Virtual Assistant Career Success: Embracing Diverse Potential

Ever wondered what it's like to live as a digital nomad, leveraging your unique skills to carve out a niche in the virtual assistant world? That's exactly the journey our guest, Hannah Dixon from Digital Nomad Kit, embarked on 15 years ago, and she's here to share her story. From a nomadic lifestyle to helping over 30,000 people worldwide create their location-independent freelance businesses, Hannah has insights that just might light your entrepreneurial fire.

In conversation with Hannah we explore the fascinating world of virtual assistants, unpacking various roles and niches in administrative, creative, and technical work. Hannah shares her expertise on how you can control your own schedule, collaborate with people that resonate with you, and choose the work that fuels your passion. She emphasizes the importance of identifying your unique skill, something that can fill a gap in a business and how to niche your services based on values and industry.

But the conversation doesn't stop there. Hannah also dives into the future of freelancing and how AI is set to impact virtual assistants. With AI integration, virtual assistants can increase their efficiency and take on more complex roles. We also discuss the growth of the virtual assistant space, especially post-pandemic, and how it allows individuals worldwide to tap into a global marketplace.

Whether you're curious about freelancing or aspiring to be a virtual assistant, buckle up for this enlightening conversation with Hannah Dixon.

Also, if you're intrigued by everything shared on this call and would like to learn more, Hannah will be joining us in Remote Work Europe in October, for a free webinar, with Q+A! So, be sure to join us for that, to learn more.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:06

Imagine finding a way to leverage one thing you do better than anybody else and using that to create a unique location independent business. You're listening to the Future is Freelance podcast, the show for solopreneurs, digital nomads and slowmads, consultants, remote workers, e-residents and people living a life without traditional boundaries. We're here for everybody who defies categorisation and makes a living in a life their own way. Every Freelance Friday, we bring you expert tips, inspired insights and stories from the frontiers of freelancing to help you achieve success with your borderless business, whatever success means to you as you live life on your own terms. We're really grateful that you're listening to the Future is Freelance and being part of the Future of Work revolution, and today we've got a great interview for you with Hannah Dixon from Digital Nomad Kit, which is the number one virtual assistant training community.

Speaker 1: 1:03

Now Hannah is a woman after my own heart. She has helped over 30,000 people from all over the world to identify, package and market their skills and create their own unique location independent freelance businesses. She's stripping away the stereotypes about digital nomads and indeed about executive assistance, and she's unlocking opportunities that people never dreamed they could have. Talking to Hannah reminded me of the first solo episode from season one about minimum viable freelancing, because she believes that everyone has some skill to offer, some unique way to add value in the world. We just have to figure out what it is, and then that's the baseline for offering a range of VA services. Those services can be extended and developed to grow a bespoke business offering later on, and that can be based around either skill sets or an industry, or something less tangible like values or a passion.

Speaker 1: 1:57

So I think this conversation is going to make you optimistic about the future of freelancing. It might just make you curious to check out the services that Hannah has to offer and join her community. So please do check out the show notes for a great discounted offer on taking up that opportunity and in the meantime, do enjoy this conversation as much as I did. So, hannah Dixon, thank you very much for joining us on the future as Freelance. It's great to have you with us.

Speaker 2: 2:26

Thank you so much for having me. It's great to finally meet you.

Speaker 1: 2:29

Yes, we've been trying to pin this one down for a while and I think it's going to be really interesting for our listeners to learn all about what you do. But before we go into that, we'd also love to know how you got to doing what you do. Please tell us a little bit about the Hannah journey and where you're recording from as well. Sure.

