IBIs Digital Nomad Stories

Guest: Elle OtaCareer: Program Officer, Human Rights FoundationBased: Nomadic Episode DescriptionElle Ota spent her summers underwater, diving to fourth-to-sixth-century Roman shipwrecks off the coast of Sicily. She studied classics and ancient Greek, worked as an underwater archaeologist, and seemed destined for a PhD analysing ceramics under microscopes. Her professors pushed her toward academia. The track was clear. But Elle had a problem: she has an enormous social battery, and a career staring at pottery shards in labs felt fundamentally lonely. So she made a choice, she picked living people over thousand-year-old ones. Today she works remotely for the Human Rights Foundation whilst running the U.S. fundraising arm for a Ukrainian aid organisation. October 2022 changed everything, she moved to Europe the same month she first volunteered in Ukraine. The parallel timeline revealed something crucial: remote work didn't just enable travel, it enabled impact. She could hold down her 9-to-5 promoting democracy and human rights whilst balancing weeks in conflict zones managing aid operations. Without location independence, none of it would be possible. She's lived completely out of a suitcase for two years, gaining perspective from Europeans and South Americans in co-livings across the continent. Not surface-level tourist perspective, the depth that comes from living with people, hearing their stories day after day, understanding how they think. She surfs, climbs mountains, learns to scuba dive despite childhood fear of water, and has built a life that lets her chase both adventure and meaningful work. When you ask if she's brave, she gets uncomfortable and she knows activists who've been tortured, soldiers in trenches defending their country. Her work feels comparatively small. But that's exactly the point: she's found a way to contribute whilst feeding her enormous energy to try everything.   Timestamps00:00-00:37 Introduction00:37-01:56 Guest introduction01:56-02:44 Moving to Europe October 2022, transitional period02:44-03:27 Part-time to full-time nomad journey03:27-04:40 Value of having a base to return to04:40-05:02 Returning to same places for familiarity05:02-07:18 Living completely out of suitcase, 23kg limit07:18-08:29 Kiev as difficult home base, travel logistics08:29-09:19 Human Rights Foundation 9-to-5 work09:19-10:31 Ukraine volunteering origin, October 2022 parallel timeline10:31-12:08 Remote work enabling Ukraine volunteering flexibility12:08-14:09 Nomadism enables building best version of life14:09-15:11 Ibi's background and motivations15:11-16:58 Maslow's hierarchy and trying different things16:58-19:24 Gaining depth of perspective from living with Europeans19:24-21:13 Nuance of understanding European countries beyond surface level21:13-23:53 First-hand vs second-hand perspective, both valuable23:53-25:40 Sicily discussion and tourism perspective25:40-27:18 Underwater archaeology background, Roman shipwreck27:18-28:52 Academia career path consideration28:52-30:52 High social battery, choosing people-focused work over ceramics30:52-31:12 Ghosts and archeology spirits discussion31:12-32:17 Fearlessness observation from third-party perspective32:17-33:57 What courage looks like, relative to activists and soldiers33:57-35:20 Ukraine work feels comparatively small, adventure and adrenaline35:20-36:16 Closing, Sicily reunion plans About This PodcastReal conversations with successful digital nomads who've built sustainable location-independent income. Strategic insights on how they transitioned, what income streams they built, and what they wish they'd known earlier. No travel tips or lifestyle fluff.   HostIbi Malik helps ambitious professionals transition to nomadic careers without income sacrifice.To watch the video follow this link:  https://youtu.be/hxsuI1ZNMI8 Follow for weekly episodes featuring professionals who've successfully built nomadic income streams. Episode length: ~36 minutesPublished: 1st May 2026Episode #12   The Underwater Archaeologist Who Left the Past for the Present I'm sitting in a French castle talking to someone who used to spend her days underwater examining Roman shipwrecks. Elle Ota studied classics and ancient Greek at university, worked as an underwater archaeologist diving to a fourth-to-sixth-century wreck off the coast of Sicily, and seemed destined for a PhD and a quiet life analysing ceramics under microscopes. Then she made a choice that changed everything: she picked living people over thousand-year-old ones. Today, Elle works remotely for the Human Rights Foundation whilst running a U.S. fundraising arm for a Ukrainian aid organization. She's lived completely out of a suitcase for two years, gaining perspective from Europeans and South Americans in co-livings across the continent. She surfs, climbs mountains, travels to conflict zones, and has built a life that lets her chase both adventure and impact. The story of how an underwater archaeologist (yes, quite literally an archaeologist who works underwater, who knew!) became a nomadic human rights worker isn't about abandoning one passion for another. It's about recognising what fuels you and building the flexibility to act on it. The Social Battery That Ended Academia Elle's path to archaeology made perfect sense after her studies in classics and ancient Greek. Every day: scuba equipment, diving down to a Roman shipwreck, underwater excavation, bringing pieces to the surface, afternoons analysing them in labs. "I actually think it was the best job ever," she tells me. So why isn't she still doing it? Her professors pushed her toward a PhD, toward teaching and research. The academic track. And she loved the work itself, the puzzle-solving, the nerdiness of it all. But a career in academia comes with realities: intense competition for vanishing positions, work that "can be very solitary", years looking at pottery shards under microscopes. "I have such a high social battery that it's quite easy for me to be in co-livings all the time, and that is pretty counterintuitive to a career looking at ceramics under a microscope." She wanted work focused on people. On communities. On applying what she learned rather than just researching it. The underwater work was brilliant, but fundamentally lonely. Elle needed something that fed her energy rather than drained it. So she pivoted. She chose human rights work, nonprofit management, roles that put her directly with people trying to change things. And crucially, she chose remote work. When Two Timelines Converge There's something about parallel timelines that reveals how much of life is shaped by being in the right place at the right moment. In October 2022, Elle moved to Europe. The same month, she went to Ukraine for the first time on a volunteer mission. She'd been watching the full-scale invasion unfold since February. Working her regular job at the Human Rights Foundation (40 hours a week, 9-to-5, promoting democracy and human rights in countries under authoritarian regimes). But Ukraine pulled at her. She wanted to help, though she knew you can't just thrust yourself into a crisis and expect to be useful. The opportunity came through Polish connections. She went on that first trip, offered her nonprofit background: fundraising, social media, grant writing, website management. Started volunteering with an organization on the ground. Over three years, those roles expanded. Now she helps run the U.S. fundraising arm, manages teams, considers them family. And here's what makes it possible: remote work. "I think having the flexibility of remote work was pretty key to me being able to do Ukraine work, because I can travel there, I can balance the two. I can work my normal 9-to-5 and also be volunteering for Ukraine." Without location independence, none of this happens. She can't be in Kiev for weeks managing aid operations whilst holding down her Human Rights Foundation role. She can't balance meaningful work with meaningful impact. The nomadic structure doesn't just enable adventure. It enables action. Hunting Perspective Elle describes herself as an American who's benefited enormously from living with Europeans and South Americans. Not just visiting their countries, but actually living with them in co-livings, hearing their perspectives day after day, gaining depth that surface-level travel never provides. We talked about the difference between first-hand and second-hand perspective. First-hand is what you experience yourself. Second-hand comes from talking to people, hearing their stories, living alongside them. Both matter. Both add layers. "You get to hear different perspectives too, and be very much surrounded by those, not just have one conversation with somebody, but when you're living with them in the context, you really start to gain a real depth of perspective." She's not just collecting passport stamps. She's collecting understanding. The nuance of what it's actually like to live somewhere, not as a tourist passing through but as someone embedded enough to see how people think, what they value, why they make the choices they make. This is what nomadism offers beyond the Instagram version: sustained exposure to different ways of being. Not a week in Barcelona, but months living with people from ten different countries, hearing how they approach work, relationships, risk, meaning. For Elle, this depth of perspective has fundamentally shaped what works best for her own life. She's not just trying things herself. She's learning from watching others try them too. Two Years Out of a Suitcase Elle's been living completely out of her suitcase for two years. No storage unit in Europe. No home base besides the one in California that requires 24 hours of flight time to reach. She watches with some envy as friends with European families can leave suitcases with them, return to bedrooms in friends' flats, maintain some anchor of normalcy. For her, going back to California is a one-month commitment minimum. The flight alone makes it impossible to pop home for a weekend. "I do think that there is a lot of value in having someplace to return back to. And actually now at this point, having done this for two years, this is something I'm looking for again." The freedom is real. She can pop from place to place, choose her locations, build the life she wants. But two years in, she's also feeling the trade-off. The lack of somewhere to leave things. The constant weight of everything you own on your back. She's adapted by returning to the same places repeatedly. Building familiarity. Creating informal homes in cities she knows, cafes where staff recognise her, co-livings she cycles back to. It's not the same as having a base, but it's better than starting from scratch every month. This feels honest. Not the polished "location independence solves everything" narrative, but the reality: two years of complete freedom has her now seeking some form of rootedness again. Not because the experiment failed, but because she's learned what she actually needs. What Courage Looks Like When I observe that Elle seems fearless (underwater archaeology, moving to Poland from California, volunteering in Ukraine), she pauses to reframe it. "I think courage can look very different for different people. And so I know how that feels in my own heart. But going to Ukraine and doing all these things sort of look externally courageous and maybe they feel different on the inside." Here's her perspective: she works with human rights activists who've led protests against dictators, who've been imprisoned, tortured, whose families have been kidnaped for their work. She knows soldiers fighting in Ukrainian trenches, on ships, defending their country daily. Compared to them, her work feels small. Aid runs, fundraising, occasional trips to conflict zones (important, yes, but part of a larger tapestry). Not the front line itself. "Me going occasionally to Ukraine doing aid runs, fundraising, it's important and it's part of that tapestry of what we can accomplish together. But it feels comparatively very small." She's not diminishing what she does. She's contextualising it. When you're surrounded by people risking everything, your own contributions feel different than how outsiders perceive them. But then there's this: "I do like adventure. I like adrenaline, I like going into the mountains and surfing big waves and climbing and stuff, and I just want to try everything." That's the core of it. Elle has enormous energy, wants to be active, wants to experience as much as possible. The nomadic life isn't just about impact or perspective. It's about feeding that fundamental drive to try things, to push into new experiences, to live fully. The Intersection What makes Elle's story compelling isn't that she chose one thing over another. It's that she's found a way to honour multiple drives simultaneously. The archaeologist's curiosity, but applied to living cultures instead of dead ones. The desire for adventure, channeled into both mountain climbing and meaningful work. The social battery that rejected solitary research, now fuelled by co-living communities across Europe. The flexibility of remote work, enabling her to volunteer in conflict zones whilst maintaining stable employment. She's not pretending it's perfect. Two years out of a suitcase is teaching her she needs some form of base. The freedom comes with trade-offs. But she's building something intentional: a life structured around trying everything, gaining deep perspective, and using her skills where they matter. From underwater wrecks to Ukrainian aid operations. From California to wherever the next co-living calls. From thousand-year-old Romans to living, breathing communities who need help now. That's the pivot that mattered. Digital nomads and location-independent professionals featured on Ibi's Digital Nomad Stories podcast share insights into building sustainable remote careers. Listen to all episodes: www.ibimalik.com/podcasts/ibis-digital-nomad-stories

Guest: Miranda MillerCareer: Writer, Editor, MarketerBased: NomadicInstagram: @themidlifenomadsLinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/mirandamillerwrites/Personal Website: miranda-miller.comMidlife Nomads Website: Midlifenomads.comNewsletter: midlifenomads.com/subscribe Episode DescriptionMiranda Miller didn't wait for the remote work revolution. She was already there. Since 2006, fighting for $15-an-hour writing contracts as a single mum in small-town Canada, scrapping together work on Elance whilst waitressing and working factory shifts. Then someone offered her $1,000 a day to work conferences. She had two babies. She initially said no. But then she called her mum to arrange childcare. Australia, London, the US—she caught the travel bug and never looked back. Eighteen years later, she's survived every era of remote work. The pre-COVID grind when nobody understood what she did. The COVID burnout when boundaries dissolved and she took on too much. The recovery when she had to intentionally reset, kill projects that weren't working, and choose what actually mattered. Now she runs Midlife Nomads, a community helping 40-plus professionals make the leap to location independence. Not the backpacker hustle. Not the 30-year-old grind. A different pace. Different priorities. Comfort over adventure. Sustainability over exponential growth. Three years of building slowly, choosing the right people over fast expansion. This is a masterclass in reframing. When you stop seeing failures as losses and start treating them as experiments, eighteen years of trial and error becomes eighteen years of compounding wisdom. She's killed beloved projects, turned down opportunities, bought fifty domains she'll never use, and learnt that the real skill isn't saying yes to everything—it's knowing which opportunities to pursue before you run yourself ragged. Timestamps00:00-00:37 Introduction00:37-01:48 Guest introduction01:48-02:12 Been remote since 2008, part-time then full-time nomad02:12-03:10 Travel durations and recovery time03:10-04:08 Midlife Nomads origin and purpose04:08-05:57 Different pace and priorities for 40-plus travellers05:57-07:15 Starting as single mum, $15/hour struggles07:15-08:15 Elance platform and women writers' network08:15-09:12 $1,000/day conference work pivot09:12-09:25 Catching the travel bug09:25-10:23 Factory work, hospitality, finding what she's good at10:23-11:33 Internet as levelling the playing field11:33-13:33 COVID impact: doors slamming shut, burnout, boundary issues13:33-15:02 Selling time vs expertise theory15:02-16:39 Packaging services and productising expertise16:39-18:49 Contract mindset and reframing18:49-19:27 Anxiety about proving productivity whilst nomading19:27-20:12 Reframing mindset from corporate to outcomes-focused20:12-21:22 Seeing others model the lifestyle, monthly check-ins21:22-21:58 Becoming a beginner again, permission to suck21:58-23:48 Building sustainably vs get-rich-quick23:48-24:44 Three years building Midlife Nomads slowly24:44-26:04 Daily routine and grounding practices26:04-27:01 Energy management and seasons27:01-28:18 Self-imposed pressure and recovering from perfectionism28:18-29:35 Too many ideas problem, Writer's Den vs Midlife Nomads29:35-29:58 Reframing failures as experiments, knowing which opportunities to pursue About This PodcastReal conversations with successful digital nomads who've built sustainable location-independent income. Strategic insights on how they transitioned, what income streams they built, and what they wish they'd known earlier. No travel tips or lifestyle fluff. HostIbi Malik helps ambitious professionals transition to nomadic careers without income sacrifice. To watch the video follow this link: https://youtu.be/Ishui5vvCbE  Follow for weekly episodes featuring professionals who've successfully built nomadic income streams. Episode length: ~30 minutesPublished: 17th April 2026Episode #11 Guest ReflectionThe Midlife Nomad Who Helps Others Rewrite Their Rules I sat down with Miranda Miller looking forward to hearing about Midlife Nomads, her passion project helping 40-plus professionals transition to location independence. What I got was so much more: 18 years of hard-won wisdom from someone who's been doing this since the term barely existed. Miranda has been doing this since 2006, when 'digital nomad' wasn't even a proper term yet. She's navigated every era of remote work, survived lockdowns that slammed doors shut whilst others' opened, and built Midlife Nomads over three years of slow, steady work. She's a master at reframing, turning hourly rates into value packages, burnout into boundary resets, failed projects into experiments. She's faced every challenge, made every mistake, and come out the other side with kids in tow. The advice she shares isn't theory. It's battle-tested wisdom from 18 years on the road: how to manage day-to-day life when your mind spins with project ideas, why giving yourself permission to suck at new things matters, and how the cage you're in is probably one you built yourself. The $1,000 Turning Point Miranda became a mum at 24. By 28, she was a single mother in small-town Canada trying to get $15-an-hour writing contracts, fighting for business against people who didn't think they needed to pay writers. She found Elance, the original Upwork, in 2006. Built a profile over a few years. By 2008, she was doing decent freelance work but still working multiple jobs. Through Elance, she met other women writers and they formed their own private forum, taking on bigger projects together. Then one of those women came to her with an offer. "I need you to take on a client for me. It's working at conferences." Miranda's response was immediate. "Absolutely not, I can't, I have two babies." The woman paused. "Well, they'll pay you 1,000 USD a day." I laughed when Miranda told me this. Money changes things. She called her mum, arranged childcare for four days a month, and took the job. Australia. London. Conferences across the US. Representing an SEO company whilst taking university courses and getting into e-commerce. "I caught the travel bug big time at that point. And I thought, I can't go back to not doing this." At those conferences, she met people who saw what she was doing and wanted to work with her. The university courses gave her frameworks. The travel gave her perspective. It all compounded. When COVID Slammed the Door Shut For most people, COVID opened doors. Remote work suddenly became acceptable. Companies scrambled to figure out how to operate distributed teams. Digital nomadism went mainstream. For Miranda, it was the opposite. "COVID was actually like a lot of doors slamming shut." She was in Ontario, Canada, which had strict lockdowns. Snitch lines. Only one person per family allowed at the grocery store. As a writer and introvert, working from home was fine. Not being able to travel anywhere? That got tough. But she also saw an opportunity. Small businesses were struggling, needing to pivot everything online overnight. So she helped them, taking on project after project. "There were a lot of us in marketing who felt like we needed to help people, especially businesses." The problem? Her boundaries completely dissolved. "Without travel, there's not that much else to do. So I'll just keep taking on more and more work." By 2022-23, she hit total burnout. Had to stop. The world was opening up again, and she needed to reset intentionally. "It was like an intentional resetting of the boundaries. We need to slow down a bit and get back to having a real life." Time vs Expertise I have a theory about selling time for money. You can