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hello everyone karen glasser here and welcome to karen glasser live make sure
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to say hi in the comments and tell us where you're watching from we have a great show today it's about
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one of my favorite topics living the digital no man life and who better than my guest today carolyn rose to get the
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details on how to live that rv life in 2016 at 48 years old carolyn sold
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everything she owned left her hectic rat wait race life and living in the san francisco bay area
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that was hard for me to say apparently she she bought a 25 year old rv to live
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and travel in full time taking her marketing business virtual she now makes youtube videos about her philosophies on
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life travels and experiences with over a hundred and thirty six thousand yes you heard me right 136 000 subscribers and
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33 million views her videos educate inspire and motivate people especially
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women to be their authentic selves and chase their wildest dreams so without
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further ado carolyn welcome to the show hi so good
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to be here oh my gosh i am so excited that you're on the show we've known each other for quite a few years and
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i have been following you once you got on that road of of being an art in the
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rv life and so let's just kind of um you know kind of just jump right in
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what was it like chucking it all getting on the road i mean who does that is really what i
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want you did but wow how did you how did that come about
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that was exactly the same question i asked myself as i drove out my backyard um the last day that i was living there
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i was like who does this what am i doing so uh you know we know each other because we were colleagues we worked
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together we were both business owners in the san francisco bay area and i had gone through a divorce and i was just
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kind of really finding myself in my 40s and one of the things that i got back to is backpacking and i did a 26 day 256
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mile hike on the john muir trail and backpacking and being in nature was
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always just where i found peace and i loved and i did it alone and i loved
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the solitude i came back i was living in an in-law apartment in uh outside in the
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bay area in concord california it was an in-law it was like 600 square feet i
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came back after living out of a 40 liter backpack for 26 days and i looked around and i
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was like i lived without all this junk for 26 days i don't need that i don't need
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that and i don't want to live like this anymore i want to be closer to nature and i want to be free i've always had kind of a nomad spirit even when i was a
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teenager i just wanted to jump in my car and travel across the country and i started researching what what other
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options do i have what can i do i'm kind of sick of feeling trapped in the bay area i didn't have any space of my own i
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had to drive to go for a decent hike with my dog and right i started researching and i found a guy actually
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on youtube who was younger than me living in an rv and i'm like oh my gosh that's a thing
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and literally within three months i had bought an rv and sold everything i owned and was driving away to go live in an rv
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and you're a pioneer in this i mean truly you i think you're if i'm not mistaken if not the first one of the
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first women to do this and and go out there so as a woman
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what is that like so i'm i'm not i'm not one of the first women to do it
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there are i've met a lot of women on the road who have been doing it i'm one of the first women to do it so publicly
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yeah because i started a youtube channel pretty quickly because my marketing brain started going so and aside is this
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too dark no no you're good you're good if you open the window it's going to be even lighter it's going to you're going to
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fade out on the side you're good yeah okay so uh so i i am one of the first women to do it publicly which is
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definitely has been and there were how do i say this like the
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old school people like the like the really you know how it is like instagram like hashtag van life and then it gets
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not cool anymore so there's a whole group of people who were doing it long before me and then me and a few others
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came out and started doing videos and it exploded and yes i'm one of the first women to do it publicly especially i am
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definitely maybe the first woman online to do it
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middle-aged and i did it it was a choice for a lot of people who live this way it's not a choice they're priced out of
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housing um they could fall on hard times they're retired and they can't afford to live because they're living on social
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security so i was really the first woman to come out and say i'm making a conscious decision i don't want to live
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this in a way anymore i need a better work life balance i want to be closer to nature i want to chase my dreams
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so this is what i want to do and being one of the first women to do it publicly has been both
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tremendously um inspiring you know knowing that so many women watch me and
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there are i don't know hundreds of women who are on the road and they say they're doing it because i encouraged them
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inspired them to do it so uh it has been really a very very rewarding experience
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and uh yeah and that's a distinctive thing to say is that you made the choice rather than the
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choice being made for you and so you're out there and about and one of the reasons that i brought you on the show
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besides the fact we needed to catch up is that um you did an episode or a show about being a woman
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alone on on the road there and it struck me as you know we all we all think well
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you need to just go out and you do your thing and it's no big deal but it is a big deal um i think especially as a
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woman uh there are different challenges i think that women have that men don't
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um maybe they do but we don't hear about it but certainly women so how do how do you get in front of that i i saw the
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video i saw the reactions so
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people feel they can say anything to you i'm sure right and they do
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oh yeah oh yeah if i had um i could build a house out of all the
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unsolicited advice i get that i bet but it but as a woman i mean what are
