#175 - Beyond Borders Unveiling Life Lessons

From the mystical landscapes of the Inca Trail to the historic streets of Rome, I've trekked across the globe and returned with a backpack full of stories to share. I'm Jordan Edwards, your guide to a world where adventure molds the spirit and travel is the ultimate teacher. This episode isn't just about the places I've been; it’s a heartfelt invitation to expand your own horizons. Through my tales of Birthright in Israel, embracing the bustle of American cities amidst a pandemic, and surrendering to the serendipity of seven weeks wandering through Europe, I'll show you the profound ways in which travel can shape your perspective and inspire your life's journey.

Venture further with me as we chart a course for personal growth and intentional living. I challenge you to peel back the layers of narratives holding you back, to set your sights on goals that resonate with your deepest aspirations, and to craft a life brimming with adventure. Alongside our vibrant podcast community, I extend my deepest gratitude for the connections we've forged and the future we're stepping into together. So ignite your wanderlust, align with your purpose, and let's together turn the page on a new chapter of exploration and self-discovery.

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 1:00

hey, what's going on guys? I got a special guest here today. It is me, jordan edwards, and I'm here to tell you guys about travel. I wanted to make this podcast because I've been getting a lot of questions about what I'm up to, what's going on, how is it happening, how am I doing it. And I just want to share with you guys because I realized over these past 170 plus episodes, one of the things I haven't done very well is talk about travel that much. I do it a little bit with the guests from here and there, but I don't dive into that experience and how I kind of came to be and really start to enjoy travel.

Speaker 1: 1:43

So there were a few pivotal moments that started my travel journey. One of them was Birthright and I believe I did that at 20 years old and that's basically an activity where if you're Jewish, you get to for a small fee, can go to Israel, and I actually went with my brother and my cousin and you're able to go to Israel for about 10 days and they do three activities a day. Now the size of Israel is it's the same as New Jersey, so it's not that big. So it was cool because we got to see everything and really experience it in-depthly. And that was my first taste of like real over the pond, international travel. I mean growing. I did a lot of the cruises and we would do the all-inclusives and go to Mexico, jamaica, all of the nice spots, but really going over the pond, as I call it, the Atlantic Ocean, it really started when I had that opportunity, started when I had that opportunity. And another opportunity that came up, actually like a few months later, was I was studying abroad in Rome, italy, and that was a choice of mine because I realized I started to see forward a couple of years and realized that a lot of people were studying abroad in college and I knew that was something I really wanted to experience.

Speaker 1: 3:22

So I share this with you guys because the studying abroad, the birthright, are both opportunities. I could have said no to both, I could have said I'm too scared, I don't want to do it, I don't want to try it. And I share this with you guys because I want you guys to have something, that is, that you put yourself out there, you find opportunities, you make it happen and you make it more available, because when we view the world as there is enough, there is opportunity and we will be able to experience everything we want, then that really opens a lot of doors for us. So what ended up happening was, when I went to Rome, no one went with me, like that was a solo trip. My other cousin ended up joining and that ended up being a really fun opportunity. But basically I was going with the plan of I want to go and be in Europe for three months and I think this is gonna be an incredible experience, and we find out that many people are able to study abroad and sometimes that comes from when you have that experience.

Speaker 1: 4:32

Some people treat it as a uh, you could treat it as like a few different ways to travel. So some people are just um, it's legal drinking age, so a lot of people will go out. Some people are more adventurers and they're traveling, and then some people are planning different trips, going to different places, all of these different things. So I learned a lot about myself in that time that I'm more of an adventurer, I'm more of a traveler, and I share that with you because, if you guys haven't gone to different places or haven't explored that much, there's a few different types of trips in my opinion, one of them being there's an adventure trip, which is like when you go out there, you go and you experience new things. So in 2021, I actually went to the Inca Trail and I went with a few buddies and we hiked for four days and that was a very adventurous trip. Now some not so adventurous and more relaxed trips or luxurious trips you could do is like a cruise or an all inclusive or something a little bit more relaxed, and then to get that adventure, you can do the excursions. So there's many different ways of going about it, but travel's always been something that I've really cared about and really found the benefits because it really expanded my horizon.

Speaker 1: 5:54

And another one I want to tell you guys about was well, I guess the learnings from the Israel and then the study abroad, traveling around Europe was really that I enjoy the idea of being in a new place. I enjoy experiencing different countries and their cultures, and one of the biggest lessons I think for me is realizing that if you can't judge something if you've never experienced it meaning that if you're in a country, you can really get a feel for how the country is that means, oh my god, we'll talk everyone talks smack about all these different countries and all these things, but most people have never visited those places and most people don't really know what those places are like or what those people are like. So it's really getting ingrained in the culture, which I think is amazing, and then learning how unique the world is, but at the same time, we're really very close together because we're all humans and it's who we are. So the purpose of this podcast is really to show you how to find different opportunities. So another example I had was during COVID.

