Traveling Insights: An Inside Perspective

I get a lot of questions about what it's like to not have a real permanent home. Not everyone is excited about having their entire life fit into two suitcases, but somehow, that's where I find myself now. Talking with a new friend the other day, I realized that the longest I lived in one place since moving away from Kansas back in 2018 was a year and a half...and even then, that included a three-month trip abroad. I've lived in cities with several million people, college towns, and tiny towns (e.g. Vergas, at pop. 350). And each experience has taught me a lot about myself and what I'm looking for in community. It's also forced me to come up with ways to stay grounded, despite all the change. For any of you out there that find yourselves in a similar, somewhat ungrounded state, here's what I have to offer: 1) Listen to music that reminds you of home 2) Make frequent phone calls to friends and family 3) Send random text messages and emails to people to tell them h...

It's been a while since I've posted here. I'll admit it's been hard to keep up with all the traveling I've been doing this summer, both for work and for plesure. I'll be dividing what I write accordingly between this blog for pleasure and my business blog with Mezclada. As I write this, I'm sitting in a plane on my wya to Lyon, France. Soemthign I could never have anticipated.  Today I want to take you back to July 20th-24th for the Neo Kizomba Festival in Austin, Texas. My first ever dance festival of its kind, and to be honest, my first rela formal introduction to kizomba, a dance with roots in Africa that was later popularized in the 80s in France.  Most readers at this point probably know that I'm a fan of dancing. So investing in a festival such as this one seemed like a natural next step to take my dancing to the next level. Little did I know that I would find myself dancing in the pool, awake until 1 a.m., and comforted by how much Spanish I hear...

El martes pasado me desperté con una sensación de pesadez al darme cuenta que el tiempo que me quedaba de mi viaje a Costa Rica había llegado a su fin. Hasta ahora, me había ido bastante bien manejando mis emociones. El año pasado, fueron dos semanas completas antes de mi partida que lloré incontrolablemente. En momentos aleatorios a lo largo del día, me encontraba rompiendo a llorar, pensando en el futuro y que no sería el mismo. Este año, realmente no me golpeó hasta unos días antes. Dejé de empacar hasta la noche anterior a mi vuelo, sin querer enfrentar la realidad de que en poco más de 24 horas me encontraría en un lugar mucho más fresco donde no podría simplemente ponerme una camiseta sin mangas y comenzar con mi día. Estoy escribiendo hoy en mi blog personal en lugar de para Mezclada, donde he estado escribiendo sobre mis experiencias durante los últimos meses, pero principalmente desde la perspectiva de la educación financiera y la atención plena. La razón es que el tema de ho...

Last Tuesday I woke up with a feeling of heaviness, realizing that the time I had left during my trip to Costa Rica had come to a close. Up to now, I had been doing pretty well handling my emotions. Last year, it was a full two weeks prior to my departure that I cried uncontrollably. In random moments throughout the day, I would find myself bursting into tears, thinking about the future and it not being the same. This year, it didn’t really hit me until a few days prior. I pushed off packing until the night before my flight, not wanting to face the reality that within a little more than 24 hours I’d find myself in a much cooler place where I couldn’t just throw on a tank top and get started with my day.  I’m writing today on my personal blog instead of for Mezclada, where I’ve been writing about my experiences for the last several months, but mostly from the perspective of financial literacy and mindfulness. The reason is that today’s topic, which it has a lot to do with mindfulne...

Sometimes the most wonderful things can happen when your plans change. I've been writing about my travels in Costa Rica for the past several weeks as part of my 60-day financial fitness challenge through my business, Mezclada, and feel like the way that my mindset has shifted over the course of the past 50 days or so is quite remarkable. I was writing on the beach this morning, taking down all the notes of seeds that have been planted since I arrived in Santa Teresa at the beginning of January, and had one big takeaway that I felt was worth writing about here and publishing to share with others. It doesn't matter if you have $10,000 coming in every month if you can't take off at 4 p.m. to go use the sauna.  I say this because I've set a goal to earn 10K/mo. through Mezclada and my consulting work. But I realized that where I'm living, the people I'm surrounded by, and the activities I get to engage in on a daily basis are worth that much if not more. I'd mu...

Cualquiera que haya escuchado una entrevista con Nilda Chiaraviglio ha oído hablar de la idea de que el universo siempre se comunica con nosotros. Ya sea un mensaje de una película, algo que escuchamos en una conversación a nuestro lado, el título de un libro que se destaca entre todas las novelas en un estante... siempre estamos en este divertido intercambio energético con las cosas que nos rodean. De hecho, la física cuántica nos dice que todo se mueve, todo el tiempo. Las partículas de los objetos aparentemente concretos y sólidos están, de hecho, vibrando a una frecuencia tan baja que para nosotros es imperceptible. Hay tantas maneras en que podemos captar estos mensajes, consciente o inconscientemente. Algunas personas interpretan sus sueños. Otros rezan. Y otros piden la guía de los árboles y la naturaleza. Y luego... respiramos hondo y esperamos. Creo que escuchar requiere un cierto nivel de agudeza. Algunas personas lo llamarían intuición, otros podrían llamarlo apertura o pres...

