Every niche or target group has a certain language or certain challenges that if just one of them understands how Bitcoin fixes this, they can convey this to their people.

Hey, everybody. Welcome to Orange Hatter.

I'm a nomad.

Got it. Okay. I, I ask a lot of personal questions.

Yeah.

I think, I think it's the personal journey that is the most interesting. And I, there are so many podcasts out there that are already teaching the how of Bitcoin, the technology of Bitcoin and the politics of Bitcoin. But I think for women, and you probably have seen this as well, talking to women, we need to know the emotional why, like, why should I care? I've already got a lot of things on my plate. Why should I redirect my attention? And give you the time of the day to learn

yeah, that's what you mentioned, that's what you mentioned in your article, also.

Mm hmm.

I do agree, but I also think it's the same for men, I think, as humans, we like stories. You know, maybe men don't notice so much But we are all influenced by advertisement or you know, like super bowl ads or whatever everybody uses stories, you know but I think because bitcoin is a technology it just drew in Techies in the beginning, you know, so I have a feeling That, it's built by techies, but the adoption happens through storytelling and solutions, communicating, conveying solutions, you know, so I actually, okay, it is a controversial take. I actually think that orange peeling doesn't work. Because I believe that we, we are all only motivated to. learn about something when we have a problem that needs fixing. Until we have a problem, why would we, I mean, we only have so much time in our day. Why would we learn about something or invest time in something that has no relevance? And that's actually, I don't know about you, but I, in most, stories that I hear from Bitcoiners is what they all say the same. Oh, I heard about Bitcoin in year so and so and I ignored it. You know, and then a few years later, like for me, I heard about it in 2013. I saw this Bitcoin sticker, Bitcoin accepted here. And I thought, what's Bitcoin sounds like online gambling money for nerds, you know, has nothing to do with me. And then two years later, I had a problem that I needed solving, which was that I noticed my money doesn't grow in the bank anymore. I don't get any interest. I don't have a proper pension. Like I had a pension plan, but it just didn't go anywhere. and I noticed I need to. take matters in my own hands, you know, like I need to grow my wealth. I need to find a new way to grow my wealth. And it's the traditional options that I knew about until that point just didn't work anymore. And, uh, and I noticed I need to become an investor and I'm German. Germans are not raised to be investors. We are raised to be savers. And I was a really good saver, but yeah, it's stupid. right now to save fiat money in the bank. So yeah. So that was about first, because I didn't know about Bitcoin. I learned how to invest stocks and commodities of, you know, this kind of stuff, which was really interesting for me, but, I also learned how our money system works, which made me cringe. And I didn't want to participate my energy or my money in that. And yeah, but then I heard about Bitcoin. And then, because I was interested and I had a problem that needed solving. I invested more time and actually did start to study at this time, and I think I orange pilled myself. I mean, with all the help of all the Andreas Antonopoulos and whoever was out there at the time. I didn't have anybody who came to me and said, you have to look into Bitcoin. You have to look into Bitcoin because it's going to do this or that for you. That did not happen.

Yeah, I agree

And I also never did that. I never did that with other people. I never went to these women that I worked with. I never went to them. You have to. You have to know. This is what I do. If you're interested, I'm happy to answer questions, but I'm not going to push this on anybody. Yeah.

Yeah, I think sometimes the more we push, the more they back away from you. Even though we're very excited and they can tell that we're very excited. You're like, no, no, no, that's... That's not for me, right? So tell me a little bit about your background. were in Germany and you

Yeah.

were saving. What were you

I actually. I actually wasn't in Germany. I've lived abroad for half my life and now I'm a complete digital nomad. So I'm just constantly traveling. I was, in the Netherlands. That's where I lived for a few years. And then I actually moved back to Germany. I tried to live in Germany again. So basically I was moving countries and I was like, okay, let's take stock. do I need to get a job? Do I want to. restart my business in Berlin. That's where I was moving to. So I'm like, okay, let's just take stock of all the finances. You know, how much money do I have? How urgently do I need to make money? What about pension plan? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And this is how I noticed how things had changed. and how, what I was doing saving money just didn't work anymore. So that's what happened now. as for my professional background, I've always, worked in operations. I'm an operations manager. I've done this in the corporate fashion world, then in the self development, spiritual development world, I've worked for some spiritual teachers. and then a year two years into my Bitcoin journey. I was like, nah, I just, I don't want to do anything else anymore. I don't want to like moonlight as a Bitcoin. I just want to be a hundred percent, aligned and be in Bitcoin. So it took me also, I was a little bit in crypto and in web three. but it's now since I think this narrative. Bitcoin not crypto really started during the last year since Luna FTX and all of these things. And I was like, yeah, I've always told people just do Bitcoin, don't make things complicated, you know, like, of course you can do all the old coins or shit coins as well, but you're not making a mistake. You're only in Bitcoin. and for me, this is. Just the last year has solidified, uh, this. I am, I am a Bitcoiner. I don't want to do anything else anymore. Yeah.