max out around €3,500 to €7,000 a month depending on rates. After that, unless you hire people, you're stuck. The shift has to be from time to expertise. Miranda's response? "I think it makes a lot of sense." She sees this constantly at Midlife Nomads. People leaving stable careers with hourly rates, wanting to bring that same model into remote work. It doesn't translate. "They're going to compare you against the cost of what an employee would be. If you're saying you can have me for X amount of dollars per hour, that's what they're looking at." The reframe? "If you tell them I can save your business $40,000 this year by doing X, Y, Z, then it becomes a completely different conversation." She has one client she's worked with for 14 years. Package-based. Monthly deliverables. They've been acquired three times, and she's grown with them each time. "They don't really even care how long it takes. They just need to know that the research is being done properly, it's being optimised properly, it's fact checked." When life happens, she brings in freelancers to help deliver. The client doesn't care. They're not paying for her time. They're paying for outcomes. "It's a much different conversation than if it were just freelancing as a pseudo employee." This shift from time-based to outcome-based work sounds simple. But it triggers something deeper in people making the transition. Trust Anxiety and Proving Value Some nomads come to me with what I call trust anxiety. They're terrified about proving to clients that they're actually working. It's the shadow side of outcome-based work, especially for people coming from traditional employment. Miranda gets it. "I think that just totally makes sense for people coming out of a productivity mindset where you need to punch the card. You need to prove your value. You need to be a butt in a seat." But here's what she learned over 18 years: "They don't actually care. They want to see the end product, the outcome at the end of the month, the thing that's going to make the difference for them. Anything else is really just creating noise and paperwork." Early on, she tried everything to prove her value. Monthly newsletters showing she was keeping up with industry trends. Regular check-ins. Updates. "Nobody really cared. They're like, that's really cool that you're doing that. But it wasn't something anyone missed when I stopped doing it." She was trying to prove her value, but it wasn't adding value to the relationship. The distinction matters. "Just understanding and taking the time to check in to see why you're doing what you're doing, and is it actually producing an outcome, is super important." Permission to Suck One thing Miranda emphasises: you're going to become a beginner again. "You might be an expert in what you've done, whether it's accounting or teaching or whatever you've done for 25, 30 years. And it's really, really hard to then become a rookie in the online business space." You might be brilliant at your core skill, but you've never had your own website. Never done social media marketing. Never built a service offering from scratch. "Giving yourself permission to suck is really important and is also really, really difficult." The internet gives things fast. Online shopping. Dopamine hits from social media. People assume building something online is equally fast. It's not. "If you want to build something sustainable, it takes time." Miranda knows this intimately. Midlife Nomads has been three years in the making. "It's not expanding or exponentially growing overnight, but it's slow and steady and the right people are involved, and that is something that has staying power." She's learned to spot the difference between sustainable building and what she calls burn-and-churn industries. Early in her career, she wrote copy for internet marketers, tapping into people's fears. "It's effective. Absolutely. But I realised I really don't like that. I actually want to build community and things that matter." Those things take time. You can't fake them. Energy Management and Bad Days Miranda's day-to-day looks different every day, but there's structure. Journaling. Podcast episodes. Grounding routines that travel with her. But she's also learned something crucial: "Giving myself permission to have a bad day once in a while." Her work is structured so no single day's lack of productivity will cost her a client. She's learnt to manage energy, not just time. "I talk a lot about energy management because I've found over the last ten years how vitally important it is to recognise your energy highs and lows." Some months she's wildly creative, writing books, producing content. Other times? Admin. Social promotion. Different seasons for different work. "If you sit down at a blank page every morning and try to force something that's not happening, you're going to be miserable." Sleep quality is her indicator. When things keep her up at night, she sits down with a grid and asks: where am I spending my time? What could I put off for a few months? "So much of it I was putting on myself. It was internal pressure. Just getting okay with saying no to yourself once in a while was big." The Cage You Built Yourself Here's something I've noticed about nomads and solopreneurs: they can say yes to everything. The world is your oyster. Every opportunity is available. That freedom becomes its own prison. Miranda laughs about having bought countless domain names over the years. Every time she has an idea, she buys the domain. When she started Midlife Nomads, she also started The Writer's Den, another community and blog. She tried both for a while, then made a choice. Killed The Writer's Den. Twenty-year-old Miranda would have seen that as failure. Current Miranda? "It was an experiment. I tried it and I stuck with the one that felt better and that was more successful." "Reframing that as not a failure, not a loss, it was an opportunity." With a remote career, you meet inspiring people constantly. Ideas multiply. Opportunities appear everywhere. "You have to know which opportunities to pursue or you'll run yourself ragged." The cage nomads build isn't from lack of options. It's from having too many and not knowing when to say no, even to yourself. 18 Years In Miranda's been doing this since 2006, navigating every shift in remote work whilst raising kids and building a location-independent career. She's burnt out and reset boundaries, experimented and killed projects, and built Midlife Nomads to help others make the same transition. The wisdom she offers isn't from a course or a guru. It's from nearly two decades of trial and error, reframing failures into experiments, turning hourly work into value-based packages, and learning that the hardest person to give yourself permission to disappoint is yourself. She's proof that this life can be for anyone who wants it, at any stage, with kids in tow, if you're willing to become a beginner again and give yourself permission to suck whilst you figure it out. And maybe that's the real lesson: 18 years in, she's still experimenting. Digital nomads and location-independent professionals featured on Ibi's Digital Nomad Stories podcast share insights into building sustainable remote careers. Listen to all episodes: www.ibimalik.com/podcasts/ibis-digital-nomad-stories

Guest: Jocelyn Macurdy KeattsCareer: Political Communications SpecialistBased: NomadicInstagram: @jocelynmacurdykeatts  Episode DescriptionJocelyn Macurdy Keatts spent ten years trying to save the world from inside Washington, DC. She worked as a political consultant, produced events for politicians, reported on protests, and built a career in progressive activism. But the system swallowed her whole. Networking became performance. Activism became about who you know, not what problems you're solving. The power center's ambient narcissism and daily energy tax drained her creativity. So she left. She told herself she just wanted to travel, write media advisories from Greek islands, take a break. But what she discovered was something deeper: distance gave her clarity that insiders never have. Being outside the US made her more effective at US politics, not less. She could think long-term instead of chasing viral moments. She could focus on problems over profit. She could build stability instead of reacting to whatever Twitter was talking about that week. Now she runs political campaigns from co-livings across Europe, more effective than she ever was in DC. She produces Resistance Labs with Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal, teaching nonviolent resistance tactics. She's discovered anti-fragility, collective nobility, and that curiosity compounds exponentially when you're surrounded by courageous people. This conversation explores how leaving a power center can make you better at changing it, why comfort is the enemy in the modern economy, and what happens when you stop assuming everyone else is right and just try things. Timestamps00:00-00:33 Introduction00:33-01:37 Guest introduction01:37-02:08 Political consultant for ten years02:08-02:52 Burnt out on Washington DC power center02:52-03:48 Activism distorted by power networks03:48-05:08 Left to travel, discovering deeper reasons05:08-06:24 Daily energy tax of maintaining normie existence06:24-07:36 Creative liberation from leaving07:36-09:51 Berlin and different assumptions09:51-11:28 Anti-fragility concept and building resilience11:28-13:32 Comfort is the enemy, disruption is the law13:32-14:52 Nomadic mindset and capitalizing on opportunities14:52-17:18 American left's problem, replicating failed strategies17:18-18:42 Problem over profit mindset shift18:42-20:42 Solving problems vs making money20:42-23:56 Objectivity from distance23:56-26:26 Resistance Labs with Congresswoman Jayapal26:26-28:38 Building stability vs chasing viral moments28:38-30:18 Surrounded by people you respect30:18-32:31 Courage and collective nobility32:31-34:47 Curiosity compounds exponentially34:47-35:13 Closing About This PodcastReal conversations with successful digital nomads who've built sustainable location-independent income. Strategic insights on how they transitioned, what income streams they built, and what they wish they'd known earlier. No travel tips or lifestyle fluff. HostIbi Malik helps ambitious professionals transition to nomadic careers without income sacrifice. To watch the video follow this link: https://youtu.be/tuJIZKaTcOU  Follow for weekly episodes featuring professionals who've successfully built nomadic income streams. Episode length: ~35 minutesPublished: 3rd April 2026Episode #10 Guest Reflection The Political Activist Who Realised Leaving America was the Best Way to Save it I sat down with Jocelyn at Chateau Co-living in Normandy, where we'd been living together for six weeks. She'd just spent the morning strategising media campaigns for American political activists. From a French castle. Whilst most of her colleagues were stuck in Washington DC traffic. She told me about spending ten years in DC politics, wanting to save the world. About getting trapped in narcissistic power networks where activism became performance. About leaving because she thought she just wanted to travel. And about discovering that distance didn't make her less effective at changing the world. It made her more effective. This is the story of someone who left the system and found she could fight better from outside it. Wanting to Save the World At 19, Jocelyn got into progressive politics for the reason most people do. "I wanted to save the world. That's what everybody wants when they're 19 years old." Good reason as any. The world needs saving. She spent ten years building a political life in Washington DC. Producing events for politicians and activists. On-camera reporter for protests and campaigns. Helping candidates and activists build media profiles. Doing the work she thought would change things. What she does specifically: helping progressive candidates and activists navigate America's right-wing media bias. Building strategies so the left can get the attention they deserve in a media landscape tilted against them. But somewhere in those ten years, something shifted. "I don't think I really realised, but I was actually just completely burnt out on Washington politics specifically." The Power Center Trap "You're a Londoner so I think you know the specific burnout that you can have from big power centres where there is this kind of ambient narcissism and everything costs thousands of pounds." She was right. I knew exactly what she meant. London. New York. DC. The big power centres where networking becomes performance and actual work gets distorted by influence. "You go into this world and there are so many people with power and money, and instead of saving the world, you're trying to form these relationships and keep these relationships and it becomes increasingly unclear, okay, is this leading to anything, or am I just stuck in this narcissistic social system?" The trap isn't that people are malicious. It's that the system itself distorts everything. Your activism becomes about who you know. Your strategies become about what's worked before, not what works now. Your energy goes into maintaining networks instead of solving problems. "I feel like being baked in this big American power city had kind of wounded my relationship with activism in a lot of ways. It felt like the things that I wanted to do were being distorted by all these layers of influence and networks of power and funding." Ten years in. Career established. Connections built. And increasingly unsure if any of it was leading anywhere real. "I was just like, what if I just left? Like, what's the worst that could happen?" The Unconscious Escape When Jocelyn left DC after COVID, she told herself a simple story: she wanted to travel. "I'm gonna write my media advisories from the Greek islands. Sounds nice." That was the conscious reason. Pack up the freelance work she could do from anywhere. Travel for a while. See what happens. "But as I travelled more and met other travellers, I realised there was actually something much deeper going on with why I left and why I was staying away." What she discovered wasn't just about wanting to see new places. It was about escape from something specific. "When you have a career that's based in one place, your life ends up being weighed down with all these concerns that feel so important, but they aren't. Maybe you need to have this expensive flat or car and you're seeing all these people every week and then there's not really a lot of energy left over to be creative, to be intrinsically motivated to really think about, what am I doing with my career?" She described it as the daily energy tax of maintaining what she called a "normie existence" - the constant low-level drain of keeping up appearances. Maintaining the right flat. Seeing the right people. Playing the networking game. All the things that feel necessary when everyone around you is doing them. Creative Liberation When that daily energy tax disappeared, something unexpected happened. Her creative and intellectual energy became far more available. Not because she was on permanent holiday, but because she wasn't weighed down anymore. She was careful to be honest about the transition. There's an adjustment period - maybe a few months, maybe a year - where you're acclimating to constantly switching countries and you won't be terribly productive. But after that? She was shocked by how much she suddenly took on projects that were more important, more exciting, more challenging, and more aligned with what she actually cared about. Why? Because she wasn't stuck in a limiting idea of what it meant to be a political activist. She wasn't in a sphere where everybody said the same things and did the same things. Meeting people constantly. Being challenged daily. New perspectives from different cultures. It wasn't just liberating. It was professionally transformative. The Anti-Fragility Advantage Jocelyn introduced me to a term: anti-fragility. It's an economics concept that rose in popularity during COVID - the idea that systems can sustain catastrophe but still be resilient. She thinks about it constantly in relation to nomad life. If you're going to be a serious professional and become a nomad, you're building anti-fragility. Becoming more aware of what you want to create, what problems you want to solve, and how to actually do that - versus relying on your network to tell you what to do. Here's the key insight: normal people assume a great life is built on figuring it out. But that never happens. You get older, the economy changes, technology changes. Even if you stay in the same place your whole life, comfort is a complete illusion. The advantage nomads have? Your life changes every month or two, so you're no longer allergic to the idea that things can be totally different. She saw this in DC constantly. People would do something that worked, then spend the next five to ten years trying to replicate it. But the world had changed. As nomads, you can't fall into that trap. You're forced to adapt constantly. "In the modern economy, comfort is the enemy. Disruption is the law of the modern workforce. And I think you should just internalise that and accept that." Distance as Advantage Here's what surprised her most: being out of the US made her better at US politics. Being out in the world makes you more aware of how important the American project really is, and what happens in the US impacts everybody. When I asked what specifically changed, her answer was concrete. In DC, she'd reach out to reporters she knew. The availability heuristic - the people you talk to every day become your default. Now? She gets very clear on the data. What's this reporter's reach? Are they actually an authority? Objectivity through distance. Another shift: moving from profit-focused to problem-focused. The biggest thing that shifted for her as an American was understanding that money and capitalism isn't the central driver of most cultures. That's a uniquely American problem. In the US, there's this professional assumption: if something is profitable, it's working. But just as frequently, the opposite is true. Profit incentives can disrupt actual deliverables. "If you solve a problem and you solve it really well, it will eventually become profitable. Maybe not immediately, but if you're looking to form a career built on brilliance and acumen over the long haul, it's better to be really good at what you do than to make a few thousand extra dollars tomorrow." The long-term thinking came from distance. From not being caught in DC's short-term cycles. Building for Stability, Not Virality The best example of this approach: Resistance Labs. Jocelyn produces digital events for Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal, teaching people nonviolent resistance tactics. They'd been running monthly sessions for about a year. Steady work. Building something sustainable. Attendees averaged around a thousand people. Then Alex Peretti was killed. The conversation around resistance exploded. Their next session got 6,000 signups. But here's the key: that success came from a place of stability, not from a manic place of trying to force themselves into a conversation. They'd been building for a year. When the viral moment came, they had something substantial to offer. When you're in DC, going to parties where everyone's hyper-fixated on the viral thing of the moment, you lose that perspective. From distance, she can focus on what has legs, not what's trending today. "When you're able to be objective and think long term, you frequently accidentally become part of a viral conversation because you've built something sustainable." The Collective Nobility Effect One thing Jocelyn didn't expect: the quality of people she'd meet. When building a career in one place, you get distracted by whether you actually respect the people you're networking with, or if you're just interacting with them because you feel you have to. As a nomad? Suddenly she had a surplus of people she genuinely respected. People she didn't have to talk to but loved talking to. Instead of obligatory networking, genuine inspiration. Every nomad has to be courageous to live this way. Willing to see what happens when you live in an entirely new culture. And when you're surrounded by courageous people, it brings out the best in everyone. She introduced me to another term: collective nobility. We talk about the bystander effect and how collective lack of accountability enables terrible things. But collective nobility works the opposite way - when people around you are creative, loving, and inspiring, it elevates everyone. "I am such an exponentially better person than I was four years ago, because I'm surrounded by people who make me excited to be a part of the human race." The Compound Effect What struck me most about our conversation was this idea of compounding growth. Jocelyn described it as exponential. Every time you say yes to something different whilst someone else says no and does the same thing, you diverge. A year in a nomad's life is probably like a decade in the life of someone back home. Not because of money, not even really because of travel, but because of curiosity that compounds. The more you grow your capacity intellectually and emotionally, the more access you have to different worlds, different life, different beauty. She's passionate about this because she sees an alternative to what we're sold: secure a large income, have a nuclear family, then wait to die. "I want that for everybody. Can you imagine if everybody in the world felt that way?" I told her: If you made the world feel that way, you would have successfully changed the world. Which is, after all, what she wanted at 19. Changing the World from Outside It Today, Jocelyn runs political consulting from co-living spaces across Europe. She produces Resistance Labs for Congresswoman Jayapal. She helps progressive candidates navigate media bias. She builds campaigns focused on solving problems, not chasing profit or viral moments. She does all of this more effectively than she did in Washington DC. Not despite being outside the system. Because of it. The distance gives her objectivity. The nomadic life builds anti-fragility. The constant change prevents the comfort trap. The collective nobility of courageous people makes her better. She's not running away from the fight. She found that fighting from outside gives her advantages the insiders don't have. The 19-year-old who wanted to save the world spent ten years learning the system. Then she left it. And discovered she could finally do the work she actually wanted to do. Sometimes you have to leave the system to see it clearly. Sometimes distance is exactly what you need to be effective. Sometimes the best way to change the world is from outside the power centers that claim they're changing it. Turns out, that's what saving the world actually looks like. Jocelyn Macurdy Keatts runs political consulting for progressive activists and candidates whilst living nomadically across Europe. Digital nomads and location-independent professionals featured on Ibi's Digital Nomad Stories podcast share insights into building sustainable remote careers. Listen to all episodes: www.ibimalik.com/podcasts/ibis-digital-nomad-stories

