Episode 80- Julie Hanen, Ride the Earth & Earth Visions Travel

Travel

Jun. 8

Traveling is one of the best things you can do to open your eyes. It puts your life into perspective and allows you to appreciate the way you live. Despite how expensive it can become, it is still such a privilege to be able to travel freely around the world.

Do you travel much? Do you want to meet like-minded people who also enjoy traveling? Are you into mountain biking? Are you looking for companies that are actively sharing experiences around the world?

When you think of bike riding, I'm sure you don't think of women. Well perhaps...if you ride road bikes. Since mountain biking differs greatly, many women are surprised to see how many women are involved and interested in mountain biking. In fact, around the world there is actually a growing number of female mountain bikers.

Christine’s guest has been lucky enough to be able to travel a lot over the past 20 years and always in search of new experiences and adventures.

Julie Hanen is the owner and founder of Ride the Earth, a mountain bike tour operator based in Bozeman, MT. As the owner and founder of RTE, her mission is to get more people out exploring the world on their bike. Julie carefully selects each destination where she operates and then designs her itineraries in a way to really showcase the location. She wants her guests to experience all the best that each destination has to offer during their mountain bike vacation.

In addition to offering unique mountain bike vacations for couples and small groups, she works hard to get more women out on their bikes. Julie runs a mountain bike and yoga getaway in Costa Rica, a women-only MTB adventure in Moab, Utah, and she has a series of all women mountain bike skills clinics that she runs in Utah and Montana.

Julie has guided so many women over the years and is always telling people that they rarely get out on their bike without their partner (who is usually a male). She strives to create opportunities to get women out on their bikes where they can learn new skills, meet other women riders, and most of all, discover how strong and capable they are. One of her favorite things about what she does is showing a woman (or any guest for that matter) that she can do way more than she ever gave herself credit for.

Julie has been a mountain biker and world traveler for more than 20 years and an international adventure guide for 17 years. She started operating tours with her primary company, Earth Visions Travel (the sister company to RTE), which I established in 2007.

She is a certified mountain bike coach, a licensed EMT, and personally guide and coach many of my company’s adventures. I have also been a ski patroller for 14 years and am trained in mountain rescue and emergency response.

Above all else, Julie loves life and has a passion for people and travel. She loves sharing incredible experiences with her guests and inspiring them to go after their dreams, live big, and expand their comfort zones.

In this conversation, Christine and Julie uncover the bit of magic and serendipity in life and in travel. Julie shares the journey that led her to founding Earth Visions and later Ride the Earth and why she is so passionate about creating a space for women to fall in love with mountain biking.

Join me now for my soulful conversation with Julie Hanen.

In this episode, Christine and Julie discuss:

How Julie’s love of travel started after high school
Why moving to South America opened her eyes to a whole new world
How she became a guide in Costa Rica
Julie’s journey that led her to founding Earth Visions and later Ride the Earth
Why she is so passionate about creating a space for women to fall in love with mountain biking

Resources & Links Mentioned in the Episode

To learn about Julie Hanen and Earth Visions & Ride the Earth, head over to https://www.ridetheearth.com

Follow Julie on Instagram, Facebook, and LinkedIn

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Registration for this Women's Wilderness Retreat closes on May 20 and our virtual coaching begins on June 6.

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About the Soul Of Travel Podcast

Soul of Travel honors the passion and dedication of the people making a positive impact in tourism. In each episode, you’ll hear the story of women who are industry professionals and seasoned travelers and community leaders who know travel is more than a vacation. It is an opportunity for personal awareness and it is a vehicle for change. We are thought leaders, action takers, and heart-centered change makers.

The guests work in all sectors of the tourism industry. You'll hear from adventure-based community organizations, social impact businesses, travel photographers and videographers, tourism boards and destination marketing organizations, and transformational travel experts. They all honor the idea that travel is more than a vacation and focus on sustainable travel, eco-travel, community-based tourism, and intentional travel.

These conversations are meant to educate, inspire and create community. They are directed to new travelers and seasoned travelers, as well as industry professionals and those who are curious about a career in travel.