Speaker 2: 2:49

So I am recording from Puerto Vallarta, mexico. I've been in Mexico for a couple of years now, on and off, just got residency, which is scary for me as a long term nomad, but very necessary. So to backtrack, I started my journey 15 years ago, nomadding. I came from a background of a lot of violence in my home, and so I kind of, I guess, saw travel as an escape in the beginning years, if I'm honest, and that transformed into something very different over the years. So, as I traveled, I found ways of working around the world not online. At first I was doing work exchanges, I was working in farms, bars, I worked with Husky Dogs in Austria, which was one of the best experiences I've had in my life, and I met these amazing people around the world and I had this, you know, literally the world was opened up to me and I thought about things in a very different way and I'd met people that had opened me to different ways of thinking and different ways of being, and I felt safer in my, in my travel bubble, in this lifestyle I'd created. And so it wasn't until I found myself in Italy about five years into this journey, and I was working on a construction site and I got invited to a party in Milan because I had worked one year in fashion before I'd left and I had all these fancy fashion friends in Milan. And I got invited to this party and I showed up wearing the clothes I'd been wearing for many, many months, covered in cement and plaster, and my shoes were made of like they were literally bricks of cement. My friend said what are you going to wear to the party? And I kind of was like oh yeah, it would be nice to have money to buy some clothes. So I figured I'll go back to the UK that's where I grew up and I'll try and get a job and do life the way everybody tells me I should be doing life. You know, get a job, do things the way he's supposed to. And I did. I got a job in a bar for two months and that was very quickly intercepted, I believe, by you know luck. I guess.

Speaker 2: 4:40

I met someone who worked online. They worked in SEO and web development, which at that time, right over my head, did not know what that meant. But I was like you work online, that's all I heard. You work online that means if I get myself a laptop, I could do this too, and I could do this from anywhere. She's like oh my God, tell me everything you know I need. I need to do this, I need to continue traveling. This had become my lifestyle. I didn't want to have to give that up, and so we did. We, we worked together. She very generously taught me everything she knew. I devoured everything I could on the internet and I turned out we ended up building a business together in web design and SEO. I didn't know that was she was doing the work, but I was.

Speaker 2: 5:19

You know, responding to emails, responding to tweets, to it was big at the time. I was social media, all kinds of stuff like this and it turned out our clients didn't just need websites, they needed all these little things that I'd been doing. So I started picking up these little jobs here and there, and it wasn't until I was on a call with a client and one of her friends, one of her clients I don't remember who it was someone else on the call and she referred to me as her virtual assistant and I was like, oh, there's a name for what I'm doing. That opened up a whole new counterworms for me. I ended up starting a community on Facebook at the time because I came to know what a digital nomad was, all this new terminology, and I was researching like crazy, like you know, and at that time there was a very distinct demographic that stood out in the digital nomad space. It was, you know, the young white man and Chang Mai talking about living on 300 dollars a month, and I was like this doesn't really vibe with me. So I started this community. I'm like I want to meet more queer people, more women, more people of color. Like where are the other people? You know, I started this community. It grew really big really quickly, which was amazing, and I found friends for a lifetime. I met my wife through this community, so so many amazing connections happened and it still runs this community today.

Speaker 2: 6:36

And it was about a year into my freelance journey. People started asking me you know, how are you earning so much money? I came to realize that I was earning $5,000 a month, which apparently wasn't very common, and sometimes up to 10 with short term projects. So I was like, oh okay, what do you want to know? I didn't go into this hoping to teach anybody or train anybody, like this was never the goal for me. I was just kind of fumbling through, you know. But people began to ask and so I was like let me throw together a training, I guess. Does anyone want that? They're like, yeah, yeah, sure.

Speaker 2: 7:07

So through together this thing called the five day VA challenge, which I still want today. It's changed a lot over the years and each day I put into action what I thought people would need on the day. So it was like really on off the cuff and by the end of the week people were getting jobs and I was like, oh, this stuff works. Maybe I'm quite good at what I do. So skip forward 10 years. I've trained 30,000 people and we are one of the leading VA training organizations. So didn't know I'd be here, but here's where I am, and I think that the moral to that for me is really just fumbling along and if something feels good, going with it.

