EP025 - The future of remote work with Nadia Harris of Remote Work Advocate
About the episode
This episode focuses on remote work advocacy. I believe remote work needs strong influencers to share the voice and main topics of remote work with the broadest audience possible. I invited one of the most prolific remote work advocates, Nadia Harris, to discuss the future of remote work.
About the guest
Nadia Harris, MBA, LLM - Founder of remoteworkadvocate.com – the go-to place for flexible working. Co-founder of remoteschool.net, a remote & hybrid work consulting firm. Book author of “How to tackle hybrid working?”, keynote speaker, global expert, and leader in remote and hybrid work according to the TOP 15 Remote Work Advocates ranking by All American Speakers, the British Onalytica report "Who's who in remote working" and Remote’s global “Remote Innovator of 2022”. Nadia has improved performance, compliance and teamwork in companies in the USA, Europe, Asia and Africa. Fluent in English, German, Polish and French. Nadia holds a legal degree and an MBA in Intercultural Managerial Communication.
About the host
My name is Peter Benei, founder of Anywhere Consulting. My mission is to help and inspire a community of remote leaders who can bring more autonomy, transparency, and leverage to their businesses, ultimately empowering their colleagues to be happier, more independent, and more self-conscious.
Connect with me on LinkedIn.
Want to become a guest on the show? Contact me here.
Quotes from the show
Companies can build powerful brands even though their customers see these brands physically, but they engage with the brand. Yet, the same companies have a serious problem doing the same thing internally. How can you build something so successful externally to build a worldwide community, but internally, they're saying, no, you have to come to the office?
The most important thing is intrinsic motivation: the values, the mission, the vision, and the why. These are the foundations for any company culture, not just remote.
I hear companies saying: office means culture. You can live in a relationship for 15 years and don't know each other. Just because you have proximity, you don't necessarily share values together.
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Welcome everyone, yet another day to talk about the future of work and the future of leadership. Today we will talk about remote work advocacy, and I have one of the most prolific advocate of remote work with me, Nadia Harris, who is the founding member of the Remote First Institute, speaker, author, and consultant on remote work for businesses. Hey Nadia, how are you today?
Hello. As usual, I am going to be very honest and say that I'm doing great. And thanks for inviting me to your show.
I appreciate that you are being here. So first question is always the same for everyone. How did you end up working remotely? How long you are doing this? And what was the main drive and motivation for you to start working?
All right. So to start with, I think I have been a nonconformist all my life before I got aware that I am a nonconformist. So that struggles the first thing. Yeah, you know, I always looked at things a different way. I always asked myself a question, why? If people said, well, you have to adapt, you have to do things a certain way. I was like, no, maybe not, but why? You know? And then obviously I am a third culture child, so I was born and raised in Germany to a Polish mother, and my father is American from a like American family, whatever. And so, Yeah, so these three cultures have been with me for a long time. And then I lived in different countries as well. And all the time I think I was, I, I grew up with several languages. I also learned French. I also learned Russian because, you know, at school these three, like English, German, and Polish, I knew. So there was nothing else for me, you know, to kind of learn, you know, from scratch. And I think that it's always been the will to be able to work with the world. So I mentioned that behind the scenes when we started our conversation today, that I was also a lawyer. Before getting my license in 2014, I decided to quit that profession completely because back then it would make you stuck in one country. We have to be stuck in one country forever with this one legal system doing, you know, a certain thing. Unless you would go to, you know, like a big corporation, but still then be part of this nine to five corporate world where I can't sit straight for eight hours. I get busy. Yeah, no, seriously, I always thought something was wrong with me. I even remember I started working remotely in 2015, by the way. But also in 2015 I had my last full, full, full, full-time job and that was when I lived in the States and I remember I got it. It was a great role by the way, but I I appreciated so much that I got this opportunity. Back then, it was a Swiss company. Working with a Swiss company, working with the Swiss military to be very precise from the aviation industry. And then I had to commute obviously, so I got this role in the beginning and I was like, So happy. But then after two, three weeks, so quickly, I was sitting in front of the computer and I was getting sleepy. And I remember going to the bathroom, looking in the mirror thinking, girl, why are you so not grateful? What's wrong with you? Well, today, years later, I know what was wrong. Nothing was wrong, it wasn't for me. So it's been a long journey. It's been now it's my ninth year working remotely. And I, it's a lifestyle, what can I say? I would never go back. I mean, if someone paid me a million for a month, probably I would tough it, you know? Yeah. It's still worth a million, but not forever. I wouldn't do that, you know, just maybe for a for a few weeks. But no, I can't imagine any other life today.
