We recently connected with Nathaniel Allenby and are pleased to share our conversation below.

Nathaniel, looking forward to hearing your stories today. We’d love to hear about a project you’ve worked on that has meant a lot to you.

The most meaningful project I have worked on is the creation and publication of The Cycle of Kindness. This book emerged from a pivotal period of personal transition, reflection, and growing awareness of how small, intentional acts of kindness can have a disproportionate impact on people’s lives. At the time, I felt uncertain about my direction and deeply motivated to live more deliberately in alignment with my values. I began documenting moments, both my own and others’, where kindness shifted outcomes, restored hope, or quietly changed someone’s trajectory. What started as scattered notes and reflections eventually evolved into a cohesive philosophy and, ultimately, a book.

Publishing The Cycle of Kindness was meaningful because it transformed an internal journey into a shared offering. The work is not theoretical; it is grounded in lived experience, service, and community building. The publishing process itself required vulnerability, discipline, and long-term commitment, distilling years of insight into something accessible, practical, and authentic.

More importantly, the book has become a foundation for broader impact. My long-term vision is for it to support the development of a nonprofit organization, a Patreon-based community, speaking engagements, and other initiatives that help promote kindness at scale. What makes this project stand apart is that it represents a true convergence of purpose, creativity, and service. It is not simply a published work; it is a catalyst for connection and action. Hearing from readers about how the book has influenced their choices, relationships, or sense of responsibility to others has affirmed that this project matters beyond my own experience.

Before we get to our next questions, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and give our readers some background and context?

My name is Nathaniel Allenby, and my work lives at the intersection of adventure, art, entrepreneurship, and human connection. I am a circus performer, creative entrepreneur, visual artist, author, and speaker whose career emerged not from a conventional business plan, but from a deliberate decision to walk away from familiarity and pursue an unconventional path rooted in curiosity, resilience, and service.

In my early twenties, I left behind stability, money, and comfort to travel by bicycle across continents. What began as an experiment became a six-year journey in which I pedaled more than 28,000 miles across ten countries and thirty U.S. states, often with little or no money. I relied heavily on the kindness of strangers for food, shelter, and survival, and through that dependence I witnessed humanity at its most generous, creative, and compassionate. That experience fundamentally reshaped my worldview and became the foundation for everything I have built since.

That journey inspired my memoir, The Cycle of Kindness, which documents not only the physical challenge of long-distance, off-grid travel, but also the psychological and emotional transformation that occurs when trust, vulnerability, and community replace fear and scarcity. The book explores kindness as a living system, one that grows stronger when people choose generosity, presence, and connection. It has since become the philosophical backbone of my work as a speaker, creator, and community builder.

After returning to the United States, I translated that lived philosophy into a creative enterprise by founding Cirque Quirk, now San Diego’s top-rated circus entertainment company. As a performer, I specialize in juggling, stilt walking, character performance, puppeteering, and immersive visual spectacle. As a founder and producer, I built Cirque Quirk into a full-scale entertainment company that delivers high-quality, professional circus performances while also creating consistent, paid opportunities for artists in an often unstable industry. Today, I work with a large roster of performers and have produced dozens of original acts and stage offerings for corporate events, festivals, schools, nonprofits, and private clients.

What sets Cirque Quirk apart is not only technical skill or visual impact, but intention. Our performances are designed to inspire wonder, confidence, and joy. For schools and community organizations, our work often serves as a tool for empowerment, creativity, and positive messaging. For corporate and private clients, we solve the problem of generic entertainment by delivering experiences that are distinctive, human, and emotionally memorable.

Alongside Cirque Quirk, I also run Allenby Art, where I create and sell original visual art, illustration, and photography. My artwork is heavily influenced by travel, mythology, psychology, and human emotion, and it serves as both a personal creative practice and a way to connect with people who resonate with symbolism, introspection, and visual storytelling.

Across all of my work, whether performing, writing, speaking, or creating visual art, I am most proud of having built a life and career aligned with my values. I have created multiple creative businesses from the ground up without formal business training, navigated reinvention across industries, and sustained a career rooted in passion rather than convention. Central to all of it is a commitment to kindness, generosity, and service, not as abstract ideals, but as practical tools for building community and living well.

Ultimately, my work invites people to reimagine what is possible when they trust themselves, invest in creativity, and choose kindness as a way of moving through the world.

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

One of the clearest examples of resilience from my journey comes from the opening chapter of The Cycle of Kindness, on what I still refer to as the coldest day of my life.

I was riding alone through severe winter conditions, already exhausted and underprepared for how quickly the weather shifted. The temperature dropped far beyond what my gear could handle. My hands went numb. My feet stopped responding. Every mile became a negotiation between panic and forward motion. I was not simply uncomfortable; I was genuinely at risk.

As the cold intensified, my thoughts began to spiral. I questioned my decision to leave a stable life behind and wondered whether the journey itself had been reckless or naive. There was no clear rescue coming, no audience, and no safety net. It was just me, the road, and the consequences of my choices.

In that moment, resilience did not look heroic. It looked practical. I focused on small, immediate actions: keep pedaling, control your breathing, stay present. I broke the challenge down into minutes instead of miles and reminded myself that panic would cost more energy than the cold already was. Eventually, through persistence and unexpected human kindness, I survived that night.

That experience taught me that resilience is not about being fearless or strong at all times. It is about staying engaged when everything in you wants to quit, regulating your inner state under pressure, and accepting help without shame when it appears. That day became a reference point for the rest of my life. Every business challenge, creative risk, or personal hardship since then has been easier to face because I know what it feels like to endure real vulnerability and come through it intact.

What do you think is the goal or mission that drives your creative journey?

The central mission driving my creative journey is to make a profoundly positive impact on the planet by elevating kindness, creativity, and human connection as active forces for change.

Everything I create, whether through performance, writing, art, or entrepreneurship, is guided by the question of how it contributes to the world beyond personal success. I am not interested in creativity as self-expression alone. I see creative work as both a responsibility and an opportunity to influence how people treat one another, how communities function, and how values are passed forward.

Through The Cycle of Kindness, my performances, and my broader creative projects, I aim to demonstrate that small, intentional actions can ripple outward in meaningful ways. In my work, kindness is not passive or sentimental; it is practical, scalable, and transformative. When people experience wonder, generosity, and shared humanity, even briefly, it often changes how they show up in the world.

Many of the global challenges we face are rooted in disconnection, fear, and scarcity-based thinking. My mission is to counter those forces by creating experiences and stories that reconnect people to their shared humanity and capacity to care for one another. Art and storytelling have a unique ability to bypass ideology and speak directly to the human nervous system, creating space for empathy, reflection, and responsibility.

Ultimately, my goal is not only to inspire individuals, but to help build systems, communities, and cultural norms that reward compassion, creativity, and cooperation. A profoundly positive impact on the planet begins with how we relate to one another, and my creative journey is devoted to strengthening that relationship at every level.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.thecycleofkindness.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/allenbyart
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TheCycleofKindness
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nathanielallenby/
• Twitter/X: https://x.com/Cycle_Kindness
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@TheCycleofKindness
• The Cycle of Kindness on Amazon: https://a.co/d/hEeJDQ3
• Linktree: https://linktr.ee/TheCycleOfKindness
  & https://linktr.ee/CirqueQuirk

Image Credits

Alyssa Rose
Alexandra Allenby
Milan Bihlman