Welcome back, and in this video, we will talk about the topics that we consider as our inner journey. As I mentioned in the beginning, every traveler has a different why he or she travels, and during your journey on the road, if you travel for like us more than a year, you do feel a change within yourself. A lot of people think that traveling changes who you are, we don't really agree. We do agree on the point that it makes us grow as persons, but it does not change the core you what it does do is it changes completely your perspective on the world or your views on the world. And you learn a lot by engaging with other people. Depending on how you perceive things.

They change. from negative to positive all the way around, let me give you an example you're faced with a challenge on the road. And the first initial reaction is that all this sucks, for example, you missed the bus and it sucks. Or you can perceive it as Hmm, I wonder what kind of opportunities is this going to give me? What can I learn from this experience? What are the interesting people that I can meet?

So depending on the way you perceive this, it can be positive or negative. And through traveling, I felt that I couldn't afford to feel the negativity all the time, because traveling is all about the unexpected in the unknown. And if I keep being let down or feel disappointed, then traveling is not going to give me what I was initially hoped. So I tried to find the beauty in the negative to here's another example, when I was traveling very poor countries, and I've seen suffering amongst children, women, animals, or whatever. I couldn't be emotion involved so much. If I let myself perceive everything as bad and negative and horrible, I might go home and tell people that this is a bad place to go, or is going to leave a negative mark in my heart.

So instead of that I either can contribute to make it more positive in some way get involved with community projects, or the at least that what I can do is to perceive the beauty in it to what is what is behind the suffering. What are the smiles that I see? Why is this good in any way and sometimes it's really difficult to find the good stuff in bed. But I found as a traveler, I cannot afford to perceive everything as negative. What I also learned is that this is something that you grow into, for instance, talking about missing the bus, it will happen to you and the beginning you will be very frustrated, you might even be a little bit panicky because you Don't know what the next buzz is, or it's in the middle of the night. But as you get more experience in traveling, you also learn that it's really not that bad.

Another thing that really is crucial when traveling is that you do feel that you have a mind shift going on. What you found really important in the beginning when you were traveling might not be as important. as you go along your journey, you kind of build up better resilience so that when you are faced with a setback, your time to come back becomes very short. So I wanted to ask you then, for example, my priorities completely changed. First, I was worried more about other people how they perceive me or what they think of me. But then later I found out that what matters is what I think of myself.

And I prioritize my own needs, because I realized that I am the only person who can represent my needs. I need to look after myself. And this was a lesson that completely changed my life. And it actually kick started my business, because I realized people need to learn to prioritize themselves. And also to see value in everything that they come across. And as as we talked about missing the bus, that could be an opportunity, once you deal with the stress and panic, because if it happens to me, I still feel it.

It's an initial reaction that I cannot control. But then I calm myself down. And I think, Okay, why did this happen to me, I try to find the reason for this and see it as a learning experience. Because whatever happens next is going to teach me something anything, I changed a very negative experience into something positive. When you travel, you develop into a person that reacts towards somebody that more responds to the environment. And the missing link between those two is that you're more aware of what is happening around you.

When you slow travel, you don't get as panicky as you would in your normal environment. Because after a while, it's not about the exact thing that happened. But the principle in general, when you're faced with the challenge, first you learn to deal with the emotions that come up. And whether it's positive or negative, because it can be very, very happy. But the extreme is never really healthy. So you try and control those emotions.

Because when you are clouded, your judgment is clouded by this emotion, let's say something great happen, then you make a decision based on that feeling instead of letting the feeling calm down, and maybe you need to realize that this is not an emotional decision. This has to be a brain decision. And this brings us to the next topic. What's the difference between intuition and the brain decision logic? What's your take on this? When I traveled, I've learned to really lean in To my intuition, because sometimes things happen out of your control.

So even when you make a brain decision, you can't guarantee that you will have the results that you expected. While then you switch to your intuition, and you just have faith as well that everything will be okay. This is basically the optimism that brings us forward. And sometimes the intuition goes completely against logic. And it's really difficult to feel into it and to feel that this is going to be great because our mind is going to try to stop us and it's time and time it happened to me that I had to make a very logical decision. And when I told people they said, but that was so stupid, that I know.

But deep in my heart, I felt that I had to take a different step, because every time I did otherwise, and then I listened to my brain. I felt like I was making a mistake. I kept questioning what would have happened, but when the made this intuitive decision. I never really questioned the result afterwards, because I learned from the road and maybe many other travelers would agree that deep in our hearts, there's always an answer. Whether we ignore that, or we learn to listen to it, it's up to us. But it will improve as you travel Exactly.

Anything. This is also a funny thing to know, fun facts of the day, but the brain is that the brain will always take you to what is familiar, when you make an intuitive decision. Sometimes it might feel that it's counter intuitive to your brain. Well, that is actually a right decision because your brain always goes to the familiar and you know, when you travel, when you put yourself out there every day, you are having conversations and you are being confronted with the unknown. Another topic that we want to talk about is homesick when you travel and you go to the other side of the world far away from what is familiar, your friends, your family, you kind of feel that you left them behind, you might encounter Feelings of homesickness. So what about you?

Did you feel homesick at any given time in your travel? I did. But I think I traveled for about six months before I felt it. And the reason for that is because I was used to being away from friends and family for long periods of time, but not longer than six months. And I think that's why it kicked in around that time. Now I met people who who travel for the first time being away from family.