Speaker 1: 7:39

Yeah, what an inspiring story, especially coming out of such negative circumstances that you were travelling away from a situation and you didn't know what you were travelling towards. But now you've built this amazing community and lifestyle and helped so many people and helped their clients as well, and busting that stereotype of the digital nomad of pre-COVID years, maybe. I think now it's fantastic to see so much diversity emerging in the space and, yeah, it's creating opportunities for so many more people, which is what we're all about here at the Future is Freelance. So why I'm back a little bit? Let's start with what a virtual assistant is, because you had that bombshell on a call of oh, this has got a name, but what were you actually doing and what kind of tasks and roles and positions in organisations are you helping people fill with that title?

Speaker 2: 8:37

Yeah, so I mean, I use the word virtual assistant as a kind of umbrella term, so if you're assisting somebody virtually you could fall under that kind of encompasses all kind of freelancers as well. I always say there's three buckets there's administrative work, there's creative work and there's technical work, and they can kind of overlap.

Speaker 2: 8:52

So when, I was a virtual assistant myself.

Speaker 2: 8:54

I was doing anything from inbox management all the way to web design and anything and everything in between.

Speaker 2: 9:01

If you think about any type of business, if you look at let's take I don't know Nike, for example, or Nike, whoever you say it and you look at them and you think what goes on behind the scenes in their business. It's not just, oh, we have a shopfront or we have these stores, they have social media, they have so many background processes, they have project managers, they have product managers, they have web designers, they have graphic designers. There's so many moving parts in every business, big and small, where a VA can come in and use the skills that they're very specific and unique skills often as well to fill a role. And I think that's one of the things that I love about this career is that you can really pinpoint on one thing that you're really good at if you want to, or you can go broader. So there's so much scope in what you can do and, like I said, if you treat it as that umbrella term, then it's just endless really.

Speaker 1: 9:47

So it's figuring out what you're good at, what your superpower is, what gap you fill, or something that other people struggle with, maybe, like if you find email a breeze, where you can be the person who sorts out the inbox from hell that somebody else is avoiding. Even looking at that makes a lot of sense. Okay, so what is your typical trainee then? What do they come to you with and what are they trying to achieve?

Speaker 2: 10:11

I think most of the people that come through to me are looking for some level of freedom and or flexibility in their life. I think the draw to this career is really just having more control over how your days are managed, the types of people you want to work with, the types of work you want to do, and then also, of course, that digital nomad element or just having the ability to travel when and how you want to as well. So then that's a big draw to it. And usually a lot of people will come to me and say, well, I don't really have any skills, and I always say I will prove you wrong.

Speaker 2: 10:41

We all have skills and I, you know there's one way to look at it and it's kind of like if you only knew how to use Microsoft Word, there is somewhere in the world that doesn't know how to use that and might need your support with it.

Speaker 2: 10:54

So you can start for some real basics, and I like to think that the more you learn, the more you can earn in this career. There's so many different ways to level. If you started with Microsoft Word, you know you can start moving more into higher administration stuff as you go. You can start moving into project management. As you go, you can go into team management, recruitment, all kinds of things that you can move from just that one little seed, you know. So I think it's just about identifying the fact that we all have skills, especially in this world where most of us I'm not going to say everybody, but many of us have access to the internet and have some at least basic understanding of how things work. There are so many people that don't and need support with that. So, starting from there and then building.

Speaker 1: 11:30

Yeah, that's really interesting. I don't do much one to one training work nowadays myself, but when I do, it's with writers, and the message that I always try to convey there is that if you want to earn more, if you want to professionalize, you need to go really narrow, really deep in one particular niche subject matter. Be the go-to person in that, like the interview we had with Dominic Kent last season. What's your thoughts on that? In terms of VA services, should somebody be the go-to I don't know tech podcasting person or something, or do you suggest people broaden their skill set so they can provide a wider range of support?

Speaker 2: 12:09

I definitely lean more on the side of going more specific. However, I do recognize that people struggle with niching a lot, and I think one of the things that I teach is you can niche in a few ways, of course. Like I always say, have a service stack, have your things that you lead with. You can have some aces in your back pocket with a proficiency of skills that you've got that you can bring to the table once you've got the client. But what can you lead with? What is the things that going to bring you the biggest income, the biggest impact, the things you enjoy doing the most? It doesn't matter, you can bring the rest of it forward later.

