Summary 

This week, I’m sharing a conversation that’s especially close to my heart—with one of my real-life best friends, Dr. Devon Gimbel. She’s a physician turned travel expert and the host of the Point Me to First Class podcast, and she’s the person who first introduced me to the idea that travel—especially solo travel—can be transformational in the best way.

In this episode, we talk about what it means to take a trip just for you, without your family, without guilt, and without needing to "earn it" first. We dive into our different upbringings, travel histories, and how giving ourselves permission to explore—literally and emotionally—has shifted everything.

If you’ve ever felt the pull to go somewhere alone but felt selfish even thinking about it… this one’s for you.

Dr. Devon Gimbel's Links:

Website: https://www.pointmetofirstclass.com/ 

Points Made Easy Course: https://www.pointmetofirstclass.com/pointsmadeeasy 

Point Me to First Class Podcast: https://pointmetofirstclass.com/podcast

Join us at The Unstoppable Retreat: https://www.burnstressloseweight.com/retreat 

Check out my private podcast for lasting weight loss here: https://www.theunstoppablemombrain.com/bodyreset

What You’ll Learn from this Episode:

• Why solo travel reconnects you with parts of yourself you didn’t even know were missing
• How to shift out of the “self-sacrificing woman” identity so many of us were raised to admire
• The invisible backpack you’ve been carrying—and how travel helps you set it down
• What I mean when I say “book the non-refundable plane ticket”
• Why rest and play can’t be the first things we throw away when life gets full

Listen to the Full Episode:

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Featured on the Show:

• Get all The Unstoppable Retreat details by clicking here.
• Want to work with me? Learn about The Burn Stress, Lose Weight Group by clicking here. 
• Get access to my private podcast by clicking here. 
• Dr. Devon Gimbel’s Website: https://www.pointmetofirstclass.com/ 
• Points Made Easy Course: https://www.pointmetofirstclass.com/pointsmadeeasy 
• Point Me to First Class Podcast: https://pointmetofirstclass.com/podcast

Download the full transcript here.

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  Dr. Priyanka Venugopal: Hey friends. Welcome back to the Burn Stress, Lose Weight podcast. Today I am joined by one of my real life best friends. This is Dr. Devon Gimble. She's the host of the Point Me to First Class podcast. She's a physician turned travel expert. I'm getting daily and weekly inspiration from how she travels, and I wanted to have her on the podcast, not just because we are in the middle of summer, and I know that travel and the idea of travel is really at the forefront of a lot of our minds. I wanted to have her on the podcast because me and her have been just talking separately about the role of solo travel, what it means to us to be able to travel alone without our families, even though we love them. And sometimes the barriers that I know that I experienced we can have in allowing ourselves. The gift of solo travel she shares so many gems in this podcast episode. I'm so glad that she agreed to come on the podcast and share some of her wisdom and some of her pearls, and I really, really hope that you enjoy this conversation as much as I did before we get into this podcast episode. If you do feel a little bit bit by the travel bug and you know that you want. A solo trip on the books. That is just for you. We are actually hosting the Unstoppable Retreat this October. It's October 2-5 in Cabo, Mexico. And I haven't talked about it much on the podcast at all because up until recently the retreat was completely sold out. We were actually able to snap up three more rooms for our retreat. And so I wanted to share it with all of you. If you know that you have been wanting to have something on your calendar that is just for you, where you get a break from your life as a busy professional, as a mom in the workplace. You want to have a place to explore some of what we talk about in today's episode, and you can go and learn all about the retreat over at burnstressloseweight.com/retreat. Without further ado, let's get into my conversation with Dr. Devon Gimble. Hey, unstoppable friend. You're listening to the Burn Stress, Lose Weight podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Priyanka Venugopal. A physician turned a stress and weight loss coach for professional working moms, and the founder of the Burn Stress, Lose Weight Feel Unstoppable Small Group Coaching program. This podcast is going to inspire change at the root for you on and off the scale. I've lost a little over 60 pounds while being a busy physician mom with two young kids and an unpredictable schedule. And along my journey, which was full of many, many imperfect moments, I have learned how to skip past the fads and the gimmiks. I am on this mission now to share with you how you can have a real strategy and mindset skills to really have more of the life you want that you have worked so hard for. Let's get into it. Hey friends. Welcome back to the podcast. I have one of my literal. Favorite people in the whole wide world. This is Dr. Devon Gimble. She's going to introduce herself in just a second, but I just generally, like I cannot even say enough things, how much I adore you, how much I love talking to you. You've become one of my best friends over the last, I think year is like really, we have taken our friendship kind. I mean, can we say to the next level, it's like went to the next level? Yes, we can. And I just adore you and love you, and I'm so inspired by your ability to travel. And because we're in summer, I really wanted to have you on the podcast talking about travel in a way that I just, I haven't been able to do the way you are doing it. So we're gonna get into that, the power of travel, the power of solo travel. But without further ado, tell us about you and how you are doing what you're doing.

  Dr. Devon Gimbel: Oh my gosh. Well, I'll start very, very small and concise and then you take this where you wanna go. Yeah, because Unhindered, I will just answer that question for an hour and a half, which I don't think anybody wants. So first of all, thank you for having me here the feelings are completely mutual. I adore you. You are phenomenal, as I'm sure everybody who listens to this podcast knows, but my name is Devon Gimble. I am a double board certified physician, so I'm board certified in anatomic pathology and dermatopathology, which is probably one of now the less interesting things about me. I practiced very kind of traditional clinical medicine. For a number of years outside of training and I now have actually transitioned entirely outside of medical practice. I have now started my own business. It's called Point Me to First Class. And in that business I teach other women, especially women physicians, women, small business owners, how to travel the world using credit card points. But my love of travel predates my having started this business by decades. This is one of those things when I think back to kinda like, who was I before? The world started telling me, you know, who I should be. I think we all go through, you know, these developmental stages about who we are before we start receiving a lot of messages from our families of origin, from society, you know, yada yada, yada. And I have this really visual image of myself as a really young child. So I grew up in the eighties and nineties. So pre kind of internet in everybody's homes, we still received, you know, paper mail in the mail. Like this is how we had information and communication. And my family received National Geographic Magazine subscription in the mail. And I just remember those National Geographic magazines coming and I would like literally snatch them right, and just devour them. And I would stay up late at night in my closet with a flashlight, you know, flipping through. These magazines and I just have these memories of looking at some of these places around the world, like the pyramids in Egypt, and I just distinctly remember there was this full story about OK Ivanka Delta in Botswana, and there's these just amazing aerial view photographs of this place that was so far away, literally and figuratively from where I grew up. And just always having this sense and this desire that this world is a huge place, like it is so much bigger. This place where I'm growing up, the state where I'm growing up, this country where I'm growing up, and I just always had this like insatiable desire to go out and explore it. Even, I mean, years before I had any means to do so. So this is really kind of one of those things I feel like is so core to who I am as a human being.

