Several years ago, a well-known newsletterist named Josh Spector offered up a valuable and fun tip in his newsletter, For The Interested. I’d quote the exact post if I wasn’t too lazy to go look for it.

The premise behind his advice was to examine something you do and compare it to a movie. But don’t stop at B-roll footage. Make it a blockbuster movie if you can.

For me, this exercise was comical attempting to come up with a movie that best compares to something I have done.

I’d love to say the blockbuster was Tombstone and I rode around like a badass wearing a bustle, stealing horses with two six-shooters strapped to my hips. But alas, I don’t have a horse and I certainly don’t fit into a bustle. Although, I have lived out some pretty badass adventures wearing cutoffs in a car.

If there’s one thing I learned about travel writing and running a travel blog, it’s that I knew nothing. I had to learn everything.

On my own.

On the fly.

With a blindfold on.

It genuinely felt like starring in my own movie except the movie was Bird Box and I’m nowhere near as flawless as Sandra Bullock when I don’t shower for days. (Nobody seems to shower in this movie)

If you haven’t seen Bird Box, she is basically like every travel blogger. Running from town to town, city to city, canoeing down raging rivers looking for some friggin’ salvation. All while blindfolded with no clue where she’s going.

I had to invent my salvation and when I did? My eureka moment arrived.

My website tagline for many years was, “If you need a map, you’re doing it wrong.”

I feel like it sums up my entire existence as a traveller. Sure, I’d like to know where I’m going and what I’m doing. But there’s something much more mystical and dangerous about just winging it with a trusty flask of rum in my satchel.

All the classic badasses pause on a hilltop to take a swig of rum and wipe the dust from their brow.

🐴🐴🐴

I once created an animated online map of a road trip across an island that you can drive from end to end in five hours….IF you’re not lost.

However, I was as lost as a snowman in Arizona, making the animated driving route look a lot like my raggedy curly hair in the morning. It certainly didn’t look like a single road trip. More like the entire lifespan of a world nomad.

I drove in circles upon circles, hopelessly disoriented in the most remote areas of the island, all because of ONE missing road sign that I didn’t know was missing. This was back in the days before commonplace GPS existed.

What should have been a 90-minute journey took me four hours to complete, but if not for that missing road sign I would have never come across one friendly local on the side of the road, whom I begged for help. He could have been Jack the Ripper and I’d still have been glad to find him at that point.

When I spotted him I stopped, rolled down my window, and with absolute exasperation shouted, “Where the hell am I and how do I get out?”

First, the man laughed. I’m not sure whether he was wondering why a lone woman was even in this part of the country, or whether I just look funny when I’m stressed out.

This kind soul calmly told me to go back to a particular landmark, take a right, and then laughed again. “After that, NO MORE TURNS!”

He wished me a pleasant “good day Miss,” and I was on my way.

The whole point is that you don’t need to drive around like a mad woman on remote island roads. It’s more like a metaphor for life in general.

There are no maps for most of what we do. We’re all out here winging it and hoping to hell that someone provides us with a landmark to go by because all the road signs seem to be missing when we need them.

Jake from State Farm certainly won’t be around to hand you a map. Nor will Jack the Island Ripper.

When someone offers you some assistance, take it. Or, as my uncle once taught me…when you see a fork in the road…pick it up!

Likewise, if you see someone with scattered, messy hair who probably just took up chain smoking because she can’t cope with being lost, help her out!

We all know something that others need to hear. It could be the exact road sign they’ve been looking for.

Hold on, though. We’re not getting off this high horse just yet.

First, I’m going to ask you to whip out your satchel and take a swig of rum. Clear your mind, wipe your brow, and get into some brainstorming.

Examine something you do or something you’re good at and compare it to a blockbuster movie we might all be familiar with.

Then share in the comments below but also consider taking it one step further. Why not write about it? If you do, PLEASE tag me. I’d love to check out your trailer!

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