0:09

The way to generate adventure for yourself

0:11

is to find those things that you are

0:14

unfamiliar with, to find those things

0:16

that make you uncomfortable and go and

0:18

do them.

0:20

Yeah,

0:31

Hell, hello, and welcome

0:33

to the podcast where we talk about all things

0:36

change and be challenged to be open

0:39

to discovering the

0:41

ways in which we could change more productively.

0:45

I'm Li Saws with a terrible voice,

0:48

and I'm chill her sake, And

0:51

it is sort of funny that I co host

0:53

this podcast with you, Lisa about changed since I

0:55

am a fairly change verse person.

0:58

I had this career that was just

1:01

such a sort of steady eddy,

1:03

slow but steady climb

1:06

in the magazine industry until that blew up. And

1:09

I was thinking just this morning that, you

1:11

know, I love routine so much that when

1:13

my plans for tonight God

1:16

screwed up. I was like, I

1:19

was totally unsettled. Clearly

1:21

I need to learn, continue

1:23

to learn from our guests. But you you were

1:26

good with. You're good with

1:28

like last minute change

1:31

rounds and bigger and bigger shifts too.

1:33

I'm definitely flexible um

1:36

time wise, and I

1:38

think it just comes from just an inherent disorganization.

1:42

It looks like spontaneity that

1:44

it's actually just completely disorganized.

1:47

Just all the plates crashing all the time

1:50

is a symphony. Well, a

1:54

lot of changes is not orchestrated

1:56

and it is not planned, which is why I think

1:58

our guest today is going to be grey because as she

2:01

actually orchestrated

2:03

and planned one of the most dramatic

2:05

shifts I can see in lifestyle. So I

2:07

just want to get in and start talking. Let's

2:09

do it. Yeah, um, Test

2:11

Bigland is a veteran journalist and

2:13

the author of Leap Leaving a job

2:16

with No Plan B to find the career

2:18

and life you really want. Test, Thank

2:20

you so much for being with us. Oh,

2:22

it's my absolute pleasure. Thank you. So

2:25

that was you had a job not dissimilar

2:28

from Jills, where you had spent twenty years in

2:30

the same industry. Shill wasn't publishing. You

2:32

were in a journalism You had probably

2:35

when one of the most coveted premiere

2:37

jobs at marketplace and marketplace money.

2:40

You're cruising in your career. Can you tell

2:42

us about that a little bit? Yeah,

2:45

I started in public radio right out of college.

2:47

I was fortunate enough to get a job at Oregon

2:49

Public Broadcasting where I had had an internship

2:52

in my freshman year and

2:55

it was all I ever really wanted to do, and

2:58

I ended up spending almost only five

3:00

years in it and ended

3:03

up at as you said, Marketplace, which

3:05

is a global business and economics

3:08

program that's heard daily on

3:10

public radio stations across the country.

3:13

And I had wanted to work

3:15

there from my earliest days and

3:17

ended up getting a job when I was I can't remember

3:20

thirty one or thirty two. They're hosting

3:22

a national radio show. So everything

3:25

went everything to plan exactly.

3:28

And I was a planner, Oh

3:31

you guys. I was such a planner like

3:33

You've never seen a planner like me, starting

3:35

when I was a kid, and I always had these goals

3:38

and I reached them and

3:40

that's what I did with that job. And I ended

3:42

up staying there for eleven years

3:45

and loved it, absolutely

3:48

loved it. It could not have been happier, um,

3:52

But there were things that were happening in the

3:54

workplace that just

3:56

didn't sit well with me, and

3:59

I ended up leave ving. And despite

4:02

what you said about me organizing

4:04

all this and planning all this, actually

4:07

I didn't really. I

4:10

did something entirely uncharacteristic for

4:12

me, which is I quit

4:14

without having a plan. Now, did you have

4:16

one of those quitting moments where like,

4:19

I take this job and shove it moment? Yep?