This is so great and inspiring to hear, by the way. And it reminds me of my own personal story as well, because I did the very same and also went through the same journey. But in the last nine years, what are you doing? So what are you working on? How do you work with others? But services, stuff that you offer or you. Talk about a little bit about that.
Yeah, so my first remote role, which I thought in the beginning was a scam, was in 2015, , and I went, yeah, yeah, it was, it's just outta curiosity. I said, yes. You know, I started applying to tons of roles everywhere. And I was like, suddenly I got an email, Hey, we'd love you to be our translator and interpreter on our platform for people who don't speak English. And I'm like, and we pay you by the minute. I'm like, what? Where? From home? No, I'm still going to find a stable job. And that, that's when I got the, the nine to five. Nevermind. But then throughout time, it turned out it wasn't a scam. I started, I reached a point, I think it was 2017, but I moved back to Europe and I started making more money. On my side gigs, , you know, because when I figured out that you can still have an American salary move to Europe, that as a freelancer, if that worked out once with one company, it's going to work out twice. It's going to work out three times. Very, very simple, right? And it did. And suddenly I started making more money on these gigs. But at the same time, I was already working. I switched and I started working in the HR industry late 2015, early 2016, talent acquisition, working with people from all around the world, hiring people extensively back then. Literally all continents. And then I have joined several startups and I think it was always natural because. There were startups that suddenly wanted to work with me and they said, Hey, we know you can't be in the office cuz we are very far away, but maybe once a month you'll just come see us. And I was like, yeah, you know, no one was talking, right? Nobody was talking about hybrid. There wasn't even a name. I was like, what the hell is hybrid? You know, someone mentioned that in 2018 and I was like, what is it? But I've been doing this for a few years now, and so in 2018 I have decided it's time to give back and get out of the shadows. And then I have decided to found remote work advocate com, my personal brand also, but a place for companies that are willing to embrace flexible working for individuals that are willing to find advice on how to well find a remote job as well. I recently launched an online course about it. My first thing for individuals as well, cuz so many people reach out to me. But I mainly focused on consulting companies and being also part of them. Both startups and corporations all around the world in terms of processes, procedures, tools, the whole employee journey, culture, collaboration, but also the legal aspect. I said, I went back to law yes, a few years ago when I saw the opportunity of the world changing and how remote work law, employers of record, how companies hire contractors and they do it wrong in most cases. What I can do and how I can use my experience, So now that's also one of the major areas of expertise. Yeah. Well, in a nutshell.
You mentioned a lot of stuff. Let me circle back first. Lot of people do it really badly when they are employing contractors. Now it's super interesting that employer of record companies became like a thing at all in the last two to three years, I guess. And like everyone knows the, you know, the usual names, like Remote, deel, Lano and others, and they got really serious funding as well. But these companies were here even before we called it umbrella companies in the uk, by the way. So what do you see? What is wrong with that landscape, for example? From a legal perspective? Personally, I always worked through an ICA, so an international contract agreement. I own my own company. And I never saw any problems with it. I always preferred it that way. But you mentioned that there are other companies that are doing it wrongly. What do you see as problem?
Yeah, I mean, absolutely. So I also work as a contractor to make things clear, and that's actually my preferred way of collaborating for many reasons that I'll mention in a second. But before the time when we started hearing so much about employers of record, and I remember these times, 2000 16, 17, 18, I had companies willing to hire people in other countries and they didn't know how you would have to. Pay tons of money to different, you know, consulting companies to figure it out for you. It was a niche. It was a huge niche. It was extremely expensive and almost not doable. And also you must know that in some countries, hiring someone as a contractor is very, very difficult, especially in the EU because of the fact that there is very strong employment protection and there are very strong employee rights. So even if you hire someone as a contractor, it may be. And there's a high possibility that if you get audited your company or the contractor, then it's going to be concluded that there was the so-called employment misclassification.
Yes.
