S2: Episode 7: Sarah Lempa: A Location-Independent Career

Many of us have wondered what it would be like to travel the world while pursuing a career. Sarah decided it was time to take a risk and traveled to over forty countries while building her writing portfolio. While this may feel like a dream scenario for some, it comes with challenges, difficult decisions, and at times, financial stress. Facing reality head on helped Sarah understand the importance of cultivating community wherever she was travelling. At the same time, she opened a digital content agency, "Dang Fine Creative" which she operates with her team from wherever she is currently living.

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Jann Danyluk, Career Resilience.

Transcript

 | 00:06 | Welcome to season two of Career Resilience, where we talk with people about their career path and their career journey, and maybe we can all learn from each other. My name is Jann Danyluk and I'm a human resources consultant in London, Ontario, Canada. I work with Ford Keast LLP, providing human resources, advice and counsel to my business clients. They also support people through individual one on one coaching in helping with career development.

 | 00:33 | I hope you will enjoy our series where we talk with ordinary, extraordinary people. We get to hear about interesting journeys. We get to talk with people about failures, successes, advice and counsel to us as we develop our own careers. I really appreciate the opportunity to talk with these people, and I hope you'll enjoy listening to it. And now for some logistics, please subscribe on YouTube. Or if you're a listener, please follow me wherever you get your podcasts.

 | 01:01 | And if you have a chance, I hope you'll visit my website. Career gosh, resilience dot com. Welcome. So my guest today is Sarah Lempa. Sarah, welcome to career resilience. Thank you for having me. Glad to be here.

 | 01:28 | It's so good to have you here, and I'm so delighted to talk to you across the world because I'm in Canada where it's very cold. And where are you? I am in the sunny tropics of Bali, Indonesia, where it's very warm. Yeah, actually, it's not so sunny today, but it's warm. Yeah, that's OK. Actually, up to a few minutes ago, I had a blanket on my lap, but I did play well. Just remove the blanket. That doesn't seem right.

 | 01:56 | So you are a writer, you're a founder of a digital media agency and you're also a location independent person, which I love that location independent career. So we'll talk about all those things and your resilience throughout. Now, your digital media agency is called dang fine creative. That's right. Yup.

 | 02:21 | And this is how I can tell that you're American and I'm Canadian, because in Canada, we never say dang, ever so funny. I have had I've actually had a funny response globally because I have, like I've met, have a lot of friends around the world that I've met from travelling. And some are like, like, Oh, bang bang. But I'm like, Oh, it must be an American thing. But then they're like, No, like, I. I like it. I don't. I don't think I've ever heard that, but I like it.

 | 02:52 | Yeah, funny being how the world picks up. Yeah. Well, I think, you know, in Canada, we're so aware of everything American. So dang is the word that we hear all the time. So what I wanted to ask you about is, where are you originally from? And sort of how you ended up in Bali, where you are now? Yeah. So I was born outside of Chicago originally, so I lived pretty much all my life in the US.

 | 03:24 | And then about four years ago, three or four years ago, after I graduated college, I started traveling and I was kind of all over the place, and I did that for a good like two years where I was just traveling, traveling, traveling, trying to build a business at the same time. And then I kind of got to a point where I figured that I wanted to move slower and cultivate more community in the places that I was going. So then I lived in Australia for a while and I have been in and out of Bali now over the past.

 | 03:57 | Well, I just got back actually from the US. I was back this summer. So yeah, it's been a bit of a roundabout way getting here. But yeah, I'm here right now and I've met a lot of amazing people, so I will be sticking around for a bit as I figure out what's next. Have you been able to find in Bali that sense of community? Yeah, definitely.

 | 04:21 | There's a lot of people from all over the world here, and it's a really nice combination of both local communities and people from other countries. So the community is pretty strong. OK, so let's start with talking about, as you said, your location independent career. So that's very interesting. How did that come about? I can understand the travel, you know, see the world have all those kinds of things, but how did that come about?

