Crushing Your Goals in 2022 and the Digital Nomad Week

Introduction: Welcome to Badass Digital Nomads, where we're pushing the boundaries of remote work and travel, all while staying grounded with a little bit of old school philosophy, self-development, and business advice from our guests.  

Kristin Wilson, Host:    00:00:20    Hello. Hello. Welcome to episode 136 of Badass Digital Nomads podcast. It is so lovely to have you here today, and I would just like to kick things off with a big thank you to my man, Ali Man from the Netherlands, who really made my day today with his Apple Podcasts Review. He says, champion of Dreams. Kristin has a unique blend of experience, expertise, and relatable charisma, which makes her such a joy as both a podcast and YouTube host. Her message provides inspiration, education, and practical hacks to push you towards your dreams. I'm truly grateful for all her work. Thank you so much, Ali, for your very well written review. I am so happy and humbled to be championing your dreams over here and to all of you listening, and it's funny you should bring that up because about, you know, dreams and goals and what have you and gratitude because coincidentally last week was Thanksgiving.  

Kristin:    00:01:32    So gratitude has been on the mind a lot lately. And also I've been thinking a lot the past few days about the importance of both patience and mentorship when it comes to achieving really anything in life. In fact, I wrote in my journal, I think it was yesterday or the day before that I think patience alone is a superpower. If you decide to learn something or do something and you've really committed to that goal and you don't care how long it takes, then in my eyes you've already won. The important part isn't how long it takes, it's the decision that you're going to do something. For example, if you've been listening to my podcast for a while, you know that I've been learning how to DJ during the pandemic. This is a hobby that I've wanted to pursue since really middle school, but I didn't actually start exploring it until the end of 2018, beginning of 2019.  

Kristin:    00:02:42    And I wanna mention that time period specifically because in my feedback from my relocation clients and my ready to relocate students in my own personal life, one of the big draws to traveling and living abroad is to be able to experience things and learn things that you wouldn't otherwise be able to do at home. Now, DJing is something that you can do virtually or in person or really anywhere in the world, but I was able to take my very first DJ classes because I was living in Amsterdam, which is a really big hub for electronic music, and then also in Buenos Aires that same year where I was living for a month and I looked up local DJ classes and was able to go to some classes just a few minutes down the road from where I was staying. So that's not to say that I couldn't have done it anywhere else.  

Kristin:    00:03:44    Of course I did it here in Florida, but it's really fun to be able to pursue an interest or a hobby in the different countries that you're traveling in. One of my ready to relocate students shared that she is choosing her destination for where to move in 2022 based on the availability of some classes that she wants to take and some retreats that she is looking at doing in both Peru and Bali. So I really encourage you if there's something you wanna do, like maybe you wanna learn how to cook Indian food in India, for example, or learn electronic music in the Netherlands. There's so many different things you can do where the destination that you're going to, you can find experts and mentors and teachers in that field of study. So even though I took a couple classes back in 2018, I didn't actually continue that hobby until 2020 when the pandemic started.  

Kristin:    00:04:51    I found myself in lockdown in Miami, and I decided to buy a DJ controller. And I like using this DJ example as some motivation and inspiration for you achieving your goals, because I had no musical experience whatsoever besides like taking the, what are those classes in elementary school, like the music classes where you play the recorder. And I also took, uh, some piano lessons as a child, but I really had no frame of reference for how to do it. I won't say that I picked it up quickly at all. It was a big challenge for me. It was very difficult and I felt like it was a really steep learning curve that did not come naturally, but it's something that I didn't have a timeline for. I didn't feel any pressure because like it wasn't gonna be my career, anything like that. It was just something I was doing for fun.  

Kristin:    00:05:50    Sort of how professional athletes like to play golf as their hobby. So maybe they play football or they drive Formula One cars, but they like to play golf or tennis on the side for fun. So long story short, it's been over a year and a half now since I've been practicing consistently and also meeting some other people in the local music industry around here in Miami. And a couple weeks ago I got invited to a barbecue with some other DJs and I was playing out there in the forest, which you might have seen on my Instagram stories. And lo and behold, a week later, a DJ who wasn't even there, texted me to ask if I would open for some other DJs at an event this week in Miami. So if you're in the Miami area, I'll be playing a set at Tree House Miami and Miami Beach from around 9 or 9:30 until 11:30 on Wednesday December 1st. 

