Love, Obsession, and your Dreams

What does it mean to be truly in love with your dreams? 

In this episode, I share how a teenage obsession with the boy band Menudo shaped my understanding of commitment and passion. This is an open-hearted exploration of how love and obsession fuel the pursuit of our dreams, whether it’s launching a business, exploring the globe solo, or making life-altering changes. 

I’ll share everything I’ve learned about shifting my mindset, overcoming fears, and chasing the life I’ve always wanted. This is more than just talk about travel; it’s about transforming your perspective and finding your purpose.

Whether you’re sipping coffee or uncorking a bottle of wine, let’s toast to the love that drives us all forward. Cheers!

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

So you need to become deeply in love with your dream, your goal, that life you want to create. Maybe you want to start a business. Maybe you want to travel the world solo, by yourself. You know, whatever that dream is, you need to become so deeply in love with it and so obsessed. Welcome to Paradise Perspectives.

Speaker 1: 0:20

I'm Rizal the Traveling Island Girl, and I'm here to help you start living your best life, no matter where you're at, whether you're dreaming of traveling to exotic destinations, starting a business or even making big life changes, this is the place for you. From the beaches of the Caribbean to your own backyard, we'll explore how to shift your mindset, find your purpose and take bold steps towards the life you deserve. So grab your favorite drink and let's dive into some real talk about living your best life, one sunny day at a time. Well, hello there you, you beautiful person. You. I am so incredibly grateful for you tuning in and lending me an ear and being a part of today's conversation. My name is Rizal the Traveling Island Girl on social media and this is Paradise Perspectives podcast. This is where I share everything I love and everything I know about changing your mindset, getting over your fears, going after your dreams and goals that you have, creating the life that you want for yourself. And, of course, we talk a little bit about travel too, because why not? Travel is the shit, am I right? All right, so right now I'm sitting in this home in Portland, oregon, and I'm thinking back about a year and a half ago, when this was just something that I penned down in my journal. This was a dream that I wanted to achieve. It is something that I wanted to just go for, and I am so incredibly grateful for me not quitting on this idea. And here I am now today, in in the season of fall, watching the trees turn into different shades of colors, and it's just absolutely beautiful. And you know, I'm so proud of me for being here now, for not letting that remain a dream, but to actually invest in it, work towards it and now creating it and making it into my reality. So that's exactly the topic of conversation today Love, and how love can help you achieve those goals, that dream, that life you want to create for yourself. Whatever it is that you want, love is necessary Now. You know love, you know L-O-V-E four-letter word. It's what makes the world go around, according to many.

Speaker 1: 2:52

Now, to drive this topic home. I first need to tell you a story. So I need you to sit back, relax, grab a drink. Whether it's a cup of coffee, maybe it's a cup of tea with some honey in it, I don't know, or perhaps it is wine o'clock where you are or when you are listening to this episode. So go ahead, honey, grab yourself a glass of wine and sit down, relax and listen to this story.

Speaker 1: 3:19

So once upon a time, on the beautiful island of Curacao, where I'm from, I was about 15 or 16 and I was absolutely obsessed when I tell you obsessed, I was obsessed with a boy band by the name of Menudo. Now, if you have never heard of Menudo before, menudo was very, very hot and trending in the 80s and 90s, especially in Latin America, and 90s, especially in Latin America. Now, venezuela being so close to Curacao, of course, we in Curacao were getting contagious with that whole. You know menudo mania, as they used to call it. Now, if you're not familiar with menudo, menudo was the hottest boy band before boy bands were thing. They were from puerto rico, but venezuela is what made them really, really big. That is where the mecca of everything menudo was. So I was obsessed. I was this obsessed that I made my mom spend I don't know how much money on menudo merchandise and tickets to concerts and tickets to venezuela, to get access to all of the Menudo stuff. I mean, it's crazy.

Speaker 1: 4:26

So one day my best friend calls me up and she tells me that her mom needs to go to the hospital for a checkup in Caracas, venezuela. Do I want to come with? And I'm like hell, yeah, I want to come. So I begged my mom. My mom says, yes, I know I may have been a little spoiled, I don't know. Anyways, so we find ourselves landing in Caracas, venezuela, and the mom sits us down and she tells us to be, you know, responsible, that we need to stay inside the hotel while she's going to her appointments and when she comes back then we can go shopping for menudo stuff or whatnot, and dinner and all that good stuff. But we had to be patient because she was there for her medical stuff. So we were like, yeah, sure, sure, no problem.

Speaker 1: 5:10

So that first day we arrive in the morning and we're sitting in the hotel, she goes off to her first appointment and we turn on the tv and what do we see? The boys have arrived in Caracas, Venezuela, where we are at that moment, and let me tell you, the complete like screams of teenage girls in that room was deafening. We were, like so happy that the boys were there, maybe we could get to see them. So we form a plan we are going to go stalk them because you know obsession right, are gonna go stalk them because you know obsession right. So we call our contacts at the venezuela fan club and they tell us just that the boys are supposed to be recording whether it was a commercial or something, they were recording a song or an album in some undisclosed part of caracas, venezuela.

