Watch the full video of our conversation on the Spread Great Ideas YouTube channel.

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Full Transcript of Our Conversation

Introduction and Entrepreneurial Backstory

00:03.59 – Brian David Crane

Cool. All right. Please welcome my friend Jan Willem to the show. He’s the founder of Bright Horizon, which he started after visiting Medellin, Colombia. He’s a great entrepreneur story we’re going to get into in the podcast. He’s a long-term adventurer.

Jokingly, I tell him that he’s an underwear model because in my opinion, he’s the Dutch version of Tim Ferriss. And unlike Tim, though, Jan Willem speaks five languages. So there’s that. We’re to jamming on lifestyle design, values alignment,

Esoteric personal growth, doing business across borders, think the Caribbean and Latin America and the EU, and the most important question is why do you do what you do? We’re going to get into that. So Jan Willem, great to have you. Let’s get cracking. Cool!

00:48.12 – Janwillem de Kwaasteniet

Yeah, nice man. So thanks for having me on this podcast. Glad to do it, yeah.

00:53.05 – Brian David Crane

So explain to people what Bright Horizon is and how you started it.

01:00.02 – Janwillem de Kwaasteniet

Yeah, so basically I started at Bright Horizon from a feeling that I wanted to start my own business because I used to work in, before becoming an entrepreneur, I worked in São Paulo in Brazil in the frozen food business, which was a super nice job because I had like the Latin American market and the Caribbean. So I could hop from island to island through the Caribbean, which was, I don’t know, I was a young young boy living in São Paulo, living as a king in Brazil.

But, something in me wanted to become my own captain. So I decided to quit my job at this company and go traveling with my former girlfriend and we actually made like a pact. The pact was we’re going traveling, exploring, but we’re not gonna get back without a business plan. There was definitely a purpose. So we traveled, and we started in Cancun.

Well, we started there, we we didn’t see Cancun, but we went south straight up, traveled through Central America, Latin America and then actually and we entered in Cartagena which is a super nice Hispanic colonial town in the Colombian Caribbean, and there we encountered some business opportunity in textiles and that’s where Bright Horizon got its first glance.

02:48.05 – Brian David Crane

What I’m envisioning is that you and your girlfriend, you’re backpacking, right? So you bounce into Cartagena and you two start going to local tiendas or you start visiting manufacturers, start knocking on doors. Like how do you go from? In my mind, you’ve got the backpackers who are staying at hostels who are there party to know we’re actually here.

03:13.05 – Janwillem de Kwaasteniet

Yeah..

03:14.28 – Brian David Crane

To scout business opportunities. What did that look like?

Launching a Business in Colombian Textiles

03:17.08 – Janwillem de Kwaasteniet

So we basically did both, right? We strolled down these beautiful old streets and then we found some stores. We ran into a few lingerie stores. And we were like, okay, this is something else. This might be a business opportunity to import these brands into Europe.

So we actually, we were walking into the store, chit-chatting in Spanish with the ladies that work there and ask for the phone number of the factory so yeah. And in this store it was just called the factory, and I was like, okay can I speak with the international sales manager? whatsoever..

And they happened to be super enthusiastic and they told us like straight up we’re in Medellin. Please visit us. Come over and so we decided, okay, we go to Medellin, but we first wanted to make a loop through Venezuela to travel a bit longer.

And then we came back and went to Medellin and there we started to visiting the factories.

04:27.03 – Brian David Crane

Yep.

04:28.01 – Janwillem de Kwaasteniet

And Medellin was, well, turned out to be the Latin American capital of textiles, which we had no clue of. So from there on, we started. We saw some nice men’s underwear brands and started to talk with them. And we visited like, I don’t know, probably like a dozen factories. And with the one but the ones we had the best feeling with and that had the best conditions, we basically started working. So we decided to start with an import structure of lingerie and swimwear for women, of course.
And then on the other side, we started an underwear online store. Back then, like 14 years ago, the e-comm was still in its early years.

05:25.76 – Brian David Crane

Yeah, but you’re doing this, you guys don’t necessarily know if you have a market yet in Europe.

05:30.14 – Janwillem de Kwaasteniet

Yeah, right true that.

05:31.53 – Brian David Crane

So you’re sitting there across the the table from somebody in Medellin who’s like, yeah, cool, you can place an order for, I know, a thousand pieces or a hundred pieces or whatever the number was.

05:40.00 – Janwillem de Kwaasteniet

Yeah, yeah..

05:41.53 – Brian David Crane

And you and your girlfriend go like, okay, cool, we’re gonna do this. But how did you guys take care of the sell side in Europe? Like, you find the supply. Were you actually confident that you were actually gonna be able to sell when you got into Europe?

05:58.30 – Janwillem de Kwaasteniet

Yeah, I know. that We went into this market like completely carte blanche. And I’m like that. No research, no. Well we did, we made a business plan but business plans are always and they’re opportunistic, right? They have a sense of irrealism in it.

06:16.43 – Brian David Crane

Yeah, it turns always up.

06:18.21 – Janwillem de Kwaasteniet

It turns always up, and you’re like okay, the biggest threat is that we run out of stock within 2 weeks. Yeah It’s like that so you well of course, there’s a lot of wishful thinking in that. And It’s a personality thing, right? Like a lot of people will never start because they think too heavily about stuff and I think too easily, which also can be a pitfall or a downfall.

But in this case, it made me start, and I didn’t, basically I didn’t have a backdoor. I mean, I just, I went into this business and I always told like, either way it’s going to be successful no matter what.

06:59.52 – Brian David Crane

And burn bridges.

07:01.36 – Janwillem de Kwaasteniet

Yeah, burn the bridges. Yeah, exactly. Keep that back door closed.

07:05.54 – Brian David Crane

Yeah..

07:06.00 – Janwillem de Kwaasteniet

You got that out. There’s no key to get out of it, and it was hard. And also, the sales side was super hard. We started selling to lingerie stores in the Netherlands and in the Belgium exhibition and we were on exhibitions and we did a lot of work to become a bit popular.

But with the women’s lingerie, it was a really difficult market.

07:33.02 – Brian David Crane

As you told me before the show, there’s a lot of different shapes.

07:36.08 – Janwillem de Kwaasteniet

There’s a lot. Yeah man. Especially with our North European women, they tend to have different sizes. So, yeah. There’s so much types and varieties. As for Colombian brands, they have less sizes and some more plastic as well, which makes it easier and less technical to create a nice bra. So yeah, we completely, I think we completely underestimated the difficulty of that market.

So we went in carte blanche, which is and so at some point you have to do that, if you want to start, right? But it cost a lot of money. It was a lot of learning money

08:26.02 – Brian David Crane

Did you both put in money or was it your money? Or she was..

08:28.45 – Janwillem de Kwaasteniet

Both, like we went in together, okay so we burned a lot of euros back then, but on the other side the men’s underwear store started growing and so we saw lot of opportunity potential there so started to focus more on

08:52.09 – Brian David Crane

And that was G2C, that was going direct to consumer, that was wholesaling the men’s underwear.

Building and Scaling Bright Horizon

08:58.07 – Janwillem de Kwaasteniet

Exactly. that was e-comm.. Yeah.

09:02.00 – Brian David Crane

To the consumer..

09:02.47 – Janwillem de Kwaasteniet

To the consumer, yeah. And at some point we started distributing as well, but that came basically organically like we started selling directly, then stores, they called us like can we sell that brand and so we started also wholesaling part. And now it’s a combination, while e-comm is the most important, like 80%, I guess, of the business, and then 20% is wholesale.

09:27.82 – Brian David Crane

Yeah. And so where did the name Bright Horizon come from then?

09:41.27 – Janwillem de Kwaasteniet

Well, back in the days, we started the company named Koda Moda, like Moda, Mola Colombia, the fashion of Colombia, and Bright Horizon. I think I went over to a BV 2 years ago.

10:01.88 – Brian David Crane

Yeah.

10:01.88 – Janwillem de Kwaasteniet

And that was called Bright Horizon basically, because I wanted to create like an umbrella. And under that umbrella, we could do like lots of different things. I don’t want to stick to one specific category whatsoever.

