Citizens of the World: A Stoic Podcast for Curious Travelers - Life Skills That Matter for Aspiring Solopreneurs

Episode Date: April 30, 2021

Have you been working from home this year? The pandemic made many people realize that they could log on to their computer from anywhere to get the job done. Even before Covid-19 hit, my guest today has been talking about how work as we know it is changing.Stephen Warley hosts the Life Skills That Matter podcast and he believes that self-employment is the future of work.And in this episode, we talk about what that future looks like, how it can benefit you, and the life skills that matter to give your life meaning and enable you to live a more freedom-filled, location independent life.This was such a fun interview. I hope you enjoy this conversation. Hello! I'm your host, Sarah Mikutel. But the real question is, who are you? Where are you now and where do you want to be? Can I help you get there?Visit sarahmikutel.com to learn how we can work together to help you achieve more peace, happiness, and positive transformation in your life.Book your Enneagram typing session by going to sarahmikutel.com/typingsessionWant to connect on Insta? Find me hereDo you ever go blank or start rambling when someone puts you on the spot? I created a free Conversation Cheat Sheet with simple formulas you can use so you can respond with clarity, whether you’re in a meeting or just talking with friends.Download it at sarahmikutel.com/blanknomore and start feeling more confident in your conversations today.

Welcome to Live Without Borders, a travel and wellness show for expats, the expat curious, and globally minded citizens of the world. We are the travelers, the culturally curious, the experiences and not things kind of people, and we know that freedom is about more than getting on a plane. It's about becoming the most heroic versions of ourselves, which is why on this podcast you will hear insider travel secrets, inspiring expat stories, and advice on how to live abroad. but you will also hear episodes that will help give you the clarity, focus, and skills you need to create a life that will set your soul on fire. I am your host, Sarah Micatel, a certified clarity coach trained in the Enneagram, and I first moved abroad on my own at age 18, and I have been permanently enjoying life in Europe since 2010. If you are ready to make some big moves in your life and want my help moving from someday to seize the day, visit live without borderspodcast.com.

Have you been working from home this year? The pandemic has made many more people realize that they can log onto their computer and get the job done from anywhere. And even before COVID-19 hit, my guest today has been talking about how work as we know it is changing. Stephen Worley hosts the Life Skills That Matter podcast. And before I go on, I just have to say, how amazing is the name for a podcast, Life Skills That Matter? I just like, I just like. love it because how many times do you say or do you hear people say they should teach this in school or I wish I had learned this in school or what do I even learn in school? I'm not even using any of that information. And so today, Stephen and I are going to school you on what really matters. And he believes that self-employment is the future of work. So it's such an interesting topic to discuss. And in this episode, that's what we're going to get into. What does the future of work look like. And we will be talking about the life skills that matter to give your life meaning and to enable you to live a more freedom-filled location independent life. This was such a

fun interview and I hope you enjoy this conversation. Welcome, Stephen. Thank you so much for joining me. I am so thrilled to be here, Sarah. I think we are kindred spirits as we discover just in the last seven minutes. Both from Connecticut, both have spent time in Boston and New York City, world travelers, location. And you're in London. I did study abroad in London in 1995, and I lived in Southport, England when I was 14 years old for a month as part of a British Exchange. Very cool. And I also studied abroad in London before moving there. So, yeah. Crazy. Isn't it amazing? To like all these, like, miss, like, we've been living similar lives, yet we have not. Well, I feel like we're friends now already because of all.

of this common ground that we're both into. Absolutely. All right, Stephen. So you have been working for yourself for, I think, like around 20 years. I know. That makes me feel old. You know what I mean? I've been working for myself so long.

Like, there weren't all the terms that we use, like, content marketing and solopreneur and growth hacking. None of that existed 20 years ago. Podcasts didn't exist. That's true. That's true. So I want to hear, like, how you figured this out. But how did you even get into entrepreneurship? I always tell people completely by accident.

The universe put me on this path. Because as I always remind people to think the folks that I really, I think I'm most energized by and they're most energized by me are people who thought they would never work for themselves. And then they educate themselves and they do some experiments. And they're like, oh my gosh, I can do this and I'm pretty good at it. And that was me. You know, I was taught to be an employee.

