93) 10 Myths That Hold People Back From Becoming a Digital Nomad

What is actually holding you back from working remotely, traveling the world, and experiencing the ultimate freedom as a digital nomad? What if everything you thought you knew about becoming a digital nomad was wrong?

Many aspiring digital nomads believe that remote work is only for tech experts, young influencers, or people willing to live out of a suitcase. But these are just limiting beliefs that prevent you from stepping into a location-independent lifestyle. In this episode, we debunk the biggest misconceptions about remote work and show you how you can get paid to travel—without sacrificing financial security or your personal goals.

• Discover the truth about remote careers and why anyone can build a successful online business, no matter their background.
• Learn why financial security as a digital nomad is not just possible but often more stable than traditional jobs.
• Get a step-by-step breakdown of how to transition to remote work, from choosing a career path to landing high-paying clients.

If you've been holding yourself back from digital nomad life, it's time to let go of fear and take action. Tune in now to learn how to break free from outdated beliefs and start your journey to remote work and travel freedom!

🎧 Want more support? 

Get the DNLA's  FREE training on how to become a digital nomad by DMing the word "Roadmap" to @christabellatravels  on Instagram! 

Ready to commit? DM "Apply"  to @christabellatravels to join the Digital Nomad Life Academy today.

Chapters

• 0:00 Welcome and Introduction
• 6:18 Common Limiting Beliefs about Digital Nomadism
• 18:12 Breaking the Village Mindset: Career Options Online
• 31:55 Age Myths and Travel Misconceptions
• 37:38 Responsibility, Risk, and "Real Life" Beliefs
• 53:24 Financial Barriers and Slow Travel Solutions
• 1:05:35 Digital Nomad Life Academy Introduction

Transcript

Christa: 0:00

Hey there and welcome to the Digital Nomad Life Podcast. I'm your host, krista, also known as KristaBellaTravels on social media, and the reason why I always say that at the beginning of every episode, why I drop my Instagram handle is not because I'm trying to grow my Instagram audience, but it's because I want you to know that I am here for you, to support you if you are on the journey of becoming a digital nomad. Most of my audience people that listen to this podcast are not necessarily people that are nomads already, but they are people that are aspiring nomads, and I know that. If you are on the path to becoming a digital nomad, well, I actually know that it's quite a simple process, like there aren't that many things that you need to do, and it's not like something that you need to be a rocket scientist to become a digital nomad. It's relatively straightforward, but there are so many reasons why people don't pursue the simple path to become a digital nomad, to be making money online, to be having a remote career that they actually like, and it usually comes down to some kind of belief that the person is holding about what digital nomadism is or what it isn't, something about what's required for it in order to make it happen. There's usually just some kind of disconnect.

Christa: 1:21

So today's episode, I'm going to be talking about what the most common disconnects are. You could also call them myths. You could call them limiting beliefs. They're basically just things that aren't necessarily true. That I see a lot of people thinking is the truth about digital nomadism and working online. And, as your expertise, your expert guide that is me, coming in giving you this episode, I want to tell you the actual truth. I want to help reframe these things that you have probably been thinking, and hopefully, at least one of them will be the thing that liberates you, that shifts you out of this mindset of I'm not enough, or I can't do it, or it's too scary, or this isn't for me, or it's for other people, or I'm not special, or I'm not experienced, or blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. All these different. I don't want to call them excuses, because it's like you actually really believe them, because it's like you actually really believe them. Anyway, I'm going to go into the 10. Well, there are at least 10.

Christa: 2:33

I usually do these episodes pretty unscripted, which is wild, actually, because if you scroll through this podcast, all the different titles, there's like 90 something titles. Somehow I have been able to speak for 90 hours on this podcast about this one topic of digital nomadism. So, yeah, this episode is dedicated to anyone who is a frequent listener. If you're someone who's like, oh Krista, I noticed that you missed an episode, because sometimes people call me out on that, I try to be consistent, but sometimes it's hard. Anyway, if you're one of these people where you're like constantly listening to the podcast and you are aspiring to be a digital nomad someday, but you haven't actually reached out to me or you haven't actually made a freaking decision on how to move forward, I hope, I pray, that this episode clears away the thing that has been bothering you, the thing that has been holding you back, and if it has not, okay, promise me this right. Like, literally, why the hell am I speaking into the void with this podcast? Like, if this episode does not shift something in your mind, send me a DM on Instagram and tell me why you're still not convinced. Tell me why you think that it's not possible for you, because I need to understand so that I can actually make content for you. I'm going to guess. I'm going to guess what the thing is that's been holding you back and hopefully it'll come up in this episode and again. If not, please, please, please, I pray, I beg you, send me a DM on Instagram at ChristabellaTravels and let's just talk about it. I want to liberate people.

Christa: 4:14

I know that my digital nomad life is like the best freaking thing that has ever happened to me. I'm so grateful for it. Like, literally, I wake up every day so grateful. I just can't even imagine that at one point in my life I was sitting in a little dark, fluorescently lit office with coworkers that like I didn't vibe with, commuting underground for an hour every day, eating unhealthy lunches, sitting at my desk, cramming in my exercise hours before 9 am and I'm not a morning person or after 6 pm and then drinking on the weekends because that's all that there was to do in the city that I lived in. Like I just cannot. I just I really way prefer looking out in my beautiful bedroom window seeing the big blue sky in Bali, the volcano in the distance, taking my dog to the beach at sunset every day, planning a three-month trip around the world every single year, going to Burning man, if I want, to Antarctica, brazil for carnival, like all these things are things I've literally done in just the past few years, while still having a beautiful home and, again, a dog and a community and a gym membership.

Christa: 5:27

Like you, can have your cake and eat it too. Whatever your dream life is, you can have it, but you need to be location independent if you want to have it, and you need to be able to make enough money if you want to have it, and you cannot have your money be controlled by some other arbitrary person who goes by the name of my boss, like that. No, we have to stop that. Okay. So I want to empower you to believe in your dreams. I want you to pursue your dreams, and today, in this episode, we're going to clear out all the junk that's in your mind that has been holding you back from actually doing that. All right, are you ready? Are you ready to dive in to the limiting beliefs? I know I am. I'm very excited about this episode. Okay, let's get into it. Okay.