  Dr. Priyanka Venugopal: Yeah. And I remember, 'cause you've been on the podcast before to talk about credit card points, so if you have not heard that episode, my friends, we'll link it in the show notes. I remember you shared in that podcast episode that you didn't grow up traveling a lot?

  Dr. Devon Gimbel: No.

  Dr. Priyanka Venugopal: So like you kind of had this interest in this clear fascination with the little gems around the world that had to offer, and it's like clearly you had a desire for it, but it's not like you were living in a family or had the economic means, or even like the social setup to travel with your family. So at what point did you start to decide, I don't want this to just kind of be kind of a gem in my head. I really want to take this now actively. And how did that fold into you as you kind of were growing up into like young adult life and adult life?

  Dr. Devon Gimbel: Yeah. You know, and I don't even know if it was ever this really kind of distinct, deliberate decision, right? So just as a little bit of context and background, you know, like I mentioned, I grew up in the eighties and nineties. I was the youngest of two kids being raised by a single mother. We were not really financially that well resourced and growing up in Southern California. At that time was honestly a really weird experience because Southern California in general, especially in the eighties and nineties, I felt like it was this culture of just wealth and conspicuous consumption. And you know, there's Beverly Hills and sort of that whole interesting environment about people with just extraordinary wealth, right? And I think this was also a time period again, where people were really interested in displaying how much wealth they had by spending it. Mm-hmm. And so I always always, always felt out of place. I always felt like the weird kid whose family wasn't like everybody else's family and didn't have access to the same things other people had access to. And I'm sure there's a lot of people who think back to middle school and high school as not like their prime years. And that was certainly the case for me. And I would just remember things like. You know, being in the locker room where we had to change for our PE classes and after a school break, hearing someone like just really nonchalantly talking about how, oh, over winter break they had gone on a safari to Kenya with their family and they'd flown on their private jet and yada, yada yada. And it was just so inconceivable to me personally because our travel growing up, if we did travel, was road trips. You know what I mean? I think the beautiful thing about Southern California is we have so many natural resources in that area. So we would drive to Joshua Tree or we would drive up the coast and we would literally camp, you know, like the kind of camp where you set up a tent and there's no bathroom. I was say, say, is there a tent involved in this? Yeah. Like no type of experience that even as a child I ever wanted to duplicate or replicate. Yeah. But again, I think that I had these kind of. Two concepts in my mind. One being that it did always seem to me that the world was so much bigger than Southern California. And I think a lot of growing up, especially being a Californian, even though I really hadn't traveled extensively outside the state. I also felt like there, at least at that time, there was this very kind of Californian attitude that California was in fact the center of the universe and Okay. Yeah, because I felt so much like out of place there. Like I never felt like I belonged anywhere. I never felt like, oh wow, this is a place where I fit. It just, I think, seems so natural to me that, mm-hmm, okay, well this is just one place, right? Like there's so many other places, and so I think I just always had this idea that that did not have to be. Just my forever home, my forever reality. And I think the first time that I really, really explored outside of California, and this will tell you a lot about my personality. 'cause you might think, you know, for someone who's really interested still in seeing the world, maybe you would explore Mexico or maybe you would explore Central America, you know? No. So the very first time that I took like a real international trip, I was 19 years old. This is the summer between my second and my third year in undergrad. And I moved to Kenya for the summer. I remember when I told my mom that I was gonna do this, and this will tell you a lot about my relationship with her as well. She's always fostered a lot of independence in myself and my sister, and I remember I called her and I said, you know, I have this summer off and I really want to. Go and do something. I didn't wanna stay at school and take summer classes, which is what I did pretty much every other summer in college. And I said, I'm gonna move to Kenya for the summer. And her response was, alright, let me know when you land back at LAX and you need a ride and I'll come and pick you up and bring you home. Right. Wow. And I really think that, honestly, part of what made it so possible for me to just feel like. I was allowed to go out and explore the world is that in no way, like my mom has never treated me or my sister, like she had some ownership over our decisions or ownership over, you know, our lives. Once we got out of our home, you know, we were really off on our own. And so I really look at that as a blessing because I think that, you know, if I had had kind of. A familial background where I felt like people had really strong ideas about what I was supposed to do or what I wasn't supposed to do. I maybe would've had to fight against that. But I never had any of that. And I think because of that, it truly made me feel like, oh, these desires I have right, to go out and explore and experience completely different places. Those desires are valid, right? And I think that's a really, really important thing that at the time it wasn't so clear to me until I saw started even as I was, you know, growing older and older and having more relationships with different people, really seeing how unique that was that I had so many, especially female friends. I don't feel like had that same type of relationship with their parents, and I think that was something that I've come to value a lot.

