Dealing with high anxiety while building a successful online business with The Remote Yogi
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Learn from digital nomad entrepreneur Taryn:
🔥 How to become a digital nomad
🔥 How to build an online business
🔥 How to choose the right nomad location
🔥 How to deal with anxiety as an entrepreneur
🔥 How to set boundaries and balance life for digital nomads
🔥🔥🔥 And so much more must-know digital nomad lifestyle tips for (aspiring) digital nomads!
“A big thing for me was learning how to release shame and the shoulds around being an entrepreneur.”
Starting her journey as a digital nomad
It might not seem this way but not everyone has a smooth ride when shifting lifestyles to become a digital nomad. In this episode, Taryn shares her story about how her path was everything but glamorous. After a rocky divorce, working as an event planner and yoga teacher, she felt desperate to travel the world. While she was anxiously looking for any job that could be done remotely, she saw and Ad of Remote Year and signed up. She also found a remote position and started doing sales for an event company. During her first 1.5 years of traveling and working at low wage income, she built her business and slowly paid off her huge debt on her credit card.
How Taryn became a full-time digital nomad and built her business
After Taryn decided to embark on her new lifestyle, she created her blog called The Remote Yogi. At first, she just wanted to keep her family and friends up to date about her adventures and share travel stories. While she was traveling with Remote Year she was surrounded by entrepreneurs and marketing experts. This is where she decided to put more work into her blog and transform it into a business opportunity. After the first year she started offering her first online product that would help her to gain more consistent income. Then she added more products like yoga memberships and more recently coaching women around building confidence and anxiety issues. Tyran has been dealing with high anxiety and built routines and ways to coop with them. Today she is sharing her experience and approach to help other women who experience anxiety. While building her business she gained marketing expertise and her next entrepreneurial step was co-founding a marketing agency. After 5 years of hard work, she can now confidentially say that she is finally financially comfortable
Defining what makes a place worth of returning
A struggle for many starting nomads is to find a destination. Of course we read and hear stories about magical nomad places. Rather than just picking a random place Taryn and Nienke Nina speak about how to pick a destination that works for you. Of course, you can also go anywhere but if you are looking for a specific experience you might want to follow the tips below:
Be aware of what matters most to you.
You must have your core values set. Because when you do, in your next destination that you travel to, you will know exactly what you need from that place. A tip from Taryn is when you get to a new city, ask yourself, how many of my values am I able to reach here.
Digital nomads have the freedom to explore.
If nature is something that means a lot to you, you have to be somewhere where you have easy access to it. In your near surroundings, or with available transportation to reach it.
Find your digital nomad community.
Even if digital nomads are travelers in heart, we still need to form a connection. Building a community far from home ends up being a necessity for almost everyone.
Digital nomads actively network.
Being able to meet a diversity of people, people who have the same mindset but different backgrounds can change your experience for the better. It’s having the capacity to network and grow professionally as well as personally.
Make sure that wherever you are traveling, you can incorporate those things that mean so much to you.
Two things that stood out to her in her process of becoming an entrepreneur were: releasing shame and facing the truths of entrepreneurship. Finding herself in these two situations helped her to build a healthier relationship with herself as an entrepreneur and succeed in her business.
Releasing shame:
One of her biggest challenges through this path of entrepreneurship was to learn how to get rid of a nagging feeling of shame and the shoulds. What you should be earning, what your business should have reached, how many hours you should be working. It’s ok to struggle and to make mistakes, it’s all a learning experience.
Wrong idea of entrepreneurship:
Taryn shares with us this idea that exists of building your business, which consists of dropping everything and hoping for the best. That method only works for a small percentage of the population, which does not include her. Being a person that suffers from anxiety, what worked best for her was having a variety of freelance jobs while building her company. Every person’s path is different, there is no right or wrong.
Boundaries and balancing with ourselves
With entrepreneurship comes learning how to hold boundaries with your clients and set the times that you are available. This also applies to setting them for yourself too. Taryn shares one of the methods that she has to not break these boundaries, which consists of blocking her email after certain hours, and she is only allowed to check her emails after 25 mins windows.
Some time ago, traveling around the world while working online and earning money only seemed like a dream. In today’s world, that dream isn’t so unlikely anymore. In fact, remote work opportunities increased over the years, and becoming a digital nomad is easier than you think.
