Welcome to the Success Inspired Podcast, a business and personal development podcast to help you accomplish more in life and realize your true potential.

And now here is your host Vit Muller Welcome to another episode of the Success Inspired Podcast.

Today my guest is a traveling enthusiast in her mid thirties that quit her startup job in 2017, after nearly 10 years of a career that left her and her partner dissatisfied, they departed from their home port of Stockholm, Sweden in 2018, to pursue a life of adventures at sea sailing around the world in a 40 foot sailboat, they have sailed 13,000 nautical miles since from Sweden to the Mediterranean sea and twice across the Atlantic, they are now getting ready for third Atlantic crossing that will take them from the Canary islands to the south of the Caribbean sea.

What am I talking about this?

Why is this important?

Well, we are all stuck at home and it's bloody COVID.

So it's just really nice to hear from somebody that is able to travel.

They present a true example that living a traveling lifestyle of your dreams is possible even during global COVID pandemic.

So please welcome to the show Sophie from Ryan and Sophie Sailing.

If I want to have like a little background of, applause, like, it sounds like I'm on there.

Woo that's awesome.

Thanks.

Thanks for having me.

It's been a, it's been a long time coming.

It was in the right.

We tried twice.

Didn't work out.

I know you guys were selling at a time and try to find a little, little a stopover to do this.

And then, you know, I stopped off my time and then you stuffed up your time and then there we go.

Third time.

Lucky we made it spread to heat.

So Sophie, tell me how this whole thing started for you and Ryan.

Like, tell us, take us to the beginning because you know, there's so many people that might be listening to this.

They are living their regular, let's call them regular lifestyle.

Like may like, you know, having a day jobs and living, you know, in our home, in our town.

but we all kind of have that, you know, thought every now and then, like what would be like to go and have that freedom, like lifestyle, a freedom of lifestyle to be able to travel, but not everybody does it.

So, how did you, how did you do it?

I think it's a, it's a really good way to start because when we first get the idea, we were, that we had that life.

We went to work from nine to five, both Ryan and I were working in the startups at that point.

And I think that we would not be here today talking to you about our sailing adventure.

If we did not dislike our jobs, there was a point it was back in 2015.

And when we first got started, when, we just w camo, we, we would just come home and wonder what it is that we were doing with our lives.

And so sometimes, you know, a fate pushes you and give you a little push to put you in the right direction that push for Ryan came in the form of a, of a goose, Oh, yeah, we're, we're getting there.

so we were both pretty supportive.

We're both people.

And at that time were, training for us.

So comes marathons.

We were both running a lot and we were big into, and you're in sports and runways into mountain climbing.

So he was training for big mountain summit, somewhere into.

I think he was too high you, that he was going to climb.

And Ryan was on the run in Iowa where he's from, training for SoCal marathon and at kilometer 30.

So he was like way far in the wrong.

he passed by a group of geese.

One of them had babies and thought that Ryan posed a threat, proceeded to attack Ryan fly to his eyes and Ryan in an attempt to escape the gurus run in the other direction, slipped in a puddle of mud and fell on his arm.

And he dislocated his shoulder, broke the socket bone, had to have major reconstructive surgery and pretty quickly he realized that, everything that he was training for and everything that was fun in his life, you know, aside from the job that he didn't really like, well, I was gone for a while.

and on my side, I was on the very same path being at a job.

I had been at my company for four years at that point, and I was really questioning why I was saying, you know, start at jobs.

You're generally not being paid very well.

It's very political, lots of things happening that you question anyways.

So one day I was at work and Ryan sends me a text and he's bored and he was bored, Panda, fantastic websites.

And he had read about the story of a couple, our age, who had sold everything to buy a sailboat.

And me born at work was like, yes, this sounds like a great idea.

and it's funny because you know, every time that we tell this story, we look back at who we were and where we were sitting in 2015.

And we're like, yeah, well, we made it so like, Something had to happen that, that, like that moment, that important, like, something that, how do you say it?

Like, let me say it, like put a wedge wedge in, into kind of a rate, like, because of that juice, right?

Like if that gives didn't happen, do you reckon that you would eventually do this or.

No, absolutely not.

maybe we would have done something else.

I think that would happen is that we were just at a point in our lives, you know, where we were heating early thirties end of your twenties.

And you've been working for a while and you start looking at your life and ask yourself, what is it that I want to do?

And it ended up being sailing, but I think it could have been, you know, other things like starting a farm, moving to another country or change career.

But I think that at this point, what was really happening is that we just didn't like the career path that we were on and we needed something new, to focus on.

And it happened to be sailing and sailing worked for us.

But yeah, so without that event, we would, we would probably not be sailing, maybe something else would've happened that would've pushed us in another direction, but that goose attack really?

Yeah.

Kick started everything.

Now, so you had a career, that's an interesting one.

So why people have certain carers that they feel dissatisfied in your case?

That's that's you got to that point, but initially obviously you did you, did you choose that carrier?

Did you wanted to pursue that career initially?

Well, it's a bit interesting, you know, because I'm French.

