You are listening to the Horse Radio Network, part of the Equine Network family.

What a beautiful day for Horses in the morning.

You are listening to the number one horse podcast in the world.

Here is your entertaining look at the horse world and the people in it.

I'm Glenn McGee coming to you from Ocala, Florida and you're listening to Horses in the Morning on the Horse Radio Network for Friday, October 10th Episode 3794.

This episode is brought to you by Kentucky Performance Products.

Good Morning Horse World.

Well, as you know, Jamie and I are off this week and Jen and I are out visiting Ashley right now in New Mexico for the big balloon festival and Jamie is doing her Monte Roberts clinic.

So we have a special week of shows for you.

Jamie did some one on ones that you can tune into that are already out.

Monday she had Nelda from Horse and Hound and Wednesday she had Olympian Tad Coffin.

Today I have a one on one for you.

I know some of you enjoy when I bring on some of my podcasting friends.

Today is one of those days.

So if you don't like listening to anything but horses, then we'll see you back here on Monday.

Tina Dietz is a longtime podcaster that I met maybe 10 years ago.

She's also a fellow improv actor and she runs a company that voices and records audiobooks.

Plus she is a digital nomad working while traveling the world.

We're going to talk about all of that stuff that she does in today's episode right after we hear from Kentucky Performance Products.

Hang around.

I think you'll like it.

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Tina, it's so good to have you on my show after all these years we've known each other.

I know.

I feel like every time we get together and talk, we should hit the record button.

And finally we are.

I think it's got to be 10 years ago I met you at Podfest.

Yeah, I think it was.

It was the very early years, second podfest.

And what's ironic is Tina used to live very close to me and we would never get together.

For some reason, I don't know, we never get together.

And then you moved closer.

I know.

And then you left.

Yeah.

So we have you on to talk about a couple of things.

Tina and I have a lot in common.

One, podcasting, obviously, but two, Tina also is very active in improv theater, so we have that in common.

And then what I want to focus a lot of time toward the end of the show on is you're a traveling working nomad.

Yes.

And international traveling working nomad, which is a thing now.

But this is the second time you've done it.

And I'm thinking the first time you did it, it wasn't a thing that you were kind of in the early days of it.

It was early.

Yeah, it was the very early days of it.

Yeah.

But we'll get into all of that.

So.

So you did you start.

What was your start in business?

Mine was in the.

In the financial world.

Where was your start?

Mine was my childhood.

My parents had a wood burning stove and fireplace business downstairs in our house, and we lived upstairs.

So I was steeped like a teabag in this stuff from the time I was three.

It was.

Yeah, it was.

That's where.

That's how I started.

And I'm an only child, so I had no choice but to have this business is basically a younger sibling.

What'd you learn from that as a kid?

Oh, as a kid, you know, it took me a long time to actually realize what I got out of it because it wasn't until I tried to join the workforce as a regular employee that I realized that my view of business was not the same as everybody else or my view of work wasn't the same as everybody else.

So my inclination is always to see a problem, you know, I'll solve it, check out the hook while the DJ revolves it.

Like, I'm just going to like, go ahead and do it.

And then I would get fired for solving problems.

And it took me years to kind of figure out, like, why don't they appreciate me?

Why don't they understand I had no sense of chain of command or any of those kinds of things.

When you're an entrepreneur, there's a problem, you fix it.

Yeah, exactly.

You know, I reorganized an entire office files for a major huge dental practice, finished it very proudly, showed them because I was reducing the risk tremendously because I found all kinds of duplicate patient files and all kinds of stuff.

They called me in the office, said thank you, handed and walked me out the door.

Don't fix anything.

It's not broke.

Don't fix it.

So how did you eventually start getting into podcasting then?

Oh, geez.

Well, podcasting started because I was invited to be a guest on some shows years ago.

I had a business coaching consultancy and I've always loved microphones.

I grew up singing, dancing, musical theater, you know, all, all of the things that hasn't, that hasn't changed.

I'm.

There's no such thing as a former theater kid, you know.

You know, that's true.

And so I was on a couple of online radio shows.

They weren't even being called podcasts at the time.

This is 2012, 2013, maybe even earlier.

And everybody that I was on with said, why don't you have your own show?

Why don't you have your own show?

And so in 2015, I decided to make the leap into trying and doing a podcast of my own.

Worked with an amazing company, they're still around, called Cash Flow Podcasting and launched my first show and then fell in love with it so much that I ended up talking with the owner and asking if I could work with him and to help grow his company.

And then I was basically his coach, his.

His podcast coach for a number of years until both my venture and his venture got big enough that we kind of parted ways on that.

But it's.

It was a wonderful experience and something I'll always be grateful for, for Ben Krueger, the owner, for letting me in on.

I want to get to what you're Doing now, which is in relation to audiobooks and things like that, which is an area that a lot of people are looking at right now too.

But before we do that, let's go back to improvisation.

Did that start in high school, college?

Where did your improv love come from?

