Creating communities, navigating divorce and entrepreneurship with Ash

In this episode, Lyd & Liv get personal with the mononymous Ash - a mellow and well-traveled man from India. Why does he only go by Ash? He talks to us about living as an expat and spending 6 years on the road, plus the challenges of using an Indian passport to do so.

Ash also shares some painful experiences with us. How does he stay friendly with his ex-wife? What does he miss the most about life before the pandemic? As an entrepreneurial person, we ask Ash about how he builds communities, too. And we find out what it's like to run a cafe in Europe.

If you're ever in Lisbon - you can find Ash in person at his cafe, Selva Lisboa. (Trust us, the coffee and atmosphere are both superb!)

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Transcript

Ash_Episode_Final_oct20Thu, 11/12 · 9:23 AM1:08:09SUMMARY KEYWORDSpeoplelisbondigital nomadcomedycommunityvisabreakupnomadtravelfriendskindsindiaashlifemeetupmovedportugalpointpassportfriendships

0:05

You're listening to the Who are you really podcast,

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a podcast that features interviews with the captivating people we've met. Live in,

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I have learned that everybody has a story, whether it surprises you, shocks you or resonates with you. stories have a way of connecting us, offering new perspectives and acting as a reminder that we're not in this alone.

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And there's nothing we love more than bridging people together in our Little Big





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Planet. We'll get vulnerable, raw and real with our guests from all over the world.





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I'm your host, Lydia,





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I'm so rich, and I'm your host, Olivia Poglianich.

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Welcome to our safe space, no judgment, no egos, all the fields and all the fun. So pull up a seat,

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0:49

get cozy. Let's dig a little deeper together.

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0:55

So today on the podcast, I'm so excited for you guys to listen to this guest. His name is Ash. And he is somebody I met earlier this year when I started off 2020 in Lisbon when COVID was just a starting up and not really international yet. And I met ash through some friends in Lisbon that I made. And from there, I was just taken away by his genuineness and his calm presence, his good vibes, his stories, and we're going to really get into his stories in this podcast episode.

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Speaker 2

1:37

Yeah, Ash is an incredible human being with a really calm spirit. And I enjoyed learning about how he's built some incredibly successful, amazing communities. He's been through some challenging things like dealing with grief and divorce. And he had really interesting perspectives about the world and travel and humanity and life with an Indian passport. And yeah, take it away ash. I mean, he's got all the gems to say we're just doing the intro.

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2:08

Yeah. He's truly a beautiful human. And you'll get exactly what we mean by that, once you listen. So enjoy, grab a hot cup of tea and sit back.

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2:37

So we're so excited to have our next guest. I'm a new friend that I met earlier this year in Lisbon before COVID sort of uprooted all of our lives. He's friendly, he's fun, he's sweet. This is my friend ash. Hi,





2:58

Hey, how's it going?





3:01

How are you? Welcome to our podcast, I

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Speaker 3

3:03

really love the work that you guys are doing. So it's quite nice to see that, you know, you were inspired during this period where a lot of people are kind of, you know, feeling a bit lost, and you know, don't have anything less going on. So maybe, you know, it's a nice project to have.

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Speaker 2

3:18

Thank you so much. Um, I wanted to ask off the bat, like I noticed, you put ash as your, like, full name on the forms we asked for? Do you like have you just go by ashes your full name, because that's pretty badass, you know, to have a one name? identity, it's

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Speaker 3

3:35

like, it's like, share? Yeah. No, it's just because I, well, I'm originally from India, and sometimes My name is confusing for people over here in Portugal or other countries. So I, I just kind of, yeah, make it easy for people. Because I know that people would make an effort if I you know, try to explain how to say my name correctly to them. But it's not about that. It's more about just, you know, getting a quickly out there for people to address you. Whereas, you know, I meet a lot of people every week. And so it's important to, for them to quickly know my name easily and not have that whole conversation over and over, like, oh, how do I say your name correctly? And yeah, generally, people are very kind of our, they don't want to say it wrong. But I'm the one doesn't want to spend the time, you know, coaching people on that. So I'm like, okay, let it be for now. You know, that's, and then actually, when people get closer to me, I do. I do like them to use my full name. So it is reserved for you know, close friends and that kind of thing.