If you count here, Ryan, my partner is American and we both met in Sweden where we were working.

And the reason why I'm moved to Sweden is because in terms of your professional life, you know, you, you work to have a good life.

You do not leave for your job, which is what I experienced starting my career in France.

And so I moved to Sweden so that I would have a better, it's a bit cliche to say that, but work-life balance.

The problem is that at that time I was working in marketing and advertising and in Sweden, I didn't speak the language.

So I had to find a way to make an income.

And my career took a path that I didn't really initially anticipate.

I was like open to it and I just ended up doing something that was completely unrelated to what I enjoyed doing professionally.

and that left me really, you know, questioning the choices that I made.

I'm still really happy that I moved to Sweden.

I was great move, amazing country.

love it became a civic citizen, but what I ended up doing professionally was just nuts, the right thing for me, circumstance of being in that country and not speaking the language, you kind of had to do what you had to do at that at that time.

yeah.

Cool.

Awesome.

So, I mean, yeah, so fast forward.

So now you guys living on the boat.

So tell me about this lifestyle.

What is it like?

So, okay.

I think maybe we should like backtrack a little bit.

Okay.

You know, there is, there is this thing that most people, that dream of, you know, living this lifestyle have to do, which is to learn how to deal with the boats and ran.

And I had never lived on a boat before and that we've never, we'd never been on a sailboat before.

We didn't know how to sail.

And that is the case for a lot of people who want to leave this lifestyle and our learning curve really impacted a lot of this experience that we have living on the boats because we're permanently learning something new because we were complete newbies when we get started.

So I would say that for somebody who's a routine sailor and very experienced, you know, living on a boat may come a lot more naturally, but when you're a complete newbie, it is so much that you have to learn at once.

It's not only how to handle your boat and maneuver rates through whatever kind of weather or eating out of Harbor.

it's also learning to repair that boat.

It's learning all of the systems in the boat.

So that's the electric system.

How do you produce and consume power?

It's a, the toilet system, because now you're in charge of that as well.

You know?

You have to be self-sufficient and learn everything.

And you know, the boats is not going to wait for you to learn something.

The boot is going to break and then you're going to have to fix it.

And you're going to have to fix a system that is probably new to you.

And that's why, you know, when you ask me the question, how is it like to live on the boat?

Well, it really depends where you are in your level of knowledge of boats.

And when we get started, we started at ero.

So it's, it's very, it's very challenging.

Like imagine you living a life and all of a sudden you're going to make a change that involves, you're going to change the way that you, you house yourself because now your house is moving all the time.

You're going to change the way that you feed yourself.

Because you know, going to the grocery store is not as convenient.

And because you're traveling the world.

You're going to you, whatever you find, and the story's going to change based on where you are, you're going to change the way that you earn money, because you're transitioned from having a full-time job and a monthly salary to maybe being a remote worker.

You're going to change the way that you spend the money that you earn, because all of a sudden, you're not paying rent anymore.

You're not paying for a lot of things that would go into maintaining your lifestyle.

They were paying for completely different things.

And those expenses vary a lot from one month to the other.

Maybe in April, your boat breaks a lot or it's maintenance month, and you have to spend a lot of money on the boat, but in July you spend all of your, all of your days sailing or being on anchor and you barely get the credit card out.

And so.

Everything in your life changes the moment that you move onboard a boat and start moving the boat around.

so it's, it's a very interesting experience.

Yeah.

I was going to say that in itself, just, just getting your head around the boat, like living on the boat lifestyle that you just said.

But the other thing that, that I want to point out is also the fact that you did it, you know, in, in like in your thirties, you didn't do it like when you were in your twenties.

So by the time you already had an established way of lifestyle.

So that in itself also that transition must've been hard.wasn't it?

It's it's really hard in the sense that, it's very tiring.

Like you don't realize the amount of energy that goes into adjusting to new circumstances.

And so for the first three months that Ryan and I were traveling on our cell boats, and at that time we were sailing between Stoker and the north sea.

We were exhausted.

We were physically tired all the time because everything was so new.

What kept you going, obviously?

So like I said, it was very hard, but obviously you kept pursuing it.

So what was the main motivation behind your do?

What was, what was the ideal outcome for you at that time like that you were looking forward to?

It's funny that you say that because yesterday night I was watching old videos, neck from very early days and, And it was the idea that runs a, we would be living in the sun in a tropical paradise with cocktails in our hands every night.

And, and you know, that happens, obviously it happened at a price, right?

It is a lifestyle that is very challenging, but, but the rewards of this lifestyle is high.

You do get to see much more of the world and 99% of people, you do get to experience countries and cultures in a way that you would never do as a regular tourist living on a Saturday, staying, staying a week in the country, trying to visit everything that's syndicated books, and then go on.

To your normal life, right?

With our boats, we get to exist.

Places that nobody ever goes.

We get to meet locals.

We live like locals.

We go to the same supermarkets.

We get to the same bars, the same restaurants, we do the same things.

And this way of traveling is so rewarding.

And that is why, you know, that is why we're okay.

