Polly Letofski Episode Transcript

 Polly Letofski: [00:00:02] And what it made me realize is that every time I'm in a miserable situation, I will come out of it again. It's not like this cloud is going to stick over my head and follow me. It is. A storm has never stayed over. [00:00:16][13.9]

Monte Barnard: [00:00:17] Welcome to Live Rich. Have Fun. Save the World, a podcast focused on reimagining how we define success, cohosted by myself, Monty Bernard and CEO of Expensify, David Barret. Today on the show, we have Polly the Tomsky, the first woman to walk all the way around the world doing so to raise awareness of breast cancer since her trip in 2001. She's written a bestselling book, Three Miles Per Hour The Adventure of One Woman's Walk Around the World and is now a motivational speaker. [00:00:45][28.7]

Polly Letofski: [00:00:47] Right? [00:00:47][0.0]

Monte Barnard: [00:00:48] I like that. I'm Montay. This is David, CEO of Expensify. I'm a microphone jockey and Jack of all trades thing at Expensify. So we started this podcast, Polly, about living rich but having fun and about saving the world and how those three concepts really are, how we start to define our measurement of success. I mean, it used to be how much money you got in the bank, how cool is your car? You got the new fancy gadget. Now, as we advance not only as a company, but as people, as a society, we really find that measuring on those three metrics really is how we feel like that's who you are and get the most out of life. And no one no one encapsulates that. No one lives that journey like you lived that journey by walking around the entirety of the globe. Obviously, I want to talk about that. Obviously, I want to dove into your book, your your mission. But I really want to know, what was it like day one when you got home, you were able to sleep in your own bed or just not be mobile for one for one day? What went through your mind that first day? [00:01:50][61.9]

Polly Letofski: [00:01:51] Well, it's not like you've been in the middle of jumping out hog the wild hogs in India and then plug back in Denver, Colorado. It's sort of gradually changing, right? So I graduated from, you know, I'm in the Third World and then I move into the first world and then I move into the U.S. and then I'm dying to get home. OK, OK. [00:02:19][27.9]

Monte Barnard: [00:02:20] Yeah, it was a series of locks you're going through. It's a little a little less foreign. Yeah, a little more, a little more normal. You start to recognize the fast food chains, you start to recognize the street signs, you start to recognize things are a little more home. Things are a little more domestic, OK. [00:02:33][13.5]

Polly Letofski: [00:02:35] Yeah, so I started moving it, moving, getting close, because, I mean, it was like a year and a half from the finish line and I was like, Oh yeah, I'm good. I'm exhausted. [00:02:46][11.3]

DB: [00:02:47] So how long was this trip? And and so, like, wanted to start and when it end, dove in. [00:02:52][5.0]

Polly Letofski: [00:02:52] Don't wait. Let's do it again. OK, it was five years long. It was one day shy of five years. So the place that I want was that I started with a place I wanted to finish. But so I wanted to finish on the five year anniversary because it was so close. But then there was a big event going on there. So I was like, oh, well, so where [00:03:14][22.5]

DB: [00:03:15] where was the start and end point? [00:03:16][1.4]

Polly Letofski: [00:03:18] I finish. I started and finished in Vail, Colorado. I been living there. And when I left, so I say facetiously, it took me five years to walk from Vail to East Vail. You know, I just took the scenic route. Yeah, it took five years and I went across four continents. Twenty two countries and fourteen thousand one hundred and twenty four miles in twenty nine pairs of shoes. Does that wrap it up [00:03:44][26.2]

DB: [00:03:45] that it was set up. So you just sort of like just woke up one day and then just sort of going to go west and then sort of heading towards the sunset. [00:03:51][6.3]

Polly Letofski: [00:03:52] Yeah. Yeah. I wish it was that easy. It started when I was 12 years old. I was 12 and growing up in Minneapolis, really idyllic childhood. You know, lots of friends around in that era in which, you know, you don't come home until the street lights are on kind of thing. Mom doesn't know where you are all day. Didn't matter. She preferred that way. It was one of those childhoods. Right. So I really started to discover that there was this whole different world going on at about the age of 12 when I started reading the paper and I started seeing that kids are not living the same 12 year olds like that. I am me and my buddies and playing kickball and stickball and climbing trees. And I discovered that through the newspaper. So I started reading the newspaper every morning feeling like quite the grown up. Right. And so I read about these places. It was nineteen seventy four. So there were, there was a lot going on in nineteen seventy four from you know, it's when Richard Nixon resigned and not that I thought that was a big deal. What did I know. But Vietnam was ending and I was like, why are people living like this. I don't understand, you know, all the different cultures just kind of an awakening as to how the world ticks and why is it all different asking my 12 year old self these questions? And while reading the paper one day I see the story of a man walking around the world. So he is pushing this buggy? No, he's pulling the buggy. Actually, I pushed it buggy. He was pulling a buggy and in down this empty road and there was a caption in the paper and it said, David Kunst walking down Highway six in Colorado on his way home to Minnesota to become the first man to walk around the world. And I was like, what? I didn't I swear to God I had this moment. I didn't know you could think of such a thing if you were from Minnesota, like you would be born somewhere else to have X dream, you [00:05:44][111.9]

Monte Barnard: [00:05:44] know, or more exotic. Yes. [00:05:45][1.1]

Polly Letofski: [00:05:46] Right. So he's from small town Minnesota. And I'm like, well, he could do it. I could do it. Right. I can. But I swear to God this happened. I think I can put one foot in front of the other just four years. I can do that. So what I did was I went I walked around the house for like three hours. I don't know that anybody saw me or anybody else questions, but I went and walked around the house for three hours going, well, yeah, [00:06:11][24.4]

Speaker 4: [00:06:11] I could do that. Yeah. This ain't so bad. [00:06:13][2.2]

Polly Letofski: [00:06:15] Oh, I'm gonna [00:06:16][0.8]

Monte Barnard: [00:06:17] get to go fast forward was it. Twenty years later. Fast forward. You're actually hitting the rubber to the road. Hitting the pavement. [00:06:23][5.8]

