75) How to Stop Over-Complicating your Digital Nomad Business & Get over Imposter Syndrome

Today I want to talk about overcoming your fears of starting your digital nomad business and to stop over complicating it.

When thinking about building a digital nomad business we make it this big super risky thing when really it is truly simple if you just knew the basic steps. So I’m going to break down why having an online digital nomad business really is not complicated and it doesn't really matter the level of experience you have. The only problem you may run into and that pretty much ALL my clients run into is not believing in themselves and the icky problem of imposter syndrome.

So after this episode, you can understand what fears you're up against and what's been actually holding you back from starting your digital nomad business whether it’s fear or imposter syndrome or causing resistance for you to change your life.


Message me on Instagram: @christabellatravels
CODEWORD:  Complicated Podcast

Transcript

Christa Romano: [00:00:00] Hey there and welcome to the Digital Nomad Life podcast. I'm your host Christa, also known as @christabellatravels on social media. If you ever want to slide into my DMs on Instagram, please know that I am a very approachable person. I love to hear your questions and actually your questions really help me, inspire different episodes of this podcast.

Christa Romano: podcast. I'm making this podcast because I just want to help people. I just want to help people change their lives. I want to show from the rooftop that it's not really that complicated. Like anybody can do this. And when I say this, I mean, become a digital nomad. And when I say become a digital nomad, what do I mean by that?

Christa Romano: Literally all I mean is freeing your life. Because for me, it's I don't really want to be traveling all the time anymore. Actually, if you'll notice, I just took about a month off from this podcast because I spent the last 10 weeks traveling like crazy and uh, I ended up running out of batch content and I just didn't have the bandwidth to be making more episodes as I [00:01:00] went.

Christa Romano: And I love that I had the ability to take a month off. I think that that's awesome for me. And, um, I love that I was able to go to, like, ten different places in a matter of, uh, ten weeks. And I just feel like if I had a corporate job, I wouldn't be able to do that. So, being a digital nomad allows me to be having a sustainable income while I have all these amazing adventures.

Christa Romano: And sometimes my adventures just mean literally spending all day at home in Bali, because that's where I live. So I just want to start off this episode by telling you that, you can still listen and get a lot out of this episode, even if all you want to do is spend more time with your kids or your dog.

Christa Romano: Like, you don't have to be traveling full time to get the most out of this. And this, what am I talking about today? Well, I'm talking about how really I think everybody should be free and I don't understand why more people are not free. Well, actually at the same time, I do understand. [00:02:00] I know why people are not free.

Christa Romano: I think it's because they're over complicating it. They're making becoming a digital nomad having your own business be this big thing this like big super risky scary thing that's so complicated meanwhile i'm over here being like it's not that complicated like if you just knew if you just knew what i knew so i'm gonna I'm going to try to do my best in this episode to break down why having an online business really is not complicated and it doesn't really matter the level of experience you have.

Christa Romano: Um, actually if you think about it in the way that I think about it, you'll see that building a business is not easy. is actually quite intuitive, or it can be anyway. Um, and entrepreneurship can be quite intuitive. Uh, and I also want to talk about why, despite the fact that it's not really that complicated, why don't people do it?

Christa Romano: And to me, a lot of people don't do it because of fear. [00:03:00] Because fear of failure, fear of success, fear of rejection, fear of criticism, and most importantly, Imposter syndrome. And if you've never heard of imposter syndrome, what that means is essentially you are in a situation where you feel like you don't belong.

Christa Romano: And because you don't belong, it causes you to self sabotage in a way. Um, For example, you might think that if you want to become a video editor, even though you have been editing videos for your own TikTok for the last three years, that you would be an imposter trying to tell another person that you're a video editor because maybe they have different standards for being a video editor or something.

Christa Romano: And then you feel like an imposter and therefore you never end up following through telling that person that you could help them edit their videos. Because, again, you feel like an imposter, you feel like you don't belong in that role. So I really hope that in this episode, you walk away from this, maybe you're not [00:04:00] going to have this Eureka moment of being like, Oh my gosh, I got to start a business today.

Christa Romano: Amazing. Krista was right. And she made it so simple. Like, I don't think that that's necessarily going to be the transformation that you have from just one podcast episode. But what I do think is possible is that after this episode, you understand what fears you're up against, like what's been actually holding you back or causing resistance for you to change your life.

Christa Romano: And that you start to open your mind to the idea that it actually could be a pretty simple process. If you allowed yourself to work through the fears that inevitably you have. Now I say inevitably, and I want to emphasize that word, because Can we just take a moment to think about why I'm making this episode in the first place?

Christa Romano: Um, if you don't know me, then I will just tell you a little bit about myself right now. I've been a coach for the past five years, helping people go from Corporate nine to five [00:05:00] to quote you decide basically I help people become digital nomads I help people change their lives and I have so many success stories.

Christa Romano: It's stupid Like I have people that just they took my program and within a matter of months they moved abroad They quit their job. They started traveling. They Just freed themselves in whatever way they want. I so many stories like that so I know that it works and also of course any coach nobody's gonna have like a hundred percent um that all of their clients end up doing the damn thing like some of my clients don't right some of my clients decide halfway through the program that they don't feel like they're they want to do it anymore or they allow their self sabotage, their fear of failure, their fear of criticism, their fear of rejection, their fear of being seen, their imposter syndrome to get in the way of them following the actually pretty simple step by step process that I lay out for them when it comes time for me to teach them how to build a business.

Christa Romano: [00:06:00] So I'm making this episode because I've just witnessed so many people self sabotage and I, um, Again, I'm making this whole podcast, I've built my business, I've dedicated my life to helping people become free. So I hope that this episode takes the chains or the shackles off of at least one person and again allows you to become free to set your life up in a way that it can be however magical you want it to be.

Christa Romano: So to dive into this episode, what I want to start off with is us getting on the same page about what a business even is and what is the general process to starting a business. I want to break it down for you in a way that you're like, oh, okay, I get it. Like it actually, is pretty simple. I think about business literally all the time.

Christa Romano: I think about business strategies all the time. I think about different monetization plans all the time. I think about how you can take any interest, any [00:07:00] passion and turn it into a business all the time. So, um, Even if you are someone who, you know, has created your own business. I hope that the way that I explain it also just, you know, makes that little click, that little synergy in your brain where you're like, Oh yeah, Oh my gosh, wait, I've been overcomplicating it too.

