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My Self Reliance Podcast
Welcome to the Cabin. I’m Shawn James, the host of the My Self Reliance podcast and YouTube channel.
This is the story of how I am withdrawing from modern society to pursue a free, natural, healthy, meaningful and satisfying life and how you can too. Join me as I build an off grid homestead in the wilderness complete with log cabins, an outdoor kitchen, a wood-fired sauna, lumber mill, vegetable garden, fruit orchard, food forest and haven for wildlife.
My Self Reliance Podcast
15. Turning Passion into Business and Living Nomadically
When Dan and Candice's paths crossed at a yoga studio market, little did they know that their shared love for the earth would sprout into Live Edge, a beacon of sustainability in the world of woodworking. Their story, a tapestry of environmental stewardship and artistic craftsmanship, unfolds as they recount the growth of their business, from repurposing fallen trees into stunning furniture to strengthening the fabric of their community through local markets. Join us and be inspired by a couple who've turned their backs on city chaos for the tranquillity of rural life, proving that with passion and resilience, you can not only build a beautiful life but also make a positive impact on the planet.
Our conversation swerves from the warm glow of woodworking to the colder, more introspective side of life — embracing discomfort and the transformative nature of practices like cold plunging. The duo shares candid moments of failure and the rocky road to success, encouraging us to appreciate the sweetness of triumph against the backdrop of struggle. They also open up about their non-traditional approach to education and parenting, inviting us to question the status quo and consider the richness of experience over the conventional paths we've come to accept.
Peering into the future, Dan and Candice give us a glimpse of their Off-Grid Oasis, a dream in the making, where sustainable living isn't just an ideal but a tangible, year-round journey. With plans for a deck that doubles as a music space to the year-round growth of their gardens, the couple shares their vision for a life that's as close to nature's heartbeat as one can get. So pull up a chair and let the serenity of their story wash over you, as we explore the wild, wonderful world of Live Edge in this episode.
Live Edge Forest Links
Website - https://www.liveedgeforest.com/
Instagram- https://www.instagram.com/live_edge_forest/
My Self Reliance YouTube Channel-
https://youtube.com/@MySelfReliance?si=d4js0zGc5ogYvDtO
Shawn James Youtube Channel - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5L_M7BF5iait4FzEbwKCAg
Merchandise - https://teespring.com/stores/my-self-reliance
So we're Live Edge Forest. Dan started the company a couple of months before we met.
Dan:Yeah, and we met in London, Ontario, but was born and raised in Toronto and then turn 16, went tree planting and never went back to the city you met before you were 16? No, no, no, Like years later. We met in London, Ontario, and I started the company, started just doing charity boards and Candice I actually did my first market at Candice's yoga studio at the time and she also purchased my first charity board.
Laura:It wasn't like the best time of year for a market, so it was very busy.
Dan:It was on the third floor. It was so bad, it was crazy. And she was at the end. She was like, hey, how was the show for you? And I was like, oh, you know I didn't sell anything but I met a lot of good people. I think it was like a pity. Oh. So how much are these I'm not selling?
Laura:there. They were so cheap. I was like Okay. And then after that, yeah, we uh. Then we started doing I ran like community markets, me and my friend would rent a big circus tent. So when there was festivals in the park because we were like expensive for individual artists to have their own tent.
Laura:So we'd rent a circus tent and have like 30 local artists in it and his stuff was really nice so I would always put him beside me. So then we got to like the whole summer doing like festivals and stuff. We got to know each other and then in the fall he got me standing wood and so we started working together. Yeah.
Dan:And then the yoga studio was kind of dwindling down.
Laura:But the perimeter of the yoga studio became like a showroom for furniture, slowly like all around.
Shawn:Yeah, so this stuff's in London.
Laura:That was in London, yeah, and you had this meeting. This would have been in like 2014, 2015.
Dan:Like eight years ago.
Laura:Yeah.
Dan:And then, after your 30th birthday party, we were having a fire, and then everybody was just talking about like where do? You see yourself in a year. And then I was like oh, I'd like to go to Muskoka. I've been camping up here a lot. And then she actually said I would love that too. And then a year later we moved out here and, yeah, we did some winter camping and yeah.
Dan:And then we fell in love with the place, so we ended up finding a place around the corner from here and uh, yeah, I rented a cabin for eight months and that was sweet.
Laura:Yeah, and then we were. We were just driving to town to like go to the library or like food land, and so this place was for sale, just like like a for sale sign, not a realtor or anything Like it would be unheard of at this time. And the couple selling it they were a young couple, was their first time selling, our first time buying, and we were just like we really like it.
Laura:Can we just we didn't really know what we were doing Like I made up a contract Like it would never happen this way nowadays and because it was in the winter so it wasn't like a lot of I guess a lot of people didn't see it.
Dan:So it was just kind of like okay, let us figure our stuff out and it was so funny because they had a cloth with tub in the basement and this metal racking and we were like we need that a part of the deal. And then they threw the cloth with tub which we have right now. The squirrels can't get up there, so anyways, yeah.
Laura:So that's so. Then we got this place and then, um, yeah, we started owning, but um, I guess we should say where we do custom woodworking furniture, so stone art, so you so going back a little further.
Shawn:So you okay, this we're doing. You were a yoga instructor. That was your, your a professional your job.
Laura:I was a well, I was a yoga instructor, so last I made jewelry as well, and I worked at a bar on weekends to just get the big one, because the yoga instructor, the starving artist, I was kind of like one of those, like I, wanted to offer some pay what you can classes like I didn't want to be so you know it's hard to. It's hard to make a lot of money having a OVC here, especially if you have that kind of mindset.
Shawn:So yeah, I was doing that. Yeah, Dan, you said planting trees for a long time.
Dan:I started when I was 17 and then planted for nine seasons across Canada, which was awesome. Yeah, that's cool. I planted over a million trees my sixth year and I think I'm at a million and four hundred.
Laura:That's cool.
Dan:I planted over a million trees, which is pretty cool.
Shawn:Yeah, it shaped me. Yeah that's what I'm. Yeah, that's exactly what I was going to say. So you're both basically very organic and connected to the body and the land, I guess.
Laura:Yeah, absolutely. So that's okay, it's a present.
Shawn:So now your business is live man.
Dan:The whole part of the business is that I was tree planting and there's a thing called slash pile burning or in the winter, well, they cut all the trees down and the trees that they deem unfit they burn in the wintertime, put them in a big slash pile. So then I thought like how could I use these dead fallen trees to profit from? And then at first I thought about like getting like a woodchipper truck and getting free lumber and you know, making mulch and selling mulch, but then I started making charcuterie boards with it. So everything we make is from fallen or down trees. We don't cut anything down. A profit from it, which is part of our big so there must have been hardwoods.
Dan:Then yeah, yeah, yeah all hardwoods pretty much Cherry, maple, walnut.
Shawn:Yeah, yeah.
Laura:Started doing charcuterie boards and then slowly like bench a bench, and then slowly Once.
Dan:Candace jumped on board. People would say, hey, could you guys make a bench, could you make a coffee table? And we're like, oh, we could try. And then we did it. And yeah, it was just kind of trial and error, Self-learning, self-learning and teaching each other how to do things.
Shawn:So it was fun and obviously work ethic wise, you guys are working probably more than yeah. You're doing different things too now with the old that's right of the oasis as well, that's right.
Laura:In the beginning we were hustling like we would do, like all these markets, the first two years. Yeah, we would always like we would have so many products, like literally, we would like make soap so cold like so cold.
Dan:There's like cherry.
Laura:We tried to use the whole tree for yeah like every single, even to the point because I was still doing a bit of yoga we would fill meditation cushions with, like our wood shavings and lavender. We were like, using the whole tree, we started a center, our sister company called Mantis. Yoga man.
Dan:It was wooden yoga blocks like you know all the cedar filled and lavender cushions and like all this other stuff.
