Why I Decided To Quit Life And Travel The World With My Ukulele
Outline:
My quest for an unconventional life
Who is Trippy the Traveling Ukulele?
Analyzing the market and looking for opportunities
Doing soul searching and changing paths (from Data Science to Travel)
What I hope my legacy will be
The marketing/branding strategy that I will employ
I’ve never been interested in living a conventional life.
Many years ago, I got a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to take a trip around the world. I visited 13 countries in the span of13 weeks, across 5 continents. In hindsight, this was an overly ambitious itinerary. But I didn’t care, because I was excited beyond belief to be let loose onto the world: I had just gotten divorced and had just left my position of co-founder at a successful startup, which while exciting and challenging, left me burned out and questioning my purpose in life.
The trip was everything I could have hoped for. And one of the most enduring lessons I got was that you really do carry your own weather with you. When I was sad, it didn’t matter that I was staring at the most beautiful sunset in Santorini, Greece; I still felt sad. And when I felt happy it didn’t matter that I was stranded in Abu Dhabi because the flight I bought tickets for, apparently didn’t exist; I still felt happy. Like many first-time travelers and digital nomads, I hoped the trip would clarify my vision of the future and give me some sort of direction and meaning. It did no such thing. Instead, it broadened my options, which is not always a good thing when you’re already feeling confused.
When I came back to the US after my travels, a recruiter got me an interview with several companies, and I eventually took a position with Cisco, as a Marketing Executive for one of their internal “innovation” teams. It was a challenging job that was full of promising opportunities, but I couldn’t help but wonder about my trip, and the effect that travel can have on our culture and each of us as individuals. I got to explore a little bit of that theme in my TEDx talk “What Can Travel Teach You About Empathy?”.
Eventually I ended up making short animated videos about social and political issues. The videos were very successful and allowed me to travel the world full time. I got to make videos for The New York Times and for major US presidential campaigns. I’ve been lucky to have been able to work remotely while traveling around the world for over 10 years. And as of 2022, I decided to double down on travel as a main source of income and life experiences, and this is where Trippy The Traveling Ukulele comes in.
Who is Trippy the Traveling Ukulele?
Trippy is a mid-price-range Flight Ukulele, that I got while living in Barcelona. While I was brainstorming travel ideas that would be fun and unique, I realized that combining music and travel would be an interesting project with global appeal. One my major influences is Anthony Bourdain. I loved the way he used food and cuisine to open a window into culture and social issues. I wondered what it would look like to attempt to do the same with music, and that’s basically the main goal of this project: to open a window into the world’s cultures, through music and art.
Trippy is a symbolic vehicle that will help open opportunities to mingle with musicians and artists around the world. I hope to interview and document interesting musicians and artists via this project, and achieve the quest of helping this little ukulele become the world’s 1st musical instrument to play music in every country.
What’s the plan?
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Back when I was a Marketing Executive at Cisco, I would spend most of my time day dreaming about traveling the world. I only lasted 1 year at that job, which was a great position, just not fulfilling for my free spirit.
I’ve been working remotely for over 10 years, and in that time I’ve lived and worked from over 30 countries in 5 continents. This is going to be a great story of redemption, with an inspiring arc that will leave you wanting more. It will also leave you inspired and moved, and hopefully, you’ll decide to follow me on Instagram, which is apparently extremely important for my success. Seriously, it’s a little nuts how important the success of “Trippy” on Instagram will affect the success of this project.
That’s one thing that a lot of people miss: the work required to be successful. It’s like that book success, where it takes years to build something, then the success takes equally as long to enjoy (hopefully), but it’s not flash in the pan, because the product wasn’t flash in the pan. That’s my aim here, to create a legacy that I can be proud of, and one that can survive whatever conflicts are coming our way. Climate change, political instability, economic collapse are all things that truly worry me in the back of my mind, and also the front. But, the show must go on, as they say.
Now, I haven’t written in so long that I truly (that’s the second time I use the word) don’t have a sense for how long I’ve written. I used to be able to feel it and have a pretty good guess as to the word count. Right now, I have no idea, and all I know is that it looks very short. But anyways, back to the main idea: I started this project because I want to have an impact, and I want wealth and fame to go along with it. And at the risk of sounding as cringy as my old notebooks, I continue on this path trying and attempting to make something meaningful happen.
I have to show them, time and time again.
It’s frustrating that people don’t really know what I’ve done or what I’m capable of. I have to show them, time and time again. But I like this travel niche, because it’ll be sticky and interesting and I like the idea of people associating those thoughts with my brand.
The last rebrand
I once wrote an article called The Last Rebrand. The idea was that this was it. I wasn’t going to change up my shit again. Little did I know. I guess now I won’t make the same claim, but I truly wonder if I’ll ever get to a point where I’ll be fully satisfied with whatever I’m doing, so much so that I continue to do it for the rest of my life. It’s fun to write, and I do miss it. I like the solitude of it, as well as the empowerment of it. The idea that all I need is my thoughts on text and then an outlet. Only a laptop and my hands for equipment, and I’m set. I can conquer the world, make a living, change a life, just with my thoughts and words.
Well, I think this is probably good enough for a test post. If I has to guess, I would say I’m at about 450 words. Let’s see where I’m truly (again that word) at. 588! Not bad. Insert shrugging emoji :-)
