What Could Go Right?

Erik Orton (00:01):

Here's why I recommend asking "what could go right?" Because it's really important to imagine a success story. If you don't imagine that success story, you have nothing to run towards. And so we said, "well, what could go right if we do this?" We could have an amazing family experience. We could see beautiful places, we could learn new skills, both sailing and otherwise. We could come together like never before as a family. We could grow in confidence. Our kids could grow in confidence. And the list just went on and on and on and on 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 we would absolutely not get to enjoy anything on the what could go right list. It was a hundred percent certain that that would not happen.

Troy Blaser (00:50):

Hello, welcome to Simply Feedback, the podcast brought to you by Learning Bridge. I'm your host, Troy Blaser. It's great to have you along with us today, I'm excited to introduce today's guests. We have two guests. We have Emily and Erik Orton with us today. They're here to tell us about an amazing journey that they embarked on leaving behind their conventional life in New York City to sail the world with their five children. As authors of the book "Seven at Sea", they share the lessons learned from their life changing adventure. Co-founders of The Awesome Factory, they now help others embrace creativity, resilience, and adventure in their own lives. Through workshops and speaking engagements, they inspire people to pursue their dreams and tackle challenges head on. So in today's episode of Simply Feedback, Emily and Erik explore with us how feedback plays a crucial role in navigating both personal and professional growth. Erik and Emily Orton, welcome to Simply Feedback. It's so great to have you with us today.

Erik Orton (01:49):

Thanks, Troy. Thanks for having us on. It's great 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 so important.

Troy Blaser (01:56):

Awesome. Before we get into more about your specific story, if you could maybe share with us a time that somebody gave you feedback in your life. Maybe it was feedback that was a turning point in a career, or that it affected you personally. Is there a story that you can share with us about a time somebody gave you feedback?

Emily Orton (02:16):

I can share one actually, from living on the sailboat, because we had spent many years and went to great pains to get out on a sailboat with our family. And we wanted to spend this time together and strengthen our relationships. And we got there and things weren't quite what we expected. And within a few days, the kids pulled us aside and said, we came out here to be together. And you guys are always like going off to the Chandry, which is a specialty store for boat items and like troubleshooting things on the boat and we are not being together. And you know, they knew what the goal was and they saw that we weren't meeting the goal, even though we were being active and stressing about taking care of everyone. And yeah, they put our feet to the coals and we realized it's true.

Emily Orton (03:11):

We don't have to have all the problems solved to be able to still actually do our goal. And it was really grateful that they called us out because it allowed us to recognize we're never going to have every single problem solved. We're not going to get it all done before we actually do the goal of being together. And so we had to make adjustments and it was a surprise to us that we would actually need to calendar family time after, you know, going 2,500 miles from home and moving on a small boat together and all of that stuff. But I'm so grateful that they did because, you know, we were the authority figures and they could have just said nothing like, "well, they're the boss", and they didn't. And it made it a better experience for all of us.

Troy Blaser (03:58):

Oh, that's awesome. That's awesome. To get some feedback from the kids to be like, Hey, here's what you said is important. We are not seeing 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 a flattering one, I guess, but, and Emily, maybe you can help me remember this, but at some point my kids came to, I guess feedback is coming from our kids. Because this is the one that popped to mind. My daughters came to me and said, dad, you're an attractive guy, but the way you dress, people have 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 a makeover and, uh, you need to wear clothes that fit you better if you want to look, you know, more put together and more 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 Dennis Cape Cod.

Erik Orton (05:01):

Okay. So this would've been after we lived on the sailboat. And yeah, I had sort of a very public facing job. I was sort of the face for this, for this organization, and they were basically telling me I needed to up my wardrobe. And so I shopped. And ever since then, I've shopped differently for myself. And I've learned to get comfortable in clothes that fit me better and that make me look more professional, that make me look a little bit more put together. And it's made a shift for me over the past many years. And so I appreciated my kids kind of not being afraid to tell me something about myself that I probably would never, would've come up with. And certainly nobody in a professional setting is going to say that to me. So I appreciated it.

Troy Blaser (05:39):

Yeah, I was going to say, there's some feedback that can only come from certain people, right? And to come from your own daughters who are probably more tuned into fashion than, than you are or certainly than I am as a middle aged dad. Right? That's valuable feedback that makes your life just a little bit more polished, a little bit smoother in your professional life.

