Ben Southall: Best job in the world

#CS Ben Southhall (EDITED)

Tue, Aug 20, 2024 2:00PM • 1:01:01

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

travel, year, moment, job, trips, live, people, feel, love, africa, life, book, atlas, work, months, world, brisbane, drive, day, traveler

SPEAKERS

Emma Lovell

Emma Lovell 00:00

Emma, do you want to live a life of freedom and adventure? Are you wanting more than the daily grind? Me too. Welcome to the Emma Lovell, show a place where we talk about living a life you love. Now I'm your host, Emma Lovell, and my number one value is freedom. I've spent the last 14 years running a business and traveling the world, and now I take my husband and toddler along for the adventure too. It's possible, and I know you can create a life doing what you truly love as well. This podcast will inspire, motivate and encourage you to go after your dreams, to create a life you love and to live it now, not wait for a time and or someday in the future, I'll be sharing episodes weekly about how I harmonize business travel and self care. I'll also bring on incredible guests to share their journeys, the wins, the challenges, and how they're creating a life they love. Let's jump in and get dreaming. This is a space for you to manifest a life you love. I would like to acknowledge and recognize Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples as the first peoples of this place, now known as Australia. I am grateful for the continuing care of the land, waterways and skies where I work, live, listen, learn and play from here on Yugambeh country and from wherever you are listening, I pay my respects to the elders past and present. Sometimes you meet people and they just stick in your mind. And Ben Southall is one of those people. He is a case study from my book The Art of pleasure, and I can't wait to share this episode with you. Ben Southall the best job in the world. We met in the most random way, but there was synergy in our life path, and it was just so wild. Ben was he had sparked my husband and I to find our dream home area, which happens to be the region where Ben lives, and his inspiring approach to life, and how he manages to continue to travel with his wife and young son, has been such a guiding light for me these past years. Even though I've not been in regular contact with Ben, he jumped at a chance to reconnect, and thankfully, he leapt at this opportunity as well to be in the book. And I don't think I could have done a book on pleasure without his his philosophy and his approach in it. I love sharing it with you, and I can't wait for you to read it in the book, The Art of pleasure. You can grab your copy at Emma lovell.au forward slash book. But here I'm going to share the full conversation a remarkable person with incredible stories, but a bit more about Ben. Ben Southall is an adventurer and entrepreneur best known for winning the best job in the world competition, which was hosted by tourism Queensland, in 2009 this role involved living on Hamilton Island in the Great Barrier Reef and promoting it to the world. Since then, Ben has authored a book and founded Best Life Adventures, a company that takes people on unique and challenging travel experiences. I think you'll be as inspired as I was listen in to the amazing life journey of Ben Southall, welcome to the podcast and the book. Ben Southall,

03:08

Hey, good to see you again. It's been a little while is there in person. We're doing our video now it has

Emma Lovell 03:13

and so we should start with how we know each other, which is very random. I don't know if you want to share the story, and then I'll add to it. Yeah, I

03:23

it was all about the the ability to travel on two wheels. I had a motorbike. The motorbike I'd come to the end of my life with the the Royal Enfield, a beautiful, sort of classic thing, and it was just up for sale, and you were one of the ones that came to see it. And that was our segway. That was our journey into starting conversation. You came up to crumbling Valley for the first time. You sort of spoke in some of the atmosphere and the vibe of living up here. We talked, we are lying. And then that was it. Here we are again today. Yes,

Emma Lovell 03:52

well, that was five years ago, and my husband didn't buy the bike. It was her name was Miss Scarlet. And then yes, was it a trooper,

04:02

Land Rover Defender called Colonel Mustard?

Emma Lovell 04:04

Yes, which stuck in my mind. And there's a picture of you standing on it, on a ferry in Pakistan. I want to say yes,

04:12

my most iconic image, the one that I love the most, the one that we Yeah, colors and the beauty of the Himalayas.

Emma Lovell 04:18

Yeah. I just was like, how do we like, of course, and I wouldn't have usually gone. My husband went and looked at a bunch of motorbikes, but I was like, oh yeah. He's like, I'll come for the drive. And we were blown away on that drive. And then we came to your house, and you just moved from Brisbane, I believe, and done the sort of change. And then you said, go up to the cafe up the top of the hill, and it is, the view is breathtaking. And I said, Yeah, I want a piece of this. And now there's a place on my vision board, which is right next to me that I and I look and I've driven past because we've gone back to that cafe a few times because it's so great. So we have actually driven past, but we just go for, I don't know, daydreaming, manifest. Things to

05:00

soak up the feel and the vibe. That's exactly what we did when we came down from Brisbane. I had a friend who was just a contact in those days. I drove down to see him, because you're a fellow adventurer. He lived towards the end of the valley, but I went to see his property, and then came back with Sophie, maybe about a month later, and then kept coming back. And the more we came down here, the more we thought, why are we living in South Brisbane, in Annerley, which is amazingly International in terms of the people that you meet, but didn't really offer much. We're always escaping Brisbane at the weekends to go to other places. And so why escape to those places? Why don't go and live in those places? And hence why we chose grandpa Valley.

Emma Lovell 05:34

I think when you're such a traveler, you know you definitely are. And I am, I think it's nice to and what I'm looking forward to is having that, and I do like my apartment. We live in an apartment. It's locked the door, go away, it's quite easy, but I'm looking forward to having that sort of retreat and escape as your home, so that when you go away, you do all the things, and then you come home and you're home and you're home and you're in the nature and you're in your little community and sort of hidden. I liked I want. I can just see trees around me. And I just love that the valley the trees, there's an energy that we talked about. It's on the border of Queensland and New South Wales, and there's this definite energy in that very, very south Queensland pocket. Yes,

06:20

yeah, it was really the timing was right for us, because we'd only got an 18 month old boy at that stage called Atlas, or it was 12 months old when we considered the move, and this was prior to covid and obviously house prices going crazy, and we thought, we can have a city feel in any city in the world, the same as we're getting in Brisbane. Let's go down to we don't I'm not necessarily a gold coaster. We live in the hinterland, so we are surrounded by 13 acres of rainforest. We can see the beach and the ocean and even the whales from our balcony. Even though we're 12 kilometers away, you can see the splashes of the whales. So to be that close to the ocean in the mornings, I can be there in 12 or 15 minutes when the traffic's right. In the afternoons, after school, his little school, Corona Valley State School is right next to the rock pools. So if you don't run the ocean of the salt, you have the rock pools, which are fresh water. All of his now friends go there almost every day after school for a play. So just setting up this feel of if you want to bring a child into the world and you want them to fall in love with the planet, how do you do that? Well, you make it their norm and their everyday, not what they do at the weekends. So growing up here, coming home in the afternoon, throwing off his shoes, walking barefoot down to the bottom of the garden. That's the kid and the injection of DNA from my DNA that I want to put into his mindset so that when he grows up he loves the planet. Yeah,

