The Exit Podcast – Jonathan Kalan

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How I Designed a Career In a Way That Fits My Lifestyle

For this episode of The Exit, Steve McGarry sits down with a former photojournalist, editor, and media entrepreneur, Jonathan Kalan, about how he formed a global community called Unsettled. The feeling of being “unsettled” sounds unpleasant for many, but it also signifies a positive impulse for change, discovery, and innovation that everyone should embrace and nurture. 

From being a foreign media correspondent, Jonathan Kalan became a serial entrepreneur who turned his overflowing ideas into forming a network that embraces uncertainty and values human connection. Kalan created a platform for people worldwide who want to take life, work, and adventures beyond the traditional borders. Learn more in this segment about how he built a meaningful connection that helps redefine someone’s future of work.

Being Unsettled

When we talk about being unsettled, it usually notes uncertainty, lacking direction, and other unpleasant matters in one’s career. However, Jonathan Kalan looked into its bright side and perceived it as something beneficial for his life. While talking with Steve, instead of being stuck in an office, Kalan is resting in a mountain with his co-founder and partners, proving how independent and “unsettled” life is. Listening to Kalan’s cheerful voice also indicated that being unsettled is something that is not embarrassing at all.

What is Unsettled?

Kalan and his team have been running Unsettled for over four years now. It is a global community for individuals who want to seek the unknown while valuing human connection and co-creating experiences that break their routine and redefine their future work. They travel with professionals across the globe while taking a path in life, may it be their career, personal matter, insights, and knowledge they have been looking for all along. These experiences give the time, space, and an unstructured structure to build new relationships and discover new perspectives while growing personally and professionally.

Determining the Future of Work

As typical professionals burned their asses and eyes sitting in front of their business paperwork, it is a wonder how Kalan and his co-founder, Michael Youngblood, managed to drag these people out of their work and captured their future of work through the Unsettled. Kalan admitted that he and Youngblood were also workaholics back then when they met as media practitioners years ago. Kalan was working as a freelance photographer and journalist, while Youngblood was the MIT publication editor. They met many independent workers, consultants, and personnel throughout their job, where some are working on their businesses remotely.

In 2014, Kalan and Youngblood invited these freelancers to work in Bali for a month to live and work together while sharing their professional knowledge. They worked with thirty people under the same roof and coworking space while attending workshops. In their group, some worked in collaboration, while some worked remotely and travel elsewhere. Until this market gradually increased over the years, some of his org mates found the flexibility to work independently, while others built their own company. Kalan and Youngblood’s experiment grew even wider while traveling to and from 20 different countries, accumulating hundreds of experiences from 25,000 participants worldwide.

Given the COVID-19 pandemic, Kalan entailed that this is the best opportunity for entrepreneurs to discover how to grow and migrate to remote work effectively. More individuals and companies are now learning how to experiment with alternative ways to work best at their convenience. Although the catalyst is the pandemic, Kalan said that this opportunity allows the world to catch up as employees and entrepreneurs are now productive using their customized strategies. The coronavirus crisis forced entrepreneurs to innovate alternative ways to increase profit and grow their company online.

Unsettled’s Paradigm Shift

As Unsettled is a curated travel community, there is no doubt that they are crucially affected by the pandemic too. Although all of Unsettled’s trips were on-hold back in March, people under this community tested out working remotely despite being on lockdown. They had to figure out a lifestyle that is in line with whom they want to be while escaping the corporate setting they used to have by setting up a new business or going freelance.

Kalan also implied that when everything gets back to normal and is safe to travel, he could sense the rise in market demand for people who want to redefine their careers and work, especially that people have more chances to discover after the crisis. Remote working will also be more acceptable and usual due to the pandemic’s effect.

Even after this almost year-long pandemic, Kalan assures that his relationship with those 20 retreat destinations worldwide will not falter as he took a lot of time to build out this sturdy connection throughout the making of Unsettled. From local partners to local accommodations and experiences, Kalan and his team own the entire adventures of those trips without subcontractors. They only have teams worldwide in those 20 locations, fully distributed into first-responders, scouters despite having no office.