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 rock climbing game for a little while and he decided he was going 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, my gear is not in good shape and we'll need to look for some new things. And so we went to this gear shop and he was looking for something very specific. And the guys there, if you've ever been to one of these shops, they're usually about 21. And Erik walked in, he'd been climbing since he was 14 years old, and he is like, I want this specific thing. And they said, well, we have that, but people aren't really using that anymore. Now we're using this. And Erik immediately shifted gears and instead of saying,"hey, I know what I want, I know what I'm doing. I've been climbing longer than you've been alive". He said, "show me how it works". And he bought the new thing. I was so impressed because it's not always easy to take feedback. It's not always easy to take it from someone who's your junior, but if you want to progress, then a little humility is like rocket fuel. So I really was impressed.

Troy Blaser (07:14):

Erik, I can totally understand how that must have felt going into a climbing shop. I skied growing up through high school, took a break when the family came along, and then as the kids started to get a little older, I was like, "okay, I, we were ready to get back into it". And it's the same kind of thing. You're out of that for a long time. Go into a, a ski shop or a climbing shop, and I can see how that could be, you could be nervous about accepting feedback from them.

Erik Orton (07:39):

Well, thanks love, I appreciate the compliment. And Troy, thanks for for the validation.

Troy Blaser (07:44):

Yeah, that's awesome. So it sounds like adventure is important in your family, important to the two of you and to your family. Let's talk about the sailing trip, the adventure of taking your family out in a sailboat for a year. What was some of the motivations? How did this come to be as you talked about this idea of, you know, leaving New York behind embarking on this adventure with your family?

Emily Orton (08:08):

I think it was actually some really public feedback. I mean, I hadn't thought about it this way before, but Erik was working in the Broadway industry and he was working on a show that was a phenom "Wicked", right? Like he could still be working on that. He wanted to have stayed there, but he wanted to produce something on his own. And he found a show that he really loved and felt good about. And he raised the money, put together the team, got the theater, put it all up, and the show opened the day our fourth child was due, did not come until the next day. And so the next day we went to the hospital and he told his partner, you know, "I'm off grid for 24 hours". And the reviews came out and the reviews were mixed. Some of them were great, some of them not so great.

Emily Orton (08:59):

And his partner felt like it wasn't sturdy enough to validate a hope that there would be a lot more ticket sales. And so she felt like the best call was to close the show so the investors' money could be protected, but that if the audiences rallied, they could always take down closing notices. And that isn't necessarily the same way that Erik felt about it. He felt like that was kind of the death nail, like no coming back from the closing notice. And it was, it was kind of heartbreaking. And so the show closed for us, it was financially devastating. Now he was unemployed, he had quit everything else to put a hundred percent into this. And now I had just had a brand new baby, our fourth child. And Erik, do you want to pick it up from there how you were feeling?

Erik Orton (09:46):

Yeah, sure. I guess I'll just clarify that my business partner made this decision while I was in the hospital with my family, kind of made it unilaterally. And so I came out of this bubble and found out that our show was closing, that we were essentially the Orton family was going to be financially wiped out. Of course, it's just a heartbreak. And I ended up on the cover of a magazine called Cranes Business New York as the poster boy for the failed off-Broadway industry at the time, because there was a lot of shows that closed in quick succession. And so nothing like being on the front of a magazine to give you a little feedback about what isn't working. And so it was embarrassing. It was kind of, traumatizing might be a strong word, but I I just really felt humiliated professionally and just wanted to disappear. And yet I still needed to earn some money to take care of our family. And so I got a temp job down in lower Manhattan in the financial district and was basically working nights as a contractor for the Wall Street industry.

Erik Orton (10:47):

And what I didn't realize at the time was that this temporary job was immediately upstairs from a sailing school that was right on the Hudson River. And I would tell Emily about these beautiful boats that I would see at night at sunset. I would take a dinner break and I'd go walk along the, the Hudson River and I would see these sailboats and tell her how much I wished I was out there on the water and how peaceful it looked. And I talked about it enough that she finally said, you should go check this out. And I said, you know, "I'm not going to do that because we're broke and I don't know anything about sailboats". And it's one of the most expensive marinas in the world, I've since learned. And you know, this is for hedge fund managers and investment bankers and not broke, off-Broadway producers like me.

