Early bird access to a brand new product + a helluva compliment

“Meeting you has been one of the highlights of 2023. Actually, one of the highlights of my life.”

Holy smokes!

What a compliment!

This came from someone I’d only known for a month. Humbling, truly humbling, and I immediately told her it was going on “my list.”

What list you might ask…? And that is a fair question. I am a list addict… I have loads of them. 

Too many in fact. Some are jumbled, some separated out, and I live with a perpetual hum of anxiety dreaming that someday I’ll have a whole month free (yeah right, right?) to just sit down and tackle the sorting out of all the lists…

But this list is important and I know exactly where it is.

This list is called: Nice things people have said about me.

I started it years ago after a friend mentioned that she keeps a list like this. (I’m telling you… life is ALL about talking to each other, sharing with each other, learning from each other!)

I loved the idea and started one of my own.

Here’s the point. If your brain is anything like mine, it LOVES to shit talk you. 

All day, every day, it’s busy telling you all the things you can’t do, all the things you suck at, reminding you of all the ways you’ve failed in the past and pointing out all the ways you might as well give up because you’re only going to fail again in the future.

Our brains can be a real pain.

One of the ways I combat this is with my “Nice things people have said about me list.”

When the negative talk gets too loud… (or on a day when I’m just emotionally low, feeling pretty rotten about myself and life in general)... I will look at the list and remind myself that I am not, in fact, a complete mess. 

That I matter, that I have value, that I have impacted the lives of others in a positive way and that I will continue to do so. Speaking of… I’ve created a brand new tool to help you in your journey to designing an amazing life! It’s called Inner OS and it’s available today for the first time ever.

I have personally used a version of the Inner OS journal in Notion for years and now I’m so excited to share it with you. And in February no less… right around the time when those New Year’s Resolutions may be fizzling out eh?

Don’t worry! The journaling prompts in Inner OS aren’t about setting resolutions and it doesn’t even have to be completed in 2024.

It’s a go at your own pace tool, the idea to make steady progress over time, getting to know yourself, and helping you to understand what you want out of life.

With sections on Getting to Know Myself, Romance & Relationships, Beliefs, and more, you’ll spend thoughtful time getting to know yourself and answering questions you may never have considered before.

With over 100 prompts to get you started, you’ll answer things about yourself like:

• What do I need to be happy?

• What is my attachment style?

• What are the 5 most important things you should know before getting into a relationship with me?

• How do I react to failures and setbacks?

• What is my relationship with alcohol?

• How do I take care of myself?

This is the very first LIVE resource we’ve released at Live Work Travel and I can’t wait to hear what you think of Inner OS. We’re looking for some early birds to snatch it up and give our team feedback on it so if that’s you, grab it for a discounted price using code EHNOS29 (but only for the first 29 buyers!).

Head over here and get your copy now!

As I think about what you will gain from the Inner OS, it reminds me of one of my favorite quotes:

To love oneself is the beginning of a lifelong romance. — Oscar Wilde

Here’s to loving yourself and to Inner OS being a part of that journey!

Life looks a bit different since I found freelancing

Since 2018, I’ve lived a location-independent life, traveling to different countries when I like. I’ve spent time living in South America, become fluent in Spanish and made incredible friends and connections all over the world.

When I was ready for a change of continent I headed off to Europe and spent some time based there. My earnings from freelancing have taken me on (hella expensive 😬) trips to Antarctica and Egypt and Iceland.

Not bad for a girl from Ohio who was dead broke not all that long ago. Why am I saying all this and why should you care… and not just hate on me instead?

Because I want the same for you my friend. The same freedom that is. If traveling isn’t your thing, I still want you to have the time freedom, and monetary freedom to design a life you LOVE.

Here are some things that freelancing has given me (and that it’s waiting to give you as well)…

I decide who I want to work with, when I want to take on more clients, and I have consistently worked less but made more. Even at the very beginning when I started freelancing, I made the same income as at my previous job but working just 10 hours a week.

I also decide when I want to work. None of my clients require me to lock in for 9-5. I also don’t ask permission to work in a different time zone, take a day off, or go on vacation. I can sleep off a hangover after indulging too hard in a new city’s nightlife, or take off in the middle of the day to go to lunch with a friend. I can toss up an airplane emoji and a “Travel day, back online tomorrow!” on my Slack away message and hop on a flight to transition countries without ever having to make sure it’s approved.

This is all possible because early on I realized the value of finding high-quality and long-term clients. I specifically work with people who are good human beings and have good values on a personal level. I need to be able to agree with how they treat their customers, their other employees or contractors, and how they run their business. I work with people who are honest, kind, and out to provide value to their customers, not the kind who will do whatever just put a buck in their pocket.

My clients give me a ton of responsibility and value me, my ideas, my work, and are happy to show that value in how they pay me. They treat me as an equal or even defer to my expertise in a way no boss ever did and there are no power struggles, backstabbing or ladder climbing; instead, an environment of mutual respect and teamwork to meet our goals.

