Hello and welcome to the 300th episode of The Traveling Introvert. This is Sparta? I don't know. When I started this journey, I didn't have any thoughts about where it would go or things I'd be able to do or even the thought that I would get to 300 episodes. To the point that when I hit 50, 100, 200, I didn't do anything special. They kind of like went past and I was like, “Oh, that's how many episodes I've done!”.

This one almost went past. But because I'm trying to batch a lot of episodes, I noticed, and because I also I made a hosting company, I noticed that, Oh, I've done this many episodes. I probably should do something. So I put a little call out and asked people to send me their questions. So there might be questions that they've been wanting to ask or write in about. And so I have a list of questions here. We're going to see how long this lasts that people wanted to ask. So here we go.

Question number one, how have you kept on podcasting for so long?

That is a great question because I think 300 episodes is just under two…three…no, five years? A long time. Especially as I've had an episode out every single week. And I've only had one month in there where I had adjusted reruns. And there've mostly been several episodes, apart from the past three that have had other humans that I've interviewed.

And how have I kept podcasting for so long? Because I draw a lot of the things that I talk about from life. So as long as my life keeps going and I keep meeting new humans and coaching new people and hearing about new companies and working within organizations, there's always going to be something for me to talk about. I do get paranoid that I'm repeating myself or I've already covered a topic, especially over the past couple of years when there hasn't been as much travel-related topics. So that has been interesting. I did at one point think about stopping, and I just had to kind of and that's when the episodes came out that were reruns. Then I got inspired again and carried on. That's also a reason why I batch record my episodes. I record a bunch of them and then I have a break. I don't have to think about it, or if I get inspired, I will record one off the cuff. But generally that I found has helped me keep going for as long as I have.

Also, just the way I set up the podcast to be a solo podcast for only five minutes, so I don't have to book people to talk to and arrange schedules and all of that sort of thing. And there's not too much back-end work to go with it. So how have you kept podcasting for so long? An accident? Sort of planned it. Happy that I have. But yeah, it’s definitely been an interesting journey.

Okay, next question is, where are some unusual places you have visited?

Travel one. Depends what you mean by unusual. Instead of unusual, I'm going to say one of the most unexpected places I've been to has been Sri Lanka. And this was because I ended up finding a website where you could bid on vacations. And this site isn't as popular now because of everything that's happened in the past couple of years. But it was frequented by a lot of hotels that were looking to get people to go to give reviews or just get the name and the words out there. And so it's really interesting that I did this random bid, and I was happy to do it because PayPal was an option, and I knew I could get my money back if it all went Pete Tong. And I won. I won this seven day vacation in this boutique hotel in Sri Lanka. And I'd already had a planned trip out to Asia anyway. So I was already going out in that direction. So I just had to tack this on. But not only was it a surprise that I won and that it was legitimate. Even still, when you get to the country, you're not sure what's going to happen, what to expect. And this place was gorgeous. And we were the only people in the entire place. It was, I think, no more than 10 room boutique hotel with a swimming pool and peacocks, and hammocks and private chefs and all for just two humans. And the food was amazing! And it's kind of hard to get used to sort of, they were like, “Well, you're the only ones here, so what do you want to eat?” And we're like, “I don't know. Bring us all your local dishes and we'll try them all.” I don't know what to ask for. And then you finally get into the rhythm of like, well, I could ask for this thing that I never get, or it's really difficult for me to cook. But yes, Sri Lanka was... I'm not going to say unusual, it was great. It was just unexpected.

All right, so next question. As you used to live in Mexico, what is the spiciest thing you have ever eaten?

So funnily enough, even though I used to live in Mexico, that's not where I've eaten the spiciest food. The one place that I ate the spiciest food was some random Indian restaurant in New York. I want to say Brooklyn, but I'm not 100 % sure because it was quite a while ago. I normally order the butter chicken. I'm not someone who goes for the vindaloo or the biryani. I'm pretty much a butter chicken a girl with no cilantro. I hate cilantro, so I hate coriander, so just the most basic thing possible. And got that butter chicken and it was so spicy that even with rice, you were still trying to look for milk or something else to douse the flames to the point that we didn't end up finishing the curry because it was so spicy.

All right, next question. What makes you roll your eyes every time you hear it?

You're all going to love this one. Well, you don't look like an introvert. Yeah, I hear that a lot from people who have just met me and hear what I do and then ask, “Well, why did you get into what you do?” And when I start with, “Well, I'm an introvert”, they're like, “But you don't look like an introvert”. You get the idea. That makes me roll my eyes real hard.

How comfortable are you speaking in front of a larger groups of people? Depends what you mean by large. I'm going to say I'm probably always going to be terrified because it's that nervous energy. I used to be in a lot of dance things and a lot of theatre things, and there was large groups of people. In fact, at one point I sang in the Royal Albert Hall, and huge amounts of people, you're always going to get nervous and terrified. But then once you start doing whatever it is that you're doing, that just goes away because you're in the moment and you're just doing your thing.

Let me see. What did you think was going to be amazing but turned out to be horrible?

Probably there's two organizations come to mind that I was really excited to work with and then was not by the end of it. That's a short version of those two.

How do you make yourself sleep if you can't get to sleep?

So I have the calm app and so there's a couple of meditations on there that I have saved as favorites, especially sleep ones. So, I will try and put that on and try and concentrate on it. Also, breathing exercises are things that I will do to try and get to sleep if I can't.

What life skills are rarely taught but extremely useful?

Finances, how do you deal with finances? You have this amount of money coming in, how much should you be spending on rent and food and transportation and insert all things here. Also, I don't know if it can be taught per se, but just skills of it's okay to be you, set boundaries and communicate and everything else should be okay.

This is a nice question. What brand are you most loyal to?

Our number one answer is Samsonite and number two answer is King Arthur- bakery stuff. I just got into that and oh, that's so good. And they're really good company. Owned by employees.

What is the saddest scene in a movie or a TV series?

Game of Thrones, Hodor. I'm going to go with that one that comes to mind straight away.

Okay. Last but not least, what qualities do all of your friends have in common?

They are low maintenance. That is what I will say. They are not friends who I need to message every single day. There are a couple that I end up really actually talking to almost every day. They are all dotted around the world. Majority of them use WhatsApp. Yeah, actually, those are a lot of things that they have in common. I don't know if those are qualities and they are all low maintenance. I could see them and not see them physically for years and we'd get back together and everything would be fine.

Right. Wow. Double the episode this time. Thank you for listening. This is Janice at TheCareerIntrovert.com. Thank you for helping me celebrate my 300th episode and helping you build your brand and get hired. Have a great rest of your week.