 | 04:51 | Location, independent career? When I was in college, I honestly, I felt very lost about what I wanted to do. And I think the biggest thing for me, I was worried about the impending structure of having a career. You know, like in college, you have your free time, you can you go to your lectures or you can sit there. Mike, who went all over lectures in college, but basically I was really worried about my freedom and not being able to travel and not being able to go to the beach on a beautiful day.

 | 05:21 | If there was if the weather presented itself that way. So after I graduated, I just didn't know what else to do, and I decided that like taking an attempt at freelancing was a better shot than getting into a nine to five or anything like that. So it was definitely a big risk. But I was just I saw other people doing it online. I was like, This is this has got to be a dream life. Like, if there's any way I can make this happen, I have to try it.

 | 05:52 | OK. So where was the first place you traveled to? I went to Vietnam. First off, so it was maybe like two or three, two months, three months after I graduated and I got a one way ticket and I thought, Okay, I have I had at that time, maybe like three up to $3000 to my name. And I was kind of looking at like the prices of hostels and like researching how much it costs to get around there.

 | 06:21 | And I thought I could stay for six weeks. So I got a one way. I was like, We'll see how, if I'm making any money or if it's running out. And I went over there and I never really came back, which is crazy in retrospect. But it kind of took off like once I was over there and I was putting in more work and hours to put it all together. Yeah, it doesn't sound crazy to me, Sarah, but it does sound incredibly brave.

 | 06:50 | Did that take courage? Thank you. You know, it's funny that people do ask this question a lot, and when I look at it from like an outside perspective, definitely it would help. But for me, it was just like something that I had to do. I didn't see any other way. I was like, if I stayed here and I just look for office jobs because I got a marketing degree. It just that seemed that seemed even more almost like, I don't know. The word courageous isn't quite right, but I was like, that seemed like the scarier thing.

 | 07:21 | I was like, I'd rather I'm like Vietnam. Some fun, and I'm like, If this turns into something that's great, if it doesn't, then I had a nice bout of travel again. Yeah. But yeah, it definitely does take the courage. But I think that was also something that I just like already had. It was like, All right, let's go. Let's do this. Yeah. If you don't mind me asking, you said about you have three thousand bucks to your name. So how did you finance all your travel?
 | 07:50 | Because it sounds like you travel to a fair few places? Mm hmm. Yeah. So when I was there, it was I was living off of basically nothing. It was very affordable to be there. I was staying in hostels that were maybe honestly like five, five to ten dollars per night. So really not much staying in a dorm with maybe up to like 12 15 other people.

 | 08:18 | Sometimes it was not glamorous as much as it might have looked on social media. And I was also eating extremely cheaply. So you think like street food, like dollar meals, two dollar meals? And I did reposition to South America after like two months, but it was, you know, it was the same story. I was walking everywhere. I would literally walk across the city to save like a dollar instead of taking public transportation.

 | 08:47 | It was like extreme cheapskate mode until things started taking off, which was about six months after I had left the US. So, yeah, people think like, Oh, it looks so glamorous, like, you must have a lot of money if you're traveling that much and you can definitely do it cheaply. I think that's something that a lot of people might not understand unless they've gone and taken that risk. Yeah, yeah.

 | 09:14 | Were you ever sort of thinking to yourself, I just want to be home tucked in to my house outside Chicago? Um, at that time, honestly, not really. It was. It was so exciting, and I feel like I was coming from a place of being really grounded. So I had just finished four years of college. You know, I did have my community at home and I knew my family was there, which I'm so fortunate for.

 | 09:44 | So I guess knowing that if that feeling did come or if I was in a place where I wanted to go back, I did have that option. So really, those first six months, even though I was like living off of nothing and I didn't know what was going to happen, it was like total euphoria. It was like freedom, you know, like I was. I quit my restaurant job. I wasn't serving in restaurants anymore because I did that for years. I was like, Oh my gosh, I have all this time. It was beautiful. Like, Yeah, yeah, sometimes stressful.