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Speaker 2

4:39

I got you. You're talking to two girls who have long complicated last name, so we can definitely relate.

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Speaker 3

4:45

Yeah, exactly. You're totally get that thing for sure. In fact, it's not even because to be honest, it's not because of being outside of India, because people in India will also mess up my name all the time, because my first name is quite unusual and people have always been messing it up. So it's just Kind of Okay, let's get rid of that inefficiency right there, huh?

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Speaker 1

5:04

Yeah, fair. And I'm gonna I was curious when you said that once you get to know somebody more become closer, then you kind of reveal that full name like, what? We're kind of gonna go right here already because I'm thinking, what makes you feel like you're at that place with somebody?

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Speaker 3

5:24

Well, I mean, it's really hard to come up with a the proper metric for that. But usually when I'm in my 30s now, and friendships are harder in your 30s as you grow older friendships are generally you know, people are very busy, they're doing their thing, they don't have as much time. And I think the one ingredient that friendship definitely needs is time. So you know, when you and I'm busy too, I'm not, you know, saying that it's just other people. So I think once you spend a lot of time with somebody, and you get to know them, maybe you've been to their house, they maybe they've been to your house, you know, this kind of stuff, and you get more comfortable with them. And then that's the moment where you may feel like, sometimes you have pet names for your friends, right? You have like nicknames or other names for your friends. And that's the kind of level I need to be at to be you no more than Ashley. Yes. Yeah, that

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Speaker 2

6:14

makes so much sense. And as she mentioned before, that you are from India, and now we are calling us from Lisbon. Have you been like a big worldly traveler for a long time? Like, I'd love to know what kind of got you to list Ben, do you have mostly everyone knows you as ash over there? or How are you operating in the world these days?

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Speaker 3

6:38

Well, that's a I mean, I was born in India and I grew up in India. And I, usually whatever has happened in my life has happened because of love. So different kinds of love. And I moved to Dubai after I had a big breakup, and I was, you know, went to study University over there, but I ended up working in a startup there. And eventually I left that to travel as a digital nomad. Back then digital nomad wasn't even a term that anybody used. Like, that wasn't even a thing. It was just like, Okay, I'm just gonna work online and travel. There was no digital nomad concept. This is 2011, my first year of traveling was mostly Latin America. And I traveled there. At the time, I was very passionate about startups and entrepreneurship and those kinds of things. I'm still very passionate about them. But I had this I was 25. And I had that energy. And I really wanted to do something, you know, change the world and all that stuff. And so I went to Chile, and they had this incredible program happening there called StartUp Chile. And I met some people there and work with them on a on a startup. And it was at this time that I was kind of like, you know, feeling a bit like I've been traveling for so long. But I haven't been feeling that passion in my work. So that's why I got in more than the startup that startup It was not really a good fit for me. But in the meantime, I met some other guys were doing some really cool work around recruitment, and reducing hiring of biases in hiring. And so I ended up working with them on that startup and becoming a co founder. And then I became remote for a little while, then I ended up going back to Chile, then move the company to the states for a bit. And then I was with a Portuguese girl at the time and kind of rode wary. And we were like, okay, should we move to Portugal or to India? or What should we do? And we thought that Portugal would be Lisbon in particular would be a great place to move to because it kind of ticked off all the boxes on whether company lifestyle, you know, closeness to the ocean, all those kinds of things, you know. And so, we ended up moving to Lisbon. And yeah, that's how I ended up over here. And eventually I Well, not even eventually, very soon after moving here, I started doing the digital nomad meetups over here. And that community kind of grew a lot and you know, lots of events. And yeah, I've been here for like three and a half years now. And very happy that I chose to live over here in Lisbon.

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Speaker 1

9:10

Wow. Such a good like, chronological sort of timeline there. There's so many things to touch on. And that whole elevator pitch that you gave us about your life story. So I first want to go to your Yeah, like you said your digital nomad life and how at the time, like, I think you said it was for around six years. I remember and then you settled in Lisbon in 2017. That's right. Yeah. And so kind of take us back to that lifestyle i'd ashes more like in the Nomad sort of scope. What would you say was one of the most challenging parts of that lifestyle and how how did you do it for six years? You know, I think Liv and I have done both the digital nomad thing, but only for like one to two years and some people might think that's a long time but In the grand scheme of things, it's really not. So I know you've eventually settled in Lisbon, but kind of bring us back to what gave you that motivation to keep going. But also what was like the harder parts of it?