Christa Romano: So I can't wait to share that perspective with you. And then the rest of the episode is going to be dedicated to overcoming imposter syndrome Transcribed What is it exactly? I'll detail it even more and give you some tools and strategies and thought exercises so that you can just get over it yourself.

Christa Romano: And um, I have all these tools and strategies and thought exercises because everybody deals with this shit. Okay? So if, if you're listening to this episode and you feel called out for some reason or, just know that I'm making this episode on behalf of a whole fractal of people like Thousands and millions of people, anybody who's ever wanted to create a business, they probably are, [00:08:00] um, experiencing some of the, mental blocks that I will detail out today.

Christa Romano: That being said, actually, I do want to put something into perspective for you. And I'm going to start off with a little story. And this is back to, uh, what is a business in the first place and how can it be so simple?

Christa Romano: So if you know my story, you know that I started off my digital nomad life in in Thailand. And I actually lived in the city of Bangkok for two years from 2013 to 2015. You can go back and listen to episode one of this whole podcast if you want to hear my story about how I launched into my nomad life.

Christa Romano: But the point is, back in the early days of me being a nomad, I, in Thailand, witnessed some things I hadn't seen before in the United States. And, um, this thing that I saw all the time, it really made me laugh. Basically, I would come out of my condominium building. And I'd be walking down the street and then this [00:09:00] bicycle would drive past me.

Christa Romano: They'd do a little ding, ding. And then I'd look at the bike and I'd see on the back of the bike, there was this cart, like a wheelbarrow sort of situation. And it was filled with knives, like some really big knives, some small knives, uh, wooden knives, metal knives, just like knives all over. And it was just a guy on a bicycle, Petaling a bunch of knives.

Christa Romano: Um, I never cook, right? So I never bought any knives. I never stopped the guy, but I, I, but I noticed him often. And, um, I have this memory of him like burned in my brain. And I want to point out this guy in Thailand and show you how his business is super valid. And I bet that

Christa Romano: he made this business actually not really experiencing all of this imposter syndrome and fear of failure because the guy clearly was not a wealthy man. Um, he probably was in a situation in his life where getting a job was just not [00:10:00] possible. So he had to start a business. That was like his only option to start a business for him to make money.

Christa Romano: And a lot of people in developing countries are like that. If you're listening, if you're a typical listener of this podcast, you probably come from a developed country. So this might be a new concept for you. But let's just think about this guy on the bike. Okay. So he's like, I gotta make some money. How do I make some money?

Christa Romano: So what's the first thing that he's going to do is he's going to look around himself to see what resources he has access to. So I'm just imagining that this guy has access to someone who knows how to make a knife. Maybe he himself knew how to make a knife somehow. I don't know. Um, or maybe his next door neighbor.

Christa Romano: Knows how to make a knife. Maybe his uncle or someone that he knows knows how to make knives So he might [00:11:00] say okay, you know what I can do is I could try to sell these knives because The person that's making them they only have the bandwidth to make the knives They don't also have the ability to market and sell the knives.

Christa Romano: So maybe he goes in he collaborates with that knife maker and says, okay, I'm gonna sell the knives and that's how I will make a profit so now The guy in the bike says, okay, I'm gonna take these knives and I need to sell them somewhere. So then he'll think about, okay, well, where am I gonna sell them and who am I going to sell them to?

Christa Romano: So he might think about who does he have access to in the city of Bangkok and what are the places that he can sell something. Well, he could sell it in a shopping mall, but he probably doesn't have the capital for a spot in the mall. So we're going to rule that out as not a possibility. In fact, he probably doesn't have the capital to have a store literally at all, but maybe what he has the capital for.

Christa Romano: is a [00:12:00] bicycle. Maybe he already owned a bicycle. So maybe what he has a capital for is a wheelbarrow, just a wheelbarrow, just a cart to be going on the back of his bike. So now he's like, okay, I've got a place. I've got the knives. I've got a place to put the knives. Now, where am I going to show the knives?

Christa Romano: How am I going to sell them to people? And so what he could do is he could drive around the slums of Bangkok, but those people are probably not in the market for a nice knife. Who is in the market for a nice knife? Probably someone that lives in a nice condominium building. Someone that lives there all year and has the money to pay for a nice home.

Christa Romano: So this guy with his bicycle and the cart full of knives, what he does is he rides his little bicycle cart with a bunch of knives around the house. a neighborhood with nice condominiums and that's why I saw him and just because I don't cook, just because I am someone who was in his pool of potential customers and I was never going to buy, that doesn't mean that [00:13:00] my next door neighbor wouldn't buy or that their next door neighbor wouldn't buy the whole lot because maybe they're gonna go create a different business because they do have the capital to buy a storefront and they want to buy knives for cheap so they're gonna purchase from.

Christa Romano: because in the bicycle can sell them for dirt cheap because he's getting them for literally next to nothing because he's in a collaboration with his partner, with his next door neighbor. So I know this is a little bit of a simple slash out there example, but that's the point.

Christa Romano: The point that I'm trying to make here is that this man, the concept of the guy on the bicycle, selling the knives, what he wasn't doing. Was asking himself What will everybody think if I try to do this and then fail? What will they think when I start telling people that I'm gonna start driving my bicycle around Bangkok and selling knives to to the rich people What he probably wasn't thinking about was [00:14:00] all the competition for knife selling in the city of Bangkok God knows there's lots of other places to buy knives and There's places where it's more convenient to buy knives there There are a lot of places where it's a better experience to buy a knife than on the back of a cart Driving around a condominium, right?

Christa Romano: so What I really love about Southeast Asia and about developing countries is I do think that the the people are inherently less fearful of Entrepreneurship because for them the risk is not as high or the perceived risk essentially, the risk is probably the same whether you're in a developed country or developing country

Christa Romano: But for this man on the bicycle, again, like he's, he doesn't have his ego at risk because it's just a thing that people do there. Like there's so many people [00:15:00] in Asia, like it's all of these like really populated cities where people have to become entrepreneurs because they don't have the money to go to school.