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the what are the challenges that you think are women centric what are the challenges that you really have as a
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woman that maybe men don't have you know this is a question i get a lot
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so many women have and i have to be careful how i say this
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but i i believe this is my opinion i'm gonna own that i believe that so many of us as
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women have been trained to not chase our dreams to be afraid we
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we have been trained to to fear the unknown you know i mean there's like the
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all the male we romanticize male nomads we romanticize male adventurers we don't
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even hear especially in history about women adventurers right the women who come in mount everest first time you
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know the women who were explorers and pioneers i mean yeah you know zapata but
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so i think i i i i struggle with this topic in some ways because i think a lot of the things that
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we're told to be afraid of aren't nearly as fearful as they are as we're told they should be do i have
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different challenges and different things that i have to be concerned about as a woman absolutely you know men don't
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have to wonder you know i'm out and and i go as remote as i can my goal is to go
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out in the forest be as remote as i can to be by myself because for me that's where i can be at peace right if a man
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all of a sudden or a group of men all of a sudden and this has happened to me a group of men pull up in the middle of
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the night i'm in arkansas and i'm in the forest and these men pull up and it's dark and they're honking their horn
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men don't have to worry that they might get raped you know right right and that so that's definitely a concern for
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women um and so there's and i think a lot of men don't
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can't understand that but at the same time where that's something that crosses my mind it's never happened you know since i've
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been on the road and it's not something i don't even know i mean it's you just
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have to be aware of your surroundings you have to trust your instinct and and i i just really want to encourage women
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to be smart to be aware to listen to your gut but to go out and do what you
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want to do and not let fear hold you back that totally answers the question and i
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kind of want to deep dive a little bit more because i think it's not just about being a woman it's about being alone
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yeah being alone and so we're out there alone as a lot of rvers are alone maybe
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they have their significant other with them so they're not quite alone you're there with your dog which i um i i heard
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about the other puppy i'm so sad to hear that you know pass but you have a new dog had
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been like a year and a half right about a year and a half she's two and a half she's two i've been kind of stalking you
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apparently uh to see that being alone um i i would say across the
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board whether you're a woman or a man i think a lot of people don't know how to be alone they don't know how to deal with themselves right and i think that
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that that affects their relationships because they think that somebody else is going to make them happy or somebody
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else is going to make them feel loved when in fact when you do this i'm sure when you do this you realize it's only
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you you're alone you have to make yourself happy is that a true statement
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absolutely you nailed it being alone is the most liberating thing and and you know
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if because you watch that video i talk about this a lot again i feel like
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it's different for men and women i feel like again there's almost this romantic idea of men being alone and you know the
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warrior the lone cowboy women it's totally different i feel like we are groomed to feel like we are less
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than if we're not coupled so i think there's an extra challenge there for women of learning that it's okay to be
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alone and learning to be self-sufficient you know and absolutely whether you're hiking or backpacking or traveling alone
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it's definitely a there is a little more danger just because you don't have someone else to
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call on if you need help or whatever but again it's just about being prepared being aware of your surroundings knowing
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that you're alone and having the tools and the resources and having a plan ahead of time what if this happens what
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am i going to do and i think you're going to ask me for in a minute about getting sick so that's another perfect
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example you know just have a plan if you know that you're alone but i think like you said i think the biggest hurdle is
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psychological and learning how to be alone and i think especially again in my own experience for so my whole life
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i was taught that my worth was in how desirable i was to men right right so if i'm not coupled then i'm
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less than there's something wrong with me i'm not good enough in this part of my life has been about being liberated
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from all of that and saying you know what i am more happy more at peace i am
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healing from my traumas and the things that i've been through in ways that i was never able to heal before and i've
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also said that being alone isn't for everybody i'm an introvert so it comes naturally to me and you have to do the
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work um right if you're not in the in the right place
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psychologically and emotionally it can literally cause you to break a psychological break so some people have
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no doubt no doubt especially if you've been through trauma i think you have to do the work
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i love this conversation um so have you ever have you had any regrets have you have you you know said
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you know i've been out here for seven years what's is that i'm not good in math that's six years six
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and if you're at any time during that period you said hmm okay i've done this
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um maybe i'm done with this and i need to go do something different or are you really constant on the fact that this is
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really where you want to be and you plan on being in this place for quite a while
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um so there's a couple questions there the only regret i have is that i came out
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here to live a a simpler life and what i did is i started a new business
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i was going to get into youtube but yes you did yeah so i that's the one regret i have i mean i had all these plans i
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had a marketing business that had been that was going i had clients i was making a living it was sustainable and
