Recognize and accept the world, and do not reshape it to our frames

Introduce yourself in a few words..

My name is Nadia Atanasova. I have dedicated my life to finding the balance between contributing to others – family, society, clients, organization, and contributing to my own development, growth, and satisfaction.

What does traveling the world mean to you?

My home. Every time I have what you might call a plane ticket in my hand, I feel like I am receiving a gift from life. My travels allow me to check my watch on how much I appreciate everything that happens to me. Traveling, I see and experience so many people who live in completely different ways regarding activities, routine, material security, values, choices, preferences, and the environment they have created and maintain. This presents a mirror for my own world.

How many different countries have you seen so far? Share an interesting story or highlights from your travels?

Interestingly, I know the exact answer and it is 36.

For me, the visit to Peru 11 years ago was one of the significant travels that unlocked personal changes in my thinking and choices. It was not the first distant country I visited, but perhaps it was the moment for it to be the one that would provoke me to change.

I spent 3 weeks there with my friends and we visited many places. Everywhere, local guides shared different stories, but they all had one common thread – it is typical for the local history of Peru to integrate the old with the new. I was very impressed, because my observation of our world in Europe was about the destruction of the old by the new with this typical idea of the birth of the new from the ashes. In that distant world, we saw traces of several civilizations next to each other, not one on top of the other – the old inscriptions of the Huacas exist alongside those of the Incas, who built their empire after them.

Perhaps the moment in my life was such, but for the first time, I clearly heard this approach to life. Until then, I might have been deaf to it.

Do you like to repeat destinations? Give examples and motivation “for” or “against”?

There are destinations I have visited multiple times. I set aside business trips, and if we focus on tourism, these are countries and cities that I first visited alone during my youth travels, and later my husband and I chose to include in our journeys together. These are places that either stand out for me with very nice memories – Prague, Munich, Bali, or have been on his list of desired destinations, but I have already visited them before – in this group, we have upcoming places like Paris, the Scandinavian countries, and Egypt.

What was your first trip that truly changed you as a professional and can be said to have changed your thinking?

I don’t think that exactly travels change my professional side, rather experiences and people do. Traveling develops my personality.

Geneva, for example, is my favorite destination, where I have been several times on business trips and we happily planned a family trip there, which we are about to realize soon. I look forward to seeing if the city, 10 years after my last visit, is still as colorful, diverse, and welcoming. It will be interesting for me to look at myself from the outside and see what path I have walked since those first visits there until now. Probably then I will understand much better what Switzerland gave me 10 years ago.

What do you learn about yourself and your professional skills when you are in a new cultural environment?

My professional path for more than 25 years has been entirely in an international environment and daily communication with colleagues from various countries around the world is an integral part of it. The most valuable for me was to learn that making the same request to colleagues from 13 countries simultaneously must be accompanied by at least 4 or 5 different additional guidelines, country by country, to receive a complete and timely response from everyone.

Intercultural differences exist, and respecting and reflecting them in our approach to our colleagues brings us closer to them. Building a successful network of contacts in a large international organization, for example, requires us to speak to different people in their language, and here I do not mean German, French, or Chinese, but those aspects of communication that constitute the language of human contact.

Have you met people or ideas during your travels that have influenced your career path?

To a very large extent, it influenced me and helped me a lot for the future development of my communication style, for example, an unspoken conflict between one of the directors of our company in another country and our team. This conflict strongly marked our first business trip with the colleagues from the host country. It took me time to realize what led to the tension in that director, because at that moment there was no visible reason for me.

After each subsequent conversation, already back in Bulgaria, I analyzed for myself what was different and how communication was changing. And step by step, I realized that the problem had arisen from the lack of change management when the project we were working on had started. The absence of a structured plan on how to prepare both the colleagues in the host country and us, who were going to work with them, left many uncertainties regarding expectations. The unmanaged unknown had awakened fears in both sides that we were not aware of.

After this case, I set myself the goal of always ensuring transparency to prevent, as far as it is within my capabilities, the emergence of a conflict that can be avoided.

Do you think that traveling helps you expand your professional network? How?

