 Hello everyone, so you'll have to excuse me today. I kind of have a cold and and also I You'll have to excuse my sporadic videos lately as I mentioned once before it's been getting kind of busy and a lot of things Have been happening and so sometimes I can post sometimes I can't and so anyway it's this kind of and that's sort of what I wanted to talk about basically and I wanted to talk about my Remote lifestyle and the change that's been happening and you know just an update on all that I think inevitably this is gonna end up being a video on the remote lifestyle the digital nomad lifestyle the you know the lifestyle of living remotely and And kind of the pros and cons and what's needed and stuff like that so as most of you know, I've been living a remote lifestyle for years now and You know, it's allowed me and I've mentioned this many times It's allowed me to live in a bunch of places both me and my wife. We've been able to Live in places from, you know, Luka in Tuscany, Lugano in Switzerland Tacoma Park, which is right outside DC in the US Atlanta Taiwan Shanghai, you know stuff like that and so yeah in that sense It's been awesome and look the remote lifestyle is awesome. I You know, it's only thanks to that that I was even able to well to live in those places Even to you know be with my wife like I so my wife and I have known each other since high school I was actually friends with her older brother and sister and But you know the fact that I was able to go to Taiwan I originally came to Taiwan just to study Chinese for a bit But obviously we got back in touch and I wouldn't have been able to do that if I worked in office job and weren't able to leave for you know, any substantial amount of time and Anyway, and also the remote lifestyle is what allowed us to I mean, you know To move to different places to move to Charlotte's because that's when we decided to settle down a bit more and you know But in the end it was just my wife. She had to look for a job She found one in Charlotte and you know, we visited we liked it And so we moved there because I'm you know I'm flexible and so when we decided where to move I was able to go wherever we want and then she was able to see where the job opportunities were and go there Likewise when you know, she got pregnant and we decided to have the kid here in Taiwan You know, I was able to do that she had to take a leave of absence from her work we know which turned out to be fine and But yeah, it's um the remote lifestyle has tons of advantages. Absolutely. It's great But I should explain a couple things about it. First of all, it's not glamorous and Unfortunately you see nowadays with Instagram and all this stuff You see all these stupid pictures of people hanging out on the beach or on the all these Photoshop things with a Beautiful sunset and the view when they're drinking wine and some location and blah blah blah digital nomad lifestyle or you know The airplane emojis and the thing I mean, whatever They you know, that's not what the lifestyle is like. It's true You can live anywhere you want, but it's not like that like You know, who's gonna sit in a hammock on a beach and work and then on their laptop, right? You get too much glare You can't get anything all the sand will get in your laptop You obviously you're gonna get your laptop stolen if you try swimming so you can't do that either I mean it's no one would do that what you can do is you know Go somewhere and work from the hotel and then later go to the beach or something like that but anyway, it's So you need to take these things into account don't get too You know, you want to take the picture for Instagram fine take it But that's got nothing to do with the lifestyle itself. The lifestyle itself is different It's great and there are lots of opportunities, but it's different from that And so I wanted to cover a bit of this and and you know tell you what What to expect and what's needed and then also why we've kind of been trying to slow it down this whole remote lifestyle and you know and what what's going on now So, uh, you know, like I said, there are a lot of opportunities, but there's certain things you need to keep in mind when you have this remote lifestyle First of all, like I said, it's not glamorous. You know second of all, it's also You're always on call You know a normal job is a you know, normal office job is nine to five Monday to Friday and then you get the weekend off Uh, this type of thing you're pretty much always on call No matter what the day no matter what time of day And you'll find this out pretty quickly. And so what I would try to do, you know, different sporadically here and there is try to take time off here and there Uh, it can be done or or not It really depends where you are and especially when you're first starting out It's almost impossible because you kind of need to grab whatever opportunities come your way so You know along those lines, there's uh, Seth Godin was talking about how Seth Godin by the way is probably the best marketer in the world He was talking about how he was in a uh in vegas, I think And it was in the evening and he was having a drink and he was on his laptop working He overheard this couple walking in and she would and uh the the wife of the cup, you know, the couple was Just said to her husband say, oh my god, can you imagine having to work, you know at 10 p.m On on a weekend or something like, oh my god I'm glad I you know, I don't have her how much of a corporate slave do you have to be to do that or something Like that and you know, it got him thinking Seth Godin because he's like, you know Well, what seems odd to me is that you dedicate not, you know, Monday to Friday like 80% of your life to a job you hate just to take two days off to live your life, you know The way you want it. He's like, what kind of a life is that and I think that's where the difference is You have to really love what you do and if you love