  Dr. Priyanka Venugopal: Yeah, it's like very different than the way I was raised. I know we even talked about this on your podcast. Like for me, when it came to travel, first of all, we would travel as a family. Travel felt special. So it's not that we didn't travel. I think you had a young childhood where you did a lot of driving trips and a lot of camping trips. We would do the occasional travel, but it was so rare that it felt like it had to be really earned or somehow, like especially a trip to India. That would be kind of our main big family trip. We would try to go once per year. We of course, traveled in the lowest of lowest economy that's even available. If there was basic economy. That's what we were traveling. I remember I used to sleep on the floor. My mom would find a little. Kinda square space and like she would set up camp, she was that bomb. She would set up camp and like we would sleep on the floor of the airplane. And I think I inadvertently learned a lesson that travel is rare travel is special. You have to really plan for it and work for it. I learned that kind of lesson, and I think that because our resources, again, growing up in the eighties and nineties, were limited. I think I used to feel this hesitation to go into the land of exploration. Like I was not a big explorer. You were an explorer. You went to Kenya. I was like, what is the study course? I'm not going to explore. You just tell me what to do. I'm just gonna go do it. I lived that life for such a long time up until a few years ago that I don't even think I knew about the fact there were so many gems in the world. I just wanna go to the difference between traveling when you were kind of in college or before medical school. I know you took some time to go travel versus traveling now as an adult, I think traveling young adult life is such a different experience than when to have a family and responsibilities. Like what do you think has been your biggest differences, like both pros and cons?

  Dr. Devon Gimbel: Yeah, I mean the differences are so stark. So as you mentioned, you know, when I was traveling, when I was younger, so I lived for that summer in Kenya and then actually kinda the next big thing I did was that I took around two years off in between undergrad and medical school. So I was one of those kids who, again, growing up all I ever wanted to be was a doctor. I was so beyond Type A, you know, it's not even funny. And I went into undergrad very much focused on this is going to lead me to medical school. Mm-hmm. But. I also had sort of this sense or this understanding that, you know, once I started medical school, once I started truly that path of med school residency, you know, fellowship attending hood, it probably was not going to be likely that I was going to have extended periods of time where I could travel. And so I made this really deliberate decision to not go straight from undergrad. Into medical school, and so I took about two years off in between and I was basically as nomadic as I could be. During those two years, I would come home for those kind of benchmarks in the med school application process that I had to be home for. So I remember, you know, submitting all of my primary applications and then disappearing, and then I would come home for that period of time that then you would have to. Fill out and submit the secondary applications, and then I would disappear and then I would come back for the med school interviews, and I lived in two main places during that period. I spent about six months on and off living in Southeast Asia, which was probably the single most positive, transformative, formative experience that I had ever had. You know, as a human being, as a young woman, it was just. The absolute, I think, best experience I could have had at that period of my life. And then right before I started medical school, I think the way that I looked at travel at that time was, again, I was not financially resourced. I mean, I think the six months I lived in Southeast Asia, I lived on $500 total for six months. So when you ask what's different between now and then, thankfully. I have more options in the way that I travel now in terms of my comfort and you know, things that I will and will not do in order to save a dollar. So that is a huge change. But the other thing that I did is I was always kind of looking for opportunities to travel, where it was like, what's a good excuse that I could do that will then also let me go somewhere else? And so I had gone to undergrad, a University of California school, and the uc system at the time had this huge kinda like online database where you could look and search for different jobs, and I was thinking, okay, well I have no money, need to earn a little bit more money so that maybe I can take off, you know, on one more trip before I go to med school, and I saw this job posting from an infectious disease doctor at uc, San Diego. He had a lab at UCSD, but then his main area of research was in one specific infectious disease that is endemic to a part of the Amazon region in Peru. And so we had a full functioning lab in the Amazon. In Peru and he had this job listing for a very low level, like research something, something. And I was like, I don't even see, sign me up. Right. And I remember I applied for the job and he interviewed me and you know, he was telling me about kind of what the research project consisted of and you know, he was really trying to downplay the onsite part in Peru and he was really trying to focus on like the state, state-of-the-art facilities at uc, San Diego and how that's where you're gonna doing most of the work and all this stuff. And he asked me kind of at the end, you know, do you have any questions or are you interested? I remember saying to him, I'm very interested, as long as I don't have to spend any time at the lab in San Diego, like, can you please make sure that I go put me on site, you know, in Peru? And I went and ended up doing infectious disease research, you know, in Peru for a couple of months, which on the one hand was intellectually fascinating, relevant to, you know, wanting to be a doctor, but the truth is I was looking for an excuse to go live somewhere else, you know? And the fact that I had sort of bare level support from this research grant, you know, to be able to live in a place while I was there, there was like this tiny little stipend that came with it. But at the same time, that was more than I needed, you know? And at that time in my life, for me, it was very much, I think about it as like travel by any means necessary. I'm like any opportunity. Any sort of way to go. Yeah, yeah. That I can get to go somewhere that I want go and explore. I am there. But again, in terms of, you know, actual financial resources, they were so limited that that really kind of dictated how I got where I was going. And you know, I remember taking in Southeast Asia specifically taking. Overnight buses in between cities because that was cheaper than having to pay for, you know, a place to stay for the night. And it was fine. It worked. You know, I was like in my early twenties and it was just such a fun way to go around and that's not how I travel anymore parts of it, I miss parts of it. I don't miss. So much, but you have a lot more resources now, but also a lot more responsibilities.

  Dr. Priyanka Venugopal: Absolutely. That the whole like, you know, get up and go, just drop everything. Yes. Grab that ticket when you can, is a huge shift, especially in professional career, but also if you're a mom, if you have a family, if you have other responsibilities to travel that way now.

  Dr. Devon Gimbel: Yeah, and I think for me, you know, as much as so much of the way that I travel now certainly is incredible for me and amazing. I think the one thing that I miss so much from that earlier period of my life was when. I was traveling completely solo, so I got to make every single decision, and especially during that period that I took time off in between undergrad and med school, I did that so that I wouldn't be rushed. And there's something about being able to go to a place and say, I don't have to come back in six days. Right? You know, I have weeks, I have months to just go at my own pace and explore this place. That's the piece that I miss. The most because even though I still travel solo quite a bit, even though I travel with my family, and I love that, the one thing that I don't do and we don't do now is spend weeks or months in a place. And that type of travel experience to me has been one of the biggest shifts in my travel patterns now that as much as I have access to so much more when I am traveling now, the thing I don't have access to is just that like. Just unbridled open-ended possibility in terms of just the amount of time that I can take for a given trip. And I hope that, you know, in another phase of life that may come back again, but that's just not the way I travel right now in this period of my life.

