107) How Reverse Culture Shock Maybe Your Wake-Up Call to Move Abroad

Today I want to talk to those who are truly not resonating with the country that you were born in and how you are not stuck and you CAN move abroad.

There is another way to live life. The is another way to not be part of a  system that, that you were born into, but you didn't really actually have consent to. If you wanna be part of a different system, if you wanna go to a culture that has values that are more aligned with who you are as a person, you can. 

But here's the thing, unless you are a multimillionaire or someone with a trust fund. You are gonna need an income if you wanna survive in another country. So how do you have an income in another culture? That is what I want to teach you today and what I teach in my academy, the Digital Nomad Life Academy. 

If you’ve ever thought:
  “I’m over this system.”
  “I want to move abroad but don’t know how.”
 “Is remote work or digital nomad life actually realistic?”

 This episodes is for you. 

We talk about today: 

• What reverse culture shock actually means (and why it hits so hard).
• The hidden ways U.S. culture shapes your beliefs about safety, success, and “normal life.”
• Why you don’t have to stay in the U.S. — and how living abroad can realign your values.
• How to create an online business that funds your freedom 
• Step-by-step ways to take action — even if you have zero experience with remote work.

 DM @christabellatravels the keywords below:

• Podcast – to start a chat with Me
• Masterclass – to watch my free training: How to Get Started as a Digital Nomad.
• RRR – to get your Remote Readiness Rating and find out how close you are to your dream life.
  
  

key points: culture shock, reverse culture shock, leave the US, move abroad, remote work, digital nomad, living in Bali, how to move abroad, digital nomad business, online income, work from anywhere

Chapters

• 0:00 Welcome & Why This Topic
• 2:30 Culture Shock vs Reverse Culture Shock
• 8:50 Food Systems: U.S. vs Abroad
• 21:00 Healthcare, Billboards, and Profit
• 31:45 Road Rage and Everyday Norms
• 39:00 Architecture, Aesthetics, and Choice Overload
• 47:30 Identity Shift and Values
• 55:00 Safety, Media Narratives, and Leaving
• 1:02:00 Yes, You Can Move—How Income Works

