The Science of Connection, Exploring the Exclusive Borderless Retreat for Remote Workers | TNE020

In this episode, we’re joined by Maris, founder of the Borderless Retreat for remote workers, digital nomads, and travelers of all kinds. Borderless Retreat is a mindful 8 day program that helps travelers worldwide to connect on a deeper level The retreat is incredibly exclusive, only allowing 12 people per session in a beautiful villa in Portugal. In the episode, we breakdown the business model behind such a retreat and the benefits to mind, body, and soul.

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Today's Guest

Maris Kohv
Maris is the mind empowerment and workshops facilitator as well as co-founder of Borderless Retreat.
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Maris grew up in an environment where she wasn’t able to express her emotions or feel unconditional support, and so through personal development and meditation, she found a way to transform her emotions and develop a healthy mindset. The more she was able to overcome her struggles and feel more joy in her life, the more she felt the need to share the same tools with others. Thus, Borderless Retreat was born: Borderless Retreat

Maris (Borderless Retreat) Website:
https://www.borderlessretreat.com/
Borderless Retreat Instagram
https://www.instagram.com/borderless_retreat/
FREE Extensive Wellbeing Guidebook
https://www.borderlessretreat.com/wellbeing-guidebook


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Transcript

You got to get back out in the world, get out of that lonely house, a little workshop, yours, get back out on the road. You're gonna live a long time. Ron, you should make a radical change in your lifestyle. I mean the core of May's spirit comes new experiences. There you are sitting on your butt. Thanks for tuning in to the nomadic spirit podcast, posted by Omar of no matter bulls.com. Join Omar while he speaks with leading digital entrepreneurs here to help you transition into the age of remote work and digital nomadism all while helping you design your life to be happier, healthier, and full of freedom. And now here's your host, Omar Mo

Hey, welcome back. I'm really starting to love these intro quotes. I bet you well, today's quote was from this amazing movie that I watched a years ago called into the wild Alex, the main protagonist of that movie, he speaks about how the essence of experience is what drives a person spirit. Well, that's exactly what our guests today creates for people all around the world. In this episode were joined by Maurice founder of the borderless retreat. Borderless retreat is a mindful eight day program that helps travelers worldwide to connect on a deeper level. The retreat itself is incredibly exclusive. It only allows 12 people per session in this beautiful Villa in Portugal. I've left a link to her website in the show notes. So feel free to check it out. Now, two things before we get the show on the road one while recording this episode, my mic was malfunctioning. I've got to fix now, but for this episode specifically, you'll definitely be able to understand what I'm saying, but my audio quality won't be the best. And to embarrassingly enough for the first 20 minutes of this episode, I thought the goal was in South America and not Europe. So anytime I say South America in the first 20 minutes, just disregard that. Okay. It goes to show how much I really have to see of the world, but all the dude time now with those two things out of the way, here we go.

So I spent the whole day working on that program and putting in some final details to send it to people that they could start signing up.

Now, is this the retreat in Portugal?

It is. Both of them are when I'm there.

That both of the retreats that you have coming up are important to go all way from Estonia

To, yeah.

Yes. It has a reason because both of us, both of the cofounders will live in Portugal or solar years. So first, first of all, the seeing the normal scene is really strong in Portugal. That was one of the reasons, for example, we connected within the community so much that we decided to do at least a few upcoming retreats still in Portugal,

Right? So Puerto Rico has a pretty big nomad scene. That's not the first place that comes into mind whenever you think of a digital nomad usually. And from what I've heard most of the time, it's like Thailand or somewhere in Indonesia, mostly because it's cheap. No, it's a big port. The goal in South America, that that's something I don't hear much. So when you say it has a really big scene, what makes it so big?

I think what makes it so big is this community of people who organize events regularly. I think this is a really important part of it, but yes, there are so many different events that you can go to and connect like this, uh, network and stability. I think this kicks the community off really, really well.

And so it's a, it's a whole group of likeminded people that like doing shit

Well said,

That's, that's really cool. I've actually never been to Puerto Rico. It must be really beautiful. It must be a lot of adventurous things to do. There.

It is a wonderful place. There is so much though versus the within for example, travel just would in Portugal, it is wonderful that I'm South and the Northern port, she got a really different from each other and have so much to offer in terms of natural beauty. And you can find, you can find so many places to go camping with the camper, ran through.

Did you do that? Did you stay in a camper van? Oh, I did. I did one hell of an experience. How long were you in the camper van for?

It was three days, not a long trip, but it was a beautiful one. It is such a brilliant sense of freedom. When you can just park your recommendation somewhere at the beach by nature or hear the sounds.

No, I, I'm definitely a way.

It is quite beautiful.

