December 4, 2024 • 48 mins
Erik and Emily Orton, authors of “Seven at Sea” and co-founders of The Awesome Factory, share how they left their life in New York City to sail the world with their five children. They share how the question, “What could go right?” lead them to adopt a mindset focused on potential success and growth, rather than being held back by the fear of failure. On their journey, they embraced mentorship and practiced gratitude while navigating challenges together, strengthening their family and overcoming fears. Their story illustrates how being open to feedback, building leadership skills, and focusing on possibility can lead to personal and professional development.
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Episode Transcript
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Erik Orton (00:01):
Here's why I recommend asking "what could go
right?" Because it's reallyimportant to imagine a success
story. If you don't imaginethat success story, you have
nothing to run towards. And sowe said, "well, what could go
right if we do this?" We couldhave an amazing family
experience. We could seebeautiful places, we could
learn new skills, both sailingand otherwise. We could come
(00:23):
together like never before as afamily. We could grow in
confidence. Our kids could growin confidence. And the list
just went on and on and on andon and on. And we realized that
if we did not take this trip,yes, we might avoid this list
of what could go wrong, but wewould absolutely not get to
enjoy anything on the whatcould go right list. It was a
hundred percent certain thatthat would not happen.
Troy Blaser (00:50):
Hello, welcome to Simply Feedback, the podcast
brought to you by LearningBridge . I'm your host, Troy
Blaser. It's great to have youalong with us today, I'm
excited to introduce today'sguests. We have two guests. We
have Emily and Erik Orton withus today. They're here to tell
us about an amazing journeythat they embarked on leaving
(01:11):
behind their conventional lifein New York City to sail the
world with their five children.
As authors of the book "Sevenat Sea", they share the lessons
learned from their lifechanging adventure. Co-founders
of The Awesome Factory, theynow help others embrace
creativity, resilience, andadventure in their own lives.
Through workshops and speakingengagements, they inspire
(01:32):
people to pursue their dreamsand tackle challenges head on .
So in today's episode of SimplyFeedback, Emily and Erik
explore with us how feedbackplays a crucial role in
navigating both personal andprofessional growth. Erik and
Emily Orton, welcome to SimplyFeedback. It's so great to have
you with us today.
Erik Orton (01:49):
Thanks, Troy.
Thanks for having us on. It'sgreat to be here.
Emily Orton (01:52):
Thanks. We are so happy to be here with you and
love what you're doing. It's soimportant.
Troy Blaser (01:56):
Awesome. Before we get into more about your
specific story, if you couldmaybe share with us a time that
somebody gave you feedback inyour life. Maybe it was
feedback that was a turningpoint in a career, or that it
affected you personally. Isthere a story that you can
share with us about a timesomebody gave you feedback?
Emily Orton (02:16):
I can share one actually, from living on the
sailboat, because we had spentmany years and went to great
pains to get out on a sailboatwith our family. And we wanted
to spend this time together andstrengthen our relationships.
And we got there and thingsweren't quite what we expected.
And within a few days, the kidspulled us aside and said, we
(02:42):
came out here to be together.
And you guys are always likegoing off to the Chandry, which
is a specialty store for boatitems and like troubleshooting
things on the boat and we arenot being together. And you
know , they knew what the goalwas and they saw that we
weren't meeting the goal, eventhough we were being active and
(03:04):
stressing about taking care ofeveryone. And yeah, they put
our feet to the coals and werealized it's true. We don't
have to have all the problemssolved to be able to still
actually do our goal. And itwas really grateful that they
called us out because itallowed us to recognize we're
never going to have everysingle problem solved. We're
(03:25):
not going to get it all donebefore we actually do the goal
of being together. And so wehad to make adjustments and it
was a surprise to us that wewould actually need to calendar
family time after, you know,going 2,500 miles from home and
moving on a small boat togetherand all of that stuff. But I'm
(03:45):
so grateful that they didbecause, you know, we were the
authority figures and theycould have just said nothing
like, "well, they're the boss",and they didn't. And it made it
a better experience for all ofus.
Troy Blaser (03:58):
Oh , that's awesome. That's awesome. To get
some feedback from the kids tobe like, Hey, here's what you
said is important. We are notseeing that. So let's change
things up a little bit.
Erik Orton (04:08):
The example that came to mind when I first heard
this question is, it's not aflattering one, I guess, but,
and Emily, maybe you can helpme remember this, but at some
point my kids came to, I guessfeedback is coming from our
kids. Because this is the onethat popped to mind. My
daughters came to me and said,dad, you're an attractive guy,
but the way you dress, peoplehave a hard time seeing that.
Troy Blaser (04:33):
Okay.
Erik Orton (04:34):
And so I guess I was wearing sort of frumpy,
oversized clothes. And , uh,they're just kind of like, dad,
you need a little bit of amakeover and , uh, you need to
wear clothes that fit youbetter if you want to look, you
know, more put together andmore attractive. And I was
like, "oh, okay". And Emily,can you remember when that,
when we had that conversation?
Emily Orton (04:54):
Yeah, I remember you were the artistic director
at the Cape Playhouse in DennisCape Cod.
Erik Orton (05:01):
Okay . So this would've been after we lived on
the sailboat. And yeah, I hadsort of a very public facing
job. I was sort of the face forthis, for this organization,
and they were basically tellingme I needed to up my wardrobe.
And so I shopped. And eversince then, I've shopped
differently for myself. AndI've learned to get comfortable
in clothes that fit me betterand that make me look more
professional, that make me looka little bit more put together.
(05:23):
And it's made a shift for meover the past many years. And
so I appreciated my kids kindof not being afraid to tell me
something about myself that Iprobably would never, would've
come up with. And certainlynobody in a professional
setting is going to say that tome. So I appreciated it.
Troy Blaser (05:39):
Yeah, I was going to say, there's some feedback
that can only come from certainpeople, right? And to come from
your own daughters who areprobably more tuned into
fashion than, than you are orcertainly than I am as a middle
aged dad. Right? That'svaluable feedback that makes
your life just a little bitmore polished, a little bit
smoother in your professionallife.
Erik Orton (06:00):
Yeah, for sure.
Emily Orton (06:02):
I have one more example that I love from Erik.
He had been out of the rockclimbing game for a little
while and he decided he wasgoing to jump back in.
Erik Orton (06:11):
A little while being 20 years.
Troy Blaser (06:14):
Okay.
Emily Orton (06:15):
Yeah, couple decades. And he wanted to jump
back in and he was like, mygear is not in good shape and
we'll need to look for some newthings. And so we went to this
gear shop and he was lookingfor something very specific.
And the guys there, if you'veever been to one of these
shops, they're usually about21. And Erik walked in, he'd
(06:35):
been climbing since he was 14years old, and he is like, I
want this specific thing. Andthey said, well, we have that,
but people aren't really usingthat anymore. Now we're using
this. And Erik immediatelyshifted gears and instead of
saying,"hey, I know what Iwant, I know what I'm doing.
I've been climbing longer thanyou've been alive". He said,
"show me how it works". And hebought the new thing. I was so
(06:59):
impressed because it's notalways easy to take feedback.
It's not always easy to take itfrom someone who's your junior,
but if you want to progress,then a little humility is like
rocket fuel. So I really wasimpressed.
Troy Blaser (07:14):
Erik, I can totally understand how that
must have felt going into aclimbing shop. I skied growing
up through high school, took abreak when the family came
along, and then as the kidsstarted to get a little older,
I was like, "okay, I, we wereready to get back into it". And
it's the same kind of thing.
You're out of that for a longtime. Go into a , a ski shop or
a climbing shop, and I can seehow that could be, you could be
(07:36):
nervous about acceptingfeedback from them.
Erik Orton (07:39):
Well , thanks love , I appreciate the compliment.
And Troy, thanks for for thevalidation.
Troy Blaser (07:44):
Yeah, that's awesome. So it sounds like
adventure is important in yourfamily, important to the two of
you and to your family. Let'stalk about the sailing trip,
the adventure of taking yourfamily out in a sailboat for a
year. What was some of themotivations? How did this come
to be as you talked about thisidea of, you know, leaving New
York behind embarking on thisadventure with your family?
Emily Orton (08:08):
I think it was actually some really public
feedback. I mean, I hadn'tthought about it this way
before, but Erik was working inthe Broadway industry and he
was working on a show that wasa phenom "Wicked", right? Like
he could still be working onthat. He wanted to have stayed
there, but he wanted to producesomething on his own. And he
(08:29):
found a show that he reallyloved and felt good about. And
he raised the money, puttogether the team, got the
theater, put it all up, and theshow opened the day our fourth
child was due, did not comeuntil the next day . And so the
next day we went to thehospital and he told his
partner, you know, "I'm offgrid for 24 hours". And the
(08:54):
reviews came out and thereviews were mixed. Some of
them were great, some of themnot so great. And his partner
felt like it wasn't sturdyenough to validate a hope that
there would be a lot moreticket sales. And so she felt
like the best call was to closethe show so the investors'
money could be protected, butthat if the audiences rallied,
(09:15):
they could always take downclosing notices. And that isn't
necessarily the same way thatErik felt about it. He felt
like that was kind of the deathnail, like no coming back from
the closing notice . And itwas, it was kind of
heartbreaking. And so the showclosed for us, it was
financially devastating. Now hewas unemployed, he had quit
(09:36):
everything else to put ahundred percent into this. And
now I had just had a brand newbaby, our fourth child. And
Erik, do you want to pick it upfrom there how you were
feeling?
Erik Orton (09:46):
Yeah, sure. I guess I'll just clarify that my
business partner made thisdecision while I was in the
hospital with my family, kindof made it unilaterally. And so
I came out of this bubble andfound out that our show was
closing, that we wereessentially the Orton family
was going to be financiallywiped out. Of course, it's just
a heartbreak. And I ended up onthe cover of a magazine called
(10:06):
Cranes Business New York as theposter boy for the failed
off-Broadway industry at thetime, because there was a lot
of shows that closed in quicksuccession. And so nothing like
being on the front of amagazine to give you a little
feedback about what isn'tworking. And so it was
embarrassing. It was kind of,traumatizing might be a strong
(10:27):
word, but I I just really felthumiliated professionally and
just wanted to disappear. Andyet I still needed to earn some
money to take care of ourfamily. And so I got a temp job
down in lower Manhattan in thefinancial district and was
basically working nights as acontractor for the Wall Street
industry. And what I didn'trealize at the time was that
(10:50):
this temporary job wasimmediately upstairs from a
sailing school that was righton the Hudson River. And I
would tell Emily about thesebeautiful boats that I would
see at night at sunset. I wouldtake a dinner break and I'd go
walk along the, the HudsonRiver and I would see these
sailboats and tell her how muchI wished I was out there on the
water and how peaceful itlooked. And I talked about it
(11:10):
enough that she finally said,you should go check this out.
And I said, you know, "I'm notgoing to do that because we're
broke and I don't know anythingabout sailboats". And it's one
of the most expensive marinasin the world, I've since
learned. And you know, this isfor hedge fund managers and
investment bankers and notbroke, off-Broadway producers
(11:31):
like me. And so it felt like akid looking through the window
of a candy store. Like youwanted what's on the other
side, but it's for otherpeople. And Emily finally
persuaded me to go in and justlearn, just ask. And so I did
one day, I went in early and I,I said, you know, "I'm
interested in learning how tosail. I don't know anything.