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10:12

Well, during the time that I was doing the whole, you know, digital nomad thing all the time, I, you know, I love travel. So it was the first thing that appealed to me about being on the road was literally the travel aspect of it like I was, you know, I loved moving around a lot, I love going and checking out different places, the cuisine, the culture, the landscapes, I love, all of that. So that's already like, you know, something that really appealed to me. The thing about being a nomad for a long time, though, is that, I think in a sense, we are like, tribal and communal creatures, like people, human beings need community and need other people around themselves to feel safe and good. And one of the biggest problems I had was not having a sense of community for six years, that's a long time, and I'm quite a social person. But I think even an introvert would have a tough time after that, you know, that long of not that much time of not having a good friend, you know, life is tough, it throws all kinds of challenges and hurdles our way. And if we don't have somebody that we can, you know, sit down and seek support from or just, you know, get somebody to listen to us, that that really knows us, then it just feels like we're lost. And that was my biggest challenge. The reason I was able to do it for six years was probably because I had my partner with me a lot of the time, and she was my rock and my support. And even though I felt that, you know, I was quite windswept at certain times, I did have that person with me. And so I think six years is a long time, I think three years is a long time to, you know, today, my, my view is that you should have a base that you keep, and that you can return to, and go and travel, you know, because there's been so many times, you can travel for three months or six months, and then come back to where or even a year and come back to where you started. Or you could do two months and come back, say for a month or two, go for two more months and come back. Because that way, you have a circle of friends, you have people whose lives you're kind of involved in and they're involved in yours. Otherwise, you kind of get disconnected. Like if you go on for a long time, you're going to be in a different reality, most of the time, and your friends are going to readjust and they're going to find their own, you know, so I had friends in India, I had friends in Dubai and friends in many different places that I knew also from high school and university. And I would visit them every now and then. But it would be like these little little pieces of their lives that I've shared with them, but not be integrated into their lives in any meaningful way. And that's ultimately what we want is to at least I personally want us to be integrated meaningfully into somebody's life and have them integrated meaningfully into my life. So that was the toughest part. By far, there was nothing tougher than that. I lost my father while I was a digital nomad. So that was really tough as well. Because I think one of the things that having a constant routine or just living in a place, it kind of grounds you and makes you feel safe and good. And you can get through hardships and tragedies and grief, you know, in a more healthy way. And I think I didn't have that while I was a digital nomad. So this was also another aspect that was quite difficult for me to handle. But I think in time, I learned all those lessons. And I'm glad and grateful that I learned those lessons early on in life rather than at a later stage. So now I think that's why I live in Lisbon now. And I travel sometimes for like months on end. But I would come back here and I know that I have my friends here at my activities, and I feel good about that, you know, I have my couch, you know, I can watch a movie on it if I want. So that's great. You know, at some point, I was like, I need an Airbnb with a couch. But still, it wasn't my couch, right? So

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13:59

having ownership over things or, you know, living out of a bag is simultaneously so adventurous and exciting and yet sometimes exhausting for periods of time because you start to lose your identity and this feeling of being grounded to a place and I guess I'm curious, like you mentioned you had a Portuguese partner. Is she from Lisbon? Is that how you guys got to Lisbon? Are you still together? Or have you since parted ways,

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14:29

though. We split up about two years ago, and but she's not from Lisbon. She's from the north of Portugal from Valencia, and which is a border town. So she's actually half Spanish and it's a border town, next to Spain next to Galicia. And yeah, and we met like many years ago. So like we moved here to Lisbon together and then we split up but we're still on good terms and you know, hanging out together and stuff like that. And it was that was the thing that I My reason for moving here was because I was with her more or less, I'd say, but I stayed after we split up as well, because it's just so great to be here and listen, I couldn't really think of anywhere else that I wanted to be like, Okay, now we're not together, where should I go? What should I do? I don't have any real reason to be in this one. But then I realized that I had so many reasons to be in Lisbon, you know, and that I just, there was no particular reason for me to up and leave from here. So I just ended up staying over here. And I love Portugal, it's a great place to be in.