Christa Romano: So they know that they're not going to get hired. Now this is pretty different than Developed countries in the West where the majority of people do go to school, they might at least finish high school and then they can get a job. And it really is very ingrained in our society that you go to school and then you get a job and that's what you do.

Christa Romano: And that entrepreneurship is this kind of out there, quality. But it's, it is the opposite in many other places where entrepreneurship is actually the only way to lift yourself out of poverty. Now, I think that in the West, we are not faced with poverty in the same way that so many other developing countries are.

Christa Romano: And, uh, Therefore, we just have other risks. Like we're not necessarily feeling scared for our [00:16:00] survival if we don't get a job. We are scared of, again, our ego getting crushed, of people judging us, of feeling like a failure, of feeling like a loser. So what, what the takeaway is from this story is that it really is people's fear that gets in the way of them starting a business.

Christa Romano: Now, One more example to make this story a little bit more relevant now, like let's bring it closer to home. So, um, One of the things that makes me really, really good at my job is my ability to network. And when I say my job, I mean my business, the work that I do in my business. And the main, I think most valuable thing that I offer is career coaching, where I help people come up with a business idea that makes sense for their personality.

Christa Romano: And what makes me really good at that is the database that I have in my brain. of all the entrepreneurs that I have met. Um, over the years, I'm just, I'm an incredibly social person and I love [00:17:00] meeting people. I just think that humans are fascinating. I love the breadth of humanity and all the different things that people can do.

Christa Romano: I love diversity. So. The point is I've met like thousands of, freelancers, thousands of business owners, thousands of employees. I've just met a lot of people and I've always been asking them about their career. So here's a story of not just one person because I've heard this same exact story like a thousand times.

Christa Romano: So the story is that there's a person out there who always felt like a black sheep.

Christa Romano: I'm actually going to give this person a name. I'm going to call him Eric. Okay. So Eric always felt like a black sheep growing up in his hometown in Canada. He always felt like he didn't really resonate with, um, the fact that everybody seemed to be doing the same thing. in the same order of life that everybody was going to school and then everybody was gonna graduate and everybody was gonna go get a job and then everybody was gonna get married at the same time and then everybody was gonna have a baby and then everybody was gonna [00:18:00] retire and everybody was gonna take a vacation one week to France and then call it a year and maybe you know spend the rest of their time and the rest of their money on going to weddings and baby showers.

Christa Romano: Eric was just like you know what I don't know if I vibe with this life. So Eric had the motivation within him to get over any fears of criticism that he had because the motivation was strong enough for him to be like, you know what? I care more about me living a life that's authentic to me than offending other people.

Christa Romano: So let's see. So he goes through the same process as the guy on the bike. He's going to first look around his resources. He's going to ask himself, Okay, what is it that I am capable of doing. And if he is, for example, a new high school graduate, he might not actually know how to do a lot of things. So maybe what he does, if he doesn't have any skills yet, is he will choose a skill and then he will learn that skill.

Christa Romano: So let's just say [00:19:00] that he chooses a skill of copywriting. So, Eric has the ability to be patient in this moment because, you know, he did graduate from high school. He is, a clean, well kept person. He speaks English and he's able to go get a job that pays him some money. So he doesn't have to freak out about starting this business.

Christa Romano: He's cool. Right away, he's just like, okay, well, I'm at the beginning point of my career and what do I need to do at the beginning is I need to learn a skill. So while he makes money during the daytime at his day job, what he also does is he spends the rest of his time learning the skill of copywriting.

Christa Romano: Once Eric feels confident that he can write copy, what he does is now he says, okay, well, who would I like to. share this skill with? Who would I like to write copy for? And what Eric's going to do is he's going to think about all the different kind of businesses that might need a copywriter. Now, of [00:20:00] course, some businesses need a whole copywriting team, like Amazon, for example, is probably not going to hire Eric to be their copywriter.

Christa Romano: Neither is Nike or Nike, wherever you're from, however you say it. Big companies like that are probably not going to hire Eric. But maybe there's a little mom and pop shop in Eric's hometown that They have a shitty website and Eric sees that. So what Eric does is he's like, huh, there might be a connection here.

Christa Romano: I see this website that has shitty marketing on it. And I, after studying copywriting for a few months, I know a little bit more than they know. So what Eric might do is he might introduce himself and he might say, Hey, little mom and pop shop, I noticed this problem and that you're experiencing or that I'm imagining is a problem.

Christa Romano: Um, how's that going for you? Are you making sales from your website? And if they say no, [00:21:00] Eric could suggest to them a revamp of the copy on their website so they can make more money. And if Eric has enough confidence to be like, Yeah, I actually do think I could improve this. I'm not gonna charge you an arm and a because I'm pretty new at this, but I can give you a great rate if you can take a chance on me.

Christa Romano: So, then this mom and pop shop, they're like, Okay, Eric, sure, we'll give you a chance. How much money do you want? And Eric charges them a reasonable rate, let's say, I don't know. 500 to redo their whole website. Whereas if they were to hire somebody else to do that, they might end up spending 5, 000. So everybody's happy in this situation.

Christa Romano: Eric's got a example to go into his portfolio now and the mom and pop shop get an improvement on their website for as little as 500. So now what does Eric have? Eric has a client. And this client can now give Eric a testimonial. And that client can also tell their other business owner friends, because most business owners [00:22:00] have other business owner friends.

Christa Romano: They can tell their other business owner friends that they had this guy who read it, all the copy on their website, and they can recommend Eric. And so maybe they recommend Eric to one more person. And Eric has been strategic and said, Hey, please don't share the fact that I did this for you for 500. I'm only doing this for you because you're my first client and I wanted to give you a great deal.

Christa Romano: So now this second client, Eric charges a little bit more and they're super happy. Eric does an even better job because now he has some more experience. And now this second client, Eric says, Hey, if you're happy with my work, do you know anybody else who might need copywriting? So then they say, Oh, yeah, we have a couple of other people we'll be happy to make an introduction.

Christa Romano: And over time, Eric grows in his experience. Therefore, he grows in his ability to charge more for what it is that he's offering. And he has [00:23:00] more and more people out there that are sharing about Eric's good work and they are referring people to Eric. Now you may notice that in this process, Eric is not even selling himself on social media.