How does this work?" And I'moften asked what was the
(11:53):
hardest part of our sailingjourney? And people are often
surprised when I say this wasthe hardest part, this part
where I had to sort of put my,my feelings of failure and
disappointment on hold and stepinto a situation where I felt
very much out of my elementsocially, financially, every
(12:15):
other way. And just start aconversation and, you know, and
then it proceeded from there,of course they were happy to
take my money and give me somesailing lessons and, and teach
me and Emily and the kids and,and things rolled on from
there. You know, your originalquestion, Troy, was where did
the, the idea, the inspirationcome from? And I think that's
the hardest part for all of uson our journey. When we, when
we want something different orsomething better in our lives,
(12:39):
it's so hard to imagineourselves in that new new
place, that new role. And sojust being willing to step into
something that felt very muchbeyond me was really the, the
trickiest part. And I think foranybody listening, whatever it
is that you want to becomethrough feedback, through
choices, don't cut yourselfoff. You know, it's so easy to
(13:01):
disqualify ourselves from theget go and say, oh, other
people do that. I don't dothat. I don't get to do that.
And so just being willing tostep into this sailing school
opened up a whole world for ourwhole family. And I'm really
grateful for Emily'sencouragement to do that. And
that's kind of where it beganright there in that moment.
Troy Blaser (13:18):
That's an awesome beginning. It sounds like for
you the phrase the first stepis the hardest. That was the
case. Right? And fortunatelyyou did have Emily kind of
there to encourage you to say,"you keep talking about this,
take some action on it". Right.
Erik Orton (13:33):
Don't be all talk walk the walk.
Emily Orton (13:35):
Well then the surprise was when he turned it
around and said, I want you tocome take these classes with
me. And I was like, "I don'twant to go sailing. I , I just
wanted you to have something",you know. And anyway , but
yeah, I was like, "wait aminute, what am I"
Troy Blaser (13:49):
So you had to take that difficult step too. You
had, you know, to jump into awhole world that you were
unfamiliar with. Yeah,
Emily Orton (13:56):
Absolutely.
Troy Blaser (13:56):
That's cool.
Erik Orton (13:57):
And Emily at the time was very afraid of deep
water and so it was, it was apretty big ask to have her come
take this class with me. Butshe, she had to push past some
fears as well.
Troy Blaser (14:07):
Yeah. So what were some of the reactions from
friends, from family? What wassome of the feedback that you
got from them when you firststarted talking about this idea
of going out?
Emily Orton (14:17):
I don't know what they thought privately, but
since we were in New York City,we were surrounded by people
who were doing something alittle unusual, pursuing a
dream. You don't live in NewYork City because it's the easy
thing to do. So in thatimmediate group around us, they
were like, "okay, cool, go forit". But I do know that after
(14:39):
we actually did it, that's whenwe found out that people were
actually pretty surprised.
Like, oh, it's one thing totalk about it and another thing
to do it like "we'll see" iskind of maybe what their
private reaction was. But Iwould say maybe the biggest
reaction again came from ourkids. And whether you're the
leader and you're gettingfeedback from the people who
(15:01):
you're guiding or you're theparent and you're getting
feedback from your kids, theysee, they know what they are,
your secret weapon. And so Iremember one day we came back
from sailing class and ourdaughter was 14 at the time and
she said, I hear you talk aboutthis a lot, but do you really
have the guts to do it? And Ithink that's what everybody was
(15:23):
wondering because we talkedabout it for years. We bought
life jackets, we took sailingclasses, we said we're going to
do this. But we were stillliving in our same apartment
for about four years. And youknow, we thought we wanted to
do it. It was scary, but it wasexciting to move towards it.
But when she said that, I thinkwe realized, man, our
(15:44):
credibility is on the line.
Like right now it's a fun idea,it's fun to play with it, but
if we don't do it, what are ourchildren going to take away
from that? And so it actuallykind of added, I think a little
to our fire to be like, man, wereally have to get this across
the threshold, you know.
Troy Blaser (16:01):
They keep holding your feet to the fire. First
they said, "are you reallygoing to do this?" Then later
they're like, "hey mom and dad,you said we were going to do
this for family togethernessand we're not seeing that yet".
So step up in that area please.
Erik Orton (16:13):
Our kids are pretty rough on us
Troy Blaser (16:15):
I think, on every parent, right. I mean they have
a way of being brutally honestsometimes.
Erik Orton (16:20):
Yeah. And it's good if we're humble enough to
listen, they can actually besome of our best teachers I
think.
Emily Orton (16:25):
Yeah. We start asking them pretty young for
their input and their feedbackand they see us take action on
it. And so that emboldens themto continue giving us feedback
as we ask for it. I mean, thatwas a deliberate thing that we
did. And it's really hadamazing dividends for us.
Troy Blaser (16:42):
At Learning Bridge . We sort of have this motto
that is often repeated and thatis the idea of receiving
feedback graciously and actingon it visibly. And that's kind
of what you were just talkingabout because once your kids
saw, "hey, when we give somefeedback to mom and dad, they
make changes and we can seethose changes. So we want to
continue to give that feedback." That's fantastic. Okay, so
(17:04):
four years of preparation andworking up the courage and
making all the plans. What weresome of the challenges
transitioning from life in aManhattan apartment to life on
a sailboat? I don't know if theliving spaces were bigger in
the apartment or bigger in thesailboat. It could go either
way. When you're talking aboutan , an apartment in Manhattan,
Erik Orton (17:25):
I think ironically we had more privacy on our
sailboat than we did in ourapartment because we lived in a
two bedroom , one bathapartment and all the kids
shared one room, the biggerbedroom. And Emily and I had
one room. And on the boat wehad a four cabin, two bathroom
boat. It was 38 feet long, 21feet wide. It was a catamaran.
(17:47):
And so it was physically squarefootage wise , it was smaller
than our apartment. Buteveryone had these little
cabins and there was two peopleper cabin instead of five kids
all in one. And we had twobathrooms, which just felt like
a massive luxury, even thoughyou had to pump it by hand with
this little piston that woulddrain the toilet. But we had
the biggest, coolest backyardin the world. So that was
(18:09):
really fun. And I think, Iguess I'll say this, when you
get on a boat, you realize younever think about where your
electricity comes from. Younever think about what you're
going to do with your garbage.
Where does it go? You neverthink about what happens to
human waste. You never thinkabout where does the internet
come from When you're on aboat. You think about all of
those things. You know, whereis the nearest gas station? If
(18:31):
you need fuel for your boat,where's the nearest water
source? Where's the nearestplace we can drop off some
garbage. You know, where can wepick up some internet? All
those things that we take forgranted is just in the air. In
fact, we always tease our son,our , our only son that he was
young when we moved on theboat. And what's something that
he learned on this trip? Helearned that there is such a
(18:52):
thing as no internet.
Troy Blaser (18:54):
It's true. Yeah. I mean, Manhattan is an extreme
on one side with this big giantcity, millions of people,
right? To almost, you're theonly people for miles and miles
and miles. And so it's hard toimagine two living environments
that are farther apart.
Erik Orton (19:13):
We had lived in New York City at that time, what ,
uh, 15 years. And we'd, threeof our kids had been born
there. We had it dialed in.
Like we knew how to live in NewYork City. We were very
comfortable if new people movedin, we were the ones that were,
you know, we can tell you how,how to adapt, how to figure
this out. We knew what we weredoing, I guess I would say. And
(19:34):
I think one of the hardestthings for us when we moved
onto a boat was we did not knowwhat we were doing. We really
became the newbies despite allof the preparation that we had
made, which we thought wasgoing to serve us well. And it
did. But it was far fromadequate. We didn't know all
the things that we didn't know.
We got out there, we were wayover our heads. And I think,
(19:55):
and we talk about this in ourbook, "Seven at Sea", we
realized early on that weneeded help. That we were just,
again, way over our heads. AndI think one of the smartest
things that we did was wesought out mentors. And like
you said, people don't live asclosely together, but there's a
lot of people living on boatsand they have a radio net.
(20:15):
There's kind of a town hallevery morning for people that
live on boats. You'd tune intoa certain channel on the VHF
radio in St . Martin where wewere picking up our boat and we
just hopped on there and kindof face first said," Hey, we're
brand new. We don't know what'sgoing on. If anyone's willing
to talk with us, we'd love tolearn and you can kind of coach
us up." We were very open tofeedback. And there was this
(20:36):
couple that had been living ontheir boat for over a decade.
They said, "yeah, swing bysometime we'll be happy to
answer any questions we can."And I think that was the
beginning of hope for us. Afterfeeling like we had made the
dumbest decision of our livesto move on to a boat, finding
people who could teach us andhelp us through our, our rookie
(20:58):
year on the water was reallythe shift that I think brought
us from despair and aninclination to quit to. Okay, I
think we can make it through. Ithink we can learn our way
through this.
Emily Orton (21:10):
I love what you said, Erik, learn our way
through this. It , you talkedabout it being our rookie year.
I remember before we left, weheard something by Liz Wiseman
where she talked about therookie advantage. And the
rookie knows that they don'tknow and they're a little
anxious about it because theywant to do well, but they know
they don't have all theskillset to do it. And so they
(21:32):
do seek out mentors, they seekout feedback and you know, they
say, "can you look at what I'vedone? Do you have any
suggestions for me?" And thenthat actually gives them an
advantage. Whereas once youfeel a little more comfortable,
you can get a little morecasual in it and you might not
be quite so on your toes. Andwe definitely saw that in our
early days, like when we jumpedon that VHF coop town hall
(21:56):
thing. We jumped in at thewrong place and the host
smacked us down in front ofeverybody and kind of chastised
us. And we were like, "well, wecan't get our feelings hurt
because we need help. And sowe're just going to have to
keep trying." And that wasactually super helpful. And I
would say two more things. One,that was a major transition for
us. We had fewer people in morerooms. There was so little
(22:21):
privacy. We had a dinghyattached to our boat and we,
Erik and I once tied the ropeand just let the dinghy out and
the two of us in the dinghy andall the kids on the boat at
Anchor, because we were tryingto have a private conversation
and they were just standing onthe back of the boat like,
"mom, dad" you know , I waslike, "Ugh."
Troy Blaser (22:41):
You're like, "we're going on a date. Leave
us alone for a minute."
Erik Orton (22:45):
Yeah, we're, we're going to be 75 feet away. So.
Emily Orton (22:49):
It was hard to get any privacy. But the other
thing that really helped, likeErik said, it did feel at the
beginning overwhelming. It feltlike we weren't meeting our
goals. Like this was a dumbidea and we all really just
wanted to go home. So if youfeel that way in the early
stages of something that'sactually really normal, you are
like, "this is way harder thanI thought I want to give up."