 | 10:13 | But so here you are, about six months in. And what did you start doing to make a living? That sort of. It was more career oriented for you? Yeah, I suppose the first few projects and contracts that I got, they were kind of from people that were already in my network. So I had to figure out how to bridge the gap from the network that I had at the time, which was people that I knew from college into getting my name to people that I hadn't met before and getting what I can do and in the limelight, right?

 | 10:47 | So I ended up using websites like for freelancers such as Upwork and Fiverr. Facebook groups were also really helpful to. Kind of look for new clients, and I genuinely just I never learned anything. They don't teach you anything about freelancing in college. So all of this was like trial and error, and it was that next step of making those profiles trying to piece together a portfolio with a little work that I had just to get my name out and communicate with new people that I hadn't, you know, ever met in real life.

 | 11:23 | So, yeah, it was it was building out that like self-marketing, I think that kind of took it to the next level and got me into a place of being a full time freelancer. This is before I started the agency, but yeah, it was that first step. OK, so you were a freelancer in in what space? I was doing writing, I was doing social media, so it was mostly a lot of copywriting and social media and a little bit of general creative work, like some consulting desk type things.

 | 11:57 | At that point, I also didn't know what I was, what I was really best at. So I was just trying this, that and the other thing all the time and there would be a project that I might see and I think, OK, maybe I would be good at that. And if a client would ask me, Oh, can you do this? I would always say yes, yes, I can do that. And even if I wasn't 100 percent clear, I was like, I'm going to do everything that I need to do to figure it out and do a great job.

 | 12:23 | So I was learning by doing quite a bit, which was scary a lot of times because dealing with someone that you're working with and being like, Okay, can I do that and like having to believe in yourself and be like, Yeah, I can act capable of that. But like reminding yourself like, I do have the capacity to do that. And if there's blanks, I will fill them in and learn how to do it. There was a lot of that, a lot of that. And I mean, I'm still doing that, you know, because nobody teaches you how to be an entrepreneur.

 | 12:52 | It's one of those things that you're consistently discovering yourself. So, yeah, yeah, it's an adventure. So you were writing and you were doing some digital media socials, all that kind of freelancing and that started to be able to support financially support your lifestyle. Yes, that's right. Well, that's pretty impressive. You must be so proud of yourself. It is a wild feeling.

 | 13:21 | Yeah, I definitely am glad to see it's been years and I'm still like, Whoa, like sometimes I just have this feeling where I'm like, Oh, I look at the agency website, I'm like, I did that. Okay? Yeah, it's wild. It's really good. Yeah. So we sort of talked about what it was like for you economically and how you sort of started to make it into a financial situation that you could afford your lifestyle. So tell me about how you felt emotionally and mentally through this whole process.

 | 13:53 | Yeah, that's a massive component of it that a lot of people don't expect because once I had made it. So after six months, I had accumulated enough clients on an ongoing basis to where I was making the equivalent of a full time income that, like most of my peers, were also making. And so at that point, it was like the height of like euphoria. You know, I was like, the is the dream. I was like, what?

 | 14:22 | I can't believe I did that. But then at the same time, my entire life structure had completely changed in in the biggest way. You know, I didn't have a home base. I was away from my family. I didn't have a community because I was moving so much and I started to feel very, very bad. Actually, it was extremely surprising because everything structurally in my life was incredible and I was looking at my life and I was like, This is this is everything I ever wanted.

 | 14:56 | But at the same time, I started getting really bad anxiety. You know, I would be experiencing like feelings of panic like randomly or just not feeling not feeling good. And I could not figure it out. I just couldn't figure it out. So I actually ended up going back home for a while, maybe a year into this because I just was not feeling well and my body wasn't agreeing with what I was doing. Yeah, it was. It was very, very confusing to me at the time.

 | 15:25 | Now I understand why it happened, but at the time I was like, What it like. But I just my dreams come true. But it was that change, that change of not having a community and being out on my own that subconsciously was affecting me so much and I didn't realize it at the time. So what are you going home do for you? I think it gave me the time to figure it out. It honestly felt like defeats.

