How Digital Nomad Families Can Live A Boundless Life With Marcos

“Being able to adapt, being able to relate to others and feel comfortable with the unknown, with the discomfort, being comfortable in discomfort, it’s important, even if it’s not easy.”

The vision of world citizen and serial entrepreneur Marcos Carvalho

World citizen and entrepreneur Marcos Carvalho shares his story and the mission of one of the many companies he has co-founded, Boundless Life. It’s a purpose-driven initiative helping digital nomad families to overcome the practical obstacles of the digital nomad lifestyle. Boundless Life organizes cohorts across the globe and offers a combination of traveling, co-working and transformative education. If you are a digital nomad family and want to live a well-balanced lifestyle and connect with like-minded families, or think about your future family life, this is your episode!

Marcos Carvalho is one of the co-founders of Boundless Life and a world citizen. Growing up, he moved about five times and between Brazil, France, Canada and the United States. He is a successful serial entrepreneur who has founded several companies mostly in tech. Marcos is passionate about the future of humanity and you can clearly see this in the companies he has founded.

Marcos was introduced to different cultures and perspectives growing up and he shares this experience with the other co-founders of Boundless Life. Together they share the vision of transformative education and developing the entrepreneurial spirit in children. He has a purpose-driven personality and believes that combining traveling with future-ready education is the best way to raise the people who will develop the empathy, compassion, and kindness necessary to make the world a better place.

You can see his personality triads clearly back in his lifestyle and work and there is a lot to learn from Marcos’s journey.

What is Boundless Life

Boundless Life is an initiative helping families live fulfilling lives where travel, education, remote work, culture and meaningful connections are the stepping stones to a memorable experience.

Families from all walks of life bring their kids and work to one of the Boundless Life locations. The team takes care of all digital nomad families’ basic needs such as housing, a co-working space, cultural experiences and community events. Boundless Life is also known for its future-ready transformative education approach. It’s a unique education program developed to deepen a child’s core competencies based the world’s best educational practices. A couple of highlights of their education program:
🌟 Experiential learning
🌟 Personalized learning
🌟 Purposeful learning
🌟 Project-based learning
🌟 Future-ready
🌟 Holistic mindful well-being

‘‘It’s about building a structure to raise children so that these children will be well-prepared for the future and will be able to make a difference’’

Boundless Life develops an education system that enables the child to live the way they want and makes the nomadic life easier for families. One of the co-founders, Rekha Magon, creates a curriculum with her team, but not from scratch. As Marcos points out in this episode, “We are taking the best of the best and then putting together and then adapting it to that nomadic lifestyle.”

Of course, it attracts open-minded families who love to travel and enjoy unique experiences. Remote work expert Rowena Hennigan joined The Digital Nomads Daily Podcast and talked from the Boundless Life co-working space in Sintra, Portugal.

Marcos shares that different profiles are joining the experience. Some are entrepreneurs like himself and others are consultants, investors or people that have been working remotely. It also attracts a group of people who already have their children in alternative education systems but are looking for a more culture-based experience. These digital nomad families are looking for something that offers them independence and doesn’t tie them down.

What everyone has in common are the kids. It also helps the parents even make stronger connections. Nevertheless, some parents wonder if they are doing the right thing for their kids and this is a common topic within the Boundless Life Community. However, Marcos shares that the kids often ask their parents if they can join the next cohort and he beautifully shares:

‘‘We don’t know what’s coming next. Being able to adapt, being able to relate to others and feel comfortable with the unknown, with the discomfort, being comfortable in discomfort, it’s important even if it’s not easy. It’s not always as charming as it seems. There are a lot of challenges… But change requires time.’’

Connect with our Nienke Nina and our guests

Your host Nienke Nina

More digital nomad tips and life advice via instagram @digitalnomadsdaily

Connect with Nienke Nina on LinkedIn @Nienke Nina Keizer

Find Nienke Nina on Instagram @nienkeninatravels

Meet digital nomad Marcos

Follow his journey on LinkedIn @Marcosfacarvalho

Visit the website of Boundless Life  @www.boundless.life

Other episodes you might like:

🎧  Episode #16: The Future Of The Digital Nomads With Pat

🎧  Episode #19: 5 Benefits Of Joining A Digital Nomad Travel Group With Craig

🎧 Episode # 23: The Power Of Open-Mindedness In The Digital Nomad Lifestyle With Elle

How To Become A Travel Blogger And Make Money Online With Isabel

“There are so many ideas, but the thing is to put them down on paper and to implement them rather than just absorbing all the ideas and not taking action.”