Guest: Kayleigh FranksCareer: Head of Digital MarketingBased: NomadicInstagram: @kayleighrfEpisode DescriptionKayleigh Franks didn't stumble into digital nomadism. She hunted it down. In 2016, she flew to Chiang Mai and spent three months interviewing 24 digital nomads for 90 minutes each, studying them for her bachelor's thesis. Then she made it her life's mission to become one.She took the long route. Got an office job in Sydney. Showed up every day. Built her skills in digital marketing. Established a foundation. COVID hit and restricted her further. When it lifted, she quit her job, went freelance, and finally started traveling.But it wasn't what she expected. Airbnbs isolated her. The magic she'd observed in Chiang Mai was missing. Then she discovered co-living. After eight years of planning and building toward this life, she finally found what she'd been chasing.In this conversation, we explore what happens when you spend a decade preparing for something and reality still surprises you. We discuss the time prison of office work, why one month is both too long and not long enough, and the trade-offs between freedom and connection that every nomad eventually faces.Timestamps00:00-00:35 Introduction00:35-01:33 Guest introduction01:33-02:08 Writing a thesis about digital nomads02:08-02:43 Chiang Mai 2016, 24 interviews02:43-03:34 Integrating with the community03:34-04:23 Observing nomads in their natural habitat04:23-05:00 What she does now: digital marketing05:00-05:33 Life's mission to become a nomad05:33-06:25 Building career deliberately in Sydney06:25-07:02 COVID restrictions07:02-08:12 Deliberately calculated approach08:12-09:09 First attempts: Airbnbs and isolation09:09-10:44 Connection and belonging, the cafe lady10:44-11:03 Month-long stays and hubs11:03-12:23 Ten-day connection threshold12:23-12:52 Discovering co-living in 202512:52-13:24 The magic and aliveness13:24-14:19 Sustainability of co-living lifestyle14:19-15:34 One month co-livings back-to-back intensity15:34-16:25 Maintaining productivity while traveling16:25-17:17 Five hours a day, four days a week17:17-18:08 Time prison of office work18:08-18:56 Digital nomadism as solution18:56-20:12 How does it feel to have made it?20:12-20:59 Gratitude and creating your own luck20:59-21:50 Challenges and difficulties21:50-23:15 Slow travel vs fast travel preferences23:15-24:29 Community building in co-livings24:29-25:44 Deep connections vs surface connections25:44-27:48 Relationships and nomadism trade-offs27:48-29:45 Freedom vs connection, making decisions29:45-30:06 Worth being nomadic, liberation from structure30:06-30:23 ClosingAbout This PodcastReal conversations with successful digital nomads who've built sustainable location-independent income. Strategic insights on how they transitioned, what income streams they built, and what they wish they'd known earlier. No travel tips or lifestyle fluff. Host Ibi Malik helps ambitious professionals transition to nomadic careers without income sacrifice.  To watch the video follow this link: https://youtu.be/yev3GdVSrhk Follow for weekly episodes featuring professionals who've successfully built nomadic income streams.Episode length: ~30 minutesPublished: 20th March 2026Episode #9 Guest Reflection Halfway through our conversation at Chateau Co-living in Normandy, Kayleigh did what came naturally. She'd been answering my questions for twenty minutes when something shifted. She paused, smiled slightly, and asked: "Can I ask you questions?" It was the researcher emerging. The woman who spent three months in Chiang Mai in 2016 interviewing digital nomads, studying them in their natural habitat, understanding what made them tick. Old habits, it seems, die hard. After nine episodes of guests being interviewed, perhaps it was time someone turned the tables. But before she did, Kayleigh told me her story. About deliberately building a life around nomadism years before most people knew what that meant. About the rocky start that nearly made her question everything. And about finally discovering that the thing she'd been chasing for a decade was real. Studying Nomads Before It Was Normal In 2015, Kayleigh was doing her bachelor's degree in business and tourism when her brother told her about something called digital nomadism. The concept fascinated her immediately. "I decided to research into it. And nomadism was up at the time, and it said the number one hub was Chiang Mai. So I flew to Chiang Mai and spent three months interviewing digital nomads." This was 2016. Before COVID made remote work mainstream. Before digital nomad visas existed. Before co-living spaces were everywhere. She conducted 24 interviews, each an hour and a half long. Sitting in cafes, asking people why they'd chosen this life, what Tim Ferriss's Four Hour Work Week meant to them (spoiler: they didn't actually work four hours), how they made it work. "I wasn't technically a nomad because I wasn't working. I was studying them, but I integrated." She lived in an apartment building where other nomads lived. They'd run into each other in corridors. Meet at the same cafes for co-working. There were no formal co-living spaces then, but they created community anyway. Self-sufficiently building connections when the infrastructure didn't exist yet. What she observed changed everything. "It became my life's mission after that to actually become one myself." The Long Game Most people fall into nomadism. Job goes remote. Partner suggests trying it. Life circumstances change and suddenly it's possible. Kayleigh didn't fall into anything. She built towards it deliberately. "I based my whole career on how I could choose something that would allow me to become location independent." After returning from Thailand, she chose digital marketing specifically because it was location-flexible. But she didn't go remote immediately. She did something counterintuitive: she got an office job. "I decided to work for an agency in Sydney to be able to build up my skills. But they had to have me in the office every day. That doesn't align with me at all. But I knew it was a good way to establish a foundation that would allow me to travel at my own will." Years of showing up to an office she didn't want to be in. Building skills. Getting experience. Creating the foundation that would eventually let her work from anywhere. Then COVID hit. Everything went remote anyway. When restrictions lifted, she saw her moment. "After that, I was like, there is nothing stopping me now. So I quit my job. I went out on my own." It worked. Within a year, she was earning enough to support herself to become a digital nomad. The long game had paid off. When I asked how she felt about being one of the few people who'd planned it this deliberately, her answer surprised me. When It Didn't Work "I obviously spent so many years anticipating this kind of lifestyle, and then I started doing it. And I actually didn't enjoy the way I did it. And I was like, what have I done my whole life? I've worked towards it, and it's not what I expected." Years of planning. Years of building skills. Years of anticipation. And when she finally did it, travelling through South America and Europe, she hated it. The problem? Airbnbs. "It really restricts who you interact with. I think for me, a lot of the beauty to nomadism is actually connecting with people and similar mindsets, but it really isolates you when you're in an Airbnb." She could go to events. Visit co-working spaces. But it wasn't the same as what she'd observed in Chiang Mai, where community formed naturally through proximity and repetition. "When I was studying, connection with people is a big part of feeling like you belong in an area." In Thailand, she'd found an old woman at a local cafe who hugged her every day. They couldn't speak each other's languages, but the woman would sit with her, chat in Thai, hug her goodbye. That daily ritual created belonging. "It just makes you feel like you belong, which is a big part of the pain of being nomadic." Going to the same cafes daily. Staying in places for at least a month. These weren't just preferences. They were survival strategies. "You're only able to connect with people to the depth that you're looking for after ten days." One week somewhere? You're still a tourist. A month? You might actually build something real. But Airbnbs, even with month-long stays, kept her isolated from the very community she'd spent years working towards. The Magic of Co-living Then she discovered proper co-living spaces. Not just apartments where nomads happened to live, but intentionally designed community spaces. Chateau Co-living in Normandy, where we sat talking, was her first experience of a true co-living. "It took you from 2016" to discover this, I pointed out. Years of being nomadic before finding what she'd been looking for. The difference was immediate. Activities she'd never think of doing herself. Skill sharing. Opening her mind to how other people think. The opposite of isolation. When I asked her to define what co-living actually is, she struggled. Like Edouard before her, finding words for it proved difficult. Eventually, after some back and forth, we landed on what came up in Edouard's episode: it's a feeling. More specifically: "It's like a family feeling. Everybody has a different definition of family. But for me it's like you feel good here with other people. It's not permanent because everybody's going to move on with their life and go different places. So it's for a few weeks, a few months. But yeah, it's like family feeling." She was passionate speaking about her experience at the chateau. The magic of it. Being surrounded by people on similar journeys, creating space to actually connect deeply despite knowing everyone would leave eventually. This was what she'd observed in Chiang Mai back in 2016. What those early nomads had built without infrastructure. Now the infrastructure existed, and it was everything she'd hoped for. Productivity and the Time Prison Kayleigh works four days a week and around five hours each day. Twenty hours total. She runs digital marketing strategies for universities. Meta campaigns. Google ads. Budget management. Lead generation. The kind of work that traditionally requires being in an office, responding immediately, being available. She does it in twenty hours whilst living in a French castle. "I'm very efficient at my work now, and that's because I have to be, because I want to enjoy this life that I'm living." The five-day work week? She has thoughts. "It's like a time prison. We've just accepted that that's the norm." Being nomadic forced her to become more efficient. Not because she's working less hard, but because the life she wants to live requires it. Travel, connection, experience, all of that needs time. The traditional work structure doesn't leave room. When I pointed out that she'd made it, that she had the freedom she'd desired since 2016, her response was genuine. "You saying all of that really brought up a lot of joy in me. I guess I just never really stopped to think about it that much. I just think this is what I need to be doing, and that's it." She paused, reflecting. "I love I'm so grateful for my life. Honestly, I feel like I'm one of the luckiest people. I mean, also, you create your own luck, but I do feel like I'm very lucky and grateful for being able to like this year, choosing. I'm like, where do I want to be in March and April? Like, what country do I want to be in? It's just like, what a gift that is." Her family notices. Every other sentence, she's talking about a different country like it's nothing. "It's just incredible that I get to experience so many different places and people. And yeah, I have my eyes wide open walking through." Can Anyone Do This? When I asked if anyone can be a nomad, her answer was honest. "I think the idea of it appeals to a lot of people, but I think living it wouldn't appeal to as many of them." The idea is romantic. Travel. Freedom. Experiencing the world. But the reality includes things people don't anticipate. "We are still working. So you have to balance traveling, working, meeting new people. And I think there's a lot more different kind of stresses that come up." Like what? "Different languages, trying to communicate with people from that country. Where you need to go for the supermarket, the gym. All mundane things, they can get exhausting, consistently looking for how to live your routine in the new place." The exhaustion of constantly being new. Constantly figuring out basics. Constantly adapting. For Kayleigh, it's worth it. The freedom to choose where she is in March and April. The community in co-living spaces. The efficiency that nomadism forces. The life she deliberately built over years. But she knows it's not for everyone. The idea sounds better than the reality for many people. And that's fine. When The Researcher Takes Over Twenty minutes into our conversation, Kayleigh asked if she could ask me questions. What followed was ten minutes of her interviewing me. The researcher from 2016 fully present. Asking about what attracted me to nomadism, how it's lived up to expectations, what struggles I've faced. We discovered we're more similar than either of us expected. Both discovered nomadism in 2016-2017. Both based our entire careers around making it possible. Both worked in offices we didn't want to be in to build necessary skills. Both only discovered co-living spaces recently, despite years of being nomadic. I told her about the struggles with maintaining relationships. How constant movement makes you inherently more selfish. How you're always the one who leaves. How absolute freedom means always choosing yourself. She asked how I'd reconcile that. Whether I wanted longer-term relationships. I didn't have an answer. The full conversation, including everything Kayleigh asked and what I revealed about the cost of constant freedom, is all within this episode. The Intentional Nomad Kayleigh represents something rare: someone who didn't fall into nomadism but built towards it deliberately over years. The long game works. But it comes with pressure. Years of anticipation can make reality disappointing when it doesn't immediately match expectations. Airbnbs isolate. Connection takes time. Community doesn't just happen. But when you find it, it's everything. She works twenty hours a week. Lives in castles. Chooses countries like most people choose weekend plans. And when given the chance, she couldn't help reverting to what she does best: asking questions, listening, observing. Some things don't change. And maybe that's exactly how it should be. Kayleigh Franks runs digital marketing strategies whilst living nomadically, eight years after spending three months in Chiang Mai studying the lifestyle she'd eventually build. You can hear her full story, including what she asked me when she turned the tables, in: www.ibimalik.com/podcasts/ibis-digital-nomad-stories/episodes/[EPISODE_LINK] Digital nomads and location-independent professionals featured on Ibi's Digital Nomad Stories podcast share insights into building sustainable remote careers. Listen to all episodes: www.ibimalik.com/podcasts/ibis-digital-nomad-stories

Guest: Dave NealeCareer: Game Designer and WriterBased: Home in Cambridge but also NomadicWebsite: www.dneale.comInstagram: @davenealewriter Episode Description Dave Neale did the sensible thing. He studied English literature at university, got a PhD in psychology from Cambridge, became a Cambridge professor, and built a proper academic career. Then one evening, he rewrote the rules for an old Sherlock Holmes board game, not for money or career advancement, but just because he wanted to see people play it. He sent it to a publisher on a whim. That casual email changed everything.Today, Dave designs narrative games whilst living nomadically across Europe. His work ranges from text-heavy narrative games as long as novels to jigsaw puzzle mechanics where you build maps piece by piece. I experienced one of his creations firsthand: a 36-hour murder mystery in a French castle that left me and the other guests absolutely stunned.In this conversation, Dave shares his philosophy of play: making things because the process itself is worthwhile, not because you're demanding specific outcomes. We explore how childhood dreams of writing and travel got buried under "real life" practicality, how making a game just for fun accidentally became a career, and why following what's interesting leads somewhere interesting.This is a masterclass in trusting that doing what you love will lead somewhere worthwhile. Timestamps00:00-00:27 Introduction00:27-01:28 Guest introduction01:28-02:06 Are you a nomad?02:06-03:18 Writer and game designer03:18-04:55 Story or game mechanics first?04:55-06:31 Childhood dreams and routes06:31-07:11 Travel fascination as kid07:11-08:08 Discovering nomadism in 201608:08-11:22 2016 era vs post-pandemic nomadism11:22-12:50 Power of play and nomad life12:50-15:19 Play, bonding, and community15:19-17:54 Psychology of play in groups17:54-20:20 Play mindset: process over outcome20:20-21:37 Game designer nomads21:37-24:32 Location independence in game design24:32-26:33 Cambridge researcher and professor26:33-28:57 Sherlock Holmes game and first contract28:57-30:28 Win-win philosophy and non-neediness30:28-33:22 Second career path and future33:22-34:04 Closing About This PodcastReal conversations with successful digital nomads who've built sustainable location-independent income. Strategic insights on how they transitioned, what income streams they built, and what they wish they'd known earlier. No travel tips or lifestyle fluff.  