I Want to be All of You Combined: Four People Who Have Inspired Me

This blog post is in response to Natalie's 10 Day Freedom Plan Blog Challenge Day 6.


When I think about the people that have opened my eyes to a freedom lifestyle, I think of four ladies. Not only are they rad travelers, but brave creatives. These women are: Shay Brown and Cassie Torrecillas, Christine Gilbert, and Megan Falley.

My introduction to living a traveling girlboss lifestyle started with Shay and Cassie of Bucketlist Bombshells. I gave more of a backstory in this post, but long story short, they work from their laptops giving them the ability to live anywhere at any time. This excited me and that's when I took their Work Online and Travel the World Course. I still haven't completed it fully, but I am chugging along every day.

What inspires me about Cassie and Shay is they had the courage to make the steps toward the life that they wanted: to travel around the world. I have always wanted this, but never thought it was possible because of the "typical" path to success: go to college, graduate, and get a job at a company. Not work for yourself like Cassie and Shay do. So they listened to their dreams, set out to Mexico, and started freelancing. They've traveled to Thailand, Bali, and so many other beautiful places.

As for Christine, she amazed me as I read her book Mother Tongue, where she told her story of jetsetting around the world with the goal to learn three major languages by immersing her family in each culture. Christine, her husband, and her son went to China, then to Beirut, and finally to Mexico where they studied Mandarin, Arabic, and Spanish. Each journey had its ups and downs, but my goodness, what an awesome experience!

Like I said in this post, I started studying Russian after two of my coworkers from Ukraine began teaching me basic words like thank you and please. To be honest, it's hard! Thinking of learning three languages seems overwhelming, but also extremely exciting. But like Christine, I have always had a pull to experience the culture of countries around the world. So Christine took the dream out of my head and lived it. But her doing it has showed me it's doable and with enough courage, I could do something similar.

And then there's Megan Falley, a powerful poet. I saw her perform last October and fell in love with the way she could illuminate problems in society and call them out on their bullshit. She is the author of Red Head and the Slaughter King and a few other books of poetry. After the reading last year, I was able to meet her. She told me about packing up her car in New York and traveling across the country performing in venues all the way to California. As a Write Bloody author, it is required to do 20 shows, but Megan decided to make a real trip of it. Lucky for me, she still enjoys it and I was able to experience what a difference she makes through her words.

Not only is she brave because of the topics she writes about in her poetry, but also with her ability to pick up and go for it - reading around the country. She is truly an inspiration for a poetry lover like me.

So what would I ask if I had one question for these four ladies? I honestly don't know. Maybe something as generic as What is your biggest piece of advice? or maybe something like What do you tell yourself to stay motivated when you're getting tired? or What was the biggest and most influential step you took to live the life you dreamed of?

What is holding you back from taking the leap?

Buddhist temple in Chaing Mai, Thailand. Photo taken by js42

This blog post is in response to Natalie's 10 Day Freedom Plan Blog Challenge Day 1. To read a little backstory on my need to take this challenge, visit here.



The big question of the day is: what challenges are holding you back from making necessary changes so you can begin to live the life that will make you happy?

Like I mentioned in this post, when weighing decisions, fear and courage tend to come to a peak in equal measure for me. I have this drive to take a risk and do something adventurous, but then fear kicks in.

I'm the person that will say I just didn't have time or I'm just not sure if that's the right step for me right now, but those are just excuses for fear. Fear comes in many different outfits and I tend to listen instead of being confident in my abilities and aspirations.

Before you can take that step toward making the plunge into something radically different than your normal life, you should probably look at the fears you have so you can conquer them.

Here are three fears that hold me back when wanting to pursue a digital nomad lifestyle:

1. I won't be able to sustain myself
2. I don't have the right skill set to work digitally
3. Traveling alone 

One of my biggest fears has always been money. Even when I was a little girl, I remember looking at toys and wanting them, but not wanting my parents to spend the money on me. I would also look at my mom's checkbook when we were at the store, making sure we had enough money. 

Where did this come from? I have no idea. Maybe I heard my parents talking about money one day and it stuck, but I have always been anxious when it came to the topic. Naturally, this has haunted me in my adulthood, too.

When thinking about sustaining myself as a digital nomad, number two (not having the right skill set) also pops up. After graduating with an English degree, looking for a career has been difficult when there wasn't a specific job I was trained to do. I have skills, and I can use them in whatever way I see fit. I have had jobs in an office, food program, as a paraprofessional at an elementary school - all jobs that are location dependent.

When I think about working digitally, I wonder if I have the right skill set to work online. What I've come to realize is, I have skills that I could probably sustain myself with and that I'll never get there if I don't try. I recently started the Bucketlist Bombshells Tech Bundle and realized that I knew most of what they were teaching, which struck me with the reality that I have a good set of skills already. As I take more classes on Skillshare, I'll just enhance that spread.

Then there's the fear of traveling alone. 

I've always been an independent introvert, so you might guess that I would be just fine traveling alone, but sometimes I imagine how scary it could be. I think it comes down to how you view the situation though. Living a digital nomad life means that you can travel to the wonders of the world and have unbelievable experiences. What excites me the most about this lifestyle is that you are immersed in a new culture. The architecture, language, food, clothing, the experiences of the locals - there is so much to learn and explore.

One thing that I've realized since being a part of Bucketlist Bombshells is that there is a nomad community. Just visit NomadList and see all the people working digitally in countries around the world. There are groups to join, people to meet, and friends to make in this community, if only you make an effort and really commit yourself.

My goal is to find a community and really look inside myself and see if this is the best step for me. If it is, put everything in it. Stop letting fear creep in. Stop procrastinating.