4:24

Did you regret it the next morning? Oh? I

4:26

love it though? Well, I mean I

4:28

didn't. I didn't. I didn't actually quit

4:30

that way in my head. That's what

4:33

it was, you know. I didn't want to burn

4:35

any bridges. Um. So

4:37

so how did you very nicely say take this job

4:39

and shove it? I said, Um,

4:42

I said, this isn't working for me and I need

4:44

to leave. And I

4:47

did give them three months notice. They

4:49

were shocked because you know, I had I did

4:51

have this amazing job. Amazing

4:55

people in my industry would have killed for it, you know.

4:58

Uh. And and people

5:00

knew that I loved what I was doing, but

5:04

they also knew that I was unhappy, um

5:06

for all kinds of reasons. Um.

5:09

And so yeah, there was shocked.

5:11

Um. And the next day

5:13

did I regret it? No? H.

5:16

The first time I really started to have second

5:18

thoughts was about a week after my

5:20

last day, which was three months later.

5:23

And when I when I you know, found

5:25

myself not going to work

5:28

and every routine that I

5:31

and others like me love so much

5:34

suddenly yes, yes,

5:38

um, and all of a sudden, you

5:40

know, I realized I didn't have a purpose

5:42

anymore, at least I thought I didn't, and

5:45

I couldn't figure out how to. I

5:48

feel like I

5:51

was somebody wasn't totally

5:53

impulsive like when you quit. Was

5:56

it one morning, I can't take this anymore? Yeah,

5:58

because you hadn't thought at all about

6:00

what you were going to do. There

6:03

was never a moment, oh, I'm gonna

6:05

like become a chef or something like that. No.

6:08

I mean I honestly thought I would die at the microphone.

6:10

That's how much I love the job. There was no other microphone

6:13

you could have gone to at that moment. Probably

6:15

probably, But I loved what I was doing. I mean, I'm

6:18

not kidding. I really I was in my dream

6:20

job. Literally, I was in my dream job.

6:23

So um yeah,

6:25

I mean I ended up. I went home on a Friday

6:27

afternoon for more sobbing

6:30

because of something that had happened that day, and

6:33

I cried in my backyard in Pasadena

6:35

for a couple of hours. Then my my

6:37

now ex husband came home and

6:40

I said, I can't do this. I have to

6:42

leave, and I'm sorry.

6:44

I you know, I don't know what I'm gonna do, and

6:47

he said we'll figure it out. Um,

6:50

And then you said I'm leaving you too. Well

6:53

about three years later. Yeah,

6:58

you know, once a quitter, always a quitter. You're

7:02

like, I'm just warming up, I'm getting good at this. You're

7:05

all gone. I'm tend with all of you and

7:09

the dogs gotta go ye by.

7:12

No, it wasn't like that, but but I will

7:14

say that I do think that there's something I talked

7:16

about this um after actually

7:19

after my book came out, because this wasn't in the book,

7:22

but that you know, I think once you experience,

7:26

once you experience quitting and

7:28

you realize it's not going to destroy you,

7:30

you look at the rest of your life and say, what

7:35

else maybe isn't isn't quite

7:37

right that I need to change?

7:40

Mm hmm okay, So so let's

7:42

go back to that like moment of regret and

7:45

what did you do next? How did you deal with it that

7:47

that one week after actual

7:50

last day at work, UM,

7:52

I went into a deep funk. It

7:55

was one of the hardest times

7:58

of my life, not only

8:01

because I didn't have that routine, although that

8:03

that was really hard. But because I really

8:05

started to feel almost immediately the loss

8:07

of my identity. And so

8:09

many of us, I think, tie our

8:12

identities to what we do,

8:14

to our jobs. And I

8:17

didn't really have enough kind of outside

8:19

that. And I had the super cool job, right

8:21

Like I would go to a dinner party where I didn't know people and

8:23

they asked me what I did, and I would

8:25

tell them and they'd be like, Oh, that's so cool.

