Episode 46 - ”The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel” w/ Dr. Devon Gimbel (Point Me To First Class)

Welcome back to Analyze Scripts, where a psychiatrist and a therapist analyze what Hollywood gets right and wrong about mental health. Today, we are joined by Dr. Devon Gimbel, a retired physician turned points travel consultant who guides us though the journey to India (hopefully in first class seats). As many of us travel this holiday week we hope to offer you some tips on better travel while we analyze these rich characters who find themselves in India at a "new and spectacular" retirement home. Aging, openness versus rigidity and grief are themes in this episode. We hope you enjoy!

For more information on our guest: Point Me To First Class

Website

TikTok

Instagram

Youtube Channel

Katrina Furey MD: Hi, I'm Dr. Katrina Fieri, a psychiatrist.

Portia Pendleton LCSW: And I'm Portia Pendleton, a licensed clinical social worker.

Katrina Furey MD: And this is Analyze Scripts, a podcast.

Devon Gimbel MD: Where two shrinks analyze the depiction of.

Katrina Furey MD: Mental health in movies and TV shows.

Portia Pendleton LCSW: Our hope is that you learn some legit info about mental health while feeling like you're chatting with your girlfriends.

Katrina Furey MD: There is so much misinformation out there, and it drives us nuts.

Portia Pendleton LCSW: And if someday we pay off our student loans or land a sponsorship, like.

Katrina Furey MD: With a lay flat airline or a major beauty brand, even better.

Portia Pendleton LCSW: So sit back, relax, grab some popcorn.

Katrina Furey MD: And your DSM five, and enjoy. Welcome back to another super exciting episode of Analyze scripts because we have Devin Gimbal joining us. She is a double board certified physician and founder and owner of Point Me to First Class, a business that helps employed professionals, entrepreneurs, and business owners with high personal and or business expenses earn tons of credit card points to travel the world in luxury. And if you're listening to this episode, you might be traveling because it is the week of know, the busiest travel week of the, you know, if you're not in luxury, maybe you'll learn some tips for next time. Devin believes that your expenses are your greatest asset if you know how to leverage them. And she's on a mission to change the face of first class travel and help thousands of women travel more, travel better, and travel often using credit card points. So super cool. Thank you, Devin, so much for joining us.

Devon Gimbel MD: Thank you so much for having me. I'm really excited to be here.

Katrina Furey MD: I first learned about Devin by joining her Facebook group, the point me to first class group, and I have started my points accumulation and journey. I haven't redeemed anything yet, but do you want to just give Portia a little update? I guess because, Portia, I don't think you're quite in the credit card points game the same way I'm trying to.

Portia Pendleton LCSW: Enter a I'm a baby.

Katrina Furey MD: You're a baby. Okay. You're in your infancy.

Devon Gimbel MD: Yes, well, it's fine. Everybody starts started. I tell this story in my own communities where I for many years was terrified of credit cards. I didn't have a single credit card in my teens, my 20s, even into my late twenty s, I was very scared of credit cards. I'd always been told that they're dangerous, you can get into debt. And the whole situation around that really frightened me. And I had no money growing up, so I was like, well, I have no money to spend anyway. Get a credit card. I don't know. I'm going to pay it off. So I avoided credit cards for a really long time. And it was only after I had actually completely finished all my medical training, finished my residency, finished my fellowship, that I started to just educate myself about personal finance in general. Just how can I be responsible financially? How do I make that transition from being a forever student, a forever trainee, into having a grown up job and being able to make really responsible financial decisions around retirement and savings and all of these things that they don't teach you, right? That they don't teach us, at least not when I went through school. No one talks about any of that stuff. And I didn't have a personal, familial kind of background in education in that. So it was all personal education. And in learning just about basic personal finance, as one does, you go on the internet, you end up going down all these different rabbit holes, following all these different links. I started falling into these travel blogs and points blogs where people were talking about how you can responsibly and really strategically use credit cards to earn points and then redeem those points, or use them to fly domestically or internationally, use them for hotel stays, and that you could actually save a significant amount of money, not just $100 every few years, but a lot more than that. And I have had a lifelong love of travel, but not the first class travel budget to send myself to all of these places. And so it seemed like this perfect match between. Here's an opportunity, again, very strategically and responsibly to leverage the spend that I was doing anyway, to run my life and to run a business and all of these things, to turn that into an opportunity to travel without having to spend cash on it, so that I could actually use my disposable income towards other things, like paying down my student loans and saving for a house down payment and all of those things. And so that is really kind of the short story about what credit card points are and how they can actually really be used to enhance your travel and your life experience without compromising you financially.

Portia Pendleton LCSW: I love that I'm like in my baby phase, but I will say I am very pro, of course, responsibly. But I'm always telling my mother in law and other people, like, stop using your debit card, the grocery store, use your credit card. You're going to get 3% cash back on that card. Difference of points. But I just think it's so funny, too, if you have the means, right to pay off the credit card, if you're using it almost as cash, it's such an unknown, I think. Wonderful resource to be able to use 100%.

