Om Travelers Tyler Cagwin

When I started exploring the possibilities of making small batches of chocolate, I thought I was onto something. I had not heard of the world of bean to bar or craft or artisan chocolate. I was soon to realize that there had been a bean to bar industry long before me and I soon learned to truly appreciate the craft that the pioneers before me created.
 
The bean to bar chocolate world at its root is created to make lives better- here at home, at the place of origin and for all the places in between. I had the opportunity to do an apprenticeship with Mackenzie Rivers from Map Chocolate and now the Next Batch School in the summer of 2018. I had been on a quest to search deeper into my soul and figure out what the next chapter of my life was going to mean. 5 years later I am still very much trying to figure that out but the two weeks I spent with Mackenzie in Eugene Oregon were 2 of the most transformative of my adult life.
 
During the weekdays we worked hard together. She graciously answered my zillions of questions, let me polish molds, start batches of chocolate and soak in all her secrets. She is generous beyond belief. She has a deep desire to lift everyone up around her. She shares information freely. She lives her life and creates her chocolate with grace and respect for others and for the craft, but she also shares her opinions freely to start conversations that pertain to all levels of the chocolate industry.
 
In the last few years she created the Next Batch School. Here makers from around the world can come to learn the basics of selecting beans, chocolate shop setup all the way up to the secrets are crafting complicated chocolate bars with multiple ingredients and different kinds of chocolate. She is not making many chocolate bars anymore but if you ever do find a Map Chocolate bar in a store or on her website, I cannot recommend highly enough that you snatch it quickly.
 
Mackenzie is not only my mentor, but she has become a very close friend of mine. She is always there to bounce questions off and when life in general is a struggle she has also just quietly listened to my complaining. I hope that you enjoy this episode. It goes a little longer than normal and we could have kept talking far longer than we did. Its not all chocolate. There are some life stories in there as well.
 
Grab your favorite bar of chocolate and enjoy this episode with Mackenzie Rivers of Map Chocolate and the Next Batch School.
Map Chocolate
Next Batch School
@mapchocolate
@theNextBatchSchool

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

I will be the first to admit I am a sucker for a good lifestyle brand. You give me some dreams, some great photos and a cool Instagram account and I’ll be pulled in. The cherry on top is when the lifestyle has been lived by the visionary and whatever they are selling kicks ass.
Mike Johansen was basically born on a beach. He spent time growing up on Nantucket and went to college in California. On top of all of that, he has a golden retriever and a yellow jeep sweatshirt that perfectly matches my Wrangler. So, yes, I am now hooked on living the Tuck Life.
It’s Jeep days and powder days,
dawn patrols and swimming holes.
From Mountain tops to surf spots,
if you dream about it, odds are we do too.
 
If that mission statement doesn’t say it then I do not know what else does. On top of making me daydream, I am also always fascinated by people who start their own brands. As I have learned through the development of Nostalgia Chocolates, creating a brand, not to mention a lifestyle, is extremely difficult.
Mike is very open and honest throughout this episode. It was a fascinating conversation for me, and I hope that you find it the same. Make sure to visit his website www.tucklife.com and grab a sweatshirt or whatever else you need, or don’t need. I can tell you that the clothing is amazing. I wear my sweatshirt for days at a time without taking it off.
Sit back, grab some chocolate, and enjoy this episode with Mike Johansen from Tuck Life.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Often, the biggest champions of an area are the ones who grew up there. It is not typically the case that someone who has lived all over the world makes a career out of trying to boost the success of a small city and change the way it is viewed by people on the outside looking in.
Laura Thorn is a champion of all. As I learned more about her story, she has a made a life based around helping others. Most recently Laura has teamed up with Aldea Gerard to create the pilot episodes of Off the Wall and Up Close- an arts, culture, and travel show.
The show is starting here in Syracuse but has plans to highlight the scenes on cities just like Syracuse across the country. I had no idea what a massive undertaking it is to create a new TV show. After many rounds of fundraising, they created an initial episode and presented it at the Seattle Film Festival.
Laura and Aldea teamed up with Willow Rock Brewing in the fall of 2022 and that is how we met. Laura is an inspiration with her drive and determination to help others and lift the people around her up. She describes herself as a doer and that is 100% what she is. Not only is she a doer, but she is a creator and a finisher. We have a lot of people with ideas, and a lot of people who can take those ideas and run with them, and finally we have a lot of people who can bring the idea and the process to a conclusion. Rarely however do we have people that embody all those traits.
Make sure to visit their YouTube page Off the Wall & Up Close and follow along with all the work they are doing.
I hope you enjoy hearing her story as much as I did.
Instagram: @laura.thorn.me & @heyalecproductions
YouTube: Off the Wall & Up Close

