EP 05: Sailing Life's Course - Lessons in Commitment and Integrity with Ted Allison

In this episode, I sit down with the incredible Ted Allison, who’s living proof that life gets better with age. His journey is filled with adventurous living, candid lessons, and personal growth. From competitive sailing to public speaking, Ted shares stories that highlight the importance of embracing failure, staying committed, and reflecting on the choices that shape your path.

We also talk about his “Truly Twice Ted” moment—a comeback story you won’t want to miss—and how making intentional decisions and staying true to yourself leads to a more fulfilling life.

Key Takeaways:

• Commitment & Integrity: The freedom you’re looking for often comes from sticking to your decisions and staying true to your values.
• Failing Forward: Every experience, good or bad, has something to teach us—if we’re willing to look.
• Self-Reflection: Building a strong relationship with yourself is the foundation for navigating challenges and showing up fully in life.
• Education Reimagined: Through “Mickey’s Papers,” Ted shows how real-world experiences can teach us more than traditional education ever could.
• Authentic Connections: Sharing your story creates a ripple effect of understanding, growth, and connection with others.

This episode is full of wisdom and heart—and I know you’ll walk away inspired to live your life with more intention and adventure.

Resources

• Connect with Ted Allison: ted@tedallison.com 
• Learn more about Mickey's Papers HERE

For all other questions or if you want to learn more about working with me, send me a DM on Instagram (@carlyschade)

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Transcript

0:00:00 Ted: But I had to unlearn being pissed off. That’s a fair way to say it. And it puts it in a light of acceptance. By unlearning you get to some place instead of run away from something.

0:00:18 Carly: Welcome to Coffee with Carly, your weekly wake up call to a happier, healthier life. I’m your host, Carly Shade, and I’m here to uncover how good life can get. So, everyone, welcome to another episode of Coffee with Carly. We’re sitting here with one of my favorite people. I’m so excited for today’s episode because today we are chatting with a man that has many, many titles. Some of you may know him as Fast Eddie or Truly Twice Ted.

0:00:56 Carly: A few of his other titles may include Toe, Sucker, Chief Instigator, Pops, and Love. He is a 78 year old who has always lived life on his own terms. He pays attention to his successes and failures and is a master of positivity. I would like to officially welcome Ted Allison to Coffee with Carly.

0:01:18 Ted: Coffee with Carly.

0:01:19 Carly: Hi, Ted.

0:01:20 Ted: Hi, Carly. How are you? You’ve come a long way since we knew each other when you were a camper.

0:01:26 Carly: That I did. Ted and I go way back. We first met in Laos in Southeast Asia in 2015. It was 2015.

0:01:34 Ted: You’re the young one, you keep the date.

0:01:37 Carly: You’re the wise one.

0:01:39 Ted: That’s why you’re keeping the dates.

0:01:41 Carly: That’s true. Yeah. It was back in. In 2015, which is wild. And here we are.

0:01:47 Ted: Yeah, Here we are, decade later.

0:01:49 Carly: Yeah.

0:01:50 Ted: Yeah. What a ride, huh?

0:01:52 Carly: It has been. Yes, it has.

0:01:54 Ted: Yep. You. You went through your 20s and I went through my 70s. Holy.

0:01:59 Carly: We found a few parallels here and there.

0:02:02 Ted: We did. And theoretically there’s going to be parallels in your 30s and for me, in my 80s, but rock on, here we go. It’s life. It’s not a dress rehearsal. And I think our mutual joy with each other is because we’re going to go live it.

0:02:18 Carly: Yep, that is true. So I want to just dive into it because I have so many questions and I feel like, of course, as our friendship, I know a lot about you, but there is so much that I think you can share with our listeners just about the way that you live life. And I’m also just excited to also dive into your past because you have some pretty cool stories. And that’s what you know, with Coffee with Carly and with the guests is just reminding people there’s different ways of living, you know, and sharing other people’s philosophies and lessons along the way.

0:02:51 Carly: Like I said, you’re the old wise guy. So you’ve got a couple. I’m sure you got a couple things that you can share with us.

0:02:56 Ted: I’m the old wise guy. Well, we’ll see. I got. I got this. Whatever I do, it got me this far. And I will say that a fellow realtor who watched all my comings and goings, because frequently within my real estate career, I was gone for a few months to ride a motorcycle in South America or take my family for a sailing trip. And he said, he said, allison, I don’t know if you’re a good realtor, but you sure know how to live life.

0:03:27 Carly: That’s amazing. And I can’t wait to hear more about that. So I want to dive into your nicknames, but I guess first you kind of did just share it a little bit. Just a little context of where you’re at in life right now.

0:03:39 Ted: Yes.

0:03:40 Carly: Before we dive backwards.

0:03:41 Ted: Right now, I’m 78. I’m not retired. But right now, if you want me to sell real estate, you have to ask really nicely. And I don’t do much of it. I’ve morphed into an educational platform that I’ve developed over a few years and now has its own website and is really built the infrastructure for an idea, and now it’s ready to germinate. And that’s exciting. I live where I like to live. I’ve been hanging out with the Same Woman for 54 years, and it’s kick ass.

0:04:15 Ted: And so much of my life is a blessing.

0:04:19 Carly: And just absolutely cooking forward some of those other platforms. You mentioned, an education platform. I want to pick your brain on, you know, more on what that is.

0:04:27 Ted: Well, the story is my second son, Mickey, was a very inquisitive guy, but sitting in classrooms and going to college and so forth was something that he just didn’t get into. So after a year of college, he bailed. And we had saved money for his college, and it was about a year later, after he had left there, that he was doing okay, but not great. And then it got me thinking about my own education, which was predominantly.

