Bags #24 and #25 pictured above have a special story. Both of these bags are in the Southern Hemisphere now! This has me very excited! Bag #24 is in Argentina with Marina Lvova and will keep traveling with her during her time with Remote Year. Bag #25 is in Australia with Matthew Carey — accompanying him as he makes his music, as he makes his art. Both Marina and Matthew participated in the altMBA with me earlier this year, and it was thanks to some dot-connecting and beautiful gift-giving from Matthew that both of these bags found a companion for their journey. We’ve gone international! This is extremely meaningful. It catches my attention and makes me pause as I realize that the first 2 bags landing in hands of my altMBA colleagues just happen to have landed in the very place I’d been dreaming that they would land: across the globe. It’s been a lot of fun to watch this story unfold: Thank you so much Matthew!
We Are Global Citizens
Rusty and I met via an international student exchange program called AIESEC. One thing that we were exposed to through our work in AIESEC was a network of businesses that were doing something rather amazing: They were taking their businesses to global markets by leveraging the AIESEC model to connect with the people they would need to help them execute in those markets. A good example of this that I know of happening right now is Mind Valley (Vishen Laikani) ← inspiring. While Badass Backpacks has a long way to go and a lot of work to do (baby steps), I am not afraid to talk out loud about one of our long-term goals: We want to take Badass Backpacks into international markets. Not just selling to people in other countries, but truly developing our brand in a way that we can take more than our bags to a global audience. We are global citizens — and we want to build bridges.
The fact that Matthew and Marina have their bags, and are hanging out, across the waters, looking at the same moon as me, but with an upside down view … well that just makes me smile really big.
“I am reminded that it is within our power to build a bridge to be crossed. Even if my neighbor doesn’t understand my religion or understand my politics, he can understand my story. If he can understand my story, then he’s never too far from me. It is always within my power to build a bridge. There is always a chance for reconciliation, a chance that one day he and I will sit around a table together and put an end to our history of clashes. And on this day, he will tell me his story and I will tell him mine.” — Paulo Coelho