Emma Lovell 07:33

I'm just transported right back to our conversation. It was just so such a vision, like had such a vision there and then, and we didn't, we weren't married, and we didn't have our son yet. And to be like, Oh, here's a blueprint. Like doing this, he's still traveling. They're doing adventures all together. You both did individual adventures. I think Sophie just Yes, skateboarding around Tasmania or something. And I was like, I'm not

07:59

she was three months pregnant. Yes, the man killed herself. That's

Emma Lovell 08:02

yours. But, you know, just, yeah, this thought of a little I didn't even see Atlas, but I was like, Oh, the thought of this little kid growing up in this place, but still getting to have the travel and the adventure. I was like, Oh, you can, you can have it both, like you just,

08:19

I wonder how this is a question that I ask myself you guys, because this is his normal. He won't see it as any different. This is what he's grown used to, whereas, for me, growing up in the south of England, living in South Africa for a while, living in a couple of cities, this was always sort of the Golden destination to get to. But as he's grown up with this is normal. You always want to do something that's different to what you do every day. Your holiday is different. Your holiday is different. If you live in the snow, you want to go to the beach. If you live in the beach, you want to go to the snow. So as he's grown up here, it will lay the fabric, I think, in his DNA for the future. But maybe he'll end up being a city boy who knows it's just the taster that he's got. This is his normal. This is his average, right now? Yeah,

Emma Lovell 08:58

um, yeah. I think it will be, I mean, cool. We'll just like, plant that seed for what, like, 1015, years to come, yeah. And see what happens, yeah, see what happens. I don't know, looking at my husband and I there, I think there's part you do go to the opposite. And then I think sometimes you circle back, you do, yes, yeah. That's what I found. I went for a drive in your area. I just was like, I need to see horses. I need to be in trees. I want to go into these houses, like, Stop putting off tomorrow, like, putting off this dream, and go and actually get in these houses. So I went and looked at six, and what I noticed, it was crazy. All of them were most of them were elevated. Most of them were in a cul de sac. I grew up in a cul de sac. Most trees around them didn't want a steep driveway because I hated the steep driveways in our street like all the other pool. And it was like, oh, whoa. I'm just trying to replicate the childhood home, because I did love that, I mean, and I know what I didn't like from that home, and that was being close to neighbors and the steep driveways and a few other bits. But. I was like, oh, but everything else, and we were a bit more remote in not remote. So it was very suburban, but it was quite a ways from the main town. Yeah, you know, you try. And I was like, Oh, wow. So maybe, you know, and I so I'm trying to give, giving them that, but you're giving them some difference. And so I

10:16

think, I think it feeds the subconscious, because it's not every day when you're thinking about these decisions that you make them based on an answer you've given yourself. It's just something. It's a gut feel, and the gut feel emanates through decision making. And it might not be reviewed it and talked about it or brought it out with your spouse, but it's things that manifest inside you and then you use to make your decision making for the future. I think that's the way it's worked for us.

Emma Lovell 10:38

I think you love this. I think we met so we met, you think June, July, we have an

10:43

email from you from july 29 2019 Yeah.

Emma Lovell 10:47

So we either had just been to Mongolia or about to go, and it was actually

10:51

yes, yes. It refers back in there, yeah. So we

Emma Lovell 10:57

it was there that we both were looking out at this, you know, nomadic land, and this guy had all the animals. And, you know, that's very extreme, but we went, one of us said, I'd like to have animals, like, have few animals the animal. And said, Oh, me too. And we didn't know that until we explore it. And then I think we just seen you, or just after we saw you. And so it was like, Oh, this is a place we could have a bit of land, a bit of can I

11:23

make one recommendation? Yes. And the recommendation is this, going from a three bedroom townhouse in Annerley, where I had some artificial grass as my thing I didn't need to mow, to suddenly having two acres of cleared land and 13 acres of rainforest. Maybe I went a little bit big on the side of the land, because you always go, oh my god, it's got 10 acres, 20 acres, 30 acres. Chuck me more. I can deal with it. The summer in coronavirus Valley is when everything in the garden tries to eat the house at a remarkable rate of knots. And unless you can afford to get a gardener and a brush cutter and a mower and people that come and do this stuff, it sucks your way from that family time and that ability to travel to just keep the house protected from the elements. So my my task would now be, I love what I've had here. If I could reduce my property size down by maybe 80% and I only had two acres to look after, I'd probably be pretty damn happy. So make that as just a thought for the future. When you're planning and you're looking at plot sizes, don't

Emma Lovell 12:18

you love this? I'm just using this is my like pic bed, you know? Just yeah, give me your hats too. So tell me, we obviously can hear the accent. And you obviously said you're from South of England. So what was your you mean? And you're now a traveler, and we'll get to that. But what was your sort of growing up path and, and how did you get to here?

12:41

Very standard, very two children have mum and dad met when they were at college. Are still together now. They're 80 and 78 they are the sort of iconic perfect family, in a way, so not much in the way of travel during those days, apart from really going up for summer holidays to Scotland. As a family of four, we had the dog, we had the cat. It was very, very average, beautiful and wonderful. But Mom and Dad's ability, they were both in good jobs, but their ability to think outside of the UK for holidays, really. You know, growing up in the sort of early 80s, mid 80s, there wasn't much of that exposure to international culture and travel. It really came through school trips. So French exchange every year for three years, going across to Holland for hockey tours. It was really the west of Europe that I was getting exposure to when I was growing up. So not much in the way of international travel at all. So really, when I left university and I did a degree in automotive engineering, my first opportunity to go and travel internationally was to go to South Africa when I worked for a company, or first results, a marketing company. They handled the account for champagne, Mum, big, big global company, and they sponsored big sports events in the UK and also the round the world yacht race in Cape Town. So my job, my first summer out of university, was to go out to Cape Town and work on the ground there for three months during the round the world yacht race. And that was my first touch point. Was really doing much outside of Europe as an adventure, and it just soaked me up like a sponge. It was just this whole, wow, different people, different foods, different cultures, different languages, different terrains and huge challenges. In a way, I love the admin of going to do it. I love the people conversations and the interaction you had to have to get anywhere and do things, and all of a sudden I was finding that this conversation, thing I was doing with people led to opportunity. And the more I went to South Africa, summer on summer, the more I loved the African continent, and the more I started to explore it. And that was the foundation stone for me wanting to discover more and more about the planet.

