Hi! My name is Conor, polyglot and creator of the Language Tsar blog and YouTube channel and although I never planned to become one; I’m a digital nomad. ‘Nomadic’ means never stopping, always confidently taking action, as well as, calculated risks all while utilizing the digital opportunities that modern technology affords those who are willing to take advantage of them.
In a nutshell being a digital nomad is synonymous with a freedom lifestyle. This means the freedom to work on what I love from wherever I want at a time of my choosing. I love languages and traveling. Now I get to use and learn languages (over 10 of them) while traveling the globe. This is a liberating sensation for someone who had previously resigned themselves to the daily grind of set work hours in a fixed location without the freedom of deciding what to work on and for whom.
Right now, I am writing this guest post from the stunningly beautiful Trancoso, Brazil, one of the most coveted seaside towns in Latin America. So yes, you really can work from the world’s most spectacular beaches or the highest mountain ranges after a satisfying day’s skiing. You get to choose to the ‘office’ view.
Sounds like a dream, right? So if it’s that fantastic, why isn’t everyone a digital nomad? Even though today I find my digital nomadic lifestyle exhilarating, this masks the difficult choices I had to make in order to reach here. The decision was one of the most complicated in my life. To achieve this lifestyle, I had to accept losing the former comforts of security that I had been groomed by society to strive towards. And in all likelihood you have been groomed to accept as well.
So what did I lose and more importantly what have I created to replace what has been lost?
What I lost was the predictability of a fixed salary and routine. I had to give up the certainly of monthly pay check and having a clearly-defined routine around an office job. You need to able to replace both in order to become a successful digital nomad. This is why creating Language Tsar, a platform for people who want to learn languages and travel more effectively in terms of time, money and methods, has been essential for me.
I’ve also done remote work on several different projects using my languages in order to additional finance this nomadic lifestyle, for example, I was a virtual interpreter for FIFA during the 2016 World Cup. Interpreting the post- and pre-match interviews with the world’s most famous footballer was not just fun but also providing me with essential finances.
As a result, I now speak more than 10 languages which I learnt primarily by traveling and applying them on a continual basis in locations old and new around the world. I achieved this by rejecting the ineffective methods that resulted in me learning no languages in high school (force fed grammar rules and rote memorization of vocabulary). This not only gives me a real buzz but is also ironic as languages were the subjects that I sucked at so much in high school.
Along my journey, I’ve nailed how to learn languages and use them effectively to boost my travel experiences, especially by connecting with local people. I’ve also mastered how to build an adaptable routine so that it’s possible to maintain while on the road, be it with exercise, learning or work.
To help you decide whether the life of a digital nomad is for you, please consider the following points:
5 features of being a “freedom lifestyler”:
- Preparing yourself to be a digital nomad tomorrow means putting in a lot of work a lot today. You need to front-load massively in building a location-independent business to sustain yourself financially once you let yourself loose.
- No schedule doesn’t mean no responsibilities. There are and they will always be and there is a positive correlation with the amount of smart effort you put in and the results you ultimately achieve.
- Limiting your career opportunities by pursuing a greater ideal. You must be really confident in your choice because if you’re not, you will always have a nagging feeling about the conventional opportunities you are foregoing (i.e., your career).
- Self-confidence is about you. First of all it’s important for your self-appreciation and secondly to be able to share your results with others.
- Leave your comfort zone. It is impossible to learn something new, like a language, without forcing yourself into uncharted waters. Moreover, only after leaving the comfort zone will you able to look back and evaluate yourself objectively.
Do you want to know more about the nomad lifestyle? Don’t miss, next Friday, February 16th, at 4 p.m. a Facebook live with Conor Clyne!