The Lifestyle Incubator

Even before the pandemic, Kalan and his team launched an online program called “Lifestyle Incubator” that provides a 4-week global virtual retreat where you can have the time, space, tools, and highly interactive community that helps you redefine your career. In the comfort of your home, you can now navigate your next transition intentionally in a clarified way through workshops, weekly live sessions, peer-to-peer conversations, and frameworks.

With this Unsettled online program, you can match your lifestyle while leaping towards your career with the utmost freedom, mobility, and flexibility. Although Kalan’s team stopped traveling, Lifestyle Incubator made it possible for their team to be productive and operational despite being distant from each other.

Unsettled is not just a group of entrepreneur-travelers who seek to have fun, but they plan and execute their experiences organizationally. The members embody Unsettled’s vision while working independently and crafting their path in life. If you are brand new to this type of working ethics, Kalan advised that the first step is to be more intentional with your work and minimizing dependence on someone’s supervision.

PODCAST TRANSCRIPT

Steve McGarry:

Hello and welcome to The Exit, presented by Flippa. I’m your cohost Steve McGarry and this is a 30-minute podcast where we sit down with amazing entrepreneurs who have been there and they have done it. They have gone through buying businesses, selling businesses and operating in incredible businesses that are on the cutting edge, which brings us to today’s interview with Jonathan Kalan, the CEO and co-founder of Unsettled. But before we dive into the interview with Jonathan, definitely check out my previous interview with Richard Patty. He did an amazing job of talking about how he scaled up a portfolio and now he’s teaching people to do the same, so definitely check that out with the link somewhere on where you’re listening, whether it’s Spotify, iTunes, SoundCloud or YouTube. There will be links somewhere for you to check out the show notes.

Steve McGarry:

So on this episode, I get to sit down with Jonathan and we go through how he’s built out a global community for everybody to embrace the future of work. Basically, they set up an amazing event that is like a work event, and you can go there, whether it’s in Bali or South America and you can go and work with like-minded people and you can build out a network in there. He even talks about, later on in the episode, how they’ve had weddings at these events, and everybody [inaudible 00:01:25] and digital nomad-style. They get to collaborate and work on incredible projects together. So, Jonathan’s a fantastic guy and I’m really excited to really highlight some of these types of stories where people have scaled these businesses up. He’s a talented TED speaker and just entrepreneur in general. So, without further ado, let’s dive right into my interview with Jonathan Kalan, the CEO and founder of Unsettled.

Steve McGarry:

What’s up, guys? I’m here with Jonathan Kalan, the CEO of Unsettled. How’s it going, Jonathan?

Jonathan Kalan:

Good. How you doing, Steve?

Steve McGarry:

Doing great, man. Doing great. And just before we dive into the interview, where are you at right now? I have to ask.

Jonathan Kalan:

I am currently hibernating in the mountains of Montana with my co-founder and our partners.

Steve McGarry:

That is… That’s fantastic. And for everybody that’s listening in, you’ll kind of understand the reason that I must ask these questions early, before we dive into the interview, because Jonathan’s business and story is very much intertwined with travel and business. So, that’s a good segue way into what is Unsettled, Jonathan? And if you could, just share your story, how you guys came about starting the business.

Jonathan Kalan:

Yeah, sure. I mean, so Unsettled is really a global community of independent professionals who, I think, really seek to embrace the unknown and value meaningful human connection. So, over the past four, over four years now, we’ve run co-created experiences that help people break out of their routine, find new perspectives and kind of expand their global network with like-minded professionals from around the world.