Speaker 2: 12:39

However, I recognize that people then are thinking about the industry they want to work with as well. So I say what type of people do you like to work with? All those kinds of questions you ask. But then let's put aside the industry here. I think you can also niche by values, and I think that's something I'm seeing happening a lot more now. So, for example, I really want to work with people who uplift the LGBTQ community.

Speaker 2: 13:01

That broadens the industry but, it's the laser targeted to your values. So you're still going to enjoy working with these people and what's behind that. So I think there's different ways to do it. I'm not super rigid with it, but I do think that, you know, niching down in some fashion is definitely very, very helpful.

Speaker 1: 13:16

Yeah, that's a really interesting take on it because I think one of the things we sometimes struggle with when we're contracting with people remotely who might be in different continents We've got the technology, we've got everything we need to communicate and collaborate, but to have that shared value framework must be so powerful in creating a connection and a sense of alignment that you're going to do great work together. Even if you don't know each other deeply as people, you have this thing in common and, yeah, I'd never really thought about that as a way of choosing clients or possible gigs, but I can see that's a really powerful framework.

Speaker 2: 13:53

Obviously, it could also just be empowering women or caring about the environment or animal protection. There's so many different things. It doesn't even need to be a cause like that. It could be like I really wanna hang out with people who are big foodies. You know, like I really wanna work with people who are foodies. And then you're gonna be like well, I'm working for the Mexican restaurant putting their website up, and I'm also working at this food fair and I'm doing this, I'm doing that. So it's kind of, you know, the same type of thing, but in different ways. So you can have that variety if it really pulls you to have variety in your work.

Speaker 1: 14:23

Yeah, no, that makes complete sense. And, yes, my personal professional niches have evolved from that kind of following a passion and then suddenly realize that that's all you've been writing about for the last six months and say, oh, that's a niche then. Okay, yeah, totally. That makes sense, but I love the idea of aligning it around values and I know that your diversity perspective is really important to your work. Can you unpack that a little bit more for us? And particularly, I don't want to attack the digital nomad stereotypes of the white guy and tech, but there's so much more to it right.

Speaker 2: 14:58

Yeah, I think for me, as a queer person myself, you know, there wasn't any visibility of people like me at that time, and not that it's like absolutely essential to my existence or happy that there anything, but it would have been nice to see that there were people like me succeeding. It's important and we've had conversations around this, you know, trans visibility, non-binary visibility just seeing other people doing things that you want to do and knowing it's possible and knowing that you can be empowered by people who speak your language, I think is incredibly important because sometimes it can feel and this is my only perspective so I can't put this on anyone, but I imagine there may be other people feeling this way is that if you enter a space and you are the only, even if everybody's trying to include you, it doesn't mean you feel included and sometimes it's not their fault, it's just because you can't relate and it's just a fact. It's just that you know we don't have things in common that we can kind of base this on this conversation. So it is really good to have other people, not only in the space of visibility, but to be able to grow together and understand each other on that journey, understand the actual individual struggles we're having or individual lifestyles we lead, I think is incredibly important, and I think having safe spaces to do that means true diversity and inclusion and belonging is the next level of that, really, and I don't feel there's enough spaces that incorporate all three of those things.

Speaker 2: 16:25

There's a lot of I'll bring it to the table. There's not enough of I'll eat with you or share bread with you, so that's just kind of my take on it. So that was really important to me to build a space that people could be themselves, no matter their background, no matter anything, and that we would have a conversation if something difficult came up and we would work together, because that's the most important thing. We're not, you know, canceling anybody. We're not like why don't we agree with that? We're having a dialogue and I think that's the most important thing.

Speaker 1: 16:50

Yeah, that's amazing and you talk about a space. Is that strictly a virtual space or do you have meetups and events and things in the physical world?

