The Transcript

Karthika: Welcome Aaron. Thank you so very much for joining me on Culturally Ours. I cannot tell you how excited I am to have you on the podcast and cannot wait to chat with you and get to know you a little bit better.

Aaron: Thanks for having me. It’s fun to be here.

Karthika: Absolutely. So before we begin, could you tell us a little bit about sort of who you are, where you’re from, just to help set the stage for this question?

Aaron: Sure. So I am an outdoor writer and photographer. It’s sometimes hard to know how to categorize myself. Some people call me a travel writer but really what I do in general is I celebrate the outdoors in the natural world through my work writing and taking images.

Karthika: I love the way you said celebrate the outdoors. Now, as a writer, photographer, traveler, you’ve worked with some of the biggest brands and magazines out there. How did this all come about? Is that something you went to school for or always knew you would get into?

Aaron: No. And it’s a long story. We could do a whole origin story podcast on that someday. But for me, I essentially was just a curious, inquisitive human on the planet who wanted to see more and experience more of the places and worlds that I hadn’t seen. I had only heard about or read about or only imagined. And so after college I started traveling and I traveled initially just in the American West for a few years. I lived in a Volkswagen van, I was exploring, and I had a bike and I had skis and I had a backpack and I just wanted to see things. And I started having adventures because I love getting out on the edge and pushing things and just getting deep into places and getting on the edge of things. And so I had a one of many misadventures and afterwards I said, I’m going to write a story about this. And I sent it into my favorite magazines. I sent it in longer than any article has been published in an outdoor magazine ever, because I had no idea what an appropriate length was. I just wrote my story and I didn’t hear from them for nine months. And I thought, well, that was a fun idea. And then the editor called me. This was Bike Magazine, which at the time was the big mountain bike magazine. And he called me and said, this is great. And I’m sitting there, you know, fist pumping, silently going, oh my gosh, my hero is calling me. And he says, we want to run it, but I need you to make an 800 words. And I said, no problem. How long has it now? And he said, 8,000. And so that was the beginning of my education in this world of writing. I turned it in at 1500 and they ran it. And my career was launched. Then I interned with Bike And Powder, which is a skiing magazine. This is in the late nineties. And I lived in my van in the parking lot of the magazine. And from there I just started. That was the beginning of my life as a freelance writer. And the photo editor at the magazines took me under his wing and started teaching me photography. I bought some of his old Nikon manual film equipment and started taking photographs. That served my journey in photography. And that’s been almost as rewarding as writing for me. So it’s just been 20 years now of telling stories and learning the business of being a writer and a photographer, which is a whole separate conversation. And that business has gone through a lot of changes in the last five to 10 years. And so I’m still finding a way to make it work and it’s not always easy to do that. But I’ve gotten better along the way and I’m fortunate now to be able to write for National Geographic and various other people. Its a hustle. It’s a freelance hustle, just like any independent creative person. But really it just grew out of my desire to explore and to share what I was seeing with people.

Karthika: Oh, I love it. And you’re right, it is a hustle like everything else. But when you hustle for something that you’re really passionate about, I think it sort of makes the world of difference.

Aaron: Well, for me it’s gotten to the point now where I’m unemployable at this point. I don’t know what would happen if I tried to shoehorn myself into a standard job with set hours determined by other people. I have to do this. I have to be a writer. I have to explore. I mean, it’s not a choice at this point.

Karthika: Oh I understand. What really attracted me to your work and obviously your photography is there’s a depth, there’s a rawness in your own words and there is something about it that says, if you come with me, this is what you can expect. If you come with me, this is what you will experience. And as a creative, I’m just curious, what is that process like for you? I mean obviously you see all this beautiful scenery, landscape and experiences. What do you think about when you’re like clicking a picture or you’re thinking of writing about it? Just walk me through that process.