Laura:Just to use literally everything.
Shawn:And selling and market like going to flea. Yeah.
Laura:Market, markets, and like yeah, yeah, and we did like I used to do the yoga tranioga conference at the time, so we would like do stuff like that like literally Hula hoops as well.
Dan:Yeah, hula hoops Like the most flexible ones.
Shawn:You have a demonstration of that.
Laura:But yeah, we just hustled like so hard we try to do, you know, be in stores and everything, and then we started doing bigger stuff right.
Dan:Yeah, like we kind of changed it to like working smart, not hard, and instead of having so many products and it being overwhelming for somebody to go to a table and being like Nah, and they would be overwhelming and just keep walking because they don't know what to buy. But they want to support you and they would start doing tables and Custom. Yeah, bigger things and yeah.
Laura:Yeah, and then I think a big part of like when we first moved up where we are, it can be very seasonal, so very busy in the summer and then the winter it's a bit quieter. So I think for us when we bought this place is a duplex, so it was really helpful.
Laura:We could kind of rent out part of it keep doing what we're doing and then slowly we would kind of get to know the flow of our season. So we would start to get, you know, markets in the summer, but then custom furniture in the winter, that people wanted to be ready for the summer, and then we needed more space so we wanted to get land, and that's when we got the off-grid.
Dan:Yeah, and especially during COVID and after COVID. Yeah, like was the big thing of us wanting to switch how we did things and we wanted that.
Laura:Step away into the forest.
Dan:Yeah, there was a lot of restrictions and things that we couldn't do, and we wanted to just have our own space to be able to do what we wanted to do.
Shawn:Yeah, so that's where the off-grid oasis came into play. So, space to do the woodworking. Were you doing it?
Laura:here though the whole time. Yeah In the.
Shawn:Basically in the living room, right yeah, oh yeah.
Dan:Oh yeah, oh yeah. Like even back in London, like we lived in a loft and there was just truck crew boards on every step drying and there was just wood everywhere. It was crazy.
Laura:We have a wood shop downstairs.
Dan:A proper wood shop yeah.
Laura:So we would do that here, but we just more like space to store wood and just space to. You know, it gets very busy in the summer here, so just space to be. To work here, yeah, and just to be able to you know, yeah, kind of step away a little bit.
Dan:Yeah.
Laura:Like I said, into the woods, which then after that, came like the van, like, we ended up purchasing a van that was like a showroom on a weekend. We kind of skipped. We should rewind, because it was like before the off-grid it was the van. Oh yeah, before the off-grid it was the van. We're a little.
Dan:Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's right. See, that's us doing too much, too much, too much.
Shawn:Okay, so you're here, you're operating the Leavage Forest business, yes, and then you decide to get a van for first, For ourselves, just to do just like.
Laura:for us, it was to travel, and it was a showroom on wheels.
Dan:A showroom on wheels.
Laura:We're like we'll do shows and then we could just have our showroom. So we made our first van like mint, just so nice because we wanted to display our work as well, and we traveled like at Weston and had a bunch Travel.
Dan:Like two years, did like three different times going there and then ended up selling it to somebody on like a auto trader on Instagram In Florida.
Laura:Yes, I don't see him. She was just like she saw pictures and it was like I love the whole cabin vibe.
Dan:I used to have a place in Muskoka. She had a shipping company and she sent a transport truck, picked it up and then took it to Florida. So that was her.
Laura:So then we're like okay, we need another van, but then we ordered two vans because we had. Then we had a client that wanted a van as well and then one for us, but then COVID, everything kind of like got delayed, but then yeah. So then we're like, well, maybe we'll just start doing this, like we'll just start two or two like like plant, like a empty shelf, yeah we built one for ourselves and then for a client and then we thought hey, there's a market for this. Yeah.
Dan:That people that just want to kind of escape and live differently. So, the demand, life kind of became what we did for the next couple of years and yeah, it was amazing. But which also? We always go out west and we collect stones.
Laura:We have a stone art piece over there, but we collect stones and rivers and streams and stuff and we bring pieces of wood back with us from the West Coast like stash it under our bed or mattress or like anywhere that can fit in the van.
Shawn:And the closet big leaf maple or sheer that we don't have here.
Dan:You know, like different wood types, which is awesome, and that kind of expanded our product line to like more. You know, higher end artistic pieces, not just a table. It's you know like more of a yeah.
Shawn:So I'll put links and actually, if I can get pictures of your old the vans that you created on that.
Laura:I'd like this show Absolutely.
Shawn:Yeah, that's cool, cause it really is art, it's not just functional tables.
Dan:Yeah Well, like this piece, for example, is like a little bit of resin, but to me it reminds me of this trip out West near Abraham Lake. That's like a canyon where you're walking here and you know like you're up above looking at the river flowing kind of thing. And then the first van we had this as our, as our cabinet door for our fridge, so you would pull that out and then the solar fridge would be there, and so, yeah, it was, it was very it was a different style that we did.
Shawn:Just cool. Yeah, that's really cool. So the van. So you still doing that the van.
Laura:Yeah, yeah, we're working on one for a client right now, and then his brother is also um just helping him. We've inspired him to get a van.
Dan:So, I just saw a little stove in there and that's sweet.
Shawn:Yeah, I saw that actually, so you live up here too.
Dan:Uh, no, he's, uh, he's in the city, but like he's, just like he wants to get away from the city and the way he is it's it's funny, but he but he's so, but he has like his job.
Laura:He's the job. He can't like leave that he feels but he's but he's living out, but at least he's trying to be different, like because it's obviously hard to get anything in the city, so he's living in his van.
Shawn:So I feel like he's halfway. Yeah, yeah, yeah, so he's very like uh, more dangerous than living in the home?
Dan:Yeah, he's very paranoid about like the smoke coming out and I'm like, hey, we're going to see it.
Shawn:So yeah, that's cool.
Laura:Yeah.
Shawn:What part of the city is that?
Dan:like uh near high park, which is nice. So like he has like little notes that he can kind of hide into, but that's funny and high park is pretty cool. Actually I'll go down there to film Waterfall because you're going into the heart of the city but you can actually get close to the animals and it's funny because he works out like a night shift, like during the day he's in his van, like even harder to let that stout yeah.
Shawn:Yeah, that's funny. Yeah, it is hard to make that. That's the thing. That's why I was interested in your story anyway. That is, choosing to live this way, because cutting the cord, you guys, it sounds like you always had that.
Laura:Oh, yeah, yeah.
Shawn:But for people that are living even me, living more of an urban life or connected to the city, at least, that's a big step.
Laura:It is a big step. Yeah, most people are afraid to take it and it's an unknown.
Shawn:Actually, when I was working in the city as an apprentice sheet metal worker and I had moved down to Don Mills with my dad because my parents were separated for a while, so I lived there and started my apprenticeship and then we'd go up to my property north of here I guess from there it was like three and a half hours. So I'd go up Friday night with my dad's truck and then come home Sunday night. I couldn't stand it but to get out of there. We grew up in Newmarket. It was already kind of halfway. But then when my wife and I met, okay, we're going north up to Moonstone, moved up there, okay, and just even that though it was a step because it was going from a union wage down in the city to this small roofing company doing a little bit of sheet metal work for them actually working in a chicken coop to bend up our metal.
Dan:We would have to take a propane bottle with a heater on top of it and heat up.
Shawn:The metal break because you couldn't touch it, because your hand would stick.
Dan:It was so cold, oh jeez.
Shawn:So we're in this chicken coop, but it went down probably to half of what I was making.
Laura:Yeah.
Shawn:So that was a real risk and seemed like people that were crazy. They're moving up to middle of nowhere, yeah, but it's harder. Well, I don't know if it's harder now. Things are expensive, but they've always been. I guess real estate is not. We bought our first house for $99,000. We made about that, my wife and I at that time. Yeah, but it's not more near the ratio, I guess now for most people.