0:04:59 Ted: I went to a college. I took five courses a semester. Each course had a paper that you’d write in the middle of it and a bigger paper at the end. And it got me in the idea of, well, writing a paper, you gotta learn something if you’re really gonna write it. And you have to learn how to express it, and you have to learn the process of writing. So I went to Mickey and I said, hey, Mick, tell you what, you write me a 5 page paper, when it hits my email, I’ll put 1000 bucks into your account.

0:05:28 Ted: So I was the parent paying the kid directly instead of paying tuition at a school. And this is something that is now germane in our society because the Internet has all the information. If you’re inquisitive, you can go find it. So I’ve created a vickyspapers.com which is a platform where it’s got two pieces, a student and a sponsor and they can interact. Hey, I want to write a letter. I want to write a paper. Will you pay me for it?

0:05:58 Ted: Hey, I would, I would like to support you. Would you write a letter, write a paper? And that the interaction can happen. It all happens on Mickey’s Papers. The money transfers between the individuals. All Mickey’s papers ask, is that on your own recognizance. When you do it, you put 3% each one of you towards Mickey’s papers to keep the game going on. There’s no cop on the job other than yourself to keep you honest.

0:06:22 Ted: And isn’t that a thing? So Mickey’s papers, a place to exercise your integrity.

0:06:28 Carly: Very cool.

0:06:29 Ted: So that’s it.

0:06:30 Carly: And that’s okay. And that’s kind of been your latest business adventure?

0:06:33 Ted: My latest business adventure. And it came about in another way too. At the end of my real estate career, I had a deal that didn’t work out properly, but it worked out somewhat. And my bride said to me, well, why don’t we get a little bit of benefit out of it and we’ll just take the little bit it made and we’ll put that in the Mickey’s Papers budget. So here I am with an idea, a game plan and a little bit of capital to go make it happen.

0:07:01 Ted: Lucky me.

0:07:02 Carly: That’s awesome. You know, and that is such an important thing with education, you know, yes, there’s important things that you learn in school and high school and college and all of that. But for me, my greatest value was I just learned how to learn. And that can take place anywhere. No. And there are tons of kids that just school is not a great option for, but they can just go learn in a different way.

0:07:27 Carly: That’s awesome.

0:07:27 Ted: And Carly, there’s, you know, selling real estate, I would end up meeting people in their late 20s or early 30s that wanted to buy houses but they couldn’t do so because they were so heavily encumbered with educational debt. And not to say that great institutions can’t teach you great things, but if you did 10 papers on a subject at Mickey’s papers. You’d be a lot smarter about it. And you’d also be a lot smarter about it, putting your ideas together on paper.

0:08:01 Carly: Yeah.

0:08:02 Ted: And that’s a big deal. So it’s exciting. At the same time, Carly, I have to admit, I’ve gotten more interested in public speaking.

0:08:11 Carly: Okay.

0:08:11 Ted: And things and ways to take what I have seen and mix it up and put it together where I can deliver it to other people. My latest fantasy is maybe this coming spring or next spring, I get to deliver a 20 minute speech to the high school gymnasium classes to the senior class ready to bust out on their own. Yeehaw. Let’s go. And I can maybe say something in that environment that is beneficial to that age group just cutting loose to live life.

0:08:44 Carly: I’m sure you’ve got a couple things you can share.

0:08:47 Ted: We’ll see what we can come up with.

0:08:48 Carly: Which brings me to my first question that I have been dying to answer or ask. Tell me about Truly Twice Ted. Who is this man and what did he do?

0:09:01 Ted: Truly Twice Ted. Truly Twice Ted comes from probably my greatest failure and defeat. And one of what I would consider to be one of the times in life. I sucked it up and did some things I didn’t want to do. But it got me to complete something I’d started. So in 77, and it’s another story, I joined a boat called King’s Legend and I did the around the World sailboat race. Pretty big thing. Think in terms of climbing Mount Everest, this was not small.

0:09:36 Ted: The first race had been done four years earlier in 1973, and three people died on that race. So it was, it was, it was the big time. And I did that race all the way around the planet. And I came home once around Ted. Four years later, I joined another boat and I did the race. I left to do the race halfway around the world and I came back halfway. I got off the boat in Auckland, New Zealand and flew home.

0:10:08 Ted: And that’s another separate story. But I came home. I didn’t come home twice around Ted. I came home old once and a half and four years later, I went to the start of the race over in England and I wasn’t on any boat. I didn’t have any deal. And I flew home from that and I said, you know what? I’m going to be on the dock when they get to the halfway point and I’m going to sail the back half. I didn’t sail and I did.

0:10:38 Ted: I put my spares in Order. I went to Auckland with no deal. And when the fleet came in, I walked the dock and said, hi, I’m me. I’d like to sail the race. Do you need somebody? And the stars lined up because I was a sailmaker as well as a good enough sailor to be a watch captain at that point. And Philips Innovator needed a sailmaker and they needed they. After we got to sea, they realized I’d be a good watch captain for him.

0:11:08 Ted: So it fit. And when I finished in England and flew back home, and in those days there could be more of a greeting when you came to the airport because it was before all the security. My pals, my sailing pals in Seattle had a sign that said Truly Twice Ted. So I look at it as a pretty dumb move to get off the boat. But hey, we make some dumb moves in life and if you’re willing to make any moves, you’re going to make a dumb one.

0:11:38 Ted: And I look at it too, to give myself some credit for the, the willingness to say, because in going to Auckland to get on the boat, guess what? I chanced that I wouldn’t get on a boat now, didn’t I? But a lot of it is, well, okay, that’s not going to happen. I’m going.

0:11:58 Carly: Yep, made it happen. So, okay, so the.

0:12:01 Ted: That’s. That’s Twice Around Ted.

0:12:03 Carly: Twice Around Ted. So twice around Ted, AKA Truly Twice Around Ted, first half and the back half. That’s incredible.

0:12:10 Ted: Yeah.

0:12:10 Carly: And I think, okay, what year? 1970. So the first round was 1977.