And I think for the next decade or two, we’re gonna do a lot of different entrepreneurial things and Brighter Horizon is more, I think it’s more like a personal thing. I like to look at life with a positive look to it. And I always see even though there’s lots of hills, there’s always a lot of mountains, but there’s always a bright horizon after it, behind it.

10:55.50 – Brian David Crane

Yeah, if you can stand the darkness. If you can, exactly. But I guess I can always stand the darkness..

10:58.18 – Janwillem de Kwaasteniet

Yeah exactly. But I guess I can always tend to go out and see, there’s always light. There’s always something bright in the darkest moments in life. There’s always brightness. And I think I wanted to, it’s more like an extension of your personal philosophy.

11:23.02 – Brian David Crane

Really.. And then I think you want Bright Horizon to be the holding company that underneath it are different facets of your empire. Let’s say..

10:31.23 – Janwillem de Kwaasteniet

Yeah. That’s a nice word empire. Let’s work towards an empire.

11:39.43 – Brian David Crane

I mean you get how many different e-commerce brands you have running out of your empire?

11:45.11 – Janwillem de Kwaasteniet

We have like 4 stores now. We just acquired a new one, 2 or 3 weeks ago. It’s a good story.

11:54.12 – Brian David Crane

How did that acquisition come about?

11:56.09 – Janwillem de Kwaasteniet

So I think a few years ago was like, okay, how like growing in e-comm is not super easy and I must admit that I’m not super good in marketing. I’m a generalist, I can do lots of different things, but I’m not a specialist. And I think if you want to be really good in e-comm, you should be a specialist. Well, that’s my sense.

And what I noticed is that, like, I’m not able to grow with marketing campaigns that at some point I started acquiring companies and I acquired.. This was the 5th company.

And in the beginning some small ones, but they help and they grow with it. And some are integrated into the other brands we have, and some are still

12:53.12 – Brian David Crane

Stand alone..

12:54.00 – Janwillem de Kwaasteniet

Stand-alone. So I noticed, okay, this works well. Acquiring companies is a good way to grow.

13:03.32 – Brian David Crane

But you went and knocked on the guy’s door, right?

13:06.82 – Janwillem de Kwaasteniet

So it was at some point I decided I’m going to have a buy and build strategy. so next few years we want to acquire a few other e-comm stores and then become a big player that’s that way and so this particular store and well the owner is a baby boomer and there’s lots of businesses owned by baby boomers that someday have they have to retire right and I think the young people are always looking at starting a new business

And acquiring an existing business is not that popular, but I think there’s lots of opportunities there. And so with this man, yeah, at some point I called him, like, would you like to share a coffee? And we went for a coffee.

And I told him that we’re interested in acquiring companies or joint ventures whatsoever. And so we started talking. And I think after a year, one and a half year, he he called me back and he said, like,

Yeah, I would like to retire. So what do you need from me? And then, we started to do diligence and all those things. And we got to an agreement about 2 weeks ago.

So it’s been quite a busy time. Yeah. have to say.

14:30.24 – Brian David Crane

Well, I think that from and from a business perspective, the nice part was you’re the only one at the table. You didn’t call anybody else. Or maybe he did. I don’t know. You were the one who..

14:38.25 – Janwillem de Kwaasteniet

Yeah, I don’t think so.

14:39.34 – Brian David Crane

And you came up with the deal that he was happy with and that you’re happy with. Yeah, I guess, you guess that he’s happy with it?

14:43.16 – Janwillem de Kwaasteniet

Yeah, I guess..

14:46.34 – Brian David Crane

You guess that he’s happy with it?

14:48.16 – Janwillem de Kwaasteniet

I’m happy with it. I guess that he’s happy. Yeah he agreed on it.

14:52.50 – Brian David Crane

Happy enough.

14:53.42 – Janwillem de Kwaasteniet

He’s probably happy. Yeah it’s cool. I like the process of starting to talk about it and then you know being patient, and then at some point you have to really want it, and then make it work.

Sustainable Product Experiments and Lessons Learned

14:53.51 – Brian David Crane

So you have an interest in where Latin America and the EU or where Latin America and Europe meet, right? So let’s say importing from Latin America or manufacturing in Latin America and then bring it into Europe as a destination or as a market. Are there other products or other niches that you like that you’re actively looking at?

15:41.23 – Janwillem de Kwaasteniet

Yeah I think like 1 or 2 years ago, me and my two friends, we almost started a brand in tea made from waste products, made from the cherry of the coffee fruit. There’s a cherry around it, they throw it into nature, it’s pollution basically. But this cherry is full of antioxidants and it’s a superfood and will get into the market in the next few years.

And nobody heard of it yet, but we really went deep into that also. So we wanted to create a tea brand made from waste actually, also the chocolate bean and has a little cascara, like the shell around it, and which is also super nice to use for teas so we were looking into agricultural products.

I went a few times to coffee plantations and chocolate plantations mainly in Colombia, and I like it when things come from the earth. And also it’s very easy to support the local farmers in a better way than they’ve been supported so far. So if you buy waste products, then instantly these guys can increase their turnover with 15 or 20%.

Which makes life, yeah, but makes guys so much. That’s more kind of something I have more feeling for or more like a hard connection with because you’re actually selling something which comes from the earth or something, I don’t know how to explain that, but it gives a different dimension to, I think, to your distance.

So that’s something I would, at some point, not sure if it’s gonna be this, because we didn’t start with it, because we did like a research, tasting research, and basically we came out with a 6.5 as grade, 6.5 out 10. So like people didn’t really like it and if people didn’t really like it they were not really gonna buy it, and those were friends and family and..

18:08.24 – Brian David Crane

If you take away the fact that they know you and don’t want to disappoint you too much..

18:12.00 – Janwillem de Kwaasteniet

They will be probably reified yeah, so for us that really was it was a no-go which was a pity because I loved the product but I’m not sure if it would have been a success so that’s also i think

Those are parts of the entrepreneurial way that you have taste, you have to try, have to investigate, and sometimes you have to say no. It’s just not easy.

18:38.38 – Brian David Crane

But do you do you look at it and say, for instance, that part of your story that I know prior to the podcast is that you were you were living in the, I think you also were living in tower, or you were also spending time in the northern part of Brazil, in addition to Sao Paulo.

Lifestyle Design and the Freedom of Entrepreneurship

18:55.27 – Brian David Crane

You did go to Colombia. But from what I know, your first love is really Brazil in Latin America.

19:03.09 – Janwillem de Kwaasteniet

Yeah, true.

19:05.28 – Brian David Crane

And so do you look at it and go, I would really like to do a business in this country. And then you go look in that country for something that you can sell in Europe. That’s not what happened with Bright Horizon in the sense of like, you didn’t lock in on Columbia initially because you hadn’t been there prior to deciding you wanted to buy product and import from there.

But nowadays, when you think about, okay, cool, like I want to go, I would really like to spend some more time in Brazil. And where I’m going with this question is that, partially, what I see with your business is lifestyle design and sort of an intentionality around I want to travel, I also want to do business, and I want to do both of them well.

And so then you go, okay, cool. Travel, business, doing both well, and I really want to travel to this place. So I really want to spend more time in Brazil, so I need to figure out..

20:03:12 – Janwillem de Kwaasteniet

What kind of business I can do? Yeah, I think it works like that.

20:09.23 – Brian David Crane

Yeah, go ahead.

20:10.74 – Janwillem de Kwaasteniet

Yeah, so I’ve been looking into, well, already 10 years ago. I was looking into possibilities, in textiles in Brazil, but they don’t have very good brands but yes, I think you spend so much time of your life working, so it better be good. It is better to be with people you like to spend time with. It’s better to be with people that you respect, and I prefer to make less money with a factory where you have a good relationship with, than to make a shitload of money with a company that I don’t like, yeah.

So I think and yeah that’s kind of a lifestyle thing. Also for me, I started an e-comm as it’s a lifestyle business. Basically, my intention was creating a company which I could run remotely, which would give me personal freedom to do all the things in life and go on adventures as much as I can. It has been a lifestyle business the last 13 years. I would say, and it created a lot of freedom. I could have like lost 8 or 9 years.

