Angela McCourt 0:00
Let's get ready for some serious shift. This is a podcast shifting Inside Out hosted by your quantum shifter Angela McCourt, we are diving into ways to empower and enable a quantum shift. Inspiring topics hacks and guest speakers take us on a journey around authenticity, challenging status quo, personal power and living a purpose filled life.

In this episode, we will talk with Andy Fernandez, about his adventures over the past couple of years, living the life the way he wants to abroad while working remote. And what's really great about this conversation is that and he goes into some details on basically how he decided to do this, and also the different countries he's lived in, how long he has lived in each one, as well as what kind of technology he's dealing with, in each of those countries, how he has been able to network to find workspaces, that allow him to be able to connect and have really good connectivity, as well as just being flexible from a schedule, perspective, timezone perspective and all those good things. And really, what's interesting is the fact that he didn't know how to do all this before you started, he just decided after a two week stay in Mexico to stay for another two and a half months. And it all started from there. So it's a really fun episode. Andy is one of my favorite people. He's just such a great talented person and really fun, fun and fun loving person. So I hope you enjoyed this episode. I'd love to hear your thoughts on this episode. As you listen. You can find me on LinkedIn at Angie belts McCourt on Instagram at Angie underscore McCourt or Twitter at McCourt, Angie. Without further ado, let's hear from Andy.

Andy, welcome to shifting inside out. I am so beyond grateful to have you on this episode. So to get started, why don't you go ahead and introduce yourself to the audience.

Andy Fernandez 2:18
Yeah, absolutely. I'm happy to be here. Also Joseph your microphone. I need to get one like that. So my name is Andy Fernandez. I'm i Currently I work in tech. Specifically, I work as a Senior Manager of Product Marketing at Zurdo. Now a Hewlett Packard Enterprise company. Born in Havana, Cuba, raised in New Orleans, I ended up moving over to Tampa and actually years ago at this point is where I met Angie at the measurement program at Takeda. So here we are eight years later.

Angela McCourt 2:51
That's awesome. Thank you so much. And I was thinking about like how long ago we met, and how many times in our lives, our paths have crossed, which has been really incredible. And you're like, one of like my children I keep under my wings. But you have flown the nest. So that's what this episode will be all about, is to see how incredible you are living your life. So to get started, let's give the audience a chance the listeners a chance to get to know you a little bit. So I'm going to ask you some quick round questions. So what is your morning ritual.

Andy Fernandez 3:29
So the morning ritual that I strive for, which is not always the case, is I will wake up, I will do everything I can to leave my phone in the room. I will drink as much water as I possibly can. And then I'll go do a fasted cardio session. So I like 30 to 35 minutes, certain heart rate, and it helps keep your day optimal. That's the usual you know, sometimes you'll get a morning routine where you wake up in panic from an email from the other side of the world. For the most part, it is ideally a little bit of meditation afterwards but water fasted cardio, no fun.

Angela McCourt 4:08
Very good. I love the no phone. How do you renew your energy.

Andy Fernandez 4:15
So I will do it in two ways. The healthy way or the quote unquote healthy way is I will do a lot of meditation. So it's a very important thing. It's like a mental reset, whether it's like the tapping meditations or just your traditional style right like your brief.com your comm apps that type of stuff, nothing too fancy. The other one is travel which I kind of doing a lot but really being able to actually go and make a meal. My own. I just make a meal that takes three hours to make and 10 minutes to eat. I should feel awesome after I do that.

Angela McCourt 4:55
Wow. It's a great creative outlet too. Yeah, for sure. Okay, what is your guilty pleasure?

Andy Fernandez 5:02
My so my guilty pleasure recently has been. So I actually have a new goal that I want to share with you later on something that I'm working on later in life. But it kind of ties back to this, which my guilty pleasure is staying at a very wherever I travel to, and we'll talk we'll get into that I will try to find the swanky hotel, and I'll spend a day and I'll review it, and I'll do everything I need to. And for some reason, I just can't stop doing it everywhere I go. And I find the swankiest was historical hotel, and I stay there and kind of review it. And so that's been a new guilty pleasure of mine.