Speaker 2: 17:04

Yeah, so we used to a lot pre-pandemic and we're looking at. We have a retreat we run called VAcation, which I'm so proud of that name still.

Speaker 1: 17:13

Oh, that's brilliant. Yeah, I love that.

Speaker 2: 17:17

VAcation. The last one we ran was 2019. We're planning for 2024 now. So that's been one in-person thing we've done. And then our students. We have so many people all around the world, so they're meeting up regularly together. Like every day in the community there's like oh, we're meeting up in Panama, or we're here in London or Berlin Brilliant, that's really beautiful to see. And I'm here in Puerto Vallarta and I believe we have a couple of people in town, so there's gonna be a meetup here soon. So it's kind of less structured, but because we actually have in the group, we have a Google map where people drop their location, oh great. And we have one of our members who is just fabulous Alison I'm gonna shout her out because she's amazing has voluntarily updated this since 2018, I believe. So everyone puts their thing and then she jumps in, updates it. And then it's like if someone's traveling and a lot of us are digital nomads we're like cool, who's in Bangkok this weekend? So it's a really nice way to be able to connect.

Speaker 1: 18:08

Oh, that's so powerful, isn't it that sense of community whenever you arrive, that you already know someone you could just call and have a drink with them, have a chat with or could help you out with something. That's amazing, and it sounds like the community's going from strength to strength, to change direction slightly. I feel I've got to ask all of my guests about this now, but it might have particular impact for your industry. How do you see the impact of AI automation? I'm sorry this might feel like a boring question, but it is so fascinating and I think we owe it to our clients and our communities to bust myths where we can as well on this front. How's it gonna affect VA work and what people expect from a VA, what people need to outsource?

Speaker 2: 18:52

Sure, I think I mean to be quite frank. When all of this kind of blew up and AI became so available to everybody, I have to admit there was a part of me that was like, oh my God, like is this industry in trouble? But as the weeks and the months have gone by, I'm coming to realize, through not just my own ideas, but through what's actually happening is that VA's, who are embracing AI in some capacity, are gonna be at the forefront here, because we are getting people I have a recruitment service that I run on the other side of my business. We're getting people come in and say I need this kind of VA. Great, if they understand how to use chat, gpt, and I'm like they're actually asking for this.

Speaker 2: 19:29

It's not a negative. It's not like I need AI instead of you. It's like I need you to use this with me. Let's make things more efficient. And how can you help me at a higher level? So I think it's given way to so many more types of jobs and tasks that VA's can do or freelancers can do, and I think embracing it is gonna be key because, honestly, I feel like if you don't embrace it to a degree, you may be sort of losing out to someone who is. So I feel like it's just become so integral to the work and it's not gonna replace people, but I think that using it is essential.

Speaker 1: 20:00

Yeah, that's interesting. My concern when it comes to writing and content creation is it's going to eliminate opportunities at the entry level, because how do you get your start doing those product descriptions or writing tweets or whatever? Is there any parallel in that in the VA scene? Because it's great if people can elevate to something more interesting and involving higher level skills, but how do they get there if they're starting out? Or what would your advice be to somebody who maybe is starting out and wondering if all the VA jobs are gonna go away?

Speaker 2: 20:33

Well, I think it doesn't mean that you can't do those roles for people, but there is some transparency element of like you may be using AI to help you execute that as well. So I don't see anything wrong with coming into this because, like I said, we are having people come in and say I want someone to help me with my social media. You can use chat, gpt to create the captions, it's no issue. So I think there's the transparency element. So you could come into this thinking like, okay, I'm going to help them with their product descriptions and I'm going to use AI to help me with that, but from there, maybe I can move into. I don't know what would you do beyond product descriptions for, like, an e-commerce store. I guess like, maybe I'm going to help you source new products or with outreach for media opportunities. So there's so many different things you could do beyond that and you can start putting your brain to use in different ways, knowing that this is automated.

