what was your biggest fear at that time i was pretty fearless
i don't know that i had any fears i might probably my biggest fear was being unhappy being complacent
not living the life that i really needed to live i had a lifelong dream started at the age of nine
i remember the moment very specifically where i realized what i wanted to do is i wanted to
travel the world and i wanted to learn how the children play where do the people shop
how do you cook what do you talk about around the dinner table and it was something that i realized
i could not accomplish through vacations i had to make it a lifestyle once i knew i had to do that
i had the courage to make the counterintuitive changes in my life to make that happen fire fire
yes welcome to another episode of everyday badassery i'm your host christine lozada and in
this episode if you're watching we are traveling at actually at tbex the travel bloggers exchange
a travel conference in tri-cities washington and today i'm chatting with someone i've been
fangirling for a long time i've been meaning to meet miss nora dunn the professional hobo
she is a badass crazy traveler crazy in the best way possible but this podcast is meant to inspire
you to be just one percent more badass today than you were yesterday i would love for you to journal
along with us download your free journal info in the show notes below let's introduce nora
what's your intro who are you i am nora dunn i'm otherwise known as the professional hobo
and i love it when people react that way because i totally named myself the professional hopefully to
make fun of myself i started traveling full time i've heard it a million times it's still funny
to me every time i love it and it's that's totally what i did it to make fun of myself because what's
the first question that people ask you when they meet you where are you what do you do
oh what do you do mine's always like where are you based out of oh
yeah but if you meet joe down the street yeah you're right what do you do they're going to
try to understand who you are and thus categorize you by virtue of what you do for a living because
of course what we do for a living is half of our waking life yeah so obviously there
was some intention that we put into that right so i just sold everything that i owned
i started traveling i didn't know what i was going to do yet travel blogging was not a thing i was
sort of thinking about developing a career as a freelance writer
but i hadn't quite made the location independent connection in my head yet
yeah i go to a rotary meeting and because i'm a rotarian and these people are all like businessy
people and they're like so oh you know nice to meet you norah what do you do and i'm like
i'm homeless but i want to make it look good so i call myself a professional hobo yeah and
i did it to get a laugh and it stuck and you do a good job of that what led to your travel
burnout burnout i was so it was a little voice in the back of my head that
told me that i wasn't doing something there's this little voice it's been a lifelong companion of
mine yeah kicks in every once in a while and goes nora you're not doing what you're supposed to be
doing there's something else out there for you and throughout my career that led to a career change
each time right and then by the time i hit 30 i was running oh i like you i was running
a financial planning practice okay i achieved what society would define us i know this okay
right and then that voice kicked in again and i was like no i have put years of blood sweat
and tears into this practice i am not going to take another detour so i filled my life
with all the things that i hoped would make the voice quiet yeah i became a toastmaster i joined
rotary i got back into professional acting singing and dancing i was in dreamworks movie pictures i
was doing commercials i was doing theater and that led to the burnout you know in your heart
you weren't doing the right thing yet you put so much work into it right kept going at it so
i got in two car accidents in one week and i had a friend who said oh nora the universe is trying
to tell you something yeah wow and i was like what that i shouldn't drive in winter get out of my way
i got somewhere i need to be um and it was just a series again you know then i got sick
then i got sicker then i got you know bronchitis turned into walking pneumonia and the only thing
so that my initial episodes of burnout yeah that taught me now how to see what's coming
if i am physically flattened yeah then i have to listen to the voice
okay fast forward what would nora right now say to that nora back then that's a really good question
or you just punch her in the face get out of my way or get out of your own way actually
it's probably a good thing to say um well you know what i took a leap and i did i
should you know like i counter-intuitively sold everything that i owned including this practice
yeah i was in a position where all i had to do for the rest of my life and career was work less
and less and make more and more that's fire right that's badass right there but i sold it
all okay uh and it was counter-intuitive but it worked out okay so perhaps my 30-year-old self
needed some insurance assurance so if she needed some assurance i could say it's going to be okay
i want to pause here for just a minute because i want you to ask yourself the same question
i want you to think about a time in your life where you're about to do a crazy thing
or you're about to make a big jump and bring yourself back to that moment where you felt
fear or you felt that hesitation and now you now with 2020 hindsight what would you tell yourself
back then and i love to ask people this question because the majority of the time the answer is
something along the lines of oh just do it or like you totally got this or wow i was really
afraid of things i shouldn't have been afraid of and every time i'm in this place where i'm about
to make a jump or make a hard decision or whatever it is i fast forward to the christine way later
five years 10 years 20 years later and what would that person be saying to me right in that moment
