Christa: [00:00:00] Hey there and welcome to the digital nomad life podcast. I'm your host Christa, also known as @christabellatravels on social media. Please feel free to slide into my DMS at any time. Let me know your specific questions about becoming a digital nomad. The more specific, the more inspired I get for particular episodes because these episodes are all essentially off the back of conversations that I have with people who follow me as well as my clients.
Christa: This episode is inspired by a bunch of client calls that I've had recently, where over the past few weeks, I've been doing a lot of career assessment calls. And if you don't know me, um, this will make sense, especially when you see the title of this episode, but I am a digital nomad coach and I help people come up with the remote career path.
Christa: That's right for their personality. And I'll explain why I do that in a minute. But essentially this episode is inspired by a lot of clients that I've been speaking to where they get on these career assessment calls with me and then they're like, Krista, I just don't know what [00:01:00] you're going to say. I feel really nervous.
Christa: This feels like such a big deal. I don't know. What if I choose the wrong thing? What if I don't like it? What if I stay? Start and then I, and then I need to switch directions. So this episode is for anybody that feels like that, whether you're my client or not, as long as you are someone who is still in the decision making path for what career you want to pursue, this episode is for you.
Christa: Like I said, I just want to introduce myself really quickly. So, um, I've been a digital nomad for the past 10 plus years now. My god, I can't believe how long it's been. At this point, it's my life. Like, I'm never going to not be a digital nomad. But that doesn't mean that I live out of my suitcase full time, although I did do that for several years.
Christa: Basically, my journey started in 2013 when I booked my first one way plane ticket ever to Thailand, after getting fired from my corporate job in New York City. I'd always been working in marketing, but honestly, at that time, [00:02:00] I really left the corporate world with my tail between my legs, feeling stuck I'm so ashamed and also just so ready to be out of the freaking matrix.
Christa: Like, Oh, I just felt like I was in this corporate rat race. I hated the commute. I did not like my coworkers. I did not like the environment. I felt so trapped. I felt so stuck. I hated having to ask for vacation time and I just was committed to the idea that there had to have been another way. So, when I booked this first one way plane ticket, the idea was, yes, to travel a lot, but also I, I really needed to make money.
Christa: I did not receive financial handouts, um, at all. So yeah, I literally moved there with 3, 000 to my name and, uh, now here I am 10 years later with a multiple six figure income and living in my dream house. in Bali, Indonesia, running my dream business. And in between I've traveled to 65 countries while making money from my laptop, pretty much [00:03:00] from every single one.
Christa: In the process as well, I've also tried so many different remote careers, remote jobs, et cetera. Just, I am someone who gets really obsessed with particular things and I became obsessed one with the idea of traveling, obviously, but also obsessed with the idea of having a career that actually felt authentic to me, a career that I liked.
Christa: I think I read the statistic that you spend a third of your life at work. And I just thought, Oh my gosh, like I I need this to be something that I actually enjoy doing. I cannot accept the fact that I'm gonna be working a job I hate for the rest of my life. So maybe you, listener, are someone who shares a lot of the same qualities that I have, a lot of the same interests and desires.
Christa: Maybe you are someone who sees the matrix, sees the corporate rat race, and you're ready to For a change, you want to travel the world, you are ready for a life of freedom. You want to do something that you like. you want to get to that ultimate [00:04:00] place where you can actually just be happy and satisfied with your life, with your career, with your schedule, with your location.
Christa: Well, I am here to tell you that you can have all of that and more. You can be living your dream life and it's a process and it's a process that might start with this podcast.
Christa: So talking about the first thing that we need to address if you want to get out of this shiny object syndrome loop that you've been in of not being able to decide is, uh, well, I think I'll use the example of the way that my voice sounded just 15 seconds ago. So the way that my voice sounded, I was like, we want to do this and this would be so amazing.
Christa: And it would be so great if we could do that. And, and that is me. essentially mimicking the mentality that I think a lot of my clients have when they come to me for these career assessment calls. They're just so ready for a change. They're so ready for everything to be different. And they're just like really wanting that [00:05:00] thing to be different now.
Christa: So what I need to share with you is that that's not how life works and you need to be prepared to go along with it. For the journey you need to be open to the process. You need to trust the process. I think that a challenge that a lot of people have when they are looking to change their career is that they want the change and they want the result.
Christa: Now they want their whole life to be different. Now, not taking into account that like the only way that your life could make a massive dramatic change right now is probably if you got a really well paid remote job where suddenly You have that immediate salary coming in. Suddenly you like the work that you're doing because someone else has already defined everything for you.