Christa: 6:18

So the first limiting belief, the first myth, the first not true thing that I see so many people believing is that there are only a specific number of things that you can do to actually be making a thriving income online. Actually, I would challenge you, listener, if you could close your eyes and think about digital nomads, okay, people who make money online. I want you to try to name as many things as you can, as many career options as you can, for how someone is able to make a full-time income online and you know I love to do exercises in this podcast thought exercises, seriously. You get so much more out of the episode if you actually do pause it when I ask you to pause it. So pause the episode and I challenge you to think about how many remote careers you can possibly think of, okay, and when you're ready, you can unpause the episode.

Christa: 7:23

And I bet you that if you really went into it and you, like, dug deep and you tried to think about all the different things that you could do to make money online, you'd probably have a pretty standard list that most people have. You might say, oh yeah, well, you could sell products like. You could make some kind of e-commerce store. Maybe you could be a freelancer, like a freelance writer or a graphic designer. Maybe you would be a coach. Maybe you would be hired by some company to do, like remote customer service or some kind of like tech thing. Or maybe you could be a digital marketer or maybe a content creator. Yeah, I don't know, I can't really think of anything else and that is how most people perceive the online work landscape. Okay, so just know that you're not alone. If that's how you think I mean, I'm kicking off this episode with the one that most people think so, if that's how you are feeling, you are not alone.

Christa: 8:27

The thing, and the problem about believing this is that it makes people think that if they don't already know about digital marketing, if they don't have graphic design or writing skills, and if they don't have the time and money to invest in creating an e-commerce store, then there really isn't anything out there for them. If they feel like, oh my gosh, I don't want to be a content creator, though, I don't want to put my face on social media, then that eliminates the whole other half of all the creative roles that are out there and that just really puts people in a very disempowered state, when you believe that there is actually a limited number of ways to be making money online. Now here is the actual truth those businesses or those career options that I just mentioned. They are real and for sure they might make up a decent percentage of people who are making money online, but those are just overhyped options, they're just the basic ones.

Christa: 9:31

Like, think about it like this, if you I always think about this when I'm in an airplane and maybe we're flying over the mountains and I see a little town on the mountain and there's like nothing else around it. I always look down and I'm like who the fuck lives there? Like who are these people? Like what do they do for work? And then when I think about it, I'm like, okay, well, they're probably teachers and policemen, maybe they own a bakery, maybe there's a plumber, an electrician, maybe someone owns a little boutique, maybe there's a McDonald's. You know, like the basic stuff. Like villages and towns tend to have similar type roles and somehow, even though you look down at a town and there's like only a few thousand people there, probably the majority of those people are actually employed. It's just that they're employed with really basic jobs.

Christa: 10:25

Okay, so in the online space, okay, it's not the three-dimensional village that you are used to, but it's the two-dimensional, like on a screen right. And so the common things like doctor, lawyer, teacher, electrician, plumber, those are in the 2d world. On the internet it's like copywriter, e-commerce, coaching, consulting, editing, designing, freelancing, etc. Okay, so those are like the basic things. Now, what if you're on that same airplane and you're flying over and now you're no longer just looking at a little town, but you're looking at a massive, freaking city? Okay, you see this massive city and you see that there are not just a few thousand people in the city, but there are millions of people in the city. Maybe it's New York City, like a city of 8 million plus people. Well, now you look down at that city and you're like, huh, I wonder what people in that city do, and suddenly your brain starts exploding with all these different possibilities of things that people could do.

Christa: 11:32

There are artists, and when I say artists, I mean there are people painting caricatures on the street. There are mural artists. There are sculpturists. There are illustrators, motion picture creators, content creators, youtubers, tiktokers. There are engineers. There are civil engineers, mechanical engineers, electrical engineers. Sure, there are marketers, but there are digital marketers. There are advertisers. There are people that specialize in marketing funnels, in search engine optimization, and some of these people are freelancing. Some of them work at an agency and some of them own an agency. Some of them are just project managers within an agency. If you look down at that city, there are designers, there are fashion designers. There are fashion designers, graphic designers, interior designers, set designers, prop designers, window display designers.

Christa: 12:43

So, if you're catching my drift here, the thing is, I believe, that people, when they think about remote work, they are stuck in a village mindset where they think that there are only the most basic jobs to do online. But actually, what you're not taking into account is that when you work online, you have access to the whole freaking internet, not just a city of 8 million people, but I'm talking about an internet of 8 billion people billion a truly unfathomable number where, like, if you're an interior designer in New York City, you probably are just going to be only having clientele that are within your local city, and even though there's probably an endless number of clients that you could get in New York City, there's even more if you were doing some kind of interior design where you didn't have to actually be physically there. And do you know what? I have had a client in my digital nomad coaching business who became a remote interior designer. He was already an interior designer in his city of Charleston, south Carolina. That's where he was living and he was doing.

Christa: 13:54

Well, you know, like becoming a digital nomad wanting to make money online. It doesn't mean that your life isn't good. You don't have to be like hating on it like I do, like I'm like, oh my God, fuck the commute, fuck the fluorescent lighting. You could be like like I do, like I'm like, oh my God, fuck the commute, fuck the fluorescent lighting. You could be like you know what? My life here is pretty sick, like I have nice friends. I like my job, my boss is nice to me, I'm well paid, my coworkers are good. You could be in that position and still want more. Okay, you can still want more. And my client, tommy, for example the one that I'm speaking about, who was an interior designer and he wanted more well, you know what. He went out there and he got it because he stopped believing that if he wanted to make money online, that he would have to ditch his interior design career. He actually didn't have to.

Christa: 14:38

There are always ways to take whatever it is that you're doing right now and translate it into some kind of online work. Will it be a direct translation? Maybe not. Okay, probably not. Like if you're a nurse, for example. That's probably not a directly transferable skill, but I guarantee you that there are skills that are transferable within your nursing career, just like with Tommy. You know he wasn't doing the exact same kind of work. The nature of his work was pretty different when he was an interior designer in South Carolina versus when he created a remote interior design business, but still a lot of the qualities that he had in that first business were transferable into his online one.