So now you're full time working in Bitcoin.

Uh, yes and no, because right now I'm, in between jobs, I don't have a project. I just finished one a month ago. And. But I'm, I have these phases, you know, as a freelancer, you, you know, how to deal with these phases. Either you have a lot of work or you have no work for, and in Bitcoin also, or even in crypto, you know, things we know the market cycles and, and the workload or, availability of jobs arises and falls with the market cycles. So, but I'm prepared for that. That's fine. But I had this new. idea since I really, like I mentioned, I think just before we started recording, I went to the Bitcoin conference in Prague in the summer and I realized that, I had been serving outsiders of the community, like, uh, people who wanted to buy their first Bitcoin or learn about what this whole thing even is. and I really noticed I want to start serving the Bitcoin community now. So I was like, how can I, how can I add value to Bitcoin us? What happened, as I was connecting with lots of other Bitcoin, as many of them were like, Oh, you work in Bitcoin, you made it. And wow. I wish I could do that too. And I thought, Oh, people want, I think this is maybe a natural evolution as you were a Bitcoiner first. Most of us come into this world for the money, and then we really understand the power of decentralization or sovereignty and true financial and the technology and this, that, and I think we come to a point where we just want to start contributing to the network, whether it's. The computer network or the human network, the Bitcoin network, and maybe some people decide to run a node at that point or start building an app or whatever, and other people just might, decide I want to get a job. And for a Bitcoin company, you know, we all can contribute in different ways. This happened to me a few years ago. I've been working in Bitcoin now for, I think I started 2018 or 19, not sure anymore. And I noticed that other people seem to go through the same process. So I thought, huh, so I have been in this world. I know how it works. Why don't I help other people do the same? So this is how I started this new project called Bitvocation, because I believe it's a calling. It's a vocation. It's, we're not just getting a job. I'm in super early stage right now. I'm not making any money from this, but I'm having so much fun. It's such a creative process to connect with everybody to find out what are their challenges and to see over time how I can add value to them. So how I started, I don't know if you saw this, but I, made a simple, I didn't make it. I had it made a telegram bot that is posting into a public channel, all the latest job openings, Bitcoin only job openings. Yeah. So, because when you are searching for a job, there are a few job boards, but they don't have all the, latest openings. So it can be quite time consuming, job search can be quite time consuming. So I'm like, I'm German, you know, I'm all about efficiency. So I'm like, why not just make a bot and have this. It's sent to people's phone, you know, they just need to open telegram once a day or something and scroll through the feed. And also because there are tons of web three and crypto telegram channels. With our bot, we completely cut out the noise and we do Bitcoin only. Which I think is valuable to, to curate, all of these jobs. So that's my first little product free. product, um,

do, how do people

is, I'm just posting everywhere on social media, but I just started my Twitter account has 97 followers. So it's not that it's not like I have a lot of reach. Um, but yeah, I think people are starting to share it. I just have a little more than a hundred people subscribed to the bot now, but it's only a week old.

I think that is such a desired service and very needed There's a group of Bitcoiners who are starting this new initiative called Operation Bitcoin. And it's all about spreading Bitcoin education to veterans, after they come out of the military service, and, you know, tell them about Bitcoin and why it's useful. And then of course, as a follow up,, you want to offer them something else. You don't want to tell them about Bitcoin and it just kind of set them loose. And so one of the things that they talked about was how do we direct them into Bitcoin jobs? Because that's the ultimate dream of all Bitcoiners out there. Like eventually they want to give up their fiat career and fiat job and go full time into Bitcoin. So I think what you're providing is tremendously valuable. So good job. And you got to start somewhere. It's okay. 97 followers. That's a start. That's a star.

Yeah.

Congratulations. It's awesome.

Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. The one thing I wanna say about this though is, that. Like sending out CVs everywhere, I think, is the, least possible way to find a job. And I don't know if that is Bitcoin specific, or because I haven't actively looked for a job, thank God, I didn't have to, for a while, so I You don't know how, things work out there, but for me, how I have been finding all my, projects has all been through the community through networking. Yeah. So this is the number one way. And since Bitcoin is a community, I think this is what people really have to learn to utilize the community to really become connectors. I mean, it is a network you have to network. You are a node. In the Bitcoin network, and the more other nodes you connect to, the more successful you will be. So there are tons more ways, so this is all in my head right now, how I can convey this to people, how to... Package this up, but,

Yeah, you mentioned that when you went to the Prague conference, you knew everybody, but nobody knew you. So it's time to change that.

Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. So let's see. But it's, yeah, it's a really nice creative process and it's so nice to speak to all these people. Like just today I posted in this telecom channel, like. Because I noticed how many people are completely underutilizing LinkedIn, you know, and because LinkedIn I think for Bitcoiners is also not our first thought, someone connected with me recently on LinkedIn and said, yeah, even though we're in Bitcoin, let's connect here on peak fiat LinkedIn. And I was like, ah, this is the perception of LinkedIn out there, but, there are really Bitcoin specific recruiters and where are they going to look for candidates on LinkedIn? It is still the number one, search engine. And it is such a great tool to. Utilize to be found in your sleep, just optimize your LinkedIn profile so that this can do your job search for you in a passive way, so I think this is right now this week. This has really been forming in my head that this is maybe how I can provide the most value right now. So I just post this day in the channel, send me your LinkedIn profiles. I'm going to review them and, uh, yeah, because it helps me learn. And we have a value for value, way now to report each other. So I can just put this out for free. And if someone wants to, finds it useful, they can decide what they want to give back later.

Yeah, that's excellent. I need help. I know. I know my husband needs help. There's a whole

But what do you, yeah, but what, what do you do? Uh, and your husband? for

Okay, so I just finished. I said just but it was a few years ago. I finished homeschooling my four kids. Prior to having kids, yeah, four kids, homeschool all the way through high school, send them off to college. And then my husband and I were sitting there looking at each other like, what now? Because that was my full time job. That was 24 seven. That was unrelenting, uh, you know, morning till night, Monday through Sunday kind of work. There was no room in my life at that time to really do anything else whatsoever. so suddenly I was done and then All this time freedom like what am I gonna do with that? Right around that time towards the end of my kids homeschooling journey Scott found Bitcoin and he spent two years trying to convince me to get on board with him and In the process of trying to get me to pay attention because I was very resistant I like we were talking before I had I was juggling so many balls in the air. I had no time or energy to give him to this concept that I felt was pretty irrelevant to me, I had, I was single focus trying to get the kids through high school and he kept trying to get my attention. And finally he said, you know what, let me, can I just put it in the board game form and just explain it to you? Cause he's tried videos. He tried podcasts, he tried books and articles, all of those things. And I was. Either not willing to listen or read or I did a little bit and I didn't understand and I gave up so he finally made the first prototype of HODL UP which is the game that we have now that we are sharing with the Bitcoin community and in an attempt to get me interested in Bitcoin so that we can enter the space as a team, fully agreed, you know, together that we were going to invest in this thing. So over the course of two years, numerous prototypes finally got me on board. I finally understood the technology enough to say, fine, I will read a book. You know, I will read a darn book. And of course I read the book and I was sold because I'm 50. So I'm looking back at our money journey. And I was like, I cannot believe I didn't understand what was going on. And all the decisions that we made, that we thought were so correct, based on what we've been told, was just playing into their game. And I was so angry. I, like, when I was reading my first book, I was so angry I had to put it down over and over again. It took me several weeks to read this one little short book called, Bitcoin, Hard Money You Can't F With. But at the end of the book, I was completely sold. And the kids graduated and now we, I have time and Scott and I are looking at each other like what are we going to do? And I said, listen, if you can use this game to show me that Bitcoin is real. Then another Bitcoiner is going to be able to use that game to show their family that Bitcoin is real. And so that's what started us traveling to different states and bringing the game to different Bitcoin meetups, which led to my realization that we really needed more female voices in this space, which is why I started Orange Hatter podcast. And then more traveling, more conferences, and Scott and I realized that there's a great interest in the Bitcoin community in self custodying their children's education, which is homeschooling, which is what we did. I can talk homeschooling. All day long, literally, like Scott can talk about Bitcoin all day long, politics, macroeconomics, all that stuff. I can talk about parenting and homeschooling all day long, And so we started a podcast called Bitcoin homeschoolers. So now we have two podcasts. We're running free market kids. We're trying to, promote HODL up and Scott is a really avid game designer. That's his language. When lightning started to become sort of common Discussion topics in the Bitcoin community second layer making the transactions faster cheaper, etc He started thinking how do I explain second layer to people because it can be very confusing the Inbound, outbound liquidity. It's not something very intuitive, at least for me, for people like me. So then he said, I want to make a lightning game so that you can understand. What they're talking about. So over the course of last year, he made a prototype, tested with us, then started bringing it to all of these Bitcoin gatherings and he tried to play with as many experts in the Lightning space as possible. And now it's ready to launch. So we have that. We have another one that he was trying to explain entropy. You know, the, the C phrases, like why it works, why 12 words is enough kind of thing. So that's

