Episode 07: Your Life Needs A Quest—Even A Small One

In this conversation, Brent and Rob explore the theme of adventures and personal growth, discussing their experiences with travel and the importance of stepping out of comfort zones. They share stories about climbing Colorado's 14ers, the challenges of planning big adventures like summiting Kilimanjaro, and the insights gained from cultural experiences. The discussion also emphasizes the value of micro-adventures and how small changes in routine can lead to significant personal growth.

Topics we are covering in this episode:

• Adventures contribute significantly to personal growth.

• Planning for big adventures requires careful consideration and preparation.

• Cultural experiences can provide valuable insights into different lifestyles.

• Micro-adventures can be easily integrated into daily life.

• Traveling can change your perspective on abundance and happiness.

• It's important to embrace the unknown when traveling.

• Finding joy in simplicity can lead to personal transformation.

• Small changes in routine can enhance everyday experiences.

• Adventure is about stepping out of your comfort zone.

 Transcript:

 Transcript Disclaimer - May contain the occasional confusing, inaccurate, or unintentionally funny transcription moment. It’s all part of the show.

Lena: Remember when adventure meant grabbing your bike and seeing how far you could ride before dinner? In this episode of Midlife Circus, Brent and Rob unpack why grown-up life needs a little more of that and a little less autopilot. They share epic quests, tiny detours, and the power of doing something that makes you feel slightly ridiculous. It's not about being wild. It's about being awake.

Let's get into your life needs a quest, even a small one.

Brent: Today, we're going to talk about adventures, Rob. And as we get into this, what was the last adventurous thing that you did that made you feel slightly ridiculous?

Rob: So part of this of what I'm going to share made me feel ridiculous. So I think, Brent, you know Tara and I finished climbing all of the Colorado Fourteeners this year, something we've been trying to get done for a long time. In fact, think we're, like, fifteen or sixteen years just knocking off a couple of them. And probably the stupidest thing we did in in the fourteeners is we left the really hard ones for the end. So the ones that had the most exposure, that were probably a little sketchy, maybe a little more dangerous.

We left those till the end. And I really wish we had done those when I was in my thirties. Maybe when I was a little bit stronger, a little more self confident, or just unaware of the risk that I was assuming. And, we did Capitol Peak about a week and a half ago. And Capitol Peak is known for its famous knife's edge, and it literally is like an a knife's edge that goes along for maybe about 25, 30 yards, but it goes along and it drops off sheer on both sides of this edge.

And so the ridiculous part is Tara was in front of me, and she just scrambled right across pretty quick. And, unfortunately, she scrambled across pretty quick because I was pretty close to wanting to turn around. And I've never been bit worried about doing anything like this. Heights have never bothered me at all. But I found myself straddling this knife's edge between my legs and going across on my hands and knees on all fours across this thing.

And it's not at the top. It's actually kind of a third of the way from the top. And so not only do you have to go across it once, you get to go across it twice. Because once you go across, then you go up to the top, you summit, you come down. And so the whole time up to the summit, I was thinking about it.

The whole time down, I was thinking about it. And so the foolish part for me was just being on my hands and knees crawling across this section of rock on a 14 or something I've never had to do before. Heights have never bothered me. And I was, crawling across while Tara just, you know, very quickly scrambled across. So a little bit of my male ego was impacted by that, for the first time in a really long time.

Brent: We saw your pictures on Instagram. Yeah. And I literally got read the riot act from my wife. Like, why don't they have ropes? What are they doing?

What happens if they fall? And I'm like, I wasn't there. I've never done it. I know nothing about it.

Rob: So she was blaming you for the for what we were doing.

Brent: Well, she was just so nervous for you guys. And then she's asking me all these questions that I didn't have answers to. And she's like, well, where's the ropes? Where is this? And I'm like, I don't even know where they're at.

Rob: So there was a guide company there, and they had their guests on ropes, which made it look a lot better. And in hindsight, as I watched the guide service go across, it probably wasn't as sketchy and as difficult as I put it in my own mind. And so having a rope would have made it a little bit more comfortable. Having a guide take us across would have been a little bit more comfortable. But, yeah, live a little bit, put a little bit of risk out there.

We made it. We're very happy to get done with that one and not ever have to do it again. And no, I won't go up with a friend. Someone says, hey. I want to climb Capitol Peak.

You want to go with me? No. Nope. Enjoy that one on your own. You're more than welcome to go do it.

I'll give you all the insight to go do it, but I'm not going to do it again.

Brent: So for people to get a better understanding, when you said you've completed all the fourteeners in Colorado, that's 14,000 foot peaks or higher. How many are there?

Rob: 58 as we count them. So there's anywhere between fifty-four and fifty-eight. There's a couple that some people don't count. They don't think it's quite a far enough drop through a saddle to get to the next one between two peaks. So they call it one fourteen or not two in that area.

We count 58 of them across the entire state in the Rockies. We typically would do one, two to three to four in a year. This year, we did seven of them to try and get them all knocked out this year, and I'm very happy about that. This was more of Tara's thing to try and do the fourteeners. I was along for the ride and, very happy that we're done doing them now.

Brent: It's very cool that you've done it. I did one with you guys last year.

Rob: Yeah. That's right.