Christa: 15:26

So look like you don't have to believe me on this. If you want to stay stuck in your little fixed mindset over there and tell yourself, yeah, but Krista, no, for real, like I've only been a waitress or I've only done da, da, da, I've just been a plumber my whole life. Or a janitor, or I've never worked a job a day in my life and I'm so inexperienced and I'm so uneducated and I'm so not enough. If you want to keep thinking that, you can go ahead and play the victim. But you know my position. You know I'm going to be over here being like you are so full of excuses and I just don't have time for that shit. But if you are done with the excuses and you want to actually believe me and be like, okay, I see the city analogy. I'm ready to go into the city. I want to create my dream life. I want to create my dream career. My friend, I have got you.

Christa: 16:23

It is literally my specialty to help you make that transition, to help you figure out how to go from not knowing to knowing. How to go from having no freaking idea what transferable skills you have, or thinking that you don't have any, to actually seeing that all of your life experience probably is culminating into the remote business that you were always meant to run. But when you're like too close to the problem, it's gonna be hard for you to see. And when you don't have, when you're not up in the airplane, like I am, looking down at the city, you can't see all the opportunities. As far as you're concerned, you might still be living in a village. You know what I mean Online.

Christa: 17:02

So how do I do that? Well, I'll just tell you really quick. So, basically, the way that I help my clients go from not knowing to knowing about their career path is I take them through something called a career assessment process when they first join my program, the Digital Nomad Life Academy. The career assessment process is like step zero. So basically, the first thing that you do is you fill out this insanely comprehensive worksheet.

Christa: 17:26

This worksheet is going to leave no stone unturned on your personality. You're gonna spend probably like four hours filling it out. It's such a deep dive. You're gonna go through your major life stories, obviously, your full work experience, your relationship with different social media apps, with different softwares, et cetera. Like I'm really scraping the bottom of the barrel of who you are as a person in this worksheet, so that once you finish it, you and I can get on the phone, I can look over it. You have all the information right in the forefront of your brain.

Christa: 18:00

And then when I look over it, it's like easy for me, because of just remember, I'm up in the airplane, I have this perspective. It's easy for me to be like, oh, have you ever considered doing this or this? And you're going to be like, oh, I didn't know I could do that. Or you're going to be like, well, but I don't have that skill. And then I'm going to be like, okay, well, hear me out. Here's how you're going to learn the skill. Here's the path that you're going to follow, here's the timeline it's going to take for you and I guarantee you I will never give you something that has a timeline longer than six months. It might be six months, you might be in a learning period for six months, but it's not going to be a four-year college degree. Okay, I would never, ever, ever tell somebody to go to school if they want to actually become a digital nomad. Like, school is a fucking scam. I have a whole episode on that perspective too.

Christa: 18:49

Okay, let's talk about the second limiting belief. Ooh, okay, this one is most businesses fail, so I shouldn't even try. Okay, this one is tender. Right, this is a tender one, because this one it's like the first belief, it's sort of this whole like I'm not enough, kind of vibe or I don't understand vibe about like thinking that you don't know what remote career to pursue. But this one, you might know what career to pursue, you might actually know that you have tons of transferable skills, but you've heard this very dooming, damning statistic of 80% of businesses fail, which, like, that statistic is out there. We've all heard that one right. So you think that, oh my gosh, 80% of businesses fail, that's only a 20% success rate. And what does success even mean? That doesn't seem worth it. It's way more worth it for me to stay safe, stay safe with my salary job, or to stay safe looking for a salary job. Okay, let's talk about this statistic First of all.

Christa: 19:59

Have you ever heard this quote? It goes like this there are lies, there are damned lies, and there are statistics. Have you ever heard that? My dad used to say that all the time Yikes, but it's true. Like the thing is, any entity, any business, any person, if they have enough money, they can pay a very smart person to collect a whole bunch of data that proves their hypothesis, and then they can even put all that data into a graph that fits that initial person's narrative.

Christa: 20:38

Okay, this is not me being a conspiracy theorist although guilty, maybe a little bit, not really. I think I'm pretty grounded, like I'm not just believing shit, but like I question things. I question authority, I question shit that the government says, I question the integrity of big corporations. I just I don't know, and I think that you should too. Questioning it doesn't mean that you're going to go against it, but it just means that you're like, not taking everything at face value. You're not just being some gullible, naive person that's like oh well, I read this statistic and it must be true. Okay, like again, remember statistics can? Statistics like aren't real. They are just numbers that fit a narrative.

Christa: 21:23

So we have to ask ourselves why would someone create that narrative? Why would? Who would pay for that statistic to be out there? Well, I don't know the answer to that, but I can tell you that it is in the best interest of our capitalistic society and economy economy that most people stay as employees the 0.01% of people. They're all probably entrepreneurs or old money and they maintain their wealth by, first of all, other people not getting rich and other people working for them to make them richer. There are absolutely people benefiting from you staying small. So you just got to ask yourself do you want to be one of those people that stays small, or do you want to actually stand up for yourself and live your best life? Well, I'm not necessarily saying that building your own business is definitely living your best life. Like it's not for everyone, but this podcast also isn't for everyone. Like this podcast is for an incredibly niche selection of people.

Christa: 22:32

This podcast is for people who are probably operating in the world, feeling like there's something a little bit weird about them or something's a little bit off about the society. Do you relate to this? Like you're kind of wandering around the earth being like okay, like everybody is cool with this idea of getting married at 28 and then working your whole life so that you can just feed your baby when you're 30 and then go on one two week vacation per year, spend all of your extra money on baby showers and bachelorette parties and then retire when you're 65 and put all your money into an IRA or your 401k. You're just wandering around, being like everybody. Everybody, really Everybody is on this path.

Christa: 23:23

I feel like there might be another way. Oh, no, no, no, okay, no, I didn't say that. I didn't say that. Guys, don't ostracize me. Like I'm here, I'm with you.

Christa: 23:32

Like there's this constant battle that's probably going on in your mind, where, again, you're looking around and you feel like there's something that you're not quite perfectly fitting into the puzzle with, but you don't know what else to do because you don't know anybody else. That feels like an incomplete puzzle piece. So you just pretend that you fit, but you don't. You don't fit. Okay, you never fit, you never fit. Or, if you did fit, you had some kind of awakening and now you definitely don't fit and that's why you're listening to this podcast.

Christa: 24:03

Okay, so you're right, businesses are not for everyone. Neither is digital nomadism. But is it for you? Is creating a business for you? Probably. If you're here, I'm going to go with like a big probably Okay, so maybe, even if this statistic is not a damn lie, even if 80% of businesses do fail, well, maybe 80% of the population shouldn't be entrepreneurs, but 20% of people should be. 20% of entrepreneurs should be, and I think a lot of people try to create businesses while remaining in the matrix and when they're doing that, they're creating a business not from a passionate place, but from a place of like, just literally looking at numbers, because they went to business school, because their parents expected that of them, or they're just building a business with having no mentorship and no knowledge of marketing.