8:29

I didn't have that cool factor any of the

8:31

social currency of our works. Something

8:34

exactly doesn't doesn't. It

8:37

drives a whole lot, motivates a whole lot,

8:39

I think it does. And

8:42

and I, yeah, I had never really thought about that,

8:44

about what I would do when I didn't have that aunt, that

8:47

cool answer anymore. And

8:49

um, so that you know, that started

8:51

right away because my my

8:53

my last day was in mid November, so

8:56

it was right before the holidays, and so there were lots

8:58

of parties that I went to and people were like, so, and

9:00

it's that's the first question everybody asks, right,

9:03

which is something that I fight against. Now, what

9:05

do you do? Hi, I'm so, and so, oh,

9:07

what do you do? I don't ask that question

9:10

of anyone anymore. Until like twenty

9:12

minutes into the conversation, because

9:14

it's not the most important and interesting

9:16

thing about What is the most important and interesting

9:18

thing about them? Well, I don't go to the most important

9:20

and interesting thing, but I will often ask

9:23

you, know, what do you what do you like to do on your downtime?

9:25

What do you do on the weekends? Um?

9:28

Where is the latest greatest place you visited?

9:31

Uh? Are there any books that you can recommend?

9:34

I mean sometimes it feels awkward because

9:36

we're so used to asking that question

9:38

about work. But I do it specifically

9:40

now because because

9:43

I don't want that to be the first thing

9:45

I know about somebody, because I don't think

9:47

it is the most important thing. Yeah,

9:50

what do you ask? Lisa? What do you

9:52

do? And

9:56

and this was someone who's never were

9:58

very rarely had a steady,

10:01

consistent, easily

10:03

defineable job, like usually

10:05

although you had many cool jobs, kind

10:07

of one after the other, I've had. I have

10:10

had many jobs, but my title

10:12

is professional dilottant. That's

10:15

what I have on my business card. I think

10:18

that's what I would like to be. Next. Alight,

10:21

when we come back, we're gonna actually talk about what

10:23

you did do next. We've

10:37

been chatting about the moment to

10:39

test kind of blew her life

10:42

up. Um. But then

10:45

from walking away from her dream job,

10:47

walking away from possibly not a dream

10:50

husband into a

10:52

whole new world, leaving

10:56

everything behind packing a backpack.

10:58

I think you didn't even have a real suitcase, and

11:00

moving to Asia like you might as

11:02

well have gone to the mood sign yourself up

11:04

with the Elon Musk And I mean, what

11:08

what was that about. That's

11:10

a really good question and I haven't quite figured

11:12

that no,

11:15

So so what happened was, Um, I ended

11:17

up getting a book deal and writing a book about

11:20

as you mentioned, about leaving the job and not

11:22

knowing what I wanted to do next. And that

11:24

book came out in August, and

11:27

in the meantime, I was in the process of a of

11:29

an amicable divorce and we still

11:31

talk and you know, he's a great person, just

11:34

the marriage needed to end. Um.

11:37

So I was without

11:39

a spouse. Um. We were in the

11:41

process of selling the house, so I didn't have you

11:44

know, I didn't know where I was going to live. The

11:46

book had come the book was coming out, and I didn't

11:48

know what I wanted to do after that. So all

11:50

of a sudden I had this inflection

11:52

point in my life where another inflection point

11:55

where I was like, you know what, I

11:57

kind of had the opportunity right now

12:00

to leave

12:03

and to go explore for a while.

12:06

I don't have anything keeping me here in Los

12:08

Angeles, so

12:10

I literally just I

12:13

bought myself a one way ticket to

12:15

Ho Chi Min City in Vietnam.

12:17

I picked that because I had never set foot in Asia,

12:20

and because I knew it was going to be cheap

12:23

and my money was going to go further. And

12:26

I just I packed

12:29

up and left. I stuck all my stuff in a storage

12:31

unit that I just recently retrieved

12:33

three and a half years later, and I

12:35

thought I would be gone for maybe

12:37

a year. That's what I was stig

12:42

like a little toe hauld no,

12:45

no, nothing,

12:48

And that was kind of that was part of what I wanted

12:50

to do. I just wanted to get

12:52

somewhere and be forced to be uncomfortable

12:55

and unfamiliar and just

12:58

make myself go through that. I don't know why

13:00

I wanted that, and that's something I'm

13:02

still figuring out as I try to figure out if I want

13:04

to write another book about that. Um

13:07

but no, I just there was something inside

13:09

me that was like you need to go challenge yourself

13:11

in an just the most enormous

13:14

way possible. Yeah, where they don't even speak English.