Aaron: That’s an interesting question and it’s one of those things where I’m not even sure. I am just out there living and doing and it’s not even so much a strategy that I’m putting together, but really what it’s about is when I’m out there, I know I’m going to be putting a narrative together around this experience that I’m having. I’ve pitched that narrative beforehand to a publication and told them this is what I’m doing, this is who I’m going with, this is what the trip’s going to be about and this is the story I want to tell. So I’ve kind of defined it. But a lot of times when you’re out there, that story completely changes. And really the pitch is just a way to get the assignment. I don’t feel beholden to what I’ve told the editor because at this point I think the editors know I’m going to give them something interesting. And so I follow the experience and I’m always thinking, what’s going to be interesting here, and I’m starting with what’s interesting to me. So I’ll get captivated by a plant or maybe wildlife or maybe the geographical experience of a beautiful place, or maybe the relationships I’m having with the people. I write a lot about going out with my family. My father is aging, my kids are growing up and I’m aging. These trips into wild places, which are really what I love more than anything, are really vehicles to explore all of these questions about who we are or why we’re here, who we love, why we love them, what that all means. So I do look for narratives beyond just that I went to a pretty place because there is something to that if you can inspire people to get out into places. But to me, I’m looking for more depth than that. I am looking for the universal things that people can relate to. So when I’m out in these places, I’m making notes. I have a voice recorder in my pocket, I have a notebook and a pen in another pocket. I am recording my thoughts. If I am on the move and I don’t want to stop to write, I’ll record some insight that I had or some observations or even snippets of dialogue that I think are funny, interesting or insightful. I am always looking for photographs. If you’re on a trip, you can’t shoot all the time because you’re going to end up at your computer for a month afterwards just trying to filter all these images. So you have to do some filtering as you’re out.

Aaron: And even though magazines are kind of a dying medium, I still think in terms of a magazine feature. So it’s about 3,500 words and I’m going to need eight great photos and they need to be a diversity of photos, some details, some beautiful landscapes, some people. And so you are thinking about that as you’re experiencing the thing. But ultimately what I’m looking for are capturing the moments within the experience that help tell the story of what I’m doing and hopefully touch on some deeper universal themes. That was kind of a vague answer, but that’s essentially how I think.

Karthika: No, I love it because you are motivating others to think before the experience or think during the experience, right? Because people experience things in different ways. But you have to look beyond the pretty landscape or beautiful building. But ask yourself what else? What else is there to it? How can you make it your own? And I think you those questions or those thoughts out so well in your writing. At least to me when I’m reading it, I am thinking how can I translate this to what makes sense for me rather than just saying, oh, that’s pretty, and flip the page, right?

Aaron: I mean, we all love being out in these places because of the natural beauty. And there’s something that’s really peaceful about that. I think for all of us, just there’s something about the grandeur and the scale of the world that when we’re out in these wild places, we feel humility. We feel reverence. And so those are wonderful things that I think everyone can appreciate. There’s more of that we can dive into and a lot of people kind of have this conquering mentality in the natural world. I’m going to conquer that mountain or whatever it is. And I really try to help people see a different way of relating to the natural world. One where we’re part of a community and the mountains that let us climb them. We’re not conquering anything and that is the relationship that I try to convey. Cause I spend a lot of time thinking about the natural world and how we relate to it and what it means to me. And I hope to convey some of that depth of feeling to readers so we can all have richer experiences and understand our relationships with nature, which really underpin the whole existence of humanity on this planet.

Karthika: Absolutely. I couldn’t agree more. Now you’ve had a long career, you said 20 years. Can you share some experiences or maybe even people that you’ve met along the way that have really made an impact on your life, your lifestyle, and perhaps more importantly, your mindset.

Aaron: Yeah. You know, it’s interesting, I was thinking about this the other night and somehow it’s not an easy question to answer. On one hand there’s so many people, right? But it starts with my mom. My mom was a zen Buddhist who raised me as a Buddhist or at least through the framework of Buddhist philosophy. And so her non-materialism, her kindness, her commitment to living a simple life, those things really gave me my kind of foundational worldview. That’s really how I am. And I really got it from my mom. And she also had a really finely tuned bs detector. She had no tolerance for a lot of the stuff that we see in America and in the world. And so I have that too. It has caused me to kind of step outside the mainstream a lot because I don’t have a lot of tolerance for a lot of the things whether it’s advertisements or television or the media wants us to think is important. So my mom was big and then the guy that got me really inspired to get into the writing who was an editor of the magazines I loved. He’s the guy that called me. That was big for me. There are also a lot of writers I love that really are so sensitive in the way they capture the beauty of things and people in the world. They are the ones that really inspire me. There’s some people that I’ve read and I just think, oh, if I could ever write anything that beautiful, I can die happy. And then I have spiritual mentors. Besides my mom and the things I experienced as a child. They have a deeply insightful worldview that informs my work and I try to bring some of these concepts into my outdoor. It’s just kind of inherent in my work cause I’m not trying to tell anyone how to think necessarily. I’m just sharing my own experiences and insight right now.