(23:10):
But what we did instead is wetook a very short trip to a
very close island. We didbadly. We were a hot mess, but
we made it from point A topoint B. And in the morning we
asked everybody, "what do youlike about right now? Let's
just focus on what are some ofthe good things that are
happening right now." And werealized that through those
(23:34):
hard times when we wouldpractice a little gratitude
that actually gave us theemotional stamina to do what
Erik said and say like, we'regoing to be able to learn our
way through this. But we, youknow, it felt like everything
was bad and it was myopic. Andso when we took a moment to
like change lenses, we're like,"okay, there's some redeeming
(23:57):
qualities about thisexperience. Let's keep trying."
Troy Blaser (24:00):
I wanted to go back. You talked about the
rookie advantage and about howwhen you are a rookie, you know
you need help. So you're askingfor that. And as you become a
veteran and you're no longer arookie, you get complacent, but
you also stop asking forfeedback, right? You think,
"well, I've got it down pat, Idon't need to to hear what's
out there anymore." And goingall the way back to the
(24:20):
beginning of our conversation,when Erik, when you went into
that climbing shop, you couldhave said, "oh, I'm, I'm not a
rookie. I know what I'm doingand here's the piece of
equipment that I want." Butinstead, you were able to see
from a different perspectiveand say, "okay, maybe I, I do
need to get some feedbackhere." So I really like that
idea of the rookie advantageand trying to maybe maintain
(24:41):
some of that advantage eventhough it can be easy to become
complacent as we proceed.
Erik Orton (24:46):
Can I share with you one of the favorite
questions that has served uswell in asking for feedback?
Sure. And we usually use thiswith our kids, but sometimes we
use this with others and I'musing it more as our company is
growing with people that wework with. You know, as we sort
of say, you know, we're goingto talk about a subject and
we'll say, "what do you wantmore of and what do you want
less of?" And it's a nice wayfor them to say a lot of things
(25:09):
in a very un unthreatening way.
Instead of saying, tell mewhat's going well and tell me
what's going badly. A less morequestion is kind of saying,
"what if we were to dial downsome of the, the criticism or
the way you talk to me in frontof the team" or you know, I'm
just making stuff up right now.
Not saying take it away, butjust saying, what if we had a
little bit less of that as alistener, somebody that's asked
(25:31):
that question, it's like,"okay, that's a good zone for
me to be aware of that that'san area that that person is not
as happy as they might want tobe." And then if they say, "I
want more of this", it could beamplifying something that's
already going well or justsaying, "Hey, here's an idea of
something that could be evenbetter than what we're doing
now." So Emily and I will askeach other that we'll ask our
family that often. We'll gowith our kids and say, we'll
(25:53):
just go but one by one and say,"what do you want more of? What
do you want less of?" And, andwe get, I like that fantastic
feedback that way.
Troy Blaser (26:00):
You're telling me you never get the answer. We
want less of chores from yourkids.
Emily Orton (26:06):
They , they might want more clarity about that
and maybe they want, you know,less nagging. But it's , it's
in the case because they keepchanging whether it's your
employees and now they havemore skills and they're getting
ready to take on more thingsand they don't need as much of,
or maybe they need more ofsomething else. We find that as
our kids, you know, becomeadults and get married to do
(26:27):
their own thing. Like the rolesare constantly changing and we
like to ask this question likeat least twice a year, just
kind of see where we are.
Sometimes we would do itquarterly, but that's one of
the ways where we don't justsay like, "oh we totally know
what we're doing as parentsnow." And we just bring that
up. And sometimes if we haven'tasked it and they want to talk
about that, they'll say, "Iwant to tell you what I'd like
(26:49):
more or less of." Right. It'spart of the culture now. So
they'll bring it up if theywant to,
Troy Blaser (26:54):
I like that idea as a way to sort of rebalance
the relationship because we'vechanged or you've changed. So
let's check in and see if weneed to do more or less of some
things.
Erik Orton (27:05):
Yeah.
Troy Blaser (27:06):
So I wanted to ask you guys then, you talked about
when you were in Manhattanbefore you went sailing, you
kind of had it dialed in andyou were able to be a mentor to
some of the new families thatmight move in. You could say,
here's how to make your way inManhattan so to speak. What
advice would you give tosomeone, maybe to a family
who's considering a lifealtering adventure similar to
(27:27):
the one that you guys took thatcould be something personal
with their family, it couldeven be a career change, right.
In a professional setting. Isthere advice you would give to
someone who's sort of thinkingthis over?
Erik Orton (27:38):
Yeah, I mean my advice is the first reaction is
going to be all the things thatcan go wrong. And you're going
to say, "well if we go on thisadventure or if I switch jobs
or if I go back to school",whatever big shift you're
thinking of, it's very naturaland normal to think about all
the things that could go wrong.
I would also encourage you toask what are all the things
(28:00):
that could go right? Emily andI host a podcast called "What
Could Go, right?" Because thisquestion is actually the
question that got us out onto asailboat because when it came
down to it, we were just peeour pants scared to go on this
trip. You know, it's all funwhen you're learning how to
sail and the kids are, youknow, trying on their new life
jackets. But then when it comesdown to "Hey, I'm going to quit
(28:22):
my job, we're going to rent outour apartment, we're going to
put everything into bins andboxes and take it with us or
it's going to go into storage",that starts to feel real and it
can be daunting. And wethought, "okay, what are all
the things that could go wrong?
We could sink this boat anddie. We could get injured, it
could ruin us financially.
Right? I could becomeunemployable after this." We
(28:43):
made that list.
Emily Orton (28:44):
Yeah. Our, our youngest has down syndrome and
she got tons of therapy. Therewere so many things to
consider.
Erik Orton (28:51):
Yeah. And so we were getting ready to buy a
boat and we were getting readyto wire six figures worth of
money to an offshore accountfor a boat that we actually
hadn't seen yet. And we justthought, "oh you know what
could go wrong here? A lotcould go wrong." That's why ,
you know, and here's why Irecommend asking what could go
right? Because it's reallyimportant to imagine a success
(29:13):
story. If you don't imaginethat success story, you have
nothing to run towards. And sowe said, "well what could go
right if we do this, we couldhave an amazing family
experience. We could seebeautiful places we could learn
new skills both sailing andotherwise we could come
together like never before as afamily we could grow in
confidence, our kids could growin confidence." And the list
(29:35):
just went on and on and on andon and on. And we realized that
if we did not take this trip,yes we might avoid this list of
what could go wrong, but wewould absolutely not get to
enjoy anything on the whatcould go right list. It was a
hundred percent certain thatthat would not happen. And once
we weighed that in the balance,it really tipped very easily
and we felt like theopportunity cost was way too
(29:58):
high. We would be stupid not togo. And so for anyone that's
contemplating a big shift,whether it's a family adventure
or a career change or anythingof that nature, get a really
strong picture in your mind ofwhat it looks like to really
succeed. Because then the fearsabout the things that are going
to go wrong and some will gowrong, but probably not as many
(30:19):
as you think and probably notas badly as you might think.
The fear about those thingsstarts to evaporate real fast.
And that's what gives you thecourage to go for it is when
you have a strong vision ofwhat it looks like to succeed.
Emily Orton (30:33):
I want to validate what he said. We were working
with a family that they wantedto do something different. They
wanted to build their familyculture. They had ideas of lots
of different trips. And I said,"why don't you run it past your
kids?" Like for real, we tellother people, counsel together,
get feedback, see whateveryone's thinking. And she
came back later the next weekor whenever our next meeting
(30:54):
was and said, well I asked himabout it and then they all said
they don't want to do it. And Isaid, what did you ask? He was
like, "Hey, would you want tolike change up everything and
do something different fromwhat we're doing right now?"
And they all said no. And Isaid, well you, yeah you told
them, "would you like to jumpinto a black hole together?"
You didn't give them anywhereto land, no vision like, but if
(31:17):
you said, "Hey, do you want togo live in Maui and we can ride
horses all the time?" Or do youwant like then you would give
them something to go to? Ofcourse nobody wants to give up
what is familiar for completeblank slate. But if you start
creating a little bit of visionaround it, then it becomes
compelling. And to me that isthe most fun way to move
(31:39):
forward is by having a clearvision. And sometimes we take
small steps in that directionor we'll like Google that city.
Just getting a little bit ofspecifics from the safety of
your comfort zone. We actually,we have a seven part framework
and I'll just share it with youbecause it is a sailing
framework so you can kind ofwrap your head around it pretty
quickly. Choose your island,which is getting that vision
(32:02):
chart, your course cast offnavigate out of the harbor.
These are just like littlescouting trips in that
direction. Once you get out ofthe harbor, you can set your
autopilot. You start to getclose to where you actually
want to be. It gets reallyscary. That's part of the
template. No matter what you'redoing, you're like, "do I
really deserve this? Am Ireally going to do, this is
really happening" and that'sthe time to trust your compass.
(32:22):
And then you arrive and youdrop anchor and we just do
that, you know, over and overagain for whatever the
adventure is. And it's lessscary when you're like, "oh
this is the part where wealways want to turn back." You
know it because you've seen it,whether it was in an outdoor
adventure or in a relationshipor in a business endeavor.
You're like, "oh yeah, I knowthat the fear is going to blow
(32:45):
up here. I'm not going to besurprised by that and I'm going
to step around it and keepmoving." Because you've run the
template.
Troy Blaser (32:53):
So is this framework, is this something
that you apply as you work withothers through the awesome
factory?
Erik Orton (32:59):
Yeah. When we coach with couples or individuals, we
teach them our framework, whichis what we've used for 15 years
to go from adventure toadventure as a family. And
sometimes that adventure lookslike moving onto a sailboat.
Sometimes it looks like gettingback into rock climbing.
Sometimes it looks like ridinga book, sometimes it looks like
launching a business. Theadventure can take a variety of
(33:20):
forms but the process is thesame. And so yeah, what we
teach our coaching clients andwhen we speak, we teach a
system that people can thenlearn once and then apply
throughout their entire livesto create the intentional life
that they want for themselves.
Troy Blaser (33:34):
I like that. And and like you were saying,
Emily, you might be in themiddle of an adventure and you
come to something that causesfear and that specific fear
might be new to you. But if youhave that framework you can
say, oh this fear is new to me,but I know it's part of this
process that I've seen beforeso I don't have to worry quite
as much about it .
Emily Orton (33:52):
A hundred percent .
Troy Blaser (33:54):
So you've told us kind of the story of getting
interested in sailing and overthose four years sort of
working your way towards thisand then ultimately of course
getting out on the water. ButI'm curious, were there moments
when you doubted that decisionto kind of leave that
conventional Manhattan lifebehind? Were there specific
fears that you had to overcome?
(34:15):
How did you kind of workthrough some of those fears and
some of those doubts in theprocess?
Emily Orton (34:19):
I was doubting it all along the way. The only
time when I didn't doubt it iswhen I was encouraging Erik to
go do it. because I thought,"oh he would love it", you
know. But I didn't feel like itwas for me at all . I mentioned
before I was really scared ofdeep water. I would actually
avoid the deep end of acommunity swimming pool. And he
said to me, "oh that's why youneed to learn how to sail then
(34:40):
you never have to get in thewater. You can just stay on the
boat." But as it progresses andyou get to the point where
you're like, "we are going tolive on a boat for a year", I
keep thinking it will end here,this will be enough. And it
kept going. And so I findmyself, I'm with Erik and we
were in the Caribbean and wewere taking a class and we were
(35:01):
on a 50 foot catamaran and wewere all these students and
every day the instructor wouldsay , "who wants to go
snorkeling?" And they would alljump in and I would stay on the
boat alone. And I thinkprobably the second or third
time this happened, because I'mlike, "I have my books. I
thought we were here for class,like what is happening?" And I
(35:21):
hadn't really had to face myfear that way before, but it
got me thinking just sittingthere alone and 15 feet of
crystal blue Caribbean water.
