Starve the Ego Feed the Soul
Starve the Ego Feed the Soul
Transforming Pain into Purpose: Sophie Hilaire’s Journey of Resilience and Bravery
Warmly,
Nico Barraza
@FeedTheSoulNB
www.nicobarraza.com
Keep pushing, keep pushing, keep pushing. And I need you to be a minister for a moment and find somebody sitting in your general vicinity. Look them dead in the eyes if they owe you $20. And tell them neighbor, whatever you do, keep pushing, keep pushing, keep pushing. It's hard to keep pushing in the world that we're living in right now.
Speaker 2:How is one supposed to find serenity and sanity and strength in the world we live in right now? I keep pushing on, so that's why it's probably going to sound a good amount different. But just wanted to say this episode is incredible. I interview my friend, sophie Hilaire. We talk a lot about childhood trauma. We share both of our experiences, particularly with our mothers, and we talk a lot about emotional, mental, physical abuse. We talk about how our childhood sort of shaped who we are today. She gets into her decision to join the US military as a very young adult, getting her MBA, living out of a van for two years now focusing on homesteading with her partner in Kentucky. I mean, this episode is just full of deep and rich stories. I encourage you to listen to the full thing and rich stories. I encourage you to listen to the full thing. As always. Please consider leaving the show a five-star written review on Apple and Spotify. It's a free way you can give back to Star of the Ego. Feed the Soul. It's very much appreciated.
Speaker 2:If you're interested in working with me in a one-on-one setting, head over to wwwnicoberazacom to inquire more. I work with individuals, couples and athletes of all skill levels. Love to work with you If you think it's a good fit. I always offer a free 15-minute Zoom consultation to anyone that just wants to check it out and see what I'm all about. So, without any further ado, ms Sophie Hilaire Dude, I've never seen the teeth in person. Oh my God, your teeth are perfect. You need to be a teeth model.
Speaker 3:That's so funny Cause, like my teeth have never been something I really like and I had braces twice and it's been like a long, a long painful road. So thank you.
Speaker 2:Really, your teeth are something you don't like. I feel like your smile is so, like it's jovial, but it's also like it like I don't know. It just like translates joy Cause when you smile, it's hard for me not to smile back.
Speaker 3:I'm like, oh my God, I have to smile right now. Let's smile together. How's your day been, early bird?
Speaker 2:It's been a lot. I know I wake up very early. I'm helping a friend of mine here move houses in San Diego. I moved a lot of my stuff back to Tucson recently in Arizona, but I'm trying to kind of figure out where I'm going to land up, um, but I'm helping her move houses and obviously moving is exhausting, lifting heavy shit is exhausting. So, um, but yeah, that's, that's all right. I woke up this morning, helped move more stuff and then, um, you know, just trying to, I fly out to Colorado to get another opinion on my shoulder. What is it? Today's Monday, so I fly out Wednesday morning and then I fly back Thursday and then I'll be here for a bit and then probably head to Arizona and kind of hover between here and Arizona. But that was a really long answer to how I'm doing.
Speaker 2:But yeah, I'm doing all right, I'm trying to.
Speaker 3:Well, that was a good recap. I feel like, yeah, I was listening to an episode that you recorded with the other pickleball guy, kind of like going deeper into your injury stuff. Man, that sounds so rough yeah just doctor, a new person he's a new one.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I just I should have seen him in the first place and actually contacting him after my crash. My insurance just didn't cover uh, out of state, um, so I had to stay in Arizona. I wish if I would have seen him from the beginning, I wouldn't even been in this situation. But yeah, that must have been DJ. So I just I just launched an episode today on this show, kind of updating the entire. So if you want to listen it's like an hour if you're feeding the chickens or you know, combing the cats or milking the goats, doing the thing, you can tune in and check it out and it'll tell you kind of everything from the crash to how I went about, like considering my first surgery and you know it's. It was a lot so oh man, yeah.
Speaker 3:Well, I'm sure that's like relatable for pretty much everyone in some kind of way with injuries and stuff.
Speaker 2:So that's great, you're like putting that out there thank you to inspire and everything so shall we get, shall we get rolling, and then we can maybe chit chat a little bit after.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Cool.
Speaker 3:Sounds good, let's do it.
Speaker 2:Okay, sophie Hillary, thank you so much for joining me on Star of the Eagle, feed the Soul. I've been wanting to get you on this show for a while now. You have an incredible personality and you have done life as well too, so we're going to get into a lot of that, but first off, just thank you for coming on and sharing some time with me.
Speaker 3:Thanks for having me. I'm so excited, Nico.
Speaker 2:Yeah, me too. So let's start this way, because I've spoken a couple of times to you on the phone, we've kind of chatted about your history and I'm just like man, we have to share this story. So tell us a little bit about your upbringing, where you were raised and and you know how that entire thing happened. And then I kind of want to get into you know what provoked you to get into the military as a woman and you know, spend so much time serving Um. But I kind of want to lead up to that story on like you know what you know. We talked about that like. Like what psychologically it was like, oh, I want to join the U S military, right Um, and go that route. So how did, how did you go from you know childhood to there in a?
Speaker 3:in a nutshell, yeah, Well, we're just diving deep right, hey, you know you know the title.
Speaker 2:You know the title of this show, this no, it's good, it's good, it's good.
Speaker 3:Um, yeah, so it's funny Cause my answer to your question actually has evolved even very recently in the last year or so. So as far as how I was raised, so I grew up in Ohio, outside of Cleveland, pretty rural Ohio, and I'm half Korean, my mom's Korean and my dad's Caucasian, from Pennsylvania. So kind of, you know, growing up in a rural place, looking the way I do was, you know, I always kind of stood out. Um was a black sheep. Pretty much everywhere I went, whether it was at school or um in my own home, um, that was kind of the role I played, was the scapegoat after many years of studying these types of like dysfunctional family dynamics.
Speaker 3:But yeah, my childhood was, it was rough, it was dark. I thought that was pretty normal for many, many years, probably even like well, after undergrad. But it wasn't until, like my life kind of started to I don't know I wouldn't say totally fall apart, but got really really challenging when I was an adult that I was willing to like kind of look back at my child and question more things. So yeah, I mean I grew up in a house that was very violent. That was very normal it was, I would say 99% of it was directed towards me. I was the oldest of three and yeah, when I say violent, I mean we're talking like. When I say violent I mean we're talking like yeah, just extreme physical violence, emotional I mean yeah, kind of the whole gamut there.
Speaker 3:Was this mostly from your father, from your mother, or was it a combination of both? So it was actually mostly from my mother, but I would say, actually the role my father played was just as important in some ways. And I know that you know, violence on both sides of my family was pretty normal from their childhoods, and I think a lot of us can say that about the generation before us or generations before us. So, um, yeah, I it's not like my parents were doing something completely different from how they were raised and just making this up Like these were curses basically passed down for a long, long time. But, um, yeah, for my mom this was totally normal and I think for a lot of Korean kids growing up they saw a lot, um, maybe not to the extent that I did, but similarities and and on, yeah, my paternal side of the family.
Speaker 3:I think there was also a lot of history of sweeping things under the rug. We don't talk about things out in the open and you know, if people are violent, like we just kind of let them go unchecked, because what are you going to do? And unfortunately, like people suffer, children suffer. I certainly suffered. So, yeah, I'm excited to be maybe the first one in a long time to break some cycles here.
Speaker 2:I think talking about it is what really helps people do that. And I want to share a little bit about my own story, with abuse too, because one. Thank you so much for being willing to share this, because I know it's not easy talking about family, you know. But I think you know when I was, when I was young, like I had this like three-prong parenting system. Like I didn't grow up with my dad. He was never my life, you know. My mom and him were never married, so my mom had me, a single mom, raising a Hispanic family in sort of a lower middle income area. My two grandparents played on him. I thought that they helped raise me too on him. I thought that they helped raise me too. Her parents and I was mostly, obviously, with my mom. We lived with my grandparents up until I was nine and then, when I moved solo with my mom, my mom had struggled with a lot of mental health issues, obviously being a single mom at age 23.
