Go Hunt Life

Tom Corson-Knowles is a serial entrepreneur, author and teacher. He has built his life and company around helping people publish eBooks. If you are considering writing a book but not sure where to start or want to know more about how the eBook industry works, Tom is the industry expert that people turn to. He personally has published dozens of books on all different topics and now shares his secrets on how to build a monthly residual business around ebook publishing. I catch up to Tom from his home in Hawaii where he has lived for the last 5 years after moving from the Midwest U.S. We go from concept and idea of writing a book all of the way through to publishing and marketing. “You can achieve all of your dreams through publishing ebooks if you’re willing to master the three key areas of authorship: writing, publishing and marketing.” – Tom Corson-Knowles In this episode we discuss… How he built an MLM business in food nutrition supplements while going to college at Indiana University. Him skipping his colle

Matt and Jessica Johnson, Ripcorders and life hunters from Grand Rapids Michigan, had normal lives, with normal jobs living the normal life. They dated, then they got married, they bought a house, they went to work, Matt a sales manager at a Toyota dealership and Jessica was a customer service rep. They came home from work, they shoveled snow in the winter, a lot of snow in the winter, and then something changed. They learned how to sail a boat in the few summer months on Lake Michigan. The inspiration took hold, they sold everything they owned and got on their sailboat with $100K in savings to hit the Caribbean islands for a year of sailing and self-discovery. That was 4 years ago and they are still going. They’ve hit 16 countries throughout the Caribbean islands, Central America and even crossed the Atlantic in a 34 foot sailboat stopping in Bermuda and then on to Portugal. While in Portugal, they bought a 37 foot sailboat online back in Florida so they had to cross back over the Atlantic to get to the next

Today I have a conversation with entrepreneur Bryan Thomas. A few years ago he and his wife Amelia had an idea to create a mobile app that would allow kids to design their own indoor playhouse. Design a castle or a gingerbread house all on an iPad mobile app. The child could choose to put a window next to the door, a drawbridge on both sides of the castle or a chimney right in the middle. The playhouse would then be built to their exact specifications and delivered to their doorstep for them to assemble and play in right there in the living room 4 days later. The idea was their lightbulb, ripcord moment over 2 years ago. Since then Bryan and his wife and Co-Founder Amelia Cosgrove have both quit their real jobs, raised venture capital and are building the startup, PopupPlay that is empowering kids to build their own toys from as early as age three. “Hustle is my friend.” – Bryan Thomas, Co-Founder of PopUp Play So if as a kid, you built a playhouse out of cardboard boxes in your living room or as an adult, yo

Dr. Alexis Shields was practicing Naturopathic Medicine in Portland and had built a successful practice and career but the book Four Hour Work Week motivated her and her husband to close the practice and take it virtual. This meant that they could travel the world and live anywhere. We catch up to her from her apartment in Lisbon Portugal 3 years after leaving the US to build her virtual company and virtual lifestyle. What is the definition of a Naturopathic Doctor? In the US, NDs are trained as primary care physicians that focus on a patient's functional issues. Through a weird series of events in her life she learned the value and power behind treating diseases through diet and lifestyle choices as opposed to prescription medications. The Naturopathic path also coincided with her passion for traveling but it's taken a lot of work to get her virtual business and her virtual lifestyle in sync. This path has taken her to Thiland, Vietnam, Nepal, Berlin, Croatia and now Lisbon Portugal. In this episode we discu

Scott Calame, Founder of TexAgave, has made a career out of reinventing his career. He has been an attorney, an Adjunct Professor, an ad agency executive and a freelance copy writer but he has just ripcorded out to not only start a new company but he’s actually starting an entirely new industry. Scott is now Distiller. TexAgave is a blue agave spirit that is similar tequila but is made in Texas, not in Jalisco Mexico, so it can’t be called tequila. We get a behind the scenes tour of what it takes to found a company where the first step in selling the product is educating the consumer, one consumer at a time. Luckily, he’s made a living with words as a writer so his tag line which speaks volumes is, ‘make your margarita with a liquor made in Texas.’ He’s certainly aware of the risks but he’s following his passion no matter what and what’s interesting that even though he’s only been in business for less than a year, he’s already introduced a new product and actually introducing a 3rd product a few weeks after w