How Isabel started her travel blogging journey

She’s been on the road for two years and she’s tuned in from Bulgaria, where she joined the Bansko Nomad Fest! Her roots go back to Singapore. At the age of 21, Isabel made her first solo trip and wanted to document her journey; this is how she started her travel blogging journey. She currently lives the dream life of many people, traveling the world and documenting her experiences on her blog.

Isabel didn’t have the skills initially and shares that she had to learn everything from scratch. Like many self-made digital nomads, she learned everything she needed to know to build a successful travel blog. Once she started getting more traffic and feeling more confident, Isabel realized that it was not impossible with the traffic and success she gained over time.

Her ultimate transition of how to become a travel blogger and make money online

Nevertheless, she had no such skills and didn’t know things like how to grow sizable traffic, how to get enough page views to have passive income, and how to collaborate with brands through advertising. So through self-learning and watching many YouTube videos, Isabel gained the wisdom needed to make her travel blog successful. She also looked at what other successful bloggers were doing which is a great way to discover what is possible.

While she was building her blog, Isabel was working full-time in Singapore. Over time, as her blog became more successful, she thought about managing time freedom and travel simultaneously. So the idea of ​​a full-time travel blog entered her mind. Once she got into an advertising network and saw that money rolling in passively, she decided to walk away from the full-time job and only focus on her travel blog. And it looks like one of her best decisions. This is how she fully transitioned and mastered becoming a travel blogger and making money online to support her lifestyle.

How does a travel blogger’s day look like?

‘‘Not one day is the same. Never gets dull.’’

Traveling and exploring the beautiful corners of the world sounds fun but of course, Isabel also needs to work. So how does her typical day looks like? Well, that totally depends on what’s on her plate that day.

Generally, she starts her day by having breakfast and heading off to a co-working space. She creates content for her blog and does a freelance service for her clients. This means that she is writing, editing pictures, researching keywords, and many more different tasks.

So believe it or not, Isabel is working full-time while traveling and this makes her lifestyle fun but exhausting too. She prefers to do her priority tasks in the morning because that’s when is has the best focus. She leaves the afternoons open for low-level tasks as they require less focus. So what makes her successful? Here is what she says:

‘‘Success depends on how disciplined you are, how much work you can get done while balancing work and play together.’’

Success brought by cooperation

Creating digital content takes a lot of time and a tremendous amount of work. Aside from her blog and travels she also does client work and creates digital products to share her knowledge and experience with others. She has an SEO course for example which you can view via this link.

So how does she do all this work and travel? The key to success is collaborating with others. Isabel shares that she’ll not be able to do so much on her own and enjoys working with others. For example, she has a VA (read here about what a VA is) for her admin tasks. Isabel also works with a digital content specialist like graphic designers and video editors. So the key is finding the right balance and being smart about how to get work done. Are you ready to become a travel blogger and make money online?

Key takeaways:

🌟 Find your best productive moment in the day and create a schedule around this
🌟 Organize your work and create a to-do list for yourself. This also helps release that overwhelming feeling
🌟 Want to start a travel blog? Learn everything you need to know about getting significant traffic so you can start working with brands
🌟 Hesitate less and do more. Don’t be afraid to fail because you’ll learn by doing and that means sometimes failing

Connect with our Nienke Nina and our guests

Your host Nienke Nina

More digital nomad tips and life advice via instagram @digitalnomadsdaily

Connect with Nienke Nina on LinkedIn @Nienke Nina Keizer

Find Nienke Nina on Instagram @nienkeninatravels

Meet digital nomad Isabel

Check out her website: https://www.belaroundtheworld.com/

Take a look at her Pinterest: https://www.belaroundtheworld.com/

Find her on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/belaroundtheworld/

Find her on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bel.aroundtheworld/

Check out Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/c/Belaroundtheworld

Other episodes you might like:

🎧  Episode #15: The Life Of A Remote Social Media Manager 

🎧  Episode #21: 10 Years Of Traveling The World With Daisy

🎧  Episode #49: 8 Freelancer Mindset Challenges to Overcome For Success With Steve 

Behind The Scenes Of A Content Creator Couple With Julia & Gidi

“Slowmadding gives you the opportunity to get the know the place better and experience more.”

