Zero To Travel Podcast

Kirsten Pontius 0:00
the stresses of travel and the stresses of living overseas are so deep and intertwined, that it's not a matter of getting a personal trainer or hiring a dietician to give you a meal plan or you know, some of the things that you think like, oh, I'm, maybe I'm overweight, or maybe I need to do this or that. They're just a lot of elements to the stresses that we have in this lifestyle that all play into each other. And without looking sort of at that big picture. And all those pieces you'll never see long term really get on the path that you want to be going on.

Jason Moore 0:36
That was a clip from our wonderful guest today. Kirsten, Pontius she helps expats and travelers use their lifestyle to their advantage to become the healthiest versions of themselves. And there's so much actionable advice. In this show, she talks about the three pillars of wellness, how you can relieve stress instantly with two small daily practices, how you can identify and eliminate stressful parts of your life, how to use reflection, and trial and error to maximize self care on the road. The potential benefits of raising Third Culture, kids her experience living abroad for 15 years and giving birth in two different countries. Why it's necessary to shut up the novelty while you travel, and so much more. So if you want to live a healthy life out there on the road. You're gonna love this show. Plus, I got a shout out somebody in this community who really turned lemons into lemonade, which is another theme I want to discuss in the show and loads more. It's all happening right now. So buckle up strap in. Thanks for being here and welcome to the zero to travel podcast, my friend.

ad 1:47
You're listening to the zero to travel Podcast where we explore exciting travel based work, lifestyle and business opportunities helping you to achieve your wildest travel dreams. Now your host World wonder and travel junkie, Jason Moore.

Jason Moore 2:05
Hey, what's up? It's Jason with zero travel.com Welcome to the show. Thanks for hanging out. Let him bring a little bit of travel into your ears today. This is the show to help you travel the world on your terms to fill your life with as much travel as you desire, no matter what your situation or experience. Welcome, welcome. Welcome. How are you today my friend, I got a fun fact to share. You know, our guest today spent four and a half years living in Romania and she talks about that experience. Now this is one of the joys of getting to host this show because I've never been to Romania. I will probably although never say never. But I may never get a chance to live in Romania for four and a half years. So wanted to hear what that was like. And I was looking up some facts on Romania and found a really interesting one I'm going to share with you in a minute. Don't forget, we have loads going on in this show. As I mentioned at the top, this is all about your health, managing your stress, managing your health on the road, and if you're going to live abroad, or spend some time traveling, I love a Kirsten approach of using your lifestyle to your advantage. And she shares so much actionable advice in this interview that I certainly when I finished recording and I ran downstairs and chatted with my wife, I said you're gonna have to listen to this interview. And I have to go tell her that because she doesn't listen to my podcast, which is totally fine. I know why she hears me running my mouth every single day. She doesn't need more of me running my mouth into your ears. But what I need is a little bit more of you. So please get in touch. I want your feedback, your guest recommendations, I want to hear your voice. You can drop me a line Jason at zero to travel.com Anytime, or just click the link in the show notes. To leave me a voicemail, you don't have to enter an email or anything just click a link and leave a voicemail 90 seconds or less. Super simple. This is a community powered show. And I love to hear from you. So if you haven't taken the time to do that, please get in touch I will share a message I got from a listener recently, who I get the feeling was turning lemons into lemonade, which is something we'll talk about after the interview. First you want to say a quick thanks to our sponsor better help.com That's better help he lp.com This is a place where you can connect with a licensed professional therapist in a safe and private online environment super convenient. And you can even start communicating with somebody in under 48 hours. So if something's preventing you from achieving your goals or interfering with your happiness, I mean we're talking about healthier on today's show and mental health is a huge part of that if you go to BetterHelp H e lp.com/zero. To travel, you can get 10% off your very first month. Not only is it convenient especially for travelers because you can access this anywhere, but it's also affordable And even more affordable with that discount now you can join over 1 million people who have taken charge of their mental health again, that's better help. H e l p.com/zero. To travel take advantage of that 10% off offer for your first month. Thank you once again to BetterHelp for supporting today's show, and check it out. Now before we dive in, let me share this fun fact I found out about Romania place I've been excited to visit for quite some time and I've heard wonderful things about and apparently they have superfast internet to over there, which certainly helps if you're working from abroad anyway. According to The Telegraph the newspaper, Romania has the world's heaviest building home to the world's heaviest building. It's the palace of the parliament get this quote it has 1100 rooms the vast majority of which lie empty and an annual heating bill of 6 million pounds and are thought my heating bill is expensive. Sorry, just playing the bad comic here. It goes on to say it all adds up to an area of 365,000 square meters second only to the Pentagon as far as administrative buildings are concerned. And inside you'll find 3500 tons of crystal 480 chandeliers and 14 109 ceiling lights. While 700,000 tons of steel and bronze was used for the monumental doors and windows Guinness World Records recognizes it as the heaviest building on the planet and quote so there you go. By the way, my bad comic stick was not part of that quote on the telegraph. I'll link to this article. And you can read some other facts about Romania if you are so inclined crazy. How do you even measure the weight of a building anyway, that's why I'm not a scientist. I'm just a lowly podcaster. All right, I am so excited to slip and slide into this interview. Now please stick around on the back end again, we're going to share a voicemail from a listener. I'll leave you with a nice quote and some thoughts on the show. Let's all get healthy together. I'll see you on the other side, my friend.

I'm so excited to welcome Kirsten Pontius to the show today, you can check out our work at Kirsten pontius.com. And we'll drop that link in the show notes as well. What she does is help you take ownership of your health and your life no matter where you live, or travel. And we're going to be talking about staying healthy on the road what it means to live holistically and a whole bunch of other cool things I imagined. So Kirsten, welcome to the zero to travel podcast, my friend. Hi, Jason,

Kirsten Pontius 7:46
thank you for having me

Jason Moore 7:48
coming live from well maybe not live to the listener but coming recorded or live from Romania. Yeah, of all places. How did you end up there.

Kirsten Pontius 7:58
Um, my husband has a job here at the International School, just north of town. And we have been here four and a half years and are preparing to move from here. So we're ending our time and getting all set up to go to our next spot.

Jason Moore 8:18
Can you tell me about the experience of living in Romania for four and a half years.

Kirsten Pontius 8:23
It's been pretty intense because we had our second son here, I moved here seven months pregnant. As soon as we found out we had the job we started trying for our second child and ended up having him here in Romania. So he was born here. My first son was born in Thailand. So we have some very different birth situations happening in these two places. But yeah, so we started out here with a birth and a newborn. And right as we were coming out of that sort of newborn fog, you know, a pandemic hit. So it's been a really interesting experience to be here. We've loved the people the food, the travel, the mountains and the the terrain here just gorgeous and diverse. However, we don't feel like we have been able to see it as much as we would have liked to because of you know, children and illness.

