Dina's journey as a digital nomad

Hello everybody! Hi! I'm just going to wait a few moments, I've started a bit early and I just want to let you know that I'm live today to talk about my journey as a digital nomad and I'm really excited to get to know you all in the Q&A. If you have any questions, I'm here for you and just to tell you a little bit about me, I've been a digital nomad for for 11 years and I've traveled to 47 countries. I'm currently in Spain learning how to kitesurf and I'm in Nomad Base, so I'm with 150 digital nomads and from all around the world and we're all here together. And yeah, I'm here today and I've started early just because I always mess up when it comes to Facebook Lives. I always get confused and sometimes it doesn't record, so I'm just checking now to see if it's recording and then I'll let you know my story. So just waiting here to see if anyone's going to join. Okay, I'm going to start. So yeah, as I said, I'm Dina from Digital Nomad Coach. I've been a coach for around 12, 11 years, and I've been a digital nomad for— since 2017 I was traveling full-time, but I've done loads of solo trips before then, and I was a part-time nomad, and then I became a full-time nomad, and now I have a base and I travel backwards and forwards from my base, to and fro from my base, and yeah, it's been great. I'm also the founder of the digital nomad lifestyle We Are Freedom Seekers group. I've done that for a long time and now we're over 6,000 people. And I really hope the group are enjoying the lives. We love doing them. We love connecting with you all. And yeah, I would love to just tell you a little bit about me and my story and how I became a coach. But before I do that, I'd like to just say that I help people go from no idea of what to do as a digital nomad to a business entrepreneurship digital nomad with paying clients. I've helped hundreds of people navigate their journey into becoming a digital nomad. I've helped people start up all different types of businesses. You don't have to do the same thing as everybody else to become a digital nomad. It's actually better if you choose your own career path based on your personality, skills, and interests. I've helped people go into vegan nutrition, mindfulness, meditation, graphic design, virtual assisting, consulting, coaching, teaching, management, project management. Translation. There are so many different jobs that you can do as a digital nomad. We believe that you should focus on something that you love so it doesn't feel like work and you enjoy doing it, and build a business based on, as I said, your personality, skills, and interests. If you're interested to find out more, just contact me on Dina@digitalnomad.coach. That's D-I-N-A digitalnomad.coach, and we can arrange to have a free discovery call just to help you understand where you are in your digital nomad journey and how we can 10x that, and you can be the digital nomad that you've always wanted to be. And you could also be either a world traveler or move country or just make some more money and be in charge of your own time rather than working for someone else. On their timeline, on their schedule, making money for them. If you are interested, you can always leave a comment in the— and, you know, with the video, you can leave a comment and we'll get back to you as well to tell you more about how you can book a discovery call with me. So yeah, today I'll talk about my story as a digital nomad. I was brought up in Wales in the UK, and it was a really nice town. I lived in a seaside town right next to a park, so I really enjoyed the nature part of where I lived, but there wasn't really that much ambition in Swansea, where I'm from, so I never really knew what I wanted to do. And yeah, I— but I did realize that I wanted to travel at the age of 8 because my sister was traveling the world, and she's 12 years older than me, and I was so jealous. Her stories, every time she was changing to different cities and different countries, I was always amazed, and I was always like, I really want to do that. I really want to travel the world. I want to, I want to go and explore all of these places. So that's always been my goal since I was like 8 years old. And then on the business side of things, when I was 16, I saw both of my parents working as doctors and they were working, I don't know, 50-hour weeks. They'd have to do on-calls, sometimes work weekends just to make sure that the clients and the patients were being seen, and I was like, fuck, I don't want to work as hard as that. I just want to have a really good life, and I want to, I want to be in charge of my own time, and I want to be, I want to be free to do something that I love doing that is as important as being a doctor, because obviously you need to have doctors in the world for to make sure that people are healthy and well, but I didn't know what I wanted to do. And yeah, so I decided to, um, that I always wanted to work for myself since the age of 16 because I thought that that would give me a bit more autonomy over my time and I could live life on my own terms. And another goal of mine was to get a personal assistant or somebody to help me manage my time because I'm not that organized. And