Angela McCourt 5:38
That is awesome, you should be creating a blog and like work for a travel magazine, or something to do in that, you know, like, dual purpose there. I love that. And also, you're probably learning and you're getting to explore architecture, and probably a lot of really old locations. Because what I want to get into in this episode, I would just, you have had this incredible journey in life. And we are going to do another episode with you on your entrepreneurial path. Also, just, you know, the creative and this is take creativity and like I don't know, multiply it times 100, including space, etc, that Andy is able to do, we're gonna put that into a separate episode, because you have so much going on. Like, I feel like you deserve two episodes, we're gonna do that a separate time. But what I would love for the listeners to hear, because timing is so important is how you have taken this massive opportunity in life, at this time where the whole style of work has shifted and changed remote is now a thing. Technology has caught up to the thing. And it's allowed you to create this life that keeps evolving. And you know, just amazing. And I just want you to share that journey with everyone. Because hopefully somebody will get some inspiration to get out of their box and to you know, find a little bit more freedom in their life, even if they can't necessarily do what you're doing. But it encourages them to say, hey, you know what, if I can do this, and with multiple companies, then you can do this, too. So I'd love for you to share your journey wherever you would like to start at.

Andy Fernandez 7:31
Yeah, absolutely. So actually, if we rewind all the way back to when we were at Tech Data together, after I left tech, it was a last time I was at an office. So eight years ago, or probably six, six and a half years ago was the last time that I was expected to go into an office every day, because the company that I went to afterwards, which was Veeam software was a remote role. So I've actually been remote now, almost for six years. Wow. But hasn't been the same experience as it is now. Right? Because if you think about it, you know this more than anybody, the amount of industry events, customer visits, office visits, you name it, you end up traveling a lot in the the more I progressed in my career, and the more opportunities I had for speaking and for engagements, I ended up traveling a lot I think we rewind to two and a half years ago, I don't even know COVID, five years ago, 10 years ago, I don't know. But before it all started, I was traveling a lot. We had all these types of events. And although I didn't go into an office, I had that experience where I was every single day. Never really home never really present. Just on to the next Marriott shout out to Marriott trying to get trying to get platinum soon. Bye, but and so then it all happened. Right? And then we all went remote fully. And you know, and you probably understand this too, when you travel so much. And then you're just told to stay home sucks. It's terrible.

Angela McCourt 9:08
I loved it. Because I hadn't been home for years and I missed being home. So yeah, it's a different it's it depends on the person I think.

Andy Fernandez 9:16
Yeah, like me being in my early 20s and told to stay home and I had been so my body, my body, my mind. Everything was so used to traveling that was like something's wrong. And I stayed for a couple of months. And then I said, You know what, I'm gonna leave. And I don't have to go anywhere for the work because we're not allowed to so decided to go to Mexico. Jungle beach of Mexico. I found enough Wi Fi to work. And I stayed I was supposed to only go for for two weeks, and I ended up staying for almost four months.

Angela McCourt 9:50
That's fantastic. Yeah,

Andy Fernandez 9:52
I was like, I'm not coming back. And so that gave me an opportunity to know and kind of In bash a couple of stereotypes, right? Because when you think about people who live in these crazy, remote, cool areas, you they think, are they artists? Are they rich? You know, do they have somebody supporting their lifestyle? All these things that come into play, or you never think, Oh, well, me being somebody as a business professional, as a tech professional, that I can do that when I get there. I mean, I do the best networking I've ever done in my life. People from Fortune 500 companies all doing the same thing. It kind of opened my mind to, okay, I've been more efficient here than I've ever been. I've had more fun than I've ever had, I feel the healthiest. Why am I not doing this more. It was a very, it became a realization. And luckily, it wasn't a realization, I made 20 years down the line, it's realization that maybe two three years into my season professional experience. And once I did that, I realized it was possible without any real disruptions, except for the time I got Dengue fever, I was not fun. I was down for a week and a half of that was gonna die. But I did it. And I was really the only disruption that I had. So from there, I said, this is kind of the life that I want to live. And so fast forward, I want to say, price, six months after that, six, seven months, I got the itch again, I went back home, and I was like, This is not for me, don't want to do this, I don't want to like, go to Whole Foods and just walk around for hours. And, and I realized that I wanted to go back. So I went back to Mexico. And I the first day I got there actually meet my girlfriend, who my girlfriend now. And we met and we just started seeing each other. And once again, I was only supposed to go for two weeks. And then we ended up while working, touring all of Mexico, from the east coast all the way north to the southwest coast. I stay there for a month and a half. And she is from London. And so she also worked remote. And we had a decision to make, like do we want to go to a respective place? Or do we want to keep this goal and we both emphatically wanted to keep traveling. And then we started this journey where we went from Mexico to the states for a little bit kind of had to plan things out. When you take this seriously around. Being a professional and traveling you have to there's a lot of planning you have to do just to make sure a lot of research. And then we went to the US for bed kind of I moved all my stuff out. Then we went over to London, that the same with her was an absolutely insane two months, because there's all these moving activities, our birthdays are two days apart. So it was a lot. And then so from from London, and we went to Paris for a little bit. And then from there, we went to Columbia Park to haina, Colombia. And from there I we were there for almost two months. And now we're in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. And after Rio, which I really don't want to leave. To be fair, this is probably my favorite place. So far. It's insane. And from there, we're gonna go to Europe, so probably Croatia, and then Italy for the summer. So yeah, it was and then after that, we're going to act to probably the US and spend some time there and then Mexico and then just keep that cycle going. This time though the difference the new behavior will be with business travel included. That'll be different, right. So now I I'm booked to speak at certain events. So I will I will be traveling in between so it's I'll be the tennis person at every single industry.

