Citizens of the World: A Stoic Podcast for Curious Travelers

In 2015, Donald Trump said that the only reason people say Senator John McCain was a war hero was because he was captured. And he doesn't like people who are captured.

In this episode, I’m going to tell you why the late Senator McCain earned the title of war hero. 

But why am I bringing this up now? 

This episode isn't about politics. It's about character. Living a life of good character and finding mentors who live up to those standards. 

This week I read, “Courage Under Fire,” an essay by Admiral James Stockdale, another war hero who was captured and tortured for years during the Vietnam War.

He credits Stoicism with helping him survive, and the words of Epictetus in particular. 



The Stoics believed that it was very important to have mentors, who can be people you know, or ancient philosophers.

Nearly 2,000 years ago, Galen, the doctor of the Emperor Marcus Aurelius, was writing about this. As I’ve mentioned before on this podcast, modern therapy, specifically cognitive behavioral therapy, has its roots in Stoicism. Galen talked about the importance of finding mentors who are living the life that you want to live from a moral perspective. People you admire who can help guide your life. 

This week I read, “Courage Under Fire,” an essay by Admiral James Stockdale, another war hero who was captured and tortured for years during the Vietnam War.

He credits Stoicism with helping him survive, and the words of Epictetus in particular. 



The Stoics believed that it was very important to have mentors, who can be people you know, or ancient philosophers.

It’s not super easy for U.S. citizens to get visas to live and work abroad (and the U.S. gov doesn’t make it easy for people to come in either). But millions of Americans have figured out how to create a life overseas, and so can you.

Here’s my cheat sheet of the nine easiest countries to move to from the U.S.

https://www.sarahmikutel.com/countryguide

Today I am back with my friend Stephen Warley to continue our conversation on life skills that matter. 

In this episode we get more into the specifics about how to live a good life. A simple life. One that will give you more energy and inner peace. Stephen shares what his days look like, and hopefully this will inspire you to consider what your ideal day would look like, and how to start living it.

Hello! I'm your host, Sarah Mikutel. But the real question is, who are you? Where are you now and where do you want to be? Can I help you get there?

Visit sarahmikutel.com to learn how we can work together to help you achieve more peace, happiness, and positive transformation in your life.

Book your Enneagram typing session by going to sarahmikutel.com/typingsession

Want to connect on Insta? Find me here

Do you ever go blank or start rambling when someone puts you on the spot? 

I created a free Conversation Cheat Sheet with simple formulas you can use so you can respond with clarity, whether you’re in a meeting or just talking with friends.

Download it at sarahmikutel.com/blanknomore and start feeling more confident in your conversations today.

Have you been working from home this year? The pandemic made many people realize that they could log on to their computer from anywhere to get the job done. 

Even before Covid-19 hit, my guest today has been talking about how work as we know it is changing.

Stephen Warley hosts the Life Skills That Matter podcast and he believes that self-employment is the future of work.

And in this episode, we talk about what that future looks like, how it can benefit you, and the life skills that matter to give your life meaning and enable you to live a more freedom-filled, location independent life.

This was such a fun interview. I hope you enjoy this conversation. 

Hello! I'm your host, Sarah Mikutel. But the real question is, who are you? Where are you now and where do you want to be? Can I help you get there?

Visit sarahmikutel.com to learn how we can work together to help you achieve more peace, happiness, and positive transformation in your life.

Book your Enneagram typing session by going to sarahmikutel.com/typingsession

Want to connect on Insta? Find me here

Do you ever go blank or start rambling when someone puts you on the spot? 

I created a free Conversation Cheat Sheet with simple formulas you can use so you can respond with clarity, whether you’re in a meeting or just talking with friends.

Download it at sarahmikutel.com/blanknomore and start feeling more confident in your conversations today.

Everyone’s heard of Athens and you’ve most likely seen the sparkling white facades of Santorini’s cube-like buildings. But there’s a lot more to Greece than gyros and the Parthenon.

Today’s guest is taking us off the beaten path. I’m speaking with Ivy Summer, an American nomad/expat living in Veria, Greece, an ancient city famously important to the family of Alexander the Great, and home to the best peach pie in Greece. 

So if you love pie and ancient history, Veria is for you. We’ll also be talking about the best things to eat drink and do in the nearest big city, Thessaloniki, the best way to island hop, and the most romantic part of Greece that you probably haven’t heard of.