Christa Romano: Eric doesn't have a website of his own. Eric just has the skills and the knowledge in his head. and his ability to communicate with other people and to ask the brave question of, can you recommend me? Will you write me a testimonial? And that's how Eric created his business. Now, maybe Eric sure walked into that shop in person.

Christa Romano: Maybe he did that one time and maybe the rest of it, he performed all of that copywriting work from Costa Rica. Or from Nicaragua, or from El Salvador, or from Guatemala, or from Mexico. Eric can be wherever he wants because He never promised that he would go into their office to do this kind of work. And Eric never told anybody that he had an office and he never promised that he would be anywhere specific.

Christa Romano: And his location, frankly, [00:24:00] doesn't matter because what he's getting paid to do is he's getting paid for the output. He's getting paid for what he's actually delivering to the client. He's not getting paid to just sit in a room for eight hours a day, five days a week.

Christa Romano: So you see, business actually can be very, very intuitive. In the story of Eric, what we learned is that he, again, checked his resources. Turns out he didn't have any resources, so he went and he got a resource. Just like the guy on the bike in Thailand selling knives, he didn't have any resources either. So he looked around him and he figured out a way to acquire a resource.

Christa Romano: So you also can figure out a way to acquire a resource if you don't have any resources or if you don't have any skills. It's okay if you don't have any skills. Everybody starts off having no skills like everybody does, right? And um, it just really depends on how old you are, [00:25:00] how long you've been a professional or a, I don't know, an adult, I guess.

Christa Romano: But you can always learn skills. You can always gain resources. And if you are like the average listener where you've maybe been working in corporate or you've been having any kind of professional job, whether that's construction or nursing, I guarantee you that you have more resources than you understand.

Christa Romano: Again, I've just met thousands of people who have been able to monetize all the most random skills. But some examples, like I literally know people who have made money because they are charismatic. There's a website. It's great. Uh, or a YouTube channel called Charisma on Command, where this guy literally teaches people how to be charismatic.

Christa Romano: His skill, his resource at first was charisma. That was his skill. That was his resource.

Christa Romano: I also happen to know a lot of people. people who were mothers or are mothers and they're really, [00:26:00] really good mothers. So what do they do? They created a business around helping other people become better mothers, or maybe they don't want to help other people become better mothers, but maybe what they have is the ability to network or the ability to create community and they know a lot of mothers.

Christa Romano: So maybe what they do is they create a community of mothers and people pay for that.

Christa Romano: Some people start off with the resource of being funny, and they can go on and they can monetize their skill or their resource of being funny in so many different ways. Recently, I just met someone who told me that he makes the best cookie that's ever existed. And while that might not be a very digital friendly thing, skill or resource at first, it can easily be turned into a digital business because if he can sell that recipe or if he can create a business around selling cookies at first, because we all know, I bet whoever you are, you've bought a cookie at some point in your life and the profit on a cookie [00:27:00] could be really high depending on on how big your market is and the way that the way that you market the cookie.

Christa Romano: Anyway, the point is a cookie business can be incredibly profitable. Maybe you can even think of several cookie companies right now. Actually, I dare you think about how many cookie companies are out there and those cookie companies, guess what? They all started because there was some person out there who made a really fucking good cookie and that was their skill.

Christa Romano: That was their resource. So, Like I said, whoever you are, whether you are not, quote, professionally experienced, or you have, quote, no digital skills, or whether you've been working at an agency or a startup for two decades, and you have tons of skills, and so many that you can't even choose one, you have resources or access to resources, and it's going to be okay.

Christa Romano: But if you stay in the mindset that you are [00:28:00] stuck where you are, that you don't have the skills or resources right now, then guess what's going to happen. You're going to stay stuck. But what you could be doing is moving forward. Just like the guy on the bicycle selling knives and just like Eric, who's just putting one foot in front of the other, getting it done. Okay, there's actually one more thing that I want to talk about before we get into overcoming your fears of starting a business. Because again, we just need to make sure that we're on the same page with what a business even is and specifically a business that affords you the digital nomad lifestyle because you're listening to the digital nomad.

Christa Romano: life podcast. And I know that you're listening to this podcast and not some other business podcast because you want to have a freedom focused life. So you may have just been listening to those examples and you may have thought, okay, well, a cookie business that's not very digital nomad friendly, is really my only option to sell the cookie recipe.

Christa Romano: Or you might have heard [00:29:00] of the, um, bicycle knives business, right? Also not very digital friendly. But I want to shift your perspective on this that a digital friendly business like it doesn't have to be that it's 100 percent online in order for this business to support you in creating your lifestyle dreams.

Christa Romano: To me, the beautiful thing about having a business is not that it allows you to travel the world 365 days a year. For some people, if that really is what you desire, if you actually want to be having this complete and utter freedom, never having a home base, living out of your suitcase, living out of a backpack, uh, then you do want a business that is 100 percent remote, right?

Christa Romano: But What I have found in my years of being a digital nomad coach is that most people actually don't necessarily desire that kind of lifestyle. Most people that I have come across that [00:30:00] are drawn to my content, they want to be a digital nomad. It's not that they don't want to have a home base. Um, they actually might want to just be able to spend more time with their kids, or they might want to be able to go visit their grandmother in Columbia every single summer, or they might just want to have to not ask for vacation time.

Christa Romano: Maybe they just want a little bit more autonomy, or maybe they want to have their own digital nomad business because they want to be able to say yes to more opportunities. So that's it. Even if your business does require you to be physically in one place for part of your work, as long as you don't need to be physically on site for 100 percent of your work, then a business that still that you own, even if there is some kind of location dependency, it actually still might satisfy all of your lifestyle desires.

Christa Romano: So an example of this was recently, I was working with a client who [00:31:00] has been in the trades industry for his whole career, like let's say the last 15 years. And what he really wants is to be able to spend more time with his kids. And he wants to be to have more vacations. So as we were, thinking about what are all the different career options that he could do.

Christa Romano: Well, one of the things that he could do is actually be a contractor. He was saying that he really is excellent at his trade and, um, that he's often mentored younger men in the field in order to learn what he has learned. So I thought, well, what if, like, would you be open to creating a business around that?