0:12:17 Ted: Next round was 81 and the next one was 85 and finished in 86. So the spring of 86 was when I became Truly Twice Ted. And I came home and in July 4th, I had my truly first son.

0:12:36 Carly: So, okay, so take me. I mean, and I think that’s something too of okay, this is the 70s, the 80s. There’s no phones, there’s no GPS. There’s no.

0:12:46 Ted: We sailed all the way around the planet and all those races on a sexton. Now more electronic aids and navigation was coming in, but it wasn’t fully there yet. Now when you get on, hey, you can take your, take your. Take your phone and navigate around the planet. Tells you where you are every moment. It’s a whole different gig now.

0:13:07 Carly: So what, what first drew you? I mean, you said this is comparable to Mount Everest. You know, this is a huge deal. People die.

0:13:14 Ted: Right?

0:13:15 Carly: What led you to that decision? So how old were you when you. The first time?

0:13:19 Ted: I was a professional ski patrolman during my early 20s, and that’s where I got the name Fast Eddie.

0:13:26 Carly: Okay.

0:13:26 Ted: And we used to, at the end of the day, for the last run off the mountain, we’d go, 1, 2, 3, go and see how fast you could ski the whole damn mountain. Turns out I was stupid enough to win, but that’s where capacity came. But one of the things that I did the skiing and I was interested in sailing. I’d already done a sailboat trip on a 30 footer from, from America over to England across the North Atlantic.

0:13:57 Ted: I just wanted to get more into it. I’d also realized that whenever you want to pick up something, either you’ve started or new and take it to another level, go to where people compete in whatever it is. And so I moved out of the Colorado Rocky Mountains. I got a job selling sailboats in Seattle and I immediately glommed onto sailboat racing because that’s where, that’s where the activity of how do we get better, how do we go faster, how do we care for the boat? That’s where all that people really concerned about it.

0:14:32 Ted: And out of that experience, it took about a year and a half. There was one fellow who was a buddy and he was a sail maker and I knew he had delivered sails to a boat that was going to go in the around the World race in about a year. And then I went, woo. I could put that program together, but I hesitated at that point and I said, you know, this is not small and I’m not going to ask until I’m sure that I’m committed inside myself.

0:15:02 Ted: So in those years I was keeping a journal and I said, okay, every Sunday night I got to make a commitment. Am I going to ask and see if I. Because if I ask and it happens, I’m going. I’m not going to say, oh gee, that was a nice thought after I put other people into it. And after three Sundays and three yeses, because it seems like I did want to go. I took my buddy out to lunch and I said, let me ask you a question.

0:15:31 Ted: If I work evenings and weekends, could you teach me what I need to know to be the sailmaker and crew on that boat that’s doing the around the World race? And he laughed and he smiled. We could do that. And I said, okay, let’s be clear. If you write the letter and I get on the boat, I’ll go the distance and make you proud. We shook hands and it was really cool because at that moment I became committed. I didn’t know if it was going to work or not. But I knew I was committed.

0:16:01 Ted: I was committed to knock obstacles down that might want to get in the way. And maybe had I done that on the second around the world race and had that kind of commitment, I wouldn’t have got off halfway.

0:16:16 Carly: There’s a lot of freedom and commitment.

0:16:17 Ted: There’s a lot of freedom and commitment as. And a lot of freedom and willpower. There’s a couple of books on that that I’ve read. You know, willpower is when you cast the stone. I’m doing this, get out of my way. And. And there’s a. And it’s a hugely. And willpower in commitment and integrity. They’re kind of all in the same glass, a little different avenues, but. And it’s a very cool emotion. It sets you free.

0:16:47 Ted: It sets you free to say, well, that’s a nice option, but no, thank you. I’ve decided I’m going this way, I’ll call you in a year.

0:16:54 Carly: Well, and there’s the freedom and commitment too, is just that you’re not gonna feel on all the time. Right. You know, we talk about. An example I use all the time is the Apollo. It was only on course 7% of its time, but it landed on the moon. You’re course correcting all the time. So if you’re in it for the long game, right, you’re committed. I’m playing the long game 93% of the time I’m showing up. And it may not feel like I’m on the right course, I’m on the right path, but it’s a long term game. And you know, I will eventually land on the moon.

0:17:25 Carly: And that’s actually so there. That’s where that freedom is.

0:17:27 Ted: It’s crazy. And that’s an incredibly important point. So in sailboat racing across oceans, one of the first things you kind of like to do is you say, well, I’m in Los Angeles and I’m going to Honolulu. So you draw a line that’s called the rhumb line. R H U M B. But the rhumb line is from where you are to where you’re going, right? So you leave and now it’s two days later. Well, I’m not on that pencil line on the map anymore. I’m 2.

0:18:00 Ted: I’m 20 degrees to the south. But remember, it’s not. Get back to the rum line. The rum line is now on the bow of your boat. It’s you to the destination. And that’s what shifts you to the destination. Your position shifts around, but it’s always you to where you’re going, and those are the corrections that you need to make to allow for that. Well, I thought it was going to be over in the left, but I’m over. Over on the left, but I’m over on the right.

0:18:26 Ted: Oh, well, how are we going to get to where we want to go?

0:18:29 Carly: Yeah, it doesn’t. Right. It’s like it doesn’t matter how I got here. Yeah, it’s how I’m getting there.

0:18:33 Ted: It’s how I’m getting there, you know, so.

0:18:35 Carly: Okay, so would you say truly twice, Ted, Fast Eddie, Were any of those experiences. Has there been. We like to talk about pivotal moments. You know, did either of those experiences or what is an experience in your life where you could kind of consider a before and an after, a before and an after, or have you’ve always been this way?

