hello heather welcome to the show how are you today thank you so much i am great how are you
well i'm really excited to have you on the show today guys listen up today we have a fantastic
guest we have heather markell who was an international best-selling author a full-time
traveler and a travel coach as well so you are kind of a a traveler and you also coach others on
traveling fantastic i think one thing heather that all of our listeners have in common is they love
travel yeah yeah travel's great and well specifically i do full-time travel so i
coach people on how to figure out how to afford and live the full-time travel lifestyle i love
it thanks for coming on the show i'm really excited to dig into this and this personally
really resonates with me i spent a lot of time in my 20s kind of being a nomad you know spending
a year backpacking through south america living in japan for a year and a half and so
this really resonates with everyone here on this show today i love it
first of all when i saw your your bio heather i saw the word nomad and i'd love to define that
word for our listeners to understand what does that word mean to you nomad yeah and actually
i think of nomad and traveling in several different ways which is important because
i think traditionally one of the reasons it took me so long to quit my job and travel full-time was
because in my mind i thought a nomad was a digital nomad and only people in their 20s and 30s do that
and i'm a bit older right so uh so nomad to me for now like i define that as someone that essentially
um discovers the meaning they want in their own life uh through traveling the world and making
a home out of wherever they are interesting i love it i love it why is it that you think i'm
just gonna have a more philosophical question to start out and then we'll go into what our
listeners can learn from you but why is it that you think that travel adds so much meaning even
to conversations that we may have at home when we have them abroad with someone new there's so much
more meaning there why do you think that is there is and i think there's multiple levels i think
uh we when we're in our corporate job or our work life uh we're we're not ourselves but when we're
traveling we're actually shedding all the layers of who we're supposed to be
and being who we are and because we're more authentic i think the conversations we have are
deeper and more authentic as well right so you're saying we're not hiding anything we're not being
someone else there's no other agenda we're just ourselves encountering all this stimuli out in the
world that's so new so we have no choice but to be ourselves right exactly yep i love it so good okay
so i was thinking today we could have you share for us heather three kind of tips or takeaways
that our listeners could apply to their life whether they're crossing cultures or doing
business internationally based on what you've learned from a nomad lifestyle right a travel
lifestyle what would be the first thing that our listeners could learn from you and your mindset
uh i'd say one thing is um that you are the creator of your current experience this was
a really hard lesson i learned my first year of travel when i realized there were many things
i didn't like about uh situations and people i was attracting into my life and when i finally
hit that wall of oh my gosh i am you know i am creating this that stinks and then i thought
no no no that's actually really powerful because it means i can recreate my situation to be what i
want so remember that you're the creator of your own life and your own work right so if there's
something in work that you want to go differently look at what you're doing and do it differently
okay a second yeah second lesson would oh go ahead sorry oh yeah i just want to ask you
a quick follow-up question on that that's very rich right i mean this applies not just to if we
our listeners decide to go abroad honestly many of them want to move abroad they're taking the
ielts exam right or the toefl and they're getting ready to move their entire families abroad but
even if we're just working in our home countries you know we go to work and maybe we have a
scenario a situation that keeps coming up we're doing something to create that outcome not being
the way we want it is that what you mean yes absolutely in fact it was funny because my career
um that i quit i felt like it was going nowhere and later i reflected oh but you know what i never
actually just said to a boss this is what i want and you know how can i get it like i mean i did
some of that but i didn't do that well this isn't happening i've been asking for this for x amount
of time i need this to happen you know let's what do we need to do about it i'm really unhappy i
see so ask yourself if you're really saying to the right people what you want i got it i got it okay
so that's the first thing so we're essentially creating all of our circumstances right we're not
the victim of something else happening from the outside we're always playing some part in that
right yes we love it love it okay that's a great tip what would be the second tip for our listeners
heather you have no idea how far uh even like so learning the language of the country that you're
living in or working in is uh even to learn one phrase go so far you have no idea um i mean i'm
lucky i speak six languages um and so my first uh encounter was living with the french host family
when i was 16 and you know i became fluent and having those deep meaningful conversations in
another language was so fascinating i kept going but when i travel i don't know i mean
sorry what i've gone to asia and you know some of the scandinavian countries and picking up some of
those languages i just can't but you know what i learned do you speak english thank you please
in their language and it makes such a profound difference in the relationships you'll have the
business you'll do and how far you'll you'll converse with these people i love that that is
right in our wheelhouse here at all areas english we talk about our core value as a community of
connection not perfection right so when we're doing business or when we're just traveling what
can we do to connect so as a traveler what's the minimum viable number of phrases you need to learn
just to put a smile on that other person's face right and have that moment of connection that's
what's going to be the memory that you really want isn't it heather it is and you know what
what the greatest thing is if you're like oh i can't possibly pronounce that the best thing is