I’ve been traveling 5 months a year, going on super cool adventures all the time.

21:40.01 – Brian David Crane

And for multi-month adventures, like long long stretches..

21:43.42 – Janwillem de Kwaasteniet

As well. Yeah I’ve always had my last 10 years, I’ve been living from Scheveningen, which is a super nice beachy town for those guys that don’t know it in the Netherlands.

Probably the American crowd will not know Scheveningen. Yeah. They can easily try to pronounce it, but it would be difficult.

22:03.34 – Brian David Crane

It’s hard to imagine that..

22:05.03 – Janwillem de Kwaasteniet

Yeah, so this is the base. It’s my base town. I have been by base town for 10 years. I’ve been at least traveling like five or 6 months a year. And sometimes I stay 2months in Brazil, a month in Cape Town, or a month there, a month there. And yeah, I just love to go on adventures. And so that was, so it has been a lifestyle business and I’ve got the feeling that it’s moving in towards something different now, as like we just talked about it as well.

I don’t get that much energy more from the traveling and the and the adventures so I’m looking into settling down a bit more and also working a bit more like I get a lot of energy from this new acquisition and I love to grow the company and make Bright Horizon bigger and feel like I’m moved and triggered to to move this forward.

Whereas the last couple of years I’ve been very laid back. I’m like, okay, this company is supporting me and that’s enough. and I can move around, I can do everything I like, but that’s enough. And now I feel like, okay, I want to grow. I want to fulfill the potential. My personal but potential, but also Bright Horizons potential.

Tim Ferriss, Mindset Shifts, and Redefining Success

23.32.06 – Brian David Crane

Yeah, and I think you and I both like Tim Ferriss, right? Both inspired by the 4-hour work week and other parts of his work. And I think that’s also what’s interesting in his trajectory is he’s now settled down. He lives in Austin, Texas.

23:51.12 – Janwillem de Kwaasteniet

He has some babies?

23.32.06 – Brian David Crane

I don’t think he has kids. I think the allure of long-term travel or skill acquisition, in his case, was learning tango and some other stuff.

24:07.23 – Janwillem de Kwaasteniet

Yep.

24:08.09 – Brian David Crane

And one of the things I admire, I mean you speak 5 languages. The ability to go like having the time and the mental space to go really deep on a particular topic that’s not work-related. That was always part of the draw to me of the 4-hour workweek. But then you kind of get to the end of it and go, yeah, okay, cool. I kind of scratched the itch of most of the stuff I really wanted to do, at least in my 30s or 20s or whatever it is.

And then, yeah, you start coming back to your business and going, this thing’s kind of always been sitting over here, running along, paying the bills, but now let me actually see what I can do with it because it’s, yeah, it’s like the, what’s the right term for it?

24:57.31 – Janwillem de Kwaasteniet

Well, it’s just kind of a waste to not fulfill that. And through that, like I think, well, the 4-hour work week has been quite an inspiration, I think, for lots of guys in the e-comm business, right? Or the digital nomads or the freedom seekers of the world. And I think yeah wealth is not just about money.

Wealth is about creating a healthy body, a healthy mind, and healthy relationships, love, spending time with your family, with your friends, money and work. It’s a wheel with, what’s the name for that?

25:48.39 – Brian David Crane

Trying to balance all of them? Yeah. Or the ferris wheel?

25:51.23 – Janwillem de Kwaasteniet

No, I mean like the speaks. No, I’m not sure how you say but you have the wheel and then there is more. Well, I’m not sure how to say that. Don’t worry, yeah, I will find a word.

26:04.72 – Brian David Crane

It’s okay.

26:05.80 – Janwillem de Kwaasteniet

After the podcast. No worries. But there’s more to it than just money..

26:12.34 – Brian David Crane

Yeah. You want to see, I think you did yeah you come back and you go, yeah, I want to see what I can do with this business now,

26:18.80 – Janwillem de Kwaasteniet

Yeah. More focusing on that.

26:22.00 – Brian David Crane

Yeah. And I think probably in your case, the fact that you have existing relationships that these people, they like what you do, they’ve welcomed you into their.. I don’t know about their homes, but their lives..

26:37.12 – Janwillem de Kwaasteniet

Yeah, for sure. I always stay with the supplier there.

26:39.43 – Brian David Crane

Crazy. Yeah.

26:37.12 – Janwillem de Kwaasteniet

Staying there however long I want to stay, 1 week, 2 weeks there. They’re super, super awesome. Yeah. and super nice people. Welcome, super welcoming. Yeah. It’s very warm..

26:55.35 – Brian David Crane

But I think it gives your life some more meaning in the sense of, When you go to that factory and you sit there, and you go, cool, if I can help sell more of this product, it means that these people will, they’re either, they’re gonna have more money, because there’s, like, this business is gonna do better, there’s there’s more that can be hired, or they get paid more and that’s a real motivator.

Purpose-Driven Business and Community Impact

27:19.54 – Janwillem de Kwaasteniet

I think that’s the spark of the business. Because sometimes it can.. Well, honestly speaking, frankly speaking, it can feel a bit shallow. E-comm because you’re just behind your computer, you’re seeing orders coming in from people that have names, but you don’t actually look your customers in their eyes. And yeah, it feels a bit shallow. Like I can sell the underwear, but somebody else can do it as well. So why should I do it?

But yeah, true that, like when I go in the factories, the communities that are based around the factories and the way the factories we work with treat their people, and yeah, that’s for me one of the reasons that I’m still doing it.

I think if it wasn’t for that, I would have quit at some point. I would have sold it already. But I also feel, well, kind of a responsibility, but also some kind of proudness to work with these people and I like to see them having a good life, both the workers and the factories as the owners as the entire community is based around those factories

28:40.12 – Brian David Crane

Who do you admire in a business sense?

28:48.04 – Janwillem de Kwaasteniet

Richard Branson. Yeah, for sure because I think he’s a great entrepreneur and he’s going on adventures all the time. I think this combination of being out there, going on adventures, learning about yourself, but also about others, and meanwhile building up, yeah, super big companies.

29:11.45 – Brian David Crane

And see you want to have your own neck or island? He has his own island. I don’t know if you know that..

29:16.04 – Janwillem de Kwaasteniet

Yeah I know, well I don’t aspire to have my own island, but it would be nice to keep on and do business and also always keep this playfulness in life. Whenever even though it’s really busy or I don’t know, you’re in the middle of another acquisition and super intense and lots of work that needs to be done.

Always keep that playfulness around, goals for adventures and go out to the gym or and like I remember like somebody who asked him, like what’s the most important ingredient of your success? and just said sports, because with sports you can let things go. You get to create…

30:21:03 – Brian David Crane

Totally immersed in the game.

Daily Routine, Fitness, and Mental Practices

30:22.17 – Janwillem de Kwaasteniet

Yeah, and also great ideas. They are exit or they are planned. When I go to sports, sometimes I have a question and I don’t have the answer yet, but I start running or going to the gym with a question and I end up with the answer. You plant a seed and then..

30:49:53 – Brian David Crane

Yeah, some deep in the subconscious.

30:50.47 – Janwillem de Kwaasteniet

Yeah, and afterwards you get your plans, and I like it. I also like to do sports basically every day. It keeps me going, gives me the energy and gets me going.

31:05.02 – Brian David Crane

Yeah, and what does a day look like for you? like Let’s say a work day. And I say work day because it’s a day, doesn’t necessarily need to fall in the work week, it’s just more a day that you know you’re going to work. Yeah, what does that tip look like?

31:27.25 – Janwillem de Kwaasteniet

It would mainly start with or we’re going to the gym. Most of the days, I go to the gym straight up. Well I have one coffee then go to the gym. go back, have some breakfast or not, have a shower and then go to work. Most of the time I’m having lunch or coffee with a friend or somebody in my network.

31:56.08 – Brian David Crane

To bike I mean, You’re biking from your house to here where we’re doing the interview. Aren’t you also meditating in the morning, sometimes?