Polly Letofski: [00:06:24] Yeah. So that's when I was twelve and you know, I didn't actually tell anybody. My mom says no, you never mentioned it and and it was always in my head. So I suspect that it was one of those things you don't talk about until you know or if you say it out loud, it's got to happen. So I better be clear about and it's really at the end of the day, so impossible. I'm not going to really say it out loud. It's a fantasy. OK, so twenty plus years go by. I'm now living in Vail, Colorado, and it was this culmination, this intersection of things that happened. One, I was pulling well into my 30s. And secondly, there was a number of women in my world that were being diagnosed with breast cancer all about the same time. And I thought, what is this breast cancer nonsense I'm hearing all about suddenly? So I went to the doctor and I said, listen, I want one of those, what you call the mammogram things. I got to get one of those, don't I? So and he says something that changed my life. He says, you don't need to worry about getting breast cancer because it doesn't run on your mother's side of the family of like, oh, well, good enough. Don't have to worry about it. And I went home ah back to work from the doctor that day and my friends really let me have it. He said what. Of course, you can get breast cancer, every woman in the world is at risk for getting breast cancer and off they go into, you know, reeling me now. So those two events were happening when I was pulling into my 30s and one, this breast cancer stuff at the same time. Remember, I always wanted to do this, but never was really serious about it because I thought it was so impossible. And I'm at the library one day and I see this this magazine front cover of a magazine saying first woman to walk around the world. That was Fiona Campbell of England. And you know, this great book, Greatest Walker of All Time. Oh, my God. Someone actually do that. It can be done. Wow. And that kind of triggered that childhood dream again, and it started sneaking up to the forefront, and then I saw this article in the paper like page thirty seven D in the paper. I mean, I the depths. And it said Fiona Campbell, in fact, has admitted to accepting rides for a laugh. Oh no, no. In fact her title had been stripped or whatever. I don't know if it's a title and I but now it's my time and all those three events came together and I thought I remember exactly where I was. You know, when you have these lightbulb moments. Yeah. And I was walking home ten o'clock at night from work. I had a two mile walk home every night and I was thinking about all these things. Right, especially these women going through breast cancer and blah, blah, blah. I thought that's what I'll do that walk for and I've always wanted to do. You suddenly started swirling. I'm in the dark walking down this recreation trail and Vail and I start talking to myself like outloud. Right. Which is a really good strategy, by the way, if you're walking in the dark alone. [00:09:18][173.5]

Monte Barnard: [00:09:19] Yeah. [00:09:19][0.0]

DB: [00:09:20] So that's that's pretty interesting. Like where you said when you were 12, when you first heard this, and I didn't think anyone could do that. I think that sort of try to think I've heard that idea where it's like, no, there's no way I could do that. I think people some people seem very confident in what they can do. I think a great skill is in being open to the possibility that you don't know what you can't do. It's like amazing things happen in this world. And I think we tend to only think amazing things happen in this in the world of the history books, the history books is this different world. We're full of possibility and full of incredible people. But people forget the history books are there written about this actual world. And you can just choose to be incredible. And there's a lot of the history books are written about people who started in a much worse place than we did, and they were able to accomplish incredible things. And so I think it's great hearing how, you know, how grappling with that imposter's dilemma that we all sort of have. It's like other people do cool stuff, but there's no way I possibly could. And so when you know you're 32 and you're thinking about basically it's like, hey, the idea I had as a kid, maybe I want to do that. How did you overcome kind of that imposter's dilemma that like. No, I could actually do that. [00:10:27][66.9]

Polly Letofski: [00:10:28] Well, I think it was a combination of things, one, I had gone and done some living at that point. Right. So, you know, how are you? Steve Jobs did that, what was it, a Berkeley keynote address. And he talks about looking back at his life and connecting the dots. And this dot you didn't see at the time that these dots were connecting to, in fact, what he did. He's the one for the one class he ever took in college, gave the world all of our fonts on computer calligraphy class. OK, so now I can look back and see what was happening. I think it's subconsciously I think that it was probably by design, but I went off at the age of, gosh, what was I like twenty one or something. And I wanted to go do that backpacking thing in Europe, as you do. But I had no money. And when I say I had no money like I spent three dollars a day that was wow. So my budget was if you can't eat it you can't buy it. Right. Sleeping in the train station, sleeping in the park. And it's like if there was I remember walking past the Colosseum in Rome where Colosseum in Rome and they had the sprinklers, you know, keeping the grass is green. Excellent. I'm getting a shower today. Right. And just living on nothing and what have you. And that was sort of a training for me to get by with nothing and pushing the human spirit and accepting every single hurdle and living one to two steps outside your comfort zone every single day. Every day you're living outside your comfort zone because we I think as humans like that, that routine [00:12:26][118.5]

Monte Barnard: [00:12:28] right to life. Yeah. [00:12:29][1.5]

Polly Letofski: [00:12:30] And you get up, you have your coffee, you do this, you do that. And there was no routine in that whole European trip with a day pack for five months. And it was very much by design. I'm not doing believe me. Right. But at the time, I didn't have a clear sight that I was going to walk around the world. I couldn't have told you at the time that this was a training ground for when I could walk around the world. It was that idea back in my head that walk, oh, that'd be really cool. But, you know, that's impossible. And it was almost like I was testing myself. There was no other reason to do that trip in Europe to see what I mean. So I what was the question? [00:13:12][41.3]

DB: [00:13:13] I'm wondering, like how you overcame sort of that skepticism of what you could do, that imposter's dilemma and sort of thing, and actually take the first step towards this trip. So to make it into a real thing and not just a dream, [00:13:26][13.5]

Polly Letofski: [00:13:27] I think it was then. Yeah, I see where I landed there. It was that life experiences and I had been sort of pushing myself whether I realized it was for a training ground for this walk or not. That's what had happened and. By the time I was then, thirty seven is thirty seven is when I left, so I was about thirty five, thirty four when I made the decision and I set a date. You guys, I set a date. I said August 1st, nineteen ninety nine, I'm going to leave on my walk, OK, so I had three years to put this together and I remember my guy was that I did sales and marketing at a hotel. And the boss was giving me a promotion. He said, I want to move you up to this position. And I said, OK, but I think it's only fair that I tell you that I will be leaving on August 1st. Nineteen ninety nine. [00:14:21][53.5]

Speaker 4: [00:14:23] What are you going to do? [00:14:23][0.5]

Polly Letofski: [00:14:24] Well, I'm going to go walk around the world like, OK, no problem. [00:14:26][2.2]

Monte Barnard: [00:14:27] OK, sure. [00:14:27][0.4]

DB: [00:14:27] Sure you are. Yeah, definitely. Put that in the calendar [00:14:29][2.1]

Monte Barnard: [00:14:30] and I'm going to go to space. [00:14:30][0.5]

Monte Barnard: [00:14:31] Sure thing. [00:14:31][0.2]

Polly Letofski: [00:14:33] Yes. He's probably more, more alarmed than anyone. [00:14:36][3.0]

Monte Barnard: [00:14:37] But I love him. [00:14:39][1.5]

Monte Barnard: [00:14:39] I love that convergence of multiple things. You know, obviously the seed that was planted when you were 12 and it was allowed to nurture in the back of your subconscious is something that was, you know, fantastic and interesting to you. And then the other key part, again, of not telling people about it and not letting their outsider nay saying of, oh, that's impossible, or why would you do that? Here's, you know, X, Y and Z reason or you wouldn't do that. So that idea was allowed to grow, seeing someone else actually do it, but then they didn't do it. It seems like this kind of this thread that goes through this philosophical, you know, journey in your mind before setting that date. And that's another thing, too, is that proper preparation equals good luck, right? If you're going to actually plan for something, you know, opportunity and preparation, that plus that equals good luck. And here you are today. [00:15:26][46.7]