Yeah, wow

he has developed. And he's got several games in the back of his mind that he wants to roll out. So yeah, so that's what we do. So he did. He

Amazing. So

as well. Yeah,

so but basically he your job the last few years has been homeschooling His job has been game designing. Is that what he does or it's just a hobby?

it was a hobby. It was a hobby. he worked in operations I don't know if there is the same kind of operations, but he did warehouse Operations inbound outbound that kind of thing He did that for 20 years and now he's like no I want I want to be in Bitcoin full time This is what I believe in so that's what we're doing

Yeah, but amazing how he obviously has, uh, or both of you have, a skill to bring complicated, topics or knowledge across and break it down. even for children. In your experience, is it actually, do people use it actually for children? Because I always think, or anything that's, uh, that's made for children is so great for us grown ups to, to learn in an easy way.

I like to read children's books, like children's biography and things like that, because, and with pictures, because I think I love learning that way. Uh, for HODL UP, Scott actually created this specifically for me. So yeah, it's for children. Because in technology, I just, it's, I'm in such foreign waters when I think computer technology. And so Well, we have found Bitcoiners who have purchased this game, it's been pretty evenly split between, introducing their spouse their brother, sister their parents and sharing with their children. Children are easy. Children are so easy. You play the game with them. They pick it up in five minutes. You're like, I'm good to go. Where's my wallet? Give me some Bitcoin. Like it's, it's quick. The game it's designed so that. It takes about half an hour, 45 minutes, depending on how long you want to strategize, about winning the game. at the end of that, the number one lesson you take away from the game is get your Bitcoin in cold storage. you can't play the game and not get that one lesson. Everybody comes away from, and so children would be, like we had one customer write us a tweet, and he said, All I heard was my five year old and my seven year old yelling at each other about getting their Bitcoin to cold storage because they were playing the game. And we're like, great, that's awesome. Now when our customers told us about playing with parents, so they're harder to convince they they grew up under a different system. And they have a lot more questions. So when they play the game, they start to ask questions like, What is this difficulty dial? Why do you keep moving number up and down? How come you start with more Bitcoin and then by the end of the game, you're earning less Bitcoin? Well, that's called having. And then we like sprinkle other stuff in there so they can ask questions. So if they want to win, which everybody playing a board game wants to win, they will inevitably ask questions about Bitcoin because they must it's part of the game mechanics. And at the end of it, even if they're not Orange pilled. Like you said, they have to have a problem that needs Bitcoin as the solution, So even if they're not orange pilled, they cannot help but to walk away from the game understanding more about Bitcoin and that's the whole point.

Yeah. Amazing.

Yeah,

Amazing. Especially also, like we were talking about women before, in my work with women, I also noticed women just want to feel smarter when they find themselves in a Bitcoin conversation. Yeah, and even just, even if you're not interested after playing this game, you are automatically smarter and you know actually how things work. It's great. Yeah.