Speaker 1: 7:09

During COVID I had this obviously, everyone was shut down, people weren't traveling, people weren't doing anything. But I started to hear about this idea of living in different states, like doing a long-term Airbnb, maybe like a month or two and then traveling around. And I actually did that for eight months. Where we went? We hung out in Denver for a month. We were in me and my fiance Madison she wasn't my fiance at the time, but now she is Salt Lake City for three weeks. Nashville for six weeks. We each went home for Thanksgiving to New Year's. Then we went to Charleston, south Carolina, and then we went to Seabrook Seabrook, which was in Charleston, and then we went to a place in Florida. And it was an incredible experience because it taught me how to work and travel.

Speaker 1: 8:12

So for a long time I always thought that work and travel were not together, like if you're traveling you're traveling and if you're working you're working. But obviously the world has changed and it's changed drastically, and because of that it's allowed us to have many opportunities that previous generations never could, being location freedom and really understanding that when we're traveling it can be a really good thing. And like my biggest lesson from that trip was obviously growing closer with Madison. But like the second thing was really learning that I choose my own habits Because it's the one time where you're truly removed from all friendships. So like when you go to a new city or a new place, you don't have any friends hitting you up hey, do you want to go out here? Do you want to go here? Do you want to do this? You don't have any friends. So like you got to go make new friends and you got to be in that uncomfortable situation. How does one do that?

Speaker 1: 9:23

For me it's always been. I think about it and then I try to come up with ideas that break the construct of what I believe is possible. So when people say they go on vacation, most people think of that as like a one week vacation, but in europe, when you ask someone what their holiday is, they go on a three-month holiday or a three-week holiday, because America's got a very different construct of what a vacation is versus Europe, versus Asia, versus all of these different places, and we have to realize that we all have a choice of how we live our lives and we get to decide how we live our lives and we create the lives we want. So for you, I asked this question of like what life do you want? What do you want to create? How do you want to create it?

Speaker 1: 10:19

So for me, travel's always been a really important one, and usually I had the goal for a while which I was doing for a few years, which was travel to a new place every month. What that means is like you can get on a flight, you can go buy a car, you can do anything, and I also want to note that that trip with COVID, we were actually driving around the country and then renting places out for a month and like we would use the money that we would regularly allocate towards rent and we would just put it there. So it was literally the same price to live in all these different places, but you're just so much more accessible to the places around you. Like one weekend we when we were in Colorado, or no, when we were in Salt Lake city, we actually did Zion national park for a weekend and we got an Airbnb. And I'd say that because to go from Tampa to Zion would be it's a big trip. So it's like why not do these things that are super accessible because you're in that location? So that was one of the things.

Speaker 1: 11:21

The other big thing for me has always been, like I said, how do you change the construct of what you think is possible? So for a while, like I was saying, I was traveling once a month and that was just like through my life, through work, through different things that came up. But what I started to realize was the longer travel was super beneficial. Like in September of 22, madison and I went to Iceland and London and we went for a week. And the thing is, when we went, we would fly into Iceland, then we would fly into London, then we'd fly back to Iceland and then fly back. And the reason for that is because I wanted to have direct flights and Iceland Air has this cool thing where what you can do is you can basically book a round trip but you can add in stop days in Iceland. So that's how we did it. The reason I say that is because in that trip we did four flights in like a week and it was just very exhausting.

Speaker 1: 12:25

And when you start getting time, delays and a lot of these issues, it starts to weigh on you a lot and it kind of affects the experience of the trip, because you want to do adventurous stuff but at the same time, like you want to be rested, you want to be doing all these things. So what we decided to do this year was actually go to Europe for seven weeks, and when we did that, the idea is to spend two-ish weeks in different countries. So we did Italy, we're currently in Porto, portugal, and we're going to continue traveling around, and all we did was buy a flight there, buy a flight back, and then we would find different Airbnbs in different cities or different hotels or whatever it is, and travel around. Because what I started to learn was that you can work and travel, you can build these things if you're intentional with your life and you choose to build a life like this and I'm not saying that we're going to stay here or live here or do any of that but it's like go try it for seven weeks. If you like it, fantastic. If you don't go back, all good either way. But how can anyone judge if you haven't tried?

Speaker 1: 13:39

So my point being here is that in life, the bigger lesson is that you have to try a ton of new things. You have to go and do these different things, and when we think about these a lot of times we don't give ourselves the benefit of the doubt. We go that's impossible, I can't do that. And we have these stories that we tell ourselves. So what I want you to do in this podcast is break the root. What's the breakthrough for you? That you're gonna change your mindset. What's going to break your mindset where you're like that's not possible. And then you go and do it Because I think about this concept of like the six weeks of travel and I tell people and they're like whoa, that's so cool, I could do that.

Speaker 1: 14:20

Blah, blah, blah. And it starts giving token of possibility, which is incredible. But there's also a lot of people who go I could never do that, that's impossible. I'm like well, I'm doing it. It's not impossible. But when I compare myself to someone who travels all the time for several years like they never go home they go home for a month I go wow, that's 11 months of travel. How do they do that?

