PDM 030: One Trip Can Change Your Entire Life

Lucas P. Johnson: Hey, y'all. My name is Lucas Johnson.

Patryk Labuzek: I'm Patryk Labuzek.

Lucas P. Johnson: Welcome to Project Dream Mastery, a podcast for dreamers, creatives, and entrepreneurs who want to live a happier, more purposeful, and passionate life that is on their own terms. Today I want to talk to you about how one trip can change your entire life. With that, I want to pass it over to Paddy to get us started.

Patryk Labuzek: I'm super, super pumped about talking about today's topic. It's something, as you all know, very close to my heart. We've got, I've got millions and millions of stories to tell and all I suppose that come with a certain lesson and a personal development aspect attached to each one of them. And then I feel like for those of us who ever traveled, whether that's to another country, another continent, another state, another county, I feel like we've all learned something new from every trip, whether that's going there alone or with friends. You might've learned something new about your friends, but maybe you've learned something new about yourself that you haven't known before. So today's topic is going to be, I think it's going to be one of the best topics we've talked about on this episode. And it definitely links to everything that we've talked about before. So Lucas, I know your story, but the audience might not. So I wanted to ask you, what was the trip for you, the main, the big, big trip in your mind that kind of changed maybe your outlook on life, how you see yourself, or maybe how you re-imagined what your future is going to be like?

Lucas P. Johnson: Yeah, man. So I started off traveling with my family as a kid. And I was definitely fortunate to be able to do that. And I'm humbled to be able to do that. But one thing I learned from that is that I didn't necessarily like traveling. I'm surprised. Right? Like I didn't enjoy traveling early in my life. I was the most complicated thing that ever happened. My mom would be freaking out because we'd have all these kids that have to get in the car. We'd have all these kids that would have to get on an airplane. And when you have all that package, when you have all of that stuff that's piling up, you just start saying, oh my goodness, it's so stressful. I don't want to do this. But then as I went into my young adult life, I started to see the traveling was a way of relief.

Lucas P. Johnson: It was a way to kind of see a new purpose for yourself and find out what you actually like to do. For me, I was traveling with my family down to Key West and Key Largo almost every year for four or five years while I was in, probably end of my junior high and then all the way through my high school and then into college. And one of the things I learned is that when you bring people together and you're able to kind of take a step back from all the folks and all the people that are around you long term, you get a chance to really think for yourself. And I think that's when I found my passion for traveling. And over the last few years especially, you have been on many of those adventures with me, whether it be to Australia, whether it be to Bali, Indonesia, New Zealand. What other places? We went to, we did a 28-day road trip last year, two years ago now. And all of those things shaped who I am as a person. They allowed me to see a clearer future that I'm proud of and the amazing amount of people we got to meet along that journey. So Paddy, I would say that there's just a lot of aspects that kind of brought that one trip together. But ultimately, I'm so grateful for every opportunity that allowed me to have that. How about you? What was one of those trips that you really remember and distinguish from the others?

Patryk Labuzek: Thinking about it now, there's one. There's one that's been so, so vivid. I always go back to it. One that shaped everything afterwards. And surprise. I mean I've already said this on the show, how Australia has impacted, how it was a gigantic leap in my life. But it wasn't the defining trip that shifted my way of thinking, that shifted my perspective. The defining trip was when I managed to go to the Philippines. And that was back in 2015. Must've been June, June to July 2015. I finished secondary school and I finished my leaving cert exams. Just before starting college, I applied to different universities, all the courses. But it was very uncertain what's going to happen in the near future in September and so on just because I didn't know if I'll get into college, if I'll get into the course that I wanted to.

Lucas P. Johnson: Remind me, the leaving cert, is it similar to what we have in SATs here in the United States?

