Citizens of the World: A Stoic Podcast for Curious Travelers

In 2008, I quit my job and moved to Rome. There was no AirBnB or Instagram. My apartment didn't even have internet! In this episode, I'm sharing a diary of sorts from my time back then. I'm also sharing what I'd do now if I moved to Italy. You'll learn about how to find an apartment in Rome, why language schools aren't the best place to actually learn a language, plus loads of travel tips. Enjoy!sarahmikutel.comHello! I'm your host, Sarah Mikutel. But the real question is, who are you? Where are you now and where do you want to be? Can I help you get there?Visit sarahmikutel.com to learn how we can work together to help you achieve more peace, happiness, and positive transformation in your life.Does the phrase “public speaking” make you feel a little sick…even if it’s just a team meeting or a group conversation? I made something to help you.Calm Your Nerves in 90 Seconds is a free anxiety-reduction toolkit with a guided meditation and journal to help you communicate with confidence.Use it anytime your brain goes into overdrive and you need a reset.https://sarahmikutel.com/reset

Now is the time to book your summer travel (or winter if you live somewhere like Australia).So where are you headed?My friend and travel buddy Michelle Warner Martin joins me today to talk about what travel has been like for us over the last two years during covid; what the travel scene is like now; and which trips we're excited about in 2022. Michelle is a fantastic photographer whom I traveled with to Athens, Greece right before the global pandemic shut things down. Can't wait to travel with her again!http://www.michellemartinphotography.com/Hello! I'm your host, Sarah Mikutel. But the real question is, who are you? Where are you now and where do you want to be? Can I help you get there?Visit sarahmikutel.com to learn how we can work together to help you achieve more peace, happiness, and positive transformation in your life.Book your Enneagram typing session by going to sarahmikutel.com/typingsessionDoes the phrase “public speaking” make you feel a little sick…even if it’s just a team meeting or a group conversation? I made something to help you.Calm Your Nerves in 90 Seconds is a free anxiety-reduction toolkit with a guided meditation and journal to help you communicate with confidence.Use it anytime your brain goes into overdrive and you need a reset.https://sarahmikutel.com/reset

How to cultivate loving kindness during the holiday season (and all year!)❤️Hello! I'm your host, Sarah Mikutel. But the real question is, who are you? Where are you now and where do you want to be? Can I help you get there?Visit sarahmikutel.com to learn how we can work together to help you achieve more peace, happiness, and positive transformation in your life.Book your Enneagram typing session by going to sarahmikutel.com/typingsessionDoes the phrase “public speaking” make you feel a little sick…even if it’s just a team meeting or a group conversation? I made something to help you.Calm Your Nerves in 90 Seconds is a free anxiety-reduction toolkit with a guided meditation and journal to help you communicate with confidence.Use it anytime your brain goes into overdrive and you need a reset.https://sarahmikutel.com/reset

“Putting things off is the biggest waste of life,” Seneca says, “it snatches away each day as it comes, and denies us the present by promising the future. The greatest obstacle to living is expectancy, which hangs upon tomorrow and loses today.” Seneca, On the Shortness of Life.Most of us don’t follow through on our New Year’s Resolutions because we treat them like wishes and not goals. Ideally, if we want to achieve a goal, we map out a plan to achieve it and follow through. Today’s episode is about setting yourself up for success by focusing on your goals.❤️Hello! I'm your host, Sarah Mikutel. But the real question is, who are you? Where are you now and where do you want to be? Can I help you get there?Visit sarahmikutel.com to learn how we can work together to help you achieve more peace, happiness, and positive transformation in your life.Book your Enneagram typing session by going to sarahmikutel.com/typingsessionDoes the phrase “public speaking” make you feel a little sick…even if it’s just a team meeting or a group conversation? I made something to help you.Calm Your Nerves in 90 Seconds is a free anxiety-reduction toolkit with a guided meditation and journal to help you communicate with confidence.Use it anytime your brain goes into overdrive and you need a reset.https://sarahmikutel.com/reset

Quick reminder in case you need it…Even if you don’t feel like a particularly courageous person, you’ve acted bravely at some point in your life. Maybe you stood up for someone. Traveled solo. Moved abroad. Said no. Admitted when you were wrong. Jumped out of a plane. Cried in front of someone. You have what it takes to show up courageously every day, but that doesn’t just magically happen. Here are four daily practices you can do to build your courage (a core Stoic virtue)  and resiliency.❤️Hello! I'm your host, Sarah Mikutel. But the real question is, who are you? Where are you now and where do you want to be? Can I help you get there?Visit sarahmikutel.com to learn how we can work together to help you achieve more peace, happiness, and positive transformation in your life.Book your Enneagram typing session by going to sarahmikutel.com/typingsessionDoes the phrase “public speaking” make you feel a little sick…even if it’s just a team meeting or a group conversation? I made something to help you.Calm Your Nerves in 90 Seconds is a free anxiety-reduction toolkit with a guided meditation and journal to help you communicate with confidence.Use it anytime your brain goes into overdrive and you need a reset.https://sarahmikutel.com/reset