and that's the assurance i often give myself to do the damn thing so questions like that are
available in the badassery journal free download make sure you check that and grab it in the show
notes below and i want to take a moment to thank today's sponsor rhino rhino is a social travel
app that enables people to share and discover travel experiences through photos and videos
personally i have been sharing hundreds of my travel photos videos and drone shots too
in the app because i want to show others the way i travel and explore to me diversity and
travel matters and rhino gets it i love how rhino is challenging the travel industry's
one size fits all approach and provides a platform for us to share our unique experiences and break
away from the dominant narrative you can learn more about the app in the show notes below and
find that download link as well and by the way if you're watching this i'm filming it
from portland i'm at the world domination summit but let's jump back to washington and get back
to normal all right give me a little smattering of of the flavors of nora traveling all right
um like where do i start i've survived three natural disasters i got three tropical diseases
uh i was robbed twice including a con man that took my passport and a whole bunch of money
frankly he deserved it because eric no he earned it he earned it it's okay i was in
a near fatal accident and i've survived more breakups than i care to admit to okay
and i like to tell these stories not because i'm looking for a badge of honor but because
i often say that life's misadventures make the best stories for the dose of hindsight oh hell
yeah right yeah but let's talk about the other side of the equation so i saved over a hundred
thousand dollars getting free accommodation in my first 10 years on the road fire
some of those experiences including included living in australia and having a kangaroo
fall in love with me and literally follow me around everywhere that i went
i would too he slept on my doorstep like it was full-on there's a lot of stories i could tell
about bracken but i'm not sure who your audience is but yeah he was he was ornery let's put it
that way he loved me like every single word did he still call you did he still call you today
is that so i see your phone ringing um what crazy stuff did i do i i mean i volunteered to
trade for free accommodation doing amazing things i painted murals and trade for free accommodation
i designed marketing plans i built goats give that was weird so i'm still blown away by this whole
100 000 and blah blah blah in accommodations give me an example of what it looks like when nora the
badass would go out there and be like i'm going to go get this free accommodation like give me
one example and like talk us through it if i were to stand up right now and go execute on that okay
so if i were just to distill the badassery of the is that a can we turn this into a
verb the badassery oh it already isn't verb all right three it's also a noun and an adjective
yes that's right because i don't think assay is a verb but anyway if i were to embody the badassery
of the free accommodation uh frankly of every amazing thing that i've ever done in my life
none of it was anything i could plan ah every single part of this
was stuff they were opportunities that came to me and i was open to see that it was an opportunity
i was flexible enough to jump on it yeah like i apprenticed with a shaman in peru for two years
who does that you can't plan that right so all the when it comes to destinations from a travel
perspective my destinations always chose me and they chose me in the form of a unique opportunity
that sang to me whether it was a free accommodate like working exchange or house sitting or staying
with somebody or trying something new or meeting somebody who says hey come to this place and
always there was this op there was always always and i think you probably know what this is there's
a little part of you that clicks yeah right there's that what there's often a physiological
reaction that comes with it right whether it's the the stomach jumping or the heart flutter
or the oh my god or just even this to the clunk center right it's like i guess i'm doing this now
and most of it doesn't make sense it's like i guess i'm selling my financial planning practice
now yeah this doesn't make sense but it does here i'm doing hold on how did you how did you learn to
listen to that in other words many of us including myself i've had amazing opportunities come my way
or something that was singing to me and i heard i maybe noticed but i didn't always listen how did
you learn to listen i'm wondering if this was an eight i mean how did i learn to listen well
were you always good at listening to those things in other words i used to get callings all the
time yeah like i oh this is cool i should go do that or like oh what an opportunity
but then when i would start rationally thinking about how that really didn't make any sense
i would it would immediately stop me from going and doing the thing there you go
and later in life it didn't matter what this says now it's simply i wake up the next morning after
i don't know oh cool opportunity came do i want to do that i don't know i'll just go to sleep
and when i wake up the next morning and i ask my guard my girt my gut and my heart oh that's
my word my guard that's a new word oh yeah we're gonna do that definition art guts and hearts do i
want to do that thing yeah it will immediately tell me and then i can just listen and i turn
this off and this is on and then we do the thing all right so as you were talking i guess my gart
clicked in and said nora you've been a performer all of your life i was practically born onto a
stage and i did not know this i used to be a professional actor singer dancer oh [ __ ]
i had to pursue professional dancing at like the age of 20 because i had a chronic hip injury and
at that stage of the game that was one of these kind of pivotal moments in my life where i was
like oh what am i going to do now because this is all i've ever really known and wanted to do i'll
