QUARANTINE CALL FROM south carolina
MIchael youngblood: CO-FOUNDER OF UNSETTLED TRAVEL STARTUP
Michael Youngblood is the co-founder of Unsettled, an award-winning travel startup that offers 1-month retreats and travel adventures at the intersection of work, travel, and meaningful human connection.
Among his many credits, Michael is a lifelong entrepreneur, has researched innovation at MIT, taught entrepreneurship on behalf of the U.S. State Department and is a member of the inaugural TED Residency. He is a thought leader redefining how our careers can integrate with our lives in a way that helps us pursue meaning, purpose and symmetry. He lives remotely, often jumping between life on a sailboat and in the mountains, with either his bikes or boards in tow.
episode highlights
3:12 Michael talks about how different his current quarantine experience in South Carolina is compared to his normal life as a travel startup co-founder who travels to dozens of countries a quarter under normal circumstances.
6:25 Michael talks about the mission and ethos of Unsettled.
10:55 Partnerships, investments and the dozens of marriages: the results of human connection at Unsettled’s month-long retreats around the world.
11:08 The questions Michael and co-Founder Jonathan ask each person as they arrive to an Unsettled retreat: What in your life is settled, and what is unsettled.
13:45 How Unsettled, a company otherwise reliant on travel and face-to-face interaction with community, changes in the face of the coronavirus.
15:38 How to responsibly deal with the onslaught of cancellations as a result of the coronavirus.
16:25 The importance of Customer loyalty, especially in a post-pandemic world. Put the customer above the company at all costs.
18:10 Michael tells the story of his first travel experience, and how humility helps his through to today.
23:15 As a former tour guide and tour business owner, Michael shares his views on the future of tours, post-coronavirus.
31:29 How creating virtual retreats becomes, in many ways, the essence of travel, even when you take the destination out of the equation.
34:05 We have replaced the church and the temple with work: the inevitable ‘What do you do?” question.
36:05 How to survive in a crisis as a travel startup: make decisions confidently and quickly .
36:45 On serving the solo traveler in the future of travel: their quest, and the importance of solo travel to help future leaders find independence.
Mentioned in this episode
Michael Youngblood at TED Residency: Discovering your true north.
Solitude and Leadership lecture delivered at the United States Military Academy at West Point in October 2009.
Michael on Instagram @mbyoungblood and LinkedIn
You can find Unsettled at www.beunsettled.co and on Instagram at @beunsettled.
About Adventure Calls
From her quarantine to theirs, world-traveler and author of How To Move Abroad And Why It’s The Best Thing You’ll Do, Jessica Drucker, calls up travel experts to find out what they envision for the future of travel in a post-pandemic world.
Full episode transcript
Adventure Calls Episode 3: Michael Youngblood in South Carolina Full Transcript*
Jessica Drucker: Okay, Michael, thank you so much for taking my call. I’m very excited to talk to you.
Michael Youngblood: It's good to be here, Jess.
Jessica Drucker: Thank you. So the first and most important part of this conversation, how are you feeling? Are you well? Is your family well?
Michael Youngblood: Yeah. Thank you for asking. I am. Well, I'm healthy. Um, you know, I work in the travel industry and, you know, economically have seen better days for sure. Um, but overall, you know, mentally, socially, I'm just as well as ever. Get through this. We can't say that about everybody in industry, but but I'm good. Thanks for asking.
Jessica Drucker: So you are the co-founder of Unsettled and under different circumstances, obviously, we'd be talking about some amazing successes and stories and everything, but right now we are in the middle of a quarantine. That said, second question of these conversations I'm having is where are you quarantined? What's your quarantine like?
Michael Youngblood: Yeah, um, I am certainly, uh, am in an unusual place, though. A place I know very well. It's the home I grew up in, and I ended up here because I was coming off of about four months or travel to about a dozen countries for work, and I was coming. Um, I don't I don't have a home address in the US right now, So my car and a few basic things air here. My old parents, um I was coming to pick up my vehicle where I was going to go to south by southwest to do some speaking conferencing and continue on a road trip. I was playing to come here for a week, and I was literally packing my car, starting to road trip in the cancelled south by, uh, and I've been quarantined home in South Carolina, a small town, Greenville, South Carolina, ever since.
Jessica Drucker: And what are your days like from such a big life? Like a few months ago.