Brent: And I was out ton of fun, And I did three when I was a kid as a boy scout. It's cool to see you guys following through with this. And it's a huge commitment because some of these are harder to get to. Some of them, as you said, are very technically challenging. Some of them are, you can drive to the top.

Rob: Yeah, a couple you can drive or ride a train all the way up to the top. There's some easy

Brent: ones and we didn't

Rob: count those. If we took the train, we didn't count that. We actually had to hike it.

Brent: Very, very cool. Yeah. So as we transition to today's conversation, it's really about adventures. And when we want to talk about adventures is there's two key takeaways for today's discussion. One is, adventures are a big part of growth.

And it's important that we're challenging ourselves to try new things. The second part is, as we age, the importance of movement is really important. So what are you doing to get outside? And sometimes adventures can be inside or outside, but it's all about that movement. So as we get into this conversation, I thought it'd be a bit humorous because you and I met on an adventure.

We did. So this was several years ago. And I actually want you to share with everybody your first impressions of me because this is truly priceless. And I hear it from you all the time when you explain it to others. So why don't you explain to others how we first met and what were we doing?

Rob: That's a fun question. Yeah. So we met at a dinner party. The night before we were supposed to go helicopter skiing down near Telluride, Colorado. So a friend of ours was having her I think it was her fortieth birthday party, and she, she invited a group of friends to go helicopter skiing.

We showed up out in Telluride, and then met you for the first time over dinner that night. And I think I sat maybe not directly next to you, maybe across the table, and I thought you were an ass. Pardon my language, but you weren't engaging with anybody. You were just sitting there too cool for any of us at this table. You answer a question, but you're pretty quiet all night.

And this group that we're with, they're loud. We're really loud. We're laughing. People are crying at the table. They're laughing so hard.

Belly laughs like you cannot believe. And here's Brent sitting over there just looking at everybody, kind of with a sullen face, flat face, not making eye contact, not really engaging with anybody, not asking a lot of questions, participating. And so I left that dinner saying, wow, thank God I'm not in the helicopter with him. And I got paired up with another couple, friends of ours, and didn't have to ride with you in the helicopter all day because I thought you were just a big ass.

Brent: And so how was I the next day? Then we'll go back to the reasoning why I was in that state. But how was I the next day? Did I make up?

Rob: Day. Yeah. You made up for it the next day. I'm like, oh, yeah. Okay.

Yeah. He's okay. I did still we didn't spend a lot of time together the next day. We had a little bit together. Your wife was pretty cool.

I think that was the first time I'd ever met Carolyn. She was awesome. But and you were better the next day. Yeah. Go ahead.

Do you want to tell them why you're why you're a little bit off that day?

Brent: Yes. Because I have to redeem myself on this one. So I was, at the time I was working for this large global organization and they were in the mining industry. And I had spent the week in Peru at one of their mine sites. And it's actually quite challenging to get to this mine site.

So my return was mine site Lima overnight flight to Denver, Denver to Telluride. But then my flight from Denver to Telluride was rerouted to this remote town because the Telluride Airport was closed for weather. So then I had to take a shuttle bus up. So I had been traveling for, I think, thirty six straight hours, very little sleep. And so I was just a zombie when I showed up, and I didn't have much to offer to myself, to others.

And that's not my normal style, but that was the only way we could pull off this trip was just basically suck it up, Brent. We're going to go with our friends. We're meeting new people, but we always wanted to try heli-skiing. And so I showed up to dinner, literally a mess. I was so exhausted, you know, overnight flights and all that.

So that is my excuse, Rob. I know I set such a beautiful first impression for you and the crew, but hopefully in the years since I've recovered from.

Rob: You've definitely redeemed yourself. And I'd heard that you'd been traveling, didn't quite know the extent of your traveling. But Brent was, you know, this big executive flying in to join us, go to go skiing for the weekend and then didn't engage with us at dinner. You definitely have reinvented that impression of you. Absolutely.

Yeah. And I got to know the real Brent, is nice.

Brent: Well, thank you very much. Let's jump into a part of this conversation is to do this comparisons. In previous episodes, we've talked about how to learn and the importance of learning. You introduced Rob's 50 Things to Learn in Your 50s. And so that was something really interesting because you talked about when you're learning something that might take several months, it could take several years.

So if you're learning a new language and you specifically highlighted learning Spanish, and it might take you ten years to really get to a point where you feel comfortable conversationally. But this is a little bit different. This is about adventures. So could you talk a little bit about the difference between the learning aspect of what we've talked about in the past and doing adventures, both big and small, just to kind of level set for everybody?

Rob: So the learning piece is really developing a skill set or an acumen to be able to do something that I currently can't do. So learning Spanish, as you mentioned, is something that's going to take multiple years to try and accomplish. So it's a it's a lot more mental in this in terms of what I'm trying to do from a learning standpoint. There are some physical challenges I want to learn how to do some things physically. But if somebody's going to end up challenging me challenging me in the mind a little bit more than just having an experience in doing something.

And so when I think of adventures, I think of adventures as an activity or something that you go and do. It's an experience to go and have, so it's something you get to go experience. It's something that changes you. It may be really short and small and pretty quick. It could be an extended experience that changes you a little bit as well.