Christa Romano: And he was like, well, it's not totally remote. And I was like, okay, well, let's talk about, do you need it? to be totally remote because if you are the owner of your own business and you're, you know, you need to be physically present for part of it, um, you can actually look ahead in your calendar and say, [00:32:00] okay, like if I have to be physically present to do part of the work, let's say it's like 20 percent of the work, you can set up your business so that maybe you go home for the month of December.

Christa Romano: And when you're in December, that's when you do all of the house calls, or that's when you go take, um, for example, if you're like a social media manager and you need to get. Collect content for the restaurant that you're doing social media for maybe in the month of December you spend that whole month in content collection mode And you really just like that's your main focus and you just get so much content and you really plan in advance how you're going to get the most diversity of the content and then You've collected all that content and that content can last you for the next three months, minimum.

Christa Romano: And now you have three months from January, February, and March to just do and go and be wherever you want without having to ask anybody for [00:33:00] permission. Or in the example of, again, my client, like if he actually just wants to be able to spend more time with his kids, he, if he had his own business, he could make sure that he does all of his house calls or all of the in person stuff during the hours of 9 a.

Christa Romano: m. to 2 p. m. and then he can actually be done by 3 p. m. to go pick up his kids from school and spend the rest of the day with his kids or at least at home. Another example is my mom actually has a business. She's been an occupational therapist for the past like 40 years and now she has a business where she helps people.

Christa Romano: figure out if they're suitable to be driving. it's called driver evaluation basically. And there are a lot of people that aren't safe drivers and their family members, like let's say you have a 80 year old father or something, grandfather, and you feel that he's not safe to be on the road. That family can call my mom.

Christa Romano: She'll come and do basically a driver [00:34:00] evaluation test for the 80-year-old man, and then she'll be able to say, okay, I think you can keep driving, or you shouldn't keep driving, and she'll have that uncomfortable conversation. So that's the service that she offers. And yes, that does require her to actually go be with the families.

Christa Romano: She has to be in the car with the person that she's evaluating. But she has actually set up the business so that the majority of all of those driver evaluations happen in the spring. And she's happy to be in Massachusetts in the springtime, but what she doesn't want to do is be there in the winter. So she does her marketing, she goes heavy on her marketing during the winter.

Christa Romano: To set up the evaluations for the spring. And because this is how my mom does business, she was actually able to come visit me in Bali for two months a couple of years ago, which was so amazing, like for us to be able to spend that quality time together.

Christa Romano: The point that I'm really trying to make here on the theme of stop over complicating it is [00:35:00] that you don't also have to complicate the lifestyle like you can design your life to be however you want it to be when you work for yourself and if you don't want to be living out of your suitcase full time then you don't have to.

Christa Romano: So okay time to pivot time to transition we are going to be talking about imposter syndrome and the fear of even getting started creating your business because hopefully by now you are hearing me and You're understanding that maybe creating a business doesn't actually have to be as complicated as you think.

Christa Romano: Maybe it really is a matter of just sourcing your resources, seeing what opportunities are around you, what problems you are able to solve, taking the steps to learn how to solve that problem, and then getting in front of the right people and offering it to them at a price that makes sense for where you're at in your journey.

Christa Romano: And [00:36:00] I think that is a great segue into the next section, which is all about imposter syndrome. Now, I've got some notes ahead of me, and it is a lot, so I'm actually thinking that maybe, um, the next episode of this podcast will be entirely dedicated to imposter syndrome, but, for now, I just want to kind of summarize the key points of why imposter syndrome is so detrimental, and also how to get over it.

Christa Romano: And it's so common, too. It's not just instrumental, it's common. It's like, I'm making this podcast and I want to make a whole entire episode dedicated to it because it is such a problem. Because so many people experience it. And I'm here to make this podcast to help as many people as possible. So again, imposter syndrome really just means that you feel like you don't deserve to be in the place that you are or that you don't deserve to be offering the thing that you're offering or you don't deserve to be charging what you are charging.

Christa Romano: People can often get imposter syndrome at the [00:37:00] beginning of a job when they're realizing that, Oh my gosh, this job is a little bit more complicated than I thought. it can show up when you are about to sell on your first sales call in your own business. It can come up when you're writing the words for your website, when you're creating Instagram content.

Christa Romano: essentially can show up at any point of your journey in your career when you're starting to do something new. So this is the first point is that, is it really that you're an imposter or is it just that you're new or is it just that you're at the beginning of your journey? For the record, it's okay to be a newbie in business.

Christa Romano: It's okay to be a new waitress, for example. Like, have you ever gone to a restaurant and the waiter comes over to you and they're like, Hey, how are you? And then they make a mistake. And then they might say, I'm so sorry. Like this is my first day or it's my first week. [00:38:00] And then the person They give them leeway, like the customer gives them leeway and they say, okay, well we understand not everybody's going to be perfect right from the beginning because that's not a realistic standard for humans to be perfect at anything.

Christa Romano: No one is perfect. That is just not part of the human condition. The human condition is that it is imperfect. We are imperfect. But I do think that people often forget this because they look around them and they see people that are more experienced, that have been in the field for longer, that know more than they do.

Christa Romano: And they think, Oh, well, that person is better at this or more experienced at this. So who am I to be here, uh, offering the same thing with clearly less value to give. So I hear you on that, if that's how you feel, and at the same time, remember that other person who's further ahead of you, who is more experienced than you, who's been doing this for longer, they also started off in a position where they were new [00:39:00] and other people were better than them.

Christa Romano: So it's a natural part of the journey of learning literally how to do anything. to be not amazing at it at first. So you may be thinking, yeah, but how can I start charging for it if I'm not amazing at it? Well, have you ever been to a hair salon and you can pay more for the senior hairstylist and you pay less for the new hairstylist?

Christa Romano: There are different people who will choose different stylists based on their preferences and based on their values. Some people will value paying less and risking having a not amazing haircut and some people they're not willing to take the chance and they want to pay more for the senior stylist even though it's more money they're paying for higher quality.

Christa Romano: So when you're new in your business, you're going to have that mentality, right? Where you say, okay, at the beginning of my business, I'm not going to charge 2, 000 for my offer. I'm going to charge 1, [00:40:00] 000 for my offer, or I'm not going to charge 20, 000. I'm only going to charge five. Um, it really depends on what it is that you're offering, but you can, you can compete in the market with a lower price.