Jason Moore 9:27
Yeah, it's tough. Really fascinating to me thinking about having the birth experience in two different countries. Is that something you're willing to talk about? I don't know if there was some tragic things there if it went okay, I just wondering from your perspective what that was I had the Norwegian experience with my wife didn't have it my wife but no was there and part of it I guess, but we all know who does the hard work with birthing Goodness gracious, though. I mean, I'm just wondering what that was like for you.

Kirsten Pontius 10:00
Yeah, absolutely. Well, first of all, I have to say if you are considering giving birth or you're overseas, and it's a possibility the book knocked up abroad was one of my favorite references. Have you heard of that book?

Jason Moore 10:12
No, it's vital. It's a compilation

Kirsten Pontius 10:15
compilation of stories from women who have given birth outside of their home countries or passport countries and their experiences. So Americans in China and Europeans in, you know, America and kind of all the mishmash of scenarios that you can think of. And it's really eye opening. And it's a really nice way to sort of connect to an experience that is pretty unique. I had a great birth with my first son in Bangkok, Thailand, and somebody have a hospital where it was like, having a child at the Hyatt with, you know, slippers and iced water and cold towels. And I felt as if I was in complete luxury. And that's the way that that was, you know, that's done there. I have hired a doula in both locations. And that was helpful, I think, not just because there was there were things in in my birth that I wanted to be really connected to. But because having somebody that lives in the country, help you through the process of your appointments, and your doctor visits and getting your labs and understanding the cultural nuances of of the hospital and birth environment was so valuable, I think it was worth it just almost as a cultural interpreter to kind of help me through what it was going to be like, because you can't really pick up What to Expect When You're Expecting. And have all of those pieces apply to you know what it would be like to have a child in another country. So overall, but great experiences, and I have two healthy boys and I would not, I can not recommend highly enough the experience, I would say, you know, you don't have to go home to have have babies, if you're a traveler.

Jason Moore 12:14
It's another one of those things where the more I do this podcast, the more I continue to learn, you know, it's another one of those, shall we say, limiting beliefs that may keep people grounded in their home country? Because who can give birth abroad? You can't really do that. That doesn't work. And yet, here we are.

Kirsten Pontius 12:36
That's one of the topics I talk to clients about a lot is the idea that different is not wrong. And I think that in both of my births in totally different countries, there were elements of how things were done that I kind of came to appreciate. There were parts of it that I didn't. But I think always having that perception when you're going into new experience, whether it's giving birth, or just something as minor as a restaurant experience, or getting a driver's license and things that are done differently. That's not strange. It's not wrong. It's just different. And there's always something we can learn from that. And so I think that you point out a really good, good sort of mindset, that it's it can be, you could have something really feel completely different than what you'd have back home. It doesn't make it wrong.

Jason Moore 13:24
Yeah. Yeah, that's a great point. Like you said, it applies to everything across the board, right. I wanted to ask you about the International School, because one of the things I've been considering is, well, I want to do a family gap year, at some point, I have two little ones. And the bigger picture idea, at least for me, is to maybe spend half the year in Norway half the year in a nice warm place during the winter or some of the winter months. And maybe having the kids go to an international school for half the year and school in Norway here for half the year. Now, I'm asking yourself this question and we are going to get into like health related things and stuff like that. So stay with me here, everybody. What is that possible? Is that something you can do? Is it a good idea? Okay.

Kirsten Pontius 14:10
Yeah, I mean, I think the international school communities are used to that transient lifestyle. I think six months is probably a bit shorter than what most communities are used to. But it certainly happens. Sometimes it happens on purpose. Sometimes it happens on accident we have we had a family at the school where my husband works that came at the beginning of the school year left at Christmas, because the job fell through or something happened with the job and the family, you know, thought they were going to be here for a few years and it didn't work out and they left. So you certainly could. But you know, it also would take a little bit of adjusting for your kids. It's a lot of transition for them. But again, the teachers, the staff, the other kids are used to that. You know, I think it's so cool to see my kids embraced by kids of all nationalities and backgrounds. school, they have a place because they're all you know, they're all from a different place. That's their common. That's the common thread. It's really cool.

Jason Moore 15:08
Yeah, I was thinking we could find one and just go to that one every year for six months, for a decade or whatever if we find the right place. So it's an idea anyway, so it's good to hear that that's a possibility. How do you think this is affecting their childhood?

Kirsten Pontius 15:26
Yeah, oh, good question, man. This could go deep. I think very positively overall, you know, we continue to reflect and reevaluate this decision. My husband and I have been overseas for almost 15 years, and had our kids overseas. And we constantly stop and pause and say, Is this still the right thing for all of us as a family unit? I think that there are certain moments where I miss having grandparents around the corner. And there is, you know, not as much stability in the day to day or I shouldn't say in the day to day in the year to year maybe. But my kids are incredibly resilient, they are so open. Again, we go back to that conversation of there is no idea. There's no concept of strange, we don't use that word in our house, it just things are different. And my children are so open to things that they're not familiar with, yet. We use the word yet a lot, you know, they they're open to foods, they're open to customs are open to people and a variety of different experiences. There is just not as many of those limiting beliefs as they grew up, and I am so thrilled that that is their norm, I think it's going to make open up the door and open up the world of possibilities for them as they get older and become adults.

Jason Moore 16:52
That's such a beautiful thing. How old? Are they?

Kirsten Pontius 16:55
seven and four?

Jason Moore 16:57
Yeah, I want to ask you about your how you started your 15 years abroad. But a couple other things just around this topic, because one of the debates that goes on in my head, at least is I grew up in the same suburban town outside of Philadelphia. And that's where I had my childhood, right. Going back to some of the things that you were saying, I agree that there's no, it's sort of just an experience. And it's not necessarily good or bad. It's just different rights, good things and bad things I suppose about anywhere in the world. I do value the fact that I know people that have known me my whole life. And there's something special about that. And when you get into the nomadic Third Culture kid, skipping around different places type of thing. That is possible, but it's probably less likely. And this is not a knock on that lifestyle. Because I support that lifestyle. It's just a debate that goes on in my head, because I wonder if I ever lived that lifestyle with with my family. Again, the conclusion I always come to I want to hear yours is it's just an experience, and it'll just be a part of who they are whatever that means. Nobody can know. Yeah, it's just something I wonder about. I'm just curious what your take is on that.

Kirsten Pontius 18:12
Yeah, it's definitely a conversation that my husband and I have had, there are so many things that we had in our childhood, including friendships and, you know, routine that our children don't have as easy access to. I do think that as my seven year old, as we transition now onward from Romania, I do believe that we will work for him to keep connected with a couple of his friends, because he's getting to the age where friendships matter, just as much as mom and dad, if not more, you know, there's that age where they start to really connect and care about friendships, and I have only just been, you know, how old are your kids?