Polly Letofski: [00:15:27] Yeah, I remember when I first said it out loud, like I had decided that night walking down that that recreation trail, talking to myself, I decided I was going to do it right. But this was right. As we were getting on this thing called the Internet and the W w w dot, you know, this kind of thing. So there were very, very few Web sites, but, you know, so there wasn't a lot. A ways to do homework, you know, the research you have to go to Barnes Noble to by every damn map, you know, I did I had the map spread across the living room. And you remember with maps, they had the red dot, dot, dot and had a number in between them. All right. So I did that for the whole world for that. Wow. [00:16:16][48.5]

DB: [00:16:17] In one night. So in one night you went through and mapped out your whole your whole trip. [00:16:20][3.3]

Polly Letofski: [00:16:21] Yeah. Yeah. That was plan a plan. I didn't pan out but yeah. The first, the first like Barfoot idea. Yeah. And I was going to dot to dot to dot everything down at the map, spread all over the floor and then the world started changing very, very fast there in the late 90s when we started getting online and more Web sites, easier to do homework like where can I go, where can I not go? And started kind of altering my whole change. But the first time I said it out loud to someone was really not planned. It was some random person that's not going to hold me to it. There you [00:16:56][35.3]

Monte Barnard: [00:16:56] go. Yeah, that's [00:16:57][0.3]

Monte Barnard: [00:16:57] that's the move. Yeah. [00:16:58][1.6]

Polly Letofski: [00:16:59] Hold me to what? I just said it out loud and I'm like, why do you walk all the time? I don't remember exactly the conversation. I said, well, I'm, I'm really training. I want to go walk around the world. And he's like, OK, what's right? You know? And that was the extent of it. But that was the first time he said it out loud. And I remember thinking, walking out of that conversation, going, well, now I have to do it. Now it's real. You do it. [00:17:29][29.5]

Monte Barnard: [00:17:30] So who? [00:17:31][0.7]

DB: [00:17:32] So after that first conversation, which was very anticlimactic, who push back the hardest, like when you sort of express this idea to your friends and family, they're like, sounds great. Or they're like, you're an idiot. [00:17:43][11.3]

Polly Letofski: [00:17:45] You know, I didn't get a lot of the you're an idiot. I really did. I think I'd sort of proven that I was an idiot. [00:17:51][6.5]

DB: [00:17:53] That was already well established. [00:17:53][0.6]

Polly Letofski: [00:17:56] Yeah, well, that I got OK. No, I had gone up and done the weird travel thing. Like I said, you know, with the amount trying to sort of push the human spirit, they sort of got that. But this was on a different scale. And I remember a friend of mine, again, not a great friend, but someone who knew me anyway. And, you know, she's probably the second third person I said it out loud to. She goes, So wait a minute. I remember that she says, wait a minute. So you went and walked across England for two weeks and now you think you can you can walk around the world easy. Right, girl, I walked around my house for three hours. [00:18:36][40.6]

DB: [00:18:38] That was the real test [00:18:38][0.6]

Monte Barnard: [00:18:41] of [00:18:41][0.0]

Monte Barnard: [00:18:41] the exponential difficulty raised there. But yeah, it works. It works. [00:18:45][3.6]

Polly Letofski: [00:18:45] The tracks go do this like a thousand times. No problem. [00:18:50][4.7]

Monte Barnard: [00:18:50] And not that walking around the world isn't hard enough, but as you mentioned in your book and you mentioned in some of your speaking tours that that 9/11 happened when you were in India, is that correct? [00:18:59][8.3]

Polly Letofski: [00:18:59] Well, now I'm in Malaysia, my first Muslim country. And the thing is, I went I went west bound around the world now. There had been at the time I don't know what's going on now, but at the time there have been four men that have walked around the world and they all went east to west. Now, it wasn't you want it to be a rebel. I want, you know, what's the best way to go here so I can work out my kerfuffles and my two. So I thought and I'd lived in New Zealand for five years, so I thought, why don't I start in Colorado and I'll go west? So I land in New Zealand pretty fast, right. So I have friends and I can kind of get some ground beneath my legs and get used to things. And coming up to Australia, still English speaking territory, still very western, of course. And then by the time that would be two years of walking right there. Well, for me, just that, OK, ironically, I'm not that fast. So so by the time I'll get into real foreign territory, I'll have some, you know, experience behind me and have worked out all the tweaks. And that's exactly what happened. So I went and down through New Zealand, up through the east coast of Australia, land in Singapore, still very Western. And that only took me a day to walk across. It's a small island nation. And then once you walk over this huge causeway bridge from Singapore into Malaysia. So it just changes dramatically the culture and the scenery and religions and languages and everything. It's just like boom changes just like that. And I landed there on August 6th, 2001. The date is only important in that it was only, what, a month to month and a half before? [00:20:50][110.6]

Monte Barnard: [00:20:52] 9/11 and how did you hear about it, obviously, you said it was pretty Internet. I mean, just the television everywhere, even that Far East, it was still still on every news channel or how did you see or hear about it? [00:21:03][10.6]

Polly Letofski: [00:21:04] Yeah, I was halfway through the country, so I'm in Kuala Lumpur, which is their capital. OK, so the Lions clubs, we've talked about this, but the Lions Club started picking me up in like very, very early Australia, meaning a woman found me alongside the road. So what are you doing? Because I'm pushing my buggy look at love and [00:21:26][22.7]

Monte Barnard: [00:21:29] Minnesota's that way. [00:21:29][0.9]

Polly Letofski: [00:21:32] Oh, she knows me so well. Yes, I'm wandering aimlessly. But anyway, she said, what are you doing? And I said, you know, my name's Polly. I'm from Colorado and I'm walking around the world and it's for breast cancer. And oh, well, let me introduce myself. My name is Margaret and I'm the president of the Local Lions Club. You've got to get involved with the Lions Club to come home with me. So I go to her and she's you know, if you've been to Australia, every single town has a pub in the whole damn town, goes to the pub and that's what they do. That's where they meet. So we go to the pub, Pat. Margaret stood up on a stool and she tells everybody, this is Polly, this is what she's doing, and all the funds raised here stay here and help Australian women. So let's show her a little Aussie spirit. OK, so she leans over, plucks the hat off a guy's head and she passes his hat around. Now, you can't get a photo of this, right? But I have this vivid memory etched in my head of this hat floating through the pool hall, people throwing money into it and pass the dartboard competition through the bar into the restaurant. And the bartender announces to the cheering crowd. We've just raised three hundred and thirty two dollars for the Breast Cancer Network. And they put me on the back. Tell me what a great job I just done. And I was like, I did. [00:22:52][80.2]

Monte Barnard: [00:22:53] This all gets [00:22:53][0.7]

Monte Barnard: [00:22:54] pep in your step there. OK, OK. [00:22:56][1.3]