Christa Romano: If your service is not quite as high as some of your competitors. But the idea is that as you grow, as you gain more experience, as you get better testimonials, as you get more word of mouth referrals, that you slowly and surely start to raise your prices because you're becoming less and less of an imposter and more and more of an expert.

Christa Romano: But again, it really isn't even that you're ever an imposter at the beginning. Hopefully, you're starting your business from a place where you have some confidence of what it is that you're offering. And that's why again, the resources, sourcing your resources at the beginning of your business is a very important step.

Christa Romano: And if you genuinely don't have those resources, go learn those resources first, [00:41:00] to get yourself to a point where you could reasonably start helping another person with your knowledge. And again, if you're a beginner at the business, it's okay for you to also charge beginner prices. You will raise them eventually.

Christa Romano: Now there's a lot of things that you can do as well about your pricing that will make it easier for someone to say yes to you. So A lot of people that I work with, um, they end up going into coaching or they end up going into virtual assisting. These are two service provider businesses and some people who don't know what they're doing in business might start off in a role like that, let's say virtual assisting, and they're charging by the hour at the beginning of their business.

Christa Romano: Now, this is a problem. And the reason why this is a problem is because when you're at the beginning of your business, you're not that good at what it [00:42:00] is that you're doing. So actually it's a problem for your customer, for your client, because now they're paying you even more. because you're slow at what it is that you're doing because you're not yet an expert in it.

Christa Romano: So, um, I think that a lot of people when they're in this kind of service provider role, they think that it's better for them to charge by the hour because if they're charging by the hour, then the customer is only paying for the actual work that you're doing. But the problem with this is that that customer has to pay extra because again, you're probably going to take a longer time.

Christa Romano: So when you're, so if you're someone who's like, really efficient at what it is that you're doing or very skilled, such as a lawyer, right? A lawyer, it's like they track their minutes. And when you hire a lawyer, you trust, you know, that they've gone through law school and that they truly are an expert in what it is that they're doing.

Christa Romano: So the lawyer, like whether you get the [00:43:00] outcome of winning the lawsuit or not, that lawyer has to put in work for you and they deserve to be compensated for that work because they are an expert. Now with a virtual assistant or say a coach or something, what you're not going to do is charge by the hour because in a way that actually penalizes the client that's hiring you.

Christa Romano: So what a better thing to do would be you say, you know what, what I will provide for you is, um, this many tasks. I will do this. I will organize your email inbox. I will create five Instagram captions. I will post all five of your Instagram posts once you approve them. And I will do this, this, and this. And if that work takes you.

Christa Romano: 30 hours at the beginning, that client is still going to pay you, say, 000. Now, as you get further and further into your career as a virtual assistant, you can do all of that. Everything that I just mentioned in that package offer, you might be able to do [00:44:00] that now instead, not in 30 hours, but in 15 hours, but you're still getting paid the same 1, 000.

Christa Romano: And that actually is how you're able to essentially raise your prices because you're getting better at what it is that you're doing. Meanwhile, your client is not paying extra. They're still paying the same amount for the same amount of output. So do just know that when you're at the beginning of your business, if you're charging by output, now your client is not going to be penalized for you moving slowly.

Christa Romano: at the end of the day, as long as you deliver the work, Hopefully, everybody's happy. You get paid even when you're not a freaking expert and they get the results for a price that is affordable for them. And remember, some people will value affordability over expertise, just like the hair salon example.

Christa Romano: And this leads me into my next point. Another thing that I think a lot of people get super concerned [00:45:00] imposter syndrome, is why would someone hire me? to do this when they could hire somebody else who's much more experienced?

Christa Romano: Well, there are two concepts that I think answer this question. One is understanding the sheer number of humans that exist on earth and how diverse people are and how much access we have to all of those people. And the other thing is about the energy flow of the way that people progress in their businesses.

Christa Romano: So let's take the example of hiring a digital nomad coach like myself, right? So at this point, I'm very experienced in what it is that I'm doing and I'm frankly I'm very good at what it is that I'm doing. I have but I have hundreds of very positive testimonials.

Christa Romano: I have so many amazing case studies. My business is very, very robust and it offers a lot. And I'm able to offer a lot for not that [00:46:00] much money, based on what my clients get because of the, all the years that I've spent building out my business. Now, because I actually am very advanced in my Digital Nomad coaching business, I am unfortunately no longer able to offer that many people a one on one service.

Christa Romano: So if someone actually wants to work with me one on one rather than joining my group coaching program, which is called the Digital Nomad Life Academy, by the way, um, if someone wanted to really have a lot of attention from a coach, then that's They might not be able to afford my services because now my time is so precious and I know that every minute on the phone with me is actually going to create an amazing result for the person.

Christa Romano: I charge accordingly for that. Now there are other people that will be a digital nomad coach and they're going to charge significantly less for more one on one time [00:47:00] because they're not as experienced. And because their program is not as robust and because they don't have as many testimonials. So for the client, sometimes people just really want someone to hold space for them for a full hour.

Christa Romano: And if that's the case, then they might actually be better off hiring a coach who's less experienced than I am. And that's okay. Like for some people, that's okay. their priority. Other people, they just want to skip the steps. They want to, you know, basically get a shortcut to success. And then in that case, they probably would hire a coach who's more experienced, who has better testimonials, who's more advanced in their field like, like I am.

Christa Romano: So even though there are other people who are calling themselves digital nomad coaches, I'm not intimidated by that competition because I just, I just am like, frankly, an OG person, I've been doing it for longer. And I know that there are enough people out there who [00:48:00] want to become digital nomads, that a number of them will choose me and they'll be willing to pay my prices.

Christa Romano: And there are other people. There are other people who are interested in paying lower prices for a less experienced coach, and that's fine for those people too, it's just they have literal different values. So when you think about your business, pricing your business, um, and when you feel like an imposter, I want you to understand that just because there might be other people that are more experienced than you, that have a better offer than you, that just know what they're doing and talking about, they have better marketing, better branding than you, there's still room for you because of this concept that I like to call internet abundance.