Christa: 25:03

I actually really strongly believe that if you understand marketing, you can make any business work, because we've seen fucking ridiculous businesses take place. Some of my favorite examples I remember when I was back living in Boston. We had one year where it snowed so much this one winter, oh my God, I hated it. But some really smart person decided to sell snow. They literally sold the excess snow in Massachusetts and sold it, and people freaking bought it, which is just insane, but like. So, some person just understood marketing and they had a really clever, creative idea and figured out how to get the word out and the newspaper articles started picking it up and then more people started buying it.

Christa: 25:52

I think that businesses that people just like start a business naively, without any marketing plan, those are the ones that fail. But if you do go into business, making sure that you understand marketing and having a good marketing plan, you're probably going to be okay. And the thing about marketing is it actually doesn't have to be that complicated, but that's a whole other topic. You think that marketing is so complicated? Actually, maybe we'll throw that one in as another belief. Okay, you think that marketing is so complicated?

Christa: 26:23

You think that you don't know anything about marketing and therefore you're not cut out for this. Okay, let me ask you a question. So think about a baby. Okay, baby, freshly born, just out of the womb, new in its mama's arms. That baby, what does that baby know? That baby doesn't know anything. That baby literally doesn't know anything. That baby literally doesn't know anything. Okay, no one is born on this earth having an understanding about fuck, all about anything at all. You have to learn things.

Christa: 26:56

And the thing about marketing is that you actually really can't teach it in school. Do you know what? It's probably the people that learn quote learn marketing in school or go get their master's degree in marketing or their MBA in marketing or something. Those are the people that think that they understand marketing and then they're the ones that are like I'm empowered to make a business because I understand marketing and then they go try to employ what they learned in business school to their business and that's just literally not how marketing works. Marketing is literally just A-B testing. It's like having an idea, putting it out there, seeing how it works, seeing how people respond to it and tweaking it. I mean, yes, there are lots of best practices in marketing and absolutely you should learn those, but like our world and our way of getting the word out to people is constantly changing. So the things I teach you in school, in business school, are these like ancient principles that are relevant, I guess, but like you don't need to go study the supply of law and demand if you want to become a content creator. Like you're not going to go to get your MBA in content creation, but content creators, those are the people that understand marketing better than anyone. And guess what? You can learn how to be a content creator and you can learn about that kind of marketing because those content creators are marketing to you a course on how to be a good marketer. That's the way to learn marketing, literally from people who understand marketing individuals, not a college professor who's never fucking marketed anything in their damn life. Like, oh my gosh, hold me back. I'm passionate about this. Like I'm so glad that I didn't study marketing in school when I was in school because I went to college Not that I would advise anybody going to college, I actually think that college is a scam but I studied journalism.

Christa: 29:01

I didn't go into journalism, but what my journalism degree did teach me was it taught me how to write journalism. But what my journalism degree did teach me was it taught me how to write. And writing is a tool that is helpful for marketers. But what I see all the time with my clients when I'm teaching them marketing inside of my program is their writing. When they like, turn in, like their marketing material and I review it for them, I'm like, why does this look like an eighth grade essay? And they're just like oh well, I thought you needed a beginning paragraph, a middle paragraph and a conclusion paragraph. I'm like no paragraphs. This is very bad marketing. But again, they don't teach you in school that you should only have one sentence per line, because that's all people have the attention for when their eyes are looking at a screen. Because college is teaching you just like shit. That's just so old and so outdated, so you're going to go spend all this money just to not actually learn anything.

Christa: 30:02

Anyway, the point is about this myth that you think marketing is so hard and complicated. It's really not. You've just been learning about it from the wrong sources. Marketing is a huge term. It's like saying engineering, so you're not just going to go become an engineer. That doesn't make any sense. What kind of engineer are you going to be? There's all these different disciplines of engineering and for you, whatever your respective business is that you need to market, you're going to only need to learn one kind of marketing discipline in order to effectively market your business. As you go, as you scale, of course, you're going to start adding in more marketing disciplines, more marketing disciplines, more marketing avenues, so that you can expand your business, but at the beginning, you literally only need very, very, very simple marketing.

Christa: 30:54

What is marketing? That's literally, just, hey, everyone, here's what I do and being strategic about who you share that information with, how you share it, the way that you talk about it, et cetera. But it really isn't that complicated. Again, you've just been overcomplicating it. You know what? I have a whole podcast episode about marketing actually, and if you are intimidated by marketing, I highly, highly, highly recommend that you listen to this episode. Okay, it's episode 82, and it's called the Secret to Online Marketing and Creating a Thriving Digital Nomad Business. Episode 82 came out December 24th. So, yeah, if you are caught up in this limiting belief that you don't understand marketing and that's why you can't become an entrepreneur, please, please, please, go listen to that episode. Please, please, go listen to that episode. Okay, so that's three limiting beliefs that we have covered so far. On to the next one.

Christa: 31:51

Okay, this limiting belief that all digital nomads are young 20-somethings is so bullshit. Okay, if you think that there's a specific age for people who are digital nomads, then you probably are just seeing like a handful of cute little girls on TikTok that are like I've been a digital nomad for the past year and this is how I'm doing it and you know I'm staying in hostels and stuff, and that's cool. I used to be that girl too. I absolutely was that girl and I loved being that girl and I met tons of other people that were also just like me that I vibed with and it was so fun. But as I've gotten older I'm in my late 30s now and I know so many people that are older than me and I'm not just saying a few years older than me, I'm talking about people in their 40s, their 50s and beyond that are also living their freaking dream life as digital nomads.

Christa: 32:47

Because, again, remember what being a digital nomad actually is. It doesn't mean that you are living out of your suitcase. It doesn't mean that you're traveling full time. All it means is that you have the ability to say yes to whatever you freaking want to say yes to, whether that is sure traveling or visiting someone, saying yes to a long distance lover so that you can be in a new relationship, saying yes to having a home in LA and a home in Bali, saying yes to spending nine months of the year in Miami and then three months of the year in Colombia Like that is what being a digital nomad is. Or if you want to spend the entire year in a country of your choice. You can do that too, like or just another city of your choice. You can even stay in the same country, like. Just being a digital nomad again just means that you are free. So sure, the people on the internet that are making digital nomad content probably are 20-somethings. So I see that I validate why you might think that. But the thing is it's just you're literally just seeing like a pinhole of the full experience of what being a digital nomad is.