Devon Gimbel MD: And you really hit the nail on the head that it really is a hobby to get into once you're already in a place in your life and in your finances where you are comfortable and able to pay off your credit card statements in full every month. Otherwise, it doesn't make sense. The math doesn't math in terms of getting value out of doing this. But I think it's something that anyone can learn about. And then you can take baby steps into this hobby based on what your comfort level is, again, where you are financially. But to not even know about this as an option is one of the things that I'm trying to get rid of. I think in the personal finance world, there are a couple of things that I think people just really accept to be true nowadays. Like, most people would not just leave a lot of cash in a bag in their house, right. Maybe for safety reasons, but also because it's going to lose value over time. Right. You move up a step from that. Most people also wouldn't leave all of their liquid assets in a savings account in a bank, right. Because again, over time, with inflation, you're going to lose value on that money. That's why we have these different vehicles to allow our money to grow over time. Right. There's the stock market, there's real estate investing. There's traditional retirement accounts. There's all these options. And I think in the world of personal finance, it's now very accepted that we would want to take our money, our saved money, and allow it to do some heavy lifting and grow for us. Right. And I don't think yet the same conversation is being had around our expenses that, like you said, to pay things just with a debit card or just with cash. Of course, that's a very responsible thing to do. And if you can also leverage something like a cashback credit card or a points earning credit card responsibly, to me, that's the same thing as really leveraging your money to grow for you on your investment side.

Katrina Furey MD: Yeah, 100%.

Portia Pendleton LCSW: And you might be able to go to India with your points exactly right.

Devon Gimbel MD: Places you can go to. But I think today we are going to talk about India in particular.

Katrina Furey MD: Right?

Portia Pendleton LCSW: So, have you been, Devin?

Devon Gimbel MD: Yes, I have. And actually, I have been to India twice, and I've never actually been to India using points, because the two times that I went to India, the very first time was when I was in medical school. And we had not a long break, but we had sort of a traditional winter break in medical school around at the end of December. And I remember, I think it was my second year of medical school, they had given us this offer where whatever module we were learning, I think it was like female reproduction or something like that, where if we studied ahead or we took the test early, we could actually have an extra week of winter break. I can't remember exactly what it was. I just remember thinking like, yes, it.

Portia Pendleton LCSW: Probably was female reproduction.

Katrina Furey MD: They're like, come on, let's hurry up. Let's get through this.

Devon Gimbel MD: We don't need to know that much about it, right? Let's take a subject that's vitally important that most medical schools ignore or don't pay very much attention to. Let's just cut that one short. Right? But I remember thinking like, well, yes, because if I can have an expanded break, this is going to be a great time for me to travel. And I had always loved travel and international travel. I had just done it on the most shoestring of shoestring budgets possible. And that was absolutely true in med school as well. I was on complete student loan support when I went to medical school, so I had a ton of disposable income, but I could make it work. And so I ended up having a three week winter break in my second year of medical school. And I knew I wanted to go to India. I'd never been before. And so I went to India by myself for three weeks, and it was absolutely amazing. But I flew the economy of economy classes and took trains and buses around, and it was amazing and incredible, but I didn't know anything about points in medical school. And actually, the second time I went was years later. I actually went in early 2016. So I had my first child, my son, at the end of 2015. And when he was around three months old, I was like, I need a break. I need a solo vacation. I need to be somewhere that's just not kind of the routine of having an infant at home because it's very, very challenging and stressful. And like I said, travel has always been a really important part of my life, and I didn't do a lot of travel. The whole know that I was pregnant with.

Katrina Furey MD: Sure.

Devon Gimbel MD: And so I went back to India. Actually, I took my mom because she had wanted to go and didn't really feel comfortable doing a lot of solo travel. So I was like, this is know, let's go to India together. I've been there before. We'll go to some places. I've been some new places. And I knew about credit card points at that time, but I had not yet really developed my redemption abilities, my ability to find really great flights using points. And so I remember this too because I had been out of training for a couple of years. And for me this was a huge splurge because we bought the tickets using cash. And it was the first time in my life I bought an international flight in premium economy, which was like such a huge upgrade to me compared to flying in economy for twelve or 15 hours. And it was way better than being in economy. And I still remember though, on the flight home there was still the traditional three seats together. And I always pick a window seat. I'm a window seat person and my mom had an aisle seat. And this really polite, nice Italian gentleman was in between us like the whole flight home. My mom and I are flying in premium economy. This is very nice Italian gentleman in between us. And I just remember distinctly remember thinking one day, like one day I will be able to take this type of flight in business class. And that is actually exactly what points have done for me. So that actually may have been the last time I flew a long haul international class in economy or premium economy because since then I have only used points to fly internationally. And being able to do that and like I said, really kind of developing my redemption skills, learning how to leverage those points to book business class internationally has changed my entire travel experience. Oh my God. The flight for me always used to be like the thing that you tolerate to get where you're going, right? The destination is the point. And ever since I learned how to use points now, actually the flight itself is part of the journey. It's actually an enjoyable part of the journey, which it never was for me for many, many years.

Katrina Furey MD: That's such a good, oh, nice, nice word choice, Portia. As we were starting this know, we started thinking about, okay, so what are our delusional goals for ourselves? And mine is that one day maybe we won't even need this if we get so good at using our credit card points. But mine is one day we'll get like one of those sponsors that's a lay flat airline. That's my dream is to lay in the lay flat airline. And I always say, like, I don't even have to go anywhere, just take me up, circle around and come on down.

Devon Gimbel MD: But I bet, I bet that just.

Katrina Furey MD: Makes that long haul so much better. And then you start your vacation feeling excited and good and not in back pain.

Portia Pendleton LCSW: Absolutely.

