No One Signed Up for "This": The First Time Gets REAL, Real Quick!

Hey guys. Welcome to another edition here of the Bluewater Cruising Podcast. Uh, great to see everybody back. Um, and we've got this week I'm excited to introduce to you guys. Brent. Uh, Brent, uh, I met Brent, or I heard from Brent the first time. Must have been a few months ago now. Uh, he actually, I didn't even know that you just told me this, that you had considered signing up for our first, uh, one of the first versions of the, of the course that we offer. You didn't, you went out cruising. Um, which is amazing and awesome, and you had contacted us to, to see if we could help you sell your boat. Um, that was my first like kind of one, one-on-one chat that, that we had together. Um, and, uh, you were selling your boat and getting out, cruising. I'll let you tell that story. Um, but yeah, that's, that's how we met. So, Brent's been cruising. He was in the same neck of the woods that I was in, in Southeast Asia, uh, was out with his family. Um, and, uh, and that's, yeah, so Brent, I'll hand it over to you. Um, maybe to give a bit of a background on just a quick snippet on yourself, um, you know, who you went cruising with, and then we can dive a little bit deeper into the beginnings of your story and how you got into the life and, and go from there. Okay. So yeah, so my, my background and, and the start to it. Uh, yeah, like you said, my name's Brent guy. I've got a family of four. I've got my wife and then a two teenage kids. And that's, uh, obviously throws a little bit of a. Complication into things, but we started through Covid time, um, which I can happily say is a, in the history, right? History books. So through Covid, we, uh, were looking to, what I say, shake up the proverbial snow globe, take it off the shelf, shake it up a little bit and do something different. Always been a dreamer and uh, like not just a dream, but, but, um, execute dreams. Uh, and so without getting into all of that, uh, where like so many other people during Covid time watching YouTube and dreaming and everything, and came across Keith and his family sailing, Zara, um, watched that and we ended up getting in, you know, I mostly got inspired and was looking around and did a little bit of tiny little bit of sailing here in San Diego with my wife. We had a good time. Um, and then we, throughout the process, just of dreaming, started looking around and finding some friends that were sailing and got connected with, uh, friends of friends on a boat called Field Trip. Um, and watched them. They were a family of four that had been sailing for 12 years or 10 years, I think at the time, uh, from the us And they were actually just coming into Malaysia, um, putting their kids into high school. And so we got in touch with them, talked with them, and, um, were really very helpful, uh, and instrumental in us getting going. Um, and so we ended up starting the, our search for a boat, and I narrowed it down and found a boat that during Covid was at what I would call a covid price over in Malaysia, in Panang, Malaysia. And, uh, put an offer on that and had that accepted. And as a family, I just, I, I say now nobody in my family turned and revolted and ran the other way. They didn't just hop in and, and come with me. But, um, I said I was surprised that nobody turned tail and ran and said, dad, you're nuts. We're never doing that. Um, but that's, that's kind of how we got started. Uh, ended some more training along the way, but, uh, ended up hopping from San Diego to Panang Malaysia. That's crazy, man. Like that. That's nuts. I mean, I live, I live, a lot of people know, I live in, I live in Southeast Asia in Bali and I started cruising in the South Pacific, which I thought was pretty crazy and a lot of people say is crazy. Started cruising in Southeast Asia is a whole nother level cuz you don't o only have. Uh, to deal with the newness of cruising, but you've gotta deal with the newness of living in Southeast Asia, which is a massive adjustment just in itself. Um, so, uh, I've, I've got a couple of questions about what you, what you put there. The first one though, just is how, how old were your kids? You said teen, teenage kids, but how old were they when you, when you made the, the change? Yeah, so we've got, uh, my son Henry was 17, who's now 18. My daughter Kate was 15, is now 16. Okay. And so again, that was where we were looking and we were contact, I contacted Keith and talked with Keith too, and it looked like we might be, you know, intersecting, uh, I think they were in the South Pacific at the time, looking at, heading to Australia, New Zealand, maybe, I don't know where they were going. And then possibly, uh, meeting up somewhere. And Indonesia, but, uh, anyway, we were looking for other families to, to, to intersect with. Yeah, that's a, that's, I, I'd like to, as we kind of get into this, hear more about that side of it, cuz that's a, in our experience, that age of kids is, is often the hardest age to make the transition with the younger kids. They kind of do, they kind of do what you tell 'em to do. The older ones not so much. So, um, but before, before we get into that, I, I think, I mean, one of the first questions I like to ask people is, so what, like, what motivated this whole thing? What, like, what was the why behind this? I, I assume, like many people we talked to, I'm gonna make an assumption that you, you know, you were living a life in, I think you're from San Diego, you had a life there. Um, I don't even really know that much about what you do career wise or did career wise. Um, but what, what was it that prompted, like, what was the big why that motivated you to go from the way you were living your life to seek a completely different way of living? Well, part of it that's different for us, I think than is going to be different, different for the people that are doing this now. We were coming from Covid time, so our kids were, um, online school or homeschool, which we had done a lot of before that anyway, but it just, it, it just, I think for so many people, including us, uh, was a time of just, like I said, shaking the snow globe. It's like, what do you, what are you doing in life that you wanna be doing? And so for me at the time, we've done a lot of camping trips. We go down to Mexico a lot. We've gone. We, we like to be an active family. And so for, for me, the idea was I've got my kids, we've got our kids at home for a few more years, and we were just getting out outside of Covid. Just everything was being pulled in different directions. Uh, our kids were, you could just see it. Everybody was going a different, different direction. My wife, myself, my kids, um, and I just wanted more connected family time and I couldn't, I couldn't lock them in the house anymore sort of thing. So it's like, okay, what can I do to, to draw them in and let's go on an extended adventure and what would that look like? And so it was, you know, do we rv Well, no, we've been around the US a fair amount. What else can we do? Like, oh, this, well, Look at this boating thing. Look at this sailing thing. Whoa. Could we do that? And it was like, okay. Right. And we kite, we kite board. Okay. So as I learned to kite board and got into that obsession, you just end up staring at windy or wind alerts every day. And here in, in low wind San Diego, you look all over the world like Oh wow. Oh, The Bahamas. Oh, the Caribbean. Oh, Florida. Oh, and then, and like you say, oh, south Pacific. Oh my gosh, that's like the mecca. So anyway, long-winded way of saying all of that, but it, um, that kite boarding bridged the, uh, the, the, was the bridge over to sailing. Do, uh, but weather and wind. Do your kids kite as well? We do. The whole family does. My son is more of a pure surfer, uh, and surfing videographer. Budding vi videographer for surfing. Um, but he can kite. He just prefers surfing, keeping it, keeping it pure. Yeah. Surfing, I get that. I've switched from that. I used to kite now I, I just sold all my gear last year and I'm, yeah, pretty much only a surfer now. Not so much into kiting, so. Well, you're you're in a low wind area too. I think so. That's true. Yeah. People do kite here though, in Bali, but it's, um, it's, yeah, it's definitely surf is, is primary here. Um, okay. So the plan, the plan, it, it kind of came about. One thing I, I heard you say there was this idea of getting the family together and more connection, spending more time with your family, which is a very common theme that I hear from people that wanna go cruising. You know, it's how do I maximize almost like the years that I have with my kids. Before they, yeah, they, they fly the coop, so to say. Um, and so that was a, a motivating factor as well as this adventure and getting out and, and doing the kiting thing. So that, that, that's cool. That, that was, that was the catalyst. And it sounds like you also considered some other ideas, but settled on, on, uh, on cruising. Um, can you walk me through the, like how did you go through the process of, okay, we're looking at doing something else. We wanna get the family together. Okay. Sailing, you were watching a bit of zatara and some other