  Dr. Priyanka Venugopal: Yeah, I feel like one of our biggest issues right now is we are trying to plan travel when we do family travel around schedules and holidays and we're trying to cram things in during summer break or fall break or winter break. And the good thing is my husband and I are pretty good about just pulling the kids. Out of school because we feel like the experience of travel far, at least at the age they're at now, far outpaces what they are gonna get in school. But also I think what I have realized, because up until a few years ago, I only did family travel. I never did solo travel The way you have. It's like such a wild experience to even hear that you had such, it's like a lifetime of travel experiences that I have yet to have. Yeah. Which is why I am like, Devon, teach me your ways. I wanna go do all this. But up until I think like basically 2020, I had not done any solo trips really, I mean, it's kind of nuts when I think I was a full on adult and all of the trips had either been with my family of origin, like my parents and my brother, or like once I got married it was with my husband and then it was with when we had kids. And I think that for me, going from the family trip, which I also love doing to experiencing solo travel unlocked something that I was not expecting I didn't know was going to happen. The transformation that I've experienced traveling by myself. How would you describe your experiences in solo travel as an adult now versus family travel? Because I know we love our families, but why solo travel? Like what's the benefit?

  Dr. Devon Gimbel: I think one of the things that stands out to me so much that the biggest blessing that solo travel could have given to me was really seeing and learning how capable you are. And I think especially as a young person, as a young woman, I did not receive a ton of messages, explicit messages in my life about how strong I was, how smart I was, how good I was at problem solving or making decisions. And I think that is what solo travel. Taught me. And so, you know, when I then kind of transitioned a little bit later then in my life, you know, once I was married, once I had kids, once we started doing more family travel, I think that one of the things I do not get when I family travel is that actual connection, that like deep connection to me and myself because you're surrounded with other people and you're making so many decisions based on other people and especially for me, you know, my kids now are nine and six, but they're still little, right? So when we're traveling, I'm making so many decisions about what do I think is gonna be the easiest for them in terms of travel demands. What do I think is gonna be comfortable for them and fun for them? And I think that's. And also it's not about me. And I think that continuing to solo travel gives me that opportunity to meet myself where I am now, you know? And to ask myself things like, what do I wanna do? Right? Like, what does my perfect day look like if I don't have to think about anybody else, you know, and what do I wanna see? What do I wanna learn? And I think that those are questions that so few of us. Really give ourselves any chance to answer on a daily basis. 'cause we live busy lives and we live full lives and those of us who have partners or families most likely to a certain extent, enjoy those people. Right. So we deliberately want to make decisions for the most part. Yeah. For the most part some of the time. But I think that is what solo travel really. Affords me in so many ways that I just don't have access to in my day-to-day life. I mean, my husband's amazing. If I say, Hey, I need a day, you know, he'll take our kids on a weekend and get them outta the house and give me, you know, a day to myself or a couple hours to myself that still isn't the same as saying I want to take myself somewhere and I wanna have. This experience, you know, in this other place.

  Dr. Priyanka Venugopal: It almost feels like one feels some like very surface level and again. Mm-hmm. Sometimes that that's all we have the resources to do. That's all we have. The time, the bandwidth, or even the family support to be able to do. But I think that what you're talking about when you take yourself on a trip, when you remove yourself from your typical work environment or home environment, there's like this invisible burden that you don't even realize that you have. When you're thinking about how are the kids going to eat? What are the tasks that I have to get done? What are my responsibilities? You don't even realize the invisible burden that we're holding. It's like this invisible backpack with a lot of weight. And when at least when I have left taking this solo trip, it's like this lightness, this feeling of relief because I don't have to think about what will the kids eat, what will my husband like? Will he like this? 'cause he likes to do all kinds of like adventure things. And I'm like, I would like. To just relax, but in a kind of selfish way. And that kind, selfish, yes, selfish is not derogatory.

  Dr. Devon Gimbel: Like that is not a derogatory word whatsoever.

  Dr. Priyanka Venugopal: That, and I think that that is the point. So for a long time, and again, I got over this very quickly because I saw the massive impact that I was experiencing with solo travel, so I got over myself very quickly. But this idea of selfishness and like, especially women who are so used to being in service physicians, in service of your patients or of your partners, your family, aging parents, children, you name it. That's what we are focusing on doing, and we've been programmed to do it. This idea of taking yourself out, doing the solo trip that is just for you, where you get to connect with yourself and think about what you want feels really selfish for a lot of women, it's not across the board. What do you say to that person that's like, it feels selfish, they feel guilty about it. What would you say to them?

  Dr. Devon Gimbel: Yeah. Well, I think it's really important to acknowledge how common that is and also. Just like, I don't think that it's wrong for women to want to travel solo. I also don't think, oh, everyone should wanna do this. Right. That if you don't, there's something that needs to be explored or fixed there, neither to me. I think the bigger question for people who think it's selfish is kind of where is that voice coming from? Like is that something that you think because you truly believe it, and when you believe it, that actually feels good and in service to you in the life that you wanna live, in which case I would say great. You know, like, yeah, you're in an alignment with your values. That's wonderful. I think a lot of the time where that message is coming from, it's not actually authentic to us and the values that we personally hold, and I think that is where there's that opportunity to say, wow, wait a minute. Like, have I ever actually explicitly been told this and do I even agree with it or is this one of those implicit messages that it just seems like everybody agrees with, and even so just what do I think about this? Because I think a lot of it comes down to that. Kind of connotation of the word selfish because I think a lot of times we hear that word only with a negative connotation, that selfish means you don't care about other people. It means that you care more about yourself than you do other people, and that is bad, right? I think that we all should be selfish. To a certain degree, you know, if you are only ever selfless, I would argue that probably the vast majority of people who fall into that category, it's not because it's authentic to them and they end up feeling really bitter and really resentful. And listen, I'm not a person who can hide my true feelings. Well, I'm not a person who I'm so bad at hiding my true feelings. And when I am bitter and resentful, you see it, believe me. People know it. You're gonna know it. I cannot, I cannot believe that you know my children if I raised them, you know, for 18, 20 years being a hundred percent selfless, which is not in alignment with my true personality, the inevitable kind of bitterness and resentment and frustration and discouragement that would come from that. I personally believe that is gonna be so much more damaging and detrimental to their experience of me as a parent and their experience of kind of making sense of. The world and where do you fit in this world? And, you know, what are the impact of your choices? That I'm wholeheartedly gonna say, yeah, I'm willing to be selfish 13 days a year, you know, out of 365. You know, I, I really don't think that ultimately that is going to be a bigger negative experience for the people around me than the alternative. And again, I think that it's. Probably easier for me to say that I'm sure I have struggled less with this particular kind of feeling or problem than other people have, and I wanna acknowledge that. And I think it's because I did grow up so independent and I did live kind of as a single adult female, making all my own decisions for myself for a really long period of time. And so I think for me personally, it would feel. More out of place, right? To have completely abandoned, do you know what I mean? Like that kind of perspective. But I also acknowledge everybody's coming from a different background and a different experience, and I very much believe that there are women walking around out there who never. Were told or never saw that it was a possibility that you could do something just for yourself and not be made to feel like a terrible human being for that. And I think that that is a huge challenge to overcome.