Michael Youngblood: God, it's such a funny question. Um, I mean, let me describe what days were like to compare what they're like today? They were very long days, you know, for four months I was traveling on stop. Like I said, about a dozen countries. Um, that was a lot of that time I was in Asia. Um, my team is mostly Ah, you know U s time zones. Um, and that meant I was either running or involved in some of our programs and Asia somewhere smaller. Lucky's locations. I've been doing three or four years. I was doing a lot of just check ins with partners and vendors. Um, and then we're launching some very interesting, um, products or programs online. That air. Really? Maybe we could get into the helping us survive and positive and thrive these days. It was launching those at night, so I was working around the clock, and I'm not. Somebody usually does. Set boundaries usually unplug in the evenings. Um and so I was very intense with people from around the world within these large communities. And then don't use that running program. Start the night working 18 hours a day and now spending time, you know, with my parents who are obviously 30 40 years older than me, uh, who truly don't quite understand what I do, even after doing it for five years. And I probably walked 5 to 6 miles a day just around the neighborhood on calls. That's the best exercise I can get right now. So they're peaceful in a word.
Jessica Drucker: That's really nice, though. In some ways it's like forced, forced break at least, right?
Michael Youngblood: Yeah. Yeah, I'm calling it an unexpected and unintentional sabbatical.
Jessica Drucker: Yeah, which that is definitely true for for almost everyone, especially in our industry right now. So Okay, so let's talk about unsettled, though, because you do make it sound like really glamorous running This business sounds awesome. And I think a lot of people would love to have ah, life like this. Talk a little bit about unsettled. And what in the before times right in the land before corona. What was your company like? And then kind of how we are you adapting in this, at least right now in the middle of the crisis. How are you guys adapting?
Michael Youngblood: Yes. So, in pre corona days, um, the company's been around for five years. I'm the co founder. I pretty much do everything from marketing, I’m more on the experience. That's more, truly on the travel side. I do, you know, new location, product development, things like that. Um, and you know, what the business has been like over the years is we run 3 to 5 retreats every month. For the last 4 to 5 years. So we're running many retreats, many locations at the same time. Meaning we have, you know, team dispersed around the world at the same time we operated about 20 countries. We ran as of now, just before or current of hires, we got in our 103 tree. And what these retreats are, What we're best known for is our month long retreats for people who can work and live anywhere. And so we set up. We make it easy to show up. You live on site with us, usually in a big villa. You know, if it's in a city like Buenos Aires or Cape Town, they may be, you know, a nice kind of high end apartment complex that we're in in a nice part of the city. More like Bali or Nicaragua, it might be a big villa or a group houses. You show up. And usually there's about 20 people in one of our retreats from all over the world. So our customers have come from 80 countries. Um, usually on a typical retreat, there's 20 people. There is a dozen nationalities. We always try to throw the passports in one pile and take photos. Um, so you show up, you know, we make that living easy. We have a local team members who are from that location. We're making it easy, not just to show up a little, but to actually experience that location as if you've lived there for many years is our local team has, um and so we've been doing that, you know, for years we do some sort of retreats to weave one thing. We're focused on building community. You know, we really think we're community driven travel. And so we have people who have become alumni once they have been through one of the month long retreats. Ah, lot of times they come back to go in, like a one week sailing retreat. We do a lot of sailing things. The company was actually founded on a sailboat. I'm a sailor, Um, and so, yeah, we're a startup in the truest sense. So there's been a lot of growth, a lot of, you know, pain and that growth and a lot of learning. Um, and obviously a lot of travel.
Jessica Drucker: Yes. So And these month long retreats these are really for entrepreneurs or people who are looking to start businesses. Right? And they all kind of everybody sort of gets together in one place and does their own work, but they do it together and then kind of feed off each other. Is that right?
Michael Youngblood: Yeah, I would say about half the people, um, own their own business or self employed in some sense of the word. Um, but half the people are kind of dipping their toe in the lifestyle, and they're trying to see, you know, how might they live this you know, once or twice a year, or maybe they'll go for 3 to 4 months a year. There's a lot of people taking sort of intentional pause on their careers. Or maybe just a month. They have asked for, you know, an extra bit of space if they're from the US to take instead of two weeks, maybe four weeks off. Um, and so they're really seeing What does it feel like to test out living overseas? You know, stepping into this kind of nomad life that's become popular of the last 5 to 10 years,
Jessica Drucker: Right! I didn't really think about the fact that if you're from any other country, a western country, four weeks is fine. You just go on vacation, right!