We started the Go Hunt Life movement to uncover inspirational stories untold about normal people making seemingly impossible decision to leave their comfortable career and embark down an unknown path of personal and professional reinvention. After 17 published podcast episodes, we’ve had the privilege to look behind the scenes of life altering decisions. Our guest have shared their fears, hopes and dreams with us and we will be forever grateful for their honesty and openness. This ‘look back’ is for the Go Hunt Life audience and it’s a thank you to our guests that have shared their most difficult decisions with us. Here is what we’ve learned and I’ve broken it into 11 inspirational Go Points: Go Point #1 Fear Go Point #2 Kids Go Point #3 Safety Go Point #4 Health Go Point #5 Money Go Point #6 Saying Goodbye Go Point #7 Personal Identity Go Point #8 Obstacles Go Point #9 Planning   Go Point #10 Unknown Go Point #11 Age We are 17 episodes of inspiration and reinvention in. Thank you again to my guests for takin

Scott Willis, Entrepreneur and Founder of Tequila 512, was working a normal job and raising his family all while trying to startup the impossible. Scott was working for a technology company in sales and every waking hour outside of work, he was tackling the infinite amount of red tape that it took to create a liquor company in Texas. The balancing act was taking a toll on his life and reached a breaking point at the Austin airport. Scott was boarding a flight to Mexico to work on his company when his wife pressed him to quit his job and go all in...at that exact moment. As they are calling his name over the speaker to get on the plane, he called his boss and officially quit his job. He stepped on that flight a full-time entrepreneur in an industry that is completely set up to not help the little guy. He was battling the giants in the liquor industry. Starting a tequila company is so much harder than you can ever imagine. There are hurdles in every aspect of it. - Scott Willis Since his ripcord moment at the

Kathleen Byars had raced up the corporate ladder and was the VP of International Marketing for Mary Kay at the age of 34. She was living the American Dream traveling internationally, managing a team, opening up new markets for her company and making great money. She was in her element and thriving, so she exploded her comfort bubble. You know those cool people that you meet when you are on vacation somewhere and their actual job is a white water rafting guide in the Rockies or a scuba instructor on a Caribbean island? Kathleen is one of those people. At the age of 34 she quit her corporate career, sold or gave away all of her possessions except for a really expensive chair, and moved to the British Virgin Islands to manage a dive shop and be a full-time SCUBA instructor. The first two months were a dream. She was on an island not worrying about email or corporate meetings and thought that she had figured out the perfect life. "We thought we were going to die." Then the honeymoon of her new life ended and real

Helene Godin traded in the life of business suits and a career as an Intellectual Property Attorney to be an entrepreneur and start By The Way Bakery, a gluten-free and dairy-free bakery in New York. She loved being an attorney but after 22 years, she called her husband early one morning while standing in front of the company fax machine and said, "I think I'm done." She quit and didn't have any idea what she was going to do next. "I think I'm done" She recognized in the grocery store that the gluten-free section kept getting bigger and bigger. She enrolled in a 5 day baking bootcamp and came out determined that she would open up a bakery in her community of Hastings-on-Hudson, NY. One year almost to the day of ending her career as an attorney, she opened her first store. 5 years later and she's opened 2 more, been featured on Martha Stewart Living, The Huffington Post, The New York Times and Fortune and opening a new commercial kitchen to feed her growing business. "Fear is the thing that gets in your way

This Arkansas Attorney quit his law career and became an International Travel Writer. Michael Hodson was a Lawyer in Fayetteville Arkansas for 10 years and at the age of 41, quit to circumnavigate the globe in 12 months...without getting on a plane. The 12 months turned into 16 months and then turned into 7 years. What is it like to be a full-time traveler with no home to come back to and all of your possessions in a backpack? How do you get into this? How do you pay for it? Michael started on his 12 month journey and began travel blogging when the 'travel blogging' industry was just beginning. He built a solid following on his website Go See Write and then migrated into the video industry by shooting promotional videos for hotels in exchange for a place to stay. Being a full-time travel blogger looks glamorous when you follow their social channels but Michael paints a much different picture. He explains exactly how he did it and the emotional struggle and the toll that constantly moving and the constant disr