Ivy is a certified wedding planner, so she knows all the beautiful places. She’s also a diversity consultant. 

I had a great time talking to her and our conversation filled me with wanderlust. So let’s just sit back and imagine we’re sailing around the coast of Greece together.

Hello! I'm your host, Sarah Mikutel. But the real question is, who are you? Where are you now and where do you want to be? Can I help you get there?

Visit sarahmikutel.com to learn how we can work together to help you achieve more peace, happiness, and positive transformation in your life.

Book your Enneagram typing session by going to sarahmikutel.com/typingsession

Want to connect on Insta? Find me here

Do you ever go blank or start rambling when someone puts you on the spot? 

I created a free Conversation Cheat Sheet with simple formulas you can use so you can respond with clarity, whether you’re in a meeting or just talking with friends.

Download it at sarahmikutel.com/blanknomore and start feeling more confident in your conversations today.

A few months ago, I downloaded the Waking Up meditation app. Founder Sam Harris compares the average mind with a sky clouded with light pollution. He says that meditation is like building a telescope that can cut through that fogginess so you can access “the sky of the mind.” 

And that’s what the Enneagram and Stoicism help us do, as well. Cut through the clouds to get more clarity and set us free from our patterns.

But we can’t change who we are by simply thinking about it, or passively reading a book on getting over anxiety or silencing your inner critic, or whatever patterns you’re stuck in. You have to involve both the body and the mind to create new neural pathways and if you want to make change stick. 

Learn how in today's episode :)

Hello! I'm your host, Sarah Mikutel. But the real question is, who are you? Where are you now and where do you want to be? Can I help you get there?

Visit sarahmikutel.com to learn how we can work together to help you achieve more peace, happiness, and positive transformation in your life.

Book your Enneagram typing session by going to sarahmikutel.com/typingsession

Want to connect on Insta? Find me here

Do you ever go blank or start rambling when someone puts you on the spot? 

I created a free Conversation Cheat Sheet with simple formulas you can use so you can respond with clarity, whether you’re in a meeting or just talking with friends.

Download it at sarahmikutel.com/blanknomore and start feeling more confident in your conversations today.

Today we are traveling to Lisbon, Portugal, and Becky Gillespie is our guide. I’ve known of Becky for awhile now. She’s known in expat circles as Tokyo Becky and we’ll get to why that is in this episode. 

But now, after years of living in Asia and digitally nomad-ing around the world, Becky's creating a base for herself in Lisbon.  

And you might want to, as well, if you love the sun and sea and are looking for a beautiful, relatively affordable place in Europe to call home.

In this episode, Becky is sharing everything we should eat, drink, and see in Lisbon, Portugal. Plus the side trips to cities and beaches we should explore.

Becky has traveled to more than 70 countries and when she’s not doing that, you’ll find her playing her ukulele or singing karaoke. And she has a podcast, as well, called The School of Travels.

Enjoy the show!


Hello! I'm your host, Sarah Mikutel. But the real question is, who are you? Where are you now and where do you want to be? Can I help you get there?

Visit sarahmikutel.com to learn how we can work together to help you achieve more peace, happiness, and positive transformation in your life.

Book your Enneagram typing session by going to sarahmikutel.com/typingsession

Want to connect on Insta? Find me here

Do you ever go blank or start rambling when someone puts you on the spot? 

I created a free Conversation Cheat Sheet with simple formulas you can use so you can respond with clarity, whether you’re in a meeting or just talking with friends.

Download it at sarahmikutel.com/blanknomore and start feeling more confident in your conversations today.

A few episodes ago, you heard me talk about location independence for beginners. My guest Jeremy and I discussed how starting a service-based business was one of the best ways to get started.

Jeremy mentioned that he grew his business through referral partners. In this episode, I’m diving deeper into that topic with my guest Zoe Linda Pollard. 

Zoe is an English expat living in Sweden and she specializes in teaching others how to grow their online businesses through referral partnerships. 

She’s actually hosting a free event called the Magical Meetup on April 7th and you can find out more about that by going to sarahmikutel.com/zoe. If you hear this podcast after that, I’ll link to another useful resource of Zoe’s. 

The Magical Meetup is a one-hour event created to help you connect with other service-based business owners around the world who can help you spread the word about your business. It's also a great place to find guests for your podcast, and to find people for whom you'd want to be a referral partner.