Living a lifestyle that is very challenging the way you just said it, all that, that makes me like it, it sounds super exciting.

I love that.

And obviously this podcast is all about inspiring success.

So this, this be considered as a success of a lifestyle of your dreams that you've achieved.

Well down to that, that's bloody amazing.

And I did it yet.

I know, like we kind of went into like the, the hard times and how hard it was the beginning, but, you know, anything good, worth doing is, is, it doesn't comes without a sacrifice.

Right.

So, yeah, absolutely.

Now you mentioned videos, so you guys have a YouTube channel or what, and we do.

Okay.

It's called Ryan & Sophie Sailing.

And, and as I, as I mentioned, I thought about this name a lot before I started it, when, when we get started.

so that's backtracking the band again, but I quit my job a year before we actually left Stockholm and so I spent a year establishing a little bit of a freelance business, and I want it to go back to what I love the most, which is digital marketing.

And so I was freelancing and making.

websites and social media marketing for my clients.

And I make a point to always try to become better at what I do and the year that we departed, I decided that I was going to try YouTube because I really want it to know and understand the platform, and what makes a good YouTube channel, spoiler alert.

The first times of me doing YouTube were not amazing.

I was not great at it.

but I, I just had this idea that I would make my friends laugh with a couple of videos.

and so I started making them and I had a good laugh and I really enjoyed editing and cracking jokes on the camera.

and eventually, you know, other people started to laugh at my, questionable humor and a and a year later I was like, man, this, this has potential.

I could actually.

You know, do it as a job.

and you have this image of YouTubers being really big and really famous and making a lot of money.

But, when you get started, I mean, I'm not at this point, okay.

I can make a living with YouTube, but it's not like woo.

and the two first year is of working full-time on YouTube.

I made absolutely nothing.

Ryan was paying for all of the expenses.

But you can see your little baby grow and you make those connections with, the people at which our video, and it's such a wonderful thing.

And it is the job, the one job that I've had in my life that has had the most impact on other people.

And, and to me, that is the success.

It's not, yeah, it is not, you know, how much money I can make.

Cause I really do not make a lot.

And a lot of what we make, we, we put back in channel, it's not the amount of videos that I'm able to produce or how good they are, how good the production quality is.

It is that impact that you make on people's lives.

It's the emails that I receive every week telling me.

I watched your video and now I bought a boat and this is amazing.

Thank you.

And you were like, wow, damn.

That's that's incredible.

That's why I want to work.

That's to me, that makes sense.

It has purpose.

That has meaning.

I love that.

I love that, but what's the general.

So Sophie and Ryan sailing, is that how it's, how people can find it on YouTube.

Yeah, you should.

You should use Google.

Right.

And Sophie, he it's the same thing, you know?

so he and Ryan, Ryan, and Sophie, you will find us, cause that's, that's our internet name.

So you talk about, you know, income, like this is like your income generating, a way, and it's not, you know, you're not going to become a millionaire, but it covers your expenses and isn't allowing, and it's allowing you, to make an impact for others.

A and then B is helping you cover some of the expenses.

So at the end of the day, I mean, like you could either make a lot of money, but be unhappy or have a lifestyle of your dreams, right?

Like at the end of like the whole, the whole thing that like, sometimes I hear it in a movie.

So, you know, when you're on your death bed, like, what's the, what's like, are you gonna think about how much money you've got in bank account?

Or are you going to think about the experiences, the life experiences that you've had and the impact on the people you've had?

So I think this is the right way.

This is the, I mean, yeah.

And, and that's, and that's, perfectly aligned with what I believe a true success is as well.

I go into having some financial freedom is great as well, because it allows you to buy stuff.

But ultimately you want to, you want to be able to have those experiences go and explore the world.

I think that ultimately when I.

I viewed success as making more money, being promoted, having the ability to buy a beautiful apartment in the center of the city.

not having to count my money in terms of being able to go out, going out to dinner, buying clothes, go shopping.

That was my vision of success.

And, but that vision of success did not make me happy.

It, it felt very empty.

And since we've changed our lives to do something that we have chosen and that we love, we don't love it every day.

Granted, no life is perfect, but, but I make no, no less like nowhere close to the money that I made when I was employed.

But I feel so fulfilled.

And content with both life and work that it doesn't matter that, you know, I feel that I can't buy clothes or that I should be careful how much I go up.

It doesn't matter because at the end of the day, I get to go to my boats and count the amount of amazing places that I will get to visit in the coming two or three months.

And that is, yeah, that is worse.

So much more than the difference between my current salary and my old salary.

Hm.

Now I want to talk about some realities behind the curtain kind of thing.

You know, like, I mean, this all sounds pretty cool.

this, this whole lifestyle, but the way you picturing it and, and, yeah, it sounds amazing, but like you said, there's some, some that sometimes it's not perfect.

So what would that be like?

What would be like a bad day, living on the boat.

Oh, wow.

Okay.

how much time do you have a bad day often starts with sleep deprivation because that is a reality of the life that relieve our boats is like our baby.

She is very much alive and he very much talks to us.