Speaker 1: 5:59

Now, mind you, the caracas venezuela of then is not the Caracas Venezuela of today, but it was still not exactly a safe place either. So what do we do? We get into a cab that's parked in front of the hotel, without telling my best friend's mom, and we just tell the cab driver to drop us off at this place in the middle of Caracas, where we've never been before, and we tell him to hold on for us because you know we're teenagers. What do we know? So we tell the man to wait for us. We even give him a couple of hundred pesos to wait for us and we're thinking oh yeah, sure he's going to be there. Now, needless to say, 100 or 200 pesos is like less than a dollar, I think, at that time. So of course he left the moment. We turned our backs right.

Speaker 1: 6:54

Anyway, we didn't care, we were there to see the boys. That was our mission. We were going to see them. If that was the last thing we did on this earth. So we stand there for pretty much the entire day with no way of getting back to the hotel, with no idea of where we are in Caracas, venezuela. But our love for these boys and our obsession was so deep that we just stood there along the side of the road waiting for something to happen that we weren't even 100% was going to happen.

Speaker 1: 7:26

Anyways, I don't want to make this into a very long story, so let me keep this short. We even spent money. I have to tell you this part, though we spent money on buying a piece of a roll of toilet paper that another fan that was there on the side of the road with us told us came from the bathroom stall that supposedly one of the boys went into. I mean, talk about love and obsession. This is crazy. We bought, we spent money on a piece of toilet paper. That is just absolutely crazy. But anyways, we saw the boys. We even got an autograph. We screamed our lungs out and then we had to figure out how to get back to the hotel. Well, eventually we made it.

Speaker 1: 8:10

Obviously, because I'm here telling you the story now, I don't know, this is like what, 30 something years later? No, not 30 something. I was like, yeah, 30 something years later, this is 30, 33 years later. Oh my God, my math is really not that good. Today, anyways, we got a very stern talking to from my best friend's mom, needless to say, and of course, we learned our lesson. Or maybe we didn't, I don't know, I don't remember. Anyways, the point that I'm trying to make here, that, yes, we were so obsessed, so in love with the boys that we momentarily forgot about any fear that we normally would have had in that situation. And that's the point I'm driving home today.

Speaker 1: 8:53

Love makes us do all the things that we think are not possible. So you need to become deeply in love with your dream, your goal, that life you want to create. Maybe you want to start a business, maybe you want to travel the world solo, by yourself. You know, whatever that dream is, you need to become so deeply in love with it and so obsessed and when I say obsessed, I don't mean the clinical version of obsession. I'm talking about a healthy obsession, because this is the thing that happens when you fall deeply in love with your goal or your dream, you create a strong emotional connection to that aspiration and that then leads to increased focus, motivation and the persistence to pursue that. When you love a goal, you naturally devote significant mental energy to thinking about it and to strategize and to come up with a plan. But when you also have that passion and that excitement, it's a powerful emotional boost and it can push you through the challenges and setbacks that you will encounter, no doubt, along the journey.

Speaker 1: 10:09

And that's why I think it is so important for you to fall deeply in love with your dream or your goal and to become absolutely obsessed with it. Now I have to remind you do not do like the 15, 16-year-old version of me and become totally irresponsible. That's not what we want here. But it is important that you create a healthy obsession with your dream. Okay, listen, this is the exact tactic that I applied when I was just dreaming of one day living temporarily in Portland, oregon. It's the same thing I did when I wanted to one day have my own podcast. It's the same thing I did when I wanted to travel the world by myself. It's the same thing. I fell deeply in love with the idea of it and I became laser focused and determined. Anyway, that's all I got for you today.

Speaker 1: 11:05

What did you think of that? What do you think of becoming obsessed with your dream? Let me know by sending me a message. You can send me an email to hello at thetravelingislandgirlcom. I am always so very happy to hear from you and if you have something else that you're saying. Well, rizal, I want to know your opinion on this. Or you want to hear you talk about this on the show next, and let me know. Send me an email, hello at thetravelingislandgirlcom.

Speaker 1: 11:36

Needless to say, all of that is right there in the show notes and it's linked so that you do not have to do any work, lift any finger. Only thing you have to do is to click on that link. All right, but before I let you go today, I want to remind you about my fearless transformation coaching program. Yes, I started this coaching program with you in mind. I'm talking to you who are sitting there in the corner thinking how you are going to achieve those dreams because you have so much fear and so much things that are keeping you back. I'm here to help guide you on this path, but I'm also here to help get you unstuck. So if this is sounding like something you are interested in, definitely go to the show notes after you listen to this episode and click on all of the links. I've left everything down there for you just to make it so much simpler. You just need to click. It only takes like what? One finger. Really, it's not that much work, so check it out. Fearless Transformation Coaching Program is now available to you. All right, I can only take about five clients, but I'm sure I've got a spot for you, so make sure that you sign up Now.

Speaker 1: 12:45

It seems that we've gotten really to the end of this episode and I cannot be more grateful to you for being a part of today's conversation. I am so, so grateful for you. Thank you so much for lending me an ear today. Thank you. So next week I'll be back with another episode of Paradise Perspectives, and this time it will be with my friend, dana Phillips from Human Design Hives, and we are going to talk about yeah, exactly that human design. You need to know what type you are in the human design world and how knowing your type can help you with your dreams. All right, so tune in next week for another episode of Paradise Perspectives. It is time for me to go back to doing my favorite thing here in Portland, which is to drink coffee and watch the leaves fall from the trees. It is so beautiful. My name is Rizal, the Traveling Island social media. Adios, bye, bye, see you later, later.