Polly Letofski: [00:22:57] Well, they passed me to the next Lions Club up the road and they took me out to the bar and they pass the hat around and they pass me the next. So next thing you know, I'm doing this pub crawl up the east coast of Australia and we raise like thirty five thousand dollars on my rack up there for the Breast Cancer Network. And then that that Lions organization in Australia contacted the ones through Singapore and Malaysia, and they did the same thing. Only it was you guys wouldn't even believe it. I was like stinking Forrest Gump out there. I mean, a hundred people walking with me every day, all day. So to get back to the question. Yes, I'm coming back to you on nine 11, I had to explain how the Lions got involved. Otherwise, I can't make that quantum leap. But anyway, so the Lions clubs are just piles of them. Walking with me every day, and they took such unbelievably good care of me, it was overwhelming, right? So which is funny because one line I always like to do, the clients clipped before, like where they put you up last night. I'm like, well, they put me up at this hotel, got me a massage or we put up a hotel. [00:24:11][73.9]

Monte Barnard: [00:24:14] Well, OK. [00:24:14][0.4]

Polly Letofski: [00:24:17] So anyway, they dropped me off at this this hotel in Kuala Lumpur and it was, you know, I wanted to go get up to par and all the world events in case I need to know anything. And so in throughout Southeast Asia, at least at the time. So this is now two thousand one. And so people couldn't afford to have computers at home. I don't know what's going on now, but that was at the time. So they had Internet cafes everywhere. So and I remember clearly the time because I find Internet cafe the base of the hotel, and I log on and there weren't that many websites still. Right. But CNN had the main news website. So I log on to CNN dot com and I see the time in the upper left hand corner because it's at eight forty five a.m. New York City, because that's the time they go by New York at eight. Forty five a.m. New York City. And and I just noted, because it's exactly 12 hours difference, it was eight forty five p.m. my time, right. So I perused the news that's like, OK, nothing of a life changing nature has happened, I'll just go to bed. So I'm sleeping for, what, eight hours over the course of the nine happening and all the awfulness and all the rest of it. I don't have a TV and so I get up the next morning ready to go. There's one hundred people in the lobby ready to walk with me and they're all looking very calm. Do you want to walk today? And I was like, Mom, why wouldn't I want what's going on? And anyway, through broken languages and everything else, I realized. You know, the newspaper guy came in, yes, there were still newspapers, but he walks in with this pile of newspapers and I saw what happened and quickly called my dad, you know, like what is going on. And so he told me. So they said, do you want to keep walking today? Or I said, yeah, let's keep walking. I don't know what I'd do otherwise, but can you find me? CNN and Internet access. For tonight to stay with someone tonight, yeah, yeah, you bet. So we're walking and it was the oddest thing because you're walking down essentially dirt roads with kiosks, with TVs hanging, and they're looping and looping. Remember the first days we didn't know what happened? Right. So it was looping and looping and looping the same footage and the whole gang of one hundred people would just stop and watch. And then we keep walking and go to the next kiosk and look up at the TV and watch it and keep walking and. So that night, they put me in touch with this couple. It was a Lions Club couple. And there they were, Muslim, a Muslim family. Which I look back now, remember those first days we didn't know anything. We thought we knew things, but out of the whole five years, which is like eighteen hundred plus days. The only night I stayed with the Muslim family was that night of 9/11. Oh, wow. Which is, you know, when you look back at things going, wow, that was really weird. But they were it was a game changing. Night in my life, game changing. Conversation. Because of the day that it was and who they were and they were very sort of liberal Muslim couple and. They said they welcomed me into their home and they said, listen, we're really sorry, but we have plans tonight. So I know you want CNN and they just put me down in the chair in front of CNN. And next to me was her mother, who was a Muslim woman with the headscarf and everything. We can't even communicate but her and I sitting next to each other in a chair watching CNN. What a picture. Wow. Night in that crazy. [00:28:21][243.9]

Monte Barnard: [00:28:22] Wow. Did that did the warning bells in your mind? Did the red flags, the fight or flight, did that tell you to go home to to stop the trip? Or was there any question what would your mental state, you know, kind of what did that look like in the next days? [00:28:36][13.6]

Polly Letofski: [00:28:37] I knew that I had to be smart. And not have a knee jerk reaction. Mm hmm. And again, we didn't know what was going on. We've now had some assumptions, more news is coming out and how protected will it be? So I contacted the American embassy. And I talked to the Lions Club members who were I was very tight with now at the time, and I said, you know, this is what's going on. And they were hovering over me before this. Yeah, I had I had police guards at my door right after 9/11. Wow. Like two weeks going up the what was that? The West Coast of Malaysia. And they say that they didn't hire them. They don't know who to ask the police to come or why. So that's a big mystery that I have. It's like listening to this day, you know. You know, or or did the American embassy ask them to come or so there's there's some mysteries, and that's one of them. It's like, you know, all of a sudden the police were with us every day and all day following behind us. So there's some questions behind them that I don't know. But I ultimately decided that I would continue and there weren't flights out anyway. [00:30:02][85.0]

Monte Barnard: [00:30:02] Where were you going to go? Good point. [00:30:04][1.2]

Monte Barnard: [00:30:06] Fair point. I mean, it's interesting that that places like Thailand and Malaysia, you mentioned prior and of course, just now that they kind of defied maybe some of your expectations. The culture shock, obviously, is culture shock and experiencing it in different ways. But, you know, finding that Lions Club, finding those people to walk with you, that that Forrest Gump moment is pretty cool. But I did see I did see some of your other interviews that you mentioned that certain parts of Europe weren't as friendly as you thought they would be. Do you think that was just because of the backlash from 9/11, or was that just in just the general standing of how we were perceived in the world back then? Like what were those experiences like the more Western usual tourist friendly places? [00:30:45][39.2]

Polly Letofski: [00:30:47] Yes, I was blindsided in a few ways. And I think that's what I'd call my Europe experience blindsided. I expected one thing and what happens when you have expectations, right? And so I don't know if it's anybody's fault, but I had this expectation, didn't get it right. So I will come back to that. But just to show you, as an example of expectations, I had this vision in my head the years prior to leaving. You know, you have a picture in your head as to what this is going to look like in this picture in my head, was that I would rarely see people [00:31:25][37.9]

Monte Barnard: [00:31:29] from [00:31:29][0.0]

DB: [00:31:29] in the wilderness, [00:31:29][0.3]

Monte Barnard: [00:31:30] solitary nomad. [00:31:31][0.7]

Polly Letofski: [00:31:32] And I really I had this picture in my head that I'm walking through western China and I would run into the occasional farmer and beg him to talk to me. Right. So this is the picture in my head. So when the opposite happened, like in Malaysia, now there's hundreds of people walking with me every day, all day, and they're lifting me and, you know. Literally lifting me to cross the street. Wow. And. I wasn't prepared for that, so. I get blindsided is a good way, and I had to just, like, make this pivot in my head, you know, change your expectations really darn fast or else it's going to be tougher and tougher. So instead of I trained for those years prior to be alone, I'm expecting like, [00:32:28][55.9]

Monte Barnard: [00:32:28] OK, OK, [00:32:29][0.5]