I did this camper van trip for a few months actually, but we owned our own. It was an old piece of shit. It was one of those 1990, really old caravans. And it wasn't, it was amazing. The trip was amazing. Just it gets dirty so fast if you, if you don't keep it clean at all times. And it's just something great. If you're just renting a camper van for three days, you don't really have to clean too much. But if you, if you were going to keep it for a few months, you have to keep it clean because they'll start smelling like, like once we cooked fish in there, and that was the biggest mistake I've ever made in my life, that it smelled like fish in the camper van for the next month. It was so disgusting. So it was like little things that you had to learn owning a camper van over a long period of time, but doing it along the Porterville coast for three days, I'm sure was absolutely incredible.

It was incredible. I think I got all of the benefits of the experience exactly without the responsibilities and the trouble. And it is a beautiful experience, especially if you're curious to do it for a longer term as well.

What really, what energy about the place really drew you and your cofounder to port the goals specifically, especially all the way in, and we're talking about in the first place, you know, I mean, you were leaving all the way from Estonia, which is in Europe and that's Eastern Europe, if I'm correct, right?

Yes. It's under the same latitude as Stockholm.

Yeah. So, so all the way over there, up in the North Europe and you went all the way from there to this one country Portugal, and it's not even the first country that people think of when they think of South America, you know, like someone like me thinks of Brazil or Argentina, but never really Portugal. And, uh, what made, what about the place really drew you to go from your country in Europe all the way there, and actually live there for a few years and build this entire business, which is centered somewhat and correct me if I'm wrong, many of your retreats are done in Portugal. So, and you centered your business around forth to go through. What about what energy about the place really drew you there?

So to be honest, this first decision to go there wasn't too much about, because I didn't know where she got too much. The first time I went in there, I studied architecture. And then I went for an internship to Portugal. I was planning to do a six months up to a one year internship in port Euro and wow. From all of the social, for example, you can't help, but fall to fall in love with the place. It has beautiful energy. For example, in terms of the life that's on the streets, it is a big contrast to Estonia for sure. Okay. Yeah. That this freedom of expression is a really strong emotion. Also the climate, the climate is beautiful. It has at least 370 days throughout the year.

My climate is always one of those things that, uh, as a traveler, we always fall back to, you know, like we were going to go somewhere. We're going to go. And there are people who will ask us, why are you going there and why not somewhere else? And we'll say all these great reasons like, Oh, I love the people, this and that. And the person we're talking to really want to understand it. And then we'll go. And yeah, they have like 300 sunny days and it's so beautiful and be like, Oh, okay, now I see why you're going there. You know, it's, it's, it's sunny. It's funny how we always fall back into that. But the reality is the reason you enjoyed it, it's because the social atmosphere and how vibrant and alive that city is, right?

Absolutely. The climate is sort of a bonus. It makes a difference of how much you can actually enjoy life outdoors. And of course it improves your quality of life. But definitely it's not the first thing that comes in Portugal, right.

There was this guy that I interviewed a couple interviews back and told me that he specifically plans out trips now because of the weather. And this is the guy that doesn't enjoy the winter or the cold or the snow or anything like that. So he'll start chasing the summer between one hemisphere of the earth, to the other hemisphere of the earth. And it would just bounce between both of them. But fourth, the goals, it sounds like, especially at being in South America right now, it's winter there and it's still pretty sunny. I was checking out as I was looking through your website just maybe an hour ago, I was looking at the retreats and I was looking at the weather in Portugal and it's supposed to be a winter there and it's still, and I don't know what this is in Celsius, but it's still like 80 degrees Fahrenheit out there. It's really warm. And it's, it seems like a really sunny, nice day.

I think one thing it is still important summary watching out

It's winter, right?

No, it is summer. It is full on summer

Because Shelly has winter as well at that port. The goal would be, we wouldn't have winter too.

Hmm, no. Oh, may be your Google the bit incorrectly. Are we seeing Portugal is the it's next to Spain? It's the most Western point in Europe. Oh, wow.

I've been thinking of South America this entire time. I don't know why I was thinking of South America, so you can import the goods in South America. And that was, that was so confusing to me a tone now. Thank you for clarifying that, that totally makes, that makes so much more sense now.

Yeah. Well, they also speak Portuguese in South America, so yeah,

Exactly. I was thinking Brazil and I was thinking Portuguese in Brazil. So the port, they go must be in Brazil as well. But now that makes so much more sense. Thank you for sharing. Okay, good. I'm glad. I'm glad that was so you're really not going that far from Estonia at the port. And you're going just from North Eastern Europe to Western Europe.

Exactly. Within Europe, eighties, one of the longest businesses, but a world scale. Yeah.

Okay. Makes sense. What kind of people do you have coming through these retreats?

What kind of people? Wow. It's completely, it is different range of people. For sure. People come also for different reasons. They either want to just recharge and disconnect from their work. This is, I can't say it's a majority. The majority of people still come to relax and learn and take part of the program, but also wants to keep their work tasks under control throughout the week. So they're,

Are they international? Usually they from all over the world, what countries do you usually find them coming from?

