There is a moment that happens to a lot of people who've been through a big change.
You realize you are not just choosing a new country, you're choosing a new version of yourself.
Today's guest is originally from New York, but she lived between Serbia and Montenegro,
building a life in the Balkans after a period with real personal challenges.
Her story is not a glossy move abroad and everything gets better.
It's honest, it's messy, and it's about learning what you actually need and being brave
enough to get to do it.
There are pluses and minuses everywhere, right?
And at that time I was really craving the pluses that the Balkans had that the U.S. did not.
And that's why I moved there.
And when I came back to the States, I was craving the pluses that the States have that
I couldn't find in Europe.
When you've lived in more than one place, you stop believing in the perfect country fantasy.
Instead, you start asking, "What trade-offs I'm willing to live with?
What kind of life I'm actually trying to build?"
And in this episode, she takes us to the deeper layers behind these choices.
The internal shift that can happen after loss, after confidence collapses, after you hit
a point where you can't keep living the same way.
After he passed, my confidence fell to the floor.
And I would say that, you know, I love myself.
I read all these books.
I would meditate unguided for more than an hour, all this stuff.
And so I really made the shift.
I've self-changes, had difficult conversations with people, changed my circles.
And then my health started turning around very quickly.
And I went deeper into more advanced form of meditation.
And then I basically made it like my side gig to my business.
It was like three or four hours a day of meditation.
Today, we are talking about what it really means to start over abroad.
Not just with the practical stuff like adapting to a new culture or building a community in
a different place, but the emotional side of it too.
Rebuilding confidence, reshaping identity and creating stability in a part of the world
that most people don't choose first.
Today on Almost Local, the living abroad story of Chanoa Inés.
Let's start.
I'm an author, a personal branding advisor, and I'm an American.
I live in Los Angeles now and I used to live in the Balkans.
I lived there for almost seven years and it's still a place I hold near and dear.
And I continue to keep up with the culture from here.
So you are now in Los Angeles, but you were not originally from Los Angeles?
No, as far as I remember, you were born in...
No, I've actually, yeah.
I've been in New York, about an hour from the city.
And then half of my childhood, my family moved to South Florida.
So I also lived in Miami for a long time.
I moved from Miami to the Balkans.
Cool.
So you moved internally inside of the US before doing the overseas trip, let's say like this.
I mean, I think I have an obligatory question about it.
Why the Balkans?
Why it's a very different world, like jumping from Miami to Serbia, I think the first movement
was.
Yeah.
Well, first, I actually had friends from the Balkans in Southeast.
South Beach is very different today.
A lot of people have moved to Brickle, but at the time when I lived there, there were
a lot of snowbirds and expats from different countries.
So I had friends from all over the world, from Europe and South America, different places,
the Caribbean.
So I knew about the Balkans and all my friends from there were quite interesting people and
I liked their culture.
And fast forward a few years later, I would actually end up dating somebody from Montenegro.
We lived together in Miami and I couldn't wait to visit.
And when I went on vacation, it was just, we went to Serbia, I went to Montenegro.
I was just like, I didn't want to talk about vacation when I came home because I was like,
I fell into a depression basically, because I knew I wanted to leave Miami, but I didn't
know where I wanted to go.
And I really, really did not want to get back on the plane to go home.
So everyone's like, oh, we saw your pictures, your videos, it's so beautiful.
And I was like, I don't want to talk about it.
So we agreed that the next year we would basically put our things in storage and go there to spend
the entire summer and then stay, see how it works out if we like it to stay past the off
season at that time.
And then if it worked out for our businesses.
So I had a copywriting business at time.
It was a side gig.
And so I had a year to develop it.
So it would be my full-time business when I got to the Balkans.
Nice.
I mean, you were doing copywriting for remotely back then, or so you were still like keeping
the clients from the US?
How was the time difference?
Jumping?
I work fully remote.
You don't really need too many meetings.