Christa: 34:05

It's not a kind of group of people, it's a mindset. It's literally just about flexibility. It has nothing to do with age and I guarantee you, no matter what age you are, you will find other people that share your sentiments and your lifestyle. I have met people in their 50s that are all living on a boat, like with their besties, because their besties, their other 50-year-old besties, also figured out how to make money from anywhere. Actually, I met these people so cool they were. I met them. I met them on a ferry in Bali and they were telling me that normally they live in St Thomas in the Caribbean and their friends also live there, and then they just wanted to. You know, they like took a trip. So people, literally they were taking a vacation from their vacation life and that's what you could do, like you could just be on a constant vacation. And guess what? They have Starlink now, so you can literally work from a boat. When I went to Antarctica last year literally the most remote place on the freaking planet we had Wi-Fi the entire time because of Starlink. There's internet at Burning man because of Starlink. So you have no excuse. Okay, like you literally have no excuse. All right, so that is that one. That's number four. All right, so that is that one. That's number four. Okay. Number five is very similar.

Christa: 35:29

It's being a digital nomad. It means constantly traveling. Okay, I actually already talked about that. Like that's literally not what it freaking means. Being a digital nomad. It just means that you have flexibility, okay.

Christa: 35:39

So yeah, of course, the people that you see online, the people that you see on the internet, they are new. I bet you most people that you see making digital nomad content online, they've been doing it for like three years or less and so they're really excited. They're really, really excited about the fact that they're still traveling because they're living out their dream and, of course, when they're excited, they're going to make great content. You might notice that I actually make way less content now online than I used to. That's because I'm not as like stoked and also because my life is pretty like. I have a lot of routine in my digital nomad life now. I make content when I travel, but I'm not always traveling. I'm traveling for like three months a year.

Christa: 36:21

So, yeah, like the people that you see making content online. So yeah, like the people that you see making content online, they're newbies and they're so excited and that's why you think that digital nomads are always traveling. You're again, you're just seeing a little pinhole of the overall experience. So hopefully I've made my point clear. Whatever life you want, that's what being a digital nomad is, and I bet if someone is just like happily living in a cabin in the woods with their spouse and baby, but they work online from that cabin in the woods, they're probably not making a ton of content, but you're not seeing them because they're not making content. So that's why you have this limited view and that's okay.

Christa: 37:03

Okay, let's keep going, all right. So I think this is number six. Okay, here we go. Next one. I love this one because I feel like I deal with this one all the time. It's people basically being like when are you going to come back to the real world, krista? That isn't the real world. The digital nomad life is not real life. You're always on vacation. It's not responsible. What responsible people do is X Y Z. What professional people do is X Y Z, okay.

Christa: 37:33

You know, what, to me, is not responsible Is allowing day over day over day to pass you by while living with a feeling of dread for the life that you created for yourself. That is not taking any freaking responsibility for your life. You only get one life, as far as we know. Okay, you only get one life. You only get one life in this body anyway, and it's up to you to be responsible enough to make it what you want it to be. It is not responsible to be just following the freaking rules, to be going with the flow of society, even though it actually gives you the ick Again.

Christa: 38:18

This podcast isn't for everyone okay. For a lot of people, going with the flow of society feels great. For a lot of people, going with Living in the matrix feels amazing. They love it. They want to do exactly what everybody else is doing. You, though? No, you don't. You probably I don't know you, but you probably don't want that. That's why you're listening to this podcast, hello. Like it is irresponsible of you to give all of your responsibility away for your own life.

Christa: 38:47

So I know I get that lots of people don't understand and they don't like most people don't get it. Most people are like most people you know. See my life and they're like wow, looks like a dream. Like I remember one time I was working with a client and I told my client I was like hey, I'm taking a little break from work this week, like I'm going on vacation. And they're like oh, where are you going? And I was like oh, to another island off of Bali. And my client was like, oh, that's so funny. Like it's like your life is constantly on vacation and you live in an island, so for you to take a vacation, you're taking a vacation from your vacation on an island, from an island. And I get that that sounds kind of crazy. I get that that sounds like this wild outlandish concept.

Christa: 39:32

But also, at the same time, I work hard. I probably work harder now than I did when I actually had a job. I work more now than well, is that true? Do I work more now? I'm not really sure, but I work right and I make more money and I'm more responsible. I actually have more responsibilities now that I am a digital nomad than when I was just an employee, because I am basically the center of my life and therefore I need to make all aspects. I need to be responsible for every single itty bitty aspect of my life. I mean, everybody needs to be responsible for their own life.

Christa: 40:10

But I do think that our society kind of conditions people to give a lot of their responsibility over to their employer. And when you work for yourself and especially when, like you work for yourself and you're living abroad, for example, or you're just living a slightly unconventional life abroad, for example, or you're just living a slightly unconventional life you just have to step up and take more responsibility. So that might feel like a burden to some people. And if you are shying away where you're like, oh my gosh, no, I can't handle more responsibility, I'm overwhelmed, you know what You're right. Maybe actually being a digital nomad isn't for you and maybe, like you, should just stop listening to this episode right now, like, if you're not cut out for it, if you can't handle a little bit of responsibility, then you're not mature enough to have this life. What's ironic here is I just said that, right, you're not responsible, you're not mature enough to have this life.

Christa: 41:06

But people outsiders, people that are living in the matrix, that are having their nine to five jobs, look at my life and they think that I'm irresponsible. They think that my life is immature. Okay, yeah, sure, maybe I'm in my late 30s and I don't have my own little nuclear family yet. Does that mean I'm never going to have it? No, it just means that I've prioritized different things in my life up until now, and I know that makes a lot of people uncomfortable. But guess what? I don't give a fuck about other people being uncomfortable because I don't surround myself with them anymore. Anyway, I surround myself with people who are seeing life in the way that I see life, people who share similar values to me. Other people who have made similar choices in their priorities. Other people who have been brave enough to stand up in the face of societal skepticism. So what I say to that is that's okay if they're skeptical, it's not for them. I love this.

