Key Moments:

1. Lindsay's first encounter with Bitcoin in Indianapolis.
2. How a first date with a Bitcoiner changed her perception.
3. The allure of the hope the Nashville Bitcoin Meetup brought Lindsay.
4. Mention of the HODL UP game (available at www.freemarketkids.com) and its role in helping Lindsay finally understand Bitcoin.

Background: Lindsay, a registered nurse with 14 years of experience, provides insight into her Bitcoin journey.

Learning Resources:

1. The value of joining local Bitcoin communities like the Nashville Bitcoin meetup.
2. Encouragement to self-educate about the dollar and compare its properties to Bitcoin.

Personal Experience: Lindsay discusses the economic challenges she faced transitioning from a travel nurse to a staff nurse, highlighting the impact of inflation.

To learn more about Bitcoin: Join the Orange Hatter Women's Reading Club. Visit https://www.meetup.com/womensbitcoinreadingclubwithorangehatter

Please email questions/comments to Tali@orangehatter.com

HODL UP is available at www.freemarketkids.com.

Remember: Knowledge is empowerment! 🍊🎩

Mentioned in this episode:

Aleia Free Market Kids Sponsorship FULL

Get your HODL UP ("The best bitcoin game ever!") at www.freemarketkids.com.

Hi everyone.

Welcome to Orange Chatter.

Today you're listening to a conversation I had with Lindsay.

Welcome to Orange Chatter.

I'm so happy to have you here.

We have lots to talk about, lots of fun things.

But let's start with our first question.

When did you hear about Bitcoin, and what was your journey like

from discovery to conviction?

Yes.

Thank you so much for welcoming me onto your podcast.

I'm really excited to be here and to talk about Bitcoin today.

When did I hear about Bitcoin?

Okay, so this is kind of interesting, but I first heard about Bitcoin when

I was living in Indianapolis, Indiana.

I was running errands and.

Driving down the street and I saw a sign and all the sign said

was like, Bitcoin accepted here.

And I was just like, hmm, what is, what is Bitcoin?

And over the next few years, I, I heard about it a little bit in the news,

but I didn't pay a ton of attention.

I'm not really in like the finance world personally or professionally, and so I

just kind of like, I knew about Bitcoin but didn't know much about what it was,

and then a few years later, I found myself on a first date with a guy who was a

Coiner and I met the guy for dinner and we were just getting to know each other,

talking about our lives, our backgrounds.

You know what we were doing in Nashville.

I live in Nashville, Tennessee.

And it comes out that this guy is preparing to buy a house and actually as

of that day, had like seen a house and put an offer on it, but he was waiting

to hear if his offer was going to be accepted because the offer was in Bitcoin.

So of course that kind of led to conversation of like, what is Bitcoin and

what do you mean you're, you're buying a house with Bitcoin and tell me more.

And that, that just led to more and more conversation about just

everything that Bitcoin is and.

I was intrigued because I had already like gotten an impression of this guy,

that he was highly intelligent and just the way that he spoke about, you know,

his life, his education, his career.

I could tell that he was like a really smart guy, and so I

hearing him talk about Bitcoin.

I was like, okay, this, it, it gave it like a credibility that I

don't think that, you know, me just like reading about Bitcoin on the

internet would've like given it.

So yeah, that's how I heard about Bitcoin.

So I ended up, dating the guy for a while and we are no longer together,

but we are still really good friends.

And at one point he invited me to the Nashville Bitcoin meetup, I think.

I think I like declined his invitation a few times and then I finally made

it out to a meetup and that's when.

I started learning more and more and really just noticing that, okay,

there's like all these people in Nashville and people who come from

outside of Nashville coming to here.

You know, these panels of people who are experts in different areas of

Bitcoin and just like the vibe at those meetups was just one of hope,

and it was really alluring to just.

Keep coming back and keep learning more and like kind of just like basking in

this like feeling of hope that I didn't really have anywhere else in my life.

So yeah, I am privileged to attend most of the Nashville Bitcoin meetups

these days and just get more and more connected with people in the space.

So that must have been a really strange experience to be sitting across

the table from someone on your first date.

And he's in the process of buying an entire house with Bitcoin, which

a lot of people think is a scam anyway, and not something real.

And yet he was making a real life purchase.

What, what were the first thoughts that went through your mind?

That must've been quite a scene?

Yes.

So exactly what you said.

It was something that made this sort of like abstract idea,

this like alternative currency.

It just made it way more tangible and way more real, and something that's.

Kind of a fun fact is that that offer did go through and that transaction was the

first Bitcoin transaction for real estate in the county where he bought the house.

So it was really kind of historic and you know, it closed the deal closed and

that's like he has the title to the house.

So now this asset of Bitcoin has become, you know, another hard asset in his life.

So you can't really like, argue with that.

It's right in front of your face.

You're living in it, you're touching the walls, right?

So that's really cool.

Now, when you first, that's a pretty convincing evidence, I would say, for

most people to believe that it's true.

It's a real thing, right?

So then what was it like when you first started learning about it because I know

that you mentioned he started explaining what it is to you from knowing nothing

to witnessing the purchase of a house and then someone explaining it to you.

Was it overwhelming?

In the beginning?

It was.

There's so much to understand about Bitcoin, but what I will say is that

he was such a patient teacher and really, like, would, would try to

explain one facet of Bitcoin and I would like repeat back my understanding

of it and he would then be like, okay, not quite, so let me try again.

And he, he just kept doing that until one day it was like, it was probably a year

later we were actually playing your game.

Yours and Scott's game HODL UP.