Right. And so now even when I hear about all these companies that are saying work from anywhere full freedom, full flexibility, what they do is they just, you know, sign a regular contract. And in this contract we have tons of stuff, which makes it super hard to distinguish whether we are dealing with a contractor or whether we are dealing with an employee because. Employment laws I say it's a bit of fake protection because look at all the layoffs that are happening. You can still be laid off, even up on an indefinite contract. Right. But still, you know, you have severance, sir. Willing to say something I think, or no?
Yeah. You are right. I think the whole employment laws and regulations, I don't think that it's important for the employee. I don't think it's important for the comp. And maybe this is a controversial note, but I dunno it's not important for the company itself. It's important for the state to, to collect the taxes for certain amounts of reasons. And it's such a huge gray area, by the way.
That's true. But then you can't be a digital nomad . So, because you know, that's exactly. So now that you covered the gray area, the risks though, those are the risks that companies are not willing to take and hire employees and say, that's why you're a full-time employee. You can travel 365 days a year, wherever, because of tax issues, social security issues labor laws that you may fall into, another jurisdiction, gdpr, all kinds of stuff. But then, so then they sign contractor agreements. And in these contractor agreements, very often you have provisions that show directly that it's actually an employment relationship. And that's the issue that I'm talking about. You know, so you're saying that obviously you're supposed to pay your own taxes, you're completely free. But there are companies that say we will give you perks and benefits. We will pay for your holidays, we will give you medical insurance, we will give you business equipment, a pension plan and for example, a probationary period, you know, daily working hours and no competition clause and performance track. But we will just call the contract a different way cuz you wanna do your thing, but with these provisions and then acting this way that they just gave you a different contract, but the relationship that you have is actually employment. Here we go. They got you. And in some countries it's a super hot topic these days where governments are starting to see this issue. One of them in terms of mis specification the uk, Germany in Spain. I've see that as well a lot. And oh, and obviously the Netherlands, many countries were as exactly as you're mentioning, states are starting to see, hmm, we are actually really losing money you know?
Yes.
Right. The employment contributions are huge. Let's look at that way. But in some countries it's not really tackled that much. They don't pay attention yet. But the whole thing started to be a super hot topic a few years ago when companies like Uber or Lyft would hire people as contractors for super, super low hourly rates. Not to pay all employment taxes. And this is the whole reason that started the conversation to begin with. I mean, you know, you can craft policies even for employees to work from abroad for a few, from a few months a year. And I do that. You can be a contractor as well, you can set it up and that's what I've been doing for the past few years. But many companies think like, oh, no problem. And I know it's flexible, it's amazing. But if you are a contractor and you get misclassified, then imagine with your salary, what tax rate you would be having in terms of income tax, for example. So now imagine you have to pay everything back. Nobody wants that to happen, and when it happens, it's too late. So sometimes, you know, you just kind of have to find areas to decrease your risk as much as possible. But your example is a great one. But you see, you're very, I would say, self-sufficient and very aware. Most people, when I hire people, for example, in latin America as contractors. I'm like, yeah, you're ready to be a contractor. Yes, yes. Do you know what the contractor is? No. You know, and they have no idea even how that they have to pay taxes. You know? They, yeah. I thought that I would just get paid every month and that's it. That's not gonna happen this way, you know? So you have huge self-awareness and also about this topic.
Also, don't forget that you mentioned the Latin America part, by the way. There are an influx of Americans working remotely per on a contract basis for American companies. But they live in Argentina, so, and Argentina and the government, I'm not sure that they actually claim any kind of income tax on that. So that's also gray area there. And I didn't want to push in the usual European stuff that it's Schengen so it's really hard to track the location.
So let me tell you the story. So this, yeah, I had it and I'll tell you the scenario what happened. So they were French they were, they worked, that person was paying older taxes in France, but lived in Romania because of a low cost of living. At that time, I think it was two or three years ago. And then suddenly they had to, so they proved where they lived and all their relations with the country that they had in Romania, you know, the relationship and being here and staying and everything because they wanted to buy property in Romania and then they had to submit all their tax details, file all the tax income, and you know, reports and everything, and it turned out, hey, hey, you're here for two years and a half. You never paid taxes here.
Where are your income taxes?
Yeah. And here we got a classic case back then. So that's how they got caught. And that was very unpleasant. .
Yes. Yeah. What do you see? What would be the future for working remotely? Your remote work advocate? What is what? What is in your crystal ball?