32:06:44 – Janwillem de Kwaasteniet

Yeah, also when I’m not going to the gym I normally meditate, but now, I’m living with my girlfriend for a few months. And the house is a bit too small, so when I used to live alone it was very easy to.. Every morning, I started with a meditation of 15 minutes or something which really helps me to start my day

32:33.92 – Brian David Crane

Mentally in the right place.

32:44:00 – Janwillem de Kwaasteniet

Yeah, exactly. Zooms out and also very content, so it really helped me.

00:32:44.23 – Brian David Crane

Is this like a gratitude practice?

32:46:63 – Janwillem de Kwaasteniet

I think it’s more and it’s an expression of the inner world, get expressed in the outer world. And the inner world is very good, but sometimes you have to close your eyes to feel that goodness. And then the meditation comes out, okay. So I think I get into the meditation with a certain feeling and I go out more zoomed out or more happy.

So it makes the day better.

33:17.45 – Brian David Crane

Yeah, okay. And when did you start doing this?

32:22:63 – Janwillem de Kwaasteniet

A couple of years ago. Probably like 6, 7 years. I think like but the beginning of my 30s, I started meditating with guiding meditations,s and I already noticed like okay this is working for me, it helps me and then at some point I did a Vipassana for 7 days Portugal and since then it was like 5 years ago I guess and it was a super nice experience and afterwards I didn’t stop meditating, like I did it every every day basically.

And just in silence. Like before I would do guided meditations, but if you do like Vipassana, you meditate probably like 8 hours a day and you really learn to sit in silence and one gets to value the silence.

34:15.78 – Brian David Crane

Externally and internally.

34:17.00 – Janwillem de Kwaasteniet

Yeah. You don’t need that guiding. So that’s preferred, sometimes if you have 5 minutes, 5 minutes can be enough to reset yourself and then sometimes a guiding meditation is better more effectively but for me like just sitting in silence is more peaceful.

34:43.25 – Brian David Crane

Yeah. Are you doing this also when you’re traveling?

34:48.10 – Janwillem de Kwaasteniet

I always try to keep the routine while traveling. It doesn’t necessarily have to be meditating, but it needs to be some kind of meditation or sports. Or..

35:01.34 – Brian David Crane

But first thing in the morning, basically. Before.

35:03.56 – Janwillem de Kwaasteniet

Yeah, most of the time. Wherever I’m traveling, I always try to go to hit the gym or always have my running shoes with me, running or doing some HIIT training,whatsoever. But I always keep on going.

00:35:19.31 – Brian David Crane

Yeah.

35:20.21 – Janwillem de Kwaasteniet

I like it, I also need it, because life for me, life’s better when you’ve created the Dopamine, you create the Serotonin, Dopamine, and yourself, it makes the day better. Yeah. Don’t you think?

35:36.73 – Brian David Crane

Yeah, yeah..

35:37.21 – Janwillem de Kwaasteniet

How much sports do you do? Like, is it a daily thing for you?

35:41.47 – Brian David Crane

Well, I was as you were saying this, I was thinking back to you and I both have a mutual affinity for Cape Town, and one of the things I just loved in South Africa was the light in the mornings. If there’s a certain, there’s something special about that light and in South Africa. I would get up and I would go for a run into Tegel Mountain in the National Park.

36:07.14 – Janwillem de Kwaasteniet

Yeah, cool. But where were you?

36:08.51 – Brian David Crane

Yeah we’re in Camps Bay.

36:10.25 – Janwillem de Kwaasteniet

Okay, Camps Bay. That’s amazing. and Man, that’s lovely.

36:14.05 – Brian David Crane

It’s super nice. It was such a nice way to start the day. I wouldn’t have a coffee beforehand, but I’d basically get up, have a bit of water, and get out the door. yeah No phone. It’s just my own time. And I would also always come back to the same thing when we were in the Dominican Republic this past winter. It was just such a nice way to start the day, especially getting up in time for maybe not sunrise, but at least before other people are up.

And I felt like ah was… Yeah, like it was meditative in the sense that it set me in a very good mental place.

Love for Latin America and Language Immersion

36:53.42 – Janwillem de Kwaasteniet

Yeah, and especially with those views, like I’ve been staying at Kemp’s Bay as well. And yeah, it’s amazing. The National Park area, you can walk up all the way and get them to the table of mountain. It’s incredible. The views are amazing. Yeah, it’s a beautiful city

37:10.82 – Brian David Crane

But even I mean.. I think it’s just the same wiring of.. As I’ve gotten older that I don’t want to immediately get up and get onto the phone I think it’s like such a bad habit so I intentionally don’t.. Yeah, you leave it off, I leave it off. I leave it in another room. I have broken that now recently because I’ve started wearing aura ring. I’’m always curious about what my sleep score is.

37:42.32 – Janwillem de Kwaasteniet

Data analyst.

37:33.22 – Brian David Crane

Yeah,but generally speaking, I try to like, just leave it and go.

37:55.28 – Janwillem de Kwaasteniet

Yeah, it’s the best, right? Yeah, you don’t want to, I don’t know, somehow, even though the messages are positive and nice, it still gives me some kind of anxious feeling in the morning. I’m not ready for it. I also prefer to leave it off until I’m at work. But it doesn’t always work, right? But yeah, it’s better to go less with phone, and especially in the morning.

38:24.01 – Brian David Crane

Yeah, try to trim it back. So why do you think it is that you care about personal freedom or personal sovereignty? Like, is it something and why I say that is, you grew up in the south and in the Southern part of the Netherlands. And I often joke, my wife is Dutch. I often joke about the total addressable market of the Netherlands or Benelux is only about 18 to 20 million people as far as Dutch speakers go.

And I am including the Flemish in that, so what the Dutch seem to do is they learn another language, they go build businesses that serve the wider world. But like the Netherlands is the number one country in the world for English as a spoken language, as a second language, even more so than Singapore, where it’s an official language of Singapore.

The Dutch out-tested the natives in Singapore with English. So anyways, the point I’m making is that what was your entrepreneurial journey in the sense of the push for personal freedom? Like, why is it that you cared about that?

39:40.41 – Janwillem de Kwaasteniet

Yeah, I’m thinking out loud. I remember when I was like 12, I started doing windsurfing. And we had like a local windsurf club at the big Sa Barra, you notice like a safari basic mountains in English. It’s a very small lake and there is like a safari park around it with lions and all kinds of savannah animals. Yeah, it’s close to Tilburg actually. And I went there since I was 12, went windsurfing there.

So during my high school I spent most of my days at the windsurf club. and I didn’t go home and play video games. I always went there even though there was no wind. You had boats, drove the boat, we went out biking, we had beach volleyball there and played a lot of sports and when there was wind we were windsurfing.

And yeah, there was a bar, I was behind the bar from like 12 or 13 years old.Yeah I was tapping beers for the club members. It was a different era, right? Like nowadays, they have rules and regulations and you have to be at least 18 to serve somebody’s beer. I was 12, 13 and I went in there and we’re all like older blokes. All like probably like 6, 8 years, 10 years older. They became my friends. And it was very free. Everybody was older.

41:29.71 – Brian David Crane

But was it all men?

41:31.47 – Janwillem de Kwaasteniet

Yeah, most of them. There were some girls, but sporadically yeah they visited. So it was mainly men. And I think it was a super free and beautiful era, I would say. So I think that triggered me. And also… Yeah, my uncle, the brother of my mother, he always came back when I was a youngster.

When I was like 8 or 9. He always came back with pictures of… He went on a safari in Tanzania, he went to Volcano Lake in Ecuador, or he went to China or Colombia or Brazil and he always came back with pictures.

42:17.60 – Brian David Crane

Yeah and tell you the stories?

00:42:19.25 – Janwillem de Kwaasteniet

And he told me the stories and he showed me pictures of pumas and lions and I think I was super intrigued by that. So I think that has been a trigger. And also my grandfather was sailing on a boat going to the east and to the west. He was on a boat and he always came back with pictures of Rio de Janeiro in the 15s. So I think he had an adventurous spirit. Yeah.

42:52.68 – Brian David Crane

So he was going around like the Cape of Good Hope and going to the Dutch East Indies or what?