They usually do come all over the world, but we have had most parties best from Europe or us. So for example, although we have had all of the retreats in Portugal, they've never had a Portuguese person participate in the program. People from UK, Italy, Romania, also from the us, then these are usually there.

So you've got a pretty international reach. Has this been going on for a while, then your retreats I've heard of like bigger retreats, such as the one that traverse throws or teabags. There's another one that they throw big retreats, but yours, from what I saw runs, what eight or 12 people that you bring into a Villa is that, have you been doing this for quite some time?

We started, the first retreat was last June.

Oh, so it's, it's really new.

Yeah. You can say it's been new, but I think, um, most of the people who participate, they already are inward, so they either slow general or they're there for a longer period of time. For example, they traveled to Portugal for a few months and then within those months they decide to join the program. There also have been few people who fly in from New York, for example, just the part of the program and sort of use it as a kickstart to travel through Europe as well.

So you have a lot of international travelers that are already in Porterville going to this program.

Yes, exactly. Right. I would say I would say 80% and the other 20% that comes and flies in for grownups.

Right. W why did you decide to start something like that? I'm curious is I met this right, spoke to this person the other day, who is working on this connection based business, where she throws these dinners and she grabs people from all over the world and they get together and have this really connective emotional, like networking dinner. And there's like new friendships and new business partners and stuff made. And she struck me as this very social, outgoing person. So what's your reasoning behind starting something like a retreat, for example.

All right. There's many reasons behind it. Honestly, I can only tell my own story as well are two cofounders, but one part of variant was going through Lisbon and really enjoying the quality of life there and wanting to stay there for a longer hot. But for example, to get a job in architecture as a foreigner Borgo, it's extremely hard. It's extremely hard. You do need to have context. It's a hard process. So for example, I knew that if I want to stay there and I don't see a reality where it could be possible in the ways that I imagined that there's a lot of way to actually create that reality. So sometimes you see your future path and you, you have to take a decision either you or something, or that's only one of the Kickstarter reasons for it, because it starts from some point that

W one of the main reasons you started this retreat was so that you could move to Lisbon yourself.

Yes. Doing invest in a lifestyle that I want from the future. I knew I wanted to be nomadic and you don't want it to be location independent. And it's a really, it is difficult mission in the field of architecture because architecture he's really location dependent. So it's hard to break into the mic. But honestly, that was just a small taught seed that grew into something that I couldn't even have clan at that point, because it was connecting so many different dots. It was for example, I want quite realizing that both me and my co founder could within this concept fully invest in our passions. And through those passions, we could have our people and we could bring them together and sort of within the lifestyle, focus on the pain points and how to solve them. I was sort of a, this, see the curiosity as all like, wow, this is an amazing opportunity to build a life that you want, but also being a bit unrealistic. Then nothing I think is, is as idealistic as it seems that every average path, every lifestyle also has its difficulties challenges. And there's, yeah,

It makes sense. It sounds like a one, a very entrepreneurial way to look at it. And then to breaking that down into a more spiritual kind of understanding what makes people tick kind of way to look at it. And since you've been doing this for quite some time, you're combining your passion for travel and the nomadic life, and you're mixing it with the entrepreneurial aspect of just building a business that hits people's pain points, and it's helping you move to Porterville. I mean, doing this retreat yourself, like, is there the whole social aspect that you enjoy? The two, why, why was it a retreat specifically that you picked as a business model to do import the goal versus something like where you see a lot of nomads doing something like digital marketing or freelancing or starting some sort of online business? What about a retreat really drew you to it?

Alright. Uh, one aspect for share, ease, socializing, and human connection. You guys, within, within this idea, we had to actually bring people together in the beginning are complete strangers. And then to be curious, first of all, on methods, for example, how could we build connection between those people and skip the small talk as soon as possible, it was sort of a mission to mission and curiosity to find tools that would easily and play fast and connect people. Yes.

What kind of tools, what kind of stuff

With these, through, throughout doing different, smaller events and retreats as well? We discovered a while, listen, pools,

Let let's, let's hear some. So like, let's say we're trying to get some people to connect, right. And, uh, let's say we've met two people and they're at a retreat. And th this could apply, I guess, to any two people that are crying to connect. Right. It becomes broader than that. What kind of strategies or things do you, do you do? Can you tell these people, like, uh, let's say I have no idea how to connect with anybody. Like, I'm just socially no idea, right? Like I just have never socialized with a human being my entire 27 years, let's say that. And I just came out of this dark cave and, uh, I'm about to talk to my first person ever. How do I social? What kind of strategies should I use? Or what should I do to kind of connect with somebody?

