Miles that make you. This is a really cool memoir. There's something I want to read to you from the back of your book for you in the audience. It's not about the weight of the backpack you start with. It's about what you do with it, how you carry it, where you take it, and who you become along the way.
Fuck. Yeah, right. Yeah.
Thanks. That's heavy.
I opened this book of being with my mom. I didn't know what new clothes were. I might cry. We had zero money. I would go into the Goodwill closet the church. People were donating stuff. I would do my own shopping there with my mom. Not having money growing up. It was awesome. This is where I came from. Don't feel bad for me. We can't control that. It's life. Get over it, right? You can control. This is where you are right now. This is the circumstances that you were born with. What are you going to do now? What are the moves you're making in life to hopefully be fulfilled, hopefully make this planet, believe it better than you found it?
That's amazing. What's up, everybody? We're back today with another amazing story. I have my good friend Alex Boylen here with me today, who is the founder and creator of The College Tour. He won Amazing Race, too. He's an Emmy Award-winning producer, amazing human, and again, done so many amazing things. He's recently come out with a book called The Miles That Make You. We'll touch on that today. We're going to hear his story. There's some good things on the back of the book that I want to read you because I want to get your perspective of it for the audience here. But, man, welcome to the show.
Thanks for having me. Congratulations on the show. Thank you. That's the way. Everything you've built here, this is not easy to get what you've built here. Well, coming from you. An honor to be here.
That means a lot coming from you because I look at you, I'm like, wow, this guy's doing what I want to do. Streaming 16 seasons now of the college tour, and that was born during COVID. So let's start there with that journey. What spurred that? I know the answer, but the audience does it. But what spurred the College Tour and the creation?
It's a good story. The College Tour, each episode tells the story of a different college through the lens of its students. I've never created a show. This is the first one, by far the most successful, out of a real problem. Most ideas that I've done, my background is my background's mostly travel adventure shows. I was like, Oh, that looks cool. That sounds fun. My niece, she's from Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin, named Isabelle Paulnazic, and she gets one trip to go take a look at college campuses. I live in Venice Beach. What does she say? She's like, I want to see Uncle Alex in Venice Beach. She comes out to LA, and we have this awesome We're going around. I haven't thought about college since I was in college. We're going to USA, Loyola Mara, all these different institutions at the end of the week. She's there with my sister, her mom, and she goes, Okay, I want to go look at some schools in Boston where you and my mom grew up. I want to look at some schools in Florida. Any normal high school kid wants to go travel the country to look at college campuses.
I'll never forget my older sister, Andrea, sitting there. She's like, What do you think we're made of money? I can't afford to take you anywhere else. I said, One trip, this is it, Isabelle. Obviously, that stuck with me. I'm sitting here watching You're watching your own niece, you want the best for her. I go, Why don't we get together once a week? This will be an uncle-niece cool project, and let's unpack and try to figure out where you're supposed to go to school. We'll do this virtually, like over Zoom. I'm 10 minutes into trying to figure this out. I'm like, Where the hell do I go? I think of us, 4,000 institutions, everyone telling their story in different types of ways, whether it's slick commercials, websites with more content that you could possibly figure out, social media. We think in television in terms of formats. I was like, Oh, man, what if there was a TV? Could we bring the campus to these students and create this television show? It was very early on. I saw the show, and it's usually, I'm sure, with you, too. It's like when you see... I can already see it from the beginning of seeing this problem of how we'll make this show.
So that was it. We set off for this one mission. Let's mind real stories, real students, put those on, make that into a show. That's amazing. Boom. It was so cool. It's hard because media work... It's not easy to get something to It's not. And most people see the successes. They don't realize all the other things they took to get there. The older I get, the more I appreciate success. And this has been a fun one.
It's really cool because the thing that I really enjoy because I've watched some episodes, is how you bring the student culture to the production so they can articulate what they love about the school to the prospective viewers and potential college students. They get to see the conversations with the President, get to look at the campus and see if it's a fit for them. Because I think a lot of times when you think about going somewhere, you show up and you're like a fish out of water. You're like, This doesn't look familiar to me. I feel the college steward does also provide that for these prospective college students.
Yeah, I appreciate that. Yeah, definitely. Well, think about what happens, and I've done a bunch of actual going on college tours now. A lot of it has... Think about your like a tip. Let's just take the... I know there's people recreering all different people going on to higher education, but let's just take the average high school student. You show up on campus and you're going to get a tour, either with a group of people or maybe even potentially one-on-one in certain circumstances. The personality of that person taking the tour and the personality of the person giving the tour, that's huge, of how someone's going to feel. When you think about that. We take that away. I mean, with this show, you're typically going to see 10 different students' stories. Through those 10 different faces and people, you We should get the culture of a place. I have no problem pulling open up the hood of how we make this show. This is one thing that we've done since episode one till now, over 200 episodes, the first draft of the script. Imagine we're working with the institution. What stories are we going to tell? Let's go cast these students.
We approach this like any other show. Once that student is cast, it's like, Okay, cool. We're going to have you tell the story of engineering. The first draft of that script, instead of the schools in there, a bunch of producers are on top of it. It's like, Take your time. Here's our format. So you get an idea. Write your story down. Every single first draft of the college tour of that student story is written by the actor. I like that. Yeah, because if you pull that out, then it's a bunch of marketing speech. It's not real. It's not like that. And so we have stayed very, very true to that way we make the show. And then, of course, producer coming in, how are we going to bring this to life? And the schools coming in. So there's lots of people putting their hands in the pot to make this episode afterwards. But the core of that story is the actual students.
And the authenticity is very clear. When you're watching these episodes, right? It doesn't seem like this is played up or anything like that. This is a real experience. It's from these kids.
That's exactly why we do it that way. These 17-year-olds are going to see right through it. If all of a sudden this is just a bunch of... This is just a video put together, a bunch of marketing speech from the institution, that's not going to work. That's not what we set off to do. We just set off to, let's find great stories and great students, and let's just bring those stories to life, but let's make sure it's real.
That's badass. Quick question, where does your niece end up?
Oh, great follow-up question. At the time in season one, Amazon was allowing us to drop episodes as they came. Now we drop as seasons. Anyway, episode 3, Arizona State University. At this point, I'm telling Isabelle, I'm like, Hey, watch the show. No more meeting with Alex and doing Zooms. Just watch the show, and hopefully, you can figure this out. So episode 3, Arizona State University. We're telling the story of this young woman who has this full ride via this Starbucks program scholarship that ASU and Starbucks do. So my niece is watching that, and she's like, I work at Starbucks. She looks into it, gets a full ride to ASU from the Starbucks program. Holy shit. And she ends up graduating with her master's from ASU, all full ride, not because of college touring like that because of her watching the show and learning about the institution. And then my nephew, her older brother, ends up transferring from one school in Wisconsin over to Grand Canyon, episode 6. So I knew from my own family early on, right? I'm watching them pick schools that are on the show. I'm like, Oh, this thing's going to work.
