Wendy Corr:
Well, hey there folks, welcome to the Roundup. We are a Cowboy State Daily podcast, and our focus is on interesting people in the Cowboy State. Wow. Interesting doesn't even begin to describe my guest today, and I'm so excited to introduce people who have not heard of this young woman to the really interesting life that she's living.
First, I want to tell people about our podcast partner. We have a great other podcast in Wyoming here, if you're a business person, if you are thinking about going into business in Wyoming, the Wyoming Business Alliance, Business from the Basement podcast is the place to go. The resources, the interviews, the people that they're talking to, are the people that you need to know to help your Wyoming business.
So tune into the Business from the Basement podcast put on by the Wyoming Business Alliance. But don't go there yet, because first we have another podcaster that we want to talk to. Megan Anderson is a young woman from Cody. Grew up in Cody, but has created an amazing life for herself. But folks, she's doing it from her van.
It is a crazy story that I am ridiculously jealous of, so I'm going to go ahead and introduce Megan Anderson, Hello, Megan, Hello, how are you? Where are you? Where in the world are you today?
Megan Anderson:
I am currently in Portland, Oregon, and loving every minute of it.
Wendy Corr:
Now, what has brought you to Portland? Just the pure joy of, let's go to Portland?
Megan Anderson:
It's an interesting story. When you travel slow and you live full time in a van, sometimes I just let my intuition guide me, and Portland kept popping up in these weird synchronies. And I was just like, Alright, I'm going to Portland.
And then, thanks to my job and working remote, I know people all over the US, so it was kind of a dream of mine to begin hosting these little fireside chats, meetups. And yesterday I had my first little Meetup group. So that also brought me here.
Wendy Corr:
Tell us about your fireside chats - fireside chats, literally by the Fireside in front of your van?
Megan Anderson:
Well, this was at a restaurant that had a little fire outside. It was like 90 degrees yesterday, though, so everyone was laughing at my idea of fireside chats. But it's really just to bring people together and bring community together.
One thing that I was kind of missing in the first aspect of Van life. So I'm on day 270 of Van life, and I would say the first 150 days or so were very isolating and lonely, kind of getting used to it. And so now I've really shifted on by traveling slow. It allows me to be closer to my community, and I have the ability to bring them together, and it's such a beautiful gift.
Wendy Corr:
Now, how do you reach out to people in the places that you're at? How do you know that there's a community waiting for you when you arrive?
Megan Anderson:
Well, social media is a huge thing that definitely helps with all of it. Also the company that I work for, MBS Highway. We have, I started a Facebook group a couple years ago for our subscribers, and they're all over the US, loan originators all over the US.
And so I just post in that group, hey, who's in Washington? And then the next thing you know, you put out a few invites, and you have a little meetup.
Wendy Corr:
And so tell us, though we've got, there's so much to explore here and so much to unpack. How did a girl from Cody, graduated Cody High School, how did a girl from Cody find herself in the financial world, living in a van with her dog and traveling all over the place, being a public speaker, being a podcaster? How did this all start? Because I know people are going to be as fascinated to hear this story as I am.
Megan Anderson:
Yes. So after, you know, graduating from Cody high school, I went off to University of Wyoming, which I think a lot of individuals do, I ended up transferring to Boise State, where I graduated with a health science degree, and I thought I was going to go into pre med. Decided that really wasn't what I wanted to do.
And in the meantime, during college, I got my certification to be a personal trainer, so I was doing that, and then I left the gym, I brought my book of clients with me. And at the time, after graduating from Boise State, I had moved to Las Vegas, and so I was picking up extra work by working conventions.
And I ended up working one of the largest real estate and loan originator events, called Mastermind, in Las Vegas. And you know, it was kind of getting burnt out of the personal training stuff. And so that is when I started working for MBS Highway, and that kind of got me into speaking.
My boss kind of pushed me into speaking a little bit. And from there, it just continued to grow and grow. And, you know, it was such a small company in the beginning that they kind of just allowed me, if I had an idea, they'd let me run. And that was really helpful in kind of expanding and growing into where I am today.
And then COVID, you know, kind of pushed everybody into working remote. And so I've been working remote the last four or five years, I would say.
Wendy Corr:
Wow. So you really could work from anywhere. Did you stay in Las Vegas for long or did you get the spark of, I think that I want to go someplace else? If I can work remote, where am I going to go?
Megan Anderson:
I wasn't in Las Vegas for a long time. I was there for eight months, and then I took the job at MBS Highway, which was not a remote job at first. So I sold all of my things, sold my car, packed up all my stuff in a couple boxes, got on a plane, and I flew out to New Jersey, where the corporate office is.
