So I should start by saying I'm a Midwesterner. My parents were Midwesterners. Their parents were Midwesterners.

And you go back far enough and you basically get a bunch of Scandinavian and a couple of German farmers arriving out in empty cornfields trying to build a life.

The thing about the Midwest is that everything is very far away from everything else.

To drive between two major cities is like a seven hour drive.

I grew up taking these gigantic road trips.

We would all pile in the car, and off we would go.

We would start driving and we wouldn't stop

for a week or two until we finally made

some kind of giant loop back around.

So when I think back on my life, you know, as someone who's spent a lot of their life sort of dedicated to ideas of exploration and travel

You know, I founded an entire company around that idea

I realize that those road trips were where it all started. They were the

blueprint for everything that would come. On our show we've been asking a bunch of guests this question. What are the three places that

shaped your life? Three places that kind of helped make you who you were? And then one day my producer said,

you, you must answer this question.

Go into your little box and tell us your three places. So I you know I thought about it and eventually I

realized there really were three places that I think of as being hugely influential in the course of my life.

And the first one came out of those road trips, a kind of young realization, a moment of eye opening, wonder.

The second was all about exploration and adventure

and figuring out a new way to see and experience the world.

And the third one, well that one basically taught me how to make creative work.

It really shaped my whole adult professional life.

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