Latest / Whereabouts Tales | Stories of Belonging and Immigrant Experiences / #37 From 9-to-5 to Digital Nomad: The Tragic Loss That Changed Everything - From Small French Village to Global Freedom

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#37 From 9-to-5 to Digital Nomad: The Tragic Loss That Changed Everything - From Small French Village to Global Freedom · Whereabouts Tales | Stories of Belonging and Immigrant Experiences

• 0:00
  I made a promise to myself and to my baby boy that I would not
• 0:06
  be living a life to please other people from now on.
• 0:10
  I will not wait to be retired to enjoy my life.
• 0:13
  From today, I will be living the best freaking life that I can
• 0:17
  live. You never know what's going to
• 0:19
  happen in life. Life is precious and maybe I'm
• 0:22
  going to be dead tomorrow. Who knows?
• 0:24
  There's a system behind that. It's it's not just your
• 0:27
  environment like that. It's a whole system.
• 0:29
  The goal of the system is to create good citizen and decide
• 0:32
  citizen. Freedom is having the ability to
• 0:37
  decide that tomorrow or Monday I can be where I want, doing what
• 0:43
  I want, without any compromises. We have two life and the second
• 0:49
  one starts when you realize you only have one.
• 1:05
  Jeremy, hi, and thank you for doing this.
• 1:07
  Welcome to the podcast. Thank you for having me excited.
• 1:12
  I'm excited to hear and tell your story, an amazing story.
• 1:16
  And I think one of the things that should be one of the
• 1:19
  stories that should inspire many people who are going through the
• 1:25
  9:00 to 5:00 routine to take maybe a leap of faith in one or
• 1:31
  the other direction. But let's start with the
• 1:34
  beginning. What's your what's your current
• 1:38
  location, Jeremy? So I'm currently in Serbia in
• 1:42
  the north of the country near the Hungarian border.
• 1:47
  I am nomad, so I move around a lot.
• 1:50
  We we had a a quick intro a few weeks ago and I was in Germany
• 1:54
  and and now I'm in Serbia. So I move around quite a lot.
• 1:58
  That's that. That makes life more
• 2:00
  interesting, right? For sure.
• 2:03
  Perfect. OK, then shortly with the
• 2:07
  beginning, I think most probably 95 of the people on this planet
• 2:11
  recognize your accent because it's one of the, it's one of the
• 2:17
  clearest accent that exists on this planet.
• 2:21
  I coincidentally, I had yesterday evening recording with
• 2:25
  with Behin, who's also from France and she's living at the
• 2:28
  moment in Stuttgart. And I love this, I love the
• 2:30
  French accent. But please tell us where did you
• 2:34
  where did you grew up? And Jeremy?
• 2:37
  Yeah, so born and raised in France, I grew up in a very
• 2:40
  small town in the South of France near Perpignan.
• 2:43
  And when I say a small town, it's like 1500 people.
• 2:47
  So yeah, small village close to the Spanish border in the South,
• 2:53
  like an hour away from Barcelona.
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  It's on the on the coast. And yeah, I spend the 1st like
• 3:02
  18 years of my life there before going to uni a couple of hours
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  away. Not too far.
• 3:10
  I didn't go so far, but yeah, no, yeah.
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  It was very interesting growing up in a small town.
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  Nothing in my childhood would have predicted the life that I'm
• 3:22
  living today. How?
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  How was the How was the childhood in a small French
• 3:28
  village? I mean, I enjoyed it.
• 3:32
  It was it's interesting, right? Like I think you would have
• 3:35
  asked me as a younger person, this question I would have
• 3:39
  answered in one way, but now I had time to reflect on it.
• 3:44
  So I have a different perspective on on that, right.
• 3:47
  But I think if I bring myself back to like little Jeremy, it
• 3:53
  was very fun. I mean, small town.
• 3:56
  That means that you know everyone, you know, you, you go
• 3:57
  to school from like two years, two or three years old to like
• 4:01
  14 years old with the same people.
• 4:02
  So you have friends for like a long time.
• 4:07
  Again, you, you know everyone, you can go anywhere in the
• 4:09
  village because it's just small. I had a good access to nature, a
• 4:13
  lot of like mountains and hiking trail and cycling trace, stuff
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  like that all around. So a lot of like freedom, you
• 4:20
  know, like, yeah, you, you I could do anything that I wanted.
• 4:24
  I was very free to go wherever I want because because it's safe,
• 4:28
  right? Everyone knows it traverse so
• 4:30
  you don't have to worry about things happening when in this
• 4:33
  kind of environment. So that was that was quite fun.
• 4:38
  Now if I put myself in my shoes today and with more perspective,
• 4:44
  the answer is a little bit different in a sense that I grew
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  up also in a, in a place with what I would call like a small
• 4:51
  town village mindset, kind of a little bit narrow minded and
• 4:57
  close to the world and not very open to the world.
• 5:02
  I, I grew up in a place with a lot of racism, with a lot of
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  homophobia and stuff like that. So yeah, it's not something that
• 5:13
  I realised back in the day, but now I'm aware of it.
• 5:15
  It's so interesting because you're saying this.
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  I, I, I realised more and more that somehow the the pattern of
• 5:21
  a small place, right? Because I, I have this, I, I, I
• 5:26
  have, I want to say I have a similar story, but not similar.
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  I grew up in a small village in Romania, but I have this, this
• 5:31
  things of the, of the small thing like you have the
• 5:33
  homophobia, you have the, the bit of racism, racism here and
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  there on different things, not necessary on one specific kind
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  of what everyone who's different from the, from the big from the
• 5:47
  big group. But I want to ask you, did you,
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  did you have Jeremy, the spirit of community in the small
• 5:53
  village? Like you had the feeling that,
• 5:56
  like there is that saying in English that you need a
• 5:58
  neighborhood to to raise a child.
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  Was that feeling that everyone in the in the area, in the
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  village knew you and knew exactly who your parents are.
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  And if you did something wrong, they were going telling your
• 6:09
  parents and so on. Yes, 100% I could.
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  I could grate for the for the nice.
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  Like even the teacher has cool, you know, they're friends with
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  the parents. So like if the teacher, if you
• 6:21
  do something wrong at school, you've got a teacher coming to
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  your house on the evening saying like, hey, by the way, he did
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  that today, stuff like that. So, yeah, everyone knows each
• 6:29
  other and, and about the community aspect.
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  Yeah. I, my parents were working, you
• 6:35
  know, 9 to 5 normal, normal job. So I was also spending a lot of
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  my time with my grandparents because they were living in the
• 6:44
  same village. My 4th for my wife and all of
• 6:47
  them. So I spend a lot of time with
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  them also like after school or when you are like summer break
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  or yeah, stuff like that. But yeah, like you can like
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  every single neighbors. I see them as relative, you
• 7:01
  know, like some sort of family in a way.
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  I could literally go and knock at the House of my neighbors
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  unannounced and have food, have a drink, have whatever I wanted.
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  It's just like everyone is my friend and family.
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  It's, it's crazy, all right. You could knock off on the door
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  and say, OK, I'm hungry, my mother is not home.
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  Can you give me like a sandwich or something?
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  And there was absolutely no issue, right?
• 7:20
  No, Yeah, it's normal. That's something that was nice,
• 7:24
  I have to say. And like, yeah, kind of Missy
• 7:27
  today, kind of. Yeah, things are different those
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  days. Absolutely what?
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  What were your dreams growing up in France?
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  Interesting. It's interesting because my
• 7:41
  dreams was not to live the lives that I'm living right now
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  because I, I didn't think that was an option to me.
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  So I didn't even dream about it. I remember like when I was a
• 7:53
  kid, like quite young, I wanted to be an astronaut.
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  And then at some point I wanted to be an architect, and then I
• 7:59
  wanted to be, what's the name, the guy finding like di Nozzle
• 8:05
  and stuff like that. Archaeologist.
• 8:07
  I think, yeah. So I want, yeah, on my dinosaur
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  face at some point and and then eventually I think I wanted, but
• 8:17
  because also I told that was a good thing.
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  I think I wanted to just be like an engineer and work on
• 8:22
  computer, whatever that meant, without much detail about that.
• 8:26
  But yeah, I never had any intention about travelling or
• 8:31
  about, I don't know, having my own business.
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  My, my dreams were fairly reasonable in a sense that I, I
• 8:40
  was not encouraged by my parents to dream big.
• 8:44
  You know, it was more like dream realistic.
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  What's possible for you kind? Of practical ability, practical
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  ability was the was the nine to five year dream.
• 8:57
  Why was the only option available?
• 8:59
  So absolutely yeah, Because what?
• 9:02
  What else could I do? Yeah.
• 9:04
  No, no, I'm I'm asking. I do like to, I know I do think
• 9:10
  we come from the same generation roughly, right.
• 9:12
  So before 90s. Yeah, morning 87.
• 9:16
  OK, 84, So we are close to the same generation.
• 9:19
  Absolutely. And I have to say this is
• 9:21
  exactly the thing like you that was the only option.
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  There was no literally no nothing that you can think about
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  except 9 to 5 dream job that you can have and then drive, drive
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  it and then maybe buy a house and maybe have a family and
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  that's it. Exactly.
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  And and also to weigh them further is because around me in
• 9:43
  my close circle, you know, my close family and, and my parents
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  friends and stuff like that, no one was also doing anything
• 9:50
  different than that. So I didn't have any like role
• 9:53
  model anywhere near showing me that that could even just be an
• 9:58
  option. So yeah, it's like, I'm I'm just
• 10:00
  going to do what everyone else is doing, right?
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  Because that's that must be. That must be the way.
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  So you finish. You finish high school at home.
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  Close to yeah, like an hour away.
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  OK, OK. And then you went to university.
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  What when you studied? I studied computer science,
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  Yeah, I didn't go too far. I went two hours away this time,
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  so I wasn't OK too far from home, still in the South of
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  France. But yeah, I studied computer
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  science for like the first two or three years and then I
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  specialized in robotics and software development applied to
• 10:34
  robotics A. Really interesting topic.
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  Yeah, I I thought what funny was fun in from being honest, you
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  know, like we get to work with our robots and stuff like that.
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  And also I picked this line of study strategically because I
• 10:52
  knew at the time that it was it was going to be good for my
• 10:58
  future, right. It was a good investment.
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  It was like a right a good path to pick and it was decided, you
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  know, following advice of people in my family and stuff like
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  that, like that would be a good mood and I was good at it.
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  I was I was good at school. I'm, I'm more like a, my brain
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  is more science than anything else.
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  So it was a good match also with my abilities and, and skills.
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  So yeah, I didn't pick it out of passion.
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  I I've never been a coder who loves to write line of codes
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  and, and just geeking out developing software and stuff
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  like that. Like I wasn't the case.
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  A lot of of the students in my class were like that.
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  I was not one of them. I picked that out of
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  practicality and strategy more than passion.
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  But. Like everyone back then,
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  everyone, everyone was doing the same.
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  Whatever can bring you more money when you when you can get
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  the job. That was the only goal right?
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  You. Know what's interesting because
• 12:00
  I'm I'm thinking about that because you say that is that
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  this is something that you know, you don't always remember things
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  when you were young, but this is one of the thing that really
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  remember like it's yesterday is my dad telling me 100,000 times
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  through how my childhood be good at school.
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  So you get to work in an office on a computer as an engineer.
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  That's the goal. That was like for my dad, me
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  doing now would mean that I made it because he and his dad and my
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  other granddad, they all worked in construction.
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  So it's all like working outside, very physical tiring
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  work. And they don't want that for me,
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  which I, I understand. And back back then, it was like
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  become an engineer working an office on a laptop sitting all
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  day. That's like you've reached the
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  pinnacle here. It's absolute.
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  That's that's that's absolute to the dream heaven.
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  And there is nothing nothing about that for for for me.
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  I have to say that the the actual the actual expression was
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  learn, be good at school and try to be someone.
• 13:11
  Oh, interesting. And this was, this is something
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  that I have to say, it's a it's, it's something that was said a
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  lot in our generation, in my generation, at least in Romania.
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  And I have, I have a lot of friends who got told exactly the
• 13:27
  same because they were all coming from the communist
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  Romania. They were all working in
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  factories, and they were all right on the same level.
• 13:36
  Yeah, interesting. And they were saying actually
• 13:39
  exactly like what your father was saying, but with different
• 13:43
  words, because they were saying try to be someone so that you
• 13:45
  get out of that flat. Yeah.
• 13:49
  Flat world that they were, flat society that they were living
• 13:52
  in. Interesting.
• 13:53
  Yeah. So it's not even in a sense of
• 13:55
  become famous, it's just become just standing out of of the mess
• 14:00
  because everyone is the same man.
• 14:02
  Yeah, that's very interesting. Exactly, exactly.
• 14:04
  It's not because I, I know when you say someone is like becoming
• 14:07
  famous in the words of today, but it's not that.
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  It's just like, get out of the mess.
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  It's so interesting because it somehow means the same.
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  It's also interesting the similarities was the in, in
• 14:16
  different cultures, the same expressed different.
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  Of course you studied, you said you studied 2 two hours away
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  from home. So that means you went, you went
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  back and forward. So you, you or you moved
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  completely out of the of of your home.
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  Yeah, I moved. I, I had a small like studio
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  apartment and I was going back like at the beginning every
• 14:38
  weekend and then eventually a little bit less.
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  You know when you get friends and girlfriends or whatever like
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  you, you go back every two weeks and every three weeks.
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  And you'll learn and you'll learn to manage the stuff that
• 14:47
  you get from home, because in the first weeks you don't know
• 14:50
  how to manage that. After two days you have no more
• 14:52
  money. Yeah, and, and and laundry and
• 14:55
  food and everything, right. There are there are the rule.
• 14:58
  The first two days you have money.
• 15:00
  The next two days you have the food.
• 15:01
  The last day was hunger. Yeah, exactly.
• 15:08
  I have to say that one of the best lessons that you learn as a
• 15:11
  as a student is managing your own everything.
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  Like you have to go and, and live alone, even if you do it
• 15:18
  only under the week first, because you realize that
• 15:20
  nobody's cleaning the, the, your apartment, nobody's washing the
• 15:24
  dishes, Nobody's there to broom your apartment.
• 15:27
  You have to, you have to wash your clothes, you have to wash
• 15:30
  everything and you have to manage the things that you have
• 15:32
  to get to be there for the whole weekend.
• 15:34
  That's that's a lesson for everyone.
• 15:36
  And, and also like on, on on this tour, 'cause I think I
• 15:40
  didn't realize at the time, but I think it became a valuable
• 15:43
  skill now as an adult. I also went to boarding school
• 15:48
  during high school. So from Monday to Friday I was
• 15:53
  sleeping at school and only going back from the, the
• 15:56
  weekend. So actually I kind of stopped
• 15:59
  living full time at home from the age of like 1415 years old.
• 16:03
  So quite young. I was already gaining some sort
• 16:05
  of independence on this side. So I've learned very quickly and
• 16:10
  from a very young age to be by myself or figure things out by
• 16:15
  myself because I have mum and dad all the time with me.
• 16:19
  And I think that that that became a very valuable skills
• 16:23
  that I developed over time and that's useful those days for
• 16:26
  different reason. Absolutely, Absolutely.
• 16:30
  How did you get to Australia during studies or after studies?
• 16:34
  Doing so that was doing my first year of master degree during the
• 16:41
  first year, we had to spend the second semester working in like
• 16:48
  doing like an internship basically, you know, so when,
• 16:50
  when, yeah, you, you go and walk somewhere for five or six months
• 16:55
  and we could pick whatever we wanted.
• 16:57
  We could, we could pick a company nearby that could hire
• 17:02
  us in the future or we could go abroad.
• 17:03
  It was very open. It's like, as long as you find
• 17:05
  something related to your study, you know, go for it.
• 17:09
  And it's very funny because to this day, and I mean, that was
• 17:16
  in 2010, so you know, it's 15 years ago what we're talking
• 17:20
  about. I still don't fully know how I
• 17:24
  ended up in Australia. I, I've, I've always thought
• 17:29
  about that very hard. Like it, It sounds silly but the
• 17:34
  only interest at the time I heard about Australia was I love
• 17:39
  rugby. Like.
• 17:40
  I want to say I wanted to say. I am a huge rugby league fan and
• 17:47
  Australia is like the make of rugby.