And I thought like, "who do Iwant to be and what kind of
example am I setting for mykids?" And I decided I will
just try to be brave for a fewminutes. And it would've been
(35:46):
nice if I had got in witheverybody, but I was alone now.
And so I put on fins and I puton a snorkel mask and I got in
the water and I just startedkicking as fast as I could
towards the reef so that Icould be with people so I
wouldn't be a lone target. Andsomething went across my
peripheral vision. I rememberfrom right to left, just seeing
(36:06):
a big shape and stopping justfreezing in place. And it took
my brain a second to realizethat it was actually a sea
turtle, which is prettyamazing. Your first time
jumping in the water to see a ,a sea turtle. And I thought,
"wow." And then my immediatenext thought was, you know what
eats sea turtles. And I waseven more scared. I swam even
(36:27):
faster and I got to the thereef and there were a lot of
little snorkel tubes and I knewI wasn't the only shark bait
out there. And so then I sawwhat was there and it was so
different than watching anature video on tv. I could
hear everything. I wascompletely immersed. There were
just fish of all differentcolors, sea fans , different
(36:49):
color corals. And there wasthis little fish, it looked
like it had a smile on itsface. It's called a parrot fish
. I know now. And I justthought, I'm just going to
follow you. It was like beingin that movie Finding Nemo. And
I was just so fascinated bythis completely different
environment right below thesurface that I forgot to be
afraid. And when Erik saw meagain, he invited me to swim
(37:13):
back to the boat together. Heis like, "you want to go back?"
And I said "no, because this ismy new favorite thing." And it
was great that it changed myrelationship to the ocean. It
was way safer. I was way moreexcited about this trip as a
family if I was going to be,you know , an adult who could
get in the water. But it moreimportantly did change my
relationship to fear. And Ithink that's part of how this
(37:35):
template came about. Werealized doubts are always
going to be present, fear isalways going to be around. And
it just depends like how highdo we want to turn the volume
on that and how much of adecision making impact do we
want those feelings to have. SoI would never say like, oh I'm
fearless, or fear or doubtnever comes up. It always comes
(37:56):
up. And then I have to decide,am I going to turn, turn down
the volume o n that? Becauseusually something that
generates that fear in you is alittle indicator that there's
something special for youthere. And so, you know, my
takeaway question was like,"what other favorite things are
on the other side of my fears?"And sometimes I hate that
(38:18):
question because it's veryuncomfortable and it makes me
squirm, but it helps me grow.
Troy Blaser (38:23):
Right. So the next day when it was time to go
snorkeling, was there stillsome fear of getting in the
water or was it gone?
Emily Orton (38:30):
I mean there's a habit. There can also be the
habit of being afraid. But likelogically I knew I was fine. So
I continued to get in the waterthroughout that whole year. And
after we got back, I actuallycertified to be a patty scuba
diver. And I went down to 60feet. So it felt like a full, a
full circle for me. But yeah,it opened up the entire ocean
(38:54):
to just be brave for fewminutes.
Troy Blaser (38:57):
That second day it's like you were a little
late to the party but you'relike, "Hey have you guys seen
the reef? There's so many coolthings, right?" And they're
like, "yeah we've, we've seenit. We've been."
Emily Orton (39:05):
And I know I'm not the only one because we've had
people come on sailing tripswith us that have been in that
same experience and literallyhave said to me, "yeah, I heard
your story but I'm not going tobe like you." And then at the
end of the week they havegotten in, they have overcome
that concern. To the point thatthey actually are really
enjoying themselves in thewater.
Troy Blaser (39:25):
That's cool. What about for you Erik? Were there
moments when you had doubtswhen you thought, "hey, what in
the world are we doing?" Howdid you kind of work through
some of those challenges thatyou felt?
Erik Orton (39:36):
Yeah, for sure.
When we moved onto thesailboat, we got there and we
realized that it wasn't readyfor us. We flew down to St .
Martin, we got on our boat andwhen we got there, there was no
main sail on the boat. One ofthe two engines was in really
rough shape and a whole bunchof other things. We realized
that life in the Caribbean wasgoing to be exponentially more
expensive than we thought. Andwe realized that just our
(39:59):
skillset was coming up short.
And so we were ready to throwin the towel and we said, let's
just get out of here. We'llsell the boat. I'll beg for my
job back. We'll get on a plane,we'll all fly home and we'll
spend the winter watchingNetflix and eating pizza. We
want to, we just want to getback to our comfort zone.
Emily Orton (40:16):
We just want a couch.
Erik Orton (40:19):
Yeah. We just want a couch. Our boat didn't have a
couch. Uh, and so we said, "butbefore we do, let's take the
boat out at least once. Wewould feel really bad if we
didn't leave the marina onetime." So we took the boat out
and you know, we had a mainsail at this point and they'd
looked at a couple of otherthings, the people we were
buying the boat from. But itwas still a work in progress.
And as we left this marina, thekids went out on deck, they
(40:41):
were going to help raise thesails and we were just going to
go to this little island thatwas an hour away, spend the
night, come back the next day.
And as we go out of thismarina, the boat just plunges
almost, it felt like straightdown. And then reached the
bottom of this wave trough andthen just came right back up.
And in the process, everythinginside the boat went flying in
(41:03):
the air. The kids on the frontof the boat went flying up in
the air. I really thought wewere going to lose one or more
of them overboard. Fortunatelythey all landed back on deck
and we just sort of pounded ourway out of this channel that we
had no idea was so treacherousand tumultuous. And then we
were grateful to survive that.
(41:24):
We got out into open water. Thekids kind of shook it off. And
they, we got the sails up andthen we turned the boat to sail
to this island. The wind wascoming from the side of the
boat. So we're rocking back andforth, left to right and we all
immediately got terriblyseasick. So we had a miserable
one hour sail. We get to thisisland and we drop the sails.
(41:45):
We're trying to drop anchor andit's a new boat to us. The kids
are, they're on the front ofthe boat trying to lower the
anchor and I'm shouting andyelling instructions from the
back and we're just a disaster.
And all these other boats thathave been anchored there for a
while are just kind of sittingthere with their drinks and
watching us as the ridiculousshow that we were finally get
the boat anchored and we'reable to stop for the night. And
(42:08):
the sun has set, you know, wewere kind of racing daylight.
We all just fell on the floorlike we were laying on the
floor. We couldn't eat dinner.
I think Emily prepared somebroth for dinner. And as we're
laying there all commiserating,I just sort of said out loud,
"whose dumb idea was this?" Andthere's a chapter in our book
called "Who's Dumb Idea WasThis". Because this was such a
(42:31):
, a pivotal moment for us. Andthe kids all lift their heads
up enough to look at me kind oflike side eye and be like,
"dad, this was your idea." AndEmily very graciously came to
my rescue and said, "now let'sbe honest, we all bought into
this." We all agreed to dothis. And so we can't pin it on
dad, but we really thought thiswas just the worst decision
(42:53):
we'd ever made. And Emily spokeearlier about gratitude. This
was the day before we kind oftook stock and got grateful.
Because the next morning wetook the kids to shore and we
said, "let's take a moment."You know, the question that got
us out on this trip was "whatcould go right?" And we talked
about that earlier and I said,"let's ask ourselves what's
(43:16):
going right right now. Let'snot be hypothetical in the
future. Let's say what'shappening right now that we're
grateful for." And we wentthrough and we asked the kids.
And actually when, when Emilyand I keynote, we recorded
these answers on video and weshare them when we keynote .
And it's really fun to hearthat day, that morning what the
kids actually said. And it wasthat gratitude, that moment of
(43:36):
taking stock of what was goingwell right then that kept us
out there. We obviously did notsell the boat, we did not get
on a plane and fly home and Idid not beg for my job back. We
stuck it out. But absolutelywere there moments when we
doubted our decision? So manyright at the beginning, as the
trip progressed, that becameless and less frequent. But it
(43:58):
was, it's a strong force at thebeginning of any big shift in
your life. So we've just cometo learn to expect it. And
that's the same thing we tellto our coaching clients is
there's going to be strongresistance before and after you
make your big decision, justprepare for it'
Troy Blaser (44:12):
And take a moment to see what's going. Right.
Right now
Emily Orton (44:15):
We actually do that. We typically have a
weekly meeting and the topagenda item is what's awesome
about right now,
Erik Orton (44:24):
Emily's talking about her and I having our
business meeting.
Emily Orton (44:27):
Yeah, when we meet for our business every week we
make the list first thing oflike what's awesome about right
now. And then we go into ourother key objectives and what's
happening here and what tasksneed to come up. But we always
start from that place of what'sactually going right.
Troy Blaser (44:41):
It kind of anchors you to the , that vision you
were talking about. It canbring that vision back to mind
a little bit. You don't have tobe lost in the negative
pessimistic details, but startfrom that positive vision. I
like that. So what's next forthe Orton's? What's next for
the Orton family? Is there anadventure you have planned next
for your family or for the twoof you? What are you passionate
about right now?
Emily Orton (45:02):
Yeah, I'll go first. I'm actually, I'm
talking to you from the townwhere our daughter lives
because she had a baby lastweek and it's our first
grandchild and
Troy Blaser (45:14):
Awesome.
Congratulations.
Emily Orton (45:16):
It's so fun. So that's, you know, one that's
really close to my heart.
Troy Blaser (45:20):
That's fantastic.
Congratulations to both of you.
That is definitely anadventure.
Erik Orton (45:25):
Thank you for our business that one of the things
that that I really enjoy is wetake people sailing. Uh, we
like to give people a chance totry living on a sailboat for a
week. And we do trips all overthe world, but I'm going to
Thailand in a couple of weeksto take out another group and
we do trips all year round allover the world. We just follow
the good weather and, and it'sa lot of fun to uh, help people
(45:46):
get that experience of what itmight feel like to live on a
sailboat and then see what thatopens up for them. So I'm
excited to go to Thailand. LikeI said, I've never been there
before, so that's a new one forme.
Troy Blaser (45:56):
I have to think that when you were walking
along the shores in Manhattandreaming about maybe getting to
know about sailing, that'sprobably not something you ever
had in mind was taking clientson a trip to Thailand for a
week.
Erik Orton (46:09):
No way. Yeah. We've blown way past my ability to
imagine a cool future. We'reway beyond whatever thought was
possible and it's been a funjourney. We're happy to keep
going.
Troy Blaser (46:21):
Well, Erik and Emily, I've really enjoyed this
conversation. I feel like wecould keep talking and hear
adventures, but if people wantto know more or if they want to
connect with you about theadventure, but about other
things as well, what shouldthey do? How should people get
in touch with you?
Erik Orton (46:38):
I would say social media. The awesome factory, NYC
NYC as in New York City, or ourwebsite, which is the. Those
are the best ways to find this.