Karthika: As a writer, as an outdoor adventurer, as somebody who documents these things, you obviously travel a fair bit. Is being on the road and being in these kind of off the beaten path places hard. We sometimes see the glamorous aspect, right? We see these beautiful pictures and these pretty things. But talk to me a little bit about the not so glamorous side of doing that.

Aaron: Well! there’s plenty of those. This travel thing is interesting. I have two kids. I have a family and am happily married. Thankfully my family is pretty adventurous. My wife, she’s a traveler. She knew what she was signing up for when she decided that maybe I was someone she could settle down with. I don’t know if that’s the right word, but there is a balance that happens. I basically lived on the road for years before having a family and I did really curtail that. My son was three weeks old and I left for South America for a month, which is insane in retrospect, who does that? But at the time it seems totally normal to me. In fact, a lot of things that used to seem normal to me now seem insane. I don’t know if that’s getting old or getting boring or what, but let’s just say that’s kind of good, I think. And when you travel, you’re experiencing so many things and it is so stimulation, it’s beautiful and wonderful. I could actually just live on the road in perpetuity. But it is hard when you’re away from your family. I love my family and miss them. And I got home from that trip to South America and my son was a new person. At that age, they grow so quickly. And I remember thinking oh my gosh, what have I missed?

Aaron: So it is always a trade off. And then of I have so many people say to me, Oh, you have a dream job. I want to do what you do. I get it. When I’m out doing something really interesting, cool and fun, my job is pretty amazing. I am getting paid to do this incredibly cool thing. But what they don’t see is the months I spent trying to get that assignment, the pitches with editors.  They don’t see the fact that you don’t get your expenses paid anymore. You do sometimes, but not so much as you used to. So you’re paying money to be there too. And what they really don’t see is when you get home and you have a deadline to write this story. It is going to be great but you need to come up with it all the threads and write it and you want it to be great. They don’t see all the blood, sweat and tears.

Karthika: Absolutely. Now for me, what really inspired me to get out into the outdoors was one of the pieces that you’ve written about traveling with your family. I believe you called it the Teasdale train, which was a bike or several bikes connected together with your family, with your kids being outdoors. I would love to know how that all came about and what the process was like because traveling with kids can be challenging in itself.

Aaron: Yes. And you know, I look back on that trip and realize that was a really important trip for our family. At that time it seemed like a reasonable idea. It was six weeks and we had a tandem mountain bike with a trailer bike on the back. And my wife had a cargo trailer and we packed light. I spent months organizing that. At that time I had taken a job at an organization here in Missoula, Montana where I live called the Adventure Cycling Association and they’re a large nonprofit devoted to traveling by bicycle. And I worked there for four years while my wife was in Grad School as an editor and a photo editor on the magazine. So I was making the magazine and I was helping and plan this route called the great mountain divide route which actually stretches from Banf in Canada to the Mexican border. So it 2700 miles and I knew the area really well. I had done some trips with my dad up there, we’d done bike trips and I’d written stories and, I had helped figure out this route into this really wild area of British Columbia where they moved the route into. And it ended up being too wild. They ended up moving it back out of there cause it freaked people out too much. So I started thinking of doing this trip with my family. I had been biking my kids to school on the Teasdale train. And a big part of my motivation was to get my family outdoors. We all try to be the best parents we can be and we all do some things well and some things not so well. And one of the things that I thought is, if there’s one thing I can do for my kids, it’s going to be to get them into nature as much as I can. And I know from my own experience that there’s no replacement for that feeling. When you’ve been out for a week or two weeks or three weeks and you’ve been totally unplugged and you’re surrounded by wildlife or forest or wild places, and there’s something that happens to you where you’re no longer Aaron Teasdale with a job. You become an animal on a planet and you start to feel like you are a part of this wild place as a community.