Angela McCourt 14:00
Yeah. Well, and I can vouch the listeners can't see but but Andy just showed me his view in Rio de Janeiro and it's freaking amazing. So yeah, I can see why you wouldn't want to leave. I don't. But that's like that is such I mean, it's, it's, it's brave. It's courageous. But like you said, it's logical. Like the way you're you're approaching is very logical, very practical, but you're balancing. I know I have this job. I'm very committed to my job. But I also want to explore I want to, you know, do some of the things that I can do now. And I don't just want to go on vacation to these places. I actually want to experience actually living there being there. It is a very different experience. I think when when you're able to live there. So when you like even starting back to the first time in Mexico to now what were some of the maybe new hobbies or habits that you picked up that you mentioned meditation, for instance, like when did was that something you were doing before you went into these different cultures in different countries and different cities? Or are there new things that you learned along the way? Like, what is that story part of the story look like?

Andy Fernandez 15:17
Absolutely not. I did. I, you knew me back then.

Angela McCourt 15:22
That's whyI'm asking the question, like, when did you start meditating?

Andy Fernandez 15:25
I was basically like a, like a, like somebody in the background of boiler room, Wall Street movie, like, I was not somebody who had time nor had the mental capacity for meditation. It was too loud in my mind.

Angela McCourt 15:40
Yeah, I was gonna say your brain went probably 21 hours a day. Right? Yeah.

Andy Fernandez 15:45
So meditation, there was not a muscle that I had exercised. So I get over there. And I start slowly being exposed to these things, things that I was exposed to in the US, but I just never took seriously but because I was in the moment, because, oh, you're in the jungle, or you're, you're at the jungle Beach, there's nothing else to really do, you have to really get into this. And it's a it's a great place and a great thing to start. And so from there, I started taking my meditation more seriously, I start taking my health more seriously, or what are the things that are put in my body, and things like yoga, things like what they call, tema, scouse, and Temazcal is a think of like, a massive like a glue, but it's clay. Okay, and they get in with a shaman and there's like a hole in the middle. And then they fill it with volcanic rocks that are burning. So you end up sweating for an hour chanting, meditating, whatever it is that they asked you to do. So these things kind of force you to, and then when you once you see like, the delta in your experience, and you're able to really know the value. So I'm not going to say that being in a place like that will make you better, but it will introduce those habits so that you can do wherever you are, right? You're not, I don't care if you're in Cleveland, or in Canada or anywhere, you can take those habits with you. That's where my eyes opened up a lot more to the mind body side of things.

Angela McCourt 17:14
That's awesome. And you know, like you said, being on a beautiful jungle Beach is definitely inspiring to do yoga, to meditate for sure. I love that. Have you and you when you said you went to first went to Mexico that you network, the most you have ever networked in your life, like talk us through like, what what is that? Like? Especially for those who may not like networking? Like, what do you do if you don't speak the language? You know, how do you how do you make connections? How do you bridge and build those bonds? And then how do you keep up with those relationships? Once you move to the next location?

Andy Fernandez 17:52
Yeah, so my controversial advice for networking is to not network in the sense of going into the concept of I'm going to go into this place and network, people we're going to see right through that, I think, right? Like I've been in the spaces where you see people going to a room, and their only goal is business cards. And what can this person do for me? Yes, I'd say when you even networking events, usually the most human relaxed person, there is the most competent person who makes the connections that they need to make. So when people go into anywhere in life, if you do things correctly, networking is an outcome. The first thing that you do, right, it's like, it shouldn't be the reason why you do things. People aren't utility, right? So just being there and connecting with people as people and not workers and laborers, and entrepreneurs, whatever you want to name it. Opened up to friendships, friendships and opened up to opportunities. Right. So I met people from Facebook, Oculus, Adobe, FinTech, a lot of people in the crypto world, a lot of people in the web three, defy space. And so these were friendships that happened. And then these friendships ended up being networking opportunities and in the future, right? So my advice is to be yourself, be confident. Don't go in there primarily asking people for things just go in there to get to know people, and the networking will happen that that will happen.

