Embracing Your Path: George Appling on Transforming Passion into Purpose

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to the Living the Dream Podcast with Curveball. If you believe, you can achieve. Welcome to the Living the Dream with Curveball Podcast, a show where I interview guests that teach, motivate, and inspire. Today's guest is someone who definitely embodies taking your own path. George Appling is an entrepreneur, author, mentor, and former corporate executive. His career spans several boardrooms and several continents. But George made a bold decision to stop choosing what looks good on paper and choosing what he loved to do. And that's when his life changed, and he's since been able to do several things, you know, create a Robin Hood camp. And he's gonna be talking about all the things that he's done since he's decided to stop doing what looks good on paper and picking the path he loves. So, George, thank you for joining me.

SPEAKER_01 1:18

Happy to be here, Curtis. Thank you.

SPEAKER_00 1:21

Why don't you start off by telling everybody a little bit about yourself?

SPEAKER_01 1:25

Uh sure. Um I'll I guess I'll just talk about my my career and and education real fast. Um I'm from a small town in Texas called El Campo, thriving metropolis of 10,000 people with one Walmart and one Dairy Queen and one McDonald. So your standard uh small town, uh, but it was awesome. I did my undergraduate work at Texas AM. I did my graduate school at Harvard, and then my career had three phases. Phase one was uh strategy consulting. So I was a partner at McKenzie and Company, and then a partner at Booze and Company. These are big old global consulting firms. It was awesome. And then phase two was cell phone distribution. Uh I was the chief operating officer of Brightstar, which is the largest cell phone distribution company in the world. They were about $5 billion in revenue when I was the COO and board member. And then I was chairman and CEO of a cell phone distribution company with a billion in revenue uh many years ago, but that was back in like 2012, 2013. So for the last you know, 15-ish years, I've been an entrepreneur. I sometimes call it a passion preneur, uh, meaning I build businesses that I truly love. Um there's a bunch of them, but the the most important one is Sherwood Forest Fair. Um, it's the Renaissance Festival near Austin, Texas. So uh I bet a bunch of your listeners have heard of a Renaissance festival because most um big cities have one. So I own and operate the one for Austin. Um we entertain about 175,000 people in 17 days uh in the spring. So we're we're going now on Saturdays and Sundays. We'll be open the day after tomorrow. Um, and then I also have a summer camp for kids. So imagine uh you're 12 and you're learning blacksmithing and sword fighting and leatherworking and painting glass and throwing pottery and riding horses and archery, and then you know the sheriff of Nottingham is a bad guy, and Robin Hood saves a day, and that all happens in a week. And we do four weeks in a row of Sherwood Forest Summer Camp. I co-own a mead business, which is fermented honey. I do executive coaching through a big old company called uh Vistage, which has been around for like 68 years. Um, and I'm the chairman of a nonprofit, a 50123, that uh does therapeutic horsemanship for military veterans and first responders. So I'm, you know, spending my time doing what I love. I've got a partner of a life partner of 29 years and three kids that um are 17, 15, 15, although the 17-year-old is going to turn 18 here in two weeks and probably gonna go to the University of Houston. So that's me in two minutes.

SPEAKER_00 4:13

All right. Well, you you know, you've had an incredibly successful corporate career. So, what was the moment that you decided to walk away and stop settling?