And it doesn't have to be that big of a deal of a change even. Micro change that you experience from an adventure is something that I seek out and look forward to. Something Tara and I have actually had a list going since we were back in college. When we met in college, we started putting this list together of things that would be fun to go and do. And so consistently, we're adding things to the list and hopefully checking off a handful every year.

Brent: For you and Tara, I find that of all of my friends, you're the most adventurous, and it's something that you put a lot of effort into. So I want to start really big and then we're going to get down to the micro because you do a good job of filtering in and factoring in different types of adventures. But I want to start big because I want you to share your process on how you approach a big adventure. And then I want you to think we'll get really, really, really small where it might be just something that is about an hour long. Recently, within the last year, I think it was, you guys hiked Mount Kilimanjaro in Africa.

Can you talk a little bit about why you chose to do that, when you chose to do it, and overall your process for preparing for that trip? Because it's a big endeavor.

Rob: We added Kilimanjaro to the list after we had gotten back from a hiking trip to the base camp of Mount Everest. So I just listed two pretty major hiking type of events. And really it was we saw the tip of Mount Everest, and we'd heard Kilimanjaro is one of the highest seven summits that anybody can go and climb and do. You don't need any skill. I know I talked about a fourteener earlier today.

Those fourteeners are significantly more technical than hiking Kilimanjaro. So we just put it on the list. Kilimanjaro, I think, and hiking Kilimanjaro had been on the list. In fact, we want to do two to three of the highest seven summits in the world on each continent. So it's a seven summits.

So the highest peak on every continent in the world. We want to do two of them. And Kilimanjaro was one of them, and I've heard it's the easiest one to go and do. And so the first step was just putting on the list, not knowing when and if we'd actually ever be able to do it, but we added it to the list. And then as Tara and I start thinking about our travel and as I think about our big travel, we start planning travel out a year, two, three years in advance of things that we might go and do.

We don't start scheduling it until about a year out, but we start putting together kind of multiple year kind of forecasting of what are some of the big, big, big adventures we want to have in our lives. Put on the calendars, we'll start thinking through and planning, is this an opportunity for us to do it two or three years from today? And so Kilimanjaro hit our list actually as something to go and do a few years ago, and it was a friend of ours wanted to go climb Kilimanjaro for her fiftieth birthday. And so she called us and asked if we'd be interested in going. We said yes.

We're always in to go have an adventure with somebody else. So we put it on our list and, and started building out a plan to go there. Now this was back in 2020, and the trip got canceled due to COVID. So we had it all planned out, paid for. We were going to be leaving in August, and we ended up having to cancel the trip due to COVID.

And so we had a couple deposits down. Tara and I were looking at forecasting out what other trips we might take in the future and decided that this trip was something that we wanted to actually go and do. And so spend a week climbing Kilimanjaro and plan that section of the trip out. So what gear do we need, which we have most of anyway. What guide services would we use to take us to the top of Kilimanjaro because you have to take a guide.

And then what would we do after we climb? So once you fly all the way to Kilimanjaro or fly all the way to Tanzania, we didn't want to just be there for a week and climb Kilimanjaro and then fly home. What else would we want to do while we're there? And so we started tagging on other experiences to that Africa trip.

Brent: What was some of the highlights of the other experiences? Because you've shared with me about Kilimanjaro, and I think you guys got to the top of the weather. It was pretty bad. Right? So it was just like, the quick pick and move on and go back down.

Rob: Yeah. It was snowing at the top of Kilimanjaro. We went from being in shorts and T shirts on our first day of the climb to wearing every piece of puffy gear and thermal insulation that we had at the very top, and it was ice storm sideways. So it was blowing wind when we got to the top, and my jacket was coated in ice, at the very peak.

Brent: What about other things that you did on that trip?

Rob: So we added on a couple safaris. That's one the things Tara and I have always done is typically when we do a big adventure trip like this, we'll put the hard part of the trip or the more roughing it part of the trip at the beginning. So for climbing Kilimanjaro, we were sleeping in tents. We were eating camp meals and camp food. Now there's a chef that prepares all of it for you, but we're doing a lot of physical activity.

We're not eating all that great. It's good, but not great. And you're sleeping in tents on the ground. And typically what we'll do is we'll rough it for part of the trip, usually beginning of the trip. And then at the end of our trip, we do a little bit more posh and opulent and relaxing.

So we did a couple of safaris. We saw parts of the great migration and moved around Tanzania watching the great migration, staying at luxury safari glamping locations and tent locations where five star meals, Brent. I had some of the best food I've had in my life at some of these restaurants, sitting in a pool and watching elephants walk by in the savannah, driving around in a car. And, you know, it's, it's 02:00 in the afternoon, and the vehicle we have, this truck that we're driving around, has a coolers between Tara and my seats, and I could pop the cooler open and crack a beer and just sit there and drink a beer watching the elephants wander through and the zebras and the wildebeest and go follow lions through the through the, through the savannah. So that was the second part of our trip, was a relaxing portion of the trip where we just chilled, watched animals, and drove around enjoying the sights.

Brent: One of the themes of today is to talk about growth. What's neat about that trip is you did two things, different. One of them was more of the movement aspect, which was the hiking to some at the peak of Kilimanjaro. But then you also have this other side is growth. Talk about what you learned.