This is why the question of how do I become a digital nomad is at the top of many people’s lists. If the idea of becoming a digital nomad and changing your lifestyle keeps roaming your mind, we are here to answer your questions.
Becoming a Digital nomad
How to become a digital nomad is probably one of the most common questions asked. Often people assume it’s only about making quick money online and traveling. We can guarantee you that the digital nomad lifestyle is so much more than that. For starters, we like to call it a global lifestyle lived by people from all walks of life.
Within this lifestyle, two things are a given; you typically earn money via remote work or online. Secondly, you enjoy living outside your own home country and are into exploring different ways on how to shape your own life. Instead of following a set of rules, it’s about exploring how you want to live your life according to your desires – not only in the near future but also in the long term.
Ask yourself some important questions:
What are your desires?
What areas of my current life aren’t making me happy?
What people in my environment are holding me back?
What beliefs do I disagree with?
Can I do my job online?
If not, how can I make money online?
What are my skills?
Three types of Digital Nomads
Although all jobs of Digital nomads are done online, these jobs can diversify a lot. So let’s divide it into the three existing types that a Digital Nomad can be:
The entrepreneurs with their own online business
The remote workers
The location-independent freelancers
Think outside the box! We see in the digital nomad community that talents are used across several projects. Many nomads combine for example having a remote job and turning in a side hustle into a successful business.
The Entrepreneur
A Digital Nomad Entrepreneur can be described as someone who has created their own (digital) business. You provide diverse types of products and services to companies or clients employing digital communication tools. The process of becoming financially free with your own business at first can be challenging. It takes a lot of hard work and you might end up working more hours than on a regular job. To experience less financial stress lot of entrepreneurs find other ways to earn some extra income to be able to support themselves until they reach their goals.
Some examples of entrepreneurs can be: Marketing Agency, Selling information and knowledge like courses, E-Commerce Owner
Remote Workers
As home offices become more common in 2020 and 2021, so does remote work. A Remote Worker is someone that is hired by a company but can either work from home or can choose their own workplace. This place can be a co-working space, a coffee shop, or just at home. However, you probably still have online meetings and a fixed amount of hours a week to cover. You can indeed be the Nomads with the least flexible schedule, but at the same time, you are provided with a steady and fixed salary in most cases.
Freelancer
A freelancer is referred to as the nomads that work online for one, or multiple clients. As a nomad freelancer, you conduct work for other businesses but since you’re not employed it comes with a lot of freedom. Typically, you can work from any part of the world, as long as you meet your deadlines and have a steady WiFi connection.
The salary of freelancers varies. This is why it can be very unpredictable and a strong reason not to choose this path.
While it brings a lot of freedom, it can be super stressful at times as well. Finding clients and making sure that you have your preferred income each month isn’t always easy to maintain. This can be a huge downside and the reason why many freelancers choose a remote job or focus on finding long-term clients instead.
Freelancer jobs are mostly in fields like social media, creative content, or web design. Some examples: content writer, graphic designer, web designer, copywriter, etc.
What type of Digital Nomad do you want to be?
Believe it or not, the global pandemic has increased remote job opportunities. Many companies have realized, that working from home can be an awesome alternative, and as efficient as working from the office. Therefore numerous positions that were office jobs have transformed into the remote. Also, as businesses downsize and hire remote workers, companies can reduce costs like office spaces. The possibility to earn a living, while traveling and visiting new places is more plausible than you think!
But, before you quit your job and become the next Digital Nomad, let’s figure out which jobs you can do according to your skills to earn money. Download our free guide below to find out more.
How to Combine Entrepreneurship and Travel with Kristina
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Learn from digital nomad entrepreneur Kristina:
🔥 How to build a business online while traveling
🔥 How to choose between slow travel vs fast travel
🔥 How to find the right balance and set priorities
🔥 How to find me-time and stay close to your own values
🔥🔥🔥 And so much more must-know digital nomad lifestyle tips for (aspiring) digital nomads!
“It took 2 years of overworking. It took 2 years to get out there traveling again. So, it’s not like I’m sitting at the beach, drinking coconuts and money is raining over me.”
