Paul Trammell is a seasoned writer and artist who lives on his sailing boat in the peaceful waters of Bocas del Toro, Panama. His story is one of transformation, describing his journey from a life steeped in music and art to finding solace in sobriety and the vast horizons of the sea.
Throughout his story, Paul delves into the different layers of his life, sharing the vivid colours of his paintings, the rhythmic beats of his musical career, and the creative process behind his literary works. His books, such as "Alcoholics Not Anonymous: A Modern Way to Quit Drinking" and "Becoming a Sailor," explore minimalist living and discovering joy from being free from material wealth, highlighting the essence of true happiness and purpose.
As the conversation shifts to the craft of writing, Paul describes his disciplined approach to the art that has led to a diverse portfolio spanning genres from self-help to poetry. His journey celebrates the courage to redefine one's path and find fulfillment in the unexpected chapters of our own stories.
https://www.paultrammell.com/
Thank you for listening - Hasta Pronto!
Paul Trammell is a seasoned writer and artist who lives on his sailing boat in the peaceful waters of Bocas del Toro, Panama. His story is one of transformation, describing his journey from a life steeped in music and art to finding solace in sobriety and the vast horizons of the sea.
Throughout his story, Paul delves into the different layers of his life, sharing the vivid colours of his paintings, the rhythmic beats of his musical career, and the creative process behind his literary works. His books, such as "Alcoholics Not Anonymous: A Modern Way to Quit Drinking" and "Becoming a Sailor," explore minimalist living and discovering joy from being free from material wealth, highlighting the essence of true happiness and purpose.
As the conversation shifts to the craft of writing, Paul describes his disciplined approach to the art that has led to a diverse portfolio spanning genres from self-help to poetry. His journey celebrates the courage to redefine one's path and find fulfillment in the unexpected chapters of our own stories.
https://www.paultrammell.com/
Thank you for listening - Hasta Pronto!
Hi, I'm Daniela. Welcome to my podcast. Because Everyone has a Story, the place to give ordinary people's stories the chance to be shared and preserved. Our stories become the language of connections. Let's enjoy it, connect and relate because everyone has a story. Late, because everyone has a story. Welcome. My guest is Paul Trammell. Paul is an experienced writer and artist living on his sailing boat in the peaceful waters of Bocas del Toro, panama. He was into painting, teaching music and now he's also a creative writer and sailor. We explore his minimalistic living and discovering joy from being free from material wealth, highlighting the essence of true happiness and purpose. His journey is all about being brave, trying new things and finding joy in unexpected places. Let's enjoy his story. Welcome, Paul, to the show. Thank you for having me on. Yes, and you are all the way in.
Paul Trammell:I'm in Bocas del Toro, Panama.
Daniela SM :Yeah, Bocas del Toro. Wow, that's so cool. I always wanted to be there One day. I'm going to see it. We spoke before. I know that you have a really interesting story to tell. Why do you want to share your story?
Paul Trammell:Oh, wow. Why do I want to share my story? Well, I think you know, like everybody, we can all learn from each other and there's a lot to be learned from my life. I'm also. I make my living selling books. I'm an author. So without sharing my story and myself, you know, I can't sell books. So it's part of being self-employed in the world of the arts sharing.
Daniela SM :Yes, Paul, when does your story start?
Paul Trammell:As long as I can remember, I've been some sort of an artist and it's always been my dream to make a living in the arts one way or another Throughout most of my life. I wasn't sure exactly which way that was going to go, but ever since I was a child I've been drawing, making things out of clay, carving things out of wood, painting, playing music, writing. I have tried a few different arts in order to make a living at. I was very into painting. For a long time, painted a lot of oil paintings and I had them hanging in various places and I sold a few. But I never made it that way.
Paul Trammell:And I was also a musician. For a long time. I was a performing musician in bands, playing gigs, writing music, playing original music for a long time for at least 20 years, and that eventually came to an end as well. Gosh, that also led to a lifestyle of hard partying. Being a musician, you know what I thought of as the rock and roll lifestyle. And eventually I eventually I got sober, I quit drinking and quit smoking, and that led to some big changes in my life. One was that it led me, you know, deeper into writing. Two is that it led me into seeking adventure. That led to sailing and where I am now. And now I've, you know, I did a lot of introspection and I decided what I really wanted to do. The best thing I could do with my life is, or was to be, a writer who lived as a nomad on a sailboat. I thought that would be the best thing in the world, and that's what I've been doing for the last five years. That's where I am now.
Daniela SM :Wow, that sounds super interesting Going back. So you graduated and you were doing paintings, or how did that work?