Patryk Labuzek: Exactly. That's the final exam that you take before going into college. And based on that exam, you get your points from each of the subjects, six subjects, top six subjects. They're counted up. And then each course [inaudible] course, depending on the university and all that has a minimum entry requirements point-wise. So if you don't even meet the points, you're not considered. And you know, we're not here to talk about education as much, but I guess this kind of gives you again kind of, and the listeners, a different perspective of what's it like in the USA, what it's like here in Ireland. So yeah, the future was very, very uncertain at that point. I didn't know if I'll get it to college. I didn't know what course I'm going to get into college, which college and if I do end up going. So you know, having said that, it was a very stressful time. But at the same time, it was a great, great relief because I was finished with all the exams. And one of my best friends, a very, very good buddy of mine and I knew him since I was a child. Literally, we were neighbors back in the day. And he's Filipino. And his parents own a very nice house in the Philippines.

Patryk Labuzek: And they'd invited me over on the trip on numerous occasions, but my parents were always like, no, you're not allowed to go. Like it's Philippines. It's in Asia. You're 15. And then they were like, no, you're like 16. And then they're like, no, you're 17. Still under age. Like we're not going to let you go that far. And then I turned 18, you know, 18. I'm full legal age here in Ireland.

Lucas P. Johnson: Oh, boy.

Patryk Labuzek: That's it. That's where my life kind of started spinning in the way that I was shaping it. Kind of, you know, like leaving the nest I would say. And at that point, I went to the Philippines. Now, going back to why this trip was so defining for me and why it's like my number one trip that changed my outlook on life is because I hadn't seen a place outside of Europe at that point. And Asians have a totally different culture. You know, even though they might have the same religion as us, I feel like they're more rooted down into it. They live it if that makes sense. It's just, it's a completely different world, put it this way in terms of spirituality, in terms of your mind, the way of thinking. But it's a completely different world again in terms of what they have. And I was privileged enough to live in a very, very nice house. Let's say a small villa of sorts with running water, electricity, food on my table, and their family and friends that became my family at that point as well surrounding us, you know, good parties, good food all the time, all the good stuff. And we traveled around different islands around the area where my friend lived. But it was when we went to, let's say, their friends that lived on like little small farm with little bamboo huts with no running water, no electricity.

Patryk Labuzek: That's when my perspective shifted quite a lot because I realized I am so fortunate to not have the problems that they have. Like how do I actually survive? What am I going to eat? How I'm going to make any income? You know? My problems were like, am I going to charge my phone and take good pictures. And so you can see a very different way of thinking me versus them. And it opened my eyes a lot to many, many, many different things and perhaps most incredible, not even perhaps, definitely was incredible, most incredible moment during that trip was when we went to my friend's mom's friend from college. And they lived in a tiny, tiny hut. Now they've told me they are quite poor. They don't have much going. They have a few chickens in the backyard that brought them income from the eggs and all that kind of stuff. And they had two banana trees. They would harvest the bananas and sell in the local market. And that was their entire income. They had nothing else. And it was incredible to see that when we arrived, they treated us in such a way I haven't seen it before. Like the most, the poorest of people treated us with the biggest heart. They brought in a full plate of bananas that they could easily sell on the market, you know, the following day. They brought it to treat us. And that moment I realized it's not the materialistic things that matter. It's the people that surround us. So that was a big, big lesson. Another lesson was definitely me--

Lucas P. Johnson: Before you go on, man, I just want to say that first ,off you've you've told me that before. And sitting here, hearing it live on air is just kind of, it's incredible. It actually kind of brought a little bit of a tear to my eye, thinking about someone's entire living is in bananas. And you were given something that's so precious to them, so precious to their livelihood, to what they can afford for their family. Just giving it to you. We, as a human race, don't give enough to others. And it is so sad. We are one people. We are one people here for each other. We are living on the same planet, filled with all of these amazing things. And being defined by that, by giving, is just incredible. And just giving those bananas to you, man, it really sparked something for me. It's really, really special to be able to find people just like that and that, if anything, is one amazing takeaway just from that trip, one amazing thing that can change your life and show you that giving is more powerful than anything and anyone that you'll ever meet.

Patryk Labuzek: A hundred percent. Yeah. That was perhaps the most valuable lesson in my life, to learn how to appreciate the things that I have, the little things. And trust me, when I came back home after a month, over a month of pretty much living in the Philippines, the first thing I did was take a hot shower. I didn't have hot water for the entire duration. It doesn't exist. Like you don't have hot water in the Philippines. And okay, put it this way, we didn't have hot water in Philippines and they are pretty well off. Maybe when you go to like five star hotels, I've never been, it's a different story. But from my perspective, I had no hot water, even though I was living in very, very good conditions. So again, eye opening. Like such a simple thing as going to take a shower using hot water that we have anytime. Like I go now, I have hot water.