When you think about growth, you got to experience multiple different cultures and different food and probably met a lot of really interesting people. But talk about the importance of the growth aspect. And I'm talking about like human growth, like learning new things. Any key takeaways there or anything you can share on that side?

Rob: On the hike up to the top of Kilimanjaro, there were a number of other guests that had paid for that trip. And hiking and climbing Kilimanjaro is an experience you can just pay to go and do. Yes. There is a physical aspect to it, but you anybody, I believe, can train to get ready to go climb that mountain. It's just it's hiking.

And I think our longest day was six or seven miles, so it's something that people can build their way up to. So meeting some of the other travelers, some of their tourists that were there on the trip, and understanding what their life scenario was like, our group was all American, and we went on other trips like this where we were the only Americans on the group. So we met this twenty five year old on this trip, and we were talking about how we came about scheduling this this guide service, and I went through a referral. I know someone that has climbed all of the seven summits. He's been up to the top of Mount Everest.

I reached out to him and just asked, hey. We're going to climb Kilimanjaro. What guide service would you recommend? And he suggested the one we actually used. I asked this 25 year old how he came up upon this, guide service, and he said chat GPT.

He did his entire vacation using chat, and I'd never heard of that before. Never thought about using AI to help plan a vacation. Now I've since started using it to help plan vacations, but it was just kind of a unique thing to learn while we were hiking is that somebody had planned it in a totally different way than what I would have ever planned it on before. I'd say another learning is just traveling through and just getting used to seeing how other people live. And it's not necessarily a bad life.

It's a different life. And that's some of the things that have changed me. This is our third time to the African continent. And each time, I end up just taking on a lot more just perspective in my own life, how blessed we are, how much more we have in our own lives, but it doesn't mean that they're not. And really being comfortable that I might be uncomfortable with what I'm seeing, but the people here have a great life, and they're very happy, and they're healthy, and they're actually okay.

It's just a different lifestyle. And each time we go back, I get to experience that over and over again.

Brent: That's one of my favorite parts of traveling international is understanding and getting into the different cultures, but seeing how people live and trying to avoid the comparison between how I live and how they live, but to see what are the smiles that they have? What makes them engaging? And what are their curiosities versus trying to create this comparison of, well, look at their home and they don't have running water. They also have a lot of other things that we don't have.

Rob: Absolutely.

Brent: And so it's humbling, but it's also really part of just my own personal growth is just to see others in their environment. And they look at my environment sometimes and go, I could never survive where you live and what you do, because you've got these different pressures that we don't have. And so it's cool to see that when you're when you're traveling the world just to see different cultures and so forth.

Rob: Our first trip to the continent, we were in Zimbabwe. And while we were there, this is going back maybe fifteen years ago now, there had some food shortages going Now while where we stay, we never realized that. If you go to a restaurant, the restaurant would say, you know, here are the four things we have on the menu tonight. It wasn't the entire menu. It was only four items from the menu.

But there was a food shortage. Now everybody had enough food. There just wasn't enough variety in the food. So the variety of the food was not there, and the quantity may be a little bit leaner than what you and I are accustomed to. And coming home from that trip, we land in Denver at the airport.

We're on our way back home and had to stop at Costco to get groceries because we'd been gone for two and a half weeks. And I walked into Costco and I started crying because of the abundance that I saw that's on the shelves at Costco versus where I had just left. And so that's one of those experiences that changed me just seeing it. Now it wasn't bad where I was at. They were all they all had enough food to eat, so I wasn't in a really impoverished area where their hunger was a real problem.

But just seeing the excess that we had here and comparing it there, it actually changed me quite a bit.

Brent: Wow. Yeah. When you see that, you know, food shortage, it's just such a different experience. And I've seen it a few times as well in my travels where you're looking going, wow, we've got a pretty good. So you have to sometimes look around and say, what's our first world problem that we're trying to navigate right now?

Exactly. We'll transition from Africa, and we're going to come back to North America within The United States, is you had a goal of hitting some of the top summits on each continent. But I've also heard one of your goals, this one actually was really funny when you were sharing some of your experiences, so you can talk a little bit about it, is to go to the highest point in each of the 50 states. So how did that come about? And tell us about your progress.

Rob: Every state, there is the highest elevation altitude in that state. Tara and I like to go hiking. We like to climb mountains if we're in an area. If there's an easy hike to go and do or a mountain we can go and climb, we'll try and go do it. And so a few years ago, we hiked to the top of Mount Whitney, which is the highest mountain in the Lower 48 States.

And so we climbed to the top of that one. We climbed to the top of Mount Hood before, and that was just because we lived in Portland. That's what people did. It's like, hey. Let's go climb a glacier.

Let's go climb to the top of Mount Hood. And we were doing a road trip on our way out to go canoe the boundary waters. And on our drive to this, to this area in Northern Minnesota, we're looking at the map, and the map said the highest point of Iowa was some for some reason, showed up on Google Maps, and we're going to drive right by it. So we're driving on this two lane highway, and we pulled off to the side of the road to see this plaque on the ground as the highest altitude in in Iowa. It was a roadside pull off, Brent.