Oh my goodness. Let me be a fortune teller for a moment. Yeah, please, please. Yes. Okay. Now let's, I will do some wishful thinking and hope that what I'm gonna say now is going to be true. Yeah. So I mean, I hope that I would say it makes sense from many perspectives. Also, when we look at topics such as diversity, inclusion, talent pools, giving people the opportunity to work from other, you know, locations from other countries, hire people from different cultural backgrounds, give everyone an equal opportunity. We have the digital era, we have tons of tools out there. It's been always a very good, I don't know, maybe you can respond to this question because I know that you're, you know, you have very strong marketing background because no one is ever able to respond to this question in a meaningful manner.
Please.
So, yes, please let, let's do it together. I, I'd love to hear your opinion. So there are companies that provide online services and built online communities, right? Look at social media everything really, e-commerce, right? So these companies are able to build very strong brands. Against, towards customers that have never seen these people physically, but they engage with the brand. They connect on an emotional level. It may be both. It may be a product, it may be a big company, but it may be an individual, like an influencer, right? So they're huge communities being built and advocates around it. You know, only wearing these things, buying these products, you know, everything. These companies have a serious problem to do the same thing internally. So how can you build something so successful externally to build a worldwide community and make so much revenue and have everything structured, the whole customer journey, your pla, everything. , but inside they're saying, no, you have to come to the office. I am completely blown away with this logic because I just don't see it. Maybe you have a good explanation.
That's not a marketing problem. I think because let me ask it back. Have you seen the people who made Nike.
No, of course not. Very good, very good. Yeah, yeah.
No, you never, you, you saw Michael Jordan wearing the, the Nike Air or something. There will be a, there will be a freaking movie coming out next year, by the way about that, by the way. Anyway, so you probably see the movie, you see the influencers, you see the shops or the stores. Currently they are mostly physical, but you know, you can buy it online, you can, you have a community around the Nike shoes. Yeah, obviously, because, you know, sneakers are a big thing now, yada, yada, yada. But again, that's marketing. The, how they build the brand internally, that's a management issue and that's what I personally do to help these people make sure that we ensure that, that they can manage their internal teams and operations with that same global mindset, global manner.
I see.
And the problem is, and that's what I see at, at least, well, not for smaller companies, like growing companies that, I mean, they, they already tapped into the global force and global markets by technology anyway. So they don't really have any issues with that, but like enterprise level clients or enterprise level companies... So, you know, they manage by, you know, walking the floor having too many meetings and you know, these kind of things that everyone, ev everyone is aware. When you said, for example, in the pre-call that you never wanted to work for big four companies, for example, although you are fully qualified to do that it's because of the culture that they have internally. So it's mostly a rigid, siloed, enterprise driven approach, even though they have global offices. By the way, that's also weird.
Yeah.
Now we are, we are talking all the time about hybrid work and remote work and whatever. It was always here. People were able to work from home one or two days within these enterprise based consulting companies or knowledge workers. And they also worked remotely, but not within the office that they worked in, but worked remotely with the other branch offices outside of the countries they had. So they, they know how to use these technologies. They know that it delivers. They know that productivity either stays the same or even better when they're working remotely, but they are still yet to make the change to allowed anyone to work remotely because of the management style they.
That's true. I mean, I absolutely agree. And that makes sense. But then, you know, when we look at the perspective of, and I get these questions a lot when people ask, okay, so how do I build a culture in a distributed team? How do I make sure that people are engaged or they say engagement drops? Well, again, if we look at, you know, online communities, These people haven't seen each other in their lives, but they're so connected, and that's why I always say what's the most important thing is intrinsic motivation. The values, the mission, the vision, the why. We spoke behind the scenes. What was my biggest drive to join the remote community? What was yours? And it's always either a personal story, it's something that we believe in. It's a lifestyle, it's a goal. You know, things like that. And companies that don't have it. You know, it's just not gonna be like that, that I will just be invited to give a speech over there and in 60 minutes, just like magic be like, yeah, for now on you're just going to have a super engaged company. No, because again, what you've said, the management style and everything that is in a clash with modern ways of working. Then when, and then when I hear companies saying, no, it's not possible, office means culture. This is not true because culture and sense of belonging and of community you can live in a relationship for 15 years and don't know each other. I mean, unfortunately. Right. So this is not the fact that you're next to someone all the time. Yeah. Right. You may not even like someone. Right. So it's a completely different mindset and a mindset shift, which I think next to the topic that we've discussed around employment contractors working from anywhere must happen because, Yeah it's just connected so, so deeply.