what you do You don't mind. In fact, you like the idea of, you know, I love the idea when I can get work done Have a beer here, you know, maybe something to munch on and get my work done and kind of get pumped up about it All that that to me is cool. And I feel really productive. Like I've done something cool And um, but you really have to like what you do And I think to be a digital nomad to live remotely work remotely you really need that you need to wake up in the morning And want to do this Because you know, you've spent so much time doing it. It has to be and I've said in a previous video When you especially when you start out, you're not going to get many rewards for what you do And you know, it'll take some time to start getting that so you really need to like what you're doing Otherwise, you're going to get so frustrated and you're going to get burned out and you know, you won't want to do it anymore and um So yeah, you really need to love what you're doing You need to like the idea that you can sit there, you know with a beer and get work done You need that you can sit there, you know, January 1st while everyone's getting over their hangover You know, you're getting work done and being productive or I don't know stuff like that and uh, this idea It it needs to work for you So it needs to be something you love if you find yourself dreading having to get work done And you're working for yourself. You don't have a boss breathing down your neck making you work It's not going to work out, you know, you need to find something else like uh, and figure out what it is Or working in office, you know, where you can have someone telling you to do that because it needs to be something you You really like doing now And a lot of by the way, this is a whole other conversation because a lot of people say I can't find what my passion is I can't find what I love to do and that's a whole other video which I can or cannot talk about if you want but You know, that's a whole thing unto itself and uh, you know And in many ways it can be fun to figure that part out and you know, what it is that you love and you love doing Um, and and try to figure that out in life But anyway, it needs to be something where you where you wake up in the morning You want to do this and um, and yeah, because otherwise it can't work out. Uh, so yeah, um Oh What point does that bring me? I'm sorry. I have all these things. Uh, yeah But having said that I feel this is actually if you can do something like this and you can kind of make it work for yourself It's actually a lot more secure and safer safer than uh, than a nine to five job Uh nine to five job. Look a nine to five office job to me is kind of especially in this day and age is one of the riskier choices because What you're doing is you are giving all your time and effort and energy to a company That's not yours. So first of all, you're fulfilling someone else's goal and dream and all that which fine Okay, you know, maybe if you don't want that, but it's uh You know, if you mess up you're going to get fired rightly so I guess if your boss messes up You'll probably get fired before your boss does anyway and uh, you know, or you know, because your department will be Let go or made redundant or something by the way, if nope, none of you mess up But the company downsizes you're probably going to lose your job the economy goes down So the company has to do layoffs you're going to lose your job There's so many ways you can lose your job that aren't your fault that to me it seems kind of crazy And um, you know, and then you're back in the unemployment line waiting for someone else to give you a job again You're not in control as someone else is always control of your working life of what you do and so it's um I don't know to me to me that kind of doesn't make sense rationally speaking logically speaking I mean it makes sense everyone has to do it, but It doesn't make sense to say that's safer 100 years ago It could have been because you work for a company and then that's pretty much your your job for life and That's how it is fine But in this day and age that's not the case at all and you don't want it to be the case You don't want to work for the same company forever most people I know would you know like to work for something else something else and um, you know And look there are variations of this like you can work for a company have company shares or be part of a team and you know You're kind of you get to uh see your vision become a reality within a company stuff like that Like I understand and I get that they're all different variations of this But to me if you are able to do your own thing and be in control of what you do Then that to me is a lot safer because if even if nothing's working out I can kind of realize that and then start doing something else, you know and try to make that work out and uh, it's So it's I don't know to me it makes sense if I can do something that earns me money Then I can kind of Figure out and dictate What sector I go to what clients I deal with and stuff like that to make it work out rather than having to rely on some boss who might not Have my same interests at heart because he has his own interests at heart. Anyway, um, so uh That's why I think it requires this different type of mentality but likewise it also requires Well, a lot of other things. Um, first of all, you're always looking for opportunities And uh, I think this is very important when you work Remotely as any type of entrepreneur, but definitely remote lifestyle and stuff like that. You're always looking for opportunities So if you're say a freelance translator and someone says, hey, you know, really you do I don't know Bulgarian translations English to Bulgarian and you're in Sofia in in Bulgaria and uh, and someone says, hey So do you think you could give me a list of I don't know, you know, 10 different Fitness or athletic stores in Sofia, you know, you could