Speaker 2:You know there's a lot of reasons why, but obviously there's no excuse for abuse. No matter what right you have a child, it's your responsibility and a lot of kids experience abuse and I like how you use the word curses because it really, like generational trauma is a curse until you break it. It really is. You know it'll plague everything about your life, right From how you act in business to how you act in relationships with your close people, from how you treat your kids, from how you treat animals, whatever. You know how you relate to everything, how you hide or run from your trauma or how you, you know, proliferate it. And I, distinctly, you know I can talk about this to my mom like no-transcript, like I was a very good athlete, good in school, hard worker, but you know she would come home from working with special needs kids, being a public school teacher that got paid like shit for yours and yours, and she would take it out on me a lot when she was overwhelmed, you know, and it was like stuff. Like you know, you stupid fucking piece of shit, kid. Like you know all this other, all this other shit, she would say, you know, and it was, it was, it was a lot and it wasn't all the time. Like my mom, you know, she was this, this warm figure sometimes and then she was this incredibly like a kid.
Speaker 2:I realized like I never knew which mother I was going to get right, which was I going to get? The hot mother or the cold mother, you know? Was I going to get a mom that was, you know, understanding of my needs, right? And again, I was never. It was never a disciplinary thing. I was never a kid where I was like angry at being disciplined. I understood that I did shit Sometimes I had to get disciplined.
Speaker 2:It was always like these random outbursts of like rage that were directed at me that really had nothing to do with me, right, I was just like this kid in the corner, like shielding myself emotionally, and so I learned these these unhealthy behavioral responses that were like either disappear right, run, or fight like scream, yell back right, shout back, say nasty or shit, right, um, and then sort of like that's how you defend yourself, um, and you know, I think that over time, as I've like invested more and more time into learning about myself, I really started to understand how these things and these behaviors affected my personal day-to-day relationships, you know, um, and that's when I really started to get to work on it. I mean, this was in my early 20s and it's interesting because people, sometimes people are really aware of how this works with their parents, but they're not able to set those boundaries and that intention and it just keeps happening in their life. They wonder why they have messed up relationships. They wonder why they have a lot of self-hatred, why they have a lot of insecurities and it's like, oh, I have to be this child to my family because family's everything, family's everything. I'm like no, no, no, no, no.
Speaker 2:If someone's unhealthy for you, it doesn't matter if you came out of them. If they're responsible for your existence, they have no right and no past to just abuse you just take their shit out on you. You have to create healthy boundaries. You can still love them, but this is your life to live, right? You're not here to be anyone's servant based on their own trauma, regardless of if they're related to you or not, right? Um? So I just want to share a little bit about that. I haven't spoken about that a ton, um, cause you know I want to, obviously, you know, respect my, my family dynamic, but also be really real and honest about you know the shit I came from and what got me here today and why. You know I'm going to be a completely different parent because of the things I was exposed to, so I can relate to what you went through, at least on a little bit little scale.
Speaker 3:I'm so glad you said that because I really feel like that's a message that so many people need to hear, and I try to tell people the same thing sometimes, like hey, it's okay to have extremely healthy, strong boundaries with your family and for everyone it's going to be a spectrum, I mean some. For some people it can look a certain way, for other people it's got to be like full on estrangement. But there is a possibility that on the other side of that is so much more um, like it just unlocks what you said before, like how it bleeds into your personal life, your relationships, your professional life, the jobs you choose. I found that for me, like once I actually started having a much stronger set of boundaries with my family, I stopped accepting shit in all of those other realms and that's actually, I feel, like the transformation I've gone through in the last several years.
Speaker 3:So that's it. Yeah, that's it, my friend, right there.
Speaker 2:That is like the such. The hardest work in therapy is like setting those boundaries and not feeling guilty for holding them and holding them strong Because you know if your family doesn't change, those people are going to continue to push those boundaries. And so when the boundaries push, sometimes it's like a no contact thing, Sometimes it's like, hey, you don't have access to me because you were literally negatively affecting my life all the time, Right, Um? But it's interesting that a lot of people don't know this, but I actually moved out of my mom's place when I was 17. Uh, because it just it got so bad. I was like I don't want to deal with this shit anymore.
Speaker 2:I was almost an adult. I was my senior high school. I packed up all my shit in in a car that I had and I drove to my grandparents house. I lived with them the, the, the six months before I actually went to college in california, and you know there were some things that happened that I was just like you get to a certain age and I've always been a very sort of individualized thinker, analytical thinker, and I was like, man, I'm fucking over this shit, dude, I don't want to be like this, I don't want to be around this. You know I've asked for change. This adult who's raising me is not changing, you know. And granted, I want to say my mom's a lot better now.
Speaker 2:This was like literally 20 something years ago, but then at that time it was the only option I had. And I look at my younger self and I'm like man that took a lot of courage as a 17 year old kid that was playing like three sports, trying to figure out how to talk to women, how to date when you're 17,. Going to prom, going to all these things that you have, like these hormones, these emotions, these social things when you're in high school, and then also going back home and having to deal with that shit on top of it, where a lot of kids have to deal with that right, Some don't. But I think sharing about these experiences like in people listening, it's palpable, Like people are able to be like oh, I'm not alone, I didn't just have I didn't.
Speaker 2:I'm not the only person that had this like shitty, malicious experience, no matter how it showed up right in your life, who it was from and the interesting thing is yours was from your mom, mine was from my mom. You know a lot of people complain about abuse from men, but there are countless, countless amounts of abuse towards children, towards people from women too. That kind of gets brushed under the rug because sometimes it's not physical, it's manipulative, it's gas lit, it's all these other things that are very covert right. There can be a lot of narcissistic tendencies there, um, and that people don't talk about because it's not like someone just getting wailed on right. It gets hidden.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think it's also like I don't know why, like societally, we're not allowed to ever say a single bad thing about, like the maternal figure. Maybe it's something going way back into. I don't even know where that all is born from, but I mean it's just honest, can we not just be honest?
Speaker 2:Just honest, that's it. That's it, just like there's there's like shadow parts of the masculine that we talk about on social media. There's shadow parts of the feminine Right, um, and until we speak about both of those, we we can't heal the entire part, um, okay, okay, so let's talk about that childhood experience kind of went through adolescence, went through high school, and then at what point did you decide you wanted to go to the military? Because One that's super rare for a woman, just to decide that, right, because there's a lot less women in the US military. And then also like the way I mean you might have been a different person back then, but like who you are, this like artistic sort of all this. You know, I guess they're a part of that drive, but like you also could have gone so many different directions, probably. So why that route?
Speaker 3:Yeah, great question. So I can actually really relate to you. Know when you what you were saying about when you were 17 and you were like, okay, I'm getting out of this house. I, you know, have this. You know, I'm like an old soul, I can see beyond this. I know that this is not okay, so I'm going to pull myself out of the situation.
Speaker 3:I tried to do the same, but it was much harder and anyway it didn't end up working out and I ended up, um for me, going straight from high school to West Point. And, um, the reason I went to West Point, which is, you know, the army academy, which after that you'll have a five-year service obligation to the army, um, as an officer, and I ended up doing six years. For me, the reason I was drawn to West Point, I mean there's several reasons, but for years I would always just say like, oh, you know, I feel this. I mean, 9-11 happened when I was a freshman in high school and, yeah, that was obviously a very just changed everything about the way I thought, about a lot of things. But yeah, so you know, as far as history was concerned, it felt a bit timely.
Speaker 3:But if I'm being really honest with myself. I just wanted an escape from that home and I think this is true for a lot of people in the military. They see it as a way of like okay, I can start over, I can enter this other world that is so controlled that just I know that if I enter that world like I will become that thing. And yeah, I've also wanted to be financially independent and I was 17 when I went to West Point and from that day forward I've been financially independent.