Laura:Yeah Well, that's the thing too, I think when we moved up north people were like oh, I just remember a lot of people being like oh, the men said is usually you do that after, you do that when you retire.
Shawn:Sure yeah.
Laura:You know what I mean. But then when I was up here, when we first moved up here, I was doing yoga for seniors I really like teaching seniors and a lot of people were like they were selling their place in the city and the plan was to retire up here. But by that point it's like the landscape, it's just tricky. It's hard to do when you're older.
Shawn:Yeah, yeah.
Laura:Right, it's the landscape. A lot of people end up moving back to Wakanda or something, so it's like why wait?
Shawn:Do it now.
Dan:It wasn't easy, even when we were saying Even when we purchased back, however, many years ago, eight years ago, it was way more affordable. I found, you know like people think, oh, muskoka, and they think these high end cottages are better, million dollars or whatever. But you know, you just have to look and find and you'll find little little bucks on.
Shawn:Well, it's funny because my sister had a cottage on Bracken Rigg. There's a bay that comes right to the Bracken Rigg road, probably three quarters the way up the road there.
Laura:Oh, I wonder if it's Boyce, like the bay Boyce road.
Shawn:No, it's Raydon. Oh, it's on the way. It's a driveway that has two cottages on it, go off to the left and actually Monica Schnar's place is right there. I don't know if you know where she was. Anyway, they had this place for. They probably paid one and a half million for 20 years ago or whatever. But they bought the 40 acres across the road when it came up for sale for, I think, 30,000. So, the water comparatively is affordable for locals right.
Laura:Yeah.
Shawn:But those, of course, the wealthy, were buying up those things, it's all about. It's all kind of affordable.
Dan:We have a bunch of friends that have. They live across the road, so it's like they have waterfront without paying for waterfront, so it's just right there. There's a little crown land, nipal, we call the point. It's just amazing. It's really lucky to.
Shawn:That's how I ended up getting mainland on Whitestone Lake. When I built my first cabin it was five and a half acres, but the sort of the hundred acres that got divided up into these smaller parcels had one tiny piece that touched the water, so it was deeded then to all of us owners.
Laura:Okay.
Shawn:And my property is right across the road from them, so I could look at the water and walk to it.
Laura:So I like that waterfront, that's key.
Shawn:Without paying. That's amazing, yeah, I'd like. I'd love to have that now actually. I'm not willing to pay waterfront prices? No, I don't know what it is. Okay, so that's. So you're operating live edge forest, so how would you make? So? How are you? Where are you getting your business now then? So you did markets.
Laura:Yeah, and I love markets, though you can. Dan thinks it's cute that I still do markets.
Dan:I'm on the board of the Rostov Market. I like being out and about, so I still do in the summer of the Rostov Market.
Laura:That's the one that we do and we get a lot of clients from that, like our best client, like this year, like has Exactly Wait, sorry, yeah she bought a lot of them.
Dan:She bought seven of our pieces in her cottage.
Laura:Yeah, and it's from there. So that, and then we.
Dan:It's all like I think it's actually in this area. It's word of mouth. Candice is saying, sure, people come to the markets, but then they see us, see what we're capable of. They take a card and then they call us a couple months later and then we get those more orders or whatever.
Laura:But that was important, I think it helps too. When we got here we were really like we just tried to hustle. So we did tables for the Muskoka Brewery. We would do workshops at Sadda City Brewery. We would do different in different restaurants, like a couple restaurants in Huntsville. Like we make bar tops, Like at Soapstones, we made all their counters.
Laura:So I think we just tried to make an impact when we first got here, and there wasn't a lot of people doing what we're doing Like now there's, I think during COVID. A lot of people picked up the tools and thought they were gonna start a company. You know what I mean, but we were here, before that, so I feel like we were able to plant our people.
Dan:Should we go back just a little bit as well to like how we started, how we would approach restaurants, so like we would go to a restaurant, even back in London, and we would order a charcuterie board and it would come on like a plate. So then, fast.
Laura:We said oh, here's your business card.
Dan:Well, we're local, we do charcuterie boards wooden ones and then we got into seven high-end restaurants in London and from there people started seeing our brand on the boards tagging us and we kind of became a little bit popular that way.
Laura:And then we moved out here.
Dan:But like we used to love doing that, going to a place and it comes on a plate and we're like, eh, eh, there you go, and then they would order, like you know, 40, 50 boards from us and yeah, like it was like even here in Port Carling and Brace Bridge like same thing, we kind of made that and then came here and did it, which was kind of cool.
Shawn:Just for the context, for the audience, the Muskoka, just so you know basically. Well, so, right across the road or right behind you, you said to these waterfront homes what's the average price? Like two and a half million or something? Yeah, yeah, yeah, but there's, I think, what's the most expensive? What? 23 million, maybe on Rosso or on the. Joe, yeah, on the Joe yeah, yeah, yeah, like crazy, crazy valuations here and the money that comes up into this small town right here and the number of people Like what's the population of this town now?
Laura:Like it's tiny. I didn't even know what to say it is. A few hundred.
Dan:Well, like it's in the hub of the lake, so we have, like Joe Rosso and Muskoka Lake all here, so it's even crazier.
Laura:So people are like, ooh, how did you get a place there? We're like well, we're not.
Dan:We're not on like Joe, nowhere. You know our houses as big as you know boat houses. You know.
Shawn:Yeah, literally, boat houses would be worth more than all of our rooms. But it's definitely a good spot to be for getting those clients and yeah, yeah, that's, yeah we lucked out Well, we sell your stuff in Deerhurst yeah.
Laura:They have art galleries.
Shawn:So that's, you're in art galleries too.
Dan:That's right, yeah, yeah yes, our friend owns that he clips art galleries so it's nice because it's all the different artists and stuff in the area and it's really nice because they get year round European clients that come skiing and all that stuff as well. So it's a good spot for our stone art and stuff.
Shawn:Yeah, okay, so you're mostly word of mouth now and website, I guess.
Laura:Website yeah, our website. Well, our website surprisingly a lot of, I do help.
Dan:I do help on this one.
Laura:A lot of traffic, like a couple of years ago. A few years ago we got a call about being on a Netflix show because they found our website. Like I'm like, how did you find it? It's like, oh, we came across your website.
Shawn:We're looking for artists in Miss.
Laura:Go-ka, and so they kind of approached us and then we really, like, we went to the restaurant to see it and to pitch a really good idea, because we really we really wanted to get on it. So they ended up yeah, we were the artists on the show.
Dan:The woodworkers of Miss Go-ka the region and we did like a cool cookie accent wall for them, like a tree slices or whatever walnut, cherry, cedar, and then also a big ash table that we ended up doing for the show.
Laura:Yeah, it was like a renovation show kind of thing.
Dan:It's like really good restaurant or like really beautiful locations and then just like the restaurant needed a little bit of a you know up left or whatever. Out of the 11 episodes on the show, miss Go-ka's the only winter one.
Laura:that's Hawaii, and like all these tropical places. Yeah, it was a cool show. Yeah, it was very cool.
Dan:But from that we got tons of orders like around the world, like France, Germany, like everybody was ordering from us.
Laura:It was pretty Well, the timing was perfect because, literally, the show aired like when the lockdowns, like first happened, so everyone was just like watching Netflix.
Dan:They watched Netflix. When it came out, it was number one and then, yeah, it was amazing.
Laura:So that was great because that kind of like, rolled us through like that right, and then you know we get. Like Dan said, we get board orders from people would just want to order something Like a board.
Dan:It's like the shipping costs more than what you're buying.
Laura:They're like we don't care.
Dan:We have to look up these little like towns in Germany like these little towns and we're like, oh it's like a $50 board and a $60 shipping fee.
Laura:It just goes to show you like people love a story or they love you know, when they see someone and we would have people like so from that then with COVID it was like everybody's renovating or making a home office, so then we get lots of orders to do like desks. We even had a family that saw us on the show and they were just like in the city and they had this cookie kind of like this that they just wanted like made into a table. I'm like you could literally just I'm sure there's like hundreds of woodworkers to wrap you.