I was working in television news at the time, and then I went to into the internet because that was like a thing to do back in the late 90s to try that out. Got laid off from a dot com on Election Day 2000. It saw it coming, but still everything always was always going so well for me and my crib to that point that I never thought. I'm like, oh, I'll just get another job in like a few weeks. And months went by. Nothing was happening. And I ended up taking a freelance gig working for this healthcare communications company, like in Greenwich, Connecticut. I was living in Hoboken, New Jersey at the time.

And that was kind of my first foray into this idea of working for myself, of going out and finding my own short-term opportunity. And the funny thing, Sarah, I was so stressed out about doing it and like, oh, my God, what am I going to do about Texas? What am I going to do about funding the next job? This is crazy. I can't do this. But yet, I was making more money per day than I had ever made. up to that point in my career. Wow, that's incredible. So, so it sounds like you sort of like fell into a freelancing gig, because I'm just thinking like when I moved over to like, I've dabbled in

living abroad, but when I like fully went into it 10 years ago, it didn't really occur to me to start my own business, even though most expats and immigrants that I've met since then, that's the route they took. I just knocked on a ton of doors until I could finally like get a contract job. So how did you make that decision all those years ago? Like, yep, this is me now. Well, again, honestly, it took me five years. It took me five years to fully accept that, like, I'm an entrepreneur and I'm working for myself and I'm doing pretty well. And I'm making more money than I did for the previous job that I was laid off from. And I'm controlling my time and I can live anywhere I want. So why would I want to get a job? But again, now,

the hindsight, I have to impress upon people, there were, there were not a lot of people talking about that way of working, right? The options still were like, go raise a ton of money and go to Silicon Valley or have this main street business. There wasn't this in-between path that you and I are, which I call solopreneurs. People who are creating their own opportunities, their own money. Well, there's like self-employed, we are still trading your minutes for dollars of freelancers, right? You still have to actually deliver the service yourself before they get paid. But what I'm now talking about with people is a soulpreneurs, you have elements of being an entrepreneur where you're creating a system. You're using technology to make more money, but you're having to

work less over time to earn that money. That's how I define what a solopreneur means. So this path is growing and emerging. And really, so it took me five years to accept. I was doing trainings and partnerships and I tried a lot of different things. And all the while, I was still looking for a full-time job in those five years. But nothing ever was really super like, yeah. And the moment, I think the moment, I still, my brain, it's funny how your brain puts a story into your head. But I remember it was a Friday night and I still had a landline and this was 2005. And the caller ID, I swear to God, said Google Inc. And I pick up the phone, 630 out of Friday night. I pick up the phone. I didn't even say hello. And I said,

oh my God, why is Google calling me? Do you know how hard it is for you to respond to one of my emails? And the person on the other end just roared laughing. And he said his name is from human resources. And he's like, we're looking for, we're building up our video capabilities. And we have some of these openings. We want to see if you might be interested. And that was my first like, whoa, because I had been writing a lot online,

blogging about about the future of television, that sort of thing. So it was kind of so surprised. I was like, wow, this is how people are going to be building their opportunities. You've got to like do work first without getting paid and then things will come to you. And long short, I was like, that was the moment we're like, I don't even want to work for Google. Nah. It's not what I want. I'm just at the end of the day, you're always going to have to submit to somebody else's values, somebody else's needs and for your own income. And that's what I'm trying to inspire people do is how do you create income in alignment with your values, your needs, your abilities. And I think that's very different than just getting a job

to be accepted, like, somebody chose me because I had these great skills. Or when people teach people about starting a business, it's only and always about, will this make money or not. Granted, making money in business is important, as you know, Sarah. Yeah. But I am also an advocate as one of many different elements, ingredients, to building the business that you can be motivated to sustain over the long term. Can we talk a little bit more about the difference between a freelancer and how you define solo entrepreneurs? Like what are some like job opportunities for solopreneurs? So if I could just back out first, I think self, really the journey is I even have a solopreneur journey. Maybe we can link to it in the show notes. I had hired a awesome graphic

