Show notes
Eric Engelmann is the founder of Geonetric Executive Director of the New Bohemian Innovation Collaborative (NewBoCo), and the Iowa Startup Accelerator in Cedar Rapids, IA. He also recently returned from a long-term travel excursion with his wife and two children. In today’s show, Eric shares his thoughts about how his trip affected him and his family, how to combine your passion with your work, and how to determine if entrepreneurship is the right choice for you.
Today we will discuss:
Challenges of adapting to long-term travel with others
What were you most surprised about during your travels?
Professional observations abroad
Entrepreneurship around the globe
How did you change from your experiences?
How to ‘find your passion’
Who should NOT be an entrepreneur
Advice for entrepreneurs
What drives you?
Quotes
6:13 As we traveled, the feeling of safety that I had originally feared never came back again. I never felt unsafe anywhere once we had dealt with the fact that we were gone from home.
9:53 [At home] you have your routines, you have your places, you have your favorite easy chair, you have the TV show you know that’s coming on that you like to watch, and it dominates. But when you’re in [another] country... in a good way, it ruins the dynamic that you have at home and makes you interact in different ways that I think are very powerful.
22:30 Americans have a tendency to believe that they’ve automatically got the answer, that they’re the best, and that everybody else aspires to be just like the US. It’s a national arrogance thing - we grew up with it... and then you go travel and realize that nobody does. There are ways that people do things in other countries that are as good or better than what we do, and they’re not pining to be like us at all.
27:06 When we came back, I noticed that [my kids] were very proud that they were Americans, but I felt like they were also suddenly, clearly aware of where America was not everything it needed to be and there were places where it could be better. That was one of the reasons we took the kids on this trip at all.
32:04 Picture a Venn diagram of what you’re passionate about, what you can do to provide for your family, and the lifestyle you want. Some people are going to have them very closely overlapped... others will be less fortunate. But I think there are options to move where there’s overlap... and to the extent that you can find it, I absolutely think you should.
35:20 The idea that you can get started on something and start down a path and find opportunity along the way is more important than the plan that takes you there... you bump into it, you try something and then keep going.
48:08 The most important thing that I tell almost every entrepreneur is the ability to step away from what you think the answer is and let data drive your decision making. This is one of those things that’s the equivalent of “eat less and exercise more to be healthy.” Everyone hears it, but nobody knows how to make it a normal thing to do.
57:08 Learn how to trust people. As an entrepreneur, it’s often a lonely game... you’ve trained your mind to think that inertia and movement are because of you when it’s really not. In the beginning, it’s about backing an individual. But when it gets any movement at all, it’s about backing a company - and a company means that there’s many people trying to accomplish the same goal.
1:02:50 Leave with a question. Go on a trip with a question that you’d like to come back with the answer to. You’ll wrestle with it while you’re awake and asleep thinking about how to do it.
To listen to more episodes head to theformulapodcast.com
or check out the full video episodes on YouTube here - https://www.youtube.com/@justtrevorcarlson
To follow our travels and read our travel guides head to lostandlore.com
or watch our travel videos on YouTube here - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCavHMv7t-VKqYZrusR4eUUQ
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