so I was like, if I have a PA or a VA now, I can have someone else do all of the stuff that I'm not very good at, or I don't really understand, or I don't like doing. And yeah, I would like to say that I now have a VA and she's awesome, so I've ticked that dream as well. Um, but yeah, so that's how I decided that I wanted to work for myself. When I went to university, I studied psychology because I've always been interested in how people work and what makes them tick and how to really understand human beings. I've always been a people-focused person. I love learning about people and I love hanging out with people. I love talking to people and I like working out how their minds work. So psychology was a really good investment for me, 'cause university is an investment. And I enjoyed doing it, but I just, one thing I didn't really like doing was like focusing on mental health. I'm fascinated by mental health now, but I didn't wanna work with people who are clinically, clinically ill. Unwell in psychology. I always was more fascinated by evolution and business psychology. And yeah, when I was in university as well, I started an event charity business. It was helping to raise money through events for different charities, and I ended up raising around 10,000 £1,000, which was a lot of money for me, and I was really happy with my team because I hired a team to help me run these events, other friends of mine and different students, and we would have DJs, thespians, magicians, face painters. It was like a proper full festival-like event, and I really loved doing it. And yeah, so I ran these events. I was studying psychology, and And then I was like, okay, uni is finishing, I'll apply for jobs. And I ended up getting an event management role as a freelancer. So I had my first taste after running my own event charity business to then manage my finances and manage my time and work as an event freelancer. So I would be helping around with stage management, artist liaison, managing areas of festivals and different corporate parties, and finding, um, acts and, um, different people to help make the events better. So I was doing that and I loved doing it, but I found that I wasn't getting paid enough to to do it, and I was living in London at the time. I moved to London after I finished university, and so I was like, okay, I love being in events, I love, I love that environment. I was making people happy through events, so it was, it was enjoyable, but I'm not making enough money, so what should I do? So I applied for my first corporate job, and that was a sponsorship event sales manager. So I was helping events in pharmaceutical and oil and gas, two industries I don't really— that don't align with my values at all. And I was helping them get sponsors for their conferences. And I hated it, to be honest. I only lasted 6 months, and after the 6 months, my boss came to me and he was just like, Dina, I don't think this job is for you. I don't think that this job is what you're supposed to be doing, but you know, you're really good with people, you're really good at connecting the dots, you're really good at like problem solving, and I think you would be a really good coach. 'Why don't you study coaching? And also, I would suggest reading The 4-Hour Workweek.' So I thought, '4-Hour Workweek, that sounds good. That sounds like something that I would want.' So I went to— I searched online for different coaching training programs, and I found one with The Coaching Academy that gave 2 free days to learn about coaching. And I also bought The 4-Hour Workweek and started reading that. And if you don't know The 4-Hour Workweek, look up Tim Ferriss. He's an amazing guy, in his books anyway, I've never met him. But it's, it's a life changer, that book. It really gets you to think about like how you can work more efficient and more effectively than just more efficiently. And more time does not necessarily mean better work. And in that book, he also teaches how to outsource as well. So a lot of the stuff that I'm doing today in my business, that stemmed from The 4-Hour Workweek. But yeah, I went to that coaching pro— program, the training, the 2-day training, and I was surrounded. This was before the coaching boom when no one really knew what coaching was. And I was surrounded by retired CEOs and just, yeah, retired people or like CEOs for companies that wanted to learn how to coach their teams. So I was definitely the youngest in the room at that point. I was about 23, 24. And that weekend changed my life. I remembered all of the things about wanting to travel the world. I remembered that I wanted to work for myself, and I enjoyed working for myself the most in my charity fundraising business. And yeah, I just realized that I wanted those two things more than anything. So after I finished that 2-day course, I signed up for their coaching diploma, so I'm now a qualified personal performance coach, aka a life coach, and I, yeah, I also enrolled to do an organizational psychology, brackets, business psychology master's. My master's was starting in September, so between then I decided to spend the rest of my savings on a trip to Thailand. And that trip to Thailand was incredible. That changed my life