Speaker 3:You don't pay to go to West Point, taxpayers do so, thank you. And you don't like, you get paid. While you're there, you get a stipend so you're able to just start off your adult life, you know, with no debt and having a pretty good job that you know is going to continue to open more doors. And so all of that felt very secure to me and like a nice way to just not have to rely on my family going forward, because I wasn't sure that I ever could, and I was estranged at that time, actually for a couple of years, and and it felt also this is a little, you know, just sounds a little crazy, but to me, like West Point and the army was freedom, because where I come from was so controlled that anything else, even if it was that like I just thought, at least they can't hit me you know, go ahead.
Speaker 2:It's so crazy. You say that because, like, cerebrally, most people are going to think military, so structured, so regimented. But when you come from trauma, that actually feels like safety, because there's there's rules, there's reports, there's like all these things not that bad shit doesn't happen in the military. It does, right, abuse happens, but there's there's like a structure to the whole thing where, for the most part, there's a lot of order, right, like there's expectations that are usually met.
Speaker 2:If they're not something, something happens right, whereas in your family environment in mind, like it was, like you didn't know what was going to happen, but it was going to be probably not good you're not going to feel safe. And at least in the military you have units, you have groups, you have people you can count on, you can make friends right, even if you don't like certain people, you can still right. There's there's still this thing like you're on a team, um, whereas when you're, when you're suffering trauma and you don't have someone with you, it's really like you're very isolated and you're sort of the the sort of lone ranger being shot at from all these other areas. If we're using military ideas right, which does not feel safe, it doesn't feel secure. So I understand that completely.
Speaker 3:For sure, yeah, great point. And then the other so that would be my first reason was I felt like, okay, this feels like security, I have agency over my life now and this feels like a solid path, like a no-regrets move professionally. But then, on the other side of it and this isn't something I realized until probably like the last couple of years was it felt like I could finally protect myself, if I could become this thing. It was actually quite masculine, which was probably obvious to everyone around me, but not to me. I just kept feeling the societal.
Speaker 3:I was like I was getting a lot of compliments like, oh, that's bad-ass, you're hardcore, that's intense, like you're willing to do that, that's cool, and um, and there was something that felt kind of empowering about being a woman who was doing all you know, hanging with the boys, doing all that stuff, like I can physically, you know, become more strong and muscular and I mean I was so into CrossFit and different things then too, for that exact reason. And then, yeah, like, even like the idea of going and now protecting other people abroad and having, you know, just this care, becoming this character, this archetype of a soldier, felt like wow, I can finally, you know, not feel like I'm unprotected, but I can protect myself and I can protect other people. That was, you know, um, for having no like strong masculine presence that ever did protect, protect me. I felt like, finally, I had to become a man to protect myself, basically.
Speaker 2:And oftentimes that that can be like a a sort of implicit trauma response because it's like, okay, you're a woman, woman, you've been hurt so much, you have to fight for yourself, you have to defend yourself. So I'm gonna go super masculine energy right and build up these walls and these reserves. And it takes a lot of work to sort of soften that and let someone back in and we'll get into that after right, because, like you, you become this, this caricature, and it it allows you to survive, but then it doesn't really allow you to thrive past a certain point. So you have to get good at like, opening up the door when you meet someone, that let them in. So it's not like a soldier, it's the human right. Um, which is interesting because we have a bit of a military connection, because I I've always sort of wanted to go for a handful of reasons, um, and after I had my crash, I actually was was training, I was literally I I was like had TS clearance. I got interviewed to go to federal OCS through the guard and I was going to choose either go to flight school after OCS in Fort Rucker, alabama, or go to um, uh, I think, north Carolina to do Q course for the green braids, um or Virginia, I think it's, north Carolina, uh, and I literally it was.
Speaker 2:It was when I decided to get surgery. I was working with a surgeon in Arizona. It was like I was doing really well doing the fitness test and actually really excited to go. Um, as a 30 year old I'd have to really go to basic and then go to OCS, which would have been a trip, um, to be like an old fart, you know, but I was in my prime cause I was still running like 440 miles. I was able to do like a hundred pull-ups, like 200 pushups before I had my surgery. I was my. My shoulder was altered, but not bad. And then I actually decided to get surgery because I want it to be even stronger for the military, and it ended up ruining my shoulder. And then they had to discharge me because I couldn't go to basic but I had a ship date, everything Um and uh. I was, you know, obviously not not going to happen this lifetime. But I think my, my impetus for joining at the time was so much different if I when I was 30 versus if I would have gone when I was like 18 or 22. But I will say I do wish I did like ROTC or something or even went to West Point, because I would have came out of school with no, with no debt. I would have had, you know, the VA loan, all these other perks, and I'm not here selling the military or anything but like. If I would have known more about it I would have probably done it.
Speaker 2:My grandfather, however, spent grandfather, however, spent, you know, like seven or six or seven years in the in the air force. And when I was a kid because he knew I was really athletic and a tall, big, strong, fast kid he was like you're not going in the military, you know, he's like you're gonna go do something and get yourself killed. And he's like, you know, I understand, you know, because I kind of always wanted to be like a fighter pilot. It was like this, like you know, a little kid growing up and I was like I really was totally play sports, play baseball, you're good at that, don't go to the military, you know, um. And so it was funny, cause when he passed away when I was 22, I immediately like I'd never thought about it, but I had this like call just to sort of honor his legacy, which I think is another thing missing him and trying to relate, you know, to his time spent and, um, yeah, I don't know where I was going with that, but that I think that's a little bit of our, of our military connection, although you actually were in and spent a ton of time. So you went through training.
Speaker 2:How did, like you know, you built this like masculine persona right? Were you able to sort of balance that in the military, or did you feel, like I'm guessing, you probably had to do a lot of work to get to who you are today, even through your military experience? Because now I feel like this very aware, soft person, but you also have this masculine energy when you need to call it, like there's just this confidence when I talk to you, which I, which it's, it's beautiful because it's, it's just you've. You've experienced so much stuff, you've come through it. You know, and I think that's when I know people have this authentic confidence and they're just not like putting on a facade, you know, know. So how did, how did that experience transform you and how many years did you spend into?
Speaker 3:Yeah, so I was in the army for six years and that started in 2009. So I mean, this was like six lifetimes ago by now. But, um, yeah, during that time I bopped around a lot of different bases in the U? S, was stationed in Korea and did a deployment to Afghanistan, and I think during that whole time in the military I was kind of like also indulging that side of me, that dark stuff from my childhood that was, you know, just kind of naturally drawn to darkness, drawn to violence. I'm comfortable in violence. This is actually pretty normal for me. Ok, well, maybe people who are comfortable in violence should be joining the military.
Speaker 3:I had all sorts of theories in my head and and it really isn't just me I think there's like some stat I saw once is 90 something percent of infantry soldiers have experienced like violence in their childhoods. But it was definitely an unwinding from that. Like I got out of the military in 2015. And then I went to business school and then I was a consultant and then, you know, then after that I kind of started my more recent stuff like van lifing and homesteading. So as far as, like you're asking about the transitioning out of that mindset and into where I am now. It's funny.
Speaker 2:you're even like, oh, you're artistic, because, yeah, go ahead no, I just want to say, yeah, let's focus on, like the out of the military to the business school, because I want to get into the van life and that because that it's almost like you're turning new chapters and it's opening your heart and your soul. As you're here now, you know what I'm saying Because, like going from military to MBA business, that's very structured, regimented, right, there's a process, but then all of a sudden changing that and moving in a van, full-time traveling the country, climbing mountains, becoming this like completely like mountain enthusiast, which again I can relate to you. I was a pro mountain athlete for eight years. So like we have that in common, like I want to get into that because that's a spirituality in of itself, right, that experience. So let's talk about the transition from like military through MBA and why. And then, like what was the impetus of that? And like what did you get into business wise?
