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Episode 34 Planning a Trip to Mongolia – Bucket List
Episode #34 Planning a Trip to Mongolia - Bucket List

Episode 34 Planning a Trip to Mongolia – Bucket List

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In this podcast episode, we talk about planning our bucket list dream to Mongolia.  We talk about specific resources that anyone can take to generate additional income.

Links to resources/articles referenced in the episode:

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TRANSCRIPT:

Hello! Welcome to the Sally and the Zen Podcast. I’m your host, Sally. I’m a Zen Buddhist caregiver taking care of my elderly folks and always in pursuits to find Zen moments in everyday living. If you’re new to the podcast, welcome. If you’re not new, and you’re returning, welcome back, my friend.

Hope all of you are doing well, staying safe, staying sane no matter what part of the world you’re in. So here in the United States, we’re entering the holiday week of Thanksgiving, one of my most favorite holidays of the year. And with it being 2020 and staying at home, we opted to not travel to New Jersey, which we normally do to my brother’s house for Thanksgiving. We might do a Zoom session with them but I’m still chewing on that idea. But ultimately, it’ll be Zen Master, Zen Mum and me celebrating Thanksgiving in a little home.

Our local market that we shop at in the neighborhood gave us a free 16 lb turkey because we shop so much there, and if you spend over $300 in a year, then you qualify for a free turkey. Which we did and we were pretty happy about that but 16 – actually, specifically 16.5 lbs –  turkey for the three of us, that’s going to be a lot of turkey. 

And I’m chewing on the idea of baking pumpkin pie from scratch also. Nowadays too, I’ve been baking things from scratch rather than obviously going outside and ordering something. Because it’s actually fun. It’s actually fun to learn and to use my hands in the meantime of being unemployed, and not having really nothing else to do. So it keeps the mind and body just busy for a little bit and it feels good to be a little bit busy, some of the times.

So now you all caught up on what’s going on in the Sally in the Zen household. Thank you for letting me ramble for a few minutes to catch you up on what’s happening in my little corner of the world.  And let’s go on to today’s episode which is planning for Mongolia, which is one of our top items places to be, people to see, bucket list dream.

Now I mentioned Mongolia in a couple of episodes and I threw that out there because of manifestation. I find that when you put things out there, it tends to come back eventually in some form, in some fashion. And besides that, it’s also putting energy into it which means for me, tangibly planning out, plotting out how we’re going to get there. I’m of the mindset that if I use myself as a case study, other people can learn from me. Or just be mildly entertained with my own shenanigans.

And if you’re interested to see you how we’re planning out for our trip to Mongolia, let’s get started.

So first off, when I plan something, bucket list item or what, I usually memorialize it by writing it down because I’m a very visual person. I need to see my target. I need to see my road map, my process map, the steps I need to take to achieve my goal. But first off, what I find is if you state it, and you write it, and you see it, it goes deeper into your heart. It goes into the back of your brain and subconsciously you know you’re aiming for it.

It’s like when you think about something and you want something, and you put energy behind that want, most times, I find that your actions, your words, your thoughts, your plans gear towards achieving them, whether you’re thinking about it consciously or subconsciously. But I find that for me that’s what happens.

So here’s my putting it out there into the Universe, very specifically, my target. And keep in mind too when you throw it out there into the Universe, it should be definitive. It should sound like it’s happening. 

So here’s my attempt to throw it out there to the Universe. Okay, I am taking Zen Mum and Zen Master to Mongolia in the next three to five years, taking first class or business class flight to and from there, without leaning too much on my credit card.

So with that target now out there, my business plan is central to raising and saving money for this trip. Because it feels so good to pay something without having to lean on credit and debt. And obviously Mongolia… 3 to 5 year time frame to get this done… Mongolia is not exactly cheap. Especially if we’re talking about business class or first class tickets.

Sally, why are you going first class or business class instead of coach? Coach is cheaper. Well, thank you for that question, audience member. Let me tell you by answering that question with a question. 

How long is the flight to Mongolia? According to Kayak.com, an average non-stop flight from the US to Mongolia takes 37 hours and 25 minutes, covering a distance of 6,307 miles. The most popular route is Seattle to Ulaanbaatar with an average flight time of 35 hours and 37 minutes. And when I did an estimate on Google of how much it would cost for a round-trip ticket on business class per person, safe to say is $10,000 per person. So between the three of us, it will be $30,000 just for the flight alone.

So I have my work cut out for me. Is that going to deter me? No, it’s a bucket list for a reason. And for a 35-hour flight in coach, not even! It’s a bucket list wish destination that we should go in style. Besides they’re older folks, 78, 72. I’m 50 and on such a long flight, why not just go all the way? Go big or stay home. That’s my motto and I’m sharing that with you all. Pay it forward.

Okay, so we have the what, which is the goal. Mongolia. So we have our time frame. 3 to 5 years of hard saving. As soon as I get a job, right? But not necessarily.

In all transparency, because I don’t have a job anymore, it’s made me think out of the box. It’s made me think of where we are as a society. In the world. Where we are physically as people. How we’re adaptable creatures where the traditional mode of work, physically going into an office for work that can be done anywhere, and you’re not talking about that kind of work where you have to be in person at that facility or that job. No, I’m not talking about those kind of jobs.

I’m talking about those jobs where you can physically do anywhere as long as you have a laptop. And you read this in the news. A lot of businesses are reevaluating remote work. Coronavirus, I believe, just shattered the normal way of thinking, and hence, the normal way of working nowadays. And I don’t think it’s going to go back to what it was before. Not completely. Not with the coronavirus still being rampant all over the place. And we don’t even know how long it’s going to be there; we don’t know about the antidote and don’t even get me started on that route. But this is where we are.I believe we really are a borderless world. We’re a borderless society now, and we can work anywhere with just a laptop.