Angela McCourt 19:30
Very good. How has the technology then, in these different locations?

Andy Fernandez 19:36
Very interesting. So what we're seeing now is, ever since this happened, people are starting to invest a lot even in this places where they know they're about to get an influx of I hate the term of DICOM digital nomads. People kind of prepare for it. And so what I realized is, even if I work remote, I want to have a place that I can treat as my office, a place where I can disconnect. Because if I work, and live, breathe everything in the hotel room, it's gonna feel weird. So whether it was finding a co working space, or actually just renting out an office, which I've done before, I highly recommend it, there's very few places in the world, you can go where you can't do it, right, like, you're not going to be able to co work at the bottom of Mount Everest in Nepal, right. But for most beach locations, anywhere in the world, any of these continents, you're going to be able to find a co working spot, or you're going to be able to have the means to rent an office for not that much money. And so having that is really important. Because if you just try to work and live in the same spot, it's going to be a problem. But usually, you can also get very creative with it. So although I had an office, there also definitely places on the beach that had Wi Fi. So there's days where I would go and I would, you know, maybe was like half a day, and I know that I had to do a lot of writing, I just go to the beach, and I'd write from the beach, and it would be beautiful. So I'd say my advice is always research, where you can go to explicitly work within these places. Because as much fun as you'll have, you don't want to avoid having a work routine. Otherwise, it's gonna get messy. I see I see people fail all the time doing this, it's really important to have a routine have a designated place for it.

Angela McCourt 21:29
Oh, that's awesome. So as far as you know, the preparation, you said you had to do a lot of research before you ended up traveling into each of the different countries, because now it's many, many countries, and then you still have a few more coming up just in the next few months. What is what does that process look like? Like? What are some of the things that you've had to consider as you go into each country to work?

Andy Fernandez 21:51
Yeah, absolutely. First, it's a negotiation and my girlfriend. We're like, what do we what do you want to go, and then I tell her where I want to go. And it's kind of like, you know, we battle it out, or we kind of collaborate and make compromises. For example, she really, really wants to go to Southeast Asia. And I really want to go to Vietnam. But I just can't like that's one of the few places where I can't go no cowork because I'll be basically day ahead of everyone and won't be able to have any meetings, right. So our engineering headquarters are in Israel, and our offices in Boston, but we have members of the team at West Coast. So I kind of tell myself that from west coast all the way to Europe is manageable, because I can always make meetings when I need to write when I'm getting very early or I work later in the in the nights, I can make that happen. I can't make enough happen yet. So we pick a place. So then when we pick a place we figure out okay, how many days can we go without a visa? Right. And luckily the UK us passports have very have parity. She's actually getting an Italian passport tuition really jealous if for some reason I was stronger than both US and UK. Singapore, I think is the best passport. And so we figure out okay, every day, every place that we can go to pretty much you can go without a visa for 90 or 180 days. So for example, Colombia, Brazil, most of these places I can stay for 90 days without needing to apply for a visa. Next thing you can do 180 days. Okay, for anyone who is looking to do this, but in Europe, you have to be very careful because of the EU, right? The Schengen Schengen, I always mispronounce it. But that zone, for example, it's 90 days, but it's all of the EU. So people think back back from Italy, to France and all these things you can't, which is important, which will we all always do is find places that are outside of the EU, but in Europe, UK is out of Europe, of the EU, Croatia, places like that are not in the EU. So you can kind of hop in and out and you have to build a plan there. Then we figure out okay, where is favorable weather? What are things that we have hobby wise, what are the costs going to look like? And is it safe? And and frankly, one of the things that bothers me a lot is the false marketing and bad rap that so many of these places get just because people say Oh, be careful, like, why, like, where did you hear this information? And it wasn't from a soundbite 25 years ago, so why are you why are you like gatekeeping this place from other people, right? Colombia and Brazil. perfect examples of that, right? Colombia people think Escobar is running around. You know that happened so long ago is one of the safest, safest places now. And Rio as well people tell you Hey, be very clear. I feel like I've never felt so safe. And especially like South America, like, it's incredible here. So you figure out though those metrics like safety, especially for my girlfriend, like, will she feel okay? You know, doing her own thing, riding her bike and stuff like that? Then you figure out internet, right? If you have an Airbnb, like, they usually do really good stuff with monthly so you actually save a lot of money? Or do you get a co working spot, I usually actually just rent out an office, like a private office, okay? Because it's dependable. It's there when you need it. And you if you have conferences, you have to do recordings, podcasts, you name it, you can do it all there. And then you have we have a separation there. So that's really the majority of the planning that happens. And then you also because you want to be mindful of budget, you pick if I'm gonna go here, where else can I go? So that I'm not going Europe, South America back to Europe back to South America, you want to scale it almost like going on? Yeah, always can get very expensive. And God knows how expensive it's going to get with gas prices going up the way? Yeah, you have to be mindful of that two