SPEAKER_01 4:24

Yeah, you know what? In all that intro, I forgot to say say that I wrote a book. I wrote a book called uh Don't Settle, A Pick Your Path Guide to Your Intentional Work. So when did I decide to um get off the hamster wheel? Uh I I remember this very clearly. I was 36 years old, and uh we used to have back then uh blackberries on our on our belts. We had these little holsters, and we felt like gunslingers with our blackberries on our holsters back then. And on my 36th birthday, I put a note in my calendar on my 40th birthday, and the note said stop. And what that meant was stop doing what the economy expected me to do and to find a way to do what I love. Um, and so that was this message to myself for four years in the future to um put your your skills and your passions together. And I didn't know what that meant, it was only a concept. And so I gave myself four years of runaway to figure out what that meant. Um, but then the very next year, a friend of mine told me that the Texas Renaissance Festival was for sale, and that was the one near Houston. And I had been to that show for like 20 years in a row. Uh, having lived all over the world, I always flew back for that show because it was it was so special to me. Um, and it had never occurred to me that that was a business. I it was just something that I deeply, deeply loved. And once I realized it was a business, you know, the clouds parted and the angels sang, and the you know, I got hit by lightning. Like that was it. I wanted to be a Renaissance fusslower. So I tried to buy the one near Houston and that didn't work. And I tried to buy the one near Dallas and that didn't work. So uh me and a friend built one. We built one for Austin, and now uh we're running our 17th year um right now. So um, yeah, it was a very intentional choice uh based on a concept that I wanted to spend my time doing something that I loved rather than what the economy expected to do. And then once I had my mind very much open to that possibility, I I figured out what that meant pretty quickly.

SPEAKER_00 6:34

Okay, well, let's talk about your book. Uh you know, and why you're doing this. You can tell listeners about the book, but your book focuses on intentional work. So uh how can someone tell whether they're working unintentionally?

SPEAKER_01 6:47

Yeah, so I the the key um thing about my book is it helps readers choose the relationship between their passion and their work. And you know, there's this great divide in the world between you know people like um you know Steve Jobs and Oprah Winfrey who say follow your passion. You know, life's too short, you have to work at what you're passionate about, on one side. But there's another side of the argument with people like you know, Mark Cuban and Scott Galloway, who say uh that's BS. It's just total BS. You shouldn't follow your heart, you should follow what you're good at. And I think uh as I listened to that over the course of decades, I thought, well, both these sides of the argument are too simple. And what I came up with is five different ways that your passion and your work can relate to one another. And my book is fundamentally a framework that helps you pick which one is right for you, and then it lays out a game plan for the next steps along that path. So that the five paths are one passion now. So there are there's a certain sort of circumstances where you should follow your passion now, uh, especially as a young person. There's independent, which is your passion and your work don't have anything to do with each other. And that's what the world will do to you. Um, and that tends to not be a good thing. But if you choose that intentionally, then I think you'll be more uh joyful, productive, and fulfilled if you choose uh that your work and your passion don't relate to each other. There's the experiment path, which tends to be for people who don't know yet what their passion is. So experiment meaning go try a bunch of things. There's the money path. You know, we all know people who aren't going to be at peace until they have financial security. And so there's a path which is uh I've got to go make as much money as I can or hit a certain number, and then I can take a breath and you know think greater thoughts about passion. And there's the balance path, which is what I did. The balance path is, you know, you're working in a regular career, but you're very intentional about building the skills required uh to increase the probability of success when you switch to the passion path later. And so it it the balance path is I want to marry my skills and my passions, but maybe 10 years down the road. So what I'm gonna do is go, you know, build out whatever it takes to succeed at my passion. It might be capital, it might be your network, it might be reputation, it's almost certainly capabilities. So go build those things uh with an eye towards switching over to passion later. So those are the the five ways your passion and your work can relate, and that's fundamentally what my book is about. And whichever one you end up picking, there's a a chapter that gives you a game plan. And so all of that is intentional as opposed to letting letting the world um you know push you into something, which is what I fear too many people do. They just kind of fall into whatever the economy pushes them into. Uh, and I think that's not the best way. The best way is to make the choice yourself.

SPEAKER_00 9:56

Well, most people are stuck in careers that they don't love. So talk about a practical step that somebody can take towards change without blowing up their life overnight.