Emma Lovell 14:41

Incredible. And I'm just like reflecting on, I think that in I'm like Atlas in that my parents emigrated here in 81 so they had the experience that you had had in the UK, that, you know, Spanish holiday, French exchange, German exchange. You know, they didn't go to Ireland until they were in this. 60s because of, obviously, all the trouble that was happening in when they were living in the UK. The mum and dad came in 81 so I think I'm living somewhat not not mum and dad aren't the nature so we don't do they don't do camping, but I got the travel bit in that respect. And then I guess then I'm taking it to the next level for myself, interesting, isn't it that what you Yeah, like you said, you crave what you you didn't have. Well, you want to give them the opportunity that you might not have had. Yeah,

15:31

I think having, having had a having, maybe sort of by not traveling, it built up the desire, subconsciously, to want to explore and do more, so blowing the balloon until it pops, then when you pop, you're just out there in the world doing everything. It's almost like that. The pressure was building, even though I didn't know it. I didn't realize it until I'd seen the opportunity the travel offered. Only then did I get the chance to say, My God, this is amazing. I want to go and do this. And it became my best place for learning about me and about the world, because I studied and I did my degree, but I baffled myself every single day during my studies, because it wasn't my happy place. It wasn't my best place for learning at all. I can't understand I think I'd probably be classed as ADHD these days, just because I needed to be out doing things with my hands, with exercise, with building, with doing that sort of stuff. I'm very much more a tangible person than a studious person. So I think travel opened up at the right age, at sort of 21 where you're still learning and growing as a human. I think that age 21 to 2527 is really where I became me. I hadn't had a chance to become me at that stage and going out and having leaving the wing, leaving the nest, leaving the nest, the warm nest of, you know, parenthood and living in the South of England with them to go and grow as a human. That was that absolutely seismic moment to go. This is where I can now discover me. And again, not meaning to no intention. It was just happening. And some people said, you know, when are you going to get a real job? And it wasn't a fact about having real jobs. It was about growing and learning more about the world and falling in love with people and places and cultures and experiences. And that's why this whole world of travel that I learned about then and have evolved the company best live adventures. And now take my little boy, Atlas, obviously, with a name like Atlas, pretty cliche, but it sort of follows that vibe and the feel that is the gift I would love to leave him of being a people person, getting out there, learning and not necessarily needing a pluses and a stars across his certificates.

Emma Lovell 17:29

Oh, I love it. And you've nailed it with that age group, that 21 to 27 and I think I really feel that that's my primary target market, because I don't know about you, but between, I think at 25 and at 30, you sort of have this your first midlife crisis. It's your third life crisis where you're like, You're not You're not a kid anymore, you're not quite an adult. But you're approaching that, and if you're looking at what you've done in the past, or the path forward, and you don't have people like you or me in front of you, you're like, is this all there is? So I just work, yes, and go to holiday and work and go to holiday, and like, you know, have I achieved? All I can achieve. And it is a bit achieve. I remember, like, what have I achieved this year? I'm 25 and what have I achieved? And when I reflected, I was like, Oh, quite a bit, actually. But yeah, I think you come out of that schooling, and it's like, achieve, achieve, achieve, tick, tick, tick. And so it is that prime time to go, alright, I can actually forge my own path, and I actually can do things my way, and I'm an adult, have money? Yes, I can make money. I can do it my way. Yeah, I don't have to do what Mum and Dad said. And I've written down what you said that when you're going to get a real job, because the amount of times I've heard that as well, and you're like,

18:34

it's like, at that age, the glass floor of support disappears, you know what lies below you. But you're not brave enough to say the step out and when the glass floor gets whisked away, do you have everything set up as a person to deal with it, not necessarily the house or the finances, but do you as a Have you been gifted the ability as a human to deal with life? Have you come out of university with enough life experience to make you the degrees count, because people can roll straight out of I've got my degrees, I've got my masters, I've got all these graduations done. Now a role or a job or an employer will take me on board, but often, you know, everybody arrives at that same job interview with exactly the same qualifications. How do you define a person who's going to stand head and shoulders above the rest when they're all exactly the same, when they come out of the education system and life experience is the defining thing that gives people the leapfrog ahead, and that life experience comes from doing not necessarily just travel, but the experiences of the people that you meet, the shoulders that you can stand on to get that leg up to be better equipped for life than the people around you.

19:38

Hello. My name is Kate toon, and I'm the founder of stay tuned, a collection of digital education companies. I've had the pleasure of working with Emma Lovell on a number of different occasions. Not only will she emcee at my in person book launch event, she also helped me out on the virtual launch too. I've enjoyed photo shoots with her and Jade, and she's an excellent speaker and presenter. I chose Emma because she is just so full of beans. She brings life, energy and enjoyment to wherever and whatever she does. So yep, she's highly recommended.

Emma Lovell 20:12

Yeah, everything you're saying, I'm like, Yeah, I love that you see travelers connection too, because I think there's this misconception sometimes with us travelers, that it's all and I do have a mission to visit every country, so I do have a bit of a tick list. But it's also that it's just the travel bug, or it's just about, I don't know, selfish sort of pursuit. When I think the, you know, I know, for me, it is, it's connection, it's the culture, it's the learning about this other way of life and the people that you meet. That's it. I traveled to, you know, for me, it was family. So going overseas to see family, and then, you know, the more I met people, then you've got friends in a place, and you want to go back and visit again, and then you want to know these other people. And it's the problem is I want to see all these new countries, but I want to go back to the places I've been, because I loved the people so much. I want to see them again.

21:07

I think the, I think the connections that you make when you are so there's tourists, and there's travelers, in a way, and there is the pre social media traveler, because I think that's a defining moment in the way the world can be immersed in a moment. I think that's really changed things significantly, the digital reporting of where you are and what you're doing. But I feel like there's the tourist and the traveler and the experiences you have when you're actually traveling, when you've reduced your heart rate to the place that you're in, or increased it to the place that you're in. So it could be, you know, the Shinjuku crossing in Japan is probably the maddest and the craziest place. You know, if you're going to look at someone that's super busy, it's there, or it's crossing a street in Vietnam, or there's the reducing your heart rate down to somewhere like the middle of a salt pan in Botswana, where you just are in that moment. Those places, when you do those with other people, and you experience with other people, only those people you're there with can recollect that moment and have the same vibe and the same emotion, you know, the sweat on the back of the head in the humidity or the freezing cold or the frost as you're waking up on the salt pans, only those people that were there at the time can truly understand it, and only then, because you have those honest conversations with those people, and those moments are locked in your memory and their memory. And that can be something, you know, traveling around Africa in 2008 I've those people that I talked to, that I did that with. Then they weren't arranged meets. They were just chance conversations and collisions that we had together. Those people now I am still probably best friends with from those single moments than I am with people that I spend more of my hours and days with here in normal life in Corona Valley, it's, it's weird. It just locks the moment in time, and it becomes another one of those sort of foundation stones that makes you the human that you are. And they're, they're not curated, and they're not shared with anybody else, apart from being in the moment. And that second tier I was talking about is really what started to happen with the start of best job in the world, where the digital reporting to your audience that might be your family, or it might be your community, or it might be the whole of the Instagram profile that you've got with 100 million viewers, that has changed the way that being immersed in a moment for just you has really affected, I think, the way that people can travel. I mean, there was an image, someone put up an image, up an image, and it was an image of in 1996 I went to see the Prodigy for the first time, an amazing live band. And the image I looked at on the internet from that concert was just a whole load of people with their hands in the air dancing. And then I went to see them the week before, Keith Flynn topped himself in 2022 and every single person had their phone up. And every single person was not actually in the moment, feeling it and absorbing it. They were absorbing it for somebody else or to brag or to share or to try and influence. That ability to be there in that moment and to disconnect from technology is so singly crucial in making us humans that love being in a space and a place. Yeah,