Shawn:They were just right in front of it. They put some of that, two legs on it or something, yeah, and they're like no, but like they.
Laura:Just they wanted us to do it. So they drove up with their whole family like brought it.
Dan:And then the other family that ordered something, and then they're like, oh, but could you bring Hatchie?
Laura:Oh yeah.
Dan:But I could just bring the dog.
Laura:Because he was on the. Our dogs were on the show too.
Shawn:Would you mind talking about, like future plans? Yeah, yeah, yeah, no, no, yeah, yeah yeah, yeah, for sure, Absolutely absolutely.
Laura:Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So she's gonna be.
Dan:She'll be five months.
Laura:She'll be doing the van life when she's five months old.
Dan:Well, that's how we want to go out for the month, so, like our van has a little sink in the corner that we never use, we never use a sink when we're traveling.
Dan:Candice makes like a cool dish spray and we just clean our dishes with the spray and very minimal or whatever and just drinking water with our burky. But we're gonna take the sink out and the RV we bought a while ago from our friends. We're gonna put an old vintage seat in there and have a third seat for her. So we'll have we'll have her go mobile with her, which will be sweet.
Shawn:So in case the baby's gonna live the life that you guys were living. Yeah, we're not gonna change this.
Dan:We're not gonna change, you know.
Laura:And because we're gonna self educate like that's just gonna be a part of her journey and our journey, and because we have a lot of Travel, I think travel is so important to you, just like the best.
Dan:And staying grounded, I find, because we don't want to do things traditionally and we want her to have the opportunity, which also gives us the opportunity to live differently and work less and live our lives more through her kind of thing and because of her like I'm kind of using her a little bit to be able to live more freely too.
Shawn:Kids do that and people new people in general, like I'd like showing people new stuff, Like it's exciting to see it from their eyes and make it fresh, so to keep kind of it's like I say, even about the YouTube channel, makes me do more interesting things. I might get lazy, but then all the audience has my expectation for video on Friday, so I better get off my ass. So a kid does that to you.
Laura:Yeah.
Shawn:So you're not sitting around or you gotta entertain them. First of all, keep them busy so they don't drive you crazy.
Dan:So people think kids in that all your life's over.
Shawn:Like you know, we can't do anything.
Dan:It's like no, no, no, like we're gonna prove you wrong and we're gonna show you that yeah, but yeah.
Shawn:So what's your opinion of the school system?
Laura:And then so like I I feel like we have a bit of different. We have a part where we come together and we agree.
Dan:But then we also have different experiences, so you go first, yeah well, like, just like you, I didn't graduate high school because my mom was sick with muscular dystrophy, something like that. And you know, grade 12 was the last grade, but my year was the last year to have OAC, grade 13, which I didn't get to because my mom was sick. I had to drop out, get a job and you know, man up kind of thing. So that happened and then did a new college, university, started working. But I like I always say Kenneth and I are cut from the same cloth, we're just different fabrics. I'm Gore-Tex and she may be.
Laura:That's his name, so that's.
Dan:But yeah, like, so, like, to me it was just a big, to me it was just like a waste, like it's more to you know, to make the next person to work the next machine or to you know more of like a sheet mentality kind of thing, like it's just not sure there's some benefits, but they don't teach you about credit card or debt or more like any of the stuff that actually matters in life. They just teach you about you know what they, the next person, who's gonna you know? Like I just yeah, it's. It wasn't for me. I was more books or sort of street smarts back in the day growing up in Toronto than book smarts.
Laura:But Kenneth just grew up differently and you know, oh yeah, I still agree, like I still think this is yeah. I don't really agree with the system. I am a big book person, though.
Dan:A big reader.
Laura:A big reader and I did go to, like, I did go to university for design and I just think, like I was always like anti-system, though, even though I was in design, it was all about like corporate stuff, but I never wanted to work.
Laura:I used to do more of a magazine Oddbusters like too. It was like this magazine for like, just like anti-establishment, and they didn't last very long, but that was like. My dream was like to work for them, like I always did, like the like. My teachers were always like I just I don't understand the stuff you do, but I think it's great, like, it's amazing, but it's just not because everyone was doing like corporate design, I'm like no, I'm not, I'm not gonna work for someone.
Laura:I never wanted to, so I always was a little bit. You know, I still think it shaped me a lot and I learned a lot. But I think even nowadays it's just even more. It's I don't know. It's going even more off the course. That I don't agree with.
Shawn:You know what I mean.
Laura:Like there's just a lot of wasted time, I would imagine. Right, being so politically correct, they're all of this extra.
Shawn:They're not teaching you critical thinking, no, no, they're teaching you to follow the system.
Shawn:Yes, yes and I see the, I see the reasoning behind it, If you see like you guys are tied to the land too. So you see the degradation and the population, or overpopulation, is impacting. Yeah, you know it's putting a lot of pressure on natural systems and all that stuff. So I see why they want to keep people separated, independent on a system and control them and everything. But if you're not and I don't think there's any personally, I don't think there's meaning and happiness in that for most people no, and you. So by taking the leap that you've taken and that I've taken, to get back to living more independently, first of all, it is risky, but it's so much more rewarding. But you also lose the respect and the connection with the majority of people.
Laura:Yeah.
Shawn:No, for sure. You know it can be a lonely path.
Dan:Yeah, you almost look down upon it. Because you know like sometimes I feel embarrassed, you know, bringing up that, oh, I didn't graduate high school, you know. But like to me, like I feel, like we're living proof that there's a different way, there's a different path that you could take. You don't have to do this school and spend all this money on. You know like all of my friends are in debt from that. You know there's two different loans back and stuff and I'm debt free and I'm living a life that you know.
Shawn:I'm choosing to live other than being told how to live, because even if they ended up with a good job, they're mostly tied to it and they're not satisfied either. No, yeah, yeah, yeah they think this is the consolation that we're just making do, yeah, well then we're just creeping by with our life, but no, this is exactly.
Laura:You're living now, you're not waiting for. See, I find so many people too are like oh, I love what you're doing, but oh, but I have, you know, my pension. I can't get it, and it's like you just need to get a round thought because is that gonna be there in?
Shawn:how many?
Laura:years For one and like I don't know, like what are you sacrificing now for that?
Dan:I just don't like the pressure that they put on you as well, for like, even sports and track and field and like, oh, like, I got the most improved student award, you know, and everybody else is getting all these awesome awards, and it just puts you down or like you know, like like you're a loser, like you didn't win, kind of thing. To me there's a lot of pressure on kids, especially that, like you know, even reading, and then she would okay, I would think she's gonna pick me next.
Laura:So I'm like reading the paragraph before, so I don't remember I was like somebody else and I go read the next one okay, now that, and then I still screwed it up I'm like damn it, and then I feel like you know, but I was never really good at, like you know tests and stuff.
Dan:But I could do the work and I could, you know, prove how I did it. I was just never more like the pressure for me. It was.
Shawn:You know I I wouldn't say I cracked on the pressure, but I just basically did like yeah, I don't know if I would call it cracked under pressure either, but definitely the anxiety. Yeah, that's where I was completely back in, like as a teenager. I'm out in the woods and I'm like I'm the man. Basically they're my friends really. Guy was the competent one, I guess. Yeah, in that situation, yes, put me in school. I'm so anxious I couldn't function.
Laura:I'd be doing what you're doing yeah, that's a parallel of you too. Yeah, like you're. You know you're always in. That's where you're most comfortable, like in the woods, or yeah, but throw people like paddling the canoe, you know, but thrive in yeah, you know atmosphere and you know.
Dan:But with a social like, I used to be a social butterfly when I was younger too. You know whether it was to. You know, like never to impress people. I always just did my own thing and you know people would either like me or hate me. But now I feel like I'm more like go away people, I don't want to be around big gatherings or she's like hey, what are we doing for New Year's?