We live in an age of cowards. Of people going along with the crowd because it’s the easy thing to do. It feels safer to throw stones at the other side than it does to stand for something positive and hopeful. There’s risk in questioning things and seeking other perspectives, whereas joining in the mob costs us nothing (except perhaps our character).But maybe things have always been this way. It’s still difficult for most people to wrap their minds around the Holocaust, how so many people just went along with it. The more I learn about psychology, the more I understand how it happened, but it doesn’t make the lack of courage any more appalling. As a kid learning about WWII, I had no doubt in my mind that I would have done the right thing had I been in Germany at that time. I’m less sure now that I’m older but I hope I would have acted like a man I learned about when visiting Berlin’s Topography of Terror. In a black and white photo at this museum, I saw a crowd of mostly men raising their arms in the nazi salute but one man did not join them.Wow. Can you imagine yourself doing the same? Courage doesn’t have to be as grand as being part of the nazi resistance. It can be as small as offering to help a stranger on the sidewalk. In your mind, you might debate, “Well, do they really need my help? Would I offend them if I offered to open the door for them?” And you might really worry about offending them, but you’re likely also worried, maybe more so, that they would make you feel bad if they took offense to your offer.Courage is about stretching out of your comfort zone and doing the right thing. You won’t always get congratulated for that, but, when it comes to helping people out, they are almost always appreciative of kind gestures.This episode discusses what courage is and how Stoicism and the Enneagram can help us cultivate more of it. Part 2 will dive into specific practices you can do to boost your bravery and good human cred.https://sarahmikutel.com/freedom/live-courage-stoicism❤️Hello! I'm your host, Sarah Mikutel. But the real question is, who are you? Where are you now and where do you want to be? Can I help you get there?Visit sarahmikutel.com to learn how we can work together to help you achieve more peace, happiness, and positive transformation in your life.Book your Enneagram typing session by going to sarahmikutel.com/typingsessionDoes the phrase “public speaking” make you feel a little sick…even if it’s just a team meeting or a group conversation? I made something to help you.Calm Your Nerves in 90 Seconds is a free anxiety-reduction toolkit with a guided meditation and journal to help you communicate with confidence.Use it anytime your brain goes into overdrive and you need a reset.https://sarahmikutel.com/reset

Back by popular demand...Happy Thanksgiving, U.S. listeners! This year about 54 million Americans will travel more than 50 miles during Thanksgiving, and most of these people will be driving, estimates AAA. However, it’s a myth that the day before Thanksgiving is the busiest travel day of the year (that honor actually goes to several weekends throughout the summer). But that’s not the only Thanksgiving myth out there. Don’t worry, this episode is not about tearing down this revered holiday. Spoiler: Thanksgiving really is a tradition rooted in gratitude and peace. But it’s also a holiday full of surprises that most people don’t know about, which is why I’m happy to share today’s interview with Melanie Kirkpatrick, author of Thanksgiving: The Holiday at the Heart of the American Experience.We discuss the history of this very American tradition, including why the Pilgrims really came to the New World (it wasn’t to flee religious persecution, if that’s what you’re thinking).Wherever you’re from, this week I hope you enjoy good food in great company.  ❤️Hello! I'm your host, Sarah Mikutel. But the real question is, who are you? Where are you now and where do you want to be? Can I help you get there?Visit sarahmikutel.com to learn how we can work together to help you achieve more peace, happiness, and positive transformation in your life.Book your Enneagram typing session by going to sarahmikutel.com/typingsessionDoes the phrase “public speaking” make you feel a little sick…even if it’s just a team meeting or a group conversation? I made something to help you.Calm Your Nerves in 90 Seconds is a free anxiety-reduction toolkit with a guided meditation and journal to help you communicate with confidence.Use it anytime your brain goes into overdrive and you need a reset.https://sarahmikutel.com/reset