No, I mean, I didn't get a chance to do improv really in high school and whatnot.

That was all musical theater.

Yeah.

And.

And I couldn't sing, so I was out.

You can hum.

Yes, I helped out, but I could.

I didn't do anything on stage at that point.

Yeah, exactly.

I don't know.

I think you might have made a good.

Hung like Henry Hill from the Music Man.

I always wanted to play Tevyev in.

In.

Oh, yeah.

Fiddler on the Roof.

Fiddler on the Roof, yeah.

But I can't sing, so.

But I thought I loved.

I know all the words to all the Tevyev songs in Fiddler on the Roof, so.

Oh, don't even get me started.

Yeah, that's one of those things.

But I just always was doing that.

Anything involving a microphone is something I'm in favor of.

I love karaoke.

I'm the person that will organize karaoke outings at conferences and things like that.

I've seen you sing.

Yeah.

And very well too.

Thank you.

I appreciate that kind of stuff.

So I just.

I fell back into improv several years ago when in.

In Gainesville, Florida, where I was living.

There's a.

A group there for a long time called the Gainesville Improv Guild.

And they started doing community improv on Tuesday nights.

And I walked in and I never left.

So I spent about three years playing in improv, mostly short form improv.

For the improv nerds out there, short form and long form are two very different things and helping to grow the community.

And I also did some standup while I was there.

So now that I'm.

How hard is stand up?

Far away in Nova Scotia.

One of the things that was crucial to me and where I was living is I needed to have access to an improv community.

And that actually figured into my digital nomading in choosing locations.

All right, we'll get to that.

I've got to keep that in mind.

How hard is stand up compared to improv?

It's got to be so much harder.

It's so much harder.

Yeah.

I mean.

Oh my God.

Oh, yeah.

Because you got to know those jokes.

You can't improv.

You know, you have to be present and like, it's very much building on each other and Building in.

In the sense of belonging.

Listening is mathematical.

Yeah.

And the timing and just getting the.

The punchline right.

And just.

It's memorization.

Right.

I mean, it's just a lot of it.

A lot of it.

But also having to be present to the audience, but also having to remember what you're talking about.

But also like one wor completely change a joke.

Also, there's a million different kinds of.

Style of stand up and pacing and just the whole thing.

Yeah, yeah, it's wild.

It's really fun.

It's really good stuff.

But, boy, did that give me a bigger appreciation for people who are really, really good at it.

You had to be a lot more nervous for that than you ever were for improv.

You know, it's funny, I actually have a harder time performing improv than I have performing anything else because it's not rehearsed.

Oh, that's interesting because usually improv performers are the other way.

Little inner perfectionist in me that sometimes I find a little hard on stage in front of an audience to let go and be really in the moment, the same way that I am in rehearsal.

So I've actually just been accepted into an improv team here in Halifax through the spontaneity improv company called the Hot Moms.

I fit right in and I'm really looking forward to playing with them and, you know, doing a bit more muscle on the actual performance side of things.

When I owned the acting company, which is right over my shoulder here, there's a picture of the acting company.

We did the Medieval feast.

We did 450 shows over 10 years, and I got nervous for every single one.

I played the king, so I.

And I was kind of running the show too.

It was a dinner theater.

So, you know, I knew when the food was going to be late and we'd have to vamp and, you know, all of that I was in.

I was directing as the king, which worked perfectly because, you know, with our company, if the king said do something, you did it, or you.

You got fired because there was a reason I was telling them to do something.

And we had a cast about 20 that stayed with almost the whole 10 years.

We had the same people and I still got nervous.

But as soon as you walked out, that was it.

As soon as I walked out and I was on, I wasn't nervous.

The rest of the time, you just go.

You just.

And especially when you're with a cast that's been together a long time, you just know each other.

It's like the.

Whose line is it.

Anyway, guys, you know, they know each other so well.

They know what the other person.

I knew what my jester was going to do when I looked at him, you know, I knew where he was going to go.

Even though it was all improv kind.

Of chemistry, just can't substitute that for anything else.

It's brilliant.

My jester's still alive.

He's older now, and his wife just passed away, but he's still doing Renaissance fairs.

This is 40 years later and still as a jester, and we did 450 shows together.

We did every one of those shows together.

Other cast would come and go depending on the size they would hire and things, but we did them all.

And I'll tell you what, I've never had so much fun with one guy, and he was.

I mean, he was brilliant.

He's a brilliant improv performer.

Have you ever thought about, like, if you.

If you tried it again now, if it would still work?

Oh, it'd be so damn much easier.

I'll tell you why.

It's because we were in the days of pre Internet, so we were selling tickets to open the public shows at Stokesley Castle and reading by doing radio and newspaper, and they would have to send checks.

I mean, there was no Internet.

We.

We were making your own costumes because you couldn't find any place to buy them.

I mean, it was just.

Can you imagine how much easier it would all be now with, you know.

I think so much easier to.

To set up and potentially harder to actually sell the tickets because there's so many more competing things going on that.