Angela McCourt 26:12
plus time zones, I would imagine you don't want to flip back and forth between different time zones, because that just screws you up, too. And it's back to the environment,

Andy Fernandez 26:18
right to do so many transit lines. Right? So we have to be very mindful of that. But those are pretty much the big things the rest of just comes down to do you want beach? Do you want to mountain? Or do you want to do?

Angela McCourt 26:34
Okay, so you mentioned early on that you're the healthiest that you've ever been. And obviously, we talked a bit about meditation and yoga already. But it's hard. A lot of times when you're in a new place, and you're eating different foods, or you can't necessarily cook everything or you don't have a gym to go to like what is then your way to kind of create some new structure and keep your good healthy habits going.

Andy Fernandez 27:00
You know, you know, what's the place where when I go, I feel the unhealthiest because of the food. The US.

Angela McCourt 27:08
Yeah, the US, I was gonna say Yeah, exactly. It's a

Andy Fernandez 27:12
place where I can go into the US with a six pack and leave with with not one. And even if it's eating the same foods that I'm used to, that kind of gives you an insight into the state of processed foods in the US and what people do, yes, but even in, in Mexico, where everything is amazing and delicious, and fried and salty has everything that you're told that it's not good. You still end up net positive on your, on your diet. But really the way to do it, though, is to just be balanced. The what I do is I give myself the first week of going all out. Everywhere I go. I go all out. I try all the things you never want to deprive yourself right? When I got here to Brazil, i think i i A lot of cows. Just the to Roscoe and everything you do, I did not deprive myself of any of that. And so then I build a plan. I'm like, Alright, I know what I can eat. I know what I can't eat. Let me stick to this specific, right? If I'm looking to gain muscle, or if I'm looking to be at a caloric deficit, it's still possible. From a fitness perspective, everywhere we go now has some type of gym. So it's easy as getting a monthly membership. I've never had that need. If I were in a place I was so remote that didn't have a gym. I would just go and do hit workouts. Okay, one of the one of the apps that I use is called Senator Cntr. And it was it was created by Chris Hemsworth.

Angela McCourt 28:46
Oh, okay, the actor Yeah. And so

Andy Fernandez 28:48
he's Thor's got, it's always got like, different body types that he has to have for different types of movies. And he's got a team of five, six people that help him build that body type, some on mobility, some on speed, some on muscle. And basically you tell this app what you want, and it'll tell you what to you. And they'll tell you when to workout and how. And you can even say I don't have any equipment. What do I do? I still gives you something. So there really there are no, there's no excuse. There's no excuses. The research shows that even just walking quickly, in the mornings, is already a catalyst for you to burn fat throughout the day. Yeah, so you don't need to have a super sexy gym with annoying music. You can simply be outside and you can get the workout that you need. So I'm not too concerned about that. For example, we're going to Croatia, in Austria, so it's like north all the way north Croatia Pula. Basically you could take a ferry events

Angela McCourt 29:57
when you're very close to my home. Homeland. Where is it? Slovenia? Oh, yeah. Yeah, I have family there. Yeah, my family has been in that area over 100 years Whoa, within about 180 miles of of themselves, like they did not migrate very far.

Andy Fernandez 30:19
I'm gonna have to stop by Slovenia, my one of my best friends. His company has a ton of employees in Slovenia. And apparently they they're like one of the greenest places in the world. Like as far as being eco friendly. There's do a lot of cool stuff. But we're like coastline near Slovenia. And it's in the middle of nowhere. So we're a drive away from towns, but I'm just gonna run the hills and do push ups. I'll be fine. Yeah. Yeah,

Angela McCourt 30:49
there you go. All right, good, fresh air. Exactly.