SPEAKER_01 10:06

Yeah, I I would say uh a couple of things. One is it's much more difficult to find a job uh when you don't have one. Right? There's something a little more stinky about someone who is looking for a job and they don't have one. There's something a little more tantalizing about someone looking for a job and they do have one. So I would say don't you know just quit because you don't like it. Uh I would I encourage people to you know find the next thing before leaving the current thing. So that's one thought. Another thought would be you know, you can cultivate passion projects on the side. And I I talk about this at uh in universities pretty regularly. I was actually at the University of Texas in Austin yesterday. And sometimes young people say, well, I've got three different passions, and and I'll say, Great. And then they'll say they're on the balance path, meaning they need to go build some capabilities and some capital and some knowledge before following their passion. And I say, look, cultivate all three. You know, you should never have a phase in your life when you're not cultivating passions, even if it's just five hours a week, even if it's talking to people in that field or writing business plans or studying or rehearsing or whatever it is you're passionate about, you got to spend some time on that, you know, every month for your for your entire life. And then hopefully at some point you'll be able to hop over and and do that for a living. Um, but fundamentally, you you ask, you know, what advice do I give if you don't like your job? You know, I I would read my book, which sounds selfish. I mean, it's not like anybody makes well, very few people make money selling books. Uh, I wrote it because I think it's genuinely helpful. Uh, but you know, figure out what path you're on. You know, if the conditions are right for you to be on the passion now path, you're really lucky. You get to pull the rip cord, get out, and go follow your heart, which would be awesome. Uh, but that may not be the case. It may be that you need to be on the balance path and you're in a job that you hate, but what you need to be thinking about is what's the job that can help you build the capabilities you need to succeed in the passion path down the road. Right. And so the whatever path you choose, uh, you know, there are there's a game plan. And I think that game plan gives a sense of purpose. And I think that you know, the sense of purpose is what is um the antidote to you know uh being pissed off about your work.

SPEAKER_00 13:54

Well, I know you've built some really unique businesses from mead making to medieval festivals. Um, how do you decide which passions are worth turning into a business?

SPEAKER_01 14:05

So I it all started with that thunderclap moment of I wanted to own a Renaissance festival. So that was the beginning. Uh and I, you know, I had I mentioned I traveled back for many years to go to the Texas Renaissance Festival near Houston, but just to put a fine point on that, I I went to that show near Houston, having lived in College Station for five years, Boston three years, Germany three years, England a year, Russia a year, Australia a year. Like there was no doubt that I was deeply in love with the Renaissance Festival. So once I started thinking about it as a business, uh, I I was set. And then I was a you know, the dog with a bone uh to go to go get in that business. So that was the core. And then, you know, what happened is I I started thinking like I was trained as a strategist and you know realized that the majority of the national mead market is in Renaissance festivals, right? Renaissance fossils sell more mead than thousands of retail stores. And then I, you know, I figured out my cousin is a mead maker. So then boom, right after year one uh of the fair, which is 2010, we got in the mead business. Even before that, I uh even before we opened, I realized that you know, selling $99 swords is a very successful business at Renaissance Festival. So I got into that with another friend. And then, you know, then we go on a year or two, and I realized, well, I own this land and I've got this theme park, and we're only open for eight weekends a year. Um, you know, as a businessman, I need to, you know, leverage my fixed costs and utilize my assets. And so then I came up with a Celtic music festival, which has been running for about 15 years, and then the summer camp, uh, which has been running for about 14 years. And it was just, you know, utilizing my assets. And and you know, then I asked myself, can I fall in love with a Celtic music festival? Easily. Can I fall in love with a Robin Hood themed summer camp? Absolutely. So then I just added on building these businesses that um I was highly confident I would love, and they made strategic sense uh from a business point of view.

SPEAKER_00 16:19

Well, let's talk about fear. What fears did you personally have to overcome when leaving the corporate world and and how did you handle them?

