Gotta Start Somewhere, WWW, Texas to Africa | #1

If you say you're going to do it, do it.

Author

Zach Horvath
June 24, 2025

June 24, 2025: Welcome to my first letter. I’m stoked you’re joining me on this new adventure. This email introduces the “who/what/why” of this newsletter. I share updates on LIVE A GREAT STORY’s 11th birthday and The LIVE A GREAT STORY Book, a 30 day countdown to Kilimanjaro and a preview of upcoming stories.

Quote for the Week: "And it dawned on me that I might have to change my inner thought patterns...that I would have to start believing in possibilities that I wouldn’t have allowed before, that I had been closing my creativity down to a very narrow, controllable scale...that things had become too familiar and I might have to disorient myself." - Bob Dylan

Read time: 8 min

If you don’t want to subscribe, click here. This year, I’ve unsubscribed to everything that doesn’t inspire my journey or support my growth. If this email doesn’t do either, please do you and your inbox a favor and unsubscribe. No hard feelings.

On the other hand, if you dig this, hit “reply” and let me know!

“What’s one of your favorite countries?” Jordan is my go-to answer. Two years ago, I was sleeping under the full moon in Wadi Rum where they filmed Star Wars. It truly feels like another planet.

This newsletter, explained.

Maybe you’re here because LIVE A GREAT STORY

Maybe we know each other from Austin, faraway countries, or the internet.

However you arrived here, thank you for checking this out.

But what is this?

WHO:

I’ve been “the LIVE A GREAT STORY guy” for 11 years.

For 3,993 days straight, I’ve lived and breathed LIVE A GREAT STORY, growing a spray-painted message into a globally recognized business. Over 1,000,000 of my products travel around the world. 50+ people have a LIVE A GREAT STORY tattoo. I’ve shared 1,000+ social media posts. Shipped 50,000+ orders… and so much more.

For basically all of my adult life, I’ve been 100% committed to LIVE A GREAT STORY

But last year, around the 10th anniversary, I realized it was time for me to move away from a full-time, 24/7/365 focus on LIVE A GREAT STORY. I realized it was time to carve out my individualized path outside of my business.

“I’m starting this newsletter 100% how I want to as if I was building from scratch,” I texted my friend the other day. This newsletter comes from me, from my soul.

I’m a writer/photographer/videographer/artist, experience builder, thinker and feeler, world-traveler, and student of life on a mission to live my own great story until I'm a healthy 120 years old. I love collecting stories that one day I’ll be proud to share with my grandkids. I’ve traveled to 44 countries on 5 continents, spoken on stages in front of hundreds, and been the featured guest on a nationally broadcast morning show that reached 400,000 people. I am in an amazing relationship with the girl of my dreams. I see all my family every month. I’m three years alcohol free. I have five tattoos, one of which is LIVE A GREAT STORY

WHY:

This newsletter has two goals.

The first is primarily selfish: publish authentic creativity, consistently, because I want to.

Authentic: I will write the email I want to write. My ideas, stories, and writing. No AI.

Creativity: Photos, videos, words. Mostly mine, but others, too.

Consistently: If I’m not publishing, it kills me, so I need to stick to a consistent release pattern of hitting “publish”.

Because I want to: this is my space, free from the algorithms, the rules, the social pressure to conform. This is my art, my way, because I want to.

I have to do this completely on my terms without caring about what others think, because…

Without pursuing my most authentic, creative, personal self, free of influence from outsiders, I would fail at my second goal:

Inspiring you to do the same.

I can’t tell you to live your own great story if I’m not also completely, wholeheartedly pursuing that same adventure in my own life.

I hope that by committing to authentically writing my story with my rules, it inspires you to do the same… which inspires others, and the ripple effect spreads.

WHAT:

This newsletter is where I will publish my art, share helpful resources, amplify inspiring stories… and whatever else I want to do.

My art lives scattered across the internet. Maybe you’ve seen my Youtube channel, follow me on IG or we’re LIVE A GREAT STORY friends.

This email will centralize my art into one place.

I will also share helpful and inspiring resources to support and inspire all of us to keep living a great story. I am always reading, watching or attending ideas that keep me inspired, so I will be sharing links to everything intriguing here.

Especially stories.

More than telling my own stories, I love sharing others’ stories.

People send me incredible stories of triumph, adventure, and impact. Instead of keeping them in my inbox, I want to share them with you. Every great story has the opportunity to change lives, so with this newsletter, I want to highlight other people’s stories and cool things happening.