• 17:50
  And that's probably the only thing that I knew about
• 17:52
  Australia. Obviously with kangaroo and cola
• 17:54
  bear like, but nothing else. Like it's not like I have, I
• 17:59
  don't know, you know, posters of Australia in my bedroom or
• 18:02
  anything like that. But what I knew was that I
• 18:07
  wanted to learn English. I, I know that was a skill that
• 18:10
  I had to acquire, you know, working in tech and computer
• 18:13
  science, learning English was like a necessity.
• 18:17
  And learning English in France is not possible.
• 18:20
  Like you need to go abroad. I strongly believe that when you
• 18:22
  want to learn language, you need to just go somewhere and figure
• 18:25
  out. So my options was like England,
• 18:29
  the US or Australia, I guess. And I picked Australia.
• 18:34
  And the reason I ended up going there was another student in
• 18:40
  Europe above me went to Australia the year before.
• 18:44
  So I asked him like how, how did you end up going there?
• 18:47
  Do you have any contact that you could share with me?
• 18:49
  So we share the contact. I had an interview and, and
• 18:52
  yeah, everything, everything was approved quickly.
• 18:55
  So basically one day I didn't tell my parents first.
• 18:58
  I, I just applied for a bunch of internship.
• 19:01
  And when I got the yes, I went home and I was like, so you
• 19:05
  know, this internship, I've got something in Australia and like,
• 19:11
  I like to go there. And somehow they said, yeah,
• 19:14
  sure. Again, I have no idea why.
• 19:16
  Like when I think about it. Like that, that, that is a small
• 19:20
  surprise. I'm going like here, close by.
• 19:22
  Like like close by. 28 towers away.
• 19:27
  With the airplane. Yeah.
• 19:29
  You know, you know the globe like over there on the other
• 19:32
  side like there so. Basically, if you jump here
• 19:34
  really hard, I could feel you on the other side, yeah.
• 19:37
  Like. I have to, I, I want to say
• 19:40
  rugby Jeremy, because I know I'm a rugby fan.
• 19:45
  I know it's not normal for Europe and not coming from
• 19:48
  France or Ireland or UK or Wales, but I grew up.
• 19:54
  I, I, I don't know if I sometimes I don't know if I
• 19:57
  should also share stuff, but I find it interesting.
• 20:00
  I was in in my last year of high school and you know you have
• 20:04
  that. That the last exam that they
• 20:06
  have to study for, it's called, I think it's called like in
• 20:08
  French, I hope it's called baccalaureate.
• 20:11
  Yeah, yeah, exactly. It's the same name because I
• 20:13
  think we took actually the, the scrolling system from France and
• 20:17
  I had to learn for that. And the Rugby World Cup was
• 20:21
  happening in New Zealand and the games were in the morning while
• 20:24
  my parents were at work. My mother will watch this and
• 20:26
  she will know why now why? And instead of learning for the
• 20:29
  exams, I was watching the all the games and there was a, there
• 20:33
  was a commentator because this was I find interesting.
• 20:36
  There was a commentator who explained during the games, they
• 20:40
  explained the rules, which made the sport even more interesting
• 20:43
  for me. Yeah.
• 20:44
  And 2023 I was in Lille because there was the 2023 was the the
• 20:50
  World Championship in France, right?
• 20:52
  Yeah. Yeah, yeah, the World Cup years
• 20:54
  ago exactly. I was in Lille because Romania
• 20:56
  played Togo and I was in the game.
• 20:59
  Yeah. So rugby really interesting.
• 21:01
  And yes, Australia and New Zealand for sure, the maker of
• 21:04
  that. Yeah, exactly.
• 21:06
  Yeah. Yeah.
• 21:07
  No, yeah. But yeah.
• 21:08
  But I can't, I don't have like any deeper answer than now,
• 21:12
  honestly. It's very funny when you think
• 21:14
  about it, because like, I've never, the fact that I decided
• 21:18
  to go there and the fact that my parents said yes, it's crazy
• 21:22
  because like, my parents never had a passport in life.
• 21:26
  We never travelled anywhere when I was younger.
• 21:30
  And yeah, they, they've never been outside of Europe, you
• 21:34
  know, anything like that. Or anyone else in my family for
• 21:38
  the matter. It's not just my parents.
• 21:40
  It's so interesting. So it's so interesting that they
• 21:42
  had the open mind to say, to say, yeah, you know what?
• 21:45
  Just go. Yeah.
• 21:47
  It's interesting. Because also, like I was, when I
• 21:49
  think about it, I was so naive. I just asked, you know, having
• 21:53
  no idea how much it would cost or anything like that.
• 21:55
  Like I, I just, yeah, I was just like a little young brat
• 21:59
  thinking like, hey, I want to go to Australia.
• 22:01
  I mean, that can we go? And it's not like they're rich
• 22:03
  or anything. Like it's not.
• 22:05
  Yeah, it's crazy when you think about it.
• 22:08
  So and, and you, you get the OK then you did all the
• 22:10
  preparation, you took the flight.
• 22:13
  How was, how was the exactly the flights post prior back then
• 22:18
  because there was no direct flight.
• 22:19
  Even today it's harder but that that I want 2 direct flights
• 22:22
  from Europe. Yeah, no, I did.
• 22:24
  I did like to lose London, London, Dubai, I think.
• 22:31
  Dubai or Dubai? And then, and then Dubai,
• 22:33
  Sydney, the, the, The funny thing from this plane was I
• 22:40
  didn't speak any English. Like it was a total adventure
• 22:44
  going there. I had my, my English like any
• 22:47
  English very, very, very, very, very little, like barely any.
• 22:53
  And I was sat on my seat and it was time for food.
• 22:58
  The, the oysters came with the trolleno and usually you have
• 23:02
  the choice of like 2 meals, right?
• 23:05
  And she said blah blah, blah, blah, blah blah, blah in
• 23:07
  English. I've no idea what she said.
• 23:09
  The only word I understood was chicken.
• 23:11
  So I said yes, chicken. I know what that is.
• 23:13
  Give me that one. And she gave me this splash of
• 23:18
  like chicken with spinach and stuff like that.
• 23:20
  I, I didn't eat much vegetable back in the day.
• 23:22
  So like spinach, I was like fuck, like wrong choice.
• 23:26
  That's all I understood. Yeah.
• 23:31
  And then and then I land in Australia, I go through custom
• 23:35
  and everything. Somehow I got into a taxi, I go
• 23:39
  to my hostel. I had book a hostel for one week
• 23:43
  and then my goal was doing this week to find an accommodation
• 23:47
  somewhere for like the the six month and saying I arrive in
• 23:52
  this hostel at like 6:00 AM in the morning, completely
• 23:55
  exhausted after 28 or 30 hour flight, having like no clue
• 24:01
  where I am or like being so overwhelmed by everything.
• 24:05
  And this young guy at the hostel because you know, you're the
• 24:11
  hostel employed like volunteers or whatever.
• 24:13
  I saw like it was probably like in his young early 20s or
• 24:16
  whatever start speaking to me in in Australian, like with Dick
• 24:21
  Saxon so quickly and I was like, Oh my God, this is going to be a
• 24:25
  very long six months. I have no, I have no idea what
• 24:28
  you told me like I I just don't know what you said.
• 24:32
  And I was like, because we didn't have Google Translate
• 24:34
  also back then it was 2010. I had an iPhone like the iPhone
• 24:38
  3 GSI think it was you know but. I have to say nice on the iPhone
• 24:44
  but still useless in back. Then we didn't have, like,
• 24:47
  Google Translate was not as practical as now, where you
• 24:50
  couldn't, like, literally have a full conversation with someone.
• 24:53
  Yeah, it was crazy when I think about it.
• 24:58
  What was your first impression about Austria?
• 25:00
  Of course, let's skip the let's skip the language part.
• 25:03
  You, you managed to to get in the hostel you find.
• 25:06
  Then you went out, you slept for the next two days most probably,
• 25:09
  and then. Well, I I didn't sleep during, I
• 25:12
  didn't sleep at night 'cause I was jet lagged, but during the
• 25:14
  day I was exhausted at my internship.
• 25:17
  So that was fun. I think I arrived on like, I
• 25:22
  don't know, like a Friday on a Sunday.
• 25:24
  I was in the stadium watching the game already.
• 25:25
  I was like, yes, I made it, you know?
• 25:34
  Yeah, that was my yeah. I literally went to a stadium
• 25:37
  like two or three days after arriving to see a game.
• 25:40
  And my first impression was actually very interesting.
• 25:44
  It's, it's a good question because I was amazed by the size
• 25:49
  of the city and everything because I've never been to like
• 25:51
  such a massive cities apart from like Paris.
• 25:55
  But you know, it felt different because of the language and, and
• 25:58
  the culture and everything. But also now looking back at it,
• 26:04
  I realize how narrow minded I was in terms of like, you know,
• 26:10
  when you're in a big city and you see any, any sort of people,
• 26:13
  right, in terms of how they look, what they do, Like it's,
• 26:16
  it's you got a melting pot of anything from any shape of a
• 26:22
  spectrum and, and whatever. And I remember being very like,
• 26:27
  what is this guy wearing? What is this guy doing here?
• 26:29
  Like I remember seeing people in the park doing some sort of like
• 26:32
  Tai Tai chi or, or, or movement. And I was like, what the hell
• 26:35
  are they doing? Those people like doing some
• 26:38
  weird stuff like being like, those people are crazy.
• 26:43
  Yeah, that was my first impression, to be honest.
• 26:46
  But I, I think that's, that's the huge difference right
• 26:49
  between right between a, between a small community and a small
• 26:51
  city and then and then going to a big community.
• 26:54
  We have a lot of, a lot of people, a lot of ideas.
• 26:57
  There are people more open minded and so on.
• 26:58
  I think that's, that was the big impact that hit you, like seeing
• 27:02
  everyone living their life free and yeah, and enjoying it.
• 27:09
  How did you met your future wife there?
• 27:13
  So I, I found an accommodation after a week.
• 27:20
  So I moved in this apartment and it was an apartment with six
• 27:24
  other people. So it was 4.
• 27:26
  There was one bedroom with four women with four girls and one
• 27:29
  bedroom with three guys. And I was one of them.
• 27:32
  So it was like 7 of us. Very fun from like everywhere,
• 27:36
  like Brazil, Sweden. There was a little French girl,
• 27:40
  Germany. Yeah.
• 27:41
  It was like everything. And I moved.
• 27:45
  I moved there. And then a week later, this
• 27:48
  English girl came through the door to visit the apartment to
• 27:52
  check it out, to maybe move there.
• 27:54
  And what's funny is that she came in and she was like, hi,
• 27:59
  I'm. I'm Rosie.
• 28:01
  And I was hello, My name is Jeremy, who is my very good
• 28:06
  friend Hanson. And she made me repeat my name
• 28:09
  four times. She couldn't get it.
• 28:12
  So eventually she said, oh, OK. She went to the bedroom and
• 28:16
  asked the other girl, what is his name?
• 28:22
  Yeah, that was that was a first time.
• 28:29
  So now, now. OK, now I understand how your
• 28:31
  English got better. Yeah, yeah.
• 28:36
  So you, you, you practice a lot. Let's say like this.
• 28:39
  I did. Yeah, I did.
• 28:42
  Yeah, in every possible way, yeah.
• 28:48
  That's really, really funny. Really funny, I have to say.
• 28:53
  You you stayed there for six months.
• 28:57
  Yeah. Have you came back together?
• 29:04
  Yeah, so we, so I was there until the end of summer, but she
• 29:08
  was gonna leave at the beginning of the summer and we started to
• 29:14
  like flirt or whatever on like May.
• 29:16
  So we we were like for like a month or one or two months
• 29:20
  together over there. And then when she was about to
• 29:23
  leave, we had a discussion, you know, like, I mean, I know
• 29:27
  you're going away, but you know, I kind of like you and, you
• 29:29
  know, you're kind of like me. So what, what can we do?
• 29:31
  Because, you know, I mean, she was going back to England.
• 29:34
  I was going back to France. She, she had to finish her
• 29:39
  degree and I had to finish mine. We both had an extra year.
• 29:42
  So it was like, is that going to work like the whole long
• 29:45
  distance relationship stuff? And we said, well, let's try it.
• 29:50
  Let's let's give it a shot. So I spent summer in Australia
• 29:54
  while she went back to the UK. And at the end of August when I
• 29:59
  came back, she came for two weeks in France to to visit me.
• 30:04
  And it's only actually told me many times she, she was
• 30:08
  terrified. She didn't know if after two
• 30:10
  months I was going to show up at the airport to actually pick her
• 30:13
  up, you know? For the young people watching
• 30:16
  this, for the really young people, yeah, there was no
• 30:19
  WhatsApp. There was no possibility to like
• 30:22
  they. We were talking on Skype, but
• 30:25
  that was it. On PC, Skype on PC, important to
• 30:28
  say. And they talked and they said we
• 30:31
  meet in two months at 7:00 PM in the airport in Paris.
• 30:36
  And let's hope you come. Exactly.
• 30:40
  That's funny. It's, I think it's so I keep
• 30:43
  doing this, but I think it's so hard to understand for someone
• 30:47
  who only knows these times that we are living at the moment
• 30:51
  where you, you are in permanent communication, how it was back
• 30:55
  then to go go apart and then talk to each other and said, OK,
• 31:00
  you know, we meet on the 17th of August, 2:00 PM.
• 31:04
  The plane will land. So you have to be there.
• 31:06
  Yeah, no, yeah, it's, it was a different world.
• 31:09
  And yeah, we had like that was the beginning of like Facebook
• 31:12
  Messenger and stuff like that. So you could have some form of
• 31:15
  tech. But yeah, nothing was on the
• 31:16
  phone. Everything was on the PC.
• 31:18
  So as as soon as you left home, you know, and it wasn't a
• 31:21
  roaming right. So as soon as she landed in
• 31:24
  France, her phone was a brick. Useless.
• 31:28
  So, but yeah, but I, I did pick her up, so I was good.
• 31:33
  So you you you you met the two weeks.
• 31:37
  I don't. I do get that your relationship
• 31:39
  went further and you finish both the degrees then you you move
• 31:42
  together. Yeah, we, we moved together in
• 31:45
  Paris after after we both graduated.
• 31:48
  So we, we graduated basically in like August 2011.
• 31:53
  So like one year later and in two weeks I got a job quickly in
• 31:59
  Paris. We we picked Paris because we
• 32:01
  saw, well, I didn't want to move in England, if I'm being honest.
• 32:05
  That was not an option. I mean, I, I, if I compared
• 32:08
  Paris with London, every day of the week would be Paris.
• 32:11
  So I'm sorry I I have to agree with you here.
• 32:13
  Yeah, The, the, the the deal was like, you're going to come to
• 32:16
  France, I'm not going to England.
• 32:19
  But she was obviously more than happy to live in Paris, right.
• 32:21
  So it, it wasn't like I had to convince her too much.
• 32:26
  But yeah. So I got a job very quickly.
• 32:27
  We moved to Paris, we got an apartment together.
• 32:30
  We lived in Paris for one year and after one year I was sick of
• 32:36
  Paris because I'm from the South.
• 32:38
  I need the sun, I need the warmth, I need my South of
• 32:42
  France vibe. And Paris is very different from
• 32:45
  that. And yeah, it was July.
• 32:48
  I hadn't seen the sun for like 3 or 4 weeks.
• 32:53
  I was like, I need to get out of here.
• 32:54
  I can't, I can't stay there. So I look for a job in the South
• 32:58
  of France and a few months later we we moved to South of France.
• 33:03
  Was she speaking French already? She started learning like she
• 33:08
  when she moved, she didn't speak a word of French at all.
• 33:10
  Nothing. The first two weeks of my
• 33:12
  parents were very fun because my parents don't speak in English.
• 33:15
  She didn't speak any French. So that was that was the whole
• 33:17
  thing. Let's say that we had a lot of
• 33:21
  wine that helped me to communicate.
• 33:24
  You talked a lot. Yeah, that's why my hands are
• 33:26
  really hurting from all the talking.
• 33:31
  So that was fun. But no, yeah, she started to
• 33:33
  learning to learn French in Paris, going to some classes.
• 33:37
  She was also doing some, like babysitting.
• 33:41
  Yeah, a bunch of stuff to learn French.
• 33:43
  She went there and yeah, she learned on the go eventually.
• 33:47
  How was the how, the how felt how how?
• 33:52
  How did you feel the life as a young couple, Like living the
• 33:57
  dream basically like both of you finishing the degrees you're
• 34:00
  having, having a good job, Most probably she on the way of
• 34:04
  getting a good job because she was sorry she was also in the
• 34:08
  same direction. How was, how did the life felt?
