A Note of Daring

A reflection on the arc of this intermittent Note of Daring Podcast as a creative project and playground with a bit of I like, I wish, what if, and what's next.  

A solo show talking about the arc of this podcast, how I made choices early that support taking a pause and doing strategic thinking on the direction of the podcast. I also talk about the upcoming Strategy Sessions for Solopreneurs and Creatives I've created, the differing needs and cultures of startups versus bootstrappers or solopreneurs, and a few life updates. 

Mentions:

• Roger Martin
• Catalyst Atlas

A solo show about my month living and working in Valencia, Spain. I talk about my approach to planning, how I prepared, what it was like balancing work and fun, and how much it cost.  

Mentions:

My substack Catalyst Atlas 

Remote Year 

Babbel 

Find Rachel online at @rachelbedaring and www.daringstudios.com.

In this conversation, Flo from Out with Your Dog and I chat about the emotional adjustment after adopting a dog, budgeting for a dog, the value of knowing your dog as an individual, the slow and long game of building a side job, shifting mindset to expand our worlds, and the challenges of sharing. 

Flo Godineau is a white, queer, outdoorsy nerd passionate about dogs, hiking, and nature. They live with their dog Bucky on unceded Coast Salish Territories (aka Southwestern BC, Canada). They are the author of ‘Hike with Your Dog’ and ‘Questions to Ask Yourself Before Getting A Dog’.

Find Flo online at @outwithyourdog on Instagram and https://linktr.ee/outwithyourdog/

Heather Leavitt Martinez is a fellow visual practitioner and facilitator. In this conversation, we talk about appreciative inquiry, lettering, finding and being a part of a community, managing personal and professional capacity, what it means to be courageous, the power of practicing creative tension and rest, and what it feels like to cut loose. 

Heather is a visual practitioner, lettering artist, author, and teacher living in Durango, Colorado. You can find her online at letslettertogether.com and techhostacademy.com. 

Mentions:

• Building Resilience with Appreciative Inquiry by Jeanie Cockell and Joan McArthur-Blair 
• Ghost Ranch Literally Letters Retreat 
• Needy by Mara Glatzel
• Breathwork by Amy Kuretsky

Today, I am talking with my friend Nicole Antoinette, a writer, and long-distance hiker.  We chat about her journey solo hiking all 800 miles of the rugged Arizona Trail and her decision to write and self-publish an adventure memoir called How to Be Alone - about that journey. Our conversation dives into the gap between the expectation of the thing and the reality of the thing, how the next right step is often the thing you can’t stop thinking about, and the value of acts of closure and celebrating endings. 

About How To Be Alone:

In 2017, stuck in a loop of codependency and people-pleasing, 32-year-old novice backpacker Nicole Antoinette sets off to find her self-belief and inner resilience by doing something she does not for one second believe she can actually do: solo-hike all 800 miles of the rugged Arizona Trail.

The guiding question she brings with her is this: What do we find when we push ourselves further than we ever thought we could go?
How To Be Alone is a cathartic adventure memoir that explores the privilege to be able to choose your own suffering, as well as the process of becoming a better friend to yourself along the way.

About Nicole:

Nicole Antoinette is a writer, long-distance hiker, and former indoor kid who never imagined she’d wind up spending months of each year pooping in the woods. 

She is the author of two adventure memoirs, HOW TO BE ALONE (April 3, 2023) and WHAT WE OWE TO OURSELVES (September 5, 2023), and she writes a weekly newsletter on Substack called Wild Letters. You can find more about her books at backpackingbooks.com. 

You can learn more about her writing and other work at nicoleantoinette.com, read Wild Letters at nicantoinette.substack.com, and follow her hikes on Instagram at @nic.antoinette.

Mentions:

• How to Be Alone: an 800-mile hike on the Arizona Trail by Nicole Antoinette
• The Art of Gathering by Priya Parker
• Thru-Hiking Will Break Your Heart by Carrot Quinn

Emily Pauls quit her accounting job in Chicago in 2022 to do the northbound 2500-mile thru-hike of the PCT. In this lovely conversation, we talk about when a choice that will change your life becomes real, how to transition into self-employment, the financial cost behind the hike, how we are all making up our lives, the comfort of consistency, and the challenges of shifting approaches to work and life. 

Emily Pauls is currently making it up as she goes along. You can find her on Instagram @emily_pauls_.

Mentions:

• Pacific Crest Trail 
• The Year of Less by Cait Flanders 
• What I Was Doing While You Were Breeding by Kristin Newman 
• Work Optional by Tanja Hester 
• Nicole Antoinette
• You Need A Budget (YNAB)
• Long Trail
• After the Rain: Gentle Reminders for Healing, Courage, and Self-Love by Alexandra Elle 

Aimee and I have a wide-ranging conversation about money, business finances, shifting mindsets and creating money alignment, creating supportive processes, building financial literacy, paying taxes, abandoning hustle culture and money conditioning, and how we are in a relationship with our money. She breaks down the difference between bookkeeping, cash flow, and accounting and we dive into the Profit First system, including how to set it up for variable income (like mine). 

Aimee LaLiberte is a virtual CFO and money mindset coach for 6 and 7-figure businesses. A Profit First advocate, she helps business owners improve their relationship with money and their profitability. You can find her at http://thefinanceedit.com online at @myvirtualcfo. 

Mentions:

• Book: Profit First by Mike Michalowicz 
• Quickbooks
• Xero
• Ramit Sethi Podcast

Ellie Hamilton is an author, editor, and nomadic soul putting down roots in Connecticut. Her memoir – Where This Could Take Us – captures a journey through relationships, identity, mental health, and reckonings on a road trip to a new life in Alaska.  Ellie and I talk about what adventure means to us, the vulnerability of starting over, the dynamic nature of identity, giving life time to happen, and our capacity to hold people in our lives – and what it means when what you thought was the beginning ends up being the whole story. 

Ellie Hamilton is a queer nomadic storyteller and editor. Find her paperback book here and her kindle book here. Follow her on Instagram at @wild.elswitch. 

Mentions:

• Real Talk Radio Podcast by Nicole Antoinette
• Codependent No More: How to Stop Controlling Others and Start Caring For Yourself by Melody Beattle
• Everything Belongs Podcast

Michael and I talk about the risks and decisions around starting a company, the challenges of making the transition between one thing and the next, his learning growth as a leader, and his desire to listen more and understand more. 

We also explore the topics of building and sustaining a growing company’s physically dispersed culture, the challenges of working from home while needing the social interaction and closeness of in-person people, and navigating a new non-office-focused world. 

Michael G. Paul II is a father of three, a husband, a builder, and the CEO of Cobec Consulting, Inc. Find him working outside on his 5-acre property in Virginia and occasionally online on LinkedIn.

Mentions:

• Rich Dad, Poor Dad by Robert T. Kiyosaki
• Reinventing Organizations by Frederic LaLoux
• NOVA Scribes Meetup
• Switch: How to Change Things When Change is Hard by Chip and Dan Heath
• The Art of Gathering by Priya Parker