I'm going to challenge you on something that you said not because of the college tour. It was exactly because of the college tour. Okay, what's that? Think about that, where she ended up and how it happened. It's like you're providing this value, and she learned something about the Starbucks program. It was like, Wait a second. I work at Starbucks, and now she has her master's and her bachelor's from that institution. That's how it happened. Then your nephew, you said, utilized episode 6 or whatever to That looked cool. Dude, that's amazing to me. That's true impact.
Exactly. I always try to say, what show is the college tour? It's almost like infotainment. At the end of the day, we built this as a utility show. This job was This, yeah, we hope to entertain you, but this job is to give you information to help you make a better decision in life.
It's value-based, man. It's big. There's a lot of things circulating now. When I went to college, I went because I was a baseball player. The only way I was able to graduate is because if I wasn't eligible, I couldn't play baseball. Out at LSU, you have the College World Series hanging over your head every single year, so you want to be a part of that. You don't want to miss out on going to Omaha. Then now with social media and all these creators, and there's podcasts, there's TV shows, there's reality shows, and people are becoming famous for just being famous now. There's a lot of debate, I should say, on, is college even worth it? We also have all these massive blue collar jobs that are paying a lot of money. I've heard some statistics, and I don't know if they are 100% accurate, but at a college, average salary is 60 to 62 You go to trade school and you become a high-skilled plumber or welder, out of the gate, you're looking at 80, 85. There's a lot of people saying, I don't know if college is that important anymore. But in your mind, it's Is college worth it?
Yeah, great question. To me, it's crazy, and in the press, I get that question all the time, which is my position at the college tour. It's crazy, I think, in today's society here in 2026, that we're asking that question, Is And by the way, my older sister, who's the mom of Isabelle, she has her master's, and she was asking that same question. So, two, this is happening across the board. She's like, Did you really go to school? Is it worth it? Is it crazy to be living in a society today where we're asking education is worth it. It is pretty wild. Go back a couple of generations ago, 1800s, it's like less than 10% of the population was educated. It was for the elitist class. After World War II, it's still not that much. Go to the '70s, it's still like one out of five people had a degree in something. I think it's funny that we're asking. To me, in my humble opinion, everyone, especially where the world is going, it's like, Yeah, we need an educated class. This is why America is amazing. We're able to push in so many different industries. All that being said, what is right for you?
I think that's where the college tour came in. It's like to us, the way I look at higher education, we've probably done 30 community colleges. We've probably done 15 trade schools. So yes, we're telling the story of University of Oregon, ASU, that have brand recognition like LSU. But to me, and what even gets me sometimes really excited, these schools no one's ever heard of before. So to me, it's all about if you go to business labor of statistics, this is government data. Let's assume that it's all correct. For every piece of paper you get, your income goes up. Let's just start with high school. If you graduate high school, you're going to make more money than the person who doesn't graduate high school. You can go into certificate, associate's degree, trade school, just all the way up to your doctorate. You're going to, on average, make more money, and you're going to have a life's chance of being unemployed. That's just a simple fact of being an educator.
That's pretty cool.
It's a hard one to argue.
Hey, look, man, I don't disagree. I can tell you from my perspective, and I think it's the amount of value you get out of college is based on every person. For me, it was more about connections and leverage. Coming from LSU baseball, the networking with the alumni, former big leavers. When someone would see LSU baseball on my resume, College World Series participant, it was like... For me, it was worth it. Did I learn everything that I needed to learn? No, because I was stupid and was more interested in going to the Tiger Bar and tailgating and having the fun stuff that came along with being an LSU baseball player. I look back at it now and for all the parents and the young kids listening, I regret every minute of not taking my education more seriously. Hey, guys, we're going to take a quick break, and we're going to slide into our recovery segment brought to you by Therabody. What an amazing technology that Therabody has. It was founded on a really cool story by Dr. Jason Worshland. It was founded on pain. He got into an accident and had this extreme pain in his arm and found that percussive therapy really helped.
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I'm in the same boat as you. My college experience. But I think when you really zoom out, and this is where we are so blessed to be in this country, everyone. There's almost 4,000 institutions. So to me, that goes into a personal responsibility category of, obviously, for me, I went up to Jackson University and played soccer, and that was right for me. Between myself and my family and scholarship and all that, I couldn't make that. That decision made sense. To me, what's cool about this country and what we should be celebrating about higher education, hey, whether it's you or your family or scholarships, and you're going to go afford 100 grand a year at some institution, sounds great. Hey, if you're someone else that needs to... Community colleges are amazing systems, sometimes the exact same professors that are at the big schools anyway, and that they offer for service for that community so you can get educated and become a productive member of society. And then everything in between. To me, that goes into what we should be having a conversation is like, do some math. If your job is going to, on average, make you 45 grand or 50 grand a year, and you just spend a half a million dollars on that education, that's not a good ROI.
That's not a good spend. That, to me, goes into personal responsibility. There's a product out there, and it's up to us as the people who are deciding, the people who are guiding those decisions, to figure out what is the right product for you, right? What's the right institution for me? So I think what we should be celebrating, how cool is it that you can go to trade school? That's available to you. There's community colleges. There's a community college in Southern California that we did an episode on. They'll pay you if you-Which one? I believe it's called Santiago Canyon College. Okay. And Santa Ana, I believe, has a college. But there, it's like, if you carry 16 credits, they will pay you to go to school there. Because they did the math that community, and it was like for someone not having a degree over someone having a degree, it's better to like, let's encourage students to go to school so they can come out and pay taxes and pay that money back into society.
And not be poor while they're doing it.
Exactly. I think there's a lot. That's what I said. There's a million pathways to higher education. Hopefully, Collegetour is taking a small crack out of telling those stories.
That's awesome, man. When you look at it like that and break it down the way you did, it is a requirement. I mean, definitely go get educated. I think for me, too, it builds these habits where when you start something, you finish it. No matter the process in between it and how bad it gets, how heavy it is, the good days, the bad days, the important thing is to see something to completion. I think a lot of people nowadays aren't seeing things to completion enough.
Yeah, couldn't agree more. I think, once again, I'll just talk about myself for a second, going to school, maybe it was similar to yours. At that era of going to school, it was this bridge from being at home or You know what I mean? Not being as independent to being fully independent. People forget that. Another thing that I think we don't talk about enough, and I'll use my alma mater as an example there, Jackson University, the college experience. Obviously, there's lots of different pathways, but the traditional, the LSU, the Jacksonville University, not that they're the exact same school here. There's probably 250 clubs that you can join at JU now. There's a beach on campus. They just put in this Vegas-style pool. There's this awesome boat house bar. So the college experience now at the institution I went to, it's a lot more expensive to go to J. U. Now than it was when I went back in the day. But guess what? That experience is 10 times better, too. Sometimes people forget that. That's where, once again, I say, find the right path for you. But I think there was probably six clubs at J.