Christa: 42:06

It was like when gay marriage became legalized in New York I was living there and there was a whole pride parade and there are all these signs of people being like if you don't like gay marriage, don't get gay married, right? It's like if you don't understand about living abroad and about like traveling and making your own money and having the experiences that you want to have before you create a nuclear family, or maybe you never want to create a nuclear family, then don't do it. Go make your own nuclear family at the age of 25. Go be my guest. Like. Your decisions don't have anything to do with my life, and if you don't want to be my friend anymore, that's okay. There are so many other people that do want to be my friend that actually think that my lifestyle is fucking cool and I think that their lifestyle is fucking cool and we can live in a fucking cool life together. There are so many people out there that feel this way.

Christa: 43:02

Okay, so just don't be afraid. Like it's, I mean it sucks, but like it's, I mean it sucks, I guess actually to realize that some people were only your friend because, I don't know, because you were convenient, I guess. But I promise once you get past the sting of that, you will open yourself up to new friendships and relationships that are so much more nourishing. Don't hold yourself back by being scared that other people will think you're irresponsible. Okay, and on the irresponsible thing, I'm not sure if we're on number like seven or eight anymore I've lost count of the myths but I think a reason why people think that having your own business is irresponsible is because it's like risky right, like the financial stability isn't fully there and you also don't get benefits. And da-da-da, there's all these other things, these like little golden handcuff, little golden carrots that are actually handcuffs, are dangled in front of people by being like look, this will keep you safe. See these benefits, see this consistent salary, see this end of year bonus. Isn't that fun, doesn't that feel good for you to just have predictability in your life and you know what. To be fair, predictability does feel good. Predictability helps us feel safe. But predictability isn't abundant. But abundance doesn't mean insecurity. In fact, abundance means you can buy your own freaking security At the beginning of your entrepreneur journey.

Christa: 44:41

Yeah, you probably are going to be working pretty freaking hard. You might be putting in 60-hour work weeks, but the thing is, when you put in a 60-hour work week at a job, that's all it is. It's the time and then the time ends and you don't get anything more out of those 60 hours. You might get a promotion, but then how much longer is it going to be before you get your second promotion and how many more 60-hour weeks are you going to have to put in before you get that second promotion? When you have your own business, you might work really hard at the beginning and then you're setting yourself up for security. You can build your business in a way where you can predict your income and you can make your income as much as you want, based on how smart you work, not how hard you work, how smart you work. And guess what? You can buy your own freaking health insurance. You can set up your own retirement plan. You can make your own investments.

Christa: 45:41

Yes, again, like this is back to the responsible thing. Like people think that having a job is a more responsible thing, but actually you're giving so much of your responsibility away to your employer. You're letting your employer choose your health benefits. You're letting your employer choose your retirement benefits. That is not you being responsible. What's being responsible is doing it your freaking self. Okay, so you might not be up for the challenge of being responsible, but again. I bet you that if you are listening to this podcast, you are cut out for it. You just have to stop being a little B. You're stopping a little B, you're just going to stop. Ok, you're just going to get over your own shit and be a little brave.

Christa: 46:27

Take a leap of faith and trust yourself. Trust yourself that you will figure. Trust yourself. Trust yourself that you will figure it out. Trust yourself that you are a capable adult. You are a capable adult. Look at you sourcing your own information. Look at you using the resource that you have at your fingertips the internet to find the answers that you are looking for of your great questions in life. You are doing that. You are responsible.

Christa: 46:53

Whatever belief that you have in your mind that you're not responsible, I want you to ask yourself why you think that. Why do you think that you're not responsible? Did your dad tell you that when you were a kid? Did your teacher tell you that because you missed your homework assignment one day, was your big brother or sister more responsible than you? So, therefore, you were always in their shadow and you decided that you identify with being work assignment one day Was your big brother or sister more responsible than you. So therefore, you were always in their shadow and you decided that you identify with being an irresponsible person. I have a whole episode on shadow work. That's what these questions are alluding to.

Christa: 47:19

It's like figuring out what the actual limiting belief is in your mind, in your subconscious, so that you can understand what you really believe and then you can overcome it. Because I bet you, so that you can understand what you really believe and then you can overcome it, because I bet you, if you just actually accepted the fact that you are a responsible adult. One, you wouldn't mind that other people think that you're irresponsible because you would know the real truth. And two, you would be more empowered to move forward, taking on the responsibility of crafting your life to be the way you want it to be. Okay. Now, this might be the part of the episode where you're like well, all that responsibility. I mean I guess I could take on more responsibility, but do I really want to? You might be asking yourself, oh, is it really worth it? Like, I mean, my life now is pretty good.

Christa: 48:07

This is what I was saying earlier on in the episode with my client Tommy. Like it's not that he hated his life, okay, it's like hopefully you don't hate your life. I don't. You know, did I hate my life when I lived in New York City? I didn't. I actually really enjoyed my life and I bet you if I had had a better job or if I hadn't gotten fired from that job you can listen pretty much in every other episode I talk about that story where I just lost my job in like a super cutthroat, like we don't need you at this exact moment, so you're done kind of moment when I was living in New York City. And I feel like if that hadn't happened and if I had, and if one of the jobs that I had applied to at the time got back to me and it was good enough, I don't know if I would actually be living this life.

Christa: 48:52

Because the thing is it feels good to be comfortable. I mean, it doesn't feel amazing, but it feels comfortable. And when we're really comfortable, when you're like sinking into that comfy couch and you're a little bit tired or you're not full of energy, like you might just fall asleep on the couch instead of going to bed. You might not even turn the lights off. You know what I mean. Like this is the equivalent of having a life that's pretty good.

Christa: 49:19

You might be making six figures already. You might like your co-workers. Your co-workers might feel like family. You might have a really cute house or like a beautiful apartment. You might have a group of friends that like a beautiful apartment. You might have a group of friends that have been your friends since you were five years old. Sure, maybe they don't really get to have these like deep and meaningful conversations with you because you're not fully aligned anymore, but you know they're like legacy friendships and they've been with you all along and you're a loyal person.