Right? So within a retreat for us, it is really important to set the cone and the intention. So we are within this group, we as organizers, we facilitate the whole program. So for example, the first thing we do, every single retreat that we gather and us, we share our stories and we set a really strong intention and also a sort of rules for the group. We spend a lot of time into creating a really safe space because it is for people to feel comfortable and safe. It sort of needs to be a bubble within, they feel completely free to be open. And this takes a bit of time to sort of build up from our side.

W what do you do exactly to build that bubble? I think something like, I don't know, maybe, I mean, I'm guessing you don't barricade the place completely and just leave everybody inside there, right?

No, no, no. But the environment, for example, is really, really important that to be in a quiet place, that he's mostly also surrounded by nature. It helps to guess it brings the focus just on the group. Otherwise, it's, it's obvious if there's more distractions in the environment, you lose your focus. Right. But we had two hour week, it is sort of, um, this escalation that we do, continuous exercises and group activities that have the same goal and same intention to connect people. So it's in different ways. For example, even, even meditation is really, really important. You guys, if we do focus on mindfulness training empathy within the morning practice, we are way were way willing to connect throughout the day as well.

Th does group meditation have its benefits over a single person meditation?

Oh, definitely. Definitely. It's, there's even scientific studies around that, that a group meditation has a stronger vibrational level and all of the people can Y great on a different level that it does influence the whole group.

Interesting. And is there like a sense of connectivity and a sense of more, uh, Oh yeah. Connection essentially between people after they finished meditating?

Absolutely. Absolutely. It does. It does. First of all, it is such an inner word that it does ground you within yourself, and you feel more connected within any does reflect within the group. The more connected you feel with yourself, the more able you're connect, more able you are. Okay.

It's kinda like when people say, if you love yourself, you're able to love someone else. It's the same way. If you feel more in your own vibration, you're able to vibrate with other people.

Definitely. For example, we even use techniques of, um, we created this set of questions that are, for example, who has influenced your life the most and how, and when was the last time you felt truly inspired? There are questions that bring out both difficulties and a lot of joy as well. It is a way to go and dive deeply into the conversation.

And this is, these are questions you give to people to ask each other.

We do most of the activities we deal within the group. So it happens bad at the 12 people are sitting in a circle and we one by one in basically around. So for example, I asked a question from the person who's setting, sitting next to me, but it doesn't mean the conversation is closed guests, usually the questions, for example, have you ever gone traveling to run away? It is something that a lot of people can relate to. They do have something to share. So usually there's a question and it just, the conversation was so strongly that it's not limited to only one answer.

And from a psychological perspective here, essentially what you're doing is you're getting people to have this open ended conversation that dives into details about their life, that they don't normally share with people that they see every day or people that normally don't even ask these questions. And from the inside, when you start talking more about what you're feeling and what you're saying, and talking about the intimate details that you never share with anybody, you're essentially investing yourself more than the other person. And there's that investment grows between the entire group. People start caring more for each other. People start getting more invested in it. They get more connected and they become more, more worried. And it's just, it's basic human connection, right? Like, I can give you an example between my friends and I, that the ones that I've known for a while, right. That those and this anyone can relate to including yourself. I'm sure if you have friends that know more about you and you know more about them, you're obviously going to feel closer to them, more invested in them, more wanting to do things for them and more having things done for yourself from them because you're more invested in each other. And you're essentially taking that process of friendships over years, and you're condensing it in a short period of time at your retreat.

Absolutely. That is one of the most beautiful aspects of it. That if you spend quality time with people over a longer period of time, this connection that being built between people goes deeper and deeper. For example, if you do go to a workshop and you find it super interesting, and you connect with someone from the audience and talk, talk, and you really click, and as your dad, you don't meet up for a while. That level of momentum, just, it slowly fades away disappears. Um, but when we did the retreat, basically this momentum, we do everything to building and building and building, and we didn't ever really retreat. You has sort of had this escalation point that in bursts, the moment burst with joy, there's this level of joy and comfort. The people feel that it just, uh, it's sorry,

More because I'm super curious about if you actually get to that point where the momentum is going so high, that because you know how for example, um, w what's a good example I can give you, like, it's like going so deep into the water, right? And you go deeper and deeper and deeper, and all of a sudden you run out of breath. And, uh, I've noticed this in conversation. It's kind of like being smelled broken. Like let's say you're going really, really deep into conversation with somebody. And all of a sudden the conversation gets too deep and there's no time to breathe. And the conversation kind of destroys itself and it doesn't work out too well. And you have to rebuild that momentum again. So in, in, but sometimes if you're doing it where you're going deeper and deeper, and then you have time to breathe, you go up in the air a little bit, you know, laugh a little bit, have a little joy. Then you go back to peep again. Then the conversation goes deeper and deeper and deeper. And from this point, I can tell you I've been very well handled and you build that momentum, and I'm sure you time it all very well use of said, you get to that point where it gets so deep that it just burst with joy. So explain that joy and explain this bubble, explain this connection bubble to me.