13:16

Oh no, it's not going to Singapore or

13:19

even Bangkok. Where are they speaking?

13:21

No? So I ended up being in

13:24

Saigon for four months and

13:26

then I moved to Bangkok and

13:29

um I ended up being

13:31

abroad for almost three years,

13:34

and I went to twenty countries. Basically

13:37

gave myself this long sabbatical, which

13:40

I could do because the house that we did

13:42

sell in l A sold for quite a bit of money

13:44

and instead of putting that in a retirement fund, I

13:47

I went on a grand adventure and

13:50

um I traveled mostly solo to

13:52

all those countries, Uh, India.

13:56

Did you create any kind of a home base for yourself

13:58

that you traveled from or did you or you know

14:01

that's not truly nomatic. No.

14:03

No, First, I had an apartment in Sigon for

14:05

four months, and then um I had a series

14:07

of apartments in Bangkok for two and a half years.

14:10

And use that as a hub. What would you

14:12

do every day when you weren't traveling,

14:14

when you're sitting in Because I just got back

14:16

actually from Vietnam, and

14:18

I loved fitting on. I

14:20

happened to love Hannoy a lot better than

14:23

than o Chiman City. But I

14:26

was there about a week, and I if I lived

14:28

there and I didn't have friends, and I didn't have a job,

14:30

and I'd seen all the tourist sites and I

14:32

hadn't been run over by a murtor scooter.

14:35

Yet's good for you. I

14:37

don't know what else to accomplishment? What

14:40

did you do day in and day out? As someone

14:42

who doesn't have friends, doesn't have family, doesn't

14:44

speak the language, isn't writing a book. Well.

14:47

For the first four months while I was in Psigon, I

14:49

was traveling a lot. I went to five

14:51

different countries in those four months. Um,

14:55

But the question is a good one for Bangkok,

14:57

and UM. A lot of what I did

15:00

I taught myself photography

15:03

while I was over there, and so I

15:05

would spend a lot of days just wandering

15:08

the city, like nobody

15:11

gets to do that usually, right, and

15:13

just I would just go yes,

15:16

and I would just go to a part

15:18

of the city that I wasn't familiar with, and I would take

15:20

my camera and my different lenses, and I would

15:22

practice my photography and I would

15:24

just wander around looking for

15:27

things that were interesting. Did that help you

15:29

really see what was around you? Yes?

15:32

Yeah, it became like this

15:34

new a new way

15:36

of looking at everything

15:39

from food to faces,

15:41

to storefronts, two

15:43

lights, to cars.

15:46

Everything. Um. Yeah, that's

15:48

a really interesting way to put that. I I like that.

15:51

Idn't really thought of it that way, but yeah. And

15:53

but I was also writing, So I would come

15:55

back to my apartment, or actually I would go to I had

15:57

a workspace that I used, and I would go there

15:59

and I would start to make notes for what

16:01

I hope will ultimately someday be another

16:04

book. I don't know how els gonna take, but

16:07

um. And I also, while I was in Bangkok,

16:09

I ended up making a lot of friends. I

16:11

was there long enough. Um, and it

16:14

is such an international city that

16:16

I was able to make a real wonderful

16:19

coterie of friends that I spent a lot of time

16:21

with. So you're by yourself in a city

16:23

like Bangkok, do you just walk

16:25

up to people and say, Hi, I'm

16:28

new here. Can I be your friend? Because

16:30

I mean, that's like I was just talking

16:32

to Alicia about this. I don't like cocktail parties because

16:35

I have to go have the same conversation with someone

16:37

all of a different person. It's like roundhog

16:39

Day for me, where you're like, nice

16:42

to meet you, I'm Lisa, what do you do? But

16:45

you're doing that with no backup. But

16:47

it almost makes it easier, right because

16:51

nobody knows me. I can tell whatever

16:53

story I want about myself, about

16:55

what I'm doing, about where I am and why I'm there.

16:57

Did you make up stuff? No,

17:00

well that would be interesting, George.