 | 15:56 | It felt like the feet at the time, I was like, Oh, like, I'm supposed to be traveling, I'm supposed to be living this life. And there are a lot of supposed to that. A lot of should I had, I had carved out this identity and I felt that I had to adhere to it. I was like, I'm a traveler, you know, this is what I do when really? Like I was I mean, I was doing what I wanted to do, but I just went like full force, right, because it all seemed to happen so fast that my brain was at one point and my body was at another, and I did not give my body the chance to catch up with my brain.

 | 16:32 | So I think that's what being home did for me. You know, I subleased an apartment in Minneapolis and I got to like, catch up with friends. And the whole time I was kind of kind of upset because I was like, I'm not supposed to be here, but I was supposed to be there. So, yeah, it was just like a long summer that I was back. But it definitely answered a lot of those questions and made me then moving forward realized that I had to travel differently. It couldn't be a different country every week.

 | 17:00 | It had to slow down and just like, listen to what's going on inside and try to balance everything because, you know, people need people and communities important. It's so important. How many countries do you think you've visited? I it's somewhere between 40 and 50, I think it's the upper forties. Oh, wow. So that's kind of a lot, that's a lot of movement.

 | 17:30 | Yes. Yeah, definitely. It was, it was a lot. I mean, I have no regrets, but in retrospect, it makes sense why I became so worked up. Even I couldn't figure it out at the time. Yeah. And so the difference between the Sarah before you went home for a while and the Sarah after is that you just sort of slowed down the pace a bit.

 | 17:56 | Yeah, I realized that I think I'm more of a slow traveler, or maybe a traveler who cultivates a bit of a base in one place and then comes and goes from there. There are a few places around the world that feel that way. For me now, like Minneapolis still feels like a base. Bali feels like a base. Yeah, like some parts of Europe. I can come and go and I feel like a mini home to me.

 | 18:26 | So, yeah, slowing it all down and maybe living somewhere seasonally, like spending my whole summer at home, spending winter in Bali, fall in Europe, I don't know. Like wherever it feels right and having like a bit of a community there. Yeah. So it's a different it's a different type of travel, but it's more conducive, I think, for me to living like a healthy life. Yeah. So how do you fold in the work?

 | 18:55 | Yeah, the work has its different every week or it feels different every week, even if I'm working with the same clients. I feel like its always evolving and I'm always learning something new. But I like to keep it on a Monday through Friday ish schedule. I try to never work on the weekend. So, yeah, usually I mean, my schedule when I'm in one place and I'm not like traveling too much, it's pretty normal.

 | 19:22 | I like to have a weekend, you know, so I do follow that, but I'm also trying to not be so rigid with it lately. So if I wake up and I want to do something differently, I'm trying to do that. If I feel like I'm creative on a Thursday night, I'll let that flow. So I think like having that freedom is something that I'm trying to take advantage of more. Although I will say I, I feel as though I have that like typical work schedule kind of ingrained in me.

 | 19:51 | So I'm actually in recent weeks sort of pushing against that and being like, Well, do I want to work this Tuesday morning or is that just something that I feel like I have to do? So I'm asking those questions lately and kind of pushing back and investigating it a little bit. So how many hours would you work in a typical week? Oh gosh, it depends. I mean, it has been depending on like the client load or any like pop up projects.

 | 20:21 | It could be. It could be a lot. It could be like over 40. And then there's a lot of times when it's well under 40. I mean, sometimes I can get everything done a lot quicker than I expected. I think a lot of it is because I am well, I'm not a solopreneur anymore, but I've been working with contractors. And that definitely has spent some things up because now I'm kind of like managing all the things and still doing a lot of the work. But it simplifies things and there's no like team.

 | 20:51 | There's no excessive like meetings or seminars like I'm not a corporation, right? So I do have a lot of like lean leanness in my schedule. Um, yeah, it kind of it kind of goes between. There might be a busy week and then the next week I feel like I'm on vacation. It just depends. So, so tell me a bit about your writing and where you've been. Well, let's start with where you've been published. Oh, yeah, definitely. Um, so I've been the biggest outlets.