  Dr. Priyanka Venugopal: Yeah, I think one of the lessons that I didn't realize I had learned until I had to really get over my guilt and my thoughts about traveling alone and the burden is pleaing on my husband and all of those things, was I learned that the big people in my life were very self-sacrificing so growing up. My mom was a stay-at-home mom up until high school, which is when she kind of went back and got a job. And I just saw this like self-sacrificing in little things. In little moments. My dad would do this long commute to New York City, leave early in the morning and get home after dinner. So I just learned to be a quote unquote good human or to be valuable or worthy somehow you have to be having a self-sacrificing component to it, and I didn't even, it was such an invisible lesson that I learned, and I think what I've started to see is if you're. Actually not feeling fulfilled in you If you're not feeling satisfied for you, what could possibly be good about that? We can't put our best out there if we're not feeling those emotions, and I think that that's for me, I think that's why I was like, we need to get over this because I can feel like I'm on the brink of unlocking some of the best parts of me. It's been hidden for years. It has been living under a pile of medical school books that I just didn't even know there were gems around the world that I did not even know about. I want to experience that for me, and a huge part of that was after my daughter was born, my son was three, she was zero. They're three years apart. And I remember thinking, what do I want for her? Like when she's older, as she's getting older, what do I want for her? I want her to explore every corner of the world if she wants it. And if I want that for her, I have to go first. I have to start modeling that now. And I think that she was a huge impetus in me learning how to retrain myself so that I could have these experiences.

  Dr. Devon Gimbel: Yeah, I think that is such a good point. And I remember, so my husband and I have been together for, you know, a hundred years. It's actually been. Think about 21 years. So we were classmates in medical school. We met our very first year of med school. We got married at the very end of our fourth year of medical school. We did the whole couples match thing. You know, we spent four years together in residency and fellowship. So we were together for a long time. Before we hit kids and we have a little bit of role reversal just in terms of like stereotypical gender dynamics in that he was the one who started wanting a family far before I did. And he was the one who was starting to be kind of like, Hey, you know, like, maybe we should have kids, you know? And I was like, really?

  Dr. Priyanka Venugopal: You and are so similar by the way. Yeah. In all of these ways. Yeah. I, it's like crazy. Okay. Yeah. Keep going.

  Dr. Devon Gimbel: And he, now that we have kids, I mean he's the maternal one, right? He is the one where it's like if a kid is crying, if a kid is upset, a kid wakes up in the middle of the night and needs something. It's always dad. And I love that. Like I love that he can be that role and they can experience him in that role. But I remember, you know, some of the conversations that we had about. Do we wanna start a family? What is this gonna look like for us? I remember so clearly saying, I need you to know that if we have children, I am not going to stop traveling. You know, like this is such a core part of my experience that this needs to continue for me. This is not like a phase, you know, where this is not something that I just tried once, that this truly is. So fundamental to how I experienced the world, and I think how I experienced the world as a happy, healthy human being that I said, I don't want you to be surprised if we have children. And I bring up, you know, going on a solo trip and obviously, you know, I'm gonna be mindful, I, I'm, yeah. Haven't gone off on a four month solo trip, you know, since I became, not yet, but one day, Devon, we're gonna do a trip. Yeah. Wandered around without cell phone service, you know, for months on end, you know? But it was really important to me to say, Hey, you know, like if we together decide to make this decision about having a family that travel needs to stay part, you know, of my lived experience and solo travel needs to stay part of my lived experience because I just knew. This, to me is as fundamental as breathing. Like you can hold your breath for a while and you can hold your breath for a long time, but you cannot stop breathing, you know? And that's what travel feels like to me. You know, like, no, I don't need to be on a plane every single weekend, but I definitely have. This calibration where if it's been a certain amount of time since I've traveled, especially international travel. 'cause that's really truly what's so valuable to me. I feel this visceral change in myself and I see the change in my mood and I see the change in my patients and just all of the things. And so, you know, I think that was a really important conversation for us to have, just to say. Okay. Yes. You know, we are growing, we are, our lives are going to change. And also here are the things that I still need to maintain, you know, in order again to be my kind of healthy version of me.

   

  Dr. Priyanka Venugopal: I'm just thinking a lot about like the role of communicating with your core family. Like what, you had this conversation before you had kids. Yeah. So that was like very responsible, very responsible. Like, Hey, by the way, this is a, a core value of mine. And you know, then that's when your partner gets to decide like, okay, am I willing to have this? Like, does this feel mm-hmm. Like aligned with their values? And I think that that's like amazing when we can do that. I feel like I pulled a fast one over on my husband because before we had kids, we also were, we met like 21, 22 years ago. Got married 17 and a half years ago. And when we first met. I was a very different person. Like I was younger. I had not traveled the world. I had not had a lot of these experiences. A lot of my growth and a lot of my biggest changes happened actually well into our marriage, multiple years into our marriage after having kids. And so we've had the kids we're like living our now responsible adult life and I'm like, by the way, I'm growing and changing and I'm on a self-growth like kind of journey and having the conversation. Then I think that a lot of times women will hold that back or they feel. Scared about letting themselves, letting themselves grow and devolve. They're worried about growing separate maybe from their family or their partners. And I think that it's actually the opposite. When we know how to open the door, have the conversation, it was like such a very transparent conversation. I was like, I want you to travel. You go like you do things too. And I think that me being honest with myself and honest with him about what I wanted to do and where I wanted to go, let me become more of myself. I think that's what this entire journey has been, is like letting me learn how to become more of myself and letting myself change, which is, I feel like we don't let ourselves change near enough than we want to.