0:18:54 Ted: Well, you know, I don’t know that it’s a before and an after. Your. Your life course changes and you can hit, you know, you can have great hopes that don’t come together. And you got to learn to let them go at some point and to let them. Or is. Which is really a better phrase I like. This is from Karen Rispoli. She says, let it be. And I resonate much more with let it be than with let it go. Let it go is kind of like you get a broom and sweep it up and throw it away.

0:19:30 Ted: Let it be. Let it exist. As an aspiration. It didn’t happen. That to me is a lot more comforting because at least you had it and you tried it and you hoped for it. And, you know, and sometimes your life experience says it changes it. You know, I wasn’t going to be a dad then. I was going to be a dad. And then I got told if I didn’t be a dad, I could. I could not come home after the next sailboat ride. So that was a motivator that’ll whip you under shape.

0:20:02 Ted: And then, and then when I was, you know, so having kids is a huge thing. And the course that I would have had as an as just me would have had more sailing in it, would have more adventuring in it. But if you’re gonna. If you’re gonna be a bear, be a grizzly. If you’re gonna choose to do something, do it. And I had kids. And my thing for parents who are having kids is your children are the most expensive toy you’ll ever own.

0:20:30 Ted: So play with it. Go get on the sideline. Think about the things you can tell your kids that might help them down the trailer, be involved. And so, Carly, I would say that that would be obviously a pivotal moment. It was a pivotal moment when I got on the airplane to go to England and be with two months with people I didn’t know what was in England, you know, and to get on King’s Legend on the first around the world race and, you know, make it.

0:21:08 Ted: And that was, that was a pivotal. It was a pivotal moment. My story, when I said, if you, if you write the letter and I get on the boat, I’ll go the distance and make you proud. So those, those there are decisions you make. And, and maybe like you said, Carly, that, that, that commitment is freeing. Maybe that’s what really we’re talking about again, because when you make a decision and you committed to a pathway, the other one six months later might look better to you, but you’re on the one you’re on.

0:21:43 Ted: You’re no longer at the starting point. You’re on your rhyme line from here to where you want to go.

0:21:48 Carly: Yeah, I mean, we talked about that, I think even before we started recording of. We obsess so much about making the right decision. And more often than not, you know, I’ve got my mug. Hold on while I overthink this, you know, and more often than not, that just leads to indecision, indecisiveness. We don’t, we freeze. We don’t do anything because we have especially those, the perfectionisms, the, you know, the perfectionists.

0:22:15 Carly: We are all so obsessed with just presenting ourselves in the right way and not being wrong and the fear of all that. And then we just end up not moving. So instead of trying to find the right decision, make a decision and then.

0:22:29 Ted: Make it right, make a decision, and there you go. And something current in my life, I have a friend and a life coach who is a great public speaker. And this last summer, he put on a program in Chicago that I attended where he took 12 people who wanted to get. Do more speaking, and he got an audience together, rented a room and got two cameras going so that each one of us could, could create a speech that he’d help us create, give it to a live audience, and walk away with the 10 to 12 minute video of that speech that we could lo use in promotional materials.

0:23:12 Carly: Very cool.

0:23:13 Ted: Very cool. And I went there and I went, oh, what am I going to say? Well, I put together, I. We built my speech, and it was on integrity and willpower. But in the process of building it and creating it, I gave it now a month Later I pulled up the tape and looked at it and it had a five step process of making a decision. Want to look around and see if the conditions are there to make it. Two, look inside yourself if you’re willing to really get on with it.

0:23:47 Ted: Three, establish your integrity. Tell other people, tell that you’re whole and you’re going to do it. Integrity is when you’re wholehearted, not divided. Set your willpower. This is my game plan. Get out of my way. I’m going. And then apply time. How am I going to do it when it’s going to happen? And I did that and it was great. And I’ve come back and I thought I got time stuck over here. Number five, it ought to be number one. What do you ever get done in life if you don’t look at the calendar?

0:24:15 Ted: What do you. Whatever happens if you don’t budget it, if you don’t take. Yeah. If you don’t, you don’t consider time. And even if you get all the way to Eckard Tol, who wants to throw away time and have it just be the now, that’s another whole thing and it’s wonderful. So. But you know, in life, what do they say? It’s your mistakes. That your greatest teacher. I couldn’t see where time was until I’d made the mistake or until I’d done it wrong.

0:24:44 Ted: I couldn’t get it right. So that was a great phrase you had, Carly, that, you know, first you make your decision and then you get it right now because we’re on a very clean podcast here. There’s a word that remind that rhymes was stuck. And you can’t get stuck up in your.

0:25:03 Carly: There we go.

0:25:04 Ted: And it’s a metaphor because you’re going to make them and if you get stuck up in them. But if you learn and continue, and that’s to me, where the lesson is. And when you get that theory inside you, it’s comforting, it’s calming. You don’t have to damn yourself. You don’t have to go, you idiot. He go. Well, you gave it a go, mate. Let’s get on with the next one.

0:25:35 Carly: Yep. Well, and in time is right. There’s that. What is that? That quote? It’s like you’re always gonna complete something in the time that you give yourself to do it, you know, and that’s why there’s books like the Four Hour Work Week or, you know, there’s all these things because time is made up, it comes within you. And if you give yourself a year to complete Something you’re gonna take a year to complete. Something. If you give yourself two weeks to complete that same thing, you can complete it in two weeks.

0:26:06 Ted: And I’m involved with Mickey’s papers, which is writing a paper. And when you sign up, you get to put down a due date. Now why do you think it is that you go to everybody that’s ever been to college and you say, when did you write their papers? And say, well, they were due at 11:59 and I kind of got finished around 11:50.

0:26:23 Carly: And that is something that on Coffee with Carly and the work that I do, you talked about the decision making time and integrity and all those things. And that’s why. So the method that I use, my framework is actually called Root to rise. And that’s because a lot of times with our decisions and things, we are not focused. We don’t know who we are and what our values are. And that’s a huge piece in the decision making as well. You know, okay, make the decision, the right decision and just make the decision.