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what did i do i started another business and anybody who's ever started a business knows that how much work that
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is so that's my i have some regrets okay around that but also
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it's been really rewarding as far as this lifestyle
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i gotta tell you six years on the road i did a lot of traveling like yeah last year i did like
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17 000 miles in like seven seven or nine months i was exhausted i
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was burned out you know and again i'm alone so i'm doing all that driving by myself driving trying to find places to
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camp cooking dealing with my dog i mean it i was exhausted and so i landed i got back to new mexico
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this year and i was like okay i'm done i'm buying land i'm done and i started i started looking at land
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and maybe just a home base or a homestead or a tiny home and
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that didn't meet my expectations it wasn't as simple as i thought it was going to be there's a lot of restrictions on land here is where i'm
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at right right now i'm actually freer doing what i'm doing now living the way
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i'm living um and and and i'm able to enjoy the life
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i want to live where i want to live it living the way i'm living as a nomad um
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then i would even at least uh where i'm at right now with a budget and everything for the property that i
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want to buy so right now i am thinking about what's next i've
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been thinking about what's next for a while and i haven't found anything that is pulling me yet
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it i have to tell you it seems like a very attractive lifestyle that i i'm i'm
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i kind of go in that direction i i could see myself doing that except for the driving part uh
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you know but i could totally see myself doing that i'm a little jealous actually and i say that really with great respect
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because i love the idea that you just said i'm gonna do this and you you did
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it and and you got out of your fear and however long it took and you went and did it so you mentioned something you
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know that you gave up your business because now you're in a brand new business it's not that brand new
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136 000 followers on your youtube channel what
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happened the day you woke up and said oh my god i have a hundred and what was that like
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so in the beginning i was still doing my marketing business so i i had decided of
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course i had to change my business model because the my business model in a stationary life was very networking um
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getting involved face-to-face dependent and i was going to take my business into more project based so that i could do
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just more online and some of my clients even required me to be on site and things like that so i was like okay i've
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got a base of clients we'll turn those into virtual and then i'll just add project work on top of that and i i met
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a friend on the road within a few months and he's a very popular youtuber and he was just
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starting his youtube thing and he was just like you know you might really want to consider youtube and my whole thing
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about getting on the road was i wanted to write because i've always wanted to write a book and i was like okay i'll start a website and i'll start a blog
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and maybe i'll do videos eventually well he kept nagging me do videos do videos and you know and i i started i was like
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okay finally i'll do i'll do a video my fifth video went viral
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um and again you know i i'm a marketer so i set everything up i'm gonna do a website first i'll set up my social
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media first i laid out my marketing strategy before i ever posted my first video and my fifth video went viral it's
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got like two million views or something now it's the weirdest video i put blankets on my
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video and my windows to stay warm i still can't believe that video went viral and within within uh 40 days i had 20
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000 subscribers boom it hit i mean it just my first my look at my first five
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videos i mean they're 500 300 000 400 000 views and in a million
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so i did both for like six months i was still doing my marketing i was still
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maintaining my clients and i was started building a youtube channel and uh and i was like i something's gotta give i
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can't do i can't keep doing both i was falling down on my clients right and um
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so i had to make a choice which one am i going to do and i was like you know what i'm kind of burnt out so i'm going to let's give
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this youtube thing a try and i um i phased out my clients and
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here i am six years later uh five and a half years later um and yeah and 136 000
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um subscribers and i was you know my i've been doing this a while and there
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it's a lot more flooded now so there's a lot more competition there used to be but i look at my videos and i'm like
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yeah i'm only getting 15 000 views and i'm like 15 000 people are watching
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exactly exactly um but i i think i think it's probably fair
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to say since you did have and do have that marketing background that that helped probably because you you
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knew what you were doing i think a lot of the youtubers that came uh you know came after you
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it was kind of hit and miss and you know they didn't have a marketing background and i'm sure that had to have helped i
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would have to believe it would have to help so how do you work i mean i've seen a lot of your videos you you you do
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videos about you know just being on the road how you put blank i saw that one how you put blankets on the windows what
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do you do when it's cold and how do you stay i mean i've seen what you do you literally it's how to's just in case i
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think somebody that would want to go out they should just watch your videos and say okay i have to do i have to get this i have to do that do you think because
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you went that route first because now they're not all how-to's they're more experiential so do you think that that
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helped at the beginning because i know that how-to videos do really well in regular business as well you think that
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that helped oh yeah i definitely because i didn't know you know yeah i had a strategy and a
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plan about my channel and i think in the beginning i thought it was going to be all how to and then i did my third video
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or something was an experiential one and i don't know if you saw the video this old lady kicked me out of a camp i got i