We call her sheet, her name is polar seal.

and he's a character in our lives.

He breaks he needs to be secured.

So when we are at the marina, she needs to be properly secured.

If she is not properly secured, the lines will Creek, or hall is going to chase against a dock.

the fenders that are those little inflatable things that protect us from the dock.

they can, They can squeak.

They can not be placed at the right place.

And for us, that means that the boat breaks and when the boat breaks, it's very expensive.

and it takes a lot of time crux in the.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That's happened to us several times.

And so you have to take the time and the money to do the repair and that's, that would be a pretty minor break.

But one day we were arriving in Antiga beautiful island in the Caribbean.

we were about to drop the anchor and all of a sudden, Ryan hears a pop coming from the windlass, which is this part of the boat that controls the anchor chain.

So it takes it in and out of the water and the chain isn't budging it.

Yeah.

And we realized that the windlass is completely corroded and it's a big part, you know, like imagine a big winch that's, has a chain wraps around it and it's disintegrating because of corrosion.

And here we are in Antiga in the Caribbean and we have no way to take the anchor up or down.

We had to do it manually and it's very heavy.

so the boat talks to us and sometimes she doesn't happy.

Sometimes he breaks.

And if you have first Sydney probation, because the wind was really bad denied before, so you didn't get a good night of sleep cause you were rolling, you know, at Anchorage.

And the wind was really, really loud on top of that.

You have breakage, so something breaks and it's not only very inconvenient at the time that it breaks.

It's also very expensive to fix.

I imagining that you're in a place or you can not find replacement for the part that breaks.

It means that you have to go somewhere else.

So all the things that you want it to do, where you are you're, you're not going to be able to do them because now the priority is to repair the boats.

So you were missing all those places.

That's happened to us many times, and now we mentioned that by the weather is coming and I can make the list very, very long, but essentially a bad day is a day that problems accumulates and, and you're just, and you just don't have the energy to, you know, deal with it with calm.

And then, and those days happen, you know, the, those days happen more often than you'd imagine.

And you need to develop a lot of emotional flexibility in order to, to deal with those days.

I love resilience.

Yeah, because I was going to ask them what keeps you going right.

Well, you need to be really kind to yourself and your partner, but you realize that, okay, this time I went very far in my reaction to those events.

Tomorrow's another day we will do better.

We're not always perfect.

We will miss deadlines.

We will miss our objectives.

We will miss things that we really want to do, but we need to be okay with that.

This is part of the life that we've chosen.

And so if we feel like giving up every time that something bad happens, then you know, the negative aspects of the lifestyle disappear, but the rewards disappear as well.

And there are two good.

If everything was just picture perfect all the time, you wouldn't have, you wouldn't have, what to compare it against.

So it wouldn't feel as though.

Yeah.

And you know, sailing has taught me something that I think is very valuable and I think it's valuable for everyone in life.

You know, I hate sailing in heavy weather, you know, like big waves, really strong winds.

It's very, very stressful.

And I really do not like it.

I don't think anybody really does, but in sailing, everything is temporary.

The weather changes, you know, a storm that's coming is not going to look the same in six hours or in 12 hours.

And so you have to wait and you have to just make it through those hours that are bad.

and on the other side, You'll be okay.

You will arrive on land and everything will be fine in disbelief.

You just become a good story.

And I think that this applies to everything in life, like everything is temporary.

So when you have a bad day, when everything breaks and you have to spend a lot of money to fix the problem and you miss a beautiful place, at the same time, you have to remember that this is temporary.

It's gonna end.

And on the other side it will, it will be better.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

That's that resilience and yeah, you're right.

You just got to persist and it'll get better.

Now.

What does a good day look like?

Just like let us in, because I'm really curious.

Like what, like, if I was to wake up on a boat, what w what could I expect from like a good day?

And also, when I got struggling, that's the other question you can answer later, but, when, when you guys are sailing, how, how often would you change places?

How long would you normally stay in a, in a place and that sort of.

That's a million dollar question, but here is a good day.

We just arrived in a pitiful place.

Let's say easily.

We love Italy.

Italy is wonderful.

If you are to pick one travel destination in your life, go to Italy and Portugal and Cape Verde.

We have, we have a long list of beautiful places in the world, but, so you just arrived.

You need to leave.

The sail was good and you felt rested and relaxed.

Now you're going to drop the anchor.

Everything's going to go well, can, blow up the dinghy, which is the little boat that we take from our big boats to shore to go to this beautiful little Harbor where there is a coffee shop waiting for you with a magnificent breakfast.

And here you are sitting at the dock in the little Harbor.

wonderful local breakfast with not tourists around you.

And you can just sit there and contemplate how amazing life is.

That is a good day.

Nice.

And knowing that freedom that at any point, you can just go back to your main boat and we've moved locations.

Exactly.

I think that another, very not underrated, but maybe not very talked about aspect of our lives is that we get to meet incredible people everywhere we go.

And because we are this tight knit little community of sailors that we rely on each other, because as I said, boot breaks problems happen.

And the community, the sailing community is always here to help each other and to meet each other.