During a specific business trip, for example, I certainly seek to strengthen my contact with specific colleagues on site beyond the narrow team with which the meeting itself is planned, but this needs to be worked on every day, not just within the framework of a short visit.

What skills do you develop the most when you travel, and how do they reflect on your work?

The ability to adapt, readiness to accept the unexpected more lightly, interest in the new. My work currently combines two spheres – in the corporate world, I literally work every day with people from all corners of the world, which requires flexibility, and in my coaching practice, the most important skill is to be humanly open to the client. Both are nourished by contact with the new and culturally diverse, and this is exactly what I encounter during my travels.

Is there a city or country that has inspired you to start a new business or project?

During travels, interesting new languages can become appealing to me, and this is how I started learning Italian, but I do not consider it a business endeavor.

When you are in a foreign country, do you feel more motivated or more distracted? Why?

In a foreign country, I feel more attentive until I orient myself or learn what is inherent to the environment and adapt my behavior as much as possible to it. I believe that from this approach, we all benefit – I, because I can absorb more from the local if I understand it better, and the environment, because my behavior would not be like an elephant in a china shop in it.

Are there destinations that act as a “restart” for your creativity and ambition?

Yes, Iceland and Norway have affected me this way. For this reason, the other Scandinavian countries are on our list for family travels in the coming years.

The nature in these countries with vast spaces, high cliffs in the fjords, huge waterfalls, the deep blue of the sky on sunny days struck me and provoked me to feel as if I am unfolding. This motivates me to engage with new goals or realize those that have long been on my dream list.

How do you manage the balance between work and pleasure when you travel?

During personal trips, I do not work. During business trips, I always take long walks in the cities I visit in the evening or on weekends.

How have travels changed the way you perceive the value of money?

Money allows me to realize my travels, and in this sense, if I want to travel more, I need to take care of the financial provision of this opportunity.

Do you travel with the aim of finding new ways to earn money?

If any trip has inspired me for some direction in my professional development, it has not been conscious.

What lessons on financial independence have you learned from different economies and cultures?

I learned the lessons of financial independence from my parents. They guided me from an early age towards learning languages, so I could access the world and choose my path in life with open eyes and heart.

Do you think it is better to spend on experiences rather than material possessions?

Regarding things, I consider myself a minimalist. It is important for me to possess in a material sense what corresponds to my understanding of “quality,” so that it serves me for a long time and brings me pleasure. I do not value a large number of things, but their aesthetics and functionality.

However, when it comes to experiences, I have no limit on the number of travels, new countries, visits to the cinema or concerts, for example, that I consider “sufficient.” I am not saying that I prefer experiences; I am saying that I do not feel saturated with them.

How do you see the future of digital nomadic life?

As long as there are people who feel satisfied with this option, it will continue to exist.

Are there specific countries that are more favorable for work and investments?

Every comparison needs a measure, and in this sense, how favorable a place is depends on the personal measure of the one answering the question. Before one country is compared to another, it matters whether the person answering the question is inclined to change the country in which they live and work. If not, as I am not, that person is interested in how to have the most suitable job in their current country.

If you could choose one place in the world to develop your next big idea, what would it be and why?

The modern world in some processes and activities is free from the limitations of borders. My coaching clients, for example, are from different countries. I work remotely, so there is no need to look for a new place because the place is everywhere.

What are the destinations you would definitely recommend to be visited and why?

From what has been said, it is already clear that Peru and the Scandinavian countries are for me examples of highly recommended destinations. In addition, there are several places that I would like to visit when the political climate allows me to do so, and the reason is related to their nature and history. These are the Antelope Canyon in the USA, Lake Baikal in winter in Russia, and the valley of the Nile River along its entire length in Egypt.

What is the career advice you would give based on what you have seen around the world?

My still emerging professional path, for example, I would advise to accept an offer that was made to me years ago to lead the financial department of the organization in Bahrain for a certain period of time. This would have given me a perspective that I later acquired, and it would certainly have stimulated me to appreciate the world and the opportunities for development much earlier in my life. My advice is to communicate with the world a lot and often, and to do so with the desire for the world to be recognized and accepted, not reshaped to our frames.