You need to be proactive. So anyone who actually built any kind of community, Or again, I really love the personal examples, by the way, on the relationship. So you won't have a 20 years long successful marriage if you don't invest time to spend time together, quality time proactively. Yeah, you can live together and, you know, grow all together. But that's not a relationship. That's more like a, don't know. Yeah, everyone knows those boring not engaging marriages around us. Again same with community. So communities are not built by themselves. Usually community builders or community organizers, they do spend a awful lot of proactive, intentional activities to build those communities. And again, My original example was Nike, but again the Just Doit, for example no one is sponsoring this show, by the way, from Nike, sadly. So the just Doit example was a marketing stunt, of course, right? But after that they started receiving messages from people who got encouraged by, Short statement, short sentence. And they started to build a community around the brand based on these statements. You know, empowerment, women empowerment people, empowerment, you know those who haven't run before, but now they picked up running because of this just do it, you know statement. And suddenly they were out of the sports fields and out from the arenas, out from the basketball courts, and suddenly people started running in the cities by themselves. They started to do it by themselves because they were encouraged by the statement. But that was hard work from Nike itself, from their marketing companies, from the advertising companies, yada y yada. So all the time, communities are being built based on intention. And productivity.
Yeah, that's super important what you said. And I also want to say that I agree obviously, and see now when I look at companies that are only incentivizing people, no. If you do this intentional communication and action steps like you've just mentioned. It triggers a reaction from the people to also commit to something, to also do something. And when I see companies that are saying, oh, what can we give our people to motivate them, no matter what you give them, it's not going to know, to, to, to trigger this connection, this emotional connection intent will desire to do things together. And I often see this, you know, in, in remote workshops, virtual workshops that I do for different companies. So that's a really interesting thing to share, by the way, so I think two weeks ago I had a two hour workshop for managers in a big corporation. So there were 15 people, 15 manager. And the topic was all about how to engage people, you know, motivation, engagement in their hybrid teams. So after about third, so in the very beginning, like after 10 minutes, I asked a question. Okay? What do you expect from this? What do you expect to do today? What, what will make this, this virtual experience successful for you? Like, yeah, I want to learn more. I want to get to know, I want to do this. I want you to tell me, I want you to share examples and this and that. And I said, okay. So, but in the next two hours, what are you going to do personally to make it successful? And out of these 15 people, nobody was able to tell me they were shocked and they said, well, I was expecting that you organized it so you'll tell me what to do here because we paid you for this. See, that's the wrong attitude. And I said, okay, with your attitude with you managing these people and your team, having this attitude, not asking them to respond to the, why are you even here? What are you expecting? What is your contribution to make this a success? We won't go any far, we won't get any farther, you know?
Yes.
And that's, that's what's happening, you know?
I have the very same examples from my personal li like professional clients. Usually what happens is that yeah, no one, so everyone thinks that one after they, they attend the workshop, attend the training or whatever that you offer as a consultant they see a effect in trust, transparency, culture and things like that. But the problem is that these immaterial things like transparency, culture, trust, these are, these can be affected only indirectly. So you will have trust, you will have transparent workplace you will have a great culture if you do hundred different things, but those hundred different things that you do, you personally, the manager, the leader, whoever who makes the decisions they need to pick from those 100 different things, what can be applicable to their company. Obviously, the more they pick, the more indirect effect they will have on you know, north star metrics, whatever they have. And more transparent, more diverse culture, engaging culture, less employee churn. But these are all indirect effects. But if they're not willing to make the, you know, the picking, shall we say then we have a problem houston. So again, I'm there and you are there and all, everyone as a consultant or mentor or coach or whatever service provider is they are there to show them the toolkit to show them the options, the opportunities. But they have to make it, they are in the position. I'm not in the position. I'm not the one who made the make the call. I'm not leaving that team. That's not my team. That's your team. So you need to decide. You need to make the decision. I'm just here to tell you what you can do.
Yeah. And you know, and if you're not leading by example, attending a meeting and doing, having exactly the same attitude that you keep complaining about your people, like hello, where's your commitment?
Yes.
The success. You know and that's an eye-opener. So some people get really, You know, discouraged and like oh. Yeah, they just expect, you know, a golden solution, like a pill that you can swallow and be like.
There is no get rich screen. Sorry.