Speaker 2: 21:19

An important thing to know is that VA's typically charged by hour, right, and then move into sort of retainer models, and I think what I'm seeing now is this shift to like it's more about the value you're bringing in, less about the hours because we are becoming more efficient. By default, ai is allowing us to be more efficient, so, approaching it from a standpoint of like I don't need to charge $30 an hour, I'm going to charge $300 to have this done all the time. Yes, every week, no matter what that looks like or how long that takes me.

Speaker 1: 21:48

And that's so much better for both parties, surely? Because they need the thing done? Yeah, you need to do it as promptly as you can. You know to a good enough standard that you can raise the invoice and do the next thing Exactly.

Speaker 2: 22:02

Exactly, and it gives you more time freedom as well. So it's like I'm giving you that opportunity to say great, I got all my client work done in one morning. I'm going to go enjoy the beach now and have a margarita.

Speaker 1: 22:11

That sounds like a good business strategy to me, Even if it's not one we'd necessarily present to the client. But yeah, I hear you 100%. So are you incorporating in the training that you offer? Are you starting to teach people how to work with AI, how to manage it and how to build it into their offering?

Speaker 2: 22:31

Yes, so we recently just ran a masterclass called the AI Advantage, about how to kind of use it to accelerate, make more efficient and also just some sort of ethics around it in terms of fact checking, that kind of stuff. So we have incorporated that into our training program as well.

Speaker 1: 22:47

I mean that must give your VA such an edge because, as you say, clients are asking for it, because we're already seeing such a huge gap opening up of understanding of what it is, what it can do, what it can't do.

Speaker 2: 23:00

Absolutely. I think one of the things that I've always thought was important that the training program that I have, the Virtual Excellence Academy, it's not a set and forget. It's an evolving piece. You know, the industry is always changing, and so when something like this happens, we're not leaving people in the dark. I think it's really important to continually upgrade in this industry.

Speaker 1: 23:19

Right. So it is truly a community where you've got people's backs as they move on in their careers, rather than just while they're doing a training course with you. Absolutely, that's lovely, okay, brilliant. What's next then and I don't mean GPT-5 in terms of the where virtual assistance fits into the remote work, the business environment Generally I'd love to know what your thoughts are. If we have to get a virtual crystal ball, I'm not going to come back in 10 years time and score you, but I love to talk to people about this who are working at the cutting edge of different disciplines in remote work and digital nomadism. Where do you think things are going?

Speaker 2: 24:01

I feel like the virtual assistance space is on sort of the edge of becoming super mainstream, which is a great thing. And you know, we're seeing virtual assistant job postings on traditional job sites like indeedcom, cvilibrarycom I don't even know if Monster's out there anymore, but these types of things and so just that tells me that this isn't some like hidden thing we have to be skeptical about. Yeah, mainstream baby, yeah. So it's like people can confidently move forward with this career, understanding the benefits and, of course, the risks included that come with. You know, running anything of your own. But I feel like we're at a point, we're at a tipping point where so many people since the pandemic, as you know, are not happy to go back into the office anymore. So if they're job, we've had people come to us who have said I left my job because they wouldn't let me stay remote. I want to build something of my own so I can have this still without having to worry about having to convince my employer. So I see a big shift into freelancing full stop.

Speaker 2: 25:04

You know, name of your podcast Future is Freelance. I'm all for it. I really truly believe this is the way forward. I really truly believe the world knows that and is moving it in that direction, and I think one of the best parts about it is I know you spoke to my colleague at Manabu Lumiana recently it's also giving people power, wherever they are, wherever they may be, wherever the Wi-Fi reaches, to have access to a global marketplace and opportunities like this. So I think it's beautifully accessible in that way, and by it becoming mainstream in the developed world I'm using the little thingies, whatever you call them, in the developed world by that becoming mainstream there, it trickles down and it will become main place everywhere.