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was in the shower i got a knock on the door and um this lady was like you have to leave and then i realized that she
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just didn't want me camping there because she wanted that spot and it so and and i remember consciously like i'm
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going like i can't believe she did that and i remember consciously thinking okay i'm gonna film this because this is
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gonna show my audience who i am this is my personality this is me and that really kind of thing started the
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experiential ones right and so the how-to i definitely is a foundation because yeah a lot of people
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like myself if you go to people go to youtube for how-to not necessarily for a reality show which is which is i joke
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was what uh how what i have um and so definitely i think the how to's are the foundation and i still try to do
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like once a week like a how-to video or um but but i what what i have learned
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over the years my my core audience um you know again the
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marketer i always look at my demographics and i survey my audience and i know who my audience are my my
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audience are really the women i mean sure people come for the how-to but that's not why they stay right the
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people who stay stay because of the connection the experience the motivation
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the inspiration because i've told my story and they connect with me on it so
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you know marketing is not about you know throwing everything against the wall and what sticks it's about
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connection and it's about um personal relationships and and being authentic and i found that that is really what has
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uh grown the loyalty in my channel is the authenticity and the storytelling and women and i think women are
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empowered by you women are empowered by you because if you can do it i can do it
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that man that was my goal my very my very first video was like i'm a cautionary tale
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i'm here to show that if i can do it anybody can do it so yes so
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you you decided to create these youtube videos um and you had learned i know through blogging that your story of
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being a survivor overcoming addiction and other adversities inspired women you know to tap into their inner strength
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and then your youtube took it one step farther because it wasn't just blogging now you were now you were now youtubing
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so do you have any tips for women let's just let's just focus on women right now who are
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maybe thinking about getting out of their own way and they're holding back on their dreams
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any suggestions for them do it you know i mean that sounds stupid and
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and and and like quit what's the word i'm looking for like you know uh i don't know what the word is i'm
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looking for menopause brain um you know it sounds like super easy but um but
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really just do it and the thing that i always tell women when they look at me and they're like you're so brave i can't
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believe you're able to do i didn't go from sitting on the couch to being able to live by myself full-time in an rv it
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took a million baby steps there are a million baby steps between where you are
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and where you want to be ultimately you have to start with that baby step and
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one of the clearest examples of this is my john muir trail blog and that's where
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really where i first started telling my story publicly and i talk about climbing mount whitney and it literally was like
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putting my foot one inch in one inch at a time in and
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you know and that's like a very real tactical example of baby steps but if
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you want to live in an rv if you want to tackle a big hike you know don't go from okay here i am and i have to live in an
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rv first go out and start learning how to camp by yourself go on a day trip by yourself first then go overnight to a
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hotel by yourself then go camping for one night by yourself then go
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backpacking one night by yourself and then go two nights and then a week that's how i did it i used to be scared
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to death to be alone in the woods at night believe it or not and my first solo backpacking trip uh one night out i
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thought there were people out in the woods with chainsaws and they were gonna murder me so oh my god how frightening
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i was i was lost and there was i wasn't even on the trail so there's no way they were chainsaws out there i was hearing
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things you know but the point is there there are a million literally a million baby steps between where you are now and
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where you ultimately want to be so just take that first baby step make a plan
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uh you know just do the little things in between that are going to get you there
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so we're right now we're doing this as a recording because we knew that there was
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a good chance that your internet would drop out and in fact nobody will see that but we're editing this and i'm saying that out loud because in fact
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your internet has dropped out so how do you work i mean i know that you do a lot of recording recorded videos and then
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you put them up is that why so that you don't have to run the risk of dropping out in a show do you do any
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live shows do you do anything in the moment right now i do some live streams and my uh my my
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viewers really love the live streams but i've never wanted to be tied down to a schedule right i mean i'm tied down to a
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schedule on my youtube channel i post every because you have to be that's marketing right you know for consistency or whatever so
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uh but but this live isn't
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the um it's it's not how youtube works or at least that's not
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how i have been doing it it really is about so shooting editing and voice
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overs and research because i like to provide some history so my my videos are
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very experiential and also i do a lot of travel and history about where i'm going and things like that so just the the
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nature of youtube and the nature of my channel just makes more sense to do pre-recorded
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so i have one more question about your travels um you've been you've been all over right all over are there places that you
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have gone back to or do you only go to one place once um how does that work
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so i'm the kind of person like once i've done something i'm like okay been there done that i want to do something else