U. When I went in the '90s. Now, there's 300 shoes from. So I think the experience is a lot different. It's awesome.
Community is important, man. Exactly. Community are very, very important. All right, let's shift a little bit here. All right, Amazing Race 2. You fucking won it, dude. That's a wild thing. I told you last night, my dad and his wife were in Season 21, and I think they went to five countries, and they bowed out. But what was that experience like for you?
It's amazing. Bad choice of words. No pun intended. Yeah, no pun intended there. It changed the trajectory of my life. And so To me, it was a very profound moment. Season 2, I didn't even know what the show was when I was getting cast on the show because it hadn't aird yet. But imagine, especially back then, you're getting to do... There's probably a thousand production people to pull off the amazing race around the world. Back then, I don't know exactly what the budget was per episode, but my guess it's between a million, $2 million an episode. So you're getting to do... I mean, we were the first people that ever rebelled on Sugar Loaf Mountain in Brazil. You know what I mean? So you're getting you to do these just monumental adventures and experiences that money, you can never pay for it a million dollars unless you got the power of CVS buying. Yeah, right. So that aspect, the adventure was second to none. That's cool. Amazing. But It was interesting because I was lost a little bit before Amazing Race. I'd quit my corporate job. I ended up in the Caribbean. I was like, Where am I supposed to be in life?
Because I'm about 24 years old, and the reason why I pivoted my life in this positive direction, imagine I'm this kid trying to figure out what I'm supposed to do, where I'm supposed to work. I hated the corporate world. I hated it. Here I am, all these young other 25-year-old producers running around the world asking me questions, doing jobs. I was like, Wait, you get paid to do what you're doing? I was like, What is this? Because back then, I wasn't ever exposed to it. They're like, Oh, I'm a producer. I'm like, What does a producer do? This looks awesome. For me, yes, I wanted to win. I'm competitive, but it was all about That gave me the opportunity. I saw a job. I was like, Oh, I'm going to do that for the rest of my life. Whatever these travel producers are doing, that looks awesome. I've been chasing that high, Sean, to this day.
See, that's what's amazing to me. That's what I really respect about you because you said you were lost. You're in the Caribbean. You're like, What am I going to do with my life? You took an opportunity to take a risk and go do the show, but you found what you love. That's why I always talk to my kids, and I talk to people that I mentor a little bit. Don't judge any situation. Go in there and just be present because you don't know what's going to come out of it. You built your whole career based on that.
Yeah, lots of great advice in what you just said. It's like, sometimes you find some of the best opportunities in my life from college tour because I was down and out before college tour. If you've been in the entertainment business long enough, most people aren't riding that here. It's just roller- I feel like I spend most of my time here. Listen, me too. It's this roller coaster. Most people have really been in the trenches for long periods of time. We'll tell you the exact same thing. There are a few people that are just hanging at this certain level. But every time in the bottom of a trough is when something... I was in the bottom of a trough of life, an amazing race hit. I was as COVID was hitting this past business I was working on. What the show was not working, called Dream Jobbing, really. And then College Tour came out of it. Sometimes you got to be in the suck. Also, I think it makes you appreciate, at least for me, as I reflect on, it's probably God's lesson of teaching me, just to be positive and appreciate every little thing along the way.
Yeah, man, gratitude goes a long way, doesn't it?
Totally.
You traveled the world, right?
Yeah.
Spending zero dollars.
Yeah.
That's a crazy concept to me.
Yeah, it Totally. It's like the original vlogger. Yeah.
How did that happen? How did you... I met you, you hitchhiken. What are you doing for food? Are you washing dishes? Okay.
I should tee it up. This is around the world for free. We're talking about, right? So it's the first online interactive show ever produced. And how long do you want this story? But I'll back up just a second. I hear it, babe. Just to see where I'm at. I'm hosting shows, so my career is starting off. It's after Amazing Race. I'm down shooting a surf documentary in El Salvador, and everything goes wrong. A hurricane hits the coastline, a volcano erupts in. It's like an earthquake. So they put us in this hotel.
End of Yeah, totally end of days.
And they put us in this little... Well, we're staying in this hotel. They took our security away. It's pretty gnarly where we're filming. And they're like, Don't move out of this hotel until we bring security back. And so we're in this town called La Leverta. And you look behind our hotels, it's like favela, right? It's like shanty, tougher area, let's call it. They say it. And so the whole time, every local is like, If you go up there, you'll die. Keep saying this over and over. Holy shit. Jolt Luka, one of my guys I've filmed around the world with, we're both sitting back and we're laughing, drinking beers, we're like, What? We're going to die by walking up there? And so we said, all right, when the storm clears, let's try to make it to the top of the mountain without dying. We make this bet to each other like that, right? And so right before we go, Jolt grabs the camera. And so we're still not back filming this documentary that we're doing at the time. And so he's like, I'm going to film you. I'm like, all right, cool. So I just start walking to see what happens.
What do you think happens? People are like, hola, amigo. No gringo has ever walked up into that community ever before. And they're like, Come on. Next, you know, I'm being invited inside. There's the ovens or trash cans cut in half. They don't even have much food, but they're bringing up food and trying to cook for us. And we're going through this labyrinth of houses and favelas. It's just a funky play. I've never seen it before. And Joltz is following with this camera. So all the stuff we had spent time pre-producing, all this stuff is surface. The most exciting thing that happens is this raw moment, living with locals. So that one idea sticks. It's like, oh, man, what happens when you don't plan anything and just try to force yourself to live with locals? And that's the beginning of around the world for free. I'm actually working with Pine Ridge Film and Television, doing a bunch of shows. This idea, and usually, I'm sure this happens to you, when I'm waking up in the middle of the night thinking about something I know and I'm a lot better about it now knowing that's a good idea, this thing's burning a hole in my head.
Man, I think I could make it around the world with no money. Just live that way. Let's go tell the story. At that point, not to knock the shows that I'm hosting. I'm very grateful for those shows. But imagine, I'm given a script, show up here, do that. Yeah, exactly. Kind of like a parrot, right? Yeah. Okay, sounds good. I'll do this. You just told what to do. I love the raw... I love the amazing race and the rawness of just being with real people, seeing what happens. And so go back to LA with this idea, like armed, and join up with this guy named Burton Roberts. We've been business partners for 20 plus years. And with this idea, I was like, Let's do this show. Originally, it was just this, make it around the world? Then Facebook's not out yet. Youtube comes out. Youtube is just starting. And I was like, Oh, man, could this be short form? Can we do this? Can we shoot this show live? Anyway, It's the beginning of... Now, it's like we all do it on our cell phones every single day with social media. That doesn't exist. So we set off for this mission.