Christa: Suddenly you have that freedom where you can be wherever you want because the job is remote. So those [00:06:00] situations, do exist. Actually, I had one of those situations. I did get a remote job, which literally felt like winning the lottery. It was amazing. And, not everybody is qualified for a role like that.
Christa: Um, by the time I got a remote job, that was this kind of diamond in the rough, like really amazing lottery winning situation. I already had the Three years of corporate experience in New York city, two years of startup experience internationally. I had been living and working in Bangkok.
Christa: And when you work for a startup, you really expedite your career growth really quickly, but you have to suffer through a lot of the crap. Like there's just a give and take in everything. So what I need you to understand is that honestly, it might not be that realistic for you to just snap your fingers, get that remote job and change every aspect of your life.
Christa: But it is. If you are someone who's very qualified, in a particular career that lends itself to remote work, then, then maybe you could just go get a job. Um, I will [00:07:00] say, however, that I left my job in order to start my own business because after doing that for a couple of years, I just realized it This job really isn't it.
Christa: Like this job isn't something that lights me up. It's not something that I'm really enjoying spending so much time doing every single day. And I know that I could make way more money when I have my own business. So I was prepared to build my own business. Anyway, whoever you are listening to this, it really just depends on, Your situation, how quickly you can change every part of your life.
Christa: And what I want you to do is first of all, take this big nomad life down from the pedestal and put it on your level so that you can actually just see the next steps. to get there and not trying to grasp the full picture right now. If that makes sense, like when you have something on a pedestal, energetically, it is far away from you.
Christa: Energetically, it's like up in the sky. [00:08:00] Energetically, you're like reaching, reaching for it and you can't quite reach it. And when something's that far away from you, you see the whole thing, right? Like you can see the whole, the whole forest when you have a distance from it. And, actually. What you really need to do in order to get through the forest is just to take those first few steps closer to it.
Christa: But, again, when you're looking at the whole picture, it just might feel unattainable. And when something is unattainable to us, what our subconscious mind does is it creates a self fulfilling prophecy.
Christa: But why is it a self fulfilling prophecy? Because when we naturally think that something is so far away from us, when something is unattainable, or when we are not good enough, or qualified enough, or whatever, in order to go get that thing, we self sabotage. by changing our mind because making that decision of doing something that we don't feel qualified for feels too scary and therefore we're going to second guess our decision.
Christa: We're [00:09:00] going to come up with another plan. We're going to procrastinate. We're going to get lazy. We're going to decide we need to take a nap that day instead of googling or asking chat GPT or doing. Purchasing a course or joining a mastermind, like it becomes a self fulfilling prophecy because we are not believing that we're capable of it.
Christa: So that's why you really just need to, yeah, look at, um, just the trees and not the whole forest and take it step by step.
Christa: So this is my thought exercise for you to think about when you are listening to this podcast, for example, when you're Googling how to become a digital nomad, when you're signing up for my free trainings, when you're following me on Instagram, when you're following other digital nomads on Instagram, are you just thinking like, wow, I want that whole thing to be my life in the next six months?
Christa: Because if that's the case, then Honestly, we might need to bring you back down to reality a little bit, depending on what your starting point is. [00:10:00] Again, if you are someone who's really skilled and experienced, then you could just go get a remote job and change everything just like that. But I'm guessing that you're listening to this podcast because you don't know exactly what that remote job would be.
Christa: And you don't necessarily have all a whole stockpile of specific skills and experiences that would lend itself to that, that you want to pursue a career in. You're probably ready for a career change, which is why you're listening to this again, and which is why all my clients come to me. Anyway, in summary, the first point that I want to make is to take the nomad life down from the pedestal and know that you are approaching a forest and you just need to take it one step at a time, rather than trying to change everything about your life all at once.
Christa: I know that it's really easy to fall into comparison when you see, say, people like me talking about how great my life is online. if you've been following along, you know, that I'm currently furnishing a big three bedroom, beautiful Villa in Bali, and that [00:11:00] I traveled to Antarctica this year and that I'm like making all this money.
Christa: And you might be like, wow, like that's what I want. And you hear me being like, you can have it. Like if I can do it, you can do it. But what you're. Not remembering and what you're not paying attention to is all of the years that I spent getting up to this point. So, I think from now on, I'm going to start bringing in examples of different clients that I've been speaking to over the past several weeks to articulate the different points and challenges that I think people have in the responses that I said to them.
Christa: So I have a story of my client, Brittany, who I've been working with for a long time. And originally I had suggested to Brittany that she go into Pinterest management. Why did I suggest that to her on the career assessment call? Well, she wanted to change her life quickly. Okay. So if you want to change your life quickly, you need to think about a skill that you can develop quickly if you are someone that doesn't have relevant skills.