too. That year after I lost my job in the corporate world, my life just seemed to be getting better and better and all of the jigsaws kept falling into place. It was just, it was just so good. I recommend just going with the universe. The universe knows best and how to make you happy. So yeah, it was just one of those years where everything was kind of falling into place. So I was studying my diploma, I did a master's in business psychology, and I was like, okay, I'm gonna do this for 2 years and then I'm gonna come back on a plane, maybe not back to Thailand, even though I love Thailand, it's one of my favorite places on earth, and I'm going to travel full-time. So while I was doing my master's in, in business psychology and I was coaching as many people as I could to get my tra— my personal performance, my life coaching diploma. I then started up another business while I was in university with my business partner Kitty at the time, and that was going into workplaces and putting on yoga, massage, fitness classes, art classes, and different things. So I still had that entrepreneurial spirit, and I still wanted to make the most out of my time in London. And that job was doing okay, but then I realized I was stuck in London. So I did that for like maybe 6, 7 months after I finished my master's, because as I said, I wanted to travel. And then I also Then I set up my coaching business, you know, like around the same time. And I started coaching people and then I told them, I'm gonna only be available to coach people online because I wanna travel the world. And yeah, my coaching clients at the time in London, they were all creative. All wanted personal development and they all wanted to live life on their terms. So most of my clients were really happy with the fact that I was gonna go and travel. They were like, "That's so cool, let us know how it goes, we'd like to do the same too." And yeah, I set off to travel. I went to so many different places: Morocco, Spain, Portugal, Greece, lived in all of those places for 3 to 6 months, and it was great. It was exactly what I wanted. I was just like, this is incredible. I'm coaching people, I have a business that's making money, and I'm able to travel. And, you know, I have all of this business knowledge. I've been in business since I was 19. I know what I'm doing. I'm gonna become a business coach and I'm gonna focus on people who wanna start online businesses. That's what I'm gonna do. So I kind of re-niched my business. So then it was business coaching. It was called Limitless Lifestyle Design, just because I was thinking of the film Limitless and I was also thinking of Tim Ferriss's lifestyle design. And that was my first business. And then I kept doing that. I had like enough clients to make enough money to enjoy my travels. And then I was like, how do I grow? How do I expand? How do I be an even better business person? And then it dawned on me by meeting a lot of travelers when I was on my, on my adventures, um, that I could become the Digital Nomad Coach, and that's what I did. I became the Digital Nomad Coach. At the time I called it Location Independence Coach, um, and that was my domain name, and then it changed to Digital Nomad Coach. And no one was doing it, but this is when more people were familiar with coaching and more people were becoming coaches in all ages, not just CEOs and retired people. So yeah, I was like the one of the OG young in their 20s coaches, and I was the only one doing digital nomad coaching or location independent coaching at the time. So yeah, it was, it was perfect. It was divine timing that that happened, and it was divine timing that I started traveling because that's my life was heading that way, and I was step by step getting closer to the life that I'm living now. I worked with my own coaches who were teaching me about how to build packages and how to sell myself online and how to be visible. One of my coaches advised me that I should start a Facebook group, which is the group that you're all a part of now, and It was just really cool. I really enjoyed myself and I was traveling and I was growing my business and I was learning more about business and I wasn't just focused on, you know, getting session-by-session gigs. I was getting like people coming into 3 to 6 month containers, a bit like what I do now. And I was making more and more money because and people had a goal. Their goal was to start up online businesses and become digital nomads. So yeah, and fast forward another, I don't know, like 7 years, I've traveled to almost 50 countries. I've lived in, I don't know, um, 5 different countries as well. And I've, I've traveled using up the whole of my tourist visa. So traveling for, in one country for 3 months at a time, or, you know, living in Crete in, in Greece for 6, 7 months. And it was just incredible. I really recommend enjoying your life and enjoying, um, the places that you go and not being stuck thinking, okay, I only have 7 days to explore the whole of Greece, or 14 days to explore the whole of Greece. You've got 3 months. And that's all because I had my own business and I was in charge of my own time and where I work. So I've always been able to work while I travel. Since