Patryk Labuzek: You go to your shower, you have hot water. They don't. They don't have that kind of access to hot running water. So again, a gradual shift in my perspective of what I have versus what they have and that I should be happy with what I have. Another big lesson was detaching myself and seeing that there's so much more outside of Ireland. Even though I did travel Europe at that point a little bit, to some extent, I mean that was Europe versus flying 14, 15 hours to the Philippines, a gigantic leap forward as well. So that's like a very big shift in what I've seen and what I knew to, you know, what I became to know. And it has impacted every decision that I made afterwards. Every single decision. I mean it impacted the decision that I made to Australia. That's for sure. And then again, that was a big leap for me. So I feel everyone in their life, if you don't have that experience yet, you might have one in the future, how one trip can really, really impact your life and just change you to become a better person.

Lucas P. Johnson: Paddy, another incredible point is that trip that we made to Indonesia. And it might've not been that single greatest trip we ever did because a lot happened. Don't even get me started on that. There were so many things that happened. I mean, heck, I was in the hospital and just, okay. But the point is when we got off the airplane, it was a completely different experience. I'm sure it was probably, you know, you've had experience to be in the Philippines. But for me, that was my first time seeing something and seeing an airport and seeing Asia. I mean I really, Australia as far as I went and possibly could go, but I didn't ever think I'd be going to Asia on this trip. So excited that I did, first off. It was just fantastic. But we did a lot of random adventures on that trip.

Lucas P. Johnson: And for me seeing how people treated each other, it was just breathtaking. We went to so many restaurants where people were so kind, so nice. It wasn't just because we were different. It was because they were genuinely good people. And I think one of the things I took away and applied to my life is just being a good person. You see someone that's in harm or see someone that's struggling or you see someone that just needs a friend or someone to listen to or someone to hear you or someone to be there for you, just take a step, take a break and listen to them. Be there for them. That's called being a good human. If you can take one thing away from your trip is at least learning something about yourself. And for me, that was the most powerful aspect of that trip is it's not hard to be a good human. It takes just one minute of your time or two minutes to say, thank you or hey, this is awesome. You're doing great work. Or hey, you look beautiful. Or oh wow, this waterfall is incredible. Tell me about your experiences here. Everyone wants to hear about themselves. Everyone wants to talk about themselves. Everyone wants to be able to have that chance to just let go of something. And it's really not hard if you can do that. So I think that that's a huge lesson I learned is allowing people to have more time and just be there to be a sounding board when you need it because they'll be there for you when you need it.

Lucas P. Johnson: So I want to ask you, as we work through such an incredible topic today, when you were sitting in your Australia bed and you were being accommodated by the host family, what's one thing that you took away just having that opportunity to be there with them, to be there with a family that you didn't know, first off, and second off, having to live with a different experience like that? How did that change you?

Patryk Labuzek: Yeah. Very, very good question. And I've got a pretty cool answer I think. Because relating it back to the Philippines, my trip to the Philippines has taught me to be happy with the little things and appreciate what I have in life. When I went to Australia, we went to a pretty well off country. Great economy. People were living a very high standard of life. And I was put into the host family there. I lived with the family. And I've learnt something incredible. I've learned to appreciate our planet way more than I did before. And I'll tell you why. At 6:00 AM, my landlady would wake up every morning, and I kid you not, every morning. It doesn't matter if it's Monday or Sunday. She would wake up at 6:00 AM every morning and go to the local beach to pick up rubbish left by the tourists. And it wasn't just her. It was an entire group of people doing this every single day, just going out into their neighborhood and taking care of our planet, of Mother Nature. And you know, those little things, it's like, she went down to pick up the rubbish at the beach. The next day, she went down to plant some trees in the small rainforest, the the Randwick Reserve. I think we went there once or twice.