But you certainly could get the word out with social media a lot easier than you could in the past.

And look at you.

Totally could.

And you know, Renaissance fairs, I always thought they were going to die off and because, you know, I was at the start of Pennsylvania.

Oh, my God, they're so busy now, you can't even get into the places.

It's nuts.

Glenn, if you ever wanted to start it back up again, I'm sure you could.

I think that's too much work for me at my age.

What do you.

I, you know, I preach.

Everybody should do improv.

Every, Every podcaster, every person that runs a business, every salesperson should do improv.

My success in sales, my success as an entrepreneur, my success, every success I've had, I credit improv theater for.

Do you feel the same way?

Oh, of course.

Of course.

Yeah.

The.

So building on what somebody else is saying, taking the premise to be true, building a world together, being able to create that Sense of belonging, not denying somebody else's truth.

The listening that comes into play, like it's not about being funny, it's about being present and being in relationship with whoever's there in front of you.

That's, I mean, that's what I love more than anything is that it creates such a beautiful space of belonging.

I mean, we in, in Gainesville, we had a very, very inclusive group of people.

And I mean that in the broadest sense of the word.

And because the community improv was and is still free, people would come in and they would feel okay to try something.

And I, we would just hear over and over, even after just one 2 hour hangout session together, wow, this felt really good.

You know, I felt really welcome.

I felt really open.

I didn't feel pressured.

It's like I learned something.

And even if they never came back again, we would usually hear that, that kind of feedback.

And, and this is, you know, for all kinds of differently abled folks as well.

So it was, it was really gratifying to, to see that and be a part of it.

And, you know, I think it.

And everywhere I've been traveling this year, I've experienced improv.

So it holds true from country to country, which is interesting.

I think it's made.

I'm going to brag a little.

I think I'm a pretty good interviewer.

I mean, we've done, We've interviewed over 7,000 people on horses in the morning.

I think you got proof for that, Glenn.

Yeah, so, but I think it's improv that made me a better interviewer for sure.

And I think people who haven't had that kind of theater experience are missing out a little bit.

Yeah, you can be good at, be a good interviewer without it.

I just think it definitely helps you be more aware and what else it helps you with.

And this is the thing I hate when I listen to podcasts is they're interviewing somebody and the, the guest throws out the Golden Nugget, that, that thing that as a listener you're going, God, ask about that now you want to just know more.

And they go right by it because they want to get to their next question.

And they completely missed the Golden Nugget.

The thing that would have made that episode sing that, that thing they threw out that was out of left field and they didn't want to follow it.

And as a listener, I'm going, why?

That's the only thing I cared about in this 20 minutes.

You know, I think that, that it.

Improv teaches you to Follow that golden nugget.

Yeah, that's true.

Just keep, keep after it and keep growing it and seeing how far you can take it.

And if it doesn't go anywhere, you edit it out, right?

Yeah, exactly.

Yeah, exactly.

Although they usually go somewhere and it's the best piece of the whole.

It's definitely the best piece.

And on the opposite side of things, a guest on a podcast who comes so attached to the material that they have to cover.

I mean, I remember interviewing some.

Honestly, it's really big names, big name authors, big name speakers.

Could not get them off their damn tracks.

Their marketing to have an interesting conversation because all they want is the damn sound bites to kind of push their whatever it is.

I'm so boring.

So listeners are listening to this now.

Wonder why we don't have big name clinicians on and things.

Sometimes it's because that's what we get.

We get the marketing message and that's the whole interview.

And for Jamie and I, that's just boring, you know, it's just boring.

We want to have a conversation, you know, like we're having today.

That's what we want to have.

Yeah, those folks are better to have a sponsors.

Yeah, let's face it.

That's right.

Yeah.

We're going to take a quick break because I do have sponsors, Tina.

So we're going to take a break.

We're going to take a quick break, we're going to come back and we're going to talk about what you're doing now.

And then I want to end with your Nomad bad life because I, if I was younger I would so do what you're doing right now.

But.

And if I didn't have horses in the yard.

But let's, let's come back in a minute.

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Vetmed so, Tina, you have a company called Twin Flames.

What's Twin Flames do?

Twin Flames Studios.

Yeah.

We produce two things.

We are the premier provider in the world of remote recorded and produced audiobooks.

That is what we're known for.

Does that mean somebody wrote a book and you're doing the audio version?

We're doing the audiobook.

Yeah, we're doing the audiobook and we produce it remotely.

You don't have to go into a studio, you don't go into a booth.

Nope.

But you do get fully produced and directed with another human being the full time.

You don't need any major tech or anything like that.

I started producing audiobooks in 2015 and very and focused on nonfiction because there were really no options for nonfiction authors at that time to get their audiobooks done with support and that were independent authors and things like that.

And we got tired of trying to work with studios and set things up and it got very cost prohibitive.

So we said, well, if we can podcast and we can do these other things, why can't we do remote audiobook production?

So I worked with my sound engineer, actually.