Now homesickness comes a little bit earlier, but I think the reason for this is because we are missing the safety and the familiar, as we talked about, the brain is looking for that money can find it, then this feeling kicks in and it's perfectly normal, and I think it's healthy to some extent to miss our loved ones. But I'm not doing myself a favor by letting be overwhelmed by this feeling. Again, this is not something that someone forced me to do. I chose to be away from everyone that I know for long periods. This time, so I have to learn to deal with this and also find the beauty in everything I need to find the beauty. And what I found that it was wonderful that I could think of people who love me.

And there's a place that I can go back to that I have the luxury of calling a place home and changing this homesickness around that had me to digest the feeling and obviously studied keeping in touch more with the people that I was missing a lot. And then I learned to deal with this. I had no feelings of homesick whatsoever during my trip. It's been exactly a lot of people find that, whatever that may mean. But then again, I guess a lot of it depends why you left for the trip, how you traveled. For instance, in my case, I never went home, I am still traveling.

So I left my country in 2014. I was backpacking through Latin America, I found a job in Prague, I moved to Prague I've been there for a few for some time. And then I moved now to Amsterdam. So in my world, I am still traveling, I am not doing it the backpack style. I am reinventing myself into this digital nomads. So homesickness for me is pretty relative, because I also know that if I want to see my family, I just take a flight or take a bus or take a train, and I meet them.

But the whole idea of being somewhere in one fixed place doesn't exist anymore. In my world. Yes, I think the definition of home completely changes after such a long trip. Because home is no longer a location. Home is is a mindset if someone asked me where's my home? Sometimes I say where my stuff is.

Sometimes I say where my heart is, but the definition completely changed. And homesickness is a great thing. I still find it beautiful Because it means that I have some something or someone to look forward to. Exactly. So talking about mansion, I would like to talk about what makes or breaks a really good experience on the road. What I also found that making my own luck is possible, no longer I believe in lucky and unlucky.

In some scenarios, it's still true, but I would say 80% of the time, it's not because and I give you an example here, when I'm faced with a new person, we're having a conversation. And that person says that, by the way, I'm looking for a business partner in this in this area, and I know I have those skills. If I jumped at the opportunity, I made my own luck because I created that connection. But if I just let it pass without mentioning anything, then I could be considered unlucky because I didn't get that opportunity. So this is just a silly example to say that every time I was faced with an opportunity, I took advantage of it. And that's how people perceive me as lucky and still to the day people say, oh, but you got lucky, I did not get lucky.

I created this opportunity for myself by being out there showing up by showing curiosity by by having that energy that attracts the conversation. And if I work on myself, and I build my confidence, and I have that sort of aura around me that people like, then unfortunately was find me as a key takeaway. What we really want to share with you and we hope that inspires you is if we look back on our lives a few years ago, when we first started traveling, we would never have imagined the lifestyle that we live right now. And this is something that's so beautiful about traveling. It is a process. It is a lifestyle, and it's something that you grow into in 2014 was having a corporate job, I was having a really good life.

And now four years later, I am traveling Europe. I live in different places. I take flights once a month. I'm in different countries at least twice a month, and I'm doing business and making a business. And I could not have imagined this lifestyle before, but traveling really helped me. And I guess I could narrow it down to three things.

And it is whatever happens, it always turned out, okay. There's a lesson in everything. Secondly, life is about moments. And that is something that I really cannot emphasize enough. Being in the now is basically the key to success because when you feel depressed, it means that you're still a little bit stuck in the past. And when you feel anxiety, it means you're too much focused on the future.

And thirdly, your environment is something that you create and you choose yourself. What I've learned when it comes back to old friends, sometimes I had to let them go because I found that I grew so much, and they no longer provided value. So I started to look for the people who inspire me who are better than me. Because if, if they had the energy or the resources or the success that I hope to have, what better way there is to learn then from people who already have those things. And so so I changed my environment and I chose the people the opportunities that the location around me when I feel most inspired that charges me, because if I do that, then I constantly self develop and moving forward. And I learned to dream big.

All this success starts with a dream. So dreaming is not a bad thing. Learning ambition was one of the key takeaways. And we both started our own businesses we both front something wonderful with passion and and we traveled a lot, this is still part of our lives. As we said, This never really stops. But believing in ourselves, creating our own luck building the confidence putting ourselves out there and and facing challenges was definitely one of the most beautiful thing about this long term traveling.

Exactly. And the beauty about this is that while you practice these skills through traveling, it's like a game, you have nothing to lose the risk is so minimum. So then you create this environment where you can practice and professionalize those skills. So you can translate that if you would wish to set up your own business. Exactly. And there's one more topic that we wanted to tell you guys about, is the courage to say no and the courage to say yes, because so often, and I'm sure that you've been in, in this situation before that someone asked you a favor and out of fear to upset that person.

You Yes, but you didn't want to because it was so uncomfortable, or it takes a lot of time and energy, or you don't think that that personal relationship is as important to you that you should do such a favor, but you did say yes anyway, and then it feels bad. Why? Because you, you disregarded your own needs, and you disrespected yourself in a way. So what I've learned is when I'm faced with something that I feel that it's over my limit, I say no. Why? Because I am the person who represents my needs.

No one is going to represent me that's my job. So taking the responsibility for myself, I learned to say no