Paul Trammell:I graduated from college didn't really know what I wanted to do with my life at the time, so I applied to graduate school and I went to graduate school for three more years. So I was in college for seven years, but I still didn't have a direction. I came out of college I taught school for one year and I did not enjoy that at all.
Daniela SM :Ninth grade oh, so you were a teacher.
Paul Trammell:Yeah, I was a teacher, a ninth grade teacher, for one year.
Daniela SM :And that's what you studied. No.
Paul Trammell:I studied biology Okay, okay, I taught biology as well as algebra. Yeah, I didn't enjoy that at all, you know left and was without direction in my life and I decided I wanted to move back to Florida. That's when I became a musician, like a professional musician. I made a living as a carpenter, you know. My main goal was to be a professional touring, gigging, big time musician and I worked very hard at that goal for 20 years at least 20 years Played in a lot of bands, ended up with one band that lasted about 10 years. I wrote music and we recorded CDs and we toured a little bit and we had a lot of fun, but we never made it big time. And eventually that got to a point where I realized we never were going to get any bigger than we were and I needed to change. I needed to try something different.
Daniela SM :And as a carpenter, what were?
Paul Trammell:you doing as a carpenter. I was building houses. I did all sorts of different kinds of carpentry. I started off as a framer, then got into renovations and then finally, towards the end of my career, I was a finished carpenter. So I had a good job. At the end I was doing finished carpentry on very nice high-end homes, mostly waterfront homes in Florida, beachfront and riverfront homes. So it was a good job and intellectually it's not very stimulating.
Daniela SM :If you liked art so much, how come you went to biology?
Paul Trammell:That's a good question and the answer is my father was a doctor. I always thought I would be a doctor, so I went to a science school. I went to FIT, Florida Tech, and studied biology, but right away I realized that I wasn't ever going to be a doctor. I realized that in the very beginning of my first year, because I just noticed that the pre-med students were very different from me and that got me to thinking about what my father really did for a living, how he spent his time and what he actually did. And I realized that wasn't me. And then that's when I kind of lost my direction. All my life I thought I was going to be a doctor and then all of a sudden I realized I'm definitely not going to ever be a doctor.
Daniela SM :How do you say that they were different? What were they different about?
Paul Trammell:They studied a lot more than I did. For one thing, they were very studious. I wanted to have fun. I wanted to surf, I wanted to play music, I wanted to do things outside of academia. I realized at that point that if you're going to be a doctor, you need to do nothing but study while you're in college. It might sound obvious to people who are listening, but to me at the time it was a revelation, because I wanted to do a lot more. I wanted to do fun things. I wanted to surf. For one thing and I still surf. That was in 1987 or 88. That was 1988. And here we are, I don't know how many years later, many, many years later. Surfing is still one of my favorite things to do. That's one reason why I'm here in Bocas del Toro.
Daniela SM :Oh, okay, where are you originally from?
Paul Trammell:I am from West Virginia. I went to high school in West Virginia and I went to graduate school in West Virginia, but the last 23 years, before I sold my house and moved on to my sailboat, I was in Florida. I kind of think of myself as being from Florida, but also from West Virginia, because that's where I spent my childhood.
Daniela SM :Yeah, so it is interesting that you liked the arts when you were little. However, you wanted to be a doctor, like your dad. Then you realized that it didn't work, so you went into teaching. It's not really either or, and, of course, the responsibility of teaching kids. I'm sure it wasn't something that appealing to you.
Paul Trammell:That was just something to do Basically. As soon as I realized I wasn't going to be a doctor which was my freshman year of college I didn't have a whole lot of direction. I didn't really know what I wanted to do. I mean, I always wanted to be some sort of artist, but that didn't become like a real directive, a real drive, until I moved to Florida After high school and up until then I really didn't know what to do. So I just kind of kept going to school and studying biology.
Paul Trammell:I still love biology and nature and fish and animals and ecosystems. I love all that and I still think along those lines and a lot of my writing is nonfiction and I write a good bit about nature and animals and ecosystems and such in my books, my sailing nonfiction. But yeah, that's you know, I just a lot of my life. I didn't know what I was going to do and I finally found that after my time as a musician, I finally found what I really wanted, which was to get out of society and live somewhere on its edge, out in nature and be a writer. And that's what I'm doing now and it really feels like I've found exactly the right thing for me out here.
Daniela SM :Yes, that's wonderful. And, Paul, how did your parents react when you said, okay, I don't want to be a doctor?
Paul Trammell:They were okay with it. They've always let me make my own decisions. They never pushed any of us. I have a brother and sister too. They never pushed any of us to do any one particular thing. They always let us make our own decisions. That was one of their parenting philosophies was to let the kids make their own decisions. Let them make their own mistakes. Kid Really, we all were. That was back in the 80s, the 70s and 80s parenting was different than it is now. We had a lot of freedom and I always was doing my own thing. My parents rarely even knew where I was.