0:26:56 Carly: But that works. When you’re making a decision from a place of integrity, you’re making a decision from a strong sense of self. You’re making a decision that’s in line with your values. And it’s that self trust where if you have that self trust, then you know that whatever decision you make is the right one. Because I got this and I’m going to figure it out. But that is a key difference. My framework, we’re going to start with coming back to the self and making sure we remember who we are. Because it’s more important to know who you are than what you want.

0:27:27 Carly: And then we can go on the skills and the tools to rise. But I think that is a key difference. And so if, you know, if you do feel like you’re making these decisions and they’re not feeling right, we’ll come back to yourself. Because once you establish that trust, that value, then you have the confidence to just make any decision and keep moving forward because you know, you got this.

0:27:47 Ted: Well, well put. Carly and I did one speech to the group of 20 year olds that were about to go change the world. And I baited him at the beginning. I said, hey, I figured out where all the answers to all the questions are, but more about that later. And I did my little dog and pony show and then I came back to it. Now you know where all the, all the answers to all the questions are and they’re conveniently located there at the end of the hall in the bathroom.

0:28:15 Ted: Mirror. Because we just talked about the relationship with self, the owner, integrity. Hang on to the sink and take a look at your own eyes because if you nailed that relationship with you, you’re bulletproof. You’re going to ride happily. You go up and down, but you’ll ride well through life. And that’s the relationship that’s probably the toughest. But when you can set that, when you can feel comfortable about that, it’s where you really find your integrity, your power, your happiness with yourself.

0:28:48 Ted: And it’s a big piece. And I’m basically maybe about 2% learning that so far. I’ll let you know, check in if I get any further because it’s a lifelong process.

0:29:01 Carly: Why is it so hard to build that relationship with yourself? I forget where I read someone. Some book I read was like an easy trick that you could do to just, just start establishing a relationship with yourself. Is every morning when you’re brushing your teeth, brush your teeth with your opposite hand because that’s waking up your brain because it’s like, oh, this is different, I’m not used to this.

0:29:24 Carly: And look in the mirror and say I love you. And your I love you, Carly. I love you. Say it three times while you’re brushing your teeth in your opposite hand. And even that, it’s weird. You know, you say I love you to every other person in your life, but you have the hardest time saying it to yourself. And it’s like, where does that start?

0:29:43 Ted: I don’t know why it’s so tough. One of the reasons that in trying to convey that it’s important I came up with the bathroom mirror. Just what you just did, because it’s abundant, you’re going to see it and it’s a joke. I look back to the times when I did make decisions and you make some that you carry through on, and you make some that you don’t carry through on. The ones that I carried through on were made with a bigger check in with myself before I made them.

0:30:19 Ted: Like I said, I kept a journal. And it was over a period of three weeks, could have been five that I made that commitment. And I think if you look back at life, the ones where you, where you cast the stone and it really means something. You’ve checked in with yourself in some.

0:30:38 Carly: Shape, form or manner, regret and guilt. And all of those things that we all feel or try to avoid, those happen when you are making decisions or taking actions or behaviors that act out of alignment with your values. But if you’re feeling discomfort or some uncomfortable feeling that Oftentimes you label guilt or regret when you’re making a decision that aligns with your values. That’s actually not guilt. That’s just our ability to want to take everyone else’s discomfort and disappointment and all of that.

0:31:14 Carly: And that’s just. That is why checking in with yourself so often, we ask our friends for advice. We ask other people for advice. I know when I ask my friends for advice and then I hate the answer they give, it’s like, oh, that’s a reminder that I actually do know the answer and I need to stop externally sourcing my power. But we default to that. We ask everybody else around us before ourselves what we want to do, and then we get pissed when we do the wrong thing. It’s like, well, you ask the wrong person.

0:31:44 Ted: You know, when you know yourself, you become much more bulletproof. Your power’s there, and it’s a lot of fun.

0:31:54 Carly: Well, so, okay, I have another question that I want to ask.

0:31:57 Ted: What?

0:31:58 Carly: I got a lot of them. So we talked about this a little bit. But in our journey unlearning, or my journey unlearning has been a huge thing. We kind of talked about school, right? Like, I was the grade A student. I learned that if I study and I’m diligent and I show up and I ask questions and I go to class and I do this checklist, I will get the good grades. And that’s what happened. And as I have gone on this journey of entrepreneurial and just life, that’s not. That’s not how life works. You can’t just do the checkbox and then everything, you know, happens. And so unlearning school was great, of course, again, but I, you know, even like Mickey’s papers unlearning, I’ve actually had to unlearn a lot of these things that I was taught to at least live the life that I want.

0:32:41 Ted: And what would you give an example of your unlearning?

0:32:44 Carly: I think just that. That it takes more than just. Or I guess that I was constantly relying on other people to tell me what to do to get to where I wanted to be in school. Okay, If I do this, if I study, I read this chapter, I write this paper, I learn this, I get the good grade. And then even in jobs, you know, employment, most of us are in jobs where we’re told what to do. We’re given the title, we’re given the role, we’re given the time.

0:33:17 Carly: Show up at 9, you clock out at 5. You’re the good employee, you’re the good student. And that’s not the way that I wanted to live life. And it wasn’t getting me where I wanted. And so this year has been. That has been my year of unlearning is again coming back to the self. What do I want to do? How do I want to live? And then realizing that it’s actually up to me to get there. And that, okay, the nine to five, I can actually do two hours of really deep work at a time that works for me and get the same result.

0:33:51 Carly: So that was the unlearning, that empowerment. And a little bit scary that it’s like, oh, it actually is just all on me. But that. That is the.

0:34:01 Ted: Which is the good news.

0:34:02 Carly: It is the good news, but it’s also scary.

0:34:04 Ted: Do something about it.