Devon Gimbel MD: That has been a big thing for me. I'm not that old. I'm in my early 40s, but I have noticed even from when I used to do, I mean, these ridiculous long haul flights. When I was in my. Remember when I was in residency, there were two years in a row where I was joining projects that were happening in Vietnam. And I remember distinctly flying from Boston, where I was doing my residency, of course, in economy, to Vietnam, where between the time changes and stuff, it ends up being like two days later from the time you left to the time you land, being in Vietnam for three days, getting on the airplane, coming home and then coming, know for residency, like your rotation Monday morning. And I remember at that point in my life flying literally, like around the world in a week. It was a little tiring, but the jet lag didn't really hit me physically. It was a little uncomfortable. It wasn't that bad. But as I've gotten older, and I think especially just the physical toll of the work that I was doing, which was not as laborious as being like a surgeon, which I think is a very physically challenging medical profession to be in. I'm a pathologist, but literally sitting at a desk in the same stature for 8910 hours a day for years and years and years, my body now, especially if I'm sitting in a really cramped space for a prolonged period of time, my whole body just starts hurting. And I think a lot of people can probably relate to that experience. Certainly people who might have chronic medical conditions or other physical conditions with their bodies, it can be very hard to sit, especially in those shrinking airline seats that we have now that are smaller than I remember them being when I was in my do again, like a 1012, 14 hours flight, it can be really prohibitive to people physically. And so, yeah, being able to be in a business class seat where you actually have space, you can actually put your feet up, your legs up. It makes a world of difference. And I think one of the things that continues to shock me, even though I've been doing this now for so many years and really being able to leverage points and flying so many places myself, that what you end up paying out of pocket when you book a business class flight using points because you still have to pay some taxes or fees for the airline, that amount of money ends up still being so much less than the cost of an economy ticket. So the fact that using points you can fly, especially international business class, for significantly less than what I use, the deals I used to search for in economy, it still kind of boggles my mind. This is real and it's legal and it actually works.

Katrina Furey MD: Yeah. And again, you're accruing the points by just using the card smartly for your everyday expenses, which is just cool. It's like, why not get a benefit for living, I guess. Yeah.

Devon Gimbel MD: And to me, it's like solving a puzzle, which I think some of us really like that. Whether you really like word puzzles or number puzles or whatever the case may be, to me, the whole points game is how can I figure out how I can earn the highest number of points again for this money I'm spending already? I'm not talking about spending extra money, but we're all spending money to run our lives. And those of us who also happen to run businesses spend money to run our businesses. So it's the puzzle of how can I figure out how to earn as many points as I can for this money I'm already spending? And then I get to trade that in for something that's really amazing. It's just a fun puzzle to solve. And then the prizes, you save money and you get to travel and have these amazing travel experiences that, again, are things that I otherwise probably would not choose to know cash for the equivalent type of travel.

Portia Pendleton LCSW: I'm just thinking of Sonny, our hotel manager in the best exotic Marigold hotel. If he maybe had used points, riGht? So he has this business, the he, because he paid for their airfare, right, to come down. It could have been paid with points. I'm sure it wasn't because he seems a little scattered. Katrina, do you want to intro?

Katrina Furey MD: Yeah. Great segue, Portia. So today we're going to be talking about the film the Best Exotic Mary Gold Hotel, which came out in 2011. It's a British comedy drama directed by John Madden with a screenplay written by Old Parker. And it was actually based on a book, the 2004 novel these Foolish Things by the novelist Deborah Magic. I'm probably not saying her name correctly, but it's a really fun movie. I hadn't seen it before, but I thought it was really fun. You see a great cast of British actors and actresses, like, every single wedd. I was like, oh, my God. Judy Dench, Maggie Smith, just all star cast of retirement age folks who seems like are kind of in a financial pinch for all their different reasons. One's daughters sort of like, invested all their retirement savings in a startup that didn't take off the ground. Another one's know died, leaving all this debt she had to pay. Know. Everyone has their different story, and so they all find themselves going to India to stay at the best exotic Marigold hotel. And then in, like, teeny tiny letters, it says, for the elderly and beautiful. And then of know, the whole point of the film, I think, is that they find themselves at this hotel, which isn't how it looks online. I think a lot of people traveling in Airbnbs these days kind of find themselves in that situation, and then they're totally in this culture shock, and you see how each of them copes with that and you see their stories play out. And it's a really interesting take on traveling, I think, internationally, and seeing how different personality types cope with the hiccups and the speed bumps and the unexpectedness that comes with traveling like that.

Portia Pendleton LCSW: I'm just thinking of Jean. So that's the wife of Douglas, who's just really pessimistic the whole time.

Katrina Furey MD: Yes.

Portia Pendleton LCSW: So probably not someone you'd want to travel with. Probably is choosing, I'm assuming, not to travel typically. But I thought when you're talking about first Class, right. She's so excited that she can afford a first know. I think she says turning right, she's.

Katrina Furey MD: Going to turn left, which is just.

Portia Pendleton LCSW: Know she paid full price because she just came into some money, it sounds like. But I just was laughing kind of thinking about music points for this. But, ooh, she was rough to kind of watch. Just so negative.