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15:31

I feel like when something sometimes a big change happens in our life, we then want to make another change. And instead of, yeah, sometimes that can be a good thing or a bad thing. And I love how you when you mentioned, oh, it's late. I was thinking, Oh, should I leave Lisbon now that that chapter has been closed? But then you've seems like you did some more deep thinking, Wait a second, why do I want to leave when I actually like it here? And were you starting to build so far listeners, like ash was kind of one of the main I want to say like, warriors, spear headers of the digital nomad community in Lisbon. Had you started it at the time that you and your partner broke up? Or was that just beginning?

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Speaker 3

16:11

So I started the community before, right when I moved to Lisbon. So right in the beginning of 2017. So it was because as I mentioned, being a nomad, and lacking that community was really detrimental to my own mental health, and also to my partners, I knew that other nomads were going through that kind of loneliness, and, you know, every place they went to, they would meet some people, but you don't really connect with those people. And then you feel kind of like, okay, they don't understand me, I don't understand them. And that lack of community can be really, you know, unnerving. So, I, when I moved here, I started the community. And the meetups grew really fast. Like, initially, I started doing one meetup in a month. And there were like, 50 people the first time, and then the next month, it was 80 people. And I thought, okay, these are too many people, I need to do it, you know, twice a month. So I started twice a month and 80 people showed up twice a month as well. So I thought, Okay, I need to do it even more often. I did once a week. And still 80 or 90 people showed up sounds like, Okay. And then I needed more help. And so I got some, you know, I got some people who were from the community to start, you know, working with us, and it's a volunteer organization. So everybody just volunteers their time. And we do this for the community and to grow it. And one of the things I had briefly referred to my father passing away, was while I was a nomad, one of the things I learned then was that don't try to run away from that stuff, because I could go away and but my grief is going to follow me, right? So when I went through my breakup, it was the same riff reflex, I was like, I need, I want to leave Lisbon. I want to change my circumstances, and you know, get through this. But I realized, I think that that point, I had that maturity to think that I, you know, my pain is going to be with me, no matter where I go. And I have so much in Lisbon that I can work on and do and, you know, so I tried to channel that more into giving. And I started doing even more events and more and started growing the community even more and the organizing team and yeah, during that year, we went from like two or three organizers, 210 and having like two events a week to like one every day or two every day. So yeah, apparently breakups are very good for meetup organizing.

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Speaker 2

18:30

That's so crazy. It's amazing how you built such a huge, I guess, organization, community, whichever word we want to use, beautiful, what you said also about grief and so true. You know, I think we all probably have this tendency to want to run away from our problems, and to be the sort of like free spirit, adventurous souls. But I'm also really touched by the fact that you mentioned you and your partner, I don't know, are you married? Or were you just dating for a really long period of time? You can answer that in just a second. But I'm very touched by the fact that you said you're still close. And I'd love to hear like how you did that. Because I know my parents had like this horrible divorce as like everyone else I know. And I hear about people whose parents are separated. And still speaking, I'm shocked and very impressed so