designer. I've known for a very long time, old friend of mine, to kind of draw out this journey for I think most people will be taking over the next 10 to 20 years. And it's this evolution from employment, self-employment to solopreneur. So self-employment in my world is this in-between step. So the easiest way to start, the simplest way to start a business for somebody who has all the capabilities, but they're a little leery like I was, is to say, here's all my professional skills. How do I convert them into a freelance or consulting opportunity? Basically, I'm going to do the same work in the same industry for the similar kind of people. I just have to go out and find my gigs now and then I will deliver on them and I'll get paid. After a while, you get tired of doing

that because all of a sudden you get maxed out. You're working really hard. The money's coming in, but you're working all the time. And that's when we move into the solo printer phase. And that's where you're going to start taking work off of your plate. I actually walk people through an exercise of looking at all the responsibilities at different stages to keep freeing up their time. And that is to look at all of your responsibilities and put them into one of these categories. First one, eliminate. There's always stuff that you really don't need to be doing or you haven't reflected on a while. You don't even know why you're doing it anymore within your job or for your business. Number two is to delegate, even if you're a solepore,

you know, if you're a freelancer, there's always stuff that you can be delegating to other people to your clients, to virtual assistance, even in your job. Automation, really starting to understand how to use technology in the way that you and I set up this interview. Did we, I can't remember, did I use a scheduling link with you? Yes. So I sent you, I use acuity for, as a scheduling tool that you, yeah. So I sent that to you. You picked your time.

You filled out some like bio-information, sent you a reminder, and here we are. Right. I mean, like you and I would never want to go through the ping pong match of emails again just to set up a meeting. It's ridiculous, right? It seems like not a big deal, but it really wears on your brain. So there's automation, this automation. this automation piece, and then anything left over that only you can really do that really

energizes you and what people really value you for, you schedule that. So that's really the idea is setting up systems, processes, habits, and using technology to amplify that. I think we're also a little nuance here. Think when people want to get into this and hear folks like you and I talking about this, they try to do the Solopreneur thing way too soon. I really advise people you need to go through that self-employment, freelance, consulting face first. You got into the hands-on version of your business to really understand what you're

good at, what you like, and don't like really listening to actual humans and not just looking at data and numbers by Thromica landing page and buying a bunch of Facebook ads. And then you can have a strong foundation to then build these systems and processes on top of to really amplify everything that you do. I think sometimes people try to build systems on swampy foundations, in my opinion. I think most of us do that. I do that. I did it for sure because that's what you hear so much once you fall into this like online marketing rabbit hole of um you know that's what that's so much of what you hear is oh start a course or you know trying to scale like so fast when you don't know what you're doing yeah you have a lot

of experience working one-on-one with people like i had a sales training busy up some broadcasting for about a decade online offline you know and i was doing a lot of one-on coaching i was doing training, doing a lot of client relationships. And all the while, I was having this side, like, little did I know in the background. All these people that I really thought were awesome that I met at all these different radio and television stations. I was teaching them how to get out of broadcasting to work for themselves by starting their own digital agencies. So that's how I gained the experience and the confidence. Okay, my next act here is to like get out of broadcasting, sell the online business, and then move into the next longer term opportunity, which I believe.

more of us are going to end up working for ourselves than we realize. And at the end of the day, even if you don't end up working for yourself, Sarah, you're going to have to manage yourself. We just got a preview of that from the pandemic. Sorry to tell you everybody, not going away. You are going to have to manage more of your work, more of your time than ever before. And that will only continue whether you work for somebody else or not. So you gave like a nice journey overlay of like kind of what the future could be for a lot of us.

is the type of work we would do as a soloprenner similar to what we would do if we were self-employed, just more automated? Yeah, I think what you get to do in the perfect world, you get to do more of what you want to do. So in my world is like, I'm still, and I always tell people, and I'm early days in life skills that matter. And I am doing the hands-on version of our business still. I have my business partner who happens to be my sister who's handling kind of the operational financial kind of side of things. And she loves that.

