A Great Resource: Access Digital Nomads Daily with Nienke Nina Keizer | TNN76

When you are a digital nomad, meeting your peers is an essential component of advancing your career as well as maintaining a healthy remote work-life balance. One of the biggest downsides of being a remote worker is the loneliness that can accompany traveling alone. Especially for newly transitioned nomads, a helping hand goes a long way. Digital Nomads Daily aims to help digital nomads by gathering vital information and sharing them with other digital nomads. 

This week, Nienke Nina Keizer (founder of Digital Nomads Daily) joins Andrew Jernigan and Allen Koski in another gold-nugget filled episode of The New Nomad. Our three nomads shared their experiences living the nomadic lifestyle and talked about how Digital Nomads Daily helps other digital nomads by being their “cheat sheet”. The best thing about being in the digital nomad community is your fellow nomads have your back. So tune in and get ready to learn a lot from The New Nomad podcast this week.

[5:34] The challenges of the Laptop Lifestyle

[14:40] Learning through other people’s experiences

[18:33] Be open to learning a new language

[19:02] Sit and just be

[21:15] Want to learn a new language? Live with someone who speaks it

[24:06] Combat loneliness by meeting new like-minded people

GUEST BIO:

Nienke Nina Keizer has lived abroad for over 7 years and 4+ years as a digital nomad. She is a creative entrepreneur who talks about the digital nomad lifestyle, remote work, and transformation. Throughout her journey, she experienced the digital nomad lifestyle as a freelancer, remote worker in several companies, and creative entrepreneur.

She is the founder of the digital nomad platform ''Digital Nomads Daily'' which covers daily topics about traveling, remote working, and personal developments. Nina is the podcast host of The Digital Nomads Daily Podcast and interviews digital nomads and entrepreneurs about how they plan, create, solve, celebrate and sustain a successful digital nomad lifestyle. 

LINKS:

Digital Nomads Daily: https://digitalnomadsdaily.com/ 

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ninakeizer_/?hl=en

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nienkeninakeizer/?originalSubdomain=nl

Follow Insured Nomads at:

Instagram: @insurednomads

www.insurednomads.com

Transcript

Allen

Welcome, and we're very happy to have you here at The New Nomad podcast. We're going to talk to Nienke Nina Keizer today who is doing something really, I think unique in our area. Created Digital Nomads Daily, a tremendous platform for all of you out there and they location independent movement to check in get tips, ideas. We'll also talk about a book that I think is a real good asset for you if you've looked at that. But also we want to hear the story of somebody themselves, who's packed up and joined the movement, and has been out there in the location independent world for five years. Andrew, I know you were just with her digitally, at least at the Digital Nomad Expo. How was that? And tell me a little bit about that.

Andrew

Ah, that was a great experience the lineup of speakers has was the best of any events in this space so far. There were so many, just top notch speakers that had their own sessions on the main stage, panelist in the regular sessions. It was a really a well organized event. I was, you know, I was also able to be on the Digital Nomads Daily podcast. A few weeks back, I was actually in Brazil, and so was Nina in Brazil at the time, she may be there still, by the time this goes live. But yeah, the the event was was really good. There's another event coming up in April of 2023, for those listening, that's called Running Remote. So for those who were leading or looking at serving this remote workforce around the world, that's an event to look for runningremote.com and the new book by Liam called Running Remote. So check that out on the different channels, whether it's Amazon or wherever you buy books. It's called Running Remote.

Allen

Andrew, you will too be able to discuss healthcare, which I know is to this movement, something very interesting. Let's bring Nina. Nina, you were at the same event, a really excellent opportunity to share your thoughts on that before we get into your story and Digital Nomads Daily.

Nina

Yeah, 100% sounds agree with Andrew it was it was an amazing event. I really enjoyed being there. And I'm also it was so cool to see so many people, like-minded people, not just talking about the current like this is how the lifestyle is but how does the future of remote work looks like and not just for individuals, but for teens, for family members. Because, you know, I'm 32 and I have a nomad cat, but not a family yet. And I want to keep living this lifestyle and that's also what my episode with Andrew was about like, how do you do that. So it was really cool to, to see other leaders and to listen to their stories, their experiences and how they viewed the world.