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:00

Hey there and welcome to the Digital Nomad Life Podcast. I'm your host, Krista, also known as Christabella Travels, on social media. Feel free to slide into my DMs, say hi. I really love to hear from my listeners. Just curious to hear what you guys are up to. Because you know, I end up recording these episodes where I'm just talking to myself for an hour or so. I don't know who's listening or what your opinions or perspectives are. And um, it's just so fun for me to hear from you. So always feel free to reach out and say hi again. That's Christabella Travels on Instagram. So today's episode is gonna be a little bit of a recap of what my quote, digital nomad life has been over the past several months. I just got back to my home in Bali, Indonesia, where I was reunited with my dog Honey, and I'm back in my villa that I set up last year and really just like settled into the home life. But I was just traveling for a couple of months. Um, and I went to the US, where I'm from. And uh as I just got back to Bali, I was talking to one of my roommates, and we were sort of comparing what life here is like versus back in North America. And I thought, you know what, this would just be such an interesting podcast episode to talk about the culture shock that I have experienced both coming to Bali and in other places around the world, and also specifically the reverse culture shock I get when I go back to the US after being abroad for a long time. If you've never heard that term reverse culture shock, what it implies is that you get shocked by your own culture because you've just spent some time outside of your culture and you've gotten familiar and used to the way that other cultures do life, the way that other cultures function. And then when you come back to your home, you see it, you see some aspects of it in a new light where it's no longer just this thing that you become so accustomed to, so used to. Um, and then sometimes it uh yeah, it can be a little bit jarring. But for me, this is something that I love about traveling. I love that uh every time I do go abroad or I do spend time in another place, I get to open up my mind to the fact that there are so many other ways to do life other than the one that I was raised in. If you don't know me and you don't know my vibe or my personality, I think I'm really, well, you might meet me and be like, oh, you are totally normal and spitting in with society and whatever, but what's going on in here? You can't see me, I'm tapping my head. What's going on inside of my brain is that I have a very counterculture type way of thinking and way of seeing the world. And I bet you that if you are listening to this podcast, you probably have some counterculture things within you as well. Maybe they haven't been fully awakened yet. Like if you're still living in the country that you were born and raised in, um, your counterculture tendencies might not have fully come online. I just believe that anybody who's interested in anything digital nomadism is probably somebody that has not fully subscribed to doing life in the same exact way as everybody around you always has. So that being said, that was a really long introduction. Um, I'm excited to be making this episode. I'm also just feeling excited to be talking to you. Um, the past several episodes that I've done have been with guest, like I've interviewed people, right? Um, other digital nomads. And uh I actually batch recorded all of those before I went on my trip. So I try to make these episodes as valuable for you as possible. I'm again gonna make this episode all about culture shock and reverse culture shock and share with you the story of um my nomad lifestyle over the past few months. But also I want to share with you some little business tips, like some ways that um you can have your cake and eat it too, is what I always say. Um, I have a business that I run from anywhere in the world. It's called the Digital Nomad Life Academy. And this podcast uh is one, a self-expression tool for me, and two, it's also a marketing tool for the Digital Nomad Life Academy. So, of course, I'll tell you all about the Digital Nomad Life Academy or the DNLA. But I guess the quick little tidbit or point that I wanted to make is that you can be a content creator and have sustainable content by batch creating, like I'm doing. So you might be like, oh wow, how has Krista been able to keep up with this podcast, even though she's been in Greece and Georgia and Armenia and the US and the Netherlands, Lisbon, Shanghai, France. Like I went to all these places in the past several months, but I was still able to maintain my business and maintain my podcast. And that's because I batch edited everything. And now that I'm back in Bali, where I live, now I can start creating new content. So I think that's why I'm jazzed because it's been a while since I made an episode like this. All right, so where shall I begin? Um, I already defined for you what reverse culture shock is, but you probably already know that culture shock is when you go to a different culture, one that you're not familiar with, and you're like, whoa, people are doing things in a different way. And this feels uncomfortable for me because it's not like what I'm used to. So um, of course, I think that is what most people are familiar with because most people that go to other places that travel, um, they're usually still gonna stay in their home country. So they go to a new place, they get culture shock, and then when they come home, they feel comfortable in their home. Reverse culture shock really only happens when you've spent extended time abroad. And for me, I live abroad. I actually am really only in the US for about one month, maybe a month and a half, every single year. So, yeah, I think I just wanted to share with you some things that I noticed. And I don't mean to be um, well, I hope that this doesn't offend anyone. It's never my intention to offend anybody, although I do think that again, like my kind of counterculture way of seeing the world, of seeing my own culture that I come from, can be offensive to people that are really uh committed to their culture being the best culture. Which as an American, I can say this. Americans tend to think that their culture is the best culture. Now, as an American abroad, when I take a step away from the US, I see the US for all of these not so amazing things. And I'm gonna share some of those things with you. Now, this episode, by the way, I'm not just sharing it to like give you a list of things that are kind of weird about the US. I want to share these things with you because I want you to understand that you have options. If some of these things that I mention about, like things that put me off a bit about the US, if these are things also put you off about the US and you feel like you're over it and you don't want to live in with that aspect of the culture anymore, you don't have to surrender to that part of your culture. You can actually go live abroad. You don't have to live in Indonesia. You could live pretty much anywhere in the world. I actually feel like this is something that people, especially Americans, fundamentally do not understand, is that we don't have to stay in the US. Um, I do have all these conspiracy theories that uh the US like kind of brainwashes is a really strong word, but just promotes the idea that yeah, the US is the best and that everywhere else is subpar um or potentially dangerous, or they make it seem like it's so hard to be outside of the US system that why would you even try? And not that many people do it. So you don't really have that many examples either of other people that have moved abroad. And that's why I'm so passionate about this podcast. I want you to know because I did it and I'm like, why don't more people