At least not the kind of work I was doing.
But unfortunately the next year, I mean, we did move there and the first day was like
magic.
I finally got to meet his parents.
I knew his family members that lived in Florida, but it was the first time I got to meet his
parents in person and everything was just wonderful.
I went into the sea coast.
It was a magical night.
And it felt like the first time in my life up until then that everything felt perfect.
I just felt like there were no problems, no stress, nothing.
But I woke up in the morning and he did not.
And it completely changed my whole world.
And I decided to stay in the Balkans.
So I stayed for the summer, went back to Miami after the summer to organize our effects.
And then I moved to Serbia.
I wanted to move to Montenegro, but my friends thought I might not like it in the off season.
It might be too quiet for an American.
So the first two years I lived half the year in Serbia and Belgrade, excuse me, and half
the year in different places in the sea coast in Montenegro.
And I would kind of hop back and forth between because they're so close.
It's like flying from any Americans listening Los Angeles to Vegas.
And then I realized I really wanted to be in Montenegro.
So I lived there for the remainder, I think four and a half years in Montenegro after.
So I mean, you mentioned you passed a little bit about...
I don't need to know, but when I read about your profile, you moved there and eventually
you were having a relationship with someone from there.
So you were discovering a country more or less through the eyes of a local.
And suddenly that person wasn't there anymore.
How difficult it was to take the decision of staying in a place that was probably the
connection to that person.
Yeah, I wasn't scared.
I really loved the country and I had his family members, I knew were there.
And then obviously the ones that came there after he passed to stay for a while.
I knew some of his friends, even ones that we were in touch with before I even came to
visit.
And I just felt supported and I felt like I'd wanted to leave Miami for so long.
So to go back to Miami, a place I wasn't crazy about being, and then everywhere I went, going
back to our place or trying to move back there.
And then everything reminds me of him.
Ironically, even though Montenegro is his country, everything did not remind me of him
in that way.
We didn't do our mundane daily activities there.
And then it made it also easier to...
He was Orthodox Christian.
I could go to all the different rituals.
A few days after the funeral, 40 days later and all that stuff.
So I felt more connected to him there.
Interesting.
I was considering that a lot of people in these kinds of situations, they would normally
go back to their home.
But of course, your home was actually Miami where you live together and Montenegro and
Serbia was more like a kind of a holiday's paradise in that sense.
How was the first impressions that you had on Serbia and Montenegro?
Because they are very different from the US in general, not only from Miami, but the ways
of doing and even the traffic, I would say.
Well, the thing is there are pluses and minuses everywhere, right?
And at that time, I was really craving the pluses that the Balkans had that the US did
not.
And that's why I moved there.
And when I came back to the States, I was saving the pluses that the States have that
I couldn't find in Europe.
So there's a lot to love.
The people are very warm and very, very social.
Timing of things, it's more my timing.
I live like I'm still in Montenegro here.
I was walking way too fast.
I would walk to Montenegro running errands and people were like, "Where's the fire?"
I try to slow down.
So here I think I walk much more slowly than anyone in California because I'm on this different
tempo.
I can meet my friend for coffee in the afternoon.
It could be a two hour coffee meetup or a four hour lunch.
So that kind of pace that really, really aligns with my spirit, the way that I do things.
There's so much beautiful nature in Montenegro.
Even in Serbia, it's very industrial.
But if you go outside of the city, there are forests quite close to the capital.
You had this moment of seasonality for some time where you were going more in Belgrade
because of winter, I suppose.
Being a little bit more on the city vibe during winter and then moving to the coast in Montenegro
during summer.
How different it is.
For a person who has never been in the Balkans, how different it is Montenegro from Serbia?
Oh, it's interesting because the culture is very same, essentially the same people.
But then it's very different because there are a lot of wars obviously in the Balkans
for former Yugoslavia, but there were no wars on Montenegro land.
So things are a bit laid back.