Exactly. actually, what started this whole thing was a game that Scott created to teach economic principles to our children when they were in elementary school. And we both got our MBA. So we study economics, the traditional way with very thick textbooks, Long lectures, lots of graphs and calculations, et cetera, et cetera. When we were talking about teaching our kids money, this is one of the reasons why I was so angry when I was reading the first Bitcoin book, was like, we were so deliberate in teaching our kids about money, and what we taught them wasn't even what... If like how it actually works, you know, but anyway, so, so in the beginning when we, when he created his first game, the game is called, is that the best you can do? And we wanted the kids to play a game and at the end of the game, be able to answer questions like, how does the price move when supply goes up or down? Demand goes up or down. What happens if there is a tariff that's imposed on a product, what happens when there's technology development and the way that the kids play? It's a negotiation game, so they're practicing their language skills there talking up their product, they're trying to sell it to their buyers, you know, and they have to do mental calculations really quick because they got to quickly decide how low their price can go or how high they can bid up so that they can maximize their profits. So they're doing mental calculations. But at the end of that, they know how price moves. And it takes 30 minutes or 45 minutes, depending on how, how active they are. You don't have to give them a lecture. You don't have to show them graphs about how price moves. Like that's the beauty of using games to teach concepts because they just pick it up, you know? So yeah.

Yeah. Amazing. And how is it going? How are sales going? Because it's still a super niche, of course. And

It is,

are you advertising it or are you traveling to every Bitcoin meetup in the world?

we tried, we try, sales are going good. They always spike after we do a podcast interview because we still haven't figured out the marketing bit to reach Bitcoiners because Bitcoiners,

Yeah,

they tend like the traditional email campaign. I don't feel that that actually works with Bitcoiners. A lot of them. don't have an email they check all the time anyway, or they have like five different email accounts. So they're very privacy oriented. That bit Scott, I haven't figured out we're still trying to figure it out. But we definitely go to a lot of in person events as much as possible. We travel to Bitcoin Park every month to continue

it's kind of punk.

Bitcoin Park is in Nashville. It's a major hub for Bitcoiners. In the United States, we have two major hubs. We have Nashville and we have Austin, Texas. So Nashville is about three hours from where we live, so we try to go there as much as possible. And they have tons of events there. Lots of Bitcoiners fly in from all over the world. A lot of Bitcoins are moving to Nashville for Bitcoin Park. So it's an amazing... amazing gathering place. But yeah, to answer your question, we need help. We need help with our marketing initiative because we know our product is good and effective. And we've tested it with so many people and we just get we have endless testimonies of how well this game works for

Yeah.

Acting as a conversation opener because that's I think that's the hardest thing that bitcorners find With resistant family members, you can't even start talking about it, you know without somebody going please stop, you know It's almost like talking about politics during holidays. You can't really like how to even start right? But if you say hey you guys let's just sit down, play a board game, we'll make some popcorn, pour some wine, make some hot chocolate for the kids, let's just play. And then in the process of it, not only do you learn about Bitcoin, you don't have to buy into it, but you learn about Bitcoin, but you also have family time, you have fellowship, and you're not looking at a screen, you're looking at each other in the eyeballs and you're interacting. So,

Yeah. And also, I don't know if this is a general thing or I'm just noticing like a big comeback in my life with board games. Maybe that's a COVID phenomenon, but I'm a nomad, I live in co-living. I travel, I work from co-working spaces and board games are everywhere. I think it's also, maybe that's a tip for you for, to contact these kind of, places. I think people also just wanna get away from the screen, sometimes, and just, uh, yeah. I think that's why board games are really in right now, in my world. Yeah.

Yeah, for sure. That's, that's what we have found. A lot of Bitcoiners are huge board gamers, and Scott obviously is a huge board gamer. His brother is a huge board gamer, and they go to this game conference every year called GenCon. It's in Indianapolis, and I think they average anywhere between 60 to 80 thousand people per year. attending the event. I mean, there are some serious gamers out there, and they are passionate, passionate about their games. But they are not Bitcoiners. So, Scott tried bringing his game there, and people were like, what is that? We don't... What is that? You know?

Yeah. Yeah. But don't you find in your homeschooling community that there's interest there? Because it's just the values seem to be aligned with those two communities.

That's... I'm so glad you said that. That's exactly what we thought. And so Scott and I did bring our game to, several homeschooling conferences. In the hopes of introducing this tool, because what better way to teach your kids about this new money technology, right? It's going to be the new money standard. And homeschoolers really care about that, like money, education, financial education for their children. So we brought it there with such high hopes. But the crazy thing was that we had a booth and the first conference we went to, we kind of danced around. We said, Oh, it's money education, and once people heard that we were teaching Bitcoin, they were like, no, thank you. And just left. I'm like, that's so weird. So the second conference, we're like, you know what, we're not dancing around. We're going to put up like, we had two spinning, Bitcoin signs, like literally spinning over our booth. Like, if you care about Bitcoin, come here. We'll tell you about it. If you don't, fine. at That conference, I think there were 15, 000 attendees. And they you can see the traffic you can see the aisle people moving, what happens was, they will see our spinning Bitcoin and they will kind of make a wide berth.