Andrew

You know, this is this is exciting because the the topics that are being discussed are are evolving. You know, this is I've been in this lifestyle for 25, 27 years now from starting single. And really the roots go back to the Netherlands you can see the image behind me even is is paying homage to those memories back there. And, you know, as this movement grows and evolves, technology changes. The metaverse and crypto and blockchain and so many aspects that are shifting this, this lifestyle, this the speed of travel, the freedom to work wherever you choose in a lot of industries, many industries, of course, can't adapt to that. And we've got to realize that it is still quite the privileged that are able to work from anywhere and become digital nomads that can work from their laptop, there are many that need to be equipped for that there are many companies that still need to be liberated so that they can give their employees the freedom to do so. What are your thoughts on on what's ahead in this movement?

Nina

All right, so, um, well, I feel like in the movement, there's a couple of different things that we need to look at. Right? There's the individuals that want to go remote on and I think what's what's interesting is that there's a lot of entrepreneurial energy, like a lot of, you know, like, like young younger people also, but also people that have already tonne of work experience that go not just to remote, but also the entrepreneurial on wealthy entrepreneurial path. So I think that we definitely need to look out for that. And then when it comes to companies is like, how can we facilitate this group of people? So one of the things that I see as as a remote worker, I mean, it's been a lot of my five years been part of teams is that I've always been like a contractor, because you need to set up your own business to, you know, make it like legal proof and all of these things. So I think it's a real challenge for everyone who's involved, which is individuals can't like organizations, governments, and then just the world like the globalization to facilitate this lifestyle thing is extremely difficult. But it starts with, with things like a Digital Nomad Expo, where we come together, to brainstorm, to share ideas and to lead companies or lead organisations and governments listen to what are our needs? And how do we see the future because one of the things that I see a lot on on online and I hear on the podcast, and I talk with a lot of job seekers is that people are afraid almost, to tell their, their employee like, I want to go remote. So some people, they just go remote, and they get a VPN, hoping not to get caught, which creates a lot of fear. And I think that this lifestyle in general, like our brains aren't wired to reach so many decisions, we're creatures of habits. So if then your remote workplace is also full of fear, because you cannot be your full self that goes into the energy of your work, your quality of work, how you deal with people, how you deal with people at home, it just impacts it so much. So I that's a very long answer. But I would love to see that we can do this with more confidence, and less fear and listen better to each other's needs. So we can actually create a happy world.

Allen

It's interesting when I when I looked at Digital Nomads Daily, I liked a couple of things that you covered in there. For instance, there's some interesting information and optimizing one's self. So that's one thing of the experiences what you do personally, then there's interesting information there of working with your teams. And then there's other information about hey, you know, this is this is how digital nomad visas work, here's other things. So I would love to hear your story, what brought you to this lifestyle? But also, as you came this lifestyle, when did you have the epiphany that we needed something like Digital Nomads Daily, which we really do need?

Nina

Yeah, sure. I love that question. So I started my remote work journey around five years ago, and I didn't know that I was actually doing get like I've never heard of a digital nomad, it just kind of all happened to me. So I've been living abroad for almost eight years. And I was in the Philippines working in a tech startup. It was really cool. It was what education community first, and we were helping people getting jobs there, like in tech. And it was a startup. So there was a lot of work. And I think I burned myself out there a little bit because it was also Yeah, it's just like, pause so hard, basically. Um, so I was there. And then also dealing with the cultural differences to different communication styles, like Dutch people are very upfront, unfiltered. And Filipinos are, in general, bit less confront confrontational and a bit more soft. So the communication style was challenging for me. So I had a lot of challenges. 