Same same dude still on my team all these years later, and we created this process.

And that's so 500 audiobooks later, that's.

That's where we are.

So that's our primary bread and butter.

And I know people realize how they think that sounds easy to do.

But audible is very picky about sound quality.

Everything audible is picky, picky, picky, picky, picky, picky.

It's very detail oriented.

Even the recording process, like most people, when they're in front of a microphone, they'll swing their head back and forth.

It changes the sound quality a couple of inches on or off the mic in position changes things.

So having the director there, both for performance as well as sound quality, and we're even monitoring the Internet performance and things like that, it makes a huge difference.

I don't think many authors do this themselves.

It's too hard.

They have to hire somebody.

Yes, they usually do.

Some try it on their own.

There's folks right now who are trying AI and I do think that AI audio, whole other topic will get good enough in the future, but it is not good enough right now.

And AI audiobooks don't sell.

I bet we use AI.

I'll tell you where we do use AI because the company that owns us has a bunch of magazines and we put out the articles as a podcast feedback but it's read by AI and in that case people will put up with it because it's, it's reading an article.

Right?

It's.

I totally agree.

We could, we couldn't afford to hire somebody to do that with AI.

We can do it and it gets tens of thousands of downloads.

So I think that's a great use case.

It'll be good enough for audiobooks eventually.

It's just not right.

But it doesn't, you know, the audiobooks I listen to, I only listen to them if I like the reader because it's just like podcasts.

Come for the content, stay for the host.

If I go to an audiobook and I don't like the reader, I just don't like them.

I'm not listening to the book, I'll buy the book and read it.

That's exactly the number one thing that audiobook listeners report.

It's always, always, always about the narrator.

And sometimes the author is the reader and they're really good and you want to hear it because they're celebrity.

Usually you want to hear the celebrity read their own book, but sometimes the author that reads their own book aren't good.

Right.

And so you have that to deal with too, right?

Yeah, yeah, we have to have those conversations because it's not always, they're not always the best person for the work and but God, that's got to be a tough one.

Well, very rarely, most people are pretty open or they actually know and they're actually looking for permission to not have to read their own book.

So we'll do a hybrid or as I lovingly call it, a Tony Robbins sandwich.

Because this is how Tony Robbins did all his audiobooks because they're all 20 friggin hours long.

Right.

Where he did the beginning and the end and a professional did the middle.

And so we do those kinds of books or you know, we do some not exact voice matching, but some types of voice matching so that the narrator has some of the qualities of the original author's voice.

Now a lot of these audiobooks now are getting more production, almost like the old time radio with multiple people and you know, have you done any of those yet?

Oh, yeah, yeah.

Sound design.

We have one beautiful book you can find for free on YouTube called Sight by Dr. Ming Wang that turned into the book to the movie site that came out, I think was a year ago in 2024.

And it's about his journey growing up as a young boy in China and then immigrating to the US becoming a world renowned eye Surgeon.

And we used everything from him playing the Chinese violin in the transitions to transforming news clips that were video from the 90s and things like that, and seamlessly integrating them into the book.

So that book is actually for free on YouTube.

And like I said, it helped him greenlight the movie, so that was a real privilege.

Our record number of voices on an audiobook is 36 full cast.

Oh, my God.

That was the editing nightmare.

Our editors were like, we're in it.

We're like, they view it as a challenge.

They get really into it.

Audiobook editors are a different breed.

You would have to be.

And I don't think people realize either, when the reader is reading this book.

You're having them.

They may do the same paragraph five times.

I mean, you're having them reread it different.

Different ways, different, you know, inflections and all.

It's not just read it once.

No, no, no, no, no.

I mean, if you're lucky.

Yeah.

But how long does it take to.

From start, from the first recording to edit it over at Audible, what's the average length?

Oh, you mean like full production timeline?

Yeah, we like to leave 90 days from our first meeting with a client till it's live.

On Audible, it takes about twice as long to record a segment of audio as it the finished length.

So it's generally a two to one or two and a half to one recording time to finish product.

That's interesting because with our podcast, it's a time and a half to two times for finish, too.

Yeah.

Because you end up talking and there's just.

This is fascinating.

Do you like it?

Do you like this work?

Yeah.

Oh, my God, yes.

But see, my interest in it has always been.

So I'm.

I'm actually.

I was a voice actor for fun and came across this gap in the market.

And then one of the things I'm really good at is pulling people together and creating cooperation and systems and processes and.

And all of that.

So I'm.

I'm so grateful for this business every day and for my team because they're the.

The audio professionals that make it all work, and I'm the one that goes out.

And I'm always been more in the leadership and entrepreneurial and business side of things, and I knew that there was a need for this, so I adore it.

And that's what ended up leading us to starting a whole new line of business.

This last year, because I've been in podcasting for so long, we started transforming podcast content into books.

So tell me about how that works.

Now, this is actually where we do use some AI tools.

They're bespoke.

They're in house ones.

My husband Robin, who's my business partner, has been designing software for 35 years.