No. Yeah. Hmm.

and they were avoiding eye contact. It was the wildest thing It was the it was wild and we're Scott and I are just done We're like this aligns with everything you believe about homeschooling why you're teaching your own kids Why you don't trust the public system this fully aligns, but for whatever reason they were not ready to hear it I even gave a workshop about money. And yeah, so then Scott wrote An article in Bitcoin magazine to talk about how much the two topics actually align homeschooling and Bitcoin. So there's a lot of interest in the Bitcoin community to homeschool across the board. If they can do it financially, they want to homeschool their kids, but not the other way around. I think that will change though. I feel like it will change in the next few years. I think we just went there a little bit too early and people weren't ready.

I noticed this in the, you know, about FIRE, this movement, FIRE movement, like Financial Independence Retire Early, FIRE. Have you heard about this?

actually interviewed someone for my podcast who told me about it. Yeah.

Yeah, I heard about this a few years ago and I was like, Oh, these people must all be into Bitcoin, but they aren't. They do ETFs and you know, all the other stuff. And, and there's very, um, I mean, a few are open to it, but like, It's not like, uh, as much as an overlap as I would have expected. So it's similar to what you just said. It's

Yeah, it's the same thing with the Dave Ramsey movement, the no debt, no credit, I don't know if you're familiar with him. He's very, very popular in the Christian community.

his name. I know his name, but I'm, I

Yeah, it's all about reducing your expenses, making sure you pay off all of your debts, be debt free. And I'm not sure exactly what he recommends for investments, but he for a while was even teaching people like if you are not a professional, just sell your rental properties because you're just going to drain money into your rental properties, that kind of stuff. So I don't hear people talk about Bitcoin who follow him. I haven't listened to him, but that's a very popular financial planning Curriculum that the homeschoolers follow but it's again It's not like I think they all tend to think cryptocurrencies are all the same and a lot of them think that They've missed the boat with bitcoin So they don't really understand bitcoin. They're just looking at it like an investment vehicle

Well, it just comes back to the point again, that until they have a problem that they need to solve, they will not be open to listen or to study Bitcoin. It's just the way it is, yeah.

Yeah. Um, Hey, so what are you doing? Is it okay that I tell people where you are right now?

Uh, yes, where I am right now, like in Greece, or what do you mean?

Yeah. Yeah. I,

sure.

I, I would love to go to Greece and I, I kind of envy digital nomads a little bit because you get to see so many different places. What brought you to Greece?

Uh, actually my friend, who I'm sharing an apartment with. Yeah, because I was actually in Thailand. We both met, we have sort of our base in Bulgaria, like where we are registered on paper. Bulgaria has a tiny town called Bansko, B A N S K O, which is sort of a hub in Europe for digital nomads. And so this is where we met. we stay at the same co living there. So we spend a few months there. Then we all travel in different directions. And then we come back, a few months later. So I was in Thailand. And he was like, Oh, I'm going, I'm in Greece. I'm going to be alone for my birthday. I have an apartment with two bedrooms. And I was like, okay, I've been for two months in Thailand. So why don't I just come back to Europe? It's been enough. In Asia, I planned also really badly because I went from, from one island where, where the rainy season just started to the next place where the rainy season just ended. So I had frizzy hair everywhere. I couldn't make videos. So I was like, oh yeah, I don't have to look for accommodation. Yeah, I'm just going to go back and surprise him, for his birthday. So now we spend a month here. I'm on Crete right now on the island, and then we're going to spend a couple of weeks in Athens where I'm going to meet the Bitcoiner community there. On Crete, there are no Bitcoiners here. I'm using the OrangePill app. I don't know if you are on the OrangePill app. And there's just nobody. I mean, there are people, but like 300 kilometers away or something. So, but I connected with a bunch of people in Athens, so I'm going to join the meetup there. And then I'm going to make my way back to Bulgaria to rest. This is always my resting place. Two months there, two months somewhere else, and then I come back. Yeah, I don't know if I'm a real digital nomad. I call myself a digital slow mad or home mad.