Aaron: And there’s something so important to me in that experience and I thought if I can convey that to my kids, if I can instill this relationship in them, then I will have succeeded as a father. And so I said, we’re going to do this trip and we’re hardly going to bring anything. We’re just going to have enough to survive. We are just going to have basic food and we’re going to get there. And we did it. There was one day where we had to walk our bikes. It was too steep to ride. We had to get over a mountain pass and we came across grizzly bears at close range. We were sleeping in this little tent at night by rivers and in forests and on mountain tops. It was one of the best things I’ve ever done and it was incredibly difficult and I still can’t believe I pulled it off. Joanna was seven and Silas was. They are growing up but are still kids and you have to really keep them engaged. They were not going to pedal all the time. So there were lots of stops for berries. There were lots of stops for fishing. We brought a Frisbee. That was probably my only concession. We read Tolkien in the tent at night. They did great and they loved it. It was so wonderful, but it was hard. I mean, I was exhausted at the end, just physically done. We got to the last week it was snowing and hailing and storming at one point. We were just two days from Banff and I did not know if we could make it. We were just hanging on at that point. I remember thinking we are haggard, I can’t feel my hands anymore cause it’s so cold and it’s hailing. And I realized we have to stop. I am going to crash. And, but we had to keep moving cause we had to keep our body heat up. So we finally resorted to my ultimate safety net. It’s the middle of the day, but it doesn’t matter. We’re setting up the tent and we’re all getting on our sleeping bags. And that was my safety net for surviving extreme conditions. And I knew we’d be okay if we needed to do that. And we did need to do that. And we stayed in the tent for a day and a half because it was unthinkable weather. That was the adventure for sure and it was great at the end of it all. But you don’t want your adventure to just be a cakewalk, right? Because it’s when you go through those harder things where you really have to dig deep in yourself that you not only develop a confidence, a measure of strength from that. But those are the things we talk about when we talk about the trip. We talk about the grizzly bears, we talk about the hale, we talk about the wild strawberries. But it’s when you go through those challenging things that you really do forge those deep connections and memories.

Karthika: Absolutely. Now how do you balance all these things in your life? You’ve had a pretty good career being outdoors, you have a family, you have kids and all those other things. So how do you balance all of this with your own sort of aspirations and your goals?

Aaron: This is an interesting question. I guess I do struggle a little bit with the balance because I’m still trying to write a book that I’ve been working on for four years and I’m having a hard time finding the time to get that done. And there are times where I wish maybe I could spend more time with my kids, although now they’re getting older and they don’t even care anymore. My younger boy is 16 and my older boy just turned 20. So in some ways it’s getting easier, but I think what’s hard for me personally is to imagine devoting my life to a career that I didn’t love, at least on some levels. There are times where I’m on deadline and that can get kind of ugly. It’s like just slide food under the door and no one talk to me. That lasts about four to five days. The story can get pretty intense and I can get really sedentary. I can feel the blood pooling in my feet and I’m just like, okay, I have to do something. And so for me, I just need to get in the woods. I am fortunate to live in a place in the woods, could be any natural place, but for me, it’s the woods. And I am lucky to live in a place where I have the woods very near my home. And so maybe it’s just jumping on a bike for 45 minutes or maybe it’s just walking. For me that helps recalibrate and center. I do try and meditate every morning and that’s part of it too. But for me that walking in the woods or biking in the woods is a meditation and it does kind of center me and calm me. And as a creative person who relies on his intellect for his work I can’t tell you how much that helps me see things as new. Sometimes you are stuck on an idea. But you get out there, you just get your body moving, your blood flowing and the smells and the sound just does wonders. You are triggering biochemical changes in your brain and suddenly there’s the idea that you needed. That’s kind of how it always works for me.

Karthika: Yes. I agree. Getting outside, away from that computer or that desk or even home and just being out in fresh air is just so invigorating and it just clears your mind. You come back and maybe you have the answer. Something about the natural world is just what we as humans need

Aaron: I think disconnection from the natural world is one of the core challenges we face as a species. And the more we can reconnect with our home, the natural world, the more we’ll be able to solve a lot of these huge challenges we face. That is the kind of stuff that I’m writing about more and more now is as I get older. Sure I am skiing off mountains and I love doing that, but I don’t tell those stories as much anymore. I am exploring these questions of what nature means to us.

Karthika: Now if you’re open to sharing with us, just because I feel like when people hear personal stories, they’re able to connect more and can relate to it more. What have been some of your life’s perhaps beautiful seasons. And on the flip side, some of the harder experiences.