Jason Moore 18:58
Three and five? Yeah,

Kirsten Pontius 18:59
I'm just starting to notice that in my older son that those friendships are pretty, pretty valuable in a different way. I know. I know. I always tell them not to grow up. It's so sad. But I think what helps me is I had some really great childhood friends. I'm very loosely in touch with them. And I don't know that how I lived a transient lifestyle, like my kids are that our current relationship would be any different. So here I was someone that grew up in the same town in the same community doing the same things every week. And I'm not necessarily flying home to my hometown and having big reunions or you know, and so I think it doesn't bother me so much because I think they could easily grow up in that lifestyle and still not necessarily have those childhood friendships that carry them through adulthood. And I know a lot of Third Culture kids that stay in To amazing touch with friends that they had when they lived in Ethiopia and friends that they had in this place, and they've got their sets of friends. And those bonds are also incredibly strong. So I don't know that that, you know, I think it's, it's pretty easy for us to kind of say, well, if this doesn't happen, then this can't. And I don't think that's true, I think they could still really have some of those great bonds with with childhood friends, but it might just look a little different.

Jason Moore 20:28
You outgrow certain friends, right? And you can't predict that. And the idea of being able to keep in touch with a friend from Ethiopia or something like that, it's just like you said, it's just different. And I've met a lot of, they call themselves army brats, you know, people that are living on military bases and traveling around and you know, from some of the more positive I guess, minded ones around the experience that they had, I hear often and from Third Culture kids as well, that it made them more resilient, more flexible, I guess they were could make friends more easily, anywhere. They felt like you could drop them anywhere, and they'd be able to, like make friends and connections and things like that, which is a hugely empowering and valuable skill. So there is no right or wrong, really. And that's why it's so hard when people are judging an unconventional lifestyle. It might from the outside in, let's say from, you know, the traditional American perspective, you you guys may be living a more unconventional lifestyle. That's probably fair to say, but is it really unconventional? I mean, you're giving your kids love, they're going to school, they have friendships, you know, just happen to be doing in another place. It's just so much around this. It's

Kirsten Pontius 21:41
a yes, yes. It's fascinating. Yes,

Jason Moore 21:44
it's a lot of the way people interpret it outside of you, but it doesn't really matter what people think, totally. You're, you're making the decisions that are best for your family.

Kirsten Pontius 21:55
I think it's also really helpful and empowering to like you have, you have built an amazing community around some of these unconventional lifestyles. And I think tapping into some of these type of communities where you can meet other people and other families that are doing things, quote unquote, differently, is really helpful and empowering. And that's something that I think is growing is these ways to connect with people that are choosing to do things differently than maybe they grew up. And that's a really important part of finding normalcy and just finding connection in a lifestyle that can feel really isolating if you're not intentional.

Jason Moore 22:36
Yeah, I guess the International School has been a connection point for you guys.

Kirsten Pontius 22:40
Right? Totally. Yeah. Huge. Yes.

Jason Moore 22:43
Yeah. Is your husband a teacher there or

Kirsten Pontius 22:45
isn't administration? Yeah, okay. Yeah. So started out. So when we, I first joined him in Tbilisi, Georgia, and he was a teacher there. And on a whim, I had this. We were friends in college, and we'd gotten back in touch, and we were chatting online and started to Skype and started to talk and all of a sudden I contacted was in the air hole advice. Exactly. And then, all of a sudden, we were really connecting. And he came home when Christmas to visit and proposed and wait, what Yeah, and I went to I went to

Jason Moore 23:22
had you guys even reconnected physically like in person before he came home, or was it just all Skype and, and things like that. And then you saw each other. And he,

Kirsten Pontius 23:32
we, we had what we had done a few weeks over one summer. So he it was his summer break. And I took a trip to India for my grant for grad school. And he met me in India, and we spent a few days in India and then we both flew back to the States went to a wedding or two together, hung out. We were in love when I knew it was coming. And then he went back to work as a teacher and he was actually sorry, he was in Singapore at the time. Proposed and the next summer we moved to Tbilisi, Georgia and my family was my mom's my parents are great about travel. I've traveled my family but my mom was definitely a little bit like, um, are you sure? This?

Jason Moore 24:15
What year was that when you moved to Tbilisi?

Kirsten Pontius 24:21
12 years ago, okay. Yeah, 10 years ago. Yeah.

Jason Moore 24:24
So yeah, that's living abroad together started.

Kirsten Pontius 24:29
Yes. Yeah, yeah, I had done a stint on my own and then back in the States itching to go back out again. And then I joke that I you know, my husband was me might take it out. You know,

Jason Moore 24:42
Roberson. Yeah, exactly. What were you doing on your own before you guys reconnected in?

Kirsten Pontius 24:49
Yeah, so after college, I went to Japan to teach English. I didn't know what to do with myself. You know, early 20s. Didn't want to have a desk job in the States. entry level, you know what was going on, there's got to be something better and took a job teaching English in Japan and did that for a year did not like it struggled a lot. And that's some of the, I think the foundation to what I'm doing now started, you know, 15 years ago in Japan when I was really struggling with health and my mental health, my physical health. It was it was good experience. I'm very thankful for it. But I think, you know, if I could meet myself now and know what I know, I might have, you know, it might have gone a little smoother. But I did that for a while, went back to the states started grad school, reconnected with my husband, and yeah, hopped on a plane as fast as I could.

Jason Moore 25:48
Can you talk a little bit more about the specific struggles you're experiencing during that year? Mentally, physically, whatever, just kind of Yeah, I guess, put us in your shoes a little bit there. Yeah, so

Kirsten Pontius 25:59
I think I was a bit aimless and I went to Japan. And I think I made some of the common mistakes that I noticed people making a lot one of them kind of being that, you know, taking a trip and traveling or moving abroad is going to fix things, you know, kind of being unsure. But feeling like that sense of I'll find, I'll find myself, I'll figure things out, I'm going to become this sort of better version of myself, because I'll be in this really cool and exotic place. And I struggled a bit with the culture I didn't, I didn't like the job. One of the reasons I studied in holistic health is because while I was there I was, you know, emotionally eating a lot. And I don't think had a dietician or nutritionist come to me and given me an eating plan that it would have solved anything, because there are so many interconnected parts to your health, that in reality, what I needed was someone to help me build some community and someone to kind of support me in working through and thinking through some of the struggles that I was having in this sort of limiting mindset that you've mentioned before about different is wrong. I was going from, you know, US college to apartment studio apartment by myself in a small village in Japan and working long hours teaching English and not enjoying it, and I was eating for comfort. And I can look back now and recognize that I don't think I could at the time. And so that that was something that really helped me, as I started getting into this field of Holistic Health of coaching, nutrition, realize that the stresses of travel and the stresses of living overseas are so deep and intertwined, that it's not a matter of, you know, getting a personal trainer or hiring a dietician to give you a meal plan or you know, some of the things that you think like, oh, I'm, maybe I'm overweight, or maybe I need to do this or that there are just a lot of elements to the stresses that we have, in this lifestyle that all play into each other. And without looking sort of at that big picture. And all those pieces, you'll never see long term really get on the path that you want to be going on.

