Asking Digital Nomads How They Make Money Online (Part 1)

Introduction: Welcome to Badass Digital Nomads, where we're pushing the boundaries of remote work and travel, all while staying grounded with a little bit of old school philosophy, self-development, and business advice from our guests.

Kristin Wilson, Host:    00:00:23    Hey there, Kristin Wilson from Traveling with Kristin here and welcome to episode 217 of Badass Digital Nomads. I'm so excited to share with you today, interviews that I did with Digital Nomads at the Digital Nomad Village in Madeira Island last year. This is the audio from a video I did for YouTube with more than half a million views so far. And so it seems that people really love hearing from other real people from different countries around the world about how they make money online, how they became location independent, and how they can support themselves living in beautiful places like Madeira Island. So we talked to digital nomads from Portugal, from Germany, from all different countries, and that is in today's episode. This episode is going to come out probably a day late this week. So my apologies for that and that's because I've been celebrating my birthday this week.  

Kristin:    00:01:30    My mom has been visiting me here in England and so things just got a little bit behind today, <laugh>, but we are still bringing you an episode of the podcast this week. So not to worry. I also wanna thank all of you for all of the very kind birthday wishes and messages that you sent me throughout the week, whether it was in a YouTube comment or Instagram comment or an email. I really appreciate it. You know, after a certain age birthdays, they can bring mixed feelings, right? You know, but I think every year I am really enjoying my life so much more because as you get older, you just get to know yourself more, and you get to know what you like, what you don't like, the people that you like to spend time around, the places that you love to go, the hobbies and activities that you love to do.  

Kristin:    00:02:26    And I have to say that I have never felt better. I'm really feeling my best right now. I am absolutely loving life, and I am happy to be another year older. But thank you for all of those messages. And I also did the first YouTube live stream with my cell phone out traveling around that I've done since the pandemic. So it's been at least three years, maybe more, three and a half, four years since I did one of these live streams. And I did a live stream live from Liverpool, England on Sunday. And so I will link to that in the show notes in case you wanna tune in and see what I was seeing around rainy Liverpool, including the Beatles memorial statue. So that was, uh, very cool to see and thanks to my YouTube subscribers, I think it was Andy and Aiden who were pointing that out in the background.  

Kristin:    00:03:23    And so I basically ran back along the waterfront to go and see that statue. So you can see it on my YouTube live. Also, big shout out and thank you to my Patreon patrons for all of your support and for weighing in on new video and podcast ideas coming up in the next few months. And also for all the birthday messages as well. I really appreciate you all. And before we hop into today's podcast, I also want to announce an opportunity to meet with me in person this September 2nd through fourth at International Living's Ultimate Go Overseas Bootcamp in Denver, Colorado. I haven't done an in-person meetup since the end of 2021 and this is the first time that I will be speaking, uh, international Living's Annual Bootcamp. I believe it's their only event in the United States this year. And so we have a special link for Badass Digital Nomads listeners, where you can get $200 off the early bird discount and also receive a special one-year complimentary membership in international living.  

Kristin:    00:04:42    And that is with my Traveling with Kristin and Badass Digital Nomads Friends and Family Discount. So you get $200 off of the early bird price plus that one-year membership. And we will get to hang out in person this September 2nd through fourth at the Sheraton in downtown Denver. And that is over Labor Day weekend. I haven't been to Denver in years, so I'm really excited to go back. There's going to be tons of great speakers, great events, cocktail receptions, networking breaks, fireside chats, all sorts of amazing things happening during an action pact couple of days. And uh, I'll also be there speaking and also hanging out in the hallways at the events. So if you've wanted to meet me in person, ask me questions about travel living abroad and just learn from all of the other people and speakers who are going to be at the event, then I highly encourage you to come, especially if you'll be stateside already during that time. There'll be more than 200 experts from five continents over three days. So I'll leave the link to that in the show notes, and I hope to see you there. And without further ado, sit back, relax, and enjoy today's episode. I hope it gives you lots of new ideas about how you can make more money online.  

Interview:

Kristin:    00:06:32    Hi guys. Can I interrupt you?  

Hans:    00:06:35    Yeah, <laugh>, my name is Hans. Nice to meet you. 

Kristin:    00:06:37    Hans, Where are you from?  

Hans:    00:06:38    I'm from Germany, Kanat is from Brazil.

Kristin:    00:06:39    What do you do for work that lets you live on this island?  