I love content, meeting people, doing things like this interview today. So that is a little bit of a step one, whereas I want to keep moving in that. I'd rather be the person coming up with ideas, meeting people, doing the first versions of things, and then passing that off to a small team, systems, to then grow. grow it, amplify it, and maintain it over long term. And often this is what we have kind of in the business world. There's people who love starting things. So they just see opportunities and they're willing to put that energy to like go get something going. But then there's a much larger group of people that's all too happy to keep that thing going and growing and creating money

for, you know, for others and income and jobs. You know what I'm saying? Yeah, that's the beauty of the world. We have different interests and strengths and it's great when we can link partner with people who can balance out what we're trying to do. I mean, another way to look at it for anybody listening, it's like kind of like, if you are a freelancer right now or if you're doing it for several years, like, I'm getting burned out and I'm tired. You're the person I'm talking to is like, it's time to start thinking about creating processes and systems and starting to take some things off your plate that, you know,

you just can't do everything. And of course, when we're starting our business, it's like we are conceiving like a baby and burthing into the world. And it's really hard to let go of. but if you want it to grow and if you want to be less anxious, less overwhelmed, and more imbalance and ironically make more money by starting to do less work, you're going to have to start thinking about going on to this next step. And there's lots of people who are perfectly happy doing it all as a freelancer in

perpetuity. But that's just not what I want to be doing. And I know that's actually lots and lots of people will eventually get to that point. And that's what I kind of help them through. I mean, I kind of do two things. I help people make that transition from employment to self-employment, and then I'm helping you make that transition from self-employment to being a solopreneur. Yeah, and I think it's something that we all need to be thinking about, because I want to get into the future of work and, like, your ideas behind that. But I remember a few years ago, I was working at a fintech startup, so that's financial technology for anyone who doesn't know. And back then, those guys were talking about the future, like how audits. was going to take over truck driving jobs and, you know, like taxi driver jobs and all sorts of things. And back then, Silicon Valley was like king. Like that's when college students were not wanting to go to Wall Street

anymore. They wanted to go to Silicon Valley. And I remember the guys I was working with saying, like, the politicians have no real plan for this future. So they're going to try to turn people against Silicon Valley and make them the villains, which is absolutely what happened. But yeah, Yeah, this future is so unpredictable. But also, don't you think it's a little bit warranted? I mean, I am, I have to say I am pretty, I'm going to go for it here in public. I am passionately not on the side of the Silicon Valley version of building a business. Well, I guess what I would say is like I'm not defending Facebook or anything like that.

I think they have a lot of problems. I think they have a lot of solutions as well. but I guess my point is, like the future is so unpredictable. But anyway, keep going because I'm interested in hearing. I'm with you. No, I'm with you. And I think that's important to say, like, honestly, I don't have any answers. I can't tell you exactly what's going to happen.

This is the way I describe it. I feel like I was thrown out into the wild long ago. And I've learned to like just feel the vibe of things and tap into my wild instincts more and more. and for a long time I've just been feeling very different things. And when I came back March 15th, 2020 from, I was in Bali. And because of the pandemic, I returned to the U.S. I got a lot of emails, phone calls, and text messages from people have known me a long time.

Not to see how I was doing. Not that they didn't care. Don't worry, folks. I have very awesome friends. But they were like, you were right. I'm like, what was I right about? They're like, the future of work is coming. It's happening.

This is what it's going to be like. And the way I look at the pandemic is it brought the future of work into the present faster than I could have even possibly have imagined. And I think that's what we're all now grappling with. There was one gigantic, messy, unannounced experiment in how to work for ourselves. And while there's all these different schools of thought, we're just going to go back to normal or we're all going to go remote. I don't think it's like that.

I think what the pandemic is bringing home to us, it's made it a conversation. We're all starting to figure that out. And what I've always wanted for people is to experiment with how do you like to work? What do you want to work on? When do you want to work? Who do you want to work with? Because previously, we were always told how to work. And there was different kind of paths that we had to go on to that corporations and other institutions said that this is the way it is.

If you want to earn money, this is the stuff that you have to do. and we always felt like we had to fit into somebody else's model or somebody else's standard, live up to somebody else's standard. And now you don't. And I think that's, I hope the long-term gift of the pandemic is I believe we all have a right to explore how do we want to earn a living, how do we want to work in all facets and forms, and then look for ways and opportunities to be able to do that. You're not going to get 100%, but at least it could be more.

more of a conversation because I think that will help people discover, like, what's enough money, how do I work in a way that I don't feel like I'm constantly burning out? And at the same time, companies can really better align the right energies, the right values, so they can have the productivity measures that they're looking for. Yeah. Well, I, now that I'm working on my own. How long have you been reminding me? How long have you been working for yourself? Not that long. I mean, I guess it depends on, so I did a weird hybrid thing when I first moved over here where I was, I guess technically working for myself because I had a limited company. But I was working like kind of long term contracts where I was practically an employee and like going into the office and stuff like that. And I've only been like properly, I would say like self-employed for the last like three years. I feel like this is a great example because people are on the path a lot longer than they realize. I think a lot of times, again, I do kind of like in, there is a lot in the New York Silicon Valley worlds.