Christa: Brittany has been working in a bank for a really long [00:12:00] time and the bank is a very matrixy kind of role like any any role in the bank is a very matrixy because you are literally in such a box like you have your task and you only do that task and it doesn't give you a ton of transferable skills, which is pretty frustrating.
Christa: And this is how people stay stuck in the matrix and don't ever become entrepreneurs because they don't think that they have relevant skills. So anyway, when I first did the career assessment with Brittany, I was like, Oh, I see that she's yearning to be more creative. Um, she really likes visual art. She's very organized.
Christa: She likes social media and she was an avid Pinterest user. So when I suggested Pinterest to her, I think what I didn't emphasize is that Brittany, I do not see this as your end game, but I think for her, because she had the nomad lifestyle, so much up on this pedestal by the way she like has this dream of living in a van and she has a daughter so she really wanted this like big change [00:13:00] and she wants this change now and so when i suggested pinterest i know she was having a hard time grasping but that doesn't sound fun.
Christa: That doesn't sound inspiring. Can I really make that much money with it? and I know this because we recently had a second call where she was like, I didn't love that idea. Can we explore something else? So, I go through the career assessment and I'm like, there really isn't, like, whatever it is that you end up doing, you have to understand that you're going to be starting at the entry level mark of your entrepreneurship journey.
Christa: And if you're not happy with Pinterest, like, let's talk about what are some, what are the things that are wrong with it and what would you like to do instead? Long story short, we arrived at the idea that actually deep down what she really wants is to be a coach. So I'm like, okay, great. Like anybody can go into coaching, but if you want to become a coach, you need to have gone through a school of life because there's no specific education to become a coach.
Christa: Your education is your life [00:14:00] experience. And then she was like, well, what life experience do I have? And I'm like, exactly. But what if your life experience was leaving the matrix? What if your life experience was building a business? Then you could coach people on building a business. You could coach people on leaving the matrix, which is what she wants to do.
Christa: So we had to really reframe this whole idea of her going into Pinterest management, which by the way, she could do anything else. It doesn't, it doesn't have to be Pinterest management. The point was that she was viewing my suggestion to her as her be all end all, and it was not satisfactory when I was like, Look, actually, this suggestion is coming from a place of this is going to be your path of least resistance.
Christa: This is something that's easy for you to learn. It'll be easy for you to monetize your skill set and experience lends itself well to learning this skill. And, um, yeah, maybe you do this for like one year and then you will be able to move on to the [00:15:00] next level of your life. But this is what I'm talking about.
Christa: This is what I mean about trusting the process and taking it as a process, as a step by step process. You might not be able to just snap your fingers and have your dream career if you are starting from an entry level place. Think about my career path. Okay, so I knew that I was interested in marketing, um, when I was 18, I, I had like all these different internships that I wanted to have a career that I loved.
Christa: But through my career process, I kept getting myself into these marketing jobs that just were not lighting my soul up. Like I just didn't love them. And that caused me to have a bunch of different crises because I was like, but I am someone who knows what she wants. And I am someone who believes in having a great career.
Christa: And I need to know what my direction is. And just getting so frustrated at the fact that I didn't feel like I was living Do [00:16:00] you know what the ICA guy is? I'll explain that in a minute, but I didn't feel like I was living that out for myself. and I tried to create so many businesses. If you know my story, you know that I attempted to be an entrepreneur like seven different times before I ultimately created this digital nomad coaching business.
Christa: now that I have my digital nomad coaching business, I genuinely believe that I am Like living in my Dharma. I'm working in my Dharma. I'm doing work that is just so meaningful to me. I'm helping other people. It's what I was always meant to be doing. But like, if you asked me back when I was 18, if we did a career assessment process for me, Maybe it would have come up that I would have been a great coach.
Christa: Maybe it would have come up that I want to help people and that I love traveling, but like I was not qualified to be a digital nomad coach when I was 18. I wasn't qualified to be a digital nomad coach when I was 25. I wasn't qualified to be one when I was, 26, it wasn't until actually I was.
Christa: that I had the skills and experience and [00:17:00] I also had the wherewithal, if I'm using that word correctly, like of my own self and what I actually wanted in order to come up with the business idea that ultimately allowed me to live out my Dharma. So what, I, talked about with Brittany is that, sometimes you just literally have to accept the fact that you're entry level in changing your life and let it be.
Christa: But, it doesn't have to be as, uh, I dunno, as like lame as going into an entry level position in a business. So this is the next thing that I want to talk about, which is that when you become an entrepreneur, You're thinking about climbing the ladder of your career in a much, much different way.
