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Your 30s Are Just Your 20s With Money: 5 Reasons To Look Forward To The Next Decade
"While many people may believe that one’s 20s are the most important years to invest in oneself, the arguments are flawed. They usually go something along the lines of “find yourself, love can wait, prepare now, push your limits, retire at 40.”
Utilize your 20s so you can retire at 40? Wtf happened to our 30s?"
Greetings from the Great White North! (Minnesota, USA)
Allow me a few moments to share the story of how Yachtlegend came to represent a cosmic shift in the way I live my life. My name is Zak and from 2008 to 2013 I was living someone else’s life. Not in a creepy, stalker kinda way, but in a ‘do all the things I’m supposed to, check all the boxes, get a ‘practical’ degree, 9-5 job, climb the corporate ladder, blah blah blah’ kinda way. Don’t get me wrong – in many cases it’s a great plan. But it was never my plan. It was, however, easier, more normal, and made those holiday conversations with the scarcely seen relatives oh-so-easy. But whogivesashit about easy. Whogivesashit about normal. But if you’re reading this blog you already know this.
Life in NYC had nearly sucked my homegrown, country soul from my chest and I couldn’t bare to see it happen any longer. So after venting session #483 with that friend we all have, I was ready for a leap, for something new. (Thank god for those friends, btw.) This particular friend also happened to know some people who were launching a yachting business. Say what? Sounds fancy!
Enter YachtLegend. What’s that you say? All inclusive, luxury yachting in an exotic locale? I wanted in.
A few emails and lots of ‘soul searching’ later, I made that commitment to do something different. Here’s the victory email I sent shortly after:
I just sent $1,000 to a complete stranger for a sailing trip half way across the world in 6 months, which is contingent on me quitting a job and moving, prior to going.
DAMN IT FEELS GOOD TO BE A GROWN-UP.
A few short weeks later I quit that awful J-O-B, packed up my closet-sized apartment, and drove back to God’s country (Minnesota, USA in case you’re wondering). What an incredible feeling! And all thanks to YachtLegend (sorta). The point isn’t that you have to quit your job to go sailing; the point is that if you’re inspired to do something great, find a way to make it happen.
So enough about me, let’s talk about you. You’re here at this very moment, on this site, reading this blog. Maybe you like yachting or maybe you’re searching for some inspiration of your own. Either way, you’re here because you intended to be. And now you’re faced with a decision. But don’t be fooled – the decision before you is about so much more than yachting. Seriously. This is something amazingly different.
Others will tell you about how beautiful the scenery was, about how freeing it felt to sail the open seas, and about how insanely interesting their fellow yachters inevitably were – and it's all so true. But for me, this journey was one of self-discovery, a lighting of the path towards self-actualization. (It was also about a whole lot of the rope swing. Seriously legit.) It all sounds crazy I know, but I absolutely mean it. Do amazing things + be with amazing people = boom you’re amazing. It’s #science.
Whatever your situation, whatever your circumstance, it often takes a leap to do something truly incredible. You can rarely just ease into these things, and they never ‘just happen’. Sometimes, big things seem daunting and scary, but oftentimes your life is just one brief moment away from something deeply meaningful. To really live is to crave the things you’ve never had, to be homesick for the places you’ve never been. If that speaks to you, you’re already one of us. So take a leap.
Set your mind on a new course, your heart on a new adventure. –Some guy on Twitter.
Z
YL Alum
-From a coffee shop in snowy St. Paul
Hunter S. Thompson and Bill Murray, circa 1980.
Hey gorgeous. Yeah, I thought that’d get you. ‘Cause if you’re anything like me, you spend a fair amount of time thinking about yourself. I’m not calling you vain. I’m just calling you human.
‘Cause that’s the thing about us, all of us. As humans, we want to be significant. We want our lives to matter. Heck, who doesn’t? We worry about this quite a bit. Enough to put lines in our otherwise perfectly moisturized faces. Speaking of our faces, we curate them. We curate our bodies. We curate our weekend plans. We curate our weekday plans. We curate our life stories. We curate our inner circles, Insta feeds, catch phrases, signature looks, playlists, and every other thing we can possibly think to curate. So freaking curated! Meanwhile, we pore through the pages of the latest blog, half voyeruring and two-thirds searching for answers.