Daniela SM :I think a lot of my childhood so you're in Florida, you realized surfing you loved and you are a musician and going to different gigs. What of instrument instruments do you play?
Paul Trammell:I play guitar and I played bass. My first jobs in bands were on the bass, the electric bass, mostly in reggae bands, which I loved so much fun. And then, after a while, some friends of mine invited me to play guitar in one of their bands and then I became a guitar player and I was a guitar player for the you know, electric guitar in a reggae band for the next 10 years.
Daniela SM :And that's what I did, and I wrote music as well. And this is in Florida. In what city?
Paul Trammell:This is in St Augustine, florida. Yeah, st Augustine is in northeast Florida. It's on the beach. North Florida, nation's oldest city, yep, the ancient city.
Daniela SM :Oh, cool, cool, and tell me about the alcohol and all these things that you were involved. Why does music and alcohol go together, or what is it?
Paul Trammell:They do go together. Not all musicians are alcoholics and drug addicts, but a lot of them are. A lot of artists are, for that matter. You know, one of the things is, when you're a beginning musician and you're getting gigs, you're getting your first gigs they're all in bars, they're all in establishments that make their money selling alcohol. Usually part of the band's payment is free beer. There was a lot of beer involved, and then I was in reggae bands and of course, reggae and marijuana go hand in hand. So that's what I was.
Paul Trammell:I was a beer drinker and a pot smoker, and I just happened to have an addictive personality. There was a beer drinker and a pot smoker, and I just happened to have an addictive personality. There's a genetic component to addiction and I have it. No doubt about it. I became an alcoholic and a pothead, and that was a long time, a lot of my life. I was partying hard. I mean, I was having fun, but it took its toll. It got to a point where I knew that I was drinking and smoking way too much and I needed to quit. You know, some people can tone it down and drink less and smoke less, but most people who get to that point, can't? It's all or nothing. It's certainly the way it is for me. So nine years ago I quit drinking. Eight years ago I quit smoking weed. Actually, quitting smoking weed was harder than quitting drinking.
Daniela SM :Okay, well, they say that marijuana is not addicted. They used to say that.
Paul Trammell:Okay, well, they say that marijuana is not addicted, just like not everybody gets addicted to alcohol or tobacco. They taught us that in grade school health class. Marijuana is not addictive. It was always in my head. Everybody in our generation still believes that it's not addictive, but the actual modern medical research will tell you that it is addictive and I certainly experienced that. It was extremely difficult to quit.
Daniela SM :And Paul, do you realize? Okay, I'm going to stop now. That did it yourself, or you need an intervention.
Paul Trammell:I did it myself. No, I didn't need any intervention and I didn't go to AA or NA. I did it all all by myself.
Daniela SM :So even that, you said that you have an addictive personality. However, you are strong enough to say, okay, I'm going to stop it. So there are different kinds of levels, I guess.
Paul Trammell:Everybody's different, I suppose. Yeah, a lot of people need to go to a group therapy to quit. Alcoholics Anonymous, for instance, is very popular, but it's not for everybody. There's a lot of people like me who are never going to go to any sort of group therapy. The hardcore AA people will tell you that it's impossible to quit without going to AA. Well, that's obviously false. I've been alcohol-free for nine years and I'm not in any danger of starting again, and that's actually the subject of my first book. That's how I started writing books. I'd always been a writer of short stories, but my first book describes the method I used, that I developed to quit drinking on my own.
Daniela SM :How do you know it was a method? Did you just really thought about it, or Right.
Paul Trammell:I spent a lot of time thinking about how to do it and how it was going to work and what I needed to do in order to make it work, and a lot of people were asking me for advice as I was going through it, because I was sharing on social media what I was doing, how I did it, and we're asking specific questions. So I eventually started compiling everything and put together my book Alcoholics Not Anonymous A Modern Way to Quit Drinking, and that's what worked for me.
Daniela SM :So it is more of like an instruction manual. The first book.
Paul Trammell:It is. The first book is very short, very easy and quick to read and it's basically a step-by-step. Here's what I did to quit drinking and here's what worked for me and, you know, maybe it'll work for you too. If you don't want to go to aa, if you do want to go to aa, go.
Daniela SM :But if you don't, you know you might need a different, some different advice and have you met anybody who said oh, I read your book and you have helped me?
Paul Trammell:very many people. Yeah, I get a lot of feedback from that book from people who it's helped, and that's probably that makes me feel better than anything else I've done in my life.
Daniela SM :Yes, of course, of course, and so you had this book. And how long it took you to do the second book.