• 34:14
  So it's interesting because, I mean, very, everything was good
• 34:18
  and we're very happy because, yeah, I mean, we, we were, what
• 34:22
  I would say shaking the boxes, right?
• 34:23
  You were, you were making it. We were on a good path, right?
• 34:26
  Everything everything were working like perfectly so.
• 34:29
  Living the dream? Absolutely.
• 34:30
  From this perspective, everything was good.
• 34:33
  What's interesting though, is that I was set.
• 34:38
  We are very different and we grew up with very different
• 34:41
  education and beliefs and stuff like that.
• 34:45
  She was, she grew up in a very free environment, like free
• 34:49
  spirit. Her parents told her, do what
• 34:52
  you want. As long as you're happy.
• 34:54
  That's only matters. It doesn't matter what you
• 34:56
  study, it doesn't matter what you job.
• 34:58
  All you have to do is be happy in life.
• 35:00
  She travelled the law. She was way more open minded
• 35:03
  than I was and, and stuff like that.
• 35:05
  So she was not like pushy, but she would have liked to travel
• 35:12
  the world after studying. And I was like, no, I need to
• 35:16
  get a job. Like that's the right thing to
• 35:17
  do. I can't, I can't.
• 35:18
  I got my degree now. Now it's time to get a job and
• 35:20
  get paid and start this amazing career that I'm going to have.
• 35:26
  So, yeah. And but for her moving, moving
• 35:29
  to Paris was an adventure and was travelling.
• 35:31
  So she was happy with that anyway because, you know, she
• 35:33
  kind of got it. But if we would have listened to
• 35:36
  her, and it's funny now again, living the life that we live
• 35:39
  now, we would have been doing that 15 years ago.
• 35:44
  Which is funny. Yeah.
• 35:45
  Which is so she was actually question, not questioning
• 35:48
  because question maybe sounds really in a negative way.
• 35:51
  But she was also she was always already saying that maybe this
• 35:56
  is not the thing that we should do.
• 35:59
  Yeah, that was not for her. It wasn't a thing that you
• 36:02
  should be doing. No, like her, her parents have
• 36:05
  always been doing businesses and stuff like that.
• 36:08
  Like I said, like she she never grew up with a nine to five in
• 36:11
  mind and anything like that. So we have a we had a very
• 36:14
  different belief system and a very different definition of
• 36:19
  what life should be at this time.
• 36:23
  And, and she kind of just follow my way.
• 36:30
  But yeah, it's, it's funny. We we would have, we would have
• 36:34
  done what she wanted. Our life would have been
• 36:36
  completely different. You can know that she loved you
• 36:40
  so and she still loves you more. I mean, that's, that's clear.
• 36:47
  It's interesting for me that I would do guess that she's around
• 36:51
  your your age, so not the same age.
• 36:54
  But one year, one year younger. But it's interesting that in
• 36:58
  England most you, you said clear, you came from South of
• 37:02
  France. But still, it's interesting that
• 37:04
  back then somebody was already giving this to to his child,
• 37:09
  like try to be happy, try not to tick the boxes and check the
• 37:12
  boxes, try to be happy. It's so it's so interesting.
• 37:15
  I see it as a really advanced way of thinking, but back then
• 37:18
  for sure for. Sure, no, for sure, for sure.
• 37:20
  And and on so many levels in terms of respect for the people,
• 37:26
  tolerance, you know, like we talked about racism, stuff like
• 37:28
  that. She's like complete opposite,
• 37:30
  like love everyone, everyone is grey.
• 37:32
  Like we were like so opposite. And I've learned a lot from her
• 37:35
  from now. Like, you know, when I was
• 37:38
  telling all those stories about people in Australia being weird
• 37:43
  for me, she was telling me, you know, like what?
• 37:46
  She was always challenging me on what I was saying.
• 37:49
  And that was like the beginning of me started to change a little
• 37:52
  bit also because she was like, why?
• 37:54
  Why do you care if this person is, you know, this religion or
• 37:58
  why do you care if this person has pink hair or whatever it is?
• 38:02
  Like she was always like challenging me on the fact that
• 38:05
  I was pointing out different things on people.
• 38:11
  Really interesting, I say, I have to say really good because
• 38:13
  at the end, you don't have to always have the same opinion
• 38:16
  about stuff. And yeah, it's it's what
• 38:19
  whatever, what makes us actually strong together is having
• 38:22
  different opinion about things and discussing that and
• 38:24
  challenging each other. And I think that's that's really
• 38:27
  something that should be, should be the definition of every,
• 38:30
  every working couple because there is.
• 38:34
  It's interesting also you say that because also you, you, you
• 38:37
  keep saying that we are sort of old, you know, So I'm going to
• 38:39
  keep going on that. I'm not single.
• 38:42
  I can't. I tried to avoid saying we are
• 38:44
  old. Please don't do that now.
• 38:47
  But on this topic, if you want to feel a little bit old also,
• 38:51
  it's interesting because I've, I strongly believe that if we were
• 38:58
  younger, we were young now and we were using all those apps,
• 39:02
  dating apps to meet, we would never meet because we would
• 39:05
  never be a match. That's interesting.
• 39:08
  I find out that like we have, I'm looking, we have nothing in
• 39:10
  common. My list of interest and her list
• 39:13
  of interest don't match. There's nothing.
• 39:15
  Now like we, we have completely opposite taste in everything and
• 39:20
  we would have never been matched by an application.
• 39:23
  I found that very interesting. That's so interesting.
• 39:25
  But you are so right, because everything that is matching is
• 39:28
  matching the the common interest.
• 39:30
  And yeah, yeah, I think what, what makes us good together is
• 39:35
  having different interests, interests and having different
• 39:38
  things that we can talk about and having sharing different
• 39:41
  opinions and stuff. And we don't have to agree on
• 39:44
  everything. And that's that's, but that's an
• 39:46
  interesting point. But that doesn't work with those
• 39:48
  algorithm, right? Absolutely.
• 39:51
  And yeah, So it's funny to think about it.
• 39:53
  Yeah, absolutely don't. We are not old.
• 39:54
  I just want to. I don't want to admit.
• 39:59
  We met in the bar in person, yeah.
• 40:05
  And I went to her and I spoke to her without using her crazy.
• 40:10
  I was drunk, but that's fine. We were not connected by Tinder,
• 40:15
  we were connected by alcohol. Yeah, Vodka.
• 40:18
  Vodka. Vodka, you know that commercial
• 40:20
  with vodka connecting people make it sure.
• 40:23
  Yeah. The other generation this is
• 40:27
  getting bad this is really getting bad Yeah, that's really
• 40:36
  funny. OK, I, I saw I was at the, at
• 40:41
  the coffee coffee place. I, I was with my wife last year
• 40:45
  in the US and I was the coffee place.
• 40:48
  And there was a big announcement at the, at the beginning at the
• 40:51
  entrance. We have to know Wi-Fi, talk to
• 40:53
  each other, pretend it's 93. Yeah, I mean, make sense.
• 41:02
  The world believe in Yeah. Yeah, Oh my God.
• 41:05
  Funny Jeremy. Continuing, continuing to take
• 41:10
  the box. You, you have you started in the
• 41:16
  process of getting your own place, I don't know, building a
• 41:19
  house, getting a house and so on.
• 41:21
  So we, we moved to the South of France in 2012 and we started
• 41:29
  discussing buying an apartment the year after in 2013 because
• 41:34
  we liked, we liked the area. We, we, I had, I've got a good
• 41:38
  job back then. So like things were started to
• 41:41
  like look promising and we could see ourselves building a life in
• 41:45
  this part of France. So yeah, we we started looking
• 41:50
  around in 2013 and we moved into our apartment that we bought in
• 41:55
  2014. So yeah, another box check.
• 42:02
  And then the next one would have been the kid.
• 42:05
  The next one would have been to get married 2015.
• 42:09
  I'm sorry I skipped that part, I thought it happened before, but
• 42:13
  thank you. Yeah, 2014 apt 2015 we got
• 42:18
  married 2016 honeymoon and just after the honeymoon we started
• 42:25
  discussing well, we didn't start discussing, but we started
• 42:29
  trying to have a family and I'm saying no discussing because
• 42:33
  again, it would have been up to where we would have started
• 42:37
  trying much, much earlier. She she it's interesting also
• 42:43
  when when you know where the story goes, because I always say
• 42:48
  my wife should be doing podcast to share her story because she
• 42:51
  does she doesn't like to do that, but she should.
• 42:54
  But her dream was to be a mum. That was her goal in life in
• 43:00
  terms of like career, whatever doesn't care like she she never
• 43:02
  cared about job or anything like that.
• 43:04
  Her goal was to be a mum. So as soon as we met and as soon
• 43:07
  as I we we got serious. It was all right when I was
• 43:10
  starting having kid and I was I'm not ready.
• 43:12
  Like this is woah, calm down. But yeah, eventually I felt
• 43:17
  ready. Whatever that means.
• 43:19
  I don't think you're ever ready for it.
• 43:20
  But, you know, never like I was. OK, I'm, I've got my shit
• 43:25
  together now. So let's, let's try it.
• 43:28
  Yeah. So we started trying in summer
• 43:32
  2016 basically, and we got pregnant very quickly and also
• 43:41
  very quickly after finding out that we were pregnant, she had a
• 43:44
  miscarriage like 5 weeks. So yeah, very early on and.
• 43:53
  Still hard for, still hard for her as a mom.
• 43:56
  Very hard for her more than for me, to be honest.
• 43:59
  Absolutely. I, I, I didn't understand what
• 44:01
  he meant. I think, you know, I didn't
• 44:03
  fully. I was away from work also.
• 44:05
  I was like, I was not even here when it happened.
• 44:07
  So that was pretty devastating for her.
• 44:10
  She didn't have me there. She had to go to a doctor on her
• 44:14
  own and stuff like that. Not a good experience.
• 44:19
  But but you know, also it's, it's interesting because also I
• 44:23
  think everyone said, you know, like it happens, like if you
• 44:27
  know, miscarriage are very common.
• 44:28
  I see it's that's a narrative that you know, like people here,
• 44:31
  it's like it happens in one every four pregnancy and this
• 44:35
  and that and at least you can get pregnant, right.
• 44:37
  So whatever that doesn't really help.
• 44:38
  No, no, but but you know, it is what people say.
• 44:43
  So we, we started again very quickly, like a month after a
• 44:47
  pretty much because that was by the end of August, like on the
• 44:52
  last few days of August and we decided to try again.
• 44:56
  And I think we found out that she was pregnant again around
• 45:01
  the middle of November. So a couple of months after
• 45:06
  that. So this time very different
• 45:07
  reaction. Like the first time we were like
• 45:10
  happy, like, Oh my God, we're going to be parents and
• 45:12
  everything. And so this time it's OK, we're
• 45:14
  just pregnant, but we know miscarriage happened.
• 45:17
  So we're going to wait for like the 12 weeks to be excited,
• 45:21
  right? So for the 1st 12 weeks, it's
• 45:24
  like kind of like pretending nothing happening, right?
• 45:27
  You she start to have symptoms and stuff like that.
• 45:30
  Besides, let's just try to ignore it and not get too
• 45:34
  excited. At least if anything happened we
• 45:36
  don't get heartbreak and stuff like that.
• 45:40
  In January, 3 months, we did a scan, everything is good.
• 45:44
  So now we we can let it out. We told our parents, we told
• 45:49
  everyone and we start to make plans.
• 45:52
  You know, we found out he was a boy.
• 45:56
  So, you know, looking for names, starting to buy stuff, what are
• 45:59
  we going to do for the apartment called this small place blah,
• 46:01
  blah, blah, blah, blah. And everything was fine until
• 46:07
  April at six months roughly. We went for the scan where, you
• 46:13
  know, they do like all the precise measurement and check
• 46:17
  like all the the size of the bones and if the heart is
• 46:20
  developing properly and all that.
• 46:21
  Like the the very long scan that takes quite a while.
• 46:25
  So we went for this one, you know, thinking that everything
• 46:29
  will be fine, right? Like, like every parents do.
• 46:33
  And the nurse, the doctor or she was, did her thing.
• 46:40
  And during the whole scan, she was very, like, serious and
• 46:44
  quiet. And she told us at the
• 46:45
  beginning, like, I'm, I'm going to be focused.
• 46:47
  I'm not going to be talking to you much.
• 46:48
  So OK, good. Yeah.
• 46:51
  And then she sat down at the office, at the desk, and we
• 46:54
  could see on the face that something was not right.
• 46:56
  And she told us, OK, I'm getting numbers here that are not
• 47:04
  normal. So I'm going to, I'm going to
• 47:07
  have to send you to do some more in depth testing and scans and
• 47:11
  all that. I'm seeing some issues with like
• 47:13
  the size of the bones and the heart and stuff like that.
• 47:17
  So she send us to a cardiologist.
• 47:21
  She she send us to a specific department at the hospital to
• 47:25
  have more tests and stuff like that.
• 47:28
  So we came back home like devastated, not not like not
• 47:31
  knowing what was going to happen and what was going on, but also
• 47:34
  being terrified and understanding that there was
• 47:36
  something wrong, but without and fully understanding what.
• 47:40
  And we ended up doing, I don't know how many doctor appointment
• 47:46
  within like 72 hours. Like the day after we went and
• 47:49
  see someone and someone else, someone else, someone else.
• 47:52
  And very quickly, they basically gave us a diagnostic that our
• 47:59
  baby had this very rare condition.
• 48:03
  They were suspecting that it was a genetic disorder.
• 48:07
  At first it was just suspect because we just had to do
• 48:10
  genetic testing. But they were like, we are
• 48:13
  highly confident that there is this genetic disorder which is
• 48:17
  affecting the growth of the baby.
• 48:19
  But also most importantly, it's affecting his heart.
• 48:23
  It's affecting his lungs because his rib cage is not developing.
• 48:28
  And yeah, basically it gave us a whole bunch of information that
• 48:34
  told us that the chance of survival at birth would be very
• 48:37
  minimal. And if he survived birth, you
• 48:41
  would have to go through heart surgery as soon as he was born.
• 48:45
  And he would have to have many, many surgery for the first two
• 48:47
  years of his life to fix a long list of things that was not
• 48:52
  fine, basically. But yeah, so basically told us
• 48:56
  that the chance of having a baby that would live would be close
• 49:01
  to close to non existent. So grateful that it's happened
• 49:09
  in France, you know, and we we were given the option if we
• 49:12
  wanted to, to terminate the pregnancy if we wanted to.
• 49:15
  So it was obviously up to us. So that we obviously took time.
• 49:21
  And I know we, we, we looked at the situation and all the
• 49:25
  information that we had and we, we decided that it was the the
• 49:30
  best thing, if I can say for us and for him to, to end the
• 49:34
  pregnancy because there was just too much, too much on the plate
• 49:39
  to yeah, to not do that. So, yeah, that's a decision that
• 49:44
  we took. You know, it is phase.
• 49:47
  I don't expect people to understand or whatever, but like
• 49:51
  we, we thought it was a right thing.
• 49:52
  We, you know, and and yeah, so we that was the, for me, like
• 49:58
  this decision of like signing the paper was the hardest
• 50:03
  decision that ever had to take in my life.
• 50:05
  And I think it will be forever. And yeah, that was, I didn't
• 50:11
  know back then, but that was the beginning of obviously a very
• 50:15
  dark period, but also it was the beginning of huge transformation
• 50:20
  that would occur following this, this tragic event.
• 50:27
  I have so many questions. I want to say something because
• 50:32
  you just mentioned something really important, Jeremy, and I
• 50:36
  want to start with this. You mentioned the fact that you
• 50:39
  were lucky that you were in France and you were able to do
• 50:42
  the decision. And maybe for everyone
• 50:47
  considering or living in a country where not even medical
• 50:52
  abortion is is allowed, this would be something to think
• 50:56
  about. Because you took a an not a hard
• 51:00
  decision or an impossible decision.
• 51:02
  You took you took a decision between pain now or pain later.
• 51:06
  That's the only decision. It's like I'm putting my right
• 51:09
  arm or left arm, you know? There's no right.
• 51:10
  Yeah. Exactly.
• 51:11
  There is no right decision. It's you took a decision between
• 51:14
  pain now and pain later, and I think in this case, and I have
• 51:19
  to, I'm sorry that I have to do this to be the pragmatical son
• 51:23
  of a son of a gun, but you decided to suffer only the two
• 51:26
  of you, not the three of you. Yeah, no, I yeah, I agree with
• 51:30
  you. And at the end, I consider it
• 51:34
  not even, not even an egoistic decision.