Emma Lovell 24:08

yeah, yeah. It is such a drastic difference. And it's just that connection that you have with those people on those types of trips. I mean, it could be any travel, like some of the best conversations I've had on planes with someone you sit next to. But yeah, yeah, I, I trekked in Peru with a guy, and, you know, there's like, 10 days trip. We were there for a cause. I love that type of thing. And I about three months later, very sadly, he died of a heart attack. So he had a heart condition. He's my age. He'd also like I had, and I just, you know, my brother couldn't understand my grief, and it was like one it's you haven't lost a contemporary like losing someone your age at such a young age is so devastating. But I lost the few. To friendship. I lost that 16 year friendship, that lifelong friendship, because I knew that's what we had, you know, and no one, no one was in those moments like that. What happened through those 10 days, no one can understand except the group that was there. And even then, they were obviously pockets of us. And so that, just that loss was, you know, but other people can still not understand, like, that connection that we had and that loss that I still feel,

25:32

was that a wake up call for you, was that that was a that was a massive wake up call that sort of maybe change your trajectory slightly. I have a page

Emma Lovell 25:39

in my book here. We always have acknowledgements in the book, which is lovely. I have a tributes page, and it's got eight people who their loss, their whole in my life is a motivator or an inspiration. Of, I think of them often, various times of they didn't get, you know, or maybe it was, it's my grandmother. It's like you did live this great life. So I wanted, I'm inspired by that, or you didn't get the time that that I get, so I gotta make the most of it. And I so I wrote a message to all of them, because it is, it's hugely inspiring, and I just want to honor their

26:20

great, it's beautiful way to do I have I had exactly the same moments I had in the year 2000 my best friend, guy, went traveling only a couple of years after I got for the first time, he died on his first ever scuba dive in the Cook Islands. He was one of my best mates, and he never came home. And then in 2004 during the Asian tsunami, two best mates, again, were out in Thailand on a little tiny island, and only one of them came home. And those are those moments where, you know, growing up in the south of England, living day by day, the UK very much during, I'd say October through to march is a pretty cold, pretty dark, pretty wet place where you build friendships, but you do it around sitting around smoking joints or sitting in the pub, or all these things where it's not really getting the most out of life. So losing those two people that kick started something internally that said you've got one chance. This is it, get out there and do it, otherwise you'd be stuck here in 10 or 15 years time. So I think those we need those moments, however tragic they are, we need those moments that sometimes put the rocket up our ass to make us actually realize how lucky we are, and what we've got as opportunity,

Emma Lovell 27:22

absolutely, and you know, you're I've got someone who's in the book, who I've got as the dream job, who I call the dream job. She's a freelance travel writer. And does you know helicopter? She'll just casually be like, so when I had to go to the helicopter over to Fraser, I'm like, Oh, of course she did. Anyway, you know I love we get all the behind the scenes too, but you literally had the best job in the world. Tell us about God will believe this. I think I Googled you after, you might have briefly mentioned it, and I Googled you after, and I was like, Oh, my. I just went and tried to buy a motorbike off. Like, what?

27:57

Yeah, it was, it was a so it was a whack moment of opportunity. Really, it was. The timing was almost perfect. I'd having lived in South Africa for sort of six summers, between 97 and 2004 I'd always got it in my dream on my dream board, in a way, was the fact that I said, the next time I go to South Africa, I want to drive there from England. Now, it's a fairly, fairly common thing to do, in a way, for travelers to do something that's different. There's a lot of Belgians, a lot of Dutch, simply, quite a few Germans and some English. Now, I'm saying quite a few, maybe 20 to 50 vehicles a year, that might drive from sort of Europe, down to Cape Town. Not a lot of people that go and do it, mainly to get away from the very flat lands of Western Europe, to go and explore somewhere different. And Africa's got sort of some diversity to it, from the Arab lands of Morocco and Egypt and Libya in the north through sort of black Central Africa and the Congos and Senegal down to much more sort of European settlement of Mozambique and South Africa in the south having lived in South Africa, I'd said I want to do this drive to go down to Cape Town next time. And I planned it with a best friend. And we spent three years planning it. I bought a vehicle, Colonel Mustard, my old Land Rover that I've now had for 20 years. And Colonel Mustard, there he is. That's very much, Colonel. I decided that I was going to get this vehicle ready, and I was going to make it a big life journey, and it was going to be a fundraiser, and I was going to do it for not just my selfish reasons, because the guilt is, oh, you're just doing it to take time out. You don't want to get a job. It's a selfish means of travel. And Owen and I had said, let's go and do it as a fundraiser. The fundraiser became that Owen didn't like running and I overly didn't like heights. So I said, Well, I'm going to challenge you to do marathons in that year. And he challenged me to do the five highest mountains in Africa in that year. And that was the concept. So we'd go and do things that we weren't comfortable with, and we raised money for three charities in the whole six months. It was going to be originally in. Journey to Cape Town. As we evolved the journey, we said, Well, why are we going to go to Cape Town? Let's not just go down the west coast of Africa. Let's go back up East Coast and across the north coast and do a lap. Do a lap the continent. We'll give ourselves a year to do it. We'll leave the pub on Christmas Eve and we'll get back on New Year's Eve a year later, that was the plan. With about three weeks to go, Owen decided he wasn't going to come. We put all this planning together. He just couldn't leave the business that he'd set up in London in time. So ended up, after two or three full starts, that it was actually me on my own doing the whole journey. So it was a big again, big moments. One was go to Cape Town for the first time. The second one really was, have I got the Guile, the knowledge and the expertise, the human to go and do this. And dad, I still remember pat me on the back, on the drive, and saying, go do this, Ben, it will make you. And those moments real. Dad, I don't know, Dad, knowledge, there's things where you just look back and you go, and I wrote a book as well. I've got that in the book as one of those big defining moments. And dad saying that was sort of the impetus to say, yep, breathe deep. Stuck it in. You can do this. And there were moments of, you know, awfulness and madness in Africa. It was safe as houses. I had a few incidents, but it was all about a year on the road, having amazing conversations. And everyone says, Did you pay a bribe? They didn't put a gun on you. Africa was a place of taking time having conversations, if you can sit and have if you're good enough human, and I feel I've sort of become a better human, if you can sit down and have conversations, and you can understand somebody's position and why they don't want to let you into the country, or why they want to get the bribe, and you talk to them about their family or their work, and you get to do the eyeballs. You hold eye contact, you give a big handshake. There's a famous journalist in the UK in the 70s called Alan wicker, and Alan wickers current quote was always, No one shoots you when you've got a smile on your face. And I think it's a lovely sort of moral to live by. So that was always the ethos of going to Africa. I wasn't carrying a gun. I never paid a financial bribe in that year on the road. And throughout that time on the road, my whole thing was, how do I tell mum and dad how I'm staying safe? Because it was literally the first year of YouTube and Facebook. There was no real reporting online of how you were doing and what you were doing. There was no real communications apart from internet cafes. Remember internet cafes? Yeah, somebody bought a dialog 2000 now this was 2000 and so I decided doing the project and saving for in 2004 I hit the road at the end of 2007 so the 28th of December, 2007 I hit the road in the Land

