Entrepreneurial Adventures: Making Money While Traveling

Today, we're diving into the rising trend of entrepreneurial travelers and why it's become increasingly significant in recent years, especially post-COVID. Join me as we explore the concept of the entrepreneurial adventurer, someone who breaks free from the nine-to-five grind to pursue a lifestyle of freedom, flexibility, and financial abundance.

Discover how remote work and technology have revolutionized the way we approach business and travel. From embracing flexibility to leveraging digital tools, learn how to turn your wanderlust into a profitable venture.

Join me as we navigate the practicalities of working remotely, from cybersecurity to effective communication strategies. Uncover the secrets to maintaining a healthy work-life balance while living life on the road.

Whether you're a digital nomad or a business owner seeking new horizons, this episode is your roadmap to entrepreneurial freedom. Tune in, take action, and start crafting the lifestyle of your dreams. I'm Dr. Ryan Wakim, teaching you how to exist today, expand tomorrow, and create your ultimate end game.

Defining the Entrepreneurial Adventurer (00:29)
Flexibility of Work Environment (01:57)
Work Environment and Location Flexibility (04:02)
Considering Travel and Work Balance (05:12)
Utilizing Technology for Remote Work (06:45)
Maintaining Efficiency While Traveling (11:00)
Balancing Work and Personal Life (14:43)
Conclusion and Final Thoughts (17:19)

