It felt surreal. The whole trip. The entire time. But that’s what it feels like to make your big dreams happen, doesn’t it?
My husband and I? Well, we’re a wee bit unconventional.
I get that. So what we do and the way we do it may not feel super attainable to other people.
My (currently) purple hair, for instance. I forget about it until I get the looks 🤣
It’s not right for everyone. But I have a helluva lot of fun with it.
And something as simple as me changing my hair color has inspired my clients, friends, and family to take creative action in their own lives in a way that excites them.
But back to the trip. And making our big dreams happen.
It was our 20th wedding anniversary this week. My husband, Ken, and I talked forever about doing something big for our 20th anniversary. Partly because we never had a honeymoon. But also because we talk a lot about doing big things.
We also often explore the idea of driving across the country. Someday. Maybe when we retire – if that ever happens.
What routes would we take? What would we want to do or see?
I’ve been to California a couple of times, and I’ve been all up and down the east coast of the US. But there’s a large chunk of our country that I’d never seen.
In July of this year, we had no plans for our 20th anniversary. With covid, we really weren’t thinking about travel.
So it seemed that this anniversary would be much like the others – celebrating each other at home with each other and our dogs and cat. There are worse things 💛
And then, Julie Stoian had an idea. I’m in Julie’s high end mastermind, the Digital Insiders. In normal times, we’d all meet in Connecticut twice a year to connect, learn, and geek out over each other’s businesses and all things digital marketing.
Right now, of course, the in-person meetups in a closed co-working space make no sense. Back to Julie’s idea.
What if… we all went camping?
In a place where the weather was perfect, we could enjoy wide open spaces, and we could hang out together in a safe, socially distanced way? What if we went to Moab?
Being Julie, she took action and reserved enough space that all of us could show up with spouses, kids, dogs, tents, RVs, whatever.
My first thoughts? This trip is about making our big dreams happen!
But right on the heels of that thought, the “voice of reason” chimed in. I put “voice of reason” in quotes because that’s her masquerade. She’s really the voice of limiting beliefs. Learn more about how to handle her here.
So, the voice said, “are you NUTS? You can’t do this. How are you going to get there? How are you both going to take all that time off? What about the dogs… and the cat?”
I almost didn’t mention it to Ken. But then I did. And his eyes lit up. We COULD do it! We could rent an RV. We could drive to Moab. We could take the dogs. My mom was more than happy to take care of Cricket, our cat.
After that discussion, we did what we’ve done to make other big dreams happen.
We made lists. We looked into renting RVs and realized it made more sense for us to buy one. We hunted down the right travel trailer (not easy – the RV market is HOT right now) and went to Virginia to buy it.
Next, we made more lists. We both camped as kids, but we’d never done the RV thing with adult responsibilities. And we were taking on a 2 week trip – over 4500 miles total – on our first try.
We camped in our backyard. We camped at a campground nearby so we’d know how to connect the water and sewer stuff before we hit the road. We wanted the dogs to be comfortable staying in it. And I had to try driving the truck while pulling the camper. Because I might have to do just that during the trip.
And finally, after all the planning and packing, the day arrived.
We were as excited as little kids at Christmas. We pulled out of the driveway at 5:00 a.m. on a Monday and took off to make our big dreams happen.
The trip was everything I dreamed and more.
I did the digital nomad thing and worked from the road.
And realized I can work from almost anywhere. Which is part of the beauty of doing what I do. But I’d never really tried it out. #workfromanywhere became REAL to me.
This country is big, beautiful, and I fell in love with each new state and each varied and gorgeous landscape. We watched the sun rise and set in a different campground every day.
We dealt with some borderline scary moments… like the paddleboard almost flying off the top of the truck. And Ken pulling off a busy highway to re-tie it as semi-trucks blasted by us – while I was on a coaching call 😲
What’s funny is it was that night – after the paddleboard incident – that Ken turned to me over a beer and said “I’m having FUN!”
Then we arrived at Moab. And I don’t know what the overriding emotion was: joy at seeing that gorgeous landscape or excitement at seeing my DI people and introducing Ken to them.
We hiked (with the dogs). We did some offroading in the little Nissan Frontier 4×4 that could. We ate. We drank. Ken and Dani jumped on their paddleboards and cruised down a bit of the Colorado River at sunset.
You know how sometimes you get SO excited for an event or a vacation that the reality of it can’t compare to what you imagined?
This trip was the opposite. It exceeded expectations in all the ways. That’s making your big dreams happen.
Even the trip home – when you might expect a bit of a letdown – was magical.
Our last camping night was in Asheville, NC, a place we already love. We (or Ken, I should say) backed our little camper into a spot right on the Swannanoa River. It was gorgeous.
The place was packed in such a happy way. There were kids running around with glow sticks. There were campfires burning a lovely yellow-orange. There were cookouts galore. It was everything we remembered loving about camping with our families when we were young. We just sat and soaked it all in.
We didn’t want to leave the next morning. But Cricket, our cat, was missing us. And I was excited to get home and start putting together the training I’ve been planning for my FB group, the Impact Project. Want to join us there? Here’s the link.
Most importantly, though, we knew we’d go back.
Our biggest takeaway is that we have the power to make our big dreams come true.
We just need to be open to the possibilities and move towards them.
So how about you? How can I support you in making your big dreams happen? I’d love to hear from you.
And if you find the little things keep getting in your way… like constant client onboarding headaches… I can hook you up. I created Onboard Like A Boss™ to make onboarding easy as pie.
Onboard Like A Boss™ is the simple, no-brainer onboarding system with customizable templates you can use over and over again to get you paid fast and get you to work quickly and easily.