Can we make this? It's so out of the box. I mean, Burton and I were getting kicked out of every single room like, Oh, it's cool. It's interesting. What is it again? It's all mine. No one really got it and kept hearing no after no after no. Got this one no, but felt like a yes from this gentleman named Gen Maynard, who was credited with bringing survivor, amazing race, and all the big... Basically, creating Rally TV with inside the network. We had met with him, and it was the second time he said, No, but he wrote me this awesome email. I'm a young producer at this point in time. He goes, Alex, this reminds me of the early days of Survivor, where everyone didn't get it and didn't understand it, became this juggernaal. He's like, It's a no from CBS again, but I think you should go It was almost like enough of like... I was getting these tiny... Sometimes in life, you just need those tiny wins. Just someone validating you or agreeing or thinking you can do it. Eventually, it's a long story, but this lady named Anna O'Grady, who I owe so much of my career to.
She's the head of marketing at CBS. We get this meeting with her, and she's like, Why isn't CBS doing this? She funnels us to the CBS early show. We set off, we built the website at that point in time, which you could do on a Facebook page right now. It cost us like 150 grand just to upload a two-minute video and then to have someone be able to write a message. Just to try to build that. Just to understand the time period we are in and the technology that was needed. It was so out of the box. But the CBS early show, we get this meeting with the executive producer there. We go and do the whole talking. This is what the show is going to be about. I'm going to leave. I have no money, but everyone's going to be able to check in with me every single day. I'll never forget it. The guy leans back in his chair, he's smoking a stoke, and he's like, There's never been a stunt. I don't like it. You got the early show. I'll never forget that moment. Now we had the early that's willing to follow us, do live check-in.
So that was enough big media to be like, All right, let's do this thing. So we bootstrapped it. Jolt Luca, one camera guy. I mean, our backpacks were so heavy walking off the Ceebra's early show with one mission. Can we make it around the world using the help of the online? Basically, living with locals the whole way through the help of the online community. And fortunately, once again, it worked. Wow. Yeah, 16 countries, 45,000 miles, went down the East Coast of the US, through the Caribbean, into Venezuela, West Coast of South America, up the East Coast of Africa, across Southeast Asia, all living with monks, living with locals. Every one of those we could have a podcast about. So it was just a crazy journey. And we broke the backs of a new... Honestly, that's what launched Around the World Productions for my life. It launched in the next 10 years because no one was doing online or interactive content. So that, CBS came in. We did two more seasons of that show. And then, Rachel Ray show. I was like, Hey, can you do that for our audience? We became Around the World Productions, basically in the 2000s, became that go-to, what everyone is now, run and gun guerrilla type of filming, short form contact, near real-time.
It was a really fun time.
I'm hearing all the destinations, and I'm also What's not lost on me is the difference in culture and how Americans are viewed. What was that experience like for you going through Venezuela, going through all those different countries?
It's a little... Because 2008 is when we launched the first season around the world. But you know what's fresh on a memory, just to give everyone some context of time, 9/11 is not too far from that. That changed the fabric of, is the world safe? You know what I mean? There was this people good out there. Everyone's bad. It was just interesting time. Not too far from what's happening culturally right now a little bit. But anyway, so that was a big thing because I had been fortunate to, prior in my life, live in Brazil and Germany and see the world. That was a big mission that I thought was a misconception of both Americans and probably citizens worldwide is like, 99% of the population on planet Earth is good. Yeah, I agree. They all want to do the same thing, break some bread with you, share some stories, learn about each other's culture. It's like this tiny, minute population that screw things up a little bit. So that was a little bit of the mission that we were setting off to be. If I was going to get the philosophy of things, is like, let's prove that people are good out there.
So, yeah, culturally, I mean, We were in Venezuela. It's interesting what's happening right now down there because Chávez was in power. And that's really the guy who turned this in a very socialistic and near dictatorship country. And we told the story of two different via around the world for free. Half the time I stayed with this guy who's packing his family up. He's ready to roll. He's like, I can see everything that's happening here. We got to go. And then another guy that's like, here, why you leave? We can't have all the good people leaving. Stay. Let's make changes. This is Venezuela. It's our country. And so it was It was a really fun time to tell those two different stories, two different paths. It was crazy, man. I think we were talking about last night, but we took from Caracas. It was supposed to be three or four days, but it ended up being an eight-day bus track with, I'm talking chickens, goats, and everyone, and half these people, they're smug. I'm like, I actually helped. There's a shot of me taking these two young girls across the border because everyone's trying to get out of Venezuela at that point in time.
And that bus went from Caracas, Venezuela to Lima, Peru. So I think Colombia, Ecuador, just breaking down every five seconds. And so I was like, what was supposed to be 48 hours turned into seven days. But it was a hell of an adventure.
I went to South America for the very first time in July. We went to my wife's home country. We went to Quito, Ecuador, and that was my favorite vacation I've ever had. That's cool. I didn't want to go home. I wanted to stay, man. Playing in volcanic water, looking at volcanoes and the Andes Mountains. Beautiful country, man. That's amazing. Beautiful. Got a really good question for you. We go through life's experiences, and it shapes who we are, and we learn different lessons in different seasons. What did Amazing Race 2, and Travel Around the World for Free, teach you about yourself? Other than what you found that you wanted to do?
Yeah, I think, and it's funny not to plug my book here, Sean. We're going to get to. I'm not trying to, but it's like the ethos, and it took me to write the book to learn this about myself. And that's where I talk so much about what happened from a young age and it incrementally grew because the story starts back... We don't need to go there, but I had some really cool experiences that happened as a kid. And so for me, I got really, and I still am very comfortable being uncomfortable. In that moment, and where I think I personally thrive, is where I'm a little nervous, and I pull this off, but I'm feeling alive as hell.
I was just thinking the same thing.
It's this magical place that's hard to get to. But if you can find that sweet spot, for me, that's what I learned about myself from all those moments, because you're just like, Can I pull this off? Is this going to work? Is everyone going to think I'm a fraud? I walked off the CBS earlier show. Our technology, by the way, is half working because so many people could come from the CBS earlier show on our website. It's like, breaking down. I'm not even getting messages. I'm just like, Oh, my gosh. I'm like, This whole thing is just going to just blow up. So if I told you how many times in my life, I just thought the whole thing was going to blow up in my face. And you just got to keep it cool, one foot in front of the other, hanging the game as long as possible. And that's a piece of advice I tell most people in the world of entertainment when they want to get into that. They're like, oh, I want to... Production doesn't matter, whatever it is. I'm like, just hang in the game. Half of it is just staying.