Jonathan Kalan:

And at the core we’re a travel company and a travel community, but our reach has sort of gone a lot further than that in the past four years and we’re really, I think, a place where people who are taking an independent path in life, whether it’s career or personal, can really find, I think, the support, the encouragement, the perspective, the knowledge, the insights that they’re looking for, in really different ways because for most of us who either work independently now or who have worked independently most of our lives, we could recognize that a lot of the times, it’s hard to replace some of that learning and growth that you get from being a more structured setting or having a more typical career path.

Jonathan Kalan:

So, that’s the little bit about what we do and who we are.

Steve McGarry:

Nice. Nice. And a lot of what I find fascinating about the Unsettled model is it’s really leaning into the remote work and now, obviously, you guys have some pretty serious validation with everything that’s going on. I mean, everyone is working from home in tech and business owners, and I think that you guys have really captured the kind of future of work, and I’d love to kind of talk a little bit about that. What do you kind of see in terms of where things are going to go with work?

Jonathan Kalan:

Yeah. [inaudible 00:04:28] It’s an interesting question because I think, going back to how we really got here… I mean, my entire career for the most part has been remote. I have, I think maybe for only two years out of my entire career, have actually worked in an office and had colleagues who were around me. And my co-founder Michael, pretty much the same thing. When I met him, he was working as the… As the editor for a publication of MIT on innovation and entrepreneurship, specifically in kind of the social enterprise sector, and he worked there for four years without ever setting foot on the MIT campus. And I was working as a journalist and freelance photographer based in Africa and the Middle East and I never knew my editors. I never worked them in person. And so, I think for us, we have always just worked remotely and been accustomed to working remotely, right? This is nothing new to us.

Jonathan Kalan:

And when we came together, I think it was very much united by the fact that we had had these independent careers. We’d had these remote careers and so many people that we knew were sort of on that leading edge of the future of the work, right? So many of our friends were independents or consultants or running their own businesses remotely, and so back in 2014, we started running co-working retreats for really just our friends. We found 30 people and said, “Hey. You want to join us in Bali for a month? We’re going to have a co-working space. We’re going to have a place where we can live together, work together. We’re going to share each other’s knowledge and have workshops and really create a space for collaboration while also kind of working independently on our projects.”

Jonathan Kalan:

And back in 2014, I think there was a fraction of the number of co-working spaces. There was a fraction of the number of people who were working remotely and especially working remotely and traveling. And so, we really just ran it as an experiment, and over the years, I think that market has increased. More people are finding that flexibility, either on their own or with their company. It’s allowed us to grow from a couple different co-working retreats around the world to now have running… Have run over 100 experiences in 20 countries with over 2,500 participants around the world. And so, we’ve kind of been looking at this for a long time and saying, “It’s not a matter of if. It’s a matter of when people are going to migrate more into remote work.”

Jonathan Kalan:

And I think, obviously the situation that we’re in now with COVID has just greatly accelerated that, right? It’s given individuals and companies the ability to experiment in new ways, in sort of a forced way. But they’ve also realized that it’s actually not that hard. It’s not that challenging. It presents a lot of different opportunities for how you can, I think, grow and be a productive employee or be a productive entrepreneur in a very different way. And so… So, yeah. I mean, for us it’s… We’ve been living this future for quite some time and it’s nice to see the rest of the world starting to catch up, even if the catalyst was a global pandemic.

Steve McGarry:

Yeah. Yeah. It’s like a… A glass half full approach because it’s… It’s an unfortunate situation, of course. Terrible, terrible global pandemic. But it is forcing a lot of alternative ways of making money online, and I think that there’s some exciting, exciting things that are happening now. And in terms of what you guys have seen with everything, obviously, that’s going on, are you seeing an uptick in the amount of people that are really interested in doing this? Is it…? Is it kind of like a complete paradigm shift for you guys? Are you guys doing a different angle now or is it still the same, kind of travel to a location and co-work together?