channels. You, you had, you had met these guys from field trip. Like what was the process for you to kind of, as a family get to the point where you're like, we're gonna buy a boat in Malaysia, fly all the way across the world and start sailing. Like how did you go from this idea to actually execute and, and make it happen and pull the trigger? Sure. So I, I mentioned we here in San Diego, we have, uh, mission Bay. And so my wife and I just on sort of a, if you will, a date, date day. I had been watching the, the channels and been dreaming about different things. I said, let's go, let's just go rent a little 16 foot whatever, 18 foot whatever sailboat in the bay. We're fine. It's light wind. Let's go try this. Um, and we got there and we were amazed with no training whatsoever. Again, we've got the kite boarding background and I was a lifeguard at the beach and we've got ocean experience. Uh, my wife has grew up, uh, her dad had a, a motorboat in, uh, Corpus Christi, Texas. So okay, we've got some loose experience here, but we were amazed that they. Would just rent it to us with no experience. Okay. So we take this sailboat out, it's, no, it was, you know, uneventful and fun and we had a good time. Uh, so anyway, that was the, the catalyst. And then we, we took less than we took a five day liverboard lesson, uh Okay. Where we did all the ASA courses. That was good. Although there was some seasickness, we probably should have paid more attention to that. Then we, um, I did a, I had a chance to go sailing from Florida to Annapolis. Yeah. Uh, on the type of boat that we ended up buying with our friends that actually lived over in Malaysia, uh, who came over here to deliver a boat. And so I got that experience, uh, of doing some planning, but I was just a, a crew member, so, I got that experience. And then I also took an electric electrical course and Marine, uh, what was it? Uh, sorry. Marine diesel engine class up in Rhode Island. So I sought out a little bit of additional training, cuz I'm not very mechanical, quite frankly. Yep. So, uh, okay. So all the, that was my process. Okay. And then talking with my family about it and making sure that nobody was gonna revolt, uh, entirely Right. And slowly bringing 'em along. Okay. And then, and then you made, you made the decision, made the jump, packed up everything. Hopped on a flight, landed in Malaysia, and, and, and moved onto the boat. Um, I have a question around this, which is, How, like, cuz I find even for myself, you know, when I, when I was and working with clients when, when there's like this dream and there's this image and this vision of what the life is gonna be like, and quite often the reality of the expectations, uh, or the reality of what we think it's gonna be, don't match the expectations. Um, or sometimes they do. Um, but is there anything around that, like, like when you did it, when you had thought, okay, we're gonna go, we're gonna go to Malaysia, we're gonna get, or, or wherever, I think the boat was in Malaysia or Thailand. When you go and you got on the boat, how, was there difference between the reality of what it was like when you got there, when you first got there and you got going and what you had expected it to be? Or was it significantly different or a little bit different? Like how did that play out for you guys? So for me, I'm probably different than a lot of people. I am not a super well, and my wife would laugh at this. I'm not a super detailed person, so I did not, I don't plan out the details and I don't think ahead of time in those types of details. So I didn't have a specific idea of what it would be like. Um, I, but yes, it was, you had mentioned jumping from one culture to a different culture. So we're not just going from land to boat, we're going land to boat to a totally different culture. And the, so it gave us a little bit of a soft landing. So we moved from out of our house, we rented our house here in San Diego. We moved into a friend's house, rented that for a month. So that was a step of getting out of our house into another house, getting our stuff down to a manageable, uh, payload, if you will. Then making the jump over there to Malaysia. We rented a, an apartment right in the marina where the boat was. While we were doing all of our, uh, the offer and then wiring money. I mean, so yeah, there, when you get into details, things that were different, it was way more difficult. Uh, just getting phones to work, sim cards, um, trying to get a grab. Right. Which is like an Uber in the US Yeah. Or a Lyft or whatever. Because you're getting your phone, getting your phone set up with grab is like a half day exercise sometimes. Well, literally, and here's, yeah. I mean, my wife will tell the story of her just like in tears, sort of like, I just want to get back to the apartment and just things are not working. The simple things are not working. Um, my phone won't work. I can't get a grab. It's just, I, I can't, you know. Use my ATM or the visa or what, all of these different things, all the things that you take for granted that just work here in the US when you go to other places. And anybody that's been to another place, Southeast Asia in particular, I think, and Central American, that sort of thing. Things just don't work and nobody expects stuff just to work seamlessly. Yeah. That was one of the biggest things. And then you throw on top of that, oh yeah, we're moving onto a boat now that we have no experience at. And I'm the captain. Yeah. I love it, man. I love it. You just, you're, you're a doer. You're a doer. You're like, I'm just gonna do it. Make it happen. For better and worse. For better or for worse. Yeah. So, um, So, okay. Well, you said a couple things in there actually. I'm, I'm really glad you covered it cuz there's these little steps, right? Like, I think people hear, they often hear people that go cruising and they think, oh, uh, I'm just gonna buy a boat and I'm gonna go start sailing. But there's like a whole bunch of little things that need to happen, like you mentioned, moving outta your house, then moving into your friend's house as like a temporary other place and renting an apartment in Malaysia and all these little steps. And, you know, I talk to people sometimes and, you know, they're, oh yeah, I'm gonna go cruising. Like, what's your timeline to get going? And they're like three months, you know? And, and I've, I've come to a place now where I just say, I'm like, good luck, you know, good luck trying to go in three months because the, it, you know, the, the quickest that we have people go from, uh, yes, I wanna go, I figured out that I want to do this to putting all the pieces in place to make it happen is like nine to 12 months the quickest that we've ever seen. Mm. So I don't know what the number was for you in, in total time to, I mean, what was it from when, if you were like, When you made the firm decision, yes, this is the lifestyle we wanna live, we're gonna make this happen to, to the date that you first set out to go sailing outta the marina, what was the, what was the length of time that that took? Yeah. Well, I think again, we were, for better and worse, we were slowed down by covid. So we, we couldn't travel Yeah. Uh, to the boat. So that slowed us down. Um, but I would guess somewhere in the six month range, uh, yeah, I would, I would guess in that six month range between like, okay, we're doing this, whoa, hold on. We're really doing this. And we almost backed out several times. It was actually our daughter, um, Who really said, no, we're doing this to us. Uh, which we were surprised at. But, um, yeah, I would say about six months. That's super fast then. So six months from when you decided, is that from, like, in that six months, it was like you went on that trip on the bay, on the sailboat. You did the sailing up the coast with your friend from Florida to Annapolis. That all happened in a six month period, bought the boat, rented the house out. Uh, you guys are moving quick. It might have been, it might have been closer to nine months. Six to nine months. You, you, yeah. Yeah. I, I can't remember. Uh, again, COVID time was a strange, A blur time warp. Yeah, indeed it was. Okay. So then, um, That's, that's, so then, so you're on the boat, then you got, or you're not quite on the boat at this point. You got to Malaysia, you got this apartment having troubles adjusting to the Southeast Asian culture, which is totally normal. Um, it's a completely different culture than North American culture. Um, and then, and then you got out cruising. So let, let me know, like maybe what a, a bit of, of what, what it was like then to get out and actually start cruising. Um, what were some of the challenges that you had? What were some of the good moments that you had? How did, how did that look for you guys when you actually got going? Yeah, so we, it took us, it took us a l I would say stage two for us was getting into the apartment and transitioning slowly, which took several months to close on the boat. Um, and just even take it out of the marina, which as you know, that first time you hop on the boat. With you and your family. It's, it gets real, real quick. Right? So, so we did that a little