SPEAKER_01 16:28

Uh, you know, a couple of big thoughts on that. One was, you know, when Sherwood Forester opened uh in 2010, I was I was 40 years old and was already I was already financially secure. And that's a part of my choice of the balance path was I wanted to have the financial wherewithal to make a big bet on an entrepreneurial venture, um, you know, without you know putting at risk, you know, my kids' college fund or my house. So I I was already financially secured when the business started. So that helped a lot, and that was very much a choice, right? I could have tried to start a business when I was 25 instead of 40, and I would not have been in that position, and it could have been much worse. Um, you know, that being said, uh I'll never forget uh opening day. It was February of 2010, and I had done a marketing campaign, and I had thought I did the best job I could do, but I had no idea on day one if we would have 30 customers or 300 or 3,000 or 30,000. Like I had no idea. And on that first day, about 3,000 people showed up, and I thought, okay, uh, this is gonna work that this business can succeed. Uh, but I remember before the uh we opened the doors, I was sweating bullets. Like I truly had no idea how many people would show up on day one. Um, and so there was a great deal of uh fear there. Uh and it's just the fear of the unknown, right? I you know, I'm building, I'm it I did a build it and they will come. And I didn't know if people were gonna show up. And so there was a there was a lot of fear there. Um, you know, there's also just the I guess I have a lot of fear of the unknown. You know, COVID shut my business down, and uh I didn't see that coming, and it never occurred to me that that would be a thing. Uh, but you know, the county judge shut us down in March of 2020. And so, you know, now I'm a little more afraid of um of curveballs or black swans or you know, things that you wouldn't think would happen in the real world, but you know, they just might. Um, all that being said, though, you know, I I've I'm swinging swords and you know, playing dress up for a living. So I'm trying to uh I'm trying to enjoy the ride.

SPEAKER_00 18:47

Well, I know you've worked with CEOs and high-level leaders. So what is the most common mistake uh successful people make when it comes to fulfillment?

SPEAKER_01 18:59

Um the most common mistake I think CEOs make is they wait too long to get rid of toxic people. You know, I I think it's very rare for a CEO to fire a toxic person or to fire anyone and think, you know, I really should not have done that. Versus I think it's very common for a CEO to move someone out and for them to feel a sense of relief and think to themselves, I should have done that earlier. Um, and so you know, there's this old adage, especially in small and medium business, that you hire slow, fire fast. Meaning if someone is toxic to your culture, um you got to get rid of them because you're gonna everyone is gonna breathe easier when the toxic person is gone. And a lot of CEOs will avoid the pain of doing that, and then they miss uh or they delay the uh easy breathing that uh comes along with with getting rid of a person that shouldn't be in your company. I'd say that's a very, very common mistake. That and you know, hiring, you know, you when you when you get your business to a point that it needs to be professional, uh, you know, whatever let's say it's uh vestige size of you know five million in revenue plus, you know, I think you need to be a little bit extra careful about you know hiring friends and family. Uh it's probably once your business is is um you know at some sort of scale, you need to think uh more clearly about hiring professionals or or people who are very qualified to do the job, as opposed to, you know, you've known them a long time.

SPEAKER_00 20:46

Well, hopefully I I don't uh butcher this word, but uh your equine program for first responders and and veterans is pretty powerful. So talk about that program, what it what inspired it, and what transformations have you seen?

SPEAKER_01 21:00

Oh yeah, it's an awesome program. So it's called Knights of the Grail. It's a 501c3 nonprofit. Uh we've been around for uh formally uh eight years, uh informally, a couple of more before that. Um, and what we do is uh therapeutic horsemanship for uh military veterans, uh even active duty if they're around, and first responders. And so almost every weekend of the year um we have um clients and horses together. Uh, you know, even during the Renaissance festival, the show, um, the Knights of the Grail, they're putting on a performance twice a day. They're riding the horses in the grand parade going through the theme park. And so almost every weekend of the year uh we've got veterans and horses together, pretty much with the only exception being August, when uh it's uh Central Texas is not a happy place to be in August because it's like 103 degrees every day. And so what goes on there is uh, you know, there's this famous saying from uh Winston Churchill that uh, and apologies for the the sexism, but this is what he said. He said there's something about the outside of a horse that is good for the inside of a man. And as a horse person, that's clearly true that these uh horses, the interaction between a horse and a person uh brings about a sense of calm. So I think you know, horse people all over the world uh understand that that's it's true that you know horses can help bring you peace. But then why that is, I think is still a little bit of conjecture. My my conjecture is the following uh horses are very empathic, uh, meaning your emotions can affect their emotions. So if you're really agitated, the horse is more likely to be agitated. If you're calm, the horse is more likely to be calm. Uh they're also prey animals. So they're you know, lions eat the horses, and horses just eat grass. So they're they're easily spooked. And when they spook, they you know run away and or they kick. And when a our horses are big, they're like draft, draft horses, 1500 pounds. If a 1500 pound horse kicks you, it's not going to be a good day. And so, what all that means. Is when you're dealing with these horses, you really have to approach them from a sense of peace, from a sense of calm, because one, it's safer, you're less likely to get kicked, and two, it's more productive because the horse is more likely to be calm and peaceful. And that training yourself to be calm and peaceful with the horse is what this is just my belief. That's what leads to the therapeutic benefit of putting horses and veterans together. And so we do it all the time. And it's uh it's it's beautiful. Uh, there's a a whole group of people who would say that um the Knights of the Grail program has kept them alive.