Paul Trammell:The second book came about when I realized that this first book was selling. I was just becoming a sailor at the time. I had just taken a class and learned how to sail and I bought a boat. I bought a sailboat and the boat that I bought was 1,000 miles from home and I had to get it there. So I basically taught myself how to sail solo, how to sail alone, and eventually I took off from where I bought the boat, which was Tampa Bay, florida, on the west coast of Florida, and I sailed at a thousand miles back to St Augustine alone as a novice. And that was the subject of my second book, and it's called Becoming a Sailor.
Daniela SM :Oh, wow, okay. So when you decided I'm going to stop drinking and smoking marijuana, I'm going to be a nomad, I'm going to buy a boat and I'm going to start writing, that was all at once, pretty much.
Paul Trammell:Yeah, it was nearly a year into my first year of sobriety. It was towards the end of my first year of sobriety I kind of had a realization that what I really wanted to do was to sail, because I needed adventure. I felt this really strong need for adventure at that point in my life because I'd given up the big fun thing I always did, which was partying, drinking and smoking and going on tour with the band. Those were good, exciting times and now there's this void in my life. Those were good, exciting times and now there's this void in my life and I wanted to fill it with something really thrilling, something that was next level you know, something really fun, really thrilling.
Paul Trammell:It had an element of danger and nature and adventure and exploration. I was actually canoeing. I was on a five-day canoe trip through the Okefenokee Swamp alone when I had this realization like sailing, that's it. That's what I'm looking for, that's what I need to do. I need to learn how to sail and get a sailboat, and right away I'd signed up for a class and I started reading books, started figuring out how to sail on other people's boats, did a couple of offshore passages on other boats and then I bought a boat. That's how it all started.
Daniela SM :It's fascinating. Most people will have said, okay, I'm going to buy a backpack. What are the big adventures that you could do?
Paul Trammell:What's the real big adventure you could do? And I was just going over all these different ideas in my head and when I finally hit on sailing, it just felt right. It felt like, ah, that's definitely it, that is exactly it. That's the biggest adventure that you can do right now sail on the ocean, and it is. It's incredible.
Daniela SM :What is that feeling of not seeing land around you?
Paul Trammell:It feels wonderful. It feels like you're on a different planet. It feels like you've got your own little part of the globe. It's just you. You look around and all you see is water. You're basically looking in a circle that covers about 15 miles in diameter and there's nobody there but me and my boat, and it's just bizarre. And not having land. It's just way different. It's like being in a different world and I love that. I love feeling like I'm somewhere really remote. I'm somewhere where there aren't any other people. I'm doing something completely different, seeing something different, experiencing a different part of the world. All those things appeal to me a lot.
Daniela SM :Well, the fact that you were surfing. Obviously water is one of your elements.
Paul Trammell:I love water. All my free time activities are water-based these days.
Daniela SM :Because what you're describing with the water I can see that when you do a hike and you can see all mountains and nature and you're just alone or the only human there, but amazing nature like you see all these mountains.
Paul Trammell:It's a similar feeling. I love being up in the mountains too. Two summers ago, I sailed to Newfoundland, canada. I did a lot of hiking while I was there, up in the mountains, and it's the same thing there. There's no civilization anywhere nearby, and you get up into the mountains and you look around and you don't see any houses. You don't see any telephone poles or any signs of man either. In fact, there aren't even any airplanes that fly over Newfoundland, and so you get that complete wilderness feeling when you're up there. I love that too, whether it's on land or in the water. One of my favorite things these days is underwater. I do a lot of freediving. Yeah, I do a lot of freediving and spearfishing, and I just love swimming around coral reefs and looking up, looking in caves and shining my flashlight inside caves and looking for fish and seeing all these strange animals down there. That really feels like a big adventure, and it is. You're underwater, holding your breath and swimming around and trying to spear a fish. It's fantastic.
Daniela SM :So from Tampa and you brought it back to San Agustin, and then from there you have gone down to Panama. How far have you gone?
Paul Trammell:You're right. I brought the boat back to San Augustine and I sailed it to the Bahamas and about two years later I sold that boat and I sold my house and I got rid of everything I owned besides my truck and some things that could fit in it, and I bought another sailboat that was bigger, and that's the boat I'm sitting on right now. I bought that boat in Massachusetts in October of 2019. I bought that boat in Massachusetts in October of 2019. And I sailed her to the Bahamas and then back to Florida and then to the Bahamas again, and then to San Andres, colombia, and then Panama and then Jamaica and then the Bahamas, back to Florida, then up to Canada, back down to Florida, back to the Bahamas and back to Panama, and that's where I am now.
Daniela SM :Oh wow, so you stay in that area more or less. How far can you go if you wanted to?