Christa: And you're moving at a different pace as well.
Christa: Okay, what I'm about to share with you is super important. So get ready to put down your distractions. Just tune in and try to visualize what I'm about to explain. So what I want you to imagine first is a [00:18:00] ladder. And this represents the corporate ladder. And on the bottom rung, there is the entry level position.
Christa: And then a level up there is an associate level. And then above that, there is a vice president level, above that a senior vice president level, and then above that a corporate executive level. So this is not that many levels in corporate, like if you're at a big corporation there's more levels than that, but just to keep it simple we've got these several steps.
Christa: And um, let's talk about what the income might be for each of these levels. So the income And your experience level. So the income and experience for entry level is you need zero experience and your income is probably gonna be anywhere between like 20 to 50 thousand US dollars annually then a level up from that you might be anywhere between 40 to 60 and then above that you might be anywhere between like 50 to 80, 000 a year.
Christa: And then when you're around the president [00:19:00] level, then you're probably making around a hundred thousand dollars a year. And then when you're in the corporate level, you're making over a hundred thousand dollars a year, maybe 200, 000 a year. and the experience level is like, first you're not experienced literally at all, and then you have a couple of years experience, and then you have like five years of experience, and then you might have ten years of experience, then you might have twenty years of experience, and then by the time you get to the CEO level, this is like the end of your career, like the top of your career.
Christa: People that are CEOs probably have been working in their respective industry, dedicated to that industry for a really long time, like probably at least 20 years. And for so many people, that is the reality that they need to work like 20 something years in order to be making multiple six figures and that you need to be working at least.
Christa: five years in order to make six figures, in your job, in your career. Uh, I know of course [00:20:00] there are industries that are an exception to that. Some industries are higher paid than others, but just look, I'm like trying to speak to a lot of people here right now. So bear with me. That is the general corporate ladder.
Christa: In at least the United States. Okay, now let's talk about what it is like when you are an entrepreneur, because it is different. It is so different. I need you to understand that it is, yes, it is still a ladder. You can still very much think about it as a ladder. And I want you to think about it as a ladder.
Christa: But first all the big difference between the entrepreneurship ladder versus the corporate ladder is that. corporate, whenever you want to move up a rung in the ladder, you have to ask somebody else for permission and you need to get their approval and you need to prove to them that you are worthy of moving up to that next level.
Christa: And by the way, they are going to be the one dictating how much your salary is going to be when you move up that ladder. You are not going to be the one that just decides that now I want to [00:21:00] make more money. That's not how it works in the corporate career. Like how it works in corporate is that other people are pushing you or like pulling you or guiding you up the ladder.
Christa: and you just really don't have a lot of control. You just are going with the flow. You're working your ass off for sure. You're doing your best to prove to everybody around you that you can climb, that you are worthy, but ultimately it's not really and sometimes what happens to a lot of people is they realize that they cannot climb the rest of the ladder.
Christa: Like those rungs are broken or that there's somebody else that's in the way or that they're actually just going to be stuck on the rung of the ladder that they're on, like pretty much for the rest of their career. Uh, first of all, talk about dire. That is so sad. Um, and it's just doesn't have to be true if you choose the entrepreneurship path.
Christa: Okay. So the thing about the entrepreneurship path is that the bottom level. is bigger than entry level in corporate. [00:22:00] And I think this is what actually scares a lot of people away from the entrepreneurship ladder. So in entrepreneurship, when you're entry level, your salary is not 30 to 50, 000 a year.
Christa: Your salary is zero. That's what your salary is. It's zero because the business doesn't exist yet. You are building it. You are creating it. You are the one that's determining the path. You are, you're literally building the fricking ladder. You're building it. So when you're, new in business, you are entry level in entrepreneurship and therefore your salary is zero and your experience is zero and it's okay to start at zero.
Christa: Everybody does every single entrepreneurship ladder. starts at zero. Every single person that wants to change their life starts not having been born with the knowledge of how to create a business, not having been born with an incredible skillset. People have to learn that stuff. But I hope something that is going to be really reassuring here is that you don't need to [00:23:00] be a rocket scientist in order to learn about business.
Christa: in fact, maybe this will make you feel even better is that a lot of people who are entrepreneurs, some of the most successful entrepreneurs ever are actually high school dropouts. A lot of people that create their own businesses. are people that reject the traditional way of learning and they're like, you know what?
Christa: I'm just going to do it in my own way. And then they ultimately end up having a lot of success as a result. And they didn't learn it in school. They dropped out of school. So they didn't learn it in school. Where did they learn it? They learned it from mentors. They learned it from online. They read books.