0:34:05 Carly: Right? Yeah. I mean, you have the responsibility and the capacity.

0:34:07 Ted: Right.

0:34:08 Carly: But it’s scary. You know, radical responsibility is a huge thing.

0:34:11 Ted: Well, we talked about this a little bit before we began, and that concept of unlearning is absolutely viable in a way to look at it, but it resonates better with me with what I’ll call contextual learning.

0:34:25 Carly: Okay.

0:34:25 Ted: And where I’ll. I’ll come in with this is. I was a New England kid, and boy, I was raised to get the white fence and the girl and. And the. And the two kids and take them to the same pew in the church and educate them. I mean, I was. I was brought up to go down their path and shoe didn’t fit. That’s why. One of the things I love most about my mother is when I was just out of college, she actually one day said, well, I guess you need to do this.

0:34:55 Ted: And she drove me out to the interstate and left me off. And I put my backpack on my back, and she gave me five bucks and she said, good luck, son. I walked up the road and put my thumb on the road and hitchhiked.

0:35:07 Carly: Wow.

0:35:08 Ted: But prior to that, we had argued vociferously that I was to have this life, and I was blaming her for pushing it on me. But later in life, I kind of said, you know what she was pushing on me? Her sense of loving me. That’s what she was pushing on me. Her goodness, her joy, her hope. And when I could take her lessons from that perspective, then the good shit stuck and the bad shit washed away. And so maybe learning contextually applies more to that.

0:35:48 Ted: We all learn things, and they’re applicable at different times in different ways. And I think it’s important to have your head up and your Eyes open and see what’s applicable now. And so unlearning to help kind of things you learn drop off and no longer affect you. For me, it works a little better if I say, well, in the context, I can see why they were saying what they were saying, saying what their motivation was.

0:36:17 Ted: And it isn’t to beat me over the head. It was to try to love me. And. And when I can get my brain around that, then it all quiets down and the good messages come shouting through. Because mom, hey, here’s a classic. Mom used to snap the window shade open and let the sun in when you’re trying to sleep in and you’re a kid. And she said, wake up, it’s a wonderful day to be alive. And you go, mom, get out of here. There, pull it back down.

0:36:43 Ted: And then you grow up and you say, damn, was I a lucky boy. Having a mother tell you it’s good to be alive. Get your butt out and go live. Woohoo. That was gold.

0:36:55 Carly: Context is key.

0:36:56 Ted: Yeah, context is key.

0:36:58 Carly: That’s awesome.

0:36:58 Ted: That would be my response to that.

0:37:00 Carly: And I like that. You know, and instead of unlearning, shifting perspective, context, choosing to just see it, I mean, changing perspective, right?

0:37:11 Ted: Yeah.

0:37:11 Carly: You know, it’s just shifting our. Shifting something within us that then can shift our reality and how we’re perceiving the world, which is a lot about our nerves.

0:37:19 Ted: And in that analogy, Carly, that’s a pretty classic thread. And if you stop to say, I wonder why they’re doing what they’re doing and anything you’re doing in life, I wonder what motivates them. And we see it biblically put on the other guys, moccasins in the shoes. If you take the time out to just in moments think what they’re thinking, it’ll make you much more cognizant of what’s really happening in an interaction.

0:37:49 Ted: One of the things that really is key in life is focus, learning how to stay on track. Even like right now, this is Coffee with Carly. Well, your focus is how do I make this an exciting interview that people will like to have? How do I draw out? That’s your focus and you’re doing a good job. But that’s an important piece of the puzzle. And we can get sidetracked so easily. So easily. And then we’re not focused on where we want to go.

0:38:21 Ted: We finished the meeting and we still haven’t done anything.

0:38:24 Carly: Yeah. So which comes back to checking in with ourselves. And same with that. The metaphor about the sailing and the Rum line. You can only course correct if you know where you are now and you.

0:38:42 Ted: Learn from your mistakes. I was in the middle of the ocean with a skipper that wanted to go back to the rum line. There is no such thing as. But she wanted to get back to the. The skipper wanted to get back to the owner of the boat wanted to get back to the pencil line that we had put on the map before we left left the dock. And I didn’t have the. I wish I had just said, would you please come with me and walk to the bow of the boat and stood on it rifling through the ocean and said, you’re on the rum line.

0:39:13 Ted: The rum line is from here to the goal. And light bulbs might have gone off. Oh, well. Woulda, coulda, shoulda. If you’re not somewhat analytic, you can’t live a life. The woulda, shoulda, couldas of life are the things that get you to do better next time.

0:39:33 Carly: Yeah, I mean, again, we’re coming back to the action. Life requires engagement. Do it. Make the decision. Make the decision right, move on, learn from it and share life.

0:39:43 Ted: Life requires signing up for a give lesson. When you’re a young kid coming out of Ohio and you’re going to go over and you’re going to meet two old people and you’re going to. At the end of two weeks in, in Laos, Carly, you looked at me and said, this is cool and it’s green. I’m going to be back.

0:39:58 Carly: Yeah.

0:39:59 Ted: And you were. And you did.

0:40:00 Carly: I did.

0:40:01 Ted: And, and. But maybe in your life, maybe leaving LA and having set your course on coming back was a pivotal moment for you, wasn’t it?

0:40:10 Carly: Yeah, we’re full of them.

0:40:13 Ted: Yeah.

0:40:14 Carly: So. Okay, I have one, one more question. That’s just a fun one. Well, maybe we’ll go with two.

0:40:20 Ted: We’ll see.

0:40:21 Carly: So one of them. If you could relive one day in your life, what would it be?

0:40:27 Ted: I guess I’d go with showing up in getting. Coming back to England on, on King’s Legend on my first around the world race. And I’d reflect that from a number of points of view. One is Carolyn was there to meet me. Damn, was that good. The other one was that I’d had input in my life at that point that had said, you’ll never be as happy and as satisfied as the joy of your own accomplishment. And I’d set out to go sailing and I, I’d done some real big time sailing. I made it happen.