Christa Romano: So that's the other point that I was trying to make earlier, the two sides to this. So Internet abundance, um, I came up with this term like years ago when I was trying to explain to my clients how they [00:49:00] really don't need to be worried about competition because if you think about the internet and how many humans are on the internet that are using the internet and how many people that are using the internet that have access to a credit card, this number is truly unfathomable to the human brain.

Christa Romano: We cannot comprehend how many people there are to that. And all of these people that are on the internet, they only have so many minutes in the day where they're able to receive a message about, for example, digital nomad coaching, um, or whatever it is that you want to create. Let's say you want to create.

Christa Romano: A fitness coaching business, right? So fitness coaching is one of these industries that is notoriously quote saturated. And I hear a lot of people say, Oh, I would love to create an online fitness coaching business, but the market is, is just too [00:50:00] saturated. So. To that I say, okay, I hear you. Like I understand that the market is saturated, but first of all, remember that different people have different needs in terms of fitness.

Christa Romano: First of all, fitness is like a huge category. There are some people that just want to lose weight. There are other people that want to bodybuild. Um, there are other people that want to grow their booty or other people that want to get a six pack. Other people that just want to tone up, or whatever.

Christa Romano: There's so many different ways to look at fitness. So when you are going into a fitness coaching business, sure, fitness coaches might be a saturated market and there might be some big players out there who can hit every single one of those niches. They're like, yeah, I'm a fitness coach and I can teach you about bodybuilding and I can teach you about losing weight and I can teach you about this and I can teach you about that.

Christa Romano: So those are people that are maybe like at the top like that are reaching the masses. But If someone is like, I want to become [00:51:00] a bodybuilder. Well, what they might be doing is searching for bodybuilding coaches. And then in that case, even if someone is very nichely or nichely or specifically hyper focusedly, offering bodybuilding fitness coaching, that person that's searching for it is probably more likely to hire the specialist than they are to hire the generalist who has a bigger audience.

Christa Romano: Not to mention the person that has a bigger audience probably does not have the capacity to get on a call with the person who's trying to lose weight every single week. But the smaller coach does have that capacity. So it really, again, depends on the person that you're, that you're looking to support and what it is that they need.

Christa Romano: And because you're a smaller fish or new to the market, you can fill in the need and On the other point again, sorry, back to internet abundance. So even if this big player exists, right, even if this [00:52:00] huge fitness person exists, okay, they exist and maybe the person scrolling on Instagram sees their ad and maybe they see hundreds of ads about fitness coaching.

Christa Romano: That's a lot of ads about fitness coaching. They would literally have to have their entire feed. filled with fitness coaching content, but that probably doesn't happen to the average person who's scrolling Instagram because people have diverse interests. So the point is even though there might be dozens or even thousands of fitness coaches out there, not everyone is that's a potential client is going to see all of it.

Christa Romano: They might see one or two. Because of internet abundance, there are more than enough people who only have a few minutes a day to be consuming content, and they might see your content over someone else's content because you happen to be a closer connection to them. Because maybe you are [00:53:00] their

Christa Romano: Grandmother's next door neighbor's child, you know, like there might be a closer degree of separation between you and the person who's looking to lose weight, that they're going to hire you because you're more of a familiar face or they actually know someone who knows you personally. And so therefore they're going to hire you over the really big player who they don't have any personal connection to and who isn't specialized.

Christa Romano: It's also worth noting that this big player, the person who is at the top of the food chain in whatever industry, they're reaching the most people, but maybe they have a personality that doesn't quite jive with every single individual. Maybe they are the wrong gender, right? Like that's a possibility too.

Christa Romano: Maybe there's. a transgender person who wants to lose weight and they don't necessarily resonate with the big player because that big player is a man or they are a woman. Maybe that transgender person [00:54:00] wants to learn how to lose weight from another transgender person. So even though The transgender market is significantly smaller.

Christa Romano: It's in fact like a big minority. We know that there are still hundreds of thousands of transgender people out there. And out of those hundreds of thousands of people, the chances that there are a hundred thousand of them that want to lose weight right now, and that when they hear your message, They will be like, Oh my gosh, yes, you are who I want to work with because you are transgender.

Christa Romano: And so am I. That's going to create that synergistic match that even if you're new to it, they might still choose you because of the way that you have niched yourself in the transgender market. The final point that I want to make here about imposter syndrome is that, like, I understand if you are, again, going into a field where the market is, quote, saturated, um, but I want you to [00:55:00] understand that your perspective is that the market is saturated, but the person that's looking to hire you does not know that the market is saturated.

Christa Romano: Here's why. Okay. Let's take a real life example from my life right now. So, I have decided that I want to learn the local language of Bali because I live here and I really want to be more connected and friendly with the locals. So, I've decided, um, that I'm going to hire a local language teacher. The language is called Bahasa Indonesia.

Christa Romano: So I want to hire a language teacher and now we have to ask, how will I go about that? So there are so many ways that I could go about hiring a teacher, but the way that I chose to go about it was to just ask a friend who already is taking lessons. And my friend said, yeah, this guy is good. Here's his number.

Christa Romano: And because of that, because my friend who I already trust gave [00:56:00] me a recommendation for someone that she's working with, I just messaged the guy. And I said, Hey, I'm looking to learn Bahasa. Do you have availability on your calendar? And he said, yes. Can you do Thursday evenings? And I said, yes. How much does it cost?

Christa Romano: And he said, it's a hundred and eight, 180 K per per class. And so I said, okay, great. You're hired. And that's how I hired him. What I didn't do was go on to Instagram and type in Bahasa Indonesia teacher. Maybe someone else did do that. And if that's the case, they probably wouldn't have found my Bahasa teacher because my Bahasa teacher is focused on word of mouth referrals as the way that he gets business.

Christa Romano: That person that's on Instagram That's how they get referrals, and that's fine. These people, the two teachers, might know about each other. In fact, I would guess that they probably do know about each other, if they're both based in the same city, and they're in literally the same [00:57:00] industry. So to the two of them, they might think, Oh my gosh, I have competition.

Christa Romano: And then they see someone else that's posting on Instagram, or they see someone else that's now entering the Bahasa teaching industry in this area. And then I think, Oh my gosh, there's so much competition. That's because they are looking for their competition. Essentially. Humans tend to live in echo chambers, where whatever it is that we are doing, our energy, because we're in the energy of that thing, we Start seeing it in other places.