Kristin:    00:06:58    So if you're in the area and you like electronic music, I'll post the link to the tickets in the show notes, or you can go to treehousetickets.com and it's the Andrea Oliva event on December 1st. So I went from practicing in my bedroom or living room to actually playing in front of real people and now playing at a club. And I'm really glad that I learned because it's so much fun and it's even more fun to share with other people versus just doing it at home alone. And I was extremely self-conscious about learning how to DJ at 38 years old. You know, I felt like I was way too old to be doing that, but you're never actually too old to start something new. And if you need any proof of that, the master himself, Robert Green, I just found out recently didn't even decide that he wanted to write his first book until he was 38 or 39 years old.  

Kristin:    00:08:04    And there is also this DJ in Tokyo who started DJing at like 82 or 83 years old, and she is a chef cooking at a restaurant. And then she also DJs on the side. I think she's still alive. And even my own grandma rest in peace, grandma, she decided to start taking spin classes in her eighties and decided all of a sudden that she liked working out and she had never worked out a day in her life. So whether you're 38 or 88 or 18 or whatever age you are, I would just encourage you to pursue those goals. And then of course, it's also perfectly normal that sometimes most of the time your goals don't quite go as planned. We can talk about the tomatoes. I've been attempting to grow on my balcony for the past few months. I've spent hundreds of dollars growing these tomatoes.  

Kristin:    00:09:04    I could have just bought them at the store and then my first tomatoes start sprouting and a bird eats them. Now I'm googling how to keep birds from eating your tomatoes. I mean, any number of things can go wrong on the course of reaching your goals, but the important thing is that you just be patient. You keep going and you course correct along the way. And as you're listening to this, it could be around the first day of the last month of the year in 2021. So you might be starting to kind of reflect on your year and what went right, what went wrong, and what you wanna do or what you wanna change in 2022. And I've been doing exactly the same thing. You know, it's just that time of year that energy is in the air. And just a week or so ago, I wrote out my smart goals for 2022, you know, the S-M-A-R-T, Smart Goal system, and I've never actually filled out my goals, so exactly according to this system.  

Kristin:    00:10:13    So I was doing this for the first time, and I came to this part where you write down any potential obstacles that might be in your way. So this is sort of like that fear setting stoic exercise that Tim Ferris always raves about. It's where you try to think of anything bad that can come between you and your goal, like what can go wrong as you're trying to accomplish this thing. And it's different for every goal. It might be a physical barrier, like you wanna lift a certain amount of weight and there's 50 pounds between you and your goal. It could be weight you wanna lose, it could be a monetary barrier or it could just be a psychological barrier. But this year I realized that the only thing I could come up with between me and my goals was time. That's it. There were no physical barriers.  

Kristin:    00:11:11    So it's quite possible that the only thing standing between you and your goals is just time <laugh>, just, just time. That's it. Just time passing as it does mixed with taking somewhat consistent and cohesive action. You don't have to have it all figured out. You just have to take a good educated guess at what you think the next step would be and pursue that. And if you're interested in moving abroad, that is just the perfect metaphor of something being a marathon and not a sprint. And even so is teaching people how to move abroad. Delivering the information on how to take each step in the moving abroad process is also a marathon and not a sprint. It's like anything worth doing in life is probably going to be a challenge. But to bring this full circle with what Ali was saying in his review or her review, Ali.  