Host Ibi Malik helps ambitious professionals transition to nomadic careers without income sacrifice. HostIbi Malik helps ambitious professionals transition to nomadic careers without income sacrifice. To watch the video follow this link: https://youtu.be/nJvCTvB9g8U  Follow for weekly episodes featuring professionals who've successfully built nomadic income streams. Episode length: ~34 minutesPublished: 6th March 2026Episode #8  Guest Reflection The Storyteller Who Stopped Planning and Started Playing I found myself talking with Dave at a co-living chateau in Normandy, the kind of place where conversations naturally drift towards the unconventional. He'd just run a murder mystery that took us 36 hours to solve, and I wanted to understand how someone goes from Cambridge University lecturer to creating intricate games whilst travelling the world. His answer came down to one word: play. Play as in trying things without demanding they become anything. Play as in doing what you love because the process itself matters. Play as in the opposite of strategic career planning. It's the philosophy that accidentally gave him back the two childhood dreams he'd buried years ago. The Dreams That Got Practical As a kid, Dave dreamt of telling stories and travel. He wanted narratives and adventure. "I remember as a kid having these ideas about travel and being fascinated by travel, just thinking about hiking across the UK or travelling around in a van. That travel idea was in my mind. The idea of the exoticness of travel and the people you might meet." Then adolescence arrived with its practical questions. What will you study? What career makes sense? How will you support yourself? "I guess it felt like a childhood idea that sort of faded out in my teens, and when I went to university and into adulthood, it became more like, oh yeah, in real life you pick a place and you live there and you do a job. It's more stable." Real life. The phrase everyone uses when they mean conforming to what's sensible. Dave went to university for English literature because he still wanted to write. Then graduated and hit the wall every creative hits: you can't just apply for a job as a novelist. Publishing doesn't work that way. You need something practical whilst you figure out the writing part. So he did a PhD in psychology and went on to work at Cambridge University. By that point, the childhood dreams were properly buried. He'd found his thing. "I kind of thought, okay, I found my thing. I like research, I like science, academia and academic discussions and debates and philosophy." The writing dream? Shelved. The travel dream? Occasionally thought about but never seriously pursued. So he thought. The Game He Made Just Because Whilst working full-time at Cambridge, Dave discovered an old Sherlock Holmes board game. He loved the concept. Solving mysteries. Following clues. The intersection of storytelling and puzzles. So he started writing new mysteries for it. Changed some of the rules. Made it work better. Created an entirely new version, essentially. When I asked why, his answer was immediate: "I wanted to make it. I wanted to see people play it. I wanted to experience that. I didn't do it because I wanted money or because I wanted to change my job. I did it for the love of doing the thing." He wasn't building towards anything. He was a full-time academic with a stable career. This was just something he did on the side because he enjoyed doing it. Then he noticed a publisher was republishing the original Sherlock Holmes game. On a whim, he sent them his new mysteries. Casual email. No expectations. Just: I made these, if you're interested. They were interested. They offered him a contract for his first game. That email, sent without any strategic intent, became the pivot point that changed everything. The Win-Win That Became a Career Here's what makes Dave's story different from most career transition narratives. He didn't position himself strategically. He didn't study the game design industry or build a portfolio or network at industry events. He made something he loved, shared it without demanding anything in return, and let the outcome be whatever it would be. "It was almost a win-win. If I made those mysteries and made that game and it never changed my life, but I'd made it and I'd seen people play it, I'd felt great. I wouldn't have lost or failed or anything. And the fact it did completely change my life, even better." Win if nothing happens beyond the satisfaction of making it. Win if it changes everything. That's the opposite of how career advice usually works. Most advice is about optimising for outcomes. Build the right skills. Network strategically. Create work that demonstrates market value. Position yourself for opportunities. Dave optimised for the process. He made something because making it felt meaningful. The outcome, becoming a published game designer, was bonus. That first contract led to more. His niche became clear: writing and storytelling within games. "My kind of niche in the game design world is writing and storytelling and combining games with stories and figuring out how best to tell a story through a game format." The variety in game design keeps him interested. Every project requires different skills and approaches. The Second Dream Returns In 2016, during his PhD years, Dave discovered digital nomadism. The concept that you could work whilst travelling. That work and location didn't have to be permanently tied together. That childhood fascination with travel, the one he'd dismissed as impractical, suddenly had a framework. "I discovered the concept of digital nomadism. So that was in 2016 and went on one trip. I kind of knew about it, but I still wasn't in a place to really do it." At first, he could only do short stints. Go to a co-living for a month. Return to Cambridge. Do it again later. He was still anchored to academia, still building the life that would eventually let him travel properly. But even then, he knew. "It was calling to me the whole time. I just didn't set out to build my life around it that much, but I knew I wanted to do it if I could." After leaving Cambridge and establishing himself as a game designer, the second dream became possible. He kept a room in Cambridge, somewhere to return to with his stuff. But he spent most of his time travelling. Co-livings became his base. Writing mysteries and designing games from different countries. Meeting people. Experiencing the adventure that had called to him as a kid. There's a connection between his play philosophy and nomadic life. Both require the same mindset. Play means trying things without demanding specific outcomes. Nomadism means going places without needing them to be perfect. Both require being comfortable with uncertainty. Both reward curiosity over control. When I asked about being a nomad, there was a slight pause before he confirmed yes. The pause? "I do have a home base. I do have a place I rent in Cambridge, just like a room in a house that I keep so I can go back, and it has my stuff in it. But at least for the last couple of years, I have spent most of my time travelling." He's not ideologically committed to pure nomadism any more than he's ideologically committed to one particular career path. He does what makes sense right now. Keeps a room because having a base feels important. Travels most of the time because that's what he wants. That openness, that willingness to try without fixating, works for both creating games and living nomadically. Both childhood dreams. Writing stories. Travelling. The ones that got shelved as impractical. They're his life now. Play as Philosophy When Dave talks about play, he's not talking about being unserious. He's describing a fundamental approach to life and work. "It's more like try things out, see where it goes. Not being too fixated on one particular thing." Play means the activity itself is the point. You're not playing chess to become a grandmaster. You're playing because the game is interesting right now. The process is engaging. The outcome is secondary. That's how he approached making the Sherlock Holmes game. Process as reward, not as investment. If nothing came from it beyond the satisfaction of making it, that was enough. "I guess that has a playful element in it, right? Creating those first games, it was like a reward for me. The process was the point." But the philosophy extends beyond individual projects. It's how he thinks about his entire career arc. People sometimes ask if he'd return to academia. "In theory, I sort of would. I'm not sure I ever will." He's open to the possibility without fixating on it. He still consults on academic projects related to play or games occasionally. The connection exists. But he's not planning his next five moves. He's following what interests him right now. Live events. Murder mysteries in physical spaces like the one we'd just played. Maybe co-living work. Maybe retreats. Maybe something else entirely. "I'm looking at ways my life could kind of broaden to include different things. My work could include some of that. So I'm open to change without feeling particularly fixed on one particular direction." That's play as life philosophy. Try things. See where they lead. Don't demand they become anything specific. Trust that following what's interesting leads somewhere worthwhile. Stories You Don't Plan Dave's current work is varied. Text-based narrative games. Physical puzzle games. The murder mystery we'd just played at the chateau, which took us 36 hours to solve. He's interested in co-livings. Retreats. Live events. Ways his work could broaden. But he's not fixated on one specific plan. "I'm looking at ways my life could kind of broaden to include different things. So I'm open to change without feeling particularly fixed on one particular direction." The pattern is consistent. Do what's interesting. See where it leads. Trust that following curiosity leads somewhere worthwhile. That's how childhood dreams buried under practical career choices resurface. Not through strategic ten-year plans. Through making things you love and seeing where they lead. Both Dreams, Finally Looking at Dave's life now, both childhood dreams are present. The writing and the travel. The ones dismissed as impractical. He writes constantly. Creating narratives. Designing interactive stories. Figuring out how to let players shape their own journey. And he travels. Co-livings. Meeting people. Experiencing the adventure that called to him as a kid. "I love this thing, I do this thing. And here I am in this new world of game publishing that I hadn't actually expected to end up in." Neither dream came back through strategic planning. They came back through play. Through making something just because he wanted to. Through following what interested him without demanding it become anything. The win-win philosophy worked. Making the game was win enough. Having it change his life was winning again. Sometimes the most practical thing you can do is stop being so practical. Make things because making them is worthwhile, not because they might lead somewhere. The childhood dreams might be waiting. They might just need you to stop planning long enough to play.   

Sarah Cols: The Dream CatalystGuest: Sarah ColsCareer: Experience Designer & Dream Catalyst | La Casita de la Magia CreatorBased: Nomadic (Co-living spaces across Europe)Project: La Casita de la Magiawww.lacasitadelamagia.comInstagram: @lacasita.delamagia Episode DescriptionSarah Cols spent six years as a career counselor in Brussels asking unemployed people about their dreams—questions most had never been asked. She was brilliant at helping others chase their dreams whilst feeling increasingly trapped in her own role. Then the perfect job offer landed: everything she wanted on paper. Her body said no. She walked 900 kilometres across Spain on the Camino de Santiago with no preparation and an injured knee that had already required three surgeries. She went expecting solitude and physical healing. Instead, she discovered that transformation happens in community, not isolation. Strangers walking together for hours without even exchanging names had deeper conversations than she'd ever had back home. In this conversation, Sarah shares why she turned down her dream job by improvising on a phone call, how the Camino taught her to be grounded in the present instead of planning the future, and why collective experiences spark more growth than solo inner work. We explore the golden cage of job security, the magic of spontaneous decisions, and how she's now creating La Casita de la Magia—a travelling sanctuary helping nomads reconnect with forgotten dreams. This is a story about listening to your body when your mind says yes, trusting intuition over rational answers, and becoming a catalyst for others whilst building your own dream. Timestamps00:00-00:27 Introduction00:28-01:31Guest Intro01:32-05:29 Career counsellor in Brussels05:29-09:37 The breaking point09:37-12:55 Career breaks and discovering workaway12:55-15:23 Second breaking point15:23-20:02 The spontaneous phone call20:02-22:39 The Camino decision22:39-25:56 Walking the Camino25:56-28:12 From career counsellor to dream catalyst28:12-31:32 Community over solitude31:32-34:37 Current work and lifestyle34:37-38:46 The journey is the dream38:46-38:59 Closing About This PodcastReal conversations with successful digital nomads who've built sustainable location-independent income. Strategic insights on how they transitioned, what income streams they built, and what they wish they'd known earlier. No travel tips or lifestyle fluff.  Host Ibi Malik helps ambitious professionals transition to nomadic careers without income sacrifice. HostIbi Malik helps ambitious professionals transition to nomadic careers without income sacrifice. To watch the video follow this link: https://youtu.be/GOa2BPv7_VU  Follow for weekly episodes featuring professionals who've successfully built nomadic income streams. Episode length: ~39 minutesPublished: 20th February 2026Episode #7  Guest Reflection I sat down with Sarah at Chateau Co-living in Normandy, where she was working as a community facilitator and living as a guest. Over our conversation, she told me about helping unemployed people find their dreams whilst stuck in corporate herself, the moment she realised the importance of listening to your body, and why walking 900 kilometres across Spain taught her that community, not solitude, is where transformation happens. This is the story of someone who realised that helping others chase their dreams only works when you're brave enough to chase your own. Today, she creates La Casita de la Magia, a travelling sanctuary helping nomads reconnect with their dreams. The Career Counsellor Who Asked About Dreams For six years, Sarah worked as a career counsellor in Brussels helping unemployed people find work. "I would help them and guide them back to employment. But hopefully also, one of their dream jobs. That was always my purpose, at least." Whilst the system saw numbers and mandatory appointments, Sarah saw people with dreams they'd forgotten. "I would start the interviews with that. What is one of your biggest dreams? What makes your heart beat?" Many had never asked themselves. But Sarah never stopped asking. The irony was that she was helping others find their dreams whilst feeling increasingly trapped in her own role. When Covid Changed Everything The first two years were brilliant. Then Covid forced everything remote. "I was missing the human contact and the human connection. That was one of the reasons I got into that job." Many people she worked with weren't comfortable with technology. Some didn't have the technology. "I felt more and more disconnected from them." When they returned to in-person work, the job had fundamentally changed. Ministers made decisions without understanding what was happening on the ground. People became numbers. The system wanted efficiency. She wanted to help. "We had to do more and more interviews a day with less and less time. How are we supposed to help people if we don't have the time to understand their living situation?" "I felt that in the working environment, I wasn't aligned with their values anymore." One perk remained: career breaks. She could take up to five years off, unpaid, with job security when she returned. "I always loved travelling. That's like my soul, what nourishes my heart." It was her safety valve. Until it wasn't enough. The Body Says No Sarah applied for new jobs. Working with young adults might reignite her purpose. She had interviews. One went very well. They wanted to hire her. "On paper, it was everything I actually wanted or thought I wanted." Then she got the call offering her the position. "I started really listening and paying attention to how I felt and also paying attention to my body. I didn't feel that sense of excitement, which really surprised me." They wanted her to start in a month. She asked for the weekend to think. "Monday arrives and I'm like, I have no clue what I'm going to tell them because I don't have a rational answer. I'm just going to pick up the phone and see what comes out of my mouth. Usually when I'm spontaneous, that's when I speak from the heart." When it was time to call them back, she still didn't know her answer. She let her intuition take over, trusting that the right answer would come as soon as she started speaking. It did. The answer was no. "I knew that I wanted the freedom to be able to travel. And I knew that that job wouldn't give me that." Sarah chose uncertainty over security. Freedom over safety. The Camino: Where Stories Changed Everything After declining the job, Sarah needed space. A friend had walked the Camino de Santiago the year before. "Suddenly it hit me. I was like, okay, I think I want to go walk." She had no walking experience. No physical preparation. "I told my friends and family, I'm just going to go walk a few days and see where it leads me. But I ended up walking the whole thing and walking for six weeks and 900 kilometres." Initially, she went for physical reasons. A knee injury, torn ligaments, three previous surgeries. She wanted to prove her body could heal differently. But the Camino gave her something unexpected: presence. "All you're thinking about is, do I want to walk today? Do I want to rest? You're scanning your body. So you're not thinking at all about the rest. That grounded me so much." And then there were the people. "The Camino is all about encountering people. I loved asking them why they were doing the Camino. What brought them here? What are they looking for? That's when I realized, I love hearing people's stories and helping them reconnect with their dreams." Sometimes they had deep conversations without even exchanging names. "It was not about your identity. We were having deeper conversations, and sometimes it was even easier to talk to people that I didn't know." What amazed her most was the resilience. "People are so resilient. They're always choosing the positive side of things. Even though they've gone through a lot." The Camino showed Sarah what she wanted to do. Create spaces where people felt free to explore, to be vulnerable, to dream. And to witness the resilience that emerges when people reconnect with themselves. Community Over Solo Healing Before the Camino, Sarah assumed transformation required solitude. "I was like, oh, I'm going alone on this healing journey. But actually, that's where I learned the most. That was the missing ingredient to my personal growth." The missing ingredient was community. "We're stronger together than alone. Inspiration thrives when we're all together. When you're having fun, when you're being playful, creative. That's where usually all the answers came to me." This insight became the foundation of her work. Co-living spaces offer community for nomads who are constantly moving, constantly starting over. And Sarah realised that's exactly where she needed to be. Living the Dream Whilst Helping Others Today, Sarah is a full-time nomad. She splits her time between working as a community facilitator in co-livings, organising get-togethers, trips, and activities, and living as a guest in these spaces. But her real work is something called La Casita de la Magia. The Little House of Magic. It's not a physical place. It's a living experience that moves with her, a pop-up workshop concept that exists wherever she goes. As Sarah describes it: "A sanctuary in the making, part dream, part becoming, created to help people reconnect with their dreams, deep desires, intuition, and their joy." She designs immersive, playful, poetic experiences inside co-livings. Guests become dreamers, invited to explore what truly matters to them in a playful way. It's the perfect manifestation of everything the Camino taught her. Community over solitude. Play over rigid structure. Dreams reconnected through joy, not force. "Freedom is one of my highest values. Being able to travel and meet super interesting people from all different sides of the world. It's what nourishes me. So in order for me to live my dream life, I also have to listen to how I feel joyful and fulfilled." La Casita de la Magia isn't tied to one location because Sarah isn't either. It's a sanctuary that travels, that adapts, that meets people where they are. Just like she needed the Camino to find her path, she creates spaces for others to find theirs. "Currently, the experiences I create, you will find them in existing co-living spaces and hopefully one day in my co-living, my casita." One day, La Casita de la Magia might become a physical place. But for now, it's exactly what it needs to be: a dream in motion, helping others reconnect with their own. The Catalyst Effect Sarah helps people reconnect with their dreams whilst actively building her own. When I asked how she reconciles this, her answer was profound. "The people taking part in the experiences I create, they're actually inspiring me and contributing to my dream. For me, the journey is the dream." She sees herself as a catalyst. Someone who sparks wonder. "It's all about helping each other out, cheering for each other's dreams. If we can all be that person in someone's dream or vision, that's how we spread the energy." It's a ripple effect. "If you're following your dreams, you're inspiring others to do so. And then that person starts reconnecting with their dreams and they inspire other people around them." From Asking to Living Today, Sarah splits her time between living as a guest in co-living spaces and working as a community facilitator, whilst creating La Casita de la Magia experiences that help people reconnect with their dreams. It's a far cry from the Brussels office where she spent six years asking people about their dreams whilst ignoring her own. The difference now? She listened. She listened when her body said no. She listened when the Camino taught her that community matters. She listened when she realised this is the work she was always meant to do. Sarah spent years helping others find their dream jobs. Now she's teaching them how to reconnect with the dreams they'd forgotten they had. She's doing it by living proof. By choosing freedom over security. By walking away from a safe job. By trusting the uncertain path. By creating a sanctuary that travels with her, helping nomads explore what truly matters. She's the dream catalyst, spreading wonder one co-living space at a time. The real lesson? You can't help others find their dreams whilst ignoring your own. At some point, you have to stop asking and start living. Sarah made that choice. And in doing so, she's showing others that maybe they can too. Digital nomads and location-independent professionals featured on Ibi's Digital Nomad Stories podcast share insights into building sustainable remote careers. Listen to all episodes: Ibi's Digital Nomad Stories

