Notes From a Neuro Nerd: The Science Behind Living Your Best Life
Welcome to Notes from a Neuro Nerd, where brain science meets practical tools for living with purpose, clarity, and joy. Join Monica—a certified life-purpose coach and neuroscience enthusiast—and her partner, Austin, as they explore the mindset shifts, habits, and tools that can help you build a fulfilling life.
Tune in to uncover the ‘why’ behind your thoughts and behaviors and get actionable, science-backed strategies to boost your well-being. If you're ready to design your best life, you’re in the right place!
Notes From a Neuro Nerd: The Science Behind Living Your Best Life
59. Who Can Become a Digital Nomad?
Fancy the allure of living life on your own terms as a digital nomad?
We're about to spill some of the beans on what it really takes to embrace this unconventional and often envied lifestyle. We paint a vivid picture of the journey, debunking the myth that everyone can or should opt for such a lifestyle.
Together, we explore the hurdles that one may encounter, from socioeconomic status, passport strength, access to the internet, and language. Nevertheless, we reiterate that with enough grit, these barriers can indeed be surmounted.
This chat is not about painting a rosy picture, but rather, it's about illustrating the actualities and equipping you with insights to tackle the unique challenges of the digital nomad lifestyle.
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Hello and welcome to the profitable Nomad Couple podcast. This is a show where we share all of our secrets about building a sustainable location independent lifestyle.
Speaker 2:We're Austin and Monica. We're a digital Nomad couple here to help you develop an entrepreneurial mindset, ignite your passions and develop a purpose-driven online business.
Speaker 1:Get ready for weekly insights and inspiring stories to empower you to live life on your own terms.
Speaker 2:So are you ready to unlock the Nomad mindset and embrace a life of limitless possibilities? Let's dive in. What's up you guys? Today, we are going to be talking about who can become a digital Nomad. We've talked about what a digital Nomad is on the podcast. We've talked about why you should become a digital Nomad. Now we're going to talk about who it's for.
Speaker 1:So the path of becoming a digital Nomad is really diverse and it's really individualized. And it's individualized because each person has different skills, different preferences and different budgets, and all of those factors are going to combine together to create your own unique journey to becoming a digital Nomad.
Speaker 2:Yeah, if there's nothing else that you walk away from this episode with, it's like. First of all, we actually don't believe the digital Nomad lifestyle is for everybody, because not everyone's going to love it. I don't think there's any lifestyle that's meant for everyone. This world is incredibly diverse. There's a huge variety of people, and I mean, you've got to want it right. You've got to want to live this lifestyle. What it looks like, though, is going to be very different for everyone, based on the things Monica just said. Right out the bat, we're going to say it's not a good fit for everybody. In my personal opinion, everybody has the potential to be a digital Nomad, but not everyone is going to want to. Not everyone's going to have the same opportunity, which we're going to get into in a minute, but I think the most important thing is, it has to be something that you really want to do, and you have to be aware of what that lifestyle is going to entail and prepare yourself for the challenges that you're going to face when you live as a digital Nomad.
Speaker 1:Yeah and just realize that there is no one size fits all solution here. I mean, that's one of my favorite things about my job is I get to work with so many different, diverse people coming from diverse backgrounds, who want to become digital nomads, and I get to sit down with them and figure out a good personalized plan for them in order to create a business, create an income stream and create a lifestyle that suits them as an individual.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, I definitely agree. I think I love the aspects, too, of being able to help people with what their challenges are, that they're facing, helping them figure out why they want to travel, why they want to work online, why it's so important to them, and then a big part of what we do is reminds them of those reasons when these challenges come up. The challenges are going to be different for everyone. For some people, they get really lonely when they're living as a digital nomad. For some people, it's, you know, trying to figure out how to stay productive and how to balance work and play. For some people, it's about family challenges and maintaining friend groups and things like that. Maybe for you, the challenge is going to be figuring out how to make enough money so that you can continue to travel. That is definitely one of the favorite things about what we do is helping people overcome those challenges, and we provide very individualized approaches and guidance based on what you are facing in your digital nomad journey.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so let's talk about why not everyone is going to have the opportunity to become a digital nomad, but how everyone has the potential. I love that. Can we just like, back up, say that again Everyone has the potential to become a digital nomad, but not everyone will have the opportunity and not everyone will have the drive that it takes to become a digital nomad.
Speaker 2:There are some barriers to entry, to living as a digital nomad, and the ones that stand out to us are your socioeconomic status. Maybe the biggest factor to this is going to be what country you come from, because every country's currency is going to have different buying and spending power. We recognize that we are incredibly blessed and fortunate to live in the United States, where most of the places that we travel to, our money is going to go a lot farther, and we recognize that that's not the case for everybody. So if that's you, if you're living outside of the US, maybe your destinations are a little bit limited. Based on your budget, based on your finances, there are definitely ways to overcome those financial barriers with budgeting and different strategies for growing your business and different, you know finding different income streams that work for you. So there's definitely ways to hurdle this challenge, but we recognize that that's a big challenge for several people.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think the biggest challenge here would be access to internet.