Digital nomad couple Julia & Gidi have been nomadding for three years. Unlike many other digital nomads, they started their journey in their home country Israel. The couple sold most of their belongings and continued their European journey. The next stop was in South America and they are talking from the Cozumel island in Mexico. It’s not a big digital nomad hub but it offers beautiful scenery and plenty to explore. Not far from the island, you can immerse yourself in a bigger community in Playa Del Carmen.

How they make money online

They started their journey at the start of the pandemic and worked remotely. Julia is a website designer and Gigi makes a living as a developer. Aside from their job, they also turned their passion into a new career path and income stream.

During their travels in Israel, they got invited to participate in a couples shoot to promote a hotel. They both really enjoyed it and this was when they started thinking about continuing this type of work. To make this happen, they have to learn how to take photos, find their niche and reach out to hotels. At the start ,it was often an exchange from a free luxurious and of course, romantic break up to a free stay. As their portfolio grows and they gain more experience slowly, they are getting better at getting more promising deals.

While they still remain in their day jobs, building their businesses is something that drives them. Doing this while traveling requires a lot of work and as a couple, they need to pay attention to their relationship. We also talked about this in the very first episode with Anat & Orr.

Julia & Gidi share the following takeaways for other digital nomad couples to stay productive, relax and find me-time:

✅ During the day they work and try to finish around 6 pm to watch the sunset
✅ On Fridays and Saturdays they basically don’t touch their computer and have fun outdoors
✅ Working in separate spots is what they often do like a different room, location, or table.
✅ Community is important for everyone and also for nomad couples. Julia and Gidi try to join meetups together or alone to keep expanding their social circle.
✅ As a couple they spend a lot of time together and they like it, although they make a conscious effort to do things individually

Listen to the full conversation to learn more about digital nomad couples and tips to prepare yourself better for the digital nomad lifestyle.

Connect with our Nienke Nina and our guests

Your host Nienke Nina

More digital nomad tips and life advice via instagram @digitalnomadsdaily

Connect with Nienke Nina on LinkedIn @Nienke Nina Keizer

Find Nienke Nina on Instagram @nienkeninatravels

Meet digital nomads Juli & Gidi

Find them on Instagram @nomadsjuliagidi

Check out their website and special offer www.slowtravellerss.com

Other episodes you might like:

🎧  Episode #17: The life of a Digital Nomad Copywriter with Jamie

🎧  Episode #32: How To Become A Travel Blogger And Make Money Online With Isabel 

🎧  Episode #50: Creating Your Career Around The Lifestyle You Want To Live With Natasha

Find Your Focus Mate For Distraction-Free Productivity For Digital Nomads With Taylor

“We are social creatures and we almost service of those pats on the back and it’s really hard to get enough of that when you’re too isolated.”

Digital nomad Taylor started working remotely because he had a horrible commute. It seemed that this was the ideal solution for his problem but it opened up another unexpected challenge – focus.

After he started working from home, his productivity went down because he had difficulty staying focused. This resulted in a lot of procrastination and eventually became unsuccessful at this job. Unfortunately, he experienced the truth in a harsh lesson as he got laid off. We can learn from Taylor’s story that working remotely isn’t an ingredient for the success of a happier life. It requires hard work and a lot of self-awareness.

After he got laid off, he also lost his motivation to find another job. He started learning more about the mind and self-development and continued his career in executive coaching. Focus on productivity where an active topic of interest and he began to look at these things from the nervous system. Taylor was not the only one that struggled with focus and procrastination, and he helped a friend who Taylor identified as a high-performance. He pitched his idea to start a community to help others focus and this is how Focusmate was born. It’s been a success and Focusmate has thousands of members from 193 countries.

Becoming a productive digital nomad with Focusmate

Community is an important part of the digital nomad lifestyle and Taylor created a community around focus and stopping procrastinating. It’s for individuals as well as teams and is pretty easy to get started. On the platform, you select your accountability partner and if you enjoyed the session, you could favorite your focus buddy. Next, you set up a 30-60 min call and share with each other what you are going to work on. During the work, you will keep your sound on mute so you don’t distract each other but you can communicate in the chat.

At the end of the session, you get back on the video and can talk about how your session went. If you both like it, you can book another session and in this way, you can focus on getting your work done together with someone.

What we love about Taylor’s story is that he started his business because he was facing this challenge to the point that he lost his job. It was hard for him to concentrate and he could not calm down enough to be intentional with his time. We see in the community that many remote workers find it hard to focus and it gets even harder with an adventurous distractions like travel and sunny weather.

