Ola. That’s not very Austrian, is it? Ola. That’s too funny. Today, I can’t believe I’m in the 190s. I’m over halfway. That just blows my mind. Anyway, I’ll give you a little bit of a flick where I am. It’s the pool area. It’s a little bit too cool to sleep. It’s hard to sleep … to swim. I seem to have lost my ability to speak. Isn’t that pretty? This is Vienna, ladies and gentlemen. It’s a lot prettier at night when all the lights are off. It just has this magical feeling about it, I guess.
I wanted to talk about travel because that’s what I’m doing. I thought I’d give you my 10 benefits of traveling. There’s 195 countries in the world, amazing. Right? By the time we finish this little trip, we will have done 10 countries, which is exciting. You’re not live … Some them in there for long. We’re going to Slovakia for lunch on our way to Hungary. You don’t experience the whole thing, but you get to dip your toes in, which I think is awesome.
I actually don’t know how many countries I’ve been to. I want to get a big map at home and map them out because I’d love to, before I die, have visited as many of the 195 as I possibly can. There are a couple I’m probably not that interested in going to just because of what’s going on there with wars. Anyway, that may change by the time I get to go there.
One of my top 10, I got myself a little list. I’ve gone analog today. I thought I haven’t really done one of these for a while so get back on the program. Ultimately, it’s all about experience, this thing for travel, I think. I really believe it encompasses everything about it, this experience. You all know everything starts with an E in my world, and experience is a big one.
For starters, it helps make you more tolerant and more patient. Honestly, when you have language hiccups with people or there’s a queue of 80 of you trying to squish into a strudel show that only 40 people can sit at, your patience and your tolerance for all sorts of things gets practiced. Whether it’s a queue somewhere or a behavioral thing or a cultural thing that you’re like, “Oh, I’m not quite sure about that.” You need to be tolerant of it if you’re in that country. For a visitor there, you need to be tolerant. Get over your own shit and be tolerant, which is really a big one. For me, as you know, patience, I need to practice that and I really need to work on it, so that’s a big one for me when I travel.
Fun, fun, fun, number two benefit. Absolutely fun, fun, fun, fun.
Another one is it helps you appreciate what you actually have. I think that’s regardless of whether you’re seeing something that is an up level to your life or seeing something that you might consider below your level of life. I can look at these really fancy pant stores and go, “No. I really appreciate what I have. That’s just not of interest to me.” Likewise, I can look at the things and I think, “Oh, I couldn’t possibly live like that,” and it makes me appreciate, “I’m so glad I don’t have to live like that,” and it makes me appreciate what I have. I think that’s a big one.
Education, massive, massive education. I’ll go home, we’ll both go home, same thing, I’m going to say a few more words in different languages that we weren’t able to say before we came. It’s like, “I’m becoming a history buff on this trip.” I’ve never been one to study history. I find it really boring at school. Even Elodie pointed out. She’d probably love history a lot more if they did more excursions. Luckily for her, I said, “You were at a school where you get to make that as a suggestion.” Because it’s true. You walk into a room in a palace and hear about someone’s life and you want to learn more. When you just read it in a book, it’s like, “Next.” Because you don’t have that connection.
It helps you reconnect with yourself and disconnect with your daily life, which is I think really important for all of us at some point. Every single year, every couple of months, I think we need to disconnect from our daily life and reconnect with ourselves. That’s a big one. Not being on social has been huge for me. I pop in probably five minutes a day, and my life, that is it. What else is going on? Don’t know.
Food and wine. Oh my, gosh. Food and wine. Yes. As a matter of fact, we’re not talking about expanding waistlines anymore. Just go and enjoy it. That’s so funny.
It makes you more interested in things and makes you more interested. I’m sorry. It makes you more interesting and makes you more interested because the more you learn about other places and see other things, the conversations you can have, the thoughts that get provoked in your mind about history, about current affairs, about architecture, about all sorts of things makes you a much more interesting person, and you become interested in so many more things.
What else have I got here? I haven’t written it in order. Oops. There’s the three C’s, the last three of the three C’s. It absolutely helps build your confidence, and that can be as basic as being able to ask for something you want in a foreign country, in a language you don’t really understand and hope that your weird ass Englishy version on sign language and just winging a prayer is going to get you through. Going to places you wouldn’t normally go to. All those things help build your confidence. Strike up conversations with complete strangers. It’s in my seven-day confidence challenge. It’s a really big one to help boost your confidence. If you haven’t done the seven-day confidence challenge, don’t forget to go to sevendayconfidencechallenge.com and sign up and do it because it’s fabulous. Yes, you get struck with conversations.
Creativity. It sparks your creativity. Writing, drawing, just even the business ideas I’ve had on this trip have been incredible, and it’s actually been hard to go, “Not working. Not working. Don’t do that now.” As a matter of fact, I’m doing it now. It’s sparked the thought in my mind so I’ve made notes and gone, “Oh, I’ll park that and think about it later,” but I’ve definitely, definitely become more creative.
Last but not least, your communication skills. I’ve touched on that in many of the things that we’ve talked, many of the 10 communication goes into, but I think it’s a really big one. Many of us with these device-y things, our communication skills become really lacking. We text people. We don’t have conversations. We use acronyms and abbreviations for just about everything. You can’t do that when you’re traveling. You have to actually form real sentences with real people and have conversation. The conversations Elodie and I have had have been fantastic. That’s just communication between mother and her daughter. It has been brilliant. Imagine those communication skills then go into other people you’re working with and dealing with and talking to, people in your family, friends, work situations and the strangers that you meet. Communication is such a big one.
There are my top 10 benefits for traveling. I’m making sure we are making the most of every single one of those while we’re on this trip. Now we’re about to check out of Vienna and head to Budapest via Bratislava, yeah, Slovakia on the way through for lunch. Cool. It’s been funny. Trying to find vegetarian restaurants for Elodie, not that easy. Going back to the communication, that’s a big one, and that’s a tolerance thing as well. In a lot of these countries, they eat every part of an animal. Nothing goes to waste. That’s been hard for Elodie to see, so she needs to be more tolerant. That’s how people do things here, and that’s okay. We’re off to get on TripAdvisor and find a great vegetarian place for lunch.
Mwah. Good night. We’re nearly at the end of the year. How exciting. I said to Elodie today, “Last year,” and she went, “Do you mean this year, Mom?” I was like, “Oh yeah. I kind of already finished it in my brain.” Oopsie. Bye.