bit. Um, and then it just, again, because we're going, so I was deciding at that point, the boat had been sitting in the marina for several years. Uh, boat was in overall very good shape, but it was clear it needed some work coming out of Covid time in Southeast Asia, as you know, which some others may or may not know just now you're, they're just trying to figure out, okay, where do I go to be able to get the boat work done? What needs to be done? Again, I'm brand new boat owner, and this is where I, again, I'm gonna say to people listening, just get, get help with all of this stuff. So it's a lot, it's a lot to take on your own shoulders. Uh, so trying to decide, oh, do we go to pen core in Malaysia or do we go to up to Pke? Uh, do we go to Aui? Do we, where do we go to haul the boat out mm-hmm. To get the work done and how do we get there? Mm-hmm. How, and little literally functionally, how do we as a crew of four with a family go from point A to point B safely and smoothly? If that's an option, we'll try and take that one. And we had the complexities of going, oh, checking in and out of various countries while the paperwork is still being ironed out on the boat. So what I did was, uh, while the paperwork on the boat's still being ironed out, uh, so if you got Right, got, um, Boat registrations. We were re flagging the boat. Uh, it was a, if I recall, it was a B V I flagged boat within a Panamanian, L l C. Uh, I was changing that to a US flag. This is where, again, I would say, man, get some help, because it's a lot to figure out why do people choose certain flags over other flags, and what's, what are the implications? What are the costs? What are, it's, it's, I, you're talking detail after detail after detail, and some of it just doesn't matter. Some of it's, uh, we like to say Cheerios or Corn Flakes decision, and some of it have huge implications, which I, I still probably don't know to this day, uh, that I would love to find out for our future, our next boat. Um, well, should we get there? But, um, all of these all, all of, does that make sense? It does. It does. Yeah. So, so just to kind of make sure I, I've got what you're saying. So the, it sounds like the, you had the, and you said this yourself, that you're, your, you wife would laugh, but you're not much of a, of a planner of a details guy. And you were like, okay, let's just hop in and do this. And then when you started doing it, the reality of the size of the task became very apparent that there's, and, and, and it is, I mean, there's a ton of little details and things to take care of and to think about. And if you've never done it before, it could be a little bit overwhelming or it could be very overwhelming. Um, and the help would've been nice, um, to, to help you avoid some of that help would help, would've been humongous. Right? I just, I, I wouldn't do it for the first time and I would tell anybody else. Um, Listening get help, right? There's just nothing in your life where you're gonna hop out there. Uh, again, I shouldn't say nothing. There's nothing in my life that I would hop out there like that without having more structured help. And, um, again, that's, that's a different subject. But what I did, uh, was look for that help and piecemealed it together. What did, what did you do to get help and how did that work for you? And so I mentioned we had some, been in contact with our friends on field trip. Um, great people, great family helped us a ton with our transition to Malaysia. Uh, were really instrumental in, in helping us introduce us to their friends. And, um, you know, it was, it was. I was looking, I, I just, I needed more help and I don't think I realized how much help I needed, and I don't think that they realized how much help I needed. And so, uh, like I said, when I got there, what I realized was, wow, we need a lot of help. And we really just, we need help learning to manage the boat ourselves. Raising lowering sails on this boat as well as maintenance parts of the boat going through, uh, I mean really against soup to nuts. And so they were kind enough to help to introduce us to another guy and Sailor who they had known from their sailing days, um, who had. I don't know if he is circumnavigated, but he's sailed a lot. So he, Daniel came on board with us and helped us go from Panang to check out of Panang and out then of Malaysia in Aui and then head up to pt. And we did some training along the way, uh, informal, but he was great and really helpful. Uh, we, and I remember vividly as an example, anchoring coming into co rock if you've been to co rock at, um, between Langkawi and P Ette. And it's just that there beautiful water, but we're slowly, I'm at the helm, slowly coming in and all of a sudden we're almost right on top of Reef and it's really shallow and just. Putting the engines full bore in, uh, in reverse and just going, oh my gosh, that was close, sort of thing. And then finding a place to anchor and just, just that realization. Again, it's, it's real out here and you are on your own. We've got help, but you're still, I'm still the captain. Um, uh, yeah, so, so again, helping get us to puket, uh, and then finding, I, I followed somebody else's path. Uh, I've been in touch with somebody else who refit their boat and got some work done in Pettet, so I talked with them a lot. I, anyway, we, we ended up going to Pettet and getting a lot of boat work done, and that was a whole next level of learning. So Yeah. You did, you did, you did all the, all the learning. Uh, all the, all the things that require learning the Yeah. Going out in Southeast Asia the first time on your own, that's, that's, yeah. Pretty intense. And then putting the boat in the boatyard at ette, that's a whole nother, uh, boatyards anywhere are, are like, uh, a hard thing to navigate, so. Okay. Um, you, you mentioned something to me before the call here that I wanna kind of bring up and, and, and just get your thoughts on, which is this. Uh, you know, and I had asked you kind of a, a theme, um, around this of what you would tell an earlier version of yourself knowing what you know now, and you, you'd said, operate at your competence level. Don't operate at your comp, your confidence level. Did I get that right? Um, and if you wanna maybe, uh, shy about that, what does that mean to you and where does that come from? Yeah. Well, I think like anybody else that is thinking about doing this here, and what I had seen is that anybody that is coming, buying a boat, And thinking about hopping on board, especially if you're doing it with your, your family, even if you're just doing it with a, a couple, you have come from a place of some sort of success in life, right? You've, somewhere, somewhere in there you've done some something successful. So you're somebody that has some Then the confidence also to be able to go do some of these things. Whether it is starting a business or growing a business, selling a business, or saving enough money, you've invested, well, whatever it was that you've done, you've had some, some level of confidence and now you're, you've got the level of confidence to be dreaming and then thinking about this. So what I say is for myself is I've got the confidence. I know we can do this, but what is the experience level or competence level? That I should be operating at. Not just that confidence level. I know we can do this, should we do this, and if we should do this or, or can do this, how are we going to get it done and get it done smoothly without having that experience? And that's where I think, again, I look at any other part of my life and just go, well, having a mentor is always an essential piece of that because wherever I can learn from someone else, somebody else has been there and done that, made their mistakes and is willing to impart that to me, it's gonna make it so much smoother. And that's where, again, I look back and go, I really wish I would have just signed up with you guys, uh, to have the voice to, to have somebody. Okay, so I'll step back. So what's gonna end up happening, and I know you did this, I know that Keith did this because I talked with Keith early on. I was amazed when he called me. I got a video call, I hung up on him twice I think, cuz I didn't know the number coming in, but just you, you start asking, Hey, should I, what do you think about this boat? Oh, what do you think about this chain? What do you think about this anchor? What do you think about these sails? What do you think about, you know, this marina and this electrician, or you, you're, oh, and you're gonna get a million different answers and every one of them is going to be impassioned about their answers. Oh, I would never haul out at that marina. Oh, that marina is the best. That electrician is terrible. That electrician is amazing. And what I gathered was everybody has their own personality and they interact with that electrician or that marina or whatever it is, in a different way, be it based on their personality. Mm-hmm. And so what I wanted was one voice. Mm-hmm. That wasn't gonna be right or wrong. It was gonna be right for me, and I was gonna be able to hear that voice. That's where again, I would say, you guys, man, uh, I really