So Bulgaria.

to travel all the time.

Yeah, so tell me about this place in Bulgaria. I'm very curious, how many people are there and how many people go in and out.

So, the town only has 12, 000, inhabitants. But I think at any point in time, there are always like around 200 nomads, so 200 foreigners. Um, and they are very used to living with foreigners because it's actually a winter sport resort. If you Google Bansko, you will see the most beautiful, winter, images. and so they're very used to tourists in the winter. And yeah, there was a guy a few years ago, six years ago or something who just said, Oh, this is a really nice place all year round. Why don't I open a coworking space and just, uh, bring all the nomads. And I think also, so for me, it was since, COVID actually, because most of us, we like to go. to the sun, in the winter, Thailand, Bali or whatever. but I didn't really want to travel very far during COVID. So, uh, and I'm from Europe, so I thought, oh, let's get to know Europe. And so I went to Bansko and it's a special place. If anybody listens here who wants to, who wants to become a digital nomad, it's a great first starting point. Because even if you travel by yourself, since it's such a small place, you get the community provided to you. You cannot. not connect there. There's also a big nomad fest in the summer every year. And it's also very affordable because especially now with inflation, everything becoming more expensive and the number of places that we can afford to live in is shrinking, Eastern Europe is really a gem still. where people can afford to live. It's also two hours away from Greece or from the Greece beaches. So, yeah, I can recommend it. Plus, I'm there, so you can meet me.

So other than Bulgaria, where else have you traveled that you absolutely loved?

Well, Thailand is a really easy, place to travel, also for women solo travelers. Thailand and Bali in Asia. I love the States. I love doing road trips, anywhere in the States. I haven't been in a long time, because I always need to go with someone because I'm not a good driver. I'm not a good, a very confident driver. I really want to go to South America or Latin America. I have not been there at all yet. so I'm a bit jealous that you're going to El Salvador now. I have Had this on my list, but even though I follow all the news about El Salvador a lot, I'm still a bit scared to travel there by myself. even though maybe that's wrong, it's just, things sound good from the people who are there and everything is safe but I would like to go with someone else. And I just have, I don't really have Bitcoin. my friends are supportive of me being in Bitcoin. But they are not in Bitcoin. So nobody is motivated enough to travel with me to a conference in El Salvador. And it's just something, some places I just don't want to go by myself. It's just a safety thing or just the first time thing. Yeah, but I've been also in all of Europe. I've been, to a couple of places in Africa. America and Asia are the places I've been to most,.

think that's very wise to not go to somewhere by yourself the first time, you have to gauge, who you can trust and where you can go. I think that's very wise.

And once you're there and you see, oh, this is not at all what as bad or whatever I expected, then it's easy,

Yeah, most places are not the way news portray it to be. We were on the call with someone who lives in Hong Kong, and he was going to travel to the States and his girlfriend was so worried. He was like, please don't get shot. And That's their impression of America is like if you walk on the streets here, you just get shot like no That's not no, that's not the way it actually is here you gotta know where not to go, but that's the same everywhere So yeah, I don't I don't think news does justice to what actually is happening in most places

yeah, exactly. And it's always nice to check out for yourself but in a In a safe way.

Yeah, yeah for sure. So you mentioned that your friends are not Bitcoiners So are you the only one in your close group family friends?

Yeah. I mean, I meet Bitcoin us being a nomad. I have one friend who is a lightning developer, actually. but the really like my travel family or the people that I spend the most time with. Yeah, like I said, they're very supportive, and they all own Bitcoin, at least. But only because they hear me talk about it all the time. Uh, they would never, and maybe they have just 10 worth of Bitcoin, whatever, you know, but it's just like, okay, because I'm asset.

Right.

Uh, one of them is really into it. He talks about it a lot, but he's not a Bitcoiner, it's just, he's into something else, but he wants to grow his money. And yes, that Bitcoin is definitely part of that. but yeah, it's very few. Very few people,

So basically, it sounds like they know that you do Bitcoin. And if they have questions, they'll come to you. But so far, they're standing outside looking in just waiting to see what happens.

not even. It's just not part of their world. The only thing they know about Bitcoin is that I keep talking about it and that this is something I do. So if they would meet someone who wants to learn more or whatever they would say, oh you need to speak to my friend Anja or whatever. So that's That's it.