Janus is the Roman god of beginnings and endings, transitions and passageways, doorways and duality, amongst several other things. And he was one of my favorite sculptures in my town’s art Triennial this year, formally known as the Creative Folkestone Triennial 2021. High up on the East Cliff, in a little park overlooking the ocean, stood this massive head of Janus, who’s typically portrayed with two faces, one facing toward the future and the other face looking toward the past. That's what this artwork looked like: a gleaming white, massive head of Janus with one face looking toward the harbour and the other face looking back toward the houses on the street.The sign next to Janus said, “It looks out to sea towards Europe and inland to England, contemplating what connects us as well as what divides us. It is made of plaster and chalk and will gradually degrade and disintegrate, reflecting the gradual erosion of the coastline as well as Folkestone’s history as a fort of England.”And he did melt away, helped along by vandals, by the time the Triennial ended this month. A pile of white dust and plaster on the green grass. Memento mori, as the Stoics would say. We will all end up like Janus. And most of us live with that same duality: One part of us pondering the future, another replaying the past. And we’re missing this moment. The present moment. Let's change that.❤️Hello! I'm your host, Sarah Mikutel. But the real question is, who are you? Where are you now and where do you want to be? Can I help you get there?Visit sarahmikutel.com to learn how we can work together to help you achieve more peace, happiness, and positive transformation in your life.Book your Enneagram typing session by going to sarahmikutel.com/typingsessionDoes the phrase “public speaking” make you feel a little sick…even if it’s just a team meeting or a group conversation? I made something to help you.Calm Your Nerves in 90 Seconds is a free anxiety-reduction toolkit with a guided meditation and journal to help you communicate with confidence.Use it anytime your brain goes into overdrive and you need a reset.https://sarahmikutel.com/reset

Ever thought about visiting Uruguay? This small nation between Argentina and Brazil isn’t well known to people outside the region, and Karen Higgs is trying to change that.Home to the world’s longest carnival — it lasts 40 days each year — Uruguay is a laid back country with a European flair. You’ll walk around plenty of colonial and art deco buildings as candombe music drums in the streets. You’ll also find beaches, wineries, and a burgeoning culinary scene in Uruguay, one of the most progressive countries in the world.And, if you can work remotely or are retired or have your own money, you don’t even need a visa to live and work there. So why aren’t we there already??In today’s episode, Karen is going to tell us how to become an expat in Uruguay, as well as give us her best tips on what to eat, drink, and do in her adopted hometown of Montevideo, a place, she says, that has become quite vegan-friendly.  Karen, originally from Wales, has lived in Uruguay since 2000 and is the unofficial tourism ambassador for the country. In fact, her website is a mashup of the words guru and Uruguay: Guru'Guay and is a great resource for anyone thinking of traveling or moving to the country. She also wrote The Guru’Guay Guide to Uruguay and The Guru’Guay Guide to Montevideo.Show notes at sarahmikutel.comEnjoy!❤️Hello! I'm your host, Sarah Mikutel. But the real question is, who are you? Where are you now and where do you want to be? Can I help you get there?Visit sarahmikutel.com to learn how we can work together to help you achieve more peace, happiness, and positive transformation in your life.Book your Enneagram typing session by going to sarahmikutel.com/typingsessionDoes the phrase “public speaking” make you feel a little sick…even if it’s just a team meeting or a group conversation? I made something to help you.Calm Your Nerves in 90 Seconds is a free anxiety-reduction toolkit with a guided meditation and journal to help you communicate with confidence.Use it anytime your brain goes into overdrive and you need a reset.https://sarahmikutel.com/reset

Where do these emotions come from? What are emotions? How can we cultivate healthy emotions that improve our own wellbeing, and thereby our positive impact on the world? That’s what I want to talk about today.Here's a little taste...Most people think emotions run their lives, but, in her popular Ted Talk, Dr. Lisa Feldman Barrett, says that, “Emotions are not what we think they are...They are not hardwired brain reactions that are uncontrollable...emotions are guesses...Your brain is predicting. It's using past experience based on similar situations to try to make meaning.”When you’re confronted with a situation, your mind and body will try to make sense of it by reading your body’s automatic physical response, and running through past thoughts/feelings. This happens instantly and automatically to give you an initial understanding of the situation. The Stoics called this initial impression phantasia. They believed that your emotions are a result of value judgements you’re making about what’s happening, and it seems that they were right. As Epictetus said, “It’s not things that upset us but our judgments about things.”Visit sarahmikutel.com for full show notes.Enjoy the episode!P.S. You'll hear me talking about a traveling arts festival that stirred my emotions. If you'd like to contribute to The Walk or related charities go here 👉 https://www.walkwithamal.org❤️Hello! I'm your host, Sarah Mikutel. But the real question is, who are you? Where are you now and where do you want to be? Can I help you get there?Visit sarahmikutel.com to learn how we can work together to help you achieve more peace, happiness, and positive transformation in your life.Book your Enneagram typing session by going to sarahmikutel.com/typingsessionDoes the phrase “public speaking” make you feel a little sick…even if it’s just a team meeting or a group conversation? I made something to help you.Calm Your Nerves in 90 Seconds is a free anxiety-reduction toolkit with a guided meditation and journal to help you communicate with confidence.Use it anytime your brain goes into overdrive and you need a reset.https://sarahmikutel.com/reset