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Speaker 3

19:18

well about the community first, I do have to say that it wasn't just me. It's a lot of work from a lot of people. And I've had really amazing people who've, you know, pitched in and helped out every step of the way. So, you know, the credit has to go to all of us, I could never have done this alone. We are 10 organizers right now organizing events. And so you know, it's a lot of people giving their time and their effort to make this happen. And about my partner, I mean, we were married and I don't know what to say about how we stayed on good terms, but there was a lot of anger for sure. And I had to deal with a lot of anger and I did my best not to take it out of her and I think she did her best not to dig it out of me because breakups like that are really painful. And you can be really angry and you can try to not channel that at each other, then maybe you can end up on better terms. Because otherwise, it's just very difficult, you know, and just trying to you know, that bygones be bygones and, you know, try to focus on what you had as a couple and what you cherished, and, you know, celebrated together. And, yeah, really, if you love that person, like you shouldn't really, you know, want to hurt that person, like, really, truly not one or that person, sometimes we cannot control ourselves and be, you know, lash out at each other. But if you do really love each other, then I think at some point, you need to acknowledge that and try to, you know, also forgive and try to things that you don't need to be forgiven for. Yeah, I had to do a lot of soul searching, of course, I mean, every time you go through something like that, you have to, you know, think about what you did wrong, and what was your role, and all of that, and those kinds of things. So I did do a lot of those things. And it was painful, I wouldn't, I don't want to lie about that. I, it was very painful, and probably the worst experience of my life. But I think I'm on the other side of it for the most part at this point. So that I owe a lot of that to all my friends and all the support I've received. And just generally, I'm grateful to be in this place right now. You know, I also started doing a lot of comedy shows while I was in the midst of all of this, and that served as some sort of like, a channel for self expression, you know, talking about your breakup and all these kinds of things in a funny way. Yeah, I mean, I started off as an MC, to be honest, and that's, you know, how it started was that I was, I was traveling with a friend in Iceland, in Reykjavik. And over the winter, we went to see the Northern Lights and everything. And one of the days it was like, snowing and you know, of course, it's a regular week in the winter, what do you expect, right? So it was snowing and kind of cold in the, you know, dark. We were like, what should we do? And so we went to this comedy show in the center of town, which by the way, I think is the whole town is the central coast, a tiny town. And it was a really good show. And I was thinking like, we will go like Reykjavik is such a small town and has such a good comedy scene. Why don't we have this in Lisbon? And at the time, I had already been doing the Nomad meetup. So I knew I had the community. And my friend, he's American, he was like, you know, if you set up the comedy show out to a set, and I said, Okay, let's do it. And then I, we came back to Lisbon, and I tried to set it up, and we did a few shows. And that's how I started being an emcee for comedy. Because there is no English, there wasn't any English comedy scene in Lisbon at the time. And so I started emceeing the show, I started getting in touch with all the comics and really, like, you know, pushing people to try out five minutes on the open mic and things like this. And I had a lot of support from local Portuguese comedians, who also wanted to do sets in English. So they would come in, you know, translate some of the material that worked in English as well. And then, you know, do that, and some of them were very good and experienced, and they everything just came together. And suddenly this man had an English family. See, it was really cool. Like, and I mean, I'm saying was because with COVID everything's kind of

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Speaker 1

23:32

Yeah, I went to one that well, I went to one when I was in Lisbon, and I thought it was very smooth. The Comedy was quite funny, actually. I don't know. Yeah, it's like, what is it? It's like some amateur comm comics. Yeah, yeah, it was really good.

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Speaker 3

23:51

It depends on the show. We had two comedy shows at the time. One was publishing company night, which was mostly amateurs and first timers trying out like five minutes of their material. And then we had the comedy showcase, which was on a different day. And that was more like high level professional or semi professional comics. And that usually had a ticket. But the city comedy night was just for people to try out, you know, material get better at comedy, and just try to you know, yeah, try to grow the comedy scene in Lisbon for people you know, to come and try out some stuff.

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Speaker 2

24:26

That's so cool. We, we started having like, I really like to go to comedy here in New York. And they started social distance comedy backup and some of the parks and stuff and I went to one maybe two weeks ago in a parking lot, everyone had to wear a mask. They set up our plastic chairs, like pretty far apart. Actually, I've been to two I went to one where we were in cars, which was even weirder, because they wouldn't let us our horns because we were just like, using the windshield wipers as our way of clapping and it's just, it's simultaneously bizarre but also so beautiful to see how adaptive and creative people are and seeing that COVID isn't necessarily going to, you know, get them down and change the creativity. But comics are really good at drawing attention in like such a simple way to really funny, profound, beautiful things that happen, and sometimes really controversial things that they can cover with a laugh that I

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Speaker 3

25:20

like that way. Yeah, it's a it's like a gateway. So that that's where like, I also like, kind of expressed my, you know, resentment over my breakup, and all those kinds of things, you know, about getting divorced and all this stuff. And it's just kind of really an outlet, you know, for, for that kind of thing. And I think that, yeah, comedy here in Lisbon right now has been, it's been on pause. But I think we should be starting up something probably by the end of this month, again, just again, with social distancing, and all of that, you know, you have to kind of work around those things at this point still, so even from but I think the comics are also thirsty to get back on stage at this point. So it's, you know, it's definitely something that, you know, everybody needs to laugh and the comics need to also get up on stage. So I think it's a win win in that situation.