I lived above a hair salon for a while, and that was such an interesting time. And then after that, when we kind of went remote, that's when I moved to Colorado for a little bit. Then I moved to Florida, which is where I bought my first house.
And I was just never there, you know, I was never there. I was always traveling. I had to pay, you know, pay a pool guy, landscape guy. I was just never there. I was like, This is too much. And so I flipped that house. Did really well on it. And that's when I kind of sat there, and I was like, All right, what am I going to do next, you know?
And I had this dream of living in a van back in my personal trainer days. It was when Meetup was really big. And I had this vision. I wanted to have just meet ups, where we'd meet up and we'd get a workout in, and I wanted to be known as the traveling trainer. And that kind of dream went away when I got what my mom would call my big girl job, you know.
And so at that point in time, when I didn't know what I was going to do next, didn't know where I wanted to live, I was like, I'm either gonna die with this dream side of me or I'm gonna live this dream out. And so I lived this dream out.
Wendy Corr:
I literally have tears - that's just, I'm so glad you did not die with the dream inside of you. Oh my gosh. And look at you. You're just thriving, and you are an in-demand public speaker and a podcaster. Tell us - before we get to your van, because I know people want to know about the van and the dog - but tell me about the work that you're doing now. You're not just working for the mortgage company anymore, right? You're doing more than that.
Megan Anderson:
Yes. So I've been a public speaker now for five, six years, and it originally kind of started tying in the personal training aspect, doing a little bit of mindfulness exercises with individuals, and then it shifted into social media, because everyone needs to get out there more. Everyone's terrified of video. How do we get over our insecurities?
But then when chat GPT launched to the public in 2022, everyone wanted to know about AI. How do we use it? What is it? And so that's when I really dove in deep with that. And so now I host monthly workshops, virtual from anywhere, and I teach people, ultimately, how to use AI to grow and leverage their business.
Wendy Corr:
More than business, though, I mean, you and I were talking before we got started. You teach people how to use AI for their lives.
Megan Anderson:
Yes. I mean, you can use AI for anything. I have one where I upload all my blood work, you know, that I get on an annual basis from my doctors. That way you can ask questions. It saves it. You can compare it. You can say, hey, I have this and this and this in the fridge. These are my dietary restrictions. What should I make for dinner? It's my own personal trainer.
Now I have it follow certain protocols. It knows my injuries. I log my weight in there so it tells me what I should do next time. I mean, so many people are afraid of artificial intelligence and with anything in the world. Yes, there's good and there's evil. Okay, we can use it for good. We can use it for bad, but it's our responsibility to understand how to use it.
And regardless, it's here and it's changing the world, and I think that it's so important for people to utilize this. I mean, there was a Harvard study done on people that use AI and people that don't use AI and those that use AI, they get things done more quickly, oftentimes with better quality of work. And I mean, why wouldn't you want to use AI at the end of the day?
Wendy Corr:
Well, Terminator. But, you know, that's what I keep coming back to. But, I mean, we all do use, I mean, we all use it - if we've got a smartphone, you use it. I mean, you ask a Google search, and it gives you - Google is, you know, pulling together everything as AI, and gives you the results of your search and things like that. If you've got a, I'd be really curious as to, and that would be a conversation for another time.
Or else, we can all just go to your website or follow you on Instagram or follow your podcasts to learn more about the things that you recommend for these programs that you're talking about, because I'm assuming you don't just go to chat GPT and say, here's all of my blood work. There's got to be a program for that, right?
Megan Anderson:
Oh yes, it's all about that prompt, the prompt that you feed into it is going to determine the quality of the output that you get from AI. And so oftentimes, when people start playing around with it, they're like, this sounds like a robot. It's not really giving me the answers I want, and it's all because you have to craft that prompt appropriately. There's, you know, different elements to it to get that high quality output.
Wendy Corr:
Wow, oh my gosh. Well, I know you're going to be on my podcast list now, so I need to be learning about this. I think, like you say, we all need to be learning about this, even in Wyoming. I mean Wyoming, we pride ourselves as you know. We pride ourselves on being you know, we're the Cowboys. We can do it ourselves.
But here's a cowboy state product saying we can move into the future and take this. Where are your speaking engagements? Where do you get booked out of and where can we follow you? And things like that. How did you get these jobs?
Megan Anderson:
Yeah, so they're all over the US. Some of them I drive to. Some of them I don't. Oftentimes, Las Vegas ends up being a lot of the speaking engagements, but they're kind of all over. Most of them are for mortgage collaboratives, mortgage companies, real estate offices, sales rallies. It just depends on what they're looking for a speaker for.