Jonathan Kalan:

Yeah. So, throughout our journey, I mean, our one-month co-working retreats have really been the core of Unsettled and the Unsettled experiment… Experience. And so, obviously we had to stop traveling as soon as COVID hit, so that was about March of last year. We had to put all of our trips on hold. But interestingly enough, what we’ve found through this journey is a lot of people who had been joining us up until that point were people who were actually kind of dipping their toes in the water. So, they were coming on an Unsettled experience to test out working remotely or use that time to figure out how to design their business and their lifestyle to be what they wanted it to be. So, they were kind of escaping that structure, escaping that corporate setting, and going off and setting out to create their own business or go freelance or just try something different that just allowed them ultimately to live the lifestyle that they wanted.

Jonathan Kalan:

And so, even before COVID, we had actually been developing online programs where… It was really… We call it The Lifestyle Incubator and it’s a four-week virtual retreat that helps people really design their life in a different way and design their career in a way that matches their lifestyle. So, for us, I think Unsettled is very much about taking that first step and taking that leap towards designing your career around your lifestyle to enable you to have that freedom, that mobility, that independence and that flexibility.

Jonathan Kalan:

And so, even though we stopped traveling, our online programs have definitely seen an incredible rise. I think interest in Unsettled in general right now… We’ve had a lot of inquiries of people saying, “Hey. When are you guys going to go traveling again?” And so, I think we know that once things are, I think… I don’t want to say back to normal, but are at a… A level where we feel safe to bring a group of 20 or 30 people to Bali or Buenos Aires, there’s going to be a huge market demand there for people who not only have used COVID as a chance to redefine their career and redefine how they’re working, but also who really recognize that now is the time to go out and experiment with that lifestyle because it’s just becoming so much more acceptable and so much more normal to work remotely. And if you’re able to manage time zones and your own schedule, there’s no reason you can’t do that work from Bali or Tuscany or any one of our destinations.

Steve McGarry:

Got it. Got it. And in terms of like… I guess, shifting gears, for all of the entrepreneurs out there that are interested in the operational side of things, when you guys are based in Montana and you’re scheduling a event, a co-working event where people can travel from wherever after all this has kind of blown over… Let’s say for mid-next year, you guys are planning an event. Can you walk us through what that process is like for you guys? Is it you’re getting on the phone with 30 people or are you doing emails out to people? And then are you booking a whole commercial building or is it like….? I know Bali is probably a mansion of some kind. But what is that…? What is that process kind of like for you guys?

Jonathan Kalan:

Yeah. So, we… Over the years, we’ve… We set up really good relationships in the 20 destinations in which we run retreats in, and that’s taken a lot of time, to build out local partners, local accommodations, the different experiences, because we… Aside from the accommodations, which we partner with, and we generally do find really amazing villas or houses or places that you’d want to call home… We don’t rent an apartment building or a standard chain hotel. We get really unique boutique spaces that you really feel like you’re living there. And so, we’ve developed those relationships over the years and then we do all of the experience design, planning, staffing ourselves. We don’t sub-contract out, so we really own the entire experience.

Jonathan Kalan:

And so, we have teams all over the world. We have people in Bali. We have people in Cape Town, people in all of our locations. And really, they’re kind of our, I’d say, first responders. They’re out scouters. They’re our everything. I mean, they’re how we run the business because our team is fully distributed and fully remote. We’ve never had an office. My co-founder and I are generally unsettled on the road, as is most of our team. Our experience leaders are on the road and kind of hopping between locations and running experiences. And so, for us, we really… We’ve built this sort of operational capacity where we’ve got really strong systems in place to build and launch and design experiences anywhere.

Jonathan Kalan:

That said, it’s still a lot of work every time we do put forth a new experience and the process is… Once somebody signs up to join us, we have an interview because it is a curated committee, and once we’ve got generally about 20 or 30 people, we do a welcome call over Zoom, which is a way to get people introduced to each other, to understand the experience, to prepare them for what’s to come. And then, ultimately, they meet us in wherever destination they’re going to and we’ve got everything set up. We’ve got the accommodations. We’ve got events. We’ve got dinners. We’ve got experiences. We’ve got a full time team on the ground. We’ve got a full time co-working space.