Devon Gimbel MD: Yeah. I think this is a movie. I was telling Katrina earlier that I'm the type of person where if I find a movie that I like, I will very easily watch it. I mean, literally, like ten times, 100 times. Don't even ask my husband how many times I've seen this movie. Have it on in the background every other week. It's one of my favorite movies to travel with, to just load up onto my iPad and just watch little bits and pieces of. Because I know the story so well. And I think one of the things that, to me, I think there's so many interesting and compelling points of this movie and the different characters. But speaking specifically about that, one character that you're talking about is, I think that she is such sort of an archetype of what I consider to be the type of person who travel could really benefit, but they don't have any sort of ability to receive that, to be able to go into a place that is very different from what they're used to and to also use that experience to say what is for me here. Right. And I think about all of the different options that are available to us when we travel. And people, of course, have so many different types of preferences, like the places they like to go, the type of travel they really enjoy. And I think one of the things that resonates with me about this movie is that even though I had no background as a child growing up of traveling the world or people really educating me about the differences that the world holds and all of the different people that populate this world. Right. And all the amazing and rich cultures and histories that come from around the world. I think one of the things I've always loved the most about travel is going to places that don't seem familiar to me, that don't seem like a replica of where I grew up. And I actually grew up in Southern California. So that was kind of the center of my universe for the first 20 years of my life. That was what was my frame of reference. And so when I travel now, and even when I started traveling as a late teen and early in my. Never really drawn towards places that I think are sort of American peripheral. Exactly. And I think, I mean, is London amazing? I'm sure it is. I've never been there. Not more than for a. Again, you know, do Western countries know rich cultural histories? Yes, absolutely. And I was never that drawn to going to places that were going to be very similar to the States I was always really drawn to. There's so much more out there. And so I think that's one of the reasons that I love this movie, is because it shows so much about what some of those differences are. And I have such an affinity for that. Like the scene where they finally land. They take this long international flight, they finally land. And the ride that was supposed to pick them up from the airport to take them to their sort of retirement hotel community isn't there. So they all have to get on a local bus and take a local bus to this city. And the scene where there's just so much about that, honestly, that I love and can relate to where it's like, as I remember the very first time this happened to me, the very first country that I traveled in, lived in for a short period of know, way far outside of North America was actually Kenya. I lived there for a summer when I was in Undergrad. And they have these minibuses there, and I can't remember the name of them off the top of my head. I should have looked it up before we did this episode. But I can just so remember, like, literally this picture of me standing on the road waiting for one of these minibuses to come, and it pulls up. And I think this is such a North American way of looking at something where you look at a minibus and you can count the number of rows that are in it, and your head kind of does the calculation of, oh, okay, well, there are nine seats in this minibus. So you look at the line of people and you think, oh, the first nine people are going to get on. We're all going to sit in our little designated seat, and we're going to go on our way. And I remember the very first time the minibus came, and 32 of us get into the minibus, where it's like, you get in and the nine seats are full, and then it's like, yeah, well, there's more people, right? So let's make some room, let's squish. And then there's like a couple of little kids. They fit on our laps. That's great. Some people, the door of the little minivan isn't going to close all the way. And there's places where people can hang on. And it's the same thing with that scene where everybody piles on and there's all the stuff that's tied to it and then the driving. Right. I think this is one of the things that cracks me up so much about seeing, especially seeing North Americans when they travel outside of sort of North American or Western countries for the first time. And some of the things that work very differently. And seeing their reactions and driving is one of those things that in North America, we have a way that we drive, right. We love our lines, we love our rules, we love the stoplights, and everyone kind of knows what to expect. And that's not the way that driving is done in a lot of other countries. And it still works and it's very efficient. Right. So when they're in the bus and the buses are in the quote, unquote, wrong side of traffic to go around other buses. And there's two lanes that you see that are drawn on the road, but maybe there's five lanes worth of cars, and they all know how to navigate around each other. So it works, right? So this is efficient and it works. But you can see the reactions of very kind of traditionally North American or European people who are like, what the hell is going on? We're all going to die. This makes no sense. But it does make sense, right? And I think that's one of my favorite things about travel in general, is getting so far out of your comfort zone the way that you think things are supposed to work. Yeah. Maybe in one place that is how they work. Doesn't mean that's the best way for them to work.

Portia Pendleton LCSW: Right. I think we see an interesting comparison between Jean and Muriel. Comes in hot, like. And then she is able to really, you know, she's racist at quite the one you don't like to like at all. And I was like, no, right. I was like, no, Professor McConaughey, no.

Katrina Furey MD: What are you doing being so racist? And that was so interesting to me. And I think this film does such a good job. Exploring that through these different characters is like, I wouldn't have thought she'd be the one, given what we saw from her, to really open up her mind by the end and actually come to work at this hotel and work with the team and be really open even to the woman who was delivering her food. And I did not see that coming, that she would be the one to really open her mind based on those early depictions of her.

Devon Gimbel MD: Yeah. And I think that that's something that is a really good reminder for some of us. I think that when we travel, we're always going to be confronted with some challenges. At least that's been my experience. Right. Not everything always goes according to plan. Or sometimes you end up in a place where some things just don't make sense to you. Right. Or they really make you question, like, wait a minute, why are things done so differently here than what I was expecting? And why am I having a problem with that, if I am right? And to be able to have an example, and these are all obviously fictitious characters, but I think that example of seeing. Okay, so maybe you have an experience where you are not interested, right, in kind of opening up your mind to a different place or a different way of doing things. And at the same time, when you are willing to do that, I think that is one of the biggest impacts that travel can have on us. I think that for better or for worse, all of us, to a certain extent, we are a product of our environment, right? Like, we were all born somewhere, we were all raised somewhere. We were all sort of exposed to certain messages, whether they were implicit or explicit, coming from our families of origin, our communities of origin, our schools, as we. I don't know. This is a personal opinion of know. If you are educated in the public school system in North America, you're not exactly given a completely unbiased view of the world and of, you know, a lot of us carry around these things that we don't even realize that we were know about just how places are and how the world works. And when you travel, I think it's such an amazing opportunity to really confront those things sometimes for the first time, like what was I taught? Or what have I been told to believe about different places in the world or my place in the world, and to be able to confront that and then actually look around you and look at what you're seeing about, wait a minute, I'm in this place that, on the surface, doesn't make sense to me because it doesn't resemble where I came from. But what is actually true about this place, what is true about the way that people relate to one another, about the way that people love one another or take care of one another? And I think at a very basic level, to me, travel is really about experiencing that level of humanity wherever you are. Because I have never been to a place where people were not just genuinely humane. Do you know what I mean? I don't speak languages other than English, so that's my inability sometimes to communicate with people. But I think even when you go to somewhere where you have not educated yourself about how to speak the language of that area, you still have that opportunity to observe just how do people treat one another. And I think that there's just this conserved, again, humanity, no matter where you go in the world. And I think that when you're able to kind of see that and latch onto that, it can really help you to begin to understand that. Like, oh, wait a minute, maybe some ideas I had about this type of place or I had about this area of the world aren't actually that true or that relevant. The invitation to be able to kind of drop some of those preconceived notions, I think is one of the really powerful impacts that travel can have.