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Speaker 1

26:14

So and, yeah, talked about. So I guess like for you comedy is sort of like was that the time that it really was brought to you as a tool of healing? Like for that breakup?

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Speaker 3

26:25

Yeah, it was just something that kind of led me you know, talk about things, but also, in a very honest and open way to with the bunch of strangers, but also laugh about those things together. I think I really connected with a lot of people during that period, because for some reason, when you so as a comedian, usually comedy is about yourself, it has, it's usually about your own experiences and your own opinions about things, right. So you generally want to connect with people and talk about your own experiences, but maybe in a funny way. And that's what it was, for me as well. And I, I talked about that. A lot of my set was about, you know, my breakup, but a lot of it is about other stuff like growing up in India, or differences between India and Portugal and all these kinds of things. One of the things that's very challenging in comedy here is that we have a mixed crowd. So what happens is that you have people from different places, and you know, different cultures and different nationalities and different experiences. So normally, if you're doing comedy, you will have things that you can talk about or joke about that are happening in your local kind of circumstances, like politics, or sports or the economy or whatever, right? What comedy in the expat community is very difficult, because it's a very dynamic crowd. People are from different places. So you don't have those commonalities, even for comedians is very difficult, because you have to be very creative with what actually appeals to everybody. So often, it ends up being about yourself, because you're the you're the common thing in that, you know, amongst all these people, they don't have anything else that ties them with each other because we have Portuguese, Italian, Spanish, English, Norwegian, Swedish, Canadians, Americans, Indians, Chinese all in the crowd. So it's like, you can make a joke about Donald Trump, because not everybody cares about Donald Trump, you can make a joke about Modi, because not everybody cares about Modi, you can only make a joke about you know, those kinds of things, because it just doesn't capture everybody the same way. So you have to be

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Speaker 1

28:24

that you have to be like super creative. That's right. I'm sure you're seeking. I mean, I think it's already it could probably already be hard for comics and Canada and even America to try to please a whole crap and never mind a whole international crowd. Yeah, international crowds are really tough. Like, generally speaking, they're

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Speaker 3

28:41

very, very tough to handle. Luckily, a lot of the people live in Portugal long term. So there's the standard jokes about Portuguese bureaucracy being really slow. And you know, Portuguese people being really late to everything and those kinds of things. And so, we love to joke about the fact that we live here and we love it here. But you know, we put up with all this stuff. So, you know, those kinds of things are always funny, but there's not a lot that ties everybody with each other. So you really have to get creative.

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Speaker 1

29:06

Do you think there's anything that ties besides comedy? Like is there like an ultimate force that ties humans together despite locale despite culture, despite language? Do you think there's like one thread?

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Speaker 3

29:22

Yeah, I think so. I think we all really want the same things. I mean, I traveled a lot while I was a nomad. And no matter where I went, I found that people always wanted you know, similar things like they wanted safety, they wanted friendship, they wanted love they wanted, you know, those are the things that we all want, you know, like, there's no difference. It doesn't matter where you're from, or who we are. Or we may have some different aspirations like, Oh, I want to be a doctor. I want to be, you know, a CEO or whatever, right? But I want to be an athlete. But ultimately, I think we all crave the same things and we want the support of our peers. We want our tribe. We want our community. And yeah, we just want to hang out with people like and just be accepted, you know, that's really our need for acceptance is so important.

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Speaker 2

30:10

While sash I think also we all have the same emotions which I've learned from traveling like, you know, everyone really laughs and cries in the same language and love is maybe not universally expressed in different cultures express it in such different ways, which is fascinating. But we all still really want it at the core. I love how much you talk about community and I completely agree with you lit and I both we are trying to have a little community of our own in this podcast, and definitely just all the circles that we operate in. Could you talk a little bit more about like what you think it takes to build a successful community?