And we're looking at this ground like, wow. And you look around like this is the highest point. It's in the middle of a farmer's field almost. And so this is the highest point in Iowa. That's kind of weird.

And so on that drive, we started talking about, hey. How many states have we been to the highest point of? So we'd already been to the top of the one in Colorado. We've been to the top of the one in California. We've been to the top of the one in Oregon.

At some time, we had actually been in South Dakota. We just went for a hike, lo and behold, we actually climbed to the highest point in South Dakota. Didn't know it at the time because it was just a hill. And so we started counting. Like, wait a sec.

We've been to, like, five of these things. This is kind of fun. Let's what's the other one? And lo and behold, we're driving into Minnesota. We're going to drive right by the High Point, Minnesota, which was a three mile hike in from this trailhead on our drive just outside of Duluth, Minnesota.

We hiked into the top of the highest point in Minnesota. And so now we just added if we're kind of in an area, we'll say, hey. Where's the highest point? Can we go and see it? And some of them are really goofy.

They're roadside attractions. It's a plaque on the side of the road. Some of them are in state parks. One of them is going to be like an overpass in one of the states. One in Nebraska is in the middle of this farm field.

You drive gravel roads for, like, an hour to get out to the middle of this farmer's field, and he has a little, little stand out there, a little plaque and a statue to recognize the highest point in Nebraska.

Brent: Do you sometimes with Tara as you're, you know, going out to get to the highest point, just laugh at each other going, why are we doing this?

Rob: Every time. Every time we laugh. Danner, our dog, has been to a bunch of them. So when you get to the top of these things, they actually have some of them have like a little book you can sign, and so I only signed Danner in the book. Danner, this is my sixth one.

He's made like six or seven of them now. And so we sign him in as the person or the dog that has been to that highest point. And every time we laugh, we giggle every time we're going to some of these things.

Brent: That's just part of being a human. Like laugh at some of the things that we sign up for. We've all been on adventures. Sometimes you get to it and you're like, did I just do that? Was that really that cool?

Rob: Did I sign up for all of these? Yes.

Brent: Or sometimes you're like, did I just pay for that? But you have to push yourself and that's part of this midlife experience is if you want to grow, go grow and get out there and learn new things and try new things. And part of this is you've just keep highlighting this movement idea is how do we keep moving? You can go hiking, sometimes you can go get on a bicycle. Like my mom is an example.

When she was probably in her sixties, she got really into doing what's called bike and barge trips over in Europe. And they would bike 30 miles a day, pretty casual biking, It wasn't a big endeavor. They would go to different wineries and she would have a blast doing that kind of stuff. And it was all combining the experience of seeing new sites with a bit of physical activity. And for her, it was trying something new.

It was really cool how she did it. So what for you, let's go now down to the micro, because we've talked the big trip, and you've done huge trips all over the world. And we've talked about, even you and I doing the hell scheme, that was pretty big, that was fun to do. And then we've talked about some of the smaller adventures, which is maybe going to some of these highest points in The Americas in each state. But let's talk about something that's really simple is a micro adventure.

And talk to us about your thinking around micro adventures and how you integrate them into things that you do on a regular basis.

Rob: Micro adventures, I think, are the little things you can just go and do pretty easily without putting a lot of thought to it. Sometimes there are things that just land on your lap. You didn't know it was available until you got there. And so taking the time to go and do it is pretty easy to go and do, or you might have to make a quick adjustment to your calendar to be able to go and do what I would say is a micro adventure. I think of a micro adventure as something that lasts less than one day.

Often, it's maybe just a couple hours, half of a day, or a quarter of a day. And there's little experiences that are out of the norm. It takes you a little bit out of your comfort zone to do something a little bit out of the norm. And so, Brent, when I was working, I had a lot of micro adventures that I would do. So a couple examples of these is, I know I went to tons of different conferences.

And while I was at conferences, there was usually a half day where nothing was going on, and everybody just sat around the pool and drank. And I'd done that a bunch, You know, go to have a couple cocktails, hang out in the pool, chat with people, have fun, laugh, and joke. But also realize that I'm in a location that's a little bit different for me, and I might be able to have a different experience. And so a couple of adventures I had while I was working at these conferences, instead of going and sitting by the pool for an afternoon, a coworker and I rented Harley Davidson's and drove around South Carolina for an afternoon. So I think we got four hours on Harley's driving around South Carolina, had some of the best barbecue I've ever had in my life was a roadside barbecue stand, and got back in time for dinner at this conference.

I've done a couple of those as I as I think through what experiences do I want to have, what can I what unique thing can I go and do in this area? But it doesn't have to be traveling to another location. Here in about our backyard, a micro adventure would be going on a hike on a trail that I've never been on before or going and running someplace that's been a little bit different. And I know when you were training for your Xterra, you were up running in an area that we typically don't go and visit. It's a little far away, and we have so much out of backyard.

So you got to experience micro adventures of running on trails you typically never get to go and run on. What was that like for you?

Brent: It was incredible. My wife is a potter and she does a farmer's market in Vail every Sunday during the summer months. And so I go and I help her set up and I usually will bring my bike or my running shoes. But one time I did this combination where I rode to the top of Vail, which was really cool. And then I did this trail that's called the Grand Traverse.