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literally i thought about that i was just thinking about that yesterday i went to alaska i spent three or four
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months in alaska a few the first year i bought this this rv this is my second rv
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and uh i loved alaska it was amazing and i was thinking the other day i i need
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some a new challenge something new and exciting i was like maybe i'll go to alaska again i'm like why i haven't been
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to mexico i haven't been to panama i haven't been to chile i haven't been there's places in canada
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so the only places that i go to again are
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so being a nomad the way i do it i kind of have
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there there are seasons you have to deal with right so i can't be in the north in the winter so i have i have a couple of
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states that i like being in in the winter because i know you know the desert the southwest
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and so there it's kind of nice i i have like camps that i know that i can go to so i
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don't have to search for camps so and i've been on the road six years now i've been to almost every state
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except delaware and now that i've been doing this so long well
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there's still you know parts of states i haven't been to but i pretty much can say okay well i know where to camp
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here now i know where to camp there now to make my life easier and i'll have to search for camping all the time so
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you know long long way to your answer is i i prefer not to go back
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to the same place but i do inevitably so tell me give me what is what is your do you have a
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number one place the best place that you ever went that you know it's like it's going to stay in your memory forever and
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you can you compare everything else to that place or do you have multiple places that you
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so i was just talking to a man i'm in colorado now and i was just talking to the guy who was filling my pro propane
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he was originally from california the the john muir trail hike the eastern sierra nevada the sierra nevadas if you
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ever if you're a backpacker if you're hiker that that hike changed my life it changed who i am at the very core it's
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beautiful it's jaw-dropping it's just amazing and um and i think valdez alaska
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uh i have really fond memories of valdez alaska okay well you heard it here first
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caroline people i'm going to give people options how they can follow you first of all obviously we have to put up your youtube channel because that's where the
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magic happens at caroline's rv life you also have a website they can go to
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carolyn's imagine this caroline's rvlife.com and while they're there they can sign up for your newsletter
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right yes once a month oh okay great and then you also have a patreon which is
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a member only content and people can support you on your travels and if they go to patreon.com forward slash
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carolyn's rv life they can support you at all different levels you know they
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they can they can do it at all different levels any any thoughts that you would like to share that we have not touched
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upon that you think would be important for our listeners to understand about this digital nomad rv life
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um wow well i don't know uh you know there a lot of
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people get stuck in what am i going to do like i want to travel i want to do more i want to
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travel internationally even or i or live in an rv or a van and a lot of people get stuck on what are they going to do
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for a living and one of the things that i have talked about a lot is there are
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so many opportunities for making a living if you just kind of change your mindset a little bit about how you work
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and i think that's the hardest thing it took me several years but i think especially as americans were so uh
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trained to think of work as one way but i know a lot of nomads who
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work six months a year doing whatever i just met a guy whose wife does cleans
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airbnbs or they bartend or whatever but there there are definitely those offline
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ways to make a living but there are the world is so different now even then when
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i started six years ago there are so many different opportunities for uh working digitally um you know online
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from teaching online and which is old school but i mean there are i have a friend now who does medical starting a
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babble anyway uh who is who's starting to uh who works doing medical billing and
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things like that so i just if you're thinking about living on the road start your research now look at your skill set
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it might not be doing what you're currently doing and there are just so many more opportunities now than there
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used to be and internet connectivity is getting easier than ever i get internet
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through my cell phone through a mobile hotspot and i just purchased our link for satellite so i can go further off
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grid so it's it's getting easier than ever well as i said you before we went live i
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am jealous of you i am jealous of what you are doing and of course i can do that too and maybe who knows i might
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meet you out there on the road um i i totally love what you're doing i i've always worked digitally and i've always
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worked remotely so it's it's not a big step to get into
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well it is a big step i shouldn't say but it i it's not a big step from for somebody who already works remote to not
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have they don't have to worry about what they're going to do when they're out there absolutely yeah absolutely and i think
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we're going to start seeing more of that the other thing too really quickly if you are thinking about this lifestyle it's changing it's it's
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gotten so much more popular i'm seeing more laws in national forests and and deserts so uh that might also be
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something to keep in mind and how if you want to do it the way i do it it's going to get more challenging uh people are
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getting priced out of homes and so there's a lot more homeless so just keep that in mind
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right and for our listeners um make sure you go and follow us on social media at karen glasser on every single platform
31:27
imaginable and also on our website at karenglasser.org
31:33
thank you carolyn for for coming on the show i am i'm just so thrilled i i love what you're doing and i know that our
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viewers are going to be following you out there um go out there and give somebody an awesome day we're going to make sure
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that um you join us next time on the next episode of karen glasser live so