  Dr. Devon Gimbel: Yeah, and I think this is so common. I mean probably all for all humans, but I think my only frame of reference is sort of the. Human who goes through the medical education process. Yeah. You know, and I think this is so true for so many of us in medicine, because like you said, there is just this prescribed predictive path, right? It's like, go to undergrad, take these classes, take these tests, go into medical school. This is the next. Thing, go into residency and then you're a grownup, and then you gotta be the grownup, right? And do the doctor thing that we all trained to do. And I think that the easy thing would be to just keep doing the same thing over and over and over again and again for people where that actually feels good to them. Wonderful, right? Like, don't change for the sake of changing or you know, like turn over the apple cart for no reason. But I think for so many of us. We aren't the same exact person we were 5, 10, 20 years ago. And because the medical education system is so prescribed and so rigid, I don't think that as many of us have had those opportunities to really say, wait, like who am I now? And like, yeah, what do I want now? Or what don't I even know about myself right now that I wanna go out and explore and discover? And certainly I don't think you have to travel to do that, but I think travel makes. Answering those questions so much easier.

  Dr. Priyanka Venugopal: Yeah. It's almost like you get to EC decide that this is the life that I want. Yeah. It's like you get to Rechoose like, yeah, I wanna make these decisions like and and intentionality rather than just kind of going through your life and just passing through like a leaf blowing in the wind. One of the things that I realized, because I had that idea that you need to earn, you have to like, you know, you have to work really hard to earn travel, to earn that trip and a little thing came up for you last week, and it completely inspired a whole concept. I'm like, gee, I'm bra talking about the podcast.

  Dr. Devon Gimbel: Because it did not inspire the same concept for me, and I needed it to.

   

  Dr. Priyanka Venugopal: It inspired the whole, I mean, there's a podcast episode coming out either next week or the week after. It's called the Plane Ticket to Paris. That's the title. Devon's gonna tell the story in just a second, but in a nutshell, knowing that you have travel planned, solo travel plan, this was like the proverbial figurative, not real like plane ticket to Paris. If you knew you were going to get that amount of joy and pleasure and rest and solo time, how would you show up in your work life, in your mom life at home, in your focus with the work you have? And I've taken this one concept, I have been more productive. Because I've taken this plane ticket to Paris analogy, I've run with it. I've gotten more done in the last seven days than I think I have in the last two months because I've told myself this is our proverbial plane ticket to Paris and it's letting me be so much more focused because I have this amazing thing to look forward to. So maybe you haven't had the exact same experience. No, I haven't. What has been your, like when you know you have, you're boarding, you told me like, I'm boarding this flight, it's leaving on Friday. I need to get all these things done. Yeah. Do you feel like that put a little bit of a fire under your butt to like knock some things out, or do you feel like it didn't make any difference at all?

  Dr. Devon Gimbel: I feel like it should have, it probably didn't as much for me as it has for you, so I'm really thrilled that I know. I keep telling that the plaintiff de Paris is amazing. So productive. But I will say this, that I think, you know, when I plan trips, especially solo trips, and I know that I have this thing coming up because when it's a solo trip, it's exactly what I want. I get to build this whole experience around what sounds fun to me. What would I be the most excited to do? So I will say that when I have especially solo trips planned, it gives me almost this like deeper. Connection to just honoring, yes, this is what I want to do, and when I feel kind of aligned in that space. I think the thing that it does for me is it gives me so much more appreciation for just the decisions then that I do have to make in the meantime and the things that I still need to get done and kind of the relationships that I still have in my day to day life. And so I think that it is so much easier for me to enjoy doing my day-to-day things and to really feel connected, especially to my family when I have kind of that expression of this piece of myself, you know, that I really got to get in touch with in terms of planning a trip. Now, I will say that. I wish it had the same exact effect where, just for context sake, I had sent this huge long voice memo to Priyanka about this insane trip that I was taking. That was actually quite enjoyable for me, but most people would probably not like it whatsoever. But it involved taking multiple different plane rides and I had, you know, my first plane was departing at a specific time and. I said to her, okay, this plane's taking off. You know, this is not negotiable. It's not like I can ask it to wait a day because I didn't get enough work done. So what does it look like now for me, you know, to be able to try to get. All these things finished because that plane ticket isn't changing and I'm getting on that plane. And so, you know, in that sense, I do think it, it is very clarifying for me, like, what needs to get done? What do you wanna prioritize? Because otherwise, you know, like I'm a creature of habit. I can fall into inertia and just kind of like, you know.

  Dr. Priyanka Venugopal: Well, you can keep thinking you haven't done enough. Like you'll keep up. Oh, and I need to do more and, and I need to do more. I think this entire plane ticket to Paris kind of concept opened up for me is it forced me to constrain. How much and what I want to do and what would be the biggest needle movers for me to really move the needle forward in any result? Like this is, of course, we were talking about work, but I think this is true of any area that you have a goal. Sometimes we think like, oh, I have to do so many things. I have to do all the things, and then it's very overwhelming because that can take hundreds of hours of time. If you really want to do it all, whatever it all means, the plane ticket to Paris. Forced me to say no to certain things. It forced me to put constraints on how long I was going to spend on something. It forced me to, and I think what I'm noticing for me is when I have a trip planned on my calendar, like every one or two months, like it's like something there, something for me to really look forward to. I love it. I, I get to think about it a little bit whenever I'm feeling like I'm bogged down with some work or, ugh, this is so hard, or I have a lot of decisions to make. This is so annoying. There's something about having the trip on the calendar. Then I'm like, but don't worry girl, like we have a trip coming. Like let's just knock this out. We have that coming and it's this idea of having guaranteed rest or play built into your life in a real way that I just feel like has changed how I actually do work.