It's four miles each way. So it's just an out and back. It was amazing. And it wouldn't have been something that I normally would do because as you said, I usually just bike from my backyard, run from my backyard or in the neighborhood we're in. So I did this and the views were stunning.

And what was really cool about that adventure was I got to see parts of Vail Mountain that I've only seen on skis in the winter. So now to see it just lush green and just these fields and how the pine trees just look different in the summer months versus the winter months, it's just spectacular. It's just a mini adventure and it all was just about pulling up an app and saying, where could I go today? And that was zero cost, which was even cooler. Like I didn't have to pay any money to do that.

I was already in bail and I just started riding my bike and then ran and figured out the water thing and the nutrition thing and made it all work. It was fantastic.

Rob: You don't have to be in the mountains or out in the wilderness to actually have micro adventures or these little mini things to go and do. Tara and I, a few years ago, we were in New York City and decided to walk across the Brooklyn Bridge. We just kept walking. And I didn't realize that out in Brooklyn, there's, like, subdivision neighborhoods with front lawns and backyards and grass and had no clue that was there. And we just went wandering around Brooklyn because we had an afternoon available and decided, hey.

Let's just go do something we normally wouldn't do. Let's go wander around. Now we ended up having some of the best pizza I've ever had in my life too at the end of this walk and took the train back to our hotel. But you can do it in a city. You can go for a run-in an area you haven't been in before or go for a walk or just go explore something that is out of what your norm would be.

It pushes your comfort zone a little bit more to go and do something that is something you have never done before or never experienced before. We had an experience of wandering through a whole different area in New York that I ever would have known existed just because we decided, hey. Let's just go for a walk through this area and see what it looks like.

Brent: It's interesting you say New York, because I had the opportunity to, when I was a management consultant, I had a client in New York. And what I did is I typically bring my running shoes on any work trip and I create a mini adventure any place I go. I always want to carve out one to two hours. And that's one way that I saw New York is I would actually run different places. So I'd go up to Central Park and I ran around the park.

I ran across the Brooklyn Bridge. I went over to Battery Park. I mean, all these places that I just explored on foot. And that was really unique experience for me because I'd never lived in a big city like that. So that's a new experience in itself and just the magnitude of people.

But there's times a day that it's just amazing to do that, where you're with people that are out running and like Central Park is spectacular to run it. It's a spectacle is one thing. There's a lot of people doing a lot of things and there's some people you're like, wow, that's very interesting what you're doing. But it's also really geared towards activity, which I love. And I've done that in so many different cities where I get to explore some of what that city has to offer.

And what I would say is today's technology, there's no excuse. Like there's so many ways that you can explore a new place at zero cost. Whether you're using your favorite app, whether you're using chat, whether you're using Google, it doesn't matter. It's at your fingertips. It's amazing how quickly you can get, if you're into getting into the wilderness, anywhere you go, you can get into the wilderness pretty quickly.

Now, some international cities, I steer away from that because I just don't know it well enough and I'm careful there. But a lot of the cities in The United States, you can steer away from the areas that are probably not the best from a safety perspective, But it's just it's at your fingertips. Go do it.

Rob: Absolutely. And chat, you mentioned using chat. We're having an upcoming trip that we're planning to go to Iceland this winter. And I use chat and actually just asked it to come up with all the different unique experiences we could have while we're in Iceland. And so it came up with a laundry list of things.

So I had to go do more research on what they actually were, but any town, you could do that using chat to say, are some unique experiences that we can go and have in this area? And it can provide a list for you. Not all the things have to be physical, though, too, Brent. I mean, I'm talking about walking. Some of the things that we've done actually are very little physical activities.

Like, we were in Vegas with some friends, and, Tara and I decided that we wanted to go drive excavators. I don't if you ever driven an excavator before.

Brent: Sounds fun.

Rob: I'm going back to, like, a kid with a Tonka truck. Think about the Tonka trucks in your backyard moving dirt around and things like that. Well, you can actually drive and use an excavator in Las Vegas. You got to pay for it. Take a taxi out.

It was just off the strip, and you get to dig a big hole with an excavator. That's all I did was just I kept digging as deep and as big of a hole as I could. Now at the end of it, they ask you, like, pick up a basketball using the excavator so you're using it and turning it around and spinning it and things like that. But, it was just fun to go out and pretend I was a kid running a digger. It's what I used to call them.

You're using a digger for a couple hours in an afternoon. That's just something we had to pay and go do. So that was one of our micro adventures that hit was on our list because I always wanted to go and drive one. I was driving by a construction site, I don't know, thirty years ago, saying, oh, it'd be fun to drive one of those things someday. Real a real one, not a toy one, but one of the big ones.

Brent: That reminds me. I was doing college tours with one of my kids. This is a couple years ago. And we were in Alabama and we were driving up to University of Alabama and there were signs like, drive a tank. Yes.

So was, you could rent it. We didn't do it because our time was limited, but you could rent a tank for a day or half a day and go out onto this course and stuff. I'm like, that would be pretty fun.

Rob: Pretty fun. It's only a couple hours of an experience and you get to pay for going and do it, absolutely.