0:41:10 Ted: And that was kind of. And, and in that I’ll expand it a little bit. That. That was the day that I got back, but in that same context, in 1970, 77, 1978, I was the COVID boy on Ski magazine. And in. No, no, no. 1970, 77, I was the COVID boy on Ski magazine. In 1978, in July, I took the picture that was published on sale magazine.

0:41:45 Carly: Cool.

0:41:46 Ted: So that was. That was Ted’s sense of accomplishment, and it fuels the soul. And guess what you have to do tomorrow morning? Get up and find the next one. But to answer your question, that was a time where it was pretty cool.

0:42:03 Carly: Completing around the world. And. Well, and I love what you said about the joy in our own accomplishments because we. Again, back to our relationship with ourself. It’s hard. It’s hard. It’s hard to build that relationship with ourself. It’s hard to love ourself. And in the same way we all struggle to celebrate ourself, we are the last to do it. And again, it’s. We’re looking, we’re waiting for somebody else to give us permission to celebrate.

0:42:30 Carly: We’re asking someone else to start it. And then, then, only then, can we celebrate ourselves. And maybe that is why that was such a pivotal moment for you, because you allowed yourself to celebrate you and you. You weren’t waiting for anyone else.

0:42:45 Ted: And I was in celebration moment. We were in England, and it were just finished the race two days before, and. And we were in a foyer and, you know, in kind of like a hotel. It was a. It was a billboard and there was a flyer on the wall and it said, come to a medieval feast in a medieval building. And it was a court and a jester, and you paid money and you got. And I thought, hey, let’s do that tonight.

0:43:14 Ted: It happens in this 14th century old church thing because it’s England. They have them over here. So I called up the phone number. They said. I said, we’d like two tickets for tonight. You kidding me? These things are sold out. Four months ago, you know what I told the guy? You kidding me? I just got off the around the world sailboat race. You’re going to have a cancellation. What’s your name? I’m going to call you back in an hour and you’re going to have a cancellation.

0:43:37 Ted: I called that guy four times during the day. He never did have a cancellation. We got dressed, we ran across the lawn to get there on time. He could come running across the lawn, and he looks at me, says, are you Allison? I said, yes. He get in here so you become unstoppable. Yeah, you know, you. You. You just say, no, no, no, no, no. I need the world to line up this way, and it’s gonna just. And your polite.

0:44:01 Ted: I. I would. I would say. I’d close a couple of comments. I did tell two. I got two rules, all right? If you heard of them, you’re on. You always speak from your heart, and if you speak what you clearly believe, you can speak it. And then you’re always polite. There’s somebody else to be the butthead. It’s not you. You’re polite, you’re gracious to people, you treat them nicely. You fill those two rules and you speak something, and it’s a problem.

0:44:33 Ted: It’s their problem, not yours. It’s their problem, their perception. You do. They don’t like what you had to say, but if you say it politely and you believe it, you’re cool. And I think that that’s. That’s a good maxim in life. That was a parental thing. I came by to tell my kids.

0:44:54 Carly: To Ted Isms, we’re here, and we’re.

0:44:55 Ted: Kind of at the end of it, and I’m going to turn the table on you. Okay, so you’re becoming Carly. You can give Carly coffee with Carly and tell us a little bit about your passage right now. You shared some words before, but take the mic, be the interviewee, and tell us where you’re headed, kiddo.

0:45:13 Carly: Where I am right now has been a year of, you know, always that quote when it’s like you don’t know what to do with your life. You don’t know what to. What your next step is. Invest in yourself.

0:45:24 Ted: Mm. Yes.

0:45:25 Carly: That is the theme of what 2024 was for me.

0:45:30 Ted: Good.

0:45:31 Carly: Of just investing in myself. And I think what we’ve talked about is building my relationship with myself, because somewhere along the way, I let that go, and I didn’t have a strong foundation, and that shifted things in me. And I started to give away my power. I started to give away my knowledge. I started to give away my wisdom and just also started to blame. So the last year was so, yeah, I guess not always unlearning. It was learning who Carly is.

0:46:05 Carly: And then once I remembered who I was, then I remembered what I wanted. And what I wanted wasn’t money. What I wanted was freedom and authenticity and connection. And that was one of the things that especially led me to this podcast, is the connection piece. And so we talk about the nervous system and co. Regulation is key. I think in today’s world, where we’re all, you know the quote, we’re all connected, but we’re more disconnected or we all focus, especially in America, on individualism.

0:46:35 Carly: And I really had that for the last eight years. You know, it’s. It’s me. I’m gonna do it by myself. And, and there’s a. There’s an element there that can help get you so far, but it also got me burned out and disconnected. And so, yeah, this last year has been a reinvestment in myself. And through that I found clarity and I realized that I want to connect with people and I want to reconnect and co regulate.

0:47:02 Carly: And that’s exactly what this podcast is, is just to connect with you and me here and then to connect with the audience because we’re speaking from our heart and that’s going to draw other people in. Yeah.

0:47:15 Ted: And give them value.

0:47:16 Carly: And give value.

0:47:17 Ted: Yeah. Because whoever’s listening to us for this while has invested a little piece of your life.

0:47:22 Carly: Thanks for still listening.

0:47:23 Ted: And, and hopefully there’s a. There’s a nugget or two to take away.

0:47:28 Carly: Yeah, yeah. And. And I found that words are my art. You know, I think one of the key things that has changed in me is I used to be, you know, I love science, I studied chemistry, all, you know, all these things. And I was like, I’m always the science girl, right? I’m the science girl. I’m not creative. Because somewhere along the way, we were all, at least I was all just taught that creativity is art and art is therefore painting. It’s pottery.

