About the project

How it started

In December 2018 I published my first book, Lessons Learned From The Path Less Traveled, a volume of lessons I’ve learned since intentionally bucking the status quo in 2010.

Once it was done, I thought it would be interesting to help compile a book of important lessons learned by other people. Then I figured it would be even better to actually meet the people who had lessons to share. And it wasn’t long before I thought it would be cooler still if I filmed it.

So in spring 2019 I founded From The Path Less Traveled Productions to help support, highlight and provide a voice to people on — or considering — unconventional and challenging paths. In late August 2019 I set out across the United States to find them.

The format

The project is a collaborative, internet-based video documentary series with an audio podcast alongside it. Guests share their stories and what they learned, in their own words. Segments would be released as they were edited, each paired with a podcast conversation that goes deeper. Long term, the goal was a feature-length documentary built from the material, focused on resilience, hope, and the themes that kept coming up.

Who it’s for

Any of these sound like you?

• Have you chosen a challenging or uncommon path in life?
• Have you had to deal with challenging circumstances just to survive?
• Have you had an uncommon job or rare life experience?
• Have you been forced from the path you were on because of something unexpected?
• Do you live unconventionally — van life, off the grid, a tiny house?
• Have you ever been homeless?
• Have you felt like you had to hide who you are to fit in or meet someone’s expectations?
• Have you felt like you were on the wrong path, then changed your life to go after what you truly wanted?

And, most importantly: have you learned valuable lessons from your experiences?

“I’m not sure my story is important or inspiring enough.”

What people consider important, or who they consider inspiring, is subjective. When people live through hard things, they often don’t think what they did was noteworthy, because they only did what they had to do to get through it. But those experiences teach lessons that change the people who live them, and shared, they can change someone else.

Whether you’ve overcome everything or not, and whether you think of yourself as successful or inspiring or not, if you learned something valuable, that’s what this project is about. The struggles in our lives often teach far more than our successes do.