Katrina Furey MD: Right? If you're open to it, if you're like one of these characters who wants their boiled chicken and rice and their little cookies, and you're not open to trying the new food or the new drinks or sort of being open to the culture, then it's going to be really hard for you, like we see with Jean. But I think you are so right, Devin. And this film does such a great job of also depicting just such common experiences in humanity and how we all experience it, no matter what culture we're in or where we find ourselves, like grief, aging, love, loss, like all of that that we see depicted in this movie in such a beautiful way. And how even the crop of British characters, they don't know each other, so they're also getting to know each other, like making friends know at that stage of your life and how do you deal with it? And then we know, especially with Graham, who I just loved his seeing the way his sexuality affected his life in both of these cultures and how it was dealt with or not dealt with, and how he's coming to terms with that at this phase of his life and reuniting with his old partner and just how beautiful that was.

Portia Pendleton LCSW: I think about travel and intent with travel. Right. I think even thinking about moving or traveling for a shorter time period, I like to remind clients that wherever you go, you take yourself with you. So keeping that in mind, just thinking of travel tips.

Devon Gimbel MD: Right.

Portia Pendleton LCSW: So if you are someone who's more anxious, it's like, okay, how can you do things in preparation for this trip to make you have a better experience? So maybe you have to plan more and you have some backup plans, or if this goes wrong, this is how I'll handle this. Or making sure you take your medications with you, extra if you're there for longer. So I think it's just like even trying to know yourself as a traveler can help prepare you. So it's like, Jean, I think maybe I'm leaping here, but seems like she doesn't have super great self awareness, and she also just doesn't want to be there. And it's not, like, a fun experience for her. It's like, oh, this is what we're left then. You know, if we see Evelyn, who is grieving, she had some significant negative stuff to deal with, with learning that there was all this debt, and it's like she is going there, taking herself and her grief and establish kind of a home, and it's like she feels more secure despite grief and other challenges versus just to handle travel, I guess I'm trying to say, yeah, she really.

Katrina Furey MD: Gets her feet on the ground. She gets her first job. Both her and Jean are dealing with financial catastrophe that led them into this situation, but they handle it so differently.

Devon Gimbel MD: Yeah. And I think one of the really fascinating things about travel, I think back on just different trips, I've taken, different types of experiences I've had, and especially when I was younger, so sort of the first couple of times, I really had an experience again to leave the United States and to visit places with very different histories and very different current situations than the United States. I think one of the things that I really noticed for myself was sort of this opportunity, like, the opportunity to hang on to what you know and the way that you're used to things being and whether or not you were going to let other places being different than what you were used to. Is that going to be an opportunity for me? To get really anxious for me to get really frustrated or for me to try to impose what I'm used to on a place that has no interest or no need to be what I want it to be? Or can I really kind of walk into this scenario and say, wait a minute, this place works very differently than what I am used to, and what can I do with that? What opportunity is here for me? And I really remember when I was in, I took an extended period of time off, I guess, at least for a traditional sort of educational pathway. I took about two years off in between being an undergrad and going to medical school. And even though I knew the whole time I was an undergrad, I wanted to go to medical school. I also knew that once I started, I probably wasn't going to have the opportunity to take a lot of breaks, right, to go around and travel around the world for an extended period of time until probably traditional retirement age. And so I deliberately took a couple of years off so that I could go and really kind of wander around the world. And I spent a couple of months living and traveling around Southeast Asia. And I just remember kind of the way of traveling then. It was, for me, a very nostalgic time. It was still kind of pre digital era, like the Internet existed, but everything was still dial up. There were Internet cafes, no one know, cell phones, where you could basically just walk around with Google translating Google Maps and all of these things. And it was very much more of a nomadic kind of time for travel. And I remember that we would just sort of make plans on the fly. You'd hear about a place that someone had just come back from that you hadn't planned on visiting. And it sounded amazing. It's like, maybe we should take a bus there overnight and go and stay in this place for two or three days and never kind of really knowing what to expect again. I consider myself very typically North American in my love of schedules. And if someone says that a flight is leaving at a certain time or a bus is leaving at a certain time, I'm standing there at that time thinking, okay, where's the bus? Where's the train? And just kind of learning how to be very flexible around concepts of things like time, that not everybody has this same worship of time and schedules as we do here in North America. And really kind of seeing, liKe, wait a. Like, I can come in here and get super frustrated that the way I thought something was going to unfold isn't the way that it's going to unfold. And sometimes I did right. I mean, I'm a human being. There were a lot of times I was frustrated or like, I don't know what's happening here. And at the same time, I remember coming home from that specific trip where I spent a couple of months traveling and living in different places in Southeast Asia. And I remember just thinking to myself, like, I have such a greater capacity to be flexible now. And that is one of the things that that trip really taught me, was just the benefit of letting go of that. And my experience was so much better when I finally was kind of able to embrace that invitation to just be more flexible, be a little bit less uptight about every single thing. And honestly, I don't know if I would have learned that in the same way, if I never had taken that trip, if I had stayed at home and worked a summer job like I normally did or something like that. I don't know that I would have gotten that same lesson.