Erik Orton (11:32):

And so it felt like a kid looking through the window of a candy store. Like you wanted what's on the other side, but it's for other people. And Emily finally persuaded me to go in and just learn, just ask. And so I did one day, I went in early and I, I said, you know, "I'm interested in learning how to sail. I don't know anything. How does this work?" And I'm often asked what was the hardest part of our sailing journey? And people are often surprised when I say this was the hardest part, this part where I had to sort of put my, my feelings of failure and disappointment on hold and step into a situation where I felt very much out of my element socially, financially, every other way. And just start a conversation and, you know, and then it proceeded from there, of course they were happy to take my money and give me some sailing lessons and, and teach me and Emily and the kids and, and things rolled on from there.

Erik Orton (12:28):

You know, your original question, Troy, was where did the, the idea, the inspiration come from? And I think that's the hardest part for all of us on our journey. When we, when we want something different or something better in our lives, it's so hard to imagine ourselves in that new new place, that new role. And so just being willing to step into something that felt very much beyond me was really the, the trickiest part. And I think for anybody listening, whatever it is that you want to become through feedback, through choices, don't cut yourself off. You know, it's so easy to disqualify ourselves from the get go and say, oh, other people do that. I don't do that. I don't get to do that. And so just being willing to step into this sailing school opened up a whole world for our whole family. And I'm really grateful for Emily's encouragement to do that. And that's kind of where it began right there in that moment.

Troy Blaser (13:18):

That's an awesome beginning. It sounds like for you the phrase the first step is the hardest. That was the case. Right? And fortunately you 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 to come take these classes with me. And I was like, "I don't want to go sailing. I, I just wanted you to have something", you know. And anyway, but yeah, I was like, "wait a minute, what am I"

Troy Blaser (13:49):

So you had to take that difficult step too. You had, you know, to jump into a whole world that you were unfamiliar with.

Emily Orton (13:56):

Yeah, 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 a pretty big ask to have her come take this class with me. But she, 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 was some of the feedback that you got from them when you first started 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 a little unusual, pursuing a dream. You don't live in New York City because it's the easy thing to do. So in that immediate group around us, they were like, "okay, cool, go for it". But I do know that after we actually did it, that's when we found out that people were actually pretty surprised. Like, oh, it's one thing to talk about it and another thing to do it like "we'll see" is kind of maybe what their private reaction was. But I would say maybe the biggest reaction again came from our kids. And whether you're the leader and you're getting feedback from the people who you're guiding or you're the parent and you're getting feedback from your kids, they see, they know what they are, your secret weapon.

Emily Orton (15:08):

And so I remember one day we came back from sailing class and our daughter was 14 at the time and she said, I hear you talk about this a lot, but do you really have the guts to do it? And I think that's what everybody was wondering because we talked about it for years. We bought life jackets, we took sailing classes, we said we're going to do this. But we were still living in our same apartment for about four years. And you know, we thought we wanted to do it. It was scary, but it was exciting to move towards it. But when she said that, I think we realized, man, our 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 our children going to take away from that? And so it actually kind of added, I think a little to our fire to be like, man, we really 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 really going to do this?" Then later they're like, "hey mom and dad, you said we were going to do this for family togetherness and 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 honest sometimes.

Erik Orton (16:20):

Yeah. And it's good if we're humble enough to listen, they can actually be some of our best teachers I think.

Emily Orton (16:25):

Yeah. We start asking them pretty young for their input and their feedback and they see us take action on it. And so that emboldens them to continue giving us feedback as we ask for it. I mean, that was a deliberate thing that we did. And it's really had amazing dividends for us.

Troy Blaser (16:42):

At Learning Bridge. We sort of have this motto that is often repeated and that is the idea of receiving feedback graciously and acting on it visibly. And that's kind of what you were just talking about because once your kids saw, "hey, when we give some feedback to mom and dad, they make changes and we can see those changes. So we want to continue to give that feedback." That's fantastic. Okay, so four years of preparation and working up the courage and making all the plans. What were some of the challenges transitioning from life in a Manhattan apartment to life on a sailboat? I don't know if the living spaces were bigger in the apartment or bigger in the sailboat. It could go either way. When you're talking about an, an apartment in Manhattan.

Erik Orton (17:25):

I think ironically we had more privacy on our sailboat than we did in our apartment because we lived in a two bedroom, one bath apartment and all the kids shared one room, the bigger bedroom. And Emily and I had one room. And on the boat we had a four cabin, two bathroom boat. It was 38 feet long, 21 feet wide. It was a catamaran. And so it was physically square footage wise, it was smaller than our apartment. But everyone had these little cabins and there was two people per cabin instead of five kids all in one. And we had two bathrooms, which just felt like a massive luxury, even though you had to pump it by hand with this little piston that would drain the toilet. But we had the biggest, coolest backyard in the world. So that was really fun. And I think, I guess I'll say this, when you get on a boat, you realize you never think about where your electricity comes from.