He's a data architect.

That helps.

He's an artist with code.

He's an artist with code.

I keep joking.

I'm going to get him a beret with little ones and zeros all over it.

He doesn't like that idea.

We are able to bring in all of the data from a podcast through the RSS feed and organize it and be able to draw upon it to come up with different book ideas, to preserve the speaker's voice in a book situation, to create book briefs.

And then we're basically using a combination of traditional ghost writing and developmental editing techniques with professionals who know what they're doing in combination with being able to draw on this beautiful body of work that a podcast is.

And our.

Actually, our first book is coming out September 24, 2025, and it is the world's first book for mental health clinicians to be able to better work with first responders.

So that is a cause.

That is something I'm very happy to be a part of.

I can see that for podcasts that are very educational, you know, ours might be a little hard to do that with because we're more of a comedy.

Show that might not be that.

Probably wouldn't advise on that, but some of your other.

The other shows on the Horse Radio Network might be beautiful, kind of chicken soup for the soul, types of stories that people would love to have.

Yeah, I think so, too.

I think you're right about that.

This must be fun for you.

This is like combining your worlds.

Oh, yeah, it's a good time.

And your husband's world, actually.

Yes.

I feel a little bit like King Arthur sometime, where I'm like, merlin, go and make me this software that does this thing.

And he's like, yes, my lady.

And then, you know, a couple of months later, we've got some brand new tools, and it's great.

It's really fun.

So if you look back over the last 10 years of the podcasting and the books without naming names, is there one that really stands out to you that you went, okay, I did good work there.

We did good things.

We got a good response.

Is there.

Is there one that stands out?

Interestingly enough, it was one of my very early audio books in the first.

I think it was in the second year I was in business, and I think it was because it was One of the first creative nonfiction projects we ever did, and it sold extremely well.

Part of it's the genre.

It's the Vietnam War, and it's called Tiger Bravo's War, and it was written by a retired lieutenant colonel.

But he wrote it in such a way that the characters are of the people in his life that were there.

He really brought them to life.

And it was professionally narrated, and the narrator, David White, did such a brilliant and beautiful job bringing this story to life that I remember just sitting in front of my computer, kind of staring at it in awe, going, holy crap, this is.

We made this.

We made this.

And now, because of the topic and also because of how quality it was, it really helped the author sell many, many, many, many copies of that book.

It's still for sale.

It's still out there.

I just wrote it down.

It sounds fascinating.

Yeah, it's a really.

I'm very, very proud of that.

And that was one of the things that early on in those first couple of years of business, you question yourself a lot, and you never really stop questioning yourself as an entrepreneur to one extent or another.

Yeah, there's always imposter syndrome for all of us.

Right.

Or, you know, are we doing the right thing?

Are we going in the right direction?

But that was such a pivotal moment for me, saying, we have arrived.

We're doing the right thing, and I want to do more of this.

And that affected people's lives.

People that were at Vietnam, people.

Families who.

Who had.

People who are at Vietnam in Vietnam.

I mean, I'm sure It did.

Yeah.

90, 95% of what we do is nonfiction.

So it's this whole notion for me that people's voices are getting out into the world.

They're out making a difference.

They're out making an impact.

And, you know, I've said for many years that audiobooks and podcasts or books in general are some of the lowest hanging fruit for people to start to change their lives.

So I want to be part of more people getting their lives changed without having to jump through a lot of hoops.

All right, before we get to you being a digital nomad going around the world, probably living half the people that are listening dream.

So before we get to that, one more question.

This is always a harder one for people to answer, and I ask it all the time.

The last 10 years, with your businesses and your entrepreneurial ship, what has surprised you the most?

Ooh.

I think that.

Okay, what has surprised me the most?

Okay, maybe a little cliche, but how much you can get done in a year versus what you think you have to get done in a day is one of the most valuable things that I've learned in this process because like most entrepreneurs, I'm fairly driven.

I want to get it done.

I want to get it done.

And that's an understatement, by the way.

I know, Tina.

I remember having a therapist years ago.

I'm a therapist by training, and I'd like to walk my own talk.

So I was.

I was in the phase where I was seeing a therapist, and she said, you know, all you need to do today is what you got done today.

And I use that.

I still use it as a mantra.

I gave it to my children as a mantra because it continually reminds me that you can't necessarily get everything you want done in a day today, but the persistence of it, it will get done and it'll get done in the time it needs to get done.

So that's.

That's been one of the biggest surprises for me.

The other big surprise for me was that I ended up making the move from being a solopreneur to being a CEO and having a team of 12.

And that was one of the biggest identity shifts.

It's one of the biggest areas that has been of a learning curve for me is in leaning into that type of leadership and learning from my team, them learning from me, learning how to trust people at a whole new level.

It's been extraordinary, and I'm so grateful for my guys.

They're just amazing.

And not all of us that are entrepreneurs, solopreneurs end up being good managers.

Like, I am not a good manager.

Oh, no, not at all.

I'm not a good manager.