  Dr. Devon Gimbel: I agree with you about that, and I think I should have looked this up. I'm sure there are some scientific studies out there that actually look at. Like the amount of dopamine and pleasure you get from the travel planning and the anticipation of travel versus just being on the trip itself, which of course can be lovely and amazing too. And I do think that having these trips on the calendar, they are like anchors. Anchors for you to make decisions around because at least for me. Those things are non-negotiable. Now, you know, if there's a storm that cancels a flight, okay, I'll be flexible with that, but I'm not usually the person who's canceling the trips I put on my own calendar. And those things become these like non-negotiable anchors where it's like, okay, I need to make deliberate decisions around these things to make sure that. I'm still able to go on them. I'm not dragging work with me, you know, the entire time. And I do think in that sense that they can be like really, really productive.

  Dr. Priyanka Venugopal: Yeah, I agree. I think it's, I didn't even realize that that's probably what's been happening. Every time I think about like, we're gonna see each other in September, coming to Chicago, it's gonna be, I, every time I think about it my, I have a smile on my face. I'm like, I'm gonna get to see Devon and I'm going to be speaking at this conference and it's going to be so much fun. I've, I don't think I've ever actually like spent time in Chicago other than like a layover here or there, and it just, I feel so happy about it. But I think you brought up a good point. You've said this a couple of times, this idea of it being non-negotiable, like that plane ticket, it's a non-refundable plane ticket. And I think that that is actually one of the unfortunate mistakes. If you wanna call it a mistake, we can call it a mistake 'cause. We're just gonna use language because I feel like that's what it is. We, especially women, make refundable plane tickets, make things negotiable in our mind. We make our rest and our fun and our play, and even a trip, almost like a refundable plane ticket. And so whenever we get overwhelmed or whenever we feel like we're behind, because we could always be doing more, the first thing to go is the refundable plane ticket. So I just wonder, what do you think is the mindset shift and maybe the strategic shift that people can have where they start to think about these things as non-refundable? Non-negotiable opportunities.

  Dr. Devon Gimbel: Yeah, I mean, I think that is such a great question because. As you know, because I send you so many, just sort of like desperate voice memos about all the terrible decisions I make in terms of using my time and planning and all of the things. Procrastination. Right. And procrastination, I mean, all of the lovely things. Yeah. You know, I think what it is, again, for me, travel feels like such a departure from the day to day, and I think that the day to day-to-day at least, is where I can fall into really, really bad habits because there's really nothing that says, okay, yeah. You know, if you put this thing off. You still have tomorrow to do it. And I think especially when it comes to what you're talking about with rest and play, I think this is so common, and I see this in myself all the time, that when I get stressed in terms of my schedule, the things that I need to get done, the timeline, I need to do them. The first thing to always go. Is my rest or my play. So I will stop taking walks during the day because I'm like, well, I need that hour, you know, to get work done right? Yeah. I will stop being, you know, so kind of careful around my sleep habits. This is where it's like, well, I normally don't work at night, but if I've got, you know, a workshop coming up or a thing that I'm trying to put together. You know, the last three nights before I actually do it, I'm probably gonna be up much later than I would like to be working on it. And I think that when I think about planning trips, maybe because it is so external to my daily life and it's not just about me making the decisions. Like I said, that Emirates flight, they don't care if I make it or not. Right. They're taking off. They're taking off. Yeah. That airplane, it's going to Dubai, like whether I'm on it or not. Yeah. I think that there is something that's really, really useful about that construct. And so it doesn't have to be an external thing like. Scheduling a plane that you know you wanna be on, but I think it is about finding what is that construct. That to me, feels like it's a non-negotiable, you know, that I'm not gonna sacrifice. The thing that makes me happier, I'm not gonna sacrifice this experience of rest or play because it is so, so easy, I think for so many of us to say, well, the work comes first, or this other obligation comes first. Yeah. Let me just throw the thing that is just for me by the wayside. So I think whether it is truly. An external, non-refundable, you know, plane ticket. Yeah. Or something else that feels like that. That's what's key is like how do I build in these non-negotiables into my life so that I can honor this aspect of me and like honor giving myself this time for rest or play, whether it's in a totally different country or still in your own home. Yeah. But at least you still get to experience it.

  Dr. Priyanka Venugopal: This is like one of those things that I coach women on this. All the time, and what I've realized is part of the reason that we don't have self-trust, like why do we ever procrastinate? We said we were going to do something, but then our like either perfectionism gets in our way or we just like start scrolling our phone or grabbing a snack in the pantry. The reason we do that is because a part of us does not trust that we will give ourselves a break when we are done. Because we have the more is better mentality, but ooh, we could get a little bit more done and we could get a little bit more done. So we end up in this very like unfortunate, overwhelmed cycle and we end up with such a fatigued brain that we still rest with procrastination. So I just, for anyone that ever finds themselves procrastinating, I really want to validate. It's very normal that you're doing it and maybe you're doing it because your brain is just really tired. And part of the solution to that is, I think it's uncomfortable, but really deciding like, what is gonna be my proverbial, you know, non-refundable plane ticket either to a actual physical trip or something that you do in your home that guarantees that you don't actually have to steal breaks, like it's actually coming. You actually get to have real rest and then you get to show up as your best self at work and at home.

  Dr. Devon Gimbel: Yeah, and I think that that's a lesson that I still continue to learn, you know, over and over again as much as I can see when I'm in that pattern of procrastination. I agree with everything you said, and I just wanna acknowledge that. If anyone else listening can relate to this, this is not like a, oh, you see it and then you fix it. Maybe if you're like that, that's amazing. I am not like that. You know, I keep kind of making that same, I don't wanna call it a mistake, but you know, I keep kind of creating that pattern again and again and again. And so if procrastination, if, you know, learning to prioritize yourself in certain times, in certain elements is challenging, I can certainly relate to that. And that's something that I am consistently working on and begging for help from Priyanka about. I know, because I just do it over and over and over again, but I think this is part of what we get to see about our own patterns, you know, and work on an ongoing basis.

