacation or holiday. There are people that are backpacking and don’t really have a destination. There are so many different personalities and objectives for why folks are doing what they’re doing. And the loudest voice is not always the right voice or the right voice for you. So being mindful to not get caught up in someone else’s narrative or reality, it’s so easy to kind of get distracted by the shiny objects and people that really seem to know what they’re talking about, because you’re like, well, they’re here, so they must have made enough money doing this thing to get here. So, what they’re saying must be legit. And that’s so dangerous because you don’t know their lives. You don’t know their backgrounds. They could just be independently wealthy or secretly living paycheck to paycheck, and there’s nothing wrong with that, but it just, again, goes back to that concept of just staying laser focused on your goal, whatever it is, and not getting distracted.

Matt Bowles: All right, we’re going to pause here and call that the end of part two. For direct links to everything we have discussed in this episode, including all the ways to find, follow, and connect with Taylor, just go to themaverickshow.com and go to the show notes for this episode. And be sure to tune in to the next episode where we talk about Taylor’s passion for skydiving. She has done over 200 jumps all over the world and has some incredible stories to tell. So, you are not going to want to miss the conclusion of my interview with Taylor Wallace. Good night, everybody.