Jason Moore 28:23
I'm thinking about you alone in a studio apartment abroad. And I think in some ways, an experience like that. It forces you inward, right? It perhaps it accentuates some of the potential when I say liabilities maybe one might be carrying with them that can be hidden, perhaps from the day to day existence in your own home country where you can sort of everything just feels more normal. So maybe you don't question things as much, or maybe your habits are just shared habits with other people or roommates. And it's just also familiar, I suppose. And then when you get out of that you are on the fast track to inner exploration. In some ways, I feel and I don't know, I wonder. I don't like to think that. A tough year like that, and a struggle is a necessary part of transformation. But in some ways, isn't it?

Kirsten Pontius 29:24
Yeah, I mean, I think that's a really good point. I definitely think that that year shaped me in a lot of ways. I also think that, you know, had I had some of the tools that I have now and some of the tools that I offer clients that I have in my book, in terms of reflection, you know, when I when I had I was in a relationship and it completely fell apart. I hadn't done any work to think about how we were going to communicate what the expectations were. I hadn't thought about who I was, I didn't I hadn't had a moment to even think about the kind of person I want to surround myself with. When you are living in the same place. You're at After a year, and you kind of build your community, and then you remove yourself from it, thinking about what do I value in a friendship? What do I want, if I am going to go and have this experience where I maybe have an opportunity for a fresh start, I have an opportunity to kind of build from scratch who I am and how I act and what I do in that routine. You know, what, what is it that I want out of that? Had I just had a few of those tools of reflection? I mean, it's said, I believe, as a coach, it's such a missing element in our behavior change and how we adapt is just taking a moment to think about who I am, who do I want to be? What's my identity now, but what do I want my identity to be? We have such a unique opportunity when we go somewhere new to think through that and intentionally make choices around that. And I think I was just like flailing in the wind, you know, I would just kind of doing whatever I hadn't. i Some of that was my youth. But I do think there are some tools that while that trip, I think would always have been a struggle, it could have made it even more valuable, because I could have really taken advantage of of thinking through some of the things I was doing.

Jason Moore 31:24
That's great. Yeah, I want to dig into some of those tools for anybody that's listening. So we don't they don't have I don't think, yes, it's better to have tools to work with, you don't want to say, well, the struggle is necessary. So now let me just torture myself. I mean, there are rules, there are things you can do. We're all going to struggle, I feel, of course, at some point. But let's, like you said, if you're a bit more intentional with your actions, coming to the conclusion, more quickly, to be more intentional with your actions that in and of itself can can help with a lot of the struggles. So I don't know, as everybody is going to struggle in life. And just because you go abroad just goes back to what you talked about in the beginning, right? Like it doesn't mean that you're just going to land somewhere. And it's going to be all sunshine and rainbows as they say, but I have to say my first solo backpacking trip was all sunshine and rainbows. Yes, it really was I was I was like, Oh, my God, this is incredible. I don't know. But that doesn't mean every you know, I'm moving to Norway and living as an expat. I mean, I know on your website, the first thing you have at the top is I help expats use their travels and lifestyle to become the healthiest versions of themselves. And things like that resonated with me. Because you know, it's not easy to live your day to day life and another country at times. And going off of that statement, I wanted to ask you, and this is probably going to lead to some of the tools and things like that. So so we can give some people listening some takeaways here. But what does it mean to be the healthiest version of yourself? What does it What do you mean by that?

Kirsten Pontius 32:56
Yeah, that's a great question. I think it's certainly can be interpreted in a lot of different ways. But I think when when we talk about being the healthiest version of ourselves, I think a lot of that is connected to feeling feeling healthy. A lot of times when when someone comes to me and they say, you know, okay, I need to lose 10 pounds. Okay, when we when we ask why, why do you want to lose weight? Why do you, you know, I want to lose weight, because I want to I want to fit into my clothes, why do you want to fit into your clothes, it comes down to things like confidence, feeling strong, you know, there's, there's these adjectives around what maybe health means for you, Jason individually, that might be different for me. And so I think, you know, being your, your, the best version, the healthiest version of yourself is, is is bringing those feelings to fruition. I want to be strong, okay, so then the goal might be lifting weights, but it's not lifting weights, because you want to fit into your genes necessarily, the really root of it is that you want to feel some strength. And I use this example because I have taught yoga for 10 years, I've always been a yogi done yoga, I've taught it. And during the pandemic, my yoga practice really kind of tapered off and I let that happen. I felt like it just I wasn't really feeling it. And I started lifting weights. And I recognized that, really, the root of what I wanted was to feel some control and some strength in an environment and a time that felt incredibly unstable to me. And I felt really weak and unable to, to thrive. And so, I think, you know, the healthiest version of yourself is finding those descriptors. How do you want to be how do you want to feel? What are they and finding ways to fulfill them and also reexamining them often right? Because for 10 years yoga was my go to and it was awesome, and I still do it. But it shifted and that was okay too because there's a different season of life and I needed to like buff up.

Jason Moore 35:04
Yeah. That makes so much sense to me. And I'm just thinking about. Now I'm starting to think about well, how do I, how does my body feel right now? Right? I think, you know, for me, it's not necessarily about having the six pack abs, which you can ask my wife, I definitely do not. But more. It's about like, at this stage for me, it's like, Hey, let me let me be strong so I can not get injured so I can prevent injury. Yes, and be able to play with my kids and not, you know, get hurt because I turn around too quick or something. I know, that sounds like I'm not 80 years old. But you know what I mean?

Kirsten Pontius 35:42
Yes, absolutely. My husband ruptured his Achilles last year while he's playing basketball. And, you know, that's, that could have been preventable mobility exercises, you know, all kinds of things that, you know, he's 30, he likes to make sure I remember, he's, he's 39, he's younger than me, okay, just a little bit. But these things can happen. And that's exactly what I'm talking about. Like, you want to play with your kids, you know, maybe you want to wake up and not feel foggy, you want to, you know, have energy for the work that you do, you know, whatever those descriptors are, that's kind of where we start. And then, you know, fulfilling those is that's finding the the healthiest version of you.

Jason Moore 36:23
Well, as far as the tools, because you say in your site, you help people with each move, trip or transition, learn the foundational elements involved in setting yourself up for success. So what are some of those foundational elements?