Paul Trammell:Oh, I could sail this boat around the world. Okay, it's made to sail as far as you want to, so I could go wherever I want, but I love it here. I'm very happy where I am right now in Panama. It's a good place, not only to live on a boat, but it's a good place to surf and to spearfish and to work my kind of work writing and I love it here. I speak a little bit of Spanish and I'm learning more, and I love the culture here. There's multiple cultures here. There's a lot of Indians, there's a lot of Native Americans that live here. There's the whole Panamanian Central American culture as well. It's fascinating.
Daniela SM :There's a lot of Native Americans there.
Paul Trammell:A lot. Yeah, there's a lot of not just Native Americans, but Native Americans that live, as they always have, in simple structures and they paddle around in dugout canoes. It's very common here. I mean, every day I see dugout canoes, you know, canoes that are carved from a log. That's their standard mode of transportation.
Daniela SM :When you say Native Americans, you mean indigenous from the area.
Paul Trammell:Yes.
Daniela SM :Indigenous from Panama.
Paul Trammell:Right. I mean, this is Central America, so I'm using the term Native American to apply to the indigenous people here. I'm not sure if that's the right phrase or not, but they call themselves Indians even though that's a funny word that we made up in America a long time ago but they actually refer to themselves as Indians. The Niabe is the name of the tribe that's mostly around here, and then you've got the Gunas in the San Blas area, but this whole Caribbean coast of Panama, I mean almost the entire Caribbean coast, is sparsely populated with indigenous people.
Daniela SM :These indigenous people are very reserved. I heard that they don't just let you in that easy.
Paul Trammell:You know, the ones that I've met have been very open. Some of them obviously keep to themselves, but I go to a place called Cusapin in the Laguna Bluefield and it's about 20 miles east of here. It's all Native Americans and there are no roads. There's no connection to the civilized world besides boats. They all right. When you anchor your sailboat they'll start coming out to your boat and canoes and saying hello and trying to talk to you and selling bananas and coconuts trying to talk to you and selling bananas and coconuts. Kids especially, like most of the boats that come out, are like young boys in canoes that come out and want to hang out, and I usually have pencils for them or chocolate. They're very open and friendly.
Daniela SM :Do you go to the States at all?
Paul Trammell:I rarely go back to the United States. I've been back on this boat a couple of times to work on the boat, gone back to visit family a couple of times. I don't have any plans to live there or to spend time. I like where I am.
Daniela SM :How do you do community?
Paul Trammell:Community. Yes, there's a lot of other sailors here, so right now, for instance, I'm anchored in an area where there's maybe 10 other sailboats and then a few miles away is Boca's town, where there's probably 50 sailboats and there's a lot of people here that surf. So I know a lot of surfers here. I usually always have a friend or two who's on a sailboat, who surfs, and we get together and surf together or we spearfish together. I get along alone very well, though. That's just my personality, but I'm also a podcaster, like yourself. You know. I interview two people every week, so I make two new friends every single week.
Daniela SM :Oh, there you go, that's true. How to make friends. Yeah, these people that are on the boat are from where? Are they also foreigners or they are native from the area?
Paul Trammell:They're mostly all foreigners, so there's a lot of Americans here. There are a lot of Europeans here. Yeah, most of the sailboats, pretty much all the sailboats here, I mean there's a few that are Panamanian, but most of them are either from the United States or Canada or somewhere in Europe. There's a lot of French sailboats Britain, Great Britain.
Daniela SM :But they're just passing by or they're staying as long as you.
Paul Trammell:Some are here because this is where they want to be, and some are here because they're going to go through the Panama Canal and they're just stopping by here.
Daniela SM :Oh, I see.
Paul Trammell:Yeah, and some are here specifically to surf, because this is a good place, this is a surf destination.
Daniela SM :Excellent. So, Paul, let's talk about your podcast. What is it about?
Paul Trammell:I have two. My first podcast is a sailing podcast offshore sailing and cruising. I interview other sailors and talk about what they're doing and where they've been and how they have their boats set up and what lessons they've learned. And you know how they sail. I try to, I try to share useful information for other sailors. So that's that podcast has been around for three and a half years and has a lot of, a lot of has a big following. Um, it's, it's a. It's a good, it's a good podcast for sailors to listen to, especially sailors who are learning how to sail offshore. You know, I I always interview offshore sailors, people who travel and go places, uh, and then I have a second podcast that's much more new. That one's called Dream Chasers and Eccentrics and in it I can interview anybody I want. The main goal there is to interview people who have chased a dream and ask them how they got there, how they did it, what did they dream up, how and why and what steps did they take to accomplish their out-of-the of the ordinary goals?