Dan:I'm like we're gonna stay home and have a fire. You know, like I, just people, just everybody has an opinion now and like for me, like one of the biggest forms and I always say this to Candace one of the biggest forms of respect is honesty. But if you're honest with somebody and you give somebody your honest opinion, they take it the wrong way and they're very critical thinking and then you're like an asshole to them. You know a bad person, but to me it's like no, like I'm being honest with you and you know if like you want to go on Canadian Idol and shoot.
Dan:You know, hey, babe, like what do you think I'm? Like, I'm not gonna lie to you and say yeah yeah babe you could do it honestly babe, no, no, no, like we less than that to somebody with vocal less than that? You know, maybe be honest with the person, but a lot of people take that the wrong way nowadays.
Shawn:Yeah, there's two, but honesty became a little bit different during the last three years, without having to say the name getting cancelled, but like talk, speaking your opinion, speaking your mind ended up being. So creating such political I guess you could call it political divide, but absolutely like definitely exposed people's deeper sense of you know what's right in the world and how they function in the world and they believe they're right and we so believe what we're doing is right that we can't relate anymore.
Dan:So I actually have lost friends oh yeah, oh yeah, like a lot of it separated. A lot of people siblings, family, like it's it's.
Laura:It's pretty crazy, it's interesting how like it's conversations like there can't be like this back and forth anymore. That was like literally proved that there was like this divide and like. I shut down as opposed to like being able to discuss. Yeah.
Dan:I was giving example, two words like say I want 10 million, like 10 mil lottery, and then I would donate five million to this charity and I posted about that. The comments 90% of the comments would be like why don't you divvy it up and do 10 different charities? Or why didn't you do this or that? Everybody has this opinion, but it's like. It's like just do your own thing and I don't know. I just I just find it overbearing to have so many people over you trying to like you know, puppet you or what you're doing.
Shawn:It's just it's annoying to me. Yeah, yeah, you have to be like it's virtuous, signaling that for the most part right, and if you don't do that, then you're. If you're actually being authentic, then you're looked down upon too yeah, you're not cast society.
Dan:You know like you're not. You're not falling behind the next person.
Shawn:Yeah so what you just got to do, what you want to do, and do it like shut it off yeah yeah, but I've kind of doubled in philosophy, like like studied very high level philosophy in all different categories and stoicism is what I've been sort of on too lately. In that philosophy, it is do what you do and just live the virtues without seeking outside approval, and stop wearing it Face value put it out the window. Yeah, just do you. Yeah, and you know, people know what's right or wrong.
Laura:Yeah, yeah and if that's why you know in some ways, like you said, losing people but then coming even closer to other people right. It tightens immediately right, like so close to be like oh yeah, okay, we're good, you know like yeah, it's like this immediate one.
Shawn:It was almost. It was almost like good thing to see that yeah. I go like, oh, and there was a, there was a physical manifestation of, so you can see who your people were, you know. Yeah, yeah, and moving up here, yes, we found the communities that we want to be part of. Yeah, and that's been to us. This is the best.
Shawn:What's happened over the last few years has been to us, has made our lives more meaningful yes we connected deeper with the people that really think the way we think, yeah, and that are good people. We think are good people, not just think the way we think they're for everybody else yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Dan:Same with us, we have a small circle of friends and they're just, you know, solid people that you know we do things for each other and we barter and we you know, there's actually a nice community up here, which is really nice okay and do you guys watch Netflix or what?
Shawn:do you watch that new movie, oh my god yes, yeah, yeah, like it's really.
Dan:This is pure message like this is like yeah, even just the whole after that movie do you mind if I buy a bunch of water?
Shawn:I know we could even sleep that night. We're like, okay, we should have been in a seat and we missed the pumpkin time, but then.
Dan:But then I found out who produced that movie and I was like oh, shoot like, but that almost lends the more credence to that idea.
Shawn:They're just perfect.
Dan:Yeah, yeah, yeah, just like it's almost one of those things where they have to tell you what they're doing yeah, and like kind of like you know, yeah, like the Simpsons or whatever this sensitizes you.
Shawn:Yeah, yeah, yeah, wow yeah here, so be prepared. And then you've heard that from the other big world, world-wide organization that keeps telling you prepare, or that cyber attacks are the most likely next they come for for impacting the world. So we're feeling like the part you just mentioned, barter. That's what triggered that. Yeah, that question is that to get back to the idea of bartering and what is valuable, what's valuable even during this last shutdown, like what was valuable during that period, yeah, and it wasn't enough.
Shawn:I can. I've got a rewatch part of that just to see here. Or Ethan Hawke's line again where he basically says I am a useless man yeah, I can't even take care of my own son. Yeah, yeah, yeah because that is actually the position that most people are in. They could be really wealthy or competent in their job, but if their job is pushing, numbers around.
Laura:Yeah, what's the skill? You have money in your pocket but like, what's that for that?
Dan:movie was when he went to go what both of them went to go to his friend's house and he's like, hey, we're friends, I know you. And then guns turns on each other. To me like that's just like a like. I was jokingly saying, oh, like our friends down the road are gonna come and be like we know you guys have those, those food barrels like give us that kind of thing. It's like yo guys like what do you mean we're friends, but then how fast people turn on each other and when can't, yeah and would, absolutely, yeah, absolutely, which we're happy, which the past few years has has shown as well.
Dan:Right, it was like a mini almost like that was a little test to see. Yeah, and everybody failed.
Shawn:Like you know, people failed and families broke up and yeah we wouldn't believe how many times we hear from family and friends. Well, we know where to come when they bought them.
Laura:Oh, I'm glad I didn't say that for 20 years, but now they're like legit.
Dan:Yeah, yeah, yeah yeah.
Laura:Okay, we're moving again, yeah exactly, yeah, like who.
Dan:Sean's got some venison brought, excellent, okay, he's got.
Shawn:he's got the honey now, yeah, and if one of the rules of prepping is that you don't expose, they don't tell people what you know, yeah, don't make yourself a target. So my last video last Friday I did a seller to her, finally finished the underground settlement in the cabin and I showed I've got.
Shawn:We have over a year's worth of food in them and big water tote and freezer full of meat and everything else, like we are literally set up for a year. That's sweet. For everything we need energy and food, water that's amazing. But like that's vulnerable, right. Yeah, yeah, yeah, and also that's why privacy has been such an issue for us. We have to know People will find us if they really needed to, and hopefully there's something easier on the way to finding this right.
Dan:I'm just so glad that we're not in like a concrete jungle city. Yeah, yeah, like you know like we're humble, like you know, like to be able to have what we have because we work towards that, but yeah, you know like good on us for, for for going towards that Well so
Shawn:we had. Our daughters were up at the cabin yesterday. We had a Christmas dinner. We filmed it for video and everything. But we thought we had the discussion and and my daughters now, even though they're kind of choosing an urban life because they're younger and you're exciting and everything that. Okay, what are you going to do if there's a situation where we can't communicate? And it's very real possible, yeah, I would call it a likelihood that this is going to happen in our lifetime. It's not just crazy prepping. No, no, no, no, absolutely.
Laura:No no.
Shawn:So we said how are you going to the? What is our plan? Because we're an hour and a half apart now, or two hours apart. So what are you going to do and what are we going to do? So, basically, they don't show up in the first day? I will go and find them and get them and I have the fuel like we stopped on a fuel for days and yeah, yeah, yeah, you know a few thousand kilometers worth, but I would you have to go.
Shawn:I couldn't live with myself to not have them and not knowing yeah, yeah, and if they can't get up basically in the first day, that means that probably don't have fuel or the vehicles aren't working right, or it's congestion.