If you want to learn about new destinations, types of travel, or how to be more intentional or live life on purpose, join Christine Winebrenner Irick for soulful conversations with her community of fellow travelers exploring the heart, the mind, and the globe. These conversations highlight what tourism really means for the world.

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Credits. Christine Winebrenner Irick (Host, creator, editor.) Julie Hanen (Guest). Original music by Clark Adams. Editing and production by Rayna Booth.

Transcript

KEYWORDS

Montana, people, mountain biking, travel, Bozeman, conversation, costa rica, trips, ride, moment, place, mountain bike, women, create, bit, world, life, sport, growing

Christine Winebrenner Irick 00:08

Thank you for joining me for soulful conversations with my community of fellow travelers, exploring the heart, the mind and the globe. These conversations highlight what travel really means for the world. Soul of Travel honors the passion and dedication of the people making a positive impact in tourism. Each week, I'll be speaking to women who are tourism professionals, world travelers and leaders in their communities will explore how travel has changed them and how that has rippled out and inspired them to change the world. These conversations are as much about travel as they are about passion, and living life with purpose, chasing dreams, building businesses, and having the desire to make the world a better place. This is a community of people who no travel is more than a vacation. It is an opportunity for personal awareness, and it is a vehicle for change. We are thought leaders, action takers, and heart centered change makers I'm Christine Winebrenner Irick. And this is the Soul of Travel.

01:29

Julie Hanen is the owner and founder of ride the earth, a mountain bike tour operator based in Bozeman, Montana. Julie has been a mountain biker and world traveler for more than 20 years, and an international adventure guide for 17 years. She started operating tours with her primary company Earth vision travels in 2007. She is a certified mountain bike coach, a licensed EMT and personally guides and coaches many of her company's adventures. She's also been a ski patroller for 14 years and is trained in mountain rescue and emergency response. Above all else, Julie loves life and has a passion for people and travel. She loves sharing incredible experiences with her guests and inspiring them to go after their dreams live big and expand their comfort zones. In our conversation. We uncover a bit of magic and serendipity in life and in travel. She shares the journey that led her to founding Earth visions and later riding the earth and why she is so passionate about creating a space for women to fall in love with mountain biking. Join me now for my soulful conversation with Julie Hanen.

03:00

Welcome to the soul of travel. I am very excited to be sitting down with a fellow Montanan today, which is really exciting. Julie Hanen is joining me. And she really is a mountain biker and world traveler and has been an adventure guide for 17 years, and also started two companies, Earth visions, travel and later later ride the earth. So we're going to talk about all of these things and her journey in this process today. So welcome, Julie. Thank you. Thanks for having me. And Julie's another one of these fun serendipitous connections in my life. I think we just kept seeing each other posting either on Instagram or LinkedIn, I'm not really sure where and I just remember thinking, Wait, who's this other kind of adventure travel woman in Montana, which always speaks to my heart. And so we just reached out to each other probably I think a little over a year ago, actually, and had a great initial conversation and decided that we wanted to bring it to space. So I'm really grateful that you're here to do that. Thank you. I'm very happy to be here.

Well, as we get started, I would love to give you the space to introduce yourself and truly just tell our listeners a little bit about who you are and who you are traveling with right now. And then we'll dive deeper in a little bit. Yeah, so I am Julie Canaan, and I'm from Bozeman, Montana. Born and raised in Bozeman, which these days is a bit of a unicorn, but I am one of the real ones. Yeah, so I currently run ride the Earth, which is a multi day mountain bike tour company. I take people on multi day trips in southern Utah, Peru, Costa Rica and soon to be Japan. Just waiting on getting past the pandemic a little bit further before we do Japan and then

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and I also run Earth visions travel, which is through earth visions, I run custom private adventures for families, couples, small groups. And that's all. It's all purely custom. So I talk to my clients and I come up with a plan for something that's just for them and their family. And that as well, I do trips in Montana, and Costa Rica, Peru and southern Utah as well. And then locally in Montana with Read the Earth, I also do some mountain bike skills clinics for women, and work to get more people out on bikes as much as I can. So thank you for sharing that. I love that you mentioned that you're born and raised in Montana, which I'm so sad that I ever left because now I don't have a life, I can't hang on to that.