I work well with people, but I'm not a good manager.

And so you were able to overcome that.

And you are a good manager.

And that's not always the case, is the point I'm trying to make.

So good for you, Tina.

Good for you.

Well, I have to say, it's a very specific management style.

If I had to be on top of people all day, every day, I'd kill them all.

But yes.

And on that note, we're going to come back and talk about being a digital nomad and where you've been living right after this.

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This is your second round of being a digital nomad.

And when you first did that, it wasn't a thing.

And now it's a thing.

And what we mean by that is people who work still work, but they move around the world and live in places.

Sometimes a month or two or three, depends on the person and how they do it.

I know a couple in the podcast world that do this and they all have different styles and different rates of moving.

But you did it before.

So tell us about the first time.

I was one of the first.

I actually was the first person I knew to work remotely and to work completely digitally.

And that was in my business coaching practice that I started.

Now I can't even remember the year.

I think it was 2008, I believe.

And so it.

When we had the opportunity, I had this vision, this five year vision plan that I did of living in Costa Rica.

And I picked Costa Rica partly just out of the ether and partially because I knew enough about it to feel like I knew that it would be good for me.

And so when my husband at the time, my kid's dad, with his corporate job had the opportunity to go mobile with his position, he went back to his supervisor and said, well, how mobile can we go?

And they, and they were like, well, we don't, we don't care.

They hadn't really thought through it.

So I said, why don't we, why don't we do Costa Rica?

We had been thinking about selling our house and moving anyway, and so we did it.

It took, it was less than a year.

We sold our house, we sold 75% of our stuff, put the rest in a storage unit.

Our kids were 7 and 9 and.

And we took off for a three month experiment in Playa del Coco, Costa Rica, which is on the northern Pacific coast.

Well, that was before Airbnb and stuff.

So you just had to find a place the hard way to rent.

Right?

Well, it was interesting because I had been doing work for my father for a while because I'm a bit of a misogynist.

Not misogynist, what's the word?

When you inflict harm upon yourself.

Masochist.

Masochist, not misogynist.

That's wrong.

Oh, my God.

Welcome to menopause.

Here we go.

The words just get confused.

So, yeah, so I had been working with my dad on one of his businesses, and he had run some retreats for massage therapists down in Costa Rica, and I had organized them.

So I had some contacts down there, and I reached out to them and I said, do you know anyone?

And within 45 minutes, I had a recommendation for a school for the kids.

I was connected to a guy who had an apartment for rent, and I had a car rental company that personal contact.

So people are just kind of awesome like that, in my experience.

And it was actually easier to move into Costa Rica than it was to finish selling our house and get rid of our stuff in Buffalo, New York.

How hard is it in visas and stuff?

Do you have a working visas and are they for a certain period of time, depending on the country?

Well, most.

There was no such thing as a digital nomad visa at the time.

You were working off of a tourist visa.

And depending on how you think about it, there's some gray area there.

Again, this was very early, early on.

So we were just there for three months, which is as long as we were allowed to be there as tourists.

And then we left.

But we.

We were very sad.

We knew by the end of the three months, we didn't really want to leave Costa Rica.

We were miserable.

Oh, my God.

We spent a miserable winter in both Buffalo and in southern Florida.

And then we.

We left again for a different place in Costa Rica and went back a second time.

What did the kids get out of that experience?

Well, it's interesting because we were so excited to have this experience with them and have them try different things.

And they have good memories, but they're almost 21 and 19 now, and their memories are actually fairly fuzzy of that time of life.

They remember enjoying themselves.

They remember seeing the volcano.

They remember doing some things because we homeschooled them the second year, where I learned I'm not cut out for homeschooling.

But we had a good time anyway, and it was a really good learning experience for them.

They told me that one of the things that they got out of that was that they felt like when they went back to school and had a more structured school system again, they were more interested in following their interests and in doing their personal best rather than worrying about the external validation.

And I think that was a really important thing for them to internalize through the whole thing.

So After Costa Rica, you came back.

I know you got a house and you lived a traditional life for a while in Gainesville, and then you decided to do this all over again.

It's probably easier this time because Internet was a big concern back then.

Getting good Internet to actually work from now, that's a lot easier.

Yeah, but we also weren't using as much bandwidth because most things were audio only, and they weren't doing a lot of video and whatnot.

You weren't, you know, doing a lot of video on social media or any of those kinds of things.

I was still doing teleseminars, which were highly effective at the time.

So that was audio only, too.

So, yeah, Internet this time around.

Do you want to know where we went?

Yeah.

Okay, so you sold your house, what, a year ago?

Well, we actually had been renting because I never went back to owning because I was one of the things that taught me.

I was like, well, why bother?

All right, so.

All right, so where have you been?

So we left Florida at the end of April.

We spent a month in Austin, Texas, with a friend, and then we spent two and a half months in Granada, Spain, which was a really interesting experience because I had never lived in a walkable city before, particularly a city where some of the primary structures of the city were built in 900 AD or earlier.