And it's been, you know, such a great little journey. My next speaking engagement is in Las Vegas, so that'll be, that'll be a fun, fun time.
Wendy Corr:
There you go. So now let's shift gears into how you live, because obviously you are doing all of this, you are running this amazing enterprise out of four wheels and a door. And so tell us about how you moved into van life, how you made the decisions, what van to get. Did you have to retrofit it at all? Tell us about your van.
Megan Anderson:
So I had been looking at vans for about a year, and I ended up finding this one off this app. I forget what the app is called now, but it was this girl in Texas, and she had, basically, it's a Ford Transit high top, so I can stand tall, which was important for me, because I'm working in this thing full time. I want to be comfortable.
And she had everything kind of gutted out and framed, and then she also had everything that you needed to renovate the van. And in my mind, I was like, Well, that's good. So I know that I'm spending this amount, and yes, it's probably going to be, you know, $5,000-10,000 extra to get everything else done that I need to. But at least this way, it seemed less overwhelming.
And so I got on a plane, I flew to Texas with a cashier's check, and I bought this van, and then I drove it to Wyoming, and I spent the last year renovating it out. I had a lot of help with it from the community, a lot of great, handy men, very talented men in Wyoming, very grateful for everyone there.
And it took a year. I thought that it would take a month or two to renovate this thing. Joke’s on me, it ended up taking a year.
Wendy Corr:
But you got to hang out with the folks for a year, right?
Megan Anderson:
I got to hang out. And what a beautiful gift to be able to hang out with your family for a year once you're, you know, once you kind of move out. It was so nice to be able to come back, build that relationship again with my family.
And here's the funny thing too, is, you know, growing up in Wyoming, I didn't appreciate it in the beginning. You know, it was a small town, and I always in my mind I was just like, I just want to get somewhere that has opportunities and, you know, bigger things. And I always wanted to get out when I was a kid.
But coming back was the best thing, because I reconnected with this beautiful community that we have in Wyoming, and I just forgot how wonderful people are in this community. So open. So giving. Everyone, I feel like, wants the best for everybody. It's just this tight knit group. And I've traveled all over place and time and time again, Wyoming's just, it's magical. It's God's country.
Wendy Corr:
It really is, isn’t it? You have no idea, I just literally had this conversation with my daughter on Sunday about exactly the same thing. She's gone away, she's come back, and she comes back to Cody, and she's like, I forgot.”
And it's not just Cody, it's all the communities in Wyoming, but in this case, we're talking Cody, but it is that. And so you were able to renovate the van. You had lots of help. And what are the features of the van? We can't see it, sadly, because camera's connected to your spot there. But tell us the features?
Megan Anderson:
Yeah. Well, I have a legit office chair, as you can see, which is necessary working full time. I have this nice, big computer monitor. I have lights, microphone, so I'm all good. I did not put in a bathroom. I opted in to have a full just office space, and then I have a closet.
I have a pull out pantry. I have a countertop space with a sink. I have an outdoor shower that I can use in the back. And then I have a bed that, I made it so it could convert into kind of a seating area. But I'll be honest, I have not once converted it.
Wendy Corr:
All right, where does the dog sleep?
Megan Anderson:
The dog sleeps in the bed with me.
Wendy Corr:
Okay, very good. Tell us about your dog.
Megan Anderson:
I have a F2 mini golden doodle, and his name is Snoop, and he is the best. I could not imagine doing van life without him. He's absolutely incredible. We just got done, I'm very proud of him, we just got done walking 51.8 miles on the Pacific Crest Trail across Oregon.
Wendy Corr:
Whoa, okay, and that - again, let's talk about van life. Here, you get a chance to do these things. And because you're an entrepreneur, you've got the flexibility of your time, right? You can schedule things around.
Megan Anderson:
Oh, so nice. Not only can you just schedule things around, but you know, I work East Coast hours for the most part, so I'm off by the afternoon, enough time to go on a hike. And the nice thing is, if I were in a house, you know, it's oftentimes an hour drive to go to a hike, but because I'm in the van, I can be parked there, I can work. Once I'm done, I'm out, and I'm enjoying nature, reconnecting, refueling my energy. It's, it's my favorite part of Van life.
Wendy Corr:
So are we talking like, right now you and I are talking, you're sitting at a trailhead?
Megan Anderson:
Not right now. I had my meetup last night, so I'm parked in one of their driveways. Portland's a little different. You know, you need to find a driveway, or you got to get out into the forest. No parking lots here.