But I'm like, I will always be forever. I still have my 406 phone number, which I will hang on to as well. Hold on to that scan. Yeah. Because, yeah, for those of you listening, that aren't familiar, Montana's definitely seen a shift much like I guess many other more off the grid or rural places, especially the last two years. Oh, my goodness, it's crazy. But I think for you and I, there was a commonality in growing up in Montana. And being a part of a place that was really a destination for others, but living there. And I think this will probably come up later. But like what, how that shaped our view of tourism and how we wanted to engage in community and things like that. So let's start a little bit about your background where travel found you growing up in Bozeman, and I know like you really began traveling after college, but let's walk through that part of your journey. Yeah, so growing up in Bozeman after high school, I basically, when I kind of started really getting into the travel industry.

Well, I should back up. I really discovered a love for travel after high school. I kind of I think growing up, I had a little bit of a wanderlust, I think in Montana at the time, I felt very away from the world we were kind of in, you know, is this little nook of the states where, you know, fairly rural, and, and I always, you know, I saw the rest of the world is this bright and shiny place and, and growing up. You know, I started learning about the Aztecs and the Incas and the Mayans and ancient cultures. And I started getting really intrigued about places like Mexico and South America and Egypt. And after high school, I decided that I just needed to go and explore. And I went to Mexico for the first time. And really, I remember having a great charades conversation with someone because I didn't speak Spanish. And they didn't speak English. And we ended up having this awesome conversation. But it was all through basically charades and trying to speak two different languages. And it was really fun. And we had this cool experience. But I went home and I was like, I need to learn Spanish.

08:08

And so in college, I decided to study abroad. And I went and I moved to Chile for a year because in Montana, that you know, we have quite a bit of diversity in Montana now. But compared to when I was younger, there really wasn't much. And so I knew if I wanted to learn Spanish, I wanted to go to South America. So I moved to Chile for a year and

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got to hike through the mountains in the Andes. And honestly, that was that experience was what really opened my eyes to what the world is how diverse it actually is, like, in my mind, I think I had this vision much like a lot of people that have never been to Latin America, I had no idea how different every single country in Latin America was. And I was living in Chile and I had four day weekends every weekend. And so a friend of mine and I would go and just kind of pick new locations to go and explore. We went to Bolivia, we went to Ecuador, we went to Argentina, we went on many multi week, backpacking trips, and I just I really like Bolivia was a big one for me, where I really I mean, it smelled completely different. The poverty level was completely different. And just that you know, the food and every country in Latin America is slightly different. And there's just nuances that are completely related to their culture. And I just came back from that experience fascinated and I wanted to share that with people I came back I did this whole slideshow on on South America and the differences between the different cultures and that was something that was just it was a really lasting impression for me where it was something that it just really opened my eyes and where I saw the world differently than I had ever learned in the book. And that really kind of started my journey on a lot of on a lot of levels. I did go back and and I went to

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pool at MSU. And when I did get a degree in Spanish, but my main degrees were exercise science and, and nutrition, which is very different from a Spanish background as well, but they actually go together really well with what I do now, which is kind of interesting. Yeah, I love that about people's stories where you have these things and you're like, Well, I love this thing. And I also love Spanish. And it seems like it might be helpful. So I'm gonna go ahead and grab that, put that in my toolkit. And then I love this thing. And I had this experience and you're like, What am I going to make with this? And then like, 10 years later, you're like, Oh, this is the thing that actually makes sense. Yeah. So you have this experience traveling. And I also really love and resonate with this idea of, like, how we think we see the world. And again, like having this very similar background to you growing up in Montana, we grew up like, five hours apart from each other, but very similar settings.

And, like, I also had this idea that like the world was out there, and like, there has to be something else. I know there is like I've seen the magazines I've obsessed over National Geographic and, and like very much was also similarly like cultures. It wasn't just that I wanted to go to South America or something. But I really was like, I'm curious about Aztec Inc, and Mayan culture, Aboriginal culture, indigenous culture, like I just, there was something there that was speaking to me that I really needed to understand. And so I think, also having that, like a sense of connection to people and to land, like, set me out on a different path, and maybe some travelers and I feel like, perhaps that's the same for you, is this just like a real need to connect and understand? Yeah, that was a big part for me.