 | 21:22 | I've been published in our Business Insider. I wrote quite a bit for Help Line. I've written for Huffington Post Vice and then a handful of travel publications as well. Lonely Planet. Um. Suitcase magazine, there's a lot which is yeah, it's pretty cool to look back and see how many have accumulated. Yeah. So how did you get yourself into all those magazines?

 | 21:54 | Well, lots of trial and error. I didn't, you know, I didn't know how to do this at all when I started. So the internet was my best friend and figuring it out and. I originally the only sample of writing that I had was a travel blog, which doesn't exist anymore because I only did it for a little bit, but my first byline for my first publication was Fodor's Travel and they are first major bylines and they're pretty big publications.

 | 22:23 | So I used my travel blog as a sample to show them my writing. I was like, Hi, like, I don't know what the email looks like, but I'm just imagining it now. It was probably like, I'm brand new. I like this the work sample. I've never been published, but I would love to write this story. And it was a story about a town in Ecuador called Bonus. And when they got back to me and they were like, Yeah, we like this, we'll take this. Can you just edit these things? And I was like, Oh, my goodness.

 | 22:53 | So it was, yeah, learning about how to pitch over email, learning the right places to look for culture submissions, places that editors from these publications are posting the types of stories that they want. Learning how to find editors emails to contact them there. There are so many layers to it, and I can tell you, I've probably the pictures I've sent. I've probably only heard back from like, maybe like five to 10 percent of them.

 | 23:24 | You have to put out a lot in order to hear anything back. And yeah, you know, the good thing is, it's kind of like a snowball that once it gets going and once you have publications and once you learn like how it works, you get so much more in response. So now it's like if I have an idea and I think it might be good for publication, I do get a lot. I do get responses much more now, so it flows way better. But yeah, getting started was like, Is this ever going to work? I'm not sure.

 | 23:53 | Yeah, I've read a bunch of your articles and I just think they're so well-written and so thank you. So readable glow so I can see why you. You got a solid response. So. So there's the writing, and then there's the digital media agency. And is that what you're trying to grow? Is the agency? Yes. Right now, that is my priority.

 | 24:24 | So writing is something I see always going to be there. And, you know, I have dreams of someday writing a book or something to that effect. But I'm not. I'm not ready for that now because I don't have I don't have the idea and I'll know when I do. So right now, it's all about the agency and feeling that it's not something that I'm intending to be like giant, but I definitely want to grow and expand what I'm offering.

 | 24:53 | And, yeah, work with work with the types of clients that are really, really exciting. And yeah, so that's kind of the current focus. Do you have a niche type of client that you're looking for? I would say it's for me, it's mostly about the brand and like the type of the type of personality that the brand has, so kind of that like fun, playful, like maybe more like bad branding really drawn to that.

 | 25:25 | As far as industries, it's very open. I mean, we've worked with like everything from travel companies to like mental health companies to politics to consumer products. So it's really open. It's definitely more so about like what kind of what kind of communication are they trying to put out into the world? And does that align with the way that we do things? So it's always fun to see, like what inquiries come in. And yeah, I'm excited to getting the name out.

 | 25:55 | I'm excited about getting the name out even more and then seeing who appears. And did you design your own website? Yes. That was actually that was actually, oh me, earlier this year because I wanted to do it myself. I have this very big DIY mentality because I don't know, maybe it's a combination of wanting to figure it out myself. And also it's fun for me. I really enjoy the process.

 | 26:24 | So yeah, I had to have the video made for the home page and came up with all the branding. And luckily it seems to be working. People find the website and they're like, Oh, I really like your website. I'm like, That is great news. Yeah. And being, you know, an entrepreneur, what's been your biggest aha moment about being an entrepreneur? Oh, it sounds it sounds so cliche, but I honestly think like believing in yourself, which is definitely the biggest cliche, but it's so true.