Michael Youngblood: Yes, we do have people who come and they're just like, No, I just took the month office what we do sometimes.
Jessica Drucker: Yeah, that's that's awesome. And what so I found out about your company a little while ago, aggressively followed everything I could online, signed up for your list, like ate up all your content. Um, it's at some point in my life. I'm sure I had a little bit of this idea to every time I stayed in, like an amazing house on my travel. That we should do a retreat here like that was always something I thought, too. Um, but what I love about it is you. I think you're taking people out of their element. And getting them into a new element is what inspires people. Right? And that's kind of like the beauty of what? What? The essence of what makes travel beautiful is that getting out of your element allows you to just see the world just a little bit different enough to let it change you until I take it in. That's why I think like what you guys do is so fascinating. Have you seen actual companies grow out of unsettled because of that, like, sort of out of your element nest? That happens. Then people are able to grow or even collaborate with each other.
Michael Youngblood: Yeah, big time, you know. And I really think, you know, you have to know him that had, you know, were so much more than a travel company. You were really a people company and in perspective company. You know, one of our favorite questions we loved. Ask people when they arrive is what in your life is settled and was unsettled in your life. What questions are settled for you personally? What questions? You're unsettled for you personally. I'm and we've seen so many things come together. I think I can count about a dozen marriages of people met on a retreats
Jessica Drucker: Like… marriage marriage?!
Michael Youngblood Marriage, marriage. Yeah, I think I'm going to one in September As long as it goes through with everything going on. Um, you know, I can count a couple dozen companies and endless collaborations. Probably 40 or 50 people have relocated. Um, you know, maybe they met somebody in Trinidad and Tobago, you know who is on the retreat. And they're like, Yeah, come down and, you know, if you can work remotely come down for a month in the Caribbean, I’ll make it very easy, and we've seen all kinds of things, and it goes always, You know, we've seen people on our retreats, collaborate with other people from the retreats, but also end up collaborating with locals. They meet in Buenos Aires, for example. We've had people on this has gone both ways to invest. We've seen investments go through. You know, cos we've had people on retreats invest in start ups that are Argentinian service. We've had investors who Argentinian invest in start ups that are running through our program. You know, people who own business and so, you know, just goes to show the world that moves in all directions.
Jessica Drucker: But you do the majority of your retreats in, like, in what are really like these nomad hubs. I've heard you mentioned quite a lot of the main kind of hubs out there. Bali, Buenos Aires, Nicaragua. Is that kind of where you do the majority of your retreats? Or do you also try other cities that artists on the map like Oman somewhere?
Michael Youngblood: Yeah. Um, so we've definitely tried to do both eso. You know, we like to go to the places that are becoming known. You know, they're known for a reason. They're probably not because they're beautiful, they're affordable. And there's great people traveling there. Eso we certainly go to the known ones. The ones that you know of both mentioned. Um but, you know, we've gone to some new ones like we did Lebanon en route, which is, you know, pretty edgy place. I loved it. Iran does, Um, you've done Marrakech, Morocco, Medellin, Colombia, which is definitely up and coming for nomads. But a decade ago, it was It's been a very transformational story itself. So we definitely try to keep ourselves. Interestingly, the today I'm running this company is much for me and my team as for anybody. And so I want to continue to push the envelope and see where we can go.
Jessica Drucker: So where you go now, like what's happening, And you don't have to obviously give, like, insider information. But how does a company like yours that relies on community and travel and face to face interaction survive this? And where do you think you might pivot to in the future?