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Yes, this episode starts off with another Costa Rica connection. While sitting around the breakfast table at Blue Spirit in Nosara Costa Rica one morning on a retreat in December of 2021 my friend Tom turned to me and quietly said
“Hey, you know Leslie?”
“Yes” I replied
“Did you know she was an X Games snowboard athlete and had videos of her snowboarding on the internet?”
“No way man. Little Leslie?”
“Yeah dude, for sure.”
Leslie Glenn may not be 6 feet tall but she is a vibrant and incredible human to be around. Her smile is infectious, her warmth and kindness are felt by everyone around her without her saying a word and she is a person who seeks to surround herself with people that provide good energy and strive for a beautiful life for themselves and for the world around them.
It is always amazing to me what we do not know about people just by looking at their cover. She began her snowy life on ski’s but transitioned to snowboarding to learn something new. While in college at University of Vermont, she took a yoga class for credit and from that point forward yoga became a staple in her life. Initially using the practice to help her professionally with strength and flexibility, she soon found that the deeper layers of her body were also being terraformed.
She is now a certified yoga instructor and leads various teacher trainings, retreats and other amazing events to help the people around her find balance, calm and peace in their daily lives. She has focused her recent yoga teachings around helping all of us to find ways to slow the pace of our lives down, lessen the worry and stress we carry in our bodies and find ways to see more joy around us.
I am so excited to have Leslie on this episode. I cannot wait to talk travel, yoga and wellness. Make sure to follow her on Instagram @leslieglenn and give her website a visit at www.leslieglennyoga.com. You can get more information on her teaching, retreats and also sign up for her newsletter there.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

We often measure our happiness based on events that happen to us. Vacation, birthdays, our animals, sunny days and so on. We are on a high while surfing or swimming in the ocean or skiing down a giant mountain but then when we return to life we hit a wall and yearn for the next time we can escape. It is easy to pay for experiences that provide us happiness. What we rarely think about is how our health can affect our day-to-day wellbeing.
In full disclosure, I am absolutely not the definition of good eating habits but since I met my wife 10 years ago, I have been trying little by little to clean my act up.
When Tiffany and I met she was in a good place with her health. Over the course of ten years, she has found herself in some very challenging places where most of us would have thrown our hands up and just said whatever and given up. She has battled, she has researched, she has been sick, then healthy, she has had all sorts of random symptoms manifest over time and after all of this she has inspired so many of us that are close to her to take a deeper look at how we treat our body and what we put into it.
Most recently she has completed her course of study to become a Functional Diagnostic Nutrition Practitioner. Her work to help others learn from her experience and gain a much deeper understanding of the inner workings of our body has become a passion for her. She has inspired me constantly (maybe not as much as she would like) to be a better human being all around.
Her love for health, travel, the vibrancy of our spirits and the world around us will all come up in this episode I am sure. I hope you enjoy hearing Tiffany’s story. I am sure you will end the episode with a greater desire to do some explorations of ways you can better your life just like I have mine and hopefully you will also find some new desire to explore more of the world around you at the same time.
Instagram: @tiffcagwin
Website: www.tiffanycagwin.com

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Traveling for a yoga retreat is sort of like going to a friend’s birthday party with a pinata. When the pinata breaks open there is all sorts of stuff that comes out. Most likely though, you are bound to walk away from the pinata, or the scramble on the ground to get the goods, with some things you like.
Yoga retreats bring many different types of people together. We all attend for various reasons. Maybe it is our teacher who is leading the retreat, maybe we need a change in our lives so we travel some place hoping for a spark of inspiration. No matter what your reason is, you meet all sorts of people. I have been extremely lucky in my yoga travels to have met some incredible people. If you are lucky enough you leave with some amazing new friendships.
Danielle Begg lives in Mosman, New South Wales Australia. Mosman sits just inside the entrance to Sydney Harbor. Australia in general has always captivated my attention. I did numerous dioramas on geography or animals throughout elementary school. Danielle was the first real life thing I had met from Australia though.
Danielle is immediately friendly and seemed to always be laughing, smiling, and talking to everyone the whole time we were in Costa Rica in 2019. It is no surprise that she is making a huge impact on the world through yoga and more specifically through her co- creation of The Yoga Impact Charity. I am a true believer in the impact that a proper yoga practice can have on one’s life so as I have, learned more about Danielle’s work, she has continued to inspire me.
Website: www.yogaimpactcharity.com
Instagram: @daniellebegg & @yogaimpactcharity


Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.