I might say I'm not a famous YouTuber because when I was, I'm not a famous young teenage YouTuber because when I was a teenager there was no YouTube. So that's the only reason.
There is no golden ticket. Also one of the biggest slams that I can give to anyone, sorry is that if your people are complaining within your team, you probably think that you have a people problem, right? No, you have an operational problem because if most of the people are complaining within your team, that means that most of the people have an operational issue. That means you have an operational problem, and if you have an operational problem, that's a management problem. It's not the team's problem, it's your problem. So you need to fix that. On an operational level, and then the people problem will suddenly, or like, you know, not suddenly, but indirectly later on in disappears because the operation is fixed. And if you only have like a very few people complaining left then yeah, you might have a people problem with only those few people. You need to deal with them individually. But if your whole team is complaining about problems and you are complaining about your team as well, you know, someone is not getting the picture here.
A hundred percent. I completely agree. See, it requires definitely a holistic approach. It requires also being able to look at yourself you know, and try to understand what triggers my behaviors, my perception of the situation. Not being judgmental. Tons of people fall into all kinds of biases, you know?
Yes.
Cognitive biases all the time without knowing that this is happening. So again, such a change can't happen overnight. It is extremely likely that the world will become more distributed than it is right now. I mean, we could talk about statistics for the next two weeks here, and I would be, I'm gonna be proud of myself now when I say this, I will do it. I'm not afraid of anyone asking me questions that are difficult or against flexible working because I am absolutely confident. That I could question everything that this person is saying from any area. I just a hundred percent, you know, I've seen and there's so many amazing companies and remote first that have mastered it, and it's not for everyone. One thing to say, I am not saying that the whole world should suddenly be remote and that everyone should embrace this working style. Everyone should have flexible working. Some people don't want to do this, some companies don't want to do. It may be justified for many reason, it's your business case, it's your operations, it's the people, it's the culture, it's the environment. You know, it's, it's, it's the industry. Tons of things that also contribute to a decision. But it shouldn't be a, it should be a decision, a conscious decision based on data, based on strategy, based on the surrounding the people, the competition analysis, everything rather than just no, because. Or yes, let's do it like another company that has a brand and, you know, overpaid PR to make statements that they don't even live by. Sorry. But that is what sometimes happens. So look at yourself first and don't copy without any justification.
And have an open mind. So that's also one of the things that you can learn. Had a really great conversations with a digital nomad advocate, and we discussed why people, or so sorry, companies should employ nomads, for example, because sometimes people think that the nomads are not employable because they are all over the place. Right. And one of the main reasons why it should be the case is that they are much more diverse and open-minded. Just because of the forced nature of, you know, living everywhere, you need to be open-minded, otherwise you cannot, you know, solve problems in local situations and whatever. So one of the key stuff and it's so important to, as a leader or whatever your business is, whatever industry you are in, I don't care, but be a little bit more open-minded and ask yourself the question, okay, I might not be remote or hybrid or whatever, but still, what can I learn from those companies that can help my business? So for example, one of the things that you can do is most of the remote companies are operating through asynchronous manner, right? So they implement some asynchronous processes, policies, whatever. You can do the same, even if you have an in office team, if most of your stuff is based on asynchronous documentation, if someone leaves the company or goes on a longer vacation or whatever, you will have less time to adjust to a new workflow because everything is documented, everything is in the cloud. You know, it's just, just simply, okay, this is the policy. You need to follow this, this, this, this, this, because that was done by this, this, this, and you just repeat the process and that's. Lower employee churn and faster onboarding. And you are still in the office. You still have people in the office, you're still operating as an in-office team, but you learn something from remote companies that can be super useful for your business case. So again, be open-minded and not judgemental and immediately say no to anything because you know, the world is not black and white.
What a beautiful conclusion. I have nothing else to add.
I didn't wanna provide the conclusion of this show.
No, but you did. You know, it's just, you know, if, if someone wants to have a major takeaway of this show, I mean, the words are the words really, you know, like, and repeat them, you know, 50 times. And then you'll believe in your own words and then you're gonna finally, you know start preaching this.
Well maybe I got distracted, but, okay. Let's, let's focus on a little bit back on you. So, what do you feel, what you will do this year? How do you see your life evolving a little bit more this year? Oh in terms of remote work.
Goodness. So I don't even know how to conclude this because it's just the beginning of the year, it's February right now, and I do have some extremely, I would say, Challenging and beautiful opportunities in front of me coming.
