Juan Pablo Villarino: evaluation

Transcript context

…And in the longer term, what is next for you? In the longer term, [laughs] you know that when I made this decision of traveling for life, one of the things I was afraid of was, of course, this economic stability. People were asking me, “OK, but what are you going to do in the long run? OK, you can do this because you’re young, but what are you going to do when you are 40?” The thing is I’m already 40, but they were [laughs] asking me this when I was 20. They were forecasting, “Oh, when you’re 30, you’re going to understand. You should have kids and this.” Then I turned 30, and now I turned 40, and I keep doing the same stuff. I think Oscar Wilde said that the only way not to get old was to continue repeating the same mistakes. [laughs] He would be proud of me. When I took this decision, I imagined, “OK, what’s the worst possible scenario? What can the worst happen to me?” In that time, my books were not like they are now. They were handmade, photocopied books, just a bunch of A4-size papers stapled together, and I would sell them around in bars and hostels. I decided, OK, it cannot get worse than that. If the worst possible scenario is I would be an old hippie going around Southeast Asia, sharing inspiration with his younger travelers and making a living out of it, welcome. I can go for that. It will look nice in my biography. After that, I never again had fears of the future, retirement. Obviously, you’re managing to persist as it is, but do you ever think how your business model might evolve over time?…

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