Speaker 1:To become a digital nomad, you definitely need to have access to internet in order to build your business, and that can be a really tricky thing for people to overcome.
Speaker 1:The next barrier to entry that we kind of want to talk about is passport strength, so this one was really interesting to me. It's not something that I was really fully aware of until maybe a year or so ago and, as I've been talking to other people, a lot of people haven't been aware of it. So each country that you are from, the passport you get from your home country will have a different strength, and what we mean by strength is the amount of countries that say yes, we will let in people from your country. Actually, the US passport is like number eight on the passport strength list, like there are several countries that have a stronger passport than the US, but there are several countries that have a weaker passport than the US. So it is important for you to be taking advantage of the opportunities that you do have in order to start your digital nomad journey, but it can be very limiting if you have a passport with a weaker strength.
Speaker 2:And while we do recognize that passport strength does influence where you can and cannot travel, we want to encourage you, no matter where you're from, to take advantage of the opportunities that you do have. Even if you come from a country that has a weaker passport, meaning you have more limitations than where you can travel, you can still travel to dozens of countries. Maybe it's not as many as someone who comes from Singapore or Japan, but you can definitely travel to so many incredible, amazing places throughout the world. We just want you to take advantage of these opportunities when they present themselves.
Speaker 1:Okay, and the third barrier to entry that we just wanted to touch on is the ability to speak English. Now, obviously, this is not an end-all be-all. We know tons of digital nomads who do not speak English and have built super successful businesses. That being said, english is the kind of accepted language of business. It is kind of the accepted international language, and the ability to speak English can kind of get you into some different markets, so you can maybe market your services to people from the United States, where the dollar has a little bit more purchasing power, and so they might be able to afford your services a little bit better than other places, as well as most of Europe.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the factor that matter is the ability to speak. English opens doors of opportunity for you.
Speaker 1:These could all be factors that factor into whether or not a person it has the opportunity to become a digital nomad and, to some degree, it could determine the amount of drive that they need to have to become a digital nomad. All of these barriers to entry are things that we have seen people overcome. I just want you to hear this right now, Like if you're listening to this podcast and you want so badly to become a digital nomad and you feel like there are things in your life that are really impeding your ability to become a digital nomad. I have seen people overcome them. I have seen people overcome their social economic statuses. I have seen them overcome their passport strength and their ability to travel, and I have seen people overcome their inability to speak English.
Speaker 2:We've also seen people overcome all of the challenges we mentioned before. If this is something that you want to do, but you're worried about loneliness, you're worried about productivity, you're worried about making money, those are also things that can be overcome. We've seen people do it and we've worked with people to help them overcome those themselves. So it's definitely something that, if you want bad enough, I think a lot of it comes down to a matter of priority. If you want to live as a digital nomad, you absolutely can. If you want it bad enough, you can make it work.
Speaker 1:And nothing really worthwhile comes super easily. There is going to be struggle, and it's going to be struggle to break free from kind of the mold that you've been given, but the end results are always worth it and a lot of times all it takes is just the ability to get started, to find a way to come together to afford your first plane ticket, your first bus ticket, whatever it may be, and to be able to sustain yourself in a country with a cheaper cost of living for you so you can grow your savings and your skills and to continue on from there. There is no barrier that cannot be overcome. Another barrier to entry that can be really hard for people is health problems and access to health care and other accessibility issues, and this could be just a hard thing for people. It might limit the places that you are able to travel to. It is important to take care of your health and to kind of prioritize that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, this could look like.
Speaker 2:Maybe you have a physical disability or maybe you need to take daily or regular medications that are only available to you in certain places of the world. We're not going to lie. This definitely could limit where you travel, could limit how long you travel for or how long you are abroad, but again, there are still ways to work around this and there are still opportunities available for you, no matter what situation you're in. Maybe you need to make sure that whatever country you want to travel to has the medications that you need. Maybe you can't even leave your country, but maybe you can find opportunities to take weekend trips even, and maybe go to a different state or a different region and find ways to travel with the limitations that you do have. We suggest that, before you travel, if you have any health concerns, definitely go talk to your doctor before you leave, share your plans with them, share your goals with them, and you can work with your health care provider to find a way to make whatever goals of yours work with whatever health condition that you might have.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and you can definitely start small. There is no need to jump right into it and fly across the world. If you're nervous about these health concerns, you can definitely start, like Austin said, with smaller trips, with road trips, with a week trip at a time, and take it slow and ease into it and kind of test the waters as you go.
Speaker 2:Thanks so much for joining us here on the profitable Nomad Couple podcast. We appreciate you listening to us today.
Speaker 1:If you enjoyed this episode, share it on Instagram and be sure to tag us. At Austin and Monica, together, we can inspire others to embrace a location independent lifestyle.
Speaker 2:And while you're there, we'd love to connect with you, so make sure you follow us for more tips and inspiration on living your dream location independent lifestyle.
Speaker 1:Until next week. Remember that you have the power to shape your own path. So stay curious, stay adventures and stay connected.
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