Showering. Something you probably take for granted on a daily basis. But after spending close to four months on the road, we consider the act of showering somewhere between an enjoyable experience and something you would sell your soul for.

We started off this journey comfortably. We showered at my mom’s house. We showered at the house Jay grew up in during our stay in Los Angeles. Things got a little more out of the ordinary in the northwest when we showered and stayed at my stepdad’s great aunt Pinky’s house. But we definitely weren’t roughing it when we were being hit with the naked, dual headed shower sensation in Cape Cod, or in a cleanly kept condo located thirty-eight floors up in Chicago.

We have roughed it, showering at a dirty truck stop in Hastings, NY while paying eight dollars a shower to do so. We’ve had showering situations some would consider humorous, like when we showered in Jay’s cousin Tony’s artsy house in Portland. His shower was located in a room that was like a melting pot. The shower was next to the kitchen stove which was under a bedroom loft, where Tony and his girlfriend Stephanie slept. That time when we stayed with five girls in Delaware was pretty good too. The PTP crew upped the total shower hungry twenty somethings to nine that Wednesday morning, with only one ill-pressured shower available for use.

And oh, we’ve gone showerless. But let me tell you something. Showerless in Spokane is nothing compared to showerless in Mobile. It is humid and sticky in the south. If you don’t shower, you don’t survive.

Our most recent escapade to find a shower involved meeting girls at a bar on Beale Street in Memphis and latching on to them like they were the fountain of youth. Yesterday, Zach managed to finagle four showers from the attractive blonde working the counter of Hard Rock casino’s health and spa in Biloxi, MS. Today in New Orleans, we shower in a tub surrounded by rubber ducky curtains belonging to Ben, a friend of Brian Conley, who we briefly interviewed in Philly.

Despite the uncertainty of where and when we will shower next, there are two things you can count on.

There is no such thing as a group shower for the sake of conservation. And we will always use your shower products.

Check out this example of how one blind email has helped us find people to interview for the Pursue the Passion tour.

In January of 2006 I sent a Chicagoan entrepreneur by the name of Barry Moltz an email to see if he’d be interested in being interviewed on our 2006 tour. He wrote me back saying he could do a little more.

Besides building our original website and flying us out to Chicago in 2006, Barry sent an email out to his network of 10,000 people to find additional people to interview. From that email, we ended up interviewing Troy Henikoff, Mary Jane Grinstead, Anna Belyaev, Lynn Hazan, Rachel Begelman, Deb Morrin, Irv Segal, Mardi and Denny Moore, Cindy Banks, Mark Conway, Adrian Russell-Falla, Oksana Kolesnikova, Misha Segal, Jason Pettus, Jan Buckner Walker, Jake Sasseville, Lisa Canning, Jesus Delgado Jenkins, Tim Stevens, and a few others.

Then there are other people Barry referred us to that provided us with additional connections and opportunities.

Monica Rohleder, a 2006 PTP interview, referred us to Rayne Martin and Jen Hankee to interview. She also provided us with a connection at Helio, who sponsored our tour with three cell phones and service for the 2007 tour.

Melissa Giovagnoli, a 2006 PTP interview, introduced me to literary agent Jon Malysiak, who lit a fire under my ass to get going on a book.

Ann Meyer quoted me in the Chicago Tribune and referred us to Daniel & Jim, co-founders of Urban Initiatives for a 2007 interview.

Michelle True ended up writing us a poem about passion, which I’m thinking about using as an intro for my book.

Laura Allen referred us to Noah Kagan, who referred us to a few other stellar entrepreneurs around America.

Phoenix Rowel, a 2006 interview, invited us to hear Tom speak to the Sheridan Correctional Facility this year, which was one of most memorable, meaningful experiences this summer. Tom turned out to be one of our interesting interviews after we saw him speak to a hundred inmates. He also referred us to a couple documentarians to help with our documentary.

JoAnne Pavin took us out for golf last year, gave every PTP member a massage this year, and wants to eventually host a golf outing for PTP next year. She’s kinda amazing.

I didn’t write this to boast about how many connections I have made through PTP, or to brag about some of the experiences we’ve been fortunate enough to be a part of. I wrote this because I wanted to show how one blind email opened up a world of opportunity. I wanted to show that loose ties are the ones that can really count. And I wanted to encourage you to start creating a network of people that you can call upon to make things happen, and so you can make things happen for them.