do this? I'm pretty sure that there are a lot of people in the US that reverse culture shock number one, think that the US food system is absolutely fucked. Sorry, I said it. It's not just the food system, it's the health in general of our nation. So when I'm in Bali, I can get fresh food and vegetables that actually look like real, like they really came out of the ground, like they really came from a tree or a plant or something. Um, not that they're covered in dirt, not that they're all disfigured or whatever, but they're not just these like picture perfect, could be replaced with plastic type produce. Do you know that a banana that's like almost a foot long is so freaking unnatural? I'm in my bedroom right now in Bali and I'm looking out the window and there's a banana tree right there. Do you know that real bananas are about the size of your middle finger? Like that's actually how long a real banana is when it's not completely genetically, genetically modified. Um I think GMOs are okay, but it's just, I feel like every time I go to the US, I'm always really paranoid that food is gonna kill me, that it's like gonna give me some kind of cancer, or that it's gonna affect my, I don't even know, all my different bodily functions, basically. Um, gluten, right? You've probably heard people on social media, if you're someone who follows travel accounts on social media, you've probably seen a lot of people talk about how they can go to Italy and suddenly their celiacs disease is not an issue. They can eat all the bread and pasta that they want. Um, and that's because the way that we grow wheat in the US, it's so genetically modified that all the nutrition, all the nutrients are stripped from it. And then when we eat it, it causes inflammation. But you really only see people talking about that if they've traveled and they've gone outside of the US because they're like, wait, hold on, there's this other culture doing things in this other way that now when I look back at the US, I can see that actually it's not picture perfect. Generally, there's also just a lot of ingredients that are in the US that would never be allowed in other countries that, you know, specifically places in Europe have banned. Whereas the FDA has approved them. You know, I wasn't always into nutrition, but I actually want to tell you a little story about how I actually started to develop this reverse culture shock and realized that for me, the food in the US was something that was so, so, so different than other places in the world. So if you guys don't know my story, I've been a digital nomad for almost 12 years now, actually, almost exactly 12 years now. Um, and I remember the first time that I did a really long, extended trip abroad. I had spent a bunch of time in Thailand where the food is, you know, you're eating a lot of soups and noodles. And it's just like generally pretty clean, it's not very fatty, um, other than maybe some sauces. But uh yeah, it's pretty clean and light food. And then I went to South America, where, you know, in Argentina, they're eating a lot of steak and in Central America, it's a lot of rice and beans. But again, it's just like kind of clean, simple food in a lot of these places. So um, you know, because I care about my family and I do love being at home, right? Because when you're a digital nomad, it doesn't mean that you're gonna be abroad forever or for any specific length of time. I always liked going home for the full summers, like for three or four months every year. So after my first long extended stint abroad, I remember I went back to the States and I was at my mom's house. And after maybe a couple of months, I noticed that I was gaining weight. And I didn't know why, because it's not like I had changed much about my routine in terms of food or movement. I was just as active there and I also was eating a similar kind of diet. So I just remember thinking, what gives? Like what is going on here? And um, there was this post um on Facebook at the time, because this is a while ago, but there was this really, really active Facebook group called Girls Love Travel. And I remember someone had posted a picture of her hand holding an apple. And this apple was like twice as big as her hand. And the post it said something like, Does anybody notice that when they send spend extended time in the United States, they always end up gaining weight? And in my head, I'm like, yes, oh my God, that's exactly what I've been experiencing. And then the person's like, you know, I think that this, the size of the produce or just the produce in general, it's just not natural. And I'm wondering what the deal is. And the number of comments of people being like, yes, this is exactly what I experienced, and talking just all about, you know, the food systems in the US, which at this time I had never ever questioned because I didn't know any different. And even though I had just spent like six months abroad, I still was like, oh, I'm in another country. So they, of course, they're doing food differently, but I had never questioned the food system in the US. I think I just thought that like the the dishes were different. Um, but yeah, then I started really thinking about it. And uh a bunch of people had recommended this documentary called Fed Up. Um, I really, really recommend it. Uh it totally changed my thinking about the US food system, um, unfortunately for the negative. Uh, but it just it's it's about food lobbying, right? It's about how our food culture ultimately is a product of our capitalist economy and how everything comes down to profit, profitability over health, over nutrition. Um, so like the companies that are feeding us that are responsible for all of our food production, whether that's food that comes from the earth or animals or snack food, all of it, it's just how profitable can they be? Um, and therefore the quality and the nutrition takes a huge hit. And therefore, people in the US that are just trying to do the right thing, eating healthy, like being conscious of their food, it's like their bodies are suffering, even though they're doing everything in their power to be healthy. You know, like obesity is a huge problem in the US. And I really don't think that it's the individual's fault at all. It comes down to the systems that the US has implemented in order to get the food into the grocery stores. Um, so yeah, honestly, for me, I feel like I'm so grateful that I get to make money online because if I had to be a part of the US system, um, I feel like I would end up creating a farm or only shopping at farmers markets or something, and ending up having to spend a lot of my mental energy and time thinking about eating food that I don't feel is slowly killing me or my immune system. Not to get all dark about that, but um, yeah, I feel like uh, you know, I I this is a topic that I actually feel really strongly about, and um, it's not always super aligned with my content. So sorry if I'm scaring anybody away, but you know, this is my platform, so I'm gonna say what I think. Um, so I'm gonna move on from the food topic. Sorry if that triggered anybody. Again, I'm not trying to offend anybody. I just want you to know that if you care about your body and you don't appreciate the capitalistic way of our food production in the US, you can live somewhere else. You can. You know, you can live in another place that feels more aligned with your values. Um, another thing that I always get crazy reverse culture shock about, like, it's like I know that this is a thing, but still every time I see it when I go back to the US, I'm like, oh yeah, that's so crazy. Like, that's so weird, are the billboards and the kind of businesses that are being advertised on the billboards on the side of the highways. So when you think of a billboard, you know that someone has paid big money in order