Michael Youngblood: Yeah, I'm great. Question. I'll be an open book on this. You know, we've been an open book, you know, with all of our customers are participants. Um, and it's a gladly share. Any questions related to this? The month of March, we were finishing up a trip in Buenos Aires. Um, we had a trip, you know, and in Bali that we eat up cutting short. Um, and you know, we're about toe start a few trips. You know, in April. Obviously, we call those off. We call it a trip off in early March. And Tokyo, um, took gives me kind of up and down. You know, they kind of had waves of this, but we still photos the right thing to call off. Um, and so, you know, we were gonna be in Bali all of this summer. June, July, August. We just kind. So June in July, we had a sailing trip. We do trips when she got there. Program. A lot of people would like to continue travel with us. So we we like to just celebrate everyone. Small community. So we do these recalling sailing trips. We had 80 people signed up to go sailing with us in Greece. We called that off the week or two ago. That's an interesting example. Because, you know, as a travel company, we have 80 people who have a lot of loyalty to us who love our ran. It's about 60 people who have travelled with us in 20 their friends who have heard about this. Um and you know, but plus, you know, do the basic math of were charging about 1500 per person. There's a lot of money we have. You know, we've got to make sure we're fiscally responsible over the long term. Is a company were managing our cash flow? Well, that if it's situation is unprecedented as this, we're able to, you know, get refunds going. But then we got to make sure we're doing it in a way that's protecting our customers. We got a call that Shahbaz bad is gonna hurt, that we're protecting people. And so, you know, we called. We caught it. I think pretty early earlier than you know, offenders are allowing us to refunds. We still have a lot of money stuck there in Greece. Um, but the today we have to protect our customers. This has been our mantra. Protected customers protect our team and protect the company. Sometimes there's things seem mutually exclusive. You work through it if your understanding, you know, I think that people are going with you. Um, you know, they'll be understanding back. So So, yeah, we can set a lot of these trips and you can imagine I mean, what I last saw five or six trips there, Japan symbolic tricks that we can sort. There's hundreds of thousands of dollars that you know that we're re funding. It certainly certainly wasn't pretty.
Jessica Drucker: How do you think that you know, a company like yours? I think customer loyalty. It's always easier to sell to a previous customer. People who feel really like committed to you and the brand of the idea and the vision. And so much more than just like a tour company that you book on online somewhere. And then go. How do you think you You might recover of this totally leading question? Because I think this, you might recall, recover more easily than a company that doesn't have that customer loyalty.
Michael Youngblood: You can so easily ruined customer loyalty by simple mistakes. And there were so many mistakes that we could have made. And I'm sure we made a few, um, and I know there is No If if all 80 of those people were listening to be one or two people who heard what I just said about, well, you know, you didn't actually do it as good as you could have. And there their version of events is absolutely ballot. You know, we did the best that we could given a lot of circumstance. If you get one horrible review today, you know Facebook doesn't take that down. Google doesn't take that down. That stays up. And people care. When this comes back, people have a lot of choice. There's a lot of competition out there, you know, if they don't, if we screw them over, they're gonna screw us very quickly. That was That's why I said it had order, protect the customers, protect our team, checked the company. Um and I would have taken, you know, I would have, you know, would have risked the company before I would have risked anything with a customer or a team member. At the end of the day, we can rebuild, you know, done this a couple of times, building companies and do it again. But just boil. It is so, so important.
Jessica Drucker: I read obviously quite a lot about you before we chatted. And I think you're what started this all for you is like a trip when you were 18 cycling across Europe. Or maybe that's part of it. But like, what are some of your own big trips that you took that were kind of like life changing affected the way that you saw the world and really give you the guts to To be this person who who lives there. Actual truth, I guess.