If you’re still wondering what this referral partner business is all about, stay tuned. You will learn all about it in this episode. Plus you’ll learn how Zoe met her Swedish boyfriend. I thought my friend Andrea’s story about meeting her now-husband on YouTube was wild, but this is next level. 

Hello! I'm your host, Sarah Mikutel. But the real question is, who are you? Where are you now and where do you want to be? Can I help you get there?

Visit sarahmikutel.com to learn how we can work together to help you achieve more peace, happiness, and positive transformation in your life.

Book your Enneagram typing session by going to sarahmikutel.com/typingsession

Want to connect on Insta? Find me here

Do you ever go blank or start rambling when someone puts you on the spot? 

I created a free Conversation Cheat Sheet with simple formulas you can use so you can respond with clarity, whether you’re in a meeting or just talking with friends.

Download it at sarahmikutel.com/blanknomore and start feeling more confident in your conversations today.

It does not take much to make some people angry. We live in a society where people are quick to take offense. To feel victimized. To be enraged at people with opposing views. Political leaders and certain media outlets stir the pot for their own benefit. 

In my episode on Stoicism and the Art of Happiness, Donald Robertson offered some techniques we can use to manage our anger toward people who hold views that we strongly disagree with.

Today I want to talk to you about becoming more aware of your anger style based on your Enneagram type, and to share more practices you can use to conquer your anger and also to learn from it. And you might learn about your partner or parent’s anger style, as well. 


Because we don’t all experience anger in the same way. 


Some rage while others think they never get angry. But anger is a human emotion that we all experience, and how we experience it depends on several factors, including our Enneagram type, level of mental and emotional wellbeing, and our personal development work.


You'll learn...

• what the anger triad is
• what makes each Enneagram type mad and how they express this
• Stoic techniques any Enneagram type can use to conquer their anger

Hello! I'm your host, Sarah Mikutel. But the real question is, who are you? Where are you now and where do you want to be? Can I help you get there?

Visit sarahmikutel.com to learn how we can work together to help you achieve more peace, happiness, and positive transformation in your life.

Book your Enneagram typing session by going to sarahmikutel.com/typingsession

Want to connect on Insta? Find me here

Do you ever go blank or start rambling when someone puts you on the spot? 

I created a free Conversation Cheat Sheet with simple formulas you can use so you can respond with clarity, whether you’re in a meeting or just talking with friends.

Download it at sarahmikutel.com/blanknomore and start feeling more confident in your conversations today.

Growing up, what were your family’s eating habits? Fruits and vegetables? Canned spaghetti and doughnuts? 

At our house, once in a while we’d have pizza, and maybe once a year for a crazy treat we could pick out a sugary cereal -- Booberry was my fav. But for the most part, we were a junk food-free house.

Fast forward quite a few years, and now when I go home to visit, it’s like I’m entering Candy Land. Brownies, cookies, pies staring me in the face. 

Even though I don’t have much of a sweet tooth, I find these treats hard to resist, and I usually don’t, which is why my clothes felt a little too close for comfort after my last visit.

So, I decided to try the Fresh Start: 21-Day Cleanse created by Simple Green Smoothies co-founder Jen Hansard. This was exactly the reset my body needed. I lost weight, gained a ton of energy, and my mind felt clearer. 

As we begin a new year, I thought you might be interested in a fresh start, as well, so I invited Jen onto the Part of Something Greater podcast to talk about how to improve your quality of life through clean eating. I also talk about what the Stoics think about eating well to improve your character, mind, body, and spirit.


I liked Jen's cleanse so much that I became an affiliate partner for her. This means that if you purchase her Fresh Start plan through my link, I could get a small commission at no extra cost to you. This is a great way to support the podcast. Of course, I only recommend products and services I love.

Visit sarahmikutel.com to get in touch about how we can work one-on-one together to help you achieve more peace, happiness, and positive transformation in your life.

Looking for a guide to help you discover your Enneagram personality type? Book your Enneagram typing session by going to sarahmikutel.com/typingsession

Want to connect on Insta? Find me here

Do you ever go blank or start rambling when someone puts you on the spot? 

I created a free Conversation Cheat Sheet with simple formulas you can use so you can respond with clarity, whether you’re in a meeting or just talking with friends.

Download it at sarahmikutel.com/blanknomore and start feeling more confident in your conversations today.