to get the message on that billboard in front of as many people as possible. And um, when you are in most countries, the things that you see on billboards, um, a lot of it is for alcohol or for different services, maybe restaurants. There's like all kinds, all kinds of things that are on billboards. But something that you don't see outside of the US that you would literally never see outside of the US is an advertisement for a hospital. To me, that is so indicative of the way that the US healthcare system is a profit first system. Um, and I actually feel like I'm gonna get angry if I talk about this too much. Um, if you want to slide into my DMs and let me know if you actually would be interested in me talking more about this, um, let me know. I think for now I'll just like kind of keep it a little bit surface level. But um, I just want you to know that that's weird. It's like weird that hospitals are gonna prioritize profits. Like the more patients that come in, that is actually directly synonymous with customers. A patient is a customer and a hospital is a business. A hospital is not necessarily a healing center like it is in other places. Um, actually, it is this specific thing that was the thing that um inspired this whole episode. My roommate right now, she's going through this really challenging um condition with her skin where she's trying to figure out like what is actually the root cause of it. She's having all these flare-ups and rashes and stuff. And um, she's yeah, she's really been doing everything that she can to try to get to the bottom of it and just really take control over her health. Like this girl is cooking every single meal. She's washing ever all of her produce in, you know, special produce wash. She's supplementing, she's doing her own research. She's just she she's doing the absolute most to live a toxic free lifestyle. Um, and uh yeah, she was telling me about how she went to a hospital here in Bali so that she could get an ultrasound. Um and she was saying that she was shocked that, you know, she first had the doctors check out her ovaries. And then she was like, Oh, while you're there, like, can you also check my liver and my kidneys and just let me know how much extra it's going to cost? And the doctor here was like, Oh, no worries. Like, I'm just gonna move the little device over and and then I'll tell you what I see. And she was like, the doctors that are, she's from Canada. In Canada and in the US, like, first of all, they never educate you when you are there. Um, like if you ask for them to look at another part of your body, they're gonna say, well, why do you want to know that? And it's probably because they want to find other places where they can charge you or where they can prescribe you something so that they make more money. Because that's essentially how doctors make more money is by prescribing more things. Um, so yeah, and they also, you know, every minute that they spend with you, it's like it's like a like a restaurant, right? Like in the U also in the US, we like a quick table turnover because the more tables that a waiter can serve, the more money that they end up making. And that's because servers are being paid based on customers, not by the hour, which is pretty much how every other place in the entire world pays their wait staff. So, yeah, the the same kind of thing is with the doctor. Like the more patients that you can see, the more they get paid, and the more prescriptions that they can sign, the more they get paid, and the more the money the hospital makes. And so that's how the hospital is able to have all this advertising budget. And um, yeah, whoever you are listening to this, I just want you to know that if you feel that that system is kind of fucked up, you don't have to subscribe to it. You can live somewhere else. You can live somewhere else that's more aligned with your values. If you're driving on the highway and you find that a lot of people around you are honking their horns and they're getting super angry and whatever, you might come to Bali and you might notice that the roads are chaotic as all hell, but no one's mad. You know, you're driving a little bit slow, people just go around you. You cut someone off, someone's like, oh, they might honk their horn, but it's just in a like, hey, I'm here, like, please don't hit me kind of way. Not in a like, bro, how dare you offend me because I'm whatever, some important person. How dare you cut me off, even though nobody knows who the fuck you are inside of a car. To me, road rage is one of the most outrageous things of Western culture. It's so crazy. It's not just in the US that people have road rage, by the way. It's like all over the West and the Middle East. Somehow, though, in Asia, I find it's not really a thing. Even though, again, it's chaotic, somehow there's peace when you're driving. And I really love that. Um I feel like it helps me uh stay calm when I'm driving around because I know that if I make a mistake, which like I'm a human, people make mistakes and driving, it's a risky thing. What doesn't help, I think, is feeling like if you make a mistake, someone might actually come after you and be aggressive with you. It just would never happen here. And it's something I never questioned when I was in the US. I grew up in in Massachusetts, right? Where we have mass holes as a nickname for people from Massachusetts. We're notoriously the most aggressive drivers. So for me, growing up, I always was like, oh, that's just how it is. Like if someone's yelling at the cars around them, someone's laying on their horn, someone's um hopping out of a car at a red light to yell at the person tailgetting behind them. I literally thought that was normal because I was so used to it until I went abroad. And then I didn't see it. I didn't see that for so long. And then when I came back and I saw it, I was like, whoa, this is different than this new place that I've been living in. So that's kind of how reverse culture shock happens. Speaking of the cars and the aggression thing, um, one thing you would also never, ever, ever see in other cultures is ambulance chasers, right? Like lawyers, by the way, lawyers also advertise on the highways in the US. Lawyers also advertise saying, like, hey, if someone's wronged you, you could be eligible for this kind of lawsuit. To be fair, I actually think the legal system in the US, like the fear that someone could sue you, in a way, might keep people in line, I guess. I don't know. Jury's still out for me about that. But um, lawsuit culture just isn't really a thing in other places. And uh yeah, I'm not really sure if I have an opinion on that. It's just something that I notice when I go home that I'm like, oh, personal injury lawyers like fascinating. That's so different than other places. Okay, now I'm thinking about the highways, right? And I'm like literally imagining what an American highway looks like. Um, I mean, I guess this is in a lot of places uh where, you know, it's this big road, there's not a lot to the left or right to look at. Um, and just you kind of yeah, go down the road and you see a billboard once in a while. But this leads me into the next culture shock thing that I'm thinking of, which is that when you go abroad, especially in Europe, like I was just in Amsterdam and Lisbon this summer, and when you walk around, it's just so cute. Like the buildings all have these beautiful little details, like tiles on the wall or wrought iron around the windows, um, nice carvings in the doors, cobblestones on the street, nice colored houses, um, cute shaped roofs, like windows that have pretty balconies outside. Um, and there's just a lot of beauty in the architecture in a lot of places around the world, which unless you're in like the old part of one of the older cities in the US, you just don't actually get