Craft Brewer, Entrepreneur and Jester King Brewery Founder Jeff Stuffings didn't start his professional career as a brewer. Jeff began his career as an Attorney in the public defender's office in Massachusetts. He moved to Texas and joined a law firm but in his words, "sold out". His time at the law firm was short lived and after two years he quit. He had been home brewing since law school and it was time to get out of the buttoned up corporate world to follow his passion on brewing beer but on a bigger scale. 2 years after he joined the law firm, he quit and was on his own networking with potential investors to start his company. What he had behind him was a stack of student loans and a brewery out of his garage but he kept after it and eventually made the right connections to build Jester King just outside of Austin, TX. Jeff's fund raising strategy? "I never asked for money" I catch up to him 7 years after his ripcord out of law and into the craft brewery world. In this episode we cover... Cold calling in

3 years ago Karen Kelly couldn't write a single line of code. Now, she is 30 days away from competing in a market full of millennials and most of them men. For her 20 year career, she was a successful sales rep but had become disheartened in her career and wanted a change so she started down a path to reinvent her career. To do that, she had to start over and go back to school...at 47 years old. Her new career choice? Full-Stack Developer. So how did she get from not being able to write code to be a qualified Full-Stack Developer with the technical chops to compete with millennials in the Tech Scene? She developed a 3 year plan and started executing it. At the time of this podcast interview, she was 30 days away from graduating from the Full-Stack Developer program at Galvanize and beginning her job hunt for her next career. Here is a staggering statistic and what women wanting to get into technology will need to tackle. Only 12.5% of Microsoft's technology professionals are female...and this is actually a lo

Janel Maitland was a sales executive in the corporate world with two young daughters when she bought her 11 year old an iPhone. That's when the scary stuff started happening. He daughter downloaded Instagram and the creepy Cyber Stalking began. This catapulted Janel into the cyper stalking world where '42% of teens with technology access reported that they were 'cyberbullied' in the past year, with 20% of them contemplating suicide.' Janel went on a rampage to combat this tragedy by founding MYLO Groups, a secure group messaging app for teenagers that is monitored by parents. She was working her real job during the day and her evenings and weekends were filled up with getting her app developed and raising her two daughters all of this while being a single mom. What she found in creating an app company, without being able to write a single line of code herself, is that she needed venture capital to scale her business. Once she secured her first round of funding, she pulled the ripcord on her sales executive jo

Jason Burke was in sales for a software company when he wanted to start eating healthier. He looked to beef jerky for that snack in the office but found that what he was buying out of the store was packed with sugar. He Googled 'How to make Beef Jerky', bought a dehydrator and started making it on his own. In the first 2 years since the purchase of that one dehydrator, Jason had grown his company, The New Primal, into an online business with $1,800 in revenue. That was enough for him to see the opportunity in the meat-snack space to compete against the big guys with grass-fed beef jerky and free range turkey jerky without antibiotics or hormones. The only problem at that time was that he had zero retailers carrying his products. Jason raised some seed money, quit his corporate job and hit the streets of Charleston, SC with a backpack full of beef jerky. 4 years after that ripcord moment, his jerky products are sold through 5,000 retailers in all 50 states. How did he do it? A combination of a lot of little th

Melissa Lombard had a successful residential real estate career in Austin Texas but her and her husband David had always talked about pulling the ripcord on their normal lives in Austin and doing something completely outside of their comfort bubble. Their life reinvention dream happened almost immediately after taking one little step. On a whim, she applied for them to manage a Bed and Breakfast in a beach town in Costa Rica. The application was accepted out of over 100 people but the only problem, they had to be there in 3 weeks. When they land in Costa Rica expecting to find the lavish, beach lifestyle they are greeted with a "Survivor meets Pioneer Woman" cabins on the side of a hill in a remote part of the jungle. They jumped in anyway and made the best of it, even thrived in a life they never could have planned. In this episode we dig into... How the dominoes started falling for them to explore a completely different path in life and massive life reinvention. Why they choose Costa Rica. The mayhem of s