Speaker 3:Yeah. So I knew, yeah, we probably should break it down Like cause I feel like I became I do like a complete 180 every few years and then that's kind of led to where I am now. So, yeah, I went from the military to get my MBA and I knew I wanted to do that for a long time. Like my dad had an MBA and I always just kind of thought, okay, like important people get on airplanes and go fly to clients. So I have to laugh at how ridiculous that is.
Speaker 2:I think the same. Thing.
Speaker 3:So I always knew I wanted to get out and do that at some point. So, like when my Army time came to like its natural close, I was like, okay, now it's time to go get the MBA. I was like, okay, now it's time to go get the MBA. And I was really excited for that because I thought, okay, finally I was ready to not be so controlled, or so I thought I was ready to leave the Army's version of control and like finally be able to choose where I live, choose what I do. And so, yeah, at business school for anyone it wasn't just me Like my classmates were coming from you know crazy lives in the consulting world or investment banking as analysts, where they had no freedom or say, and we're also getting yelled at all the time and um and so business school for two years.
Speaker 3:It's really like the hardest part of business school is getting into business school. It is a whole system, but once you're in you get all the resources of that school. Everyone's there just to help you get to the next phase. And it's kind of like a two-year vacation, like you'll see a lot of MBA students just on vacation, a lot traveling around, networking in Cuba and all of that and it is a blast.
Speaker 3:But I had another veteran friend tell me when I had first gone to business school and he said, don't waste this time. Like this will be the first time in your life that you have two years to really think and like think about what you want to do, how you want to spend your life, who you are, all of that, and uh, and I I took his message to heart but I really didn't know what he meant until this actually started unfolding for me. So I did just end up like saying yes to everything during business school. I mean this is a long time ago but I was, you know, going to Coachella and Burning man and, you know, traveling. I mean I'd already been traveling a lot but traveled some more with my business school classmates and, you know, went to and started exploring like plant medicine and different things.
Speaker 2:I was just going to say that I was like might have there been some MDMA or some psilocybin in this business school experience.
Speaker 3:I mean, I'm sure there was a little bit of everything at some point, but there was like times where I, like you know, I went to Peru to go sit with the shaman and for a week with ayahuasca. I learned a ton there about, obviously, myself and my family and yeah, I mean, yes, all of the above, but it was still me being surrounded by other people all the time. I wouldn't say business school was a time where I really got to like just sit in a book or sit with a book in a chair and like study things about myself. That part didn't come till later but I did finally start to break open my, you know, just very like, uh, controlled or dogmatic kind of thoughts about certain things. And, um, yeah, it was like slowly breaking out of my army. You know that whole version of me that I was and ready to kind of be a little more free spirited, which, it's funny, that's kind of who I was in high school, like.
Speaker 3:In high school I went to an all girls Catholic high school. I was a studio art major I like I've always been into that stuff.
Speaker 2:But I could have totally said you were a studio art major, like always been into that stuff. But I I could have totally said you were a studio art major, like that's exactly what I thought I was, like I was, I like I should have said this like I'm like she, totally like major in studio art, that's what that's like I'm initially thought of. But catholic all girls school oh man, that's a whole nother.
Speaker 3:It's a whole nother bag of worms, dude yeah, yeah, I mean, it's not like I was getting beat by the nuns or anything, this wasn't that that long ago, but it was. It was very different from West Point, which is like an all boys school, pretty much fraternity, um. So, yeah, that was kind of my transition to business school and then from there I went to into the consulting world, which was, yes, I had, say now in where I lived and I was living in New York city and I was flying to clients feeling like an important person but crying on the airplane a lot because I was really miserable and, yeah, just kind of playing the role of yeah go ahead.
Speaker 2:What were you miserable about?
Speaker 3:You know, I learned a lot of great things at this firm that I worked for and and I am grateful for it for a lot of reasons. And I think they you know a lot of these firms will recruit for like a certain personality type, so that's like an insecure overachiever, which I was to a T and they kind of know like, okay, someone like this, we can get them to work really hard and we know exactly what buttons to press and we can get a lot of great work out of them and um, anyway, I think it was just this constant like mind of you know you're amazing, okay, now you're terrible, and it just constant that and yeah, so it sounds like an abusive relationship.
Speaker 2:It's what.
Speaker 3:It's what you know totally, yeah, yeah, and it was just more of that familiarity of like, okay, this is normal. Of course I accept people treating me like this. Of course I would choose to work at a place like this. And I mean not to say I'm totally not saying that's all you know the whole experience, but I mean, yeah, I was crying on the airplane a lot because I just like, yeah, I felt terrible. I was so stressed out.
Speaker 3:I always felt like I had a million more things to do than what I had time to accomplish and it was just kind of this, always this feeling of like I'm not enough. I'm not enough, I'm not good enough, I'll never be enough, not good enough to work here. How did I even get hired in the first place? And, yeah, I mean amazing that I would stay there for as long as I did, because after my internship I thought, ok, if I can pull this off for a year full time, I'll do that, and then I'll take my skill set and leave and go to the next job. But I was there for five years and only then was I finally like you know what? I don't even know what I want to do next, but it's not.
Speaker 3:I just don't want to do this anymore, so I'm going to quit.
Speaker 2:So, before the van life transition, how was love life? How were your relationships in the military? Coming out of the military, were you dating? Were you in a long-term relationship? How did you fit those in with all this stuff you were doing?
Speaker 3:Yeah, so I would have, like you know, I would go from long term relationship to long term relationship. Sometimes I had, like you know, a year or two in between, but the pattern that I definitely had was they were all long distance relationships, and that was kind of normal when you're in the military, because you're getting stationed somewhere new every year and if you're not married to that person, then they're not moving with you. So now you're, you know, or you meet someone, and you got to go back to your base. Like I met someone in Iceland one time and we dated for the next year and a half. He was in DC and I was in South Korea, so, and we would just meet and go on vacation. It was fun and, um, went on a lot of great trips, but there was like a depth that I never got to with any of these relationships because of you know, all the distance and um, and I didn't even know how to, how to go deep with anyone, to include myself, um, it took a while for me to realize something was actually missing, and I started to point that out in relationships and move on and um, so, yeah, I would say you know, most of my relationships, though were in some way.
Speaker 3:The men were kind of similar to my mom. I can't say it was really physically violent, but it was a lot of that emotional kind of push-pull. And then the last relationship I was in before I moved into my van, was definitely the most impactful one, like my greatest teacher and someone I do not speak to anymore because it was super, super dark. But I'm so grateful that I went through that because I had to realize like I was the one choosing to relive this cycle of everything I've been trying to run away from, like literally I, like no one else is here, where are my parents, you know, forcing me to live this life? They're not, it's all me and through me they were doing it. But I realized like, okay, I'm not doing this anymore. So that was that last relationship. And then I was in my van, like just on my own for for years and not dating intentionally, and it was great.
Speaker 2:This is. I mean, I know that this is like obviously you sharing your real person, but this is like such gold. I mean, this stuff is. This is exactly why people should go to therapy, should work on themselves. You know the actual work, not just talking about it, because what you just said, I mean it's just so beautiful, like being appreciative of that relationship, no matter how traumatic it was, because it's contributed to who you are today.
Speaker 2:You know how you feel and then you know, moving into, moving to the van, like what, what inspired you to do that? Obviously, being a solo female, it's more common now, but you know, when you were doing it and I was doing, I was in a van in 2014 to 2016 and just sold my, my bus recently, but like it wasn't as popular then, although people have been doing this for a long time. But now it's like everybody's, like YouTube channel, live in a van, like, check it out. You know, when you were doing it, it wasn't as popular. So what? What inspired you to do it? That's a big jump, first of all. And then, like, what was the? What was the end goal? Did you want to live in it? Like for X amount of years Did you? Did you not have a goal in that mind? You're just going to travel like what was, what was that?