Like there's this, the entrepreneur gods have to, they've decided what the criteria are in order for you to bestow this title being an entrepreneur, what it means to work for yourself. again, that's another way of asking for permission. You're living up to somebody else's standards. You don't need their permission. You can do it however you want to do it, whatever it means to you. Now, at the same token, there's a lot of people thrown around just saying that they're working for themselves and they've never done anything. So there's that meeting. But at the end of that, you can call yourself whatever you want to call yourself.

So 10 years, Stephen, 10 years, I guess. I've always done because it's, it's, I think people don't realize it's such a incremental transition. It's a very different mindset. I mean, the more I've gotten into this, Sarah, I feel like this is more of an identity shift than just an economic shift. This is more about deprogramming yourself from a lot of what you've been taught from your family, from society, from our education systems in order to prepare yourself to the reality of what I call the permanent state of accelerated change. We cannot hold on to fixed ideals, even though our human biology and our brains wants to. but with a world that we're moving into, we need to adapt much more quickly. I agree.

I really like what you're saying about the identity shift because I do remember like a while back somebody asked me about like what I did. And at some point in the conversation, I was like, oh yeah, I guess I did start a business, like not even realizing it. Or myself, like it took me five years to accept it. But now I do say I have been working for myself for 20 years from the moment I got laid off. It was totally transformed my life. So, Stephen, I'm curious about.

how your life has evolved over the years. So for quite a while, it sounds like your job has been location independent, but eventually you started to really take advantage of this and travel and live abroad. So when did that first get started? My first foray into doing this in the way that we all understand what it means to be location independent or digital nomad was 2010. I always had this fascination with Spain. I still believe that I've, Spanish heritage somehow, even though I did my 23 me and I was severely disappointed. They're like, you're 75% Irish and 25% like Northwest European. And I'm like, no, I know.

Do you just know something sometimes? I don't care. So I always had this thing, like prior to the way I grew up and I'm going to date myself. I'm like, you know, I'm a Gen X guy. So like, I'm so glad I had the first 20 years of my life without the internet because I know what that's like. But I was like, I would like to live in Spain. I know I had this thought in my head, but I just never thought it would ever happen.

It just seemed like this fantasy. Oh, it's just fun to think about, you know? And then I just kept, when I was five years in, I was really making a lot of money by like 2008. It did take me a while from like getting laid off to like just starting to make amounts of money that I never thought I would ever make. You know, and I just, I personally don't need that kind of money. I'm just glad I'm designed to be very simple. But I was like, all right, I needed like a due challenge. I'm like, what happens I just go to space?

What happens if I've run my business there for like two months? What's going to happen? It's almost like I was like daring myself to fail. So I remember, it's so funny, you're really bringing up these members for me. Thank you, sir. You're pressing on my buttons. I was at my parents' house over the holidays. And it was 2009. I just did a Google search because you have to remember everyone. Even in 2009, there was no Airbnb. There was no really simple way of like doing what everybody is doing in turn. of location independence. It's kind of funny to me now because it seems so easy to do, right? Everything's just like the whole infrastructure is just there. I think it's also a little sad because I see other folks who live in this and I'm like, you're not really getting into it. You still want everything to be like the United States. And that's not the point of this. Yeah. Yeah. So I did a Google search and I found an apartment and I had a budget and I was available and I booked it for like that spring, March 20th, I think. I left 22.

I ended up going for six weeks and I actually subletted my condo in Boston that I owned at the time because I was just really into always offsetting my expenses. So it was really low cost. I was like, I'm getting rid of my biggest expense and then I'm still going to be working from Spain and having this experience. I'm like, this is like the cheapest way to do something, right? And I go there and I what I loved, what I learned, I called it, I had two days and one. And Spanish day, the Primaero or the day is 10 o'clock in the morning. God bless them. And they still have siesta from 2 to 5 in Seville and in southern Spain.