How digital nomad Kirstina started her digital nomad journey
Not all Digital Nomads start this lifestyle straight from an Instagram ad. Kristina and her boyfriend left Austria in 2015 to do an internship in China. She studied Business and her boyfriend studies German literature. After just a couple of years working abroad, they discovered that there was a huge market for German writers. In 2017 they started a ghostwriting agency, 100% remote.
Creating a business while traveling works for some people. However, their travel speed changed while they were in nomad capital Bali. Being surrounded by nomadic entrepreneurs, and joining talks and events they decided to stop traveling for some time and work on their businesses. Like Kristina shared on our podcast, it was time to professionalize their company. This included 60+ hours of long weeks and hard work! Since then they have managed to grow their company 10 times and continued traveling the world.
Difference slow travel and fast travel
As a Digital Nomad, there are periods where you travel non-stop hopping from one country to another. This is also known as ‘fast travel’ while others prefer to stay a couple of weeks or months before switching destinations which we call ‘slow travel’. Kristina finds herself now in what she interprets as ‘medium travel’, changing place every 1-3 months.
Interestingly is that this is very different from other periods of her life. As her Digital Nomad life began so did her fast traveling. This was a lot of fun but she also mentioned that it could cost money, time to organize the trip and significantly less focus on her business. So when she started her business, to make it work, the fast traveling wasn’t gonna grow her company. Listen to the podcast episode to find out more about the stages in which she found herself during the years of becoming an entrepreneur.
Finding the right balance and prioritizing
Every location and travel situation has its own special experience. Kristina’s advice to starting nomadic entrepreneurs is the importance of accepting the moment that you are in. In other words, you can’t have everything all the time and this is where that state of acceptance is so important.
She shares that you have to learn how to prioritize and find the balance between your travels and your professional goals. Another great tip is to keep looking at the bigger picture when making decisions or changes. Ask yourself, is this way sustainable?
Stay close to your own values
Kristina is a successful entrepreneur and Digital Nomad and her best advice is to stay true to your personal values. As she mentioned, she studied Business and she loves traveling. That doesn’t mean though that she wants to open a hostel in Thailand. That is simply not something close to her values. Exploring new areas of business is important for her as well. Khristina shares how she tried the path of coaching others into becoming digital nomad. It wasn’t for her and she accepted that situation. Finally, she emphasizes working on finding your strengths, keeping working on them and staying true to your values.
Deciding to become a Digital Nomad is the first step of your new life, but if this is a long-term lifestyle, you need to create a financial plan
Before starting your digital nomad journey, many questions about money and how to manage your finances probably cross your mind. For example, how much money do I need at the start and how long will it last? You also might wonder what expenses you need to keep an eye out for. Having questions is normal because this lifestyle can be pretty overwhelming at the start. It’s a common topic in the digital nomad community. In this article, we give you helpful tips about how to manage finances for digital nomads.
Create a financial plan to become a Digital Nomad
Start saving money ahead of time
Once you jumpstart your digital nomad journey you will find out there is a lot to pay for. So you must have enough cash to sustain yourself during the first stage. We advise you to start this journey with some savings, especially if you don’t have a stable income stream yet. How much you will need depends on your travel itinerary. So best practice is to include the estimated local cost of living in your budget. Do your research, look for more economical-friendly places to kickstart your journey if you are on a tight budget.
Track your money?
Tracking your expenses sounds easy but in reality, this might be more challenging. Why? Because you easily forget about it when it’s a completely new habit for you. Before you know it, days or weeks have passed without tracking. The only way to successfully track your money is to commit to it and make it part of your daily habit. After a week you can see how you spend your money and where you want to make adjustments. Perhaps you are spending 3$ on coffee 5 days a week? You end up consuming 780$ on coffee a year!
You can use a spreadsheet or another easy way is to use an app. Your bank might even have an option to just scan your receipt, categorize it and create a monthly report. Here are some apps we hear other nomads used to track their expenses.
You Need a Budget (YNAB)
PocketGuard
Mint App
Mint App
Cut back on your unnecessary expenses
5 coffees a week equals an international flight. You see, cutting down on those small expenses during the week can save you a lot of money. You still need to enjoy the little things in life but you can try what you really need and what is less important to you.