Speaker 3:Yeah, so many things I want to say and I think, yeah, I can address it all. So my van came about because of the pandemic. So I had moved we don't need to get in all the details of where I was living and why and how that fit with my consulting job but the point is like I had I didn't actually have a home in March of 2020. And and so suddenly like I very quickly needed to find one and I always thought like, oh, maybe I'll have a van in my driveway one day and I'll go on these like weekend trips or something. So I just thought, okay, it wouldn't hurt to just get the van now and just drive around and see where I want to even park it. You know to to to have a home, cause I didn't know where I wanted to live yet. Um, and I had just broken up with that last partner that you know, that whole thing that I described basically rock bottom in terms of relationships.
Speaker 2:And um it's.
Speaker 3:It's also the reason, you know, you just mentioned therapy and why it's important for people to go Like I was going to therapy every single week for about seven years and I also the last couple years of that I was, I had a really amazing life coach and it's funny because whenever I say that I've got like close friends even who kind of like roll their eyes or they're like, or why do you need a life coach? Sophie, like you know, you're so accomplished and and the truth is, like this lady she was not cheap and she was amazing. Like she wasn't afraid to tell me things that might there, you know, you know therapists can't necessarily be as prescriptive sometimes, but she was just straight up like telling me all the things that like from my childhood I thought this was normal, this is okay, this is acceptable. She was like this is not okay, this is not acceptable. And she knew, like my personal stories to the like most you know detailed extent. So I actually kind of had like was getting reparented in my thirties by someone who, like really could tell me the difference between right and wrong. I didn't necessarily have that growing up and so with her I was working and we started just talking about. You know, what do I want my life to look like? Because I realized, okay, this relationship ended. I thought I was building a whole future around how that was going to be. Now that's over, which is a good thing, but I just don't know where the next step is.
Speaker 3:My job I was, you know, I was still a few years out from quitting, but I was miserable the whole time and then, yeah, just in terms of like where I was going to live. So we kind of mapped out what my dream life would look like. And it's so funny because the other day I was actually thinking like I'm actually living everything that I had written down in our little spreadsheet that I thought was just like woo pie in the sky, like maybe this one day. But yeah, all of that kind of get just came together in that way and that's how I ended up in the van. The van was, you know, just a way to like not be sitting in an apartment while I'm doing this job.
Speaker 3:During the pandemic I could still go to you know, most of the national parks and just be out in nature by myself, thinking like really finally thinking, and spending time in solitude, not having the influence of a community for the first time either, like when you live in New York city and you have a roommate. I mean I love my roommate, um, but you are really part of like that whole, entire, you know organism of New York city Like you don't really you can't just have like your own thoughts yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah, there really isn't. And uh, so this was the first time time I truly was. It was just me and my little van. Each day I could be in a completely different town. No one knew who I was, no one knew where I was, except for a couple people. And yeah, my plan was really just to do it for six months. I thought after six months I would surely find some amazing town and be like this is it? This is where I'm gonna stay.
Speaker 2:And then three years went by and here I am in Kentucky. So crazy. If I would've met you and we were both van, I would've fricking been like staying Flagstaff dude, trying to build my community there. I've committed so many people. Um, I just I love that place but it's so cool that you did that.
Speaker 2:Um, you know, it's interesting when you were, when you were speaking about that, like about your this life coach, sort of telling you right and wrong in my mind, like when wrong becomes normalized, it becomes right. And that's the history of like civilizations and society. Right, if you could, you can even look at like the Nazi regime. Or you can look at like racial oppression or sort of you know, homophobia, these things right. When, when stuff becomes normalized, all of a sudden it becomes right, and then people are raised around that, thinking that that's okay, you know. And so when you're a kid and you're born in trauma, you're born in abuse. You, you assume that everyone experiences childhood like there was something like it, right, because that's normal and it shouldn't be. You know, not that like you can't discipline your kids, like you can't, you know, spank your kids if you need to spank them. But like there's a difference between love, discipline out of love and abuse, right, there's a stark difference. It's easy to see that between the lines. And abuse comes from trauma, right, discipline comes from love. It's completely different origin or origins in those.
Speaker 2:So I appreciate you speaking about that with life coaches, cause I do think therapists and counselors can do that too Many don't, because clinically they're taught not to. I don't necessarily agree with that frame. You know, when I went to school for clinical mental health counseling, there was a lot of things I agreed with and a lot of things I didn't. A lot of the stuff from the DSM-5, from diagnostics I didn't really agree with very much, and then a lot of the principles of, like you know, only allowing the client to guide themselves. I'm like sometimes they need it, like hey, my friend, that is not okay how you're behaving or how that person's behaving, and this is why and this is how it's related to your childhood, and if you don't do something about it again, I can't force you to, it's not my job, but if you don't do something about it you're going to keep complaining for the rest of your life.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean I understand and there's there's other like wow, like really deep insights that were shook out of me by my therapists that I had worked with and I, you know I'm so grateful for them. But yeah, there's something about like me needing someone to just like tell me that that stuff is not okay or this bad stuff that's normal. I mean, I was shocked when my life coach told me okay, based on everything you've described about the violence in your household, what you went through is like a nine out of 10 in terms of like how bad it possibly could ever get in an American or in any home. And I just I was like Whoa, I always thought that was like a five out of 10 or something like pretty average. But when she said it like that, I just kind of thought, oh wow, this is like I just feel so sorry for like little Sophie. This is like everything she had to go through.
Speaker 2:So you're, you're in the van, and how long did you stay in the van in total?
Speaker 3:Um, I would say like two years full time in the third year was like kind of part time while I started building the shed.
Speaker 2:Dude, that is a shed, Love it, that is. That is commitment, like that is. Two years in a van is is nothing to fuck with, really. I mean people like do van life for a little bit and then they, they, they like toss it out Like it's not glamorous all the time. You know, there's some fucking struggles for sure, um, but that's, that's awesome, cause I lived in a van about two years too.
Speaker 2:Even I rented out my house in Flagstaff and when I was an athlete I was just traveling, kind of like you did. I went to all these different towns, I was trying to find a home and Flagstaff ended up being home anyways, but I went all over the place, climbed a bunch of mountains, was living in Europe, spent some time in south america and then ultimately just kind of like found where where home is, you know, um, but it's interesting that I think one of the coolest parts about that about traveling with my dog being single and solo for the most time is is the different kind of character characters you meet while living in a vehicle. Right, I mean, you just like, I feel like there's a whole nother dimension when you're like living on wheels. You know, you meet people in the most random places and have the most beautiful random conversations like you'd never expect, because it's almost like, since your home goes with you, your doors are sort of always open. Sometimes, if you're open to it right, which is I'm sure you have tales right, like I mean, there's so many experiences I never would have had had I not been in a van, and it's funny, something reminds me.
Speaker 2:I was on my way to Jackson hole this is like 2015 or 2016.
Speaker 2:And I stopped at this gas station, uh, by the wind, wind, river range, so like almost to Jackson hole, and this native dude from the tribe there like pulls up Cause I had this van and like looked pretty hippie and it had an Arizona license plate and I had a bunch of running stickers, you know, and, um, my, my dog was with me, sold, and so he's like oh, that's a nice dog man.
Speaker 2:I'm like thanks. He's like he's, he's she and Asi is like yeah, and he's like what are you, what are you doing in these areas? I'm like I like this dude like literally woke me up a little bit because I'm like aware, obviously, grizzlies, but he was telling me like you know, like sure, about that kid, like that's not, you know a serious country out here, bunch of stuff at the gas station randomly and it was just cause I was like living out of my van, you know, with running stickers. So I had a lot of beautiful conversations like that and then I had a lot of like really weird interactions too, because I was living out of my van Amen.