Taylor shares that the cultural foundation of Focusmate is safety. He overcame the shame he felt and his depression. When he got the idea to start Focusmate, his friend supported him and it’s incredibly to see what Taylor has accomplished so far.

If you would like to get a taste of Focusmate go to www.focusmate.com and use the code NOMAD22 to get a free month of Focusmate Turbo.

Connect with our Nienke Nina and our guests

Your host Nienke Nina

More digital nomad tips and life advice via instagram @digitalnomadsdaily

Connect with Nienke Nina on LinkedIn @Nienke Nina Keizer

Find Nienke Nina on Instagram @nienkeninatravels

Meet digital nomad Taylor

Find him on Instagram @TaylorJacobson

Check out his website www.focusmate.com 

Other episodes you might like:

🎧  Episode #25: How To Optimize Your Brain To Increase Performance With Angela

🎧  Episode #41: The 5 Key Ingredients To Work Remotely Effectively with Anna Maria

🎧  Episode #51: How To Live A Balanced And Joyful Remote Life With Ali 

A Digital Nomad Family Enjoying It Part-Time with Rowena

“Remote work is a way of living and it’s a lifestyle. I chose remote work because it gave me the flexibility to live a certain style which means that I don’t work all the time.”

The definition of digital nomads

Rowena’s digital nomad life goes way back even before having a family. Today, about fifteen years later, she is still enjoying the digital nomad lifestyle and created her own unique way of living it. Her first digital nomad moments were in 2008 during a backpacking trip in South East Asia. While some things always stay the same, her digital nomad lifestyle looks very different these days. One of the reasons is that she is not alone anymore. She is a part-time digital nomad with her family and enjoys this lifestyle during long school breaks.

How we define digital nomadism is very different for every person. This episode shows you can successfully live the digital nomad lifestyle with your family. Rowena and her family only do it around 4-5 months a year and in this way, no one is missing out on the important things like school. That is a very different picture compared to what we see on Instagram. She shares that there needs to be more open-mindedness about the definition of a modern nomad.

As one of the world’s experts on remote work and a professional educator, Rowena knows how to build a sustainable and successful remote career or business. She explains remote work as a way of living. She helps her clients succeed and provides various remote work training services.

But even for an expert, this lifestyle itself doesn’t bring happiness and success. It’s a common conversation with our podcast guests that this lifestyle requires constant self-awareness, self-care, and reflection. Rowena shares helpful tips to achieve a successful remote lifestyle and maintain a healthy work-life balance.

🌟 Know your core values in life and connect keywords to them like travel and self-care.

🌟 Model these values throughout your life so you can live by them daily.

🌟 Find different ways to commit to your values and make them part of your everyday routines. For example, going to the gym, a morning walk, or watching the sunset.

🌟 Set intentions for different moments in the day to help you get into the right mindset.

A final tip Nienke Nina adds to the conversation is to create a recurring task or calendar reminder to capture your wins of the day. Wins are not just about work but can also be related to self-care or your surroundings. Ending the day with a couple of wins helps you maintain a positive mindset and boost your self-love.

Boundless life the travel community for digital nomad families

Travel groups for digital nomads are getting more popular. We talked with Craig, the co-founder of Noma-Collective about this in episode #19: 5 Benefits Of Joining A Digital Nomad Travel Group With Craig.

Rowena and her family joined Boundless Life in Portugal. It’s a travel community for digital nomad families with a special education program and high-quality services to coordinate accommodations, child care, activities, and engagements, keeping her daughter occupied with impactful activities and so much more.

If you want to learn more about Boundless Life, stay tuned because we have a beautiful episode with the co-founder Marcos Carvalho.

Connect with our Nienke Nina and our guests

Your host Nienke Nina

More digital nomad tips and life advice via instagram @digitalnomadsdaily

Connect with Nienke Nina on LinkedIn @Nienke Nina Keizer

Find Nienke Nina on Instagram @nienkeninatravels

Meet digital nomad Rowena

Find her on LinkedIn Rowena Hennigan

Follow her on Twitter @Ro_Remote

Other episodes you might like:

🎧  Episode #24: Traveling The World For 25 Years With 3 Kids And A Dog With Andrew

🎧  Episode #33: How Digital Nomad Families Can Live A Boundless Life With Marcos

🎧  Episode #43: Remote Work Isn’t Just For Digital Nomads With Lorraine 

How Digital Nomads Can Become Successful Entrepreneurs With John

“You need to set out a good work ethic towards your goals and you also need to be adaptable to whatever unfolds in front of you.”