Patryk Labuzek: So I've learned to again, to appreciate our planet, to take care of it. Because we're the main destroyers of it. You know? And it's us who leave litter behind. It's all us who pollute waters, pollute the air. It's humans. Animals live in harmony with our planet. And that's the truth. That's the reality of it. And so at the end of the day, it's up to us to to try to repair as much of the damage that we have done and what previous generations have done. So it opened my mind and again, a new perspective of looking at life that maybe, you know, you don't buy that much plastic. I would go for a bamboo straw rather than than a paper or a plastic one. So it's those little things, those gradual changes but they have a gigantic impact on our planet and on future generations as well.

Lucas P. Johnson: That was really well said in the sense that we are our own biggest enemy. You know, this earth is beautiful. There's so much to offer. There's so much to see, so much to do. And we take advantage of every opportunity that we can and any way that we can to not only destroy it but to also not do things to help it. Now, there are people out there that are cleaning up debris like that and helping to make the world a better place. But it takes a lot of effort to make this planet a better place. It takes a lot of work to get it back to somewhat of a healthy environment. And you know, pollution is on the rise. And even with COVID, it was the first time I can say that I watched on the news that in California, there was all the pollution that just, all the bog that just settled and it was clear for the first time in so long. That is just incredible, man, just, you know, even seeing it from an outsider's perspective and being kind of stuck inside and looking through it through a lens, you see how much things are changing around us. And if you can just be a little part of that and help change the world one little tiny act at a time, it's just powerful. So while we have these last parts of this conversation to kind of get to, I want to talk to you about being comfortable or being uncomfortable as part of this takeaway of this episode. If you're sitting there and you're thinking about whether you should actually take this leap of faith and go on this trip or maybe whether you should go out on that date, I mean that is just a trip in and of itself.

Lucas P. Johnson: It might be a local opportunity for you to explore, but it's also an opportunity to meet someone new. It's okay to be uncomfortable. It's okay to be comfortable being uncomfortable. That is completely okay. Paddy, you and I had opportunities when we were abroad to go out and truly be faced with being uncomfortable. We went against everything that it meant to be comfortable. We were out meeting people. We were out going to bars that were in the middle of areas that shouldn't, that probably weren't the best places to be. We were at beach paradises that weren't the best places to be after the sun went down. So I have to say that one thing you can do as you go through this process of trying to find the perfect trip is not look far away but look close to your home or close to your school, close to your people, your network, your tribe.

Lucas P. Johnson: Find a thing that you can do that can make you stand out, make you come out of your comfort zones and be comfortable being uncomfortable. Because once you do, you'll find something so incredible within yourself. You'll see light, you'll see a tunnel that's allowing you to find something new. Paddy, when you went through, when you started exploring all these different places as you went on this adventure yourself, on these trips, the trips, the trips, all throughout Europe, all through the United States, Australia, all of these places, you had an opportunity to learn something. Your biggest takeaway by far would be what? Off the spot, off the top of your head. Your biggest takeaway from all of your journeys is what?

Patryk Labuzek: It's definitely what you said, Lucas. it's going out of your comfort zone. Because if I haven't, if I haven't on multiple occasions, I wouldn't have had the experiences of my life. I wouldn't have met all these amazing people along the way. I wouldn't have learned those valuable, valuable lessons. So yeah, go outside of your comfort zones. It's so important to do that. And if you said it the best. It doesn't have to, that one trip that impacts your life doesn't have to be a trip abroad. It doesn't have to be a trip to the other end of the world. It could be something as small and simple as a trip within your local area. You never know what might happen. I mean this one tiny, tiny trip, maybe just around the corner from your house could impact your life in such a way that you're going to recall it for the end of your life, just like I did with my first big trip to the Philippines.

Lucas P. Johnson: You know that phrase where people say, wow, this world is tiny. It's a small place. And you end up seeing people everywhere you go. You know that phrase? Yeah? It is crazy. It is so true. This world is not that big. It might be if you look at it from a globe. If you look at it online, it might be. But really no matter where you go, you find connections, you find people. So why don't you start with your circle, your people that are around you now, and do a trip and go to the lake. Go to that local restaurant you've wanted to try. Take that trip. Make yourself uncomfortable. And another instance of that, Paddy, is I travel a lot for work. I know you do as well. With COVID going on, we haven't had the opportunity. You have. I haven't. Before, I was traveling four or five days a week.