And so everywhere we go, there is a boats where we can invite the people to have drinks and.

Since we left the dock in coming in 2018 and have been traveling the world on our salvo.

I have never met such, a variety of different people because it doesn't matter what socioeconomic background we have, what kind of jobs we have, where in the world we come from, or, or even a how old we are, we all end up becoming friends and they are at, you know, people that are less nice than others, like everywhere, but generally sailors are really kind and generous people and super, super fun.

So we have met amazing friends.

So yeah.

Good day also ends with that.

Having drinks with your friends on their boat, watching the sunset.

That's cool thing.

That sounds really nice.

Yeah, that sounds right.

And what about, some of the things that you need to look out for some places that you might want to go and explore him?

I'd have to be a bit more cautious that maybe there's the thing about Somalia.

I know like it's pirates and little things like.

Yes.

So, every, I would say every region of the world has its own risks, risks, and rewards.

So for example, we started in the north sea and the Baltic and there, you know, weather patterns can be very, very different.

you know, you can have strong winds and storm.

It can be really cold in the north sea.

You also have a lot of, shallows, so you can be really far off shore and steel hit send back.

And as a matter of fact, the day before we sailed through that place, a boat that we followed on Instagram had, not rights, but they gets trended and had to be evacuated from the boats.

And they had to spend a month at the yard, repairing the boat that had been well, not wrecked, but it's trended and damaged on a sandbank far off shore in the north sea.

But that is not a problem that you're going to encounter in the middle of the Atlantic or even the Mediterranean.

Right?

So every region of the world come with its risks.

And the thing with our life is that we're not going to visit, several region of the world at the same time.

So we generally choose one region.

So that would be either the Mediterranean or the Caribbean, the east coast of the United States, or maybe the Pacific.

And before we go there, we study the risks.

and, and it, it's very, very different.

And I know that this is a very vague answer to your question, but for every place that we choose to visit, we need to assess what are the different risks associated, with this reaching.

Absolutely.

And do you have to have a, what about self defense?

Do you have to consider that too?

No, not yet.

So self-defense against, yeah.

We know friends that have crossed the red sea and they hired mercenaries to protect the boats in case of problems, because this region is known for piracy.

I heard that it's getting better now, but we're not interested in going there.

So we haven't really thought about it ourselves.

Other friends of ours, sail to an island called .

Does that ring a bell?

No.

Okay.

So this fall Bard is a big island north of Norway.

So it's referring to some TV show here or something.

No, no, no, no, no.

It's just friend of ours sailing.

And when you go to , what you need to defend yourself against are polar bears.

So when you go to small bar, you need to have a rifle because you need to defend yourself against polar bear.

And again, you know, it goes back to, where in the world are you going to sail and travel and explore?

And what are the risks associated with that?

But typically, you know, in the regions that we sail we're safe.

So we never really had to think about it.

Right.

What about food?

How do you handle food?

Like, like I said, you don't always have, you don't always have access to shopping.

What are some considerations there?

Do you fish a lot or, we do fish though.

It also depends, you know?

Okay.

Talking about risks again, but in the Caribbean, there is a toxin in fish in reef fish.

That's called a cigarette Tara and the cigarette.

Tara is not a disease that you want to get.

It attacks your, your immune system and the symptoms can be really, terrible and also lifelong it's like, you can get, see whatever I want and be impacted for life.

And because there are fewer resources in the Caribbean to study the toxin and the disease.

it's very difficult to know what fish are safe or not.

It's in the Caribbean Ryan and I decided that we were not going to eat fish because we just don't know.

And we want to eliminate that risk.

Now when we cross the Atlantic and we go, like anywhere else, where you spent a lot of time fishing and we love eating our own fish, it's really fun.

it's both entertaining and very tasty.

but what we do on the boats in terms of, of the food is, well, first off, we had to learn to provision and to always keep a stock of food that we can have.

So when COVID hits people, rated supermarkets, to buy canned food and toilet paper, well, we were already really well-stocked.

and the other thing that happens is that we get to learn about local foods and local cultures.

So we go to the local markets, the farmer's markets and the supermarkets, and we look at what's vulnerable and what we can do with that.

And it's such a fun part of our lifestyle.

so I've, in Italy, I learned to make really good pizza and you know, what makes with pizza?

in Spain, we were doing a lot of different hams and a lot of tapas, you know, in the Caribbean, it was a little bit different because food supply, there is not as abundant as it is in, in Europe, but generally where we go, we, we tried the local food and it's really fun.

That's amazing.

That's amazing.

So you not only get to explore locations, but also the food, it's like a gastro tourism.

That's awesome.

Oh, oh, absolutely.

And, right now we are in the A's doors.

I mean, the boat is in the source, which is a part of Portugal.

Our next destination is Madeira.

And if you want a food and wine destination, Portugal is fantastic.

Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.

Madeira Madeira wine, pour twine, you know, really being in Portugal.

Fantastic.

and the food and the seafood in Portugal is really diverse and surprising and incredible.

I love it.

so yeah, you want to eat and drink Portugal?