There's a tension, I feel like in the air in Serbia at all times.
Not that there's never any protests or anything like that in Montenegro, but it's just different.
If you're in the capital in Montenegro where most expats would go to live or on the sea
coast anywhere, the energy is much more like you're living on the coast in Italy somewhere.
And so a lot of the foods, for example, there are a lot of shared cultural dishes between
Serbia and Montenegro.
But then you also get the seafood and different even products in the grocery store that might
be sourced from Italy.
Others in Serbia might come from somewhere outside of more like a landlocked country.
So it's very different in that way.
So it's interesting, just nuances.
I think people wouldn't really pick up if they're just visiting.
There is a moment in there because then you moved to Montenegro more permanently, more
as a decision.
And wasn't it not true, the fact of the seasonality that your friends told you at the very beginning
or you enjoy it all year long?
I loved it all year long and I realized it was just I made a mistake listing to my friends.
They didn't know what was for me.
The amount of times I went back to Montenegro when I was living in Belgrade, it was just
kind of absurd.
But yeah, it really suited me.
There are certain cities I lived in like Kotor.
It's about an hour from Dubrovnik without traffic.
And it's another seaside city and it's UNESCO protected.
I loved living there, but like that's just one of the places I could not live outside
of the season.
I would always have to be leaving, but like the capital is very busy or even like the
next seaside city it is, but it's not enclosed by these mountains that could get very rainy
there and quiet.
Talking a little bit about, because you said that you remained in Montenegro because maybe
Miami was remembering more of your partner and the person that you lost back then.
How was your life doing then because you don't take the emotional part out of it a hundred
percent.
Like the sense of loss and the pain must be there for sure.
How was it for you living there?
The first years, there were some bright moments, but it was quite dark for me.
And I really think it would have been better if I'd moved to Montenegro to live there full-time,
but I didn't know that.
So, you know, Belgrade's a very gray city, especially in the winter.
So I'm used to getting a lot of sunlight in Miami and it was difficult for me.
And when I moved there, one of my biggest clients, they were headquartered in Michigan
and the United States.
And the other headquarters was I forgot where, somewhere in China.
So I would have Zoom calls until like 1.30 or 2 in the morning.
And then it's like, you know, maybe I'm going to have like, I don't know, I'm like, I'm
going to have some cookies.
I feel like I deserve something.
You know, this work I've done, and then waking up really late, 10, 11 in the morning because
I'd be exhausted.
And then I'd catch like, you know, I'd miss that little bit of sunshine that was there.
So I was like, you know, my skin was so pasty and I was just like eating poorly because
bad sleep.
And it was a really bad combination with morning, as you can imagine.
So I think it would have been much easier if I was like, you know, sunshine all year
around, even in the winter, going for, you know, longer walks and things like that.
But you know, I got through it.
I had a close friend who was also going through something difficult and we were able to, I
think, really help each other survive during that period.
Yes.
What about, I mean, we will ask and talk about it later a little bit more in detail.
Language wise, you go to Serbia, you didn't speak Serbian back then or you didn't already
know the language when you moved in, Montenegro, it's a very difficult language.
Yes.
I started learning it before I moved there.
I only knew like maybe a hundred something words when I moved there.
So I kept learning the language.
The thing is, nobody expects anybody, any foreigners to learn Serbic or, you know, any languages
of the Balkans nowhere in the Balkans.
Nobody expects to learn the language.
I wanted to because I love languages.
I love how it sounds also.
And then I wanted to be part of the, you know, you want the cultural nuances when you live
somewhere because there's so many jokes and so there's so much nuance you're going to
miss if you don't speak the local language.
Right?
So like I had some friends, their English is perfect, but their jokes in English, a lot
of them will kind of fall flat and obviously vice versa until I got a better grasp of the
language.
So I really wanted to get that full experience.
I continued to study.