Kirsten Pontius 36:35
Yeah, so most of my signature programs revolve around nutrition, exercise and movement and mental health, like stress management. When I lived in Cambodia, I was working at an awesome organization that were supported Cambodians who had experienced trauma, first or second hand trauma, and using yoga as a tool for processing and supporting their needs. And I really got heavily into trauma informed practices. And then from there really just how stress just can just completely tear apart any mental or physical health goal, it can be so detrimental, right trauma and stress, overwhelm all these pieces I got really interested in in that field. And that definitely plays into what I do now. And I think as you know, nomads and expats and travelers, there is a level of stress, that kind of happens on a regular basis, or that we hold with us often in this lifestyle. And it plays in so much to you know, how we eat, how we move our relationships, all of those pieces. So those are kind of the three elements that I start with. And so, so much of what people are looking for, usually those three, touch on that in some way. And so, you know, I do I have a small group program that runs in March, every fall and spring it runs through this year, it will be in March. And those are the three basic elements that we start with. And then as the group kind of discusses and chats, we can kind of obviously delve into sleep or hormones or other elements. But those are the three sort of foundations and with nutrition. A lot of times it's even just talking about how do I make a healthy meal when I can't read the labels in the grocery store, or where I don't know how the language to get a bag of apples at the market. Sometimes it's just having somebody go, Okay, here's the next step. Let's take this bit by bit, and let's get there. And with movement, sometimes when I'm my very first client, so I remember working with her, she had just moved, she didn't have a community, and she had not worked out in months. So she she'd been living here actually in Romania for several months, hadn't really built up friendships, and was just so stressed and was like I missing my workouts. I know it would help with my stress levels. But I'm a crossfitter. And I just I haven't heard of any CrossFit gym. We spent one session figuring out where she could do CrossFit. And boom, things started to change, things started to shift. So sometimes it is just having the support to say like, Okay, we need to find you a community of exercise fanatics like yourself, so that you can start getting back into some of those routines and some of those familiar places. And, you know, that kind of leads me to one element that I think is really interesting about this lifestyle is that this is gonna sound completely off topic, but stay with me now as I Veer. When I was back in the States, I was in a relationship that ended a romantic relationship that ended and towards the end of that relationship, I bought a relationship book, you know something about you know, rekindling a fire or something which clearly did not work by the way, and that's okay, because I'm pretty happy with who I've gotten out. But I remember a chapter in there about novelty, and how important it was to bring excitement and different things into your relationship. And I think now about that topic, and I think, gosh, we have nothing but novelty. When I go fill up my gas at the gas station, it is novelty is the norm. Yes, it is the norm. And so I find some of my favorite work is in the opposite in helping people ground into routine, you know, finding the CrossFit gym, finding the lady at the market that will help you with your apples, finding sort of those stabilizing elements because we don't need more novelty. We're traveling, we're experiencing new things a lot. Oftentimes, it's more about pulling back a little bit and finding the routine and the day to day that helps you feel kind of normal and grounded again.

Jason Moore 40:55
Yeah, that flips everything on its head. Yeah, specifically for this lifestyle, and may be why some of us find ourselves out on the road for a destination, say for a week, well, why did we keep going back to that same cafe for a cup of coffee, it's just the the familiarity is the novelty.

Kirsten Pontius 41:13
Yeah. And it takes energy, every new thing, even when it's positive, I think that's one thing that I'd love to talk to people about is that you can have a million positive, quote unquote, positive things on your agenda for the day, but they can still take energy. And too much novelty can also be really overwhelming and exhausting. So I think finding a balance with that I talk in my book about, you know, having an environment, a home environment where you can close the door, and tuck in and just be home in a familiar space for a day, you know, spend a Saturday in your pajamas and feel like you are in your little haven, how helpful that can be sometimes to just block out the novelty and just have, you know, your own coffee on your own couch and not, you know, deal with anything?

Jason Moore 42:05
Yeah, I want to talk about stress, that's something that keeps coming up. And I was just talking about this the other day. It's about figuring out how to manage the stress in many ways, right? Let's say you have a job that's stressing you out. And you just, you think that quitting that job will relieve all the stress, but the chances are a major shift into a different kind of stress, right, then maybe the stress becomes, okay, I need to find another job, or now it's financial stress. So like stress can carry with you throughout whatever it is that you're doing. In the end, I feel like it comes down to having some tools to manage stress, wherever it's coming from, and not trying to just eliminate it everywhere. Because I feel like when you do that it just still pops up in other places. And not it's not always the case. But generally speaking, in my experience, my own personal experience, I feel that so I'm just wondering if you could share some tools for managing stress, whether that's, you know, travel stress, some of the lifestyle stress we talked about, or just in general?

Kirsten Pontius 43:08
Yeah, absolutely. So a couple of things, I almost all of the people that I work with, through workshops, clients, organizations, I will share one thing that I think everybody could do. And that's to find breath points, I call them. So oftentimes in our lives, especially in a really hectic and busy lifestyle, we you know, wake up in the morning, maybe we check our phone, there's a message from our boss, there's something from you know, a parent back home, and it sort of it sort of raises our stress level, you know, engages the adrenaline and then we often just stay at that heightened state throughout the day, right, there's a very common issue. It's called chronic stress, we, we kind of AMP up and then we don't come back down. So breath breaks are opportunities for your nervous system to get back to that rest and kind of reset place. So a breath point or breath break would be, every time I wash my hands, I'm gonna take three deep breaths, maybe even add a little gratitude, I must say something I'm thankful for in my mind. For me, it's every time I get in my car, because I don't like driving here. I make myself sit, I take three deep breaths, doing laundry, you know, walking by a drinking fountain, you can use whatever sort of triggering or, you know, kind of common activities in your day to create these points, but they act as a reminder, you know, something that you do frequently, right before you make your coffee, what you know, whatever it is, and it just brings your nervous system to a healthier state. Now, you might zip right back up the second you go to your meeting or you know, seconds, something happens, but you're essentially teaching your body to sort of release and let go. And it's it's hugely helpful. And the idea is that oh, Over time, you are able to find those breath points in between stressful activities more often because in reality, we tend to hang on, you know, to that email we get from our boss in the morning or whatever we tend to, that sticks with us. So by taking these breath points, we're slowly starting to create some space in between a stressful or a triggering activity, and bring ourselves down. So that's one of my favorite tools, and it can work for anybody at any time. I also encourage people to I have a workshop on routine, but one of the pieces of that is having a daily ritual. And that is something that is a little bit more calm and meditative. Something that really kind of just fills you up a little bit. It could be, you know, maybe making a matcha. Or it could be maybe a three minute meditation that you do at two o'clock with your office door shut and lights down. It could be putting your feet up and reading at the end of the day. But having not, I don't like calling it a routine. I feel like a ritual, something that is really designed around your mental and physical health that feels nurturing. It feels like self care. I love to encourage people to find one ritual in the day. I mean, this is our life, right? Like, why are we suffering and struggling through it, let's let's at least take a moment, every day, to give ourselves a little love to do something we like, you know, so often it's like, I have to cook, I gotta do the laundry, I've got to get to work, I've got to feed the kids and we lose our day in this chaos. So it helps to have something like this a ritual that you do, maybe around the same time every day, mine for years was making a matcha every every day at nine o'clock. Didn't matter where I was, if I was traveling, I would bring my matcha with me. And that was my ritual because it takes three minutes to do it. And so I have to stop and breathe and you know, make it happen. But you could do a variety of things.

Jason Moore 47:02
So powerful. what's so powerful about that? Thank you. That's those. That's incredible. I love that. Those tips are so doable. Yeah, you know, you're not saying wake up at 6am take a cold shower. Yeah, egg whites, you know, all this crazy. It's like no, anybody can stand there and take three deep breaths during an activity we can all do that. Such a small but powerful thing and say a little gratitude prayer, whatever you want to call it and, and having a three minute nurturing meditative ritual. Yeah, that just sounds lovely. I'm already thinking what am I going to do? And if you can add that daily, it makes a huge difference.