Christa: 49:44

And your family is around, your mom's getting old, your grandmother, like there's all these reasons, there's all these comfortable reasons to stay safe and changing it all up is not for the faint of heart. So, like, I hear you if you are feeling like I just want to stay safe. But here's the thing you only get one life, okay, and it's up to you. No one is going to come shake that shit up for you, unless something really dramatic happens Sometimes. Sometimes you might lose your job. There might be a fire at your house or in your city. I, if you know my story, you know that there was a huge fire at my house and it was this like catalyst to all this change in my life. That shit was uncomfortable and I just told you that I lost my job that time. If you know my story, you know that I had a near death experience where I literally broke my neck and that actually changed so much of my life. Like bad shit happens and it can shift things up for you. But I think it's better to not wait for a bad thing to happen and actually just take action on your life while you're comfortable. It's so much easier to be doing scary things when you have a comfy safety net.

Christa: 51:05

But the thing about that is that there's never going to be a right time. It's never going to feel like perfect timing for you to change everything. It's going to feel like random for you to just change everything when everything is pretty good and people for sure are going to question your sanity. They're going to be like but I thought that you liked your job. But I thought are we not good? Is our group of friends not good enough for you? Or your mom's going to be like oh, but what about our Tuesday dinners? Like you don't like our Tuesday dinners, and you're going to be like no, you guys are great. No, I like this job. I do like my coworkers. Mom, of course, I love spending time with you every week, but it's up to you if you want to just stay comfortable or if you actually want to live out your dream life.

Christa: 51:50

You're the only one that's going to make your dream life happen. You have to be the one that learns new skills. You have to be the one that invests in mentorship. You have to be the one that puts yourself out there. You have to be the one that networks. You just have to be the one. It has to be you. You have to be the one, despite the fact that you might be comfortable, okay, okay, I actually forget what that one even was, what that belief was.

Christa: 52:13

I just went on a total tangent there. Maybe something about being responsible, okay, a couple of other ones that I think are important. It's about money and clients and the whole like business side of it, right? So you might be agreeing with me now that you're like okay, you know what. Krista, you're right, I don't actually have any excuses. Yeah, I'm comfortable doing what I'm doing, but it isn't what I love. I'm comfortable in my setting, but I know that I could have a better life. But what about the money that it's going to take to get started? And once I get started, how will I make more money? And these fears that you have about money and about continuing to make money are going to stop you in your tracks and prevent you from moving forward. But the thing is like neither of these have to be in your way, okay. So how much money do you need to get started as a digital nomad? Oh, do you know what? I have a training in the show notes. It's called how to Get Started as a Digital Nomad, and in that I have a whole section all about money and this like the belief about how much money do you need to get started.

Christa: 53:23

But something that I want to share with you is that you might be asking that question because you are associating digital nomading with travel and you associate travel with vacation, and vacation is notoriously expensive. So you think that being a digital nomad is going to be expensive. You think that being a digital nomad is just going to be a very long, extended vacation. It's not okay. There are so many things that make the nomad life actually cheaper, probably, than life wherever you are living it. So when you're on vacation, what's happening is you're probably just leaving your house or your apartment or whatever unoccupied. You probably have nobody in there. It's just like whatever money you spend on rent that month is just going to the rent and you're not recouping any of it. When you're a digital nomad, probably you have come up with some solution to cover the cost of your rent or your mortgage while you are away and you can do that, because when you are a nomad you're probably not going to be doing these two-week trip bullshit short stints anymore.

Christa: 54:39

If you're going to go somewhere, you might go for a month, or maybe three months or maybe six months. You can do whatever the hell you want. But like, if you don't want to just be bleeding money all the time, what you can do is you can go away for a month and most cities allow you to sublet a place if it's for 30 days or more. So actually, legally, you can get someone else into your place to cover your accommodation, or you could even move out of your accommodation or just like change it up or whatever. For me, for years I actually didn't have accommodation. I actually did live out of my suitcase and it was way cheaper than having an apartment in New York City. Oh my God, because I was able to go to countries that were inherently less expensive than New York. Pretty much everywhere is less expensive than New York. So I mean, it depends on where you're starting.

Christa: 55:32

If you're living in a city like I don't know, birmingham, alabama or something, that might not be a very expensive city and maybe if you travel, it's going to be like the same cost or more, but it doesn't have to be as expensive as a vacation place. Like you don't have to be staying in a hotel, you can stay in an Airbnb, and when you stay at an Airbnb for long enough, you usually can negotiate some kind of long-term discount which could be up to 50%, maybe even more. Or you might not even have to go on Airbnb. You can go on to Facebook groups or there's all these other kinds of groups where people are subletting Furnish Finder. There's another one for nurses. Anyway, there's just like lots of places where you can get mid-term accommodation for a great rate and you can go for a long period of time because you are location independent and you are not on vacation.

Christa: 56:26

Also, when you're on vacation, you're probably not going to the laundromat. You're probably not going to the laundromat, you're probably not going to the grocery store, you're probably getting the highest rate per day for a rental car, etc. And it's just not like that. When you're a digital nomad, you can slow mad and I and I highly, highly, highly recommend slow matting. I do not recommend traveling quickly, because when you travel quickly, shit gets expensive and you're here because you want to live an abundant life and part of your abundance is getting so much value out of every dollar euro, whatever that you spend.

Christa: 57:01

Also, by the way, the point of being a digital nomad is that you're making money as you go. So, yeah, you are sure spending money on your accommodation, on food, on flights, etc. But you're also making money. You're making money because you have set up your business in a way that is structured, organized, consistent. You've learned about marketing in a way that makes sense for your business and who you are as a person, and your business is businessing. So maybe, sure, you're going to spend $3,000 on your flight, plus your accommodation and groceries. You might do that Like, maybe you're even going to spend that kind of money in Columbia, but $3,000, that's like two $1,500 clients and a $1,500 client. I mean, it depends on what it is that you're offering, of course, but, like, that number is not a luxury priced number, but let's say you do have a luxury price service, which I can teach you how to build a luxury price service.

Christa: 58:06

I keep thinking about Tommy today. I don't know why, but Tommy, the interior designer, he had a luxury price service. He had a $30,000 contract on his very first client. I have another client who got a $90,000 contract on her first client. So, like you know, if you're spending $3,000 a month and that's the kind of money that you're pulling in like, you're going to be just fine. So you might be like, okay, I get it. You make money as you go, okay, I get it. Like you, just as long as you're marketing yourself, you can be making money and getting clients. But I don't know how to do that. Well, that's why I have built the Digital Nomad Life Academy and I haven't talked about it this whole episode, because I've just been here to really give you value. But the thing is, my free podcast episodes can only give you so much value.