Dan:I've always wanted like a satellite phone, like it's like tree planting Every supervisor would have a rifle and a satellite phone just in case but then after that movie yeah, satellite, oh okay. And then the Teslas, which was a 2 million Teslas, were actually recalled recently because and yeah, like, and then it zooms in on the autopilot and then that's where you see all the Teslas crashing and I was like, oh man, I was like this is, this is too even now I'm feeling like oh, shoot we gotta prepare right.
Shawn:But so here's the other thing. So people think, okay, that's all crazy talk and you're just being paranoid, which we should know by now. Conspiracies are not theories, they're mostly real, yeah, but there's just pleasure, there's joy and meaning in what we're doing. Yeah, oh, absolutely yeah this is way more meaningful than just having a secure job in the town or city you know Exactly, even, just even like just the food aspect of it like the stuff you buy in the store is just garbage, and we're learning more and more, right Even nowadays, like now, we know there's more.
Dan:You know, like what? Like what we've been eating our whole lives is is you know, essentially poison or like you know like so even having that and being able to eat, and when you see moss and you know different like like, to me it's just more. Having more knowledge is, especially in this day and age, is way. Oh look, we have a little visitor here.
Laura:Yeah, yeah, growing your own food or like preserving all of that. It's just.
Dan:I'm glad that Candace reads and has all those books you know, because like, yeah, you know, like for, for tanning or for knowing how to do things like to me like that's oh yeah, can't look it up online if you don't know. Yeah, exactly, we're knowing somebody like you who we can you know, like hike to your place or?
Shawn:Hey, sean, just call your name, so you don't get shocked.
Laura:Who are you? What's the secret word?
Shawn:Like nothing. Nothing seems crazy anymore, nothing seems unlike their conspiracy and it's all possible. Yeah, I think that's what we learned over the last several years and and just preparing for that, I think, is just smart being smart. But, like I said, we're meeting new people, like we're bumped you guys and it's, I don't know, like the superficialness of modern society. And then, going back to the even, to the schooling, it's just teaching you to be part of that system and to be dependent and not free thinking, critical thinking, not look for meaning in your life, and just disconnected too.
Laura:Like I think we have friends that like they're older and, uh, their kids are older but they've homeschooled and like they're so excited for us and and but it was hard for them, I think, you know, in the beginning. Now there's more people maybe doing it. I'm not saying it's easy but, um, you know, for me their kids can go in the forest and, like, identify all these plants.
Dan:They know how to like. They know more than you know. They make the maple syrup.
Laura:They do like I've just, like you know they guard and like to me. All those skills are just that's not taught in school and like that's life. You know or you know learning different skills. Like poverty, or like skinning an animal or music you know, rather than just I don't know, sitting there and like sitting in a dust you know, Well, here's the other thing.
Shawn:They've been. We've been pushing people through the school system Like, even so, I'm 53. So I graduated would have graduated in 88, 1988. And I didn't go to grade 13 because I didn't finish. Anyway, I was going through taking all advanced courses. So I was on the path for university because that was basically what was being told. That's the only path to take. That's right, yeah. So that's going back that far. And it's gotten worse as far as, academically, you don't go into the trades, which is why we're short tradesmen.
Shawn:Yeah yeah, which was looked down upon?
Laura:I was embarrassed to say I'm a tradesman yeah, which is crazy. Yeah.
Shawn:But now what happens with AI taking over? All their jobs that they've gone to university for Like why would you need a lawyer when AI can scour every case study for the last 100 years and come up with a decision?
Dan:Well, even those new Ray-Bans that they have where you could put them on, and they have the AI technology, where I could look at a broken pipe and say like, oh, how do I fix this? And instead of calling a plump like it would just tell me how to fix it, everything I need like. Or you could look at anything and say, how do I fix this, how do I change this belt on this car, this engine? And it'll tell you exactly how to do it. It's crazy. That's just the beginning of you know like the end for a lot of people and jobs.
Shawn:Well, even what I do. So the AI will write a description, my captions. Now, I used to have to pay somebody to do a transcription for each of my videos. I get AI to do it 30 seconds now.
Laura:Wow, yeah.
Shawn:Like I can write a full description for the video. I get AI to do that in seconds. I can get it. I can literally I could write a self-reliance book in about five minutes.
Dan:What's that program called that? You and I, Craig, always talk about where like yeah, like, yeah, yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Shawn:That's insane and this is the infancy as far as the public. Yeah, yeah, yeah yeah yeah, so what job would not? What job's not at risk?
Laura:Yeah, even art everything.
Shawn:Yeah, that's the thing they thought art was-.
Laura:Safe yeah.
Shawn:I think creative only wants the humans.
Dan:With the art it's creating already is but Crazy. Even those 3D printers that could do like tons of stuff, and that's just like you know what we know. Like you said, like that bigger ones.
Shawn:Yeah yeah, you can build a building or you can make a new heart for somebody with printed. So it's scary. I don't know what to tell my daughters. It's part of why I want to start a podcast is I want to learn what's worked for people, what's given them satisfaction and meaningful life, but also what paths should people take, Like what's out there, and I don't know what to tell my daughters to focus on, other than what we're doing, which they're not.
Shawn:They're, you know somewhat interested in, but they're kind of glad that we're doing it because they don't know what to do. They don't know what to do. They're doing a good job, dad. Yeah.
Dan:Here's what we like to do make sure you have lots of those Some little baby goats.
Shawn:And my oldest daughter says Crap, I want paints and little fireworks. Make sure you have lots of that for the entertainment that sucks up. Yeah, so, yeah, that's. I don't know what to tell people and it's scary times. So I might thought, first of all, do things that are more meaningful, with meaningful people, people that mean something to you. Yeah, hands on, so you have that satisfaction. I've always thought the connection with everything directly is better than second or third hand. So instead of working in a factory making one part for a thing, make the whole thing Okay, so that you know beginning to end and then also nature.
Laura:Yeah.
Shawn:So to me we I don't know why we fixate on, even when we go back and nostalgic lanes and picture, okay, how did societies or people function. I don't think we go back for enough in our minds Like we're very we're animals connected to the land and we still only look back to, let's say, a village type thing which is only, say, 5,000 years old yeah.
Shawn:We don't go back for enough to our real ancestral roots and say what would humans be doing and how? What kind of connection to the land, which is what intrigues me about this nomadicism like the van life thing. It's like that's actually the way humans are built, and we've only been not that way since agricultural times. Right, we have been nomadic and we needed to go and find the next place because we would exhaust the resources where we are.
Laura:Yes.
Shawn:Now, with high population and private property rights, we're stuck in one place and you have to make that work. Yes, that was never the way humans were Any animal, were to deplete the resources, they moved to the next and leave that fellow for 10 or 20 or whoever long and they move on. Yes, and the nomads nomads, we had an exciting life, but they got killed a lot of times too right.
Laura:Because it's risky to go into new territory, or whatever.
Shawn:Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I'm really interested in that idea.
Laura:Yeah.
Shawn:So and I think that's meaningful. Yeah, I think there's more connection there than there is in the desk job sitting in the city.
Dan:Oh, sorry I wanted to add before about the school thing too, about how Candice and I were. You know silk and Gore-Tex. My mom grew up in the country, in Chile, in South America. You know over like a thousand acres of farmland and mountains and cows and oxes and all this stuff and like so for her for moving back to Canada. I never had that, like you know, complete confidence in her. You know to be that mentor for school or to push that.
Dan:And school is important, isn't that? For her it was more farming and like working the land and you know doing all this stuff. So for me, like I just maybe naturally or genetically always had that more, the calls and I yeah like more than you know.
Dan:Oh yeah, school, and I never found it important because she never portrayed to me that, oh, school is really important, danny, you got to go Maybe back. Then we didn't have the money or she didn't have the money to put me through college, university. So for me, you know, like having being raised the way I did, was, you know almost like how she was raised, you know kind of thing, and it kind of went through me like genetically or you know kind of thing.
Dan:So I just want to add that as well, for I'm glad that she was well not raised poor. But you know, we grew up poor.