Christa: They tried it. They just tried and failed and tried and failed and tried and failed So, um, just remember that even though you're starting at entry level, every single entrepreneur does. And, um, even if you don't have any experience, even if you don't have any knowledge, that doesn't make you different. It doesn't make you like not cut out for this.
Christa: It just means that you're on entry level and [00:24:00] it's okay to start there. Okay. So, you might be someone though that has. a lot of the materials already in order to create your ladder and to be able to move quickly up to the next rung of the ladder. And that might be the case for you if you already have quite a bit of relevant material.
Christa: transferable skills and experience. So I recently worked with a client named Lindsay who, yeah, I would say like she has about 20 years of professional corporate experience. Um, and one of the things that she has really excelled in is, um, climbing the corporate ladder, but she's done it in such a interesting way.
Christa: Actually, I, I kind of wanted to share what it was that she told me because I was like, that's genius. Um, she knows to make friends with the person that is above her boss so that whoever her boss reports to has good things to say about her. And as a result, she's been able to continue to get [00:25:00] promoted in male dominated fields.
Christa: And, um, so funny, like when we first came onto the career assessment, she was one of these people that's like, I don't know what you're gonna say, like I have so many interests. I've had such a varied career. I've done so, so, so many things like what are you even going to say Krista? Um, and ultimately she's going to go into coaching actually, but coaching on her life experience of, climbing the corporate ladder in a male dominated field.
Christa: So, so cool about that. Anyway, for her, she already has what she needs for that first rung of the ladder. So what she's going to be able to do is immediately almost immediately climbed to the next rung of the ladder because she's got that skills and experience. What she doesn't know though is how to build her own business.
Christa: And that's what she's learning inside of my program, the digital nomad life academy. Everybody in my program is learning how to build a business. And that is the thing that you need to learn in order to climb the next level of the corporate ladder. [00:26:00] Okay, now, something super important again. Now that we're talking about the second level of the ladder, I think that this is where a lot of people get tripped up.
Christa: Because is. And Like Brittany, for example, she saw herself. She knew she could acknowledge that she was at entry level, but what she really, really wanted was to get to the CEO level and she knew exactly what it was that she wanted. So I'm like, Brittany, you just need to climb the ladder. So I think for a lot of people though, they think that they need to be able to see that ultimate CEO position of their entrepreneurship ladder, if they're even going to take the first step.
Christa: But that's not true. That is not true. That is the old way of thinking. That is a matrix way of thinking. That is the corporate way of thinking about a corporate ladder. But remember, we're climbing an entrepreneurship ladder, which actually looks way more like a jungle gym than it looks like a straight ladder.
Christa: Okay, so now. You are coming into my [00:27:00] program. You've done the career assessment with me and I've said, Hey, maybe you should go into design. For example, um, I recently had a client that she has a lot of experience in design and I suggested this to her and I was like, why don't you try this? But she's like, I don't know.
Christa: I don't know if I want to stay in design. I don't know if I really like it. and I, she like can't really see her CEO. position in design right now, and therefore she's been stuck in this decision making loop where she, she can't decide what it is that she wants to do for her career. So what I said to her was, I was like, look, You have the skills in order to start making money as a designer right away.
Christa: And the only skill you're lacking is how to build a business. So what if you use this program to learn how to build a business around the skillset that you already have? And then once you know how to build a business, when you get more clarity over what it is ultimately that you want to do in [00:28:00] your, you know, CEO level position in your own life, in your own business, then you already know how to build a business.
Christa: And then you can just build that business easy. I think people forget that serial entrepreneurs are a thing. People that just make a business after business, after business, after business, after business. These people are not magic. These people are not aliens. Like these people are, they're just normal people who know how to do business.
Christa: to build a business. Me, for example, I teach how to build businesses all day, every day. So I know how to build a business and that allows me to really soften into my current business of being a digital nomad coach because like I'm in my mid thirties and um, I love what I do, but am I going to really want to do this for the rest of my career?
Christa: Like, am I really going to be wanting to do career assessments and talk about travel when I'm in my fifties? Like, probably not. By the time I'm 50, I might be [00:29:00] a mom and I might, I don't know, like I might have developed a passion in piano or something and like, maybe that's what I want to focus all my time and energy and effort into.
Christa: Or maybe I'd become a yoga teacher by that point. I don't know. that's the point. We don't know. So the old way of thinking about the corporate ladder is that you take that first step in the ladder and then you have to go in a straight line. Otherwise, you're fucked. Basically, like, if you try to move up that ladder, there better be another similar vertical ladder right next to you for you to just hop over at the same level of your ladder.