17:03

The only thing I made up ever, was

17:06

I got really I was there, you know,

17:08

starting in December fifteen. So

17:11

when people found out I was an American throughout

17:13

two thousand sixteen, you can guess

17:16

what they were asking me about. And

17:18

I got really tired of having to try

17:20

to explain Donald Trump. So I

17:22

literally started to tell people I was from Canada

17:25

because I just didn't want to talk about it because

17:28

I had no understandable

17:30

yea, um, but no. So

17:33

the way I met people was to

17:35

two different ways. One, I learned how to

17:37

scuba dive, and so when

17:39

I would go out on dive trips,

17:42

I would meet people, um, and

17:44

a lot of them, you know, when I would dive in Thailand,

17:47

a lot of them were in Bangkok. So then I had a natural

17:49

group of friends who were divers. But

17:51

the second one was there's this organization called

17:54

inter Nations and you can

17:56

find it in most major cities around the world,

17:58

and its gatherings of pets and

18:01

they have monthly you know, let's

18:03

go to a rooftop bar and everybody meet each

18:05

other UM or you know, if

18:07

you if you are a photographer, you can go

18:09

out with UM a bunch of photographers

18:11

in the city and meet people that way. So

18:14

I actually would go to these rooftop

18:16

bar gatherings where I knew not a

18:18

soul, and I would

18:20

be forced to go up to them, go just go

18:22

up to strangers, groups of strangers and say, Hey,

18:25

I'm tests, I'm in town, I'm

18:27

American. Where are you guys from?

18:30

That that actually became the default question

18:32

instead of what do you do? It was where are you

18:34

from? Which that life

18:36

is a whole, it's a whole universe,

18:40

and people, I think, in

18:42

some ways get a little addicted to it. You know, they

18:44

tap into your money, goes a lot further.

18:47

You suddenly don't ever want to come home. Did

18:49

Was there anything about expat life

18:52

that made you think I'm

18:54

not gonna want to do this forever? No,

18:59

and if I if, the only I will

19:01

tell you the only reason I'm back in the States is for

19:04

job, for money. If

19:06

I had, if I had unlimited funds, I would never live

19:08

in the United States again. But you could not because

19:10

I don't like the US, but because

19:12

I'm so I am. I am addicted too

19:16

being abroad. Um

19:18

it is what it does to

19:20

your brain is so remarkable

19:23

in terms of like I

19:25

I started to feel like almost

19:27

almost like Bangkok wasn't enough for me anymore.

19:30

Time that I was the happiest. Yeah, exactly,

19:32

because every time you walk out the door, it's a it's a

19:35

new place. But I found that the happiest

19:37

I was was when I would land in a new country

19:40

and I would be forced to function,

19:42

to figure out how to get myself places,

19:44

to meet people and

19:46

to ask them for help. And I

19:49

just rived on that,

19:51

absolutely thrived on that. And I think there was something

19:53

in it that was it was some

19:55

sort of endorphin thing that became addictive

19:58

to me. Um So no,

20:02

I don't. I mean, yes, I missed home

20:04

sometimes that I missed, you know, little things that

20:06

I missed having a car. Sometimes I just wanted to get

20:08

in a car and drive and I couldn't do that.

20:11

But for the most part, no, there was almost nothing

20:13

about expat life that I

20:15

got tired of. When we come back, we're

20:17

going to talk more about what you're doing now.

20:31

So we've talked about your big

20:35

adventure into Asia, and you

20:37

just said you would do it all again

20:39

and you would move back there. Maybe once your

20:41

book is finished, you'll you'll do another round.

20:44

Um what what

20:47

what What is in the cards for you right now? What?

20:49

What do you besides the book? What's

20:52

what's your life like? Um?

20:55

It's a really it's a good question. And I don't

20:57

know what's in the cards for me quite frankly.

21:00

And you know, just to get back to what

21:02

you guys were talking about at the beginning of the show, I

21:04

now really live my life without

21:07

a whole lot of planning, and

21:10

I have the luxury of doing that. Um.