Katia Dimova: The Catalyst Guest Katia Dimova Co-living Founder | Remote Work PioneerBased: Normandy, France (Chateau Co-living)Website: https://chateaucoliving.com/Instagram: @chateaucoliving Episode DescriptionKatia Dimova pioneered remote work years before COVID made it mainstream, managing a distributed team across Greece, Turkey, and Bulgaria with nothing but Facebook Messenger. She never planned to coordinate refugee relief across three countries—she just went to drop off donations and stayed for a meeting. Today, she runs one of Europe's most sought-after co-living spaces in a literal castle in Normandy. In this conversation, Katia shares how she accidentally built a location-independent business whilst avoiding telling clients she didn't have an office, why nomads made perfect volunteers during the refugee crisis, and how being comfortable with chaos became her greatest professional asset. We explore the schizophrenic feeling of living in two separate worlds, the dinner party question she dreads most, and why nomads benefit communities more than most people realize. This is a story about not planning anything, showing up anyway, and becoming the centre of everything that matters. Timestamps00:00-00:39 Podcast introduction by Ibi00:39-01:33 Guest introduction: Katia the Catalyst01:33-01:49 Opening: together in the castle, rumours and stories01:49-02:26 When did digital nomad journey start? Hard to put year on it02:26-03:26 Corporate job with long business trips, company apartments03:26-04:35 Gave flavor of not being in one place, then itchy feeling04:35-05:35 Location independence before it was a thing, freedom claimed illegally 05:35-06:51 Quit corporate job, started own company based in Istanbul06:51-07:21 Driving weekly to Istanbul, not planning to be location independent07:21-08:21 Scarcity mindset: travel while we still can before office08:21-09:14 Senior team, absolute separation of tasks, people knew each other09:14-10:13 Working for big corporate clients, not serious without office10:13-11:12 Managing remote team: small, senior, trusted people11:12-12:51 No tools for remote work: Facebook Messenger, no Zoom12:51-14:36 Lebanon electricity cut, no backup, super unprofessional execution14:36-15:28 Not letting client see what's behind the scenes15:28-17:49 Came from big design agency, people assumed comparable17:49-19:17 Small senior team advantage: fast, agile, no approval layers19:17-21:07 Pre co-living: corporate work and nonprofit work21:07-22:45 Syrian refugee crisis, small human effort, got consumed22:45-24:18 Went to drop off donations, joined meeting, met best friends24:18-25:10 Facebook group exploded to thousands, no official entity25:10-26:27 Remote skills helped coordinate logistics across countries26:27-27:11 Nomad volunteers: flexible, saw need, stayed to help27:11-27:59 Bridging two worlds: corporate and nomad finally connected27:59-29:54 Nomad mindset shift: flexible, agile, challenges normalized29:54-31:31 Wild stories seem normal until you see reactions31:31-32:39 Connection between corporate world and social work32:39-34:15 Carbon footprint can be mindful, different ways to care34:15-36:55 How nomads benefit places: longer stays, support local, inspire36:55-38:08 The dreaded questions: where from, where live, what do38:08-38:49 Closing: absolute pleasure, Chateau co-livingAbout This PodcastReal conversations with successful digital nomads who've built sustainable location-independent income. Strategic insights on how they transitioned, what income streams they built, and what they wish they'd known earlier. No travel tips or lifestyle fluff.  Host Ibi Malik helps ambitious professionals transition to nomadic careers without income sacrifice. HostIbi Malik helps ambitious professionals transition to nomadic careers without income sacrifice. To watch the video follow this link: https://youtu.be/2E04dNlMu2o Follow for weekly episodes featuring professionals who've successfully built nomadic income streams. Episode length: ~38 minutesPublished: 13th February, 2026Episode #006 Guest Reflection Katia and I sat down for this conversation in her co-living chateau in Normandy, where many of these podcast episodes are filmed. Over our talk, she told me about accidentally pioneering remote work years before COVID made it normal, coordinating refugee relief across three countries, and why the question "what do you do?" has become impossible to answer. This is the story of someone who doesn't plan, but somehow becomes the centre of everything that matters. Before Remote Was a ThingLong before COVID normalised working from anywhere, Katia was already doing it. Not because she called herself a digital nomad or chased location independence. It just happened. She'd been travelling extensively for her corporate job, spending months in different places with company apartments and drivers. When she left to start her own company with a business partner, the plan was simple: base the company in Istanbul where most clients were. But in the beginning, whilst waiting to set up an office and navigate the administrative difficulties of starting a company in a non-European country, they worked remotely. Just three of them at first. "The mindset behind was the company will be based in Istanbul. But we were like, yeah, until it's time to have an office and to hire more people, why don't we just do whatever and just live wherever?" Visa restrictions meant she couldn't stay in Turkey full time anyway. So she opened a map and thought: what's close to Istanbul, has seaside, nice weather? Greece. She'd drive to Istanbul almost weekly for client meetings, then return to Greece to work. "The plan was not to be totally location independent. Because it was not a thing at the time. It just never crossed my mind that it's possible." She worked with a scarcity mindset: soon we'll have an office, so let's travel as much as possible whilst we still can. But slowly, that assumption started to crack. "Why? Why do we need an office? Why can't we just do this and just live whatever and work with people that we trust?" One team member bought a house in a village and moved there. The rest kept travelling. At some point, thinking about a traditional company in traditional ways just didn't make sense anymore. The Chaos Behind the ProfessionalismThe work was high-level. Big corporate clients. International projects. The kind where perception matters. "At the time, it was extremely not serious if you don't have an office." So they never advertised their setup. Clients would never come to meet them anyway. They'd always go to the clients. If asked where they were based, the answer was vague: everywhere, which was true. "They didn't need to know that we came up with their strategy whilst we were laying on the beach in Greece. What they need to know is that this is the best strategy and we are giving it to them." But behind the polished deliverables was absolute chaos. This was pre-Zoom, pre-Slack, pre-everything. They coordinated on Facebook Messenger. No proper record of discussions. No documentation of who said what. When I asked how they managed, Katia was honest: "It worked like magic because we knew each other and we could trust each other. But if something went wrong and you need to go back on it, that wouldn't have been possible." The internet was unreliable. She remembers being somewhere in Lebanon with a massive file to submit on deadline day, and the electricity cut. No internet. Pure panic. "We didn't have backup servers. We didn't have proper spacing. In that sense, looking back at it now, it was super unprofessional the way it was executed. But the clients didn't know what is behind the scenes." That philosophy, keeping the chaos discrete, not letting clients see the pain, has stayed with her. Even now, running a co-living, the same principle applies: guests pay for the experience, not to see the work it takes to create it. The Donation That Changed EverythingThe volunteering work wasn't planned. Nothing in Katia's life seems to be planned. Things just come at her, and she responds. It was the peak of the Syrian refugee crisis. Institutions and governments across the Balkans were unprepared. Katia decided to do something small, donate something. She can't even remember what. "It just started with a very small, very human effort to do something. That was not at all planning to do it in a larger scale." She went to drop off donations. The plan was simple: drop them off and leave. But someone asked if she wanted to join a coordination meeting. People thinking about how to help. She said yes. "And then I met some people there, which to this day are some of my best friends. And then we just clicked very quickly. We started bouncing ideas. We started, okay, we can do this, we can do that." They had very different backgrounds. They took it on as a common project. And then it escalated. "Once you get involved, once you're like, oh, I can do something small to help, then you get involved and then you understand the scale of it. And then you are like, oh, no, this is big. Oh, I have some contacts. Maybe I can help. Maybe I can organise this." It started small, something on the side. Then it consumed her completely. "It totally consumed me to a point that I stopped working because I just couldn't work anymore. I couldn't focus on anything else anymore." But when you see how much need there is, how little has been done, how many human lives are on the line, you can't stop. Every day you think: maybe I can do this little bit more. And before you know it, you're the centrepiece of a massive project that was never planned. Coordinating Across Borders"We were just like a group of newly made friends." They started a Facebook group. First just for themselves, then close friends who could help. Suddenly the group had thousands of people. Katia became a contact point for multiple organisations, coordinating logistics across Greece, Turkey, and Bulgaria. All from a distance. All without any official NGO status. When I asked if her remote work skills helped, she was clear: "For sure, because there was a lot of logistical coordination from distance with different organisations, with different camps and points." And here's where the two worlds started to intersect. "A lot of the volunteers were nomads. Even when I went to Lesbos at the time on the front lines, a lot of people were just nomads at the time travelling to Lesbos. And then the whole thing happened. And then they saw it firsthand, and they decided to stay because they're nomads and they're flexible and they don't have plans. And they just decided to stay and help." It bridged something for Katia that had been missing. Two Worlds, Finally ConnectedBefore the volunteer work, Katia had felt split in two. "I was always feeling like I live a schizophrenic life. My corporate life with the big clients and projects and stuff like that, they wouldn't know that I'm a nomad. And the nomad people were usually people with much smaller scale, freelancers trying to make it, trying to get started. So I kind of always felt like the two worlds have nothing in common, and they're two completely separate compartments." The volunteer work changed that. "For the first time it kind of bridged. And for the first time also showed me how important it is to have a community and to have people that understand you and understand what you are doing. That was really nice and helpful." For the first time, her skills, her flexibility, her unconventional life actually made perfect sense. She wasn't hiding it or compartmentalising it. It all came together. The Stories You Don't Realise Are WildYears of nomadic life do something to your sense of normal. You adapt to any situation. You become so flexible and agile that challenges don't look like challenges anymore. "Even with the challenges, your life is still better than the life of most people. But then when you look back, you're like, oh my God, I did this. What?" When I asked for an example, Katia described sitting with other nomads, swapping stories. "Random stories come up. Oh, yeah, and then I went alone to India and hitchhiked on the way out. And they're like, yeah, it's totally normal. But then when you say that in the context with people that don't do that, and they're like, what did you do? You went alone and hitchhiked in India?" The reaction reminds you: oh, it's not normal. In nomad circles, everyone's done something similar. The level gets normalised. You don't realise things are uncommon until you see other people's faces. "It teaches you actually that you can find yourself in any situation and find the way out of it. It gives you a lot of confidence. You are less scared of starting businesses, of failing, of doing things." When you've physically been somewhere and something goes wrong, you don't have a choice. You have to get out of it. You have to find the solution. There's no way out except through. That confidence translates everywhere. In work. In life. In knowing that whatever happens, you'll find a way. The Question That Takes Half an HourThere are three questions Katia dreads when meeting people outside the remote work world. Where are you from? She left her country so long ago, putting herself in that box feels impossible. Where do you live? She doesn't, really. Not in the traditional sense. And the worst one: What do you do? "It's so hard to explain. And then you almost come across as rude because it's not that I don't want to answer, it's just that it's not a one word answer. It'll take me half an hour. Are you sure you want to listen to that?" When I asked her to try, for the nomads listening, she gave the simplest version possible: "I run a chateau co-living in France." But even that doesn't capture it. The remote work pioneer. The humanitarian coordinator. The person who bridges worlds, connects people, makes things happen without planning to. The catalyst. How Nomads Give BackNear the end of our conversation, I asked how nomads can benefit the places they visit. Katia's answer was immediate and specific. "A lot of nomads do volunteer work. Volunteer work can also be done online, by the way. And the difference between nomads and tourists is they stay in the place longer, you understand the place better." You can support small businesses. Bring money from outside the country and spend it locally. Choose the little coffee shop instead of Starbucks. But there's something deeper too. "Just the fact that you can interact with locals and exchange stories and hear about your travels, kind of see that the world is bigger, it inspires them also to do things in a different way and to live their life in a different way." In small towns where people have never met foreigners, seeing someone from the other side of the world care about their village, recycle, want to clean the marshes, it shifts something. "If they care about my village, then I should care also a bit more about my village and also about the world. Those are little shifts, but they for sure they make a difference." The ChateauToday, Katia runs the chateau in Normandy where we sat for this conversation. It's famous in co-living circles. She consults people who want to start their own co-living journeys. When I asked what she likes most about it, she didn't hesitate: "The interaction with a lot of very, very fascinating people." As our conversation wrapped up, I realised Katia's story isn't about planning or strategy. It's about responding. Showing up to drop off donations and staying for the meeting. Saying yes when someone asks if you want to help. Starting small and letting it consume you because the need is too big to ignore. She doesn't call herself a humanitarian or an activist. She's just someone who kept seeing ways she could help, and then helped. Someone whose nomad life accidentally prepared her to coordinate across borders, work with flexibility, and bring people together who'd never normally meet. The catalyst doesn't plan to start reactions. They just show up, and everything changes around them. Digital nomads and location-independent professionals featured on Ibi's Digital Nomad Stories podcast share insights into building sustainable remote careers. Listen to all episodes: www.ibimalik.com/podcasts/ibis-digital-nomad-stories  

Yello Balolia: The Optimist Guest: Yello BaloliaPublishing Company Director | Co-living FounderBased: Cornwall, UK Website: froomies.orgInstagram: @froomiescoliving Episode DescriptionYello Balolia started a publishing company 15 years ago with zero business experience, zero publishing knowledge, and zero qualifications. His strategy? "How hard could it be?" Today, he's published 12-13 books on diabetes and weight loss, lived on a boat for years whilst working remotely, and is opening an 80-acre co-living farm in Cornwall. In this conversation, Yello shares the power of unrealistic optimism, the dinner party moment that made him realise he sees possibilities where others see hurdles, and why boarding school prepared him for community living. We explore his unconventional journey from London to boat life, his obsession with vibe coding that turned a £799/month app into a £50,000 custom build, and why being unrealistic isn't a flaw—it's an entrepreneurial necessity. This is a story about giving things a go without regard for complexity, making ideas physical before they're finished, and building a life where obstacles simply don't exist in your imagination. Timestamps 00:00-00:26 Generic introduction 00:26-01:40 Yello's introduction 01:40-01:43 Are you a nomad? 01:43-02:42 Living on a boat for 3-4 years 02:42-03:19 Escaping UK winters to co-livings 03:19-03:47 Boat journey: London to Oxford 03:47-03:57 Location independent definition 03:57-04:31 How he makes money: publishing company director 04:31-04:57 15 years, 12-13 books, diabetes and weight loss 04:57-05:32 Role: business side, project management, making it happen 05:32-06:43 Zero MBA, business, or publishing qualifications 06:43-07:12 "How hard could it be?" philosophy 07:12-08:13 First edition was awful, six editions later it's great 08:13-09:28 Unrealistic optimism as necessary entrepreneur quality 09:28-09:50 Blessing and curse of being unrealistic 09:50-11:06 Dinner party revelation: seeing opportunities vs. hurdles 11:06-11:42 Eye-opening moment about different thinking styles 11:42-13:15 Making ideas physical: Canva book cover technique 13:15-13:58 What motivated starting the business: love of creativity 13:58-15:07 Passion: making something from nothing 15:07-16:26 COVID: leaving London two days before lockdown 16:26-17:25 Working hard during lockdown: website, YouTube channel 17:25-19:09 Boat life: nothing plumbed in, working hard to survive 19:09-20:37 Slower pace, not conducive to high productivity 20:37-20:50 Missing ease of living in a house after couple years 20:50-21:24 What is Froomies: 80-acre farm in Cornwall 21:24-23:18 Journey to co-living: living it, then wanting to create one 23:18-25:11 How co-living operators define co-living 25:11-26:13 Boarding school ages 10-18: co-living for kids 26:13-27:34 Thriving in boarding school environment 27:34-27:57 Struggle maintaining friendships when living alone 27:57-28:44 Why open Froomies: means, will, drive to add co-living 28:44-30:16 Future plans: flexibility, creative projects, festivals 30:16-30:24 Always having business ideas 30:24-32:09 Vibe coding: building Froomies guidebook app 32:09-33:17 Waking up at 5am excited to vibe code 33:17-34:27 Built £50,000 app with ChatGPT for $20/month 34:27-35:55 Future of vibe coding: profession appears then disappears 35:55-36:09 Closing thoughts About This PodcastReal conversations with successful digital nomads who've built sustainable location-independent income. Strategic insights on how they transitioned, what income streams they built, and what they wish they'd known earlier. No travel tips or lifestyle fluff. HostIbi Malik helps ambitious professionals transition to nomadic careers without income sacrifice. To watch the video follow this link: https://youtu.be/xeT0LDCW2Sc Follow for weekly episodes featuring professionals who've successfully built nomadic income streams. Episode length: ~36 minutesPublished: 6th February, 2026Episode #005 Guest Reflection Yello and I sat down to talk during his stay at a chateau in Normandy. Over the conversation, he told me about building a publishing company with zero business experience, living on a boat for years whilst working remotely, and why seeing the world without hurdles has been his greatest advantage. This is the story of someone who proved that being unrealistically optimistic isn't a flaw, it's a superpower. How Hard Could It Be?Fifteen years ago, Yello started a publishing company. He had no business degree, no MBA, no publishing experience, and absolutely no qualifications in either field. His business partner, a dietician, came to him with an idea for a book about diabetes and weight loss. Yello thought it was brilliant. So naturally, he decided they should publish it themselves. "I just thought, how hard could it be? You write a book, you design a book, you get some printed. Is it really that complicated? I just thought, let's have a go." The first edition of their first book was, in his own words, absolutely awful. "It was terrible. I didn't know what I was doing. In hindsight, there were loads of things that didn't look great. There were just so many things that were really not great about it. But it was out there and it was helping people. People could see the value in it, even though it looked a bit crappy." Six editions later, that same book looks completely different. Today, their visual carb and calorie