you will make somebody laugh yeah then that's fun yeah right that is great icebreaker right there
yeah we really have to get out of this perfection mentality no one expects anyone to be perfect
i love it well tell us now i'm curious where have you traveled in the world i mean tell us
where you've been i mean maybe it's easier to say where you haven't been i'm not sure
no well so in total i think i've been to 52 or 53 countries but since i became a full-time
traveler in 2018 i've been to 27 countries on six continents i was actually in ushuaia
met somebody on a boat going out to antarctica they said i could go down to the dock find out
if there was space lucky doug that's great i didn't do it because something held me back
and let me tell you i met people a couple weeks later who had just come back from antarctica
and they would have been sailing uh the days that i was gonna go out and they said it was 44-0 40
hours of swelling seas strapped to the bed i was like yeah i'm really glad i didn't go on that boat
do you get seasick on boats uh yeah i probably anyone would right yeah it's like seasick and
i'm just uncomfortable on boats i learned um so i i spent time in when i was in central america
everywhere you go is like on a boat and at some point i just relaxed and
i was okay with it and i think it happened i ziplined for the first time oh i love it
in costa rica i had no idea what ziplining was until i went i thought
it was the stupidest thing i ever heard of and then i find myself doing it and because
it was so scary and i could have died um for months afterwards like all my travel fears
like you know being in the airplane being in the boats all that stuff i was like i'm fine
travel really creates a sense of bravery a real bravery yeah right because you're up being really
kind of the level yeah you're doing things i love it so good so learning so you know learning a
little bit of the language to make that connection you know that being the goal right and then
understanding we're creating all of our circumstances what could be a third tip then
heather for our listeners of what they can apply from what you've learned from a life of travel
so the people of a country are not the same as the government as a country that's a good one tell us
more i think we see a lot in the news and we go if you're american you may be familiar with the step
program which is something i use for travel safety uh it gives you alerts when a random country is
you know covered aside when there might be a demonstration or threats or things like that so
we form judgments and perceptions of countries if we don't go there
through the news and through something like the step program and i have been time and time again
just amazed at how my prejudgments of a country are just totally wrong
and colombia comes to mind as like one of the big ones where i thought you know guns drugs like what
am i doing here yes and it was full of beautiful people amazing food wonderful you know everything
was just wonderful so um just your prejudices will be challenged and be open to letting them go
absolutely i had a very similar experience in columbia my impressions before going in and after
going coming out of it it's just it's amazing how you know when things go through the news
we get one perspective right and we may only read one newspaper from one particular political angle
and then we really do have to travel and this applies to our listeners too guys if you are doing
business with someone maybe you're not traveling abroad maybe you're in your office in tokyo and
you're doing business with someone from a country where you have certain ideas about that country
put those aside right put them aside and let yourself connect with the person
even though it's business i mean business is about people right heather yeah absolutely people first
people first a hundred percent this is great and just a quick bonus question is there anything we
could do a whole other episode on this i feel like heather honestly but i'm curious because you've
traveled so much are there any like what would you say would be like the common thing you find
among all the people like everywhere regardless of culture what is something that kind of goes beyond
culture that you find in people as you meet them is that a vague question well you know it is and
the first thing that came to my mind is that as people we are genuinely curious about other people
and so at a human level everywhere i've gone um i have found people to be you know compassionate to
be welcoming uh to be you know curious about who i am in the same way that we need to challenge
our perceptions yeah i've met other people that have thought you know something about americans
and then we've talked and you know and i've challenged their perceptions of americans and
of judging an entire country based on one or two experiences they've had yes i love it that is such
a good answer and that gives our listeners so much to work with as they're either crossing cultures
traveling or doing business it's the common thread is everyone is curious about everyone else
we are all curious and we that's where we can start and that's how we open to success to
connecting having a better life across cultures so good so good heather i love it well i want to
thank you for coming on and let's have you let our listeners know if they want to hear more from you
where could they find you online where should they go sure thank you uh so the best thing you can do
is go to my website which is heatherbegins.com i chose that name because i feel like my life
really started when i quit my job to travel full-time so it's heatherbegins.com um and
you might be interested i just co-authored a book called voices of the 21st century so
there's a link to that on my website if you wanted to learn more about the choices that i've made and
all my contact information is there and i'm happy to uh hear from you and i even have a facebook
group called full-time travelers and nomads with over 3000 people that uh either want to travel
full-time or are already doing it if you want to come join us fantastic this is great thank you
so much for coming on the show heather i really enjoyed this and now i'm inspired to go and book
my next international trip here you know we're coming out of this pandemic and we're ready to go
we are ready to go love it thank you so much for having me it was great and i'm so happy to inspire
thank you heather i really appreciate it and good luck with everything thank you so much bye