Hans:    00:06:42    We are running a yoga and meditation school called Soul of Yoga and Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. We are having seminars on the weekends and also online courses on the mentorings coachings in groups one-on-one. So what I'm doing here is like organizing the business side and planning programs doing the marketing side because that's like what consumes most of the work. And also having online classes and online programs.  

Kristin:    00:07:02    You have the classes also in person like there? 

Hans:    00:07:05    Most of them are in person. There's also a colleague of mine who is actually living in Hamburg and driving around to different cities. I just stayed here for six weeks now, so I'm gonna go back next week, have a class in Munich, then I have one in Vienna, then there's another one in another city.  

Kristin:    00:07:17    So do you keep your house in Germany?

Hans:  No.

Kristin: You have no, no address, no fixed address?  

Hans:    00:07:22    No. As of now, no.  

Kristin:    00:07:23   And what were you doing before this?  

Hans:     00:07:26    I was doing the same chopper in Germany. Before that, I had been an engineer like slowly went down from a five-day week to a four-day week to a three-day week and scaling up solopreneur thing. Then it just became like a full-time  

Kristin:    00:07:36    Thing. So you were able to replace your salary from engineering with doing yoga and meditation retreat?  

Hans:   00:07:42    Depends on the fluctuations induced by Corona policies all over the world. But it's going so far.  

Kristin:    00:07:47    What would you say that um, you know, on average like you would need to make online to be able to live? The kind of lifestyle that you have now?  

Hans:   00:07:55    Really depends on the person. If you look at the lower side, you could probably find something for 350, um, to stay for a month in a shared apartment. Then you maybe spend like another 350 for food and then maybe another 400 extra expenses. So 1000 on a very low side - could work comfortably, 2K. 

Kristin:    00:08:11    And what tip would you have for somebody who's an engineer right now, and they maybe don't love their job, they want some more flexibility and they wanna start a side hustle. What advice would you give to yourself a few years ago? I would  

Hans:   00:08:24    Advise them to invent a time machine and drive, drive back in time, and just don't study it or unless you want to become like a doctor and do like certain things where you need like an official certification. I feel like it's a bit limited how we're spending time in universities.  

Kristin:    00:08:38    I, I agree. I think I went to university because I didn't know what else to do these days if you can earn an income online, you could go straight to working. Do you like to share what you do for work?  

Hans:   00:08:49    Uh, yeah. Sure.  

Kristin:    00:08:50    Awesome. I'll what's your name?

Federico:  Federico Blade. 

Kristin: Federico. Where are you from?

Federico: From Belgium.

Kristin: Oh, and how long have you been in Madeira?

Federico:    00:08:57    Three days.  

Kristin:    00:08:58    Wow. <laugh>, where were you before  

Federico:   00:09:00    In Belgium, I worked in uh, Brussels and now I moved here to Madeira just this weekend.  

Kristin:    00:09:04    So did you just become nomadic now? Yeah, pretty  

Federico:   00:09:08    Yeah, pretty much.  

Kristin:    00:09:08    Is this your first time being a digital nomad?

Federico: Yes.

Kristin: How long have you uh, lived and worked in Brussels for like your whole career? 

Federico:   00:09:15    Ooh,  I lived in Brussels on and off for about 10 years. I traveled a little bit in between, worked in Brussels for three years now.  

Kristin:    00:09:22    How did you get permission to leave the country and come here?  

Federico:   00:09:26    I worked for a small company that's uh, quite flexible. I approached them indicating that I would like to start something new, move out of Belgium because I had that plan for quite a long time already. Yeah, we've been discussing for several months how I could organize my own work and so on. Their first reaction was uh, asking whether I would stay with the company or we found a good arrangement. So, uh, I work remotely.  

Kristin:    00:09:46    And what kind of company is it?   

Federico:   00:09:48    It's a research-based consultancy and I specifically work on tech deployment and circular economy and industry.  

Kristin:    00:09:54    What is a normal day in your life? Like I know you've only been here three days, but like what are the kinds of things that you get to do outside of work?  

Federico:   00:10:01    This is only my third working day outside, so I'm still figuring it out. I just figured out that, uh, where I live right now, 10 minutes from the beach, it's also 10 minutes up the mountains from hiking trails. What I would like to do right now is uh, go to the beach in the morning before working and then go to the coworking space and work from there.  

