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Welcome to Episode 7 of the Passionate Purpose podcast where we interview people over 50 who are pursuing new direction for their lives. It’s an opportunity for men and women to tell their stories, their way, in their own words.
This week, will hear from a ground-breaking couple who made a tremendous impact on the RV industry by helping others to fall in love with the RV lifestyle. What’s really impressive, is that they were not equipped with special knowledge or education when they started. Rather they simply shared information as they were learning about it themselves.
When John and Kathy Huggins were in their late 50s, there lives completely changed direction. Kathy was a receptionist and John worked in an industrial manufacturing facility. Foreign competition was decimating his company and his entire industry. John lost his job after training his replacement, but it didn’t phase him one bit.
Kathy had wanted to go camping for years, and she was finally able to convince John to buy a tent to use while attending a convention in Branson. But after just a few nights of sleeping on the ground, they realized they were way too old for that kind of adventure.
After selling their condo out-of-the-blue to someone moving to Florida, the Huggins bought a motorhome and hit the road to tour America. The following winter, they were back in Florida when their son called with a desperate request. He worked for a radio station and there was an abrupt opening to host a 10 a.m. Saturday show and their son asked his folks to step in and do a show about RVing.
They called their radio show “Living the RV Dream.” What happened next is quite a story. I just love John and Kathy Huggins’ story because it shows how anyone – truly anyone – can make a difference in the lives of others by just passionately pursuing their purpose.
Living the RV Dream grew from a one-hour radio show serving a small audience in Florida, into one of the largest podcasts about the RV lifestyle in the country within just a few months. That show spawned several books, an active Facebook community and even several live events.
All they did was research a topic they were interested in learning more about, and share their findings with others. They financed their travel lifestyle by working part-time, limited-term jobs and telling others how they did it. They told people about their favorite products and offered advice on what to look for when buying RVs.
Their total investment in starting a podcast was $200, and the show eventually attracted 8,000 listeners per episode. But, that was surpassed by their active Facebook community of more than 80,000 people before a medical condition forced them to come off the road and sell their business.
Kathy offered some excellent advice when she said, “You have a choice. You can stay in the same house and golf at the same course every week, or you can travel and see the entire country. You can watch television or surf the internet all day, or go learn skills you have always wanted to learn. Retirement is an opportunity to change directions and find something you have a passion for and fall in love with it.”
But, you don’t have to wait until retirement to start living your dream. There are more options today to earn money than ever before. Like John and Kathy Huggins like to say, you’ll only regret the things you never do. Once you start living out the purpose for which you were specifically created to perform, then the only thing you’ll regret is not getting started even earlier.
You can connect with John and Kathy Huggins at www.facebook.com/jnkhuggins.
If you’d like help in identifying a purpose for your life or to get help planning your next steps, I’m offering a complimentary brainstorming session to members of the Forward From 50 Facebook community. For details, connect with me on Facebook or visit www.forwardfrom50.com.
That’s all for this week’s show. Next time I will be speaking with a woman who turned a traumatic childhood experience into a movement to help people violated by sexual abuse, especially as children and teens, to recover their innocence again. It’s a powerful story and I’ll have that interview on the next episode of the Passionate Purpose podcast. Thanks for listening.
After closing his business and enduring several painful years of uncertainty regarding what to do with his life, Greg founded Forward From 50 to help men and women over 50 to live more purposeful lives by pursuing things they are passionate about. A Wisconsin native, Greg currently lives in Arizona.