Michael Youngblood: Yeah, Yeah, I appreciate the the way you phrased the question because it, you know, it sometimes does. State gets toe live our troops that you could always takes guts. This is very much, you know, my truth. You know, I would start, you know, with sort of, ah, value set of mine and humility in many ways, you know, my life, you know, has had glamorous moments of running through these countries and reading sailing trips. I came from a very humble working class family who did have, you know, which means I was the first person to graduate from university. The first person have a passport. Um, and I think I didn't take travel for granted. And so my family took me on a vacation, was about 10 years old and drove across the U. S. Yeah, I remember that in the house that I'm now funny enough, You know, my father and I were sitting your own after we put dinner away, and I come from a pretty big family we'd sit around, take out, you know, the old road at less. We used to pull those things out and map out where we're gonna go that summer. This is probably February. March vacation was in August in using my head to imagine where we were going, you know, and I've read the neuroscience on this when, you know, imagine you could have this much of an experience just thinking about it, you know, like the dopamine levels could be triggered as if you're doing it. That could be a good or bad thing. By the way, it's all about expectations. But as a kid, I began to imagine myself in that Captain. See, right, You know, it's kind of a rebellious spirit, like some entrepreneurs are, you know, it was I think there are 400 like, 50 kids in my high school graduation costs. It was like there were 411 or something. So is, like way at the bottom. Um, it's not because I'm, you know, stupid or anything like that. You know, it turns out, is on the dean's list. Two years later, the university, when I transfer it in, you know, I I decided to take some time off. Uh, did not go straight in university and take this trip. And, you know, looking back today, it seems like such an easy thing to do. Obviously what I've learned, but to be 18 years old, your family doesn't travel. They don't know what you're doing to fly at a Europe with a bicycle on a one way flight. You don't speak. The language is you know, this is, you know, the year after 9 11 Um, you know, this comes into context and, you know, was a pretty courageous move back then. And funny enough. Last weekend I took my nephews 15 on his first backpacking trip. So I took him out into the woods for three nights, and I realized, I attribute, it realizes going into that it was his first experience being away from home and sleeping in the back country like this. And he got homesick and through all the motions and, you know, take to get to part of your question. I remember the more I did this the mawr courage, I had to have those guts part of the question and to discover my truth and So it was by doing mawr. Those trips it is this beautiful article is how I came across. It was published like a dozen years ago, and there's a commencement address. Um, I think at West Point and discovered cultivating independence and within it, the guy giving the commencement address says in orderto cultivate independence and leadership leaders, the people, obviously large groups and leaders and military as you speaking West Point is that you actually have to cultivate independence within, and in order to do that, you have to find solitude. So it's a paradox that become a leader to be an independent figure, which defines leaders not just because you're a manager here. You have to find solitude and be comfortable with yourself because being with yourself is what will cultivate independence. And so what has ultimately led. I think me to be fighting my truth, and being courageous concerning you know, company like I'm settled is is the fact that I have traveled. I have lived this life each time that I've done it have continued to learn how to be more worker ages.
Jessica Drucker: I am so passionate about study abroad. I'm so passionate about teenagers and college kids getting abroad because I think that's the part where you can really before they even know they need it. That's when it can change. Your whole life changed my whole life, and everyone I know in this space whose super interesting and like, does things like you do. It's that it is taking the time when you're very young, before you even know what you need and experiencing the world in a totally different way. So it's just interesting that your your story kind of really lines up with that. So you were a tour guide as well, right? Did you spend a lot of years being a tour guide?
Michael Youngblood: Uh, three years, um, at University in Charleston, South Carolina. Um, and that's actually not the full truth. So three years as an employee, you know, when the business with the guy who owned that business in Charleston, South Carolina, and for three years while I owned the business, I ran 50% of our tours as well. And that was primarily in the great smoking on National Park were doing back country camping trips and hikes and things like that in the national park.
Jessica Drucker: Oh, that's interesting because I was gonna ask you about I just have this feeling that, you know, in the post Corona virus travel environment, tour companies are are really gonna suffer. I just can't imagine 30 people a stranger is getting together and walking through a city together or taking a trip together on a bus. I mean, I just don't know how these things will survive, However, Maybe tours like that will going out into national parks where there's wide open spaces. Those may still survive. But how do you sort of see that specific segment of the tourism industry surviving or not After this?