Kristin:    00:10:18    What do you think inspired you to have this lifestyle? Why not just stay in Brussels and like live a normal life? The urge  

Federico:   00:10:24    The urge to do something new, but more importantly the urge to connect to someone new. I was here in the summer actually just on holidays. I also worked a few days from the coworking space by accident where I work from now. I found the people that I met really inspiring, very much a mix of people from different backgrounds professionally but also culturally it's very interesting to connect to them and try to speak the same language. Yeah,  

Kristin:    00:10:49    Yeah,  for sure. I think a lot of it is really about the people that you meet and that's why we're here at this lunch with like 20 remote workers from all different countries. So that's super cool. And do you plan on staying in Madeira long term or are you gonna keep traveling? 

Federico:   00:11:04   I plan to stay here for long term, definitely not sure yet, uh, how long, but uh, we'll see that. 

Kristin:    00:11:09    And what tips would you give to somebody who wants to ask their boss or their employer to work remotely?  

Federico:   00:11:14    Be precise. Be specific about what your intentions are, how you feel about changing your environment, what you need, what you seek to, to develop yourself and your project position, the added value of that towards yourself but also towards your employer. Very specifically providing additional solutions or new markets, new opportunities or indicating, hey, I need this for my own personal health and I would like to keep working with you. Would that be okay? It's funny because working for a company is always a relationship. You have to work on it, uh, like you do on your relationship.  

Kristin:    00:11:47    Great advice. Thank you so much. 

Federico:   00:11:50    Thank  You.  

Kristin:    00:11:52    Uh, what is your name?

Sam: Sam.

Kristin:  Where are you from in the Netherlands?  

Sam:    00:11:55    Um, Utrecht. Yeah.  

Kristin:    00:11:56    And what do you do to work remotely? 

Sam:    00:11:59    Um, I'm a virtual assistant. Online companies.  

Kristin:    00:12:01    Do you work for yourself or do you work for an assistant company?  

Sam:   00:12:04    Um, I work for myself. I have a team with VAs.  

Kristin:    00:12:07    How did you get started in that? 

Sam:   00:12:09    My boyfriend has his own company. I worked for him just for fun and then his clients came to me to ask if I can do that for him. For them.  

Kristin:    00:12:18    What were you doing before that? 

Sam:   00:12:20    I was in school. I was in nursing school.  

Kristin:    00:12:22    So do you think you'll ever be a nurse?

Sam:  00:12:24    I don't think so. <laugh>, I am a nurse but I'm not working as a nurse.  

Kristin:    00:12:27    So what are some important skills that people need to be a virtual assistant?  

Sam:   00:12:32    I think you have to be very patient.  

Kristin:    00:12:34    And do you work with people from a certain industry?  

Sam:   00:12:37    Coaches and e-commerce sellers, like more marketing specialists. 

Kristin:    00:12:43    What is your lifestyle like here in Madeira?  

Sam:   00:12:46    Yeah, in most times weekdays we work very much in the weekends we go do hikes or just go to Purple Friday the party.  

Kristin:    00:13:03    And what advice do you have for someone who's maybe interested in working remotely as a VA and they just wanna get started with their first client, what would you say?  

Sam:   00:13:13    Don't overthink it. Just go do it and then you will see it works out.  

Kristin:    00:13:18    And what was your name? Uh,  

Katarina:    00:13:19    Katarina.  

Kristin:    00:13:20    What do you do for work?  

Katarina:   00:13:21    I do a lot of things, but most of my times is taken by a company that I'm working with as a technical recruiter.  

Kristin:    00:13:30    What were you doing before you went remote?  

Katarina:   00:13:32    I was working in Poland, a Portuguese market as a data analyst and data entry. So it was a financial company.  

Kristin:    00:13:40  And did you have to work in an office there? 

Katarina:   00:13:41    In an office corporate job. 

Kristin:    00:13:43    And then  how did you transition from that corporate job to what you're doing now?  

Katarina:   00:13:48  That's a funny story. So my, now my husband, uh, was also struggling with this nine to five, always the same thing every day. So we start discovering this digital nomads, uh, on nomadist this lifestyle and we start seeing a lot of YouTube videos and following people that they were doing. Yeah, actually my husband's a big fan of yours, <laugh>. He start watching your videos on YouTube and we start following these kind of people that were doing this for longer time than us and we learn with them and then we said, okay, I think we need to give it a try to this lifestyle. So we did a lot of research before jumping, you know, into this, leave our jobs and everything else behind my husband. Uh, he had actually to re-skill and start as a freelancer in mar --in digital marketing. Since then we never stopped.  

Kristin:    00:14:40    What advice would you have for people looking for their first remote jobs?  

Katarina:   00:14:43    I would say weworkremotely.com uh, is one of the best platforms. Focus on Europe. You also have remoteeurope.com, uh, to find a hundred percent remote jobs. I would say those are my my favorites.  