So it was, it was really cool because it was kind of like the culmination of all

of these conversations that we had had about Bitcoin and we're playing the game

and I'm actually like interacting with the pieces, um, strategizing how to win this

game, and that is when like just clarity about like the blockchain and how math.

Can turn into like this proof of work, which is, you know, like the block reward

and basically like mine, what mining is.

And it's, it's a concept that's really difficult to understand until like

it finally does click and it finally clicked for me playing huddle up.

So thank you for that, that creation and the way that you are helping

people understand Bitcoin and have, have a fun activity to do together.

I'm actually so happy that you said that because I didn't know that about you.

I didn't know it was the game because that's the game that

Scott used to orange pill me.

I just could not under.

He was talking at me a long time before the pieces finally clicked together.

Sometimes you just need that one moment, right.

Yes, it's, it's great.

I'm glad it helped you.

Yes.

About like being orange pilled.

I love just the concept of what that is and yeah.

Hoping to, to orange pill many others through this podcast.

Yeah, me too.

So can you talk a little bit about your background to help our audience

understand where you're coming from?

Yeah, I would love to.

So I am a registered nurse.

I have been working as a nurse for almost 14 years.

13 of those years I have been a neonatal ICU nurse.

So I take care of premature babies and other sick babies in their

first few days or months of life.

One year of those 14 was spent in the emergency room, so that was

during 2020, 2021 at like peak covid.

I, I love my work.

I really do love the babies that I work with and their families, and

it's a tremendous privilege to get to walk through some really hard

times with people when they're in the middle of a NICU journey.

So, super grateful for my work, but it's also been through my professional.

Lens that I have kind of come to understand some things about just the

way our government involves itself with things that I don't really

think that it should involve itself.

So that's kind of where I'm coming from.

What would you recommend, like is there any other supplemental

educational stuff that, that you were able to access that someone

else might be able to learn from?

Well, I would just say the Nashville Bitcoin meetup, and I know

in Nashville we're extremely fortunate to have the community that we do, but I

know there are other cities around, um, the United States and internationally

where people have organized together to be able to meet at a regular

interval to just talk about what's going on in the Bitcoin space together.

So seeking that out is something I would encourage and I have not even

like, you know, I haven't like dipped, uh, too far under the surface of all

there is to like read, you know, books.

I just signed up for your book club, Tali.

So I'm excited to just read and be able to discuss, you know, books about Bitcoin.

I know there's so many things out there.

But really I think a good place to start would maybe just be taking stock

of your understanding of the dollar.

Because when I talk about Bitcoin with people, they a lot of

times, you know, they're like, I, I just don't understand it.

Um, and I'm like, okay, well, I didn't either.

It took me a long time.

So it's okay that you don't understand it immediately, but

do you understand the dollar?

And most of the time people don't really understand the dollar either.

And so, and I'm here to say I don't fully understand the dollar and

all of the, the forces that, you know, make it real or not real.

So I think that kind of takes Bitcoin from being this like really fringe

idea to like, oh, like it's actually in on the same playing field as

other currencies and actually is superior because of its properties.

Yeah, if you just even spend a little bit of time learning how

the dollar actually works, and there are lots of resources, and we'll

list some in the show notes as well.

You can't help but start questioning whether or not there's a better way.

But let's talk about inflation because that's something that I think

everybody's feeling the pressure of.

You have mentioned that you were a traveling nurse and, but now you're not.

You traveled for a number of years and now you're actually a staff nurse.

So can you talk about from the point of view of what's going on in the economy

right now, how it's affecting you personally, financially transitioning

from traveling to staff, but also just everyday experience with inflation.

Yes.

So I did spend a number of years of my, my nursing career as a travel nurse.

So I would travel around just working as a contractor at these hospitals where

they had a hole in their, you know, their staffing from maternity leave or

unexpected high census or whatever it was that caused them to just need, you

know, an extra staff person temporarily.

So I made a career of that for a little while and it was a really cool way

to see the country and to learn more about my field, just different ways of

doing things with the same population.

And it was also a way to make more money.

I started traveling in 2012, so it was definitely not the, um, the super high

paying contracts of covid years, but I, I doubled what I was making as a

staff nurse by becoming a travel nurse.

And just enjoyed that and enjoyed being able to take more time off throughout the

year and just the flexibility that being a travel nurse afforded me at that time.

But eventually I wanted to not be uprooting my life every few months and

just kind of wanted to settle down in one place, potentially like buy a home,

which is something that I did, but it was difficult to come to terms with

the pay cut that I was gonna have to take by becoming a staff nurse again.

And it's definitely a trade off because you know, even though it's a, a pay cut in

like, you know, an hourly dollar amount.

The trade-offs were, you know, being able to plant roots and being able to

just be a more integrated member of the staff and all of, you know, benefits,

different things like that that, that I didn't have as a travel nurse.

It's been difficult just taking that pay cut when I'm doing the

exact same job that I was doing for way more money not too long ago.

So that is something that was really discouraging because it felt like I

don't really have a choice, like I can, I can keep living a lifestyle that

I don't want and make more money, or I can, you know, pursue a lifestyle

that I do want, but have a lot less be compensated, a lot less for the same work.

So I've, I've tried to just kind of keep those trade-offs in mind and

I guess the, the economic principle at play here is like, it must be,

it must be worth it to me or else I would go and choose something else.

Thanks for joining us today and learning with us today.

If the discussion with our guest resonated with you and you would

like to dive deeper into the world of Bitcoin, don't miss out on joining the

Orange Hatter Women's Reading Club.

The meetup link is in the show notes.

Also, if there are women in your life whom you think will both enjoy and

benefit from learning more about Bitcoin, please share Orange Hatter with them.