I mean, you know, I think, you know, coming back to our roots, and the way we're raised, you know, for me, it was always a really powerful subject, you know, learning about the stories of the Native Americans growing up in Montana, it's a very huge part of our history here. And so as I learned about indigenous cultures and other countries, it was something that was very fascinating to me, you know, and, and actually, I've had some really amazing experiences in Costa Rica, where the timeline where the indigenous people are fighting for certain rights is happening, it's more fresh than it is in our country where it's a little bit, the stories are a little bit older in the land, a lot more change has happened. And so these types of things really fascinated me, a lot of it had to do with getting to know people, you know, it was I'll never forget one conversation I had with this, I was in the salt flats in Bolivia, and we were doing this multi day Jeep Tour. And this was back when I was in college, and I was still kind of just exploring the place.

And we picked up this woman who needed a ride across the salt flat. And she was she was talking to me about how we were we had stopped on this little island where there were some people selling artisan crafts, and there was some people that were selling toilet paper for the restroom, and that, you know, little things that people were doing to try and make a living off of the little bit of tourism that was going by and this woman was talking to me about how she wanted to do something and how she made these textiles. And, and, and it was just so interesting to me that this woman opened up to me and this was later on as I was starting to learn Spanish. And so this is a very powerful moment for me, where all of a sudden, I was hearing the stories from a local who was telling me of her challenges and the things that she wants to do. And you know, and she see she was it was like we were looking at the world from two different points, but similar eyes of like, there's more out there, I want to do more like what can I do, and we were having this little conversation and it was a that moment was more lasting to me than the photos I took the salt flats, which were also really cool. But it was just really powerful for me to just sit and actually have someone share some of their stories with me.

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I agree, I feel like those things that kind of fit within me that I carry forward are those conversations. And especially when you really get to that point where it's not a superficial conversation where someone is really opening up and sharing. And then you know, you you have a moment where you have a shared experience of of a similar passion or purpose or just as a similar ish experience, which is really unifying, but then you also get it to hear these differences in our lives and understand and as I was reflecting on my travel history, those were always the moments that I'm like, Oh that thing and then that one and then that one and really as I set out to create my company, I was like, what if we did that? Like, what if that didn't just happen once on a trip but what if we created a whole

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trip around trying to facilitate those deeper connections. And I think, again, I think that shows up in how you create your experiences, you know, while mountain biking is a huge part of what you're doing, there's always this layer in your mind of how you want people to connect to a place. Absolutely. Before we got there, I wanted to talk a little bit more about it. So you've, you've traveled, you've come back to the US. And I know that you kind of had a few moments that put you on this trajectory towards tourism. And I don't know if you want to talk about either. I have a note about a serendipitous moment at an importation in Ohio, which I love. That's my note. I feel like that's the greatest caption ever. Have you wanted to maybe share that and we can see how that moves you along? Yeah. So I do think that my story very much hinges on an incredibly serendipitous moment that happened to me. And I think that in all honesty, a lot of serendipitous moments happened in my life. But this was a really big one. And it was so in my face. Well, I'll just tell you the story. So essentially, after I was living in Chile, I moved back to Montana and finished out my degree. And while I was doing my last couple years of college, I did do some I did some team building I like I was a

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I did like an internship with a team building program where I was doing leadership development work. And then I was also a part of what was called expeditions where we would take people on, we would take incoming freshmen on backpacking trips, mountain biking trips, we did a couple of ski trips and things. And I was a guide for that. And I guess I was just kind of like putting some of the building blocks in place for what was going to come next. And as I was getting ready to graduate, it was Christmas vacation, and I was going to visit a friend in Ohio. And a week before I left, I was on campus and ran into somebody that I knew that was asking me you know how you're graduating this year? What are you going to do when you graduate? And it was like at that very moment that the idea came to me and I said, you know, I think I want to be a guide in Costa Rica. And I don't even know where Costa Rica came from. I kind of heard of Costa Rica when I was living in Chile.