21:12

I do have, you know, an income. I'm doing

21:14

some work for for actually a podcast

21:16

company where I'm doing some

21:18

some hosting work as a journalist. But

21:23

I'm still figuring out what the next thing is going

21:25

to be. And that's that

21:28

would be uncomfortable for a lot of people. But

21:32

I've lived my life the last seven years or so

21:34

since I left marketplace in that

21:36

space of uncertainty, and I

21:38

actually like it. And you

21:40

know, things have happened to me and I've made

21:43

things happen that have worked out,

21:45

and I think that because

21:48

I'm open to different opportunities.

21:51

It's just it's become kind

21:54

of this, well,

21:56

what's coming next for me? And

21:59

I and I like that. So, Okay,

22:01

you're comfortable with uncertainty, which I admire

22:03

and think is fantastic. I

22:05

guess I'm just curious about whether

22:08

you feel like there is some sort of

22:10

right balance between what

22:13

most of us would call real life holding

22:15

down a job, having an income, but

22:18

ideally pursuing

22:20

something that you like that feeds

22:23

some adventuring part of your soul, and

22:26

also going on actual adventures where you remove

22:28

yourself from that quote unquote real life

22:31

and you do something that feels like

22:33

an escape. Does that model

22:36

that does that not really work for you? Do you think it's

22:38

a construct that doesn't

22:41

work in general? No?

22:45

No, I wouldn't say that, because I think everyone

22:47

is different, and you know, I

22:49

think that also changes over time for

22:52

some of us. Um it certainly did for me, As I

22:54

said, I used to be a planner. I'm

22:56

a plan out every moment of my day. Um,

22:58

and I don't do that at all anymore. Um.

23:02

But

23:04

yeah, I mean I would like to find that

23:07

happy medium. And I have

23:09

been at the extremes and

23:12

I can't live like that forever. I

23:14

mean, well, maybe I could. I don't know

23:16

that I want to anymore. I would like to have

23:18

a little bit of stability. I would like to know, you

23:21

know, I'm a freelancer now basically a contractor.

23:24

I would like to know where that next paycheck is going to come

23:26

from, you know, at the end of this year, once this project

23:29

is done. Um,

23:31

I would like to have a four oh one k again.

23:34

At some point, I would like to, you

23:38

know, I I would I think I would

23:40

like to have the structure

23:42

of a workplace again. At some point.

23:45

I actually miss it. I missed going into work

23:48

and having around alterna family,

23:51

yeah, work with exactly.

23:54

Um. But when that's going to come, I don't

23:56

know. And I try not to

23:58

be too concerned about it because

24:00

I'm I'm fine where I am for now.

24:02

UM. But yeah.

24:06

The biggest problem with taking

24:09

a job like that that is more traditional,

24:11

um, with the four one K and with the colleagues,

24:14

is that it does make it more difficult to go and

24:16

have the next adventure. Um.

24:18

People don't generally let you just

24:20

leave for three months or six months. It's

24:23

just not done. If I could find an employer

24:26

that would allow me to do that, I would stay with them

24:28

forever. Um.

24:30

But you know, but I also look

24:32

and I you know, I I did what I wanted

24:34

to do. I actually took that

24:37

jump, and I went abroad, and I

24:39

was gone for way longer than I ever expected

24:41

to be. And so I

24:43

kind of feel like, you know, if if that doesn't

24:46

happen again, if something, if something comes along

24:49

that is more traditional and works for me

24:51

and work, and it's you know, something that I want to

24:53

do and feel passionate about, then

24:55

if I don't go on another adventure for five or

24:57

ten years, that's fine. I at

25:00

it. I really did it, and

25:02

I feel it. You're

25:06

the same person at all? No,

25:08

No, I'm not. Yeah, and you

25:11

know so, so I also bring that to

25:14

this life that I'm living right now. And

25:17

you know, when when I was traveling, I also didn't

25:19

make plans I would. I landed in New

25:21

Delhi, India, and I didn't know where I was going to go from

25:23

there in the rest of India. UM.