SPEAKER_00 24:04

Okay, well, you talk about how one of your biggest quality qualities is that you love your life. So what is the key ingredients for someone to build a life that they love?

SPEAKER_01 24:15

Yeah, I think it's intentionality. Uh I think you know, even if you choose the your uh the independent path is what I call it, where your passion and your work don't have anything to do with each other. Let's say your only passion is smoking pot and playing video games. That's it. And you're not gonna make a living doing that. Um making the intentional explicit choice that your passion and your work don't um overlap, uh I think you'll be more joyful and productive and content because it's your choice, not the world's choice, or not the economy's choice, or not the default scenario. And so I think intentionality is is the key. It's it's intentionality and agency. Intentionality meaning I'm choosing the path that I'm on and the next steps on that path and agency is the philosophy that leads you to believe that you can be intentional. Agency meaning uh you can take action to make your life better. Uh and you know it if you don't believe in your own agency, meaning you don't believe that you can take action to make your life better, there's almost no chance that your life is going to be better. But if you do accept agency and you do believe that you can take action to make your life better, then you are very, very, very likely to make your life better. So intentionality uh fueled by a belief in your own agency.

SPEAKER_00 25:41

Well, speaking of path, for someone who is listening right now who feels like it's too late to change paths, what what else would you say to them? Because I know you just said some things as well.

SPEAKER_01 25:52

I I love the question about is it too late? Um I love this question because you know, like uh, you know, my kids are teenagers, and you know, if they don't get into their top choice college, they feel like you know, failures and it's too late. I'm like, guys, it's early, it's early uh rounds. And I remind them of um Colonel Sanders founded Kentucky Fried Chicken when he was 62 years old, and then he only did it for like five years, and at 67-ish, he sold the business for many, many millions of dollars. So if Colonel Sanders can you know follow his passion and make millions of dollars at it uh starting at 62, uh, it is not too late for you. And there's all sorts of you know quality thinkers in the world who who will say, you know what, it's it's pretty easy to uh get intentional about your life at any year, at any decade, at any age. Uh and that and that's I very much believe that it doesn't matter how old you are, there's value in choosing what you're gonna do. Uh and there's value in choosing to take action to make your life better, um, regardless of your age.

SPEAKER_00 27:15

Well, if you could go back and give your younger self a piece of advice about work, success, and happiness, what would that advice be?

SPEAKER_01 27:23

You know, I it's a it's a difficult question for me because I'm really, really happy with where my life is, and everything I did uh you know got me here. Uh, on the other hand, you know, uh I think if someone tells you they don't have regrets, they're not thinking hard enough because everybody has regrets. Um so yeah, it's a it's a really hard question of what advice I would give to my younger self because this philosophy of I'm gonna marry my skills and my passions at some point down the road, and I'm gonna have financial security before I do that. Uh, I had that when I was in my early 20s. Um, and I think that was a really important determinant of where I am now. And so, you know, I'd probably encourage my younger self to make absolute sure you're gonna do that, right? You're gonna have this plan, you're gonna be in the balance path because that's the one that was suitable for me. Um so I did the balance path, but if I had to go back in time, I would just make for absolute certain that that's what I was gonna do for me. And like that's that's only one of the five paths, but it was the right one for me.