Polly Letofski: [00:32:29] we'll deal with this. And I read books on people that either by design or inadvertently or on these journeys. Where they had to deal with loneliness and how am I going to do it, just rubbing myself up for this, training myself and then in Europe, I'd expected when I crossed the border into Europe, you know, I'll finally understand a bit of the culture and. And, boy, I didn't I don't know, everything was. A lot of things changed right when I got into Europe, so as an example of timing, they had just gone from their currencies into the euro. OK, and when what happens? Apparently, because I got there just months after. So there's still a huge kerfuffle about it, right. All the prices went screaming high. OK, so like a lot I remember this was a big thing. Well, lotteries are now eight dollars and they used to be 50 cents, you know, and food prices went up. And at the same time, I got no Lions Club support. So I'd had Lions Club support day to day to day, all the way through Australia, Southeast Asia, across India, Turkey and then not. And so, again, that's one of the mysteries. Why did the Lions clubs not they weren't in touch. I mean, all these big lions I knew the international president himself tried to get a hold of them and help be a part of this international sponsorship. Got no response. So I was really on my own. And and again, I'm not boohooing. And I hope the lesson is just I hope it's. Taken appropriately, but just the pivot, the sudden pivot when you have expectations and then that they don't pan out, so you have to readjust your thought process darn fast. [00:34:29][119.9]

Monte Barnard: [00:34:30] So that's the plan. Yeah. [00:34:31][0.9]

DB: [00:34:32] So what path did you take? So you went along. So you mentioned Malaysia and then to Thailand, I guess. Did you go through Myanmar? Burma at the time? But it was times [00:34:43][10.7]

Polly Letofski: [00:34:44] I get a because I still have the email, I swear to God. So I'm coming up now. Nine 11 is full bore by the time like the day before I crossed the border to Thailand, the the war broke out in Afghanistan. So that's America and all the allies going into Afghanistan. And riots broke out in Kuala Lumpur about this. And then I crossed the border into Thailand. And then it's a different story. And so a lot of places shut their borders down. And so I contacted the American embassy over in Myanmar because that's where I wanted to go. I want to go up through like halfway through Thailand and over Myanmar and then into Calcutta and. I explained what I was doing and can I be in touch with them? And do you have any tips and can we talk? And and the response let me this six page email that I write them and they write back, don't even think about [00:35:43][59.9]

Monte Barnard: [00:35:44] it and [00:35:48][3.9]

Polly Letofski: [00:35:48] think about why words [00:35:50][1.3]

Monte Barnard: [00:35:51] the word per paragraph. I like it. [00:35:54][2.5]

DB: [00:35:54] Wow. That's so OK. So how did that actually work out? Like so did you go around, did you go through like [00:35:59][4.9]

Polly Letofski: [00:36:01] I went as far as I could up into Thailand and then just cut a flight over to Calcutta so I couldn't go anywhere from there because I couldn't get into China yet. Right. And China was just starting to open up to tourism. If I could take you back that far. They still weren't opening up. They really wanted to get the Olympics in Beijing. So in order, the Olympic Committee said, if you want to have the Olympics there, then you got to start opening up. You got to start cleaning up this infrastructure. And that's when I was walking. So they hadn't quite cleaned it up and started letting people in at that point because that was a big deal. Yeah, yeah. You're too young over there. [00:36:43][42.7]

DB: [00:36:44] You're too like I'm like right here. Here. So I [00:36:46][2.8]

Monte Barnard: [00:36:47] was talking about a shrug, [00:36:47][0.6]

Polly Letofski: [00:36:48] right? I mean, you never met anyone that had ever been to China. That was you. China, you must be somebody. But no one had been to China and it started opening up. But it wasn't there yet. By the time I got there. So I couldn't I was stuck. So I had to fly over, landed in Calcutta, carried across straight down through the center of India in Mumbai. And then again, I hit a dead end. I'd been planning I'd been talking to all of the Lions clubs in Pakistan. I had my route planned. They're waiting for me, shut the border down, because at this time, the day before I arrived into Calcutta, I remember sitting in my little hotel room there in Chiang Mai, Thailand, and the news breaks that the American I don't know if it was an embassy, but close enough. The American embassy in Calcutta had just been bombed and and they're interviewing these people. I've been in touch with all this on my own. What the hell? I'm coming in tomorrow. What do I know? The world was just really starting to inflame. We're now in Afghanistan and the war in Iraq is starting to, you know, talked about. And so that's when I started coming. Well, then I arrive into India and start my way. I was going to go north and then into Pakistan, and that's when the Daniel Pearl drama happened. If you guys remember that the Daniel Pearl Wall Street journalist who was kidnaped and beheaded. Oh, that's right. Near Karachi. That's what I was on my way to [00:38:23][94.4]

Monte Barnard: [00:38:24] a white woman walking to the desert. No big [00:38:26][2.3]

Monte Barnard: [00:38:27] deal. Hi. How's it going? Know any good hotels? What can happen here? Nothing to see here. [00:38:34][7.0]

Polly Letofski: [00:38:36] They shut that border down, too. So I changed routes, which now I facetiously say, doggone it, in other water turn left Atlanta when it was the constant adjusting. Wow. You know, so even now in business, when I have to make a pivot business, I'm like, oh, big deal. I got my cats, I got a friend. You got a you know, I go home every night. [00:38:57][21.7]

Monte Barnard: [00:38:58] That's a great pivot point to just I want to explore how this journey with all of its you mentioned kerfuffles and wrenches in the gears and different, you know, plan ABCDE and onward. How in your life post this this journey, how does it how does it change the way you perceive other, you know, tasks that would have been, quote unquote difficult in your life, how overcoming something like walking around the world affects the way you tackle other problems or projects or just, you know, basic day to day stuff in your life. Do you still pull from the experience or do you find that just the perspective in general has shifted? [00:39:31][33.1]

Polly Letofski: [00:39:33] Oh, I think both, because you know how you know how we have that sort of mantra in America. Well, to put a man on the moon, you can [00:39:41][7.8]

Monte Barnard: [00:39:41] you know, [00:39:42][0.2]

Polly Letofski: [00:39:44] that's what I always go back to. If I can walk across India, I can fill in the blank. So I have my own personal little. Montréal like that, but I do it and I tell you that the lessons that I learned are sort of almost contradictory sometimes. So as an example, I'm much more patient, much more patient, let's say, even growing my business, OK? It's like I don't I, you know, just stay out it slow and steady, slow and steady. It will get there slow and steady. And then you look back and a year ago, wow, look what I did this year, right? Yeah. But I'm less patient when it comes to people who say they'll do something and then they don't do it. Oh yeah. I kind of have a one stroke in your rule. Right. Unless, you know and I don't pretend I've had a friend for 20 years. Let's do something wrong. [00:40:35][50.6]

DB: [00:40:36] They get two strikes [00:40:36][0.5]

Monte Barnard: [00:40:37] is as harsh [00:40:38][0.6]

Monte Barnard: [00:40:39] as ours. [00:40:39][0.3]

Polly Letofski: [00:40:42] We won't go that far. But I mean, I, I chose some not not the best people particular at the beginning of my life to be involved with this and depend on things like that. So I just I kept thinking, I'm sure I'm sure they're nice inside [00:41:00][18.2]