Wendy Corr:
But you've got Starlink, so that's your, that's how you connect with the rest of the world on that. And so, where are some of the places that you've been, when you hit the road 270 days ago? Where did you start? You've had, you had all year to plan it. Where did you start?
Megan Anderson:
I don't plan. That is the thing with this lifestyle. I don't really plan. And that has been, for a person that has a type A personality, that was actually really hard for me at first. The only time that I plan stuff is when I have a speaking engagement or I'm doing one of these meetups. And even then, it still is a little bit challenging to plan.
So I started in Cody. I had a speaking engagement in Orlando. So I went to Orlando. I spent the winter in Florida, and then I came back to Wyoming, and then after that, I don't know. Man, I've been all over the place. It's like, it's hard to keep track.
Wendy Corr:
What are some of the highlights?
Megan Anderson:
Well, I gotta tell you, I keep coming back and back and back to Wyoming. It's just, it's so beautiful, right? I did spend quite a bit of time in Montana. Love area in Montana, I went from West Yellowstone up into Montana and then down through Idaho to Sun Valley. I don't know what that road is called, but it was absolutely incredible. You're like on the river. There's so many places to camp, absolutely incredible.
And then I spent some time in Sun Valley. Went over to Boise, Idaho, which was fun because I hadn't been there since I graduated college. And then where did I go after that? Then I went back to Wyoming for a week.
Yeah, and now I'm in Oregon, and then I'm thinking, what I'm going to do is take the Oregon coast, Washington coast, and go into Canada, because it's getting a little too warm. I messed up and I didn't put an AC unit in the van. Of course, I can turn on the vehicle and blast the AC, but it's just more comfortable to be in places that are comfortable.
So that's part of the reason I left Wyoming for a little bit, is it was just getting a little too hot for a little bit.
Wendy Corr:
So Montana is the place to go. It gets a little too hot in Wyoming,
Megan Anderson:
Just anywhere north. I'm hoping Canada is, like, cooler.
Wendy Corr:
So yes, tell us what's next for you this amazing, incredible life that you've built. What's next for you, as far as your adventures, and where is work going to take you?
Megan Anderson:
Yes, well, I'm fully diving into all of the AI stuff. So I'm, you know, it's constantly changing and evolving. So I'll be curious to see where that ends up, I’m going to be completely honest. But aside from that, I have a book that is currently in the works.
I've been writing for a very long time and coming out with, I am flying to Barcelona, Spain in November. I got an Airbnb in the mountains for two and a half weeks where my only goal is to get the draft of this book out. And the book is going to be called Limit List, and it's all about this journey of being in the van.
So when I started the van, one thing that really became aware to me was that I spent most of my 20s letting fear control my life and my decision making, and I'm not doing that anymore. This lifestyle has taught me that I don't need to do that, that I can create a life that aligns with me and who I am and what I want and what I value.
And so I've created basically a list of my limitations, and this whole book is about exploring what life would be without the self created limits that you put on yourself.
Wendy Corr:
That's absolutely right, that's and it takes most of us our entire lives to get that light bulb moment that you've had, and that you are, that you are absolutely living now.
One of the things that you mentioned at first was that your first, you know, few months, you were very lonely, and so tell us how you overcame that. Because I can imagine going to places it's like, okay, yes, I might know a couple of people here, but this is a different place for me. How did you overcome that?
Megan Anderson:
Well, I think some people helped me overcome it. You know, sometimes when you're depressed and you're lonely, it's really easy to just stay in that cycle and not get out of it. And honestly, I think I needed to be isolated and kind of lonely in the beginning, because that was me going inward and exploring the limits that I had really put on myself.
But through doing that, I realized how important community is, and that it's my responsibility to grow and create and align with the community that I want to be a part of. You know, that's up to me, and I think oftentimes in my, I call it my past life, prior to the van, you know, my community was just work, or it was my significant other's friend group at the time, and I didn't really expand past that. I didn't push myself past that.
But by doing van life, initially, you know, I kept having to push myself in little ways that my confidence began to grow a lot more. I started to believe in myself a lot more. And so, you know, initially, when I had this idea of putting on kind of these fireside meetups, I was scared. I was like, what if no one shows up? Oh my gosh. But if you put yourself out there, you align with the right community, and then you meet people that really help.
So, like, when I first got to Portland, there was another kind of Van life, nomadic individual that we got connected with, so many people were like, do you know so and so? Do you know so and so? So we were like, Okay, we finally have to meet. She introduced me to her group of friends. And you know, then it just kind of expanded, and just keeps expanding like that.
Once you align yourself with the right people, and you open yourself up to giving and receiving, I mean, it just, it just grows. I'm very surprised at how it has just kind of been effortless when it felt like it was so much effort in the beginning.