Brent: So let me ask you this question because this comes from me, where sometimes the big trips create anxiety because it's a lot of stuff going on. So when you're traveling to a foreign place where I'm like, Oh my gosh, I have so much to learn from a safety perspective, from a meals perspective, from a logistics perspective. Do you get anxiety as you're starting to think about some of these places? Or is it just part of your process where you do the right amount of research to lower those potential anxieties? Because I know in talking to certain people, when you mentioned, Hey, we could go do this cool thing.

We're going to go to Iceland. They're like, Oh, that's just so much work to prepare. And then they shut down. I think that's a normal common response. How do you approach these big trips to potentially reduce anxiety, or do you not get anxiety about them?

Rob: I'm at the point now, Brent, where I don't get anxiety about the trip. I get excited about the trip. Early on, it was like that, having never done that before, having never traveled international as a kid. My first international trip was after I was married. I had to get a passport after I was married.

A number of years after I was married was my first passport. And early on, it was the unknown was what scared me. I had no idea what to expect. We were going down to South America. I didn't speak any of the language, didn't know if I'd be able to communicate, didn't know what anything was like.

And so, yes, anxiety was there early on because it was an unknown that was coming up. Because I've done it a bunch of times now, that uncertainty has now become uncomfortable. So my comfort zone and my kind of boundaries have expanded to the point where the uncertainty I'm okay with the uncertainty because I if I plan around it, I'll know what to expect and how to handle it and what to do. And I'm never going to put us in a bad situation knowingly, so I'll do enough research in advance to make sure that we're not going to be in a bad situation. But we're going to leave the door open for different experiences while we're out doing something and while we're on a trip.

And we may need to change an itinerary in the middle of a trip because we want to have a different type of an experience while we're out. And so that is something that we both learned over time is that unexpected things are going to come up. We may have to pivot during a trip. And now, in fact, not may have to. We're going to have to.

I expect it's going to happen some point during these trips because it's happened almost every trip. But having done it enough, my comfort zone has expanded far enough where I'm actually okay with the unknown, and I look forward to it. In fact, it's weird. When I used to get off of planes in a foreign country, I'd be really anxious, stressed out. My heart would be racing.

You're clearing customs. You have no idea what to expect. Now I get off the plane. I walk slower. I'm more relaxed.

I'm looking around. I'm paying attention, which actually serves me really well as we're going through customs or we're getting into a new country, having to get a cab or find our driver. I relax a lot more, which actually makes it even easier to go do those things.

Brent: That's an important point, slow it down. Because if we go into this rush, rush, rush mentality, it creates its own anxiety. And it's really challenging to navigate when you're frantic. But if you can slow it down, calm it down a little bit, because going into and just navigating customs, or how am I going to get from airport to hotel or hotel to whatever the adventure might be? Slow it down a little bit because that's part of just the unwinding and just taking it all in.

I have a funny story. After college, I went with a close friend and we did the Euro rail through Europe for three months. We didn't have much of an agenda, which made it really fun, but we had this experience that I'll never forget. So we're on a train and a lot of times we would take the night trains so then we could actually take advantage of the cities during the days. And we were going from city to city and it was a long overnight train in Spain.

So we're going along, we're both sleeping and the train stops. And we're like, what's going on? And it got really frantic. And over the intercom, the shouting was going on. And essentially they stopped at a stop that was completely pitch black and they kicked every single passenger off the train and the train left.

We Yeah. Were sitting were sitting on a concrete pad. It wasn't in a city, it wasn't in a town. It was just almost like a mail stop, where they drop off mailbags. And we're like, what is going on?

This is at 01:32 in the morning. And my friend Trevor and I were like, what do we do now? And this dates us, but this was pre cell phones. So we're like, what do we do? And so we had learned that there was a train strike.

So all of the train conductors were striking and all the workers on the trains for transit were striking. So they just stopped working. And they literally kicked everybody off it in the middle of the night. And so it was us and a couple 100 other people. And all we did is I just looked at him and said, well, just find a place and lay down.

And we just laid down because we were like everybody else. Nobody knew what to do. We laid down, we woke up, we figured out where we were. We were in the middle of some middle of countryside in Spain. And eventually we figured it out.

But what you had said triggered that memory because there's going to be unknowns. It's how you respond to them. And there's strange things like that that happen. You're like, okay, well, let's just try to sleep for a few hours and then we'll figure it out.

Rob: That's a way to make a point though, if you're going to go on strike is just kick everybody off the train in the middle of the night, make people figure it out. That's a statement.

Brent: They definitely put the middle finger up to all the passengers. So we just roll with it. One of the things that I find about growth is going through experiences like that. Can you describe a trip that you've gone on where you've experienced growth that was maybe completely unexpected? Now you've talked about the nutrition or the food scarcity, but any other things come to mind?

Because this is important theme that I want to make sure people walk away with is when you go on an adventure big and small, sometimes you get growth in ways you didn't expect. And it's a surprise, and it's welcoming. So anything come to mind, big or small, the things where you've grown along the way?

Rob: The big one I have, Brent, is has become a tattoo, and it was, two trips back to back. They were a year apart, but they were, sequential. So we were in Uganda in Africa. We, were there to go see the silverback gorillas and go see all the gorillas in Uganda. We were driving through towns and villages along the way.