But I didn't really know anything about the country. I just knew that it was tropical, and that it was warm. And it sounded like a neat place to go. And so it was like I just pulled it out of the ether and said, Yeah, I think this is what I want to do. And a week later, I was in Ohio. And I was wandering around downtown in this little town outside of Cleveland. And I walked into an import store that had all these imported goods from Thailand. And I was walking around looking at things and this man in the store approached me.

And he obviously pegged me, for someone that didn't live in this small town in Montana, I think it had to do with my Gore Tex trail runners and my Patagonia and whatnot. And he's like, where are you from? You're not from here. And I said, I'm from Montana. And we got into this conversation about skiing and biking and hiking in the mountains and all this stuff. And the conversation was just rolling and for about 2030 minutes, something like that. And, and, and towards the end of the conversation. All of a sudden, he handed me a business card and said, I'm looking for an adventure guide in Costa Rica this summer. If you think you'd be interested, I think you'd be perfect for the job and

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pretty much had to pick my job off the floor. And just it was one of those moments where it was like so many things just clicked at the same time. And so I went and I looked at the website and it was exactly what I was looking for. And so I ended up going to Costa Rica that summer and guiding all summer and then they ended up offering me a full time year round position. And I started it was basically the kickoff to me guiding internationally and really was the kickoff to getting in the travel industry for me. But it really did start with this kind of powerful moment where it was like I just threw it out there and a week later it was just dropped into my lap and it was I don't know, in a way I guess I've always kind of felt that. It was almost like a destiny moment or something. But I like to call it serendipity. Yeah, I love it. That's also one of my favorite words. So we'll just call it that. I think that's so amazing. And I think there's such a thing I don't know, I really believe in the power of the universe to do something like that to just be like Costa Rica. You're like Costa Rica. That's what I'm doing. Yes, that's what I'm gonna do and then just to have it show up. I think it really is amazing and I think

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And that process of trusting that is something that's so important and I think becomes really important as you probably for you have to. I know, in my own trajectory, as you become an entrepreneur to like, you'll hear these things. And sometimes you're like, that one's gotta be crazy. And then, and then it just keeps coming up. And you're like, Okay, let's like, this is the next thing. I guess this is what we're going to do, or you know, just as these things line up, and you you kind of can't shake the magic of them, like you realize, like, it doesn't happen to everyone that one week you magically think of this country you've kind of heard of, and the next week someone offers you your dream job. They're like, you just, there's just something about that energy swirling around you. That is such an amazing place to be. It still gives me a little chills right now. I'm just hearing you kind of replay it a little bit. Yeah. Because I agree. I think there are moments like that, that are so powerful, and they just when they present themselves to you, you should grab them.

Yeah, absolutely. I would definitely say I will. Second thought is like, don't let reason jump in there and, and hijack your magic, as Yes, that's a really good way of putting it. Because I'm, I definitely think I was a natural hijacker of magic early in my life. And so I think we all do that, right. We get out, we let our minds get in the way. You know, it's that little voice that comes in and says, Well, what about this? And what about that? And have you thought about this? And have you thought about that? And it's like, well, but it's all just sitting here and waiting for me to take a step forward? Sometimes you just have to take those steps forward. Yeah, definitely. So you worked there, you mentioned you were there for several years. And this was really the catalyst.

So how did you end up coming back to Montana, and, you know, kind of begin creating your own company? Yeah, so it was, it was really an element of timing that happened, I, you know, I worked for this company around for many years, and I and I ended up doing kind of many different elements of, of work for them, I would I would guide for them, I would, I would help design trips, I went on the road, and I did sales, and, and I kind of did a variety of different things for them. But then it really got to a point where at the time in that company, the sort of the trajectory where I was headed, you know, I was part time, based in Ohio. And then, and then I was guiding in Costa Rica, where I was getting to go to all these amazing places, but they really wanted me to do some more administrative work, which at the time, I wasn't ready for. I wasn't ready to move in that direction. 100%.

