How my inner voice made me dance (and live) in Colombia for two years

Intentional decision-making is a hard one. Head over gut feeling seems what society rewards us for. But where does that leave us?

As some of you might know, besides my day job as a German copywriter, I'm also a dancer. Jazz, house, tribal, tango, salsa… you name it, I will try it. And my moving hips led to some serious decisions in my life.

Like the time when I travelled to Colombia. Initially, I just wanted to try out this much-raved-about digital nomad life – and I wanted to learn salsa. I’ve never danced a “couple dance” before, so I thought Latin America was a good place to start.

After I spent some time in Medellín (beautiful city, btw), I moved to Cali – the so-called capital of salsa. But when I first arrived there, I was … let's say, not exactly wowed. It was noisy, a lot of traffic, and the city itself was really not the prettiest.

But this impression changed completely when I first stepped into La Topa Tolondra – a small salsa club at the time. I felt like I had crossed a threshold into a film scene from another era.

(image source @LaTopaTolondra)

These people weren’t dancing, they were breathing music. It seemed like salsa was like a second language, fluently spoken by literally every person in the room. During my time in Cali I haven’t met a single person who couldn’t dance salsa. I mean, look at their national soccer team! 🤣

“You have to stay” said the voice… and I listened

Over the weeks, my inner voice started whispering: "You have to stay!" And although my head was throwing all kinds of doubts at me, this inner voice was always louder. Could I work remotely from here for longer? Well, as a freelancer, my clients were cool with me working from somewhere else, but Cali was a whole new ball game.

A 7-hour time difference? For a PR person managing local campaigns? I'll be honest with you: Many clients weren't thrilled, some of them stopped working with me. So money was definitely on the line. But again, something inside of me screamed at me, "This is it. Do it." And I did.

I packed my stuff, sublet my flat, and moved to Cali. Days were spent at the university, picking up the language, and nights? All about dancing salsa. Here is an impression of how it looked like in 2018. And who can you see at 1.10 min? Yep, that’s me, the curly something with the double chin – but this was obviously not the feature my dance partner was interested in 😆.

What really was meant to be a short adventure turned into almost two years. Although at one point I felt I needed to go back to Europe, this decision back then was one of the best I've ever made.

And I believe one of the reasons I could hear this voice so well was my dance training. It nurtured and intensified my body mind connection. All these movements, steps and entirely new rhythms I had to put into my body definitely fine-tuned my senses.

Inspiring Ted Talk about the multiple invisible pitfalls in decision-making

And this brings me to an amazing TED Talk by Dr. Rishma Walji I watched recently. Or should I say by “Trish” because this is how she used to introduced herself for many years. Well, no biggie, she thought. It was simply easier for others to pronounce. But over time, she realized with this little “habit” she not only neglected her culture, she also realized that "Trish" started making important life choices. Was it Rishma who wanted to work in academics, or was it Trish?

This is the problem with decision-making, right? How often did I decide something because it made sense…. because it was reasonable….because it promised “security”. But the best decisions in my life were those when I listened to my inner voice – like the time in Colombia.

So here is the Ted talk about the numerous invisible pitfalls we face when making decisions. It certainly gave me a lot of food for thoughts. Give it a watch, and let me know what you think.

Cheers,
Katie