Katrina Furey MD: Oh, that's such a good point. And I think a beautiful way of experiencing something we talk probably, Portia, you do too. A lot about in therapy with patients is knowing yourself and knowing what are your personality traits or quirks that are a positive and a know that rigidity, that planning, on the one hand, probably made you such a good pathologist and doctor and probably makes you so good at this credit card point stuff. But on the other hand, could be an impediment when you're traveling and you need to be more flexible. But what a great way to learn how to do that without also losing that other part of yourself that helps you in these other areas. And how can you marry those two elements of your personality and learn how to foster that skill, that cognitive flexibility?

Devon Gimbel MD: I think that's also reflected in the movie. You had kind of touched on the character Evelyn, where it wasn't actually her plan initially to go and live in this retirement hotel in India. And she did it, like you said, because her husband passes away, she's left with a lot of debt. And so it's not like she jumped in with both feet thinking, oh, this is going to be just an incredible experience. Yeah. And you see her and how adaptable she is. And I think especially for someone, again, I feel like one of the things that was kind of like, more a common message when I was growing up than it is now is just sort of like, you are the way you are. And especially the older you get, the less likely you are to be able to change and adapt. And I love seeing examples of people in their sixty s or seventy s whatever, doing these brand new things and adapting and then getting to a place where they're actually thriving even more right after that adaptation. And I think that's one of the reasons that I really love her character, is that at the end, when she's on the motorbike with Bill Nye's character, and they're just, like, driving through the streets of Jaipur, and she has really kind of undergone that adaptation. And I think that that's a really nice example for us to see. And I think, especially, again, to see that not in someone who's Five, I expect kids to be really adaptable and flexible, but to see that in an adult who can really kind of take on that unexpected challenge and then become. Yeah, exactly.

Katrina Furey MD: It's such a great depiction of that human capacity for resilience if you're open to it and you have those tools in you to be able to do right. And I'm sure her and Douglas kind of drew from each other's strengths. Right. Whereas Jean, Douglas's wife, just wasn't interested. She just wasn't. She wanted to go home, and that's her prerogative. But it was really interesting to see that. And I think as we're thinking about travel, I think some of what we're talking about can translate from international travel to getting in the car and going to see your in laws for Thanksgiving. Right. I think even something like that small can be stressful for a lot of people. Right? Yeah.

Portia Pendleton LCSW: Picking up your stuff. I mean, family dynamics, just getting everything in the car, forgetting things. I think what's nice now, just to keep in mind, too, is that if you are going, know, I guess, like a couple days and you're not going into the middle of the forest, I guess, like we have Amazon or there's stores we can get, things know, we forget. But I think, you know, Katrina and I had talked about, and it's coming out later in more of our holiday season, just like setting boundaries for yourself, knowing your limits, having outs. And I think that can be applied, right. To travel for pleasure and just traveling maybe an hour away to see family or friends during this crazy busy time.

Katrina Furey MD: Yeah, it's normal to feel stressed, even if you're super excited. And if you're someone like me who gets such a dopamine hit and such a thrill from planning a trip, I feel like part of the fun for me with vacations is planning it and fantasizing about it and thinking about all the different options. I love to do that. Even if once we get there we don't follow the itinerary. We just do whatever we want. But I still love it. I don't know, I just love that part of it. I think because I am such a planner that it just does something for me. But, yeah, even traveling more closer to home, you can use some of those tips.

Portia Pendleton LCSW: So I think we were kind of laughing about even just our own travel experiences. So I, for the first time ever, I'm a very anxious traveler. I'm very interested in going places. I'd like to be open to them, but I had never gone to Europe or anything. Like, I went to Hawaii, but nothing else. Like off the continental us. Only last summer I went to Italy and Greece and ended up at a wedding. So that's kind of why we went. And I was laughing when you were talking about the driving because especially in Greece, we're going like 90 miles an hour. Our luggage is like tied to the top and we couldn't figure out how to get a cab. It was just like chaos, and we were all grinning. I had a great time, but even just noticing where my anxiety would kind of peak or where I was very surprised and proud of myself for managing. Well, I will say that I did walk away with more confidence. So I do feel like I can do it again, but I think it's just like taking that first step and doing it and maybe starting with a more similar place, at least if you're like me, is really helpful in building confidence to now go to Europe, to now know that I can manage my way through. So, but something that I was laughing also about in the movie and I wanted to just bring up, is there a little quick depiction of them all going to the bathroom, like many times after starting just like, to eating the food, I think that's something that is, I guess I'd say common, right. With traveling. Like, we get used to where we are, our guts, and so when we introduce something new, it doesn't mean it's bad or unsafe. It's just like different and different. Our bellies are a little slower to adapt.