Speaker 1: 25:51

Definitely. And, yeah, the work that you're doing with Lumiana in Albania is amazing, the opportunities it's creating there and, as you said, the Wi-Fi is penetrating even in Albania, even in most of the UK now, though that sometimes seems to be behind the rest of Europe. Whenever I go back to stay with anybody, it's often more problematic, but we decided to call this podcast the Future is Freelance over a year ago, and that was before the latest round of layoffs and resignations and everything that we're seeing in the tech industry now particularly, and I think it's fascinating to see how many of these people don't want to go back into that all-on-nothing employment relationship that some of them got really badly burned with through this practice of over hiring, which just sounds so resource-based and doesn't really get anywhere near the human stories of people who've had their visa rejected or have to leave their home, people who've committed to something and then they get binned out just because of a changing economic circumstances. And it's so unfair and it's so unsurprising that those people want to work for themselves now and that when they grow, when they need help, they don't want to build a team of employees either. They're going to need virtual assistance, people with specific skills to come in and do particular things, maybe at a particular phase of the development of the organization, and I think that's got to be where the future lies for all the people who are training now Got to be figure out.

Speaker 1: 27:29

Don't expect to get hired as a marketing manager. Really, niche down on email newsletters for hospitality startups or something. Be the go-to person there and go and set it up for an organization and then you might move on. You might train someone there to run it and then you go and do the same elsewhere. How can we help people prepare for that kind of environment when the schools and colleges are still churning out people with the expectations of jobs? Yeah, it's tricky.

Speaker 2: 27:57

It is tricky. I do feel like there is some whatever shift. I know that during 2020, I was locked down in Austria with my wife, who was doing her master's degree at the time, and they were doing a whole I don't know what you call it because I never went to university but like a project on entrepreneurship and I was listening in one day and I'm like I really want to cut in because I don't like what this professor is saying, and so my wife started speaking up on that and what actually happened was the students then were like well, there's other ways to build businesses now. So I feel like the information is out there. It's just a case of reaching more people.

Speaker 2: 28:33

Things like your podcast, things like getting more blogs, more YouTube. It is about showing up more. It is about the leaders in the freelance space showing up more and people know this isn't an option and those who are doing it speaking about what they're doing, because it needs to be an available option. People need to know it's an option, in the same way that you look at diversity and inclusion. People need to know there are people like them doing things. We need to know that this is something that works.

Speaker 2: 28:57

And it works just as well, if not better than, the traditional job market, because it comes with the things like the freedom, the flexibility, the lifestyle design which is not always a possibility elsewhere. So I think there's a level of being loud and proud about it. I think it is a question of I feel like younger people in the traditional education sort of area are starting to question these things because they are being exposed to it. So I think it's a case of amplifying that, just turning up a little few notches more and talking about it more, having these conversations.

Speaker 1: 29:29

We'll keep going. We'll keep at it Every freelance Friday. We'll keep dropping these episodes and try and get the word out there. It was a few years ago now. I mean it was a pre-pandemic but not that long ago one of my daughter's schools had a careers fair and they sent an email around to parents asking for speakers. And so great you know this was. It was at a British school in Spain, so it was a lot of people who wouldn't necessarily be able to get local jobs easily anyway.

Speaker 1: 29:58

So I thought, but who better to come and talk to about portfolio, career, social media, using their tech skills, using their savvy? I got a quite sniffy rejection about how that wasn't the kind of thing they were looking for. And did I know anybody who maybe had a restaurant or a hairdresser or something that the kids could relate to? Wow, sorry, but a thunderstorm going on at the moment. There's no way I'm going to be able to edit that off, so I'll share that with listeners at the moment. It wasn't that the cataclysm of me saying that they didn't want me to come and speak to the kids about free-nancing, but I don't know. I mean, I'm sure that school is still doing their careers days and I hope they may be starting to include some more options for portfolio careers, flexible work, building your own freelance business. I don't know. I hope so anyway.

Speaker 2: 30:55

It's very interesting you say that I had a similar experience. It's unfortunate. The school that I went to in the UK I found this website that kind of connects alumni who might want to support the school in some way. So I signed up for this thing. I'm like, sure, like I feel like I have an experience I want to share, and someone did reach out to me and said we'd like to do a poster. We're talking about different careers. We'd like to do a poster on you. Could you send a high res image and just a couple of lines about what you do? Now, I was the only one that didn't get picked and I'm like, because I was the only one in entrepreneurship, I was the only one doing something. I'm sure that's the reason. There couldn't be another reason, but I didn't fit the mould of what was a traditional job.

