Note sull'episodio
Guest: Kristen Womble — Writing Coach, Editor, Publishing Consultant
Based: ½ Year in DC and ½ year Nomadic
Kristen Womble spent years living divided. There was travel Kristen and there was home Kristen, and they didn't talk to each other. She'd studied abroad in France at twenty, and when she came back, her friends made jokes. The study-abroad clichés were merciless. So she learned to hide it. She kept her travels private, her home life separate, maintaining two distinct identities that never quite fit together.
The more she hid, the more fractured she felt. She was being dishonest with the people she cared about most. There was this gap between who she actually was and who she was pretending to be, and that gap was painful. Then one day she made a choice: she decided to stop hiding. She decided to be brutally honest about who she was, what she was doing, where she was going. And something remarkable happened. The division started to heal.
Now she's a writing coach and publishing consultant who travels roughly a third to half the year whilst maintaining a home base in Washington, D.C. that exists purely for her personal life. She has Sunday family dinners. She plays on a weekly soccer team. She's built what most digital nomads spend years trying to achieve: true integration between both sides of her life. Not a compromise between them. Not choosing one over the other. But actually having both, fully, without the shame or the secrecy. This is what freedom looks like when you stop dividing yourself in half.
Timestamps
00:00 Introduction by Ibi
00:39 Ibi's introduction to Kristen's journey
01:06 Kristen's current lifestyle, writing coach, travel balance
01:29 Closing intro statement
01:38 How long nomadic, started 2022, now has home base in D.C.
03:20 D.C. home base, metro system, politics, distance from city centre
04:10 Pickup truck tangent and vehicles in American cities
05:00 [Main topic: Career path and consulting background]
06:00 [Main topic: Writing and publishing consulting]
07:00 [Main topic: Unstructured travel beginning, first solo trip]
08:30 [Main topic: Setting boundaries for first unstructured travel]
10:00 [Main topic: Identity crisis and siloing experience]
11:30 [Main topic: Study abroad experience in France]
13:00 [Main topic: Communication challenges with people back home]
14:30 [Main topic: Breaking the division, becoming transparent]
16:00 [Main topic: Benefits of being honest about travel]
17:00 [Main topic: Nomadic mindset and meeting new people]
18:00 [Main topic: Balance between travel and home base needs]
19:30 [Main topic: Family dinners and soccer team importance]
21:00 [Main topic: Community and roots whilst traveling]
22:00 [Main topic: When she got home base, end of 2024]
23:30 [Main topic: Career as location independent consultant]
25:00 [Main topic: Freelancing journey and business building]
26:30 [Main topic: Risk taking from position of safety and security]
Remaining timestamps are in the full write-up linked below.
Full write-up and transcript: https://www.ibimalik.com/podcast/kristen-womble
Guest website: https://passkeypublishing.com
Watch: https://youtu.be/5tMhIgw1Yc0