Emma Lovell 32:33

Rover time, as you said, because, and I will send you a book. But that 2006 I think that was the last real and my friend's written a book about her backpacking year. I think that's that was the year I did my gap year, too. And I think it was just I joined Facebook that year. I think it was the cusp, it was the cast, and it we were the last, I don't know, non lead, a little bit of it, but we were an early adopter, very early adopter, if you were doing it,

32:58

yeah. And I hadn't intentionally gone out there to sort of try and embrace technology. In a sense, it was more about I needed to keep mum and dad up today, where, where I was and what I was doing. And that was really by running what, then was Google's very first of a blogging platform called eblogr. And it was basically a diary, a type diary. And they were 480, by 640, photos. So really low res, tidy things. And I had a I just had to basically write my diary on my little computer, my old Panasonic tough book, and then I go into an internet cafe and I put it on a USB stick as a Word file. I'd put it onto their computer, and I'd put it onto this E blogger platform. And that was mum and dad's way of keeping in touch with what I was doing. And it went from being mum and dad and friends, from about 20 people, to by the end of the journey, I was documenting the travel and the experiences at the border and what the road was like, and how I was living out of my land rover. And there were 2000 people following by the end of the journey. So it became, in those days, it wasn't viral, it just become big enough that people were taking notice of it. So I get back into England, and I roll back in on the New Year's Eve of 2008 so the very start of 2009 and as I got back to England, that was the end of my three year plan, and that was the best year of my life. All finished and done with and I was going to go back to normality, and I didn't know what I was going to do next. And a week later, tourism events, tourism Queensland, put out this advert, and it was a tiny little advert in every single national newspaper around the world. It's a classified advert, no viral stuff. And the advert said, best job in the world. Anyone could apply $150,000 for six months work. And I sort of looked into this, and was like, I've been sent the advert by two people in the same day. I had no knowledge of this whatsoever. And they said, oh, you should go for this. And I sort of know, had no idea what it was about. Click the link on the website, and it said, You need to update a one minute video where you'd be the right person to come and basically live for six months on the barrier reef and tell the story of what it's like. And I just done it for a year in Africa. I told the story of living on the road. I unconsciously built up this resume that was almost perfect to apply for the job. So. So this whole snowball, then, was a six month, well, five month journey to get to the final of best job in the world. Best job in the world, ended up having 34,684 people apply, and they all put in one minute YouTube videos about what you could do and why you'd be the right person. And I threw one together in about a day, and went down from 35,000 people, nearly down to 200 down to 16. Those 16 were flown out to Hamilton Island. Then we got to Hamilton Island, there were 70 film crews from around the world, from all the major news networks covering this best job in the world. It had got so much recognition and so much knowledge about it that it was just this, this crazy entertainment experience on an island before there was any survivor, before it was it was like reality TV, but it was a true job with a true salary and a true role with responsibilities. That was the difference with it, yes, yes.

Emma Lovell 35:54

And you got it.

35:55

And then yeah, sixth of May, 2009 the Premier said you been south as the new island, or the caretaker for the islands of barrier reef. And I was like, What the hell does that mean?

Emma Lovell 36:05

And that was your mind doing this way, everything's What was that moment

36:10

I went to the final having never intended to come to Australia on a travel journey because it wasn't raw enough for me. Australia was just another first world country. And I thought, I'll get there one day. I don't need to go there. And then got here. And the reward the win for me was getting a free trip to Australia. I was just like, wow, brilliant. Two weeks in the sun, and went home to England again afterwards. There were three other people in that final who I thought were going to absolutely win it hands down. There was a reporter from CNN Asia called Juan. There was a lady called Cali who ran an internet channel on YouTube. She had, in those days, 10,000 people following, which was huge. And then there was a guy called Clark gayford who ended up being the first man of New Zealand and was married to Jacinta Arden, and he was in the final. He was a getaway presenter, and he was really, really good and likable and affable and a top man. And we'll all of us are still in touch today. That's the weird thing. And they were in the final. I was just like, I'll sit back. Well done. They've won this thing. And then when my name got announced, there was a, there's a photo of me on the stage with just eyes like this, because it was a reality of Jesus Christ. What's going to happen from here on in and then that was 15 years ago, so nearly 16 years ago now. Mm,

Emma Lovell 37:18

it. It's the coolest thing. I just think the title, the I don't know the pathway. And sometimes when you that whole, I don't know why I'm saying, Yes, I don't know why I'm doing this, but I have to. And then you and then it's like, yeah, like you said. You created this, this perfect, you know, case study for what you could then do. And, yeah, and then the life. And I just can't believe that, you it's so funny, though it's such the the traveler and the rebel of going, well, I don't want to go to Australia. It's so everyone. That's all the English people do.

37:53

I'm not going to meet other English people. I want to go to somewhere where nobody knows and hardly even speaks the language. Yeah. And now, now here I am, and I have a I have a little boy here. We have the house in prembo Valley. It's very un Australian life, and that made me, I think in a long now, we're sort of going forward again. I think that's why I set up the travel company, Best Life Adventures, because I need to get people outside of Australia, in from Australia, outside of Australia, to experience those mad places in the world that I've been to, to go to the mountains in Uganda, to go to the wilds Road in India, to go to the Norway trip in the middle of the Arctic winter. I take people from Australia to experience outside of Australia, because I think that's where they can grow as humans as well. I think I've just done it for that. That reason selfish for me, because I get to go there, but good for other people, because they get to explore and understand the planet.