Speaker 1: 31:32

No, it's so difficult, isn't it? Because we have to encourage our daughters to go to school and do the homework and show up, because this will help you later in life, probably. I mean, I found that hard enough to swallow when I was at school and then it was mostly true. There was a fairly good correlation with putting in the hours and getting the exams and going to uni, and all of that would lead you to a fairly good chance of a decent graduate career and a certain level of income and everything. Now, there's absolutely nothing to sell that on. I'm not going to lie to them.

Speaker 1: 32:11

It's going to be a VA and travel.

Speaker 2: 32:16

I don't know the statistics around this or anything, but I feel like what happened with the millennial generation was we were like let's just go experience stuff and have fun in the world and do this. And now I feel like it. Now it's like all right, let's structure this, because now we've realised it can work, let's structure this and collectively, everyone's like all right, let's figure this out now because it can work. We've seen it work and I feel like even in my own life, what happened was I was kind of like you know what's that saying? Flying by the hair of my seat, you're winging it, you're winging it.

Speaker 2: 32:51

I was kind of like winging it for a long time that's a much easier way of saying it and it wasn't really until, I have to say, the pandemic that I doubled down because I had the time to, because I had nothing else to focus on. And when I did that it was just reaffirming to me how much this works and how much opportunity there is here in the online space to make an income that far exceeds what I would probably do if I went back to the traditional job market. Yes, and not only that, but, like through the people who have been from my program, the incomes and the lifestyles I've been able to create, I'm like they could not replicate that elsewhere. So it really just hit home again for me. You know, especially post pandemic now kind of kept up that flow like all right, if we, you know, put in the work, we get the outcome. But putting the work in the right places this time.

Speaker 1: 33:39

Absolutely, and it's good that you had that chance to kind of take a breath and step back and see what you'd accomplished and recognize what you'd given all those people, as well as yourself, in terms of that transformation, and find a way to bottle it and package it up and scale it up in terms of the number of people you can help with, the content you create and the messages you're putting out there. It's such an amazing thing to be part of. I hope you're as proud of yourself as you should be. And where should people find out more, hannah, if they're inspired by this and wondering what they've got to offer?

Speaker 2: 34:13

Thank, you, I'm blushing. You can reach me digital nomad kit on Instagram. That's my website, digital nomad kitcom, hannah Dixon, linkedin, facebook, wherever you want, but the website has all the links. So digital nomad kitcom.

Speaker 1: 34:28

Brilliant Well, as the thunder is picking up out there, it's the middle of July. What's going on? This is Mediterranean Spain and it's pouring, which is really weird. So I never planned this when I thought, yes, this would be a great slot to record in, but I think what we've got is a really fantastic and inspiring conversation that's going to be really interesting to our listeners, the Futurist Freelance. So, hannah, thanks ever so much for sharing so generously and inspiring everybody today.

Speaker 2: 34:57

Thank, you so much for taking the time. It was really nice to meet you. I hope we get to meet in person sometime.

Speaker 1: 35:05

Thank you for listening to the Futurist Freelance podcast. We appreciate your time and attention in a busy world and your busy freelance life. If you enjoyed this episode, please share it with a fellow freelancer and help us grow this movement of independent entrepreneurs. If you rate and review the Futurist Freelance in whichever app you're listening to right now, it really helps spread the word and that means we can reach more people who need to hear this message. Together we can change the world and make sure the future is freelance. Don't forget you can check out all our back episodes from other seasons and learn more over at futureisfreelancexyz. We're so grateful, not only for our listeners, but for the contributions of our wonderful guests and for the production and marketing assistance of coffee like media. This is Maya Middlemish, wishing you freelance freedom and happiness until our next show.