If you can stay in the game long enough, you'll probably be successful. But too many people, as you know, the statistics, after one year and after five years, it'll be just hanging the game.
It's funny because you I talk about you got really comfortable with being uncomfortable, and I live in that energy constantly. I always ask myself and ask Pat, Dan, Roman, Matt, in production, You think I can pull this off?
Yeah, totally.
What if I don't? But those moments where I feel like I'm backed up against that corner, that's where I operate the best, because that's when you just, I guess, you take action and you move, because our brain is wired to keep us safe. There's a lot of people that, Okay, this is risky. There's too much fear here. I'm going to stay where I'm comfortable. But for me, if I stay where I'm comfortable, I wouldn't be up at 4: 00 AM this morning going to the gym and doing what I need. I'd be sleeping in, having the shitty food in the morning. That's comfortable. But for me, when I'm comfortable, I die inside. Like, literally, I don't make the best decision. So I can really relate to the being uncomfortable. I just think it's something so special that I wish more people, and for the audience listening, is find that discomfort and marinate in that shit because That's where it is. That's where you learn so much about yourself, and that's where you make the most progress in your life.
Amen. Couldn't say it better myself.
So while we're on the book- Couldn't agree. Yeah, so the Miles That Make You. This is a really cool memoir. There's something I want to read to you from the back of your book because I really relate to it, and I can think of many times in my life, and I hope I don't get emotional when I'm talking about this or reading with it because it's not the words, it's the meaning. Here it is for you in the audience. It's not about the weight of the backpack you start with. It's about what you do with it, how you carry it, where you take it, and who you become along the way. Fuck.
Yeah, right. Yeah.
Thanks. That's heavy.
Yeah. Where that comes from and where I start this whole journey, because I wouldn't be where you are, I felt the good, bad, hard ugliness that's happened prior to it. My dad was a pastor, one of four kids, grew up on the North Shore of Boston. We had zero money. You know what I mean? I opened this book of being with my mom. I didn't know what knew I knew clothes were. I might cry. New clothes were probably until '15. You know what I mean? Everything I was handing down to my brother. Or I would go into the goodwill closet of the church, where people were donating stuff. I would do my own shopping there with my mom. And by the way, I think that is one of the miles that did make me. If it wasn't for that, I don't think I would have been so hungry to be successful because I just wanted... And by the way, not having money growing up, it was awesome. My parents loved me. I had so many I got a lot of blessings from growing up. I started all, start the whole book from that one place because just because I didn't, and I use it as an analogy, especially with college students now.
It's like, I can't sit here, and I speak at a lot of colleges. I don't know where you're all coming from. You know what I mean? Some of you guys are given, your backpacks are light. There's nothing there. You know what I mean? It's been your life has been planned out or prepped as best as possible for you. Man, others of you, you got no parents. You got no parents. You had no money or you're like, God knows what you had gone to to get to where you are sitting in that seat right now. Does that make sense? When I look at that, it's not about that. It's not going to define you. I don't care what you had when you grew up. It matters what are the moves you're making in life to hopefully be fulfilled, hopefully make this planet, leave it better than you found it. All those pieces. That makes sense. And so, once again, I can't speak on every one of these college students and where they're coming from. I can just say, I start every speech and like, This is where I came from. Don't feel bad for me. Because a lot of you guys went through 10 times harder things that I've gone through.
And there's other people have 10 times lighter backpack. We can't control that. It's life. Get over it. What you can control. This is where you are right now. This is the circumstances that you were born with. What are you going to do now?
Man, I love that. One of my biggest fears as a parent, and I always thought, I don't want to make it too comfortable for them because they have a much more comfortable life than I had. I had a lot growing up. We were middle class. My dad worked his ass off, and I had everything that I needed. But the big thing was, is when I read that, and it shifted my perspective to like, Man, I got to add some weight to these kids' backpacks, in some constructive way. I don't want to fabricate adversity for them, but I want them to go through hard shit. I want them to go through the heartbreak of certain things, through sports or school or even just relationships with their peers, because without that weight in the backpack, you don't grow a threshold to get through the serious things in your life. When you get to corporate America, maybe your company dissolves, and now you don't have a job. A lot of people, if you don't go through shit, you're not going to have any resilience to pick that back up and figure it out.
Amen. I think about a lot with my son. He's young, but it's really good to do hard things. I'm sure you've heard of some of these things, especially with boys, which is sad, this failure to launch. And granted, I know they had COVID, and there's something that's been happening.
That was a movie, too. It was a good one.
Oh, failure to launch? Okay. But that with... I'm sure it's happening with girls, too, but boys, it's not like moving on, like going crush life. What's happened here? And I don't know, I'm not a psychologist, but as I think about it, I think about it for my boy, too. And I had a lot of freedom as a kid. My parents weren't up my butt about stuff. They're, Figure it out. That was the story. And I tell stories of just... I grew up on the north shore of Boston, just from being in sixth grade or riding my bike three miles to my buddy's house. What went through my brain, I was like, If I go down the street, those two guys are going to kick my ass. They're older. All right, I better go through the woods here. What went through my brain In sixth grade, just to get from point A to point B was a lot of thought. I think life's pretty safe right now in a lot of different ways. Anyway, it's good to... One of the things that I bring up, another early story, and unless I wrote this book, I don't think I would have found the correlation between this.
I hope this helps with the story and analogy, but I get this operate, it doesn't matter, but I have to get this in my brain. I'm going to be a foreign exchange student, move to Brazil. And my mom was amazing. We didn't have any money, but they were... Any idea I had, they were like, Let's go try to figure out how to make it happen. So that was the biggest blessing I could have ever had growing up. And so she comes up with this idea. It's like $5,000. To us, that could have been $5 million. And she goes, all right, I can buy these advent calendars. I can buy 5,000 or whatever it was, 2,000, 3,000 of these things. And if you sell them, it's going to cost $1,000 to buy them. You go sell each one for X amount of cost. We'll be able to fund your trip. And so my mom sets me up, and I remember these boxes came in and filled this room right now. And I was like, oh, my gosh. And so I became this one-man advent calendar, 14-year-old selling machine. You sold 2,000. Exactly. Knocking on doors, right?
And so that one, unless I wrote the book, it was like, that was really hard. Really hard. It took me a year, you know what I mean? Every single day, and sitting outside a grocery store at 14, trying to hauck these things. I didn't want to buy it, right?
There's this kid again. He said, just buy one. Just buy one.