Devon Gimbel MD: Yeah, I think, again, especially if you're going to be traveling internationally to a lot of different places, something is oftentimes bound to happen. I'm pretty careful in terms of drinking water. I think when you're traveling internationally, I think it's always a good idea to drink bottled water just because that's usually kind of like the most reliable source. But with food, I've seen so many things happen. I've seen people get sick eating at, quote, unquote really high end restaurants, I've seen people get upset stomachs from eating things that they can pick up at street markets and street carts, which is, like, amazing food oftentimes. And so I think, yes, if you go in there, I think one of the things for me, again, just having had the experience of traveling to a lot of different places and doing a lot of it solo, but then sometimes also traveling with other people, so having that ability to kind of just see their experience, and when it's very different from mine being like, oh, I wonder what's happening here? Why are we having such a different, either physical or emotional experience to the same thing that's happening here? And I think, again, a lot of it comes down to expectation, right? Like, if you have an expectation that things are going to work for you exactly the same way that they do when you're home, then maybe you are going to be disappointed, or maybe you're going to be in a situation where when that doesn't happen, you have a little bit less capacity to kind of manage that and deal with it, because ultimately, like I said, things are going to come up. And I think when you walk into an international travel situation, or like you guys were saying, even a domestic travel situation, and you're at least open to the possibility, like, oh, something may not go exactly the way that I thought it would, knowing that almost all the time, there is a solution to that, right. Even if it's uncomfortable for a couple of hours over a couple of days, oftentimes there is a solution, and it's really not going to be something that has just horrible impact on your life.

Katrina Furey MD: Right?

Portia Pendleton LCSW: Yeah, that's a good point. And I think another flight, there's another car service, there's another time you can.

Katrina Furey MD: Talk 100% and just preparing for that. Like you said, framing your expectations appropriately and knowing if you're someone who runs on the more anxious side or more rigid or controlled side, maybe work on that ahead of time and just say, like, okay, so what are my expectations for this trip? Or I talk about this a lot in therapy. Even with planning a birthday party for your child, if you're someone who's more perfectionistic, like, okay, so these are my expectations. Let's drop it down by half and see what does that feel like to settle in with? Or how will I sort of cope with the bumps in the road that come along and to just normalize, like, that's totally normal. To feel stressed or anxious in a new place or by unexpected events or things going wrong, that's normal for you to have those feelings. So how can you cope with it in the moment? And talking about that.

Portia Pendleton LCSW: Yeah, that's a good idea to our listeners. If any of you need some extra support during this time, maybe you should talk about it.

Katrina Furey MD: Right.

Portia Pendleton LCSW: With a friend, know, a professional. But traveling, I think it's like, it can be the best and the most is, like, those often come together and can be both. And I do really love and wanted to point out Devin's use of and frequently.

Devon Gimbel MD: Right.

Portia Pendleton LCSW: Like, we're holding two things at the same time. So this could be very and different, very dialectical.

Katrina Furey MD: It's very good. Yeah.

Devon Gimbel MD: Well, I had mentioned this to Katrina, but I do happen to be married to a psychiatrist, so while I do not profess to have any psychiatric skills whatsoever, I do think by osmosis, the fact that I've been around him now for 20 years, throughout all of his psychiatric medical training, and just the benefit of hearing somebody who is very skilled and very educated and very wise in terms of language and how we approach situations, I think some of that has probably rubbed off on me just, like, a tiny, tiny little bit.

Katrina Furey MD: That's great.

Devon Gimbel MD: Yeah, I love that.

Katrina Furey MD: So great. I mean, I think a theme that I'm hearing as I'm analyzing our conversation in real time is the importance. Knowing yourself, your strengths, maybe your weaknesses, how they bump up against each other, knowing what kind of boundaries you might have for yourself. Like Portia, you were saying? Maybe you want to be someone who is a really adventurous traveler.

Portia Pendleton LCSW: Great.

Katrina Furey MD: But maybe let's start a little smaller. Maybe go with a partner you trust to sort of have that almost, like exposure to international travel to boost your confidence and then go somewhere more adventurous the next time and kind of build on it and just learning how to use positive coping skills in these moments when things happen that are unexpected, everything from deep breathing, grounding techniques, meditative techniques, to. If you're someone who needs medication to fly, like propranolol or something like that, to manage your anxiety. Great. Make sure you bring it with you. Yeah.

Portia Pendleton LCSW: I think just, like, touching back to the movie a little bit, we see the capacity in all the characters to change, and I think, right, like most people, everyone, maybe that's a little too generous, but does have the capacity. But it's like, are you seeking that out? Do you want it? Do you know that you can't have it? And I think that's where it's know, I think that Jean can have the capacity to travel and do things, but it sounds like at that, like she didn't want to, but I'm sure she can. And now she's going to have a lovely time flying home in first class and it'll be a magical experience for her. So we got to figure out, I guess, what works for us. But I loved the movie I had never seen.

Katrina Furey MD: I did, too.

Portia Pendleton LCSW: It was and beautiful and touched on loss and grief and aging and being told you can't do something and doing it anyway. The message is just wonderful. So if you haven't watched it, please do.

Katrina Furey MD: Yeah, highly recommend it.

Devon Gimbel MD: Agree. And I think it just really also beautifully highlights India and the specific city in India, Jaipur, which is just such an amazing and vibrant and incredible place. And I love that you actually get to see little bits and pieces of that in the movie as well. So even if maybe you aren't thinking of actually taking a trip anywhere in the near future, but you kind of want to live vicariously through a movie, I think this is a really wonderful movie to be able to get a glimpse of just really how rich and gorgeous another place, another culture is.