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Speaker 3

30:49

Yeah, well, the successful community? What is that? I don't know, like, Is it a community of successful people, or just a lot of people?





30:59

Just any community, really,

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Speaker 1

31:01

I guess, like a community kind of hitting the theme of what you just said, where everybody feels like they belong?

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Speaker 3

31:09

I mean, I think in terms of acceptance, we all have a lot of work to do, because even with the, you know, whole Black Lives Matter movement, like what happened was that there's a lot of things that you know, people of color we face, and you know, we kind of like brush those aside, because if we even stopped to think about those things, we're going to be like, you know, kind of down and not able to do you know, stuff, usually. So then I started thinking about the digital nomad community and how you know, the demographics, like I never really thought about it so much, but the demographics of the community are such that most of the nomads are white, and they come from Western countries, you know. And then some of the community members are like, when these conversations came up, like everybody is trying to be inclusive. So they're like, oh, but why don't we have African nomads coming to Lisbon. And the first thing I said, is an Indian person, because I'm very aware of this is that, well, they need a visa to come to Lisbon, first of all, and they can just buy in and get a stamp on their passports, they need to present tons of documents about how they have ties to their home country, and you know, bank statements and letters from their employer, and all of these things, and almost a letter from their employer saying that they're going to come back to work and all these kinds of things. So how can an African digital nomad who doesn't have a fixed place of work, you don't get that visa and actually come and travel in Portugal, it's not even possible. So in terms of acceptance, I think, you know, we an inclusion, we need to have a lot of conversations about these things. And as a community, it's constant work. Like, I think I tried, like, at our events when we you know, because we do in person events. So that's different from like an online thing. But in person events, we try to welcome everybody by, you know, as the organizer being at the door and saying, Hi, welcome to the meetup, you know, and you talk to them, and you learn more about them, and then you introduce them to somebody that might, you know, that makes it a little bit easier for them. Because I think the most intimidating thing is to walk into 100% meetup, and then be like, okay, who should I talk to now, it's really hard, like, you don't want to budge into anybody's conversation, you don't want to, you know, it takes a lot of assertiveness to do something like that. And a lot of people don't have that. So as organizers, we try to be super welcoming, and try to include people. And I think what I try to explain, and this is actually true for you know, people who are different, like if I walk into a room full of people who look different from myself, and you know, I might feel a bit more, you know, a bit more anxious, or have, you know, more apprehension about, you know, approaching those people. So I would need an organizer even more to come to me and say, Hey, how are you What's up, you know, welcome to make me feel more, I would need to feel even more welcome than the average person. So we are having these types of conversations amongst our, you know, organizing team and also, you know, trying to understand from the community members what, and it doesn't mean, I mean, it does, it's not about race or ethnicity, it's about all kinds of things. You know, you may be an introvert, and you may need to feel more welcome. So how do we make introverts feel more Well, welcome in that kind of situation. So there's all these questions that we have. And I think generally, to build a successful community, though, one of the first things is consistency, like, that's the main thing, like if you are doing something over and over again, and people see that you're doing that, and they, you know, know that they can be a part of it. So maybe one week they think I can't make it to the meetup. Maybe the next week, they're too tired, but if it's happening on the third week, as well, they'll show up, you know, so it's the same thing with almost anything consistency is, is so important. And if you do it consistently, then you know, you're definitely gonna get somewhere and so many friendships have come motivate people that God job offers relationships that come out of it. You know, there's there's a couple that's getting married in September, they met at one of our meetups, and you know, all these things this, a lot of things happening like that. Yeah.

2

Speaker 2

35:12

That's so cool. I, I love what you were saying. Especially like, definitely with building a community. I know that feeling when I moved to Australia, and I like didn't know anyone, and it's still a Western English speaking country. But I use meetup to find people and I walked into one that was just as successful as yours and Lisbon, I felt really overwhelmed. And I'm not at all shy. So I can only imagine how it would feel like you said to be someone who is so viscerally aware that they look different from everyone else in the room, to your point about travelers from say, Africa, just not being able to snap their fingers and travel as easily as these largely Western, largely white digital nomads. I'd find it interesting like because obviously, you did a lot of traveling with an Indian passport, I assume. Have you had some of those difficulties in the past, like getting visas or just like, what was that like for you? Because you're absolutely right, if people don't know what it's like, because of the skin they're in, and it's really hard for them to relate and understand.