• 51:37
  I consider it a selfish decision because at the end you
• 51:40
  considered everything and you said, OK, we, it's a, it's a big
• 51:43
  suffering for us. And I think we have to do this
• 51:45
  because otherwise we will suffer, all three of us.
• 51:47
  So there is no, there is no other better option.
• 51:52
  And this is this is a good, a good piece of of thing.
• 51:56
  And I wouldn't have thought about it if you would have said,
• 51:58
  but I think just saying it that you were luckily in in France
• 52:02
  and you were able to take the decision.
• 52:05
  Yeah. How was I can believe that for
• 52:09
  you all this period of discussing doing the
• 52:12
  investigations and so on was awful.
• 52:14
  But how was it? How was it for Rosie?
• 52:18
  So yeah, this, like this period was about 3 weeks long between
• 52:23
  like when we first found out and when we had a termination.
• 52:26
  It was about roughly a month, the entire month of April.
• 52:31
  And I think this stage, this part of the whole thing was as
• 52:38
  hard as it for both of us, like equally hard.
• 52:41
  I think we obviously dealt with it in different way because
• 52:44
  we're just different people. But it was just as painful as he
• 52:48
  was for the both of us, as painful as you can get.
• 52:51
  And we we cried a lot. We were angry at the world, you
• 52:56
  know, like, why is it happening to us?
• 52:58
  Like, well, you know, you get, you get into some weird thoughts
• 53:01
  when she like that happened, to be honest, you know, like why is
• 53:04
  it happening to us when we want a kid, when some people don't
• 53:07
  want a kid and they have one and, you know, all these kind of
• 53:10
  things. Yeah.
• 53:13
  At this point, he was a lot of like sadness, kind of like
• 53:20
  confusion, you know, why this is happening.
• 53:21
  That was that was probably the the main emotions that were
• 53:24
  coming up. And then and then there was the,
• 53:27
  the day of the termination that that was the most traumatic day
• 53:34
  ever. We were not we were not told
• 53:38
  what would happen in detail. And it's probably a good thing
• 53:41
  because I don't know if we would have, you know, like it's one
• 53:44
  thing like ignorance is bliss in a way that was kind of there.
• 53:49
  The yeah, this, this, this kind of day.
• 53:51
  And and I don't even want to describe it because, yeah, it's,
• 53:54
  it's going to stay in this room. But but that was traumatic.
• 53:59
  That's how I would describe it. It was just traumatic for her,
• 54:02
  for what she experienced in her body.
• 54:05
  And it was traumatic for me to see my wife going through that.
• 54:08
  So it was, that's where I think the emotion started to be
• 54:12
  different for the both of us. She she was experiencing
• 54:15
  something in her. And for me, it was the pain of
• 54:17
  seeing her this way. And that's that's where we
• 54:20
  started to like feel differently and I think internalize
• 54:24
  everything in in our own way based on the situation.
• 54:27
  Did you took time off work, Jeremy?
• 54:30
  Yes, again, thanks to the French system, I had something like a
• 54:36
  month off, which I mean, you know, grand scheme of thing is
• 54:39
  not so much, but she had four months, I had one.
• 54:43
  But yeah, I was able to at least be there during this entire time
• 54:46
  and, and for a little bit, not for as long as I would have
• 54:51
  liked, but yeah, I was able to. It's funny, I remember going to
• 54:54
  the doctor actually when that happened, like before the, the
• 54:58
  procedure and there's, there's nothing in place for the dad
• 55:05
  when there is any birth complication, pregnancy
• 55:08
  complication. And I was like, I, I don't care
• 55:10
  what you write on a piece of paper, just I'm not going to go
• 55:13
  to work now. So just say that I'm not fine.
• 55:16
  Like I don't care what it is, but I I'm not going to.
• 55:19
  Kill someone basically, so you know, just say whatever you
• 55:21
  want. Just like give me a piece of
• 55:23
  paper saying I'm not going to go to work.
• 55:25
  I'm not fit to work because yeah.
• 55:29
  But yeah. So, yeah, I was able to take
• 55:31
  yeah, about four weeks off to be to be present, which I mean,
• 55:37
  when when you go through that, you have no idea what you get
• 55:39
  yourself into. But you know, like the day after
• 55:43
  I had to go to the the town hall in the village to declare the
• 55:49
  birth and the death at the same time.
• 55:53
  And what? Get bureaucracy, Yeah, and get
• 55:55
  all the paper because I need the paper for the funeral and
• 55:59
  everything has to be taken in done in like 48 hours.
• 56:02
  And then I had to go to like the funeral house and pick a fucking
• 56:06
  coffin and a box for the ashes and all that and doing all that.
• 56:10
  Which one do you want? The blue one or the pill?
• 56:12
  Like, do you really think I'd give a shit, lady?
• 56:14
  Like what the thing look like? Like do you?
• 56:17
  And and and you pay thousands of euro for that?
• 56:21
  Because I can tell you it's fucking expensive to do the
• 56:23
  funeral. Even the size don't matter, you
• 56:25
  know, like, even if it's a baby or what?
• 56:27
  Like, yeah, the whole thing. Someone is, but that someone is
• 56:30
  asking what's which one do you want?
• 56:32
  I don't give a shit. I I can't kick you like you.
• 56:36
  You you've got a catalog with like all the like.
• 56:38
  Do you want a flower or do you want a dove or do you want a
• 56:41
  teddy bear? Do you want a blue or pink or?
• 56:43
  Yeah, do you want a coffee? Nice.
• 56:45
  That. And now you can choose
• 56:46
  everything. You know, it's like, do we think
• 56:48
  right now I want to customize my fucking?
• 56:51
  So this money making machine in in in in this, in this world is
• 56:55
  fucking unbelievable, man. How can you, how can you, how
• 56:59
  can you use that pain to, to to to to make money?
• 57:03
  I, I don't get it. I'm sorry, I I'm sorry for going
• 57:08
  to. No, it's crazy.
• 57:09
  Yeah. No, it's, it's, it's, yeah, I, I
• 57:10
  didn't know about it. I mean, that was obviously my
• 57:12
  first time, you know, organizing a funeral.
• 57:14
  And luckily my mum and my dad was there with me at the at the
• 57:19
  place was like, yeah. Is that a truck?
• 57:22
  Really. Like, are you fucking serious
• 57:23
  right now? It's crazy.
• 57:27
  Jeremy how? It could be a stupid question,
• 57:31
  but how long was the grief and how?
• 57:34
  When did the reconstruction started?
• 57:41
  I can answer the second part. The the feeling better started
• 57:52
  about eight to nine months later like 2018.
• 57:58
  So that happened in in May 2017. Reconstructions feeling better
• 58:03
  started the year after when we moved to Miami because we had a
• 58:07
  new environment and that was good for us.
• 58:11
  How long was a grief? I don't know.
• 58:16
  Years, Years. Yeah, a long time.
• 58:23
  Anywhere between three and five years, I would say.
• 58:25
  Probably something like that to actually like come to the point
• 58:28
  where you accept what happened and and you are like at peace
• 58:32
  with you, like yeah, yours. Jeremy, why Miami just to be
• 58:41
  somewhere else or did Miami had this, had the reason behind it?
• 58:47
  So the the universe was aligned for basically with my job.
• 58:56
  We had discussion. I was working for a French
• 58:59
  company, a French startup in the South of France, and they wanted
• 59:02
  to open an agency like an office in in the US in Miami.
• 59:08
  And we had a discussion even before the pregnancy of me going
• 59:14
  there, if that was happening. So, so that was discussion that
• 59:20
  that was an option. That was a card on the table.
• 59:22
  That wasn't like official, yeah, but it was it was an option for
• 59:25
  for us. And when this happened,
• 59:31
  obviously everything was on hold with me and stuff like that.
• 59:34
  But towards the end of the year, in November, after six months of
• 59:40
  very just dark, challenging depression, you know, everything
• 59:46
  after six months, my wife Rosie said I need to get out of here.
• 59:51
  I cannot be in disappointment anymore.
• 59:55
  I have too many memories, too many things that are are just
• 59:59
  kidding me right now. So I need to move.
• 1:00:02
  So the question was like, we either go to Miami if it's an
• 1:00:06
  option with work or fuck everything.
• 1:00:11
  And we just, we don't know what we do, but we're moving.
• 1:00:13
  We we're going somewhere. So when she told me that, I
• 1:00:17
  basically called my my my boss, my managers.
• 1:00:22
  Which who I'm still friend with and I, I told them they knew
• 1:00:25
  everything that happened, like they were very supportive and
• 1:00:27
  stuff like that. So I, I was very transparent and
• 1:00:30
  I told them this is the situation.
• 1:00:34
  Can we make Miami happen quickly?
• 1:00:37
  And if not, I understand and I'll, you know, I'll quit and I
• 1:00:41
  don't know what happened, but we'll figure out.
• 1:00:44
  And they were like, just give me a few days and they call me back
• 1:00:47
  and they said OK, like come to Miami whenever you can and we'll
• 1:00:50
  figure out. So they basically gave me the
• 1:00:53
  green light. They took care of all the
• 1:00:56
  paperworks and everything. We, I think the day after we
• 1:01:00
  listed our apartment for rent, we listed everything we had on
• 1:01:05
  Facebook marketplace to get rid of as many things as we could.
• 1:01:10
  And a month later we went a plane to Miami.
• 1:01:13
  We made it happen in like a few weeks.
• 1:01:18
  I mean, that's good because you went out or I would, I would say
• 1:01:24
  it in a different way. You took Rosie out from the,
• 1:01:27
  from the environment, which was not healthy at all.
• 1:01:31
  Man, I, I don't know, you know, I don't know when is the right
• 1:01:34
  time to say this, but I'm, I'm so sorry that you had to go
• 1:01:37
  through this. And I, I, I have to say it.
• 1:01:39
  I have to say it, even though I knew the story before, it's not
• 1:01:45
  easy. And it's I do appreciate the
• 1:01:49
  fact that you are able to talk about it and maybe to share it
• 1:01:51
  and to understand whoever is going through this pain that
• 1:01:54
  they are not alone. And, and it's important to know
• 1:01:59
  there is, there is, you are showing that there is life after
• 1:02:02
  this. Yeah, and this is a reason I'm
• 1:02:05
  I'm talking about it to be honest, like I don't I don't do
• 1:02:08
  it out of like, you know, to get pity or to get whatever from
• 1:02:11
  people like have have have. I agree with now and I'm
• 1:02:14
  mourning. I'm I'm over it.
• 1:02:17
  If you can ever be, you know, in some sense.
• 1:02:20
  But but what you said, you know, is a rich recite both of us in
• 1:02:25
  our own way. We felt very alone when the and
• 1:02:29
  that could be a whole to our conversation to be honest.
• 1:02:33
  There is a problem in grief, Jeremy.
• 1:02:36
  The problem is that people are feeling not confident enough to
• 1:02:40
  call you, to tell you that they are there with you.
• 1:02:43
  But they are because we have to say some different people are
• 1:02:48
  usually calling you and they need something to gossip about.
• 1:02:50
  But when you know they have a problem, when they know you have
• 1:02:53
  a problem, it's hard to call you.
• 1:02:54
  And even the person who really genuinely cared about you guys,
• 1:02:58
  it's hard to call you because they you have no words for
• 1:03:00
  something like this. And sometimes you just have to
• 1:03:02
  call that person and say how are you?
• 1:03:04
  Are you OK? Can I help you with something?
• 1:03:07
  Oh, there's so many things that you're saying though, like, so
• 1:03:12
  yes, you're right. And I don't blame anyone because
• 1:03:15
  it's so hard. Like what do you say to someone
• 1:03:19
  when something like that happened, right?
• 1:03:20
  Like there's nothing good that you can say.
• 1:03:22
  So I understand how difficult it is to pick up the phone and to
• 1:03:26
  talk to someone in this conversation because there's
• 1:03:28
  nothing that you can say that's going to make me feel better.
• 1:03:31
  And you also don't want to say the wrong things, right?
• 1:03:34
  It's so complicated. So I totally get it.
• 1:03:36
  What was interesting from my own experience also is that the
• 1:03:40
  people that did call family all worried about Rosie instead of
• 1:03:45
  me because it happened physically to her.
• 1:03:49
  And the first thing that people always ask on the phone was
• 1:03:52
  like, how's was he doing? How's was he doing?
• 1:03:54
  And that was, that was like hard.
• 1:03:57
  It took me a while to realise it.
• 1:03:59
  Like, I don't remember when he was, but I had a massive,
• 1:04:02
  massive breakdown after like, I don't know, like two or three
• 1:04:04
  months in the middle of summer. Rosie went away to see her
• 1:04:08
  family and I went to see a friend and we had a few drinks
• 1:04:11
  and I think alcohol bubble. Connecting.
• 1:04:14
  Connecting people. Yeah, and, and, and, you know,
• 1:04:17
  like, in a way, but like, it just like whipped me apart and I
• 1:04:19
  had like an explosion of like all the emotions that I've been
• 1:04:22
  like keeping for myself or whatever.
• 1:04:23
  Just like exploded on him and on him.
• 1:04:27
  And yeah, that was very messy for a few days.
• 1:04:30
  But you just, you just need to come out, right?
• 1:04:32
  I think. But yeah.
• 1:04:35
  It's all you can say in this kind of thing is like I'm here
• 1:04:41
  for you and just cry together, you know, like there's nothing
• 1:04:43
  you can say. Like nothing is going to make me
• 1:04:45
  feel better, like nothing you can say.
• 1:04:47
  So just so I like yeah, come and give me a hug and cry with me.
• 1:04:52
  That's fine. I mean, that's that's that's all
• 1:04:54
  we need at this when she like to happen.
• 1:04:57
  And that's a that's a really good piece of if you, if you
• 1:04:59
  have someone close to you, which is, which is going through
• 1:05:01
  something hard, just call and see that you are there if you
• 1:05:04
  need a shoulder to cry on because there is not nothing
• 1:05:07
  else that you can do. But that even that it's
• 1:05:09
  important. And again, thank you for talking
• 1:05:13
  about this. I still have some a lot, we have
• 1:05:14
  a lot of cover, but I had to say it now.
• 1:05:16
  I really had to say it now. No, I appreciate.
• 1:05:20
  It Miami what was so of course Florida is is nice.
• 1:05:29
  Florida is so I visited forum not so not for so long ago and I
• 1:05:34
  want to go again, but not until the 47th president is still
• 1:05:38
  there. I will go afterwards.
• 1:05:43
  But you went to Miami, you get out, you got out of the European
• 1:05:49
  mould. You got out of everything what
• 1:05:50
  was happening here. You got, you changed the
• 1:05:52
  environment, what inner ship started to happen in your boat
• 1:05:59
  guys, where you were in Miami? So at first it was, you know,
• 1:06:07
  just the the joy and excitement to be somewhere new, somewhere
• 1:06:13
  very different, somewhere beautiful with palm trees and,
• 1:06:17
  you know, in the ocean. And so I think, you know, I got
• 1:06:21
  this from. Florida, I just want to say I
• 1:06:23
  just. So I think, you know, at first
• 1:06:26
  it was like sort of like escaping, escaping what
• 1:06:30
  happened. Like at the beginning, we're not
• 1:06:32
  going to try to deal with it. We're just kind of ignore, you
• 1:06:36
  know? Yeah, just just to like, feel
• 1:06:38
  the lies again and feel normal again.
• 1:06:42
  So like the first, yeah, maybe six months, you know, was just
• 1:06:44
  that like, oh, let's go visit this and 9 go to the beach and
• 1:06:47
  just be happy again and smile again after being depressed for
• 1:06:52
  six months and seeing dark, darkness, you know, everywhere.
• 1:06:57
  And then and then eventually, you know, when, when we realise
• 1:07:01
  that we like Miami, that we're going to be spending a bit of
• 1:07:03
  time there a few years and stuff like that.
• 1:07:05
  Then it was about OK, like we, we could have to make friends
• 1:07:09
  and build a community and find people and, and do things we
• 1:07:12
  can't just be tourists for, for four years.
• 1:07:16
  So, so we started to like go to meet ups, you know, meet up,
• 1:07:20
  even go to community yoga classes, go to parties, go to
• 1:07:26
  everything that we could see on like Evan Bright and meet up and
• 1:07:30
  all that. We were like doing things just
• 1:07:32
  to meet people, connect with people and, and, and, and live
• 1:07:36
  again and have a sense of normal life and stuff like that.
• 1:07:40
  And we were very lucky to meet the people that we needed at
• 1:07:47
  this time, I think. And what I mean by that is that
• 1:07:51
  we met a community of people that was very healing, very
• 1:07:59
  connected to emotions, very into spirituality.