Andy Fernandez 30:51
And I'll make my own. Bring a lamb from the hills. And

Angela McCourt 30:58
Alright, now I have the biggest question for you given and obviously you still have more exploration, because I just I just find it fascinating that you're literally saying, Nope, we're gonna go to the next thing. And we're gonna go to the next place. And we're gonna go to the next place. And it's this never ending plan at this point, right? Yeah. But if you let's say decided, at some point, we really, really liked wherever it was, we want to live there. Would you consider actually settling down somewhere that you know, outside of the US and outside of the UK, and then one of these plays one of these countries,

Andy Fernandez 31:35
I could live in Rio de Janeiro. Easy peasy. The only part that makes that complex is employment. Meaning the types of work that you do working as a US Space UK based very different salaries, right. But because of where I want to be with my career, and I know that there's certain stages I need to take that are going to require a lot of work. I probably would still settle in the US. But in a place that was at an airport where I can get out of there when I need to. Yeah, maybe in a couple of years, maybe 1015 20 years. I would love to live in like coppery next to Clunies house, you know. But until then I probably would either keep traveling or settle. And we know that if we do settle whenever that happens, it'll be in Miami.

Angela McCourt 32:31
Okay, that's easy to get an out of

Andy Fernandez 32:34
North Cuba right there. Yeah, my family's?

Angela McCourt 32:39
There you go. There you go. That's awesome. So one of the biggest things I think that people fear is, well, if I'm gone for an extended number of months, like what do I do with my own place? How do I keep in touch with my family? Like, how is that worked for you? Get rid of it, making a family,

Unknown Speaker 33:01
not the family, don't get rid of the blame? Don't get rid of the family? Get rid of the place?

Andy Fernandez 33:08
Unless you have children or pets, I mean, you have a responsibility to them, then get rid of your place because I ended up paying double rent for several months, which is stupid. I'm glad I did it. But it's stupid. And so I would tell people that if they want to take that jump, they should. If you own a home, rent it in this market, you will make a lot of money anyways. Especially if you live in Florida. So you know that you know how like Tampa and Miami looks like right now.

Angela McCourt 33:41
Yeah, if you can find a place to rent find a place.

Andy Fernandez 33:44
So I say get rid of it. Because it will only stop you from truly experiencing everything that you want. I didn't realize how much of a weight it was to still have all my things in one place until I let go of it. And then I truly got to be able to enjoy it.

Angela McCourt 34:03
I wouldn't say it probably also like there wasn't this fallback. Exactly. So it was move forward. Because you can't fall back. You can't fall back because it's not there. Right. It's not you don't have this escape hatch to go to exactly. And it was go figure it out. Go deal with it. Go move to the next freedom to continue that moving on. Yeah, that's pretty amazing. That's actually a very good psychological trigger on your mind.

Andy Fernandez 34:27
General that burned all the things before the army had to move forward to they had nothing to retreat to. It's important to do that. And I'd say especially if you're if you're single. I think everyone should do it at some point in their lives. Because usually the only people the only way people used to get this type of adventure was through taking a gap year. Right or backpacking or doing a thing. Why Why can't you progress your career and explore things Why do you have to wait till you're till you have a hip problem to explore things?

Angela McCourt 35:06
Right? Right when you when you then can't

Andy Fernandez 35:10
do it when you have the most energy in your life. And so I tell people to jump there and to do it and take a leap of faith. Worst case scenario, he just go back. If you own a home, go go back to the home that you own. If you rent just go sign a new lease. And if you wait a couple months, it'll probably be cheaper the way the economy's working. Yeah, so I yeah, I think I can't stress enough how little you have to really lose, and how much you have to gain if you do it. On the family side. Sadly, I know so many people who live in the same town as their family and see them once every three months. Let's be real. Yeah, right. I probably engage more with my family now more than ever, as far as like just being on WhatsApp. FaceTime zooms. My grandmother, I still make an effort to fly out and see her a couple times a year. That's the one I think that hurts the most because I used to actually go there a lot. But most people that I know, they're not going out with their parents every week. So I think that's just another mental excuse. Right? I go I have a home. Oh, what about your folks? They're fine. They want you to live your best life.

Angela McCourt 36:24
Yeah, exactly. Okay, so your favorite experience in any of the countries that you've been staying in over the last couple of years your favorite experience from a local like cultural festival or food experience or ceremonial experience? Like what what has been your favorite so far?

Unknown Speaker 36:46
Okay, that I can share?