Emma Lovell 38:42

But it's not selfish, it's genius, and it's, it's totally the pleasure which is getting, and the leisure. And think not everybody would understand that work thing I get, I run retreats, and you get asked, they're like, oh, but you have to work there and like, um, being in a five star resort in India, and then going on a like houseboat with amazing people who I've attracted, who've said yes to this adventure with me, not hard work, no, yeah,

39:10

and you're wrapping yourself in like minded people who you want to spend time with. That's the beautiful thing about it. It's the community build. It is yours,

Emma Lovell 39:18

and we are on and yes, that takes energy, but if, if we have to expend energy and we have to work, I think I'd choose a better

39:25

place to do it, yeah, so that

Emma Lovell 39:27

is your So, yes, your job now is running a business, taking people on adventures.

39:33

Exactly, yes. And that's that's sort of crosses a few sections of of society in a way. We do our we have our base market, which is our corporate stuff, which is very much onshore in southeast Queensland in Australia, but it's basically giving companies and businesses an opportunity to do things outside of a boardroom. So their networking events are usually Friday night drinks at a pub. So we take people as far away from that as possible. We strip them of their phones. We take them to, you know, the southern end of Morton. Went into a wilderness camp, but we take them down to one of the bays in Tasmania, and we do retreats like that for the corporate groups. We do stuff for Queensland Government. We're still, I'm still working with Queensland Government at the Office of the Chief entrepreneur, and I'm leading on Sunday to take a group of 16 entrepreneurs up to a remote part of Queensland to go and work with local communities there. So that's a sort of base model of what we do is our turnover. We the stuff that inspires me is still the private stuff. So the places I've been to in the world where I've gone, wow, I know that people that haven't traveled that much are going to go, wow, wow, wow, wow. That's the point behind it. So the the trips that we've done in Africa are always my most inspiring. You know, there's real wildlife out there. I love snakes and spiders and and the little stuff we have here. But when you go to the plains of Africa and you see migrating millions of wildebeest, and you see raw life, you are down the pecking order. Suddenly you're not the top dog as a human. You are bait. You are food, potentially for lots of things there. So it puts you back down the chain as a human. So to take people to Africa, to get them to Mongolia, to get them to these far out places in the world, just gives them a sort of an opening and go, Oh, where do I go next? What do I do next? Exactly as it did for me. Yeah,

Emma Lovell 41:09

and I love that, like we, we actually, you'll be excited. We're taking my little boy to India next week, and we're going on a tiger Safari. Yeah, I went in June, 2019 actually, so just before I met you, but ah, that crazy feeling of a tiger walking down the road towards your vehicle, and you're like, you are beautiful and you are majestic, but my God, if you decided to jump in this car,

41:33

you could tear my heart out

Emma Lovell 41:36

fear and exhilaration and beauty and gratitude, and I'm just standing in this Jeep as it's reversing, because we had to get away from you have to, you know, move away from them. We're reversing backwards, and I'm just bawling my eyes out. It's just this, yeah, this combination of feelings. And I just, I'm so excited to see him, and I think it will be like the deer and the monkeys and the buffalo. I hope we do see a tiger. They're more elusive, as you know, but for him to see an elephant, I just, I think he's going to have that like fear and like coming to us, but excitement, but it's also like that fear.

42:11

Remember it, he'll remember it as much as you did. And that's then you've just done exactly that. You put that sort of that, that subconscious stamp on their brain, of the feel in that moment that they will then want to replicate and take on. We're taking Atlas to Botswana next year, exactly a year's time. I'll be there for two and a half weeks in self drive, four wheel drives, as I did round Africa, where we'll be staying in camps where anything can walk in at night. We've had hyenas rubbing up against the vehicle. I've had the ear of an elephant against the roof tent eating the tree that we're under. I want to have that the nerves and the scared and see the eyes go wide, because they were the foundations for me going now I want to do this more and more for other people. Yeah, and

Emma Lovell 42:48

I'm just thinking, like, because I love, I love, there's a saying that I've been using a lot, I've got it from someone else, which is, the transformation happens at the transaction. So when you choose, so when people book your trips or commit to your trips, the transformations already happened. And then what I believe like taking people to India, Sri Lanka, on these retreats, I love the Australian ones too. Like you said, it's so lovely to show our country and to be in these places, but I know that that country is doing the heavy lifting that going to that new place, that total strip back of everything, you know, that's the change. That's the transformation. Like you can't not change when you're taken from this very western life and planted in this place where everything's upside down. And so going overseas does that for you, and I've had that with the tours I've done, and then now seeing it through my clients. And I'm really would love to put my husband forward, Ben to go on a trip with you, because I would love for him to have that. He is adventurous. He's SCU diver for his job, so but it dies with sharks every day. Is fine with a fear thing, but to put him in that, and I think I love how you have this sort of bigger world view as well, and the vision boarding. And I think that women are gravitating towards these retreat experiences. I don't think of these opportunities for men. And it's not

44:05

almost, it's almost like we're not allowed to do them at the moment. It's almost like if we were to suggest that it almost be a rebellion against and that goes against the way the world's vibe is feeling. It's almost like, you know, we've got to be more aggressive in our thought processes, rather than aggressive that. It's sort of that, you know, the man element is done in some of the yoga circles around the waterfalls in Corona Valley, and that's in hidden, hidden areas behind the rainforest. They can still go and facilitate those things. It's almost like we've been, not we've been taken, you know, they're taken off the pedestal to be able to allow ourselves to go and do that stuff. It just feels like that sometimes.

Emma Lovell 44:40

Well, I just, I think there's that I don't know just your the spiritualness or the world is, yeah, it's very and you can still it's exploring the masculine and the feminine. We both need to have all of them. But I just think the opening of the mind. I think that's what I love about the yes, yeah, open mindedness. And I know that when I take my husband. Uh, out, like to a place, and he suggested Mongolia, and I loved it. I was like, Yes, I'm on it. I'm booking it. Was his suggestion. And I know he loves it when he's in it, but I think I would really love to see him do it without me, because of that connection we're talking about, and that like minded people, and that opening of the world view, I think what you're offering is more of an invitation to men. And I have had men inquire about my retreats. And I love it. If you come on them, I love it. I want more of that. I just think that it, it tends to lean towards the feminine. And yeah, having something that's got adventure in it, but that you also it's not just, oh yeah, we're going to go clone mountain. We're going to