• 1:08:04
  We, we started doing like yoga classes and meditations and sun
• 1:08:08
  bath and cacao ceremony and different modalities of
• 1:08:14
  meditations, different modalities to like connect with
• 1:08:19
  other human being, to move the body, to express your emotion in
• 1:08:23
  different ways and stuff like that.
• 1:08:25
  And we, we didn't do that knowing they would heal us.
• 1:08:29
  But what we realized by just going to the 7th and hanging out
• 1:08:34
  with people vulnerable to talk about what they were feeling,
• 1:08:40
  that was like unloading every time we were like unloading a
• 1:08:44
  layer, you know, peeling a layer of whatever darkness or, or, or
• 1:08:49
  pain that we had. And, and, and I think we
• 1:08:54
  eventually we realised that we're feeling better.
• 1:08:59
  Like, you know, life doesn't feel so heavy anymore.
• 1:09:03
  And we started to, you know, analyse and like, Oh, this is
• 1:09:06
  what's happening, right? It's because we are doing all
• 1:09:08
  these things that we are feeling better.
• 1:09:10
  So we started to, I study a little bit.
• 1:09:12
  We studied like trauma and read books and we understood that the
• 1:09:17
  body stalk trauma and store emotion in our body.
• 1:09:21
  And the more you move, the more you do like stuff like yoga and
• 1:09:23
  you meditate and you get connected to, you know,
• 1:09:27
  different human beings and stuff like that.
• 1:09:28
  Like you, you, you get the trauma out of your body and and
• 1:09:33
  you cry and you let emotions out and stuff like that.
• 1:09:35
  And yeah, now we started like studying to understand a little
• 1:09:39
  bit what was happening to us in a way because we didn't
• 1:09:41
  understand. Like I remember especially with
• 1:09:44
  Wazi, like every time she was going to a yoga class for
• 1:09:47
  months, she was in tears all the time.
• 1:09:51
  Like all of suddenness, she was happy.
• 1:09:54
  She was into yoga class and she was just crying, like sobbing.
• 1:09:58
  And it was just the body through the movement, getting emotions
• 1:10:02
  out. But she didn't understand there
• 1:10:04
  for ages. It was like, why am I crying
• 1:10:06
  again? Like, yeah, it took a while for
• 1:10:09
  us to understand the the science behind it in a way, but yeah.
• 1:10:13
  I like, I like that you said. I'm sorry for interrupting you,
• 1:10:16
  Jeremy. I, I, I like that you said
• 1:10:19
  spirituality because I, I think it's important to understand
• 1:10:23
  that spirituality is not the same with religion.
• 1:10:27
  And spirituality is something that you can find in yoga, in
• 1:10:31
  meditation, and it doesn't have to be a single God that we all
• 1:10:34
  play to and give money to. It has to be something that we
• 1:10:39
  find inside us. So spirituality is there.
• 1:10:42
  It doesn't have to be connected to a church, to a religion, to
• 1:10:44
  something else. It's connected to yours.
• 1:10:46
  It's when you find the connection to yourself.
• 1:10:48
  And I think it's it's another important thing that we.
• 1:10:52
  It's nice that you that you address.
• 1:10:54
  I liked it. No.
• 1:10:56
  Yeah. It's yeah, we, we are not
• 1:10:59
  religious at all, you know, And yeah, I think there is a big
• 1:11:02
  difference between faith and spirituality And, and some
• 1:11:07
  people find healing in their own way, right.
• 1:11:09
  There's no better way. There is no correct way.
• 1:11:12
  There is. No correct way.
• 1:11:13
  There is each one's way. Yeah, and, and it's interesting
• 1:11:16
  also because before that, I don't think I even knew what
• 1:11:19
  spirituality mean. You know, it was just, I think
• 1:11:25
  I, I, I'm going to speak like we for myself, but I moved to Miami
• 1:11:30
  with a mindset of like, I'm being given this chance to like
• 1:11:36
  start over on many aspects. And by then I was much more open
• 1:11:41
  minded and accept willing to try different things and, and, and
• 1:11:47
  curious and stuff like that. And I started like reading
• 1:11:52
  different books. I started I remember downloading
• 1:11:56
  what's the app Headspace? Headspace, the meditation app,
• 1:12:00
  his head. Spaces, minds, mind.
• 1:12:03
  I don't know, there are a lot. Of yeah, it was a headspace back
• 1:12:05
  then. And I was in 2018 and trying to
• 1:12:08
  build like a meditation practice.
• 1:12:11
  I was going to the beach every morning to see the sunrise and
• 1:12:14
  just like trying different things.
• 1:12:15
  I was like you, you're giving a chance to be somewhere different
• 1:12:19
  and build new habit and build a new life.
• 1:12:22
  Let's try to do something different.
• 1:12:24
  And, and yeah, I think I'm, I'm a very curious person.
• 1:12:30
  And the fact that when you're curious but narrow minded, you
• 1:12:35
  don't go anywhere. But now I was curious and open
• 1:12:38
  minded and willing to try things.
• 1:12:40
  And that was a good combo, I think.
• 1:12:43
  And, and that opened the door to a lot of growth basically
• 1:12:48
  through my time over there. And yeah, I started meditating
• 1:12:53
  like every single day for like two or three years.
• 1:12:55
  I, I didn't miss a day. I was doing, I was moving my
• 1:13:00
  body. It could be your guy, it could
• 1:13:01
  be different things. I was going other boarding on
• 1:13:04
  the ocean, very connecting with nature, being in the water, all
• 1:13:07
  stuff like that. And yeah, and all that healed
• 1:13:10
  me. Honestly, all that that plus
• 1:13:12
  being with people in touch with their emotion, being with people
• 1:13:21
  willing to cry in front of other people, something that I've
• 1:13:24
  never done and before. People also very tolerant and
• 1:13:31
  accepting, not judging us. That was also important.
• 1:13:35
  We had all the ingredients that we needed at the right time.
• 1:13:38
  Honestly, it was, yeah, it was a life saving for us.
• 1:13:43
  I want to make a small a small excourse from the story.
• 1:13:47
  Jeremy, I hope that's OK with you.
• 1:13:48
  How did you how did you? For someone who would like to
• 1:13:52
  start meditation, I don't point anyone and it's struggling with
• 1:13:58
  that. What would be your advice?
• 1:14:01
  How? How should you start?
• 1:14:05
  I can't tell you what I did. I downloaded Headspace on my
• 1:14:10
  phone and I said you're going to do it for 30 days every day.
• 1:14:15
  I tried one month. I said myself, I, I, I'm not
• 1:14:20
  like an olean person. I know how my brain works.
• 1:14:23
  I was like, let's try to do 5 minutes every day.
• 1:14:26
  I should be able to find 5 minutes in my day.
• 1:14:29
  Like you know, the whole thing about not having time is an
• 1:14:32
  excuse. And what worked for me was doing
• 1:14:38
  it first thing in the morning because I think those days, once
• 1:14:45
  you start walking and dealing with people, your day can become
• 1:14:51
  out of control very easily. But I think between the time
• 1:14:56
  that you wake up and between the time that you start doing things
• 1:15:00
  for people, either start work or taking care of the kids or
• 1:15:04
  whatever, like this is the time. I think this is the best time
• 1:15:08
  that you can have me time. And that's the time where you
• 1:15:10
  can meditate, read the book, do 5 minutes of movement, whatever
• 1:15:14
  it is. But yeah, I, I was like, I'm
• 1:15:17
  going to wake up every morning. I'm going to go outside and
• 1:15:21
  meditate for 5 minutes and I did that for 30 days and I was like,
• 1:15:27
  OK, I'm, I'm actually, I, I couldn't explain what was
• 1:15:32
  happening, but I, I could say that I was feeling better.
• 1:15:35
  I didn't know why I, it was still hard to explain and to
• 1:15:39
  understand, but I was like, OK, this is doing something.
• 1:15:41
  I'm going to carry on. And yeah, and after, like I, you
• 1:15:47
  know, those apps are good to like game fire.
• 1:15:49
  Like you, you absolutely, you don't want to break your, your
• 1:15:52
  streak and you want to keep going and stuff like that.
• 1:15:54
  So it's like a game also like I want to keep going, like I want
• 1:15:58
  to go to 365 days. And yeah, but that works.
• 1:16:02
  That that works. No, but the, the key also is
• 1:16:05
  just don't try to overdo it. Don't say I'm going to meditate
• 1:16:09
  for an hour every day. That's just unrealistic.
• 1:16:12
  You're going to be in pain. Your mind is going to go like
• 1:16:16
  like 5 minutes. So it's 5 minutes everyday
• 1:16:19
  leave. Me alone, Leave me alone, Leave
• 1:16:21
  me alone, Leave me alone, Leave me alone, yeah.
• 1:16:22
  And, and you know, start small and just build a habit.
• 1:16:26
  And then once you're building the habit of it, then you can go
• 1:16:29
  deeper into the, the real like meditation techniques and stuff
• 1:16:34
  like that. But what, what I really enjoy
• 1:16:36
  with Headspace is that they have like programs that you can do.
• 1:16:41
  So they recycle beginner pack for like 30 days that you could
• 1:16:45
  do. And then they have like
• 1:16:47
  meditation for stress, meditation for grief, meditation
• 1:16:50
  for confidence, meditation for this, meditation for that.
• 1:16:53
  So you can pick things that you know, match your, your need in a
• 1:16:58
  way. And, and also that was helpful
• 1:17:00
  because then if you actually, the, the only thing I would say
• 1:17:03
  is that you're never going to feel that you're getting good at
• 1:17:08
  it. It doesn't it, it doesn't work
• 1:17:10
  this way. It's not like, oh, I'm getting
• 1:17:13
  good at that. Like your mind is always going
• 1:17:16
  to be busy. You're you're never going to be
• 1:17:18
  like enlightened and you're never going to stop your
• 1:17:23
  thoughts. It's not the point.
• 1:17:26
  Your mind is going to do his own thing.
• 1:17:28
  He's going to leave his own life.
• 1:17:30
  Just sit with it. Just just sit and don't try to
• 1:17:35
  control it. It's but over time you will see
• 1:17:38
  a difference. This is one of the critical
• 1:17:40
  things that is happening because usually you think that you are
• 1:17:44
  able to control it and you and you say OK, I'm doing it wrong
• 1:17:47
  because I cannot control it. But at the end, that's the idea
• 1:17:50
  of it, like you are doing it because you cannot control it
• 1:17:53
  and you have to keep it in one way.
• 1:17:55
  And of course, I have to come back to what you said, Jeremy.
• 1:17:58
  That's an important topic. We are so good at finding
• 1:18:01
  excuses. We are so good and saying, yeah,
• 1:18:04
  we have no time. You know, I have, I want to do
• 1:18:07
  it. But you know the 5 minutes I
• 1:18:09
  couldn't use but I used my phone for six hours today.
• 1:18:12
  I was, I was going to tell you, you tell me you don't have time.
• 1:18:15
  Show me your screen time on your phone and and then we can talk.
• 1:18:19
  Trust me, I know my problems. You don't have to tell my
• 1:18:22
  problems like no, I'm so aware of them.
• 1:18:28
  Well, that's the point. That's a good start.
• 1:18:29
  Yeah. At least you don't lie to
• 1:18:31
  yourself. No, no, no, I don't.
• 1:18:34
  That's something I'm not doing anymore.
• 1:18:36
  And it's like I what I'm doing, maybe a bit of going on the
• 1:18:40
  side. I'm going, I'm, I'm running
• 1:18:42
  every morning. So that's already good.
• 1:18:44
  I go out there five, 5:30 every morning.
• 1:18:47
  So that's I'm I'm I wake up quite early, but then I.
• 1:18:50
  And I would say that's a form of meditation if if you do it like
• 1:18:53
  without any music or podcast and and it's just like, is there
• 1:18:58
  just a sound, you know, like nature sound or nothing?
• 1:19:01
  I mean, those are saying it's just you, it's your brain and.
• 1:19:05
  Your shape, correct, You're right.
• 1:19:07
  You're right. It's not usually it's with
• 1:19:09
  podcast with something or with an audio book or with something.
• 1:19:12
  So yeah, maybe. Just try for the for the 1st 5
• 1:19:15
  minutes, try silence for 5 minutes and then you put the
• 1:19:19
  music on good. That can, that can, that can be,
• 1:19:22
  you know, at least you don't have to change too much and.
• 1:19:24
  That's makes sense. Makes sense.
• 1:19:26
  Thanks for the tip. But thank you.
• 1:19:27
  It was not for me. It was just for someone I know
• 1:19:29
  that is struggling to meditate. It was.
• 1:19:33
  It's for a friend. Jeremy, you were in, You were in
• 1:19:39
  in Miami for. 3 1/2 years. 3 1/2 years?
• 1:19:44
  How long or how much of this 3 1/2 years you have you were
• 1:19:47
  still working? All the time.
• 1:19:51
  All the time. Yeah, I yeah, I was employed by
• 1:19:55
  the same company during my entire time.
• 1:19:57
  And the reason is simple is because the visa.
• 1:20:01
  Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Tied to my working contract.
• 1:20:04
  So that was that was the only way to live there anyway,
• 1:20:08
  Correct. Yeah.
• 1:20:09
  So it was, yeah. 3 1/2 years of being employed by the French
• 1:20:17
  American company. Yeah.
• 1:20:19
  Yeah, exactly. Yeah.
• 1:20:21
  What was the What was the trigger of you quitting your
• 1:20:24
  job? It was.
• 1:20:28
  A mix of two things. On one side it was, I've been
• 1:20:32
  doing the job for six years, you know, but at at this point, 6-7
• 1:20:38
  years and, and I was just kind of getting bored of it and
• 1:20:40
  someone needs challenged and needs new things.
• 1:20:44
  And I enjoyed it, but it was very repetitive and I was not
• 1:20:48
  feeling challenged anymore. So that was on, on one side I
• 1:20:52
  was questioning that. But then on the other side in
• 1:20:58
  Miami, some something else that happened is that I met a lot of
• 1:21:04
  people living what I would say an unconventional lifestyle.
• 1:21:10
  A lot of people travelling around, a lot of people doing
• 1:21:15
  jobs that were not traditional 9 to 5 jobs, A lot of people
• 1:21:19
  making money in a month than my parents were doing in one year.
• 1:21:25
  And, and but what I, what I realized though was those people
• 1:21:30
  were just like you and me. There were no special, there
• 1:21:35
  were no rich, there were no super intelligent, like they
• 1:21:40
  were just normal people that picked a different path that
• 1:21:44
  went away and, and invested time and energy and, and money to
• 1:21:50
  learn and invest in themselves and, and got somewhere.
• 1:21:54
  And the fact that I didn't enjoy what I was doing and the fact
• 1:21:58
  that I was seeing people living a dream life, something that I
• 1:22:02
  didn't think was accessible for me, really planted a seed in my
• 1:22:06
  brain. And I was like, what if I could
• 1:22:08
  have that as well? And that, that like that was the
• 1:22:11
  beginning of, of, yeah, of, of all that for me.
• 1:22:16
  It's like, oh, I could do it. I could, I could have it.
• 1:22:19
  I could have all that. What was the biggest fear when
• 1:22:30
  you quit your job? The biggest fear was that I
• 1:22:38
  would fail building something and I would run out of money and
• 1:22:45
  I would have to tell my parents and everyone that I failed and I
• 1:22:51
  would be like a loser and stuff like that.
• 1:22:53
  That was the biggest fear. How did you overcome that?
• 1:22:57
  I read a book called The Four Hour Workweek by Tim Ferriss,
• 1:23:03
  and in his book there is an exercise in I think the first
• 1:23:08
  chapter called the fear setting exercise.
• 1:23:12
  He's got a very popular Ted talk about it.
• 1:23:15
  And in this exercise he's telling you write down your
• 1:23:18
  fear, your biggest fear. So basically what is the worst
• 1:23:21
  thing that can happen if that happens?
• 1:23:24
  OK, I quit my job, I travel the world and I try to build my own
• 1:23:30
  business. I lose everything.
• 1:23:35
  I can't make my business. I lose all my money, I lose all
• 1:23:38
  my saving. What is the worst case scenario?
• 1:23:42
  Well, I'm I'm completely broke. I have nothing left.
• 1:23:47
  The worst case scenario would be I'll have to go back to my
• 1:23:50
  parents and live with them or Rosie's parents, whoever wants
• 1:23:53
  us. Maybe both and and the worst
• 1:23:57
  case scenario would be I have to go back there.
