Outskirts Overland Podcast
Welcome to the Outskirts Overland Podcast, your go-to source for all things overlanding! Hosted by a seasoned adventurer with over 15 years of experience, this podcast offers a genuine and down-to-earth exploration of the overlanding lifestyle. Whether you're a seasoned traveler or just starting out, join us as we delve into the essentials of gear and equipment, share captivating stories from the road, and provide practical tips for your next adventure. Tune in for insightful interviews, expert advice, and a community of like-minded explorers who share a passion for discovering the world beyond the beaten path. Get ready to fuel your wanderlust and embark on unforgettable journeys with the Outskirts Overland Podcast!
Outskirts Overland Podcast
I'm Taking a Break
The unexpected weight of words. That's what today's raw, unscripted episode confronts as I find myself at a crossroads with Outskirts Overland. What started as a straightforward platform to discuss overlanding without commercial influence has grown into something that carries unanticipated emotional consequences.
I've always been direct—when I say something, I mean exactly what I say, nothing more and nothing less. There's no subtext, no veiled criticism of friends or fellow creators, just literal statements and observations. Yet as listenership has grown, so have the misinterpretations and assumed intentions behind my words. When casual observations about industry trends are perceived as personal attacks, when straightforward statements trigger emotional responses never intended, I'm forced to question the sustainability of continuing.
Unlike many podcasts, Outskirts Overland has remained independent, without sponsors or commercial influence. That independence has allowed for authentic conversations about overlanding without the filter of brand partnerships—something I believe the community needs. But this approach means I personally fund everything, investing time, energy, and financial resources into content that's increasingly becoming a source of unexpected stress.
After much reflection, I've decided to take a break—not ending the podcast permanently, but stepping back to gain perspective. The existing episodes will remain available, and I'll be attending Overland of America where I look forward to connecting with listeners in person. During this hiatus, I'll be considering whether there's a path forward that honors both my authentic voice and the community this podcast was created to serve.
If you've appreciated the unfiltered approach of Outskirts Overland, grab yourself a sweet tea (it is National Iced Tea Day, after all), revisit favorite episodes, and share your thoughts with me when our paths cross. Sometimes the most honest thing we can do is acknowledge when something isn't working as intended and have the courage to reassess. Thank you for listening, and I hope to bring you more authentic content when the time is right.
Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, welcome to Outskirts Overland. It is June. Oh, I believe 10th June, 10th June, 10th. Hey, long time childhood friend of mine, ryan Beck, it's his birthday today. I haven't talked to that guy in a long time but hey, ryan, he's a firefighter for a living and happy birthday to him. Crazy, I remember that even probably he thinks, thinks, anyways, but I'm that guy. Um, happy birthday to ryan. I man, that's, I'm thinking about you and uh, he's doing great things. He's a firefighter kind of within our community and has been since probably I don't know, probably 20 years, really, maybe even I mean, yeah, probably 20 years, really, really, maybe even I mean, yeah, probably 20 years really. And good, dude. So, anyways, happy birthday to Ryan. And you know, guys, just so you guys know all the first responders out there makes me think like I'm a huge supporter of first responders, you know so, just so you guys know. And if you guys are of the opinion that you know sometimes people make mistakes in those fields, just understand that they're in a position to where that mistake is going to get ridiculed and they're making decisions in real time and not everybody's perfect. So I do have so much respect for those individuals and can't imagine, you know, having to make those decisions in places where you live right down the road, having been in the military like man. That's just. You're so far away in the military, you're not going to affect your local community, you know it just. Yeah, I think about it. Anyways, guys, that's all. So thanks a lot. I, you know, I appreciate those guys. And happy birthday to Ryan.
Speaker 1:Excuse me, today is National Iced Tea Day. It doesn't say sweet iced tea. So I don't know that I really I don't know that I like this holiday, because nothing is better than a really over sugared iced tea. Is it healthy for you? No, but that's why it's good. Most things that are really healthy aren't delicious like sweet iced tea. So do yourself a favor and get you a sweet iced tea today. Fun fact Arizona iced tea is still 99 cents. That's a talk for another time on National Iced Tea Day.