Kristin:    00:14:58    I also like flex jobs. We'll leave some links to job words in the description and then as Portuguese nomads. Why did you decide to then come to Madera?  

Katarina:   00:15:08    My husband started this project, this digital nomad village in Madeira.  

Kristin:    00:15:13    Oh my god. <laugh>. Your husband is Gonzalo? I know him. Hi Gonzalo. Well, thank you for starting the first digital nomad villages in the world. That is so amazing. Can I give you a hug, <laugh>? I think that I am part of the reason that you could go nomadic and now you are the reason that I am here.  

Katarina:  00:15:34    That's how the world works. 

Kristin:    00:15:37    Life people. This is how life works, how life should work when it's working, when it's flowing. So that's amazing. So nice to meet you.  

Katarina:   00:15:45    Nice to meet you as well. Thank you.  

Kristin:    00:15:47    We have found another digital nomad here in the streets of the digital nomad village. Imagine that. And I am here with Daryl who is from the UK. And Daryl, welcome. What brings you to this village?  

Daryl:    00:15:59    Uh, well I came last week for the business mastermind and then I'm staying for the Nomad Island Fest as well. How long  

Kristin:    00:16:05    Have you been a digital nomad?  

Daryl:    00:16:06    I am just starting that journey. So I would say two weeks so far.  

Kristin:    00:16:11    How are you finding it? 

Daryl:    00:16:12  Love It.  

Kristin:    00:16:12    And what are you doing for work that allows you to just be existing here?  

Daryl:   00:16:17    I'm a leadership coach. I help leaders to listen empathically and communicate effectively and that I can do online, which is great. So it gives me the freedom and the flexibility to move around.  

Kristin:    00:16:27    How long have you been doing that for?  

Daryl:   00:16:29    Nearly two decades now, but remotely and this digital nomad lifestyle for less than a month.  

Kristin:    00:16:35    Okay. And what kind of changes did you have to make to be remote?   

Daryl:   00:16:39   Not hat many actually be able to pack things in one small suitcase and then travel around.  

Kristin:    00:16:44    Do you have any carry on packing tips for us?  

Daryl:   00:16:46    Well, I'm a minimalist so I dunno if that's gonna work for you, but I can literally fit my life into one suitcase and one backpack.  

Kristin:    00:16:53    That is impressive. I have three bags with me. <laugh>. What were some of the things that you had to give up back at home to be able to have this lifestyle?  

Daryl:   00:17:02    I think the material aspect is really quite important because I think when you are stable, you have a base somewhere, you become very attached to things. So I think just not being attached to things really helps. And then there's a mindset around, okay, this is what I'm choosing to do now. Because obviously it's difficult from a friendship perspective. Everything is very transient, so you have to be relatively resilient and comfortable in your own skin to enjoy your own company. So I think those are probably three things which are pretty important. 

Kristin:    00:17:27    The thing about being a nomad is that you can be alone a lot if you want to, but then you can also meet thousands of people. Absolutely. If you want as well. And when you were living in the UK, did you still work for yourself or were you working for a company?  

Daryl:   00:17:41    No, I was working for a company  

Kristin:    00:17:42    And now still for the same company,  

Daryl:   00:17:43    Working for a different company, but based in Estonia. But there's this transition out to building my own organization or my own company.  

Kristin:    00:17:50    Now. Thank all of you guys for watching. We will be back with another episode of how you became a digital nomad very soon. So subscribe to the channel for more.  

Kristin:    00:18:02    I hope that you enjoyed hearing about the different ways that these digital nomads make money online. It was so much fun to film this video in beautiful Madeira Island and it was so surreal to be in a place that is literally called the Digital Nomad Village. So I hope that you get to go there and visit someday. There are also other digital nomad villages popping up around the world, including in Brazil. So we'll definitely be covering the new digital nomad villages that are out there around the globe.

And also tune in next week for part two of this podcast where I talk to 10 more digital nomads from nine different countries about how they make money online. Also, remember that you can get that $200 discount on the early bird rate of International Living's Ultimate Go Overseas Bootcamp happening this Labor Day weekend, September 2nd through fourth at the Sheraton in Denver, Colorado. You can hear from more than 200 experts from five continents over three days and meet and hang out with me and hundreds of other amazing people in person. So I hope to see you there. You can grab your ticket now using the link at the top of the show notes, and that will also include a one year complimentary membership to International Living Magazine. Thanks for hanging out with me today and see you again next week.