Wendy Corr:
Absolutely, because it became organic and just grows like leaves on a tree. That is fabulous. What are some of the tricks, if somebody wants to do what you're doing and take this step into van life, I mentioned to you my daughter would love to do what you're doing, and is really, truly, planting seeds to do what you're doing - find remote work and then live out of a van with their two cats.
So tell me, if somebody has the idea that they want to follow in your footsteps or use your life as a model, what are the steps that they need to take?
Megan Anderson:
Well, here's one thing that I would do initially, is there's all these different van meetups, and you can use chat GPT to help you find these van meetups. But that is a great place to go, if you're thinking about it.
Because you can build and create anything, but it's hard to know exactly what you need or what you like before you live this lifestyle, or kind of, you know, explore it. And so that way you can explore hundreds of rigs all at the same time. You can chat with people, you can ask them, you can learn from them.
I wish I would have done that in the beginning, because I think it would have changed how I built some of the things in my layout. So I would first attend a van meetup, and that's also going to get you introduced to kind of the nomadic community, which is going to be really helpful, because then you're not out there completely alone, right?
And then, you know, then it's about just searching and finding the vehicle that you like and making sure that it all aligns with what your needs are. So for me, it was, I need an office space. I need reliable internet. I need a lot of power and consistency when it comes to that. And so I made sure that the van checked all of those boxes when we were doing the build.
And then it's, you know, as far as finding remote work, I just got lucky, because my life just kind of evolved to that. But I think in this day and age, it's not too challenging, I think, to find remote work. So I think, just explore that.
Some people, you know, some people travel to towns, pick up a small, short time gig, travel to the next place. There's so many different ways to do this lifestyle, and you don't have to do it full time either. You know, there's quite a few people that we call weekend warriors, or they go out for a month at a time, or a month or two at a time, and they still have their home base and they're stationary.
So there's all different ways to kind of do this, but just start exploring, start talking to people. There's also Facebook groups out there for nomadic lifestyle, Van life, living. And again, that's just a great way to build that community and talk to people and get into it. And obviously feel free to reach out to me or follow me if you have any questions. I'm beyond happy to help.
Wendy Corr:
That's absolutely fabulous. So Megan, coming back to the idea of Wyoming, though, this is something - would you recommend this for other young people coming out of Wyoming, go find, find and explore, but come back home?
Megan Anderson:
100%! Listen, Wyoming is such a great place to be, but you learn so much traveling as well, and just like myself, you know, you grow so much more to appreciate Wyoming. And the gift that it is when you expand and you explore a little bit more, it's just so funny to me that of all the places, I always come back to Wyoming.
Wendy Corr:
I think it's great. We all seem to somehow find our way back to Wyoming, don't we? It's a great thing. Megan, this has been just an absolutely fantastic conversation. Thank you so much. I want to make sure that there was nothing that we missed in our conversation that you wanted to bring up about your life, about the unique work that you do, you know, telling us not to be scared of AI. Where can we follow you? Where can we follow you? To find out more about what you're doing.
Megan Anderson:
yeah. So you can go to my website, themegananderson.com. You can follow me on Instagram at iammegananderson.com if you want, like, a daily van life post. To follow this journey, you can follow me on Facebook, and soon I will be launching a YouTube channel by the name Limit List, and that's where I'll be sharing a lot more of that kind of content, and that's how you can follow me.
But I think the you know, the final message that I really want to kind of leave the audience with is, if this is a dream that has been inside of you for a long time, ask yourself the question, do you want to die with this dream inside of you, or do you or do you want to live it out? And if you want to live it out, you can do it. You can find a way, and you can absolutely achieve this.
Wendy Corr:
Okay, you got me. All right, Megan, this has just been a fantastic, fantastic time. Thank you for sharing you, sharing your story with us. Thank you for living this dream first and giving other people the courage to do it. Because I just, I think that what you're doing took bravery, but you were obviously inspired, and the path was made straight for you.
So we're, we're grateful to have you as someone to look up to for that, and you're so young, you've got so much left to do, so we're going to be watching you.
Megan Anderson:
Thanks for having me.
Wendy Corr:
You bet. Thank you, Megan, and folks, thank you for tuning in today. As you can tell she really hit me. And I hope that Megan's story has hit you as well and has inspired you. And thank you for tuning into the Roundup. Once again, we've got, oh my gosh, well, over a year and a half's worth of stories and inspirations and really great histories of people who have made an impact in the cowboy state.
And Megan is just one really shining example of the people that we have here in Wyoming that are out there making a difference. So thanks for tuning into the Roundup. Have a fantastic week.