Christa: Otherwise, you're gonna fall, and then you have to start all over again, and it's like, Horrible, the end of the world. But when you're an entrepreneur, remember, you're not climbing a ladder. You're actually climbing a jungle gym. And you already know how to create a business once you've gone on to that second rung of your entrepreneurship ladder.
Christa: So by the time you're on the second rung of your entrepreneurship ladder, If you completely change your mind, like let's say I changed my mind. I [00:30:00] no longer want to be a digital nomad coach. Maybe I actually want to be a food blogger. Well, I know how to create a business. Now I'm not going to have to go through this agonist process of figuring out like how to do that.
Christa: I already know what I would need to do. I would just. Go through the steps and I would build it and I would build it and I would build it It wouldn't be that hard. It wouldn't be that difficult. It's not that crazy to pivot It's not that difficult to change positions, Especially by the way when you have a personal brand like I do which is something that I also teach inside of the digital nomad life Academy, which is how to build your personal brand So I would say You start to develop an audience and develop followers that are just interested in you as a person and they become your friends and they don't care if you suddenly completely change directions in your career path.
Christa: It's, it like doesn't matter and no one's getting hurt by this. So, when you are an [00:31:00] entrepreneur, when you're going up the entrepreneurship jungle gym and not the corporate ladder, ultimately. You don't even need to know what that CEO position of your life is going to be because Who cares? Like you're just here to play.
Christa: You're not here to get to a specific destination. You're here. Yeah, you're going to keep going upwards in that direction, but it doesn't have to be a straight line. You can change your mind and you can pivot at any freaking time. So I really hope that this detailed visualization helped you ease the decision making process and just understand that whatever it is that you decide to do, To create your first, your first, first, first digital nomad business, it doesn't have to be your end game.
Christa: It's just the beginning. It's just the first rung on your jungle gym ladder. It is just the beginning. What I hope that you can [00:32:00] do is trust the process, know that, okay, yeah, this thing that this business that I'm going to build, it's aligned. If you come to my career assessment, I'll help you choose something that is aligned with your personality so that even if it's not your CEO role of your life, that it's going to be something that you at least find tolerable and that you'll be probably naturally pretty good at.
Christa: So if we do a career assessment and I suggest something to you and you're not like, Oh my God, this is the thing. This is it. Like with Lindsay, the one who's going into um, coaching, women in, male dominated field for her. She was like, Oh my gosh, this is it. Like, I can't believe that we came up with something that combines all of my past skills and experiences.
Christa: This is amazing. Um, sometimes if you are lucky like Lindsay and you have a lot of professional experience, I probably will be able to suggest to you what your ultimate CEO type role is. will be for your entrepreneurship life. Or you might be like [00:33:00] Brittany or my other client who is a designer, like you might be someone that just has some skills or has no skills and maybe what I'm going to suggest to you is not going to be the ultimate CEO thing, but it's going to be the first rung on your jungle gym ladder. Now there's one more, client story that I wanted to tell you about a call that I recently had as well. Uh, my client Valerie, wow, we had such a beautiful call the other day.
Christa: It was It was amazing. Valerie is again, one of those people that she just was like, I have so many things that I'm interested in, but not a lot of like corporate professional experience. And I have no idea what you're going to say, Crystal, like what could I even do? And um, she was saying that all of her interests and stuff are so random.
Christa: Um, so. What I reflected to her was, I was like, I don't think that these interests are random at all. Like, I think these interests are actually all kind of in the same field. Like, you're just, you're an earthy, uh, nature lover. Like, she does beekeeping and what else does she do? She loves hiking [00:34:00] and, uh, she is into permaculture.
Christa: And I'm like, this is your personal brand, girl. Like, your brand, your personal brand is this. earthy person who cares about nature, who cares about human connection with the earth. And she was like, Oh yeah, I guess that's true. But like, how can I turn that into a business? And then, then the conversation opens up about how actually she's kind of going through a bit of an existential, moment where, um, yeah, she's just really thinking very, very, very big thoughts about life and about herself and about her future and about the world and humanity and what I reflected to her is that she's really in this wisdom garnering phase of her life and that When you're still garnering the wisdom, when you're generating the wisdom, when you're, when you're seeking, when you're looking, when you're, uh, reflecting, when you know, you're just processing, processing, processing, that is not the time to [00:35:00] choose actually your ultimate CEO position of your entrepreneurship life, because probably Things are going to change anyway.
Christa: Like you're still processing. So what I suggested to her was I was like, look, the CEO thing, we talked about what it could be. And we came up with a few different ideas of just like visions that she can have that she can keep with her, um, that will keep her motivated. And, you know, just like let her know that there is a really amazing, meaningful, powerful, profound career waiting for her.