Erik Orton (18:17):

You never think about what you're going to do with your garbage. Where does it go? You never think about what happens to human waste. You never think about where does the internet come from When you're on a boat. You think about all of those things. You know, where is the nearest gas station? If you need fuel for your boat, where's the nearest water source? Where's the nearest place we can drop off some garbage. You know, where can we pick up some internet? All those things that we take for granted is just in the air. In fact, we always tease our son, our, our only son that he was young when we moved on the boat. And what's something that he learned on this trip? He learned that there is such a thing as no internet.

Troy Blaser (18:54):

It's true. Yeah. I mean, Manhattan is an extreme on one side with this big giant city, millions of people, right? To almost, you're the only people for miles and miles and miles. And so it's hard to imagine 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, three of our kids had been born there. We had it dialed in. Like we knew how to live in New York City. We were very comfortable if new people moved in, 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 were doing, I guess I would say. And I think one of the hardest things for us when we moved onto a boat was we did not know what we were doing. We really became the newbies despite all of the preparation that we had made, which we thought was going to serve us well. And it did. But it was far from adequate. We didn't know all the things that we didn't know. We got out there, we were way over our heads.

Erik Orton (19:54):

And I think, and we talk about this in our book, "Seven at Sea", we realized early on that we needed help. That we were just, again, way over our heads. And I think one of the smartest things that we did was we sought out mentors. And like you said, people don't live as closely together, but there's a lot of people living on boats and they have a radio net. There's kind of a town hall every morning for people that live on boats. You'd tune into a certain channel on the VHF radio in St. Martin where we were picking up our boat and we just hopped on there and kind of face first said," Hey, we're brand new. We don't know what's going on. If anyone's willing to talk with us, we'd love to learn and you can kind of coach us up." We were very open to feedback.

Erik Orton (20:35):

And there was this couple that had been living on their boat for over a decade. They said, "yeah, swing by sometime we'll be happy to answer any questions we can." And I think that was the beginning of hope for us. After feeling like we had made the dumbest decision of our lives to move on to a boat, finding people who could teach us and help us through our, our rookie year on the water was really the shift that I think brought us from despair and an inclination to quit to. Okay, I think we can make it through. I think we can learn our way through this.

Emily Orton (21:10):

I love what you said, Erik, learn our way through this. It, you talked about it being our rookie year. I remember before we left, we heard something by Liz Wiseman where she talked about the rookie advantage. And the rookie knows that they don't know and they're a little anxious about it because they want to do well, but they know they don't have all the skillset to do it. And so they do seek out mentors, they seek out feedback and you know, they say, "can you look at what I've done? Do you have any suggestions for me?" And then that actually gives them an advantage. Whereas once you feel a little more comfortable, you can get a little more casual in it and you might not be quite so on your toes. And we definitely saw that in our early days, like when we jumped on that VHF coop town hall thing.

Emily Orton (21:56):

We jumped in at the wrong place and the host smacked us down in front of everybody and kind of chastised us. And we were like, "well, we can't get our feelings hurt because we need help. And so we're just going to have to keep trying." And that was actually super helpful. And I would say two more things. One, that was a major transition for us. We had fewer people in more rooms. There was so little privacy. We had a dinghy attached to our boat and we, Erik and I once tied the rope and just let the dinghy out and the two of us in the dinghy and all the kids on the boat at Anchor, because we were trying to have a private conversation and they were just standing on the back of the boat like, "mom, dad" you know, I was like, "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, like Erik said, it did feel at the beginning overwhelming. It felt like we weren't meeting our goals. Like this was a dumb idea and we all really just wanted to go home. So if you feel that way in the early stages of something that's actually really normal, you are like, "this is way harder than I thought I want to give up." But what we did instead is we took a very short trip to a very close island. We did badly. We were a hot mess, but we made it from point A to point B. And in the morning we asked everybody, "what do you like about right now? Let's just focus on what are some of the good things that are happening right now." And we realized that through those hard times when we would practice a little gratitude that actually gave us the emotional stamina to do what Erik said and say like, we're going to be able to learn our way through this. But we, you know, it felt like everything was bad and it was myopic. And so when we took a moment to like change lenses, we're like, "okay, there's some redeeming qualities about this experience. Let's keep trying."