Daniela SM :Wow, that sounds really interesting. And what might what make you do two? You wanted to, one was a niche and then you wanted to have, like, more freedom.
Paul Trammell:Exactly, exactly. Yeah, sometimes I've found myself wanting to interview people that weren't sailors, and sometimes I did anyway, but then eventually, eventually, I felt like I should have a podcast where I could interview anybody I want and that might attract a broader audience instead of a niche market.
Daniela SM :And so do you meet people around there that you can say, okay, let's have an episode and you have one-on-one instead of doing it online?
Paul Trammell:Sometimes, yes, yeah, sometimes I interview people here on my boat, one-on-one. The vast majority of my interviews are done remotely.
Daniela SM :Yeah, I started having all my friends coming over and it was really fun and I was recording with a little recording machine and I realized that when you do it online you get double, you know like two double tracks, and I was like, oh my God, that's amazing. Now you know nobody talks over the other person, you can fix things better. Wow, technology love it.
Paul Trammell:It's so much harder to record live? Yeah, exactly Because it's. You have to have two microphones set up and record on two channels, and then, even so, you're unless your microphones are very directional, they're your one person's voice is going to bleed into the other microphone. So record on two channels and then, even so, you're unless your microphones are very directional, they're your one person's voice is going to bleed over into the other microphone, so it's it's much more difficult.
Paul Trammell:You really need a studio to make a live recording, or you need you need professional studio gear to make a live recording come out well yes, yes, I know, I noticed that, so it's great.
Daniela SM :So you're a podcaster, you're a nomad, you, you are a writer, you're a sailor what else? A musician. You have so many talents. It's incredible, and I'm sure you're proud of all the talents that you have acquired. You know, I always think like, oh, a lawyer, a doctor, somebody who is like a pharmacist, those people have a career and they make money, and it's amazing. But somebody says that these people are less risk takers. They know that they're always going to be doctors, always going to be lawyers, and so they don't have to think about anything. This is what they have to do. Well, people like you and I, I guess we jump from one career to another, learn different skills. We're like more adaptable, less fearful, maybe, and more open to change, and I thought, oh, I never thought it that way, but it sounds really good and I like it better. And I cannot imagine yeah, I cannot imagine myself doing the same thing for the rest of my life.
Paul Trammell:I think you're right. I enjoy taking risks and I enjoy change. I don't want to have a regular job. I've only had once or twice in my life for a year or less have I actually had a regular job that I had to go to every day and made a salary. I don't like that at all. When you're young, you think I want a career that makes money right, I want to make you know more money is better, right so, doctor, lawyer when I was a kid that makes money. Right, I want to make you know and more money is better, right so, doctor, lawyer when I was a kid, those were the two big ones doctor or a lawyer, those are the people that made the money.
Daniela SM :So that's what a lot of people wanted to be.
Paul Trammell:But then, as you get older, you start to realize well, money is a means to an end, it's not a goal. It's not a good goal. It's a means to an end. You need enough money to buy food and pay your bills, but it doesn't bring happiness. It should not be your number one goal. It should be a means to an end, and the means in the end is you need food and I need my sailboat to maintain it and to pay some bills, but I don't have very much money. As a nomadic sailing author, I'm not making very much money at all, but I don't need very much. I need a surfboard and I need my freediving gear and I need to keep my sailboat afloat. And that's really about it. My life is very inexpensive and I am happier now than I have ever been. I'm much happier than I would be with a high paying job that I had to go to every day and never had any time off. I wouldn't be happy at all like that, didn't matter how much money I made.
Daniela SM :Yes, exactly.
Paul Trammell:I might have a nice car, but who cares? I'm driving the car to work every day.
Daniela SM :Exactly, exactly.
Paul Trammell:Doesn't make any difference. You know and you get your, you get your, get your little few days off for vacation.
Daniela SM :That wouldn't work for me A few days?
Paul Trammell:yes, yeah, a few days really. I mean, that doesn't work for me.
Daniela SM :Yes, unfortunately, we are in a society that money is necessary. But I was reading the other day that abundance is to have enough, never more, and I thought, oh yeah, that's true, and you just have to know what is enough. And I feel like the same as you, I realize now. I grew up in Venezuela, which you didn't have at all. I had everything I need, but not like here in North America, where you can actually get more than what you actually need, and I realize you actually can be happy with very little. And I want to go back to that. I want to see how that is, because I know you don't need a bigger house and a lot of toys and a better car and clothes every day. You know, buy clothes. All the time I feel like to be happy is just experiences what you need, no things. That's correct. Yeah, exactly, in order to be happy, you need what you need, not things.