When I was living in Belgrade, I would listen to a lot of music and I learned a lot of vocabulary
from, you know, folk songs, folk music in the Balkans and like watching the performances
on TV.
I would watch SpongeBob and I liked some other children's shows because you can learn vocabulary
quickly if I'm speaking slowly.
And I just think SpongeBob SquarePants is much funnier in Serbian.
So I would watch that.
And I took one semester at the University of Belgrade in the Philology Institute and
that helped with just some of the structure, the rules for me to kind of solidify that
and that helped.
And so what would happen is when I lived in Belgrade, my language skills would always
slide back because there's a culture there where people love to speak English and they
don't, they kind of want to show off their English skills and they don't think foreigners
need to spend their time learning the language.
But then when I would go to visit Montenegro, almost everyone would be speaking.
My friends speak perfect English, but people would encourage you to learn it because they're
like, oh, well, you speak the language well.
So I would get really good.
And then I would kind of slide back a little bit when I got back to Belgrade because I'd
mostly be speaking English.
So after I moved to Montenegro, I learned more.
But actually my language skills got the best actually when I moved back to LA and I think
that's because I didn't have to learn it.
So it's really funny now when I'm speaking with friends, I don't know why that is, and
I haven't forgotten anything.
So I continue to watch things here and there because I do want to hold onto the language.
Interesting.
So when you remove the pressure, maybe it's just like make it easier.
When you moved in, you were building this whole copywriting company.
When does this come from copywriting to being an author?
Because it's completely two different things.
One thing is writing for others and for companies and for like it's a much more focused thing.
Writing a book.
It's another story.
When, when does this come in?
Yeah.
Well, after Bodo passed away, I had one fun and an artist was really encouraging me to
write a book.
I'm glad I did not because it would have been a very pessimistic book because I was so deep
in the grief for so long.
So years, a couple years after he passed away, I started having health challenges and I started
suddenly started having a series of food allergies and all kinds of problems.
And I was like, this doesn't make sense to have this brutality, you know, in my twenties,
it doesn't make sense, you know.
So the good side of that is that, you know, nothing could help me like conventional medicine
to deal with the particular issues I started having.
So I then discovered like meditation, yoga, and I started doing all these different things
to try and help because I knew it had to come from, at least partially from emotional stuff
that I had not dealt with.
You know, I went to the Amazon in Peru and, you know, plant medicine retreats.
I tried everything under the sun and everything just kind of made me a little bit better.
And I felt like they kept me in survival mode, like from not getting worse than being like
this transformation I was looking for.
When I moved to the States, it's like I, my identity kind of shook up because I was not
seeing the same people every day.
I wasn't having my same routines.
And suddenly I could eat a lot of foods that I couldn't eat before.
And I was like, oh, that's interesting.
And then I started kind of noticing like, like little patterns I had, and I was like,
wait, why did I make those decisions?
Fast forward a few years and I realized that I really was missing the most important ingredient,
and that was that self-love piece.
Like after he passed, my confidence fell to the floor.
And I would say that, you know, I love myself.
I read, you know, all these books, I would meditate unguided for more than an hour, all
this stuff.
But I was really not doing that because I realized, oh, well, how are these the closest
people in your life if you love yourself?
And so I really made this shift.
Life self-changes, had difficult conversations with people, changed my circles, and then my
health started turning out very quickly.
And I went deeper into more advanced form of meditation.
And I basically made it like my side gig to my business.
It was like three or four hours a day of meditation really, and really recognizing these patterns.
And I saw, wow, I've had a victim mindset for many years before he even passed away.
And when he passed away, it's so strange, so sudden.
Then I just cemented it for me.
And I just really saw how I created that whole arc.
And so when I realized it, I was feeling so good.
And I realized, oh my gosh, I just really stepped out of that cloud of grief now.
So many years later, my next thought was I have to write a book because nobody needs to
get stuck in that limber where they don't even realize they're still in it.