that. Um, and I find that very interesting. Like that's actually something I would say I get culture shock about because I spend a lot of time in Bali, and I have to say, like, the exterior of the buildings here are are not beautiful either. Although the inside, wow. Oh my god, the inside of everywhere here is so aesthetic and gorgeous. Um, but uh yeah, in Bali and the US, it's just like the outside of places, it just, it's like, it's like, I feel like it's all about profitability. In Bali and Indonesia, it's probably about budget. Like they just don't, they literally don't have the money to make the exteriors really beautiful. In the US, I think places do have the budget, but they just don't have the value around it. They don't have the value of making something aesthetic to passerby who are never gonna pay them, right? They care about impressing you once you're inside, you know, their services and with their offerings, etc. But like driving on the highway, they don't care if you see an ugly strip mall. They're they're not making money from you until you come inside. Speaking of going inside, like I just said, they're trying to impress you with like their offerings. Um, something that I always notice about the US is the number of options that you have for freaking everything. Oh my gosh, especially in a grocery store. That is really outrageously overwhelming sometimes. Like going to the US, going into a grocery store, um is truly exhausting, I think, if you are not familiar with the brands that you like. Like if you go to the same grocery store all the time, you might end up just not even noticing the other options um that you have because you just go to your go-to, you just go to your go-to products and and leave the rest and don't consider it. But when you don't know any of the products, like by now, I like I've been out of the US for so long. I mean, not that I haven't gone back. I literally was just there. I just haven't lived in the US in over 12 years. So I'm not familiar with most of the brands. And um, yeah, when I go to the US, I have to like read every single label. And it's crazy, you know? Um, because again, I guess by this point I'm not really trusting what's inside of the products. Oh man, I actually didn't really mean for this episode to be me just hating on the US, but I guess um if you guys have been following my story, I've been having a little bit of this quote identity crisis where I'm like, okay, who who do I want to show up as online? And I've been questioning that because towards the end of last year I started to feel. Like, I wasn't being super authentic because all I was talking about was travel. And while I love travel, obviously, it's not the only thing that's important to me. Since I started my business six years ago, I have gotten really into nutrition and fitness and living a healthy lifestyle. Um, I've done a lot of work on improving my relationships and my attachment style and healing. I've grown my business from nothing to over a million dollars. And like I've just really evolved and matured as a person. You know, I've also settled down. I've I assigned a super long-term lease on a house. I got a dog. I furnished the whole thing. I've picked up new hobbies and just I've become a new version of the person who was first recording this podcast. So I guess the point of me saying this is just like, I just want to use this platform to show up as myself. And again, I'm I'm really sorry if this episode's like bothering any Americans. I'm really not here to fear monger. I'm just here to express something that has really been on my heart for years, actually. It's like I experience this reverse culture shock type thing every year that I go home for the past 12 years. Now it just feels like, you know what, 12 years of experiencing this, I want to freaking talk about it. Um, because all the time, people are like, oh, do you see Bali as your long-term place, as your long-term home? Um, and I'm like, well, I don't know if it's gonna be Bali forever. I just went to Lisbon um before this to, yeah, kind of see if maybe that's where I want to live next. And people are like, oh, would you ever move back to the US? And honestly, my answer is like, it would take a lot for me to want to move back to the US because of these things that I'm talking about here. Plus, also, I just actually don't really feel super safe there with all the gun violence. And I don't know if I would feel super safe sending my child to school there. And again, I'm sorry if that's shoving a problem that you already know exists in your face. Um, and I'm sorry if me pointing that out triggers you because you feel like you just have to surrender to this shitty situation of it actually being like an unsafe country, um, which I really do think that it is, even compared, yes, to other places like Guatemala, for example. I remember when I went to Guatemala, my dad was like, Don't you know that it's so dangerous there? People are literally fleeing and running to our borders. It's like, yeah, that's what the news makes you want to think, because the news has an agenda to keep everybody in the US that are Americans. Um, and it's very it's a very nationalistic, imperialistic kind of culture where they the US wants you to believe that your country is the best despite these things. So yeah, I actually do feel safer, even in countries like Guatemala, than I do in the US. Um, and that's why I don't know if I would live there again. So if you've listened to this whole episode and you are vibing, like if you're still here and you're not too triggered and you're like, okay, Krista, I get it. Yeah, there are a lot of these things that are kind of fucked about, you know, maybe you're not just American, maybe you're Australian, or maybe you're from somewhere in Europe, and maybe you don't have the same problems that I'm mentioning, but maybe there are things about your culture that you're just freaking over and you're wondering, is there another way? How can there be another way? Well, I want to pivot this conversation to talking about how there is another way. So the other way to live life, the other way to not be part of a system that, yes, you were born into, but you didn't really actually literally consent to, if you want to be part of a different system, if you want to go to a culture that has values that are more aligned with who you are as a person, you can. But here's the thing: unless you're a multimillionaire or someone with a trust fund, you are gonna need an income if you want to survive in another country. So, how do you have an income in another culture? Well, you do have the option of getting a job in another country. Um, it's more challenging in some places than others. Like if you want to get a job in Australia, for example, and you are over the age of 31, then um, you know, you're gonna need to figure out your visa first, or you're gonna need to be able to prove that you're a skilled worker in an underserved area. Um, but if you want to go to Thailand, for example, which is where I started my journey, um, you could get a job teaching English there, or you could just take your skills and apply to certain companies. And, you know, they might need a Western speaker. Um, like someone that speaks speaks English. You obviously speak English if you're listening to this podcast. Um, so yeah, you can listen to episode one of this podcast if you want to understand my journey of how I moved to Thailand 12 years ago. I moved to Thailand and I got a job there. Um, I randomly was like the an editor of a magazine, but that's neither here nor there. Um the thing is, you could go get a job in another country. And that is a possibility. And if you're questioning me on that, just like please just go ask Chat GPT how you can get a job in the country of your choice. Like, I feel like for a lot of