It's like strictly observed. And I would get up at around 9. And then another recommendation, if you're going to be location independent for the first time, I really recommend learning something or doing something as part of a community as a regular thing. I think a lot of times when people go for somewhere for a month, they kind of act just like a tourist and they don't really have a routine of what they want to do. I think to get the most out of something is to have a little bit of structure. So I had a two-hour language class every single morning. It was from 10 to noon.

And then we would go out for like coffees afterward. And I'm glad I had that because it got me to meet people. And I also befriended the people that I rented the apartment from. They ended up. They had a whole business renting all of different types of apartments all over Seville. Because, have you been to Seville? No, I haven't. But when I was in high school, I took Spanish classes in part because I wanted to go there.

And I still haven't been. I wanted to go study abroad in Spain. And then I was two chicken, blah, blah, blah. So I ended up in London. I should have done it. I did too. Oh, my God. You're freaking me out.

Stop scrolling around in my head. We just met. Yeah. Well, and like, sorry. I'm sorry to interrupt your story, but you're bringing back nice memories of me. So I came to England via Italy. So I moved to Italy first and became an Italian citizen. And I was living there for a while. I lived there for almost a year. But before then, I had dabbled living in Italy on and off for like two months at a time. But I was doing it, like going to language schools. I wasn't working. But I loved having those little routines and meeting people. And you know what I mean? You just need. that rhythm. And so that was just like a little sobri. I'm really a big advocate of kind of whether you like dancing or you want to do something, you want to volunteer, just have some part of your day. So then I would do my language class and then I would do some

touring the afternoon. And it was like about four o'clock in the afternoon. I think it was like three o'clock in the afternoon because about a five or six hour time. I just can't remember. I would start my American work day. And I would work until about like eight o'clock. And then I would go out at nine because that's when tapas started in Seville to go out to dinner. And then I would be in bed by 11. It was the most glorious use of my time ever. I've never felt so like I got every minute of every day like that. It was awesome.

You know what I mean? You're really lighting me up. I am just feeling like travel vibes and can't wait to get back out there and just walking around in, yeah, southern Europe. I know. I just love also just walking around a city with no map. And if that's one of my kind of my default rules, but I went to Istanbul, what was it, December 2019, and had a few days before I was going to meet a friend there. And I walked 11 miles without a map all over Istanbul. It was awesome. I just loved doing that. I was so dog tired that night. But I had such a sense, a little bit of sense of the city, you know, and I could have context of where things, as I started going around

the city throughout the rest of the trip, you know what to me? A little overview. Yeah. So were you walking around having like a little coffee walking around? Totally. Absolutely. Yeah. That is my style as well. But they have like pomegranate chute of stands and I love pomegranates and they have them everywhere. So I was having like little pomegranate chutes here and there. But also I love Turkish breakfast. Oh my gosh. That is so good. But so so this is all brought that. So at that time, I also had another goal. There's the Easter parades, which Seville is known for all these very elaborate parades around Easter.

But then there's also a festival called Ferria, which basically the entire city always, it seems like, camps out at this gigantic fairgrounds. I forget how many tents there are. Like, every family has their own tent. It's called a Castaena. And you stay out there and they have parties and food and all this sort of thing. But there's only seven public tents. basically you have to get an invitation to go to anything else.

So I made it my mission to meet as many people as possible so I can get invitations to go to these things. So I scored seven invitations in less than a month. And I really became good friends with the people I rented my apartment from. And they said, we would love help do it with video marketing because it was so new back in 2010. And they're like, why don't we just take one of our apartments whenever you want to come back for free and just teach us how to do video marketing? I'm like, how about I come back this fall? And they're like, great. So I stayed another, I stayed like two months, I think. I was like eight weeks. I went back that fall, didn't have to pay for an apartment and traded my skills. And I think what I've learned in my journey back to this money issue, why money is not as important as I think everybody else makes it is there's all these other currencies that are beyond financial currencies, social capital, just building relationships.

