Struggling.

you guys hear me okay i hope this thing's in the way or not but we'll just run with it listen i i don't know how to start this video so i'll just begin by speaking it's been a few months since we've seen each other virtually i should say via youtube if you follow me on instagram you've seen me a lot more regularly but here on youtube i have taken three to four month hiatus and i wanted to fill you guys in with what's been going on with my life and obviously this time is unlike any other that we've ever known in our lifetime and i've been trying to keep things in perspective in terms of what other people are going through i am very lucky in the sense that i am still healthy my loved ones my family everyone that i know is still healthy and hasn't been directly affected by this virus from a physical perspective from a physical health perspective i should say monetarily absolutely business and relationships and schooling and all that stuff absolutely the covid 19 pandemic that we are still in right now has affected so many people that i've known including myself and when this first started backing all the way up to to when it happened i'm just gonna talk about what's been going on and this is i'll try to cut out anything that seems a bit like i'm rambling but but the truth is i want to give you guys a deeper look into my life and i was told a few years ago at a youtube nextup conference so basically there's this thing that youtube puts on where it brings in different youtube creators and they train them for a week and i did this in new york city a few years ago and one of the big things that the professionals there told me is that i needed to be more vulnerable on camera and i needed to share more of my life which is something that i really struggle with it's easy for me to go out and talk about travel and eat new foods and have new adventures because it feels like i always try to put the focus on the place or on the people that i'm dealing with but to actually sit in front of a camera and discuss what i'm going through is something very weird and and new to me and i even struggle just having photos of myself on my instagram which is funny because there's a lot of them um but i want to make an attempt to to share with you guys a little bit more about what's going on in my life to bring you in and give you a different perspective on on who i am all you see is the travel side so hopefully this will give you a better idea so a few months ago to bring it back to the start of the pandemic things were going very very well this last two years has been incredible for business for travel i finally feel like i was starting to figure out how to balance the money and the travel and the adventure i was building up a team my goal was to have multiple people working for me that i can just go out and create content and i was secured and signed up for and dealt with contracts uh brand contracts and destinations that were the best i've ever had at the beginning of 2020. i was coming into this year very strong and very excited about the year both in content and in in my financial gains i felt like there was some great partnerships with brands that really understood my travel deeper message and reluctant to say i don't need to tell you guys this but all of that pretty much in the course of 24 hours and i'll always remember the day i was out shooting hoops right here at my my apartment building and it was the day that rudy gobert a member of the nba was diagnosed with covid and tom hanks at the same time and hit the fan in the course of the next 24 hours i was getting emails from different sponsors and the destinations saying we're not sure if we can go through with this and all of a sudden and i believe that was in march all of a sudden in march the whole year came crashing down what i thought was going to be a very very successful year and be able to bring you guys some really awesome content so i struggled initially with that idea and after i got over the original shock of all of these projects being cancelled or postponed i thought wow this is a perfect opportunity for me to work on some things that i've been putting off for a long period of time for example i've always wanted to create a travel deeper course something that takes you step by step to do exactly what i've done in the past and that is to uplift my life and go and travel around the world for an extended period of time i've also wanted to create a line of merch i've always wanted to be wearing my own t-shirts i thought that would be really cool and to be able to share that with some people that that follow along if they wanted to and while i refocused my attention on these projects that i put in the back burner for so long and gained a positive mindset on this situation i thought this is going to be really good for me during that time a second wave of emotions came in the form of the racial injustices in my country in the united states and and around the world and i will never truly understand what it means to be a person of color a minority a homosexual man a woman i don't know what it's like as a white straight male of european descent i'll never truly understand what it feels like to leave your house and be treated differently by the way you look by who you love by what color your skin is but my position on this and something that i thought about for weeks and weeks and that i was really engulfed in as many of us were how can i be impactful and what does that mean to me and i thought so much about tours to townie and travel deeper in these videos that i make because this is exactly why i built this channel and built this business and why i'm traveling around the world i truly believe that travel allows you to see a different perspective than your own by walking in someone else's shoes and that's the message that i'm always trying to get out and that's what travel deeper means to me is walk in someone else's shoes share a meal with someone that you never would have be a part of a cultural experience a festival share a home and and share something that's uncomfortable in a foreign place to understand what it's like for other people to live and to take this back on a personal level my nieces and nephews are half african-american and i can't imagine my nephew driving when he gets older and being treated the way that you see on the news that you know african americans and people of color are being treated i can't imagine that i can't imagine my niece being treated any differently or being sleeping in her house and someone coming in and killing her it's something i don't even like to think about and on the complete other side of that i have a cousin who i'm very close with who is a police officer in new york city and he is a great police officer