Transcript

0:10

Welcome to the end game podcast, season two, where I bet you didn't know what you didn't know. I'm Dr. Ryan Wakim, successful entrepreneur and your end game coach. Sit back, relax, and tune into today's episode. The entrepreneurial adventurer, making money while you travel. Today, we're going to talk about the entrepreneurial adventurer or a better put an entrepreneurial traveler in the rise of the entrepreneurial traveler since recent years, kind of coming out of COVID, why it's important to many people, why it might be important to you. Maybe you're doing it now. Maybe you've thought about doing it. And what could that mean for you into the future? So kind of defining it first, it's a bit of a loose definition. So this concept of, I'd say the best definition is the, the lack of a nine to five job. So in one of our prior podcasts, we talked about, you know, whether or not you're punching the clock for a J O B or you're truly passionate about what you do. And, you know, you're kind of wake up every morning in the right mindset and the right health set. Setting the foundation for an awesome day and not being someone who's just punching a clock, not being someone who just has a job. And one of the. One of the truly amazing things about being an entrepreneur is if you can survive your mistakes and you can make enough money and you can shape what your work life balance and environment is, one of those options could be an entrepreneurial traveler or an entrepreneurial adventurer. And so, again, by best definition, it's just someone who doesn't punch a clock nine to five. And if you expand upon that further, it's then someone who. Can be flexible with where they are, meaning a good example, my sister in law is a coder for an I. T. Company. That is a position that can be done really from anywhere. Now, you have to be conscious around if your health care provider, you know, as a psychiatrist, you can do telehealth. There's laws around HIPAA compliance and telehealth outside of the contiguous 48 states or different countries, different internet connections, different risks there. But assuming that you can use VPN or use a encrypted internet or do something that maybe isn't as strict around HIPAA and cybersecurity issues, then you can likely do your work. In an environment that may be better than what it was before. And so this idea of working from home has then taken one step further to mean working from where you want to work from and maybe home for you, you know, if you were to just kind of run through your life post COVID, if you're no longer required to go into an office building, maybe the strings attached, so to speak, or no longer attached, maybe. Where you're living now is not necessarily where you wanted to live. Maybe you live there because of your job or because of your work, or maybe you live there and really love it for, you know, the schools and the activities and certain things, but. Maybe it's not the best place for weather. I mean, I could personally say living in Pittsburgh is great on a lot of dimensions, but it's not great as today's an example where it's kind of gloomy and rainy and a little cold. So maybe where you're working, maybe you can cut the strings attached there. Maybe you can be working and be traveling and be experiencing really awesome things around you while you're also performing your, Your business, right? While you're also, by the way, making money. And so this idea of an entrepreneurial traveler is really a few iterations down from what used to be the common practice and then what became common practice and COVID. And then again, what iterated from there as if you don't have strings attached, maybe you can be working somewhere else. So there's a multitude of reasons why someone might travel and do business while traveling. So number one, people like variety, right? So maybe one of your core values isn't necessarily certainty or stability. Maybe it's variety. And so maybe you can't achieve variety through your work. But maybe you can achieve variety through where you're working. So you could follow your passion. If there's particular places you've always wanted to live and never been able to, because, Hey, you do this for work and you can't do that thing. Within a few miles of, you know, this apartment in Paris, but you can do your work now from an apartment in Paris, or heck, you could do it from a Airbnb in Paris one week and Madrid the next week and London the following. So this idea that if you create a work environment or a skillset in which you can do things from anywhere, then you can go. Do things from anywhere and really enjoy the minutes and moments around the work, especially if you're not tagged to a traditional nine to five job. As you think about working and traveling, you can also think about time zone differences, right? So maybe you do have a job with an employer. Maybe you're not your own business owner, but they need someone to answer phones in the evening hours, right? And so working that job Where you live today in the same time zone may negatively impact your sleep, may negatively impact your social environment, but if you were to move somewhere that you always wanted to live, that would then fall into, you know, an example of an East Coast 9 to 5 or after hours. But would be nine to five, wherever you are, that might really jive. Well, that might end up being a net plus or allow you to enjoy something you weren't able to enjoy before and maintain boundaries around work life balance and social engagements and day night cycles, all this stuff that's really important. As you think about resilience and some of the stuff we talked about before, certainty and passion. So being able to travel and do work wherever you want to do work is. A relatively unique and relatively new phenomenon, at least on the scale in which. People are doing it today where, you know, it's not, you know, jobs as a snorkeling instructor that gets to kind of do this stuff or a river guide. It could be someone who has a corporate job or someone who is their own business owner, but who can run it through technology remotely. From where they want to work, right? A really key concept there is, you know, people will run out of runway. If you kind of travel for work and you can't make money doing that, right? So whether you're making money traveling or making money through a business and a skill set that allows you to make money while you're traveling. That is all part of what you have to think about as part of this trade off, right? As you're kind of taking account of your life and where you are and what strings are attached or not attached and what's a core value to you as variety and exploring and traveling a core value, all of those have to be thought about ahead of time. And then most importantly, how do you continue to bring in revenue? Through this new adventure, right? So how do you, how does money continue to come in through this new adventure? And so when you think about working remotely, whether that is truly still working from home or working from whatever this new home would be that again, by the way, could change month to month or week to week, you have to think about technology. So some of that I've already mentioned, which is, yeah. Hey, is there a particular cyber security aspect of this, or a HIPAA compliance aspect of this you have to be aware of in order to keep doing the work you're doing. But then beyond that is, you know, candidly, something as basic as, can you get access to a strong enough internet connection to do the work you have to do. Right. So as you think about where you're traveling, if you want to go somewhere incredibly remote, that may be just fine, depending on what your work is. If your work is coaching and phone calls and, you know, very little video connection and not a whole lot of online streaming connectivity, you know, not a whole lot of gigabits through the internet, then you probably can do that remote. Maybe, but if you need a really strong internet connection or you need reliable, you know, again, internet data, et cetera. Then maybe that should be thought about as you're planning your travel or thinking about where you're going to go. I know this is a big thing for me on planes, which is making sure I look ahead of time. Does this plane in today's society, almost all planes have Wi Fi, but making sure ahead of time before I book my plane that that plane has Wi Fi. Wi fi, right? So I can get work done and be connected while I'm 35, 000 feet in the air. That's important to me. That's one of the ways I remain efficient and effective no matter where I am in the country or the world for that matter. So being planful in that way, making sure that you have access to the things you need access to. To be successful when you're remote work from a technology perspective, making sure that you're understanding of and not running a file of cyber security and connectivity issues that may exist across different Internet providers, different countries, et cetera. So checking all of those boxes. Are really important. And then some of the same things we talked about before still apply, which is just because you like variety or traveling and maybe aren't beholden to a 9 to 5 schedule doesn't mean you shouldn't