Aaron: Let’s start with the good seasons. I feel like I’m not going to give a very good answer here, but I’m going to try because childhood, the wonders of being a kid was a really fun stage for me. I just loved being a kid. Well, a lot of people might say that hasn’t changed and that I haven’t really outgrown that stage. But I think keeping the kid alive is something we should all aspire to that. I went to this little college and made great friendships and that was such a fun, exciting time in my twenties when I was just exploring the world as an independent person. Then came kids. I had no idea how amazing that would be. And now I’m 47 and I’m getting older and I get to see what that’s like. Getting older isn’t necessarily fun, but at the same time, I feel like I’m getting wiser. I hope I’m getting wiser. Elderly people are just so content sometimes. I wasn’t necessarily content when I was 25. I was eager. This might come across from the point of view of a privileged person but I feel like every stage in life has had its own beauty and richness, and I’ve been lucky to have a fairly secure life. And just a quick aside about privilege because that’s something that we think more about now, which was really good. But rather than feel guilt for that privilege, what we want is to try and make it so everyone can have that secure life and everyone can enjoy their lives and feel like they’re secure in their life. Every season is beautiful as far as I’ve experienced it. But life isn’t easy. Everyone has hardships and difficulties. It is hard being independent, creative person in America. Health insurance was a huge issue for me for a long time. Finances have been a challenge for me, especially earlier in my career. Living simply helps, but that’s hard. It tests your commitment and you ask yourself can I keep doing this? Can I keep living a creative life and support a family. Six years ago my mother died tragically and I never got to say goodbye to my mom. I mean I did, but she wasn’t conscious and that was the hardest thing I’ve experienced in my life. That was the biggest loss I’ve experienced in my life. So I guess that’s the answer your question. Physically I know she has gone but I don’t think she’s really gone. I will see her again in some form and in dying, I do feel like my mom taught me a lot of really valuable lessons. And so we go through these hard things and we grow from them.

Karthika: I agree. I have lost both my parents and I cannot imagine this is the end. I know, I’ll see them again and I know that they’re with me every day, so I completely understand. Now, what advice would you give other travel photographers, creatives, writers or even people like myself who want to be a bit more adventurous outdoors. How we can live a more sustainable life or a life where we can really enjoy the outdoors.

Aaron: It’s true, especially with like the explosion of social media. It is definitely impacting how people experience the outdoors. Let’s just start with people who want to get out or who want to have adventures or maybe they’re inspired by something they read or saw. I think the important thing is to do it for you and not do it for how people will perceive you or what you can show people about it. If you’re going out to impress people then you are not going out for yourself. There’s still value on going out cause you’re out. But I think motivation is really important. Be aware of your motivation. Unfortunately it has become somewhat of a checking things of a list mindset when it comes to travel. There’s a deeper experience to be had there, but you have to open yourself to it. Try and get outside every day, no matter who you are even if it is an urban walk. Try and find natural areas where you can hear the birds and see the trees. These experiences are so valuable for us and for our health, our mental health or physical health. I mean, these are measurable things. Now we’re learning more and more about how the natural world is so vital for being a healthy human. For creatives the landscape has changed so much too. People keep asking me what can I do? How can I make it work? It is hard to know how to answer that anymore. But what I would say is find what you’re passionate about. Maybe it’s not even the outdoors. Maybe it’s food, maybe it’s travel. Maybe it is comic books. There are so many things it could be. And explore that if you’re someone who is thinking about being a writer, photographer or have that creative instinct where you want to create, you want to share. You are not going to have success unless you are exploring as a creative person, the things that you’re passionate about, those that you are drawn to because it is not an easy way to make a living or to get rich. So you better really love what you are doing

Karthika: Very true. All right now we are going to do a quick rapid fire round so that we can get to know you a little bit better. Just tell me whatever the first thing that comes to mind. Don’t overthink it.