Kristin:    00:12:21    Ali, I just realized I'm not sure mastering anything is gonna take some time for me. Understanding and mastering the relocation process was something that took me more than 10 years to achieve with the help of many, many people from my lawyers to my real estate brokers, to my colleagues and partners in the real estate and relocation industries, as well as other expats and clients and people who just shared their experiences with me. And so what I'd like to share with you is that this dynamic can happen in podcasting. It can happen through YouTube videos. And as a content creator, as a YouTuber and a podcaster, I also consume a lot of content. I watch a lot of videos on YouTube. I listen to tons of podcasts, and even if I don't comment on everything, or even if the people that I'm listening to and watching, if they don't know who I am, I still see them as mentors to me in the way that I hope that I am for you and that you are to each other, especially those of you who have connected in our community, whether that's on Facebook or on Patreon.  

Kristin:    00:13:42    You know, many of you and I have, we've connected a bit over email or in YouTube comments and we've chatted a little bit. But even if we have never messaged or talked before, I am sure that if you're listening to this right now, if you like this podcast and you like hearing from me, then we definitely have a lot in common. And there's definitely a reason that we've connected here over audio waves and the internet. So I hope that my guests and I are able to provide a lot of value and insights and motivation and encouragement into helping you on your journey and also solving problems or discussing common issues along the way. But if you have a question or you wanna reach out, then feel free to get in touch on social media. Either way, I'm Traveling with Kristin pretty much everywhere except Twitter.  

Kristin:    00:14:43    I'mwheresKristin But I'm not active on Twitter very much. Also, my email list is probably best at travelingwithKristin.com/subscribe, where I have sent an email out every week this year, except I missed one or two weeks, but this week I wrote about what it's like to spend the holidays abroad as an expat and how to cope with loneliness during that time. So that might be, uh, something that you wanna check out, being that it is the holiday season. Actually, that would probably be a good topic for the podcast. Maybe I'll do a podcast on that. Anyway, the other news I have for you today is that next week is Digital Nomad Week, the first of its kind hosted by Olamide Bero. Digital Nomad Week is an online summit that will take place from December 6th through eighth, 2021, where you can learn from travel and remote work experts in the digital nomad world and meet thousands of other like-minded people in the networking events.  

Kristin:    00:15:54    You can get a free ticket using my link in the show notes, and there are also VIP options available starting at just $99. This digital Nomad week is pretty cool. It's slated to be the largest online celebration of digital nomad culture ever. There are more than a hundred experts in the digital nomad movement, including government leaders, influencers, crypto enthusiasts, and other global citizens who will be sharing their areas of expertise in diverse topics like lifestyle design, digital nomad visas, cryptocurrency and environmental sustainability, which we talked about just a couple weeks ago here on the podcast. Yours truly will be speaking on Monday, December 6th. That's next Monday at 8:00 AM Eastern Time. I'll be hosting a panel of quite a few badasses if I do say so myself. You're gonna hear from Rolf Potts, the author of the Vagabonding book that inspired Tim Ferriss's four Hour Work Week.  

Kristin:    00:17:07    We also have a couple podcast interviews with Rolf Potts here on Badass Digital Nomads. I'll link to those in the show notes. Also on my panel will be Matt Kepnes, also known as Nomadic Matt may have heard of him before. Jason Silva of shots of ah YouTube fame will also be in the house, as well as Alex Fasulo the freelancer who went viral this year after making over a million dollars on Fiverr. Yes, she was featured on CNBC's Make It and the Graham Stefan show it's going to be an action packed two days with tons of information and stories to be shared. I can't wait. Make sure to grab your ticket today and you can tell them I sent you by supporting the show and using my affiliate link in the show notes. Or you can pop over and register at digitalnomadweek.com. I'll also be part of a Q&A panel the following day with lots more nomadic heavy hitters.  

Kristin:    00:18:17    Finally, I postponed last Sunday's monthly YouTube live stream. Again, this time it was because I was traveling from Austin, Texas where I spent Thanksgiving back to Mi Casa here in Miami. So if you are a US citizen, I hope you had a very happy and safe Thanksgiving weekend. And if you're not American, then I hope you had a very happy and safe and great weekend. Either way. Thank you so much for tuning into the show today. I am so grateful for you today and every day of the year. Go get those goals you guys, and see you twice next week at Digital Nomad Week on Monday and back here on the podcast on Tuesday. Ciao for now.