have a schedule. And that's 1 of the things we talked about in our last podcast or 1 of our last podcast was this idea of how you become. A master of your schedule. So even if it's not a confined to nine to five, even if it's not just about your J O B, it is important that you're still using the same efficiencies and effectiveness tools to stay successful as you're traveling. In fact, More so in those instances, because there are time zone differences. I know on more than 1 occasion. This has tripped me up where, you know, you're scheduling a meeting or thinking about when your flight lands. And what does that mean for travel to the hotel? And you want to set up a phone call, but it's. You know, 2 or 3 times zones over and, you know, you have to think about all of those things, right? So you should be using automation. You should be using technology. You know, outlook will automatically update your time zone. You can obviously be using things like that to make sure that when you're scheduling these work related tasks that you're doing. So, in a way that will. Keep consistency and efficiency, no matter where you are in the world, right? So as you think about incorporating more travel into your work, making sure that you're cognizant of those changes or adjustments to, so that's everything for maintaining basic communication skills. Other things to think about as you think about remote work and the technology and the connectedness, right? So using tools like outlook, using automation as best possible. There's a lot of Microsoft based. If you use teams and use Microsoft, there's, there's actually an automation app, again, Outlook teams, et cetera. So effective communication is really important. So whether that's through teams, messages or emails or whatever system you use with your team staying in. Constant communication, even though you're traveling is important. There's an effective project management pieces to, again, there's things like monday. com and there's another tool in Microsoft that also does this where you can actually begin creating management tools, whether that's change management or just management of a project or a task and allowing kind of, or mind mapping, that's another newer thing, right? Where you can create this flow of both communication, but also the task Management that will help you stay effective and efficient while you're traveling. As I said. One of the most important things you can do in frequent travel is to make sure that you have some standardization and scheduling and automation in place. Otherwise, the time zone changes, the time in the air, or just your time traveling can begin to catch up with you and create issues and making sure that that effectiveness and efficiency stays. Even if it's not on a traditional nine to five basis, right? So still being a master of your schedule to set yourself up for success, I would say is even more important in kind of a traveling entrepreneur environment than it is at a home base kind of environment. And finally, really important to understand that human touch or that human aspect to this. So yes, there's awesome things you can do as being a kind of an entrepreneur, a traveling entrepreneur, and an adventurer. That might strike a lot of core values and you might put a lot of different automations and management tools and communications in place. But what's really been studied is there's no actual replacement for, you know, face to face human interaction. And so even if you're going to be in. Madrid one month and Paris the next. It is important, especially as a CEO or as a business owner that you keep face to face human connection as part of your travel plans, right? So traveling back to home base is really an important aspect to. Again, this traveling entrepreneur and final thing is with being global, with being able to tap into different communities in different places, different time zones again, if you are a CEO, or you are a business owner, you are a C suite of a business, you may actually be able to leverage that in a way where you can tap into new talents. Right? So that could be. New language talents. If you're a, if your business happens to have language barriers or partake in some sort of bilingual or multilingual aspect of the business, you might actually find traveling around to be a way to make more connections and, and create a better talent pool for potential employees. So another really cool aspect to be in a traveling entrepreneur is. You might then be able to learn more or tap into a different talent pool than what you do from a home based perspective. Final thing as you think about kind of what a traveling entrepreneur looks like and why it may be important to you. Let's say two things. One is taking an inventory. Can you truly make the money? You know, can you do what you need to do while traveling? Right? So can your business or your part of the business. Still function traveling remotely. And again, thinking about the technology barriers or opportunities, the it security aspects, but also thinking about, you know, does your brand travel with you? Right. Or again, can you tap into talents in different parts of the country or parts of the world, but will your money last? In doing this, right? So factoring in travel costs, factoring in, maybe, you know, honestly, if you truly gave up your home, let's say you're capable and want to do that and you gave up your home, maybe you're going to make more money based on where you travel, especially if you're able to travel to slightly more remote or less touristy locations. So maybe your money travels further, you know, part of the pun. So those are important things to think about. And the final thing, as I said earlier, it really does go back to. Mindset and health set and lifestyle and the ecosystem you're creating for yourself and or your family and or your coworkers. Right? So, as I always say, you know, on going back to planes and travel when you're on a plane, they talk about when the mass drops or if the mass were to drop. Make sure you put your own mask on first before you put on someone else's, you know, the crux of that comes down to, are you building the right foundation for you is your mindset and your health set where it needs to be as your lifestyle and your balance between work and your professionalism and your personal are those all in check or those in homeostasis homeostasis is so important to every aspect of our lives. And are they in balance? And as you think through, do you do this today? Are you a traveling entrepreneur today? And if so, have you taken inventory of these things? Are you in balance or are you traveling entrepreneur and you're mainly away from your family and that actually isn't a core value of yours or that doesn't feel great or that doesn't recharge your batteries. So really taking inventory on the work life balance aspect here, the personal and professional balance here. And is it a net? Energy gained and a net positive, or will this be? Is this something that maybe in the short term is a net positive, but over a long term may actually end up hindering or being a net negative? Or is it something that if you did would truly negatively impact you today? And so not being selfish about it, but really taking inventory about what are your core values? What are your passions and your visions and how does traveling and working remotely align or disalign with that value? So if you don't take inventory and you don't have a strategy and you don't think through this in advance, you're likely to end up on the wrong side of what was supposed to be adventuring and traveling as an entrepreneur and turns out to be, again, a net negative or a detractor from the goal. Who you are and what you believe in, what's your purpose, mission, vision, values are for you and your family, both personally and professionally. So in conclusion, the idea of being a traveling entrepreneur and adventuring entrepreneur is not a new concept, but it's certainly gained a lot of activity in the recent years as work from home. And then this pivot to. work from anywhere has become much more popular. You have to think through the ideas of, again, start with what's core and foundational for you. How does that impact mindset, health set? How does that impact your ecosystem and lifestyle? How does that impact personal and professional balances? And then begin thinking through what tools do you need? What technology do you need? What do you need to know? How does your money travel in this, in your traveling? And ultimately, what is the long term net? In doing this, right? And if it aligns with your values, your mission, vision values, if it is attainable, you're able to keep your revenue streams going, and you're able to actually compound on your success in doing so through the different technologies and practices. Then, by all means, being a traveling entrepreneur may in fact be your next step. Once again, I hope you enjoyed today's podcast around the adventuring entrepreneur. I'm Dr. Ryan Wakim, successful entrepreneur and your end game coach. I'm here to teach you how to exist today so that you can expand tomorrow, including maybe where you live or where you work, and ultimately create the end game of your wildest desires. Talk to you soon.