42:59.50 – Janwillem de Kwaasteniet

Yeah, I think he went to the Indies, to South America. I think that also triggered me. I don’t know. I was always different in that sense. I always wanted to go in on adventures, to go surfing and have personal freedom. Yeah, but..

Early Travel, Work Ethic, and First Ventures

43:22.91 – Brian David Crane

But, you’re one of three, right?

43:23.20 – Janwillem de Kwaasteniet

Yeah.

43:25.24 – Brian David Crane

Yeah. What about your siblings? Are they also entrepreneurs?

43:29.52 – Janwillem de Kwaasteniet

My brother is a nuclear scientist specialist. What’s that?

43:35.12 – Brian David Crane

Not an entrepreneur?

43:37.04 – Janwillem de Kwaasteniet

Not an entrepreneur. He’s a specialist. I’m a generalist. He’s a specialist. So we’re like we’re completely opposites in that sense. And my sister is in PR and communication.

43:48.14 – Brian David Crane

Okay.

43:37.04 – Janwillem de Kwaasteniet

So we’re completely different in that sense. Yeah, so I’m not. I think also my father, he told me about my grandfather, his father. He was a farmer, but also very entrepreneurial. Always talking to the people in the village they lived in. He was very out there and outgoing. So I think some genes are coming from him as well.

So it’s a mixture, I would say, of some nature and also some nurture, the nurture in the sense of the Windsurf Club and the people around me that went on voyages before me. And there were some people already going traveling after high school. And they inspired me and also went traveling.

The moment I went was 18, I flew out. And then back in the days, I was the only one from the high school that went on a voyage. Nowadays, it’s more common, but back in those days, I’m not that old yet.

45:00.66 – Brian David Crane

20 years ago. It started More than 20 years ago.

45:03.01 – Janwillem de Kwaasteniet

Yeah, more than 22 years ago. It was not so common. But I knew for sure from when I was 14 or 15, I knew. Whenever I’m 18 and I’m finished with high school, I’m gonna go traveling to explore.

45:19.06 – Brian David Crane

And were you working with the money like from the windsurf club? I don’t know if they were actually paying you. I missed this. Okay.

45:24.91 – Janwillem de Kwaasteniet

No, no..

45:29.14 – Brian David Crane

Yeah, because I think it’s cool, a part of your story, which was innate at 18, you pack up and you go, and I think you went to Thailand and then Australia and New Zealand, right? You were gone for what? 8 months. And you were kind of working your way, and I don’t know, what were you doing for those 8 or 9 months? Partying? Or I don’t know.

45:52.51 – Janwillem de Kwaasteniet

Yeah, like lots of partying, meeting people, yeah drinking a lot of beer, having a lot of hangovers.

46:00.23 – Brian David Crane

But how did you fund it? That’s what I want to get at.

46:03.00 – Janwillem de Kwaasteniet

Yeah, basically, I always worked when I was in high school. I worked besides that from.. and I started out with 11 working, cleaning dishes in a restaurant. Because I needed to fund my surfboard. yeah So there was a shitload of money you had to put on the table to be able to afford it.

So I remember I worked for a year cleaning dishes and then I could pay half of the board, because the other half my brother would pay. So it’s quite an effort. It’s also, I think, very nice, right? To really and work for a long time to be able to afford one thing. Bigger makes it very yeah high value, you right? like and I’ve always been working besides going to high school.

So I funded that and before I turned 18 I had a few months off, between travel and high school.

47:10.06 – Brian David Crane

Yeah.

47:10.60 – Janwillem de Kwaasteniet

And I had like, I don’t know, 5 months and I worked for a moving company, moving furnitures.
And that was good money.

47:17.52 – Brian David Crane

Saving money, yeah.

47:18.24 – Janwillem de Kwaasteniet

Saving money. Living with my parents and I made, I know I’m not sure how much I made, but it was enough to fund 6 months of traveling. And I worked in Australia, did a lot of fruit picking there for a few months, which was amazing. It was a great experience.

00:47:35.97 – Brian David Crane

But you didn’t go back to Australia and do more fruit picking after?

47:39.00 – Janwillem de Kwaasteniet

No, it was enough, yeah. Enough is enough

47:44.12 – Brian David Crane

Then you come back after these 8 months. You go to university, also down south, right? Yeah. And I do want to say one thing. It’s something my wife points out. I think it’s very nice in the Netherlands is that kids do work, generally speaking.

That it’s something you don’t see so much in Southern European countries, but you definitely see…

48:09.24 – Janwillem de Kwaasteniet

The children, the kids work at a younger age.

48:12.01 – Brian David Crane

They’re working here, yeah. You see kids in the grocery store, they’ll be like… I see kids that are 14 or 15 that are stocking shelves.

48:21.88 – Janwillem de Kwaasteniet

I think I’m not sure. Is that uncommon in the South of Europe?

48:23.31 – Brian David Crane

Yeah, especially if you go to a more protective right if you go to a restaurant, you’ll see a waiter in Spain or Italy who’s in his 50s. That’s a profession. And you see less of that here, I would say.

48:38.75 – Janwillem de Kwaasteniet

Because there, it’s actually a job, and here it’s a side job.

48:42.80 – Brian David Crane

Yeah It’s a means onto something else.

48:45.23 – Janwillem de Kwaasteniet

Yeah, it’s like you’re either a student or mostly students work in hospitality and yeah in Holland.

48:56.00 – Brian David Crane

Yeah, but they start young too. And they start young. they start young yeah I think I like it. I think it’s like a nice Dutch virtue, let’s say. Yeah. Side note, Brian’s done talking. But then you come back and you go to school in Tilburg, right? And then the story from what I remember was after finishing there, you at some point you were like, I want to go learn Spanish, you down to Malaga, right?

Language, Culture, and Learning Through Immersion

49:21.04 – Janwillem de Kwaasteniet

Yeah, the truth, like I had the opportunity to go, instead of an internship, I could go and do a language course. So I studied international business, and on oakes hall this which is like one level below university, basically. But we we could choose a language course, so I went to Malaga and had like 4 months intensive course of Spanish and that broke a lot of doors, meaning like from there on I’ve been always doing business with Latin American countries.

So it’s super nice to learn a new language. I really loved it. I have always been having something with languages from a young age. I always loved French in school the way it sounds.
I always enjoyed it. And English, learning English and Spanish, and that especially Latin languages. They make you feel different.

50:22.06 – Brian David Crane

They touch a different part of you.

50:23.46 – Janwillem de Kwaasteniet

They touch a different part. Yeah. So for me, Spanish was very nice to learn and from there on,
I started working with companies that had businesses in Brazil or Spain or other parts of Latin America.

50:40.28 – Brian David Crane

And off you went, yeah. And off I went. Yeah, amazing, yeah. So, what is it that you like about Latin America? What I mean by that is that, is it the warmth? Is it the lack of rules? And I’m projecting on you with this question, like let’s say the food, the fruit.

What is it that you like about Latin America? Because I think we all have a first love in terms of like where we first traveled to. That leaves a really deep impression.

51:23.67 – Janwillem de Kwaasteniet

Yeah, but that didn’t like, I mean, Australia, New Zealand, though those were my first countries and the States as well, actually. Yeah. But they didn’t like to leave an impression that deep as Latin America did. I think it’s the energy, I would say, generalized.

And there’s a certain outgoing energy that resonates better with me than the energy that’s in more Western countries.

51:51.65 – Brian David Crane

Yeah, and English speaking countries too.

51:54.00 – Janwillem de Kwaasteniet

Yeah. So it’s more spontaneous, it’s more welcoming in general. It’s more opening, there’s more humor, there are less thresholds to talk with somebody..

52:09.10 – Brian David Crane

There’s more movement, physical movement too. Also more physical movement, more kisses, more just like generally..

52:15.18 – Janwillem de Kwaasteniet

And more body language, especially in Brazil. So the moment I stepped through in Brazil, I resonated very well with the people, with the culture.

52:32.54 – Brian David Crane

Yeah, but you didn’t speak Portuguese when you went.

52:34.42 – Janwillem de Kwaasteniet

True, yeah.

52:35.74 – Brian David Crane

I remember you telling me that you got the job and they said, I think they asked you, do you speak Portuguese? And you said, I will learn it.