But who knows. This newsletter will evolve, change, grow as it needs to. I can only see so far into the future, I can only start with so much of a plan.

WHEN:

Weekly… hopefully

My goal is to send one email every week.

I’m also giving myself grace to miss weeks here and there.

For example, I’m going back to Africa in less than a month and I will probably miss a week or two, though I do want to send updates while on the other side of the world.

Once a week is my goal, but I can also already see this growing into a weekly core email like this with an additional current events, archive or creative story every now and then. The more I write, the more I want to share.

One year ago, LIVE A GREAT STORY was gearing up for our 10th anniversary celebration

LIVE A GREAT STORY

July 12th LIVE A GREAT STORY turns 11 years old.

One year ago, I was gearing up for one of the biggest campaigns in LIVE A GREAT STORY history with a completely new (expensive) website, a complete identity rebrand, built from built-from-scratch product collection, and a birthday party here in Austin.

This year is a bit different.

My main LIVE A GREAT STORY focus this year has been writing The LIVE A GREAT STORY Book. I am 20,000 words into the first draft and loving the journey. I’m confident that this book will significantly amplify everything I’ve built so that the LIVE A GREAT STORY message will reach and inspire even more people. But writing is taking precedence over all other parts of the movement.

That being said, we still need to celebrate the birthday!

On June 24th, I’m opening the store for the 4000th day of LIVE A GREAT STORY

Keep a lookout for a LIVE A GREAT STORY announcement in your inbox. If you’re extra special, keep checking your physical mailbox.

Kilimanjaro, for the third time

On the exact day of the 11th anniversary of LIVE A GREAT STORY, seven of us will start a two-week Tanzania/Serengeti/Kilimanjaro expedition.

I’m insanely stoked to return for my third (and probably last, for a while) trip to the tallest mountain in Africa. Our itinerary includes a Serengeti safari and, hopefully, soaring in a hot air balloon above thousands of wildebeests on their Great Migration.

Mt. Kilimanjaro is a bucket list adventure for a reason. If you’re thinking about it, book it. It’s an adventure like nothing else… and it might change your life.

Here’s part of a journal entry from my first climb:

“The day we summited was something else. I really had no idea about the summit hike. Like, literally zero. I didn’t prepare really. I didn’t research. I’ve never hiked a really big mountain before. I didn’t talk to anyone. I just knew it was going to be hard. But also, I didn’t think it was going to be that hard. Because up until this point, it was all really easy. In my mind I already was thinking of the caption ‘tbh Kili isn’t that hard’. No really. I was downplaying it because all of the days leading up to it were decent. I even ran the second day, taking off from my group jamming music up the mountain. No pole pole. So I really wasn’t worried about summitting. But wow, humbled for real for real.”

A preview of coming newsletters:

  • Saturday, I said “hi” to my sister’s newborn baby. Sunday, I said “bye” to my grandmother, with a kiss on the forehead and tears streaming down my cheeks. Sitting with my grandmother on her deathbed revealed a new understanding about life, a missing link in the equation of what I thought it meant to live a great story.

  • After 5 months, my detox from Instagram is ending. I’ve freed myself from the addiction (I think) but I’ve also lost parts of me in the process. A confusing and complex trade-off. Reflections from time away, lessons on a free attention span, safeguards for the future and a first-hand account of signing in coming soon.

  • Saturday night I received a text: “Are you interested in this job?” Immediately sent him my resume. Sunday, he asked: “Can you interview tomorrow? Virtual or in person?” Monday I was in the office for an IRL interview. Two weeks later I started basically the first real job of my life.

  • Two years ago I found myself nearly stranded in downtown Nairobi, Kenya. The bus dropped me off in the downtown bus station well after sunset. No phone service. No accommodations. No plan. Not a good idea. So I went with my best choice and accepted the invitation to stay with the supposed pastor I had just met on the bus. This week, he just sent me this photo of a bootleg, knockoff LIVE A GREAT STORY shirt. I was stoked. The full story coming soon.

 

This newsletter should have gone out weeks ago. I’ve written and re-written it too many times. But I’m loving this journey, loving the discovery of what’s next, loving the process of putting my ideas to paper. I don’t know where it’s exactly going, but it’s going forward and that’s exciting.

Thanks for joining me on this ride.

See you next week,

-z