Troy Blaser (46:49):
Cool, well thanks again. It's been wonderful to
have you on today. I've reallyenjoyed our conversation. Thank
you so much.
Emily Orton (46:54):
Thanks so much for having us. It was delightful.
Erik Orton (46:57):
Yeah, it's been a blast. Thanks so much Troy.
Here's why I recommend asking "what could go
right?" Because it's reallyimportant to imagine a success
story. If you don't imaginethat success story, you have
nothing to run towards. And sowe said, "well, what could go
right if we do this?" We couldhave an amazing family
experience. We could seebeautiful places, we could
learn new skills, both sailingand otherwise. We could come
(00:23):
together like never before as afamily. We could grow in
confidence. Our kids could growin confidence. And the list
just went on and on and on andon and on. And we realized that
if we did not take this trip,yes, we might avoid this list
of what could go wrong, but wewould absolutely not get to
enjoy anything on the whatcould go right list. It was a
hundred percent certain thatthat would not happen.
Troy Blaser (00:50):
Hello, welcome to Simply Feedback, the podcast
brought to you by LearningBridge . I'm your host, Troy
Blaser. It's great to have youalong with us today, I'm
excited to introduce today'sguests. We have two guests. We
have Emily and Erik Orton withus today. They're here to tell
us about an amazing journeythat they embarked on leaving
(01:11):
behind their conventional lifein New York City to sail the
world with their five children.
As authors of the book "Sevenat Sea", they share the lessons
learned from their lifechanging adventure. Co-founders
of The Awesome Factory, theynow help others embrace
creativity, resilience, andadventure in their own lives.
Through workshops and speakingengagements, they inspire
(01:32):
people to pursue their dreamsand tackle challenges head on .
So in today's episode of SimplyFeedback, Emily and Erik
explore with us how feedbackplays a crucial role in
navigating both personal andprofessional growth. Erik and
Emily Orton, welcome to SimplyFeedback. It's so great to have
you with us today.
Erik Orton (01:49):
Thanks, Troy.
Thanks for having us on. It'sgreat to be here.
Emily Orton (01:52):
Thanks. We are so happy to be here with you and
love what you're doing. It's soimportant.
Troy Blaser (01:56):
Awesome. Before we get into more about your
specific story, if you couldmaybe share with us a time that
somebody gave you feedback inyour life. Maybe it was
feedback that was a turningpoint in a career, or that it
affected you personally. Isthere a story that you can
share with us about a timesomebody gave you feedback?
Emily Orton (02:16):
I can share one actually, from living on the
sailboat, because we had spentmany years and went to great
pains to get out on a sailboatwith our family. And we wanted
to spend this time together andstrengthen our relationships.
And we got there and thingsweren't quite what we expected.
And within a few days, the kidspulled us aside and said, we
(02:42):
came out here to be together.
And you guys are always likegoing off to the Chandry, which
is a specialty store for boatitems and like troubleshooting
things on the boat and we arenot being together. And you
know , they knew what the goalwas and they saw that we
weren't meeting the goal, eventhough we were being active and
(03:04):
stressing about taking care ofeveryone. And yeah, they put
our feet to the coals and werealized it's true. We don't
have to have all the problemssolved to be able to still
actually do our goal. And itwas really grateful that they
called us out because itallowed us to recognize we're
never going to have everysingle problem solved. We're
(03:25):
not going to get it all donebefore we actually do the goal
of being together. And so wehad to make adjustments and it
was a surprise to us that wewould actually need to calendar
family time after, you know,going 2,500 miles from home and
moving on a small boat togetherand all of that stuff. But I'm
(03:45):
so grateful that they didbecause, you know, we were the
authority figures and theycould have just said nothing
like, "well, they're the boss",and they didn't. And it made it
a better experience for all ofus.
Troy Blaser (03:58):
Oh , that's awesome. That's awesome. To get
some feedback from the kids tobe like, Hey, here's what you
said is important. We are notseeing that. So let's change
things up a little bit.
Erik Orton (04:08):
The example that came to mind when I first heard
this question is, it's not aflattering one, I guess, but,
and Emily, maybe you can helpme remember this, but at some
point my kids came to, I guessfeedback is coming from our
kids. Because this is the onethat popped to mind. My
daughters came to me and said,dad, you're an attractive guy,
but the way you dress, peoplehave a hard time seeing that.
Troy Blaser (04:33):
Okay.
Erik Orton (04:34):
And so I guess I was wearing sort of frumpy,
oversized clothes. And , uh,they're just kind of like, dad,
you need a little bit of amakeover and , uh, you need to
wear clothes that fit youbetter if you want to look, you
know, more put together andmore attractive. And I was
like, "oh, okay". And Emily,can you remember when that,
when we had that conversation?
Emily Orton (04:54):
Yeah, I remember you were the artistic director
at the Cape Playhouse in DennisCape Cod.
Erik Orton (05:01):
Okay . So this would've been after we lived on
the sailboat. And yeah, I hadsort of a very public facing
job. I was sort of the face forthis, for this organization,
and they were basically tellingme I needed to up my wardrobe.
And so I shopped. And eversince then, I've shopped
differently for myself. AndI've learned to get comfortable
in clothes that fit me betterand that make me look more
professional, that make me looka little bit more put together.
(05:23):
And it's made a shift for meover the past many years. And
so I appreciated my kids kindof not being afraid to tell me
something about myself that Iprobably would never, would've
come up with. And certainlynobody in a professional
setting is going to say that tome. So I appreciated it.
Troy Blaser (05:39):
Yeah, I was going to say, there's some feedback
that can only come from certainpeople, right? And to come from
your own daughters who areprobably more tuned into
fashion than, than you are orcertainly than I am as a middle
aged dad. Right? That'svaluable feedback that makes
your life just a little bitmore polished, a little bit
smoother in your professionallife.
Erik Orton (06:00):
Yeah, for sure.
Emily Orton (06:02):
I have one more example that I love from Erik.
He had been out of the rockclimbing game for a little
while and he decided he wasgoing to jump back in.
Erik Orton (06:11):
A little while being 20 years.
Troy Blaser (06:14):
Okay.
Emily Orton (06:15):
Yeah, couple decades. And he wanted to jump
back in and he was like, mygear is not in good shape and
we'll need to look for some newthings. And so we went to this
gear shop and he was lookingfor something very specific.
And the guys there, if you'veever been to one of these
shops, they're usually about21. And Erik walked in, he'd
(06:35):
been climbing since he was 14years old, and he is like, I
want this specific thing. Andthey said, well, we have that,
but people aren't really usingthat anymore. Now we're using
this. And Erik immediatelyshifted gears and instead of
saying,"hey, I know what Iwant, I know what I'm doing.
I've been climbing longer thanyou've been alive". He said,
"show me how it works". And hebought the new thing. I was so
(06:59):
impressed because it's notalways easy to take feedback.
It's not always easy to take itfrom someone who's your junior,
but if you want to progress,then a little humility is like
rocket fuel. So I really wasimpressed.
Troy Blaser (07:14):
Erik, I can totally understand how that
must have felt going into aclimbing shop. I skied growing
up through high school, took abreak when the family came
along, and then as the kidsstarted to get a little older,
I was like, "okay, I, we wereready to get back into it". And
it's the same kind of thing.
You're out of that for a longtime. Go into a , a ski shop or
a climbing shop, and I can seehow that could be, you could be
(07:36):
nervous about acceptingfeedback from them.
Erik Orton (07:39):
Well , thanks love , I appreciate the compliment.
And Troy, thanks for for thevalidation.
Troy Blaser (07:44):
Yeah, that's awesome. So it sounds like
adventure is important in yourfamily, important to the two of
you and to your family. Let'stalk about the sailing trip,
the adventure of taking yourfamily out in a sailboat for a
year. What was some of themotivations? How did this come
to be as you talked about thisidea of, you know, leaving New
York behind embarking on thisadventure with your family?
Emily Orton (08:08):
I think it was actually some really public
feedback. I mean, I hadn'tthought about it this way
before, but Erik was working inthe Broadway industry and he
was working on a show that wasa phenom "Wicked", right? Like
he could still be working onthat. He wanted to have stayed
there, but he wanted to producesomething on his own. And he
(08:29):
found a show that he reallyloved and felt good about. And
he raised the money, puttogether the team, got the
theater, put it all up, and theshow opened the day our fourth
child was due, did not comeuntil the next day . And so the
next day we went to thehospital and he told his
partner, you know, "I'm offgrid for 24 hours". And the
(08:54):
reviews came out and thereviews were mixed. Some of
them were great, some of themnot so great. And his partner
felt like it wasn't sturdyenough to validate a hope that
there would be a lot moreticket sales. And so she felt
like the best call was to closethe show so the investors'
money could be protected, butthat if the audiences rallied,
(09:15):
they could always take downclosing notices. And that isn't
necessarily the same way thatErik felt about it. He felt
like that was kind of the deathnail, like no coming back from
the closing notice . And itwas, it was kind of
heartbreaking. And so the showclosed for us, it was
financially devastating. Now hewas unemployed, he had quit
(09:36):
everything else to put ahundred percent into this. And
now I had just had a brand newbaby, our fourth child. And
Erik, do you want to pick it upfrom there how you were
feeling?
Erik Orton (09:46):
Yeah, sure. I guess I'll just clarify that my
business partner made thisdecision while I was in the
hospital with my family, kindof made it unilaterally. And so
I came out of this bubble andfound out that our show was
closing, that we wereessentially the Orton family
was going to be financiallywiped out. Of course, it's just
a heartbreak. And I ended up onthe cover of a magazine called
(10:06):
Cranes Business New York as theposter boy for the failed
off-Broadway industry at thetime, because there was a lot
of shows that closed in quicksuccession. And so nothing like
being on the front of amagazine to give you a little
feedback about what isn'tworking. And so it was
embarrassing. It was kind of,traumatizing might be a strong
(10:27):
word, but I I just really felthumiliated professionally and
just wanted to disappear. Andyet I still needed to earn some
money to take care of ourfamily. And so I got a temp job
down in lower Manhattan in thefinancial district and was
basically working nights as acontractor for the Wall Street
industry. And what I didn'trealize at the time was that
(10:50):
this temporary job wasimmediately upstairs from a
sailing school that was righton the Hudson River. And I
would tell Emily about thesebeautiful boats that I would
see at night at sunset. I wouldtake a dinner break and I'd go
walk along the, the HudsonRiver and I would see these
sailboats and tell her how muchI wished I was out there on the
water and how peaceful itlooked. And I talked about it
(11:10):
enough that she finally said,you should go check this out.
And I said, you know, "I'm notgoing to do that because we're
broke and I don't know anythingabout sailboats". And it's one
of the most expensive marinasin the world, I've since
learned. And you know, this isfor hedge fund managers and
investment bankers and notbroke, off-Broadway producers
(11:31):
like me. And so it felt like akid looking through the window
of a candy store. Like youwanted what's on the other
side, but it's for otherpeople. And Emily finally
persuaded me to go in and justlearn, just ask. And so I did
one day, I went in early and I,I said, you know, "I'm
interested in learning how tosail. I don't know anything.