Is there a place?

I love it.

So Sophie, you know, I'm sold, I'm like, I'm ready.

Where do I sign?

Tell me how do I get started?

Just, just wait until I tell you how you have to flush the toilet on the boat and we'll see if you're still excited about it.

And I don't want to hear about that.

That's so cool.

I'll learn about it later now, but seriously, like, I mean, this is so exciting, like hearing, hearing about this lifestyle that you and Ryan leaf, and I'm sure there's a bunch of people listening right now.

They're kind of thinking the same, like me right now.

I'm like, this is actually something I w I wouldn't mind to do, you know, even if it was.

And we've got, you know, me and my wife, we've got a nine months old sounds.

So it would be, I guess, a bit more tricky with a kid, but, maybe, maybe not.

maybe you can tell me that you would be surprised how many people sail with babies and toddlers and kids.

Yeah.

Well, okay.

There you go.

So yeah, I could definitely see myself, like, you know, talk my wife up to it and maybe in a couple of years to do it.

So, and on the same token, there probably a bunch of other people listening.

So what would be, I don't say a blueprint because everyone's circumstances are different, but obviously the biggest thing is the, is, is the investment.

Like you need to buy a boat.

So what are some of the consideration?

Will that be the first thing to start with?

I would say before you even buy a boat, because there are so many different types of boats that you can buy, right.

It'd be like buying a house.

Where do you buy the house?

How big is it going to be?

How comfortable is it going to be?

Is it going to be a house that you have to completely overhaul?

Or is it a house that's, you know, turnkey?

So you have to consider all those things.

So my biggest step for somebody who wants to do what we did and it starting from scratch is first learn how to sail, go on different boats, you know, go on boats that you are interested in, you know, the type of boats that you would want to buy and try to try as many different boats as you possibly can.

And build up a little bit of experience sailing because changing.

Lifestyle from going from land-based to sailing full time.

Is it so much more difficult when you have no idea how to sail?

We've known people who've done it.

Absolutely.

You know, it exists, but that is personally not what I would choose to do.

Because it would be so difficult.

So, so yeah, if you want to buy a boat before buying a boat, I would recommend trying different boats, like actually go out and sail with them.

go to boat shows, find your crowd, find people like me and Ryan, you know, we're, we're not unique or so many different people leaving on boats.

So, so find those people and ask questions.

the sailing community is super open and, you know, always very helpful.

so yeah.

And then once you figure out what is it you like about those different boats and what type of budgets you have to buy your boats and what you expect out of the boat that you are going to buy then?

Yeah.

Go for it.

And also, what about, what about the planning?

Like how would somebody decide, you know, how long, how long am I going for?

How long am I going to do this lifestyle for it?

Is that, is there something that you can like plan for it or how did you guys do it?

Did you say to yourself we're going to do it for five years?

We'll get, we'll get back to and though there are two ways of doing it three ways.

I mean, it's very flexible.

it sounds like we have our shit figured out and it's just not the case, but a lot of people will save for many years so that they can do this for one or two years.

And when Ryan and I get started, we initially thought that we were going to get ourselves remote jobs.

And then we were going to try it, try the lifestyle for 60.

Oh, that was three years ago.

So that worked well for us.

So, no today our, she loves it.

She is, we're going to do it for as long as we think that it's fun.

And as long as we can afford it, but we know that a lot of other people are more, okay, we're going to do this for one year.

And those are the places that we will be visiting over the course of the one year, where a lot more now we'll go over where the wind takes us.

If this is fun, that we'll stay.

If this is not fun, that will leave.

And the day that we feel that we are two tights money-wise or, which is not enjoyed any more than we'll just constantly stopping.

But we're far from that, I did get to that point.

What is the resell value typically on boats?

Is that that's another thing to consider, right?

As well.

Like if you're going to do these, if you, if you, you know, that you have.

And then an end date to it.

Like if you only going to do it for a year or two, I'm not sure about bullets, but I'm like, it's not like a real estate houses.

The goes up, I would assume the boats, the values going down, isn't it?

Yeah.

You have to think of it more like a car, you know, it also boats break.

So the value of your boat can dramatically decrease if you've had, you know, a grounding with it.

but it can also increase if you add equipment to it.

So the boat is a terrible investment.

You know, you buy a boat.

you're not going to make money.

You have, you buy a boat because you were getting something out of it, right.

And maybe, hopefully you can get your capital back.

I will say something interesting that it's happening in a boat market these days, that everybody wants to buy boats, COVID-19 has made the book market absolutely explode.

And it's actually really hard and difficult to find sell boats these days.

and when I look at the prices, I'm like, are you serious?

Like that much money for that kind of boat?

so yeah, absolutely unbeknownst to us and due to circumstances, the value of our boat is actually increased in the last year and a half, but it's, it's, it starts to physical and absolutely temporary.

Yeah, that's what I was going to say.

It's just a short window.

And if you didn't want it to, you'd have to do it now.

It goes, that demand's going to drop again.

So, what about COVID how did you guys do of that?