And they're assuming whatever stress they're having has to do with something that's happening
at that moment in their life.
But it's like, no, you're still carrying this thing and it's just washing over everything
else in your life.
So it's a book.
So I wrote the book and it was very nerve-racking at first, but, because as you said, it's very
different from copywriting.
And also it's very vulnerable because I had to start with my story before it gets into,
you know, it's really an uplifting read.
But it's designed to help people come back from things faster, whether it's a loss of
a loved one, you know, layoff, loss of a business, or even I have people, I hear from people
who are just reading it and they're, they just, they don't have anything going on that's negative,
but they want to dream bigger and that's helping them really like reflect and change how they're
approaching their lives.
Sounds interesting.
Good read, I would say.
I would ask you two more questions that are remaining for this section before we deep,
a little bit more deep into your life in Montenegro and do the first replies.
The first one, it's purely out of curiosity because I think we have a lot of stereotypes
about the Balkans.
I lived in Greece, just south of the Balkans for four years, and I've seen ideas of a stereotyping
of the Balkans that might not be real.
And I wanted to ask you at the end, you're a black woman from America who moved to the
Balkans, which is like traditionally a white region with not much mixer of cultures and
sometimes a stereotype as a racist place.
How was the whole racial environment?
Did you ever feel any racial prejudice?
I had one incident in Montenegro, no it was in Serbia, and oddly enough I saw the same
person like a year later in Montenegro.
Okay.
Yeah.
And my friends kind of went after him, but they couldn't catch him.
But he said something.
But that was really strange because I found it to be more like a reverse space.
Most people are like, "Oh my God, there's someone here who's from somewhere else, we
want to meet you."
And I know a lot of people from different countries have moved there and different cultures.
There are now even a lot of Asian people since the pandemic.
And so I think people are a little bit like less like, "Oh, so surprised."
You know, one, it was very different in Montenegro because I lived in the sea coast and it's
a seafaring culture, a seafaring capital.
So people tend to have friends from around the world.
They travel around the world.
A lot of them make a lot of money in foreign countries and they want to live in Montenegro.
So they bring it back and open businesses there.
So it's very different.
Belgrade, it was very different because even like I had my best friend at the time, she's
from Montenegro but lived in LA for a long time and she just stands out.
She's obviously not being from there.
She traveled the world.
She was a former model and even she would have problems sometimes.
She's like, "I don't feel like leaving my apartment because everyone's staring at me."
And I said, "Me too."
So that was part of the thing I had with the grief, but it wasn't racism.
It's more like this fascinating, fascination.
I would say that I was famous without the millions in the bank.
So it was difficult because I lived in the city center in Belgrade and then to leave
my building, there'd be like a popular cafe and everyone's dressed up.
So I'd be like, "Do I have the emotional energy now to leave?" and like, you know, 60 heads,
they're gonna turn and look at me.
And I was like, you know, kind of don't want to be seen because I'm grieving, you know.
So that would be kind of difficult, but it was mostly the reverse thing.
People are like, "Oh my gosh, where are you from?" and they have so many questions.
And I got to spend some time in like a village in Montenegro.
My friend from Montenegro, he's a top photographer and I did some work with him and his team.
So he came, but he lives in Belgrade, but when he came to Montenegro one summer, we all went
on a road trip to take these photos.
So I met his father in a village.
And it was so funny because like every two minutes, neighbors were knocking on the door,
like somebody wants sugar or something.
Everybody wanted to meet me.
So I was like taking pictures with children and stuff and everyone was just blown away
that I could speak the language.
So it was nice to be able to like interact like that.
I think it could be jarring to people who don't realize everyone's going to stare at you,
but it's not like at all a bad energy thing.
Although I have heard Croatia is starting to have like a rise in racism, unfortunately.
Right wing.
Yeah.
It's really the right wing, it's growing everywhere in Europe and in the world, I would say.
