Meet our Bali City Host and Female Founder, Ulla

[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Our team connected with this outstanding, energetic woman in Bali and are so glad we did. Ulla Risager has created a company that fosters connections and aligns with our values at Behere in many ways. We couldn’t be more excited to partner with Ulla as a our Behere Bali City Host!
Ulla has managed to travel extensively, find her passion, start a company and fill her life with purpose. Read on to see how she’s accomplished this and started a company, while living in Bali.

  female founder Ulla

We’re so excited to highlight you, tell us your story…

“Hi, I’m Ulla! I’m originally from Denmark and currently live in Bali, where I run my business, Learn With Locals. It’s a platform that offers handpicked learning experiences to travellers and anyone wanting to learn something unique, from an inspiring community of locals.
A few years ago, I left my job in Amsterdam where I was working for a travel startup. I remember when they asked when I wanted to take my vacation days. With only 2-3 weeks, I tried to decide when I wanted to take time off and where I’d travel to. I couldn’t choose.
I recall thinking, “Life is too short to be sitting behind this desk everyday and only really ‘living’ for 5 weeks a year.” No way – so I left.

It was a new beginning for me.

I had been job searching for a while, before leaving my job in Amsterdam I’d worked for Airbnb in Ireland and Google in Barcelona. I’d realised though, it didn’t matter what kind of ‘cool, we’ve-got-ping-pong-tables/free coffee, free drinks on Friday’ company I joined. If I didn’t have the flexibility to travel – and to realize and discover my potential and purpose in this world – nothing really mattered.
Back in 2015, I’d also survived a terrorist attack in Paris, and spent a good amount of time thinking about the meaning of life. I realised, life is short and the only sure thing in this world is that you won’t get out alive.
So I decided to travel. After traveling to the US, Cuba and Mexico, I bought a one-way ticket to Bali and went on to start Learn With Locals.
Starting a company is like jumping off a cliff not knowing where you will land. But you work day and night to make sure you’re headed in the right direction!

female founder Ulla

What exactly is Learn with Locals?

“Learn with Locals is a community of people eager to experience, share and learn from others; for you to travel deeper and connect with inspiring individuals.

Our community consists of passionate locals that share their hobbies, crafts and skills.  A passion they’ve carefully cultivated over time, as a self-starter and micro-entrepreneur in Bali.

The vision behind Learn With Locals is to give locals a chance to create new sources of income. All while helping tourists, expats, and locals, experience their destination in new, meaningful ways.

We offer a selection of curated and hand-picked experiences, workshops and classes ranging from creative, crafty experiences to technical, culinary and cultural events and workshops.

You can check out our website here: www.learnwithlocals.io/ and follow us on IG @learnwithlocals.”


We’re thrilled Ulla has joined the Behere team as our Bali City Host and, that we’ve partnered with Ulla and Learn with Locals for our community.
Find your apartment, plus workspace and fitness studio in Bali on Behere then head there to connect with Ulla – and attend one of her many amazing workshops!
Photos and words courtesy of Ulla Risager and Learn With Locals.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]

Creating Your Reality with Work-Life Balance or 'Blend'

Whoever put the notion in our heads that we should have the perfect work-life balance is a liar. As if we all wake up every morning in perfect harmonious glory, in a pristine house, with a beautifully laid schedule and a career that never required after-hours work or thoughts…

I’m not sure what utopia set us up for this kind of failure, but I do know I don’t want to live there.

Perfect work/life balance is impossible – from early on in our careers to running the C-Suite gamut. (As digital nomads and entrepreneurs, we know better than anyone that circumstances are rarely cut and dry).

Work-life blend is the new “balance.”

It means work and personal lives are so closely intertwined that they might be indistinguishable at times. There’s no “split personality,” instead career and personal goals are correlative. Enter “The Blend.