Monte Barnard: [00:41:03] the [00:41:03][0.0]

Monte Barnard: [00:41:03] distillation of that. But distillation of that patients of that understanding of that perspective, like obviously you can't bottle it and sell it, that you do do speaking tours, you do do public keynote speaking to kind of empower people and inspire people from your journey in those those takeaways. There's a quote I really liked of yours that said, look back at any time in your life when you were really successful and follow the same policies for success. Now that that really spoke to me and I love that mentality. And I wanted you to speak a little bit more about that inspiration, about that kind of mentality and how you approach the world. [00:41:33][30.6]

Polly Letofski: [00:41:35] Yeah, I think I'm going to, again, bring it back to business, it's like slow and steady. And so, you know, I'll say I have a business now and then it it grows. And I finally had to tell all the people that work with me. It's like. I should let you know where my head is and how I want to grow this business. I don't want to go just balls out slow and steady and we will get there and it's controllable when we go slow and steady. I don't know if a business coach would suggest this, but I'm very comfortable in that. Let's say anything new or anything that we all go through, like losing weight, getting out of debt or anything like that, it will happen slow and steady. And I'll tell you what, I didn't realize this at the time because I hadn't been in business prior to leaving, but. You know, now being in business and you go to these classes and you talk about your action plans and your and your teams and your friend, your challenges that. One thing well, I go to these seminars, I'm like, oh, my God, that's what I did on my work and I didn't have this professional corporate name of what I was doing. But one of those things is I had my schedule and my route every day I had it, I had a piece of paper day. To this day, I'm going to go from here to here, you know, this day here to here to stay here to here for about two months. I always had about two months in advance planned and didn't want to go more than two months. It's like you have this the blueprint of the house. If you're building a house, you have the whole blueprint. But you're not yet worried about the details like the doorknobs, what what intricacy of the doorknob. We'll worry about that later. Let's get the big picture first. So I knew I was going to go through Europe and I knew I was going to go through here. But as far as the details, I know I'm going. Point A to point B on this day. And because one reason is because I want to keep that vision very clear every single day, do you understand two or three times a day? I would stare at this plan. I always had it was crystal clear what I was doing, where I was going in a timeline every single day. And I remember that. And that's one thing I take with me. If if I'm ever going to go slow and steady on something again, losing weight, getting on a diet, getting in shape or whatever the case may be. And I stare at that thing every day, [00:44:20][164.7]

Monte Barnard: [00:44:20] that foundational progress. Right. That foundational progress is something you can control, something you can affect and move forward. If you do, you know, you are building a house and you start concerning yourself with the what the doorknobs look like. You know, when you're still laying the concrete for the foundation, you probably go insane. You'll probably lose your mind. But if you're looking at certain things one step at a time and the more largely foundational aspects, then, yeah, that's a great way to do it, looking at it two months in advance. And that's a really interesting parallel, too, to our company, Expensify. We've been around for over 12 years now, very, very slow and steady, very, very one foot in front of the other, bucking a lot of the trends. David can speak to this more in depth than I can. There's a lot of people, I'm sure if you had a punch card, David, for all the people that called you crazy in Silicon Valley, you would have at least a couple of free trips around the world as well for that. But booking trends and really sticking with the plan and moving forward. David, you want to do that a bit? [00:45:17][56.7]

DB: [00:45:17] I was thinking, actually, we have this concept internally. We talk about TrueNorth and it's basically like if you. Imagine you're in a desert and you're like, it's high noon and you're looking out to the horizon in every direction, and someone asks, I go, which direction I want to go, like, that can just be paralyzing. It's I can go anywhere. There's this there's no way to decide. But if you just add one thing and say, oh, actually, there are some footsteps coming over the horizon to where you are right now, now, where do you want to go and say, oh, well, obviously I should just keep going the direction I was going? There's probably a reason I was doing that. And so I think just adding a little bit of a tiny bit of context as to where you came from can suddenly make an impossible decision. Trivial. And I think that having this concept of like this is the direction I'm going. I know why I'm going this direction. I know what's at the end of this road. If I keep going the direction it makes, every decision is super easy. And I think that, like you're saying, staring at your plan every single day, knowing why you were going this path, reminding yourself and really internalizing that suddenly all of the tiny decisions just feel so simple and otherwise they could be paralyzing. So I think that, yes, having this idea of the direction of your life and that gives you some sort of rubric to say, like, does this like I've got two choices here, A or B, and which one will take me closer to my long term goals? It can simplify everything. So I am totally a big fan of slow and steady, but with a clear eye to the horizon. So you said you got to Europe and everything changed. The train disappeared. And then finally, you are, I guess, alone as you imagined, but had forgotten. And so what was that like? Kind of this reverse culture shock of like getting into and basically an uncaring Europe is like I am unimpressed with your efforts. [00:46:57][100.5]

Monte Barnard: [00:46:58] Sounds about right. Yeah. [00:47:01][2.2]

Polly Letofski: [00:47:01] Yeah. You know. When I when I was having a tough time somewhere, I, I. You know, instead of spewing that, it's because they're this way, in that way, I would always, always like reflect it back to me, like, why can't I accept this? What's going on in me that I'm having a tough time with this? You know what I mean? I was talking about the tough time when I was actually entering Europe. Again, the. The inflation, because of the change over to the euro, that was a big thing. So now I don't have line support and the prices have skyrocketed. Right. So I had those two issues going on. So and it was getting used to first of all, most of the world so far had been one road. So I can't get lost. All right. One road from Mumbai. You just get up in the morning, go [00:48:00][58.2]

DB: [00:48:01] onto the road. Yes. [00:48:02][1.0]

Polly Letofski: [00:48:04] And there's one road. And in Europe, all good lord, [00:48:07][2.9]

Monte Barnard: [00:48:08] you know, [00:48:08][0.2]

Monte Barnard: [00:48:09] all roads lead to Rome and then other places, I guess, [00:48:12][2.3]

Polly Letofski: [00:48:15] which I only tell you to say it's easy to get lost and to my price, my budget for maps, because, again, it was before my map budget skyrocketed. You could not go forward without a map because you'd be walking in circles any minute. And so it was that added to the frustration as well. [00:48:37][21.7]

DB: [00:48:38] Did you take money just like wrong turns you like? Well, I spent two days going this entirely wrong direction and [00:48:44][5.9]

Polly Letofski: [00:48:45] that happened for two days so much. But it would be like miles, you know, like four or five miles. And of course, I do talk about it in my book because the signage is really bad. OK, now, granted, I have no sense of direction. I really don't swear [00:49:01][15.7]

DB: [00:49:01] to God that's a helpful thing when you're traveling the world on [00:49:04][2.3]

Polly Letofski: [00:49:04] foot. It is a major handicap for someone walking my road. But to add to that. The signage is just really bad, like if there's a fork in the road, there's no sign at the fork, right? So the sign might be two hundred yards up and there's an arrow as well, but it's not helping me. I need a sign right here. You know, this is a great career. I should just create a whole like. Career of helping the roadside. They got to hire someone like me who has no direction to [00:49:40][35.9]