people, when they hear me talk about how I live my life abroad, they have this cognitive dissonance where they're like, oh, she can do that, but she must have some special criteria. She must have some special experience, or maybe she secretly is a child of a trust fund, or maybe she is lucky, like the stars just aligned for her. Okay, again, that's cognitive dissonance because none of those things are true about me. I'm like a very average person, you know, like I was born in a very middle class family, like I have a very standard education. Um, just what I'm just like, I don't think I'm basic anymore. But I come from a very basic background, basic bitch over here. So if I can do it, you can do it. But if you are questioning, oh, I want to go live in Spain, but I just don't know how, I don't think it's possible. You probably don't think it's possible because one, you don't know anybody who's done it. And two, because you've never actually really looked into it. You've just decided that it's not possible. And when you decide that something is not possible, you're one, you don't have motivation to find the possibility because you've deemed it impossible. But if you are open-minded and hold the belief that anything is possible, that whatever your dream life is, that if you can dream it, you could do it with a little bit of guidance, with a little bit of support, with more information, with more resources, with more experience. Like there might be some asterisk behind the whole if you can dream it, you can do it thing. But if you do hold that belief, then what my really cool landlord and Bali always says is when you look for solutions, you'll find them. You'll find them. Wherever you want to live. You want to go live in freaking Antarctica, you can. And I actually off the top of my head, I can think of like three different ways. Um, you want to go live in Norway, you want to live in the North Pole, you want to live in Uzbekistan, you want to live in Brazil, like you can, and you don't have to marry a local, you don't need to be some kind of special person. People are immigrating and migrating all over the world all the time, legally. And you could too. But if you are someone that's from a Western country, especially one that has any kind of nationalistic pride, then you may have been led to believe that your dream life isn't actually possible. Okay. Now you could go figure it out yourself and you could go ask ChatGPT. And ChatGPT will probably give you some kind of answer that has come from the collective. And when I say collective, like it's gonna take the average of most of the answers that it finds online from crowdsourcing information, and it's gonna tell you that. Now, the thing about you being here in this podcast is that I hold this kind of counterculture belief, and I've experienced life and the world and career and business and lifestyle in a way that's not average. Um, I've been part of a subculture for a really long time, for 12 years now, of people who are expats, people who are freedom focused, people who are digital nomads. And I'm here to tell you that you might not get what I'm about to share with you, even if you ask Chat GPT. So go ask ChatGPT for the answers for sure. I mean, who knows? I don't know what it's gonna tell you, but um, what I want to tell you is that the key, like the literal key for you being able to live outside of the culture that you were born in, whether you want to move abroad and stay abroad, or you want to be a digital nomad, or you just want to take extended vacations, whatever you want to do, the key to this freedom is having an online business. Now, before you shut this podcast off, if you're like, I don't know anything about business, I don't know anything about marketing, I don't have any skills, because those are the main complaints that people have. I'm here to tell you that you're wrong. Okay. So if you ask ChatGPT, ChatGPT is like, yeah, you could do this, this, and this, and you need to have these kind of things. Like, again, the collective believes that it's hard to move abroad. The collective believes that you need to be a certain kind of person, and I'm telling you that you don't because this is what I've seen from my experience. Okay, so here's what I teach my clients. Here's what I have done for myself over and over and over again. And this is also what I've seen around my entire community and pretty much everybody that I've met over the past decade at least. So there are so many different businesses that you could create online, but there's some that are more complicated than others. So if you are someone who's cut out for a more complicated business, then you probably have, you probably already know what your skill set is, and you probably already know how that skillset could translate into an online business. So I'm just here assuming that whoever you are listening to this podcast is that you think that you are a beginner. You think that you don't have a lot of transferable skills, you don't know how your experience could translate into online business. So just know that as I move forward sharing this strategy with you, that I am actually speaking to you. I'm speaking to the baseline of people. So whether you're a high school dropout or if you have lots of professional experience, but you just don't know how it translates, this is for you. Okay. So having your own business, it doesn't have to be that complicated. It don't have to be that deep. It don't have to be that hard. Um, you might be making it hard because of the way that you've been brought up by your culture. Okay, the model that I teach to my clients, because if you don't know me, I'm a business coach. Um, and and I'm a career coach, but we'll talk about the business part for now, because that's what I just said. You need to have your own online business. A high-ticket small service provider model. A high ticket small service provider model. I'll write it down one more time because you probably don't have a pen and paper in front of you. A high-ticket small service provider business model is your key to freedom. Because this model, essentially, what you're doing is you're having some kind of thing that you do for another person that values that thing, and you're packaging it up in a way that you could reasonably charge over$1,000 for it. Now, you might be like, oh my God,$1,000. Just hear me out. Okay. I'm gonna explain the whole thing. Um the reason why I love this model and why I really believe so wholeheartedly, so deeply that this is the key to freedom is that when you're charging over$1,000 per customer, you don't need that many customers in order for you to make a full-time income. Like let's say that you have an offer that you're charging$1,000 a month for and your average customer is staying with you for six months. That means that you're making$6,000 per customer. That means that if you wanted to make a$100,000 salary, you wouldn't even need 17 clients in a whole year in order for you to make that amazing salary. And what that means is that with this model, you don't need to have a big audience. As long as you can be strategic about networking and leveraging your existing network, you can be absolutely killing it with this business model. Now,$1,000 a month is like the minimum of what I would encourage my clients to charge. Now, again, if you're having some kind of moment where you're like, oh my God,$1,000, who would ever pay me$1,000 for literally anything? I don't know how to do anything. That's just because you don't, I like I'm going very high level here with this business model. But I promise you, if we had a one-on-one conversation, I would be able to share a lot more about this, um, about how actually you would be shocked at what people are willing to pay for things that don't even require a college degree, don't require a ton of