Christa Romano: And we attract other people that are, that are doing the same thing because we go to industry events or because we're talking about our life, we talk about what it is that we're doing. Say, see, say this Bahasa teacher goes into a family mart, like a some local convenience store, and they're chit chatting with the person in line and they say, oh, I'm a, I'm an English teacher.

Christa Romano: And then that person in line says, oh, I know an [00:58:00] Bahasa teacher. And so suddenly. That person who's the teacher in line at the convenience store now suddenly feels that oh my gosh There's another teacher out there and oh my gosh competition but they know about that because they're in the energy of talking about foreign language as a business and so that's what they're naturally talking about and so naturally other people who have any Awareness of another person will mention it and bring it to their mind Whereas For me, like, I don't tend to talk about foreign language learning at the convenience store because it's not such a big part of my life, like it has not been a part of my life up until now.

Christa Romano: So therefore, why would I ever have a conversation with somebody about that? I just wouldn't. So therefore, I would not be aware of all of the, all of all the [00:59:00] competition for language teachers. So, I leave you with this.

Christa Romano: You think that there is a lot of competition for what it is that you're doing because you're in the energy of the thing that you are doing. The person that's looking to hire you is not yet in the energy of what it is that they are doing. Therefore, they are only aware of a very, very small subset of whatever your industry or career is.

Christa Romano: And if you happen to get to them first, because you know someone who knows someone, or because you have a niche that appeals to them specifically, or you fill some kind of very specific, specialized role, you're still going to get hired, even though there's a ton of competition. Even if you're new, even if there are other people out there offering the same damn thing.

Christa Romano: for a lower price than you who are more experienced than you and there's room for you and you just really need to get started you just need to get the ball rolling [01:00:00] on your business just like in the earlier story this episode the client eric right who he offered his service first to someone for five hundred dollars Because he felt like an imposter at the time.

Christa Romano: So he low balled himself and offered something amazing for 500 bucks. The people loved it. And now they referred him to someone else. And now he's able to continue raising his prices little by little as he gets more and more experience doing what it is that he's doing. And eventually he's going to get so good that he will no longer be able to offer one on one work.

Christa Romano: And then some other newbie who doesn't have any experience is going to come in and offer. the one on one stuff to the people that value that. And Eric will continue to get clients because he's more experienced even though he's charging much more money. So that's what I mean about career always flowing, like energy is always in motion in the human experience and you just need to know that you're not entering [01:01:00] into a market that's stagnant and that is a dinosaur.

Christa Romano: Like you're, You're in the digital space, so therefore it's moving fast and there's room for more people to be entering the space all the time. So do your best to calm your nervous system when you are first getting started in whatever your digital career is going to be. Remember, it doesn't have to be that complicated.

Christa Romano: Like, it's actually a very simple process. process to create a business. But the reason why we make it complicated is because we get in our minds and we freak out about competition or we freak out about the fact that we're not experienced enough or how much should we charge for our offers, etc. So, I want to wrap up this episode by saying But first of all, you can do this.

Christa Romano: If you've gotten through this whole episode, you're obviously someone who is, in my opinion, pretty self motivated and a driven individual. Like you're listening to [01:02:00] a business for beginners podcast. And you're listening to a podcast that's specifically catered towards people who want to have a big, interesting lifestyle.

Christa Romano: To me, that says that you're a dreamer and again, that you're a highly motivated individual. Even if you don't feel like that yet, we all start somewhere and the snowball starts with a little pebble and then it gets bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger. So just because you're at the center at the very beginning of building your snowball, Just know that because you're here, I believe in you.

Christa Romano: And I'm confident that if you just had the step by step process to follow and someone to hold you accountable and someone to call you out on all your bullshit fears and limiting beliefs, that you would be able to change your life literally within a matter of months, just like so many of my clients have.

Christa Romano: And if you don't believe me, go back and listen to some of the other episodes in this podcast where I'm interviewing my past clients and you'll see how just story after story after story after story people do free themselves after a matter of months. If you're [01:03:00] curious how you could become one of those clients or how you could change your life forever, I would love to just share with you a little bit more about my process, how the Digital Nomad Life Academy works, and how it literally does things for you.

Christa Romano: change lives. And you are so suitable for the program, even if you don't have a business idea yet. The first part of the digital nomad life academy includes getting on a call with me or it involves it's not included this call, but for most people, they do opt to add it on to their academy because it just really is a life changing experience to fill out the form that I give you.

Christa Romano: It's, it's a long form. It's a big homework assignment, but once you fill out this form, telling me all about your personality, your interests, your likes, your dislikes, the experience that you do or don't have, I will be able to help you come up with a business idea that will get you the result as fast as possible.

Christa Romano: And that result being a career that can be [01:04:00] totally online if needed, that you will be able to market in a way that makes sense for who you as a personality and that can get you that freedom focused life. Within just a matter of months. So if you're curious.

Christa Romano: Slide into my DMs @christabellatravels with the keyword complicated podcast. Make sure that you spell it right. So spell check the word complicated. Also make sure you send the word podcast and what will happen is when you send that to @christabellatravels on Instagram, you will get an automated message from me that says, Hey, thanks so much for listening to the podcast.

Christa Romano: I'm glad that you're here. I want to have the most productive conversation as possible. So please answer these questions. And the questions are simple. It's like, what have you tried so far? Like, what are you currently doing for work? I just want to learn more about you so that when I do respond, I can actually answer intelligently and just give you a whole lot of value right from the beginning, rather than us having to go back and forth.

Christa Romano: Cause you know, I'm in different time zones and I just, [01:05:00] I don't have the bandwidth to be having slow moving conversations. I want to see if I can help you. I'll tell you right away. And if I can't help you, we're moving on and I'll, and I'll tell you what to do instead. So if you're inspired again, by how uncomplicated business really can be slide into my DMS.

Christa Romano: @christabellatravels  with the keyword complicated podcast, and let's set you up for a life that is so magical, so free, and so perfectly designed for who you are as an individual as possible. You will not regret getting more information, I promise you. So can't wait to see you in the DMs and also in the next episode.

Christa Romano: Thanks so much for listening. Bye!