Yeah I know the math doesn’t add up, but eff it! This is some serious shit! These are some heavy questions! How will I make something of myself? How will I become something more than just another jerkoff with a job and a mortgage? Sure, I look good on paper, but how do I transcend the paper and the laptop and the desk and the office and all of the bullshit that goes into looking good on paper? How do I actually live the kind of life that ensures I will never look back and wonder whether I really squeezed it to the very last drop? To become a living legend in my own right? I mean, I’m not looking for fame and fortune but wouldn’t mind taking a crack at it. Shoot for the moon and land amongst the stars, right?
These are all fair questions and, fame and fortune or no, we all have something to learn from those seemingly untouchable personas that comprise our constellation of living legends. And if you look closely across the lot you will inevitably find four distinct traits common amongst them all. These four traits are not myths but plain truths. Live by them and you most certainly are headed the moon’s way.
BONUS ROUND: Legends yacht. And they yacht in style. Indeed, each one of them is a veritable YACHTLEGEND. ;-)
Jetting off to foreign lands and sailing the open waters with a bunch of strangers takes chutzpah. It also requires flipping your Outlook calendar the big ol’ middle finger. Listen, we’re all busy. Comparing your busy to my busy….well, it’s just so bourgeois. Life – particularly as a 30-something who is fairly responsy, independent, and making decent money – can get super “grindy.” It’s one big, life-long playlist set on repeat of airport security lines, conference calls, and pumping Starbucks intravenously. (Coincidentally, I write this at a comfortable cruising altitude of 28,000 feet). Two of YACHTLEGEND’s founders are lifelong friends, and when they spoke of their new adventure and asked if I’d come along on the inaugural fleet, well, honestly the first thought was, “Can’t.” Like I’m super important and I’ve got like this super important job where other super important people count on me to make super important decisions. Duh. Then I realized how suburban that sounded. Dana Brown is many things, but she is not suburban.
In a world of the tragically average, YACHTLEGEND gives mediocre a crippling round-house kick to the face. If the biggest thrill on your next vacation is the free brekkie at Hampton Inn, perhaps life has gotten away from you. #sad. Get on a yacht, crack open a cold beverage, and take in one big breath of what being badass feels like. Become bunk-mates with a cool chick who works for Google in London. Brush up on your embarrassingly broken German skills with your über-German skipper. Hold hands with a stranger from Minnesota as you jump off a Spanish cliff together….literally. Watch the sun set over The Med with your new besties and reflect on the common folk back home. You were once one of them.
I would be willing to bet those who sailed said inaugural YACHTLEGEND fleet will reflect on their first voyage and each takeaway a different epic moment. Therein lies the magic of YACHTLEGEND. Your journey is whatever you make of it. Whatever underlying impulse you’ve been stifling as you drag your feet through the monotony of everyday life, I guarantee it will emerge, and you will feel so free. Some remark the sea is wet; YACHTLEGEND’s observe it as an abyss of opportunity, a symbol of the expanse of different worlds connected by water and by boat. You could stay on land, or you could be a participating sailor on the sea of life. YACHTLEGEND implores you to do the latter.
I’ve got another six or so months to grind it out with all of you plebes before I regain my title of YACHTLEGEND. The thing is, I’m officially one for life and I want you to be one too. There are about 60 other YACHTLEGEND’s awaiting you this summer. Come and discover that inner rockstar that’s been there all along. As the legend goes, that person is pretty rad. Join us.
When not embracing all that is YACHTLEGENDary, Dana is the US Director of Sales for Tribal Sportswear, is based out of the Big D (and we do mean Dallas!) and a big fan of impromptu pub-crawls and pondering the possibilities if toe rings could talk. You can follow her misadventures on Instagram at divadana1.