So the next step in my business plan is what am I doing to raise that money? Aside from the normal traditional job… whenever I get one. Well, excellent question and I’m going to tell you right now.

So the past few months, while I was noodling on the idea of, can I make Mongolia happen? And I really want to. And the reason, really, behind my motivation of wanting to do this bucket list to Mongolia, of all places on the Earth, is because Mom and Dad are still physically able to walk. And admittedly since Coronavirus hit our place, State of PA, and since we were confined to stay at home for most of this year… Mom, she’s okay. She’s been on the treadmill but Dad has actually become frail right before my eyes. Where he used to do 3 miles a day, pre-COVID… we’re lucky if we can get him around a block. It’s because of the inactivity.

And those are eye-opening lessons that I’m tucking away in the back of my head for when I’m in their shoes – that you physically need to keep on moving or you become frail. Just as he’s become frail right before my eyes, and that’s fuel enough for me for my determination to make this happen for us to go to Mongolia. A dream of a lifetime, right? One of many dreams that I wish to be able to give them while they’re still here physically able to visit and go with me.

So how am I paying for this with no job? Obviously, with my podcast, I can monetize it by getting sponsors, by getting advertisers but at the same time my little podcast is my little home-away-from-home and I’m still a small fry podcast. I’m still flying under the radar of people.

And then there’s my writing. You know, my writing is a pleasure, whenever it grips me. And admittedly so, I haven’t written on Medium for a long while. Because forcing myself to write for the sake of writing is lackluster to me. That’s not my incentive, and it’s like pushing against a wave. And no, I’d rather flow with the wave, and right now I’m not feeling writing anything. Aside from my podcast, for my blog, I have no interest in writing anything out there. 

So going back again, how am I making out Mongolia trip come true? 

So, here are, first and foremost, the sources of inspiration for my ideas for making money. And the first one is Chris Guillebeau – Side Hustle School. He has a podcast. He has a YouTube channel. I listen to him on the podcast, and I was with him from day one. And he is short snippets, literally, like no more than five, six minutes each episode, of unique real people making money as side hustle, and/or it becomes so popular, their main income. But the whole point of his show is giving you ideas of what other people are doing as side hustle, where you don’t have to give up your job to go ahead, and do your passion project and make money. You can very well keep your full time day job and still supplement it with diversified income.

That’s pretty key, especially with me being unemployed. Diversification of income is even more real to me, and that’s fuel for me to think outside the box. For when I get my job, I will have other streams of income because everybody should have multiple streams of income. Just in case one spicket is closed, the others keep flowing. That’s the whole point but it’s using your ingenuity to figure that out.

So first one was Chris Guillebeau. Highly recommend his show.

Second source is on a YouTube channel called Greg Gottfried (g*o*t*t*f*r*i*e*d) and he’s all about print on demand. It’s basically you doing your own artwork, uploading it onto a t-shirt, onto a rug, onto a cup and selling it through vendors that actually do print on demand. So you’re the artist. You’re the creative. You give your design and they sell it on whatever material that people want to buy, like a cup, like a bowl, like a shower curtain, whichever, but you get a commission from it.

And there are plenty of people who, with one design, if they’re lucky, making thousands of dollars a month. Yeah but those are for the lucky ones. But for normal people, I’m thinking, like me, you have to have more volume, which means more designs, more t-shirts and more marketplaces, and eventually somebody will come over and nibble and buy something from you.

It’s a long game. All of these things are long games and what, I have three to five years time frame planning to go to Mongolia, so I’ve got time.

And then actually, very, very, very freshly done, as of today, before I even recorded this episode, I am a narrator for ACX. And what that means is…you’ve heard of Audible, right? You have audio-books. You have now books on tape. Books on your phone. Books that you can go ahead and download from the library. That’s all for free and you can listen through your headset.

Who actually reads those books? Apparently now as of today I do. So that’s pretty interesting. 

So, that is on ACX…Apple….Charlie…X-ray.com. It’s related to Amazon because Amazon’s going to rule the world. But you have that platform. You open up a brand new account. It’s free. You audition a script, basically a passage from a book. And if the author likes your voice and if you’re what they’re looking for, then you get the part. This is called voice acting. I’ve never done this before and outside my podcast, have I ever thought of doing anything creative? No, but because now I have no job, I have high ambitions of hitting Mongolia, what do I do? I’m doing this. So stay tuned because all of this is just so freaking brand new. Eventually the long game is going to pay off and here is where I am, and Mongolia is going to be the place to be. 

And I’m more than happy to go ahead and give you a progress report periodically on just how I’m doing. Because it’s all about the journey, not the destination. It’s all about the journey, and yes, that’s the Zen part of this whole entire thing.

Well, we’ve reached the end of today’s episode. Hope you enjoyed it. Hope I was able to give you some references that you can do yourself to create more side hustle money and just to get a little bit more security under your belt.

Now I don’t ask this often on my episodes but I’m asking today in the spirit of Thanksgiving. If you’re up to it. If you can give me a rating, any rating, on Apple iTunes, I would really truly appreciate it. I appreciate you no matter what, just for spending a few minutes of your time with me. If you have any questions or comments, drop by my blog Sally in the Zen.com. Click on the Contacts page and send me your thoughts, your ideas, your comments, your suggestions, anything you want, and maybe I’ll feature it on a future episode. We’ll see.

I thank you again for spending a few minutes of your time with me and joining me in my pursuits to find Zen moments in everyday living. Have a great Thanksgiving, and have a great day. And I’ll talk to you next time.

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