Did you have to, was it, was it something, you know, regulate, like, was there something by government for, for, for the, for the boat people?

Or was it kind of like, just like, where were you parking?

I mean, docking, and then you had to kind of ally over those local rules and, oh man, that's a, that's another Pandora box, but, so how well you fared during COVID 19 during the pandemic and the lockdowns, really, depending on where you were, what country you were in and down to the city that you were at, and right.

And I did not win the lottery on that one.

because you know, both people are an afterthoughts, right?

Like we were tourists technically, but during confinements and lockdowns, there were not supposed to be any tourists anywhere.

Right.

and on top of that.

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

so we were not locals, but also, you know, we had certain needs because of the nature of what we do and needs that the local government sometimes had a hard time addressing.

So, for example, in a 2020, you know, dependent make started in March, that's when we started seeing all this big lock downs and travel restrictions everywhere.

We were in St.

Martin in the Caribbean, which sounds absolutely lovely and gorgeous.

but the reality of the experience was very, very different.

We were stuck in an inland lagoon, which sounds lovely, but that's where all the sewage of the island went.

So it was everything, but crystal clear blue.

and we couldn't go out because to get in that inland lagoon, you had to go through bridges and because of the lockdown, those bridges were not operated.

So we were effectively stuck.

Now, St.

Martin was hit by hurricane Irma in 2017.

So they were wrecks all around us on top of, you know, sewage.

so it was not a Preti landscape.

It's not the coconut trees and the white Sandy beach.

also for us, it was a 45 minutes Deany ride to go to shore to the grocery store because it was forbidden for us to put the dinghy anywhere else, but designated, docks.

So for us going to shore was extremely difficult.

so we stayed most of the time on board.

And then on top of that, we were also surveilled by the police.

You know, the first time that we saw the police coming on anchor, we thought that they were here to protect us because during Irma, there was a lot of looting in St.

Martin and we were getting, we were a bit afraid, you know, that's with everything locked down and the boat being effectively locked in the lagoon, they would start to be some robberies happening.

But the police was not here to, to make sure that we were okay.

They were here to make sure that we were not going on other people's boats.

They were counting dinghy is at the back of each book.

And so the entire atmosphere was just completely surreal.

also very quickly there were, COVID death on boats in the Anchorage, when one man and his wife, get infected and he had to be repatriated to the United States and, subsequently died.

And so, you know, the atmosphere in the Anchorage, in the boat community, which are the only people that we talked to because we're completely disconnected from the locals.

It was very tense.

It was very anxious.

and on top of that, it's because, you know, no problem happens alone.

we had hurricane season coming and hurricane season came very early in 2020.

So, and, and we had nowhere to go because borders were closed.

There was no where first.

So you could not just like undock and go to somewhere else.

No, not allowed.

So, so later leisure, cruising pleasure.

Cruising was forbidden during the lockdown in San Martin.

And so we couldn't even move our boats.

We couldn't change.

I encourage that changed thankfully, back in may, April or may I believe so we could escape.

We, we were eventually able to leave the lagoon and feel a little more free, but, but apart from that, no, we had, we had nowhere to go because borders were shots and hurricane season was coming.

So it was a bit nerve wracking for a moment.

So you say in April, so April last year, not this year, you were in there for holiday?

no, Becky in April, we were unlocked down again, but this time in Bonaire, which was a very different experience.

but yeah, we we've been confined on board two times now.

Hmm.

How about that?

Just you and your partner on a boat, always, you know, just that same person.

Do you ever get, you know, like that submarine, they call it submarine disease, like, you know, just, you don't get to see anybody else you, do you ever go mad from, from, I think that we live in a permanent state of submarine disease.

No, of course.

You know, it's, it's very, it's very difficult to live with your partner, 24 7 all the time.

And it's only the two of you, you know, there is no, I'm going to go have a beer with my friends.

And I'll see you later, or I'm going to go to work and I'll talk to my colleagues all day and I'll see you later.

You know, there is none of that.

We spend all of our time together, which creates tensions, obviously, because we're not always the best versions of ourselves, let's face it.

and also in our lives, we have to feel all the roles for each other.

You know, like when you look at your life, you have, your friends that are your confidence, and then maybe you have a therapist or you have a friend that ex therapists, you have a problem with, you know, like a health problem.

You go to the doctor or a nurse, you know, we are everything for each other.

We are coworkers, doctor.

That's when we actually need medical attention.

We, we go to a professional healthcare provider, right.

But I'm, I'm the first line nurse.

we are therapists, psychologists.

We are confidence.

We are also, coworkers, you know, on the boat.

When we take the boat from point a to point B, we are effectively working together sometimes with the YouTube channel.

We also work together.

and, and we do all that in 15 square meters of very small space, a space that moves, so that we're not always, we're not always friends.

Let's put it this way.

All in all.

Would you say that your relationship is even stronger as a result of doing this experience than it would be?

Absolutely.

this lifestyle really tests the resilience of your relations.

It is very, very, very difficult.

There are days that I want to leave the boat.

There are days right.