It was so embarrassing. My mom would be at football games. Like, send Alex to Brazil. A big sign, hocking candy away from the actual concession stand. She didn't care. Anyway, but I learned so much. If it wasn't for writing a book, thinking about that moment, learning that skill set of like, Hey, it's going to be hard. It's going to suck. It's going to be uncomfortable. Learn your pitch. All kinds of stuff I learned in that process. I think about my little boy, and when he goes as soon as he's old enough, I'm going to add that lemonade. If there's anything I'm going to teach you, you're not going to know how to go door to door. Because if there's anything you're going to need to do in life is sell? One thing or another. If you can get the skillset of selling, you'll probably be all right.
See, that's a great point, right? Because as you're going door to door as a 14-year-old, that is an intimidating situation. You're opening the door to some happy people, some upset people because you're interrupting dinner and they don't want to buy shit. Totally. But it's like you learn interpersonal communication. You learn the sales techniques. You learn how to not sell something, but provide a value to somebody or just be super kind and they're like, Oh, I feel bad for this kid. I want him to go to Brazil so he can enrich his life by the damn calendar. Whatever the reasoning is, you had to go through the process and do that hard thing. I know adults that won't go door to door.
Totally. Well, I think it's funny. The more we're sitting here talking about and I'm thinking about it, it's like, you know what you're also learning? You're learning to read the room really fast. I think there's something with all the social media and technology, everything. It's important as we When we talk about our kids. It's like, I want them to have social intelligence. Read the room, buddy. Understand what's happening here, because I think that is going to be a skill set. Back in my day, if you were, and not to knock my friends that were communication majors, but that was known, it was like, oh, I'm talking communication. I was almost like a joke. It's like, Hey, I'm just going to look for it. I look at it now, it's probably one of the most vital skills you can go get because you're not getting it in life so much. You got to learn to communicate with people. Now, and have a conversation like we're having, and read the room.
Dude, EQ is so important. Emotional intelligence. My son, who's 12, that is built in for him.
Amazing.
Two years old. Two. I was having a bad day, he'd come up, and he'd always hug me and come up to me. But on the days I was having a bad day, even still, he'll come up, he'll sit right next to me, and he'll put his hand on my leg. I'm like, Thank you, buddy. I needed that. He goes, I know. It's like, dude, it's... Oh, my gosh. I know, man.
How great is that?
Yeah. Now my middle daughter, a little different.
A little gang-a-gang going on.
Yeah, not knowing how to read a room yet, but very highly intelligent. My youngest is very emotionally connected. She's an empath, and so is my wife, so it scares me because I know what that looks like. But yeah, I think emotional intelligence and learning how to read a room and knowing what to say around who and how far you can go, where's the line, I typically can find that out within 5 to 10 minutes. It's a gift. It's something that I've worked on because, trust me, I've been on the other side of that shit, too, where I've said the wrong thing in the wrong room at the wrong time in front of the wrong people. It blew up in my face. But you have to make those mistakes. I think it's truly important to understand that mistakes are there to lead us, failures are there to lead us, not temper our growth. Totally. I think it's important.
Quintry Greenmore. Quintry Greenmore, yeah. I mean, like that. I would say that trip because there's... I had this to my son's godfather. I'm like, Hey, listen, something happens to me. I got two non-negotiables for this kid. It's it. One, you will do a foreign exchange when you're in high school, and you'll do another one in college. Because that trip to Brazil, granted, it's the '90s. Nine flights going into... My parents are going to call me once a month. $600 in Travelers check stuck to me. It was like a 10 a year. Totally. That's what it was like, what happens of growth. I came back to high school in America. I was like, Oh, my gosh. I have more experience in life than these teachers do. What happened in that was huge. Then being able, again, to do in college, those two experiences are my non-negotiables for my son. That's badass. You're going to get out there. You're going to get on... You learn a lot when you get outside your comfort zone, living in another culture. The other thing I found from some Van Keleners. That's crazy.
Was it the candy ones?
The chocolate. Chocolate ones, yes. I can still see it. I can still see selling this thing.
That's hysterical. I always find, too, when we're talking about doing the uncomfortable traveling and learning about other cultures and doing what you did and what you're acquiring of your son, the fears that we do have about certain situations, most of them never come to pass. We worry about things before they happen. We make it our reality when in reality, probably not going to happen. You're going to have a better experience than you anticipated. It's interesting to me.
We put a lot on our own. Humans are interesting. I was thinking about when you were talking about something of getting things over the goal lines. I find myself I'm a big do three or four things a day, a short checklist. I'm with you. Super tight. I'm going to accomplish these. This is my number one task, and here's my two or three other things I want to get done, and I'll call it a win. Sometimes, why is it that I'll go to these easier... Even though this is the one that's going to move the needle with the business. This is the one that's going to move the needle, and I'll find myself procrastinating. I'm always like, What the hell is that? What is that? There's something in the DNA that-Yeah, it's just resistance.
It's just resistance. But the important thing is that you complete it. I don't I don't believe anything needs to be done in an order. If you have a moment where you have one, two, three, four things to do, but the number one thing that you have to do, it's a little heavy for you right now, do the other tasks. I also do believe do the hard thing first. But the hard thing could be so many things. It could be getting up and reading, it could be getting up and walking, lifting weights, or whatever that is. So you prep your mind to do the hard shit before you need to do it. But sometimes I will find myself the hardest part of my day, the hardest of the work task for all this, I will wait until I'm mentally ready to do it because I know if I'm not present in that moment, I'm not ready to execute it, I'm going to shit the bed. It's not going to work, right? So I have to be ready to do it.
Well said. I'll take your advice on that.
Yeah, dude, it happens. You said something interesting last night, and it said a lot about you. I already liked you. We've been communicating for a while. First time we met in person yesterday, which I felt like I already knew you. Yeah, totally. Great to meet you in person. I'm like, Fuck, we haven't met? What's going on? That's just power of connection and alignment, right? But you talked about your premise of writing the book and why you did it. I thought it was so selfless and heartwarming. I want you to share that with the audience because most people write books, including myself, right? Because it's an authority thing. You have a book, then you have something. You're an expert on a certain subject, and you can leverage that in your business and in your show or whatever it is. But yours was so wholesome, man. I want you to share that.
Do you want me to go the whole story with Ashley and everything? Yeah, man. Might as well? Okay. It's not like I haven't thought about writing a book. I thought about it, didn't really have a main purpose to do it, but I'd say it's been lingering in the back of the head, like, I should probably do that at some point in time. But why, how, all that was not existent. But with the college tour, so I'll start up right now. I'm on two college conferences a week. I'm talking to of college kids all the time being asked to speak. There's a little bit of me being like, Oh, man, I've learned what they need to hear. It's a little bit about, Here's my story. Here's a life lessons to learn along the way. Then if I was sitting in your shoes right this second, this is what I would do to make sure you're teeing yourself up for a dream job. That's what I do in, let's call it my speeches or workshops. That started resonating me like, Oh, that could be interesting as a book. Anyway, really, it's another human. The name's Ashley Spence.