Speaker 1:So today I don't want man guys, I don't want to be, I don't want to seem like a downer, but have you guys can see I'm like struggling to. I have such a hard time like. I'm a very direct and blunt person, so I have a really hard time with like. I want to just say things directly. You know, like, not, not rude. I mean anybody that knows me knows I'm just and not direct like rude, just like I'm not going to be the person that explains that. You like that it takes black and white mixed together to make gray and that gray is in the middle of black and white and I live. You know, like I'm not a, I'm just not like that and it is, and I am self-aware of that.
Speaker 1:But it does tend to leave some things like I say things and they mean what they mean. But because so many people and they mean what they mean, but because so many people don't, a lot of people interpret what I say in anything but just what I said. There's nothing to read into. I'm not speaking cryptically to anyone, so I'm trying to articulate that directly, while also catering to how other people might perceive how I say things or write things or whatever. Um, but by no means does me saying um, by no means would I make the statement that grass is green mean that I'm calling you stupid because you think it's. You know, some specific color. You know, I'm not saying you're dumb, I'm saying the grass is green. I'm not saying you're wrong, I'm saying it is no, nothing about what I said there has anything to do with anybody else's thought about what I said. It is not an attack at someone else. It is simply just a thought and a statement, an observation. But it doesn't mean your observation is wrong, your thought is stupid, anything about you is sideways. So the podcast I was talking to a friend yesterday, the podcast this is not going to be a podcast about overlanding today, today, not forever, but today because the podcast has gotten popular to a place where people are listening, that people are listening and watching and whatever, and there's feelings involved in, like, other people's feelings.
Speaker 1:Again, guys, I'm not. This is not like a, it's not. I'm not saying it's a strength of mine, it's just a self-awareness that I really just don't have the like I'm not. This podcast is mine and I produce it and I put it out and I don't have sponsors and nobody's guiding it. So what you're getting is me. You're just getting me Like there's no like sponsor, but like I have nobody to answer to. So what you're getting is me, but you're not getting me.
Speaker 1:I'm not living a life where my life is to belittle, degrade or I just am not concerned with what anybody else thinks or is doing. I'm not saying things with the thought of hurting someone else's feelings, because this is my thing. I'm not raising my kids with consideration of what somebody else thinks about how I'm raising my kids, based on how they're raising their kids, if that makes sense. I'm just not concerned with what other people are doing. I'm only talking about my experiences and in what I believe to be true. But it also isn't that I believe it to be true because you X person are wrong or are something else. Okay, like, I'm only saying that. So it wasn't. It was a real discussion and it's a. It's a real, it's a real thought in my mind and this is something that I would never have, that I wouldn't have known or thought about.
Speaker 1:But the podcast has gotten oh my gosh, just it's getting a lot more listens than I would have ever. I mean, I guess it's good, maybe, but it comes with this weight of am I going to be, am I going to? Am I going to submit to the fact that some things I'm saying are making people have feelings, and do I, do I necessarily like? Am I going to? Am I going to continue like truth and honesty, right, guys? I talked about this like am I going to? I'm going to have to decide if I'm okay Because, like, in my opinion, anyone that gets offended by something that I'm saying, they're getting offended.
Speaker 1:I genuinely am not trying to offend somebody. I'm not trying to target anybody by me saying making a statement, I'm just simply making a statement, like it is not an art. I'm not arguing with anybody. I'm not trying to argue with anybody, but there's feelings involved. So, as the podcast gets more, gets larger, not larger, the podcast not any larger. It's still just me and myself and I, to be completely honest with you guys, um, and I continue to try and get brands to get on board, but I'm not going to get on board with them.
Speaker 1:It doesn't seem like me and them are going to like and that's fine, but what they're wanting me to do, I don't want to do and what I want them to do they don't want to do, and that's pretty across the board. I did be honest guy and I don't want them to just give me free stuff, but I'm not going to give them free marketing either, specifically. So I'll talk about stuff I use, but that's a. That's, that's off topic, okay. So they just, with all the feelings involved, I'm going what's? Why am I doing this one? Why am I even doing the podcast? Why am I doing this One? Why am I even doing the podcast?