say, uh, actually I'm a translator That's not what I do. Sorry, or you could say like, yeah, okay, fine I'll I'll I'll do that and you kind of need that mentality You know, if you work for a company for a boss and your boss say, hey, I need you to do this and that And make us coffee. You're like, no, that's not in my job description I don't do them and that's fine for a nine to five job That's you know, that's you have a certain job description And that's what you're supposed to do But when you work for yourself, you're always looking out for opportunities So someone, you know, maybe someone can find Bulgarian translators They're wherever they are in London say or something But they need someone on the ground in Bulgaria to look up different Things and they just contact you out of the blue ask if you can look up these athletic stores or whatever it is And you kind of learn to sort of try to seize opportunities and see what happens And you know because you never know where they're going to lead and um, and I think this also really helps a lot When you have this kind of job you kind of trying to spot Things that happen certain opportunities and be able to grasp them on the fly as as they occur And so I think this is quite important as well And you need to and this is something that you get You get a lot more of and you get better at with time Unfortunately, we don't learn this at all in school and at the workplace either You know, you learn you're supposed to do what you're supposed to do You're supposed to study this subject You're supposed to work on your job description. That's it But when you work on your own it's very different and so you can get the hang of it more and more over time But I think it's important to have It's also important to uh Another big thing you have that you're you're going to have to deal with is imposter syndrome And this this is actually a lot bigger than you think I probably should have started off with it Because I see I'm already going past 12 minutes here, but imposter syndrome is very big Because you feel like You know, you don't have a degree in this no one else told you that you're very good in it No one else gave you the go ahead to do this, but you're still doing this for clients So you're like, wait, am I a good enough translator? Am I a good enough graphic designer? Who says that I'm a web researcher? I just decided I am, you know How do I know that I'm a great photographer and that I can do this and what if you know, I do Legal translations and someone needs a financial translation like oh, no, no, no I can't do that. I can't you know, I'm not the right person for that and all that And you really need to get rid of that and you need to and I I still have this and I still need to work on it you need to Know that you are better than you think you are if that makes any sense and you need to uh, you know, so someone asks you Hey, could you you know research some uh Some what was it athletic stores in Bulgaria And you're like, well, I don't know how research goes. I don't know web research market research I don't know. I shouldn't accept that you need to tell yourself like look I can do this and you know So obviously you can say okay. What exactly do you need? I can let you know this this this and this would that work And you know if they say yeah, that's exactly what we need. Boom, you know, do it Why not do it you need to try to seize these opportunities as they come and not feel Get what they what they call imposter syndrome, you know, and that's where you feel like oh, no I'm not qualified to do that. I can't do that because this makes you Not want to start things not want to do things and want to wait until the perfect time to do it And that's when you procrastinate and don't get stuff done And that is kind of the worst thing to have and just because I see it so often People think they're not ready to do something yet and that they need, you know This much more training or this much more whatever because they feel like They're not at that level yet. That's imposter syndrome where you feel like oh, these people are calling me a professional Translator, but I'm not one yet. I really need to work on it No, if If you can handle what they give you to do then you can do it Okay, I'm not saying everyone out there is a professional translator You know because some people are definitely crap. I've had to deal with a lot of people who are crap, but Being nervous about it is not what's going to help you, you know going out there and doing it That's going to show you what you're good at and so you have to go out there and do that you have to take the risk and uh, you know and That's what it takes at the end of the day because I don't care how much training you get I don't care how many degrees you get I don't care, you know How many books you read and how many online courses you take or anything like that if you don't do something about it Then no one's going to do it for you. You have to do it yourself So you need to get rid of that imposter syndrome obviously try to be prepared for stuff and all that but Don't let being prepared Delay starting out. Don't let being prepared delay You know what any day you delay what you're doing is a day later that you're going to achieve your dream If that makes any sense So don't delay, you know get it started. You're going to make mistakes That's going to happen But you'll also be able to deal with them a lot better than you think as time goes on and you'll pick yourself up And keep going and trust me, you know, you will and so you have to stop being afraid and just do it um, okay, so I'm going a bit over time So anyway, these are some of the things you need for the remote lifestyle the good points of the remote lifestyles like I mentioned before You can live pretty much wherever you want and uh, you know, but it's not like glamorous like I said But it is really cool in the sense that You can you can make these