063 | How Owning his Life led to 40-days in a Minivan with Andy Storch

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Andy has strategically worked to design his life to allow his family the freedom to own their life. In 2021 that included a 40 road trip with his wife, 2-kids, and family dog in a minivan. I had the luxury of hosting Andy and exposing him to the hidden gems of Northeast Wisconsin and sharing many of our family tips and tricks along the way.

Key Takeaways

1. Andy thinks of success as being happy with your life. There is no trophy for making the most money or having the best title. For Andy a happy life includes growth and contribution.
2. You can have fun in life and be miserable at work. While this is not a commercial for entrepreneurship, owning your career and owning your life is finding out what lights you up putting your fears aside. The book is a guide to help people own their careers and not have to risk it all to be happy.
   
   
3. We can set an intention or design a life we want and there will be challenges that come up along the way. When we face challenges Andy suggests we ask 3 questions:
   What's great about this?
   What can I learn from this?
   What does this make possible?
   
   
4. One thing that got him through was the nature of impermanence. This is how it is right now. Whatever we are going through is not going to last forever. This feeling, this hard day, this circumstance will pass.
5. A daily meditation and gratitude practice helped him find things to be grateful for each day. Eventually he became grateful for cancer. He tries to see every challenge now as an opportunity.
6. Life is not a competition. Whatever challenge you have going on feels like the worst thing in the world at the moment for you. Mindset is our outlook and perception on the world. You get to interpret if your things are good or bad.
7. A 40-day minivan road trip grew out of a long time desire to adventure with the kids. They had the ability and the minivan was just the most viable option.
8. Andy loves to connect with friends. About a third of the night were spent with friends, a third were camping in a tent, and third spent in hotels. They started in Orlando heading as far west as Bend, Oregon.
9. The power of a network goes far beyond professional connections. Andy's main resource for planning his trip was crowdsourcing through social media. He added comments and ideas into his notes app on his iphone or used the gypsy app in places like national parks to make much better use of their time. A great place to ask questions and ask for recommendations is the Ordinary Sherpa Facebook group.
10. Everyone gets to parent their own way, long car rides were great times for screen time which also allowed the parents to listen to a podcast, audiobook or have a conversation.
11. There are 2 questions to ask after each stop. Does everybody have their seatbelts on? Is the dog in the van?
12. "Life is a journey full of twists and turns, and you never know where things will go, but you will miss out on tons of opportunities if you aren't willing to ask for help." Find those ahead of you on this journey and ask for help, join their community, buy their book.

ownyourcareerownyourlife.com/bonus

To follow or connect with Andy Storch
Website: andystorch.com
Email: andy@andystorch.com
LinkedIn: linkedIn.com/in/andystorch
Instagram: @andy_storch
Twitter: @andystorch
Podcasts:
Own Your Career Own Your Life
Talent Development Hot Seat
My NFT Journey
Book: Own Your Career Own Your Life