save that for another story get back to the guard so every time i was about to step out on a stage
that feeling what's going to happen the nervousness the i'm about to put myself out
there and expose myself in every single way to an audience and i don't know what's going to happen
there's a lot of people who don't like that feeling i like it yeah and that's now my barometer
because if something happens right where's that opportunity and then that opportunity comes and
then the guard happens yeah right and i'm like oh there we go and i know the sign and then i
know to go with it fire and those create the best adventures and the best memories of life
doesn't happen when you're just laying in bed i know if only right i'm going to be kind of
nice be a lot more comfortable and it is time to get out of bed my friends i'm taking a quick
pause to remind you about that journal one of the questions that's in there and i want you to just
pause and ask yourself right now think about a time in which your brain your thoughts your mind
was quieting your heart and you knew in your gut it was the right choice but when you started to
think about it and like really think about it and rationalize it it kind of got the best of you and
did you still or did you not make the decision and now with 2020 hindsight what would you have done
differently consider it if you're fearless about the things that you have chosen to do in life give
me a time maybe ah no never mind any other any time time in your life where you have felt doubt
and how did you overcome that well i feel down all the time and uh i guess there's you know
it's funny because what's coming to me right now is what's the difference between doubt and fear
do you have a difference in definition there or do you think they might be the same and fear fear can
be just being really scared of something the majority of the time i'm doing anything when
i'm traveling i'm scared af but i do it anyway i would say when you have both fear and doubt that
is really scary fear when you need to do something and you're both scared of it and you're scared
that you can't do it because you're doubting yourself that's the worst kind of fear and so i
would say they can be combined together but for me they can also be separate all right see i have to
fee i have this feeling that fear does not exist without doubt because you would not be scared if
you didn't doubt your ability to get through that experience fair well but sometimes fear
just comes from not knowing um okay we're playing the linguistics thing here i like
i like where you're going with this okay i like it because and i and the reason i just kind of
went down that road is because i like to think of myself as someone who conquers fears yeah i
have 300 skydives i used to race motorcycles and bungee jumped around the world i do fear stuff
if i'm i lived i lived on boats in the caribbean for three months not a night on land why because
i have an ocean phobia i'm like let's try this out it's a good reason for something right that's why
that's why i dive with sharks today i'm very afraid of sharks right so i had the fear but i
okay so now i'm going to answer my own question i didn't doubt my ability to get through it
whereas perhaps i do have other fears that i'm like
so there's then maybe fear and doubt is the universal stopper whereas you can have fear
and move through it you can have doubt move through it but when they're together
it's a challenge so when have i doubted myself all kinds of times yeah right there's been all
kinds of times where i'm like oh is this really going to work out oh did i make the right decision
yeah oh am i you know how is my life going to work out there's i mean i doubt the future i
doubt the present i doubt the career i doubt the lifestyle i don't doubt all the things but i think
the trick is not letting it stop you right not letting the doubt and the fear mount together to
keep you from living your full potential [ __ ] yeah and are you a badass hell yeah i already
know this girl you wouldn't be sitting here why why are you a badass well i think it's kind of
just that right if i see a fear i go hmm wonder what that's going to be like let's do that uh i'm
ready to jump on the opportunities i'm ready to pivot left even though it feels counter-intuitive
according to what society might define as the thing to do yeah but i also calculate my risk
and this goes back to my financial planning days i think yeah right it's all about you know your
ability to you know from an uh if i were to talk financial planning i would say you know what is
your stomach what is your tolerance for risk what are your tolerance for fluctuation in order to get
an roi that you're comfortable with but there is always a line where then unnecessary risk does not
beget the same level of gains right so i look at it so skydiving people say to me why would
you jump out of a perfect perfectly good airplane yeah i say first of all they're not perfectly good
airplanes you should see the planes you're going to want to have a rig if you get into these planes
but then also statistically speaking i have a way greater chance of dying getting into a car
accident on my way to the drop zone yeah then i do jumping out of the airplane that's the calculation
the benefit that i get from doing the jump being a part of the community learning this
thing that makes me amazingly you know happy and self-confident and like every
time i jumped out of an airplane i saved my own life that's empowerment
right but i calculated the risks i won't do base jumping mm-hmm because base jumping right
yeah i understand right i'll jump out of an airplane because i have two parachutes and
you know 15 000 feet to figure it out yep but i won't do bass jumping because for me
that's just a game of roulette yeah and the calculation does not work out calculated risk fire
yeah yes if you enjoyed today's podcast episode please leave a review it really
does help to distribute this to more people check the show notes for your free
journal download to find nora and to find more info about today's sponsor
rhino thank you for being here today go forth be badass we'll see you in the next one ciao