Kirsten Pontius 47:46
I did one I did to him right before we talked, I just like brought my heartbeat down a little. Because I was so excited. Like, okay, Kirsten, you need to just breathe. I love you know, meditation apps. There's so many free ones Insight Timer, headspace. What's the other one? But there's a lot of free tools for those type of things. And yeah, you could just choose three minutes. All it takes. Yeah.

Jason Moore 48:11
Yeah, that's, that's lovely. You mentioned three main pillars in a way so stress. And then it was more of the body physical stuff. Yeah, right. And trician and nutrition. I was wondering if you could in in body movement and nutrition do something similar where you can share like one or two sort of power tips we can call them?

Kirsten Pontius 48:31
Yes. Um, okay, well, let's start with nutrition. The first thing Yeah, I just did a post on Instagram about this kind of desire for novelty that we have it you know, even though we are you know, living in this very, very novelty filled lifestyle, it's pretty easy to kind of be looking for like the next best thing to eat, or to do you know, the, the Keto and the kale and all of the trendy stuff, right. So this is kind of an evolutionary element that we have, that sort of helps us to kind of keep that growth mindset. However, when it comes to health, sometimes it's detrimental because we kind of keep thinking that we need to do the next thing like okay, well what should I be eating now like what what's, what's the cutting edge, and in reality back to the basics is is is proven time and time again to get you to a healthier place. So I always tell people get at least one serving of vegetables in every meal if you can, and focus on protein, and I am not on low carb person. However, a lot of us just happen to eat a very carb heavy diet like it's just kind of the natural inclination with you know, processed foods and sort of the lifestyle that many of us live is that a lot of times it is carb heavy and so adding some protein and vegetables to meals and snacks. I like to tell people you know, an apple is not a full snack, you know, you need some protein, you need some fat to feel fulfilled. So those are The things I tell people pretty regularly just increase your protein and your vegetable intake. That's it. Add some spinach to your smoothie, saute some kale if you want kale, add some peas to something I love to use soup satay stew, smoothie, I think those are the four. There's the four S's those are really easy ways to add you can add vegetables to any of those things and not even taste them. So those are really good go twos. I'm a big smoothie lover but I can't do them in the winter so you know summer spring fall fine, but I kind of switched to having soups and stews a lot where I throw in extra veggies almost any soup I've ever made for my family. I've thrown in extra veggies and my kids don't even blink you know you can just add I like to encourage people with eating to think about what they want to add not what they want to take away. Don't worry about depriving yourself don't get stressed about I have to cut out sugar I'm gonna cut out carbs a can of diet coke anymore. Forget about that. And, and the good stuff. And there's slowly over time. Some of those other habits are going to slowly be you know, kind of crowded out they're not gonna be as much space for them as you add more nutrition to your meals.

Jason Moore 51:20
But some of your chocolate. Yes. I love the poor SS that's cool. Yeah, soups, stews, smoothies and saute Saturdays.

Kirsten Pontius 51:30
Yeah. I also like curries, but that one doesn't have an S it's not as catchy but you know, Kurt curries are good places for sure. Yeah. And then with with Exercise and Movement, this is a tricky one, I'm, there's a combination of a need for motivation. So I really like to get people to identify what their what's motivating them. And, and I very rarely will accept a weight loss because it's often much deeper than that. And it could be health related, it could be energy related, it could be confidence related. But without that sort of understanding of what's at the bottom of this desire, it's really easy to lose motivation, it's a lot harder to say, I'm not going to work out because, you know, I don't care about losing weight, today, it's a lot harder to say, I'm not gonna work out because I don't care about my confidence. You know, so when you're thinking about trying to kind of draw from that motivation at 6am, put your running shoes on, you know, you're doing it for your confidence, or you're doing it for your kids, whatever that sort of foundation for that desire is. So I also encourage people to really identify what they like it time and time again, research has has indicated it does not matter what kind of exercise you do, if you like it, and you do it, it's good. So it you know, don't jump on the latest trend unless it's really something you want to do. So in the last small group that I ran, we had a five day challenge, we have to do something different for five days in a row, one of my clients discovered African aerobic dance. And it's like, given her a new life, she just found something fun that she liked to do. So I think that's important. And then also identifying so many people need some outside accountability and outside motivation. And so if that's the case, figure out how to get that you know, whether it's that you maybe pay for an online class, or a trainer, or you go to group fitness, or you create an accountability Whatsapp group with some of your friends. Many of us sort of need that extra push of somebody expecting you to show up. So build that in, you know, tip, tip things in your favor. If you know that about yourself, then you know, identify what the thing is, and then figure out how you can get some accountability.

Jason Moore 53:56
Amazing. Thank you for that. I Yeah. So my buddy Mike and I had an exercise streak going on, we had all scheduled six days a week. And if one of us didn't complete the day, we owed the other guy five bucks. And that is the longest exercise streak I've ever had. Because you don't want to pay your friend five bucks just because you were too lazy to do your push ups sit ups that day, or whatever it was, you know, it works

Kirsten Pontius 54:23
totally or there's actually I can't think of the name but there are programs and apps where you pay in. And it's that same idea but it's an it's a program. So you pay in a certain amount at the beginning and then you have to track your your progress and they keep your money if you don't do it and if you do they pay you back and you can even make money. Really? Yes, I can send them to you later.

Jason Moore 54:48
I'll keep the money. Yes. Okay. I'll just you know, extra motivate. No kidding. All right, that's great. Let's put all this together because this is where maybe would it be be fair to say, we were trying to figure out a holistic approach here. And is that a loaded word? I always wonder if holistic is the right word in this context, or if it's too. I don't know. Yeah, loaded, I guess was was, was the word I use. Because there is something unique about living this lifestyle, you know, you have clients probably from all over the world. We're on your online a lot now. And it's probably not a lot of in person stuff. There's something I've struggled with a lot over the years doing this location independent entrepreneur thing. And it can be really easy to get burned out on the, you know, the Zoom calls, everyone's like, I'm laughing because people are not laughing. It's the wrong word. But you know, people I'm so burnt down on Zoom calls since the pandemic, and I've been doing zoom calls for 10 years. It's just, it does take a toll. And you just get kind of, I'm going through some shifts right now, personally. So this is a very personal question for me too, because I really want to concentrate some more of my work on some more in person type of experiences, as we know, the things will normalize more at some point, and it already is happening. So yeah, how do you keep the balance? Is the balance running? What's your philosophy around all this?