Speaker 1:I'd like to be educational, but if what it's turning into is the podcast getting shared around, like you know, people thinking because I know them and I do the podcast and I'm talking about them, maybe or it's directed at them, like I have friends that are creators. When I say the term, I think creators are doing X. It is a fact that they are a creator. It is also a potential fact that what I'm bringing up they're doing in no way, shape or form is do. I feel like I need to think differently because of what they're doing or they need to change what they're doing. But I believe I can say what I want to say and have an opinion of it. I still support my friends and their channels and their businesses, but it doesn't mean that I don't have opinions of those things and reserve the right to have them. It also it doesn't it also doesn't mean I don't like their channel or their business or whatever.
Speaker 1:I'm allowed to say things. Guys like period, like I don't know why. That's a hard concept but it. But by saying one thing doesn't mean I have some deep seated emotion about it, cause I'm not that. I'm just not like that, and if you guys were to get to know me, you would understand that. And you don't have to accept my personality. You can click right off of this podcast at any time, or unsubscribe or whatever, if anything I say is causing you some emotional harm somehow, and I don't know how that would be. But it's not up to me to decide how that would be. But what I'm getting at is because it's becoming that way. I don't's not up to me to decide how that would be, so, but what I'm getting at is because it's becoming that way. I don't have the bandwidth to deal with it. I just don't like. I'm not going to be the person that's like. You know.
Speaker 1:Let me make an analogy. I'm usually pretty good at analogies. I'm not going to look at my kids and say, hey, you can't get that toy this month because rent needed paid, and like, try and backtrack a way to make both things happen. I'm going to say that's not possible. I'm going to move on with my life and hope that they do too. Like decisions were made, stuff had to happen. That's the way it is. That's the way it was and we got to move on.
Speaker 1:By no means does that mean I hate my kids or don't want to look out for my kids or don't even care that they want these things and they can be reevaluated another time, but I'm just not the person that's going to go. I'm going to change my content and I'm going to change my way of delivering it to satisfy someone else. This is my content that I put out and it's up to anybody. As much as I have free speech. You have freedom to listen or not listen. You have freedom to have an opinion about it.
Speaker 1:I am not going to hear anybody's feelings about it because I don't care and it's not like I say this so much. It's not. I don't care because that I don't care about you. I don't care if what I say has you feel in some type of way. I can say it. We need to evaluate. We all need to own what we say, but we all also need to own whatever's going on within us that makes us feel a different way about it than the literal sense of the word. You know like I. I don't know how to better explain it. I'm trying to have an emotionally appropriate mindset here, but I don't even. I just am again, guys, it's. It's not here, there or the next place. That's just not who I am and my capacity for that is pretty low.
Speaker 1:So, as I try it like, I'm very God I hate the term intentional Like. I know what I'm saying and I know, in the truest form of what I'm saying, what it means. There's no undertones, there's no like, and I will discuss you know, I've discussed it with people in the last few days about things I've said and by no means does it mean anything but what I said literal, like. Everything I'm saying is literal, like, it's not. I'm not going, you know, I don't know, it's just not an opinion of anybody. I'll tell you that like and I'm not naming people because it nothing I'm talking about is specific to an individual and I'm starting to find out that in this space of content and things that like, I guess it's implied that like, if I say I don't like that creators are doing this and I know creators that evidently I'm talking to them.
Speaker 1:When I'll be real honest with you guys, I say creators, I watch more than my friends that evidently I'm talking to them when I'll be real honest with you. Guys. I say creators, I watch more than my friends. Like, I listen to more than just my friends. I'm not making an observation of just my friends. I may be, you know, and my friend may be the outlier, but it doesn't mean the other 30 people I watched don't do it. So one 30th of a of a viewership would lead me to say that's a huge amount. Like I can, I can come to a conclusion based on that, even if my friend that does content is an outlier. I'm not going to, I'm not saying all creators, but or I'm not saying my friend X creator is. Like, I'm just saying this is what I'm seeing.
Speaker 1:Okay, as such, I'm probably going to take a break. I'm in the car wash right now, guys, so I'm extremely sorry, but I'm going to take a break from the podcast to see if I even if why I'm doing it matters enough to me I've been doing it for the listeners and genuinely think that the community could use someone doing something similar to what I'm doing. Just an un, I have opinions, but I wouldn't say I'm. I mean maybe I am biased. I mean I have opinions, but I'm trying to. I'm just trying to give information, but I'm going to take a break from the podcast to see if, if it even matters to me and and I'll, I appreciate your guys' support in doing it and I appreciate your guys' support and listening and I'm by now, I will continue to pay for the content to be available to you guys. So if you want to listen to it, that's fine.