45:40

write a book masculine energy? Yes,

Emma Lovell 45:43

it's find yourself. It's what's important. I love that

45:49

we've done where the our demographic is about 6040, female, male for most of our trips. I don't know why that is. It's just been the way that it happens. It's the only one that's bucked that trend is we're going to mantra Gung, in two months time, down in the snowy mountains in the middle of winter, 100% male booking rate on that one, which is a very bizarre thing. So it's very hard sometimes to judge that demographic. But that will be one of those ones where it's going to be a group of guys, and it's hard, because sometimes the a plus personalities are the ones that you know. None of them will know each other, and working out how room full of men that are there for what is quite a tough endurance adventure will buddy up against each other, whether they'll be open enough in the in the huts, in the evening to have normal open conversations, or whether it's very much about who's feeling the weakest and Who's the strongest. It's gonna be an interesting one to go

Emma Lovell 46:37

and sort of absorb. Yeah, oh, I look forward to hearing it's absolutely fascinating, and I've seen the power being on these trips, and also you and I get the position of being the tour manager or the host. So you get to observe, and you get to manage and navigate and to see and to know that, having done it myself, been in that position of being the vulnerable person and being worried for my health, and can I do it? And all that self doubt. So to then get to hold people in that place and to observe and to see the things that come up, the very anthropological, you know, these trips, getting to observe human behavior when, yeah, absolutely

47:14

push and I feel like we do, so we do. There's two trips that really highlight that, and that's when you start to take people, not just mentally. So we do the way that we like to push people is physically, mentally and culturally on our adventures, the physical stuff we almost always do, because they're pretty tough. Some of the trips we do, you know, we're towing sleds in pitch black at minus 40 in the Arctic for five days. It's pretty hard stuff. The other ones are high altitude, because no one knows how they're going to deal with high altitude. And when you do world's highest road on push bikes, which is sort of 5800 meters, and every space camp of 5400 meters, you're starting to take away people's comfort of what they believe is their normal condition to run their lives in. And when you start to get people a bit ill, or they've got stomach problems, or there's freezing cold, you really get the human inside. You get the personality that either shines or becomes recessive. So it's really interesting going into these hard spaces on the planet, because then you really get those humans out, and then I haven't yet had a problem with it apart. I'm pretty wiry, so I get pretty cold, but to go and see those people and then help manage them, or help take them through that journey and get them to the other side those moments of success when they finished it completed. It done something they didn't think they could do. You know, the getting to a base camp or getting to a summit is always such a defining moment for us. It's always getting them back down safely. And it's probably not very PC thing to say from an insurance perspective. But if everyone says, you know, how was that adventure? The first thing I always say is, no one died. That's the best bit. If no one dies and everyone gets home safely, that's our job done. And if they've gained and learned something from doing it and grown as a human, that's this, you know, it's the secondary thing they went from.

Emma Lovell 48:48

But that's the reality, and that's what people in you have to have that initial conversation. And especially when your altitude, I'm like, This is life or death. You have a headache, you have to tell me, and all the your bowel movements, all that stuff you have to get over your over your disability, because it could be that you're presenting symptoms of altitude sickness, which means your brain is swelling, which means you are dying. And yes, don't get you down, you will. And I had someone helicoptered off Everest, and it was not fun. And, you know? And even there, and then I got a three out of five as a tournament, yeah. Oh, sorry, I saved your life. Told you to Yeah, and you didn't recognize your own body was struggling. And you know my friend, I told her this story recently, she loved it, and I was like, but that's the thing, and it's like, I'm not trying to scare you, I'm telling you the reality. And so my job is to keep you safe. And I pulled a group over in Vietnam cycling on the road because they kept overtaking the tour manager, the tour leader, the guide, the Vietnamese man, which I said, is one disrespectful. It's too unsafe. And if you continue to do it, I will stop this tour and put you back on the bus, because that's my job. Yeah, and it's full blown Argy bargy on the side of the road, and I don't care, I don't I want you to have fun. But number one is safety. And you're being disrespectful. You're not You're not thinking about yourselves or everyone else. So no,

50:06

it is exactly you get, and you really get the people shine through in those moments. No, everyone wants to be. The hard thing is taking travelers on a tourist experience sometimes, because everybody does things in their own way. They're used to doing in their own way. So getting them to you've got to manage it in a way that is steering someone or helping them, help a hand on the rudder, but not steering the rudder for them, so showing them how to steer rather than actually physically doing it. So having different people leading on different days themselves, that's one of the things we've sort of tried to do a lot more of, is it's not just follow the guide. It is. Here is the direction, here is the bearing. It's pitch black, it's horizontal snow, and it's minus 40. You take us for the next 10 minutes, and then you'll get some respect and understand why our guide needs to be up front for this sort of stuff. That's a good so I remember the tools, yeah, giving them the tools.

Emma Lovell 50:54

Wasn't willing to do that in this when it was snowing inside of Everest, I was like, No, the guide on this one, fog or just a clear sheer drop, or this one, but absolutely now I'm mindful of your time. I could talk to you forever. I'm going to give you a few quick fire questions. I feel like we've, generally, I ask questions, but we've, inadvertently, I think, covered a lot of stuff. But what would be your advice? I think that you're doing awesome pleasure, which is combination of business and leisure, combining what you love you enjoy doing, you've turned it into a money making activity, and you're giving back, I think, you know, boom, Bob's your uncle. But what would be your advice for someone looking to include more travel in their work or life?

51:40

There's always a reason not to go. I think people, you know, mask things, because the normality and comfort of where you are and what you're doing on a day to day basis means that you sort of sometimes push back on on the ability to go and do it, but to refresh your brain and go back into that space of what it feels like when you come back from these that's the biggest trigger for most people. When I say, you know, when was the last time you had that feeling? Does it feel good? Okay, how do we replicate that? Well, the first thing to do, and the easiest thing to do for any adventure or expedition that we do, is you say a date to your friends and your family, and you're telling you're doing something because you're accountable. Accountability is huge part, huge part of doing it. So going out there and saying, I'm off to do this. This this is my date. Whether it's a world record attempt or your first trip overseas public you're going out there, you then stand to lose something in that fabric of people if you don't put it off. So going out there and doing something in the public space and putting a name out there is the best way to define I am off on my next adventure.

Emma Lovell 52:36

I love it. And it's again, that transaction, the transformation happens to the transaction, that commitment, whether it's actually booking it or declaring it, then you're already on crucial the wheels are turning. Yes, do you think the pleasure life is possible and sustainable, so the combining of business and leisure?