How does this work?" And I'moften asked what was the
(11:53):
hardest part of our sailingjourney? And people are often
surprised when I say this wasthe hardest part, this part
where I had to sort of put my,my feelings of failure and
disappointment on hold and stepinto a situation where I felt
very much out of my elementsocially, financially, every
(12:15):
other way. And just start aconversation and, you know, and
then it proceeded from there,of course they were happy to
take my money and give me somesailing lessons and, and teach
me and Emily and the kids and,and things rolled on from
there. You know, your originalquestion, Troy, was where did
the, the idea, the inspirationcome from? And I think that's
the hardest part for all of uson our journey. When we, when
we want something different orsomething better in our lives,
(12:39):
it's so hard to imagineourselves in that new new
place, that new role. And sojust being willing to step into
something that felt very muchbeyond me was really the, the
trickiest part. And I think foranybody listening, whatever it
is that you want to becomethrough feedback, through
choices, don't cut yourselfoff. You know, it's so easy to
(13:01):
disqualify ourselves from theget go and say, oh, other
people do that. I don't dothat. I don't get to do that.
And so just being willing tostep into this sailing school
opened up a whole world for ourwhole family. And I'm really
grateful for Emily'sencouragement to do that. And
that's kind of where it beganright there in that moment.
Troy Blaser (13:18):
That's an awesome beginning. It sounds like for
you the phrase the first stepis the hardest. That was the
case. Right? And fortunatelyyou did have Emily kind of
there to encourage you to say,"you keep talking about this,
take some action on it". Right.
Erik Orton (13:33):
Don't be all talk walk the walk.
Emily Orton (13:35):
Well then the surprise was when he turned it
around and said, I want you tocome take these classes with
me. And I was like, "I don'twant to go sailing. I , I just
wanted you to have something",you know. And anyway , but
yeah, I was like, "wait aminute, what am I"
Troy Blaser (13:49):
So you had to take that difficult step too. You
had, you know, to jump into awhole world that you were
unfamiliar with. Yeah,
Emily Orton (13:56):
Absolutely.
Troy Blaser (13:56):
That's cool.
Erik Orton (13:57):
And Emily at the time was very afraid of deep
water and so it was, it was apretty big ask to have her come
take this class with me. Butshe, she had to push past some
fears as well.
Troy Blaser (14:07):
Yeah. So what were some of the reactions from
friends, from family? What wassome of the feedback that you
got from them when you firststarted talking about this idea
of going out?
Emily Orton (14:17):
I don't know what they thought privately, but
since we were in New York City,we were surrounded by people
who were doing something alittle unusual, pursuing a
dream. You don't live in NewYork City because it's the easy
thing to do. So in thatimmediate group around us, they
were like, "okay, cool, go forit". But I do know that after
(14:39):
we actually did it, that's whenwe found out that people were
actually pretty surprised.
Like, oh, it's one thing totalk about it and another thing
to do it like "we'll see" iskind of maybe what their
private reaction was. But Iwould say maybe the biggest
reaction again came from ourkids. And whether you're the
leader and you're gettingfeedback from the people who
(15:01):
you're guiding or you're theparent and you're getting
feedback from your kids, theysee, they know what they are,
your secret weapon. And so Iremember one day we came back
from sailing class and ourdaughter was 14 at the time and
she said, I hear you talk aboutthis a lot, but do you really
have the guts to do it? And Ithink that's what everybody was
(15:23):
wondering because we talkedabout it for years. We bought
life jackets, we took sailingclasses, we said we're going to
do this. But we were stillliving in our same apartment
for about four years. And youknow, we thought we wanted to
do it. It was scary, but it wasexciting to move towards it.
But when she said that, I thinkwe realized, man, our
(15:44):
credibility is on the line.
Like right now it's a fun idea,it's fun to play with it, but
if we don't do it, what are ourchildren going to take away
from that? And so it actuallykind of added, I think a little
to our fire to be like, man, wereally have to get this across
the threshold, you know.
Troy Blaser (16:01):
They keep holding your feet to the fire. First
they said, "are you reallygoing to do this?" Then later
they're like, "hey mom and dad,you said we were going to do
this for family togethernessand we're not seeing that yet".
So step up in that area please.
Erik Orton (16:13):
Our kids are pretty rough on us
Troy Blaser (16:15):
I think, on every parent, right. I mean they have
a way of being brutally honestsometimes.
Erik Orton (16:20):
Yeah. And it's good if we're humble enough to
listen, they can actually besome of our best teachers I
think.
Emily Orton (16:25):
Yeah. We start asking them pretty young for
their input and their feedbackand they see us take action on
it. And so that emboldens themto continue giving us feedback
as we ask for it. I mean, thatwas a deliberate thing that we
did. And it's really hadamazing dividends for us.
Troy Blaser (16:42):
At Learning Bridge . We sort of have this motto
that is often repeated and thatis the idea of receiving
feedback graciously and actingon it visibly. And that's kind
of what you were just talkingabout because once your kids
saw, "hey, when we give somefeedback to mom and dad, they
make changes and we can seethose changes. So we want to
continue to give that feedback." That's fantastic. Okay, so
(17:04):
four years of preparation andworking up the courage and
making all the plans. What weresome of the challenges
transitioning from life in aManhattan apartment to life on
a sailboat? I don't know if theliving spaces were bigger in
the apartment or bigger in thesailboat. It could go either
way. When you're talking aboutan , an apartment in Manhattan,
Erik Orton (17:25):
I think ironically we had more privacy on our
sailboat than we did in ourapartment because we lived in a
two bedroom , one bathapartment and all the kids
shared one room, the biggerbedroom. And Emily and I had
one room. And on the boat wehad a four cabin, two bathroom
boat. It was 38 feet long, 21feet wide. It was a catamaran.
(17:47):
And so it was physically squarefootage wise , it was smaller
than our apartment. Buteveryone had these little
cabins and there was two peopleper cabin instead of five kids
all in one. And we had twobathrooms, which just felt like
a massive luxury, even thoughyou had to pump it by hand with
this little piston that woulddrain the toilet. But we had
the biggest, coolest backyardin the world. So that was
(18:09):
really fun. And I think, Iguess I'll say this, when you
get on a boat, you realize younever think about where your
electricity comes from. Younever think about what you're
going to do with your garbage.
Where does it go? You neverthink about what happens to
human waste. You never thinkabout where does the internet
come from When you're on aboat. You think about all of
those things. You know, whereis the nearest gas station? If
(18:31):
you need fuel for your boat,where's the nearest water
source? Where's the nearestplace we can drop off some
garbage. You know, where can wepick up some internet? All
those things that we take forgranted is just in the air. In
fact, we always tease our son,our , our only son that he was
young when we moved on theboat. And what's something that
he learned on this trip? Helearned that there is such a
(18:52):
thing as no internet.
Troy Blaser (18:54):
It's true. Yeah. I mean, Manhattan is an extreme
on one side with this big giantcity, millions of people,
right? To almost, you're theonly people for miles and miles
and miles. And so it's hard toimagine two living environments
that are farther apart.
Erik Orton (19:13):
We had lived in New York City at that time, what ,
uh, 15 years. And we'd, threeof our kids had been born
there. We had it dialed in.
Like we knew how to live in NewYork City. We were very
comfortable if new people movedin, we were the ones that were,
you know, we can tell you how,how to adapt, how to figure
this out. We knew what we weredoing, I guess I would say. And
(19:34):
I think one of the hardestthings for us when we moved
onto a boat was we did not knowwhat we were doing. We really
became the newbies despite allof the preparation that we had
made, which we thought wasgoing to serve us well. And it
did. But it was far fromadequate. We didn't know all
the things that we didn't know.
We got out there, we were wayover our heads. And I think,
(19:55):
and we talk about this in ourbook, "Seven at Sea", we
realized early on that weneeded help. That we were just,
again, way over our heads. AndI think one of the smartest
things that we did was wesought out mentors. And like
you said, people don't live asclosely together, but there's a
lot of people living on boatsand they have a radio net.
(20:15):
There's kind of a town hallevery morning for people that
live on boats. You'd tune intoa certain channel on the VHF
radio in St . Martin where wewere picking up our boat and we
just hopped on there and kindof face first said," Hey, we're
brand new. We don't know what'sgoing on. If anyone's willing
to talk with us, we'd love tolearn and you can kind of coach
us up." We were very open tofeedback. And there was this
(20:36):
couple that had been living ontheir boat for over a decade.
They said, "yeah, swing bysometime we'll be happy to
answer any questions we can."And I think that was the
beginning of hope for us. Afterfeeling like we had made the
dumbest decision of our livesto move on to a boat, finding
people who could teach us andhelp us through our, our rookie
(20:58):
year on the water was reallythe shift that I think brought
us from despair and aninclination to quit to. Okay, I
think we can make it through. Ithink we can learn our way
through this.
Emily Orton (21:10):
I love what you said, Erik, learn our way
through this. It , you talkedabout it being our rookie year.
I remember before we left, weheard something by Liz Wiseman
where she talked about therookie advantage. And the
rookie knows that they don'tknow and they're a little
anxious about it because theywant to do well, but they know
they don't have all theskillset to do it. And so they
(21:32):
do seek out mentors, they seekout feedback and you know, they
say, "can you look at what I'vedone? Do you have any
suggestions for me?" And thenthat actually gives them an
advantage. Whereas once youfeel a little more comfortable,
you can get a little morecasual in it and you might not
be quite so on your toes. Andwe definitely saw that in our
early days, like when we jumpedon that VHF coop town hall
(21:56):
thing. We jumped in at thewrong place and the host
smacked us down in front ofeverybody and kind of chastised
us. And we were like, "well, wecan't get our feelings hurt
because we need help. And sowe're just going to have to
keep trying." And that wasactually super helpful. And I
would say two more things. One,that was a major transition for
us. We had fewer people in morerooms. There was so little
(22:21):
privacy. We had a dinghyattached to our boat and we,
Erik and I once tied the ropeand just let the dinghy out and
the two of us in the dinghy andall the kids on the boat at
Anchor, because we were tryingto have a private conversation
and they were just standing onthe back of the boat like,
"mom, dad" you know , I waslike, "Ugh."
Troy Blaser (22:41):
You're like, "we're going on a date. Leave
us alone for a minute."
Erik Orton (22:45):
Yeah, we're, we're going to be 75 feet away. So.
Emily Orton (22:49):
It was hard to get any privacy. But the other
thing that really helped, likeErik said, it did feel at the
beginning overwhelming. It feltlike we weren't meeting our
goals. Like this was a dumbidea and we all really just
wanted to go home. So if youfeel that way in the early
stages of something that'sactually really normal, you are
like, "this is way harder thanI thought I want to give up."
(23:10):
But what we did instead is wetook a very short trip to a
very close island. We didbadly. We were a hot mess, but
we made it from point A topoint B. And in the morning we
asked everybody, "what do youlike about right now? Let's
just focus on what are some ofthe good things that are
happening right now." And werealized that through those
(23:34):
hard times when we wouldpractice a little gratitude
that actually gave us theemotional stamina to do what
Erik said and say like, we'regoing to be able to learn our
way through this. But we, youknow, it felt like everything
was bad and it was myopic. Andso when we took a moment to
like change lenses, we're like,"okay, there's some redeeming
(23:57):
qualities about thisexperience. Let's keep trying."