then, and it's made such a difference. And one of my key motivators into becoming a digital nomad coach was to help other people do the same, so other people could— the freedom seekers that I was meeting while I was traveling or online, I was helping them build their dream business that they can do from anywhere in the world, traveling full-time or part-time or however they want to travel, or even not travel and spend more time with their family and friends and children or whatever, um, while making a full-time income, while working not harder but smarter. So helping people automate their business, helping people to create systems so then they get maximum benefit for— from everything that they do. And helping people go from no idea of what they want to do to a business with systems that can scale, that can grow, that can give them that full-time income or even more money than they even imagined was possible. I had one client when I first started, and she had a normal 9-to-5 job, and she just said, "I want to work for myself so I can go and travel like you." and spend more time with my husband. And also I want to renovate my house. They were her bucket list dreams. They're the things that she wanted to do. So we set up her first business as a dog trainer. And then after she finished her business as a— after she finished starting up her business as a dog trainer, we helped her set up a business for dog trainers course. So she would teach Americans who wanted to become dog trainers on how to set up all the business logistics, the LLC, the marketing, et cetera. So she was, she, after she started her first business, her second business was a business course for dog trainers and how they could set themselves up in America. Then fast forward a year, she then set up her third business, which was marketing for dog trainers. And just to go back to my point, she said to me when she started, "I just want to make $200 by Christmas." And I was like, "Hey, you're gonna make so much more than $200 by Christmas." and she ended up making £2,500, and we only started working together in a month and a half, 2 months, and she made £2,500, and she was just like, "Oh my God, you were right," and I was like, "Yes, I know, because you are worth so much more than you think," and that's when we, after she set herself up as a dog trainer, we were working already on setting herself up as a business course instructor for dog trainers. And then from her marketing business, she had her passive income from the business course and she was actively doing marketing for them. She was making six figures and that was all, and she was able to travel the world. She was able to, renovate her home. And I think even after she started her marketing business, she even had a baby with her husband. So all of the things that she needed to do fell into place, and she was able to live her dream. And I feel like she was able to live her dream because she had someone who who had a bigger vision for her. I had a bigger vision for her and she wanted it. She wanted to become a businesswoman. She wanted to become in charge of her own time and she wanted that guidance to help her get to her goals fast. And that's what a coach does. A coach gives you accountability. A coach gives you structure. A coach gives you support. Support, and a coach helps you think bigger. That's what I would say is the gift of coaching. And it was just awesome. I loved, I loved working with her. She's one of my favorite client testimonials in my portfolio. And yeah, I'm always amazed by how far people can go when they have support, and now I feel like most people can have the same story where they have 1, 2, or 3 different businesses and get to travel the world and have enough money to pay for anything they want, an uncapped earning potential by becoming, by becoming a business owner and help being helped by a coach. If you'd like to do the same, and if you'd like to be on, I don't know, one of my testimonials about how you went from working in a 9-to-5 job that you hated to a business that you love, or a career that you love, a remote job that you love while traveling the world, All I'm gonna say is just contact me on dina@digitalnomad.coach and we can make that dream happen for you. If you mention the podcast Dina's Journey, I'll understand what you mean and I'll be able to give you a cheeky little discount, you know, well, a cheeky big discount. Count. You— I'll, I'll make sure that you feel rewarded for, for going all the way through this, um, and learning more about me and supporting me on my journey so I can support you on your journey. So yeah, that's all I've got to say so far. I hope that's been really helpful for you. And yeah, um, if you are enjoying the lives, just let us know, leave a comment. And yeah, I think Octavian will be doing the live next week. And yeah, I've been, I've really enjoyed just telling people about my journey and meeting all of you, and I'm so thankful that there are over 6,000 people in the group now. So yeah, I'd like to help you achieve your dreams, and if you have any ideas or any wishes for for how we could improve the group, let me know and we will make it happen. Okay. Thanks very much, guys. All the best. Bye.