Jonathan Kalan:

And so, is a lot of logistics that takes a while to build out, but running it remotely, honestly, has not been a challenge. We really don’t know another way to do it. It’s sort of us living the lifestyle of the brand. The fact that we have experiences allows our team to connect all over the world. So, I’ve seen our team members in 10 different countries. Some team members, I’ve never actually met before, even after two years, three years of working with them. So, it’s something that… I think we put a lot of time and effort into how we plan and execute experiences, but there’s a formula to it that we’ve just developed over time that allows us to do that pretty smoothly with a remote team.

Steve McGarry:

Right on. Right on. I love the start with embodying the vision of the company and doing it remotely yourself and having everybody distributed about. I really like that. In terms of a new… Someone, let’s say, that was traditionally in an office.

Jonathan Kalan:

Mm-hmm (affirmative)-

Steve McGarry:

Now, because of COVID, they’re going remote. What would you say is probably the most valuable learning that you had? Because you guys have been doing remote team-building and teamwork together for a very long time now. What kind of, I guess, tips would you suggest to someone that’s brand new to it, where it’s trial by fire? They’re jumping in and they’re… They’re like, “Okay. I have to learn how… The tools and everything, that I have to be a remote worker now.” What would you…? What would you say would be the best… The best first kind of steps for somebody?

Jonathan Kalan:

Well, it starts with being intentional. I think anybody who’s transitioning to remote work now has a… A really incredible opportunity of how to be more intentional with their work, right? I think, depending on the company that you’re working for and scheduling and so on, it does give you a sense of freedom to set your own schedule in a different way. You’re reducing the commute. You’re reducing having to be in the office. You’re able to create your own environment. You’re able to, I think, work in a way that is more… I would say more independent, but that also means that you have more control over how you work. So, intentional with your routine, intentional with how do you separate life and work. It becomes a lot harder when your home is your office and your office is your home.

Jonathan Kalan:

So, I think the key is taking a really intentional approach to thinking about what are the parts of the office that you want to leave behind and what are the parts of the office that you might want to continue, right? What type of structures and things do you want to really build for yourself? And whether that’s starting a little bit later and taking time to exercise or taking an hour or two in the middle of the day to go for a walk or finding ways to connect with your colleagues outside of just office hours, right? Because you’re not going to be bumping into them in the corridors anymore.

Jonathan Kalan:

So, I think… Again, for me, it just comes down to being more intentional about how you’re designing that because the technology is all there. We all know how to use Zoom. We all know how to use Slack. The tools are there, but what isn’t there is, I think, that road map for how to stay inspired personally, how to stay productive personally, how to keep yourself… How to keep [inaudible 00:16:45] momentum in your life and create, number one, the separation between your work and your life, but number two, how to just work better and work more smart.

Steve McGarry:

Mm-hmm (affirmative)-

Jonathan Kalan:

And so, I think just taking the time to think about that and what it means, as opposed to just diving right into it and almost getting lost in the chaos that is, I think, many companies trying to adapt to working remotely very quickly.

Steve McGarry:

Yeah. Because now it’s very… It’s kind of a conditional thing, right? It’s the… They’ve been pushed into it now and they got to kind of learn. So, would you say that your lifestyle shifting course, is that… Is that going to help usher people towards the direction of remote work, and if so, what’s been kind of the bottleneck? What is…? Obviously, intention is very important and being intentional and optimizing your time and really around your lifestyle. What do you think is, for somebody that’s used to going to an office, having people around them…? What would you say, from your experience with the course that you guys have, has been your learnings around what’s holding people back from this shift of mindset around work?