  Dr. Priyanka Venugopal: You learn that, like that phrase in medical school, see one, do one, teach one. And I think that that's such a false narrative for how human brains learn. I think we have to learn by, we try it, and then all of the real reasons, all the obstacles, all the sticky, messy moments will come up and then it will like not do it and it'll procrastinate again and again and again and again. And I think what I've, because I've been complaining to you about this for over a year now. I've been telling, I notice myself procrastinating and it's like piling up this work and then I'm just never getting the break, and then I'm stealing the break. Like I've been telling you this now forever. We've been talking about this so much, and I think what I realized is there are two flavors of discomfort. There's the discomfort of me being in this cycle of overwhelm and always working and then stealing the break. And there's the discomfort of deciding I'm gonna have a non-refundable plane ticket. And I know that that's uncomfortable for me, and I'm not used to doing that. And I'm used to needing to earn it. And I'm used to feeling guilty about it. But it's like we get to just decide which flavor of discomfort am I going to choose this time and which one would get me more of what I want, which one would like unlock more of me? And I think what I'm noticing is. The non-refundable plane ticket, the solo trip is just like where we get to get, I think, the best of all of it.

  Dr. Devon Gimbel: Yes, I agree with you completely.

  Dr. Priyanka Venugopal: I love it. Okay, so Devon, how can we hear from you more? Tell us about your podcast. Tell us anything else, any last thoughts you have about solo travel and how can people find you?

  Dr. Devon Gimbel: Yeah. So the last thoughts about solo travel, I think especially if you're a woman, you have never solo traveled before. I really just wanna invite you to imagine like what might be waiting for you if you take that step. You never ever have to, you can live an amazing life without ever doing any solo travel, but I think so many women don't solo travel because they never actually take that time to think about, wow, would this actually be something that I want to do. And it does not have to be ambitious. Your first solo travel trip does not have to be to a different country. You can take yourself on a staycation in your own city just at a hotel, you know? Just to get outside of your normal routine. Or you can go on solo trips where you end up meeting up with a group of people. There's no right way. It's like it still counts as solo travel, even if you fly by yourself and then meet up, you know, with some people on the other end. And I just wanna invite everybody. To think about what that might look like for them. And then in terms of me, if people want to hear specifically more about travel using credit card points, that is what I love to think about and do and teach people about. So that is exactly what I talk about on my podcast called Appoint Me to First Class podcast. So you can find me there. And then if you are a female physician and you wanna learn more about what it looks like. To turn your expenses and to travel using credit card points. I also have a Facebook group called Point Me to First Class for Women Physicians. Come on over there and join about 29,000 other women physicians who also love to travel, who are doing it with credit card points. Maybe you'll find some inspiration for your next trip there.

  Dr. Priyanka Venugopal: I love it. I have learned, and I feel like I'm such a novice, like I still ask you to like, I'm like, what's that acronym again? Because like people that are that know the lingo, like what does a sub stand for? Again? Like random, random, like I was at that level. I feel like before I even understood that, be a second. As a busy professional, I have very normal life expenses. I have very normal business expenses. If I can just use a credit card to earn points, like I did not even understand that there was a whole world out there and I feel like. Now I feel like I know you are the reason that I even took my very first class trip to India, like after traveling my entire life on basic economy, it was the wildest experience for me, and I credit you with that. I'm like always inspired, always wanting to learn, and then I get overwhelmed and I'm like, okay, wait. What do I do again? What buttons do I push? Where do I go? So I love that. Devon is an amazing resource. Go listen to her podcast. It is phenomenal. Friends, I will see you all next week. Bye. I hope you all enjoyed today's conversation with Devon. I just love the way that she thinks about travel and her wildly different travel experiences than I think maybe most of us have had. She is just an inspiration to me, and I have just noticed over the last few years as I have given myself permission to travel solo, to travel without my family. I've just noticed that whenever I do come back from a trip that has been just for me, I feel like I do come back like a better version of my solve. I come back more rested. I come back a little bit more aligned with what my goals are, what my values are. I actually feel a lot more gratitude for the life that I have created here, and I really want that for some of you if you wanted to. So if you are interested in a solo trip just for you, you can go and see if there are any tickets left. For the Unstoppable Retreat over at burnstressloseweight.com/retreat. There's a button there where I will ask you to answer just a couple of questions and then I'll reach out to you and let you know if we have a ticket left. The other resource that I want to make sure that you know about is my private podcast after having this. So many episodes on this Burn Stress, Lose Weight podcast I know that it can be overwhelming with where to start and how to start taking action in burning stress and losing the weight you want as a busy professional. So in that vein, I have created a four part private podcast that you can go and snap up right now. It is called The Body Reset, and it takes you through my specific science backed frameworks and my philosophies on how you can start losing weight and feeling better this week. You don't have to wait for summer to be over. You don't have to wait for next month or next year for that proverbial fresh start. You can start having it right now. Start achieving goals this week and truly start feeling your best. So if you want that resource, you can go and grab that over at burnstressloseweight.com/bodyreset. Drop your information and I will email you the private link to grab the podcast. I hope you guys all have an amazing, amazing week and consider travel in your future. And I will see you at the next one. Bye. Thanks for spending this time with me on the Burn Stress, Lose Weight podcast today. I hope that you are leaving today's podcast episode feeling a little lighter and more inspired than when we started. It turns out that you don't need to have a stress-free life to hit your goals on and off the scale, but when you feel more empowered to respond to your real life stresses with true strategy. We will game change how we show up and how we hit our goals. If you wanna take what you are learning here on the podcast and put it into real life implementation, it might be time for us to work together in the Burn stress lose Weight Feel Unstoppable group coaching program. Head over to burnstress loseweight.com, and you can learn all of the details, the nuts, the bolts, when the next group is starting, and exactly how you can join. Okay, friend, I'll see you next time.