• 1:23:59
  I have to get a job, I don't know, McDonald's for six months
• 1:24:04
  to get some money while I apply for like a a better job because
• 1:24:11
  obviously I still have my CVI, still have my experience anyway,
• 1:24:14
  like that, no one can take that away from me.
• 1:24:17
  So doing this exercise, OK, so the worst case scenario is I go
• 1:24:23
  back to my parents. I spend a few months applying
• 1:24:26
  for jobs and then eventually I hopefully find a job and go back
• 1:24:31
  to normal life. So ultimately the worst case
• 1:24:35
  scenario was just going back to what I was doing just before.
• 1:24:39
  On the other side, the exercise also tells you what is the best
• 1:24:44
  case scenario what what can happen if everything goes well.
• 1:24:48
  Well, if everything goes well, I get to see the world and travel
• 1:24:52
  the world and build incredible memories and I get to build my
• 1:24:58
  own business and make money out of there.
• 1:25:01
  And even without being rich, but just making a, a, a decent
• 1:25:04
  living and I don't have to work for someone else again.
• 1:25:08
  I can have all the freedom that I want and do something that I
• 1:25:10
  enjoy doing. So like the upside is that and
• 1:25:15
  the downside worst case scenario is just you'll go back to where
• 1:25:18
  you were before. And that was liberating because
• 1:25:21
  suddenly I realized, well, the the worst case scenario is not
• 1:25:24
  that bad, right? Like it's it's actually OK.
• 1:25:27
  I'm living it. I'm living it today.
• 1:25:29
  You know, like I'm I'm basically going to go back to where I was
• 1:25:32
  just I'm going to have to spend 6 months with my parents, OK.
• 1:25:35
  I cried and and my ego is going to be a little bit hurt.
• 1:25:38
  I'll get over it. It's fine.
• 1:25:39
  I'll say exactly. So I was like this.
• 1:25:42
  I've got nothing to lose here like this only.
• 1:25:46
  Yeah, that was liberating. That was like, fuck it all, I'm
• 1:25:49
  doing it. Correct, correct.
• 1:25:52
  Makes makes sense. Can I ask you what was your
• 1:25:59
  buffer found not in money but in months of surviving that you had
• 1:26:03
  when you quit your job? No, no.
• 1:26:06
  I mean, so we were very organized.
• 1:26:10
  We basically one year before leaving, I told my boss, I'm
• 1:26:13
  going to leave you in one year. And we planned and we save money
• 1:26:17
  for one year. So we were very like strategic
• 1:26:19
  also about it. And we were not reckless, right?
• 1:26:21
  You, you can, you can take risks without being stupid.
• 1:26:27
  So we, we, we, we did save money and everything.
• 1:26:29
  Yeah. No, we, we realized that if we
• 1:26:32
  travel to, you know, South America or Asia, our money could
• 1:26:36
  last anywhere between 1 1/2 and two years because life is cheap
• 1:26:41
  over there, right? Makes sense.
• 1:26:42
  And we managed to save something like 20K so we could OK for a
• 1:26:48
  while over there. Something that happened, though
• 1:26:50
  that was not expected is that just when we left Miami, some
• 1:26:57
  family drama happened on my side of the family and we had to
• 1:27:03
  support all the family member and we had to give away €13,000
• 1:27:08
  out of this. So.
• 1:27:09
  But that was yes, yeah. So, yeah, we lost like 60% of
• 1:27:19
  our travel stash that we built. We lost.
• 1:27:23
  Well, it was a choice. I mean, no one took it for me,
• 1:27:25
  but it was to help. So, you know, it was it was the
• 1:27:28
  right thing to do. But but yeah, but that was a
• 1:27:31
  hit. For sure, for sure.
• 1:27:34
  Yeah, for sure. But it's interesting.
• 1:27:37
  Like I like the, I like the risk taking.
• 1:27:42
  I like the fact that the risk taking was not like going
• 1:27:46
  directly in the wall was a was a calculated risk taking, which
• 1:27:50
  made made a lot of sense talking about your your family.
• 1:27:54
  And I particularly ask about your family based on the stories
• 1:27:57
  that you told me until now. What was the what was the
• 1:28:00
  reaction, Jeremy? Not great.
• 1:28:07
  It was like, why are you wasting your life and career?
• 1:28:14
  Like you spend so much time, you know, studying and you have a
• 1:28:17
  good job and you're living a good life and you're making very
• 1:28:21
  good money. Like my salary in Miami was
• 1:28:23
  really good. It's like, why are you wasting
• 1:28:25
  all that travelling like that? That makes no sense.
• 1:28:28
  Like, are you stupid? It created a lot of friction
• 1:28:31
  with my family even to this day. Like I'm like, I was very close
• 1:28:37
  to a specific family member before that.
• 1:28:40
  And since then we've been, yeah, distant because of it, because
• 1:28:45
  you never try to understand. You just came from a place of
• 1:28:50
  like, I'm judging you and I'm telling you wrong.
• 1:28:52
  I'm not going to try to understand why you're doing what
• 1:28:54
  you're doing. And I felt like, and I felt
• 1:28:57
  like, well, fuck off. Like you're not even, you're not
• 1:28:59
  even trying, you know, rather than asking question, you're
• 1:29:03
  just telling me what I should be doing without having an, an
• 1:29:06
  understanding of what's happening.
• 1:29:07
  So since then, this relationship has been, yeah, not great.
• 1:29:12
  So yeah, my, my parents didn't. I think throughout my life, my
• 1:29:24
  parents never stopped me from doing anything, which I'm really
• 1:29:28
  grateful for. I also understand they don't
• 1:29:30
  understand my life. They don't understand why I'm
• 1:29:32
  living this sort of life. I don't think they understand my
• 1:29:35
  choices, but they never ask me about that because I, I grew up
• 1:29:41
  in an environment where we don't talk about feelings, we don't
• 1:29:43
  talk about emotions, we don't talk about all that.
• 1:29:46
  So they never I, I don't think they understand why, but they
• 1:29:52
  never stop me also, which at least, you know, that's good.
• 1:29:55
  But yeah, even to these days, they don't ask me any question
• 1:29:58
  about what I do, about what I'm travelling, about the life I'm,
• 1:30:03
  I'm living, stuff like that to just deal with it.
• 1:30:06
  And there are, I'm an only child, so, you know, so they
• 1:30:09
  kind of don't have a choice anyway.
• 1:30:10
  But yeah, it's interesting. It's so interesting.
• 1:30:17
  It's so interesting. We have so many similarities in
• 1:30:19
  our life. It's so, so interesting.
• 1:30:25
  What's what's the most misunderstood thing about living
• 1:30:31
  the 9:00 to 5:00, Jeremy? About living here.
• 1:30:36
  Yeah. I think, I think the majority of
• 1:30:49
  people just don't think there is any other option for normal
• 1:30:56
  people. I think most people think that
• 1:30:58
  this is the only options they have available.
• 1:31:02
  And to be able to do anything else, you need to be quote UN
• 1:31:07
  quote special. And by special, I mean have, you
• 1:31:11
  know, more resources than the average people to have more
• 1:31:16
  intelligence than the average people, to have a better network
• 1:31:21
  and know the right people. I think most people believe that
• 1:31:25
  this is the only way and, and you know, this is a world
• 1:31:30
  through like a tiny hole and, and that's how I saw the world
• 1:31:36
  for 30 years, by the way, like that.
• 1:31:39
  And they, they don't see everything else around there.
• 1:31:45
  And, and the thing that anything else outside of the 9:00 to 5:00
• 1:31:49
  classic traditional past is very risky and very scary and very
• 1:31:57
  inaccessible where it's not easy.
• 1:32:00
  Like, I'm not, don't get me wrong, I'm not saying it's easy,
• 1:32:03
  but it's not harder than, you know, going to school for seven
• 1:32:08
  years and getting a master degree and or whatever and, and
• 1:32:12
  getting a job and all that. It's not harder.
• 1:32:13
  It's it's just different. I'm sorry that it takes
• 1:32:21
  sometimes a lot of time to ask the question, but I, I have so
• 1:32:24
  many that I want to ask and I always have to choose one.
• 1:32:26
  And that's a hard process that is going in my mind.
• 1:32:34
  The in most of the cases. My feeling is that we are living
• 1:32:40
  other people's life. Yes, because we are trying to
• 1:32:45
  get the acceptance of our parents, of our friends, of our
• 1:32:48
  family. We're trying to get them to tell
• 1:32:50
  us, wow, we are having an amazing life.
• 1:32:54
  How did you get out of this trap?
• 1:32:58
  That's very true. And it's even further, by the
• 1:33:01
  way, than what you said. It's just society as a whole.
• 1:33:04
  It's not just your parents, your family like this, this, there's
• 1:33:07
  a system behind that. It's it's not just your
• 1:33:10
  environment like that. It's a whole system to the goal
• 1:33:15
  of the system is to create good citizen and decide citizen to be
• 1:33:21
  a good cog in a machine. So it's not just the parents,
• 1:33:24
  it's not just the parents and the family, is it?
• 1:33:26
  They're just the consequence of that and.
• 1:33:28
  They're just playing in the system.
• 1:33:30
  Yeah, but there is something bigger than that behind it.
• 1:33:33
  Yeah. How do you so the, the, the
• 1:33:41
  cheesy basic answer is that you need to, you need to stop giving
• 1:33:45
  a shit about what other people think.
• 1:33:46
  That's the basic answer. How, how, how did that work for
• 1:33:50
  me? You know when, when something
• 1:33:56
  like that happened to you, You know when you have to deal with
• 1:33:58
  death, when you have to deal with losing a child.
• 1:34:03
  Suddenly you realise I realized a couple of things.
• 1:34:07
  I realized that life is much more fragile and precious than
• 1:34:13
  it seems to be. We we spend our life believing
• 1:34:19
  that we have tomorrow, that we have next week, that we have
• 1:34:21
  next month, next year. We are, we believe that we are
• 1:34:25
  going to retired. We believe that we're going to
• 1:34:27
  be 65 one day and that we will be able to finally enjoy life,
• 1:34:35
  just like we believe that when you're pregnant, you have a baby
• 1:34:38
  at the end. But you know, I, I, I had to
• 1:34:41
  face a different reality and that changed a lot of my way.
• 1:34:48
  I process thing and, and I realized that you can plan
• 1:34:53
  anything that you want. Life is going to do what the
• 1:34:56
  hell he wants. You know, like you never know
• 1:34:59
  what's going to happen in life. Life is precious.
• 1:35:01
  And maybe I'm going to be dead tomorrow, who knows.
• 1:35:05
  And I made a promise to myself and to my baby boy that I would
• 1:35:12
  not be living a life to please other people.
• 1:35:15
  From now on. I will not be living a life.
• 1:35:20
  I I will not wait to be retired to enjoy my life.
• 1:35:23
  Like from today, I will be living the best freaking life
• 1:35:27
  that I can live. And I will live not like every
• 1:35:31
  day like it's the last because it's just stupid.
• 1:35:33
  But you know, I will leave. I will do my best to leave life
• 1:35:38
  now because I've no idea what's going to happen.
• 1:35:41
  Like I can't I, I expected to be 30 years, a 30 years old dad and
• 1:35:46
  I wasn't. So I can't expect to retire at
• 1:35:49
  65 and travel the world. I've no idea what's going to
• 1:35:52
  happen between now and then. It's it's very far away.
• 1:35:55
  So, you know, I just made this promise to myself and through
• 1:36:00
  that I was like, I'm not going to listen to what people want
• 1:36:04
  from me. Like I don't care.
• 1:36:05
  It's not it doesn't matter to me.
• 1:36:06
  Like my this promise that I made to myself and to him is more
• 1:36:11
  important than what you can think of me.
• 1:36:13
  That what my parents think of me, that the stranger think of
• 1:36:15
  me. And by the way, we spend so much
• 1:36:17
  time giving a share about what people think of us.
• 1:36:21
  When they are worried about themselves, they don't give a
• 1:36:27
  crap about you. They give they give a crap about
• 1:36:31
  you as long as they can gossip something.
• 1:36:32
  About you and talk something. About you and that's it.
• 1:36:35
  So yeah, I just that that was my process is I realized that it
• 1:36:40
  wasn't worth it. Like I just don't care.
• 1:36:43
  Like you don't like me, you don't like me.
• 1:36:44
  I should deal with it like it's on you, not on me.
• 1:36:48
  Like absolutely. And yeah, I had I had to have a
• 1:36:53
  very bad wake up call to realize that.
• 1:36:55
  But I also think it's not easy to realize it when you don't
• 1:37:00
  have a wake up call. But yeah, everyone, everyone is
• 1:37:06
  so obsessed about themselves that honestly don't worry about
• 1:37:10
  what they think. It's just stories in your head.
• 1:37:13
  Absolutely. And I think, I think the
• 1:37:15
  important thing is that I had the nice quote last days and the
• 1:37:20
  quote said nobody's getting a life of this life.
• 1:37:24
  Nobody's getting out the life. Nobody.
• 1:37:27
  Yes, it doesn't matter what you do.
• 1:37:28
  Nobody gets out alive. And I think at least if you
• 1:37:31
  cannot make it longer, at least you have to enjoy it.
• 1:37:34
  And on my website, I have a quote that I love.
• 1:37:38
  It's we have two life. And the second one starts when
• 1:37:44
  you realize you only have one. And that's what happened to me.
• 1:37:49
  I, I realized that I was only going to have one life, that
• 1:37:53
  death was a thing. And suddenly it's like, I better
• 1:37:56
  enjoy it. Like it's, it's cliche, like the
• 1:37:58
  whole Yolo is, is, but it's true, but it's so true.
• 1:38:01
  It's so damn true. And, and also look around like,
• 1:38:06
  if you don't want to believe me, don't believe me.
• 1:38:08
  You know, I don't, I don't care. I'm not going to blame you for
• 1:38:10
  not believing a stranger that you're finding on the Internet.
• 1:38:13
  But I would tell people to look around.
• 1:38:18
  We all have someone in our life that is probably a little bit
• 1:38:22
  older, you know, that now regrets not living a different
• 1:38:30
  life. Like my dad retired in 2019.
• 1:38:39
  He thought that he would finally be able to enjoy life, whatever
• 1:38:44
  that means for him, right? And two years later, some shit
• 1:38:49
  happened that I don't want to get into, but that stop him from
• 1:38:56
  living the retirement I dreamed for his entire life.
• 1:38:59
  So for four years, he hated his job.
• 1:39:03
  He lived a life that honestly didn't enjoy with the goal of
• 1:39:06
  retiring one day and finally being able to like now I've got
• 1:39:10
  it. And when it was time, two years
• 1:39:12
  later, something happened and he wasn't able to do that.
• 1:39:16
  My my wife's dad was his dad worked his workaholic what his
• 1:39:23
  entire life like crazy person made a lot of money great got to
• 1:39:28
  travel stuff like that, but obsessed with walking like
• 1:39:32
  walking on Christmas Day and stuff like that.
• 1:39:34
  Like he loved what he was doing, but also like to a point.
• 1:39:40
  And when he turned 63, he had a health issue like a stroke.
• 1:39:49
  And since then he's been, he's been forced to retired because
• 1:39:53
  he's now disabled and he's never be able to enjoy his retirement.
• 1:39:57
  He always dreamed to go to India.
• 1:39:58
  He's never going to go. And he worked his entire life to
• 1:40:02
  have a good retirement, save money, all that, all that.
• 1:40:04
  And he was forced to retired because of his health.
• 1:40:07
  And now he's. I think we can all.
• 1:40:11
  Have something similar around us.
• 1:40:14
  Like we we all know this person that is not getting what they
• 1:40:19
  expected because they had a health issue, because they had a
• 1:40:21
  money issue, because they had a, you know, I don't know, a
• 1:40:24
  divorce or separation and death, whatever it is.
• 1:40:27
  And I think if you ask old people, you know, like 70 plus,
• 1:40:33
  I would say they usually tend to say enjoy your life.
• 1:40:40
  They don't tell you you should work more.
• 1:40:43
  There is no one that that on his dead bed said I didn't work
• 1:40:46
  enough. No.
• 1:40:48
  Like, yeah, yeah. So, you know, listen to that.
• 1:40:51
  It's there's a reason to say that.
• 1:40:56
  The amazing piece of advice I I have to I have to say this
• 1:40:59
  amazing piece of piece of advice as someone that is around you
• 1:41:03
  ask what they regret the most as someone which is somewhat close
• 1:41:06
  to their or maybe in retirement as to what they regret the most
• 1:41:10
  and they you will always hear the same answer.