Lucas P. Johnson: And I was kind of really excited about that. That was one thing, my biggest takeaway from my job was to be able to travel locally in the United States. When COVID came and it happened, I was actually in, I was in the States and I had to pickup everything I had and leave. It was kind of weird. It was like, okay. I had another few days here. I had to do some work. And then at night, I was going to go to some of these new restaurant places. I was going to go check out some new sites. And it made me come out of my comfort zones. But when that happened, I was like, oh, what am I going to do? I got all this time that I'm going to be stuck at home. This is something different.

Lucas P. Johnson: The one thing I learned about myself from those trips, man, I'm sure that if you're traveling right now or you were traveling for work, you probably have the same takeaway is that you have the opportunity to meet new people if you put yourself out there. And it's scary. Paddy, it was so scary just to meet you, to meet all of the people we've met along our journey. And if I had to do it again, I would do it two-fold. I would put everything into that bucket. I would put all the eggs in that one bucket because it was the best thing that I ever did, one of my greatest memories and some of my greatest friends on top of the people that I grew up with. So if you would just give in and you stop saying, no, I'm going to do it tomorrow or hey, I can go meet new people today. Heck yeah, you should do it. Do it, do it, do it. Because today, you never know if you're going to wake up tomorrow.

Patryk Labuzek: A hundred percent, Lucas. And this kind of brings up another very, very short story now. But I'm just going to say this. You never know who you're going to meet along your way. And while I was traveling with my buddies here from Ireland around Europe by train, we went to this tiny, tiny Island and Croatia called Hvar. And we stayed in a hostel, like four euro a night. We didn't have much money and that was all we could afford. But it was something. And we met this incredible group of people, a couple coming from New Zealand and a bunch of British girls, students, a few guys from France and this one person, Harry, who's an Aussie from the Gold Coast. And he lived the most careless life while he was in Croatia. He walked bare feet. He didn't have any clothes apart what he was wearing. He didn't come to Europe with anything apart what he had on which was sandals, boxers, shorts, and a shirt. That's it. And yet even though he had sandals, he was walking everywhere bare feet anyways. So you know, through him, I learned how little we actually need, how little materialistic things we need to be happy and to survive on this planet. Anyway, having said that, we met him, we had an amazing time, we rented a boat, went around the island hopping. And now the funny thing is when we went to Gili T, Lucas.

Patryk Labuzek: I've told you about this in Australia. When we went to Gili T, one of the scuba diving instructors that we're supposed to go scuba diving with was Harry that I met in Croatia. It's just absolutely insane because I've met him in the other side of the world, an Aussie guy. And then we go from Australia to Gili T in Indonesia and there he is, working and having the time of his life definitely as Harry. He's a super crazy being. And it just goes back to what you were saying, how small our world is, how we are all interconnected. And it goes to what I'm trying to say, how the person that we meet along the way, how important they could, like how important they could be maybe business-wise. Who knows? Maybe later down the line he's going to be your boss. And relationship wise, I mean if you meet a girl along the way, and then you meet again, it could turn into a great date .and friends wise, I mean like I met Harry down in Croatia and then again, there he was in Gili T and that was another highlight of my trip just seeing him. So it's important to connect with people, to build a good and healthy network of people, to make friends along the way, no matter where they're from, no matter what their beliefs, no matter what their creed, religion, and color. And it's just incredible.

Lucas P. Johnson: Well said, well said. Well, I think that's a great part to wrap up here because in our next episode, as part of this series on traveling and finding your way along this beautiful world, we're going to be focusing in on what you were just talking about, Paddy, finding people to network with and leave an impact on. This world is small. So let's get after it. With that, make sure that you share, you like, you subscribe, the whole nine yards. We're so excited that you could be a part of this journey with us. And we hope that this episode made an impact on you and you had the chance to learn something from us so that you can start applying it today or tomorrow. Probably today would be best. But with that, we'll see you on the next episode of Project Dream Mastery. It is so great to see you here and we look forward to seeing the next one. Talk to you soon.