would've benefited from, from your help and working with you guys. And I'm not, again, just, anyway, people can take that for what it is. It's, that's my, that's my perspective. Uh, and I, I sought that out as much as I could, but I realized that voice was going to be mine and everybody else was going to be a resource because I didn't have you guys as, as that resource. Right. Um, so I reached out to different people and took it as much as I could, but it was really hard to sift through because sailors are very, somebody else said it. Sailors are, uh, see if I can get the words right. Um, sort of passionately independent. Uh, and that passionate part sometimes make, it makes it very unclear, uh, could, we, could, could, you could say passionately, passionately opinionated. Passionately opinionated, yes. To a, to a large degree. Very much. Um, very much. I mean, I, I, I, I really appreciate you, you, you sharing that and, and there was a lot in there actually that, that I really resonate with. Um, uh, and a lot of it, I mean, from, from the, the beginning, from what you said around how, uh, it's one of my favorite things about what Keith and I have built with this that we're doing is we get the opportunity to work with successful people. Um, which, which brings its own complications, but it's, it's incredible, you know, every, and, and you're a hundred percent right, that every single person that is at the stage in their life where they're considering this has been successful in some form or fashion. That's just, it's like, it's like you have to have done that. You know? That's, that's the prerequisite in order to consider living this way. Um, so, and then the other thing that you said in there that, that I completely agree with is the world, the cruising world. There is a lot of, there's a lot of helpful people out there that wanna be helpful. Um, and really, and, but you're right. There's a lot of noise around, and I, I found this too, around this is the right way. People would, no, this is the person you have to use. You, this is what you need to do. Um, and we really tried like what, what we've, what we've tried to create is not to be that way. Like nothing that we do, we ever try and say, this is what you must do. It's about Exactly. And I love how you put it. It was like, Down to the boat that you buy, you know, it's, you're gonna buy a different boat that I'm gonna buy because you have a different personality than I, than I have. And you have different values in what you value in your life and that, that, that bleeds through everything that you do when you're creating this new way of living, this new lifestyle. And so what we try and do is just to be like, I don't wanna like get into too much about what we do, but just cuz it, it, it resonates. What we try and do is it's like, take what you value and what your personality is and provide a lens or provide a way for you to translate that into the cruising life so that you can then see, well here's the person I should use and why, or this is the vote that I should get and why not just this is the best way to do it because there is no best way to do it. It's about figuring out and parsing out and trying to really parse out what's best for you and why is this best for you. Um, and that's really, I think where the, the rubber meets the road, so to say, is it's really digging into that, um, that side of things. So, And, and, and I, and the challenge is that I and I, man, I lived it so I know, I know when you say it, like when you've got 20 different voices telling you 20 different things and you're sitting there trying to figure out what's the right thing for me, and there's no, that is really, um, providing any guidance. There's no one person that can provide guidance to help you sort through that. It can be very difficult to make those decisions. Um, and you know, sometimes you make good ones and sometimes you make bad ones. And, um, AB absolutely right and right within in a business, people pay outside consultants a lot of money, a lot. And we're talking about very successful, very capable companies. Right. Uh, I come, I've worked in finance, uh, and investments for 20 some years amongst other things that I've done, but, um, You've got BlackRock, a humongous company that will still hire outside, uh, people to, to come and give them their professional opinion because it's not something that they have specialized in. Yeah. That's how I view this. It's, you're get the guidance and I, I, there's a phrase that I'll steal from somebody else here is, um, everybody likes to buy, nobody likes to be sold. So I don't want to sell somebody on the idea that they should work with you. I'm just telling them I would do it. So yeah, I would, I would be a buyer if I were to do it again. Cool. Hands down, no questions asked because it's, it's a humongous undertaking, especially if you're talking about taking your family on board. It can be done. Uh, you guys are anyway, and I think the piece that you, you've touched on with this, and, and I like that you brought it up, is it's. What gets people, and it's what got me, I mean, the reason we started this is because we went through exactly what you're talking to me about right now. You know, I didn't have any guidance either. Neither did Keith, and, you know, and, and we figured it out the hard way. Like, like you did, smashing our heads against the wall, making mistakes, getting stressed out, stressing our families out. Um, and somehow came out the other end intact. But were like, man, there's an easier way to do this. And, and the stuff that, the stuff that got me and Keith, and I'm, and, and from what I'm hearing Got you, is it's the stuff you didn't know that you didn't know. Like, that's, that's what got me. Absolutely. It's, it's like, you know, because I'm a doer too, I'm like, I'll just jump in and figure it out. And it's the stuff that I didn't know that I even didn't even need to know, that I didn't know that I needed to know that ended up biting me. Um, yeah. And that's what I learned over and that's what experience is, right? It's like, okay, now I know that I'm not gonna do that again. You know, but there's a cost to figuring that out. And you either pay the cost upfront or you, you pay it through time, stress, and money. Absolutely. Well, and uh, I would exactly. It really that that's well said, because it, and I say I am, we'll use Keith here as the example. He, I've got friends like him where, um, they can just fix, fix anything and everything, and they love it. It's, it's, they're tinker. I call, I call a lot of the cruising world. They're tinkerers. Yeah. They'd be tinkering, tinkering on a boat, or they'd be tinkering with their house or their car or their airplane or whatever else it was. But they'd be tinkering, right? Yeah. Yeah. I, I'm not like that. I, I hate working on my house or my car. It's not something I enjoy. But when you get on a boat, You have to embrace some of that. Mm-hmm. But, so that, that's an essential, but all like the paperwork, like choosing the boat, like, and then we had a lot of help figuring out the boat, so that was helpful. But there, like we've talked about, there's so many other things that you just don't know about that you just, just get help and de-stress. So, so can you, you talked, cause I know, I know a little bit about your story and kind of where it went from here. Can you, you share a little bit about, you know, you, you didn't have all the help you would've liked. Um, what was the cost? Like, how did that show up in the trip? Um, and, and, and what was the impact on the trip and, and your experience of the cruising life because you, you guys went cruising, wasn't for a super long time, but you experienced it. Um, so yeah. And this is where I would say that comes in to o operate at your experience or your competence level, not your, your confidence level. So we, we, again, this, I won't get too into the weeds on this, but um, it just, the stress level, uh, basically my stress as the captain. So what, what ends up happening, and again, you know, this another, I'm, I'm, I like, I like sayings. I can hold onto toss. It's a, uh, uh, what is it? Uh, I was the captain. Captain isn't always right. But the captain is always the captain. Yeah. And that just really means that it doesn't matter. I, and again, I don't mean that in an arrogant way, I just mean that in a, that's the real, the reality of it is that no matter what's going on, I'm responsible. Yeah, I'm gonna ask for other people's opinions. I'm gonna ask for my wife's opinion. And my son, they were fantastic with, um, in particular the, the running rigging. We, we redid the running rigging and they were in charge. I put them in charge of the, the running rigging, and we had wonderful help. But again, ultimately it's on me. I need to make sure that when we go out, I'm confident and we are competent to do what we're setting out to do. Mm-hmm. Um, and I'm the only judge of that. And every then, I don't know if you can hear in my voice, but I, I can feel the stress coming back, even just talking about it, it's, you're putting yourself and your family out in the ocean. And for us it was, uh, the Malacca straight