You need to set out a good work ethic towards your goals and you also need to be adaptable to whatever unfolds in front of you

Get ready for an episode with digital nomad entrepreneur John. He started his journey with a career in crypto trading but quickly realized that getting a sustainable income would be tough. So instead he focused on copywriting and his career kicked off by accepting low-paying projects. Today he runs a successful global content agency specializing in crypto and fintech. In this episode, he shares successful methods for building his business from scratch. We love John’s fresh perspective on how digital nomads can become successful entrepreneurs and if you’re a digital nomad entrepreneur, freelancer or have a side hustle – make sure to listen to this episode.

From digital nomad freelancer to running a content agency

John has lived the digital nomad lifestyle since 2018 and started his journey in the digital nomad hub in Lisbon, Portugal. At the time, the cost of living was decent, enabling him to have a comfortable lifestyle while building his career. At first, John was using his savings and was very excited about cryptocurrencies. His focus was to become a full-time crypto trader. It was easier said than done and he shifted to copywriting to make a living. The first gigs weren’t high paying at all but it was a great stepping stone to building up his writing skills as a freelance copywriter. His hard work paid off as he runs a content writing agency specializing in complex topics such as crypto and fintech. His agency’s specialty is writing content in an appealing and digestible way.

Key takeaways on how digital nomads can become successful entrepreneurs

Building a successful business takes a lot of time in the first years. So everyone who dreams about this must be ready to invest a lot of hours and expect very little social life. Prioritizing work over travel is also something we talked about in episode #04 – How to Combine Entrepreneurship and Travel With Entrepreneur Kristina.

Living in a more affordable place can reduce a lot of financial stress and this is one ingredient on how digital nomads can become successful entrepreneurs. John chose to live in Lisbon because he realized that because of the low cost of living, he could focus on building his business and still enjoy the city. He shares that if he were to live in London, building a business wouldn’t be possible.

Business owners, freelancers, and entrepreneurs have to wear many hats every day. We talked about this with digital nomad entrepreneurs Chelsea, Anne, and Micaela on the podcast, and John shared in our latest podcast episode the same opinion in this episode. So how digital nomads can become successful entrepreneurs by discovering the different success methods businesses could use helped him grow his agency. A couple of methods he used to grow his online business are:

#01 Avoid spreading yourself too thin

Find your niche and focus on only doing a couple of things. He learned that when you spread your focus too thin by offering various services, your value proposition becomes vague. This results in not finding the right clients or any clients.

#02 Share your best work with your network

Use digital content like a newsletter to showcase some of your best work. Share this with your network and clients so people learn about your expertise.

#03 Do an excellent job and get referrals

Always work to deliver excellent work so you can get referrals. Organizations and people who like you and your work are more likely to share it with their network. Chels shares in episode #20 – The Live Of A Traveling Website Designer how she created a referral system where her clients also benefit from referring her business. That’s a great idea and especially if you are just starting out.

#04 Make your business needs a priority

Be critical and focus on what your business needs to become more successful. This includes tracking where your returns (clients) are coming from and doing more of what works. This approach sounds easy but keep in mind that it takes time and patience as you’ll try different things.

‘‘At the end of the day, especially if you are doing it yourself and its the start, your time and energy is going to be limited so you can’t expect too much of yourself’’

The path of how digital nomads can become successful entrepreneurs isn’t always easy but definitely fulfilling if you love what you do. If you liked this episode and enjoyed The Digital Nomads Daily Podcast, make sure to rate it! Thanks for tuning in and don’t forget to follow John and us at Digital Nomads Daily online.

Connect with our Nienke Nina and our guests

Your host Nienke Nina

More digital nomad tips and life advice via instagram @digitalnomadsdaily

Connect with Nienke Nina on LinkedIn @Nienke Nina Keizer

Find Nienke Nina on Instagram @nienkeninatravels

Meet digital nomad John

Find him on LinkedIn: John Lee Quigley 

Check out his Twitter @bitcoinnomadic

Have a look at his website: adaptiveanalisys.io

Other episodes you might like:

🎧  Episode #22: Facing The Realities Of Online Entrepreneurship with Anne 

🎧  Episode #30: Distraction-Free Productivity For Digital Nomads With Taylor

🎧  Episode #42: The Entrepreneur Story Of The Nomad Soulmates Community With Aline