And racism, it's part of these extremism right wing movements, which are unfortunately regrowing
again.
Yeah, nice.
Thanks a lot for sharing your experience on that also.
The last question that I have is why going back to the U.S.?
Happened there to say enough of Montenegro and going back to Los Angeles?
I mean, I guess, I was married and I chose wrong, which is common if somebody lost a
loved one like that, you kind of lose your way.
So post divorce life, I think I was just ready for a very big scenery change.
I never did stop loving Montenegro though.
I really enjoyed that last year and a half of living alone.
But I felt like something was missing and then I was thinking, well, maybe it's time
to go back to the States.
I can always come back.
I would love to, my dream is to have a place there and go back and forth.
And so Los Angeles just kept popping up.
I had a million synchronicities and everything was Los Angeles.
So that friend who lived in Los Angeles, she was there one summer and she said, why don't
you just come visit me?
And she's like, you work from home.
Strangely enough, 90% of my clients at that point were all in Los Angeles.
It was the strangest thing.
Yeah.
She said, just come visit me.
And I was like, I stepped off the plane and I was like, yeah, it was just one of these
things.
So that was really easy coming back.
I don't think I will move to Montenegro full time ever again, but never say never.
But I definitely do want to have a house there that I spend at least part of the year there.
It's really, it has a piece of my heart.
It's my other home always.
Nice.
So maybe just to dig a little bit into this piece of your heart in Montenegro, I would
jump to the fast reply questions.
I asked the same 12 questions to everyone so the listeners have a comparison between
countries.
And the first question that I have, it's about cultural adjustment.
What is the first thing or the thing that took you a while to adapt when you moved?
Ooh, cultural adjustment.
I guess that you could smoke everywhere, but now they changed it.
Everywhere you went, you could expect to smell like cigarettes.
Doctor, doctor, offices and the doctor smoking inside there.
Yes.
And the university, the professor with the ashtray on their desk.
I've seen that also in Greece.
The second one that I have, it's social life.
I mean, you had already friends in there and so on, but how did you meet new people when
being there?
Very easily.
I would go to cafes and I'd go to events and people were very social.
They would talk to me.
So sometimes one group of girls I met, I literally went to one event with my friends and I met
them and they're like, "Come to brunch with us tomorrow."
And it was like, damn, six new friends.
It was like people tend to be very outgoing, at least young people.
Well, everyone I think is very social, but as far as getting invites to going places,
the young people are quite social.
Cool.
Next one, we talked about it quite already, but it's language.
Maybe can you get around Montenegro without really speaking the language?
Yes.
Nobody is expecting you to learn the language.
You'll be fine.
I mean, if you go to the North, you might have a hard time, but now more foreigners
are moving to the North as they develop, but it really depends.
Small cities out of the way places, you're going to need at least Google translate.
Yeah.
But does people speak English normally?
Or like, you went with Google translator and translating stuff?
People usually speak English, but in rural areas, no.
If you're in the capital and if you're in the regions that are more, let's say, contemporary,
or cosmopolitan rather.
What about the cost of living, like how different was at that moment of time?
What was cheap?
What was expensive?
It's considerably cheaper.
I mean, I rent wasn't like half of Montenegro, but it was lower.
I think my rent was double when I moved to Los Angeles.
So that was a very big difference.
Yeah.
Prices also have gone up since then because of the pandemic, I think everywhere, but they're
still, I think it's for the quality of life you get, it's still worth it.
Next one, it's finding a home.
How do you find an apartment?
How do you find a home?
They have good websites, like necretnene, but I think almost all the places I lived I found
from word of mouth.
Okay.
So contact network.
Next one, it's living like a local.
The things that you need to do to blend in to adapt.
Well, I would say go to places where locals go, or when they stand out, when they only
go to places where there's expats.
Hmm, makes sense.
I mean, you were working remote as a freelancer, but maybe from your friends and family and
people that were there, the work life, how would you describe the work culture in Montenegro?