and the squalls and the lightning and. You know, crossing the Malacca Strai, we ended up going over to Sumatra and West Sumatra over to Sulu and the Baac Islands, which was amazing. But it was very real over there. Um, right. We're not in the shallow end of the pool anymore. And so again, it, it just, that idea that as the captain, the buck stops here. I'm not, I don't know everything, but I have to know everything that is going on and who's in charge of what and how it's going. Those are some of the things that I would say find ways to, to do some self self-evaluation ahead of time. How are you at the, and I think I've, you guys have talked about this and probably talked about this, how do you handle stress? How do you handle not knowing what's going on and Ha and asking for help? And how does your family or your significant other deal with that as well? Um, yeah, that whole dynamic, because you're gonna come up against that time and time again. Uh, right. I, I love, I love that you brought this up. So many examples. I love that you brought this up because it's, it, it, Keith and I say this all the time, like going cruising is, is 10% knowing how to sail, 90% other stuff go successfully. Making it work and the 90% of the other stuff is a big part of what you're talking about right now. And, and almost every single person, when that we talk to 'em when they're first considering this, they don't think about this stuff because they don't know, you know, you don't know. You don't have, there's no barometer to know. What is it gonna be like with my family? Like you said, outta the shallow and in the deep end off the Baac Islands with Squalls coming, like there's no, in everyday life, there's no barometer to know how you're gonna respond to that situation unless somebody can give you some sort of context and framework to start having discussions around it. Um, and it's really where, I mean, you nailed it. It's, it's all this stuff. It's, it's leadership stuff too, at the end of the day. Like cuz being a captain, you're a leader. Um, and it comes back to what you said earlier. I mean, there's so many similarities with running a business, right? Like running a boat is very similar to running a business. You need to know what's going on in every area of the business as the c e o of a company. It's no different than than being the captain of a boat. You don't need to be doing everything, but you need to know how it's done to know, because you're responsible, the buck stops with you as the captain on the boat. And so, yeah, that stress thing is, I mean, I've lived it. Keith's lived it too. We, we talk about it all the time and Keith tells the story all the time. He's like, Um, and I was like this too when I first got on the boat with my wife, like, like, you know, there was a lot of yelling. There was a lot of yelling and there was a lot of like, you know, like, Hey, why, why? Because I'd be stressed. Like why, ah, we need to do this, we need to do that. You know, and, and Keith says the same story, right? Like, and, and we had to really dig deep within ourselves to be, to find a new way of relating and a new way of relating to our families and, and, and a new way of coming together as a family. Um, and to me, this comes back to what you said at the very beginning, people get into this life cuz they're like, Hey, I wanna spend more time with my family. You know, I want more connection. I want more of that. And, and like, so it's like, okay, let's go on a boat and put everybody in a big pressure cooker and turn the amplification up of all of the issues that we have. We we're throwing all the stress on the, on the whole thing and see how we do. That's where I again, go back to the. The experience level or the competence level, not the confidence level. Right. Because Right. The old, uh, was it, uh, Mike Tyson, I don't know who said it first. Right. Everybody's got a plan in a fight until you get punched in the mouth. Yeah. I love that quote. Yeah. I love it. You know you're gonna get punched. Yeah. What's your plan then? How's the plan? You know, again, we've watched all the videos from Keith and their family and hey, a line breaks. We, we had had, uh, uh, tourist sale, brand new sail, brand new north sail, um, tear, and you know, it's flapping in 30 knot winds. And, you know, we've got, uh, probably two meter seas and we're new and like, Hey, that's a big punch. That's a big punch in the face. Yeah. What's your, what's your plan? That's a haymaker. What's your, yeah. What's your plan? Your plan is let, uh, I don't know, but you don't have time to sit there and go, I don't know, get it done. It's like, oh my gosh. Again, how's your family dynamic now? How's your stress level now? Um, so, and you're not gonna be able to know those specifics ahead of time. But again, what you can do, and I think again, what you guys talked through and offer and what was would be so helpful is like, okay, let that be the stress stressor and the learning opportunity not on top of all the other things that can be addressed ahead of time, if that makes any sense. I the compound, the compounding stress. Yeah. That end up getting dead enough. It makes absolute sense. It's never one, and I mean, it's never the one straw that breaks, you know, the camel's back. It's the series of things, right. Um, that, that add up to it. Exactly. Yeah. That absolutely makes sense. And I think the other thing that, I think, the other thing that, I mean, I found helpful, and it's one of the driving reasons why we created this is, is I found that, um, and it's why I love having these conversations because it, we can be in, like when you're on a boat, you can find yourself, I mean, in general, having stress and issues like this, I, for me anyway, I can find that I get into a place where I'm like, oh my God, my life's stressful right now. I'm the only one that's feeling this way. How could I have done this sort of thing? And to be able to have conversations with other people in a community where other people are going through the same things and, and have a chat and chat with them. Yeah. And for particularly, one thing we found is for. Um, for, for wise, for women to be able to get together and share the stresses that they are having. It, it's like, I dunno, it's, it's one of these like really calming, soothing things to connect with other humans and realize I'm not alone. You know, like there's, there's actually hundreds of other people going through the exact same stress. It may be experienced in slightly different ways, but I'm, I'm not the only one feeling this way. And that's, I, I find that personally really helpful. So, um, that's a great point. I, I, I hadn't even thought of that in a while, but that, that was one of the other things that I thought of too, was, uh, a long time ago when, uh, I should have, again, as we were going through it, I kept watching some of your videos and I've kept in, in contact from afar just going, oh man, that would be amazing to have. And we had by that, that time built up. Uh, crew, other cruisers and friends that we could communicate with. But again, having, having that, having that community established before and during would be again, just very cathartic and very, very helpful. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And you're, and you're right, it comes in time. It does come in time. Like it's, I mean, we had lots of friends that we cruise with, but it's, it's, the transition period is, is often I find where the most stresses is. And that's the time you're trying to establish that community. I remember for me, it took me, like, it took us, it took us 18 months of, of cruising before we established kind of a solid friendship group within the cruising community of, of people that, you know, I could, I would go over to a friend's boat and be me and him and I'd be like, so, You know, let's have a chat. Yeah. But that, that was like, yeah, yeah, yeah. It took, it took 18 months to get to that phase, 18 months of just like, you know, kind of being on my own. So, um, yeah. Okay. So, so, I mean, but maybe, so where did it go from there for you, for, for you then? So you had these, these kind of stressful experiences, um, but not just as stressful. Was there, I mean, I can imagine there must have also been some incredible experiences because cruising, I like to say is a series of very low lows and very high highs. It's just quite, you know, dramatic contrasts. So I can imagine, and then there must have been some really great times. Yeah, absolutely. I mean it really, I, I call it the rubber band effect, right? To where you go through these stressful periods, you stretch the rubber band. We, we as individuals and a family get stretched and then we kind of, you come back into shape and, and, um, you come back together better. Yeah. And you're not even realizing it. But yeah, I mean, we, so we were in, uh, in Pettet and around Pettet, Thailand quite a bit between there and Langkawi, amazing islands, amazing people, amazing cultures. And our goal for, for, as a family was not to be what I call window shoppers. We like to really get to know people and we wanted to immerse ourselves in this culture. And we didn't