0:47:54 Carly: We all took art class growing up. So that was my definition of art, and that was my definition of creativity. I never thought I was creative. And in the last year, two years, the more work I’ve done on myself, the more nervous system, the more I’ve learned a lot about somatics, really processing things and learning to be vulnerable. I am so creative, it’s incredible. And I’ve learned that words are.

0:48:18 Carly: Words are my art. And that’s where. That’s where I am right now, is just I feel excited and I feel driven and I want to share my art, which is my words.

0:48:31 Ted: You’re perfect because I want to tell you right now, watch your email because I’m going to give you an opportunity to write a paper at Mickey’s Papers about your art.

0:48:39 Carly: All right?

0:48:41 Ted: But I think that’s, you know, it’s passages and it shifts because then I just tell you about how much fun it was in England when I was just back from the race. Well, we don’t want to know about that fall when I was just a. Has been who didn’t have any money, who didn’t was looking for a way to re enter society because I’d just been to the moon and back. That’s a different story. But those stories happen and you go through them and, but I think your last year here is exciting and your, your podcast and, and, and I think that the, probably one of the toughest things to do in life is to say I’m going to get off the bus for a little bit here and take care of me.

0:49:25 Ted: And, and it’s. But, but it has to be done because I think one of the great maxims of life is expressed every time you get on an airplane, you sit there and I say if the oxygen mask appears, put your own on first, then help those around you.

0:49:42 Carly: Yeah.

0:49:43 Ted: And it’s incredibly critical. You know, that’s why you go to the gym in the morning. That’s why you read books that are about how you hold your heart. For a lot of people, that’s a component of why they go to church on Sunday morning, you know, so I think that that’s a critical issue and I applaud you for having the, you know, the tenacity to go do it and, and seeking a result that’ll pop out on the other side.

0:50:12 Ted: And I think you’re, you’re launched down the trail. Most of it’s going to be positive, but probably not all of it.

0:50:20 Carly: Yeah.

0:50:21 Ted: Oh well, it’s a journey.

0:50:22 Carly: It’s a journey.

0:50:23 Ted: Maybe, maybe, maybe your government will come to audit you. Won’t that be fun?

0:50:28 Carly: I gotta make money first for that to happen.

0:50:32 Ted: All good?

0:50:33 Carly: Yeah. Well, Ted, this has been. Well, okay, before we end, I do want to see if there’s, you know, you are public speaker going down that path.

0:50:43 Ted: I’ve got two things that absorb, well actually two things business wise that absorb my interest, which is getting on the stage and delivering something quick, fun, memorable to an audience. And like I said, the fantasy at the moment is sort of that high school, college, younger kid watching an old man dance around. That’s supposed to be grandpa. That isn’t what happened here. That excites me. Mickey’s papers excites me because I think it’s a way to create a platform that can be beneficial in the world.

0:51:18 Ted: I mean, I can see a parent having to scrape together a grand to help a kid, but might go to the kid and hold a carrot out and the kid might bite the carrot and it might be the Thing that changes the life and gets it going, maybe the kid. The second round goes to all the uncles and aunts and said hundred bucks a piece. I need 10 of you. I want to write my second paper. Whatever. It’s just a platform of sharing.

0:51:45 Ted: And I like the idea that the money all happens between every individual. The contribution of Mickey’s papers has nothing to do with anything other than your own integrity to read the rules. Because you know what, you know where the cop is, cop’s in the bathroom mirror. And I like to be able to have something in this litigious society where we run around and we do massive things to deal with the 0.0002% of the, of the, of the population that would lie, cheat and steal.

0:52:18 Ted: I’m not into that. And, and I really enjoy those two things in my life right now. Other than that, I like pleasure, I like adventure, you know, and, and, and I bought the Harley at 50 and I’ve ridden it 150,000 miles through the west of the United States.

0:52:39 Carly: That’s a part two podcast for sure.

0:52:42 Ted: And my bride of 54 years loves to get on the back, so there’s a lot of joy. But maybe it’s part of the decade. I’m going to be in my 80s and it’s nice to take what you have and give it back. And it’s nice to catch an afternoon nap.

0:53:03 Carly: Hey, I’m 32 and I still love an afternoon nap. So we will definitely include, you know, we’re in the Washington area, but I know you travel a lot too. If anyone ever wants to hire Ted, we’ll include how to get in touch with you in our, in our notes. And same with Mickey’s papers if anyone’s interested in learning more about that. And we’ll include your email in the show notes as well, please do.

0:53:25 Ted: You know, I’m excited for you and I just want to take a moment to say I want to applaud you for your willingness to surge forward into the great unknown because you’d be totally dissatisfied if you did.

0:53:39 Carly: That is true. And it helps to have support. I mean, again, we come back to the connection is I’m going in the unknown, but I’ve got two important things myself and I have others. And when you can have both, some pretty magical things can happen.

0:53:56 Ted: So I would say let’s conclude with a little maximum I’ve got going for 20, 25, which. How do you get what you want in this world? You give it. So if you think you want support, find that aunt Betsy in your life that you never call and call her up and say, I just called to say I love you. Give Aunt Betsy support. And you know what? You’ll be surprised what shows up at your doorstep and how quickly.

0:54:24 Carly: I love that. How do you get what you want? You give it.

0:54:28 Ted: Absolutely.

0:54:29 Carly: All right. I think that’s the perfect place to end. Ted, thank you so much. I mean, you and I could chat forever and we got a lot more stories, so there might be a future episode coming our way again.

0:54:42 Ted: And I’m yours, kiddo. I’m your support team. Reel me in.

0:54:46 Carly: Thanks so much for sharing your Tedisms, your. Your wisdom. And thank you to our listeners who’ve made it thus far. Thanks for tuning in to another episode of Coffee with Carly. I hope you found some value in two old pals catching up. And I look forward to chatting with you next week. Have a wonderful day.

0:55:06 Ted: Thank you, Carly.