 | 27:01 | Having that that courage and you're in yourself to be like, Oh, I can, I can do this, and I can make this work. And if I don't know how to do it now, it's something that I'm going to learn how to do, because I think the second that you kind of have doubts like that's going to actually impact what you're doing and what you're bringing in. I I'm definitely a believer of like putting out that that positive empowered energy in the world and then in return, having more of that come back to you in terms of resilience, what do you think you've had to do to be as resilient as you've had to be?

 | 27:40 | Oh, man, it's been. Oh, yeah, it's been a lot. I mean, I think well. Learning how to understand my own emotions has probably been the biggest one. So spending time for me, I've been in therapy to try and figure some of that stuff out. Understanding why I operate the way that I do, where my feelings come from, what I need to be happy in life or content or comfortable.

 | 28:14 | So. Yeah, going through that process and that work has really helped me become more resilient, although I think I always had that spirit within me. I've always been like, OK, bounce back up, abducted off through trying again, but definitely like doing that emotional work and figuring out like, OK, like, why do I do these things or why do I feel? Or what do I need that kind of questioning?

 | 28:40 | Yeah, I like that idea of doing the emotional work to grow and develop and help yourself. Right? Because, yeah, it's not that easy, and our thoughts are frequently not that kind to us and so on. You know, so yeah, it's it is not an easy journey, and I think the hardest part is getting started. But then, of course, that's not linear at all.

 | 29:06 | So you'll have like peaks and valleys all throughout the years, and sometimes it feels like you're back at square one. But trusting your growth and knowing, Okay, I've come this far. If I've done this before, I already know how to do this and I can get through this again in a different form. Yeah, trusting your growth and looking at how far you've come and not forgetting that and knowing there's no going backwards, that's a big one. Yeah, yeah, OK.

 | 29:36 | In this season of career resilience, I'm asking everybody three questions, and the first question is what the best career advice you’ve ever received is? The best career advice. But there's so many anecdotes I can think of, but I've actually recently been working with a business coach and we've been talking a lot about trusting your gut feeling and your intuition.

 | 30:08 | So trying not to overthink things. So it's something I feel a certain way. It very well get like a bodily instinct to trust that. And that could be, you know, with taking a new job or working with the client or hiring somebody, etc. I think trying not to overeat in certain situations because a lot of the time your body will decide that right away, like you might get like a like a feeling like right away. And to be honest, I'm not very good at.

 | 30:36 | I'm not very good at the figuring that out quite yet because I'm such a large person that I'll be like, Oh, should I? Well, here's the pros and cons. And then I think too much. So I think going with those snap feelings and trying not to like reason, everything to that is really good advice and something that I will be looking to get even better at. OK. Not reasoning everything to death? Yeah. And so the second question is, is there a book that you've read that you found really helpful or interesting to you in your development?

 | 31:12 | Oh, I was thinking about this, the first thing that comes to mind and I read it a while back was the subtle art of not giving a by Mark Manson. Yeah, I when I read, I saw him speak at a conference actually a few years back. He spoke at Travel Con in Boston, and some of the concepts in there are pretty helpful. Hmm. OK.

 | 31:40 | Excellent. And third, what advice would you give to a younger Sarah to your younger self? I would I would probably tell her. That dreams are not out of reach. Another cliche that I love, but I think when you're younger and you don't have the technical experience, it's so easy to to be overwhelmed and to look at what other people do and are doing and compare yourself, be like, Am I?

 | 32:14 | Can I do that? Oh gosh, I don't think I could do that. So I would say, like, maybe taking it one day at a time and trusting the process, definitely trusting the process and knowing that you're capable of great things. Sarah, thanks so much for chatting with me today. Thank you for having me. It's been a pleasure. To our listeners and our viewers, please find me. Wherever you get your podcast, find us on YouTube.

 | 32:42 | And please take a moment to take a look at my website, which is Career Dash Resilience dot com. And thanks so much for joining Sarah and me today. And until we meet again.