She worked for us on Around the World for free. She's amazing. She writes this book, and my business partner, Burton, calls up and said, You got to read her book. I read her book. It's a horrible story. She was horribly raped in college. What she had to go through, and she's in the process of changing these laws across the country from her book. It's empowering. It's horrific. It's empowering. It's every type of emotion. I call her up, and I was just like, actually, imagine she's working around the world for free. I had no idea that this happened to her in college. I'm just so sorry. I don't even know what to say. I was like, Also, that book, I loved everything about it. It was like, I don't know, it was Short, snackable. You can get through it quick. That's what the book sign is. Exactly, right? It wasn't like war and peace, and it was just so well written and how it tied together. She was like, Oh, yeah. She gave me the blueprint of what she did to get that over the goal line. Now it's really in my head. I was like, Yeah, I've been thinking about it.
She goes, Alex, you got to do it. Got to write your book. Now it's the first human I say it out loud to, and she's saying, You got to move forward. As I'm thinking about all the different, Oh, how can this help my business? This could be a great thing to have. I scale my speeches things for the business side of it. But then I step back and I'm looking at my parents are in their mid to late '80s now. Love them to death. I dedicate the book to them. They hear the stories, but they really understand what happened, what the influence they had on me. I sit in this other thing, and I have a one-year-old son. I sit in this really interesting place in life where my parents are to the point where it's like they need an extra help, and they're at this era of life, and I have this son in this other era of life. You know what I mean? And it's just I don't even have a word to describe it, Sean. I just sit in this very weird place where I'm two people, family that means so much to me on either end of the spectrums of life.
And I was like, I got to do it. That becomes the motivation because I'm like, okay, I want my parents to know the story, and I want my son to have this North Star in guiding light. You know what I mean? And so that becomes like... Because with everything else you got going on, as you know, I'm busy. And so that becomes like, you ask my wife, that becomes like nine o'clock, I'm going back to the office and working till one for a few months to get that over the goal line. But I'm so happy I did it because the best thing I ever got, and obviously my son can't read yet. So hopefully down the road, he will. And that became my why. I said it all the time. I don't know if it was a defense mechanism, but I said, if there's three people who read it, I'll call this a win. It was all worth it. My parents and my son read the book, I'll call it a win. So that became like this, who cares what happens to the book? That becomes my why, you know what I mean? I'm pushing forward.
It's beautiful, man. Yeah, thanks. I feel like if we start doing things for our own gain, or we have the goal of doing something big, but it's for me or for you, we can tend to back off of that a little bit and negotiate with ourselves at times. But when it's for a bigger purpose and it's for someone else, the accountability portion is so much greater, and the completion actually happens because you're wanting to give somebody something. Yeah, Absolutely. Yeah, man.
Yeah, that was it. I'd say that one of the happiest moments was within... Before, and I didn't tell anyone. I think the agency I'm working with, Free Lining Agency, they're awesome. My wife, my two business partners on college. No one knew I was doing this. So when it was done, and that was another thing, I was like, I don't know. Once again, another thing, maybe defense mechanism. I didn't know if I was going to get this thing off the goal line. How it was all going to come together. So when my family found out, I was like, Hey, this is going to be released in a week. You all have copies coming to you in the mail. They didn't even know what was happening. Imagine my mom was like, the first people I wanted to read this thing was my parents. My mom's like, Oh, my gosh. And I dedicated. So the next day, she calls. She's like, I read it twice. That just meant the world to me. It was awesome, Alex. She was like, Obviously, I'm in it tons. And you sing my praises, so she feels like a star.
Dude, you're validating the love that they gave you and what they taught you as they were raising you. Totally. And And they model great behavior for you. And now you're able to give that to your son. I just think it's... I think it'll be all right. I think so. I think it'll be all right. You're doing just fine. You're doing just fine. Dude, it's so crazy because I'm sitting here I was telling Pat, we were talking about it before. We got it, and we've talked about it. I just love doing things with you. I love talking with you, and we got to find a way, man, to do some shit. A hundred %.
We're going to do some stuff together.
For sure. Good question. It'll be really fun. Where can the people pick up the book, man? Is there a website?
Yeah, they can get it anywhere you get your books, though. Amazon. Amazon.
Arns & Noble.
Arns & Noble. Alexbeilin. Com. Okay. I'd say those are my two places, alexboiling. Com, to get the book.
That's amazing, man. That's amazing. What's next for you, dude?
You know what's funny? Such a loaded question. Yeah, it's a great question. I write this in the book because I didn't know how to... The last chapter is a letter to my son, Mac, because he's just born. It's everything I've learned in life, I pack it to the end. I'm like, Hey, brother, here's your steps. Here's what I'm going to advise you on. Hope you can live on that. But I write because it's like, I don't have an angle. You know, some people have an angle. To me, I love living, John. I love it. To me, as long as I'm going to keep chasing, trying to be excited about whatever the hell I'm excited about. Right now, it's been an amazing building the college tour. I hope to God that number goes away. I want to keep building that. But I want to have a beach ranch in Costa Rica and run a hospitality because I love people. I have a dream of having my own bed and breakfast on a surf break with the goats and rams running around. Where I go in life, I don't know, but I definitely... I don't know what's next.
I don't know what the end goal is. To me, it's like, I just want to keep chasing. I've been blessed to have fun. It's a lot of work, a lot of heartache, lots of ups and downs. Sure. I've loved the journey. To me, what was fun about writing that book is like, Man, that was the first great... The first chapter of my life has been pretty awesome. How do I do this in the back half? You know what I mean? That's badass. How do I do this on the back nine? What does that look like?
Well, one thing I'll tell you is Matt loves bed and breakfast, so he'll be there. All right. He'll be there.
Hey, listen.
It's time. I think he stayed in a word hostile here in Naples. I don't know. I don't know what he's doing over there. I thought about driving by, just to make sure he was okay. But he doesn't share his location with me, which you need to start doing so I can check on you from time to time. But yeah, man, no. I just really feel that you chase experience and you chase feelings. I do have an angle, which I think sometimes hurts me, but I also chase the feelings inside of those moments just so I know I'm on the right track. Because if we set too many North stars, this is the angle, this is where I'm I'm going to end up, and I want to be there by this time, then if you don't get there by that time, you're upset and you feel like you failed yourself. But if you don't get it to completion, then you tend to feel like it's a failure. But there's so many other things involved. The one thing that I really want to stress the audience to hang on to is you said you love living. I think we're in a time right now where people struggle with that.