Michael Youngblood: Yeah, really good question. And yeah, I hope you know, some people who are listening to this are decision makers in the travel industry. Because I've been reading a lot about this, and I don't necessarily agree with what I'm reading so far. So for one, I think this is deeper than people realize. I don't think there's gonna be a flip of a button, and unfortunately, travel is not gonna come back honest and take months. You know, the amount of the economy is beginning to suffer from this. You know, when you lose a job and you might get behind on your mortgage or whatever it is, you know, for many months, which I think is what happening. You know, that discretionary income becomes, you know, something. So just from that point, I think it's gonna take longer than a lot of people think. Secondly, I think you're absolutely right. And we've been having these conversations at some today. If a business partner and I do think domestic travel is going to come back before international travel, no flights were at the center of a lot of this, you know, the borders were at the center of a lot of this, Um, and you know, after many great historical events, and this is gonna be one of those, you know, the psychology of people in their behavior changes. And I think we're going to see that behavior for a few years to some degree for a long time that he says thinking and talking about it. So I do think that, um, you know that domestic travel is going to come back first and we're thinking through that. What does that mean for us? We've never ran a trip in the U. S. So That's our domestic market where we are an American company. Um, and and we're thinking about what might that look like for us to do it in the final layer? I would say, at least the final layer to be brief is the group size component of this, Um and what does it look like to begin to think about? You know, can you rework this cause traditional sort of tour operators, You know, if there were, you know, looting people on a bus? No, you know, and our target audience, our demographics that I skipped over. You know, that's not what they're looking for anyway. But how can we come? And can we still serve people with what we do with in person experience? And I were doing some online experiences which we talk about, Um, domestically. I think there's a really interesting answer in there that were beginning to design out. And, you know, if if nothing else, in this moment, um and, you know, I say this respecting a lot of people who have lost their jobs, people that I care very much about, Um but this is a moment, I think, for the travel industry to to get innovative. Um, you know, we're kind of given this break, and it's, you know, saying, Hey, go out. And I've had conversations with partners at Fortune 500 travel companies and they're gonna sit coming to us and saying, Hey, why don't we use this next few months? Well, we've been talking for a year with you guys. We might actually get together and talk and design a program, A partnership together now. So I think there's really an opportunity Come and think about that. And, you know, I mean, we can look back at what companies were founded in a way, you know, nine. Exactly. 10 of course. Great. Wonderful. I think Airbnb was 708 or something like that, right? Many others?
Jessica Drucker: Yeah. No, completely. And I think that this is obviously a key time where lots of new companies that become everyday language for us in a decade will come out of this crisis yet for sure. Um and if you think about it like you were saying, like after 9 11 for a couple of years, obviously our behavior change very extremely. But even now it's become banal or totally regular to just see on a subway, you know, message saying, like if you see something, say something. But that stems from a very important event that happened, you know, almost 20 years ago. Now, now it's it's part of our everyday we you know, you're at the airport. If you tell me to take off all my clothes to get through to the other side, I will do whatever you say. And that behavior comes from that catastrophic event. And I just really wonder, you know how well our behaviors travelers change as a result of this. Is it just taking Babs in pure L Before you get on a plane? I don't know. I don't know how it's going to change, but I really worry the most about the smallest tour operators, the ones who this is their full cash flow. But they might not even be an organized enough business to apply for these loans that are out right now. You know, I definitely I definitely feel that he sort of companies in the ones that might get hit. The worst words us obviously are going to be able to pivot. And if you want, we can actually talk about how you are Pity now, but that's kind of like my main one of my main. When I think about the industry, I do worry about the most about them
Michael Youngblood: e we touched on. You know how deep you know, the recession that is in the process, um, is going to be in, You know, what we also touch on is, you know, the travel industry. About one in 10 jobs in the world knows from the travel industry. You know this. Your listeners know this, but you know, most of those jobs, you know, suddenly disappeared and not disappeared forever. They're just frozen and, you know, they're gonna They're in a d thaw. And, you know, I think depending on the nature of that particular, uh, you know, industry, the style that you know that the job they'll come back, but one in 10 jobs. Um, and that's not even beginning. Think about the restaurants that you know you are a proxy, you know, business, travel, and so much more. And so it's,
Jessica Drucker: um and not everyone like a restaurant can't pivot Virtual.
Michael Youngblood: Yeah, and that is what what we're kind of doing, you know, and getting back toe parts of our conversation. And, you know, when I said, you know, a mentor and I said, you know, we're not just a travel company, you know, people are really coming to us, you know, at this moment in their life where they're looking for perspective, they're looking for changes what it is, Um, and so as we've made that observation, you know, and this is what you know, this is what start ups Do you know where a five year old start up? Um, you know, and what you do is you learn as much as you can. Like any company really does. Any organization needs to be learning as much as they can. The start. If you're doing that within an uncertain market, you know, to see if they can actually stick and grow on, be around for longer than just a couple of tests. And so, as we've learned, when the big learnings we've had is that people want to come to us for personal growth for professional transition, um, to do a deep dive into perspective on who they are, what they might want to do next. Um and so we've just collected all this data This has been something that, you know, I think I've benefited from from continuing to go on our trips. You know, there there are three or four years there. I could have said, You know, I can just manage the company. I don't need to travel anymore, But it's a passion of mine. I like to get out there. And so I was constantly learning from people's interacting with. And so we looked at it six months ago and we had no idea, You know, anything like this was coming. Um and we said, What would it look like to do, You know, in online Eritrea, virtual retreat? Um, you know, if we took, you know, we do light programming in our locations because we've learned people. When this perspective, how do we build community? How do we connect people and have a wonderful open conversations to really talk about life? And there's an opportunity where there's 20 people of all types of professional and personal experience, You know what an opportunity. Um, how do you connect? But of those conversations and really appeared if you're learning. And so what we did in November, issues that give it a test see what happens. We put this out there online, see what we can do. And we did it. We had 20 people sign up in about a month we launched in October 2019 by mid November, when I was just starting about four months to travel. Um, you know, we had, uh, the 20 maybe 25 people in that first trip. It was a phenomenal success. We had, you know, the NPS, the net promoter score. You know, the industry Big one was as higher higher than our in person travel experiences. Our margins were no as good, if not better than some of our month long retreats into the operation to the Costa Rica on the complexity was way down. So we said to hell with another one. So we ran another one in the new year. We're just wrapping up our 3rd 1 and now because we've been doing it two or three times, we have people referring this getting the word out. This virtual tree is certainly helping us stay steady and get through this downturn. That's what it's doing.