Speaker 3:Like I feel like you're telling this story and I'm even thinking of like when I was in the Florida Keys and this guy had been driving his van around with his girlfriend around the world, was just parked behind me and we had this like deep philosophical discussion about society and everything.
Speaker 3:Never saw him again after those 15 minutes, but it was amazing. And then also, yeah, the guy who in Colorado was the reason why I started carrying in my van like the crazy, scary stuff that'll happen in the road. So it's the full gamut. But I think, like I'm so, I'm so glad I had that experience and anyone who's ever like man, I'm really feeling the call to do van life. I'm like just do it. Like it's um, you know, you'll learn things about yourself, you'll trust your intuition more, you'll um, yeah, you'll just know that, like, you can get through a lot of things If you can like get through all of the surprises that get thrown your way living in a van. Um, I really miss that chapter. It's nice to get back in my van every once in a while and do a little short trip.
Speaker 2:That's what I was going to say. You still have it. You can you know, once you, once you're done with the, with the building, you can always do whatever, whatever you want, but let's, let's get into, and if there's something in between, let me know. But now you're a homesteader. You literally have like full on farm going on. You've built stuff like with your bare hands and the ground up, which is fucking super dope, like I literally want to do that myself. Um, I've done that, like in my younger years, obviously helped my grandfather build stuff, but I've never like built something like off that of that scale besides, like a van or a bus at scale, and I think like there's something about building your home with your own hands like growing your own food, these things that we've forgotten in so many ways of society because of commercialism, because of capitalism.
Speaker 2:You know, we go to the supermarket. There's just like shit fluorescent light lined in the aisles. You know, and I'm in many ways envious when I look on Instagram like, damn dude, sophie's fucking doing it, she's living it. You know, it's a beautiful thing to see. So can you talk to me about, like, how did you decide to do that? Right, you're in this vessel of a van, traveling, living remotely, and then how did it get to like I'm setting up shop and I'm building? You know this, this like home in the woods.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's really nice of you. I mean I, I yeah. Well, the way that it happened is I think this is actually, you know, for people in my old life who are maybe from the military or business school there, they think I've lost my mind. Like, what are you doing in your thirties still, you know, you went from like the very standard consulting post-MBA job to like living on a farm with a bunch of chickens, and, but for a van lifer, this is actually a very natural and normal next step.
Speaker 3:I feel like so many van lifers drive around doing their laps around North America and then one day they just realized, you know, I'd like to put roots down somewhere. Actually, I don't want to look for parking every night, actually I would like to for me. I just, you know, really it was really kind of fun seeing all these different kinds of trees and all these different climates. I love trees, but what I started to ache for was like getting to know a few trees of my own that I could watch through seasons over years, plant some things, grow some things, like plant my, you know, plant a garden, grow my own food, and um, yeah. So I was like called toward um, yeah, putting down roots somewhere, but I still didn't know where. I ended up. Picking Kentucky oh yeah, go ahead.
Speaker 2:No no, no, I'm listening, I'm just in my mind. I'm like, when you said, your friends think you lost your mind, I was like, yeah, you might've lost your mind, but like I have this like grateful dead in my head and I'm like you probably found your heart, you know. And I think we have to lose our mind a little bit to like find ourselves, because our mind is like the structured thing that's built up to protect us from a lot of shit we've experienced through life.
Speaker 3:And sometimes you got to like let go of that mind a little bit to actually like find your soul Totally. My van, while I still had like my very normal corporate job, was what I needed in order to have the courage to really step into this phase of life. Because, yeah, if I'm being honest, I'm sure my whole family thinks I'm a total loser with what I'm doing now and I love my life so much it really doesn't matter. But yeah, to break out of like those expectations from society and from people that grew up with me and to be able to be able to just say like no, I'm actually ready to just make this up as I go along. Whatever I actually feel like doing is what I'm going to go do. Um, of course, like I've a big safety net to fall back on because of all of the you know great institutions and everything that I've come from. But, um, but, yeah, so I and I landed in Kentucky because my godsons are here, yeah, yeah, and it's calculated Like.
Speaker 2:I like that. You bring that up because, like a lot of people were like, oh this, you know there's no plan. I'm like you. You, you built up reserves. You like you, you know you, you did this and you did it the right way. I feel like sometimes you just like do're a trust fund kid which there's a lot of that going around on instagram and youtube and tiktok but, like you know, I always think that's what I am, which is hilarious.
Speaker 2:You're not though I can tell you're easily not, but like rely on my family for stuff. What I had to do, this same dude I grew up so like when I it's funny, when I was traveling in my van like I would be in like Boulder or Jackson whore, like bend, and I would meet these like young couples, young kids, and I'm like the fuck do you guys do? Like they're not athletes right, they're not profits Like they ski all the time, they bike all the time, but they're not getting paid that way. They're like influencers but not really making that much. Moneyaire, billionaire, or like their freaking like mom is like you know some huge like judge or attorney or whatever, or their grandparents left them. You know, it's like when they're honest with you and it's not everybody, but when I meet people like them, like so you basically like get to do whatever the fuck you want and don't have to work.
Speaker 3:I'm like damn well, I mean, yeah, I, I can't even really hate on them. I'm glad that they're out there, just on the road doing fun stuff instead of being like well, now I have to go, like, be in an office just because I have to do the job that my you know dad did or something. But yeah, it's that ain't us, but good for them, yep.
Speaker 2:Yep, but let's let's talk about where you're, where you're talking to me from right now, because you are literally in your spot right, and so is this a place that you built. Yeah.
Speaker 3:Well, yeah, actually I haven't said anything about this on my social media yet, but so I was in this shed, that my. So I ended up in Kentucky because my godsons were here and their parents are my very dear friends and their family, you know. So basically, I'm here for family and they had hunting land those 45 minutes away and they said, all right, we got this hundred acres out there. There's a shed on it, that's new, but it's empty and you can just drive your van over there and hang out, and it would be great to have you closer. And so I was like okay, but I'll do you one better, I'm going to work on this shed while I'm there and I want to turn, I want to learn more about construction and I, you know, had redone my van three times, but that so I had my little, you know, the set of DeWalt power tools and was feeling so empowered. But I wanted to now scale this out to something bigger, and this shed was big, like it's 16 by 40 with two lofts. So it really felt to me like going from a van was like 93 square feet to this, um, like closer to 1100, was like really exciting. So, um, so yeah, I, I wanted to leave it better than how I found it, and it was. So.
Speaker 3:It was like a really wonderful couple of years of building this out, and I definitely had a lot of help because I didn't know what I was doing. Um, a lot of different people came, like friends from previous chapters in my life, like came to visit and, um, it was really, really wonderful and I learned a ton and I finished it out and actually it wasn't long after that that, yeah, my partner, rocky, and I decided, okay, it's actually time for us to like really go homestead on our own. So we bought land. That's actually where I'm sitting right now and that's why it's such a disaster behind me. But you know, I am who I am. We're moving, we're moving into this place, but, yeah, we're on the Kentucky river now Haven't left Kentucky, rocky's from Kentucky, so, um, both of us have family here now. So now it just makes sense to be here and I love Kentucky so much I don't want to talk about it too much, cause then maybe, you know, it'll start getting really crowded here but um yeah, yeah, so so, yeah, I uh now.
Speaker 3:Now I'm out, I'm like I don't want to tell my california friends but, um, yeah, we're out here on like it's closer to like 40 acres, but we're right on the kentucky river. I have my you know, 18 birds here. They're all really happy 40 acres dude yeah, there's um that's legit.
Speaker 2:I mean, for people that don't, that is a big ass piece of land.