Angela McCourt 36:52
Yes, I don't want to put explicit On this episode, we

Andy Fernandez 36:55
will not. We will not. Um, I'll put in a different category. So my, one of the coolest experience that I had was in Colombia. And in Colombia, there is this place called park a or park Tyrone to National Park. I had no idea about this place. When I get there, I realized when I was encouraged to hang on the coasts, which is more of a Party City, that this place is four hours away. So we decided to go for a weekend. I did not realize what this place was, it was like Jurassic Park, we ended up getting a kind of like, it was a hotel, except the hotel the staff left at 10pm because of the amount of wildlife that was there at night. And I'll tell you more about that. And so this place had is the tallest coastal mountain in the world. But it's literally on the beach like within 10 miles. So within a 40 minute drive I saw desert. I saw snow and mountaintops and rainforest. Wow. And we How incredible is I'll send you the photos. It was absolutely insane. Like it was insane. And we went and stayed at night in this place. And a Jaguar was like up on our door. Not gonna lie, I was terrified.

Unknown Speaker 38:31
Wow.

Andy Fernandez 38:33
Monkeys everywhere there was the just serious amount of wildlife and also a well kept native community of different tribes throughout those areas that are very well respected and not exploited. You know, because you get it you end up seeing a lot of exploitation when you travel. And then you realize, oh, man, maybe I shouldn't go to that tour because that's all it is is exploiting locals.

Angela McCourt 39:00
Letting the indigenous we happen so much.

Andy Fernandez 39:04
And so that was one of the coolest experience from just from like a mother nature like, Whoa, what is happening? That was insane. I had a lot of really cool experiences and breakthroughs from like a meditation, yoga sweat lodge perspective and Mexico. And Brazil is I enjoy it here because it is a perfect way of life in my opinion. So you have this strip, or you have this massive strip of beach and the city kind of goes around that. But the city has mountain Hills rainforest Beach, all within the same area. So there's a lot to do. You're never bored and but this got this miles long strip and instead of like just going to bars and clubbing or really what people do during the day they just go to the beach. And that's where you go meet people. That's where you hang out. So where are you today? Let's meet at the beach every single day. So the weekend there are 1000s and 1000s of people at the beach. Wow, it's not ritzy. You don't get a beach club, it's not the Bahamas, you just ask the guy for two seats, you sit down, you have some drinks, and you talk to people play volleyball, do whatever you want. And you do that all day and time passes quickly. So kind of shows you a way of life. Where it's not about how much money you have, there's no way of showing that. I think, you know, when you travel a certain places, it's all about showing what you have not here. So I really enjoyed that. And that's a little bit less of an adventurous and more of a cool way of life. Mm hmm.

Angela McCourt 40:42
That's really neat. And, you know, I would imagine you have also If you've spent any time touring, which sounds like it, you've probably been in some of like the oldest buildings in the world. And what I found whenever I traveled to Europe, I haven't done traveled to South America, I think Aruba was like the furthest I've been in the Caribbean. But um, the the amazing thing to me was, how young the US is and how everything is so young here compared to everywhere else in the world. So if you can remember, like, recall what was like the oldest? How old was the oldest building that you've been in on your journey? Yeah, so

Andy Fernandez 41:20
my girlfriend makes so much fun of me for this. Because I am just absolutely wowed when I see a year on a building, and like what I see some of the UK everything. She just laughs She's like Americans. And I think so we went to this cave bar in London, I'll find the name for you. And it was a I think 1500s Okay, so that was one of the older ones and I went to Scotland to is it the

Angela McCourt 41:59
lamb, the lamb and gosh, I can't remember the lamb and something is one of the oldest bars there and it's literally you go down I alleyways to get it's like hidden.

Andy Fernandez 42:10
Talking about I also, I also went to speak at an event in Scotland, and Edinburgh. So I saw very, very old places. And then when we went drinking out with like, drinking with my coworkers, by 8pm, I didn't understand anything people were saying. fun accent. But when we went to Paris for my birthday, we stayed at a hotel where Oscar Wilde lived and died. And that hotel, it's called Leo tail, ironically, connects to an underground chamber that eventually I think connects to the catacombs. So there's a lot of history in those places. And it does show you like, with a few exceptions of maybe New Orleans, St. Augustine, and Boston, how young everything we know is like it's fascinating to show like the youth of our country still compared to people who've been, you know, eating and drinking for eons in the same area.

Angela McCourt 43:16
Yeah, yeah. The castle that John and I got married in. In Ireland, Waterford Castle was over 100 years old. And had been in the same family for over 700 years. Yeah, like it was one of the the only in Europe all of all of the European area that had actually stayed in the same family for the longest period of time or whatever. But yeah, it just blew our minds like everywhere we went there was

Andy Fernandez 43:42
when you're when everything you know is like either Art Deco is considered old for us. Yeah, that's why I'm I'm really, really focused on eventually getting over to Turkey. And Middle East because you that takes it a step even further. While you're talking Prague.