Christa: Only she. can know the answer. I am merely a mirror when I do these career assessment calls reflecting back to my clients what I see in them now today. But when you're, when you're young or when you're again in this processing part of your life where you're garnering a lot of wisdom then how can I know who you ultimately will become?
Christa: How can I ultimately know what your [00:36:00] CEO life position will be? What your, what your Dharma is? So all I can do It's just reassure you that whatever it is that you choose to do now to start creating your remote career, it doesn't have to be the be all end all. It's just the first rung. And what I want to do is empower every single person who comes to work with me to show you how to build a business and how to build a business the right way with very strong foundations so that you ultimately can pivot when you want to pivot.
Christa: You can completely change directions or you can start a second business and a third business and a fourth business later on in your life.
Christa: Our culture and the matrix has bred all of us to believe that when we are 18 and we sign up to go to college, that this is the path that we are on and that we're going to have to stay on that path for the rest of our [00:37:00] careers. And that just is not true. I mean, like for a lot of people, they just blindly follow This path, they blindly follow this ideology is saying, well, my parents did it this way and everybody I know did it this way. The people that decided to be a doctor when they were 20, of course, they still stay doctors when they're 60 as if people don't change as if people's interests don't ebb and flow as if things don't happen or come up or if our priorities don't change.
Christa: Our society is brainwashed into believing that we all need to be living and operating in a box in a vertical line. And And honestly, if you can hear it in my voice, gross, no, like, no, no, no, no, we are all such unique people and you, whoever you are listening to this, like, stop thinking that way, like, allow yourself to open up to the possibilities of life.
Christa: Allow yourself to trust the process to go with the flow to make changes in your life as you change as [00:38:00] you grow and evolve. Allow yourself. to grow and evolve. And the only way, or well, what I believe is one of the best ways. To allow your life to grow and evolve into your most authentic self is to set yourself free From the frickin matrix set yourself free from the rat race stop climbing a boring vertical Corporate ladder that was laid out before you that someone else is going to dictate how fast you move up that ladder Stop it Accept and acknowledge the fact that yeah When you take the entrepreneurship path the beginning that first step rung of the ladder, it's a big one.
Christa: And you're going to have to do a lot in order to climb up to that second level where you're actually going to be making money from your business. But what happens next as you grow, because by the way, now, when you go up the corporate Jungle gym ladder of entrepreneurship, you get to give yourself a promotion anytime that you want.
Christa: You [00:39:00] get to decide how much money you make. And that earning potential is literally limitless. Every single business can be scaled with a little bit of strategy. Like for my coaching business, I never thought that I would be making multiple six figures to the point where now I'm thinking about how I can scale my business to seven figures.
Christa: Like I, I know I can scale it to a million dollars a year. I just need a little bit of strategy, but it doesn't mean that I'm going to be suddenly working. a hundred hours a week, I'm still probably going to be working like 20 hours a week. And that's about strategy. When you work in a corporate environment, when you're climbing the ladder, you are stuck in a box every single step of the way.
Christa: And again, somebody else needs to promote you. When you work for yourself, when you are in entrepreneurship, Every single time you have a new creative idea, you're able to implement it and you're able to watch your business grow and flourish organically and climb that jungle gym for fun, climb it for the destination.
Christa: Uh, [00:40:00] yeah.
Christa: Okay. Am I done with this tangent? Let's see. I feel like there was something else that I wanted to say. And now I'm remembering. Okay, here's the final piece of this whole episode. All right. And it is again, the difference between a remote career and entrepreneurship and the corporate environment and the way that we think about work life balance.
Christa: So when you are working in corporate, and when you are living in the matrix, your life revolves around your work. So think about your life as a wheel. And the center of that wheel is your job, because your job will dictate the time of day that you wake up. And the time of day that you have to go to bed in order to maintain a healthy sleep schedule.
Christa: So your work dictates literally the hours that you are conscious. It also dictates
Christa: [00:41:00] probably where in the world that you live. If it's not remote, then your job is in one location. And therefore you have to be in that one location. You are literally tethered in to a location and your location is such a big part of your life. The way that you spend your days of the year also are dictated by your job when you are in the corporate matrix rat race, right?
Christa: You have to ask for vacation time and that vacation time might be rejected, by the way. You don't even necessarily get to take off those 10, 20 days that you have been given when you want. Like, you need to get those approved. Also, if you're not Christian, guess what? You still get Christmas off. And if you're not Christian, you're gonna have to ask to have the holidays off that matter to you.
