Evolve Now show cover featuring Kristen Hartnagel and Trey Humphreys

What If You Treated Your Life Like an Adventure?

August 04, 2026•9 min read

A conversation with Trey Humphreys about love, reinvention, curiosity, and learning to enjoy the life you are living

There are moments when life quietly invites us to become someone new.

The invitation may arrive as restlessness.

A question you cannot stop thinking about.

A growing awareness that the way you have been living, working, loving, or relating to yourself no longer feels like the fullest expression of who you are.

Sometimes, it feels as though you are lost.

But what if being lost is not evidence that something has gone wrong?

What if it is the beginning of an adventure?

I recently explored this idea with my dear friend and fellow Brand Builder, Trey Humphreys. Trey is a personal branding strategist, author, speaker, serial entrepreneur, and wonderfully funny deep thinker who has built much of his life around curiosity, reinvention, and adventure.

Our conversation moved from love and judgment to self-acceptance, writing, nervous-system awareness, near-death experiences, nose rings, chimpanzees, and why every person should consider writing a book.

In other words, we covered the important things.

The Question That Changed Everything

Years ago, Trey found himself in a difficult season.

His businesses were struggling. He felt depressed and disconnected from his life. Hoping someone could help him find a way forward, he hired a business coach.

During one of their sessions, the coach stepped out of the room and gave Trey what appeared to be a simple exercise:

Write your definition of love on the board.

Trey thought about it and wrote:

Love is the worst hell on earth.

Seeing those words changed something.

For the first time, Trey could see how his experiences of loss, abandonment, family struggle, and self-judgment had shaped the way he understood love.

He also made a decision.

He wanted a different experience.

That single question started a journey that eventually became his book, Love Is Bananas: One Man’s Journey to Discover the Most Important Word in the World.

As he traveled and met people from wildly different backgrounds, Trey began asking them three questions:

What is your definition of love?

How many times have you been in love?

Do you love yourself?

He spoke with children, older adults, spiritual leaders, people experiencing homelessness, prisoners, prison guards, and people living along the edges of what most of us consider an ordinary life.

Everyone seemed to have a different understanding of love.

One idea stayed with him:

Love is the absence of judgment.

That definition invited Trey to notice how frequently he had judged himself as unworthy, unsuccessful, different, or somehow behind.

The journey toward love became a journey toward releasing those judgments.

Adventure Can Be a Path Back to Yourself

Trey loves change.

He describes himself as the person who sees something interesting and immediately wonders, “Could I do that?”

He loved spending time in bars, so he wondered whether he could own one.

He loved reading books, so he wondered whether he could write one.

He watched powerful speakers move audiences and wondered whether he could step onto a stage and do the same.

For Trey, adventure is more than international travel or chasing dramatic experiences.

Adventure is the name he gives to challenge.

It makes stepping outside his comfort zone feel playful, curious, and alive.

Instead of telling himself that he must overcome social anxiety, he might make talking to a stranger his next adventure.

Instead of placing enormous pressure on himself to discover his purpose, he might try 30 new things in 30 days and notice what creates energy.

Instead of waiting until he feels qualified to become an author, he writes the book and allows the process to transform him.

That distinction matters.

Many of us believe we need to know exactly what we want before we begin.

In reality, we often discover what we want by moving.

We try something.

We notice what feels expansive.

We recognize what no longer fits.

We take another step.

Clarity does not always arrive before the adventure. Sometimes clarity is created by the adventure.

Do You Like Yourself?

During Trey’s exploration of love, he noticed how difficult the question “Do you love yourself?” was for many people to answer.

Some immediately said no.

Others paused, explained, qualified, or tried to reason their way toward an answer.

Trey eventually began asking a gentler question:

Do you like yourself?

Would you choose to spend time with yourself?

Do you appreciate the person you have become?

Can you recognize the courage, growth, survival, humor, and humanity contained within your own story?

Trey remembered sitting on a beach in Thailand on one of his birthdays. He had spent years believing his life should be different and that he should be further ahead.

Then he had a simple realization:

He had made it this far.

He was alive.

He was sitting on a beach in Thailand.

His life contained experiences, accomplishments, resilience, and adventure.

For the first time, he allowed himself to think, “I’ve done all right.”