All right. I guess why she mentioned it's really important. This balance between joy and also wanting to bill. I think it's really important. I think he's one of the key aspects of the program be guessed exactly. Every time we do go a bit deeper and trigger a person. There needs to be first time to process and their second part time to sort of heal and immerse into joy. So for example, this is where we use dance. A lot, the cofounder, she teaches conscious dance and eighties is such a joyful activity. It is what it is. First of all, it connects people and does bring up also deeper level, deeper levels of joy, right? So it's both, it needs to, the program needs to balance both aspects. If you go, I wouldn't say we'd gone down, but we do go deeper. And then to bring it up again with this sense of freedom and self expression, for example. So yeah, this way of balancing the program of doing work, and then yeah, having people give them time and activities and tools to invest in this, collect their happiness and connection. It is essential. It's the key, because it's when we do talk about the program, it seems like we are doing around of, um, heresy and a bit of psychology and everything that seems to be intimidating. It is part of that, but also the big part of it. This is a group dynamics, the whole joy connection, networking, all of these are,

See, I'm glad you bring that up because if you were to speak to let's take even an American, right? The average American, if they were to look at something like what you're doing or something like what we do travel, they see it as like the spiritual hippy dipping shit. And that is not true at all. People there might be there. Of course, there's hippies out there, take it to the max. And they have this whole spiritual level of everything that they do. And there's always this psychological aspect of what other people do, right. But my argument is that they both pretty much the same from the outside. You might be looking into something that you do as a retreat and someone might judge it and say, Oh, it's too hippy or too spiritual, this and that. And it's not true at all. Right. There might be a spiritual aspect of it.

But as a person, as a human being, we have a spiritual side and a psychological side of it that need to be combined to make us into a better, more higher version of ourself, a more enlightened version of ourselves and the greats in history. People like doll, the Lama people like, um, the Pope, people like Buddha, they've all understood this, right? You're not either one a, your spiritual or B. You're very cold, hard, it's psychological facts. It's a mesh of both. And the science that brings them together is it's true. It's all, all of it's true. The connection, all this that you're building between people, it has a spiritual ring to it, but at the same time, it's, it's based down in hard science and why it works and how it connects people so well. And it's so psychologically, it's better for your mind. You come out more replenished.

So I guess what I'm trying to say is that I want to help people understand that they can do things like treats and they can do things like meditation, and they can do things like travel without judging it for being something that a spiritual hippie does. You know, some of the most successful business people on this planet have done retreats in mountains. They've done trips out to a meditation 10 day meditation trips out in the mountains in a dark room, closed off, away from the world or to retreats where they've gone to groups of people, hundreds of people, and just then connective exercises, you know, and, and these people understand these really successful people understand that you can mesh spirituality with psychology to really become the best version of queen can be well, instead of being just really close minded and either just focusing on the business and just kind of judging everybody that, that closes you off, that makes you less of a human being and on the opposite side as well, being really spiritual hippy dippy all the time and not really believing in the psychology and seeing that God does all this, or, or Buddha did all this, and that's not true either.

No, it's about mixing it together. And I love the way that you created this retreat to kind of bring those two together and that you plan this all out logistically to escalate people from that initial, I don't know anybody here state to hire vibrant. High-frequency like incredible friendships, incredible relationships at the end of it. I want you to dive in a bit here and tell me, like, how are people with each other, like what happens towards the end of this retreat of the 12 days, right? Or 12 people, how many days

It is usually nine days

Are people like interacting with each other at the end of these nine days.

All right. I think they're our most wonderful connection. And professionally that just emerges from the experiences just collaboration's I get these incredible. We usually, we don't choose business partners also just by their CV. We Joe's people who we want to work with based on how well we could have net and how well do we relate to each other? If we have certain amount of shared values, it will just skyrocket the whole process. So probably this is one of the practical outcomes of the retreat is that people connect also nationally collaborations, new business ideas.

I know you've only been doing this for since last year now. Right. Have you had any, like, have you had anyone who came back to you with like some sort of success stories with like, Hey, I have this new business now that I'm doing with somebody, or, Hey, I've been best friends with somebody like this. Like, have you had a success story like that yet?

Well, I think one of the success stories is that, but I'd say after the second three on the third one, 40% of the participants came from the previous retreat. So they connected within the group so much that they just decided to join the next one as well. Adding this is, um, it is one of an example of just how well you connect with the group dynamics and you sort of experienced how powerful it can be. And you know, it's also an experience that you can just repeat and join again.

So the fact that you had people actually come back to your next retreat and made it back, it must be that good.

Yes, absolutely. It's also, they're wonderful people and absolute pleasure to spend time with. So it's of course, incredibly humbling, empowering as well. Of course,

Let's jump to the entrepreneurial side of your retreat for a minute. Right. So you've been doing this since last year. Have you heard any revenue growth yet?