Aaron Symons and his wife Sheila were living in the Dallas/Ft Worth Metroplex and raising their family. They had a big house with a big mortgage and battling a big, 2 hour commute. Aaron always had the dream of pulling the ripcord and moving to a small town but moving outside of Texas was never on his radar. One random conversation turned into the ripcord decision to move to the tiny Colorado mountain town of Stagecoach, 30 minutes outside of Steamboat Springs. Once the decision was made, Aaron got to work on executing the plan. Less than 12 months later they found themselves in the moving truck driving out of Ft Worth running from an ice storm into the mountains of Steamboat. There were an infinite number of excuses that they could have pointed to but they kept plowing, literally, ahead. Now a year and a half later we discuss what has transpired since their move from the Texas heat to an annual snowfall of 30+ feet. My favorite question of our conversation is: Q: If someone said that you had to move back to

Stephanie and Conner Watts had their destination wedding on a beach in Puerta Vallarta Mexico in 2009. They flew back home to Park City Utah, got back into their normal lives but couldn't get Puerta Vallarta out of their heads. Conner also had always dreamed of opening a craft brewery. Their dreams started to collide. They developed a plan and started putting things into place. They sold everything down to what would fit in the car and 1 year later they were standing on that same beach celebrating their first anniversary. The only difference? They were now living there. They didn't know Spanish and they hardly knew anyone, but they just jumped in. Was it easy? Definitely not. Conner owned a popular bar in Park City and Stephanie was a Manager for a condo hotel in a ski resort. They were working 10 hour days, 6 to 7 days a week. Stephanie worked during the day and Conner worked nights and weekends. Their time together was limited and it was time for a drastic change. They yanked the ripcord and changed their

Today I talk to Matt Meeks. Husband and father of 3, he and his wife Niki didn't let the fact that they had young children derail them from yanking the ripcord and embarking on a journey that took them from the rush hour traffic quagmire of Houston to the mountains of Costa Rica. Matt was caught in the rat race of working long hours, never having enough time to spend with the family and had reached the top of his career. What was next? Keep on the same path or making a life altering change to change their destiny? We cover... What their lives were like in Houston. Their move to the mountains of Costa Rica. The difference in culture that is centered around family and kids. How the kids have acclimated to the Latin american culture and speaking Spanish. Founding a beef jerky company that is now sold through 150 retailers and on the doorstep of going global. Advice that he has for anyone considering any type of change in their lives like they have executed. Matt and his family, now living La Pura Vida (The Pure

Kristina Pescatore was following the rules. She graduated from the University of Texas and landed a great job with IBM. But the steady salary with a Fortune 100 company wasn't clicking with her. After 3 years of working for one of the largest corporations in the country, she walked in and quit without much of a plan. She realized that she had the power to create her own life path so she jumped on planes and started traveling the world. While in Hawaii, the Kilikina's Chocolat idea was born. Now, 4 years later she is the Founder and Chief Chocolatier of her own organic chocolate company with flavors like Maca 'Cream' Delight, Divine Union Bar and Lavendar Rose. She is melding (and melting) Ecuadorian cacao into an organic, gluten free and raw chocolate masterpiece.  We discuss... How and why she went against everyone's advice and quit her first job out of college to follow her entrepreneurial and spiritual dreams. When the idea of founding an organic chocolate company was born. The intricacies of actually maki

This is the story behind the Go Hunt Life podcast. I sit down with my wife, Allison Nevins, to discuss our ripcord moments and what has brought me to launch the Go Hunt Life podcast. It was 2009 and the US economy was tanking like crazy. We were on a vacation in Playa Del Carmen, Mexico and had the biggest conversation of our lives. We had been married for 7 years, both working in Dallas, Allison in a corporate job that she was becoming disheartened with and I was working online so I could really work from anywhere. We looked at each other and said, "you know what, let's explore something different. Let's move to a foreign country and embark on a completely different path." So we did. "We sold everything we owned down to 7 suitcases and got on the plane with one-way tickets to Mexico...and our Spanish sucked." We spend the next year and a half researching places to relocate to and found Merida, Mexico. Within 8 months of visiting Merida in the spring of 2010, we had sold everything we owned down to 7 suitcase