From Boardroom to the Sahara: A Late-Life Reset Through Motorcycle Travel

Jim Martin· Host0:00

There's a strange thing that happens when you leave home on a motorcycle. At home, most of us feel like we're in some kind of control. We know where things are, we know where we're going, we know what time we're supposed to get there at. The fuel station is where it was yesterday, the grocery store where it was last week, and your bed is waiting for you at the end of the day. And because all of this feels familiar, we believe we're in some kind of control. But maybe what we really have is routine. Maybe what we really have is a set of handrails around us, familiar roads, familiar language, familiar people, familiar systems. And when you ride away from that, when the map sends you to the wrong place, when the phone dies in the rain, when the hotel isn't where it's supposed to be and you're tired and you're hot and you still got another hour to ride, those handrails start to disappear. Rob Bridges spent years in the boardroom side of life, finance, responsibility, pressure, planning, and decisions that had to be made very, very carefully. Then he retired early and set out on a six-month motorcycle journey that would take him south into Morocco and to the edge of the Sahara. On paper, it sounds like freedom. But the thing about freedom is that it's not always easy to experience when you've spent years being rewarded for control, when your life has been built on control. The same habits that helped you build a career, support your family, and keep everything moving