This was something I realized early on in my career in recruitment and sales. I found that the time I spent at networking events and coffee dates to accomplish “sales,” became fun. Because of my personality, I didn’t experience burnout from this. Especially within that time of my life, when meeting new people was something I enjoyed. Professionals became friends and, as they helped my bottom line, work partners, too. So my approach was to “work” as much as possible. Work didn’t need to end when I left the office. And my personal life didn’t have to end the second I sat down at my desk.

Additionally, working as a recruiter, trainer and field sales developer throughout my college career, meant that networking with other women my age, traveling to different states and playing with makeup was my “job.” I didn’t have a desk or an office, but I had a car and weekly accountability calls with my boss. The more I hustled, the more money I made, and simultaneously was able to grow an incredible network of women.

I didn’t know where work and play started and stopped, so that’s how I grew up in my professional life.

After all, here I am; co-founder of a startup with hefty, long-hour workweeks. My counterpart is a dedicated, marketing genius. She’s also a dear friend. When we shared an office every day (or in the humble beginnings, a couch…), our conversations would constantly seesaw from “friend-zone” to “work-zone.” We’d recap weekend plans over lunch and discuss client work between social events. I have an accountability factor to her and our company not only as a co-worker but as a friend. There’s double at stake and double the reward. Sometimes we work long nights and sometimes we close the laptops for long weekend adventures. We’ve built blended careers because our lives are far from black and white.

work-life balance
Photo courtesy of Kelsey Dixon

On top of that, now I have taken my portion of managing our business and channelled it all through a laptop in South America. Because my business partner and I are friends, we also continually have each other’s best interest in mind, including personal goals. It was a dream of mine to live and work abroad, and now it has become my reality. And as we’ve grown our team, these new faces have become friends. Our gab sessions now happen through a computer screen rather than over drinks at happy hour, but the sentiment is still there. I’m grateful for the blend and wouldn’t have it any other way.

To me, the blend also means doing something I love.

I enjoy my work; I enjoy the people I work with, the clients we service and the industry we’re in. My work is motivating to me. This didn’t happen by accident–I had to build it! This is part of the blend: having your career feel less like “work” and more like “passion.” It may take a step, and then a leap, but it is possible. It’s my life goal, from sharing my story, to have even one person know this to be true, too.

The blend is not perfect–this is just as true as the fact that balance does not exist. Now that I’m traveling full time and I maintain a crowded startup calendar remotely, my life is a big ball of “blend,” and it has its challenges. This morning, I hiked a mountain and now I sit working at a cafe, staring at said mountain. I’m not on vacation, but I’m not in a routine either. I often feel like I’m half-doing both working and traveling. This is a sinking feeling–that you should be in two places at once and always accomplishing two things at once. Feeling torn and never completely satisfied with your day because it’s so blended that it’s hard to distinguish the stop and start. Any feelings of accomplishment are buried by the rest of that to-do list. You want to keep up with everyone back in the office, but you also want to keep up with everyone here for the week on vacation. It’s an unattainable feeling that leaves you dissatisfied with your progress regularly. I’ll close my laptop one minute and be working on my new language in another, but my brain is still in my laptop.

Don’t get me wrong.

I believe in breaks, personal time, vacation, travel, family – all the warm fuzzies that “balance” brings to mind. However, it’s impossible for those things to not interrupt the flow of your “work life” and vice versa. If they are complementary, well then, that’s a step in the direction to satisfaction. It’s work/life blend.

Balance is boring. Balance is too neat. Order challenge, on the rocks, with an extra shot of chaos. Thrive in it. Enjoy grey-ness. Enjoy “the blend.” Strive to have work and life to embrace each other. Work for people you admire and create change with passion. You spend a minimum of 2,000+ hours a year working. Make it count.


Guest Post Written by: Kelsey Dixon

Kelsey Dixon is the “Dixon” of the female millennial duo who founded davies + dixon, a digital marketing firm that creates daring ideas to get stories told. Kelsey currently remotely manages her team and clients as she adventures through South America. Follow Kelsey’s journey on Instagram at @kelseyrileydixon.

Images and words courtesy of Kelsey Dixon.