Christa: Are you sick? Well, if you don't have unlimited sick days at your job, which at least many people in the United States do not have, I remember I used to have five sick days. Okay, are we really thinking that like if I'm sick for more than [00:42:00] five days, now my income is dependent on my health? And just like, there's so many things about our life that revolve around our job.
Christa: when we are in the corporate matrix rat race. Now, when you work for yourself, this wheel is completely different because the wheel, everything revolves around your energy. not your business. Your business is actually a spoke of the wheel. Your business is a spoke of the wheel. Um, the time of day that you wake up is a spoke of the wheel.
Christa: Where you live is a spoke of the wheel. Um, the way that you spend your time, the, energy or the, um, vacation days that you take, the days that you take off, the holidays that you take, the way that you spend them, who you spend time with, by the way, who you spend time with is dictated by your job when you live in the matrix.
Christa: But when you are an entrepreneur, especially a remote entrepreneur, you also, your energy gets to dictate [00:43:00] who you spend time with. Because your vibe attracts your tribe and when you are working for yourself, in the destination of your choice, you will naturally be able to draw in more people to you that are like minded and that you really resonate with rather than people that are stuck in the cubicle next to you.
Christa: So, um, this is just another thing that I wanted to talk about today because, you're stressed out about choosing the right career path, it's like, Um, your life will no longer revolve around that career. That career will just be a part of your life, not the centerpiece. So that also hopefully is a little bit reassuring that whatever it is that you choose in order to get started as a digital nomad, in order to get started as a remote entrepreneur, it's not as big of a deal.
Christa: It's not as big of a decision. as you're probably making it out to be. My advice for you is to slide into my DMs and ask me about a career [00:44:00] assessment if you really are stuck. Um, honestly, it's a very, very, very powerful experience. Um, you can listen to episode 33 of this podcast to hear more about the way that it works, but yeah, basically I will analyze your personality and I will suggest something to you that I think makes sense for your first rung of the ladder and something that, might be your ultimate CEO level position of your life as an entrepreneur.
Christa: And we're going to talk about all the steps that you need to take to get from the first rung to the ultimate one. So remember, trust the process, take it one step at a time. Try to take this big digital nomad career down from the pedestal. Realize that it is possible and you are worthy of it, but you need to take it one step at a time. You cannot look at the whole CEO level picture and think that you're going to snap your fingers and immediately after our career assessment, that's what your life is going to turn into. No, it depends on where you're at in life.
Christa: It depends on [00:45:00] how old you are, how much experience you have, what you know how to do, what you're good at, et cetera. And that it is okay to start at entry level. Whatever it is that you end up choosing, it does not have to be the thing that you do forever. It's just that first step. So Just come to me and let's talk about what your first step is going to be so that you can get started on the path of actually changing your life, of liberating yourself, of being able to live life in a way that your life revolves around you and your energy, not around a job that someone else This is completely controlling.
Christa: Gross. Gross. Okay. So, all that being said, I do really want to help you and I do really want to support you in changing your life. So send me a DM on Instagram with the words, Decision. podcast. It has to be spelled like that. Decision with just an N at the end. Decision [00:46:00] podcast. Send me those keywords on my Instagram at KristaBellaTravels and, when you send those words, you will get an automated reply from me that said, Hey, I heard you listen to the podcast.
Christa: Tell me a little bit about yourself. And, um, Try to give me as much information about your situation as possible so that I can actually send you a helpful response. If you're just like, Hey, I heard your podcast and I'm interested. I'm going to be like, okay, like what do you want to talk about? Like, what are you interested in?
Christa: Or like, if you just have questions about the program, I don't know if the program's right for you because I don't know who the hell you are. and I have different levels of my program too. You might need The more advanced level, you might need the more basic level. So slide into my DMS at @christabellatravels with the word decision podcast, fill out the answers to the questions that I ask you.
Christa: And then I will respond with a detailed, thorough text or even maybe a voice message speaking to [00:47:00] you specifically and doing my best to help you change your life and help you figure out what is going to be the right decision. remote career path for you and show you the step by step, easily broken down process that you can follow to actually make it happen in the shortest period of time possible.
Christa: Again, it's different depending on who you are and what your experience level is, but this lifestyle, you can move up your remote entrepreneur, jungle gym ladder. very, very quickly if you are determined and motivated and if you are aligned with the idea. So that's what the career assessment is for and I can't wait to meet you on it and dive super deep into your personality, all the little parts of yourself that you thought would never be relevant for remote work.
Christa: I'm going to show you how actually we can create it. A soul aligned business for you. Thank you so [00:48:00] much for listening and I'll see you in the next episode. Bye.