and i understand the struggle that he's going through and i know that that's not about everyone i know it's about black lives matter and and that movement but travel deeper and touristy townie has always been about empathy and understanding other people's perspectives and what other people are going through and i feel for my nieces and nephews and my brother-in-law and my sister and i feel from my cousin for the complete opposite reasons of why he's being targeted and i'm taking a step back and the whole reason why i've not posted on youtube for a long period of time is i don't want to be just another voice i want towards a towny to affect people and impact people and influence people to go and understand a different perspective that's everything that this is about and i know i throw in fluff videos of best beaches and what food to try and things like that but my overall message and what i'm refocusing on moving forward is delivering that idea that travel deeper is about understanding someone else's perspective about walking and another person's shoes to see how it feels and all of these thoughts and ideas and emotions of what can i do more are just circling around this apartment as i've been in one place for the longest period of time in in recent memory and on top of all of this on top of the our our political issues our social issues our racial issues and the pandemic as a whole and how divisive it has become and how everyone is so argumentative and there's one side versus another side and during all of this as i've been stuck here in the apartment i lost my grandfather and my grandfather passed away i guess it's been about three weeks now back in my hometown of upstate new york and i haven't been able to go home or uh really deal with that and it was non covid related um he was 97 years old he had an amazing run an amazing life but it was just he's a person who who is very very important to me um sorry um he's a person that means a lot to me and he's the man who taught me how to be a good man he's the person who taught me how to be a good father a good husband a good grandfather a good member of his community and it's tough and i know people are going through much worse and the loss of him was expected i like i said he's he had a very very good life but um we do a lot together when i'm home and and although you guys might not know this because i travel full-time i also go home quite a bit i love being home in between trips i'll spend weeks if not months in one place planning for the next trip video editing whatever it may be and the majority of my time while i'm home is spent over at my grandma and grandfather's house and we watch football together syracuse basketball and for those that have been following me for a while you've seen the an emotional day in cebu video so you know a little peek on on what he means to me and um and it's just tough when you you're you're stuck in one place because you're trying to be responsible and trying to not negatively affect anybody else by listening to the research listening to to the right things to do or what you hope are the right things to do and so i haven't been able to fully deal with that i will be going home next week actually so i'm excited about that but i just i wish it could have been on other terms um you always want more time right but um that's been tough it's been a tough few months for all of us and that's just what i've been going through to give you guys an idea of of my life to give you guys a deeper understanding of me and i wanted to be more transparent with you guys and not just disappear for a few months and then never tell you why and just you know say oh pandemic but things are good things are very good in this whole time frame of being on lockdown and staying in one apartment i've been able to accomplish some of these goals that i've wanted to accomplish i am launching the travel deeper boot camp right now actually it's ready to go and if you guys want to check it out it's ready um there's a big early access sale um this video is not about that but it's ready and hopefully merch will be ready in the coming weeks i also have some photography presets that i've been messing around with that are also ready so there's been a lot of good there's been a lot of really positive things about this pandemic in a weird way because i've been able to focus on some of these projects that i've been putting off for so long as i mentioned before but it's been tough and i've been struggling and i've tried to channel frustration or just confusion or pain into into the work and having this time away from traveling and being forced to take a step back and a deep breath i'm reminded that this is what i truly want to do and this is what i love and i want to build something that's bigger than myself i want to inspire and educate you guys on how to do the same thing how to travel deeper and go and learn from other people and go and gain new perspectives because me from a small town i've been able to see so much of this world that i never thought possible and i know my i know my and i know my grandfather would be very proud of that so that's what i've been up to for the last couple months this is uh the most open i've ever been in a video that just involved me sitting here talking to a camera but i'm optimistic as of october my goal is to start creating content again october 1st i want to go and do a trip i'm not sure exactly where yet it depends on what's open what's available and what's safe to go to but i want to dive deeper into this and i want to get back into making videos and sharing these stories with you guys because this is what i truly love and i think that this is a great opportunity to to spread love and to share ideas and to share different people's perspectives and this is this is how i can contribute to making this world a better place and that's what i believe in and i want to do more things to focus on social initiatives as i've done in the past and i want to continue to do that and do that more um that's it i don't know how to end this either that's just what i'm going through um i hope you guys like the video there's information in the video description but this isn't about that uh that's it i'll see you guys back on the road for more fun videos and lots more adventures to come uh yeah i hope you guys are all doing very well i hope this video finds you safe and healthy and a good spirit and i'll see you guys on the next one all right travel deeper when you can

Channel: Gareth Leonard

Views: 51,850

Rating: 4.8837838 out of 5

Keywords: travel, travel deeper, travel deeper bootcamp, travel vlogger, travel youtuber, travel blogger, travel 2020, gareth leonard

Id: WsHbUwL7t0A

Length: 16min 2sec (962 seconds)

Published: Thu Sep 10 2020