Jessica Drucker: So that's really interesting, because in a way, when you do the virtual retreat and it's totally gonna help you get through the downturn. But what? How does travel play into it? Or are you just a totally different type of company? Really? When you take the actual destination out of it?
Michael Youngblood: Yeah. Good question. So, uh, it becomes, in many ways, the essence of travel. You know, the diversity on this online retreat. It's the same as our in person treats. So you have 15 people, you know, you enter into this environment, you know, And right now we have somebody who lives in Cincinnati, Ohio. Uh, you know who isn't a retreat? No. She entered into this. I talked to her the other day midway through the retreat, and she was just flabbergasted that she was talking to people in Malaysia, Hong Kong, Five or six countries in Europe. Um, and there's this energy to it. There's this dynamic to like, Okay, you know what? I can show up, get online and check all these messages that see what's going on today. You know, I have this one on one phone call with, you know, soon. So you know, in Brazil that sort of perspective comes from a vivid and at the heart of travel. I think we, you know, we're on earning journeys. I think we want to be inspired, um, in perspective. And that's what we've descended designed this for. So, yes, it's absolutely different. I don't mean to overplay, you know, an analogy here, but I think a lot of people are getting, you know, some meaningful conversations and perspective, just like the craven that travel so, you know, will never be 100% virtual. Hopefully, you know, when travel comes back, we'll you know, we'll obviously get back to it. Um, but I do believe we could be, ah, travel company with meaning and part of that, meaning we can build you an online community.
Jessica Drucker: It's almost like you saved yourselves without knowing you were going to do it by having this virtual retreat set up. That's really smart. I heard you mentioned something in your Ted talk from 2016 and I'm not gonna do it justice. But I do want you to talk to it and and just explore it with me a little bit, because what I love about what you do is there's this older generation who says you know you don't you can't love what you do. You work to get paid and you should love the rest of your life, right? And you obviously clearly reject that. That's like the basis of what unsettled is all about. But you have this wonderful way of saying, like in the past, we weren't defined by our profession. We were defined by all these other aspects of who we are as people. And it's only recently in recent history that, like the defining question when you first meet someone, is what do you do? Which is the lay missed question on Earth? And one thing I loved personally about being a nomad and also just an expat is that that's actually not the first question. The first question is, where you from? Also lame, but at least it wasn't What do you do? And I wasn't defined by my profession during that time. But yeah, I would just really like to hear you share that with the people. Are always thinks it's so important to me. Teoh.
Michael Youngblood: We live in a society where we have replaced the church in the temple with the desk, and I don't say that lightly. Ah, and yet I'm not religious. Don't say in a sense, that people should necessarily be flocking, you know, toe religious establishments, either. But But we've really done that. And as we've seen other institutions breakdown, including religion, including, you know, families who have lived together, you know, and large families stuck together and which replaced it is an obsession with what we do for a living as long as you're aware of that relationship and you're doing it from a place of awareness, a place of being conscious of Yes, I'm working 60 hours a week right now because you know, a balanced life to me doesn't mean it's balance every week. But it might pay off, you know, eventually as long as you're aware of that and there's nothing wrong, um, with the state that we live in. But what I'm afraid of is there are many people who don't have that awareness and and they walk in and they define themselves extrinsic. Lee, you know, externally their job do it, they let others do it. And, um, it's when you bring that awareness, your job doesn't define you, you know, there's probably hopefully there's some core value that you have are some aspiration that you're living up to that is related to your what you do for a living. Um, but it doesn't define you. And so, you know, I I church had I asked that question. You know what, do you I kind of find new phrases around it. But I hope when you asked that it begins to spark a conversation about, you know, where do you interested in, You know, what do you care about? You know what's important to you. And I think, uh, you know, the work is often one way that we express that today. So
Jessica Drucker: do you have any sort of other ideas that you want to share about how you think the travel industry might change or where you'd like to sort of see things go from here? Things that you're thinking about before I lose you?