Monte Barnard: [00:49:40] go, [00:49:40][0.0]

Polly Letofski: [00:49:41] right? Like I'll tell you how to get around airports and shopping malls. [00:49:44][3.4]

Monte Barnard: [00:49:45] Either that or go work for government as a consultant or something. Right. [00:49:48][2.5]

Monte Barnard: [00:49:49] So what was [00:49:50][0.4]

DB: [00:49:50] the other path that you took from Turkey throughout Western Europe? [00:49:53][3.3]

Polly Letofski: [00:49:54] OK, so I was I landed at the south end of Turkey and then I came across to the Greek islands, kind of hop my way up there and landed over on what would be the west coast of Greece. And carried on up through there and then took a boat across to Italy about the center of Italy. And then came up through that coast, the east coast of Italy. And then right up through Austria, Germany, Luxembourg, France, wow. Well, across Belgium and then up into the U.K., [00:50:32][37.7]

DB: [00:50:32] so when you so you didn't have the large train behind you, so when you're walking through, you know, like southern France, is it just are you finally having that vision that you had like this? You surrounded by fields in all directions? Yes. [00:50:44][11.6]

Polly Letofski: [00:50:45] Yes. And it's funny you say that because, you know, again, that being blind sided thing and like, I pictured this and the expectations and so my expectations had to be changed right away. And I thought, OK, well, this is what I envisioned in the first place. So let's get you know, let's just. Take this for what it's worth and and try to enjoy this wing of my journey and what I discovered, I think really surprised me in that. Remember, I said I'm I have a I have a schedule two months in advance. So if one of the Lions Club said, OK, you're going to be in our town in six weeks, where should we meet? They always said that, where should we meet? [00:51:28][42.6]

Monte Barnard: [00:51:28] You don't [00:51:28][0.7]

Monte Barnard: [00:51:30] mind the [00:51:30][0.3]

Monte Barnard: [00:51:30] road. [00:51:30][0.0]

Polly Letofski: [00:51:33] The road. So what I discovered. Well, you guys probably know this, but there's always there's McDonald's and every damn time and they're always right on the true embassy. Yes, you're right. It's one end of the town or the other. I'm like, OK, do you have a McDonald's in town? They're like, yeah, all right. Easy to spot. Everyone knows where it is. Right? So I was like, is it on the east end of the West End? It's on the East End. Great. I'll be there at four o'clock on April 2nd. Right. Whatever the date is. And this was weeks in advance, and I am proud to announce I was never late because I knew how to pace myself and it was always very funny. Did you get a mistake or [00:52:14][41.0]

Monte Barnard: [00:52:15] did you get a milkshake for a reward? Did you Big Macs or was it just a purely ambassadorial? [00:52:19][3.8]

Polly Letofski: [00:52:23] Actually, there was a whole stretch in Australia where the McDonald's owners, the franchise owners would call the next McDonald's owners. Here's what she's doing. Go ahead and, you know, feed her [00:52:36][13.1]

DB: [00:52:38] McMuffin all lined up for [00:52:39][0.9]

Polly Letofski: [00:52:40] the east coast of Australia. The McDonald's owners took care of me that. Wow. [00:52:44][4.4]

Monte Barnard: [00:52:45] Go ahead, David. [00:52:45][0.3]

DB: [00:52:46] I think it's interesting you're saying like, so you walked around the entire world on foot and was never late for an appointment. And I think that's what gives everyone else. It's like you have no excuse, guys. It reminds me of like I was in South Africa and I. I was thinking about your talking about how you just didn't have any money. And and people invent all these kinds of reasons why they can't travel and talking to this girl. And she had one leg. So basically she's on crutches and she only had one leg. She had no money. And she was like, I don't know, 19 or something like this, basically traveling around South Africa. And I'm like, man, if this girl can figure out how to do it, pretty much anyone can. I feel like it's overcoming the sort of the desire to create excuses for yourself is a very tricky thing. And when you're on your own on the road or traveling around the world in these different cultures and different environments, I think it really strips away a lot of those potential excuses. And then when you look back, it's like if people can do these sorts of things, we really can't justify not trying to do something amazing. It seems like it's an act of choice to not do something cool with your life, given all these proof points that you can do incredible things. You just have to, you know, step out of your house and start walking west. [00:53:58][72.7]

Polly Letofski: [00:54:00] Yeah, and I do I agree with you 100 percent. However, there's a however. You know, there is something to be said for being nineteen twenty twenty one twenty two doing that well in my case then in my 30s, even into my 40s. But now it's just really funny because I'm stretching my comfort zone every single day, every day. And, you know, so I arrive home with a comfort zone this week, and now my comfort zone is the thing that makes sense. You know, that's out of my two mile radius. [00:54:40][39.8]

Monte Barnard: [00:54:41] I don't we live in Portland. We rarely like going over the the river in Portland if it's on the other side. What's a big deal? Yeah, big deal, actually. Five minutes and a bridge. I don't know about that. I love that. I love that that expansion of your comfort zone and allowing you to branch out in the different things that I'm sure your life is taking a turn and you made decisions you never would have made unless you did this trip. I'm curious that when you were in that final final stretch, say, when you were maybe more alone, getting back to where you came from, what personal epiphanies or revelations like what was your mind like? What was your your outlook on life that changed dramatically during the trip? Before the trip, after the trip? I mean, obviously, there were variables you couldn't have conceived, couldn't have thought of. I'm curious what your mental state was towards the end of it. [00:55:30][49.5]

Polly Letofski: [00:55:32] It was one in which this chapter has finished, and I'm really ready to get on to the next chapter. OK, so I know that a lot of people would do things like this. So let's say, for example, that last year to two years, people would email me very regularly and say that they had done something similar, like they biked across the country, to which I say, oh, that's cute. [00:55:59][27.7]

DB: [00:56:01] So you had a bicycle mechanic, which seems like to tie your feet. [00:56:04][2.9]

Polly Letofski: [00:56:04] Yeah, but anyway, I appreciate it. But then they would say, you know, finishing and getting back into their life was the hardest thing. And I get that. I get that. But I think there were two big differences between what they did and then what I did. OK, because why did they have such a tough time getting back into a real life? And I didn't I craved it. And the two things I think are one, I the timing. OK, so they were gone maybe six, eight months. These people that would e-mail me and and mine was five years. And again, not boohooing, but it's a very big difference whether the novelty is gone, then. OK, and when the novelty is gone now, it's a push it push to the finish, OK? There was never any doubt that I would finish. But it's a push. Come on. We got a year left. Come on. We got six months left. Wow. [00:57:04][60.0]

Monte Barnard: [00:57:05] We have a year left. That's that's [00:57:07][1.3]

Monte Barnard: [00:57:08] right. Yeah, no biggie. [00:57:10][2.5]

DB: [00:57:11] So was there any moment that you can think of that you're just like, I'm, I'm done. I'm just like this. What am I doing here? I'm just. I just I just need to stop. [00:57:20][9.2]