SPEAKER_00 28:39

Well, tell us about any upcoming projects that you're working on that people need to be aware of.

SPEAKER_01 28:45

Well, you know, I'm we're running the the medieval theme park right now. We've got two weeks left. We close on April 19th, and we'll we'll run our summer camp in June and July and our Celtic Music Festival in December. We've got um I've got a new thing that's only been about three or four years called Heinefall. It is uh, if you didn't think I was weird already, Curtis, it's about to get weird. It's a live action role play where you spend a week in my theme park, uh, but you're in character and you're dressed up in like medieval garb the whole time. And there's this big and you're a part of the storyline where you've got guilds and factions and intrigue and artisans doing stuff, and these guys fight. They have these kind of human-safe weapons and they have all these fights. It's a week-long immersive uh live action role play in my medieval theme park. So that's a week in November called a Heinefall, and in that that group they do stuff every month, but the November thing is the big one. So that's really cool. My book is going well. The thing I'm trying to spend more time doing is giving my book talk. Um, so again, I went to UT yesterday and did it. I go to I go to UT every semester and give my book talk. I go to Texas AM every semester and do my book talk. Uh and I've traveled to you know multiple states to do it. I'd like to do that more uh because you know, every time I give my talk, you know, to a hundred students, 50 of them will stand in line for 20 minutes to shake my hand and say thank you. That meant a lot to me. And so uh I'd really like to have a more fully booked uh nationwide speaking tour. So if any of your listeners are in that world, uh I'd love to spend more time doing that.

SPEAKER_00 30:31

Well, that's a contact info so people can keep up with everything that you're up to.

SPEAKER_01 30:35

Yeah, I'm I'm very easy to find. My email is george.apling at gmail.com. Uh, you can also find me on LinkedIn, uh, Facebook, Instagram. Um, my website where you can uh learn more about me is GeorgeAppling.com. And so there's a lot there about my speaking business and my book, but also some tidbits on on my other projects. But yeah, I'm I'm pretty easy to find. George.apling at gmail.com. That's A P P L I N G.

SPEAKER_00 31:05

We'll close us out with some final thoughts. Maybe if that was something I forgot to talk about that you would like to touch on. A any final thoughts you have for the listeners.

SPEAKER_01 31:13

Um, uh I would just reiterate the the most important thing, thing for people to take away from me, or there's a lot of people that would say this, is that you can take action to make your life better every day. And I'll put a really fun factoid on that from it's from um a book called Atomic Habits by James Clear, where he says uh 1.0 raised to the 365th power is one point zero. And the the the one being kind of a metaphor for a step. But if you take one point zero one, the the idea being one percent better, and raise that to the 365th power, the result is 37. So if you get one percent better every day, the outcome a year later is 37 times not getting one percent better every day. So that's what I would want people to take away is that in the words of my uh Texas and a professor friend Ken McFarland, today is a good day to get better. So get one percent better today.

SPEAKER_00 32:21

All right, ladies and gentlemen, George Appling.com. You know, if you're in the Austin area, check everything uh out he's got going on. Pick up that book. He's definitely got some interesting stuff going on and some uh businesses that are unique and that I've never heard of. So please be sure to follow, rate, review, and share this episode to as many people as possible. Also, if you haven't done so, visit www.curveball337.com. Check out the site, share the website and the show to everybody you know. Sign up for the newsletter, leave us a review, drop us a line if you have any suggestions or anything like that. Definitely let us know. Thank you for listening and supporting the show. And George, thank you for all that you do, and thank you for joining me.

SPEAKER_01 33:08

Thank you so much. Happy to be here.

SPEAKER_00 33:11

For more information on the Living the Dream with Curveball Podcast, visit www.curveball337.com. Until next time, keep living the dream.