Anyone who's listened to an interview with Nilda Chiaraviglio has heard of the idea that the universe is always communicating with us. Whether it's a message from a movie, something we overhear in a conversation next to us, the title of a book that stands out among all of the novels on a shelf...we are always in this funky energetic exchange with the things around us. Indeed, quantum physics tells us that everything is moving, all the time. The particles of objects that are seemingly concrete and solid are, in fact, vibrating at such a low frequency that to us it's imperceptible. There are so many ways we can pick up on these messages, consciously or unconsciously. Some people interpret their dreams. Others pray. And others ask for guidance from the trees and nature. And then...we take a deep breath and wait.  I think that listening requires a certain level of acuity. Some people would call it intuition, others might call it openness, or paying attention. And what's coo...

Costa de California este verano, carretera escénica 101 Tengo que dar mucho crédito a un episodio de un podcast de diseño humano por proporcionar la inspiración para esta publicación. El tema del episodio analizaba las intenciones para el próximo año, 2022, y había una gran lista de indicaciones que guiaban al oyente a pensar en lo que podría ser este año. Y luego, al final, las dos mujeres que hablaron mencionaron lo poderoso que es pensar en tu versión de 150 años de ti misma, y ​​lo que esa versión de ti diría sobre la situación, la etapa de la vida en la que te encuentras, etc.  Es muy interesante cómo tomar esa perspectiva de alguien que eres tú, pero no realmente tú, puede permitirte canalizar una sabiduría poderosa. Es este ejercicio de dar un paso atrás de la rutina diaria, ver el panorama general y la línea de tiempo de la vida, y comprobar contigo mismo si tu estado emocional está realmente en línea con el gran esquema de las cosas. Esta publicación se escribió originalme...

California coast this summer, scenic highway 101 I have to give huge credit to a human design podcast episode for providing the inspiration for this post. The theme of the episode was looking at intentions for the year ahead - 2022 - and there were a great list of prompts that guided the listener to think about what this year could be. And then at the very end, the two ladies speaking mentioned how powerful it is to think about your 150-old version of yourself, and what that version of you would say about the situation, the season of life that you're in, etc. It's so interesting how taking that perspective of someone who is you - but not really you - can actually allow you to channel some powerful wisdom. It's this exercise of stepping back from the day-to-day grind, seeing the bigger picture and timeline of life, and checking in with yourself to see if your emotional state is really in line the grande scheme of things. This post was originally written to share with just a ...

Disclaimer: My last post was definitely a precursor to this one - if you haven't read it, I would recommend giving it a read before you dive into this. What would you do if you knew you were going to die tomorrow? What would you do if you knew you were going to die in a year? What would you do if your best friend died tomorrow? I would consider myself to be incredibly lucky, not having lost anyone close to me during the last two years because of COVID. For some reason, I just had it in my mind that things would continue to go as they did, I would continue making mistakes, learning from them, moving on, setting new goals for myself, rinse, repeat. Nope. Not at all. Change comes when you least expect it and and there's absolutely nothing you can do to prepare. My best friend, Megan Gladbach, was killed in a car accident on April 29th, 2022, when she was hit by a drunk driver in Missouri. Her boyfriend was flown to a nearby hospital in Springfield, and as of this writing, is still...

(Originally Draft March 28th, 2022) In reflecting on my time over the last three months spending living and breathing the beauty and magic that is Costa Rica, it would behoove me not to share some of what I feel I've taken away from this experience. And, in listology fashion, I've decided to share 13 reasons my life will never be the same, and the ways in which I'm taking every single second with me into this next chapter.  In many ways, this is an ode to all of the lovely people who have sprinkled my days and nights - strangers, friends, and adopted family alike. I would be remiss not to mention that you are, in many ways, the reason why I do what I do, what motivates me to get out of bed in the morning, and what pushes me to continue to seek grand adventures in life.  Thank you. From the bottom of my heart. I know that when the time comes to express my appreciation for your hospitality and camaraderie, there will be no shortage of love and thoughtfulness coming from my en...

  Final Showcase para ILT Academy en St Cloud Fotos y descripciones de todos los emprendedores en nuestro grupo He tenido este gancho para escribir recientemente, pero en una manera más consistente. Una de las cosas que escucho uno y otra vez sobre el éxito es que es más un juego de números que nada. En un episodio reciente de Copyblogger, los coanfitriones hablaron de la importancia para los escritores de 1) no tener miedo de probar sujetos o enfoques diferentes y 2) dejar que tu audiencia/futuros clientes/lectores te demuestran lo que necesitan o lo que falta el mercado. A la vez que te has dado cuenta de qué resuena con las personas, sólo SIGUE en el sendero. Encuentra el mensaje que resuena y busca mil maneras diferentes de decir la misma cosa.  A mí me encantó esta idea porque relacionó con un artículo reciente que tenía que leer como parte de ILT Academy, un curso de emprendimiento en que he invertido mucho tiempo en los últimos 10 semanas. La idea detrás del método bul...