experience. And now, literally with the AI rush, there are so many things, so many skills, so many things that you can learn how to do within just a few months that a business would love to pay you$1,000 a month for. And because AI is brand new, nobody has been to school for AI. Nobody has 10 years of experience with AI. So everybody's starting off from the same place. But if you're like, I'm not technical, okay, you don't have to be technical either. There are other services that you could provide that are non-technical. For example, let's say that you are a connector, like a person who just naturally loves to connect this person to that person because you see certain skills in them or whatever. Um, like people pay money to get into the right rooms. And that's a non-technical thing that you could do if you happen to have that natural tendency about you. You might not know what your natural tendencies are. So, by the way, that's where I would come in. Um, and it's not your fault that you don't know what your natural tendencies are, by the way. Society has told you that what you're skilled at is irrelevant to the professional world because society wants to keep you on the little conveyor belt of producing employees right out of college or high school, even, and having you go through the corporate ladder in a very systematic way because systems lead to profit. Per my counterculture philosophy, way of looking at life, way of looking at culture, I'm here to help you get out of that system so that you don't have to follow the rules. You can make your own rules and you can make your own income and you can make your own future and you can make your own destiny. You can make your own rules for your life. Suddenly you get to be the captain of your ship. It is amazing. Um, so again, society has told you that whatever you're good at is not relevant, and therefore you might think that you don't have anything relevant that you're good at. I'm here to tell you that that's probably 100% false. I would love to help you figure out what are the skills that you have that could translate into an online business. And again, there might be some technical things or there could be some completely non-technical things that you would be absolutely perfect for that you've just never thought of. Because even when you ask ChatGPT, what can I do to make money online? Chat GPT is only sourcing from the collective, not from someone who's kind of like a bit of a fringe thinker like me, right? So um the way that I help people, I have something called a career assessment process. Actually, you can listen to episode 33 if on this podcast, if you're curious about that. But anyway, um basically, I have you watch a series of videos that's meant to open up your mind to all the possibilities of online work. And then you're going to fill out this form. And it's not just a five-minute form. This is like more like a five-hour form. I need you to do the legwork in surfacing all the nooks and crannies of your personality, of your background, of your memory, of your skill set, et cetera, what you're good at, what you're not good at, what you like, what you don't like, what you're curious about. I need to know all those things so that if we only have an hour to meet, I can look through your form really quickly and boom, suggest something to you that's super aligned with who you've always been. You've just suppressed it. It's actually a really magical experience. A lot of my clients have said it feels akin to like a psychic experience or something. I'm not a psychic. It's just a, it's like it's just a system that I have that has worked. I've done a career assessment for probably like almost 500 people at this point. And uh, people freaking love it because it sets them free. Like this one-hour call shatters your idea of reality as you've known it, basically, but like in a good way, in a really like, oh my God, I've been confined and suddenly I'm free. Suddenly I can think about other possibilities and I can dream bigger because now I see that there is actually a path for me to go from where I am to my dream life. It's profound, to say the least. So yeah, um, I would love to show you how capable and magical you have always been on a career assessment call. So if you want to book that, um, well, actually, sometimes I sell them on their own, but usually only on a like a special occasion. Um, they're always, though, part of the Digital Nomad Life Academy, which is my business where I actually business coach you into creating this high-ticket small service provider business. Um, and that is when, you know, I teach you all about pricing methodology, like how to confidently say, that'll be$5,000, please. It's also where I teach you how to step into the identity of an entrepreneur. It's also where I teach you how to market your business online. It's also where I teach you how to network so that you can get in front of the right kind of customers who would be willing to pay you$5,000, because not everybody's going to, but the right people will. So I teach you basically how to do everything from literally getting the idea in the first place all the way up to creating a profitable business that you can run from anywhere. And if you get to the point within the year of the program that you've started running your business and now you're living your dream life, then I'm going to teach you how to scale that business. Because of course, I don't want you to be trading your time for money forever. I want you to be like living in your dream land, working 20 hours a week or less. That's what I'm doing now. And that's how I've been able to travel for the past like three months, basically, which I didn't even tell you. Since I'm recording this now in early October, in early June, I flew from Bali to Shanghai, then Shanghai to France, then I got on a cruise. And on that cruise, I went around the Mediterranean. I got off in Greece. I spent two weeks in Greece, then I went to Armenia because I'd never been to Armenia. And at this point, I've been to almost 70 countries. So I need to start like going to other kind of more unheard, less heard of, less popular countries. So I went to Armenia and then I went to Georgia. And then after Georgia, I went back to Bali just because I missed my dog and I wanted to spend a month at home. But then after spending a month in Bali, I flew from here all the way back to oh no, I went to Amsterdam. I wasn't planning on going to Amsterdam, but my sister was like, hey, I got a free ticket to this event. Do you want to come? And I was like, hell yeah. I was gonna go to New York, but I guess I'll go to Amsterdam instead. Changed my flight, went to Amsterdam, spent 10 days there. It was so cute. I I saw so many friends, it was amazing. Then I went from Amsterdam, I spent a week and a half with my family. One of those weeks, I was on a little island with my extended family. Cause uh yeah, a whole bunch of my family members are entrepreneurs, and people can just take a week off or they take vacation. Some of them are living more traditional lives too. But the point is, like when I used to live in New York City, I always only got to go to this annual family reunion for a weekend. Now that I work for myself and I live on the other side of the planet, I can go for a whole the entire week and then some. So after the family reunion, I went home, I repacked some bags, I tried on some costumes, and then I went to Burning Man and I spent 10, no, how long? I don't know, 10 days, 14 days, or I don't even know how long out west going to the festival of my dreams. I had the most fun, literally ever, out in the desert, being completely offline, knowing that my business was being taken care of because the systems that I have set up and the people that I have hired. Remember, I started off with the business model that I'm