And, and really, it was, like, we just kind of reached a point in time, it was like, it was time for me to go do something else. And I wasn't sure what that something else was. And so I decided to move back to Montana. And just I felt like once I got back to Montana, I could kind of regroup, get my feet on the ground and decide what my next move was. And so I did. And when I came back to Montana, essentially, it didn't take long that I started having people reach out to me and say, Hey, I'm going to Costa Rica, or I know so someone who's going to Costa Rica, I hear you know a lot about it, could you help us plan our vacation. And you know, this kind of thing goes back around to what we were talking about, you know, the elements of how we were brought up and where we live. And that makes us who we are today.

And growing up in Bozeman was always kind of one of these places where there are so many amazing things to do here. And I want my whole life. I've watched tourists come into Bozeman and go to Yellowstone Park and go to these key places. And there's and those are the places that I as someone who lives here, I never go to those places. I mean, I go to Yellowstone, when people come to visit, you know, you have to take people to Yellowstone, because it's so amazing. But there's all these other incredible places that are so cool, that aren't missed, you know, they might be in guidebooks now and whatnot. But you know, it was just there were so many places that were, you know, what, we would sort of coin off the beaten path, right. And so that was always really, like, when I lived in Chile, that was how I traveled around I would kind of look at a map and be like, Okay, we're gonna go to this little place Now what else is there, you know, you read through the Lonely Planet and then start, you know, filtering through the lines like but what else is there? What else is there? You start to talk to people, but what else is there?

And so that was really a style of travel for me. And so as people started coming to me and saying, oh, you know, I want to go to Costa Rica. Well, when I was guiding down there, I would always stay for an extra month or so and I would go live with friends in this small town that are now like family to me.

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And then I would go to all these other little places that weren't necessarily sort of that common place you would go to. And so I started just helping people design their vacations. And it really just kind of created itself in a way, but it was, it was always deeply rooted and just kind of how I see travel. Essentially, the gist of it was the kind of stepping stone that I took from, you know, working for another company to starting my own business was, you know, people reaching out to me and asking me to create the type of vacation that is really my style of a vacation. And, and I discovered that there was a, there was an interest and a need for people that want to kind of just do it a little bit more, a little bit more custom and a little bit more private and a little bit more just small format, you know, just just a family because at the time when I first started doing it, that that type of travel wasn't very popular.

But it was, it was really sort of the avenue that brought me into being an entrepreneur and starting my own business, which originally wasn't something that was a goal of mine, it was almost more like it was presented to me. And, and then I walked into it. Yeah, just kind of kept going. And then I've discovered that it is something that, you know, truly is what makes me feel alive on a lot of levels. So yeah, I love that. Again, it's kind of like, I mean, no other. No entrepreneur really wants to hear that your business was handed to you when they struggled to create something. But at the same time, it's so amazing. When that happens, I kind of feel that way with this podcast, like was never my intention, it just kind of happened at the beginning of the pandemic, whereas like, let me just talk with a few people about why I think travel is really important, why we need to be thinking about it, even when we're not traveling, you know, and then it just kind of went from there. And now, like, I'd be really sad if I hadn't done this, this feels like a really true expression of myself. And so I think that's, I think what people could really tap into, again, is kind of that listening and being aware. Yeah, well, and I always think it has to do with, you know, if you're taking, if you're taking steps forward that are true to who you are, as a person, you're going to, you're going to find the synergy with where you where you want to be going, you know, like I've, I've honestly in my life, I've used this metaphor many times, which is gonna sound really cheesy.

But I remember when you and I talked before, we talked about how we grew up watching, like Indiana Jones and, and I always think about that moment, I think it's Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade where he's looking for the Holy Grail and or it's in engines and the Holy Grail, I don't know, but he's on the edge of this cliff. And there's nothing there. And he needs to make this like, faithful step forward. And as he makes that step forward, the bridge just appears, you know, and it's, and it's sort of an image that has resonated with me multiple times. Because I, I feel like there have been times where it's like, I feel like I need to go in this certain direction as an entrepreneur, you don't always see with clarity where you're going. And sometimes it's this leap of faith. And, and so I do, I think it's that moment where it's like you take in the information that's coming to you, you know, I had a long conversation with a friend of mine a while back where I said, you know, back when I was in college, I never said, oh, I want to be an entrepreneur, oh, I think I'm gonna be a business owner. And he's like, oh, when you became a business owner, that didn't surprise me at all, it just seems like you were destined for that.