And in Uganda, you saw people carrying water jugs. Jerry cans is what they actually technically are. It's a big yellow plastic jug, and there's different sizes. And you see people on motorcycles with seven, eight, or nine of them, 10 of them on the back of a motorcycle. You see people walking with them in their arms, one in each arm.

You see little kids carrying small ones back from school. And they're filling them up at wells. They're filling them up on streams, and they're filling them up in the ditches on the side of the road. And we're driving through these villages, and we get to our hotel that has flush toilets. That was pretty impactful.

That an hour ago, I saw a little kid carrying a jug of water home from school because that's where the well was located was by the school. They were taking a small jug of water. And so I'm checking into a hotel that has running water flush toilets and experiencing what other people had down the road that didn't have what I had, even in their country. So that was pretty impactful just in and of itself. But while we were there and we were there in country for two weeks.

While we were there, we were wandering through villages, and we saw people that were happy, people that were very content. Right? And it was me implying my lifestyle on them as they don't have running water. But I think about this, Brandon. I was working at the time, and I saw people, and I was watching what they were doing in their day to day life.

And imagine go I'm going to go back to when you and I were in our stressful work. Right? You and I, we're not doing our stressful job. All we have to do today is you and I get to go walk a mile and get water. That's our entire day.

That's actually a pretty beautiful day in and of itself. We get to walk. We get to talk. We get to hang out. Right?

We're going getting water. But I didn't want to transfer my impression of what people should and shouldn't have onto them and be able to be present in the experience and say they had plenty of food. There was clean water available. Well, they had to walk for it, but there's a beauty in the simplicity of that life too that I don't need to fix and change myself. So it was one of the things that changed me there.

We also then went to Cambodia a year later, saw something similar, and that's ended causing up me to get a jerrycan tattoo on my arm. It's my life is pretty good. My life is very good. I have running water, and learn to love the simplicity. There's a beauty and simplicity in life too.

That's what it kind of transferred into me and changed me quite a bit.

Brent: Thanks for sharing that. It's amazing when you get to see things that just trigger a response that you got in the sense of maybe today's journey is just going to get water, but then you see, I've been in similar situations where I've seen that. And you watch the kids playing along the way and just having a good time. They know what they need to do, what the goal of it is, but they make the best of it. And they're smiling along the way.

Rob: They're having fun.

Brent: They're having fun.

Rob: They're not on online. They're not on Instagram. They're not on YouTube. They're not playing video games. They're having fun, which is different.

Brent: Yeah. Thanks for sharing that. So when we think about today's conversation, and I want you to leave our listeners with the takeaway and talk about the importance of growth and the learning aspect that comes with taking on new adventures, big and small. So we've taken people to the top of Kilimanjaro all the way down to just doing small adventures in your own backyard. Whether it's a short hike or a walk or just exploring maybe in a museum or something like that.

But what would be a takeaway to get somebody encouraged or motivated to go on a micro adventure? How do you encourage somebody just to go try it?

Rob: What I would say, Brent, is comfort is like watching Saturday morning cartoons as we were growing up. And growth happens and adventure happens similar to when we quit watching cartoons, got on our BMX bikes, and drove rode our bicycles out of the neighborhood. The excitement that was there. And so it might feel uncomfortable to start doing something like this. I'd say go back to our childhood because every day was an adventure as we were kids.

And how can you begin to go and recreate that for yourself again? So go leave the block. Go do something that you wouldn't normally go and do. Stop and be present in that moment and have awe. Get to go experience awe in the exact moment of something that is unique and different for you.

But it's taking the first step. Trying something small. Every area every area in this country has small little things that somebody can go and do that are out that's out of their norm, whether it be small hike to a a major event, like going to Comic Con if you're in a major city and going experiencing that show, which is an incredible show. It's you want to laugh, go to Comic Con. It's a pretty fun show to wander around and look at.

Right? But just be excited about the opportunity to go push yourself out of the comfort zone, laugh at yourself, but also laugh at the experience you get to go and have.

Brent: Thanks for that. It's so fun. Think about even sometimes the simplest thing, if you're used to driving to the coffee shop that's a mile or two from your place, try walking and try walking without music, podcasts and things like that. What are you hearing? What are you seeing?

What are the kids doing on the bicycles if you're in the summer months? I just find like periodically, I'll do that. And I'll be like, wow, that I I never saw that. Well, it's usually because I'm driving or I've got podcasts on or listening to music. I'm distracted.

So sometimes just put yourself out there and change some of the variables to get the most of it.

Rob: Changing the simple routines.

Brent: Absolutely. Well, thanks everybody. We appreciate it, and, we'll see you next time.

Lena: That's it for this episode of Midlife Circus. Visit midlifecircus.fm for show notes, transcripts, and all the latest happenings. And while you're there, be sure to sign up for our newsletter so you never miss an update. Don't forget to subscribe wherever you get your podcasts so you never miss your next great act. Before we go, a quick reminder.

The opinions and stories shared here are just that, personal reflections and perspectives. We're not legal experts, medical professionals, or therapists. This show is for entertainment and inspiration only, so please seek the right professionals when you need guidance. Thanks for listening, and we'll see you under the big top next time. Midlife Circus is a Burning Matches Media production.