count book is their flagship product. They've published 12 to 13 books over 15 years, all written by Yello and his partner, all selling steadily within the diabetes sector in the UK. When I asked how his confidence levels evolved over those 15 years, whether they dropped after the initial optimism wore off, his answer surprised me. "I guess I'm quite unrealistic in quite a lot of ways. And I think that is almost a necessary quality for an entrepreneur to have. Overoptimistic, unrealistic. If people knew how hard it is to do these things, they would never get started if they were really realistic about it." The Blessing and the Curse "My confidence levels were maintained all the way through because I am not realistic about how long things take and how much effort it takes and how many decisions need to be made and details go into doing something like this. And even to this day, projects I work on now, I'm still unrealistic about pretty much everything." When I asked if this was a blessing or a curse, he didn't hesitate. "It's a blessing and a curse. It's a blessing because I will give things a go where other people maybe wouldn't. But it's a curse because things do take a lot longer and I over-commit in my diary and sometimes over-promise a little bit, which is not obviously great to do." But here's what makes Yello's approach so interesting: he's completely aware of this trait, and he's not trying to fix it. "Some people would say, you know, I need to curb that. And it's not doing me very much benefits. But I would say no, I think the world needs people who give things a go without regard for the complexities of what is going to unfold." It's a radical perspective. In a world obsessed with realistic goal-setting, careful planning, and measured expectations, Yello is arguing the opposite: that unrealistic optimism is exactly what allows people to attempt things that actually matter. The Dinner Party RevelationYears ago, Yello was at a dinner party having a conversation that would become a pivotal moment in understanding himself. "I was talking about just the concept of having an idea and then visualising how things go over time. I said, you know, I have an idea and I can see that it leads to this and it leads to that. Wow, yes, I can see the amazing outcomes this can lead to." But the other people at the table described something completely different. "One or two of them said their experience is actually quite the opposite. They have an idea and then they see a hurdle and a hurdle and then another hurdle. And one of those hurdles will just be too big for them to comprehend. And they'll be like, no, this idea is never gonna work." This was revelatory for Yello. "I just never knew that other people think like that. This was years ago, and that was a real eye-opening moment for me. Like, wow, okay. Having an imagination without the hurdles is such a helpful way to think. And I guess I maybe naturally do that anyway and feel blessed by that idea. And I didn't realise that everyone didn't do that." When I asked how someone could learn to think this way, to see opportunities instead of obstacles, his advice was surprisingly practical. Making the Future Physical "Make something physical that you can show yourself. That is a prompt to think about the endpoint, the successful endpoint." His example was specific. A friend came to him struggling to write a book. Yello's advice wasn't about writing strategies or productivity systems. "Go into Canva. Make sure you've got a title for your book, a subtitle for your book, create a cover for the book in Canva. Even if you haven't written it. Doesn't matter. Do the cover and then have it somewhere, preferably print it out and put it, wrap it around a real book." The point isn't to have a finished cover. The point is to trick your brain into believing the future is real. "So you've got this kind of mock-up of your real book in front of you. And I think that really helps visualise something further down the road. You can almost feel that like, oh my God, this is my book in my hand, rather than it being this abstract thing way in the future with loads of hurdles in the way." It's a technique that transforms the distant and difficult into the tangible and achievable. And it's exactly the kind of thinking that's powered Yello's entire approach to building businesses and life. The Mobile Home Nomad After 20 years in London, COVID happened. Two days before the first lockdown was announced, Yello sensed something was coming. "Nobody knew that there was going to be a lockdown, but I could sense something. It just was just extra weird was going to happen. So I said to my partner, let's leave London, let's hire a cottage and get out of here." They left for Sussex, hired a cottage on a 450-acre farm for what they thought would be two weeks. It turned into four months. That was the beginning of a different kind of nomadic life. Yello and his partner Zoe bought a boat and spent the next three to four years living on the UK's canals and rivers, from London to Oxford. "Although we had a floating home, we weren't in the same place month to month a lot of the time. So we had a kind of semi-nomadic lifestyle." But boat life wasn't the romantic adventure it might sound like. "Nothing on the boat is plumbed in. So you've got a water tank, you've got diesel tanks, you've got your batteries to charge and you've got your gas canisters. And your toilet's not plumbed in either. So you need to really work hard to just survive." When I asked about productivity, he was honest: "The pace of life is quite a lot slower. Productivity-wise, I would say it's not conducive to really getting a lot done, specifically the energy and effort it takes to start a new business." After a few brutal UK winters on the boat, they started escaping to co-livings during the cold months. Which eventually led to a much bigger idea. From Boarding School to Co-LivingThe seed for Yello's current project was planted decades earlier, between the ages of 10 and 18. "I went to a boarding school in the UK in the north of England. And I think for a big part of my childhood, I was used to this setting. You work with your friends, you eat with your friends, you're sleeping in dorms with your friends. You're socialising with your friends, you're doing sport with your friends. You're with them all of the time. And boarding school is definitely co-living for kids." Not everyone thrives in that environment. Many find it traumatic. But Yello was one of the lucky ones. "Some people find boarding school super traumatic and some people really thrive in boarding school. And I'm very fortunate that I was the type of person who thrived. There's something within me that just loves having people around all the time." There's a practical reason too. Yello admits he's terrible at keeping in touch with people. "I'm not amazing at replying to people's texts and emails and reaching out to people. So by default, if I'm living on my own or just with my partner, I do struggle with forming and maintaining friendships. But living in a community setting, it suits me well because I don't have to make loads of effort to have social connections because people are just there all the time." After experiencing co-livings over the past few years, he and Zoe decided to create their own. They sold properties in London and bought an 80-acre farm in Cornwall. Froomies opens on Valentine's Day 2025. "I think the UK and the whole planet needs more communities and more co-living. So for us, if we have the means to do it and the will and the drive, instead of just joining another one, we thought, let's put another co-living on the map." Waking Up Excited to CodeThere's one more thing that captures Yello's unrealistic optimism perfectly: his recent dive into AI and vibe coding. A few months ago, he wanted to create a guidebook app for the co-living. He found a platform that would host it for £799 a month. His immediate thought: "I reckon I could build one." He'd been seeing videos about vibe coding (using AI to generate code) and decided to try it himself. What happened next was pure Yello. "I was amazed at how quickly and accurately it would just do what I asked it to do. And then I was like, hang on a minute. If it's that easy to create that feature, why don't I just try some other features?" It spiralled. He spent weeks on the computer, waking up at 5am thinking: "Yes, I get to vibe code today." By the end, he'd built an app with 20 features and an admin panel with 30 features, all working, all looking professional. "I just couldn't believe that it was me and ChatGPT on $20 a month with their basic plan, could bosh out something that would definitely have cost over £50,000 a few years ago." It's the perfect example of someone who doesn't see the hurdles, only the possibilities. Someone who thinks "how hard could it be?" and then just starts building. The Case for Unrealistic OptimismToday, Yello continues running his publishing company whilst preparing to launch the co-living in Cornwall. Most people would see a challenging few months ahead: juggling an established business with opening an 80-acre farm as a community space. But Yello doesn't see it that way. Where others see complications, he sees what comes next. As our conversation wrapped up, I found myself thinking about that dinner party revelation. About the people who see hurdles versus those who see possibilities. About whether you can teach yourself to think differently, or whether it's simply how you're wired. What's clear is that Yello's unrealistic optimism has worked. Not despite the over-promising, the longer timelines, the lack of planning. But because of them. Because without that optimism, he never would have started a publishing company with zero experience. Never would have lived on a boat for years. Never would have built a £50,000 app for $20 a month. "The world needs people who give things a go without regard for the complexities of what is going to unfold." Maybe he's right. Maybe we're all a bit too realistic about what's possible. Maybe the real skill isn't learning to see obstacles more clearly, but learning to ignore them entirely and just start building anyway. Sometimes the question "how hard could it be?" is exactly the right one to ask.

Mathilde Andersen: The Virtual HR Consultant Guest: Mathilde Andersen Virtual HR Consultant | Freelance Human Resources Expert Based: Worldwide (Currently Paraguay)Website: mathildeandersen.comLinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/mathilde-andersen-virtualhrServices: Virtual HR consulting for Swiss companies Episode DescriptionMathilde Andersen left Switzerland with no clients, no business plan, and zero freelancing experience. Today, she runs a thriving virtual HR consultancy serving Swiss companies from anywhere in the world. In this conversation, Mathilde shares how she transitioned from three years of backpacking to building a location-independent HR business without any remote work experience. We explore the practical realities of making HR work remotely, the financial requirements of nomadic life, the emotional challenges of constant travel, why she chose Paraguay for residency, and the importance of connecting with local communities wherever she goes. This is a story about taking the leap before you're ready, figuring it out as you go, and building exactly the freedom you envisioned. Timestamps 00:00 Introduction00:27 Guest Introduction01:39 Background: travelling family, three years backpacking01:59 Zero remote work experience before starting02:40 "Opening a Pandora's box": all the questions03:34 Left Switzerland before getting clients04:14 Where nomads actually are: the hubs05:53 Spain then Brazil06:44 Language barriers and connecting with locals07:49 First invoice moment: "This is actually working"08:15 How she found her first client on LinkedIn09:11 Making HR work remotely and what virtual HR means10:17 Financial requirements: €2,000/month minimum12:01 The emotional side: loneliness vs. alone14:01 What freedom looks like15:12 Spontaneous meetups and flexibility15:34 Meeting people on Instagram: "Let's just go"16:27 Co-living culture and community19:20 Deep conversations and common struggles20:01 Too many options: getting lost21:23 Dating as a nomad and managing emotions22:30 Evolution and cousin's romantic success story24:35 The nomad community mindset26:49 Paraguay residency: process, costs, and connecting with locals30:16 Closing About This PodcastReal conversations with successful digital nomads who've built sustainable location-independent income. Strategic insights on how they transitioned, what income streams they built, and what they wish they'd known earlier. No travel tips or lifestyle fluff. HostIbi Malik helps ambitious professionals transition to nomadic careers without income sacrifice. To watch the video follow this link: https://youtu.be/zaSpZYyFTCM  Follow for weekly episodes featuring professionals who've successfully built nomadic income streams. Episode length: ~30 minutesPublished: 30th January, 2026Episode #004 Guest Reflection Mathilde and I sat down in a co-living chateau in Normandy, where she told me about leaving Switzerland with no clients, no business plan, and no experience in freelancing. Today, she runs a thriving virtual HR consultancy serving Swiss companies from anywhere in the world. The Escape Plan Mathilde Andersen didn't ease into digital nomadism. She dove in. After spending three years backpacking around the world until COVID hit, she returned to Switzerland and faced a reality many travellers know too well: the job waiting for her felt suffocating."I really didn't like the job I had. So I needed an escape, and the best way to escape was to turn my profession into something I could make money off and to travel the world." The problem? She had absolutely no idea how to do it. "Before COVID, I was just backpacking, living off my savings. I didn't have any idea about being self-employed, about freelancing, about marketing, about anything. Absolutely no idea." What followed was a complete leap into the unknown, what Mathilde describes as "opening a Pandora box." Where should she register her company? What about residency? Insurance? Client acquisition? Website setup? Positioning? "I just went all in. Step by step, I just got there. I actually manifested it. I saw myself living this life and I thought whatever it takes, I'm going to get there." Starting Without a Safety Net Most people transitioning to remote work do it cautiously: negotiating remote arrangements, building a client base on the side, testing the waters before jumping in fully. Mathilde did none of that. She left Switzerland before securing a single client. Her reasoning was strategic, even if it felt reckless: "If I really want to get into that digital nomad life, I have to get there where the people are." Switzerland's high cost of living meant few digital nomads stayed there. She needed to be where the community was. Her first stops: Spain, then quickly to Brazil. The First Invoice: Making HR Work Remotely Mathilde's breakthrough came from an unexpected approach. She didn't wait for the perfect HR freelancing opportunity. Instead, she started by offering administrative services. Her first client came from scanning remote job postings on LinkedIn. When she found a company looking for administrative support, she sent them a proposal: "I can do that, but as a freelancer." It worked. "I explained why they should collaborate with me and why my services or the way I operate is beneficial for them." The pitch was simple: no employee costs, no office overhead, just a clear hourly rate or project fee. That first invoice was transformative. "Wow, I'm actually getting paid. This is actually working." The answer to making HR work remotely: she followed the market shift. "COVID sort of shifted how some companies work. Small businesses especially didn't want the overhead of a full-time HR employee. I have a set price as a freelancer. You just pay by hour or we agree on a package, but that's all the expense you're going to have."From there, she expanded to her true passion: HR strategy, recruitment, talent development, and organisational consulting, all delivered virtually. The Financial Reality of Nomadic Life When I asked how much a digital nomad needs to earn to sustain this lifestyle, Mathilde is pragmatic. "I think it really depends where you are. If you're in Bali or Thailand or Vietnam, the cost of living is much cheaper." Her estimate? Around €2,000 per month minimum. In Europe, €2,000 wouldn't be enough. But in Southeast Asia, or if you're willing to house-sit or volunteer for accommodation, it's possible. The key is flexibility. "It depends on what you spend your money on. If you cook, if you work for your rent, you can get by with €2,000." The Emotional Side: Freedom, Loneliness, and Deep Connections The practical challenges of digital nomadism (taxes, visas, client acquisition) are well-documented. Less discussed is the emotional landscape. When I brought this up, Mathilde was refreshingly honest about loneliness. "If I would tell you I never felt lonely, it would be a lie. I have been lonely." But she's quick to clarify: "I like to be alone. Generally, if I'm alone, I actually enjoy my me time." For her, the freedom outweighs the isolation. "The less I'm attached to a place or to something, the more freedom I have. If I can just travel with one suitcase and my backpack and just go wherever I want without any strings attached, that's just pure joy.""I can go wherever I want, whenever I want, with whomever I want." She describes the spontaneity of nomadic life: seeing someone post on Instagram that they're in a nearby city and deciding to meet up the next day. To manage the balance between social connection and solitude, Mathilde alternates between co-living spaces and Airbnbs. "I cannot only do co-livings or only Airbnbs. I like to change. That's how I keep my balance." Co-Living: Where Deep Conversations Happen Co-living spaces have become central to Mathilde's nomadic life. But it's not just about shared accommodation, it's about the quality of connection. "For me, it's to share the spaces, to share your time with like-minded people. We're all here for the same purpose, but we're all so different. Maybe we would have never met in other circumstances, but we are all people from different places that live under the same roof and all just want to share experiences." The conversations in these spaces go deeper than typical small talk. "The kind of conversations we have are so deep because we all have the same issues, the same struggles, the same experiences." When I asked what they actually discussed, the topics ranged from finding partners while constantly travelling to the internal struggle of wanting to settle down versus the urge to keep moving. The paradox of having too many options. "You have so many options that you get lost because you don't know in which direction should I go, what should I do, where, when?" Choosing Paraguay: Community and Connection One of the practical questions many aspiring digital nomads face is where to establish residency. For Mathilde, the answer was Paraguay. "I am from Switzerland, but I don't live in Switzerland anymore. I officially live in Paraguay."The residency process was straightforward. Working with a local facilitator, she received her temporary residency in less than three months. Requirements were minimal: birth certificate, criminal record, fingerprints, and a photo. But the decision wasn't purely logistical. "For me, it's important to feel welcome in a country and to have a connection with the locals and with the people and with the culture." Paraguay delivered exactly that. "The people are so friendly. They're so welcoming. You walk down the street, they want to talk to you." She's built genuine friendships there. "I don't just want to be in the digital nomad bubble. I like to have a little bit of both." The outsourcing philosophy applies here too: "People outsource HR to me, I outsource this to someone else. Everyone should do what they do best." Lessons from the Journey Looking back on her transition from backpacker to business owner, Mathilde's path offers key insights: Start before you're ready. Mathilde left Switzerland without clients, without a business plan. She figured it out as she went. Go where the community is. Being physically present in nomad hubs provided the inspiration and connections she needed. Be flexible about your services. Starting with admin work allowed her to build income while positioning for ideal work. Follow market shifts. COVID created demand for remote HR services. Mathilde capitalised on that. Balance solitude and connection. Alternating between Airbnbs and co-living spaces maintains equilibrium. Stay open to whatever happens. Rigidity is the enemy of nomadic life. Choose your base strategically. Tax residency matters, but so does feeling genuinely welcomed. The Freedom to Choose Today, Mathilde runs her virtual HR consultancy from wherever she wants, currently splitting time between Europe and Latin America, with Brazil as her favourite destination. As our conversation drew to a close, it became clear she's built exactly the life she envisioned when she decided to escape that job in Switzerland: the freedom to go wherever she wants, whenever she wants, with whomever she wants, while doing work she genuinely loves. "The less I'm attached to a place or to something, the more freedom I have."For Mathilde, that freedom isn't just about geography. It's about building a life on her own terms, one invoice at a time.  