Laura:Whatever, and like you know what I, had.
Dan:Even with tree planting, like you know, I would make 10,000 a month, like after my first year tree planting and even buying a toothbrush. I felt proud because I bought that toothbrush with my money. You know like it wasn't like and it was a job that I chose to do, not you know like working at Starbucks or working at a you know a factory or something. It was, you know, my choice and it was. I was very proud about that.
Shawn:And this is really unpopular to even think this in this day and age, but you were incentivized to work hard in tree planting as you got paid for tree.
Dan:Yeah, it was peace rate, so not hourly.
Shawn:Yeah, so the hard work. There's no way to blend in and just like be under the radar and you're paid the same as everybody else and they complain that you're not getting as much as everybody else.
Laura:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Shawn:You have to work in this life.
Laura:That's right. You put in the work and then you get the work.
Dan:But I've always had that mentality even after tree planting. He still does Like the harder the work, the more money I make. Like it doesn't work that way now, but my mentality is always just to work hard and be like happy with the reward that I've created for myself.
Shawn:See, I'm not an abundant. There's the two different ways to look at the world abundance and scarcity and I actually am a scarce look at the world through scarce glasses. I think I have to overwork in order to achieve and it's worked for me, but of course it's stressful to do that, but to me I can't see doing it any other way. I can't think in abundance and that. Just do whatever and it's going to come to you anyway, generally. I think one of my family members says you never get to take care of it and when she was getting ready to move, the universe happened to be my other siblings and my parents helping to do all the work that she wasn't doing, because the universe is going to step in. The universe is somebody else has to pick up your stuff.
Laura:I feel like there's like a special blend of the two in a way. Like I feel like for us it's like you know, we work hard and the things that you do bring you to this place are all these little things that have happened to us. We've put into motion, and then there's just been nice simultaneous opportunities that grow from it. But you don't just sit there and it grows, you put it in motion. We're working on manifestation as well.
Dan:We love to manifest everything, and then our rewards are going out west and being humbled by the massive mountains and being like we're just these tiny little things in this world, and you know this doesn't come to you.
Shawn:You're continually putting yourself in positions where the abundance finds you, but you can't sit. I always say you know, it's fine to have faith, but you have to carry as heavy a load as you can first. That's right.
Dan:Because I have like really good friends in Toronto that I've lost connection with because, whether it's jealousy or like you know, they think oh well you know? Oh, you're so lucky We've like hustled and to get to, that point and maybe we were top on the list of you know searches.
Dan:And that's why they found this kind of thing, but we've worked our butts off to get to where we're at Like a lot of our friends not a lot of our friends, but you know a lot of our past friends would you know say otherwise? But to me it's like, well, you're just not taking that leap, or you know like. You know like they're trapping themselves, kind of like.
Shawn:Well, we found you. Basically, my wife saw your work, liked your work, but also saw the work ethic and the humbleness. Dan's very open on Instagram and stories especially, so you get to really see who he is and the meaning behind it. And she saw you talking about your father and which she connected with and saw your honesty and your openness and work ethic and thought these are good people and I don't know if the audience knows fully, but we get end up reaching out to you and offer you the greenhouse as a result and now we become friends.
Shawn:So, I mean, that's how connections are made, but it wasn't because you were sitting there, you know.
Laura:I really want a greenhouse, yeah, exactly.
Dan:Which we do. We are going to set it up next spring. We have it all labeled in the south, the geodome, but yeah, the universe, life happens. So, it was just certain things and we had to put it on pause, but we can't wait to use that. Yeah, that's cool. We appreciate it. Yeah, yeah.
Shawn:Yeah, I'm not looking for thanks, but just yeah, but that's how we operate yeah.
Shawn:That's how you live life. You go through it and you make connections and you do what you can to help people and you don't do it for ego. Yeah, that's a big part of it. So you guys don't seem to have any ego about what you do. You do it and you're doing it for deeper reasons and you're doing it for self-satisfaction and you're raising a kid which the other which is going. You'll pass on the same values and that's what we are connecting with. Yeah, that's agreed. That's what we're missing in the corporate world, like driving to the city, having a corporate job and just watching everybody in the rat race and going about I don't know this ants.
Dan:Yeah, I was saying too, like money, like you know, like there's actors or rich people that you know commit suicide, or like money doesn't buy you happiness, like you know what I mean. Like to me it's like I don't value money like somebody else you know who has raised value. You know values money. To me it's just more of a sure. It helps and you know it may help you get to a certain point, but I feel there's other things that. I value more than money.
Shawn:See, my financial success has been up and down, but generally been above average and I. That becomes a struggle for me, especially online now, because I get judged for having more money than the average homestead or off grader, and that's. I'm therefore a hypocrite because I have money and make money. If I do an ad, I mean just a sell out, of course, yeah, yeah, yeah, but it's, it's nothing to do with the money. I don't do it for the money. I've never done anything for the money.
Shawn:I've always even worked in a traditional job not always, but when I was working a traditional job it was because of my family. I have responsibility to a wife and two daughters and that is the only reason I care about money. I don't. I don't care if I have this truck in camp or a tent, I don't care if I have a canoe or the, the 35 foot boat that we used to own for a while. Like to me, it was the same life, right, it's just the money you allowed me to buy that thing. That wasn't the happiness, it wasn't an ego or anything else. It was comfort and fun for a while, but literally the canoe was more enjoyable to me.
Shawn:So it's not about money, and if you are one of those people that are just trying to acquire money, financial success don't make it about that Like it generally will come just because you're doing something that you've got your whole heart into.
Shawn:And YouTube's been successful for me more than most of the other people on YouTube that I kind of came up, grew up together in YouTube, the YouTube world with. I've done better because it's my life, so literally I can film every bit of my life and then have to weed out a whole bunch of the stuff we want to keep private and still have enough content. But I'm working 80, 90, 100 hours a week on this thing. That happens to be able to be monetized because when we happen to be in these times that we're living electronically, well, we're on that transition between virtual life and real life, analog life, and eventually majority of people are just going to be virtual and there'll be us fools. But yeah, it's literally just the work ethic to me and the passion, because I've had businesses that did fairly well but failed because it wasn't who I was, it wasn't passionate about it, it wasn't a real me.
Laura:And.
Shawn:I was doing it then for money for my kids, but it still was for the money. It wasn't for the self satisfaction. Now I'm living a meaningful life and I happen to be making good money out of it, and I know it's nothing like that.
Dan:Life's too short to worry about all those other things and all those comments and stuff. To me it's like we were saying before do you and you know if you're happy, that's all that matters.
Shawn:Yeah, well, I'm willing to go to zero and my family's well taken care of enough now that I don't care if I go personally to zero financially and live in the cabin with no resources and can't go anywhere, I would still be happy, yeah. But I've chosen life, that life. I gotta end up in that life. That's the path I took. I work physically harder, way harder than I did that 20, but I'm happier right.
Shawn:So, it's not about avoid, because I thought, and a lot of people think, not to get into trades or physical work to avoid physical work and discomfort. Yeah, I would say for the most part.
Laura:But I think seeking a little discomfort is always really important. That's why for me like. Well, I begin to like the cold dipping because I think just, you know what if? You're like struggling. I'll tell this to people.
Dan:If you're struggling, not that I don't get like seasonal depression or anything.
Laura:I like the winter. But if you are struggling, one thing start your day, go jump in the lake and you have you have done something. You know what I mean Like I don't know, I just think that's like really important to.
Dan:I feel like failure even is a part of my life. You want to be so comfortable now.
Laura:You want to be so comfortable, yeah.
Shawn:Yeah, failure, discomfort. First of all, how can you appreciate comfort and success if you don't know what the opposite is?