Yeah, I guess we're still kind of fringe. What about the women that you have worked with? You said that you were helping some would you call them clients to set up wallets

Yeah

understand a little bit like

So that's yeah, this was really interesting. Also the motivation, some of them, like I said, they just, like I had one woman, her husband was a CFO in a big company, and just like, I'm not telling him that I'm investing in Bitcoin. I will only tell him once I have had some success with this, you know, or some just wanted to sound smarter in a conversation, because their husbands kept talking about Bitcoin, but often. I mean, I cannot generalize because I only have the stories from the people that I worked with. but often family members don't want to teach other family members. Like I had, people send me their parents so that I could teach them, but the children were Bitcoin or in crypto or whatever, I'm like, why don't you, it's like, no, it's not good for our relationship. Why I'm too impatient or whatever, but I also had a lot of women, in their fifties and older, because that's also something I noticed. And I, I realized we always think that, people who are in Bitcoin, this is a certain type of people and you would not expect first of all, many women or women over a certain age, but this is where the disposable income is. And this is where. the people really start caring about their pension plan. I mean, once you're, that's something also with friends, once they hit 40, suddenly they're like, I did I actually prepare for my pension or whatever, because you're suddenly closer to your pension than you were before. so either they care more about this for themselves or they care about what they're going to leave behind. so we should not, dismiss this age group, and maybe that's even really an important one to concentrate on and explain in a really meaningful way. Thank good language or with games or whatever, what this is all about. But also what I liked about your article, going back to this, about the stories and how we talk to certain target groups. This is also really something I believe in there. Even you, I, we cannot speak to all the women. There are some women who we don't resonate with, and we cannot generalize that women are like this and men are like this. That's why I think the more Bitcoiners there are who can teach their, their people who are like them, like teenagers can teach other teenagers, or retired women or men can. I mean, every, niche or target group has a certain language or certain challenges that if just one of them understands how Bitcoin fixes this, they can, convey this to their people.

That's so true.

I'm always like, you are a node, you are a node in the network. And you have, job and an opportunity, to, to communicate the value of Bitcoin.

That's what I have found just having hosted Orange Hatter interviews, there's such a myriad of women types I have been able to have conversation with all different ages, like what you were saying, the boomer age, to... Teenagers to people who, have a professional background, people who are blue collar in their background and all different cultural backgrounds and Europe, Africa, Asia, all these different places. And like you said, not everybody's going to resonate with you or me, but they'll resonate with somebody. so everybody's voice is important and everybody's voice counts. So, yeah, I'm really glad. I'm totally on board.

Yeah. Yeah. Everybody needs to hear this in a language they can understand. And there are only certain people who will speak their language. So yeah, I speak the language of certain type of people, you speak another one. So the more we are, the better.

Yeah, for sure. What would you say to women who are sitting on the fence and just kind of waiting, waiting to see if they should hop into this whole crazy Bitcoin train? what would you say to them?

I mean, there's a reason why they're waiting. Why? Why? It's not urgent yet for them. So I can't say anything to them except for once you are ready and you want to learn more. Come to me or find your teacher. Find someone who you understand, or read a book or whatever, but before they are ready, it's just useless to, to try to push it on them. Like you said before, the more we push, the more resistance we create, we just need to let people know that we are there. Yeah. And if it's not me, I'm going to send them to you or to someone else, someone who speaks their language.

So how should people reach you? Should they look for you on LinkedIn?

I am on LinkedIn and I, this new thing that I'm building is called Bitvocation. That should be findable and my handle everywhere on Twitter and Telegram on YouTube is connect economy. Right now, the one thing that I would love to spread is the Bitvocation feed on Telegram, which is the bot that sends you all the latest job openings.

How do you find that?

Well, the link is t for telegram dot me slash bit vocation feed. When you're in telegram, it should also be findable if you just type it vocation feed.

So, oh, I can just join?

Yeah.

joined!

You're number 124. Welcome.

Yay! I'm going to have Scott sign in too. Cool.

Yay.

Thanks for joining us today If the discussion with our guests resonated with you and you would like to dive deeper into the world of Bitcoin, don't miss out on joining the Orange Hatter Women's Reading Club. The meetup link is in the show notes. Also, if there are women in your life whom you think would both enjoy and benefit from learning more about Bitcoin, please share Orange Hatter with them. Until next time, bye!