Speaker 1: 14:55

And these are the things that you start to realize is that the people in your life need to be inspiring you, whether it's a podcaster like myself, or like the people in your friend group, or the people you're listening to, or your peer groups or whatever it is. You need to get around people that are inspiring you, to push you to be more and see more and experience more, because there's so many of us that are just not living their life to their experience, because we're so constrained by, by these different, somewhat mindsets, but also just what we believe is possible. And it happens a lot to people. When we're children, everyone gets asked what do you want to be? And I remember telling people I want to be a football player. And then, as you grow up, you're like 5'11", 185 pounds, 180 pounds, not the fastest, don't even like hitting people. Now, football's not in the cards, right. So you start to give up these goals.

Speaker 1: 15:56

But as you continue on through college and through your early 20s and your 30s and 40s and 50s and 60s and 70s and 80s, you start to lose your goals even more if you don't push towards them. So I ask you today what is your goal? What are you pushing towards? Because if we're not pushing towards something that really inspires us, then what's the point, what's the point of just making it another day? You want to live a life that you're proud of, that you're inspired by, that you're excited with. So how are you going to do that? How are you going to build that life?

Speaker 1: 16:38

I do that by asking myself a few questions. I ask myself in a year, where do I want to be? And you start to look at that and you might say things like I want a promotion, or I want to buy a house, or I want to wear. What is it that you really want? What is it that you want? Time freedom is that you want location. Freedom is that you want experience, great relationship with friends is that you want to make new friends. What is it that you really want? And get descriptive with it, because the thing is here.

Speaker 1: 17:20

We don't get intentional about our lives, because going all the way through school and college and you're just doing what you're supposed to do next getting a job, getting the promotion it's just what you're supposed to do next. So if you ever ask yourself, what is it that I want to do and that doesn't mean just uplift your life and change cities and quit jobs and do all that, but it's like maybe on the weekend, instead of just doing what you normally do, maybe you go away somewhere, maybe you go experience something new. Maybe you drive an hour away and see this incredible town near you. I don't know, because the thing is you could be anywhere in the world, but a lot of us don't leave ourselves open to that experience. We're bogged down by technology. We're bogged down by these things that can eat us or hurt us. So I ask you today how are you going to find your joy? What is your purpose?

Speaker 1: 18:15

And when you go about that activity of describing your life in one year, get really detailed and talk about, like your income and talk about your mental health, talk about your physical health, talk about community service, philanthropy, spirituality and relationships and really dive into it and then come up with an action plan. Come up with things you want to accomplish and if you need help with this, I can help you out. Just reach out. I'd be happy to set up a call and we could discuss a little bit further. But that's not what this is for. This is for me to open up the playbook on how I'm traveling Europe for seven weeks right now, how I've traveled the US for eight months, how I do these different things. It's for you to understand that it starts with intentionality and then breaking down the goal to the smallest possible step to make it so simple that you know what you have to do. You got to have the big picture direction, but the details will figure themselves out.

Speaker 1: 19:16

We're literally doing this trip only having places a week or a week and a half in advance, if not even shorter. So whenever we get into these situations where we're like, oh, we only have a week left, we'll go figure out where we want to go next or look around, look at the map, maybe those cool activities, whatever it is. But it's a free flow of not knowing which is forcing me to be comfortable with the uncomfortable, because I'm challenging myself each and every day, not knowing where I'm going to be, and that's the most fun Because in truth, in life we don't know where we're going to end up being. We don't know who we're going to marry. We don't know who we're going to end up being. We don't know who we're going to marry. We don't know who we're going to meet. We don't know who we're going to experience life with. And it's really important for us to realize we decide.

Speaker 1: 20:04

You are not bound to do anything at this moment, but you decide everything in this moment and you have to realize that where you're at today is decisions that you made over the past years. So if you're not happy with where you're at today, you have to change your decisions. But it all starts with knowing your north star. You've got to know the directional awareness that you want to move in. So figure out the direction. Then figure out what else you need to do what are the small action steps and get working. Take action, take massive action. Doing one reach out is not massive action. Doing 500 reach outs is not massive action. Doing 50 consistently for six months, that's some good action. And you got to realize that it's going to take you a lot longer and it's going to be a lot harder than you ever thought it would be. So get ready for that. But the only way to know is to get started, is to try to push yourself to believe what is possible.

Speaker 1: 21:05

I wanted to do another one of these because I haven't spoken to you guys one-on-one in a while and I'm super excited to just see the growth of the podcast, see all the amazing things going on, appreciate all of your kind words and gratitude and all of that, and I'm looking forward to continuing growing this podcast and seeing where we can really take it. You guys, I appreciate everyone listening and, like I said at the end of the calls, I always offer a complimentary coaching session, a quick time to hop on me. My email address is there, so just reach out. I'd be happy to hear from you and I can't wait to see what you accomplish. This 2024 is going to be your best year yet and I really just hope you take this as a token of inspiration and not in a negative capacity. So I wish you guys all the best, keep clocking in and, yeah, I'm super grateful that you listened this far. Thank you.