Angela McCourt 44:03
Yeah, Turkey. Definitely. Definitely. Because I mean, soumare Sumerian. I mean, there's just some of the oldest, even a lot of older history than the Egyptian ancient Egyptian times, you know, so, where stuff comes from six to 7000 years ago, more or more? Yeah, Prague, Vienna, and Budapest was one of my favorite trips to like, do those three together. That's incredible. So much history, so much beautiful architecture and culture and food and, you know, I grew up eating some of that food. So it's great, you know, to be able to say, Ah, this is where my grandmother got this recipe.

Andy Fernandez 44:44
That's how I felt in Spain. Not necessarily because of the age but because of the okay these these are my ancestors come from this makes sense. Yes. Yeah. No wonder they're all sleeping. After eating so much carbs. Yes, exactly.

Angela McCourt 45:00
Well in Spain I also found because I've been to Barcelona many times in it and it's such an amazing incredible city again, back to very old, you know, cathedrals and I absolutely love. La Sagrada Familia like that is just It blows my mind every time I go in that place, I have to go there every time I go to Barcelona to but I haven't been there in a few years. But it the food, the timing, the schedule is like eating dinner at 11pm. You know, normally, you know, for us like, whoa, this I'm in bed by this point. But no, they're just getting started. Yeah, it's so interesting, too. Even though the work culture is the timeframes, you know, there's no eight to five, and you have to cram everything. It's, when are you at your best. And that's when you do your best work. Very different in so many different other countries and cultures than here. And yes, for sure. But I'm so glad that you've been able to experience that. And I love the fact that you didn't say, let me just do this for two months or three months, like you've continued this journey and built this out. And oh my gosh, the learning experiences and the growth that comes from that is just incredible. So I really appreciate you sharing with our listeners, because maybe this will spark something in someone else, just to get a little courageous and say, You know what, it doesn't sound that hard. I'm gonna do it. Test it out. And

Andy Fernandez 46:27
anybody who ever needs any advice, Hey, did you enjoy this place? Where would you go? I would, I would say just asking, I'll let you know. And maybe one day we'll write that blog because I really want to.

Angela McCourt 46:39
Yes, you should. I'll put your email address in the show notes. And people can just give me the email address that you'd like me to share? And then I'll put that in the show notes. Okay, so thank you so much. That was an amazing episode. And we will have you back because you have a whole other side of Andy that we're going to share. But in the meantime, what? You know, do you have any call outs? I know you call it you called out the App Center? I'll put that in the show notes? Or is there any are there any books is there any anything online products, websites, anything else that you would like to recommend to the book

Andy Fernandez 47:12
that I read that was transformative, and I want to make sure I have it actually have it under my laptop. It's called transcend by Scott Barry Kaufman. And effect this guy in a elevator pitch is does a lot of research based on the works of Maslow. Right? Remember the hierarchy of needs. And basically he talks about how the Hierarchy of Needs was more of like a marketing thing that ended up being interpretated? And not really what actualization max. So what he does is he grabs the late writings of Maslow and scientific research, and then comes out with what is the true what are the true characteristics of people who are self actualized? And what are the things you can do together.

Angela McCourt 48:02
I love that because I'm actually doing certification on feminine power and self actualization to help cook from a coaching perspective to help others go down

Andy Fernandez 48:10
this path. This This book has been mind blowing for me. It's one of those books where you put it down for three pages. He's like, Okay, that was heavy. Okay, lot of perspectives, but yeah, I think for me, it's like, it's not about one specific software, right, wherever you get your meditation, right, that's where you you go, whether you what you can afford, and everyone's at different levels. Yes, honestly, everyone should just go to therapy. My opinion, you know, whenever when I watch the news, you guys. And so I'd say yes,

Angela McCourt 48:44
that you're at least the second or third person that's proactively recommended that you don't wait for an issue or a situation or feeling like you're in this bad place or are trapped or whatnot, but do not ever practice based on

Andy Fernandez 48:58
Don't make the mistake of going to the gym already when you're overweight. Same thing with mental health.

Angela McCourt 49:07
Very good. Anything else? Oh,

Unknown Speaker 49:09
that's it. I'm really happy to be here though. Thank you so much. Looking forward to the next

Unknown Speaker 49:13
one.