Jonathan Kalan:

I would say the biggest thing that we’ve seen is a supportive community. More than anything else, I think finding people who are on a similar path or finding people who share a similar mindset. I think it’s very easy when you’re working in a bubble, whether it’s where you live or the company you’re working for, to not have that perspective that there are other ways to work, that there are other ways to live. And what we’ve seen time and time again and why we call Unsettled a community more than anything else is that having that supportive community of people who are going through a similar experience or who have been through a similar experience is extremely powerful. Being able to expand your network and have those vulnerable conversations about the challenges that you’re facing or the fears that you have or the unknowns that still exist, that is really powerful, and we’ve seen it over and over again as being a catalyst for people to really begin to make significant changes in their life.

Jonathan Kalan:

And so, part of what we do at Unsettled is really bringing people together who are asking those bigger questions, who are seeking either an unconventional approach to their life or their career or thinking about fundamentally shaking something up, and running experiences that allow them to, yes, both learn through curriculum and content and workshops that we do, but also simply open up space for conversations that allow you to be vulnerable about the challenges that you’re facing. And I think that’s something missing in the conversation about the future of work today, is where do we find community? Where do we have those serendipitous encounters with people that we may have never interacted with before? And I think that’s definitely a catalyst for change for a lot of our community and us as well.

Steve McGarry:

Yeah. Well said about the community. I think that that’s such a… A lot of the tones around Unsettled when I first… I remember hearing about it from our mutual good friend David Phillips. He told me about you guys and I did some research on it, and I had done Startup Weekend years and years… Years ago. Probably 2010 or something like that. And it… It was that communal effort and you have this melting pot of all these skills that people have. Designers, developers, sales people, marketers, all these different skill sets, and putting them all into a room or an area and allowing them to collaborate together on things. Do you guys see a lot of collaboration when you guys are at these retreats? You have all these different entrepreneurs and people working on projects remotely. Is there ever a moment where a designer for one project leans over to a marketer on another project and says like, “Hey. I think you need to do this.” And do you see some of that, that collaboration?

Jonathan Kalan:

All the time. I mean, Unsettled is built as a community of co-creation and collaboration, and so that actually is very much the point of a lot of the experiences that we run, is to connect people from different backgrounds and expertise and perspectives and countries, to really share their expertise. In each of our in-person experiences, I’d say about half of the content, the workshops and the sessions that we do, are run by the community. So, you may have an expert in astrology who runs an Astrology 101. You may have an expert in personal branding who runs a personal branding workshop. So, the idea is that everybody has something valuable to contribute and we just provide, in many ways, a platform and the space for people to connect and share those skills with each other.

Jonathan Kalan:

So, we’ve had business partnerships. We’ve had collaborations. We’ve had people get clients. We’ve had marriages, I think six marriages so far from Unsettled retreats, so….

Steve McGarry:

Really?

Jonathan Kalan:

Yeah, including my own.

Steve McGarry:

Oh, wow.

Jonathan Kalan:

[crosstalk 00:21:42] So, it… It’s…

Steve McGarry:

That’s awesome.

Jonathan Kalan:

It is really designed around bringing people together to share in those skills and to share in that life journey. And we’ve actually launched, depending on when this comes out, for us today, it’s tomorrow, we’re launching something called The Global Passport Community and it is a virtual experience, kind of a virtual headquarters to replace that connection that we’re missing, that serendipity, that sense of discovery, that sense of growth, to bring our community and an expanded community together in a virtual environment where we are co-creating, we are hosting workshops and community contributions for each other. We are hosting speakers and talks and lectures. We have a community database where you can find people by their expertise and their skills and their locations, to really kind of continue living Unsettled no matter where you are. And so, that’s actually something we’ve been building out over the past six months that launches… Yeah, tomorrow, as a way to really kind of continue that living Unsettled and continue that idea of everybody you meet is a possibility for something new in a virtual environment.

Steve McGarry:

Very cool. Very cool. So, can you… Can you talk a little bit more about that in terms of…? Would it be a call like this? Is there going to be a dozen people on a call like this and then we can all connect? What does that…? What does that look like, the Passport?