Jeanne Fontaniere: The Slow-mad Guest: Jeanne Fontaniere Digital Nomad | Co-Living Host | Former Events ManagerBased: Normandy, France (3 months on) | Worldwide (3 months off)Role: Community Leader at co-living châteauInstagram: @colivingforalivingLinkedIn: Jeanne-Elise-Fontaniere Episode DescriptionJeanne Fontaniere didn't plan to become a digital nomad. She was just bored during Paris's second Covid lockdown. So she convinced her events agency boss to let her work from Madrid for two months whilst learning Spanish—despite working in an industry that required being on-site. Four years later, she's built a career that didn't exist before: hosting a co-living château in Normandy three months at a time, then travelling the world the other three months. In this conversation, Jeanne shares how she negotiated remote work in a non-remote industry, transitioned from stable employment to freelancing, and why she believes you need to live the nomadic lifestyle yourself to authentically host it for others. This is a story about communication, calculated risks, and designing work around the life you want rather than the other way around. Timestamps00:00-00:29 Generic podcast introduction00:30-01:24 Guest introduction01:25-01:55 Introduction to Jeanne01:55-05:15 Background: events manager in Paris during Covid lockdowns05:15-06:45 Decision to learn Spanish and work from Madrid06:45-09:05 Landing in Madrid, discovering freedom09:05-11:40 First week realisation: "This is the life I want"11:40-13:55 Moving to Lisbon, discovering Wi-Fi Tribe13:55-16:55 Meeting the digital nomad community16:55-19:15 Returning to Paris office, feeling trapped19:15-22:10 Quitting to become freelance events manager22:10-24:35 Seeing château hosting opportunity24:35-27:05 Juggling both roles: freelance + hosting27:05-29:10 80-hour weeks flying between Paris and Normandy29:10-30:45 Decision to leave events agency30:45-33:25 Full-time château work with marketing/comms33:25-35:05 Negotiating 3-on, 3-off structure35:05-36:46 Why hosts need to stay nomadic themselves36:46-End Communication, negotiation, and building trust About This PodcastReal conversations with successful digital nomads who've built sustainable location-independent income. Strategic insights on how they transitioned, what income streams they built, and what they wish they'd known earlier. No travel tips or lifestyle fluff. HostIbi Malik helps ambitious professionals transition to nomadic careers without income sacrifice.To watch the video follow this link: https://youtu.be/hl8icJPZiIE  Follow for weekly episodes featuring professionals who've successfully built nomadic income streams. Episode length: ~37 minutesPublished: 23rd January 2026 Episode #003  Guest Reflection Jeanne and I crossed paths at a co-living chateau in Normandy, where she works as a community host. Over the course of our conversation, what struck me most wasn't just her journey from Paris to the nomadic lifestyle; it was the strategic series of negotiations that made it all possible. From convincing her boss to let her work from Spain during Covid lockdowns to crafting a unique 3-on-3-off model that lets her live two lives at once, Jeanne's story is a masterclass in the power of asking for what you want. The Boredom That Started It All It was the second lockdown in Paris. The kind where you could go to work, go home, and do little else. Jeanne was sitting alone in her apartment, her roommates were out, and the city had ground to a halt. She was completely, utterly bored. So she made a decision: she was going to learn Spanish. Not just take online classes from her Parisian flat; she was going to learn Spanish *in Spain*. And she was going to do it without losing her job. There was just one problem: Jeanne worked for an event agency. A job that, by its very nature, demands you be on-site, managing productions, meeting with clients face-to-face. Remote event management? That wasn't a thing. At least, not until Covid forced everyone's hand.   Negotiation #1: Making the Impossible Remote When Jeanne approached her boss in early 2021 with her proposal to work from Madrid for two months, there was pushback. Quite a bit of it, actually. "There was a lot of pushback because I was working for an event agency, which is a job that literally asks you to be on site and to be on the production side. Plus client facing." But Jeanne had done her homework. Covid had forced her small event agency to pivot hard into digital and online events. They'd developed virtual team buildings, online event strategies; anything to keep the business alive when in-person gatherings became impossible. And crucially, Jeanne had been there from the beginning as an intern, watching these new formats take shape. Her pitch was simple: "I can still do those even if I'm outside of the country. The clients don't have to know. I can still produce the same way that I'm doing in Paris, at least for two months.” It worked. In April 2021, Jeanne landed in Madrid with her laptop and a two-month window to prove that an events manager could work remotely. She found an apartment, dove into Spanish classes, and started working from a city she barely knew."I had no idea what Digital Nomad was. Co-living was like; I had just was like, I want to learn Spanish and I want to do it in Spain and I don't want to lose my job."The irony? She ended up in a shared flat with all French roommates. Zero Spanish speakers. Her language learning plans didn't exactly pan out. But something else did: within the first week, Jeanne realised this was the life she wanted. The Co-Living Discovery After Madrid, Jeanne started searching for something she hadn't known existed before: a community of people living and working the way she was. She stumbled across Nine, a co-living space in Tenerife, in the Canary Islands. In October 2021, she arrived at her first official co-living for a two-month stay. And this time, she wasn't alone in her lifestyle. There were others; digital nomads, remote workers, people who'd figured out how to untether their income from a fixed location. The feeling of "I'm the only one" that had followed her through Madrid evaporated. The experience was transformative. The community, the lifestyle, the sense of belonging. It planted a seed. If living in co-living spaces felt this right as a guest, what would it feel like to work in one? Negotiation #2: From Guest to Host Fast-forward six months. Jeanne was scrolling through Facebook groups when she saw a post about a chateau in Normandy looking for a community host. It was one of those moments where curiosity meets opportunity. "I don't know. I just thought, okay, maybe that's my sign. Like, maybe that's the place," she remembers. Natural curiosity kicked in. She sent an email. Within days, she was on a call with the owner. And before she knew it, she had a three-month hosting position lined up. But there was still the small matter of her events job in Paris. When I asked how she approached that conversation, Jeanne didn't hesitate: she went straight back to her boss with another proposal. Three months in Normandy. Still close enough to Paris that if there was an event emergency, she could return. And this time, she wasn't asking to do her existing job remotely; she was asking to split her time between two roles. The answer was yes. Again.  The 3-On-3-Off Model: Living Two Lives at Once What started as a three-month experiment turned into something more permanent, but not in the way you might expect. Jeanne didn't leave her event agency job immediately. Instead, she tried to do both: hosting at the chateau during the week, then flying back to Paris every Tuesday, returning Friday, and working weekends at the chateau. "Every week I was going on Tuesday to Paris, coming back on Friday here and working during the weekend here. And I did that for two months," she says. It was intense. 80-hour work weeks. Constant travel. The kind of schedule that burns you out fast. Eventually, she had to choose. But rather than choosing one life over the other, Jeanne negotiated a third option: she would work at the chateau full-time, but in three-month blocks. Three months on-site as a community host and marketing manager. Three months off, free to travel, visit other co-livings, and maintain her digital nomad lifestyle. "I really felt that to be a good host and community leader, I needed to understand the lifestyle and keep living it for myself."It's a model that shouldn't work, but it does. Because she understands what the guests are going through. She's lived the loneliness of working from an Airbnb in a foreign city. She's experienced the magic of walking into a co-living space and immediately feeling less alone. She knows what it takes to maintain focus while travelling, to balance work and exploration, to build community quickly. When she's hosting, she brings that empathy to the role. When she's travelling, she's gathering insights to bring back. It's a feedback loop that makes her better at both.   Communication as a Superpower Throughout our conversation, one theme kept surfacing: communication. Every major shift in Jeanne's journey, from Madrid to Nine to the chateau, happened because she asked for what she wanted. "You can always ask for something. It doesn't mean you're going to have it, but you can always ask for it; there is no cost in it." She's built her career in small, agile environments, first at an event agency during its early growth phase, now at a co-living chateau where roles evolve organically. These aren't places with rigid hierarchies or formal review processes. They're spaces where clear communication isn't just valued; it's essential. But it's not just about asking. It's about trust. Jeanne admits she struggles with boundaries; she invests deeply in her work, building close relationships with the people she works with. She's drawn to projects at their beginning stages, where she can grow alongside them. "I always kind of arrive at the beginning of the project and I get to evolve with it and I get to grow with it." It's a strategy that wouldn't work in a corporate environment with vertical communication structures. But for Jeanne, that's exactly the point. She's carved out a career that plays to her strengths: flexibility, adaptability, and the ability to negotiate arrangements that serve both her and her employers. The Lesson: If You Don't Ask, You Don't Get  Jeanne's journey didn't follow a typical path. She didn't quit her job and buy a one-way ticket. She didn't have a trust fund or a remote-first career lined up. What she had was a willingness to ask for what seemed impossible, and the communication skills to make it happen. From convincing an events agency that their on-site manager could work from Spain, to negotiating a hybrid role that lets her be both a host and a nomad, Jeanne's story is proof that many jobs can be made remote if you're willing to have the conversation. And if the first answer is no? You ask again. You propose an alternative. You find a way to make it work for everyone involved. Because at the end of the day, the worst they can say is no. And sometimes, more often than you might think, they say yes.