realize the cruising community itself is another subculture. Hmm. And that was just so wonderful. I mean, to, to, to experience such an international community where people really, again, you, you're in such a unique situation because you're, okay. So I'll compare it in reverse. I'm sitting here in San Diego, one of the most amazing, beautiful places. You know, to live, if you're living an urban life, to, to live, you know, it's not Bali, but that's a different level. So if you have to be in the US this is one of the places you really want to be. Yeah, it's an amazing place. We have great weather in general. Um, you can surf, you can get to snow, uh, you can do all this stuff in the same day. Mountain biking, hiking, whatever, right here, right? Yosemite and just amazing things within a, you know, great place to live. But when you are in the cruising community, you, you are just in an international community that is so dynamic with people that have chosen to get off the couch, turn off YouTube, and actually jump in. And you now are just in and amongst people that are like that. And so that was something I didn't realize was gonna be so amazing and impactful. But our experiences then with other people were, uh, people from all over the, all over the world was amazing. On top of the cruising itself. Uh, uh, very positive. Um, but then experience, like we got, uh, certified scuba diving over in Poca, uh, dove with some sharks. And the things that we saw there, uh, made our way, like I said, over to, uh, Sumatra. Right. Uh, I can't remember what it's, uh, Ang way, way island. Yeah. Meant wise Did things, did things that, what's that? Did you go to Mentis? We didn't make it that far. The farthest we got was, I know that was, we got our, oh, just, we got our butts kicked between Ang and, uh, Che and then Simu. Okay. Uh, have you done that? Cut? Nope. Not yet. Maybe this year. Yeah. That it's, that's where I say again. We did, so we did all of this in one year. Okay. Start to finish by moving, buying the boat. Um, again, moving halfway around the world, starting cruising, refitting the boat in a different culture in a different place. Um, going from Malaysia, Panang to Tokai, Langkawi to Ette. Uh, eventually cruising around there, making our way over to Sumatra, over to Sulu, over to the AKs. We were close to going to nis, but again, we realized we were, it's this, here's a phrase for you, right. You, you mentioned that before we did the call, somebody asked you for advice and they didn't take it. Um, if you ask enough people, can we go over there? Yes, you can go over there. Right? Well, you live in Southeast Asia. You are you. If you ask people, oh, can this be done? Oh, can, can, right, can, can. Yeah. No problem. You need to ask. We learned. You need to ask, and this goes in Southeast Asia. You need to ask, learn to ask questions in five different ways to, to really get the answer. Yeah. Can it be done? Should it be done? Can we do it? Can you do it? How do we do it? All of these things to really get an understanding. I think that applies to a boat as well. So we just kept asking the question, can, can it be done? Can we get over to SLU and the AKs, which is where we really wanted to, sorry, Bon the Dement wise. We wanted to get over and go surfing. Can it be done in this time of year? And we were going in, I think we were there, we were over there for, uh, Thanksgiving. So it was November, can we do this? Can this be done and can it be done safely? Um, sort of thing. So we asked two questions, but the answer kept coming back is, yeah, it can, you can, it can be done. You just have to find the right window, right? Weather window. It can be done, it can be done, it can be done. But can it be done smoothly? Is it the right time to go? It can be done. Like, uh, and I've read numerous times on the Facebook groups, people asking the same question. I just read it again the other day. Can we go from Indonesia to Darwin in this time of year? It can be done right now, but you're not ever going to wanna do it again. Yeah, I just did it. It can be done. Oh geez. It can be done, but it's like, it's 10 days of sailing up wind, 10 days of sailing up wind, which uh, is like, I mean, it's just brain damage. It's, yeah. So that's, that's, that's an example right there. Okay. Right. Because I had said from where I'm sitting right now, literally, literally sitting right here before I ever went over going, okay, there are things I've watched enough. I'm a smart enough person, I've done enough things in life to know, yeah, okay, let's see. I'm gonna sail when the weather is right. I'm gonna go in the right place at the right time and the right season and we're gonna look for the right weather. Like I said, I had been watching Wind Daily cause it Kit. Um, really I set myself up here. Yeah. Kiting, but I, I, I had set up, uh, window alerts and all of that over in Southeast Asia that I was preparing myself for to go over there. But then when you talk to sailors, like I said, you're gonna get so many opinions. Can we go to Sumatra? Can we go there? Yes, you can. Here's how you do it. But that's the wrong question, because I didn't speak the language, I didn't have the experience or the competence level. I had the confidence, not the competence. To know the difference between when a sailor tells you, tells you it's uncomfortable, that means nobody wants to be there. Don't do it. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. A hundred percent. That's exactly what that means. That means nobody wants to do that. Yeah. Yeah. Why did, and that's what we did. Yeah. Now I know what that means. Yeah. Those are the things that I would say those little bits of knowledge and experience go a long way. Had we not done that, what I would've heard people saying, which I'm sure you say, take a year on the boat and don't do anything big, do operate again at your experience level, competence level, and develop that competence level. Then, then from that, yeah, you're dropping. I mean you, you're dropping all the, all the nuggets, man. All the nuggets that we talk about. That's exactly like one of, it's like we say take a year, you know, take a year and baby steps. There's no point in chucking yourself in, off, off a cliff into it. One step at a time. Get to know the boat. It also takes, I mean, you've probably experienced this, it also takes a year to, in my experience too, this is, for us, it takes a year to just unwind your brain from like regular life and get into the, the mindset of cruising. Um, like the, it, it, it really does, you know? Oh, a hundred percent. I mean, I still, I an example, what that reminds me of is, right, um, just cruising around, even just poquette, which we did a lot. And, and we know it. No problem, no problem now. Um, but when I would set my course on avionics, right? It's straight lines, you know, and I still, I, for so long, once I would set those straight lines, I had such, well, the wind isn't. Isn't taking me there. The wind is taking me 45 degrees away from where I want to go. What the heck? What am I doing wrong? Like, you're not in a car. I mean, you have, you have motors and I, I, this is where I, I definitely identify with Keith going, I'm not a sailor. Mm-hmm. Uh, you know, we're a, we're people on an adventure trying to get from here to there. And if I can sail, great. But if I need the motor, I'll motor turn those suckers on. Let's do it. Yeah. So anyway. Yeah. Yeah. Amazing, amazing. So, um, I mean, it sounds like you Yeah, like, like you I love that, I love this rubber band effect thing. Um, I I, I, I'm gonna, I'm gonna kind of appropriate that, if you're okay with me taking that one. I want to use that. I really like it. It's, it's like, cuz it, it, it really, it it, and then it's a great analogy for, for how the life is. It's stretches you and then. That's the old saying that what doesn't, what doesn't kill you, makes you stronger. If it doesn't break you, makes you stronger. You know, I'll say, right. If you come from a successful background, you've started and grown a business, or you've done other things, don't take that approach into your family on a boat. Keith, Keith says the exact same thing actually in, in, in one of our early trainings that people go through. He, he, I remember the first time he said, he said it. I was like, that's bang on. Because I mean, I, I was in business before too, and it was like, it, that's, and, and I, I, I catch myself even today now that I'm, I'm, you know, I'm in business again, running business. It's like I need to not relate to my family the way that I relate in business. Um, and, and bring that mindset onto the boat. And that was like, and, and Keith says this in the early training, he's like, I needed to learn how to, to not treat my family like they were my employees. Basically, you know, like how to, how to be the captain of the boat, but lead in a way where it's like, they're not my employees. We're all members of the same team doing this thing together. Um, right, right. And, and, and find a new way of going about it. And it's, uh, yeah. It's, it's, I think for people that you nailed it, you know, for people that that's what they're used to, because