• 1:41:12
  Yeah, and, and, and, you know, I challenge, I even challenge you
• 1:41:15
  to, to do this exercise, but sit down, grab a pen and a paper.
• 1:41:22
  And we like be honest with yourself.
• 1:41:25
  It's like, you know, if I tell you that you're going to die
• 1:41:30
  tomorrow, are you going to be happy of the life that you lived
• 1:41:33
  so far? Or would you have regret that
• 1:41:35
  you have not done things differently?
• 1:41:38
  And for sure. And, and if you think that and
• 1:41:40
  if you would have done things differently, what would you have
• 1:41:43
  done? And now I'm and now I'm going to
• 1:41:46
  tell you, OK, you're not going to die tomorrow.
• 1:41:47
  So stop living in now this life that you just wrote down a piece
• 1:41:49
  of paper. Absolutely.
• 1:41:53
  I I have to say the one of the reasons that why I'm doing this,
• 1:41:58
  what I'm doing now, this this podcast is exactly was exactly
• 1:42:02
  exactly this. Because I, I think about it
• 1:42:04
  since some years and I always, you know, there is never the
• 1:42:07
  right moment. You said before there is never
• 1:42:09
  the right moment for anything, for anything.
• 1:42:12
  There is no no moment in which all the stars are are aligned.
• 1:42:15
  And they say from today you started the sports.
• 1:42:18
  Yeah. No.
• 1:42:20
  No, never just do it exactly. And then I started before
• 1:42:24
  Christmas last year and I just started out of the sudden out of
• 1:42:26
  the impulse. And I, I have 27 episodes
• 1:42:30
  published and I think another 10 or 12 that I recorded already.
• 1:42:33
  So, but I'm fully with you. I'm fully with you, Jeremy.
• 1:42:37
  An amazing piece of advice really, and I can only recommend
• 1:42:40
  it to everyone. Try to try to enjoy what's left
• 1:42:43
  of it. It's not much.
• 1:42:46
  How does your daily life looks? How did today look like for for
• 1:42:52
  you? Well today was like a a working
• 1:42:55
  day so I literally, I, I didn't leave my apartment today.
• 1:42:57
  I've been inside working on a laptop all day to be honest.
• 1:43:00
  Let's take a different one. No, but you know, it's it's also
• 1:43:04
  something to if you go on Instagram and you type digital
• 1:43:08
  nomad, it looks like very glamorous, right?
• 1:43:11
  It looks like everyone is in Bali surfing in the morning,
• 1:43:15
  then walking from a cool cafe with a view and a cocktail for
• 1:43:19
  like 3 hours, trading some crypto or doing strange shit.
• 1:43:24
  And then they go to like the sunset pool party and then you
• 1:43:28
  know, whatever. Like that's, that's what you see
• 1:43:31
  on Instagram. It's not like that.
• 1:43:32
  I mean, for very most of the time it's not like that.
• 1:43:36
  I would, I would say that I actually live a very regular
• 1:43:42
  life in a sense that you know, I, I, I rent normal apt.
• 1:43:49
  I tend to cook my own food most of the time.
• 1:43:54
  We work everyday. The main difference is how I use
• 1:43:57
  my free time when, when you're not working, you're probably
• 1:44:02
  scrolling on your phone, taking care of your kids, watching
• 1:44:06
  Netflix, spending time with your neighbors, spending time with
• 1:44:09
  your family or cleaning the house, cleaning the garden,
• 1:44:13
  fixing something that's broken and all that.
• 1:44:16
  When I have free time, I visit a new city and a new country
• 1:44:21
  rather than doing all that. That's that's the main
• 1:44:24
  difference actually between a regular life and my life.
• 1:44:28
  My life is not crazy. I don't, I don't see, I don't,
• 1:44:32
  it's not a roller coaster and it's not like an emotional
• 1:44:35
  thing. It's not Instagram.
• 1:44:38
  It's just my free time. I use it to visit new places and
• 1:44:43
  and experience and create new memories.
• 1:44:48
  That's the main difference and that's what more people don't
• 1:44:51
  get, I think. Jeremy, I, I love your honesty.
• 1:44:55
  I love the fact that you don't come to bullshit.
• 1:44:57
  You know what everything is milk and toast and honey and there is
• 1:45:02
  no bad day and there's no working day that they don't
• 1:45:05
  exist. And I usually, you know what, I,
• 1:45:07
  I worked today 20 minutes. I made like €20,000 and now I
• 1:45:11
  can move on to. It I'll come by on a podcast
• 1:45:14
  when I happen. I I but I love your honesty.
• 1:45:21
  I love, I love the fact that you are saying, you know what?
• 1:45:24
  You still have to work. You still have to do your
• 1:45:26
  chores. You still have to do everything
• 1:45:28
  that you're doing today, but with two exceptions.
• 1:45:31
  You get to visit the new place every once in a while.
• 1:45:33
  And that's that's amazing. And second, maybe you do
• 1:45:36
  something you actually enjoy. Yeah, exactly.
• 1:45:39
  That's the difference. And, and, and also after, like
• 1:45:43
  there's also something about that is that, you know, we, we
• 1:45:49
  get to pick where we live because of this lifestyle, the
• 1:45:51
  freedom that we have. And it's a balance.
• 1:45:55
  It's not always the case, but sometimes you can also take
• 1:46:00
  advantage of the cost of living being lower to also have a
• 1:46:03
  better quality of life for less money, right?
• 1:46:06
  So, yeah, sometimes you can also enjoy things that you will not
• 1:46:11
  be able to enjoy if, you know, if I was in France, like going
• 1:46:14
  to a specific restaurant, so having someone cleaning my
• 1:46:18
  apartment every week would just cost me too much money.
• 1:46:20
  But when I am in Asia, I can afford to do that because of
• 1:46:23
  just the different cost of living.
• 1:46:26
  Correct. And yeah.
• 1:46:28
  And then again, The thing is like when you leave in a house
• 1:46:33
  and, and, and, and you have it's interesting.
• 1:46:37
  Regular life creates a lot of anchor in your life.
• 1:46:42
  When you have a house, you have a mortgage.
• 1:46:44
  Like you lose freedom. You, you don't realize that, but
• 1:46:46
  you, you, you lose a lot of freedom because tomorrow you
• 1:46:49
  can't just say, Hey, kids, we're packing the bags and we are
• 1:46:52
  going to Bangkok for one year. I know like your kids are at
• 1:46:55
  school. You have a mortgage that you
• 1:46:58
  have to pay. So somehow you need to pay for
• 1:47:00
  that. You have a house, you have a
• 1:47:02
  car, you have all these things to say, but like, I got rid of
• 1:47:06
  everything that I own. I have two backpacks.
• 1:47:10
  My wife has two backpacks. So we have nothing holding us
• 1:47:14
  back. So we can change plan on like on
• 1:47:19
  the snap of her finger and, and, and decide to be anywhere we
• 1:47:24
  want tomorrow for good and for bad also, right?
• 1:47:29
  That means also we can be here for people when they need us,
• 1:47:31
  which happened quite a lot, actually.
• 1:47:33
  We, we, we've been able, you know, to use this freedom for
• 1:47:37
  good, but also to use it when you know, a family member calls
• 1:47:40
  you and he says, like I know last time was Rosie's brother
• 1:47:46
  was moving house. He wanted help.
• 1:47:47
  We, we change our plan and we stay with them for like two or
• 1:47:50
  three weeks to like do some moving and construction and
• 1:47:52
  looking after the dogs and all that.
• 1:47:54
  Now we can't afford to be flexible because we don't have
• 1:47:56
  any roots and anchors holding us back.
• 1:47:59
  You've got no roots. That is a song, and this is the.
• 1:48:04
  This makes the fun of it. Is there a place that you guys
• 1:48:10
  visited when you paused and thought I could live here for a
• 1:48:15
  longer time? Yes, many times, many times.
• 1:48:21
  I think there's two mainly there's two countries that we
• 1:48:25
  could see ourselves like living for one year or more even is
• 1:48:31
  Thailand and Mexico. Such a opposite places on this.
• 1:48:41
  Yeah. But both of them for very
• 1:48:43
  different reason or fantastic countries and and we really
• 1:48:48
  enjoyed our time there. And we spend 5 months, I've only
• 1:48:52
  been to Mexico once, but we stayed for like 5 months and
• 1:48:54
  visited like so many places. But we've been to Thailand like
• 1:48:59
  3 times and every time we go, we are like, I could live here.
• 1:49:04
  Nice. I think it's the second time
• 1:49:06
  when I hear that about Thailand. You're you're not the first one
• 1:49:09
  saying that in the podcast. I really enjoy it and well, I
• 1:49:12
  mean it. We, we are actually considering
• 1:49:16
  moving to Thailand next year and spend one year in Bangkok next
• 1:49:19
  year. It's in.
• 1:49:20
  It's in the talk. It's in the plan, yeah.
• 1:49:22
  So Jeremy, you, you mentioned work and I think it's, it's
• 1:49:27
  worth mentioning that you are helping others now, not as a
• 1:49:31
  guru. I would just like to say I knew
• 1:49:35
  I could do just this job but how did how did coaching and and
• 1:49:43
  consulting came into picture? Hey, it's not something that I
• 1:49:48
  planned. To be honest.
• 1:49:49
  I kind of fell into it in a way since I'm going to explain.
• 1:49:56
  So when I left my job in 2021, when we left Miami, and from
• 1:50:03
  then until very recently until a few months ago, I've been
• 1:50:07
  working in the yoga industry online.
• 1:50:09
  So I had an online yoga platform where we were providing yoga
• 1:50:14
  classes and meditation classes and stuff like that.
• 1:50:17
  And then eventually we morphed the business into more for
• 1:50:20
  school where we were providing trainings to help people to
• 1:50:23
  become yoga and meditation teachers and stuff like that.
• 1:50:28
  And there was a business that I had with a friend in Miami.
• 1:50:31
  He was fully online, fully remote.
• 1:50:33
  We build the business from the ground up to be remote and
• 1:50:37
  location independent. So I've been doing that for
• 1:50:42
  yeah, since 2021 to early this year.
• 1:50:44
  So what, four years roughly. And that's, that was my main
• 1:50:49
  source of income for four years. That's how I've been making
• 1:50:52
  money and travelling and, and all that.
• 1:50:54
  And in, in, in the, in the drop that I had in France and in
• 1:51:01
  Miami. And then doing that, I realized
• 1:51:05
  I've developed some specific skill sets around operation
• 1:51:11
  about I'm a, I'm a very organized person naturally.
• 1:51:16
  And, you know, if I apply this organization and my rational
• 1:51:21
  mind to business and operation and strategy and decision making
• 1:51:28
  and how a business run, all the, all the boring stuff that
• 1:51:30
  usually people don't like, I tend to be good at that.
• 1:51:33
  And I tend to enjoy that all the, all the back end that
• 1:51:36
  people don't like to take care all the tech also because I
• 1:51:39
  like, yeah, I'm, I'm a nerd, so I like to keep up with tools and
• 1:51:43
  stuff like that. So, you know, I, I realized that
• 1:51:49
  was something I'm good at. That's something I enjoy and
• 1:51:51
  that's something that people tend to ask me advice for.
• 1:51:55
  And when the yoga school terminated a few months ago when
• 1:52:01
  we were wrapping up this business, because, you know, we
• 1:52:04
  were at the point where we need a shift.
• 1:52:07
  I, I look, I assess my skill set, I assess what was going on
• 1:52:12
  around me or what I, what I was good at, what I was enjoying,
• 1:52:18
  what were people coming to me for?
• 1:52:21
  And I realized that the obvious answer was, was that was doing
• 1:52:25
  consulting and helping. Usually what I enjoy doing is
• 1:52:30
  helping like solopreneur, people just working for themselves,
• 1:52:34
  such as like creatives, like photographer, coaches, trainers,
• 1:52:38
  stuff like that. People that have, you know, a
• 1:52:40
  specific skill set, the craft, they're good at what they do,
• 1:52:43
  they're expert, but they hate everything around the business,
• 1:52:47
  like everything around it, like having a website and, and
• 1:52:50
  dealing with finding the right tools.
• 1:52:52
  And when they try to do something, it's going to take
• 1:52:54
  them two hours because they do everything manually.
• 1:52:56
  And I arrive and I get a software and I do it in 10
• 1:52:59
  minutes. And they're like, oh, I hate
• 1:53:00
  you, you. Know.
• 1:53:04
  Like, and for me, this is the fun part, right?
• 1:53:06
  So I love doing it. So, yeah, I realized that I
• 1:53:09
  could help people with that because this, this and, and also
• 1:53:13
  the reason I realize is like this is the definition of my
• 1:53:15
  wife Rosie. She's like, she's a creative and
• 1:53:19
  I always help her with all this stuff.
• 1:53:21
  And I was like, there's plenty of frozen in the world.
• 1:53:26
  So that's how you go. So that's how I, I developed the
• 1:53:29
  consulting. And then when I was putting this
• 1:53:32
  offer together and, and, and rethinking what would I look
• 1:53:34
  like, I also realized that, you know, my personal story,
• 1:53:37
  everything that I've been sharing, I could also help
• 1:53:40
  people not just with the business, but also with the
• 1:53:44
  personal life. And because, you know, I think I
• 1:53:47
  have this, I don't like to say that have an inspiring story,
• 1:53:50
  but you know, I, I, I don't consider, I don't, I don't
• 1:53:54
  consider myself special in the sense that I don't think I'm
• 1:53:56
  more intelligent than most people.
• 1:53:58
  I don't, I never had more money than anyone, but I'm, but I'm
• 1:54:02
  living a life that a lot of people are dreaming about.
• 1:54:04
  And, and I was able to do that because of something very bad
• 1:54:07
  happening to me. And I, I was able to, to gain
• 1:54:13
  some awareness and, and step away from the traditional path
• 1:54:18
  because of what happened to me. And I think I can use this lived
• 1:54:21
  experience to help other live the life that they dream also.
• 1:54:25
  So this is something that I'm, I'm, I'm just passionate about
• 1:54:28
  because, you know, I, I made it myself.
• 1:54:31
  So I I want to help others doing that.
• 1:54:33
  You, you had an, you have had, you guys have had an impressive
• 1:54:39
  experience and, and a powerful experience on all the levels.
• 1:54:43
  And you lived the life that 95% of this world is dreaming of.
• 1:54:49
  And you realize that it's not what it was meant to be.
• 1:54:53
  It was not what you wanted to be.
• 1:54:55
  And I think that's the most important thing that you have to
• 1:54:59
  be able to to find a way to tell people that running for a dream
• 1:55:03
  that is not yours will not make it yours if you catch it.
• 1:55:07
  Yeah, and, and and it will actually make you sad at some
• 1:55:10
  point. And you will.
• 1:55:10
  Exactly. Exactly.
• 1:55:12
  And we sent them also. Yeah.
• 1:55:18
  If if someone is watching this Jeremy and they feel like they
• 1:55:22
  are at the the crossroad where they are stuck in the job that
• 1:55:28
  gives food and gives a good life for the family, but they don't
• 1:55:34
  like it and they always dreamed of living the life that you are
• 1:55:41
  living, what would be the first piece of advice that you would
• 1:55:47
  give them? Just one.
• 1:55:49
  Yeah. Well, first, if you made it
• 1:55:50
  through an hour and 50 minutes, thank you.
• 1:55:54
  Help me. It didn't look like one hour and
• 1:55:57
  50 minutes, I have to be honest. My, my first piece of advice is
• 1:56:03
  something that we kind of touched upon, but for me, you,
• 1:56:09
  there's two things You cannot force someone to change.
• 1:56:14
  For a start, change has to come from within.
• 1:56:17
  You need to have the willingness to change something.
• 1:56:21
  And I think to have that, the first step is awareness.
• 1:56:26
  You need to be aware that the life that you want, it's not
• 1:56:32
  fulfilling you, even if it's comfortable because you know you
• 1:56:34
  can make good money. You can have a lot of things on
• 1:56:37
  the outside that looks great, but you're not feeling fulfilled
• 1:56:39
  inside you. You need to have the awareness
• 1:56:42
  of that. A lot of people just don't
• 1:56:43
  question it. A lot of people say like, I feel
• 1:56:45
  like shit, but I don't know why. I hate my life, but I don't know
• 1:56:48
  why and and they stop there. They don't analyse anything and
• 1:56:52
  getting stepping into like developing this self-awareness
• 1:56:58
  of like, OK, I'm feeling this way.