Average salary is quite low, much higher than Serbia, but it's still low compared to the
U.S.
But at the same time, Montenegro has a lot of abundance.
A lot of people start businesses or they work abroad and come back with their money.
So I didn't want to navigate that.
So that's why I made my business a full-time business.
Interesting.
How do you get around?
Like is the public transport good at all?
Do you need a car?
I wouldn't recommend the public transport for foreigners.
I think that's just a little, would be too much of a culture shock.
Yeah, in Montenegro, I wouldn't recommend it.
At least going from city to city, maybe throughout the capital you could.
But it's great to have a car.
There are just so many, it's a small country, but it's a jewel of a country.
There are so many places to see.
You really want a car so you can check out everything.
They have everything, beaches, areas for skiing, hiking, flats.
You want a car.
But a scooter or in the summer, the traffic gets worse and worse now because now people
actually know about Montenegro.
The scooters, if you're on the sea curves or you get up early, if you're going to go
from city to city to kind of miss that or go by boat if that's your thing.
A lot of people have little boats and do that adventure.
Nice.
What about the healthcare?
How does the system work?
Is it easy to access, good quality?
Yeah, I think you'd have to be a citizen to get the free healthcare.
I had one extended stay in the hospital for like a week.
And thankfully my friend's mother was like the unofficial mayor of Cotera.
She knew everyone.
She was able to make it that they ended up charging me as if I lived there.
And that was fantastic because it was so long and specialists had to come in from food poisoning.
It was really bad.
So I just paid for everything private and all of the doctors I had, dentists, everything
was super state of the art.
Like the best are the best that you'd find in the states.
But then you're paying as if you'd like to go for lunch somewhere.
So I never even thought about the fact of like having health insurance.
You know, it's so easy and I was very happy with the care.
Next one, it's bureaucracy.
Maybe it's not that nice.
Dealing with paperwork, visas, permits, and so on.
I think it's easier than some countries, but it's definitely more, I think it's slower
than in the US, things take longer.
But yeah, I can't even complain about it.
I really think it was, it was quite smooth.
I have two more.
The first one, it's the best and the worst.
The best thing about living in Montenegro and the worst thing about living in Montenegro.
The quality of life, nature and the pace of things.
And you have everything like at your fingertips.
And the worst side?
The worst thing?
What is it?
I thought about this now I'm like, what's the worst thing?
The worst thing would be, well it's getting a lot better now, but people used to be, well,
people can be close-minded to some new ideas.
Obviously there are a lot of young people who are like, you know, plugged in and they
travel a lot, so it's not the case with them.
But you know, there was even a point where while I live there, it would be strange for
a man to be wearing workout clothes.
Like if you're wearing, if you're going to go do yoga and you're a guy that would be
very like found upon.
So that was kind of surprising.
And now things are picking up.
There are a lot of wellness routines there and things are changing culturally, but I
always feel like Montenegro is a little behind on some of these socially acceptable things
that we have in the US.
Interesting.
And the last one that I have for this section is the top tip.
If somebody's planning to move there, what is your one-line advice?
Just do it.
And don't, you know, it's great to meet expats.
I had friends from all over that live there, even though there aren't that many people
from abroad, but it's really good to immerse yourself.
You know, don't miss out on the local culture and people.
Cool.
Thanks a lot for all the insights on Montenegro.
I will jump now to the mini game.
I call this the Disordered Balkan Edition, so it's just very, very much a comparison
based between Serbia and Montenegro in specific things.
I know that it's difficult because the history and culture it's kind of shared, but maybe
there is differences in them that might be interesting to check out.
The first Disordered that I have, it's the Belgrade nightlife or the Montenegro coastal
style.
Belgrade nightlife, yeah.
Even when I moved to Montenegro, I love to do a weekend in Belgrade.
Belgrade has amazing nightlife.
Best DJs in the world, techno DJs come there.