Kirsten Pontius 56:21
Yeah, so I'm a big believer in in constant reflection, I and I mentioned this earlier, but I think we have a tendency to, you know, download a free meal plan, or, you know, follow a trainers, online trainers kind of set guidelines. And I think you need to sort of customize your health and lifestyle for yourself through reflection and trial and error is the other piece. And to be honest, it's not fast and sexy, like we want it to be there's not this like instant before and after. And that is what can be difficult. And that's why as a coach, I have a lot of satisfaction in what I do. Because I can link arms with people. And we can kind of take that walk together because it's a can be a bit long and difficult. But it's really about taking the time at each step to reflect on is this exercise working for me? Is yoga still for me? Or is it time to make a change? Is it how does my body feel when I eat these foods? Am I eating them? Because I'm emotional, and I'm soothing myself, or am I eating them because they're fun foods and I want to and you know, finding those really, kind of internal motivations and kind of an understanding of who you are. And what you need is, is it's a game changer. Once you do it, I mean, I work myself out of jobs, once you are in tune to your needs and how to really reflect on things as they change. You are the master of your own health because you don't then need someone else to say, try this latest trend and, you know, do this and try this. It's it's more about, I know what feels good for me. And if something doesn't feel good, I know how to do trial and error until I figure out what else I want. And you know, all of these pieces is one of the reasons why I wrote my book that I've I've is coming out this spring, I hope you don't mind a quick plug because it's does kind of pull it together. But I've written a book called How to move overseas with your health and sanity. And it's just a guide to help you through some of these things as you move you know, leveraging this fresh starts effect where when you make a move, when you take a trip, it's kind of an opportunity to start fresh and to leverage, you know, some new habits. But it talks about all of these elements in where it where to live, what you're doing support systems, how you eat all of these things that affect your health and your well being in relation to moving and traveling and relocating.

Jason Moore 59:07
Wow, cool. Congrats on the book. It's that's to me, that's quite an accomplishment how was that process for you?

Kirsten Pontius 59:14
Well, I mean, I'm still in it. It's with the editor right now. So I've written it but it's been edited and as you probably guessed, there's quite a bit more work to do once that or to get their hands on it but I did create a little sneak peek for your listeners. So I will offer that to you and you can add the link in at Kirsten pontius.com/zero to travel but I took a few excerpts some of which we've talked about today with habits and rituals and I put them into a little easy to download PDF for for your people to all these all these wonderful people to check out but it's been really fun. I mean I I was going through my training and my nutrition course and all of the pieces thinking to myself, this is interesting information. But it's just slightly different for people in our lifestyle. And so as I was learning I was writing about how, how things are just a little bit, maybe more challenging in some ways and less than others, and how we can capitalize on what we know about health and nutrition all of those pieces in the lifestyle that we live,

Jason Moore 1:00:24
yeah, I love that it's very specific to people listening and yes, expat myself. Thanks for that. And we'll, of course, include the link for that excerpt in the show notes. Thanks for including that, I'm thinking about some of the things you just described, the trial and error and the reflection, such as such great concepts, and sometimes harder to do in practice and reflect on your own behavior in your own self image. And what what does. What does reflection look like? Is there a process for that? Is there some kind of a framework that you utilize?

Kirsten Pontius 1:01:03
Yeah, I mean, it kind of depends on the individual needs. I'm a big fan of journaling, writing things down. And also people, some people are verbal processors and just need to do some reflection, you know, maybe with a spouse or a friend, I would say, 50% of my one to one clients are also working with a therapist, you know, to work through different elements of mental health and struggles there. I also have multiple exercises that I do with clients, and one of my favorite ones, all I'll share with you that anybody can do is if you make a list of everything that you do in a day, it's kind of a generic list, but you know, you brush your teeth, you eat breakfast, you go to work, and be as specific as you can. So maybe not just go to work, but you have a meeting and you know, all these things. And then if you look at that list, and you think about what first of all, what are the things that I have to do what's necessary, you know, what, what is a non negotiable, and then what's optional. So you categorize everything as necessary or unnecessary. And then you go through and you categorize everything one more time as energy giving, or energy sucking. So then you start to look at what first of all, what are the things that are not necessary that are sucking my energy? Well, okay, get rid of those, that's easy. And then what are the things that are necessary, that are sucking my energy that I could tweak? So some of those you could, you know, hire someone else to do it, maybe it's, you know, maybe it's cooking dinner is just by the end of the day is just too much. So, allow yourself to order out maybe one more time, but you know, find, find a healthy restaurant that has, you know, nice sandwiches or salads or something. Or maybe it's you have a friend that also doesn't like to cook and you double your recipe once a week and give them half and they double it once a week and give you half and there's one less dinner you have to cook. So you look at those energy sucking activities that have to be done. And you think, is there a way I could delegate them? If not, could I bring some ease to them? Every time I open my email, I get stressed, it's necessary, I have to look at my email, it sucks my energy. Okay, take three deep breaths before you open your email or take a walk every time you've opened the email at work. And it's you know, overwhelming and you're stressed, do what you have to do, close it down and then go for a nice walk, take a deep breath. So finding ways to look through the day to day and tweak and adjust to bring some more joy to your life. That's one of my favorite exercises. And it also allows some reflection and going wow, you know, maybe I didn't realize how much of my day is sucking my energy. Or I didn't realize I love when couples do this. Because if you do it side by side, you can say oh, you don't like to make dinner. Mom might now make dinner or you don't like laundry. That's easy. That happened. And my husband and I over during COVID I was losing my mind with the kids at home, we had this conversation about the joy sucking activities. And laundry came up and he said well, I'll do laundry, Oh, that's easy, great, you know. So just activities like that, that help bring some awareness to what it is in your life that you are struggling with and what is giving you joy. And then I love also to look at those joy giving activities as energy given activities and think about can we do more of that? Is there space to lengthen that or to add more? So it's a really nice reflective activity.

Jason Moore 1:04:38
Do you do the same sort of thing in your business?

Kirsten Pontius 1:04:43
Absolutely. So I have a workshop all around. It's called from frazzled to fulfilled and we use a lot of those exercises. It's 90 minutes. We start at the beginning with you know, writing things down but my workshops are incredibly interactive. So there's a lot of conversation a lot of reflection, a lot of writing and working. And so that exercises from that workshop, I have another one on routines and another one on sleep. But I often do them with clients as well. I work in organizations, international schools, embassies, military organizations, and a lot of times, I will do similar workshops or work with those organizations. I also do some consultancy as well to support administrations and, you know, leaders in helping their staff and colleagues find pockets of joy and ways to find more health and ease.

Jason Moore 1:05:40
That's great. Especially if you're working with sort of from the top down approach in an organization that can spread like wildfire, if implemented correctly, how do you find your clients some random business question, but

Kirsten Pontius 1:05:55
yeah, you know what, it's hugely word of mouth. I, I've had a couple of clients come to me now from Instagram, which blows my mind, because I'm not great with social media, but I try to have a presence. And besides that, it's a lot of referrals, which, you know, I feel really good about and I love that people are recommending me to their friends. But yeah, that's primarily it, I do some, you know, I'll be in a couple conferences coming up in March. So I do some connecting to organizations through families and global transition and like area, you know, international organizations and that kind of thing.