Portia Pendleton LCSW: Oh, definitely. I love reading and watching things about India. I've read the perfumist.

Devon Gimbel MD: It's a good book.

Portia Pendleton LCSW: It's about like a woman in the early 19 hundreds who lives in England, but goes back to become this wonderful perfumist that all these major beauty brands want at the time. And she spends a lot of time back in her roots in India. And of the flavors and colors and scents is so like, I could feel it reading movie. I'm actually getting right the visual of all the colors and scents.

Katrina Furey MD: Food.

Portia Pendleton LCSW: I was like, oh, I really want. Can we get takeout this week? I'm really in the mood, so. Oh, it was just wonderful. Yeah, it was great. It's good to have you, too.

Katrina Furey MD: Yeah. And I think as we wrap up, one thing I did also love about this film is sometimes I think maybe even with traveling, I haven't done a lot of international travel, but I think this concept of cultural tourism is interesting. And I feel like in this film it could have gone that way. They could have gotten all these elderly folks on a van and gone to all the major sites and stuff, but they didn't. It's like they really, whether they wanted to or not, kind of got immersed in the culture they were in. And you saw how some of them, like Evelyn, wanted to immerse and really live in it. Sometimes they would drive and she'd be like, no, I'm going to walk or I'm going to do this. And I just think that's an interesting way to think about it, rather than just like, plopping in and taking everything from the culture, really trying to make it more of like a two way dynamic. I would imagine it just makes it all the richer all across the board.

Devon Gimbel MD: Yeah, I agree. And I mean, that's a topic, honestly, there could be hours and hours of conversation about that. But I agree, especially in countries that have a history, a very strong history, right. Of colonialism, of very imbalanced power structures. And when you are someone who maybe is North American by descent or European by descent, being very mindful of those histories and thinking about, yes, I think it is important to go out and experience the world, and also how can we do it in a way that is less extractive, that is less about our going to place and what do we get out of it? Because I think that is honestly something that those of us who are North American, we are just implicitly raised with that kind of behavior. And I think that we have an opportunity to really be mindful and deliberate about when we want to go out and we want to expand our own experiences in this world. How can we do that in a way that is incredibly respectful of the places that we're going, that also gives back right to those communities that isn't just completely extractive by nature. And I think that that is a topic that deserves, again, I mean, so, but starting from that place of really saying, like you said, what is it like to actually be immersed in a place versus just kind of landing there and then just kind of like picking and choosing what is it that's going to be useful for me. And I think, especially now, one of the things that I really appreciate about travel, when I think about it now, compared to travel that I experienced ten years ago, 20 years ago, is I do think there are more conversations about how can we be responsible in the ways that we travel. Right. How can we be more respectful in the ways that we travel. And I think that those are important conversations to continue to develop and to have with ourselves when we are going to go somewhere, before we make our plans, before we decide what are we going to do when we get to this place is kind of incorporating some of those questions into our travel planning.

Portia Pendleton LCSW: Yeah, I'm really happy we are touching on that and kind of landing there. Just kind of thinking of your future travels and where you might be going, and how can you protect everyone as you travel yourself? Of course. But how can you, even if we think about making sure you're cleaning up after yourself, you're you're not leaving yourself.

Katrina Furey MD: You're.

Portia Pendleton LCSW: You're going as a right and being respectful. And I like that tone with where we're kind of leaving it.

Katrina Furey MD: Yeah. Yeah. Well, again, Devin, thank you so much for joining us. This was so fun. I feel like a little starstruck because, like, trying to get into the points game. So this is so cool to talk to an expert and I think like another woman who's used her skill set and now translated it into something totally different and fun. I just so admire it. So I'm so thrilled you were able to join us. I so appreciate it. I hope you had as much fun as we did. And why don't you just let everyone know where they can find you if they want to learn more about the points game and learn more about you?

Devon Gimbel MD: Yeah, absolutely. First, thank you so much for having me. I love the way that you all do your show, the idea for it. It's so fun for me to have the invitation to come here and to talk about travel in a little bit of a different way than I normally do. So I really appreciate the invitation. I've loved our conversation today. And yeah, for anybody who kind of wants to find out more about the points world, the work I do, you can find me at my website. It's just pointmetofirstclass.com. I also have a podcast of the exact same name. Point me to first class. That's where I talk about all sorts of different topics and issues around earning points and using points and just the point of points travel. So you can find me in either one of those places. And just thank you so much again for having me here today.

Katrina Furey MD: Well, thank you all so much. And you can find us at Analyze Scripts podcast on Instagram and TikTok. We are starting to release video podcasts, so if you're listening to this, please check out our YouTube channel for the video version and we will see you next Monday and hope that your travels this week and in the future go well, as well as they can and that you sort of coast along with the road.

Portia Pendleton LCSW: Thanks, guys. Take care. Bye.

Katrina Furey MD: This podcast and its contents are a copyright of analyzed scripts. All rights reserved. Any redistribution or reproduction of part or all of the contents in any form is prohibited. Unless you want to share it with your friends and rate, review, and subscribe, that's fine. All stories and characters discussed are fictional in nature. No identification with actual persons, living or deceased places, buildings, or products is intended or should be inferred. This podcast is for enter attainment purposes only. The podcast and its contents do not constitute professional mental health or medical advice. Listeners might consider consulting a mental health provider if they need assistance with any mental health problems or concerns. As always, please call 911 or go directly to your nearest emergency room for any psychiatric emergencies. Thanks for listening and see you next time.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.