relationships, using your skills, looking for opportunities to barter. What do you need? What do I need? Can we work something out? And what I love about all of that is it really just deepens your connections with people and having really awesome relationships and not just saying I have a bunch of followers. Who cares? Like, it's all about like, do I really know these people? Yeah. And that's how it began. And then I, the most, my recent one started me, I've got a divorce. I decided to, sell my condo in Boston. I just put everything in storage. I'm like, I just want to hit the road. I thought it was going to be for a year, still on the road. And, you know, I had an invitation with another family to go to the Amazon rainforest, go to a part of the Amazon that you would never be able to go to as a regular Schmo American. And that was amazing. Wait, so how did you meet this family

that invited you to go to the Amazon? This woman was a member of our, so we, part of my business, Skills That Matter. We run an accelerator about twice a year, but it's a 30-day intensive. Now we're expanding to three months, basically helping people make that transition from employment to self-employment and for those who want to move on to become a solopreneur. So really kind of a launch pad if you want to eventually be a solopreneur. So one of the participants, it was fall 2019, fall 2018, she was living with her three daughters husband in Uganda at the time. She was from Germany. Her husband was from the Amazon. And she's like, oh, we're going back to the Amazon. After the program,

she's like, we're back to the Amazon this summer. She's like, do you want to come? I feel like that's one of those, as you know, if you're willing to travel, there's only one right answer to that question. Yes. Because, you know, I mean, I'm going to a place where like, there's like poisonous spiders and there's no police or hospitals or fire departments, you know, that when I still remember when I, like, I had to like, you know, take a couple planes to get there, and then we take this boat to get to this little town in the Amazon, and then they had friends come in these smaller motorboats to get us. That was the moment, Sarah, that I was like, oh, my God, I basically just met these people in person for the first time,

and I'm totally dependent on them. Like, there's no roads, there's just rivers. This is happening. But in a weird way, it was also so exciting, you know. What was your favorite memory? The slowness of it. I really, I loved because there's no internet. There's no electricity.

There's, and there's not, you can't really walk anywhere because it's a river culture. So it's all these like different buildings, like sleeping buildings and where the kitchen is and some communal areas. There's outhouses. But then it's all wooden planks to walk in between two. Like at high tide, I never, there's actually like tides for like a, major river like that and like waters underneath all the buildings at some point and then it goes out and that's when you're able to like go swimming in it in the river and there's just actually this rhythm I think back where we were talking it was just this nice reminder of like natural rhythms

and how all these folks had just enough of everything they would be considered quote unquote poor by Western Sanders but I did not feel that at all and such a tight community and family. I got to go meet the husband's grandmother who was 85 years old who was like, her posture was amazing. I just remember that. And we had a beautiful meal at her house and like just the hospitality. And I just wish I knew Portuguese, you know, because there was just so many things. And I went, we went to his father's house and I got to see how cassava, like this root is processed into something called Farina, which is like a grain that is very common in that area to eat as a source. of nutrition. And it just kind of brought me to the place of like where I said before we

started recording that I was like, you know what, this guy knew he's from the Amazon forest. And I just know I'm from New England. And I know it's not the perfect place. You know, you grew up here, like the weather, because not always the best. But I found my place in the Berkshires. And that's where I want to build this life. And I want to show people how you can have a slow life, how you can live with a nature, how you can still participate in modern society, how you can still go travel the world, but you could still have a home base at a place that really means a lot to you. And I think that's what I'm craving is I want to be a part of really rebuilding a new economy in New England, really thinking differently and not just doing

what the federal government thinks or corporate America thinks or at Silicon Valley things. There are other options and I think we need to start exploring them. I hope you enjoyed this conversation on the future of work and creating a life that matters. Stephen and I had such a good time talking about this that we are continuing the conversation in the next episode where we will be talking more about energy, digital detoxing, designing your ideal day, and more. For now, you can visit lifeskillsatmatter.com to learn more about Stephen. That's all for now.

Go ahead and follow the show or hit subscribe so you can hear more episodes like this. And if you would like my help taking bold action on your own dreams, like living abroad, changing careers, and other life transitions, visit Live Without Borders Podcast.com. Thanks for listening and have a beautiful week wherever you are. Do you ever go blank or start rambling when someone puts you on the spot? I created a free conversation sheet sheet with simple formulas that you can use so you can respond with clarity, whether you're in a meeting or just talking with friends.

Download it at sarahmicatel.com slash blank no more.