And I was like, Oh, why didn't I see that coming? You know, but it's almost like, you know, like you said, like, sometimes maybe the universe just kind of, as long as you're, you know, like, as long as you're taking steps in the direction of your of your dreams and your passions, like something will click and take you need to go, right and it's not as if it's like, the energy and the creation or what are destined but the path isn't set. So as long as you're just cultivating that that's what is expected of you or that's what's in alignment for you. And it can look a lot of different ways. But like, as you move forward, again, kind of like pulling all these things in, you just start shaping what it will eventually come to be but it's really the idea of, of the energy. That's really the really important aspect. Yeah, I love that. That's so good. And that picture. Oh my gosh, that just kills me. But I think I've stood on that cliff as well. He's been like, ``Let's do it. I feel like I'm standing there all the time, actually. But I feel like the more the more I build my businesses, the more I find myself on that glyph actually, yeah, but I guess the good thing is is like if it happens a few times that it rises up to meet you is you do have more faith in that like you you trust again you trust yourself which I think it comes back to the

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that same space? Well, I would love to then start to talk about how you transitioned into this focus on mountain biking, and really creating community for women and bringing women into this sport, which I really loved when we talked before you talked about. And I personally resonated with this because you're like, women often get into mountain biking because they're doing it with their partner or their boyfriend or like, for me, it was like, a first date activity that happened all the time in Montana asked me why I don't know. But I was definitely doing it because of that. And in that space, it felt very much like I kind of didn't belong there. I was like this tagger tagong. I was doing it to like, fit in or impress someone, but I maybe didn't know because it wasn't a sport I had already started and was confident in. And so you've talked about, to me a little bit, that that seems to be something you've heard often. And you really wanted to create a space where women kind of owned their power in this sport. Yeah, so I got into mountain biking, I was always on the opposite end of the spectrum. You know, again, growing up in Bozeman, I had lots of guy friends. And I loved to play outdoors. And so I was always going skiing, climbing and biking with my guy friends. And that was a very, that was a very normal thing for me. And I fell in love with mountain biking.

As soon as I tried it, it was all the things that I didn't know I needed. And, and so it became something that I was very passionate about. And as I was, as I started Earth visions, and I was designing these, these trips for families and groups, there was a point in time, and I think this, this moment happens to you when you're a business owner, and especially, you know, from my perspective, I, I was creating something that that didn't really exist at the time, and I didn't, you know, and I was just kind of, well, you know, this is how I would do it, if I was going to Costa Rica, like, this is how I would do it if I was going this particular place. And you know, and I'd want to throw in this extra little special something, and you know, and I was just kind of creating the recipe based on what really sparked my soul. But then, and then it became this really cool conversation with my clients. So, you know, okay, how do we bring in this because you really like horseback riding? Or how do we bring in this because, you know, so I feel like, as a business owner, you kind of reach this point, sometimes you have to really question why you're doing what you're doing, what is your focus? What is your niche, and, and where's your passion? And so I had, I sat down with myself and I had a really honest conversation, because where I was at wasn't 100% synergistic with where I wanted to go.

And when I sat down and had that honest conversation with myself, there was this resounding like, I need more mountain biking in my life. That was the one thing that was missing, travel is very much a part of my soul. But mountain biking is my true passion. So I started, because I had already been doing it on the side, like I would go down to Costa Rica, and I would run trips. And I would always just stay longer so that I could go mountain biking. And then I started going to these other countries. And every time I went to another country, I would do whatever I needed to do there for work. But then I was always on the side. I was like, here's the mountain biking here. And so it was always this underlying question. For me that was more than just my own personal interest. But then it quickly started turning into this, you know, in Costa Rica it was really hard to find mountain biking, I think I did about 10 years of scouting to finally be able to put together the trips that I have now. And part of that is because the sport has evolved over time in that country. But yeah, basically I decided I wanted more mountain biking and so I designed some trips and started selling them through earth visions, but really the