Hey guys
Welcome to day 10 of at least 90 days of daily live streams here on my channel traveling with Kristin
Where we travel the world and life in the digital nomad lifestyle and today I am in Sofia Bulgaria
Because I chose to live in Bulgaria
For a couple of months because I really like it here and I work online and I can live anywhere
So I decided to live here. Oh, this is very close
Let's move it. Okay, so
Today, I have a story
As it is the new year and a lot of people are doing New Year's resolutions
I'm seeing a lot of fitness challenges and things like that out in the world
I joined a 14 day daily stoic challenge with Ryan Holliday who is
Pretty cool. He's friends with Tim Ferriss
He's the former director of marketing for American Apparel
He's a New York best-selling author and he runs the daily stoic
which is a newsletter and they also have books and
challenges about the stoic lifestyle so I'm on yeah, we're on day ten of his challenge as well and
today's challenge was to put your phone away and
Strike up a conversation with a stranger now. I was at the gym in Bulgaria
you know thinking that I was surrounded by people who only speak Bulgarian, but I was like, well, I'm gonna do it because I
Have to check in every day
And we all like are on this app called Spar! for accountability to check in and say that you did the challenge. So I
strike up a conversation
with the man next to me because I'm like just going for it and
We just have a really cool conversation and it turns out that he works for
the Viking Cruise Lines
That's like the river cruises that go through Europe and he's like traveled all around super interesting guy tells me all these
secret places to go skiing and Bulgaria and
He invites me to yoga. So I was just gonna like run on the treadmill with my headphones in you know
As you do at the gym and then go home call it a day, but I'm like well
I'll just go to yoga with him turns out I've been doing yoga since I was 18
it was the hardest yoga class of my life and
the teacher was from India and it
Turns out that he's writing an encyclopedia
of yoga with
84,000 yoga poses and just for comparison the current biggest
encyclopedia of yoga has only
2,100 yoga poses in it. So this guy is a badass yoga teacher and then all of us. Hey thrifty, what's up?
I don't know. If it's just you. I I'm not announcing these live streams. I'm just doing them. So they're at different times every day
but
Yeah, it's just me and you and whoever watches this after it's over
Where people should come live if you're awake
so I'm telling this story of what happened when I
turned off my phone and talk to a stranger next to me at the gym and
what has unfolded since then and I wanted to
Just
Challenge everybody today or tomorrow
- put your phone down and talk to a stranger in public and you will never like you don't know what's gonna happen and
so I am talking to this old man on the treadmill in Bulgaria and
He speaks decent English. He invites me to yoga
It's like the craziest hardest yoga class and this is after I ran like a 10k. So then
We all decide to go to the spa because we're at this fitness center with a like a sauna and a spa
So then all of a sudden there's like 12 of us from like all different countries
Hanging out and this Himalayan salt sauna
It's snowing outside and it's just like the coolest experience and we're in there for like 30 minutes
talking about all sorts of different
topics
The Indian yoga teacher is descended from like Sikh warriors from India
I'm learning about the history like Mongolia Bulgaria
India I mean it was just insane I meet a
former member of the Bulgarian National Ballet and
we just all become like really good friends and hanging out in the sauna after yoga class and we make a
Meet like a date basically to meet back up on Sunday and do the same thing again
like go to yoga go hang out in the sauna and just chat and like
Now I have all this I've met all of these people in one day
They're super nice
They've given me all these tips for traveling in Bulgaria and where to go. They all have super interesting personal stories and
Now like I have a reason to go back and workout on Sunday and go hang out in the spa and like hang out with
more people again
and it's like if I hadn't have signed up for this challenge with Ryan holiday and if he hadn't challenged us to
Put our phones away and talk to one stranger today. Like none of that would have happened. I would have just gone to the gym
Run for like 45 minutes on the treadmill and then come home and open my laptop and like start my day
So, oh, yeah I missed that message. Can you say that again, hon? Can I see the chat?
Cancel
Live chat. All right, cool. All this stuff happens when you travel lucky you
Yeah, I mean it happens when you travel
But I mean all the people who I met weren't traveling they are just live here. So
It's kind of depends on your perspective
Like if you're the one traveling or not, but either way like let's say you're at a diner. We're thirsty
Where are you? Where are you? Where are you chatting from?
Which city which state which country? Um
So like let's say you're at a diner. Oh, you're in Florida. I'm from Florida
Which city I'm from the arrow and the st. Augustine do I know you already are we friends in real life?
Yeah, like let's say you're
At like a Waffle House and Laure off. I-95 Oh Palm Beach. Nice. My family's from South, Florida
like you could just
Wherever you are in South, Florida
There's probably so many people there right now because it's winter and there's people from all around the world
But like let's say you just strike up a conversation with the person sitting next to you
Wherever that is
And you know, don't be weird about it, but just see what happens you
Could just learn something new or you could make someone's day
Like maybe they're just bored and depressed scrolling it Instagram on your on their phone and then you're just like hey
You know
whatever you just talk to them and then you make a new friend because
strangers are just people you've never met yet and
It doesn't matter which country you're in. Like people are the same. I mean, there's every
distribution every type of person every personality
Everything is represented
Probably at the same ratio and every country that I've ever been to
you got your gym rats like
You don't know me followed you because of travel vlogs cool. Thank you for following and like hanging out
this is why I'm doing it just to share what's going on and and help other people who want to
Get out of the day-to-day grind
But yeah, you notice like the same personalities everywhere in the world like old men drinking coffee and playing checkers
You've got your soccer moms and your yoga moms who are like having brunch at 10:00 or 11:00 a.m. On a weekday
you've got your
Bodybuilders at the gym like you have every type of person represented in different places. So it's
It really doesn't matter where you go. But yeah, thirst eat let me know
put your phone away for like a few hours or something and try to just be in the moment and be present today and
Talk to a stranger and see what happens and report back
tomorrow
Let me know or just comment back on this later today. So anyone who's watching this my challenge of today?
Thursday January 10th is to go talk to a random person
Out in the world and then see what happens you might end up in a sauna with 12 people in the snow
Like making plans for the weekend. I
Mean, whatever
So are you guys I'm actually going to get back to work
but just wanted to share that with you and I'll do a livestream specifically about
stoicism and the daily stoic challenge because these are like life philosophies that are
have been around for thousands of years since like
Romans Greek philosophers things like that. So we'll talk about that on another day, but I hope everyone has a great day and
See you tomorrow hasta manana