Dan:Yeah, I've hit rock bottom a couple times and, like you said before, where it's like to me, it's like you need to be like you need to have that failure and that rock bottom to be able to succeed and to learn from that. You know, like people may think, oh, you know, like you're doing well, you're making money and stuff, but it's like, yeah, but I've hit rock bottom before, so, like I, you know, I've tasted that and I don't want to ever be there again and I've changed my life to be able to you know, alter that a bit.
Dan:Now. You know whether you're successful with money or with you know stuff or just happiness or whatever to be good on you like people don't know. You know a lot of people have hit that rock bottom. A lot of people have handouts or you know they have. You know a mom or dad who's taking, you know, better care of them and I don't know. People just grow up differently but they're, but they're quick to judge each other who want it. You know.
Laura:I don't.
Shawn:People often like it could look like it sound like for me that maybe you should just go off and do what you want to do and satisfy yourself, but raising a family is the most meaningful thing you could do yeah. Yeah, so that's all you do for the 20 year period.
Shawn:Yeah, that's still good, you know it's still meaningful but, don't then get caught up and think, okay, now I'm stuck in that life and I can't make changes because, yeah, when we lost all the money and then create another business, that got us back to above zero. I jumped into this not knowing, but I didn't even know when I started YouTube that you could monetize it. And literally it was a year later when I went out with another YouTuber who says something along the lines of what he's making. I was like, how do you make money on YouTube?
Laura:That seems so naive to me. Now, how would I not have?
Shawn:known that that was just putting it on to participate in a canoeing forum, yeah, making videos and sharing it there. So it wasn't about pursuing the money to start this lifestyle. I just said I guess it's midlife crisis. I just went to that. This is what I want to do with my life and I've got us back to zero. My kids are moving on and I can do this and I'm willing to live poorly whatever. And it just happened to succeed but wasn't easy. So then that's doing something for the right reason.
Laura:That's right. You put in the effort and then that is what came. It's a manifestation.
Shawn:And that's what you do. You've done. You've created the life that you want to live and you're, and now you get to share that with the next generation.
Laura:Yeah, we took her there yesterday.
Shawn:We had to grab some things there because she came.
Laura:I thought she wasn't going to come till around now, but she came a little bit early, so we took her there yesterday. They went for her.
Dan:She slept the whole time.
Laura:Yeah, she's a good traveler so far.
Dan:But like we also read that in like what, like Scandinavian places, they leave the children outside for one day, and like you know like and people are in cafes or restaurants. So there's 20 strollers out there and they're all, like you know, bundled up and stuff in their marina wool. If you do that here like, you get CAS or the cops go by, you know you're in the front page, you know, page of the papers Bad parents.
Shawn:Yeah, our Russian friends told us that we watch something on Siberia or something. Yeah, it's cool, like it makes sense, because that fresh air even.
Dan:Yeah, we go for their meals at some, like we have other friends and you know like their baby has trouble sleeping and so we try to encourage walks and hey, let's go outside when it's really colder and it helps big time, like it's.
Shawn:That's well. Yeah, it's funny the cold plunge because we live in Canada and you're watching California and we do, and these cold plunge is because it's trendy, right yeah?
Laura:they're like buying this big expensive unit yeah. I guess like this is the thing it's like. Or I just walked in, it's like, it's like it's good, and to me, well, and even our friend, like we had those big water totes on our property. So our friend was like hey, can I, can I take one so I could have a cool plunge right outside, you know, right outside a spring, through our which, whatever it's cool, it's still what is, what is it is.
Dan:But I'm like I don't guess it'll be a little bubbler. It's like come off already time I'm like.
Laura:For me it's like there's something we're just going in the lake, I don't know like it's just like something about and to me also it's like on those days. It's almost harder on a day like today where it's kind of rainy not that cool. It's like when there's a lot of snow and it's like really cold. There's just something about it.
Dan:I don't know, on the opposite, just give me a hot shower. No coldness for me. You're not doing it though. No, no, no, no. I have like the little neoprene boots and stuff, but yeah, no, I just I'll put my ankle and one snow off for support and stand by the fire, but yeah, no, not into them. He just documents. I know the song has a different story.
Shawn:Yeah, that's what I can say. So the song you didn't, can you have it operating last winter?
Dan:No, we finished it this yeah, it took us a little time just because we weren't there, like, but like. I feel like we could do it in a weekend, kind of thing like next time.
Laura:We're doing it through the winter just here and there. But yeah, now it's and.
Dan:I feel like the salvage stings and, like you know, like you know, build it kind of more sustainably. I guess Restlessly, but it's awesome it's a six person sauna with stones. We got our friend to. We got a stove off Kajiji for a couple hundred bucks. Got our friend to weld up some sides, put some stones from like superior and yeah, yeah it's sweet, it's a it's really nice.
Dan:I mean, it's a lot of things and that's operating now, then that's operating out the off-grid oasis because we wanted to be able to offer during the winter, with like a, do a snowshoe trail and, like you know, go for a sauna and stuff, which is pretty sweet and yeah.
Shawn:Yeah, that's cool, so go off-grid. Oasis, is that? Do you have a website for that, or is it just uh, just on instagram off-grid oasis muscoca yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, it's not that far. I can't tell you how far it is from us, but if you want to go check that, it is cool. We filmed, emily and I actually filmed a little commercial thing there yeah, so you've seen it before, but yeah, cool place for the sauna. That's what's amazing, because you go in the sauna and then you go outside.
Shawn:Yeah, yeah, yeah, but actually Calvin cooking, the turkey and the gal and we had to have it going so hot for so long. It was like a sauna.
Laura:I had to keep going outside, but it was only like zero or three degrees outside.
Shawn:There's a lot of good benefits to it too. Yeah, yeah, definitely well discomfort.
Dan:Yeah, that's right, that's right.
Shawn:What's the heat you can take with the coldness, the coldness.
Dan:I, yeah, I just rather that's a choice.
Shawn:It's a personal choice everybody. Well, we should probably wrap it up. Was there anything else you guys wanted to talk about?
Dan:Uh, I don't know, like yeah, yeah, I think that's pretty good yeah, well, follow along.
Shawn:Uh, let's put all the links that obviously in the description below it. All their social media, but the the greenhouse. Of course. Everybody's concerned about what happened to it and what it's being used for, so eventually it'll be put to use. Yeah, don't think me or the audience putting pressure on you. We want to.
Dan:We've cleared a space on the property and like. Our plan is to build a deck for it first and then build it on the deck. That way we could kind of insulate the floor and then have it as like a, like a, like a wood stove, a cool little like living, like living room, music kind of area for ourselves.
Laura:But yeah, yeah, but we do want that one where they're more full time. I want to grow. We are going to use it eventually for a year around growing and stuff and yeah, so at the moment the Off-Grid Oasis is like a work in progress for us and we do rent it out in order to kind of fund or, you know, keep doing our projects and stuff there.
Dan:It's got the airstream a tiny cabin, tiny bathroom and and the sauna, which is nice.
Shawn:Mm-hmm yeah, yeah, quiet spot. Canadian wilderness, that's right. Yeah, that's cool. Well, I love the lifestyle you guys are living and we're uh kind of doing similar things. We'll do more things together, I'm sure, in the future. Yeah, definitely I think you're up there, yeah, get you back to the cabin now that it's livable and comfortable.
Dan:I want to see that kitchen in person, yeah yeah, a little bit more work.
Shawn:I don't, I'm gonna screen it in. Of course, I always wait till it's almost irrelevant. I'll screen it in while the bugs are actually biting. Oh, these are like we have them in the sauna when they heat in the summer. Yeah, but yeah, that's the. I'll finish the door kitchen now. Screen it in before May, and then we're probably gonna head east in May or June as well.
Shawn:Get the gardens going yeah set up fully planted and then take off for a bit. Yeah, yeah, peak bug season when they don't want to be, yes, work in the forest and then we'll get it west again, probably in the fall again too Nice, yeah, anyway, you'll have to come up and see the place, absolutely, thank you so much for having us on the podcast.
Dan:That was awesome. It's been fun.