Troy Blaser (24:00):

I wanted to go back. You talked about the rookie advantage and about how when you are a rookie, you know you need help. So you're asking for that. And as you become a veteran and you're no longer a rookie, you get complacent, but you also stop asking for feedback, right? You think, "well, I've got it down pat, I don't need to to hear what's out there anymore." And going all the way back to the beginning of our conversation, when Erik, when you went into that climbing shop, you could have said, "oh, I'm, I'm not a rookie. I know what I'm doing and here's the piece of equipment that I want." But instead, you were able to see from a different perspective and say, "okay, maybe I, I do need to get some feedback here." So I really like that idea of the rookie advantage and trying to maybe maintain some of that advantage even though 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 us well in asking for feedback? Sure. And we usually use this with our kids, but sometimes we use this with others and I'm using it more as our company is growing with people that we work with. You know, as we sort of say, you know, we're going to talk about a subject and we'll say, "what do you want more of and what do you want less of?" And it's a nice way for them to say a lot of things in a very un unthreatening way. Instead of saying, tell me what's going well and tell me what's going badly. A less more question is kind of saying, "what if we were to dial down some of the, the criticism or the way you talk to me in front of the team" or you know, I'm just making stuff up right now.

Erik Orton (25:25):

Not saying take it away, but just saying, what if we had a little bit less of that as a listener, somebody that's asked that question, it's like, "okay, that's a good zone for me to be aware of that that's an area that that person is not as happy as they might want to be." And then if they say, "I want more of this", it could be amplifying something that's already going well or just saying, "Hey, here's an idea of something that could be even better than what we're doing now." So Emily and I will ask each other that we'll ask our family that often. We'll go with our kids and say, we'll just go but one by one and say, "what do you want more of? What do you want less of?" And, and we 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 your kids.

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 keep changing whether it's your employees and now they have more skills and they're getting ready to take on more things and they don't need as much of, or maybe they need more of something else. We find that as our kids, you know, become adults and get married to do their own thing. Like the roles are constantly changing and we like to ask this question like at least twice a year, just kind of see where we are. Sometimes we would do it quarterly, but that's one of the ways where we don't just say like, "oh we totally know what we're doing as parents now." And we just bring that up. And sometimes if we haven't asked it and they want to talk about that, they'll say, "I want to tell you what I'd like more or less of." Right. It's part of the culture now. So they'll bring it up if they want to,

Troy Blaser (26:54):

I like that idea as a way to sort of rebalance the relationship because we've changed or you've changed. So let's check in and see if we need 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 Manhattan before you went sailing, you kind of had it dialed in and you were able to be a mentor to some of the new families that might move in. You could say, here's how to make your way in Manhattan so to speak. What advice would you give to someone, maybe to a family who's considering a life altering adventure similar to the one that you guys took that could be something personal with their family, it could even be a career change, right. In a professional setting. Is there advice you would give to someone who's sort of thinking this over?

Erik Orton (27:38):

Yeah, I mean my advice is the first reaction is going to be all the things that can go wrong. And you're going to say, "well if we go on this adventure or if I switch jobs or if I go back to school", whatever big shift you're thinking of, it's very natural and normal to think about all the things that could go wrong. I would also encourage you to ask what are all the things that could go right? Emily and I host a podcast called "What Could Go, right?" Because this question is actually the question that got us out onto a sailboat because when it came down to it, we were just pee our pants scared to go on this trip.

Erik Orton (28:15):

You know, it's all fun when you're learning how to sail and the kids are, you know, trying on their new life jackets. But then when it comes down to "Hey, I'm going to quit my job, we're going to rent out our apartment, we're going to put everything into bins and boxes and take it with us or it's going to go into storage", that starts to feel real and it can be daunting. And we thought, "okay, what are all the things that could go wrong? We could sink this boat and die. We could get injured, it could ruin us financially. Right? I could become unemployable after this." We made that list.

Emily Orton (28:44):

Yeah. Our, our youngest has down syndrome and she got tons of therapy. There were so many things to consider.

Erik Orton (28:51):

Yeah. And so we were getting ready to buy a boat and we were getting ready to wire six figures worth of money to an offshore account for a boat that we actually hadn't seen yet. And we just thought, "oh you know what could go wrong here? A lot could go wrong." That's why, you know, and here's why I recommend asking what could go right? Because it's really important to imagine a success story. If you don't imagine that success story, you have nothing to run towards. And so we said, "well what could go right if we do this, we could have an amazing family experience. We could see beautiful places we could learn new skills both sailing and otherwise we could come together like never before as a family we could grow in confidence, our kids could grow in confidence." And the list just went on and on and on and on and on.