25:26

And that's kind of how I'm living right now. And I don't

25:28

know how long I can do that, but for

25:31

now it's working and I'm comfortable

25:33

with it. When it stops working, when I'm not comfortable

25:35

anymore, I will find another way. You've

25:38

talked about the job part of it and being

25:40

pretty much the only reason you're back is to

25:43

to have a job again. But there's also

25:46

the people part of it, the

25:48

the family, the long term friends, that the

25:51

intimate connections that are hard to make

25:53

when you're on the move and you can have fun

25:55

with you know, a group of ex pats of a cocktails,

25:58

but it's not like the best

26:00

friend you need a world cry on, or

26:03

you know, a lover. So do

26:06

you not miss the connection? I

26:08

love traveling, but I don't like

26:10

it when I'm by myself for a long

26:13

periods of time. Yeah, but that

26:15

that's where the way I traveled was different.

26:17

And had I tried, had I just been nomadic,

26:20

um, I would agree with that. But because

26:23

I did, particularly in Bangkok. I was there

26:25

because I said, for two and a half years, and

26:27

I developed some very very

26:30

close friendships UM and I

26:32

think that happens in part because

26:34

you are all in a place

26:36

that is not familiar to you, particularly a

26:38

place like Bangkok where my fellow

26:40

expats from Pakistan,

26:43

from France, from Germany, from Spain,

26:46

they did not speak Tie. Neither

26:48

did I, so but

26:50

of course they all spoke English. Um.

26:53

So I actually made what

26:55

are now some of my closest girlfriends in the world,

26:58

and we all all we I

27:01

think that our relationships solidified

27:04

extraordinarily quickly because

27:07

of the situation that we were in. Um

27:10

that we were all in this strange place and

27:12

needed to figure out how to function there, and

27:15

so Um no, I mean I I did.

27:18

I did have very close relationships

27:20

over there. Um do you miss the

27:23

intensity of that? I mean, is that something

27:25

that you can bring home and say, you

27:27

know what, I'm just gonna be far

27:29

more focused and dedicated

27:32

to the making of new friends because

27:36

I know what you're talking about. That there's there's

27:38

a totally different charge

27:40

in the air when you're meeting somebody

27:42

abroad. I mean that the excitement of

27:44

it and the need you have for one another is

27:47

very different from what we experience when

27:49

you know you're texting with your friend trying to figure

27:51

out a time you can get together by Yeah,

27:54

yeah, I know that that's exactly right, and intense

27:56

is the perfect word for it. Um As

27:58

for bringing that back here, it's it's

28:01

funny. I when

28:03

when I returned to the States about well,

28:06

it was August of so

28:09

it's about ten months ago. I

28:11

really thought that I was going to need to

28:13

go to a city that I had never been to, like

28:16

that I was gonna still need to feed that

28:18

that that craving for newness

28:22

um that I had gotten used to while I was abroad.

28:24

So I thought I would go to some you know, big

28:27

city that I had never been to. And

28:29

then I started to think about it and

28:32

and I originally came back to

28:34

I'm in Portland, Oregon now, which is where I grew

28:36

up, and this is where my parents are and where a large

28:38

group of old friends are. And

28:41

I thought, I'm not gonna I don't want to live

28:43

there. I'm not going to go back to the place that I know that's

28:45

the exact opposite of what I want. But

28:47

then I about two months into getting

28:49

home, I started to feel

28:51

like, you know what, this

28:53

is actually feeling really good because

28:56

I don't have to work so hard when

28:59

you are in a new city, whether

29:01

it's abroad or you know, right here in

29:03

the States, it's a lot of work to

29:07

find a new community for yourself. That's

29:10

really kind of why I'm here in Portland.

29:12

It was either going to be here or Los Angeles, where

29:14

I also have a community. But I felt

29:17

that need for just for it

29:19

to be easy, because

29:21

it was as marvelous

29:23

as it was abroad, it was also extraordinarily

29:26

difficult and taxing. Um.