You have all these like little clubs on the river and they're called splavavv, splavs,
like rafts.
And they're like multi-level boats that stay stationed and you have different types of
music.
You can go to one that's like pop music.
One could be like folk music and another one could be techno.
And it's a lot of fun.
Belgrade is famous for its nightlife.
Cool.
You don't know.
What about the food?
Serbian food or Montenegrin seafood?
I'm going to go with the classic traditional food or which is I'm going to have to say
Montenegro, just because there are some food, special dishes that are just from Montenegro
that I really love.
Nice.
Next one is about lifestyle.
Like the fast pace idea of like cities and bubbling thingy or slow life in the seaside.
Slow life in the seaside.
Thought so.
We talk about seasonality, so winter in Belgrade or summer in Montenegro?
Summer in Montenegro.
There's nothing better than summer in Montenegro.
Nice.
The locals in Serbia or the locals in Montenegro?
I'm going to say the locals in Montenegro because people are usually less shocked to
see foreigners.
It's a little bit different, where I felt a little bit like an alien drop down from
the sky in Belgrade.
Makes sense.
And the last one that I have for these, which one is easier to integrate into their culture?
Serbia or Montenegro?
Well if you're like a really city person and you love New York, I would probably say Belgrade
for you.
But if you're more laid back like me, if you would prefer to live in LA than New York, Montenegro.
Cool.
Perfect.
So Nao, before we close the episode, I want to give you a little bit of space.
We already introduced the book itself, but maybe you can explain us a little bit more
what is going on with your life.
Other projects, if there is another project, or where the listeners can find the book and
contact with you if they want.
Sure.
So my book, Dream On - How to Create the New Life of Your Dreams After Upheaval or Loss,
it's available on Amazon, Audible, Corbo, Apple Books, Pathy and Bull.
And you know, as we touched on earlier, it's really an uplifting book.
It's really just to show you that no matter what happens, you can always dream again.
You can reconnect to joy, you know, there are things that we can't change.
I can never bring my boyfriend back.
But life is for reaching for more.
And even through pain, there's so much that we can gain from it.
And we can take that and change our lives and really affect the people around us.
So yeah, that's available at both places.
And when I finished writing my manuscript, I was thinking about how everyone keeps talking
about the power of having a personal brand.
But people usually focus on the external elements, you know, social media templates, what are
they there?
And I realized the person is usually forgotten.
So I developed a program called Magnetize Your Personal Brand.
And it takes some principles from my book as well as my lived experience because I learned
that the long way as a business owner.
And it really helps develop the person from the inside out.
So you can think of it as personal transformation means personal branding.
Because at the end of the day, you know, people do business with people.
It's not a business to business thing, really.
That's not it's kind of a myth.
So the more you can become who you truly are, and drop all the things that don't serve you,
the better you're going to do in business and the more memorable you're going to be.
You know, people gravitate towards you, your purpose, your message, and then you're able
to attract a lot more opportunities and really enrich your life all around.
Interesting.
That's cool.
What can people get in contact with you or check all of these?
Do you have social medias or websites or anything?
Sure.
I have a website, chanowainez.com, C-H-A-N-O-A-I-N-E-Z.com.
I'm also active on LinkedIn, Instagram, and Substack.
Cool.
Perfect.
Like always for the listeners, if you're not finding the links directly, you will find
them in the description of the episode and the notes of the show.
All right.
Thank you.
Thank you so much for sharing your story and your experience abroad.
It has been a pleasure having you in the show.
This has been great.
Thank you so much.
And for the audience as always, if you enjoyed the episode, don't forget to subscribe and
activate the notification bell.
You know, like give some love also in audio platforms and leave a review if you can.
Also share this episode if you know anyone who is considering moving to the Balkans
and to Montenegro specifically, and give some love to the projects of Chanoa and the social
media.
And until the next time, keep exploring, stay curious and see you in the next episode.
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