Erik Orton (29:38):

And we realized that if we did not take this trip, yes we might avoid this list of what could go wrong, but we would absolutely not get to enjoy anything on the what could go right list. It was a hundred percent certain that that would not happen. And once we weighed that in the balance, it really tipped very easily and we felt like the opportunity cost was way too high. We would be stupid not to go. And so for anyone that's contemplating a big shift, whether it's a family adventure or a career change or anything of that nature, get a really strong picture in your mind of what it looks like to really succeed. Because then the fears about the things that are going to go wrong and some will go wrong, but probably not as many as you think and probably not as badly as you might think. The fear about those things starts to evaporate real fast. And that's what gives you the courage to go for it is when you have a strong vision of what it looks like to succeed.

Emily Orton (30:33):

I want to validate what he said. We were working with a family that they wanted to do something different. They wanted to build their family culture. They had ideas of lots of different trips. And I said, "why don't you run it past your kids?" Like for real, we tell other people, counsel together, get feedback, see what everyone's thinking. And she came back later the next week or whenever our next meeting was and said, well I asked him about it and then they all said they don't want to do it. And I said, what did you ask? He was like, "Hey, would you want to like change up everything and do something different from what we're doing right now?" And they all said no. And I said, well you, yeah you told them, "would you like to jump into a black hole together?" You didn't give them anywhere to land, no vision like, but if you said, "Hey, do you want to go live in Maui and we can ride horses all the time?"

Emily Orton (31:21):

Or do you want like then you would give them something to go to? Of course nobody wants to give up what is familiar for complete blank slate. But if you start creating a little bit of vision around it, then it becomes compelling. And to me that is the most fun way to move forward is by having a clear vision. And sometimes we take small steps in that direction or we'll like Google that city. Just getting a little bit of specifics from the safety of your comfort zone. We actually, we have a seven part framework and I'll just share it with you because it is a sailing framework so you can kind of wrap your head around it pretty quickly. Choose your island, which is getting that vision chart, your course cast off navigate out of the harbor. These are just like little scouting trips in that direction.

Emily Orton (32:09):

Once you get out of the harbor, you can set your autopilot. You start to get close to where you actually want to be. It gets really scary. That's part of the template. No matter what you're doing, you're like, "do I really deserve this? Am I really going to do, this is really happening" and that's the time to trust your compass. And then you arrive and you drop anchor and we just do that, you know, over and over again for whatever the adventure is. And it's less scary when you're like, "oh this is the part where we always want to turn back." You know it because you've seen it, whether it was in an outdoor adventure or in a relationship or in a business endeavor. You're like, "oh yeah, I know that the fear is going to blow up here. I'm not going to be surprised by that and I'm going to step around it and keep moving." Because you've run the template.

Troy Blaser (32:53):

So is this framework, is this something that you apply as you work with others through the awesome factory?

Erik Orton (32:59):

Yeah. When we coach with couples or individuals, we teach them our framework, which is what we've used for 15 years to go from adventure to adventure as a family. And sometimes that adventure looks like moving onto a sailboat. Sometimes it looks like getting back into rock climbing. Sometimes it looks like riding a book, sometimes it looks like launching a business. The adventure can take a variety of forms but the process is the same. And so yeah, what we teach our coaching clients and when we speak, we teach a system that people can then learn once and then apply throughout their entire lives to 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 the middle of an adventure and you come to something that causes fear and that specific fear might be new to you. But if you have 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 before so 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 over those four years sort of working your way towards this and then ultimately of course getting out on the water. But I'm curious, were there moments when you doubted that decision to kind of leave that conventional Manhattan life behind? Were there specific fears that you had to overcome? How did you kind of work through some of those fears and some of those doubts in the process?

Emily Orton (34:19):

I was doubting it all along the way. The only time when I didn't doubt it is when I was encouraging Erik to go do it. because I thought, "oh he would love it", you know. But I didn't feel like it was for me at all. I mentioned before I was really scared of deep water. I would actually avoid the deep end of a community swimming pool. And he said to me, "oh that's why you need to learn how to sail then you never have to get in the water. You can just stay on the boat." But as it progresses and you get to the point where you're like, "we are going to live on a boat for a year", I keep thinking it will end here, this will be enough. And it kept going. And so I find myself, I'm with Erik and we were in the Caribbean and we were taking a class and we were on a 50 foot catamaran and we were all these students and every day the instructor would say, "who wants to go snorkeling?"