happen if you've always wanted to like say live in Japan Then what you should do now is You should research it, you know, because you're working on whatever freelance thing You have but then look into japan don't be like oh when I have a million dollars or one day I'll go because then it'll never happen what you need to do is be like, okay What do I need to go to japan you need a plane ticket you probably need to live somewhere So go they have a million online forums where people discuss all this stuff See what rent is like in tokyo outside tokyo wherever you want to go See what permits you need to live there or not And and then create like you know say okay, so per month I'm gonna have to be making this much And I can almost guarantee it'll be a lot less than you thought it was this This goal will be a lot more reachable than you thought it would be and um And plus it'll be so much fun to research it and you know That's pretty much how I was able to live in all these places because I get excited about something I start spending too much time researching it again We know with a beer something trying to look up I go and excel and try to see If I lived here what the rent would be lived there what the rent would be and try to figure something out And then I'm like, okay. Well, what would my next step be? Well, my next step would be to I don't you know, I don't know see how much I'm earning Say, okay, I need to earn a little bit more per month And so I kind of work on that and then I try to figure it out or maybe I'm already earning enough So I just need to save enough for the plane ticket to go. So I just do that I'll be like, okay, maybe in two months. I'll have enough for the plane ticket and then I Try going and so try making plans, you know And in fact, I would for Taiwan I did that in other places I just start making plans and be like at some point I might come across a barrier that says, you know That makes me stop being able to go there. But uh, you know until that point comes I'm going to start making plans and see what happens. So, um Anyway, I won't get into that because that's a whole other thing in fact, I have a whole course on how to move and live abroad and But I just wanted to touch on it a bit in terms of living remotely working remotely. By the way Doing this work, you maybe don't even want to live remotely You want to just spend more time with your family or you know, just be able to dictate your own schedule And that's kind of what my wife and I are trying to do now We're trying to not live remotely as much We're not doing a very good job because we we've been still coming here to Taiwan and going other places But you know, try to create roots in a community and kind of uh, be be there for a longer time And so that's what we're trying to do when we go back to charlotte. That's what we will continue to be doing And um, you know, but still having this type of lifestyle and being able to work online and kind of dictate my own terms And uh, so yeah, it doesn't have to be about the travel digital nomad stuff It can be about whatever it is, but as long as you can You know dictate your own terms when you work work with the clients you want the hours you want stuff like that Um, so anyway, I know this is a bit all over the place But I kind of wanted to give an update on my lifestyle and the fact that yeah, we've been living this remote lifestyle and we're trying to Now we're trying to settle down a bit more Also, because we have a kid and so we kind of want to you know Create more roots in the community as they say and uh, you know Create more of that sense because you don't have that when you travel a lot and when you live for three months here Six months there It isn't enough It's enough time to make friends and then you're in touch through facebook and all that But it's not enough time to kind of create roots and create a sense of community where you are And so we're trying to do that a bit more We'll see how it goes You know as I said we we were doing that in charlotte and now we came back to taiwan to have to have our kid But uh, we're going to go back to charlotte and continue that uh soon And uh, yeah, so we'll see how it goes. So anyway, that's an update on what's going on with me And uh in doing so yeah talking a bit more about the remote lifestyle which hopefully is something that you're interested in or touches upon what you're interested in because You know being a freelancer is a great way to achieve that and so you know, they go hand in hand So anyway, that's pretty much it and I apologize again, uh, you know, these videos are going to come up when they come up I'm been trying to keep the schedule and in fact, you notice that probably you know a video or two ago I um, you know, I had 10 minutes to record a video and I got a phone call in the middle and I got all frustrated And I usually don't edit these videos. I just put them up as is so um But that one I have that phone call and I'm getting all frustrated in the middle So I uh in fact, I think I took it down I might just cut I might edit that you know part in the middle and just upload it Because uh that that's also kind of a waste just in the middle But also, you know trying to keep the schedule just is is a bit too much Um, you know, this isn't my job. My job is what I do But now with all the other stuff going on there's just way too much going on So, um, you know, but I'll do these videos as I can um and uh because I do it enjoy doing them. So uh, yeah That's pretty much it Hopefully you found this useful you found this or interesting or something along those lines If you do want to hear more I don't know about aspects of a remote lifestyle How to do it why to do it where to do it, you know or stuff like that or the good points the bad points Stuff like that, uh, you know, feel free to let me know and I can talk about it a bit more and uh, otherwise I will see you in the next video. Thanks. Bye