Speaker 3:I mean 40 acres is no joke yeah, I mean there's only like seven acres. I'd say that's like cleared and everything down here by the river. The rest of it's like actually on a really steep hill going up to the spring, there's a little waterfall. Back there there's a big rock face. Um, actually this land it's got a really steep hill going up to the spring. There's a little waterfall. Back there there's a big rock face. Actually, this land it's got a really interesting history. We don't need to get into all of it, but Al Capone actually was running like a moonshine operation here years ago and then more recently, yeah, this was a marijuana farm in the seventies, which still not legal in Kentucky. Definitely wasn't legal then. But um, yeah, a lot of like history of outlaws on this land doing their thing.
Speaker 2:So now I understand how you've kept the funding going. It makes sense now, um, very smart investor, that your mba paid off. I see what you're doing here. You see, you know, location, location, location. Let's go, um, wow, that is so dope, dude, I think I mean congrats to both of you guys. First of all and this is cool that you're announcing this here it's just like what an awesome spot to be. I've never been to Kentucky. I've always wanted to climb at Red River Gorge, but I haven't since my shoulder. It's just, it's dope.
Speaker 3:Convince it. Red River Gorge is like right there. We live in the Daniel Boone National Forest, so come on down so dope dude, so dope.
Speaker 2:Okay, so you met your partner, built this out and like what? You know, what is the ultimate goal of homesteading? Like, obviously, like you know, you're persisting off of stuff too. But like what are you? Are you making it into a business? Are you going to, are you doing other businesses too? And this is just like your fun project? Like, how are you going about doing that?
Speaker 3:Yeah, well, I mean, our goal is to be self-reliant. Rocky says like 70%, I say 80%, but yeah, we're not trying to be like, okay, we are off grid, we never leave the house and we, you know, don't have phones or something like it's. You know, not quite to that extent, but we'd like to grow almost all of our own food, have our own livestock, that we, you know, process and all of that. And as far as jobs, though, yeah, we still need to fund this in some ways, and so I'm doing part time work. Actually, after I left consulting at McKinsey, I told myself from this point forward, I only do jobs that I would be willing to do for free. So the job that I do, that I've done for the last couple of years, is part time MBA admissions consulting, because I was doing that for a veteran organization that's a nonprofit, for free for many years, and it actually is just like. It's not hard for me, it's like comes very intuitively and I feel like I actually yeah, I'm helping people every day take the next step in their career, so that you know if one day they want to have a life like this, they can, if they want to have a life like I did in New York City. They can do that too. But everyone should just, you know, be able to go make that happen and, you know, leverage whatever education steps that they want to have in order to do so, so that they want to have in order to do so. So that's been, you know, kind of the main thing.
Speaker 3:But aside from that, I just launched a skincare company because that just came born out of me tinkering around in the kitchen and making my yeah, it's called Soul and Soil and it kind of. There's ginseng and everything which I grew up, you know, learning all about Koreans and how they use it as a panacea for so many things. But also here in Appalachia people go ginseng hunting and it's a very you know, everyone here knows about it, but people don't put it in their skincare products the way they do in Korea. So, and I don't do like a Korean 12 step skincare routine, like my mom is an esthetician, so I did get all of the you know skincare like get out of the sun, do this, take your makeup off at night, all of that. But, um, but I actually have found I'm more drawn to natural stuff, like rendering beef tallow for skincare and castor oil and those types of ingredients.
Speaker 2:One second real quick. So what is it called?
Speaker 3:Uh, the company is called soul and soil.
Speaker 2:Soul and soil. So, all right, if you see Sophie on, see sophie on instagram. Her she's got great skin. Go get some of this stuff.
Speaker 2:I want some hook it up with some skincare products do you want to try this out yeah, I'm gonna send you some after this, please do it's funny, I I as a guy, I never grew up understanding any of that. And just like two years ago I was, uh, who was I? I was talking to one of my friends and she was like, hey, what do you like, what do you do for your skincare routine? I was like, what, what I don't do skincare routine? Um, you know, I just like wear sunscreen sometimes.
Speaker 2:And then it was like I dated, uh, like my last partner, very, very pale gal, and she actually was the one like I started to wear sunscreen with her because I'm like I'm a Mexican dude man, I'm a half Irish but mostly Mexican, I'm brown, you know, but like, obviously you still need to wear sunscreen. And uh, it was like a couple years ago I actually started to like have a routine where I'm like, oh, I have like a cleanser on my face and I'll like put, like some you know whatever like face lotion on before I go to sleep, you know, at night. So I've fallen off of that routine a little bit lately, but I actually started to appreciate the idea behind it. It wasn't just like this thing that women did.
Speaker 2:It was like no, like take care of your skin, because it's the biggest organ of your body and give it some love and some nourishment, just like you would eat. Well, you know you, you want to eat healthy. You should also like put stuff on your body that's healthy too. It makes sense, right, because we're exposed to toxins and chemicals all the time. Well, you're not where you live and I'm not in flagstaff, but in most people's lives. They are, you know yeah, um, so yeah, well, that's great, that's super dope.
Speaker 3:But that's like the story for many men's, like foray into skincare routine is like their you know girlfriends or partners, whatever, turn them on to it and then it becomes, you know, in places like Korea, men have been doing this for a long time and yeah, but all my products are definitely for anyone. It's we all have skin, you know so and you have great skin.
Speaker 2:But yeah, that's true, that's true, we do all have skin. Good point um, that is so cool. So, like yet another business venture, like obviously super entrepreneurial, like I mean, I feel like this thing would would blow up too.
Speaker 3:You know, it's so maybe I mean, I I kind of like the idea of just like me doing this in small batches in the kitchen and I don't really I don't know if it ever got to the point where I had to make the decision of someone other than me making it. I guess that'd be a good problem to have, but I don't. I like it's not even necessarily the goal. Like I just like making this stuff for me because I feel good knowing what is going on my skin and through my skin, um, and I like sharing that with other people who value the same thing but maybe don't want to take seven days to render some beef tallow to and mix it up with all this stuff to put on them. But but yeah, it's just like been like a fun, creative little project.
Speaker 3:And yeah, it's funny you say entrepreneurial, because I never thought I was like when I went to business school I just thought I can only be parts of like big organizations that have like great visions and I just want to support said visions. But now I'm like, no, I actually that's all well and good and I'm glad I, you know, was able to cut my teeth doing that for so many years, but now, yeah, I'd actually like to you know, leave my mark making up what I feel like doing and, um, and this has just been, you know, the latest of where I've been pulled dude, I want to come visit you guys so bad we have to actually make that happen.
Speaker 2:It I want to. I want to go and take some notes on how you guys are doing this and, just like I have plans for, obviously, where I, you know, want to live too, but I'm just, I'm very much like just stoked on all the things you're doing and it's such it's so well.
Speaker 3:Yeah, we've even got this little cabin that's.
Speaker 2:Uh, yeah, so you can. You can come stay as long as you want. Oh yeah, thank you so much for the invitation. Um, so we covered a lot.
Speaker 2:I mean I, it's interesting because, like I, we could, I feel like I could talk to you, rower, because there's so much rich life experience like we haven't even really gotten into, like your mountain climbing and that whole thing, because, again, that's pretty rare to get into alpinism, right, um, it's, it's a very like there's not very many people that do it. You know, I've done it for a long time now. I haven't done it very much since my shoulder surgeries, surgeries, but I was always up and down climbing mountains, you know, like with ropes, like literally climbing all the freaking time. It's huge part of my life running on mountains and, uh, when, when that was actually one of the first things that attracted me to your profile outside of the van life, I was like, oh man, this like scales, like crushing some climbs, how did you get into that stuff?
Speaker 2:Like, how, like, that's a very unique. Um, it's called a unique person, right, cause, like you can enjoy, you can be a person about nature and enjoy going out and you know, being in nature, but there's extremes to that too, right, and I would say that that's one of the extremes and for me it's just normal, like I don't consider it extreme, I just I love experience. I love to feel that Like my blood rushing. I love to like there's something visceral and so human about those experiences in the mountains that like there's that Antinoli Bukharov quote, that's like like the mountains are my cathedral, right, like that's just like how it feels to me. You know, it's like where I worship, like it's where I feel alive the most. How did you get into that stuff?