And wants to leave the boat.

but we have learned that for stuff we need to be kind to our relationship in terms of accepting that sometimes it's going to go south.

and we have learned to take a step back and, and deal with our conflicts.

And so when you survive, I'm going to quote unquote survive.

But when you go through all of these things together, at the end of the day, you go to land and you're like, I could not do life with somebody else because we can go through so much.

And at the same time, knowing that we have each other's back, you know, and how many people on earth are there, that you are going to be able to travel the world on the tiny little cell, but with, for multiple years, probably not that many.

And if you can do that can probably do a lot.

So, yeah, that's amazing.

Sometimes he drives me nuts, but I still love him very, very deeply.

Yeah.

That's awesome.

That's awesome.

I think you're totally right.

Like, I mean, in any relationship, if, if you, if you've gone through some tough time together, whether it be on a bottle, w w whatever circumstances by overcoming those challenges together, truly belief, that's what makes your relationship stronger.

And, and if you've got something that you, you, you can relate, you can come back to those memories together.

And, and I think your whole relationship becomes, more enriched and deep, not just, some kind of a shallow, you know, dating thing that somebody that you see once a week and whatever.

Yeah.

So this is great.

I have to say that I make it sound like we're making it work and it's easy, but, one thing that we have in our lives that has been absolutely instrumental.

To Ryan and I, working together is our couples counselor.

we started seeing a couple counselor before we moved on to vote for something completely unrelated because you know, Ryan is American, I'm French.

We live in Sweden and we don't have family in Sweden.

And we felt that we needed to talk to somebody who could help us work out something.

And we ended up, we've been working with her for five years now.

So she's been in our lives for a very long time and moving on the boat, you know, having that card that we can play when we feel that we're stuck, no, we're stuck in a discussion in a conflict or disagreement.

And we're like, all right, well, let's bring it up in, in therapy.

Let's call Veronica.

Our therapist's name is Veronica.

and knowing that you're going to be working it out, working the problem out that there is an outlet.

It really is, is the pressure at a level that is incredible.

And you know, it's not Dawn yet.

Like you still have to actually work it.

But knowing that there is a willingness on both sides to work it out is just, wow.

And that's the first step that willingness, because you might have a conflict, you might have a different point of view to your partner.

And yet at the end of the day, you just need to sometimes bring, bring in that mediator that, that, that somebody in the middle who can listen to both sides and help you kind of both meet, meet halfway and then, and then happy days.

And while, and while you talk through the problem, you cannot sound like an asshole.

If you have to be civilized and there's a third person you have to be at and respectful and all that.

Yeah.

That's.

Awesome.

Well, Sophie, that was, well, thank you so much for sharing all this and sharing with our listeners.

you know, I was, I was really excited to have you on the show today and, and, you know, share this whole lifestyle of the bus.

And, yeah.

So thank you for that.

now on the parting of this episode today, what would be top three key takeaways that you'd like our listeners to walk away with after listening?

Okay.

Three takeaway, first off, if you are listening to this podcast and you're thinking about lifestyle change, you know, it can be moving on a sailboat, or as I said, moving on to far or moving abroad, starting to travel, quitting your job to start your own business, you know, whatever it is that you have in mind at the time that you were listening to this, explore it, take the time to explore it.

And then the second thing would be acting on.

And it doesn't mean that you need to go from one to the other and, and do that thing that you're thinking about, but it's taking small commitments towards that vision that you have, and it doesn't need to be, I'm going to quit my job tomorrow, but it can be, I'm going to, I'm going to commit to meeting other people that are doing what I do and, and take their opinions, you know, small commitments towards your vision.

And then the third thing is really ask yourself, you know, when you're old, what is the story that you want to tell about your life?

You know, do you want to tell the story of how you continue to do something?

Or do you want to tell the story of how you tried this thing that you had, you know, a vision off and maybe it works, maybe it didn't, but you've tried it.

so yeah, those would be, if you're listening to this, this, those are my three takeaways.

Thank you so much.

Absolutely.

You don't want to live a life of regrets at the end.

I mean, I mean, you don't want to have regrets at the end when, when you, when you, when you reflect back on your life, absolutely Real stories, not regrets, Real stories, not regrets I love it.

Awesome.

So, Sophie amazing.

Thank you so much for being on the show for those guys listening.

makes you go check out Ryan and Sophie's, YouTube channels.

That's Ryan Sophie.

That's actually youtube.com forward slash there's a C there.

Okay.

Let's just go.

Connie YouTube and look up Ryan, Sophie sailing.

there's also a website you can go to, which is ryanandsophie.com in one word.

we can find out more about their, their, latest adventures and, yeah.

And that's it guys.

So thank you.

and once again, thank you, Sophie.

I appreciate you jumping on and, I know you had to sort of get into a co-working space to jump on this oom with me so we can record it.

So appreciate that.

And for those guys listening, thank you for listening for today's episode on the Success Inspired Podcast.

If you've enjoyed this interview, then please share it with your mates that you think would also benefit from listening for any show notes, links, and extra tips to help you accomplish more in life and realize your potential.

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