If a coffee a day nurtures your happiness or productivity you can perhaps switch to making your coffee at home and only treat yourself once a week. Our golden tip is this: When you consume things just because you are used to it but you are conscious about it, try cutting it out for 30 days to see if you really need it. Take this advice as an exercise to challenge yourself.
Make a list of what you can spend and how you want to spend it
Having a budget is one thing and the next level is to cut up your budget like a pie. Not knowing how much you can spend can be tricky, especially if you never manage your money. It’s easy to overspend on unnecessary things or run out of savings. So, to make sure this doesn’t occur come up with a budget and stick to it.
First, you need to figure out how much you earn, what amount you want to save, and then set your budget so you can start budgeting.
We also recommend thinking about future and unexpected expenses. We made a list of the most common costs while traveling.
Eating and accommodation
Going out
Trips
Mobile phone, sim card
Transport (including daily transportation and flights)
Funds for your technology equipment (phone, laptop, camera, charger…)
Insurances
Extra expenses
Figuring out the exact number of all costs is highly unlikely, but this is a good start. Your living costs will always vary depending on your location and your standard of living. You just need to know what you need, start tracking habits and manage your money.
Tips to save money as a Digital Nomad
Learning how to manage your money and create a budget plan is crucial. In fact, this is part of being an adult. We listen down a couple of extra digital nomad hacks that help you save up money while traveling.
Eat like a local – Touristy restaurants are great for Instagram content but will make you spend more. Eating where locals go will not only save you money but you will also experience the authentic taste of the traditional dishes.
When you have access to a kitchen make your own food – Cooking can take a lot of willpower and imagination, but it’s much cheaper than eating out. Take advantage and save some extra money there.
Don’t explore like a tourist – Tourist attractions, guided tours, and all those tourist activities tend to be expensive. Do some research, walk around and explore, take advantage of free tours, free museum schedules, and open attractions.
Money apps that will make your life easier as a Digital Nomad
XE App: real-time currency exchange
Trabee Pocket: it helps you control the money that is coming in and out.
Splittr: When traveling with a group of people it allows you to split costs easily.
XE App
Start traveling smart and save money!
When you create a financial plan to manage your money it can be exhausting and sometimes nerve-wracking at the beginning. Start with the steps we just shared. The most important thing is that you stick to it.
Find the balance of what you want and the plan around how to achieve it financially, prioritize and make an effort. Starting a new life and adventure is never easy but take it step-by-step!
For more tips on the Digital Nomad lifestyle follow us on Instagram to read more behind-the-scenes nomad stories.
🔥 Tips for starting a serious digital nomad relationship
🔥 Dating and learning a new language
🔥🔥🔥 And so much more must-know digital nomad lifestyle tips for (aspiring) digital nomads!
“When you are going to be dating and traveling around, just be as clear as you possibly can about your intentions. Sometimes, those things change over time, and that’s OK as long as you communicate it.”
Meet digital nomad Jordan Carroll
Jordan started working remotely in 2013, but it wasn’t until 2018 that he decided to start traveling. In the last couple of years, he has dated internationally, and he is sharing some of his experiences on this week’s podcast episode.
Going through ups and downs has taught him as he mentions to accept it, laugh at it, take the lessons and move on.
Jordan has found a better way to learn a new language rather than using Duolingo. While traveling in Columbia, he went on Tinder to find women to date while learning Spanish. For Jordan, this was a great way to improve his Spanish skills but getting to know someone like this can be challenging too. This is how Google Translate became essential in all his dates.
Starting a serious relationship
Jordan had many dates and his Spanish definitely improved. During one of his travels, he met someone and ended up spending 9 out of 10 days with her. His next trip was to Europe followed by a cruise ship with Nomad Cruise from Europe to Brazil. Jordan shares that they stayed in touch but it came with some real challenges like being in different time zones and bad internet connections during his cruise. He really liked her and decided to fly her to his home so they could spend some time together. This included meeting the parents right away.
Trying local cuisine gone wrong
Traveling to rural Mexico can be fun as we all know, but you got to be careful with the local cuisine! Jordan shares his experience where he tried some local foods. He got sick but the real consequences only came up one year later! From what he thought was just stomach pain, into thinking he had an “STD”, to finally realizing he ended up with a bacteria from that food he tried a year before.