Nice.
Yes. Coming up within the next few weeks and months. And I love the fact that I am able to create impact in more and more companies. And as much as there is this pushback to the office, you know, movement, I still see tons of companies you know, Being engaged in shaping the future of work together, and also in many situations, me being part of it makes me extremely happy and honored as well. So for me, for this year, I have my, almost the whole year planned in terms of traveling . So on a personal level maybe that way, which means...
How many countries?
For now I think it's about six. So, but I'm not competing against myself. Last year I was exhausted in the end of the year. I was so exhausted that I, I mean, I was ashamed to admit it to myself because that is the lifestyle that I'm not very much. Yeah. I thought I failed. You know, I cheated on myself saying that I don't wanna go anywhere, and that was that made me really unhappy that I had to admit this. Yeah. But this year I'm really excited. Also, I'm planning to do this in a more quality manner. I mean, I've been to so many places. My goal is not sightseeing anymore. It's rather visiting back these places that I really enjoy. And the lifestyle and the surrounding, and also explore some new ones. For example, this year, for the first time I'm going to Abu Dhabi. And I can't wait really because I have a big passion for the Middle East in general. So yeah and definitely towards that direction to also explore the culture very much. , but, well, what can I say? It's just, it's a never ending journey and it's beautiful to be part of it. And I'm sure you feel that too.
Is Italy part of the six countries?
Yeah. The re Yeah. So this goodness. Yeah. So what else? Let me think about it. Yeah, yeah. No, let, let me think about the country. So it's Where have I been? Oh, I just came back from France yesterday. See, I don't even know what's happening. I'm going to the uk, I'm going to Portugal, I'm going to Germany, to the uae, I'm going to Greece as well. Most probably, I'm also going to Spain. Yeah, those are confirmed, but I, I have farter destinations on top of my head as well. But let's see what happens.
It's so interesting that I also plan my well travel liter, I dunno, like destinations. When I'm in Europe in, like, usually I'm in Europe. The European destinations are super easy. So usually I just, you know, just, I dunno, do we want to go there? Yeah. And tomorrow I just booked everything and that's it. So it, so it's super quick. But I've been to Japan for example four year pre pandemic. So like four or five years. And I personally planned that trip for a half a year or so.
Yeah.
Obviously because you is far away, it's a passion project for me, I wanted to do that anyway. It was longer, like three or four weeks. So I dunno. Traveling in Europe is much more easier. Yes. So, I understand.
No, definitely. So that, that's why I don't know where else, because most probably have the thought on Thursday night that I'm gonna just do something crazy on Saturday. Like we talked, we, we spoke about it before, you know, like have, I don't know, a glass of wine in Milan, just because I think that makes sense in two days. So why not? But that's exactly the lifestyle that wouldn't give away ever.
I'm happy that you're doing the very same, because I guess you were also part of a lockdown into 2020, right. And maybe in 2021 as well. So at that time I was partially either in Hungary or in Rome. But when I was living in the room half of my like time spent there was during the lockdown. So most stuff were closed and it was, know, it was really hard to. Yeah, I was there. Get around after, you know.
So when you were al already able to leave your house and actually go, I wasn't around too. Everything was empty. I mean, yeah, everything, and then I went...
I loved it. I loved it by, no, yeah...
I was just about to say, and I thought, how am I going to, Structure my you know, sentence now, not to be like, I love the lockdown, you know, cuz that's probably not a good word, but...
No, sorry. I actually spent the, the, the, the most luckiest, luckiest two weeks I had ever, in terms of travel is spending two weeks immediately after the lockdowns. Yeah. In Firenze Florence. Yeah.
Yeah. And seeing the city it was the first time for me. Seeing the city and all the sites and the central without the army of tourists.
Yeah. A hundred percent. And I, I, the, the quality of traveling was completely different. I was in Paris, I think three times also, I was in Rome. But anyway, what I wanna say is that this year and last year when I went back to these same spots, just because I liked them so much, it was dramatic. Like you couldn't even walk, you couldn't sit down, you couldn't enjoy a cup of coffee because of tons of tears around you.
Anyway that was an inspiring and engaging conversation. Thank you. Thank you for your time.
Thank you.
I'm so happy to have you here. It's been an absolute pleasure. I equally enjoyed it.
Thank you. Happy to hear that.