So the history of that city and how it's grown up was really fascinating.

Being part of the Andalusian culture and actually even doing improv there was wild.

And then we spent two weeks.

I had.

Well, I thought I learned new enough Spanish because I got around Costa Rica just fine.

But Andalusian Spanish is very different.

So, you know, I walk into place and say something and they'd be like, huh?

I was like, oh, no.

But.

But I.

You get along fine.

People are great, and they're very.

They're very kind.

And so we got along okay.

And my husband doesn't speak a single word of Spanish.

He has no talent for languages whatsoever.

Maine's pretty good about English, though, aren't they?

Actually, it was far less than I thought.

There were far fewer English speakers than I.

Than I thought there would be, particularly in a city like Granada.

It's a small city.

Yeah.

Maybe the bigger cities would be.

Yeah, certainly Madrid, Barcelona, things like that.

You'd.

From what I'm hearing, there's a lot.

Of British travel there, too, so German.

Oh.

Tons of folks from Germany.

Much many fewer from Britain because of Brexit.

It's a lot harder for folks in the uk to travel in the rest of Europe now because of Brexit.

So we heard about that a lot.

So were you on a visa there for a tourist or is there a digital nomad visa now for countries there.

Is a digital nomad visa, but we were only there for, like I said, we were going to be there for a month and then change over.

And we decided, decided to stay for a full two and a half months because we wanted to be grounded.

And we visited a few other places like Mallorca and Gibraltar, Tarifa, and then we ended up going to the UK to stay with family in Warwick for a couple of weeks and then made our way back to the US and drove all the way through New England out to where we are now in Nova Scotia.

So how hard is it when you get to a location like Spain?

You're there to work also because you got a job you have to do, but you're also feeling like a tourist.

For how long do you feel like a tourist?

And at what point does it start to settle in that I'm living here and I need to get some work done?

It's hard self control.

Oh my God.

It's a lot harder than being on vacation.

It is way harder.

So first of all, you get the time difference.

But fortunately Spain is a very late culture.

So being a six hours ahead of the east coast of the us, I was starting work, you know, one o' clock in the afternoon, working until about seven and then it was very easy to go out.

Everybody's out in the evening, walking, going to restaurants, having tapas.

Well, they're not eating till 9 o', clock, are they?

They're like late.

Some folks don't eat till that late.

Yeah, for sure.

So restaurants are open late.

Dinner isn't generally a big heavy meal in Spain, lunch is heavier.

And then you get siesta, which really is a thing.

Did you do it?

But I, I really don't know when Spaniards sleep.

I really don't.

I. I asked my Spanish friends and they're like, ah, we take siesta, it's fine.

So did you stay up later?

Did you notice you were staying up later?

We did.

We would end up staying up, you know, here.

And Nova Scotia is the opposite.

Like it's a very early culture here.

People get out and get going early.

And so that was another adjustment when we got here.

So I find myself a little bit still, even having been here for a couple of months, just now getting into a regular routine.

And I've been in Nova Scotia for three months so it's challenging to get into a routine unless you're a very disciplined person.

And I have a lot of discipline.

But I also want my routines to feel a certain way.

And it's going to be different in one country versus another just because of the culture, what's available, what's around.

Like I, I'm very interactive with all of that.

I'm not one of those people who gets up and runs at 5am regardless of where I am in the world.

So I don't run.

I would also feel like I'm there.

I'm doing this for a reason.

And part of the reason is to see and experience this place in this culture and meet people.

So I would feel like, okay, if I'm not out and about, I'm missing out.

Right.

So there's that.

You still got to get your job done, but you also don't want to miss out.

That's why you're there, that's why you're doing it.

Otherwise you stay home.

Exactly, exactly.

And I'm in the position of privilege where my company is robust enough and mature enough that honestly, I don't work a 40 hour work week.

But I have a lot of flexibility in my schedule and I've worked for that for the past 20 years as an entrepreneur to have that, that level of privilege and ease.

But you know, if something goes sideways, also the buck stops here.

Is it a ton more expensive because you're wanting to eat out all the time and all of that?

Oh, Spain is so cheap.

Really?

Yeah, that was.

That's also been a bit of a culture shock coming back not just to North America, but also to Canada.

And I adore Canada.

My husband's Canadian.

There's.

This is a beautiful country from coast to coast.

I've seen so much of Canada.

But I will say that I do miss what things cost in Spain because I would come down, we were living on the fifth floor, come down to the first floor, walk next door to the Italian cafe the Italian family ran, sit out in their patio, order a cappuccino and a French omelette with ham and cheese and a beautiful tostada.

And my husband would do the same.

And we walk out of there for about 20 bucks.

Yeah, it's now 40 years.

Oh my God.

Fresh orange juices everywhere.

The food feels and tastes very alive in Europe.

Yeah.

And especially Spain too.

I, I could see that.

What do you think is the length of time for you guys in any location, if you were to continue doing this, would you look at doing.