Polly Letofski: [00:57:21] Right. You know, I swear to God. Right. Not one single time did I think that wow, wow. Not once, not one single time. There were a lot of times where I thought things like, I got to get the hell out of here as fast as possible. [00:57:34][13.0]

Monte Barnard: [00:57:35] I'm done with this road at this particular place. I'm done with. [00:57:39][3.6]

Polly Letofski: [00:57:39] But I really did see after a couple of months of no more than a couple of months, let's say you're on the road. I noticed this. This piece. That was like there was an ebb and flow, right? Good times, bad times, good times, bad times. And I started to notice this routine. And what it made me realize is that every time I'm in a miserable situation, I will come out of it again. It's not like this cloud is going to stick over my head and follow me. It is. A storm has never stayed overhead. So once I realized that pattern, it made me accept the tough times and I knew they were a terrific learning experience, even if I was crawling under my teeth and swearing up a storm. It was it, I thought. I always remember, like, slapping your hands, like, OK, here we go, you know, what am I going to learn? Because I'm going to get out the other side, so I may as well accept the lesson. Well, I'm standing here in my misery. [00:58:45][66.0]

Monte Barnard: [00:58:47] What a good metaphor for life. Just one life, business relationships, man. I got to go home and think for a while. [00:58:53][6.2]

Monte Barnard: [00:58:56] I got one last quick question. I got I got a [00:58:59][3.0]

Monte Barnard: [00:58:59] couple of quick questions for you. But first, I just got to know, what did you miss the most? Just from, like, you know, creature comforts or day in and day out? Was there any specific thing that you just crave, [00:59:09][9.8]

Polly Letofski: [00:59:09] like, you know, I swear to God and. Just falling asleep to save Jay Leno on the TV, right? [00:59:18][8.2]

Monte Barnard: [00:59:18] Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. [00:59:19][0.6]

Polly Letofski: [00:59:19] And this and I, I never even really did that, but I just missed that. So I to swear to God. So I'm in Thailand just maybe a month and a half or so after nine eleven, OK. And I'm in this cheap, cheap hotel that has a TV. I never even turned it on because it's like I'm not going to understand anything anyway. Yeah. Middle of night almost. You know, without thinking I just turn the TV on Jay Leno. Right. This is like middle of the night, like 2:00 a.m. and this must have been the first show that they had after 9/11 because all the shows shut down there right after 9/11. Right. So I just remember Heather Locklear. She came on. She's all decked out in red, white and blue and the flags and, you know, and it was just. Wow, like going home an hour. Yeah, right. But it was like to me and just. Wow. Happy birthday to me. [01:00:25][65.7]

Monte Barnard: [01:00:27] Little stuff. The stuff that you recognize, recognize a little creatures [01:00:30][2.8]

Polly Letofski: [01:00:31] from the language is also [01:00:32][1.4]

Monte Barnard: [01:00:33] a very comfortable chair and with a very big [01:00:36][2.8]

Monte Barnard: [01:00:36] comfortable chair of Jay Leno. Polya, I get the name of the show is Rich, Have Fun, Save the World. And again, our guests, we really feel encompass one or multiple of those themes. And we always like to talk to our guests and ask them how do they see themselves having fun? How do they see themselves living rich? What does that mean? And how do you see yourself saving the world and moving forward? What are those three concepts mean to you? [01:00:59][22.3]

Polly Letofski: [01:01:02] I have. Always, I think, practiced the. Being able to laugh at yourself. You know, if you're clear on who you are, I'm not a bad person, that's not I may have made mistakes here and there, but I'm not a bad person. So even when I was at my grumpiest and really nothing, I'm proud of losing a temper in the middle of Europe or something that [01:01:27][24.9]

Monte Barnard: [01:01:27] we've all been there. [01:01:27][0.4]

Monte Barnard: [01:01:28] Right. [01:01:28][0.0]

Polly Letofski: [01:01:30] Let's be honest about it and frankly, have a giggle over it and not take ourselves seriously and really. Understand that we don't understand where other people are coming from at all times. One of my pet peeves in life is when people just make up a story and we probably start it in, you know, early on like you're in high school. Oh, he didn't call me. You didn't come in because he likes Betty Lou better and he didn't like my haircut. Like you just making stuff up, right. Just making it up. So I know. You know, even even in business, you know, they didn't like our proposal was too high or making things up, right. So always ask or give the benefit of the doubt always, because people we just make stuff up all the time. And I hate making up the stories, don't we? [01:02:25][55.3]

Monte Barnard: [01:02:26] Yeah, I know I do. [01:02:27][1.2]

Polly Letofski: [01:02:28] Sometimes that's you know, that's a part of living. Rich is being able to laugh at yourself. There's this great I don't know if it's a montera or a rule in life. It's like tragedy. Plus time equals comedy. Like now I can look back and laugh at the whole. India drama. Yeah, because a drama every day I remember walking down the road looking at my watch and it's still four o'clock [01:02:59][31.6]

Monte Barnard: [01:03:03] and you obviously raised a lot of money for for breast cancer awareness over over a quarter of a million dollars in your global walk. And now you're speaking tours and you're raising that platform. I'm curious when it comes to the save the world aspect, that's obviously a huge contribution into into into that realm. And what are you doing currently with that? How are you currently expanding even in the times of covid to get that message out there? [01:03:24][21.0]

Polly Letofski: [01:03:26] I made a promise to myself, to both the Lions clubs and Rotary Clubs and the breast cancer movement that, you know, they helped me through this war without any promise from me or anything. But it was just an internal promise of gratitude that for the rest of my life, whatever they asked for, whatever they want or need from me ever, they're going to get. So it's like, can you drive four hours and give a 30 minute presentation to our Rotary Club of 12 men over the age of 80? [01:03:57][30.9]

Monte Barnard: [01:03:58] Yeah, I'll be there. Don't even ask [01:04:00][1.8]

Polly Letofski: [01:04:00] the question what I do. So I will. I do fundraising for my local breast cancer organization, and that looks like, say, a book club asked me to come in and they'll give a donation, but I'm not I don't ask them for it. But just sometimes they do that. Sometimes they'll pass a hat around. There you go. Yeah. So I guess real grassroots things like that. I love it. I love it. [01:04:29][29.2]

Monte Barnard: [01:04:30] Polly, thank you so much for joining us on Lillibridge. Have fun. Save the World. The book is Three Miles Per Hour The Adventure of one Woman's Walk Around the World. Definitely some inspiring stuff in a day and age. I think we could all use it. Thank you so much for joining us. [01:04:43][13.0]

Polly Letofski: [01:04:44] Thanks, guys, for your good time. [01:04:45][1.2]

Monte Barnard: [01:04:46] Take care. Bye bye. Live Rich. Have fun. Save the World is brought to you by Expensify, hosted by David Barrett and Marty Bernard, engineered and produced by Monty Bernard. Theme song by D.J. MC. Please rate review and subscribe to Live Rich, have fun, save the World on Spotify, Apple podcasts or wherever you happen to be listening. [01:04:46][0.0]

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