52:45.14 – Janwillem de Kwaasteniet

Yeah, of course. Yeah so I was like, I had to learn Portuguese in 2 or 3 months because I actually had to negotiate big deals in Portuguese. And I was like, yeah, dude, I’m speaking Spanish. I can also learn it. Portuguese so let’s go, yeah. and I have like 10 private lessons in Rotterdam I recall and then I just went there and I learned it on the streets. I learned the language there.

But I think there’s two parts why I really learned it. One was that I had a Brazilian girlfriend from day 3 that wrote me a note in a sushi restaurant like, if you want next time you’re gonna grab some sushi cone, so I called her. and while we…

53:36.44 – Brian David Crane

Hit it off.

53:37.00 – Janwillem de Kwaasteniet

Yeah, we saw each other a few days a week. So, well, and that’s the best way to learn her language.

53:43:31 – Brian David Crane

And she speaks language, nothing besides Portuguese?

53:45.02 – Janwillem de Kwaasteniet

Her English was luckily very bad. And also I went to the office and well, people there, they didn’t really speak English. So I had to speak Portuguese at the office. People were speaking English but I always told them no following place, Portuguese, ‘comigo’ like I don’t speak any English, there’s only one thing you can speak with me that’s Portuguese and I think that really the rigid way of learning a language should be like that.

54:20.53 – Brian David Crane

So be immersive.

54:21.07 – Janwillem de Kwaasteniet

There is no back door open. Thank you, yeah. Same thing, yeah. just have to okay this is the line now and then so people had to be very really patient with me in the beginning. And in the beginning you’re still speaking Spanish and at some point you’re speaking Portoño. And then after 2 or 3 months I started to speak Portuguese. And at some point you notice the bridges.

There’s lots of bridges between those two languages that have lots of things in common. And then as soon as you can’t cross the bridge, then you’re in Portuguese territories. And I love the language. For me, Brazilian Portuguese is one of the most beautiful languages. You feel a different person when you speak that language. Like I think the German languages are more the hat.

More regional and Latin languages. It seems that everything flows down to the heart. And the Portuguese is the lowest for me with the intonation and I don’t know it’s like adancing language.

55:26.03 – Brian David Crane

Yeah,beautifully said. Did you try to learn Zuki or any form of Brazilian, while you were there? Your Brazilian girlfriend didn’t try to also get you to dance samba?

55:52.05 – Janwillem de Kwaasteniet

That’s one of the biggest mistakes I ever made in my life, but I never really learned to learn to dance. And you know, I’ve got these Dutch dancing shoes. The wooden spikes. And they don’t have that rhythm that would resonate with the Latin heart that I have a little bit. But the legs are not that Latin.

So it’’s a pity but it’s still on the wishlist. Sometimes you need some stuff that’s left on the wishing list and the wishlist has salsa on it. So I’m planning to go with my girlfriend and learn salsa. Did you use Zuki or Samba?

56:44.23 – Brian David Crane

I learned some Zuki when we were in Rio. Yeah I mean, it’s for those who’ve never seen it, it’s an incredibly sexy dance. You’ve seen it.

56:53.09 – Janwillem de Kwaasteniet

I’ve seen it.

56:54.43 – Brian David Crane

It’s like you watch this and go.

56:57.20 – Janwillem de Kwaasteniet

Yeah. There’s a beautiful flow. So yeah.

Mentorship, Personal Growth, and Relationships

57:00.06 – Brian David Crane

It’s just a, you’re really in your body. That’s what I think it is. If once you get the hang of it, you’re really in your body. It’s like totally out of your head, and not thinking about less, less rigid than tango and much more. It has a much more flow to it. Yeah. I really liked it.

Did you have a mentor? And the reason asked if you had a mentor is because I think that like now you’re 40 for those who don’t know, excuse me, just like I imagine that you’re going to have young guys who are in their 20s who go, like I want to live a life of adventure similar to what you’ve done and they’re going to reach out to you and want to mentor underneath you.

They’re going to want to be your apprentice. Let’s say, right. Did you have somebody that you were mentored by?

57:56.77 – Janwillem de Kwaasteniet

Not really. I’m kind of a guy that always created his own way of doing things and I’m not easy with asking for help more. So I do have a few good friends that have been mentoring me. Definitely quite a few that have always been helping me like with the business, financial but with financial insights. And so yeah, a lot of people around me, they are super experienced in entrepreneurship or with economics and they help me, but never really like a paid mentorship. Okay somehow, but that’s, if I have to rewrite my story, I would definitely put a mentor in at a younger age.

58:51.18 – Brian David Crane

And what would that be, yeah. But you want them to be paid. You would pay them, in other words, or like, or because you said with your friends, some of these people, they help you in certain areas, finance or these other sort of things. But if you were gonna rewrite your story, you would want to, as I understood it, you would want to basically like sit down and go, I want you to mentor me, wanna pay you for it, want to look like this, as far as like once a week or once a month, and you talk on the phone.

And yeah, you would want that to be part of your story, right?

59:27.10 – Janwillem de Kwaasteniet

I think it would have helped me, Yeah. I would have, like the entrepreneurial way would have gone quicker. Like there’s, I think there have been quite some things that hold me back, and I’ve got a few friends that have been part of an entrepreneurial group and they all grew very quick because they worked together with all of them.

And they were all creating a similar company. They helped each other and they motivated each other to think big and get in there and bite in there. And I’ve always been a bit laid back.. So, but every way is a way.

1:00:14.23 – Brian David Crane

I mean, but I want to say, because I think that being laid back and that the tendency there is that you’ve also self-identified as a lone wolf in some sense is that, When you combine the long-term travel with a lifestyle business with the comparison, for lack a better way to put it, to some of these friends who are more like focused on, like, cool, we want to get this thing off the ground, and there’s like a centrifugal force amongst them that, in my experience with so some people who are building lifestyle businesses.

It can be exceptionally lonely because it’s like they don’t really, not only do they not have a mentor, but they also are in a position where they’re all actively trying to do everything themselves. They’re like actively trying to learn it or they’re absorbing it through podcasts or books, but they don’t have anybody that they’re actually talking to about the inner workings of their business.

And if they do, it tends to be, not very specific. So it’ll basically be like, oh cool. You’re an e-comm. I’m an e-comm. Let’s say as an example, but you don’t get into the weeds and say, okay, cool. So what are you using for your e-comm platform? And have you ever hired a developer who’s helped you with this? And what have you done in the sense of, with your merchant processing, and what have you done in the sense of for your fulfillment? And what do you do with like, you need to get into this like very nitty gritty sometimes.

And that without somebody who has served as a mentor who has done those kind of things in the past, like you do, in my experience, I spend a lot of time like doing this until I can find somebody who I go, this person’s actually done, maybe not exactly, but close enough that they can speak from experience about what they did or yeah or didn’t do that worked.

I wanna get onto them. Yeah, so the question in all that is, Do you have people that are coming to you that want an apprentice underneath you? Want to see what you’re doing on Instagram and they’re like, I want to live like this guy’s living. They DM you, or no?

1:02:35.00 – Janwillem de Kwaasteniet

Not so much.

1:02:35.80 – Brian David Crane

Really? Yeah, okay.

1:02:37.30 – Janwillem de Kwaasteniet

And I would love to mentor though. and I like it. I enjoy helping others.

1:02:42.43 – Brian David Crane

There’s your pitch. If you’re Dutch, well, I don’t know if you want to be Dutch. What? Yeah, wherever you’re from. Yeah. And I also think it’s a topic for guys in their 40s who look at it and go, okay, cool. Like now, because I have people who come to me who want me to mentor them, but I still am looking for mentors for other parts of life, right? Business is one, but also like family life, health.

You and I both read 4-hour work week, really liked it. I wouldn’t say that a book is necessarily mentorship, but it’s..

1:03:20.08 – Janwillem de Kwaasteniet

I think it creates a certain way of thinking. Like It created a came out like in the beginning of my entrepreneurial voyage.Back then, you had the first opportunity to outsource stuff. It created like a mindset of whatever you can outsource, source it out, whatever you can optimalize, optimalize it. And in order to have as much free time to spend on more important things or things that really make you happy.