teaching. And now I have a completely scalable business where not only do I only work 20 hours a week, but I also can take weeks off at a time if I want to. And I often do that. So after Burning Man, I went to LA to see my sister because again, I love my family and I care a lot about spending quality time with them. And after LA, I went back to see my mom in Boston. And then I went to Lisbon. And I was only gonna be in Lisbon for a week for a wedding. But then I was like, I like it here. I think I'll stay another week. So I did. And then after that, I I uh I was like, you know what? I think I'll stay for another week. So I did. And while I was there, I maintained my business again. I I worked my normal 20-hour a week, and then I used my miles and points to fly business class for free back to Bali. And now I'm here in my beautiful house, reconnected with my dog, going on daily sunset walks, going to the most beautiful gym you've ever seen with like a waterfall in the entrance, eating food that nourishes my body, that makes me feel so good, being around a community of like-minded people who care about their health and nutrition and fitness and business, who think in sort of a counterculture fringe society way that I do, that make me feel like I'm not a freaking lunatic, that I'm actually just like a vibe. Um, because they're the same vibe. And I just love that for me. I love my life so much. It is so cool. And I'm so grateful because I used to be in that system where I was, I don't want to say a victim. That doesn't feel good. A victim to my culture. Like I just was, I was just a part of a system that I had been born into that I never asked, and I never got to choose. I didn't choose to be American. Not that I'm not grateful for the privilege that I have as an American, I am. Don't you come after me telling me that I'm not grateful, because I am. And I know you've just listened to me talk for an hour, but you don't know me. Okay. So uh you might know me actually more than a lot of other people that I know in real life because I share so much in this podcast. But anyway, the point is I'm deeply grateful to have the privilege that I have from being born as an American citizen. I recognize that and I see that. And at the same time, there's just so many things about American culture I do not resonate with, that I don't feel are aligned with my personal value set, that I don't feel if I were living in the US, that I would be able to be my most authentic self, that I would be able to express myself openly, because most people that live in the US like they might choose to be there or they don't know that they have a choice. Either way, my opinions often trigger them. So then I have to be suppressed and I can't say what's really on my mind. And I just like saying what's on my mind, you know. That's why I have a podcast. That's why I'm a content creator. I like, I like saying my truth. I love telling the truth, I love revealing the truth, and I just uh feel safer to do that when I'm living in a culture that I feel more accepted in. So here I am in my little expatriate society on the other side of the planet, living on a tropical island in my dream life. By the way, making way more money and living an exponentially more fabulous lifestyle than I ever did when I was in the US, when I was part of the system. So that's my story, guys. If you are curious about how you can live your dream life or how you can move to a different culture that resonates more with you, please, please, please, please slide into my DMs on Instagram. I would love to slap some sense into you and like whatever, whatever you think is the thing that's holding you back. Uh it's not that I'm not gonna listen. I'm a coach. I'm an amazing listener. And I, and I really, it's not that just that I'm like letting you say what you think, like I'm I'm hearing you and I'm really like trying to understand your perspective. But um, I just guarantee you I have a different perspective than most people that you've talked to. And I would love to share that with you to open up your mind and empower you to take back your dreams. You deserve to live your dream life. You only get this one life that we know of, that at least guaranteed, you guarantee you get guaranteed one life. So you might as well make the freaking most out of it. You might as well pursue your dreams. And again, if you have found this podcast, if you happen to have stumbled across my little bites of data amongst the billions, trillions, gazillions, whatever's bigger than a gazillion bits of data on the internet, I just you're You're supposed to be hearing this message. So stop settling for a life that you're not thrilled with. Stop living in a culture that you don't resonate with. Choose yourself, choose your dreams, and do something about it. So I'm gonna give you three options what you can do about it. One, again, you can slide into my DMs at Christabella Travels and just like tell me that you heard this podcast, send me a message, let me know. Um, you can actually just send the word podcast and you'll get a reply from me that's asking you for some questions. I'll be like, hey, cool, you listen to the podcast. Tell me about yourself. You already know so much about me. I can't tell you any more about me, but I need to know about you in order to help you. So if you send me the word podcast on Instagram, you'll get an automated reply with some questions, answer the questions, and then we can have a productive conversation and I can do my best to help you. So you can talk to me. Um, oh no, maybe I have more things that you can do. You can also send me the keyword masterclass on Instagram, and I will send you a free training called How to Get Started as a Digital Nomad. It's like 90 minutes. I take you through step by step by step all the things that you need to do in order to change your life. It's totally free, except for 90 minutes of your time. So I guess you will lose your time, but you'll love it. I like it's my best training. People love it. There's also an amazing visualization meditation at the end. People cry tears of joy, where you really see yourself living your dream life. Um, it's very powerful. So you can send the word masterclass at Christabella Travels. Um, if you actually want to talk to somebody, I don't offer calls with me for free, but I have trained somebody on my team to give you a remote readiness rating. So if you send the keywords RRR on Instagram at Christabella Travels, then you can book a call with someone on my team and they'll talk to you and tell you basically how close or how far you are to being able to achieve your dream life within the next few months. So you can talk to me digitally on Instagram in the chats by sending me the word podcast. You can listen to a uh comprehensive training by me at your leisure if you type masterclass on Instagram, or you can talk IRL, like on Zoom, with someone from my team if you send RRR. So um it's podcast, masterclass, or RRR. Those are the keywords. Send to Christabel Travels on Instagram and just do it. Just take action. You cannot change your life without taking action. You can sit and meditate and visualize and journal and script and plan and research all you want, but until you actually take action, nothing in your life is gonna change. And no one's gonna do it for you. Okay. So remember, you deserve to have your dream life. You deserve to live in your dream destination, you deserve to make your dream income. And all of these things are so possible and more when you follow the method that I teach. So I really hope that you take this into consideration and you do something about it. You are a rock star. Thanks for being here. Thanks for listening to my rants. I appreciate you. I love you, and I'll see you in the next episode. Thanks for listening to the Digital in My Life podcast. Bye.