3

Speaker 3

36:16

Oh, it was so challenging. It was like, I remember my first year in Latin America, I almost didn't make it to Peru, because I needed a visa to get to Peru. And every time so I was traveling in like Mexico, and I was trying to call the Peruvian embassy and say like, Hey, can I get a visa because I want to go and visit Peru. And they would just be like, no, go back to India and apply. And I'm like, dude, I'm in Mexico, how can you go to India and apply? So I tried. Every country I went to I kept calling the embassy and trying, you know, to get a visa for Peru. And then eventually, it was just by chance. Because also in in Santiago in Chile, what happened was that I was at the embassy and the lady at the counter, she she told me to like, go back to India as well. And I was like, dude, it is like 17,000 kilometers away, like to go back there and then come back to Peru. And and what happened was that just by chance, there was the assistant console standing over there. And he said, Well, what are you doing over here? And I said to him, like, Look, I've been traveling for almost a year and that in America, Peru's been on my list of places that I really want to go to, but because I have an Indian passport, I need to get a visa. And he was like, oh, what, how can you do this trip and stuff. And I said, I'm you know, I'm doing this whole digital nomad thing. I work online, and I've just been wanting to go to every Latin American country that I can, you know, especially see Machu Picchu and all this stuff, right? And, and he was like, okay, fine, just bring your papers tomorrow and put your passport in, and I'll give you the visa. And so it was really by chance that he would have bumped into him at the embassy. But I've already been trying for six to eight months at that point of time in different countries to get that visa to Peru. And of course, there's also a lot of Canada as another example. I mean, I wasn't actually this is very interesting, because I wasn't actually planning to go to Canada. But I was in Guatemala, and I was at a party. And I was talking to this lady about, you know, my travels, and also, again, about the visa issues and everything. And then she said, Oh, how come you and she's Canadian? So she said, How come you never went to Canada? And I said, Oh, because Canada, I'm going to need a visa. And you know, I don't want to like go back to India and apply for the visa. And you know, it's going to be harder to get a visa for Canada, for sure. In Guatemala and all these things. And then she says, Well, I'm the consul of the Canadian Embassy, so I can do the visa for you if you want and I was like, Oh, okay. She's just, she said, just put in your passport tomorrow. I'll give you the reason you can go check out some things in Canada before your head. So yeah,





38:58

I just kind of party.

3

Speaker 3

39:01

Yeah, just it was a party by this. This was an American guy's house. I was staying in his Airbnb. So it was he owned his Airbnb, and he threw this party, but the expat community in Guatemala, I think, is really small. So this Canadian console, she was there as well. And she just said, Yeah, just do your visa, no problem. And so I submitted the things and she just processed my visa and ended up going to come back and Toronto and a few other places. And yeah, it was it was great. So sometimes these random, like things happen, which were really cool. But most of the times it was a total grind. Like I really had to have all these bank statements, tax returns, you know, submit, like, employment contracts, and just you know, all these letters saying what I'm doing and why I want to go there. And still there would be a lot of questions being asked and then finally, may or may not, and never really got rejected for a visa usually it was just refused the application and the first is like, No, you can't even apply was mostly like that, like, because they'd be like you have to apply in your country of citizenship. So go back to India apply and they wouldn't. So I can, I can be on the road and apply for visas, I would have to apply for like eight visas in advance. And they all have specific start and end dates. And so I cannot have a flexible itinerary. And most of the visas only allow a single entry and you know, those kinds of things. So once you leave that visas in balance, then you would have to go back again and apply for another visa and all those kinds of things. So there's just a lot of it's very different the reality of traveling on an Indian passport or you know, on another passport that doesn't have all the benefits of visa for your visa exempt travel. But you're not seeing all of that things have changed a lot in the last. So I was doing the whole Nomad thing starting in 2011. So things have changed a lot now. And you know, there's a lot more countries that are more visa friendly, and you know, those kinds of things. So I think the future is good, you know,