Due to purposely working with this type of client, I’ve been lucky enough to never experience the typical “shitty freelancing life” I’ve heard so much about. Clients from hell, clients who don’t pay, clients who increase the scope of a project on you. Or the “starving artist” part of freelancing where you’re constantly chasing after new work. I have never had to seek clients after that first initial round of email pitches! The shortest client I’ve worked for was around 3 months. The longest client is five years and counting.

There’s a common misconception that a 9-5 job is dependable and freelancing is risky. Fortunately (it took me a while to be able to say that 😬), I got laid off from my last 9-5 which taught me that there is nothing truly stable about a “regular job.” Stability comes in having money coming in from different sources and that’s what I’ve got with my clients. I know that if any client project wraps up I can start by reaching back out to others I’ve worked with in the past. They’ll surely have work or know someone else who does.

It’s not just the multiple income streams that contribute to my feeling of stability, but the amount of money as well. I made $94,000 in my first full year of freelancing and paid off all my debt. Now, paychecks go to enjoying life, padding my retirement and savings, or giving it away.

I do everything I do for Live Work Travel and Escape Hatch News because I want to help YOU grow in your freelancing career. It took me a long time to go from leaving my teaching career to where I am now. But it doesn’t have to be that way — I was learning (and making every mistake in the book) as I went. You can use what I’ve learned to make that same journey 10X as fast. And I hope you will because the freedom and quality of life that this lifestyle brings are unmatched.

Networking vs. connecting with people

When I was younger, networking had this really smarmy, used car salesman connotation to it.

I thought of people at a conference, all in business attire, passing out business cards, everyone desperately trying to connect with other people for a job or to sell something. That’s not networking, that’s just desperation. 

In reality, networking is important and useful when it’s done right. Now, I network all the time, but I don’t think of it as networking. I just think of it as connecting with people.

Many of the freelance opportunities that I’ve gotten have come by way of a connection, not just out of the blue.

Today, most of my clients come to me through a referral from somebody else who has worked with me. I very rarely have to go find new clients. 

So how do you do the same? First, it’s really important to think about the mindset behind making connections.

What I’ve found is that the way to make it not feel icky is to focus on what you can give to the other person. When you’re focused on that, you make a genuine connection with them and you’re trying to help them out without doing it to get something in return. 

I don’t know if one of the people that I’ve talked to is going to hire me in five years because they’ve finally started their business and they need the services I provide, or perhaps they’re going to connect me with someone else.

I don’t know if they’re going to tell someone else about me and my story, and then that other person is going to find my podcasts and listen to them and learn and grow and start their business. I have no idea. That’s not my concern. I’m just focused on connecting and I leave it up to the universe to give me good things back in due time.

Some ways to start developing connections with people.

1. Begin to practice telling people what you do. Keep it clean and simple, and something that people can understand. If someone asks me what I do, I can say I coach freelancers on how to make six figures a year, or I teach startup founders how to hire and grow a freelance team. Practice different variations and delivering them smoothly so you can pique someone’s interest quickly and easily in a conversation.

2. Check out this podcast episode where I continue this conversation.

Meeting up with one of my travel inspirations

Today, I’d like to introduce you to one of my travel inspirations, Gareth Leonard (@traveldeeper). Long before I set off to travel the world I’d been following Gareth on Instagram as he did just that.

I found I didn’t (and still don’t) click with many travel influencers, preferring a deeper and more candid look at traveling abroad than their perfectly filtered photos and feeds often show. With Gareth I felt like I got the nitty gritty on places.

After following him for years, eventually the stars aligned, and we were able to meet up for lunch in Santa Monica one summer afternoon. (To me, meeting Gareth is a prime example of how incredible today’s world is in terms of connection. Never before have we had the opportunity to reach out and connect with the very people living the lives we dream of.) 👋 

Over many stories of travel and lots of business talk I told him I was ready to take the plunge and move abroad. One problem, I didn’t know where yet. Just that I was heading to South America to learn Spanish. 

He kindly offered to lay out his top 5 favorite cities… and that’s how I ended up starting my living abroad journey in Medellín in 2018! With the majority of the continent open to me I’d been struggling to make a decision and it was a relief to have someone else who’d already been there make a suggestion.

I bought a one way plane ticket to Colombia a few days later — and then had 6 months to wrap up my life in the US and set off.

Years later, in February of 2022, we’d meet up again in Egypt — this time I’d be traveling with my friend Averi (who I also met via the social interwebs and through Gareth).

Gareth’s advice has been invaluable over the years. While we’ve had catch up calls here and there, most of the time I’m getting his travel tips off of IG or his YouTube channel, just like you can. 

Before going to Iceland I binged his YT series — and still do at times when I’m craving a return to this beautiful country, if only via video. 

He’s done incredible series on the Philippines, Egypt, Mexico, Japan and more as well! You can find him on Instagram @traveldeeper or on YouTube.

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