52:58

Yeah, it's hard work, because sometimes you never have the off time. If you do what you love as a job, you enjoy doing it so much. I mean, I, I my own worst enemy at the moment. I work until probably 10 3011, o'clock most nights on my business. Sophie is away in Alice Springs. So she is a long way from where we are physically in crumb and, you know, she's a good two and a half hours flight away. So I don't have to be accountable to a partner, so I have the ability and the pleasure to manage my business at all hours of the day. But what that does is it doesn't give me disconnection. I'm not a librarian who can work from nine to five, close the door and walk away and have my own life. My life has become my business, and my business has become my life. That's good for tax reasons. But uh. But apart from that, downtime is quite hard to find. But if you love what you do enough, you never work a day in your life. Is what they say,

Emma Lovell 53:48

absolutely well. And my next question is, how do you make time for self care or find balance in your schedule?

53:57

My only time and I I'm guilty. This is my downfall. I'm guilty of only doing those things for me, maybe the business and other people. My downtime is when I run. And that is my release. That's my endorphins, that's my happy place. So being able to run three or four times a week to clock up my 50k is my my in my head is what I need to do a week. Once I've got that, I feel comfort in myself. But also having a six year old boy, knowing that when he gets home from school, a very good friend of mine, Aaron bergby, said, Be Where Your Feet are. And sometimes it is so easy to be distracted by a business call or the phone. So as soon as he gets home, that focus mode goes on in the phone. It doesn't get taken out of my pocket. It just gets to be in that moment there. So my happy face of running and when I've got quality, applied time with my little boy, yeah,

Emma Lovell 54:44

it's yeah, they are a great, not, I'd say just a beautiful distraction, but they're a great way to focus, because you can't. They demand it of you. And I love capturing things, so I think I'm guilty sometimes of having the phone there to capture I don't want to miss. Some of the funny things he says, but then it's so easy then to just check that thing drawn off and distracted. Yes, you're like, Oh my gosh. Now it's been now I've broken my promise. I tried to take him to the park yesterday because I was like, then I have to focus on him. Then you want to go to the park, you want to come home and like to go home. Fine. Okay, what this is? We'll see how you go. What's your dream destination to work? In

55:30

my mind flicked to somewhere straight away, and this was so in the middle of those salt pans in Botswana, there's a place called magadagadi salt pans. There's in the middle of this 2040, kilometer wide salt pan. There is a group of granite rocks called KUBU island. There are Baobab trees there. It is not influenced by anything on the planet, apart from the occasional person who rocks up there with a forward drive and it's brave enough to cross them. I spent maybe three or four days there, and over 2001 to 2008 it is one of the most remote places on the planet. It is beautiful. It's the place to go write a book. It's a place to go just be. It's a real zen place. If I had to go back somewhere to work and to be and to write a book, that would be my chosen space that I go to. Oh,

Emma Lovell 56:15

I love that answer, because some people have really struggled with this one, because my mind went straight to Antarctica. But then I went and inadvertently, as you said, when your life becomes this, I'm going to capture content, I'm going to talk about things, I'm going to maybe write an article about it later, so it's going to potentially be monetized. But I went, No, I want Antarctica to be for me. I want that to be for me. So then I said, I don't want to work there. Yes, people had that same thing. They're like, Oh, but it's like, but what is the work? Because for me say, maybe a dream is speaking in New York, and that's work. So it's like, then that's the dream destination to work in. It's not, I've been there as a tourist, but you know, for you, I mean, yeah, and I want to write a book in Mexico, so on the beaches of Mexico, I very much picture that. So it's interesting when you go, is it somewhere I just want to go, or do I want to work? And then you and I do have the ability that we could say, you know, run a trip, so you could be working in your dream destiny. So

57:14

in 10 days time, sorry, 14 days time, exactly in two weeks time, I will be leaving for three months from here in a four wheel drive, a new four wheel drive. The Land Rover is still in the shed here. It's having a bit of time off this year, and I'm heading off on the road for three months. So I'm going to work from the road for three months. I'm going to drive Atlas to Alice Springs across the Simpson Desert. I've got my Starlink system that's fitted on board. It will be my office, my house, my bedroom, my kitchen, everything again. So for three months, I will be hitting the road to work. So that is, in a way, that's become my dream destination. As long as the wheels are turning, as long as I've got new locations to go to every couple of days and new people, I'm reliving what I did in Africa and what I did when I drove from Singapore to London for three months. And Atlas will be on board for two weeks at the start, two weeks at the end. So that's my dream work environment. And again, I've visualized it, and it's happening in two weeks time.

Emma Lovell 58:03

Oh, I'm so glad that I caught you. Um, thank you so much. I'm off to buy your book. I think I remember I was like, if you haven't written a book, then chop, chop. Because, gosh, this needs to be somewhere. So I'm so glad you've written the book. I have no doubt that, like you're saying, there's more books, and I hope it gets to be written in Botswana. We are hopefully off to Africa next year. So I will give you, please do for the second time, so as a tour manager, which I'm really excited, because it last time was all about me, and it was my first ever big challenge. So this is getting to give that to others, and it really interesting to see how challenging I find it. Yeah, doing it again, managing and doing it with other people. Yes, yeah, whether the focus is on me or them, and where my health that and then which month are you going? Don't know yet with July, September or October, I think so. I'm

58:55

always told that September, because then you can piggyback off it the, obviously, the classic African experience of Safari, because it's the best times of year for rain. And out of the way, and all that sort of stuff. Is that growth window. So September's a good one.

Emma Lovell 59:06

Good Well, it's not booked So, and I get to dictate, because I'm the toy, go back to the company and say, I was a little birdies told me September, the goal is to do it myself, and then the boys will either fly over before or after, and then they want to get to see the gorillas in Rwanda. Really want to get to, not been to Mozambique or

59:27

some of the whale sharks at tofu and go back Coast Dara, and that's a wonderful coastline. Yeah,

Emma Lovell 59:32

it's the animal bucket list. So Matt and I have been riding an animal bucket list. So you to get some tips and to plan the route and to share that together, and then again, amazing.

59:46

Thank you. Thank you for reconnecting.

Emma Lovell 59:48

Oh, amazing. I hope it's not five years again. This will be in the book and it will be on the podcast, and it is two ways. So thank you so much, and thank you from me for being. The role model and showing that you can do it, and you can tell people when they say you can't like I say, at least bugger off. Ben, does it? I'm gonna do it. Yeah, keep smashing it. You're

1:00:09

doing a good job. All right.

Emma Lovell 1:00:10

Thank you. Thank you for listening. Lovely one. I hope this has inspired you to dream big and start creating a life you love today, if you love what you're hearing, don't forget to follow and rate on Spotify and rate review and subscribe on iTunes. It helps other awesome people to find this podcast and get motivated and inspired as well. Want to stay connected, come and join the live a life you love. Group on Facebook or connect with me on Instagram. Emma lovell.au the same as my website, but all the details are in the show notes. Lovely. I'll see you next episode for more inspiration, motivation and freedom seeking. Now go out there and live a life you love. You.