Troy Blaser (24:00):
I wanted to go back. You talked about the
rookie advantage and about howwhen you are a rookie, you know
you need help. So you're askingfor that. And as you become a
veteran and you're no longer arookie, you get complacent, but
you also stop asking forfeedback, right? You think,
"well, I've got it down pat, Idon't need to to hear what's
out there anymore." And goingall the way back to the
(24:20):
beginning of our conversation,when Erik, when you went into
that climbing shop, you couldhave said, "oh, I'm, I'm not a
rookie. I know what I'm doingand here's the piece of
equipment that I want." Butinstead, you were able to see
from a different perspectiveand say, "okay, maybe I, I do
need to get some feedbackhere." So I really like that
idea of the rookie advantageand trying to maybe maintain
(24:41):
some of that advantage eventhough it can be easy to become
complacent as we proceed.
Erik Orton (24:46):
Can I share with you one of the favorite
questions that has served uswell in asking for feedback?
Sure. And we usually use thiswith our kids, but sometimes we
use this with others and I'musing it more as our company is
growing with people that wework with. You know, as we sort
of say, you know, we're goingto talk about a subject and
we'll say, "what do you wantmore of and what do you want
less of?" And it's a nice wayfor them to say a lot of things
(25:09):
in a very un unthreatening way.
Instead of saying, tell mewhat's going well and tell me
what's going badly. A less morequestion is kind of saying,
"what if we were to dial downsome of the, the criticism or
the way you talk to me in frontof the team" or you know, I'm
just making stuff up right now.
Not saying take it away, butjust saying, what if we had a
little bit less of that as alistener, somebody that's asked
(25:31):
that question, it's like,"okay, that's a good zone for
me to be aware of that that'san area that that person is not
as happy as they might want tobe." And then if they say, "I
want more of this", it could beamplifying something that's
already going well or justsaying, "Hey, here's an idea of
something that could be evenbetter than what we're doing
now." So Emily and I will askeach other that we'll ask our
family that often. We'll gowith our kids and say, we'll
(25:53):
just go but one by one and say,"what do you want more of? What
do you want less of?" And, andwe get, I like that fantastic
feedback that way.
Troy Blaser (26:00):
You're telling me you never get the answer. We
want less of chores from yourkids.
Emily Orton (26:06):
They , they might want more clarity about that
and maybe they want, you know,less nagging. But it's , it's
in the case because they keepchanging whether it's your
employees and now they havemore skills and they're getting
ready to take on more thingsand they don't need as much of,
or maybe they need more ofsomething else. We find that as
our kids, you know, becomeadults and get married to do
(26:27):
their own thing. Like the rolesare constantly changing and we
like to ask this question likeat least twice a year, just
kind of see where we are.
Sometimes we would do itquarterly, but that's one of
the ways where we don't justsay like, "oh we totally know
what we're doing as parentsnow." And we just bring that
up. And sometimes if we haven'tasked it and they want to talk
about that, they'll say, "Iwant to tell you what I'd like
(26:49):
more or less of." Right. It'spart of the culture now. So
they'll bring it up if theywant to,
Troy Blaser (26:54):
I like that idea as a way to sort of rebalance
the relationship because we'vechanged or you've changed. So
let's check in and see if weneed to do more or less of some
things.
Erik Orton (27:05):
Yeah.
Troy Blaser (27:06):
So I wanted to ask you guys then, you talked about
when you were in Manhattanbefore you went sailing, you
kind of had it dialed in andyou were able to be a mentor to
some of the new families thatmight move in. You could say,
here's how to make your way inManhattan so to speak. What
advice would you give tosomeone, maybe to a family
who's considering a lifealtering adventure similar to
(27:27):
the one that you guys took thatcould be something personal
with their family, it couldeven be a career change, right.
In a professional setting. Isthere advice you would give to
someone who's sort of thinkingthis over?
Erik Orton (27:38):
Yeah, I mean my advice is the first reaction is
going to be all the things thatcan go wrong. And you're going
to say, "well if we go on thisadventure or if I switch jobs
or if I go back to school",whatever big shift you're
thinking of, it's very naturaland normal to think about all
the things that could go wrong.
I would also encourage you toask what are all the things
(28:00):
that could go right? Emily andI host a podcast called "What
Could Go, right?" Because thisquestion is actually the
question that got us out onto asailboat because when it came
down to it, we were just peeour pants scared to go on this
trip. You know, it's all funwhen you're learning how to
sail and the kids are, youknow, trying on their new life
jackets. But then when it comesdown to "Hey, I'm going to quit
(28:22):
my job, we're going to rent outour apartment, we're going to
put everything into bins andboxes and take it with us or
it's going to go into storage",that starts to feel real and it
can be daunting. And wethought, "okay, what are all
the things that could go wrong?
We could sink this boat anddie. We could get injured, it
could ruin us financially.
Right? I could becomeunemployable after this." We
(28:43):
made that list.
Emily Orton (28:44):
Yeah. Our, our youngest has down syndrome and
she got tons of therapy. Therewere so many things to
consider.
Erik Orton (28:51):
Yeah. And so we were getting ready to buy a
boat and we were getting readyto wire six figures worth of
money to an offshore accountfor a boat that we actually
hadn't seen yet. And we justthought, "oh you know what
could go wrong here? A lotcould go wrong." That's why ,
you know, and here's why Irecommend asking what could go
right? Because it's reallyimportant to imagine a success
(29:13):
story. If you don't imaginethat success story, you have
nothing to run towards. And sowe said, "well what could go
right if we do this, we couldhave an amazing family
experience. We could seebeautiful places we could learn
new skills both sailing andotherwise we could come
together like never before as afamily we could grow in
confidence, our kids could growin confidence." And the list
(29:35):
just went on and on and on andon and on. And we realized that
if we did not take this trip,yes we might avoid this list of
what could go wrong, but wewould absolutely not get to
enjoy anything on the whatcould go right list. It was a
hundred percent certain thatthat would not happen. And once
we weighed that in the balance,it really tipped very easily
and we felt like theopportunity cost was way too
(29:58):
high. We would be stupid not togo. And so for anyone that's
contemplating a big shift,whether it's a family adventure
or a career change or anythingof that nature, get a really
strong picture in your mind ofwhat it looks like to really
succeed. Because then the fearsabout the things that are going
to go wrong and some will gowrong, but probably not as many
(30:19):
as you think and probably notas badly as you might think.
The fear about those thingsstarts to evaporate real fast.
And that's what gives you thecourage to go for it is when
you have a strong vision ofwhat it looks like to succeed.
Emily Orton (30:33):
I want to validate what he said. We were working
with a family that they wantedto do something different. They
wanted to build their familyculture. They had ideas of lots
of different trips. And I said,"why don't you run it past your
kids?" Like for real, we tellother people, counsel together,
get feedback, see whateveryone's thinking. And she
came back later the next weekor whenever our next meeting
(30:54):
was and said, well I asked himabout it and then they all said
they don't want to do it. And Isaid, what did you ask? He was
like, "Hey, would you want tolike change up everything and
do something different fromwhat we're doing right now?"
And they all said no. And Isaid, well you, yeah you told
them, "would you like to jumpinto a black hole together?"
You didn't give them anywhereto land, no vision like, but if
(31:17):
you said, "Hey, do you want togo live in Maui and we can ride
horses all the time?" Or do youwant like then you would give
them something to go to? Ofcourse nobody wants to give up
what is familiar for completeblank slate. But if you start
creating a little bit of visionaround it, then it becomes
compelling. And to me that isthe most fun way to move
(31:39):
forward is by having a clearvision. And sometimes we take
small steps in that directionor we'll like Google that city.
Just getting a little bit ofspecifics from the safety of
your comfort zone. We actually,we have a seven part framework
and I'll just share it with youbecause it is a sailing
framework so you can kind ofwrap your head around it pretty
quickly. Choose your island,which is getting that vision
(32:02):
chart, your course cast offnavigate out of the harbor.
These are just like littlescouting trips in that
direction. Once you get out ofthe harbor, you can set your
autopilot. You start to getclose to where you actually
want to be. It gets reallyscary. That's part of the
template. No matter what you'redoing, you're like, "do I
really deserve this? Am Ireally going to do, this is
really happening" and that'sthe time to trust your compass.
(32:22):
And then you arrive and youdrop anchor and we just do
that, you know, over and overagain for whatever the
adventure is. And it's lessscary when you're like, "oh
this is the part where wealways want to turn back." You
know it because you've seen it,whether it was in an outdoor
adventure or in a relationshipor in a business endeavor.
You're like, "oh yeah, I knowthat the fear is going to blow
(32:45):
up here. I'm not going to besurprised by that and I'm going
to step around it and keepmoving." Because you've run the
template.
Troy Blaser (32:53):
So is this framework, is this something
that you apply as you work withothers through the awesome
factory?
Erik Orton (32:59):
Yeah. When we coach with couples or individuals, we
teach them our framework, whichis what we've used for 15 years
to go from adventure toadventure as a family. And
sometimes that adventure lookslike moving onto a sailboat.
Sometimes it looks like gettingback into rock climbing.
Sometimes it looks like ridinga book, sometimes it looks like
launching a business. Theadventure can take a variety of
(33:20):
forms but the process is thesame. And so yeah, what we
teach our coaching clients andwhen we speak, we teach a
system that people can thenlearn once and then apply
throughout their entire livesto create the intentional life
that they want for themselves.
Troy Blaser (33:34):
I like that. And and like you were saying,
Emily, you might be in themiddle of an adventure and you
come to something that causesfear and that specific fear
might be new to you. But if youhave that framework you can
say, oh this fear is new to me,but I know it's part of this
process that I've seen beforeso I don't have to worry quite
as much about it .
Emily Orton (33:52):
A hundred percent .
Troy Blaser (33:54):
So you've told us kind of the story of getting
interested in sailing and overthose four years sort of
working your way towards thisand then ultimately of course
getting out on the water. ButI'm curious, were there moments
when you doubted that decisionto kind of leave that
conventional Manhattan lifebehind? Were there specific
fears that you had to overcome?
(34:15):
How did you kind of workthrough some of those fears and
some of those doubts in theprocess?
Emily Orton (34:19):
I was doubting it all along the way. The only
time when I didn't doubt it iswhen I was encouraging Erik to
go do it. because I thought,"oh he would love it", you
know. But I didn't feel like itwas for me at all . I mentioned
before I was really scared ofdeep water. I would actually
avoid the deep end of acommunity swimming pool. And he
said to me, "oh that's why youneed to learn how to sail then
(34:40):
you never have to get in thewater. You can just stay on the
boat." But as it progresses andyou get to the point where
you're like, "we are going tolive on a boat for a year", I
keep thinking it will end here,this will be enough. And it
kept going. And so I findmyself, I'm with Erik and we
were in the Caribbean and wewere taking a class and we were
(35:01):
on a 50 foot catamaran and wewere all these students and
every day the instructor wouldsay , "who wants to go
snorkeling?" And they would alljump in and I would stay on the
boat alone. And I thinkprobably the second or third
time this happened, because I'mlike, "I have my books. I
thought we were here for class,like what is happening?" And I
(35:21):
hadn't really had to face myfear that way before, but it
got me thinking just sittingthere alone and 15 feet of
crystal blue Caribbean water.