Jason Moore 1:06:34
Cool. What's next for you in the family then?

Unknown Speaker 1:06:38
We are heading to Cote d'Ivoire, West Africa,

Jason Moore 1:06:42
to work at another international school.

Kirsten Pontius 1:06:44
Yes, my husband will be a principal at the international community school of ABI John and I will be helping transition the family of course, and continuing with my business, which is mobile, which I'm very thankful for.

Jason Moore 1:07:02
How long will you be there? Do you know?

Kirsten Pontius 1:07:05
You know, I think he has a minimum contract of two or three years I don't even know that that's a good question.

Jason Moore 1:07:13
Going to West Africa, me for years. Busy.

Kirsten Pontius 1:07:19
Let's figure it out as we go. Yeah. I mean, because of the kids and you probably understand this, like I don't want to uproot them, you know, we don't want to rip them too often. You know, it's one thing to take a trip you know, kind of back and forth like you're talking about which I think is very cool. But you know, we'll we'll try to stay as long as we like it we like the five year range. I think it's been working really well we were in Cambodia for five years been here it'll be five years so that's a sweet spot for us it's enough time to build some community and feel like you know the culture a bit and then you know, we're we're getting itchy so it's it's about time

Jason Moore 1:07:56
What do you miss most about the states?

Kirsten Pontius 1:07:59
Oh, um What I miss is also when I'm glad I don't have access to and it's probably just all the things I can get the different foods the different you know, any you know, getting having anything you want at your fingertips virtually. I mean, it's just insane. I don't think you realize it until you leave that like Americans can get anything they want. Any food any appliance. Oh, it's so insane. You know? So I miss out on stuff, you know, sometimes and then there's a lot of times where I go okay, I'm glad I don't have that much choice because I think it would just drive me crazy.

Jason Moore 1:08:40
And is there a food you constantly crave? This is a expat commiserating here right

Kirsten Pontius 1:08:45
now. Yeah. Oh, that's a good I mean, I'm from Northern Minnesota. So like why walleye and wild rice? Those are probably the two things when we go home in the summer we are eating while I tacos and fried walleye and while they sandwiches and wild rice casserole, wild rice soup all for sale.

Jason Moore 1:09:04
Good Midwestern northern Minnesota fair. A lot of your regions in Minnesota. Yes, exactly. Minnesota.

Kirsten Pontius 1:09:12
But Minji. Okay, if you're familiar with it,

Jason Moore 1:09:15
but you know, Minnesota Nice as a saying for a reason. Case in point here. I really had a wonderful conversation with me, I really enjoyed our conversation, I should say, was so nice and so many great tips and takeaways, and I'm already kind of looking at all my scribbled notes here and thinking. Yeah, which I'm going to try to do all of these tomorrow. I think.

Kirsten Pontius 1:09:42
Just start start small and just start it's the best way forward. Yeah, have

Jason Moore 1:09:47
a framework and then just kind of stick with it. And it helps when those things are small things that are doable, and not overwhelming and gave us so much to ponder and also to him implement in our lives. So I really appreciate your time. Of course, Kirsten pontius.com We'll leave all the links and everything that we mentioned here today. Anything that we missed that you want to you want to mention or you got the book coming out? I know and anything else, any other last parting words of wisdom?

Kirsten Pontius 1:10:19
Oh, no, I just I appreciate being here. I think that, you know, there's, there's so many things that we can do in this lifestyle to just thrive. And I appreciate you letting me share some of those ideas and insights with you. And I'm just I'm thrilled to have have spoken with you today. Thank you so much.

Jason Moore 1:10:38
Thank you. We shall thrive together. Yeah. All right.

There you have it. Thank you so much to Kirsten for stopping by and sharing her wisdom, so much actionable advice. In this interview, I was so fired up after recording this. I hope you enjoyed it as well couldn't wait to share this one with you. Thank you so much for listening. Now, you know, I love to highlight listeners of this show here and share their stories with the community. I want to share a voicemail I got with you Just the other day. Have a listen.

Tara 1:11:16
Hi, Jason. My name is Tara. And I've been listening to your podcast for I guess, a year and a half now. I found you because I was searching for podcasts to keep me motivated. While I was in the middle of doing projects on our sailboat that we had accidentally been thrown into thinking we bought a boat that was ready to sail the world that turned out that we spent four months refitting her just to sell her to buy a different sailboat. But anyway, that's a whole other story. listening to your podcast kept me motivated through that entire project. Let me keep dreaming, we were in the middle of COVID. We were in the middle of being stuck in this boat yard when we thought we'd be out exploring and seeing new places. And just hearing so many people's different stories just kept me going through that. I'm so inspired by the people that you have on your show. And I very much appreciate the time and effort that you put into bringing so many different stories to people, and so many different kinds of walks of life and I guess, motivations that people have for traveling and the different ways that they travel. So yeah. Thanks so much hope you're having a good day.

Jason Moore 1:12:27
That's what I'm talking about. Taryn, thank you so much for taking the time to listen. And I wanted to highlight your story. Because what you were doing was taking advantage of that windshield time I used to do this. Quite often, when I spent a couple years of working in Colorado stationary in one place my only quote unquote, sort of real job in many ways. And when I was driving around, I would listen to podcasts, listen to audio programs and things like that. Taking advantage of that windshield time. It sounds like even though you got into this boat situation, and you thought you were going to be traveling the world. And then it turned out to be another thing it sounds to me. Like you were turning lemons into lemonade, just taking advantage of your of your time, staying inspired, staying motivated. And sometimes that is what it takes to achieve a dream, right? We experienced the setbacks. And what are we going to do during those moments? Those are the things that really can define us. And maybe we want to take that opportunity to step into our greatness. And to step up to the challenge. It sounds like you really did that. And I'm glad to hear that the podcast was a small part of that. So thank you so very much for taking the time to share your story. Yeah, when you get a bad car or a bad sailboat or any bad vehicle, don't they call that getting a lemon. That's where the lemons to lemonade thing came from anyway, I don't know where you're at. But if you are out sailing the world right now or planning on it, I I'd love to hear more of this story you mentioned. That's another story. Well, I want to hear that story. And I'm sure some of the listeners do too. So let us know if you're out there selling the world or what you're doing. And you Yes, you listening to the show, if you have a story to share, or you just want to say hi again, drop me a voicemail anytime because I'd love to get those and play them here on the show because we get to hear some different voices and stories from the community. And I can highlight other listeners. So what this is all about so but you got to give me the messages to share. I'm at the end of the queue. Now Taryn was the last message so waiting for you. Drop me a line. We'd love to hear from you. Okay, let me leave you with a quote today to wrap up this show. This one from Mahatma Gandhi who said it is health. That is the real wealth and not pieces of gold and silver. And I'll share one more from tick not Han another health themed one keeping your body healthy is an expression of gratitude to the whole cosmos, the trees, the clouds, everything. Thank you so very much for listening, my friends. Till next time, peace come off. Have a great day. Cheers.

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