Speaker 1:And I'm not saying the podcast is over, but what I am saying is the reason I'm doing it is to try and just be a place where people can can listen about stuff and subjects that I think are important, and without product integration or commercials. And again, guys, by me saying without product integration and commercials doesn't mean I think you're stupid for doing that or you're wrong for doing that. I'm simply saying there are people that want to have information given without commercials. That's why Netflix also exists, but I mean I don't see ABC messaging them about friendships, like I don't understand. But me understanding doesn't matter. Quite frankly, guys, I don't give two shits about what people think about it, but as such, then I don't know that I care to do it.
Speaker 1:I was doing it for a reason, and exactly the reasons that I continue to bring up within the community are probably the reasons I'm going to stop doing it, because my life was simpler when I could just not like. I'll be at Overland of America and I will be there for you guys to talk to you guys, and I think that event's going to be a lot of fun. But as such and I'm going to be there and extremely available to you guys I am taking a break from this because I just don't like I love you guys. I do love you guys. I cannot believe the amount of people that have listened to this.
Speaker 1:Like, quite frankly, I don't know why anybody cares to listen to me, but the positivity that I was getting before, really before the last two weeks, made it easy for me to me, because what I'm trying to combat is that commercialization, like privatization of a public hobby, um, but I don't need to be. You know the man. You know I don't got to be the guy here. You know that's. I don't need to publicly fight the system. I am totally fine with submitting to the fact that it is commercialized and it is kind of hateful, unfortunately, and like anybody would do, I hope with any backbone they'd go. You know what. I'm just going to remove myself from it. So in my mind currently, that's where I am. I'm probably just going to remove myself from it. So in my mind currently, that's where I am. I'm probably just going to remove myself from it. I will, like I said, I will think about it.
Speaker 1:I've obviously reached a breaking point yesterday with it and not again, guys. It's not anybody's fault. I'm a man that makes my own decisions. I am making my own decision. It is not based off anyone else at all. It's just simply a reflection of myself. Am I doing this for me truly or for you guys truly? And if so, why me? Why am I the guy that's doing it? I've got to dissect what all that, what that, what all that is like, am I? I'm not looking for validation. I'm at the.
Speaker 1:You know, I was at the point where I wanted sponsorships because, quiet guys, I'm paying for you to be able to listen to it. Then that's a fact like this costs me money for you guys to listen. So, truly, I'm giving you something that costs me money, just the pure production of this and availability to listen. And, guys, I'm not going to take that away from you. Period. I will continue to pay for my podcast host, you know, as long as podcasts are around and you guys can go back and listen. I apologize for my audio, probably six, seven episodes ago, probably from episode 50 to 65, 70, 80, whatever. The audio was terrible. It's fixed now. But, guys, I'm taking a break.
Speaker 1:It is just a sad day for me that, like even just being yourself, you know that that's a thing, but I also don't care enough to continue doing this, to be dealing with that. How people feel about what I say is up to them and what I say is up to me. But I'm also not going to continue to stand up for myself or my friendships that feel like they're being targeted, which is, again, if you don't know me well enough, it's even more dissatisfying or just disheartening to me, dissatisfying, disheartening to me, that sometimes it's my friendships Like these people. I feel like these people know me and should know that, like I'm just saying things, but they don't and I, I'm not. I'm not willing to continue to deal with it If, just simply because I have there's, I pay to do this. It's for free. It's free for you guys.
Speaker 1:I can't again. I can't believe, as many people have listened, but I as such, I, I don't. It's very easy for me to shut, turn it on and shut it off because there's no one else involved. So I'm just going to leave it at that, guys. I mean I don't know what else to say really. So I'll leave it at that. Drink a sweet tea for me maybe, at least unless you're diabetic and have a good day, and I'll talk to you guys. I mean, I'll talk at you guys when I talk at you guys next and I do appreciate this time and I'll probably think back on it for a long time and I'll catch you guys later.