that's what's gotten success is, is that's where the success has come from, is, has been in, in showing up that way in the world. Learning to, to relate in a new way, learning a new perspective to see things and see the world is not the easiest thing. It, it's, it takes an introspection. No, not at all. And also something that that brings to mind is in today's world, it's, I think everywhere it's a competitive world. If you're gonna be successful at any, anything these days, it seems like in so many ways. You are, you're intense. I'll just say I, the people that I've met that are, are sailors, you are intense that intensely. Right. I'll say for myself, I, I have an all or I have a none. I have an on or an off. You gotta learn to moderate that sort of thing. Yeah. Um, or you're gonna be, yeah. Right. Cause you can't, you, you, you can't fire your, your wife or kids, no. Sort of thing. And if you Well, you can get that approach. You can, there's just some serious, serious consequences and costs and, and you're gonna be on the boat alone. Yeah. So it's like to all of these things, again, again, having these conversations that you guys provide, having that community of people that are along various different points of the learning curve. Yeah. It's just learning how to operate life on a boat, not just operate the boat. Like you say, sailing, you can learn. Yeah. There's, there's a ton of nuances to it, and you'll learn that over time. That's not, doesn't for me, it wasn't the complicating part. Mm-hmm. Yes. That was a complication, but it was the dynamic around it and all of these little things that we're talking about that just, it ended up pushing us over the edge. And I'll, I'll share that. I'll jump ahead and just say On our trip from Pke to Sumatra and over to Sulu, that was the moment for us. The stress level, anxiety level for me was off the charts. Um, again, because I knew ahead of time we were operating above our pay grade, our experience competence level. And, um, we, it was about three o'clock in the morning we were doing, uh, my do, we did night shift. We did shifts in pairs. Um, and I'll throw my son under the bus here a little bit. Uh, he, if I remember from one of Keith's videos, uh, I think, again, I won't mention names there, but one of their sons I think, fell, fell asleep or, or did something and, and did some loopty loops with the boat, um, if you will. Not loopty loop, but did a, a loop cause he wasn't paying attention, playing a video game or something. So my son, we woke up. You're look, go ahead Henry. What, what happened here? Like, oh yeah, I just, I fell asleep for a while. You, you can't, you can't do that. You're, you're on watch. You gotta be on watch. Like, so I mean cuz we were, we were again, like you said, upwind up current off the west coast of Sumatra. Beating into the wind, um, doing two and a half knots. Uh, and with, with little tiny fishing boats and fit fads and fishing nets everywhere, right? And hearing horror stories of people colliding with boats, um, or getting caught in the nets and all of that. And so it's just, I had a night vision monocular that we used that saved us numerous times. But anyway, so all of that's going on. So we, we did night shifts and pairs and so it was, my daughter and I at, taken our shift, but my wife is sick over the back of the boat and we're having to check on her to make sure she's not falling over. Cause if you go overboard at night, right? It's son's, you know, semi awake. I'm looking at my family at that moment and the lights went on and it's gone. None of you signed up for this. You didn't sign up for this right here. And I had had the option right there again, like the light went on and going, Hey, do you guys wanna be done after this trip? And it was a unanimous, yes, we wanna be done sort of thing. We, yeah. And it was right there actually, the pre, we took the top off the pressure cooker. Yeah. Nobody had we, and we all actually came together right there. So that would be, what I would say that you guys are helping people do is you're taking the pressure, the top off the pressure cooker toward the beginning of the process, not at the end. Yeah. And that would, that would, I believe, have extended hour. I don't know what the outcome would've been. Never know. Um, cuz our kids needed to come back and wanted to come back to be around friends and finish school and all of that kind of stuff. And it was a really good decision for us. But again, taking the pressure, the, the top off, the pressure cooker, invaluable, however you do that, do it. Figure out how to do that. And you're, I, I think you're unlikely, unless you're like a really great family person. I know all of these things on a boat and everything. Just, that's where I think the help would be humongous for you guys to be able to, to do again, uh, speaking for myself. Yeah. Yeah. Amazing. Amazing. I, I think you're right. I mean, pressure is the, it's another thing that, that, that I talk about a lot is, is when people do this to set a fixed timeframe, when everybody makes the decision to do it, it's like, we're gonna try for X amount of, out of x amount of months or whatever. We, we suggest actually no longer than a year, Because it does exactly that. You know, it's, it's, it's, then it's like everybody knows, hey, we're only signing up for this long. And it's one, it's one of many different things that you can do to relieve the pressure on it. The other thing we always say is, and it sounds like you guys did this, um, um, which was smart, was have an eject handle. You know, it's like, make sure there, you do have the resources and, and a way to punch out and get out of the lifestyle if the pressure is too intense. Um, and, and, and you had the option to do it, like you said, you had the option to do it, and you said, yeah, we're getting out, and all of a sudden the pressure's gone. You know, imagine if you were in that situation and, and it wasn't easy to make that decision, like it, like financially or otherwise. You didn't have that out like that. That's a nightmare. Like that's the real nightmare. So, um, well, there, and, and there's still, that's a really good point because we did talk about, and I think we learned this from listening to you, uh, was we set a one year goal. They're saying, we've gotta commit to a year, right? We can't try this for a month or two if we're gonna buy a boat. Like we, we just, it's not realistic. So we committed to a year, um, with the hope that it was going to be two to five years, try to like finish homeschooling our kids. Um, but again, that, that one year again, two year credit was, uh, uh, was, was key because it did allow us to get to that point. And I knew we were getting to that point. And, um, yeah, so that's, that's why it was allowed us to, even me, to even ask that question of like, Hey, how's everybody doing? And seeing my family and just going, yeah, it's, yeah. Yeah, I think so. It was great to, to be able to leave the, the one year thing also allows you to make the decision to do it easier. Because it's not, that's a very much big thing I find, you know, people think, oh, I'm gonna do this for, you know, I talk to people that say, I'm gonna do this for the rest of my life. I'm like, you're never gonna do it. Like, you know, you can when dream you're gonna do it for the rest of your life, but you're never actually gonna do it cause it's too big. It's, it's, it's not quantifiable. That's a great, great point, great point. But it, it really is. It's, again, some people do it, but it, it's the, the, the majority of people don't, right? Yeah. The majority of people aren't going to spend 10 plus years circumnavigating the world. No. No matter how much YouTube you watch and how, you know what it, it's a big ask. So to be able to take, take a tangible step and go, Hey, let's, let's try this for a year. And again, back to you guys, what you're helping people to do is find, find the boats and find a way to be able to do it for a year's timeframe. Have a good. Experience. Mm-hmm. Stretch the rubber band, but not, you know, bend but not break. Mm-hmm. And then also be able to go, Hey, that was a great experience. Do we want to keep going or do we want to be done? Oh, we, we need to be done, or we want to be done. And like your, to your point, being able to undo it now, because you had, what I also say from kite boarding is I wanna know my exit before I make my entrance. Yep. Right? Yeah. So a hundred percent amazing. So then, um, where, like, where, maybe just to, to kind of wrap this up. So you, you had that experience. You guys, you, you made the decision to pull the pin, um, and, and, and, and you got out, um, you sold your boat. Uh, so where, where, where are you at now? You're back in San Diego. What's the plans for the, yeah, like, not just where you're at now, but where you use this analogy on the rubber band thing, the stretch, and then kind of come back. So what would you say? And, and, and like, Looking back at the experience, how has it impacted your family? Um, did it, did it do the things, did having that experience do the things you wanted it to do when you set out? Was there any unexpected things? Like Yeah. How