• 1:57:00
  What's happening this da da and realizing that, OK, the problem
• 1:57:04
  is that I have this good life on paper.
• 1:57:07
  I, I love my partner, I love my kids, I love my I, I'm, I'm glad
• 1:57:11
  I'm making this much money, but I feel empty inside and I feel
• 1:57:16
  stuck and I don't want to do that anymore.
• 1:57:19
  You know, don't blame yourself. Develop the awareness to
• 1:57:24
  understand how you got there, how you got here, what happened
• 1:57:28
  to you. You're going to realize that
• 1:57:30
  most of the time it's not your fault if you're in this
• 1:57:34
  situation. It's just a consequence of
• 1:57:37
  choices that you made through your life that were actually
• 1:57:40
  driven by society and by the system that was talking about.
• 1:57:43
  And from the very early age when you didn't have much control in
• 1:57:47
  your life, you were put on this on those rails.
• 1:57:50
  And it's very hard to get out of them once you're on it.
• 1:57:54
  And, you know, you can decide sometimes if you're taking left
• 1:57:57
  or right. You can, you can, you can drive
• 1:57:59
  the train, but you're still stuck on this trail.
• 1:58:02
  And, and you have this false sense that you're in control.
• 1:58:07
  But you know, and developing the awareness is, is key because
• 1:58:12
  then you can understand, I think, how this whole
• 1:58:15
  conditioning works. And, and once you understand
• 1:58:18
  that there is so many pieces of the puzzle that are like pulling
• 1:58:23
  the strings, you, I think you stop feeling bad about your
• 1:58:29
  situation. You don't blame yourself for
• 1:58:31
  being where you are. And, and it gives you space to
• 1:58:36
  accept who you are as a person, to make peace with yourself.
• 1:58:40
  And, and then from there, when you're not in a place of like
• 1:58:43
  hatred and sadness and, and conflict within yourself, then
• 1:58:47
  you can start like dreaming and building this life that you
• 1:58:50
  dream and, and you can walk on that.
• 1:58:52
  But first you need to like give yourself a break and, and stop
• 1:58:57
  feeling like a failure or whatever.
• 1:58:59
  And that starts with awareness. Step one is being aware of
• 1:59:02
  everything happening. Such a good piece of advice.
• 1:59:08
  One thing that that I have to mention, I'm, as I said at the
• 1:59:13
  beginning, I have a 7 year old son who's soon going to start on
• 1:59:17
  these three years that you were mentioning about.
• 1:59:19
  Yeah, and this is something, of course, I'm living in.
• 1:59:22
  Generally there is no option to decide that you are
• 1:59:25
  homeschooling or something like this because it's a, it's a
• 1:59:29
  world who's not allowing this. And I'm not judging this, don't
• 1:59:32
  get me wrong, it's my choice that I'm here.
• 1:59:34
  So that's not something that I'm, I'm not here to change the
• 1:59:37
  world. But it's one thought that I have
• 1:59:40
  in my head is if this school system doesn't matter, if in
• 1:59:45
  which country is the right system, that is the right school
• 1:59:48
  system that should be teach today where there's no focus on
• 1:59:52
  on your feelings, where there's no focus of you trying to be
• 1:59:55
  happy. Where's the only focus on
• 1:59:57
  performance of doing the right thing, learning the right stuff,
• 2:00:01
  behaving in a certain amount of rules, not going out of those
• 2:00:04
  rules so that you are the perfect citizen like you said
• 2:00:07
  before? It's a, It's a Yeah, a.
• 2:00:10
  Thought that is in my head since since a few months more than a
• 2:00:14
  year and I have to say it's not something that is giving me a
• 2:00:18
  good sleep at night. Thank you for sharing now, no,
• 2:00:22
  I, I, I totally see understand what you mean.
• 2:00:25
  And you know, we still don't have children.
• 2:00:29
  I don't think we'll, but like I, I always wonder if I had a child
• 2:00:32
  right now, I don't know how I would navigate that.
• 2:00:35
  I, I'm, I'm with you on that. I I don't know how what I would
• 2:00:38
  do because I don't think the the educational system that we have
• 2:00:45
  anywhere, Europe, US is the same everywhere, same but different,
• 2:00:49
  but the same. Like we all create good citizen
• 2:00:53
  and yeah, there's no place for individuality.
• 2:00:56
  There is some I've read an article a few years ago, it was
• 2:01:00
  fascinating. There was this study done over
• 2:01:04
  like 20 or 30 years and the somehow try to measure
• 2:01:09
  creativity on people based on like some tests and they follow
• 2:01:14
  like the same group of kids and an adult for 30 years trying to
• 2:01:19
  measure the creativity. And when they were like kids
• 2:01:23
  very young, the creativity were very high.
• 2:01:26
  And as they go through the system, it just drops and they
• 2:01:32
  all basically become the same people like you lose your
• 2:01:35
  individuality, use you, you lose what makes you unique as a
• 2:01:39
  child. You, you lose everything that
• 2:01:42
  makes you different. And you're just shaped into this
• 2:01:45
  mold by just trying to create like the good citizen.
• 2:01:49
  And, and it's very interesting. And I, I when, when you know
• 2:01:54
  your kids spend anywhere between 4:00 and 7:00 hours at school
• 2:01:58
  every day. I don't know how as a parent at
• 2:02:01
  home, you can fight that to make them.
• 2:02:07
  Yeah, I don't have the answer, but I totally understand what
• 2:02:10
  you're saying. Yeah.
• 2:02:14
  Yeah, it's, it's a hard 1. And I think it's a, it's a hard
• 2:02:17
  one for everyone who's able to think outside of this box that
• 2:02:20
  we are placed in. Yeah, I know some schools are
• 2:02:24
  trying to do better around it was like Montessori system and
• 2:02:27
  stuff like that. But also those private school
• 2:02:29
  are very expensive. So it's it's complicated and
• 2:02:32
  they don't go too far. So we need educational system
• 2:02:34
  so. I have the adventure of of being
• 2:02:37
  in a in a private work sponsored school which has a really good
• 2:02:44
  system. It has bilingual system, he's
• 2:02:46
  learning English and German. But still I see the patterns
• 2:02:51
  still they are using the same teachers that they are in the
• 2:02:54
  normal schools still there. I like, and this is, it's not
• 2:02:59
  the, it's not the, they're not the teachers to blame.
• 2:03:02
  They're just part of the system. And this is, this is really
• 2:03:05
  important to say. It's not, I'm not blaming, you
• 2:03:07
  know, it's just the system, which is weird, but it's, it's
• 2:03:13
  an interesting decision that we all have to take.
• 2:03:16
  Oh yeah, for sure. Yeah, yeah.
• 2:03:19
  I would kindly ask you to at the end of the of the we are not at
• 2:03:24
  the end. I still love it.
• 2:03:25
  I don't care that we have two hours into it.
• 2:03:27
  I still love it and I hope you can you can still give me some
• 2:03:30
  words Jeremy, maybe when we finish this, you are you are so
• 2:03:37
  kind to send me your details like your website, your social
• 2:03:39
  media, so I can link them in the short note description so that
• 2:03:43
  everyone can have them if they want to contact you.
• 2:03:45
  But I have some some reflections for the end and maybe there are
• 2:03:50
  some questions. I I don't necessarily wait a
• 2:03:52
  direct answer, but I would like to have one, let's say a simple,
• 2:03:56
  the simple answer as possible. OK, what?
• 2:03:59
  What does what does freedom means to you today?
• 2:04:04
  Oh, I love the topic of freedom. OK, I'm I'm gonna have to be
• 2:04:10
  concise. For me today, freedom is having
• 2:04:18
  the ability to decide that tomorrow or Monday I can be
• 2:04:24
  where I want, doing what I want, without any compromises.
• 2:04:33
  Freedom to. Choose.
• 2:04:35
  Yeah, I have options and I have the freedom to make the choices
• 2:04:41
  that I want. And, you know, that can be going
• 2:04:45
  to see my parents because there's something happening.
• 2:04:50
  They call me. Hey, can you be home tomorrow?
• 2:04:51
  Yeah, sure. I can take a flight and go.
• 2:04:54
  It's being having the freedom to take a Tuesday off just because
• 2:04:57
  I want. It's having the freedom to go to
• 2:05:01
  the beach when, you know, everyone is walking and to work
• 2:05:04
  when everyone is at the beach. It's having the freedom to wake
• 2:05:07
  up at 10 AM and start walking at 6:00 PM if I want to until 2:00
• 2:05:13
  AM just because I can. Yeah, it's that's, that's,
• 2:05:18
  that's real on to me. What's something that you still
• 2:05:22
  learn to let go of? I'm still navigating.
• 2:05:35
  I don't know how to phrase it in a sense of like letting go of
• 2:05:37
  something, but I'm still navigating, expressing my
• 2:05:42
  emotions and like verbalizing how I feel.
• 2:05:48
  And I, this is something that I still struggle, you know, in the
• 2:05:53
  context of like, you know, my relationship with my wife or
• 2:05:56
  with other people, stuff like that.
• 2:05:57
  Like I, I do struggle to express that.
• 2:06:01
  So I think it's letting go. It's usually when you can
• 2:06:06
  express your emotion like me, it's because you, you want to be
• 2:06:10
  seen of a certain way. You don't want to be seen as,
• 2:06:13
  you know, someone weak or someone that can feel like stuff
• 2:06:18
  like that. So I think it's a, it's a, it's
• 2:06:19
  a, it's a need to be in control and a need to look good.
• 2:06:24
  That has an influence on night. I can't let go of everything
• 2:06:27
  because you're going to see me in a different way.
• 2:06:29
  I don't want now because you're going to have.
• 2:06:31
  Yeah, that's something I'm, I'm much better at it, but I'm still
• 2:06:37
  navigating and it's, I think it's going to be a, a lifelong
• 2:06:40
  journey for me. I'll feel you.
• 2:06:47
  What's your What's your favorite way to ground yourself when life
• 2:06:53
  gets overwhelming? I meditate.
• 2:06:58
  That's my, that's my solution. I meditate, I sit down, I sit
• 2:07:02
  down on the floor on a chair, close my eyes.
• 2:07:06
  Yeah, when I don't know if we do something with my wife and you
• 2:07:10
  know, we biker, we have a little argument or something annoys me.
• 2:07:13
  I'm like, I'm going to the bedroom for 10 minutes to
• 2:07:15
  meditate. I'm going to the bedroom.
• 2:07:17
  I close the door, I sit down on the floor, I meditate and I come
• 2:07:21
  back and I I'm usually OK. What do you miss from friends?
• 2:07:27
  What about friends? Bread.
• 2:07:34
  This is this is my very honest answer.
• 2:07:38
  This is a cliche topic in this this getting a cliche topic in
• 2:07:40
  this in this podcast because bread is something that we talk
• 2:07:43
  in almost every episode. The French bread and German
• 2:07:46
  bread. There's nothing like it.
• 2:07:48
  You can, you can. You can pay the money that you
• 2:07:51
  want anywhere else. It's never the same.
• 2:07:53
  It's never as good. I had someone who moved from US
• 2:07:57
  in in France and they were doing in France and I don't know, she
• 2:08:02
  said. So Adrian said, you know there
• 2:08:04
  is only an amount of times where you can cut your mouth with the
• 2:08:08
  end of the bucket, but you still eat it because you love it.
• 2:08:13
  Yeah, no, that's my honest answer and I didn't have to
• 2:08:16
  think much about it, right, so. Yeah, absolutely.
• 2:08:19
  That came, that came, that came, that came really fast.
• 2:08:29
  One item you always pack with you, no matter the destination.
• 2:08:35
  My Kindle I, I, I, I didn't grow up as a reader.
• 2:08:43
  I started reading when I was in Paris.
• 2:08:45
  So when I was like 23 years old, that's when I started reading
• 2:08:50
  books. But since then, I've been
• 2:08:52
  reading very, very constantly, anywhere between 10 and 25 book
• 2:08:58
  per year. And yeah, I always travel with
• 2:09:03
  my Kindle. It's so small that I can fit in
• 2:09:06
  my pocket and I can read whatever I am, you know, in
• 2:09:09
  transport, at the beach, anywhere.
• 2:09:12
  And I always have hundreds of books in my pocket, which I
• 2:09:15
  love. Yeah, it is.
• 2:09:20
  I broke my Kindle once at the airport and I just went to a
• 2:09:24
  shop and buy a new one straight away.
• 2:09:26
  Like that's freedom. 5 minutes. Yeah, that's freedom.
• 2:09:30
  That's something that that that is freedom.
• 2:09:33
  Mention the Please tell us the last book that you read.
• 2:09:40
  I can't tell you the one I'm I'm reading right now like this.
• 2:09:46
  I am currently reading a series. I am in a 6th book of the
• 2:09:51
  Mistborn Serie from Brandon Sanderson.
• 2:09:54
  It's a fantasy author. I got into his universe 3 years
• 2:10:01
  ago and in three years I've read I think 24 of his books.
• 2:10:08
  I went down into the rabbit hole.
• 2:10:10
  Yeah. Productivity.
• 2:10:12
  Yeah, I love it. I was, I was looking, I am like
• 2:10:15
  a Harry Potter fan. I was looking for like something
• 2:10:19
  with magic and and Dragons or whatever and and someone
• 2:10:25
  recommended him and his books and I've been hooked since then
• 2:10:28
  and completely addicted to them. Jeremy, I have no words to thank
• 2:10:39
  you for being so. Thank you for being so open
• 2:10:43
  today. No, thank you.
• 2:10:45
  It was a pleasure. It, it, it wasn't, it was a
• 2:10:48
  pleasure. It was, it was for me a role.
• 2:10:49
  Of course, you mentioned one hour 50.
• 2:10:51
  I haven't realized it. I was just I usually always keep
• 2:10:54
  the time in, in, in. I just look because there are
• 2:10:57
  some discussions which are running good.
• 2:10:58
  There are some discussion which are running hard and there are
• 2:11:00
  some guests who are open who are not open and because I always
• 2:11:03
  keep the time on the clock. But you, I got so in the story
• 2:11:08
  that I haven't I was out of the of the human, of the human
• 2:11:13
  world. I have to say it like this.
• 2:11:14
  And I have to ask you, would you please share when people can
• 2:11:21
  find your work, your newsletter, your story, I don't know your
• 2:11:24
  podcast, everything that you want to share, please?
• 2:11:27
  Yeah, I mean, everything is centralized on my website
• 2:11:31
  isjeremyandre.com. So JEREM i.e, ANDR, e.com,
• 2:11:37
  everything is there. My Substack newsletter, the work
• 2:11:40
  that I do, the few social media accounts that I use are there.
• 2:11:44
  So yeah, one destination. Perfect one, one final and final
• 2:11:53
  thought to leave our listeners with.
• 2:12:03
  One final wise word. It doesn't have to be wise.
• 2:12:08
  You said a lot of you. You said too many wise things
• 2:12:11
  today. I would, I would keep it
• 2:12:16
  consistent with everything I said.
• 2:12:18
  But when you're not, when you're on your deathbed, you're not
• 2:12:23
  going to remember going to the office.
• 2:12:26
  You're not going to remember all the good work that you did.
• 2:12:29
  And they're not going to remember it neither, by the way,
• 2:12:31
  because they don't care about you.
• 2:12:34
  You're going to remember the experience.
• 2:12:36
  You're going to remember spending time with people.
• 2:12:38
  You're going to remember what you felt when you've been
• 2:12:42
  somewhere or when you, I don't got married or when you had your
• 2:12:45
  child or when you did this skydive or whatever.
• 2:12:50
  So, you know, leave more moments like that because that's what
• 2:12:54
  matters in life. Not, not the certifications, not
• 2:12:58
  the salary, not the title. You can be a director of what
• 2:13:05
  you want, but you might still be miserable.
• 2:13:08
  And that's not, you know, think, think of like what you want
• 2:13:11
  people to remember the day you die.
• 2:13:13
  And that's what you should be focusing your life on from now
• 2:13:17
  on. Thank you Jeremy, I hope we can
• 2:13:20
  do this again one day and if you feel like it, just drop an
• 2:13:25
  e-mail. You have my e-mail address now
• 2:13:27
  and I will be more than happy to talk to you again.
• 2:13:30
  I would love to as well. I can, I can talk.
• 2:13:32
  That's fine. You too.
• 2:13:34
  So. We are.
• 2:13:36
  We are on the same page. Yeah.
• 2:13:37
  Have a nice evening. Talk to you soon, Jeremy, I
• 2:13:39
  hope. Thank you all.
• 2:13:40
  Bye bye.