Yes. Yes we are have. All right. So we see that often in the first retreat as a free test run, because we did want to gain feedback and just experience of doing it, but I didn't that the next retreats were all sold out. So that was, that is, it is a beautiful, uh, yeah, it is just a proof of the concept working. Right. What acid

Has it become profitable now?

Yes, absolutely. Absolutely.

How do you set this up? Exactly. You rent, you rent a place out, right. And I'm guessing the first one was obviously from your own money that you had set aside, the subsequent rentals I'm guessing are from that lacks retreats profits.

Yes. Yes. Usually. Yes.

Yeah. So, so run the process down for me. Like let's, let's go back to the first retreat you did. And this is where someone who wants to maybe follow in your footsteps. Maybe you want to do their own retreat someday. How'd you break it down a little bit, like how'd you get the place and what kind of costs do it? Things like that.

First thing really important before we even did the first retreat, we started planning smaller events. We basically had this concept of this retreat. I have a one week program and we broke it into smaller pieces and events. And then them basically weekly before months before we did the first retreat, there were free events. Most of them, yes, they were coworking days. And also we use the same technique of the question cards we created to open up conversations. So we had this sharing circles and coworking days, then we organized and Alyssa,

So you really boosted it up. That's good.

We did that for months before we organized the first retreat. So building community before

Organizing the actual,

But organizing an actual ritual is really important.

How big of a concern did you have at that point before that? How big of a community did you have before that first retreat?

It is hard to say because we did only, we did the events and it was also people who attended events, several vans, and then they traveled on. Honestly, we didn't have even less skills to actually keep track of the community. We didn't have a platform back then yet. So it was just the social interaction. It was a way for us to connect with people, you gain some skills also just to build trust.

So you did this, you did this for a couple months. You learned how people are connecting. You observed a lot and you maybe tweaked it a bit over time, too. Right. And then you finally came to the time of your first retreat. So what'd you, do you booked the place out? What, what exactly did you do for that first retreat?

Right. So the first retreat was in Lisbon. So we made it as daily program within the retreat. Right now we have the program, but we also have the quality part. So we're mixing the both sides of it. But back then less clearly just did the daily program. So it was without the, I mentioned part, which meant that people attended, it was still a group of 12 people. I guess that's essential to have the same familiar faces connecting throughout the beard.

Is it 12, like the magic number?

It is kind of a magic number, because for example, it is this specific amount of people that you could put sitting in one page and you can skills see and interact with that basic group.

Interesting. Interesting. Okay. So I'll go back. So you were saying you've got 12, then what happened?

All right. I said that that while people is good in mods, that could be sit in the table and they could still have a interaction then conversation.

And then you were saying, right, go on.

Sorry. It's also a good number of people for networking to share some skills between each other, to learn from each other to have different interests and also similar interests.

Okay. So you grabbed these 12 people and you had this first meditate or first retreat you were saying that it was like a daily program at that point.

Yes. Basically throughout the, we did sessions, we started off the morning with mindfulness practice yoga, and then it was throughout the day you workshops, we had a movie night connection sessions.

Were people living together at that point?

No, they were basically mostly people who recently came to Lisbon either to live or just do travel for awhile. And they were looking to connect to people, connect with new people and to make friendships.

And this eventually evolved over time into people living together in doing this.

Absolutely. And that completely changes the concept as well, because for example, the difference between the first retreat that it was only then program was the exact same aspect that we tried to build up a momentum. But then when people spread out and go home, for example, for night in the us, the momentum still fades or way to serve the next step. And then we have to build up again and it doesn't reach this point as it would reach with also the coloring aspect of it.

What was your initial investment when it came to everything?

Right? So for, it was still relevantly important to lower the risk. So we contacted and recommendation and just negotiated this deal of basically paying on a spot that we do, not for something to pay for a deposit, uh, that we didn't have this initial personal investment. We could book and place started working on the program and all of the aspects that we the, to people. And then, yeah. Then as soon as the program was graphic graphics, we started selling the spots for, to put their participants

Interesting. And then you'd use that money to actually pay for that place. So you lowered your risk in that and the profits that you were getting were going straight to them in the first place. That's a good way to do it. Right. You negotiate. And this is, can be done very easily in a place like Puerto Rico, for example, where people are much more willing to negotiate on prices versus somewhere like Colorado. Right.

Right. I imagine. Yes.

So, so you went from there and that paid for all that. And on that first time, like what percentage profit are we looking at from that first retreat to now? Like, how has your revenue grown between the first time you did it? And now

It has from the second, the difference between the second and heard retreat days, I think their revenue grew roughly 40% because at least the first two retreats would, they wasn't nearly with the aim of profiting from it. It was to first of all, test the concept for us to develop this expertise. And he asked them then from there, or we could start more thinking about the whole business model of revenue. What is our initial? Yes. What is our aim for the next five years? All those things came later. We did not start off with the five year financial plan and business plan. We took the steps to actually make something happen. And then from there we started to more or less figure out the finances because this, we do, of course it is a very important part of the business to keep being sustainable and to grow weight.