Christa: 58:55

The way that you're going to actually change your life is by allowing me to go into your brain and figure out what your specific limiting beliefs are what stories you have from your childhood and how they are affecting or prohibiting your ability to move forward in your business, and that is an experience that you will have inside of the Digital Nomad Life Academy. So, really quick, what it actually is it's a year-long program. Yes, an entire year. It's a whole year. Not because it takes a whole year to become a nomad, but because it takes different lengths of time for people, and I just want to make sure everybody has enough time to at least grow their business, if not grow and scale it. So every single week of the entire year there are like three to four live coaching calls, either with me or one of the other coaches, and we are there, available to you, to answer any of your questions about business, marketing, shadow work, lifestyle, etc. The shadow work is part of our character development track, but, yeah, we talk about career clarity and, again, marketing and business.

Christa: 1:00:02

Everybody in the Digital Nomad Life Academy, or the DNLA I will call it now, is building the same business model. We're not all building the same business, because all the businesses are based off of your unique personality and we're not all marketing our businesses in the same way, but I am able to teach everybody the same business model because it's the most simple one, it's the most straightforward one, it's the one where you need the least amount of time and money upfront in order to get it going quickly, and that's why so many of my clients are able to actually say, oh, I joined the program four months ago and I just had my first $10,000 months. Like that happens all the time. If you actually show up to the calls With mentorship, with joining a coaching program like mine, if you don't actually come to the calls, you're not going to get anything out of it and it's not going to be worth your money. But I do have the schedule set up so that, no matter what time zone you're in, you should be able to come to at least two calls per month and you can actually go onto my Instagram or you can go onto the show notes below and you can click on when it says coaching call time schedule and you'll just see, like literally, how abundant the live calls are and how, just, no matter where in the world you are, you can come, because we have clients from all over the world Like I think we cover 35 countries or something insane like that the thing about the DNLA is that there are over 100 people at any given time that are going through the same process as you are, which is building your very first digital nomad completely remote, passion-led business.

Christa: 1:01:44

And people are so collaborative and they're so interactive inside the program. Like people meet up all over around the world, they join masterminds together, they brainstorm together, they use each other as beta clients like market research. It's just. It's an incredible. I can't stress this enough. The community is so interactive. It's just amazing.

Christa: 1:02:06

So when you join the DNLA, you're also going to be around so many other like-minded people, which really, really, really supports your growth as an entrepreneur. It's so important to surround yourself by like-minded people, especially when you are still living in the matrix, like I kind of talked about this earlier on in the episode. But when you're moving through life, feeling like you're an alien, feeling like you're the weird one, it's just. It makes it so much harder for you to go the distance, because you're going to be constantly feeling this feel of criticism and judgment along the way. But when you have all these other people that have got your back and especially me too, like you and I will be connecting every single week, live on these calls. So I will also be there. Anytime you receive any kind of skepticism, I will help you. Just put that to bed so that you can move forward in the direction of your dreams. Build a business. Build a business that you love, even if you don't know which one to build.

Christa: 1:03:08

Remember, I talked about my career assessment process. That is step zero of the Digital Nomad Life Academy. If you already know what business you want to create, you'll just go straight to step one. But if you don't know, you're going to go through the career assessment process where you fill out that huge form, that big intake form, and then you and I get on a call and then I point out your strengths and then I point out whatever knowledge gaps you need to fill in. And then I set you up with a nice neat little plan and I say, hey, you, this is exactly what you need to do, step by step by step. Here's what to learn, here's where to learn it, here's what calls you should be coming to, here's what timeline you might be on, here's what you have to do for marketing. And you're going to be like oh, oh, okay, that's actually pretty simple. Oh, actually, that sounds like exactly like what I should be doing. This makes so much sense for me, krista. How did you know and I'm going to be like you know, I've done this for hundreds and hundreds of people at this point Like I? Just I know what I'm doing and I'm good at it, frankly, so I hope that you got to experience the magic of the Digital Know my Life Academy at some point.

Christa: 1:04:10

It truly is, and just a I don't even have words. The program is just the freaking bomb. So, and it just has everything that you need. It has everything that you need in order for you to change your life forever. Whether you are coming from a nursing, construction or hospitality background, or if you're 10 years into your corporate career, like if you're super advanced and you have amazing technical skills and so many transferable skills for you, you might be in and out of the program super quick. Or you might be scaling your business by month six and making it into a huge thing where you're going for multiple six figures. It's just this program. You can get as much out of it as you put into it, you know. So that's the DNLA.

Christa: 1:05:04

If you are interested in the DNLA, send me the word roadmap and I will send you a training and that training will kind of walk you through, like my philosophy, you'll hear a little bit more about my story. So if you send that word roadmap you through, like my philosophy, you'll hear a little bit more about my story. So if you send that word roadmap, you'll get the training. It's like 35 minutes and at the end I'll just tell you. At the end I also give you a different keyword, which is apply. So if you send the word apply, then you will get the application and you'll fill it out and then I will respond to you in my DMs. So if you don't want to watch the training, if you're like Krista, sign me up for the DNLA right now, just send me the word apply to my inbox at KristaBellaTravels and you'll just get the application straight away and then we can talk about getting you signed up and changing your life forever this year.

Christa: 1:05:46

Hopefully, in this episode you have moved beyond whatever your limiting beliefs are and you feel safe and empowered to go in the direction of your dreams. But if you don't, if you're like, yeah, but this one thing, like Krista, my situation, you didn't talk about it, you didn't talk about this thing, that that's holding me back then just send me a DM and just tell me about it, like for real. I would love to hear from you. I would love to hear about what you've been doing for work up until this point, what's been holding you back, etc. I promise you, if I don't think that I can help you, I will send you to someone else who can, but probably I'll be like oh, listen to this podcast or watch this YouTube video, or da, da, da, da da. So just hit me up.

Christa: 1:06:26

Christabella Travels on Instagram and that's roadmap as the keyword, if you want the free training, or apply if you just want to come straight into the DLNA. No matter what, I am here for you. Whatever journey, whatever part of the journey you're on, I believe in you. I know that you can do this. You just got to get over your fears and get out of your own way. Okay, talk to you in the next episode. Love you, bye, thanks.