Emily Orton (35:09):

And they would all jump in and I would stay on the boat alone. And I think probably the second or third time this happened, because I'm like, "I have my books. I thought we were here for class, like what is happening?" And I hadn't really had to face my fear that way before, but it got me thinking just sitting there alone and 15 feet of crystal blue Caribbean water. And I thought like, "who do I want to be and what kind of example am I setting for my kids?" And I decided I will just try to be brave for a few minutes. And it would've been nice if I had got in with everybody, but I was alone now. And so I put on fins and I put on a snorkel mask and I got in the water and I just started kicking as fast as I could towards the reef so that I could be with people so I wouldn't be a lone target.

Emily Orton (36:01):

And something went across my peripheral vision. I remember from right to left, just seeing a big shape and stopping just freezing in place. And it took my brain a second to realize that it was actually a sea turtle, which is pretty amazing. Your first time jumping in the water to see a, a sea turtle. And I thought, "wow." And then my immediate next thought was, you know what eats sea turtles. And I was even more scared. I swam even faster and I got to the the reef and there were a lot of little snorkel tubes and I knew I wasn't the only shark bait out there. And so then I saw what was there and it was so different than watching a nature video on tv. I could hear everything. I was completely immersed. There were just fish of all different colors, sea fans, different color corals.

Emily Orton (36:50):

And there was this little fish, it looked like it had a smile on its face. It's called a parrot fish. I know now. And I just thought, I'm just going to follow you. It was like being in that movie Finding Nemo. And I was just so fascinated by this completely different environment right below the surface that I forgot to be afraid. And when Erik saw me again, he invited me to swim back to the boat together. He is like, "you want to go back?" And I said "no, because this is my new favorite thing." And it was great that it changed my relationship to the ocean. It was way safer. I was way more excited about this trip as a family if I was going to be, you know, an adult who could get in the water. But it more importantly did change my relationship to fear. And I think that's part of how this template came about.

Emily Orton (37:36):

We realized doubts are always going to be present, fear is always going to be around. And it just depends like how high do we want to turn the volume on that and how much of a decision making impact do we want those feelings to have. So I would never say like, oh I'm fearless, or fear or doubt never comes up. It always comes up. And then I have to decide, am I going to turn, turn down the volume on that? Because usually something that generates that fear in you is a little indicator that there's something special for you there. 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 question because it's very uncomfortable 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 still some 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 like logically I knew I was fine. So I continued to get in the water throughout that whole year. And after we got back, I actually certified to be a patty scuba diver. And I went down to 60 feet. So it felt like a full, a full circle for me. But yeah, it opened up the entire ocean to just be brave for few minutes.

Troy Blaser (38:57):

That second day it's like you were a little late to the party but you're like, "Hey have you guys seen the reef? There's so many cool things, right?" And they're like, "yeah we've, we've seen it. We've been."

Emily Orton (39:05):

And I know I'm not the only one because we've had people come on sailing trips with us that have been in that same experience and literally have said to me, "yeah, I heard your story but I'm not going to be like you." And then at the end of the week they have gotten in, they have overcome that concern. To the point that they actually are really enjoying themselves in the water.

Troy Blaser (39:25):

That's cool. What about for you Erik? Were there moments when you had doubts when you thought, "hey, what in the world are we doing?" How did you kind of work through some of those challenges that you felt?

Erik Orton (39:36):

Yeah, for sure. When we moved onto the sailboat, we got there and we realized that it wasn't ready for us. We flew down to St. Martin, we got on our boat and when we got there, there was no main sail on the boat. One of the two engines was in really rough shape and a whole bunch of other things. We realized that life in the Caribbean was going to be exponentially more expensive than we thought. And we realized that just our skillset was coming up short. And so we were ready to throw in the towel and we said, let's just get out of here. We'll sell 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 watching Netflix and eating pizza. We want to, we just want to get back 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, "but before we do, let's take the boat out at least once. We would feel really bad if we didn't leave the marina one time." So we took the boat out and you know, we had a main sail at this point and they'd looked at a couple of other things, the people we were buying the boat from. But it was still a work in progress. And as we left this marina, the kids went out on deck, they were going to help raise the sails and we were just going to go to this little island that was an hour away, spend the night, come back the next day. And as we go out of this marina, the boat just plunges almost, it felt like straight down. And then reached the bottom of this wave trough and then just came right back up.