Jonathan Kalan:

Yeah. So, The Unsettled Global Passport is… It’s built around three things: connection, discovery and growth. And for connection, it’s obvious. In a time of less travel, where are those opportunities to serendipitously meet people from around the world, have meaningful conversations, find mentors, friends, peers, collaborators around the world? And so, we host various sessions, really interactive conversations on Zoom, really structured and facilitated ways to kind of speed-friend and meet people from around the world in the community. And then, obviously, a database to kind of go and follow up with them afterwards, along with a 24/7 Slack community where people are posting questions, challenges, different groups, different themes, different topics. And so, really curating conversations on a monthly basis.

Jonathan Kalan:

For discover, we’ve got discover your different themes and topics. We’ve got guest speakers coming in, really with the idea of expanding your mind into things that you wouldn’t have come across that could impact your life, your work, your business. This month’s theme… We pick a theme each month, is the power of play and how play kind of inspires us to be more innovative or creative in our lives. And so, we’re having a bunch of really incredible speakers come in and talk about the power of play in life, in business.

Jonathan Kalan:

And then the growth aspect is workshops that come from the community and come from us around specific skills. So, whether it’s marketing or Enneagram and how to use that to work more effectively with your team… A whole host of different types of sessions that happen on a weekly basis that are really designed around helping you grow as a professional and as an individual.

Jonathan Kalan:

And so, all of that kind of comes together with this glue of live online sessions and Slack and a database that you join on a monthly basis. And so, we kick off… We’ve experimented with it in the past with our alumni and about four months ago, and it went incredibly well, and now we’re kind of opening it up to the broader world.

Steve McGarry:

Cool. Very cool. Very cool. Well, I was going to ask what’s coming, but clearly that’s [inaudible 00:25:04] coming for Unsettled.

Jonathan Kalan:

Yeah.

Steve McGarry:

And I think the final kind of question is where… Where can people go and learn more about you guys and where you want people to go and learn more?

Jonathan Kalan:

Yeah. Well, you can always hop over to our website, which is beunsettled.co. B-E unsettled.co. Or “beunsettled” as a handle on most social platforms. And you can always drop me a line at [email protected] and say hello. But, yeah. We’d love to invite everybody to come and check us out and join us virtually for now and once we’re able to start hitting the road again, to join us for one of our experiences around the world.

Steve McGarry:

Awesome. Awesome. Yeah. Well, thanks for everything you’re doing with helping usher people into the remote lifestyle. I love the idea that… The lifestyle course that you guys have, that’s pretty fantastic because I think there’s a big disconnect right now with what people need to focus on and trying to find their own way. So, I appreciate you for doing that for the world. But thanks so much for coming on the show, again, Jonathan.

Jonathan Kalan:

Yeah. It was my pleasure. Thanks for having me.

Steve McGarry:

Thank you so much for listening through to the end of this episode of The Exit, presented by Flippa. I had a great time sitting down with Jonathan and talking about Unsettled, how they grew the community and what they’ve really been focusing on now with their kind of membership model. It’s a very exciting platform. I’ve had a chance to poke around on it, and definitely check it out with the show notes and the links that I will be leaving in the description wherever you’re listening to this. You can check it out on the Flippa blog as well as some of the other links that Jonathan mentions in the interview. So, that is it for this episode. If you guys want to see more interviews like this, leave a comment, leave a like, and don’t forget to be subscribed for some incredible interviews over the next days and weeks here. And I will see you guys on the next episode of The Exit.

    Steve McGarry is an entrepreneur, content creator, and investor based in sunny Tampa, Florida. In 2015, while living in San Francisco, Steve sold his first fintech startup LendLayer to Max Levchin’s (founder of PayPal) consumer finance company Affirm. In the last 5 years, Steve has both built an online community that reaches 1.4 million people every month on social media and a portfolio of over a dozen web properties. Currently, he’s the co-founder of a next-generation fintech startup called GrowYourBase while managing his portfolio of online businesses.

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