1:04:02.66 – Brian David Crane

More important isn’t air quotes, by the way. Yeah, but true. The thing for me from a work week that was so impactful was

Yeah I mean, I don’t know the thing for me from four work weeks that was so impactful was that the internet was this leveling of a playing field and that what Tim was doing, it’s very data-based. So he basically made decisions based around what the data told him to do, that I thought was, when I read it, I was like, okay, cool. like this I can do this. And it also actually makes sense. It’s not esoteric.

It’s like you test a name, you see what people click on. It’s what you did with the coffee flowers. You took it, you tested it with friends and family, 6.5, we’re not gonna do this, right? stop yeah, stop but it needs to be data based, right?

With the space there, so, yeah, I don’t know, like, on the other parts of life, let’s say health, you’re also tracking things?

1:05:09.00 – Janwillem de Kwaasteniet

And not so much. Yeah, I think, I used to, like a few years, I’ve been building up some muscle and losing some fat. At some point, I think you have to measure, well, if it’s important for you, right? At some point, you have to measure in order to intuitively feel what’s the right amount and what’s not. I mean, and in terms of proteins, if you’ve never measured, you have no idea how much protein you eat a day, right?

But after measuring, for me, a few, like let’s say 2 times or 4 times, 3 or 4 months, now I know, like,now I can eat all day and then at the end of the day I know that I had enough, or not. And so it’s nice, I think it’s nice to go from, to move from data analysis towards intuitively.

And that’s why, and I just did like a gym kind of 6 weeks and sprint. Or like, you know, same exercises every day, like ah an exercise 6 week plan, right? Yeah. But now I moved into intuitively going to the gym again, doing all about a full body. And then I just walk into the gym and then think, today I’m going to do squats. I’m going to do that deadlift. I’m going to do this, that, this, that.

But more intuitively. And I don’t know, it suits me better than following a plan. I don’t really go well on following the plan..

1:06:53.61 – Brian David Crane

For too long.

1:06:54.03 – Janwillem de Kwaasteniet

For too long, yeah. And I like to just go and then see whatever feels right or what muscle you think is too sore and go for another one. And like, I think with too much data, it fogs up your intuition. You understand what I mean?

1:07:20.46 – Brian David Crane

Yeah, when you start to doubt the inner voice, let’s say..

1:07:22.63 – Janwillem de Kwaasteniet

Exactly, yeah. something that’s like okay sometimes you’re looking at your phone like, okay, what’s the temperature? And looking at your phone instead of going outside and feeling, right?

1:07:35.12 – Brian David Crane

Yeah. The phone says it’s not raining outside. When I look out the window, it feels like it’s raining.

1:07:41.66 – Janwillem de Kwaasteniet

You come home completely wet. It’s crazy, right? We tend to become more robotized by that.

1:07:49.12 – Brian David Crane

Yeah, that’s very true. Okay. On the love side, let’s talk about this for just a minute.

1:07:56.02 – Janwillem de Kwaasteniet

Oohhh..

1:07:59.66 – Brian David Crane

Well, I mean, a lot of your life or journeys are at least when, you were originally backpacking in Latin America and also learning Portuguese. They’re tied up in some relationships, right?

1:08:14.12 – Janwillem de Kwaasteniet

Uh-huh..

1:08:17.79 – Brian David Crane

Do you ever get the question of you’re 40 and still single? Although you’re not single,Yeah, you have a girlfriend now. Yeah, but you’re 40 and never married. Do people ask you that question?

1:08:29.80 – Janwillem de Kwaasteniet

Of course, yeah. So I’ve had a long relationship until I was 30, like 6 years. And then from 30 to 40, I’ve been single for the majority of the time. Of course you get those questions.

1:08:50.18 – Brian David Crane

How do you handle them?

1:08:54.79 – Janwillem de Kwaasteniet

I think you know it has to do with your personality. Your personality type. and not making too much concessions, being patient. Always have a Bright Horizon in your mind. Right? Like it’s, yeah. So…

1:09:20.01 – Brian David Crane

You don’t want to settle? Basically.

1:09:21.54 – Janwillem de Kwaasteniet

I don’t want to settle, no. That’s not always good, but you always have this part arising in your mind. You always think like, okay, this is not this is not working out and not settling for this. We’re moving on because there is a Brighter Horizon on the horizon. But it’s not always healthy, I would say, right? Like it’s also, but I think for me, and my first big love was quite intense.

And afterwards, it took me a very long time to really become one again. And afterwards I’ve been comparing quite a lot, and we had something really really strong and afterwards nothing could compete with that whatsoever and that’s I think had more impact on me than at that time I would expect.

1:10:36.77 – Brian David Crane

Don’t you appreciate it maybe?

1:10:39.54 – Janwillem de Kwaasteniet

Yeah, yeah appreciate it as well as seeing that it also had a very big impact on me and my patterns.

1:10:49.39 – Brian David Crane

What I meant was you didn’t appreciate what you did at the time, how big of an impact it had on you. Not that you didn’t appreciate the relationship, you look back on it and go, wow, this was a seminal moment or a seminal part of my life. And I didn’t necessarily know it at the time.

1:11:08.03 – Janwillem de Kwaasteniet

Yeah, I think I didn’t know. I didn’t realize that.

1:11:15.00 – Brian David Crane

Yeah. Okay.

1:11:16.30 – Janwillem de Kwaasteniet

But it’s always interesting, right? Talking about love. Like there’s so much to it and there are so many ways of love. And I think it’s a big, yeah, big exploration as well.

1:11:30.12 – Brian David Crane

Do you want to continue to incorporate long term traveling into your life with a partner?

1:11:40.30 – Janwillem de Kwaasteniet

Preferably yes. Yeah, like my girlfriend. She’s super adventurous and she’s open for anything when it comes to adventures and going on, also going traveling with kids. Yeah. I think it’s amazing to go on long time, long voyages with your children. I think it’s amazing and then it’s possible, right? it’s not easy but everything’s possible if you really want it. You can make your way.

1:12:15.08 – Brian David Crane

What’s interesting though is that I think because you and I have a similar upbringing also in the sense of, I mean I started working around the same age that you did. I was very involved locally in a small town in Tennessee and..

1:12:38.43 – Janwillem de Kwaasteniet

Which one was that?

1:12:39.52 – Brian David Crane

It’s called Mayville. Anyways, I wouldn’t expect you to know it but the point of it is that you and I both talk about long-term traveling with a partner, with a family as being something that we would like to do. And yet neither one of us traveled long-term during our teenage years.

You did it at 18 when you were solo, but what I mean was like, not as a kid in the sense of, let me say this a different.. Think there’s like a window. Okay, cool. Like when the child’s very young, it’s very easy to travel with them because they make new friends, they’re absorbing everything. And then you kind of get into this, you want there to be stability.

Because moving them around at the age of 12 or 13, let’s say, I’m picking 12 or 13 out of the air, but like for the parents, it sort of looks appealing and sexy, but I’m not actually sure that the kids really like it or appreciate it. Does that make sense?

1:12:45.16 – Janwillem de Kwaasteniet

At a certain age. Yeah.

1:13:48.05 – Brian David Crane

Yeah There was a school, I lived for a long time in Bali, there was a school there that was called the Green School. was like a very well-known international baccalaureate program, IB program. But the kids who came there, they always were there for 1 year or 2 years, and then the parents would move and go elsewhere. And there was a sense in talking with the teachers, because I knew a couple of the teachers there who always said that, these were like what they called third culture kids. They didn’t have a place that they really identified with.

1:14:17.00 – Janwillem de Kwaasteniet

Okay. And was that a good thing or bad thing?

1:14:18.28 – Brian David Crane

It’s not a good thing. The kids really didn’t like it.

1:14:22.50 – Janwillem de Kwaasteniet

Because they weren’t grounded that much by that?

1:14:26.21 – Brian David Crane

Yeah, they didn’t really have like a sense of where they came from.

1:14:31.24 – Janwillem de Kwaasteniet

Okay. Yeah.