Erik Orton (41:00):

And in the process, everything inside the boat went flying in the air. The kids on the front of the boat went flying up in the air. I really thought we were going to lose one or more of them overboard. Fortunately they all landed back on deck and we just sort of pounded our way out of this channel that we had no idea was so treacherous and tumultuous. And then we were grateful to survive that. We got out into open water. The kids kind of shook it off. And they, we got the sails up and then we turned the boat to sail to this island. The wind was coming from the side of the boat. So we're rocking back and forth, left to right and we all immediately got terribly seasick. So we had a miserable one hour sail. We get to this island and we drop the sails.

Erik Orton (41:45):

We're trying to drop anchor and it's a new boat to us. The kids are, they're on the front of the boat trying to lower the anchor and I'm shouting and yelling instructions from the back and we're just a disaster. And all these other boats that have been anchored there for a while are just kind of sitting there with their drinks and watching us as the ridiculous show that we were finally get the boat anchored and we're able to stop for the night. And the sun has set, you know, we were kind of racing daylight. We all just fell on the floor like we were laying on the floor. We couldn't eat dinner. I think Emily prepared some broth for dinner. And as we're laying there all commiserating, I just sort of said out loud, "whose dumb idea was this?" And there's a chapter in our book called "Who's Dumb Idea Was This".

Erik Orton (42:29):

Because this was such a, a pivotal moment for us. And the kids all lift their heads up enough to look at me kind of like side eye and be like, "dad, this was your idea." And Emily very graciously came to my rescue and said, "now let's be honest, we all bought into this." We all agreed to do this. And so we can't pin it on dad, but we really thought this was just the worst decision we'd ever made. And Emily spoke earlier about gratitude. This was the day before we kind of took stock and got grateful. Because the next morning we took the kids to shore and we said, "let's take a moment." You know, the question that got us out on this trip was "what could go right?" And we talked about that earlier and I said, "let's ask ourselves what's going right right now.

Erik Orton (43:17):

Let's not be hypothetical in the future. Let's say what's happening right now that we're grateful for." And we went through and we asked the kids. And actually when, when Emily and I keynote, we recorded these answers on video and we share them when we keynote. And it's really fun to hear that day, that morning what the kids actually said. And it was that gratitude, that moment of taking stock of what was going well right then that kept us out there. We obviously did not sell the boat, we did not get on a plane and fly home and I did not beg for my job back. We stuck it out. But absolutely were there moments when we doubted our decision? So many right at the beginning, as the trip progressed, that became less and less frequent. But it was, it's a strong force at the beginning of any big shift in your life. So we've just come to learn to expect it. And that's the same thing we tell to our coaching clients is there's going to be strong resistance before and after you make your big decision, just prepare 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 top agenda 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 of like what's awesome about right now. And then we go into our other key objectives and what's happening here and what tasks need to come up. But we always start from that place of what's actually going right.

Troy Blaser (44:41):

It kind of anchors you to the, that vision you were talking about. It can bring that vision back to mind a little bit. You don't have to be lost in the negative pessimistic details, but start from that positive vision. I like that. So what's next for the Orton's? What's next for the Orton family? Is there an adventure you have planned next for your family or for the two of 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 town where our daughter lives because she had a baby last week 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 an adventure.

Erik Orton (45:25):

Thank you for our business that one of the things that that I really enjoy is we take people sailing. Uh, we like to give people a chance to try living on a sailboat for a week. And we do trips all over the world, but I'm going to Thailand in a couple of weeks to take out another group and we do trips all year round all over the world. We just follow the good weather and, and it's a lot of fun to uh, help people get that experience of what it might feel like to live on a sailboat and then see what that opens up for them. So I'm excited to go to Thailand. Like I said, I've never been there before, so that's a new one for me.

Troy Blaser (45:56):

I have to think that when you were walking along the shores in Manhattan dreaming about maybe getting to know about sailing, that's probably not something you ever had in mind was taking clients on 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're way beyond whatever thought was possible and it's been a fun journey. We're happy to keep going.

Troy Blaser (46:21):

Well, Erik and Emily, I've really enjoyed this conversation. I feel like we could keep talking and hear adventures, but if people want to know more or if they want to connect with you about the adventure, but about other things as well, what should they 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 our website, 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 really enjoyed 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.