There's a lot of mental health issues going around. Social media has, for me, blessed my life, but for some, they get stuck in the comparison thing, and their mental health and their wellness goes down the hill, goes down whatever. Learning to love to live, I think, is such an important statement because that's what we're here to do. And we have all these amazing people that... How cool is it?
There's eight billion people. Life would be the fact that we argue as countries or people, even within the US. Dude, this is what makes life awesome. If we all were the exact same, thought the same, looked the same, did the same, ate the same food, that'd be boring. It's like, come on, everyone, can we get over it a little bit?
You guys were all over me last night for not having to drink and not eating desserts. I was like, damn, I feel ashamed. It's like I pissed in the corner and everybody's like, no, bad dog. But no, but that's the thing, though. You have to have those contrasts, right? And that's what's beautiful about it. I truly enjoy that. It was crazy. I was telling Matt yesterday, and I want to share it because, and I don't mean it in an arrogant way. I mean it in a sense of it's just... It was a big moment for me yesterday, and I'm going to get to it, but it humbled the shit out of me. I'm sitting there thinking, Hey, I'm wondering if these guys... Because I'm old, I'm 47. I'm like, after my son's soccer game, they won 8-0, by the way, Championship tomorrow. I'm really jacked. Oh, no? Yeah, I'm so jacked for him. Oh, it's awesome.
Can't wait for that stage.
It's going to be a blast. Have fun caravaning. But just ask Pat. He knows because soccer, it's Saturday But-I'll be soccer down all day long. Oh, yeah, it's cool, man. It's about being-Because I don't know shit about it, so I just enjoy it. Why is he offside? He just beat the guy. Isn't that the point? Anyway, I digress. So I was thinking, I wonder if some of these guys are just going to out because they've been traveling. I'm tired, and I'm like, No, no. And then I laughed at myself. I'm driving down the road and I'm like, Then it hit me. When I first started this show and started everything I'm doing, there was nobody. There was nobody around. It was just me. At times, it felt like I was a martyr. I was like, Oh, it's just me. I'm doing this all by myself. There's no audience. There's no nothing. But then I realized something special yesterday. Everybody, and the audience can't see, but everybody here in this room was here because of what I created. How cool of that. It's awesome. It hit me right in the heart. Like I said, I didn't feel it in an arrogant way.
Oh, they're here for me. No, no, no. I'm like, Oh, they're here for me. That's impact. That's emotional. That is something that means so much to me, and you are a part of that, so thank you.
Well, I I appreciate it. It's an honor to be here. Thanks for having me on. It's everything you've built. I know that. You're so great at being vulnerable and just speaking the truth because nothing starts great. It all starts from nothing. It starts from shit, man. I know. It's terrible. It's good that you talk about that because that's the reality. Congrats on everything you're building here.
It's awesome. Thank you, man. Much more to come, dude. Much more to come. It's a lot of fun collabs. Me and you will do some stuff with the teams. But thank you for traveling all the way out here with all the planes you hop on. You got a young son and a wife, and you have a life. When you come out here, it means something to me. I appreciate it. I really appreciate it.
I'm a big, and I think it's important that we get together in a person. It's awesome the technologies that are around anymore. We're talking about before we started recording, it's so important to get together in a person.
It's everything, man.
You're talking about the mental health. Get together in person, that's going to help you. You know what I mean? Talk to someone face to face. It's a great thing. Another thing that I've done with this whole, I don't know, social media is a tool and all these great things, but I got an old Nokia phone. Oh, wow.
Can you play snake with it?
That you can play snake with. And certain weekends, I'll just wire that. It's a new number, and everyone knows. I call it my surf line. I'll just plug that phone, my iPhone will wire to that. And just to give, I think, Everyone needs space, a break, and that's an easy little thing everyone can just say, Try one day. You got a phone, so you're not going to talk to people. That is badass. But yeah, and I'll just run around with that. It's like, You want to get a hold of me? I'm available. I'll talk to you. Because I'm bad. It's just like everyone else. I listen to podcasts all day. My wife's always like, What do you listen to? I'm just constantly listening to content and just stopping that noise and honestly picking your head up. When I talk about this bed and breakfast down in Costa Rica, one of the rules I'm going to have is no technology in public. That's beautiful. When you're at the bar, you want to go to your room and do business, that's great. When you come to the bar, talk to the person. You know what I mean?
That's awesome. Pick your head up. You know what I mean? It's the life here going on. It's so cool.
I love that. I love that. I didn't know you could do that with a phone.
Yeah, you can forward a phone. It's super easy. Go ask them. It's like 20 bucks. It's a $20 a month decision that can just give you that break, and you're still connected to someone.
That's pretty cool. It doesn't surprise me that-You know what the battery life is on a Nokia now?
It's like 20 days.
70 days. There's nothing because you're not going on social media. I think you can text on that thing, right? Yeah, but it's like, one, one, one, one, This fucking guy, dude. You're all over the place. You know what I mean? Got to keep living, right? Got to keep living, man. Got to keep living. Well, thank you again, man. Thank you. For you guys, please share the show with someone you know, love and trust. Let us know what you thought about it. And again, alexboiland. Com to go see what he's doing, then also to purchase the miles that make you or barns of Normal, Amazon, whatever you want to do. I thank you guys for listening and tuning in and really digesting Alex's story. And I've had a lot of public figures, a lot of authors on, and I really encourage you to learn more about Alex because I think you're going to be very, very impressed. I think you'll find somebody that can provide a lot of value to you in educating your child on the best college you go to, but also truly, even for you, is how to enjoy these moments and live your life.
Until next time, stay determined.
Check Out Therabody 👇https://www.therabody.com/discount/DETERMINEDUse Code: DETERMINED to get 15% off at checkout------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------In this episode of The Determined Society, host Shawn French sits down with Emmy-winning producer and Amazing Race Season 2 winner Alex Boylan, creator of the hit series The College Tour and author of his new memoir The Miles That Make You.Alex shares how growing up with nothing, embracing discomfort, and chasing adventure shaped his entire life; from traveling the world for free to building a show that helps students find the right path in education. Key Takeaways-Your past doesn’t define you; your choices do.-Growth happens when you get comfortable being uncomfortable.-Education is valuable when it aligns with your path and ROI.-Hard experiences build resilience and character.-Community and connection matter more than ever.-Action and consistency create real impact over time.-The weight you carry shapes who you become. Connect with me :https://link.me/theshawnfrench?fbclid=PAZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAAaY2s9TipS1cPaEZZ9h692pnV-rlsO-lzvK6LSFGtkKZ53WvtCAYTKY7lmQ_aem_OY08g381oa759QqTr7iPGAAlex Boylanhttps://www.instagram.com/boylanalex/ Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.