Self-acceptance did not arrive as a dramatic declaration.

It appeared as a small moment of acknowledgment.

Maybe learning to like yourself begins there.

You pause long enough to see everything you have already carried, created, survived, learned, and experienced.

You let yourself feel proud.

Look for Evidence That Life Is Supporting You

Another coach once gave Trey a practice to help shift his nervous system out of a constant state of fear and reactivity.

The coach asked him to set an alarm three times a day.

Whenever it sounded, Trey was to pause and ask:

Show me evidence that life is working in my favor.

The evidence did not have to be extraordinary.

It could be a comfortable chair.

A good conversation.

A pen that moved smoothly across the page.

A moment of unexpected kindness.

A small win.

A beautiful view.

The purpose was to train his mind to notice what was working.

The more he practiced, the more evidence he began to see.

I often describe this as paying attention to what you want more of.

Our minds are constantly gathering evidence. When we focus only on what feels wrong, unfair, or incomplete, our awareness continues collecting examples that reinforce that experience.

When we intentionally notice support, beauty, progress, connection, and possibility, we begin building a different relationship with our lives.

The circumstances may still be complicated.

But our experience of moving through them begins to change.

Our Joy Is Our Job

During our conversation, I said something Trey immediately repeated:

Our joy is our job.

We each bring energy into the rooms we enter.

We have all experienced someone whose presence seems to lift a room. People relax. They smile. They feel welcomed, encouraged, or inspired.

We have also experienced the tension that arises when someone enters carrying criticism, conflict, or emotional heaviness.

Of course, we all have difficult days. Intentional joy does not require constant cheerfulness or pretending painful feelings do not exist.

It asks us to become aware of what we are carrying and how we are sharing it.

What energy am I bringing into this conversation?

How do people feel after spending time with me?

Am I helping people feel more accepted, alive, and connected?

Trey shared that this awareness made him think differently about the energy he brings to coaching sessions and meetings.

He wants to be the person others look forward to seeing, even when the conversation itself may be challenging.

That is one reason I begin many of my coaching conversations by asking:

What can we celebrate?

There will always be responsibilities, challenges, and decisions to discuss.

Beginning with celebration helps us remember that progress is happening too.

Start With a Question

Toward the end of our conversation, Trey encouraged everyone to write a book.

His advice was wonderfully simple:

Start with a question.

What are you curious about?

What have you experienced that you still want to understand?

What idea keeps returning to you?

What could you explore through conversations, stories, travel, research, or reflection?

Trey began with a question about love.

Now, he is exploring another:

How do we love our lives?

He has met people living with tremendous wealth who do not enjoy their lives and people living with very little who radiate joy.

He wants to understand the difference.

That question will lead him toward new people, places, stories, and adventures.

Your question may do the same for you.

You do not need to know where it will lead before you begin.

Curiosity is enough to take the first step.

Maybe You Are Not Lost

There is no finish line where you suddenly understand everything about yourself, your purpose, your relationships, or your life.

We are continually changing.

We are gathering new ingredients.

We are meeting new versions of ourselves.

We are trying, learning, releasing, creating, and becoming.

Maybe being lost simply means you have reached the edge of what you already know.

Something new is asking to be explored.

So, what is your next adventure?

Is it starting a conversation?

Traveling somewhere unfamiliar?

Writing the first page?

Trying something you have secretly wanted to try?

Or simply pausing long enough to recognize that you have made it this far—and that is worth celebrating?

You do not have to see the entire path.

Start with the question that will not leave you alone.

Then see where it takes you.

You can watch the full first episode of Evolve Now with Trey Humphreys here:

About Trey Humphreys

Trey Humphreys is a personal branding strategist, author, speaker, coach, and serial entrepreneur obsessed with one central question: How do we love our lives?

After building businesses in hospitality, events, entertainment, and personal branding, Trey has learned to transform his unusual experiences into meaningful stories. His adventures have taken him from Atlanta to West Africa, Thailand, Central America, and many unexpected places in between.

He is the author of Love Is Bananas: One Man’s Journey to Discover the Most Important Word in the World, a deeply personal and humorous exploration of love, judgment, connection, and self-acceptance. Today, Trey helps people uncover what makes their stories memorable and build personal brands that feel real, bold, and impossible to ignore.