Paul Trammell:That's correct. Yeah, exactly, in order to be happy, you need to spend a lot of time thinking about what makes you happy and then, once you have that figured out and that takes a lot of thought, it's not something you're going to figure out quickly if you're just starting you need to really spend a lot of time thinking about what it is that makes you happy and then, once you figure that out, then you need to figure out how to do more of it, how to design a life that brings you happiness, and then you need to implement that plan and then you live it.
Daniela SM :But do you think it's easy? I meet people that they don't find their purpose or the things that they like to do. That takes them a long time and and they are still struggling and people die without knowing purpose and what makes them happy. So you seem to have found a formula, but do you think that that could work for everyone?
Paul Trammell:Yes, I can't speak for everyone, but I think one of the biggest mistakes people make in designing their life is that they let other people decide for them or they let the media decide for them. They let what's popular decide for them. They let what they see on television or now on the internet or on social media or whatever I mean. When I was a kid, it was television. We all watched TV, and TV advertisements were always blasting into our brains and they made us all want fancy clothes, fancy cars, big, high-paying jobs. That's what we all thought. We wanted A house, a nice house in a nice neighborhood. Everybody in the house has their own car. You've got a dog, you've got a white picket fence the American dream we called it. That's what we all wanted. We didn't want that because we sat down and thought about what made us happy. We all wanted that because that's what we saw on television. We didn't realize it, but that's what it was. We saw that on TV and we saw the people around us doing that. And that's what our parents did. They had a good job and they had a house and they had kids. But that's not what brings happiness. That's what most people try to get, and then they get there and they're not happy. And then they drink and do drugs because they think that makes them happy and that doesn't make them happy either, and they get less healthy and they get depressed. And then they go to the doctor and the doctor gives them drugs because they're depressed and that doesn't make them happy either. It's just a terrible cycle.
Paul Trammell:The answer is to eliminate advertisements from your life. I quit watching television completely in 1991, when I was in college, and that really changed my life. You really need to eliminate those outside influences from your life, because all those advertisements are just trying to make money. They're trying to create wants in your mind. They're trying to create wants and needs in your mind and it's up to you to eliminate that from your life. And you can do that by minimizing the advertisements that get into your head and then spend time thinking about what makes you happy, what really makes you happy. For me it's nature, it's creativity, it's solitude and it's adventure, those four things right there. And you know, if I can maximize those in my life, I'm going to be happy and I am, you know, and I'm only 53. I'm only halfway through my life.
Paul Trammell:You know, I might find some more stuff. I might get a lot better at this, you know, I might find some more stuff. I might get a lot better at this. You know, I might have a revelation in a few years like, oh, you know, I've been. I forgot about this one, you know, and there's another one that maybe I'll chase that. Maybe I'll change everything. You know, get a backpack instead of a sailboat. Who knows? You never know, maybe one day I'll want kids. You know I doubt it, but but I'm like I don't have any children. I don't want them, you know, don't want kids. I never let the world beat that into my head, like you have to have kids or you're going to regret it for the rest of your life. No, I don't regret it ever, ever, not one bit, you know. I mean I'm not speaking for everybody here. Obviously, most people want kids.
Daniela SM :But if you don't, yes, don't have them. And and how are your siblings? Do they find you really bizarre, or they are very similar to you.
Paul Trammell:You know my brother is an actor. He's doing his own thing. He he went to brown university. He went to an ivy league school. During his senior year of school he decided he wanted to be an actor and, and by golly, he's an actor now. He's been an actor ever since. He does just fine, he does very well, lives in hot lives in los angeles and he's an actor now. He's been an actor ever since. He does just fine, he does very well, lives in Los Angeles and he's an actor. He's doing his own thing. He doesn't have a regular job. My sister wanted a completely different life than what my brother and I have, and she has three daughters and she has a husband that has a very nice job and they have a very nice house and everybody has a car and they have a dog. That's what she wanted, yeah, and she's happy. She's very happy that way because she's doing what she wanted. That's what she always wanted and she wanted the life that my mother had, that our mother had, and that's what she has.
Daniela SM :Well, I mean, I also think that not everybody have to want the same thing, otherwise the world will be polluted with sailors and surfers and musicians. So you know you need a little bit of everything.
Paul Trammell:Yeah, the world needs all kinds of people. The world needs doctors, you know the world needs all kinds of people, but it's up to each individual to decide for yourself what it is that you want to do and what's going to make you happy, and then design your life. Don't let other people design your life for you. Don't let advertisers and marketers design your life for you, because they'll screw you all up. They just want your money.
Paul Trammell:You get to be the cool uncle, so I'm sure your nieces yeah, I have three nieces, and one of them called me on the phone yesterday. I got to talk to my niece Meriwether. There you go. And my brother has two boys. So I have two nephews as well. I have two, yeah, two nephews as well.