Would you say the ideal length is two to three months in each location, or.

I know some people like to do it more.

They move every month because they want to move every month.

With Airbnb and Internet now, that's easier, right, than it used to be.

Yep, that's true.

It's a lot less work to find a place to stay and to do all that.

True.

Expensive, though.

It's not cheap.

So what would be your ideal length at any location if you were going to continue doing it?

I really like to settle in for three months at a location.

I tend to find that if you really want to get the rhythm of a place, you need to be there for three months.

And if the end of three months, you don't want to leave, still, it's worth looking at coming back to or making it a repeating place.

That being said, if you hit a place and within the first month, you're like, I know, absolutely not.

Then it's also nice to be able to not be locked in that long.

So most of the digital nomads I know, when they're doing, looking at a new place to try, they'll literally just book something for a week or two weeks, and then once they get there, they'll come off of Airbnb and rent local for the rest of the time there, which tends to be less expensive, better for the local economy and so on.

But, you know, if you're going to be in a place for longer than a tourist visa allows for, you really do need to apply for a digital nomad visa.

Done.

And play by those rules.

I think it's really important.

And they allow you longer.

Right.

Even up to a year or something.

The digital nomad was.

Some places are a year, some places will extend two or three years.

There's a lot of controversy about being a digital nomad right now and the impact on economies and things like that.

But there's a lot to take into consideration with all of those things.

And one of the things that's very easy to do is just get stuck in the expat kind of community.

And I personally feel like it's important to extend beyond that and get involved in the.

In the local community, wherever you're at, and, you know, be as integrative as possible, not hold yourself separate because other, you know, then you're just a.

A colonist.

How.

How do your adult kids feel about it?

Oh, they're all for it.

I mean, I miss them like fire.

This is actually, you know, they're both now adults.

My daughter's in University.

My son's working, and this is by far the most amount of time I've ever spent away from them.

But we weren't able to kind of get them over into Europe.

But they've both been here to Nova Scotia.

My daughter's been back a second time, and they're.

They're in favor of it.

And we're even kind of looking at.

I'm going to be getting permanent residency here, of course, because I'm married to a Canadian, but my kids may be able to get that as well.

They're still young enough that it's.

It's open to them.

So we're in conversation about that.

And, you know, it's funny, because you could live.

You could live four or five hours from each other and still see each other as much as you are now.

We moved down here to be closer to my brother, and we probably see him once every quarter.

He lives like five miles from us.

So, you know, well, that's like.

You and I live in 45 minutes away.

And we can only ever see each other at the conference twice a year.

We'd say let's get together.

And we just never did.

So this has been fascinating.

The whole conversation's been absolutely fat.

I've learned so much about you today, and I've known you for so long.

I think that's.

It's great.

What's the website for Twin Flames?

Oh, it's Twin Flames Studios.

There's a lot of S's in there dot com.

And if anybody lives in the Gainesville area and are into improv, what's the name of that?

Are they still active, that improv group?

Oh, they're absolutely still active.

You can go to communityimprov.com which is a great URL.

If you were to tell.

So if you were to give somebody advice, they've heard this and they decided they wanted to give improv a try, what do you tell them to do?

Do.

What's your advice?

Go to most improv companies and organizations.

I found this in Spain.

I found this in England.

I found it in Austin.

I found it everywhere that I've been.

There's 99% of the time, a time of the week where you can go in and drop in and do, like an intro kind of.

Kind of playtime.

No pressure.

Just go in and try it, and you just get a flavor to see if you see what it's like.

And it's not that deep.

It's like you're generally not on a big stage with a whole bunch of People watching you and things like that.

You're generally in a room with four to 10 people, maybe up to 20 if it's, you know, like community improv in Gainesville gets some big bigger groups and it's basically like recess when you were, when you were a kid with a little bit more structure.

It's just, it's really fun and you meet some great people and there's no pressure and no one's going to tell you you, you were bad.

And it's, it's very freeing.

We were all bad at the beginning.

It's like when we first start, we were all bad.

But you get better.

It's like anything else.

The more comfortable you get, the better you get.

And that's the other beautiful thing about improv is, you know, that your filter comes off to a certain extent.

Everyone's still respectful, but then some.

You know, the other day I was with somebody and they were holding back what they wanted to say and, and our improv coach was like, just say it, just say it, just say it.

And it ended up being the funniest thing of the night because it was so out of pocket and it was so silly and she was like, oh, it's not the right thing to say, but it was.

And those are usually the Golden Nuggets.

Right?

We're going back to that.

Thank you, Tina, appreciate you joining me.

Oh, thank you.

And have fun in Nova Scotia.

Well, thanks.

I appreciate that.

Come and visit.

Well, I'll be back next week with Ashley, Lisa and a special first time co host next Friday.

Jamie is doing her second week of her Money Roberts clinic there at the Flyover farm and she'll be back a week from Monday.

So thank you for joining us today.

We really appreciate it.

Have a terrific weekend, everybody, and we'll see you back here on Monday.