Michael Youngblood: You know, the thing that allowed unsettled that's going to allow us to be ok, isn't that we launched technologies? It's the fact that we made decisions quickly and we weren't afraid to make big decisions. You know what? What? We called a pivot earlier. Um and you know, being able to do that is really what allowed us, you know, and being in the travel industry, we saw this coming for a while since February. We're looking at is like this one is this is gonna be the one that talks is off into being decisive around that. And, you know, that's just kind of looking back and say, in terms of you know, where this is all going. I did make a note years, we were talking. And, you know, one interesting trend that has been going off settled in a lot of trouble, cos right now is this concept of, you know, the solo traveler. And so there's a lot of people with again these institutions we talked about, You know, people are traveling more solo now than they have before. Um, and there's more services out there to them. And as we were talking, you and I was sort of planning with this concept of OK, well, how is traveling look like when it comes back, you know, Is it gonna be sort that group tours, or are we gonna find new ways to serve this solo travelers and I would come combined that, you know. So I'm kind of drawn a triangle here, you know, in one corner, the triangle you, the solo traveler on another one is kind of a solo adventure. And on the last one, for me is some sort of a quest that person is on. You know, the idea of the solo traveler being on a quest to me eyes something that everybody goes on question her life. It's like my 15 year old nephew on one last weekend and to be able to serve solo travelers in a way where they're finding deep fulfillment. In that perspective that we talked about, Um, from from traveling, I think could be a really interesting thing to look at, and it's already been a trend that we're thinking about. So that's just one of many nuggets that's gonna come out of this.
Jessica Drucker: Yeah, but that's actually really, really interesting not to belabor this and keep you longer, But it's actually really interesting because, you know, I remember when I was 21 I knew nothing about the world. You know, as much as I thought I did, And I'd be, you know, in El Salvador or Nicaragua, and my parents would be like your where, but for me. I'm like everyone's here. All the Backpackers air here. You know, this is where you go, but for them these replaces where nobody would have gone 10 or 20 years before. But the backpacker of the solo traveler, they're always the groundbreaker into new territory. And so before it was like war torn areas. You know, someone who I really admire is a friend of mine wandering Earl, You know, if you know him. But, you know, he was He was backpacking in Iraq. He got stopped at the airport because he had Saddam Hussein pasta in his bag. But they just sell that there. But it's the backpacker that breaks that ground And how in 15 years, you know, we're all backpacking Iraq all of a sudden, because now that's the normal thing to do. So you're right. It could be that the solo traveler is really the the person who helps us find our path back to travel. So
Michael Youngblood: yeah, and you know where all that leads, Right? So there's this triangle where that leads back to this article that I mentioned cultivating independence, and I think there's something very magical to take somebody a solo traveler onto this quest and help guide them through that by taking them out. You know, any contacts with their by themselves in order to find independence. And ultimately, we're gonna create better leaders of the world. So that next time things like this happen, you know, we're gonna have people who are thinking more independently about this. And so that article that was gonna think of it's in the American Scholar Beautiful publication that gets called cultivating independent. Great.
Jessica Drucker: I'll include that in the show Notes. Thank you. Thanks for remembering the name. Awesome. Michael, I'm gonna let you go. Thank you so much for chatting with me. I really appreciate it.
Michael Youngblood: Yeah, so I really enjoyed it. Thanks. Thanks. Just
Jessica Drucker: bad. You can connect with Michael on Instagram. He's at M B, Young blood and unsettled. Is that be unsettled? That's B e unsettled. All right.
*All transcriptions are autogenerated via Buzzsprout’s AI transcription service. Please excuse any errors.