Speaker 3:Yeah. So the first mountain I went and climbed was Mount Baker, and I had to go do that in order to go to Denali. Um Mount I landed, I it's not like I was like, oh, I want to do the seven summits. I still don't want to do the seven summits, but at that time I was trying to go to all the US states and continents before I turned 30. It was just some goal I made up. And so my last state was Alaska and I thought, okay, I have to do something epic, because this is the last one I should go climb Denali.
Speaker 3:And I'd come from years of like you know, I had a Guinness world record or a marathon running. I had like owned a couple of different CrossFit gyms and like just many years of physical training, obviously everything in the military and um at that. And I just thought, oh, surely like a team would take me on they know I'll train and I'll show up, you know ready to go but they would not take me on. I said, go get your ass to this like training course in Mount Baker and then, and then we'll talk. Do you even know what a crampon is? Which I did not. So I actually did need that course. So I went and did that, got my butt kicked on that mountain. We didn't even make it halfway up, we just got socked in. The weather was so bad and all my stuff was wet and it was. It was miserable, but like it's that type two fun, you know that uh.
Speaker 3:I didn't like for so many years like I love type two fun, like it was the most delicious thing, like from I think that's, you know, when I started marathon running at West Point actually is when I realized that like, oh, like if I run up this hill so fast that my legs literally are like burning, like something about that. Like at a certain point it crossed over into kind of feeling like it tickled. I don't know how to explain it. I don't think this is a healthy thing, but that was the feeling that I chased for so many years and all these extreme kind of things. And so that first trip to Mount Baker did not turn me off to mountaineering. It actually made me more excited to go to Denali and then from there went and climbed all these other mountains and then from there I went and climbed all these other mountains. I did Everest back in 2019.
Speaker 3:But I think that the things that actually attracted me to mountaineering were I got to do something physical, so I felt like I was being fit, getting a workout in. That was something that was really important to me for a long time, every day, and it was like a big mission to train for. That was kind of like a vacation because you're traveling somewhere, you're part of this team with like a high stakes mission to get to the top of this mountain and back, and that's you know. You don't have to worry about work while you're here, none of that matters, you don't even have any cell phone reception. It's just that, and certain elements of that, reminded me of, like, the best parts of being in the army, the best parts of being on deployment, like the things that I really missed.
Speaker 3:So, and above all, like you're outdoors, I'm not like working out in the gym, I'm like working out with the most beautiful view a person could imagine, and some of these views that's the only way you'll ever get to see them is you have to like physically, you know, get your butt over there, um, with your own two feet.
Speaker 3:So, um, so yeah, all of that really I was. It's funny, though, like kind of taking us back to where we started with this conversation. I read this book once that was all about like strained mother-daughter relationships, and it had this line that was like some daughters have to like go be a CEO to feel like they're worthy, some daughters have to go do something else and some daughters have to climb to the top of Mountest and hang upside down to finally get their moms to love that or think that their moms will love them, or something like that, and that this was like a year after I'd climbed everest. That just felt like a smack in the face because I thought, oh my gosh, is that why I've been doing this stuff?
Speaker 2:there's an addiction to the suffering, like. I can relate to that because that's what drew me to ultra running and to like alpinism and to high endurance sports. You know, because you like obviously had to run a lot of marathons to train for ultras and to run them professionally. Like you know, you're consistently just sitting on your body and it's interesting because there's a beauty in that. There's like something so amazing being able to travel so far with your two feet. And then also, like you know I've said this on the show before it's just like there's a little bit of like running away from shit. You can hide in the physical exertion, you know, because it just it sort of like is a little bit of medicine on some level and there's some good and bad parts of it. You know you can get addicted to it and you can like not deal with your shit and just keep climbing every mountain and it's got to be another mountain and another goal, because, you know, but there's a beautiful part of it too and I appreciate you talking about that because, uh, when you just kind of casually just grazed over, like you got to the top of Everest and most I mean majority of human beings will never even get close to a mountain that high. Obviously, um, and that's, that's a feat in of itself, but it's just, it's really inspiring because I think, obviously as a woman, like saying like hey, I'm going to do this on my, I'm doing this, you know, like no matter, no matter what, I'm engaging this in something you don't come from.
Speaker 2:It's not like you come from an alpinist family. You know a lot of younger people that get into it. They come from alpine years. They come from people that live in the mountains. You didn't come from that, you got into this all on your own. And that's same with me. Like my mom climbed a little bit where I grew up in Arizona, but not not like a climber, climber, but I got into climbing and just, I've always been into, like you know, climb, um, and it's uh, it's definitely uh. It's now that I miss it so much because of the shoulder and I'm hoping I can get back to it at some level at some day. Like it just again, every time I go somewhere and see mountains, I'm climbing like man. What a beautiful experience to be able to have been up there right, to have to have experienced that, um, yeah sophie, I appreciate you coming on and sharing so much dude?
Speaker 3:Well, thank you for having me. This is a blast Finish that thought though no, I was just going to say that I think, um, yeah, I don't come from a long line of mountaineers by any stretch of the imagination, but I do come from a long line of people who have suffered a lot and I think, um, something like that is, you know, I feel like that's kind of been the theme of my life is I could out suffer anyone. But I don't really want to do that anymore.
Speaker 3:I just want to I don't want, I don't, I don't have to and I don't choose to. So, um, and as far as like all these mountains, like, I've heard this line a lot. But you know, at the day you climb all these mountains but one day you have to realize the mountain is you, you are the thing that you need to climb, to face, to deal with. There's no number of mountains you can run up and down. That's going to make that go away.
Speaker 2:I was just going to ask you to leave us with something, and that is it Boom Perfect. I knew you were going to come through. Leave us with something, and that is it Boom Perfect. I knew you were going to come through, I didn't have to say it, you just read my mind. Just deliver the gold, okay.
Speaker 2:The one last thing is how can people connect with you? They want to buy your skincare stuff or they want to follow you on social media, like, if they want to, you know, see more of your, your writings, or follow up in your life, like, where can they go to to read about you? To connect, yeah, to read about to connect.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I'd say the main place is my Instagram Instagram at Sophie Hilaire Instagram. Um and uh. Then soul and soil you can find from my Instagram, but it's spelled soul like the capital of South Korea, s E O U L. Um. Yeah, and that's kind of the main places for now Soul and soulcom. I've got a Shopify store. Um, yeah, there's plays on my link tree on my Instagram, but everything pretty much just go to Instagram. Everything is from.
Speaker 2:I just realized I butchered your name on the intro. I said Sophie Hillary, because I just completely so many people say it that way. I will get it right in the intro. I'm just like that is hilarious. That is totally not Hillary. The I is not there. Okay, note to self ask before. I usually do that, but I was like this is an easy name to say no, it's not Well, sophie dude, thank you so much.
Speaker 2:I totally want to meet you in person and give you a big hug. I am inspired by your story. It's been great to connect and get to know you. It's just cool to call your friend and would love to, you know, just go out there and see your place in Kentucky and and hang out and chat more and have you back on too. I mean, I could sit here and fricking co-host episodes with you, like you are one of the rare human beings I've met that have such a rich life experience and comes from all and I don't know. There's just something about you that I'm like I need to talk to this woman more and I just want to have more conversations with her. You know, because you've been through so much.
Speaker 3:Well, I could say the same about you. I think we actually do have our lives don't look exactly the same, but there's so many similarities and things I can relate to that you share. So, um, yeah, come on down or we'll get the vehicles together and go on a trip sometime. Looking forward to it. I wish people could realize all their dreams and wealth and fame so that they could see that it's not where you're going to find your sense of completion.
Speaker 2:Everything you gain in life will rot and fall apart, and all that will be left of you is what was in your heart.