But it has never been that the place or the motivation to do it. I'm going to be completely honest. If I would want to have a really stable, higher salary, I should definitely work as an architect. Right. This is a current situation. I'm not saying that. For example, if you're in the corner and creating something that you don't have to, basically the sky's the limit, you do craft your own salary, everything. And just to say that, just to say that the first year wasn't about aiming for a comfortable salary it's, um, it is a difficult process because you do need to have a lot of vision and sense of trust, too. You have to just too interested. This will happen to people will sign up and it will kick off in. Thanks. A lot of investment, a lot of energy, a lot of time, but obviously anything meaningful is worthwhile, worthwhile.

True. And it worked out for you guys. Okay.

I cannot complain. I cannot complain that says, guess it, everything is in our hands, but still it is not the main, um, it's not the main one,

Right? And the main, and the main motivation for you guys is to bring people together, introduce something meaningful and make people connect or create connections between people. And that's what keeps driving you nuts.

Absolutely Indiana parties for us to share the tools that we know that personally have changed our lives. For me, for example, ladies meditation, for my cofounder EDS, this freedom within self expression and dance. And it has completely, for example, changed her self image and the way she can experience, I can say the same for myself. And there they're wonderful tools that are really practical ones as well. We could share with our people and they within the group could share as well.

There are two massive lessons here that you just gave to my audience. And I want to break that down so they can understand that. Number one, when you said that you didn't worry about profiting or anything from that first time that you did it, and it was more to learn about what you can offer and what skills came into play, and you're experts, you can grow your expertise and build that business model later on the lesson that the audience can understand. My audience here for you guys is that you don't need to prepare everything right off the bat. You know, it's a learning process. And when you dive into it, you need to have enough self belief in what you're doing to understand that if you actually work towards that, you can figure out all these things along the way, you know, it should be more focused on what you're doing rather than the money that you can make from it, because that can come later around.

Now, obviously you don't want to start at something at all that, you know, can't make any revenue whatsoever, right? If you're going to do, unless you're doing it for humanitarian nonprofit purposes. But if you're going to start a business, you know that there is some very rough, viable business model that can make revenue in there. Then you dive in and you try it. And if you fail along the way, that's okay because you learn something from that failure. And either a, you can tweak what you're doing already to keep going forward with what you're doing or this completely pivot in a different direction and try something completely new. But failure, success is all part of the game. And you have to take that first step. It, whether it's all prepared or not just to see what you're doing and to get from point a to point B.

So you can get the points. And so you can get the points, the right that's the first lesson and lesson number two is that you're not chasing the money. Like you said, you're doing something meaningful. And from doing something meaningful from incorporating your passions into what you're doing, money came to you, you know, and if people underestimate that, right, if you're chasing the money, you might end up like some of these millionaires out there and you hear about them all the time, absolutely miserable making millions of dollars, but their wife hates them. They hit their family. They want they're suicidal. You know that they might be rich, but they're miserable, fucking miserable. But if you go and you chase your passions and you put together what you find meaningful, and essentially what it boils down to is how you can give back to the world.

If you take all that and you put it into a business or even your own work, that is so much better. And if you really love it, if you really enjoy it and you do it every single day, if it's something that you're really passionate about, money will come to you. You know, money will come to you and you will become happier. It might not be a lot of money at first, depending on what you're doing, but money will come to you. And speaking to you. Now I can tell like Mars over the years, this business is going to become more profitable because you have this passion for it, right? You're enjoying it. And you're sharing what you're passionate about with these people. So this business model, it already grew 40% in a year, knows where it's going to be in 10 years from now.

You know, and the biggest thing is you're going to stick with it because you love it. It's not the same with architecture. I don't know how much you loved it, right? But obviously not enough as much as try. So you're going to stick with architecture. Sure. You might be making a $10, $15 raise every year or so, but with this business model one, you're so much more passionate about it. And look how it's going to work out for you in 10 years, you'll probably be making 10 times worth much in architecture would we make, so those are two huge lessons that my audience should take from it.