has it all played out for you and where you at now? Yeah. Well, like life in general, life has its twists and turns, so being able to adapt to things is huge. And we live here. Encinitas, um, is, you know, it, it's a overused term. Maybe it's a bubble, right? It's a wonderful, wonderful place, but it's a bubble. Uh, we all knew it. My kids knew it, but they didn't have a context to fully understand it. And like I said, we go down to Mexico, we go to different places. We've built, helped build homes for people. We try to get outside of ourselves and our bubble, but we still spent the majority of our time in the bubble. Hmm. It. And my, my goal again was to shake the proverbial snow globe. Uh, I say, right, take it off the mantle. Turn it upside down, make it snow. That's what it's supposed to do. I just think that life, it's dynamic. Let it be dynamic. Live a dynamic sort of life of interacting with other people and serving other people and getting to know people. We did that. It, it, so yesterday was Father's Day. We spent, um, yeah, we spent, uh, the day together as a family. And it was like, man, that was great because it reminds me of the previous year where it was like you had no choice. You were together. Um, your choice was, am I gonna have a good attitude or a bad attitude? But we were together. Um, so yes, it did. We were, so, it was a magical day yesterday of just going, oh yeah, my, we made the choice to be together and this reminds me of Yes. Of this last year. And we, so we spent the time talking about, you know, some of the time talking about what were some of the good experiences of the year, and it was, geez, it, it was, it was magical. Uh, and it's great to hear from my kids of going, wow, thanks for taking us over there, because it really does shape who they are and how they see themselves and, and the world. Yeah. It's, um, yeah, I definitely don't regret anything, but I would change how I did something. Some things, people that say I'd never change it, uh, I disagree with, with a lot of that, I would change some things and I would make it easier on us for sure. Uh, any way that I could. Um, and again, having, having the mentors, having the people that can help you make that easier, I, I would do it every day of the week and twice on Sunday sort of thing. Thanks, Ben. That's, that's amazing. Thank you for sharing that. That was, that was beautiful. It really was. Gave me goosebumps. Um, it's just, uh, I, I've, I mean, I've, I've been, I was cruising for a while, you know, I cruised for almost six years, had the boat and full-time cruised for four and then, and then part-time for two years. And I've met tons of people now that have done this. I have yet to meet somebody that has gone cruising and said that it was the wrong decision. Um, you know, I've met people that have, that have, like, in your case, that have gone and have, have opted out earlier. Um, but like as far as the impact that choosing to do that had on their life, it's, I've yet to meet somebody that said it had a negative impact on their life. Every single person has said it. It was. The best thing I've ever done as far as bringing our family together and having these, these, these positive experiences and expanding our awareness as to what's possible in the world, and, you know, giving us a new perspective on the life that we live, where we're from, and all of these amazing things that come along with it. Um, yeah, I've, so, I'm, I'm, but that's really well said. And it's, it, it's just, it's not, so again, in today's modern day and age, it, it's not a, it's not a YouTube short, right. Short clip. It's not an Instagram moment. It's, it's your life. It's all day, all night. And it's right where people, you want a profound experience. Get off the couch and get out there and go, go do it. Yeah. And learn who you are. And how to actually engage your family. Right. It's, yeah, it's, it's profound, right? It's, it's a profound experience. A profound experience is not typically like an adventure. Um, does not have a, a designed outcome. It's an experience. It will stretch you and you will be different for it now, I think better, but you will be different for it and everyone that goes along with you will as well. So Amazing. That's a, a be beautiful way to end it. Um, I, I, one, one last question I would say is just is, and you've kind of touched on this, but if you, if you could put it in cuz, and I ask everybody this, that's why I'm gonna ask it. You kind of already touched on it, but I'm gonna ask it anyway cause I ask everybody. If you had one piece of advice for somebody that was just starting to think about, Um, this lifestyle, you know, they're, they're at this stage of, Hey, I wanna make a change. They, they've achieved the success, you know, they've achieved that success and they're like, I want something else. I wanna do something else. And they're contemplating going cruising. Um, what, what would you tell them, man? Just one. I, I mean, one, one is, is do it. Yeah. Two is, again, I, I can say I use that saying everybody likes to buy, nobody wants to be sold. So I don't wanna sell somebody on it, whether it's using you guys or somebody else, and I don't know who else is out there, but find a mentor who can be a sounding board. And again, a, I just, I see no reason why, uh, yeah, I would, I would use you guys because of all of the different aspects of it. A sounding board, a community. And, and mentors. Yeah. Um, from finding the boat to, uh, just, just everything, all that we're talking about, it would just, it would smooth out the whole thing. Um, that would be my, my biggest, my biggest, uh, I guess one piece of advice, but it's multifaceted, so that's why I think that one thing goes a long way. Cool. Amazing. Amazing. Um, thank you. Thank you very much for, uh, for, for hopping on and, and sharing your story. I think it's, um, it's an impactful in a lot of ways, um, because it, and, and I think what I like about your story and, and the way that you share it is it's, it's not just the good stuff. You know, like it's, there's, people watch YouTube and they, there's enough of the good, of the good stuff of sailing on YouTube, you know, and one of the things that I we're trying to do with these is to, to show the. The dynamicism, if that's even a word of, of what the cruising life is. And that, and I really believe that, you know, where we got to at the end of this, where you said like the impact it's had on your family, that impact doesn't come from just the good stuff. You know, it comes from the whole gamut of, of experiencing the lows and the highs. And it's going through this living, this, having this experience of living this adventure together and going through those stressful moments and then experiencing the highs that creates the bonds, that brings people closer together. Um, I really like fundamentally believe that. And, and I think that's what makes the experience so powerful. Um, so thanks for sharing, you know, the, the whole experience. Um, I really app appreciate that and I think it's be super valuable for people. So Yeah, likewise. And, and same to you. And it, it really is. Yeah. That it's more of that is needed. Uh, that's, that would be in that one piece of advice to give to other people, right. Is that, to have that mentor, to have those people and community like you are talking about. And if I can make myself available to help anybody else, uh, happy to do that, but to understand the highs and the lows and to have some concept to contextualize that. Mm-hmm. You're going to have a passage at some point that is uncomfortable. Know it, love that word. Right. Like, know, know what that means. Yeah. Know that you know, you, you say everything on the bro on the boat is broken. You just don't know it yet. Yeah. Right. Yeah. I had, I don't have a context in my life. For what that means. Right. And being okay with that. So anyway, so not to ramble on, but to contextualize this experience and de-stress the things that can be de-stressed, well just make it a, you don't need, you don't need to take that sort of Darwinian, uh, if it doesn't kill you, it makes you stronger sort of thing. It's just, uh, yeah. Right. We you're risking a lot. You're risking a lot. Yeah. That, that's a very risky way to do it. You're throwing, you know, you're throwing everything on black and, and praying. So there's an easier, there is an easier way. Very much. Yeah. Awesome. Awesome. Well, well, yeah. Thank, thanks again, Brent, for, for hopping on. Um, appreciate it and, uh, for everybody that listened. Um, thanks guys for listening to this episode of, of the Blue Art Cuisine Podcast. Um, If you guys do want some help as you're getting started, just check out our website, www.bluewatercruising.com. There's a ton of free resources on the site for you. Um, and if you ever wanna have a chat with myself or any, anyone of our, our Bluewater Cruising crew, there's a link on the site to schedule a free call with us. Um, happy to chat with you guys about your plans, what you wanna get into. So, um, thanks again, uh, Brent, and thank you guys for listening. And we will see you guys, uh, on the next one next month. Take care, everybody.