And I thought like, "who do Iwant to be and what kind of
example am I setting for mykids?" And I decided I will
just try to be brave for a fewminutes. And it would've been
(35:46):
nice if I had got in witheverybody, but I was alone now.
And so I put on fins and I puton a snorkel mask and I got in
the water and I just startedkicking as fast as I could
towards the reef so that Icould be with people so I
wouldn't be a lone target. Andsomething went across my
peripheral vision. I rememberfrom right to left, just seeing
(36:06):
a big shape and stopping justfreezing in place. And it took
my brain a second to realizethat it was actually a sea
turtle, which is prettyamazing. Your first time
jumping in the water to see a ,a sea turtle. And I thought,
"wow." And then my immediatenext thought was, you know what
eats sea turtles. And I waseven more scared. I swam even
(36:27):
faster and I got to the thereef and there were a lot of
little snorkel tubes and I knewI wasn't the only shark bait
out there. And so then I sawwhat was there and it was so
different than watching anature video on tv. I could
hear everything. I wascompletely immersed. There were
just fish of all differentcolors, sea fans , different
(36:49):
color corals. And there wasthis little fish, it looked
like it had a smile on itsface. It's called a parrot fish
. I know now. And I justthought, I'm just going to
follow you. It was like beingin that movie Finding Nemo. And
I was just so fascinated bythis completely different
environment right below thesurface that I forgot to be
afraid. And when Erik saw meagain, he invited me to swim
(37:13):
back to the boat together. Heis like, "you want to go back?"
And I said "no, because this ismy new favorite thing." And it
was great that it changed myrelationship to the ocean. It
was way safer. I was way moreexcited about this trip as a
family if I was going to be,you know , an adult who could
get in the water. But it moreimportantly did change my
relationship to fear. And Ithink that's part of how this
(37:35):
template came about. Werealized doubts are always
going to be present, fear isalways going to be around. And
it just depends like how highdo we want to turn the volume
on that and how much of adecision making impact do we
want those feelings to have. SoI would never say like, oh I'm
fearless, or fear or doubtnever comes up. It always comes
(37:56):
up. And then I have to decide,am I going to turn, turn down
the volume o n that? Becauseusually something that
generates that fear in you is alittle indicator that there's
something special for youthere. And so, you know, my
takeaway question was like,"what other favorite things are
on the other side of my fears?"And sometimes I hate that
(38:18):
question because it's veryuncomfortable and it makes me
squirm, but it helps me grow.
Troy Blaser (38:23):
Right. So the next day when it was time to go
snorkeling, was there stillsome fear of getting in the
water or was it gone?
Emily Orton (38:30):
I mean there's a habit. There can also be the
habit of being afraid. But likelogically I knew I was fine. So
I continued to get in the waterthroughout that whole year. And
after we got back, I actuallycertified to be a patty scuba
diver. And I went down to 60feet. So it felt like a full, a
full circle for me. But yeah,it opened up the entire ocean
(38:54):
to just be brave for fewminutes.
Troy Blaser (38:57):
That second day it's like you were a little
late to the party but you'relike, "Hey have you guys seen
the reef? There's so many coolthings, right?" And they're
like, "yeah we've, we've seenit. We've been."
Emily Orton (39:05):
And I know I'm not the only one because we've had
people come on sailing tripswith us that have been in that
same experience and literallyhave said to me, "yeah, I heard
your story but I'm not going tobe like you." And then at the
end of the week they havegotten in, they have overcome
that concern. To the point thatthey actually are really
enjoying themselves in thewater.
Troy Blaser (39:25):
That's cool. What about for you Erik? Were there
moments when you had doubtswhen you thought, "hey, what in
the world are we doing?" Howdid you kind of work through
some of those challenges thatyou felt?
Erik Orton (39:36):
Yeah, for sure.
When we moved onto thesailboat, we got there and we
realized that it wasn't readyfor us. We flew down to St .
Martin, we got on our boat andwhen we got there, there was no
main sail on the boat. One ofthe two engines was in really
rough shape and a whole bunchof other things. We realized
that life in the Caribbean wasgoing to be exponentially more
expensive than we thought. Andwe realized that just our
(39:59):
skillset was coming up short.
And so we were ready to throwin the towel and we said, let's
just get out of here. We'llsell the boat. I'll beg for my
job back. We'll get on a plane,we'll all fly home and we'll
spend the winter watchingNetflix and eating pizza. We
want to, we just want to getback to our comfort zone.
Emily Orton (40:16):
We just want a couch.
Erik Orton (40:19):
Yeah. We just want a couch. Our boat didn't have a
couch. Uh, and so we said, "butbefore we do, let's take the
boat out at least once. Wewould feel really bad if we
didn't leave the marina onetime." So we took the boat out
and you know, we had a mainsail at this point and they'd
looked at a couple of otherthings, the people we were
buying the boat from. But itwas still a work in progress.
And as we left this marina, thekids went out on deck, they
(40:41):
were going to help raise thesails and we were just going to
go to this little island thatwas an hour away, spend the
night, come back the next day.
And as we go out of thismarina, the boat just plunges
almost, it felt like straightdown. And then reached the
bottom of this wave trough andthen just came right back up.
And in the process, everythinginside the boat went flying in
(41:03):
the air. The kids on the frontof the boat went flying up in
the air. I really thought wewere going to lose one or more
of them overboard. Fortunatelythey all landed back on deck
and we just sort of pounded ourway out of this channel that we
had no idea was so treacherousand tumultuous. And then we
were grateful to survive that.
(41:24):
We got out into open water. Thekids kind of shook it off. And
they, we got the sails up andthen we turned the boat to sail
to this island. The wind wascoming from the side of the
boat. So we're rocking back andforth, left to right and we all
immediately got terriblyseasick. So we had a miserable
one hour sail. We get to thisisland and we drop the sails.
(41:45):
We're trying to drop anchor andit's a new boat to us. The kids
are, they're on the front ofthe boat trying to lower the
anchor and I'm shouting andyelling instructions from the
back and we're just a disaster.
And all these other boats thathave been anchored there for a
while are just kind of sittingthere with their drinks and
watching us as the ridiculousshow that we were finally get
the boat anchored and we'reable to stop for the night. And
(42:08):
the sun has set, you know, wewere kind of racing daylight.
We all just fell on the floorlike we were laying on the
floor. We couldn't eat dinner.
I think Emily prepared somebroth for dinner. And as we're
laying there all commiserating,I just sort of said out loud,
"whose dumb idea was this?" Andthere's a chapter in our book
called "Who's Dumb Idea WasThis". Because this was such a
(42:31):
, a pivotal moment for us. Andthe kids all lift their heads
up enough to look at me kind oflike side eye and be like,
"dad, this was your idea." AndEmily very graciously came to
my rescue and said, "now let'sbe honest, we all bought into
this." We all agreed to dothis. And so we can't pin it on
dad, but we really thought thiswas just the worst decision
(42:53):
we'd ever made. And Emily spokeearlier about gratitude. This
was the day before we kind oftook stock and got grateful.
Because the next morning wetook the kids to shore and we
said, "let's take a moment."You know, the question that got
us out on this trip was "whatcould go right?" And we talked
about that earlier and I said,"let's ask ourselves what's
(43:16):
going right right now. Let'snot be hypothetical in the
future. Let's say what'shappening right now that we're
grateful for." And we wentthrough and we asked the kids.
And actually when, when Emilyand I keynote, we recorded
these answers on video and weshare them when we keynote .
And it's really fun to hearthat day, that morning what the
kids actually said. And it wasthat gratitude, that moment of
(43:36):
taking stock of what was goingwell right then that kept us
out there. We obviously did notsell the boat, we did not get
on a plane and fly home and Idid not beg for my job back. We
stuck it out. But absolutelywere there moments when we
doubted our decision? So manyright at the beginning, as the
trip progressed, that becameless and less frequent. But it
(43:58):
was, it's a strong force at thebeginning of any big shift in
your life. So we've just cometo learn to expect it. And
that's the same thing we tellto our coaching clients is
there's going to be strongresistance before and after you
make your big decision, justprepare for it'
Troy Blaser (44:12):
And take a moment to see what's going. Right.
Right now
Emily Orton (44:15):
We actually do that. We typically have a
weekly meeting and the topagenda item is what's awesome
about right now,
Erik Orton (44:24):
Emily's talking about her and I having our
business meeting.
Emily Orton (44:27):
Yeah, when we meet for our business every week we
make the list first thing oflike what's awesome about right
now. And then we go into ourother key objectives and what's
happening here and what tasksneed to come up. But we always
start from that place of what'sactually going right.
Troy Blaser (44:41):
It kind of anchors you to the , that vision you
were talking about. It canbring that vision back to mind
a little bit. You don't have tobe lost in the negative
pessimistic details, but startfrom that positive vision. I
like that. So what's next forthe Orton's? What's next for
the Orton family? Is there anadventure you have planned next
for your family or for the twoof you? What are you passionate
about right now?
Emily Orton (45:02):
Yeah, I'll go first. I'm actually, I'm
talking to you from the townwhere our daughter lives
because she had a baby lastweek and it's our first
grandchild and
Troy Blaser (45:14):
Awesome.
Congratulations.
Emily Orton (45:16):
It's so fun. So that's, you know, one that's
really close to my heart.
Troy Blaser (45:20):
That's fantastic.
Congratulations to both of you.
That is definitely anadventure.
Erik Orton (45:25):
Thank you for our business that one of the things
that that I really enjoy is wetake people sailing. Uh, we
like to give people a chance totry living on a sailboat for a
week. And we do trips all overthe world, but I'm going to
Thailand in a couple of weeksto take out another group and
we do trips all year round allover the world. We just follow
the good weather and, and it'sa lot of fun to uh, help people
(45:46):
get that experience of what itmight feel like to live on a
sailboat and then see what thatopens up for them. So I'm
excited to go to Thailand. LikeI said, I've never been there
before, so that's a new one forme.
Troy Blaser (45:56):
I have to think that when you were walking
along the shores in Manhattandreaming about maybe getting to
know about sailing, that'sprobably not something you ever
had in mind was taking clientson a trip to Thailand for a
week.
Erik Orton (46:09):
No way. Yeah. We've blown way past my ability to
imagine a cool future. We'reway beyond whatever thought was
possible and it's been a funjourney. We're happy to keep
going.
Troy Blaser (46:21):
Well, Erik and Emily, I've really enjoyed this
conversation. I feel like wecould keep talking and hear
adventures, but if people wantto know more or if they want to
connect with you about theadventure, but about other
things as well, what shouldthey do? How should people get
in touch with you?
Erik Orton (46:38):
I would say social media. The awesome factory, NYC
NYC as in New York City, or ourwebsite, which is the. Those
are the best ways to find this.
Troy Blaser (46:49):
Cool, well thanks again. It's been wonderful to
have you on today. I've reallyenjoyed our conversation. Thank
you so much.
Emily Orton (46:54):
Thanks so much for having us. It was delightful.
Erik Orton (46:57):
Yeah, it's been a blast. Thanks so much Troy.
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