Thank you for the encouragement. First of all. And I absolutely agree. The most important thing is to have a vision and intention. For example, a lot of things that the program has become now true on the experience we had, we could not even have predicted when we started IDIs a really fluid fall of connecting a lot of dots that sort of fall into place on their own studying this absolutely this positive intention, it attracts was new energy and their thing just builds up on upon that. I think it's, uh, it is just law of nature. There's nothing, nothing missing

It is. It's hard to explain that sometimes because people have many different names for law of attraction, manifestation, bunch of shit, but really all it is is that you have this vision and you're working towards it. And things just slowly fall into place. As you understand, what would just, what to tweak, what to add, what to take off. It's not manifestation. It's not you imagining this dream. And it coming to reality right in front of you is none of that bullshit. All it is is that your hard work, your vision. And that's where the, like I was saying earlier, that's where the spirituality aspect and the psychological aspect come together straight and narrow straight facts. All right. That was really good Mark. Before this podcast gets too long, I want to close it off with two questions here. Okay. And this is, these are two questions that I ask every digital nomad that I have on my podcast. Right. So, number one, you said you've been traveling for how long, so you've been to port the gold. You've been to a couple of different places, right?

Mostly, unfortunately Raul. And before the time hit also by, uh, the intention was to spend there for six up to six months, but had a plan.

Uh, when was the first time you went to Puerto Rico? Again? That was back in

2017. And it has been basically from, I've been the last year, mostly nomadic to guess when I lived in Lisbon, I traveled a lot, but I always had a base cell.

Okay. So between that year, last year, when you started becoming fully know about it, and now how much of your perspective of life of people has changed?

Oh, well, uh, especially because of the retreats, I have this muscle memory and this bodily experience of having so much more faith in humanity and the good in people definitely think absolutely while I think for definitely is the biggest, biggest influencer, because it does change how you interact with people as well. Like how, how deeply do you experience human connection? It is, it is two parts of it, uh, your own inner work. And then it is just the experience, like the depth of connection you already had within you influence how you, how you see young people in theater as well. Definitely. I think that has been the biggest, biggest aspect of it.

Do you find most people are good on the inside or

That really? I think every person in their deepest core is good and has good intentions. Sometimes he just does not reflect in their self expression because well, there's been hurt from things to them happened throughout their life and they can't connect to this and passionate anymore. I think there's not that isn't, there's no doubt. There is. There's endless, endless positivity and good. And every single person, every single person

From my experience, I've noticed that people, most people evolve in three different ways, right? So you have your person that starts off really naive. Most people do when they're really young, they think everyone is good or every, and then they think I'm nothing can be wrong in the world and they get burned, right? That's, everyone's been there before and after they get burned a few times, some many people, if not, most people go the opposite way, they started being very cynical. They start thinking everyone's bad, or everyone's out to hurt that boy. So them versus the world or something along those lines, right? And then there's this final stage. And I believe everyone should strive for this stage. And that is after you become cynical, you start to actually see that people can be both good and bad that everyone has some good in them that most people are judgment, you know, and did that.

You should. And that's when you actually become genuine yourself. When you start to see the good in people, but understand that there's also misguided people right now. The last question here before we close off, that is if you could give one piece of advice to an aspiring digital nomad wants to follow in your footsteps, wants to do what you do, maybe create a retreat or some sort of event that brings people together. Uh, what piece of advice would you give that digital nomad perhaps you've never traveled before in their life or anything like that? How would you tell them to take that first step

First step it, if you please to ask why from our same concept, I would definitely just justice do take action. And to try to, if, for example, to do a smaller event and test how you would feel within that role, because for example, nothing is ever as we think it is. So this, um, this part of experiencing a role or an idea, actually coming to a realities, it's, it's crucial, it's crucial. I do do small steps and thinking that is the best thing you could do with starting anything. You just do one, take small steps while having a huge vision ending. This is incredibly important to have this both similar dangerously to focus on a small step and then having a huge vision to aim for, right? And for example, in my case, the person you do it with is also incredibly important. We, this dynamics and everything were created Gridets would not be the same if I would not have connected with data. Part of, for less theoretical fonder, as deeply as I did.

Were you friends before or how'd you two meet?

Yes. We were friends for around half a year here before we started this, but we connected, we connected on a deeper level and had this endless sense of trust within a shatter that was easy, really to join forces and start something. And it's also, we, it's incredibly powerful to have someone as a support by your side. I think it's, sometimes it is intimidating to start something, especially if it's a mission to serve mission on your own. It can be incredibly valuable to team up with someone who has the same mission.

Awesome. That is a great note to end on Mars. Find somebody that shares that mission and that value with you and came up with them. It could fit to make it that much better. Right? Well, thank you so much for coming on today, Maurice. I really enjoyed that. Hey, thanks for listening. Before you go here, though, I would seriously appreciate it. If you subscribed or left to review, whether it's one star or five stars, I really don't care. Your feedback just really helps me do better as well as grow this podcast so that it reaches and helps inspire more people. You can do this easily by going on Apple podcasts and hitting that subscribe button. Once you go into the podcast, you'll also find a rating system towards the bottom of the screen. Other than that, if you'd like to be featured as a guest connect or just have a chat, you can email me@omarmodigitalgmail.com. That's O M a R M O digital@gmail.com onto some closing words

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