Tracy Bellevue: The Hustler  Guest: Tracy Bellevue Digital Nomad | Marketing Consultant | Writer Based: Worldwide (Travelling through Europe)Instagram: @bellevueabroadSubstack: substack.com/@bellevueabroad Episode DescriptionTracy Bellevue quit both jobs, broke her lease, sold her car for cash, and left America with nothing but savings and a book she needed to write. No clients. No remote work experience. Just a determination to escape 75-hour work weeks and an empty nest. In this conversation, Tracy shares how she transitioned from burnt-out single mum to digital nomad, building multiple income streams from marketing to tutoring to Substack. We explore the raw reality of her first 30 days abroad, the mental health memoir she's writing, the healing that only distance could provide, and why co-living spaces became essential to her journey.  This is a story about radical reinvention, confronting your past, and building a life where you ground yourself in yourself.  Timestamps 00:00-00:28 Generic podcast introduction00:29-01:29 Guest introduction01:30-01:53 Introduction to Tracy01:53-06:14 Background: working 75 hours/week, two jobs, full-time mum06:14-06:41 The moment: "I'm going to die if I keep doing it this way"06:41-07:54 Kids moving in with dad, empty house, identity crisis07:54-08:51 Cousin's Europe trip invitation08:51-09:33 Quitting both jobs, breaking lease, selling car09:33-10:15 No plan, no income, just savings10:15-11:36 Immigrant hustle mentality: "Thousand ways to make money"11:36-12:42 The book she needed to write, leaving August 202412:42-13:48 How she makes money: marketing as primary income13:48-16:00 Multiple income streams: candle campaigns, tutoring, Substack16:00-18:30 Income fluctuation: hard months vs. abundant months18:30-19:49 First 30 days: crash landing in Switzerland19:49-22:34 Going from constant movement to complete stillness22:34-25:48 The book: memoir about borderline personality disorder25:48-28:12 "I was just a monster" - except as a mother28:12-30:12 Owing vindication to people she harmed30:12-31:38 Leaving America with no close friends31:38-33:54 Europe as space to write and heal33:54-36:20 Meeting people as just Tracy, not connected to past36:20-38:40 Why the book must be finished in America38:40-39:53 The bridge between two lives39:53-41:31 Going home: "Nothing feels like home anymore"41:31-41:54 "I am my home as a traveller"41:54-42:44 Closing thoughts Connect with Tracy Brand: Bellevue AbroadSubstack: Co-living reviews and travel insightsServices: Marketing consulting for small brands About This PodcastReal conversations with successful digital nomads who've built sustainable location-independent income. Strategic insights on how they transitioned, what income streams they built, and what they wish they'd known earlier. No travel tips or lifestyle fluff. HostIbi Malik helps ambitious professionals transition to nomadic careers without income sacrifice.  To watch the video follow this link: https://youtu.be/52djR3kKEK8  Follow for weekly episodes featuring professionals who've successfully built nomadic income streams. Episode length: ~41 minutesPublished: 16th January 2026Episode #002 Guest Reflection During our time together at a co-living chateau in Normandy, Tracy and I sat down to talk. She told me about selling her car for cash, breaking her lease, and leaving America with nothing but savings and refused to accept there's only one way to make money. This is the story of how an empty nest, 75-hour work weeks, and pure hustle led to complete reinvention.   The Breaking Point "I was working two jobs, about 70 hours a week in America. I was a full-time mom to two teenage boys. And I remember thinking, I'm going to die if I keep doing it this way." Tracy Bellevue had reached her limit. But she couldn't see a way out until the universe made space for her. Last summer, her two teenage sons decided to move in with their dad. Suddenly, Tracy went from full-time motherhood to haunting the halls of an empty house, working 75 hours a week with no one to care for. "I was realising that because I was such a young mom, my entire life and identity was wrapped into taking care of others and being a full-time caregiver. At that point, I realised, hey, I really lacked an identity." Her cousin, also her best friend, was burning out of an Ivy League tech career and planning to escape to Europe for six months. Tracy's response was immediate: "I'm just going to go with you." The Hustler's Leap: Selling Everything for Freedom "I come from a family of immigrants, my family immigrated from Haiti to America. And I think watching my parents' work ethic has taught me that there's a thousand ways to make money. You just have to be willing to get creative and get out there." Most aspiring nomads ease into the lifestyle. They negotiate remote work arrangements. They build up savings. They test the waters. Tracy did none of that. "I quit both jobs, broke my lease, sold my car for cash, cashed out all my savings, and I said, let's go. And I really had no plan. I had no income. I just had my savings." The hustler mentality, inherited from Haitian immigrant parents, gave her the confidence to leap before the safety net appeared. She knew how to make money work. She just had to be willing to figure it out as she went. There was one thing driving her forward: a book she needed to write. "I really wanted to write a book. But I knew that I couldn't write that book in America. It was just too close to the memories that I was going to be writing about." So in August 2024, Tracy and her cousin booked a co-living space in the Swiss Alps and left. Those First 30 Days: The Crash The lead-up to departure was chaos. Working double shifts. Wrapping up an entire life. Selling everything. Moving nonstop with very little sleep. When I asked about those first 30 days, Tracy described the crash landing: "I think right when we got to Switzerland, I kind of crashed. I was so exhausted. I mean, it was like walking into a postcard, but it was also very difficult to go from that kind of movement to complete stillness." It wasn't the Instagram-perfect start many imagine. It was silent. Reflective. And exactly what she needed. The Hustler's Playbook: Multiple Income Streams "You really need to be willing to put yourself out there to make connections, ask for help, and try things you never have before because you never quite know if you're good at something until you jump into it." When I asked how she makes money as a nomad, Tracy doesn't have a simple answer. She has her hands in many dishes. Marketing is her primary income. She helps small brands build campaigns, manage Google ads, create strategies from nothing. "I've helped build some brands from nothing. I took a candle-making idea into an entire campaign." She's also tutored. Tried various projects. Built a Substack blog where she reviews co-living spaces. Subscribers pay a set amount, creating a small but growing passive income stream. Her philosophy is pragmatic: skills from one field translate to others. "I think you may work in one field, but your skills can apply to many others, and you have to take the chance and try." The income fluctuates. "There are definitely hard months where the income is not as big as I would like. But then there are some months where I can budget and save and I make a good amount. It really is kind of a make-as-you-go philosophy, but it allows me the freedom to travel in this way. And I think it's worth it." After a year and a half of nomadic life, Tracy confirms: it absolutely can work. You just have to hustle. The Book: Writing Through the Darkness Tracy isn't just travelling to travel. When I asked what brought her to Europe, she revealed she's writing a memoir called The Apology Tour about her years with undiagnosed borderline personality disorder, from age 16 to 24. It's about the relationships she destroyed, the people she hurt, and the person she was before therapy. The book is structured as a collection of letters to real people in her life, with each chapter dedicated to a different person. "It's called the Apology tour. As someone with borderline personality disorder, I was very bad at relationships of any kind." "Borderline personality disorder is one that skews your version of reality. And so you constantly are on guard, and you can be very manipulative and very self-centred and narcissistic in some ways. During my period from 16 to 24, I was really just very detrimental to the people around me who were all trying to help me and loved me." The only relationship she managed to protect during those years was motherhood. "I really prided myself on being a good mother. But outside of that bubble, I was just a monster, to put it lightly." After therapy and recognising the damage she'd caused, Tracy felt she owed those people vindication. The book is unflinchingly honest. "It's very candid. It's really ugly." The final six chapters focus on family, and their real names will be in the book. She wants them to read it before publication. But she needed to be in Europe to write it. "The space from America allowed me to write the book, have a peaceful place to write the book in which I wasn't a mother or a sister or something connected to somebody else. I was just Tracy Bellevue." Finding Community After Isolation When Tracy left America, she had no close friends. Years of keeping people at arm's length meant she'd built walls around herself. Europe offered something different: the chance to let people in. "When I came to Europe, one of the things I wanted to pursue was friendship. Relationships again. Really to let people into my life. And I was very lonely and looking for community." Co-living spaces became the answer. Meeting people who only knew Tracy Bellevue the person she is today, not the person she used to be. "It's you can know you're healed and you can believe it, but sometimes it takes having that outside perception to solidify it. I really am aware that I'm not that person anymore." The distance wasn't running away. It was the final piece of her healing. Home Is What You Carry "I am my home as a traveller. I ground myself in myself."But The Apology Tour can't be finished in Europe. Tracy knows that. "It feels almost cowardly to come here and to publish it here, knowing that maybe they would never see it. I need those people to read their chapters, and I hope that that helps them in some way. Those people deserve that." When I asked about going home eventually, Tracy described the tension: "When I go home, it's everyone's lives have continued on without you, and they are also different. Nothing feels home anymore." Tracy's resolution is both simple and profound: she carries home within herself now. "We are the bridges between our homes, our past lives, those realities that keep going even though we're not there. And this life. We are the travellers in between, the ones who carry the stories of both places." The Hustler's Lessons Jump before you're ready. Tracy had no clients, no remote job, just savings and determination. She figured out the income streams along the way. Diversify everything. Marketing, tutoring, Substack, brand building. Multiple income streams mean you're never dependent on one source. Your immigrant hustle is an advantage. The willingness to get creative, try new things, and refuse to accept there's only one way makes all the difference. Distance creates perspective. Sometimes you can't heal or create in the place where the wound happened. Community matters. Co-living spaces offer connection with people on similar journeys. Home becomes portable. When everything external is constantly changing, you learn to ground yourself internally. Still Hustling Today, Tracy continues splitting her time between European co-living spaces, building her travel brand Bellevue Abroad, working on multiple income streams, and finishing The Apology Tour, the memoir that brought her across the Atlantic. As our conversation wrapped up, it was clear she knows she'll return to America in December to find the right book agent and publisher.  But for now, she's exactly where she needs to be: hustling her way through Europe, one co-living space at a time, proving that with enough resourcefulness and determination, you really can build a life on your own terms. For Tracy Bellevue, freedom isn't just about geography. It's about refusing to accept that there's only one way to live, one way to make money, one way to be. It's the hustler's creed: there are a thousand ways. You just have to be willing to find them.

Edouard Renard - The Maverick Guest: Edouard Renard Online Robotics Educator | Former Robotics Startup Co-FounderBased: Nomadic (Currently planning co-living space)Teaching Platform: UdemyWebsite: www.auluscoliving.comEpisode Description Edouard Renard walked away from a thriving robotics startup just before they were set to raise outside investment. Today, he teaches robotics online to students worldwide. Now he's opening a co-living space, proving that success isn't always measured in revenue. In this conversation, Edouard shares how he left his co-founded robotics startup to travel and teach, built an online course business that serves students globally, and why he's starting over again with a completely different project. We explore the reality of "passive income," the importance of making education accessible, and what it means to measure success in student testimonials rather than investment rounds. This is a story about walking away from the conventional definition of success to find what actually fulfils you. Timestamps00:00-00:23 Introduction00:23-01:28 Guest Introduction01:28-02:07 Why did you want to become a Nomad?02:07-03:16 Co-founding robotics startup, three years of building03:16-04:20 Educational robotic arms: 10-20x cheaper than industrial04:20-05:43 Why he left: not aligned with industrial market direction05:43-07:21 Walking away before raising investment07:21-08:14 First destination: Mexico, having a backup plan08:14-09:22 Giving up Paris apartment, organizing nomadic life09:22-11:17 The skill set combination: robotics + marketing + teaching11:17-12:09 Starting with written tutorials and SEO12:09-14:06 Trying own website vs. Udemy: platform won14:06-14:56 India as second market, geo-targeted pricing14:56-17:00 Success measured in testimonials and impact17:00-19:06 When it felt like it was working: enabling the lifestyle19:06-20:15 About a year to leave unemployment benefits20:15-23:13 Five years in co-livings, solving workspace and community23:13-26:56 Not passionate about robotics teaching anymore26:56-29:16 Why open a co-living: looking for more purpose29:16-30:54 Co-living values: homey, authentic, family feeling30:54-34:50 Defining co-living: "It's a feeling"34:50-36:34 Track record of projects, where he'll be in 3-5 years36:34-39:48 "Passive income" reality: maintenance and adaptation39:48-40:29 Closing thoughts About This PodcastReal conversations with successful digital nomads who've built sustainable location-independent income. Strategic insights on how they transitioned, what income streams they built, and what they wish they'd known earlier. No travel tips or lifestyle fluff. HostIbi Malik helps ambitious professionals transition to nomadic careers without income sacrifice.To watch the video follow this link: https://youtu.be/aK7KLCQ72fs  Follow for weekly episodes featuring professionals who've successfully built nomadic income streams. Episode length: ~42 minutesPublished: 09/01/2026Episode #001 Guest Reflection During my time at a co-living chateau in Normandy, Edouard and I sat down to talk. He told me about walking away from a robotics startup just as they were about to raise outside investment. Today, he teaches robotics online with geo-targeted pricing that makes his courses accessible to anyone who wants to learn, regardless of where they live or what they can afford. He's also opening a co-living space. This is the story of someone who kept redefining success until he found what actually mattered. The Startup That Worked Too Well Edouard didn't leave his robotics startup because it was failing. He left because it was succeeding, and that success was taking it in a direction that made sense for the company but wasn't where he wanted to go. "Nothing did go wrong. I just decided I didn't want to continue anymore. And I wanted to travel. And also I was not so aligned with where we were going. I was very motivated at the beginning, but then at some point I didn't really like where we were going. It made sense to go where we were going. But I didn't really like it myself. I didn't feel that motivated to continue." The startup had built educational robotic arms, 10 to 20 times cheaper than industrial ones, selling them to universities for around €2,000 each. They were doing well, growing steadily, positioning for the next stage. Moving from education to industrial markets was the logical next step for the business. But it meant certifications, regulations, complexity. Managing engineering teams. Raising venture capital. It was the right move for the company, but Edouard realised it wasn't right for him. "If you go into that deal, you stay for like seven, ten years. It doesn't make sense as a co-founder to just quit after that. So that was the right moment for me to just quit."When I asked what triggered the decision, he told me about a trip during university in 2014 where he'd spent two months travelling through the US and Canada as part of a work experience requirement. "When I did this, I realised, oh, I want to travel. Not just going one week holiday somewhere, but spending like one month, two months in one place, meeting the people, discovering the culture of the people. It was kind of like an awakening." But then came the startup. Three years of building, no time to travel. By March 2019, burnt out and needing a break, he took a two-week holiday to Vietnam. "I was like, okay, I needed this break. I'm going to be recharged. I go there, it's nice, I come back. I don't feel recharged. I came back, it was like the first day. I was like, oh my God, no, no, no." The Vietnam trip re-awakened something he'd been longing for since that university trip five years earlier. He told his co-founder a month or two later. Stayed for another five or six months to properly transition out. Left in September 2019, right before they would have raised investment and locked himself in for years. The Backup Plan: Teaching What He'd Learned Edouard had a backup plan before he left. He'd learned robotics deeply through the startup. He'd taught himself marketing from scratch to sell those robotic arms. He'd done private tutoring before and enjoyed the educational side. "I think when you have different skill sets that are not necessarily matching, it can be a very good combo. How many good robotics engineers are going to be good at explaining what they do? How many engineers like marketing? Not so many." His realisation was specific: "I wouldn't say I'm an expert in robotics. I'm an expert at teaching robotics online. It's not the same thing." After leaving the startup, he took two months to do nothing. French unemployment benefits covered basics whilst he started writing technical tutorials. Then he began recording courses. When I asked how he validated the concept, he was matter-of-fact: "I started to get a bit of money from that. Nothing that was enough to break the government money, but it was starting to work. I kind of validated the concept quite early." He tried selling courses on his own website first. Premium pricing, full control. It didn't work. Then he put them on Udemy. "I had double the sales with no marketing." The platform model worked better, but not just for the obvious reasons. The ₹400 Course: Making Education Accessible Everywhere Edouard's second-largest market after Europe isn't America. It's India. "You cannot say to Indian people who are learning to code, pay $100. They're going to say no." But Udemy has geo-targeted pricing. A course might cost ₹400 in India, about $3, making it affordable for students there. "It's quite nice in a way that everybody in all the countries can actually pay something that's affordable for them. So in the end you just get customers from all over the world." This wasn't just business strategy. When I asked about what success looks like now, revenue wasn't the only thing he mentioned. "It's not just about the numbers. It's also when you get nice reviews of people saying, 'Hey, thanks to you, I could actually get my career into this.' That motivates me. Like, 'This motivated me to do this project. Finally, I can understand.'" The shift from startup founder to teacher changed what success meant."Success for me is not just about business. Success is also just living the life you like, spending good time, helping people."By 2020, after about a year of building courses, he'd stopped needing government unemployment benefits. His business was growing steadily. "It was never like a big bump, like a big buzz or whatever. It was always kind of linear growth. But I like stable growth. It's like, the more work I put in, the better the result." When "Passive Income" Isn't Actually Passive The online course business gave Edouard something the startup couldn't: the ability to travel. To live in co-livings. To work from anywhere. But when I asked if it was passive income, he pushed back on the term. "I don't like that word that much. The money I earn this month has nothing to do with what I'm doing this month. That's how I define passive. It's because of the work before. But if I stop working on it, it's going to go down." Software and robotics evolve. Courses need re-recording every three or four years or they become obsolete. Platforms change their commission rates. Competition appears. AI changes how people learn."Can I keep having this lifestyle with this business? Yeah, for a few years. And at some point it's going to crash. Five years, ten years, I guess." Current maintenance: about ten hours per week. Enough to sustain his lifestyle whilst having time for other projects. Which brings us to why someone running a successful online education business, living exactly the nomadic life he wanted, decided to start something completely different. Five Years in Co-Livings: From Guest to Builder When I asked why he's opening a co-living, Edouard was refreshingly honest. "I was talking about teaching robotics and stuff. I'm not that passionate about this anymore. I don't find the motivation to continue on this. I wish I would be passionate because then I could go much further with that business and just continue travelling. But it's just not fulfilling anymore that much." He's been living in co-livings for five years. Not continuously, he rented a flat in Spain at one point, but co-livings have been central to his nomadic life. "When you're nomadic, when you're travelling and working online, it's hard to find proper accommodation with good working setup, good Wi-Fi, silence, an ergonomic chair. It seems easy, but it's not. And then you also need community. You go to a hostel, but everybody's leaving in three days. Co-living solves both." The idea of opening his own had been there almost from the beginning. "I had this idea basically since I've been to co-livings. I was like, oh, maybe one day I could create my own. But just as an idea." Then, whilst travelling, something clicked. He realised it was time."Having seen other co-livings, I see how co-living evolves. Different owners, different values, different approaches. I was like, yeah, I would like to actually create my own co-living with my own values. Basically having my own place, kind of."When I asked what values he wants to bring, his answer was immediate: "A place that's kind of like a homey place, that is open most of the time so that you can come home, feel like home, and then you can come back. Authenticity, sharing stuff with others, spending time together, a bit of fun. Just feeling home." When I asked him to define what a co-living actually is, he struggled. We all did. Eventually, after some back and forth with others around us, we settled on something simple: "It's a feeling." Then, more specifically from Edouard: "Yeah, it's like a family feeling. Everybody has a different definition of family. But for me it's like you feel good here with other people. Of course it's not because everybody's going to move on with their life and go different places. So it's for a few weeks, a few months. But yeah, it's like family feeling." Success Measured in Feeling, Not Metrics Looking back over Edouard's journey, a pattern emerges. Not the three-year cycle of projects, but something deeper: each time he's walked away from financial success to find a different kind of success. He left a profitable startup right before raising investment. He chose Udemy's lower prices and global accessibility over premium pricing and higher margins. Now he's starting something entirely new. "When I went to my first co-living, it was late 2020. My business started to grow a bit more. And then I realised that's also what I want to do. I want to go to co-livings and find community. And I could have a good work-life balance. And I was like, yeah, this is wealth, and this is what success looks like. It's not just the business. It's also having the time, having the people." The robotics courses aren't going away. He'll maintain them, keep them updated, spend his ten hours per week. But his focus is shifting to the co-living. When I asked where he imagines he'll be in three years, he described it clearly: "The co-living is going to take at least one or two years to set up properly with renovation, then you launch it. The first year is very experimental, the second year is a bit more stable. And then on the third year, I'm going to be in my co-living, maybe stay there as a host, keep travelling for a few months." And in five years? "Maybe I'm going to have another project. I don't know." The Real Metric Today, Edouard continues running his robotics courses, teaching students around the world with pricing that makes sense for each economy. He's planning a co-living space that prioritises feeling over facilities, community over business metrics. As our conversation wrapped up in the chateau where he's currently staying, it became clear that Edouard's real skill isn't robotics or teaching or even business building. It's knowing when to walk away from success to find it somewhere else. For Edouard, success was never about the revenue numbers or the investment rounds or even the growing course sales. It was about the student who finally understood robotics. The ₹400 that made education accessible in India. The family feeling in a co-living where people feel at home, even if just for a few weeks."It's not just about the numbers. Success is also just living the life you like."That's a metric that actually matters.