• What do you prefer? Tea, coffee or something stronger – Tea. Or should I say Chai.
• Favorite flavor ice cream – I’m a big fan of huckleberry ice cream and for anyone that doesn’t know what a huckleberry is, it is a delicious tangy berry that grows in the Pacific northwest and in the northern Rockies. And I harvest them whenever I can. This time of year they’re abundant. And there’s a few places here in Montana that make the best huckleberry ice cream. And it is wonderful.
• A quote that you get inspired by – Oh, I am going to make one up a little bit. But my mantra is just don’t worry about stuff. That’s my quote.
• Horror movies, action, adventure, drama or comedy – So I love movies and I used to think I was going to write screenplays and maybe I still will someday. I am really into the intellectual talkers. The movies that are character and dialogue based. Maybe that’s drama. I love comedies too, but those are the movies I love. I don’t like horror movies. I don’t like violence.
• Favorite seasons? Spring, summer, fall, winter. – Spring. You’ve got the flowers are blooming. Birds are migrating. The rivers are swollen. You can still ski. The grizzly bears are waking up. Spring’s the best.
• Beach Mountain – That’s a really hard one, but I have to say mountains cause I’m a mountain person, but I love the ocean too.
• Tacos or Pizza – Okay. Oh that’s really hard too. But I have to go with Tacos because I love spicy food. Any equatorial food is great food, the closer you get to the equator, the better the food gets.
• Three must haves that you’d take with you on everything – I always bring a camera. I always bring a notebook and our own utensil and earplugs. So I guess that’s four.
• Perhaps this is an easy question or perhaps this is hard but whats been your favoritre adventure – Favorite adventure I’ve ever had. Oh yeah, that’s tough because I’ve had so many adventures that I have just absolutely loved and I got to go with my family. I took my kids out of school for a year, a few years ago and we spent a year in Guatemala and Nicaragua. So I’m probably going to go with that, but I’m going to add one other. Sorry. I did a ski trip in Yellowstone National Park a year and a half ago now, and I was alone. I wanted to ski over a mountain range in, down the other side. And I decided to try and do it in a day. And I was coming down the other side and I was skiing through this valley where grizzly bears are going to be. And within five minutes I came around a corner and there was a big grizzly bear with two full-size cubs. They never saw me. And I hid behind a tree and I got pictures and had my bear spray. And then I went a little bit farther. I was hitchhiking back to another place. And there was another grizzly bear, and this was a lone male. He didn’t see me, but he was between me and the river that I had to cross to get to the highway before dark. And I’m watching him thinking, oh, how am I going to get around this thing? And he starts going towards the river. So I knew I had to get to the river before him and cross it otherwise I would have to spend the night there. I didn’t have a tent or a sleeping bag and there’s grizzly bears everywhere. And so I skied as fast as I could. And I ran. At some point, I had to take my skis off, there’s too many shrubs and I ran across the river, didn’t even roll up my pants or take my ski boots off with my skis on my shoulder and I got to the other side. I looked across and there was the bear just up the hill. And he never saw. And I got back to civilization at like midnight and it was hard and my feet hurt for days cause I just skied like 24 miles. And but those experiences with those grizzly bears is something I will never forget. When I tell people that story they always tell you how crazy I am and why I would risk my life like that. But  we risk our life every time we get on the highway. And I will never forget that day. That was one of my very favorite life experiences.

Karthika: Oh my God. Wow, yes I am sure you will not forget this. I don’t think I’m going to go look at a river in Yellowstone quite the same way. I’m going to remember your story. Now if you could give advice to, or even life lessons to a younger area.

Aaron: Like a lot of us, I overthink things and worry more than I need to about things. So am I doing things the right way? Is this the right decision? What should I do? And when I was young and trying to figure out life, I definitely worried too much. And what I would say to my younger self, it’s nothing like, oh, invest in a 401k or anything like that. It’s just, don’t worry, just enjoy life. We are here temporarily on this planet. We get this life, we have this body we can use. What a joy, what a treat. I mean, what an experience just to be alive here on this planet for this time. And don’t worry about all that stuff. It is going to work out. Just enjoy yourself.

Karthika: Yes. We do worry a lot. So now, Aaron, what lies ahead for you? Are you sort of fully living your dream or what comes ahead, if it is okay to share with us.

Aaron: I don’t know. I’m not a good planner. I’m a good planner for doing something for six weeks and bringing my kids along. I can do that. But when it comes to life planning, my strategy has always been just make sure you’re doing something good and interesting at any given time. And if you keep doing that, eventually it’ is going work out. I am moving into book writing, assuming I ever finished this book. I’m writing a book about spending a year in Central America with my family. It is hard cause I’m not getting paid. I get paid to write articles. So finding time to write the book in between the articles and adventuring outside and being with my family isn’t easy, but I do see myself getting more into books. My kids are, are not going to need me as much anymore. So I’m going to ramp up the travel because I have really dialed that back while I raised my kids.

Karthika: Well! I am looking forward to seeing your adventures and reading that book, so you better get going with that. Thank you so much, Aaron. This has been amazing and an absolute delight. I followed you for a long time and so to get to chat with you and hear your story is really special. So thank you very much for coming on the show.

Aaron: Thank you for having me. It has been a lot of fun.