1:14:33.89 – Brian David Crane

And I don’t know how to square that because I think that it’s really nice to introduce kids to travel and introduce kids to, but there also needs to be a certain point when you go, okay, cool, like you’re just gonna have just not going to do it for a period of years.

1:14:51.12 – Janwillem de Kwaasteniet

Would you do it with your children?

1:14:52.48 – Brian David Crane

I would do it now. We do it now. But I think at some point, I think we’re going to stop because the downsides are such, like I think obviously going for trips for sure, but I mean more like legit up taking your family and moving them to somewhere else for a year. I don’t know. Yeah. So what age do you think it’s… I think until about 12.

1:15:20.72 – Janwillem de Kwaasteniet

Because then it starts to get vulnerable, I guess, for teenagers. yeah And it’s really so impactful and it can change the outcome of a life.

1:15:52.48 – Brian David Crane

Yeah. And I think that they don’t really appreciate it. I think it’s like there’s maybe like 12 to 17 or 18. Like they just need to be in one place around there. They need to be in one place where they feel safe and they can go ou,t and like connect with their windsurfing club or connecting to, after a lot of soccer at the time, but not have it be like constantly boom, boom, boom, boom, boom…

1:16:01.00 – Janwillem de Kwaasteniet

Yeah. got it. I think it works until..

1:16:01.56 – Brian David Crane

Yeah. Do you know anybody like what I’m describing who’s that moving around a lot in their teens?

1:16:10.04 – Janwillem de Kwaasteniet

Not really. No, younger, yes, but not in the teens. And I think, yeah, I have quite some friends that did like traveling with their children, and also the first months or years of a child, it’s super nice. I think to go traveling because you can give so much attention.

I think nowadays you know when parents are working, and the small kids do not have much time with their parents. And I think traveling will definitely create a very healthy bonding, especially the first years, I would say.

1:17:02.77 – Brian David Crane

Yeah. We found that. Yeah. I mean, you envision if when you have kids that your work is going to again slow down? Your time towards work is gonna?

1:16:10.04 – Janwillem de Kwaasteniet

Yeah, I think. Now it’s time to kick some asses.

1:17:31.33 – Brian David Crane

Yeah. The field is ready, right? Time to plant. Yeah..

1:17:37.08 – Janwillem de Kwaasteniet

So I would imagine that I have some extra time to spend with the baby. Yeah, for sure. I don’t want to be working 6 days a week. And then being flexible with your own company is amazing.

I think in those times since it really helps.

1:18:05.17 – Brian David Crane

How do you handle with your girlfriend the dynamic of she’s working but she’s not working in your company, right? She has her own career work that she’s doing. Do you two collaborate together on where you want to go? Or is it more, you say, I want to, you have a trip in mind, maybe it’s sometimes tied to work and then you add an adventure to it, and she comes along or is it oh co-created with the two of you?

1:18:37.41 – Janwillem de Kwaasteniet

Yeah, we would co-create.

1:18:39.20 – Brian David Crane

And then are you funding it or is she also contributing for the cost of it?

1:18:46.03 – Janwillem de Kwaasteniet

Well, we’re going in, we’re going traveling in a few weeks, and yeah we would fund it together. But I think the beautiful thing also about traveling can be, and which I think can be a misconception, it doesn’t have to be a lot more expensive than your regular life here if you can rent out your apartment.

So it doesn’t have to be super expensive. Well, because my salary will always be there, right? Wherever I am, in that sense. Yeah..

1:19:20.65 – Brian David Crane

But you also choose to go to places that are, let’s say, not, I think in this trip that’s coming up, you’re going to go to Turkey, and then India, and then Nepal, so and maybe elsewhere, I don’t know, but like, they’re not three very expensive countries or they can be done in a way that is not super expensive, let’s say, right? So you get more adventure. for your dollar.

1:19:46.05 – Janwillem de Kwaasteniet

Yeah, you get a lot of adventure for your dollar. It doesn’t have to be that expensive, but of course I also like to have some comfort. I can really enjoy a good hotel room and a spa. Yeah, and a warm shower would also be preferred. And reliable internet and reliable electricity and those sorts of things. Yeah, but well we definitely co-create that and we made plans together.

1:20:17.23 – Brian David Crane

Amazing. Yeah, for sure. We went through, I asked partially, I went through an experience with my wife before we were married, where she got really upset at me at one point because as we were traveling or we were, we weren’t really traveling, we would go somewhere different.

We’d spend 5 months in Mexico. We’d spent 5 months in South Africa. And she was like, she said, her business was smaller than mine. And she was like, I am going, as she hadn’t told me this, but later on she said, I’m going through my savings.

In order to kind of keep up with you. And it was a very vulnerable moment for her. And I thought, was like, wow, and I never really considered it because I was like, okay, cool. She has her. I didn’t really dig too much into her business.

So I don’t know if you two have gone through something like that where it’s like, okay, let’s, I don’t know what you’re making wise, but let’s say you’re making 10 euros and she’s making 7. Yeah. That you like you need to kind of figure out between the two of you. Yes, so how to balance the finances.

1:21:25.34 – Janwillem de Kwaasteniet

Yeah. So what’s justified? Or what’s what’s right?

1:21:28.41 – Brian David Crane

Yeah. And like, who pays who pays for what, right? Because a lot of times it would be like, I want to go here, and we would be looking at places. And she would do research on somewhere. And then she’d go, I think we should stay here. And I would look at it and go, I don’t really want to stay here. I like nicer stuff.

That’s a bad way to put it, not nicer stuff. I would increase the budget and I’d be like, let’s go to this one. And I would pay for it. And it didn’t bother me to pay for it, but it was like we had to figure out how to talk about money because she was comfortable. You know what I’m describing?

1:21:03.00 – Janwillem de Kwaasteniet

Yeah, of course. I can imagine that it’s not always nice if the other one pays, right? Yeah, we’re like when traveling we make a budget together.

1:22:16.50 – Brian David Crane

But do you beforehand?

1:21:18.70 – Janwillem de Kwaasteniet

Yeah, I think yeah that’s our plan. And then we divide it a bit. But we’re not so far into the relationship yet that we talked about it, but it’s an ongoing thing, but it hasn’t been a big subject as yet.

1:22:40.45 – Brian David Crane

Yeah cool. Let’s wrap up here. If people want to learn more about Bright Horizon, where do they need to go? What’s the website?

1:22:50.03 – Janwillem de Kwaasteniet

The website is Brighthorizon.nu. That’s N U which is now Dutch. Yeah, go there now. And then my Instagram, well you can go to the Instagram page which is probably gonna be in show notes, right?

1:23:09.87 – Brian David Crane

It will be in the show notes. Yeah, my wife saw your last name and she goes oh, he’s the angry one, right? Yeah.

1:22:13.45 – Janwillem de Kwaasteniet

Well, ‘niet de grootste’ in English, I would say not the biggest badass. That’s our translation.

1:23:20.69 – Brian David Crane

Really?

1:23:21.54 – Janwillem de Kwaasteniet

Not the angriest one, but it’s not, it doesn’t translate that well. Yeah, it means like not the, yeah, not the angriest one. For your last name, just so people understand, like, that’s what..

1:23:34.82 – Brian David Crane

Say your full name. And then explain the last name.

1:23:21.54 – Janwillem de Kwaasteniet

Janwillem de Kwaastenie. And the last name means actually like, yeah not the angriest one, not the biggest bad ass. Freely translated. Or in espanol, ‘ombra no tan malo’.

1:23:52.09 – Brian David Crane

Oh, yeah, okay, got it.

1:23:21.54 – Janwillem de Kwaasteniet

It’s a nice way to put it, ‘ombra no tan malo’. That’s the nicest translation. Sounds good, right? Sounds better than…

1:23:59.10 – Brian David Crane

I think it’s a cool lesson. Thank you for coming on, Janwillem.

1:24:12.01 – Janwillem de Kwaasteniet

Yeah. Thank you very much, man. It has been a very cool conversation. I really enjoyed it.

1:24:17.13 – Brian David Crane

Great. Thanks.

1:24:19.45 – Janwillem de Kwaasteniet

Thanks Brian. Cheers.