29:29

And I just once I was home for a

29:31

little while, I was like, Wow, it's kind of nice

29:33

a to speak English and be

29:36

to be surrounded by people I already know

29:38

and not have to go out and meet

29:41

all those new people. So that's you know, you would ask,

29:44

you know, if I've if I've taken that skill and

29:46

applied it back here at home. No,

29:48

I haven't. Um, I've really just

29:51

relied on the people that I already know. Although

29:54

what you did bring home was an appreciation

29:56

for that. So you can only you

29:58

can only really sharp and by

30:00

putting yourself someplace really uncomfortable

30:02

for a while. Absolutely, and I

30:05

and I do think that's a skill, and I think it's a skill

30:07

that I'll be able to apply for the rest of

30:09

my life. For people who

30:11

are listening and can't, who can't

30:14

just pack up, sell their as, leave

30:16

their husband, start a whole

30:18

new life and another continent,

30:21

What were the big takeaways for

30:24

bringing adventure and

30:27

you know, just a lack of stuck

30:30

nous and that you could share with

30:32

listeners who want that kind of joy

30:34

that you had in your in your freedom

30:37

that you have without giving everything up.

30:40

Yeah, it's a really good

30:42

question, and it's a tough one because I,

30:44

you know, I do. I did come at this from a point

30:46

of extreme privilege. You know, I was

30:49

particularly financially and that's something that

30:51

I always talk about because that was that was

30:53

my background of marketplace. I talked about personal finance.

30:56

Um. So I would say that the

30:59

way to generate adventure for yourself

31:01

is to find those things that you are

31:04

unfamiliar with, to find those things

31:06

that make you uncomfortable and go and

31:08

do them. Now, that

31:11

doesn't mean you have to fly off to Vietnam. It

31:13

could mean that, you know, is there

31:16

a mountain near you that you can go, Maybe

31:19

not climbed to the top of it, but if

31:21

you've never gone for a really

31:24

serious hike, go go do that.

31:27

Um, if you've never taken a road trip more

31:29

than a couple of hours outside of your hometown,

31:32

go do that. Um. If

31:34

you've never made Indian

31:36

food, if you've never tried to make Vietnamese

31:39

food and your home, go take a cooking

31:41

class and try to do that. I mean, there are all

31:44

kinds of ways that you can not

31:46

just have an adventure but expose

31:48

yourself to other cultures, which

31:51

was the big thing for me while

31:53

I was abroad. I just I wanted to experience

31:55

all these different cultures. Um. If

31:57

you're in a city where there's a night market

32:00

and you've never been to it, go to

32:02

its. Thing

32:04

I've been intrigued by is Airbnb and

32:06

how it's changing our culture. The

32:08

fact that even if you're not the person traveling

32:10

to another country and air Ben being you

32:13

can you can open up and

32:16

and all these people come flooding

32:18

in. I mean, it's not for everybody, it's not

32:21

for the faint of heart maybe, but it's

32:23

you know, it's another way,

32:25

absolutely, yeah, you know, and those

32:29

interactions with people from different cultures

32:31

are really what it's all about. Um.

32:33

And again, sometimes when I was

32:35

abroad, the language barrier was

32:37

the issue, but for the most part, people

32:39

who are coming into this country, UM

32:42

are going to have some functional

32:45

ability to at least have a

32:47

short conversation with you if they're staying in your

32:49

home. So that's brilliant. I love

32:51

that idea. UM. The big ambition

32:54

of mine, Yeah, well, clean enough

32:56

of my crap out of my house that I can airb Okay,

32:58

we'll definitely do that, you know. And there and there

33:00

are so many communities

33:02

within the United States that are you

33:06

know, people from other parts of the

33:08

world. Go explore those communities,

33:10

you know, go to Little Saigon

33:12

in l A. Go to um,

33:15

go to Little Italy, go to you know, there

33:17

were all these places. Just just go and experience

33:20

those communities in a way that that

33:23

allows you to

33:25

travel without really leaving home.

33:28

And I think that that I think that can

33:30

do it for you. It's great advice. Thank you so

33:32

much for widening our world. Love chatting with you.

33:35

Oh it's been just a delight. Thank you to

33:37

connect with Tests. You can find her on Instagram

33:39

at test big Land And I

33:42

just want to thank you Test. It's been great talking

33:44

to you. I also want to thank Alicia Haywit are fantastic

33:46

producer and everybody

33:49

listening. Thanks so much, we'll see you next time.