Most people are surprised to learn that the AWA Community — which includes more than 2 million Adventurers around the globe, two best-selling books, an award-winning newsletter & website serving hundreds of thousands each month, and large scale exhibitions on multiple continents — started as a complete accident by someone who, on paper, has no business doing any of these things.
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Today, it's curated and operated by a tiny Team of three people, two dogs, and an army of friends and freelancers who assist in their spare time. Without them and the Community, none of this would be possible.

There is another level
to each of the locations that we share, the stories behind the facade that make them so much more than just a pretty picture. So I would hope that intention has helped to grow the community as they have shared their own personal stories and experiences along the way.

I find a coffee shop, a diner (see: greasy spoon or local equivalent), a neighborhood bar that has been around for quite some time. These are good places to start, settle in, and get acclimated. The top three places that I have been fortunate to explore would be Tokyo,  Buenos Aires, and currently exploring Denmark as I type this — and boy is it doing a good job of jumping to the top of the list.

It began on a whim — as a personal travel bucket list of places that Amanda and I wanted to one day explore. I began to realize the common thread, that all these real life places looked like accidental captures from one of Anderson’s movies.

There is another level
to each of the locations that we share, the stories behind the facade that make them so much more than just a pretty picture. So I would hope that intention has helped to grow the community as they have shared their own personal stories and experiences along the way. I think there are a lot of lessons to be learned from our story overall — and I say that from the perspective of someone who never had a clue what they wanted to 
do in life.

I think the fact that these ‘bigger than life’ locations can be found in our everyday is pretty incredible.

Now with creating collaborative content, I aim to be "my own most critical content consumer". After I create a piece of content,
I jump into the view of the audience and evaluate it critically and honestly. Does this content fit naturally? Do I sense even the slightest bit of 'ick'? If so...I go back to the drawing board. But it is all about setting the stage early on with a partner, making sure they are on the same page re: storytelling, creative control, and just setting expectations.

At the end of the day, our partners want to make a meaningful connection with our Community and 
no one knows them better than we do. If they allow us to take the lead on crafting messaging and overall content, their connection will be much deeper.

"There are no adults." A friend of mine told me that his boss on his first day of his first job out of college told him this. He went on to say that no one knows what they are doing — and I have found this to be very true. There is so much posturing in business, in life, but I found that when I was just myself, that is when people leaned in — they found it refreshing, which I thought was
a bit wild. Being very honest with people has found me significant success in conversations that, on paper, I had no business being a part of. And it makes you feel a bit better about it too.

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We say that we 'pinch ourselves daily to make sure this is not a dream', and that is a very true statement. The highlight of my career was turning a side-project into a full time existence and something that brings joy to hundreds of thousands of people every day. That is not to say it is a walk in the park. I have never, ever worked harder in my entire life. Work-life balance is more of an ongoing wrestling match, and the concept of a 'vacation' is something that went out the window very quickly after quitting my job in January 2020 (wild timing, but that is a conversation for another time).