Daniela SM :You don't need kids. They're probably going to come and see you soon and you're going to have five, not together.
Paul Trammell:Yeah, I can bring them on, yep.
Daniela SM :Okay, so do. We went through all your books. How many books have you written?
Paul Trammell:I have written nine books and I've co-written a tenth and I'm about to publish. I'm almost finished with another novel, so I'll have 11 soon. So I've written two books about alcoholism. I've written and published self-published all these books Three novels, four books, four sailing non-fiction adventures, and then I also co-wrote another sailing non-fiction with another sailor. So I'm busy. I'm always. I'm always writing. Yes, I've self-published everything. I'm writing a novel right now and I'm actually going to query an agent query agents with this one and see if I can self-publish, traditionally publish, just to do something different. But so far all my books are self-published. I publish them on Amazon. I'm recording all of them as audiobooks as well. I've gotten five done. I'm almost done with my sixth. Yeah, I stay busy. I'm always writing something and I write short stories. I have a newsletter on Substack where I write a short story every month and put that on Substack, and I also write poetry.
Daniela SM :But, paul, how do you became a writer? You just took the pen and papers to write and then you started to share this with people, or you took courses. I mean, besides that, you went to college, but it wasn't really for communication or writings.
Paul Trammell:You know, I've always written a little bit throughout my life and I've read I've read a lot of books about writing. That's one of the ways I educate myself. In graduate school they taught us to write technical writing, scientific writing because that's the ultimate goal of graduate school is to write a paper. At the end of it you have to write a thesis. So writing is the ultimate goal of graduate school. So I learned a lot about how to organize my thoughts and get them on paper so that the reader can understand what I'm trying to say. That was one of the main things we learned in grad school. So that helps.
Paul Trammell:But how to write a nonfiction sailing book or a novel, you know I've I have read a lot of books about writing in order to get better at that, and I read a lot. I read, you know, more than a book a week. You know a novel, or usually novels, usually usually literature Online. Or how I have a Kindle? Yeah, I have a Kindle. I have a bookshelf right next to me here and a bunch of books in this cabinet behind me, but I mainly read on my Kindle and I read a lot.
Daniela SM :I read a few hours a day, but for being an artist you seem very methodical, Like you really set yourself with something. I'm going to learn this. You're very organized. Usually people that are artists, they're free spirit, they're like a little bit more. You know aloof. That's not an insult. Yeah, so you, you are like you have a little bit of everything really.
Paul Trammell:I know what you mean. Yeah, you're right, I have, I have. I have a very scientific brain and I have a very creative brain. Maybe it's the right and the left hemispheres, I don't know, but I love science. I think like a scientist. I want to create art. That's my main drive in life is to create Right now. I want to create literature. I want to create stories that get in your head and make you think and take you on a journey, and I like to read that sort of writing. Yeah, I have two different. I have both sides of the brain, I guess.
Daniela SM :Yeah, that's pretty cool.
Paul Trammell:The right and the left.
Daniela SM :Yes.
Paul Trammell:They say the artist side of your brain is the right side and the mathematical is the left side. I mean, I was a math teacher. I taught algebra for a year.
Daniela SM :Excellent, excellent. And you are going to be writing even more, so nothing is stopping you now. You're not going to buy a bigger boat, you're okay with this one.
Paul Trammell:No, I'm very happy with this boat. It's 40 feet long. That's plenty for one person. I think of it as a big boat. It feels like a big boat to me. It has everything I need this boat Plenty of room.
Daniela SM :Okay, and so you're going to keep in the area where you're now, so you're learning how to do free diving and who knows what's coming next, right?
Paul Trammell:Yeah, who knows, I'm happy here. I'm committed to staying here through the next hurricane season. You know that's coming up in May. May through November is hurricane season, so we're safe here in Panama. But you can't really leave here during hurricane season to go somewhere else, unless you go to Columbia or you know, basically, basically, once you're here at this point and now it's winter, so it's tough to leave in the winter. So basically there's a small window of opportunity to leave Panama safely. So that's going to be December for me next year.
Daniela SM :Great, All right, Paul. Thank you so much. Thank you for being here and sharing your story.
Paul Trammell:Thank you for having me. It's been a pleasure talking to you, thanks.
Daniela SM :I hope you enjoyed today's episode I am Daniela and you were listening to, because Everyone has a Story. Please take five seconds right now and think of somebody in your life that may enjoy what you just heard, or someone that has a story to be shared and preserved. When you think of that person, shoot them a text with the link of this podcast. This will allow the ordinary magic to go further. Join me next time for another story conversation. Thank you for listening. Hasta pronto.