Nina

Now, at one point, I quit that job and went remote. A friend of mine was like, why don't you come to Bali? And that's where I met the first digital nomads basic for me, basically. And I saw all these people there with their laptops in the cafe. And so what am I doing? Versus like, what is this and I was doing my job like remotely, so it was in transition phase. And then I was like, Oh, wait, I can like and be somewhere else. And that I can choose to be somewhere else and be remotely. I didn't even think about traveling the world. I just thought I can be in another country because I want to get out of the Philippines one day. Um, and that's when I started asking people questions like naturally that's how Digital Nomads Daily was born because I was like, I want to know how you do it. I don't want to know, oh, you make 10k. I want to know what are the exact steps that you did to get to that point, including mindset, business related things like who did you talk to how did you day look like and all these things? So I'm, I'm a pretty curious creature. So I just started asking questions documenting there. And then that's how it was born. But I was also struggling, getting clients at the time and really kicking off this freelance. So this is an important thing. I feel it for everyone. If you want to do this lifestyle, the one ingredient to success is financial stability. At the time, I didn't have that. So you cannot start a business if you're like drowning in bills, I wasn't drowning in bills, but I wasn't financially stable. So it was like, I couldn't do it. So I stopped Digital Nomads Daily. And then last year, I got a notification on Instagram that there was activity and I thought, Oh, what's this? Like? What profile and then I saw Digital Nomad Daily, and I was like, wow, people are still going through my website to check out the interviews. And yeah, I just started to relaunch it. And today what it is what we do is we offer perspective, this is not my success story. The whole platform is not about me, my ego is really not so great. Um, but what it is, is that I asked questions to experience digital nomads, all color, shapes, sizes, ages. I don't care where you from, I just want to get that perspective on and we talked Yeah, I wrote mindset about business, about loneliness, relationships, anything from A to Z, to share on to share how others do it. So you can get inspiration, motivation. I feel like it's personal therapy for me sometimes because it shows me opportunity, especially on the with the podcast, right. So yeah, that's what it is. And that's how it started.

Allen

It's really interesting, because you touched upon a couple of things that Andrew and I hear all the time on the podcast. First off, we've we've addressed financial issues quite a bit not drowning in debt, making sure you can optimize your income and make some income from this lifestyle. But the other thing you mentioned quickly was loneliness, which which has become a topic and mental health issues. And the importance, and I'll take that one step further. What I think is also great is building community and you through that website, and also, maybe a couple thoughts that you have on the digital book you have out there and the real book you can get through Amazon, some of the tips you give because to me a big part of this, everybody who's in this space, who is tied into a community seems to be this is uneducated, but seems to be much happier. Right? That so maybe some of the comments maybe on community but and then maybe tell us a little bit about the book that I think offers many shortcuts and great tips.

Nina

Yeah, sure. So I'm community as super important. Like, when I was doing the podcast, what was really cool is that I was doing all these interviews, right, and also with Andrew and all these nomads, and there's so many amazing tips and stories. And a podcast is a great way to learn to get inspiration but I wanted to create something more tangible. So we have a lot of articles on our website on digital nomads, daily.com. And these articles are always a combination of what the people share in the podcast. So it's not like a copy paste from another article. It's really like unique content and unique life advice from the nomads. And I'm, I have then, at one point, I was like, it's been like this personal dream of mine to write a book. And in my own, like, I thought it was impossible because I mean, I'm not a native speaker, as you can hear, right? Um, but I only I only learned how to like, like, eight years ago, I didn't speak English. So if we would have had this conversation eight years ago, we wouldn't have done it in Dutch because I didn't speak English. It was yeah, it was just not there. So I'm writing a book in a language that on I've been, you know, like trying to master that was I thought I couldn't do that. So I had a lot of limiting beliefs. But then at one point, I have an amazing team that I work with, and we were just like, let's do it. So to set myself up for success I created I have backgrounds in design so I created a wireframe and to really figure out what pen is broke be? Like, how can we serve the community for like better because we're community first company. So we came up with this concept where we answer 101 daily questions that pop up in this lifestyle like challenges like how do I make money? How do I I pack for all sorts of weather like all these things. And we categorized it until we found the 101 questions. So that's how the book came together. And we use the podcast as our inspiration. So this whole book, Digital Nomads with Confidence, it's not about me, I'm it's the perspective from the nomas that I really want to celebrate. Because also what I, what I feel is that we all have different upbringings, right. And now we travel the world. And we view these travels and these experience through our own eyes, and then we share it out. There's all unique experiences, and there's so much wisdom. Like, it's crazy how much wisdom there is. So I really wanted to put that energy in the book, the same energy I have on the podcast, and also in the book. I did add some personal stories of some epic failures in my journey. So they're there. Absolutely. But the book is, it's a celebration of what we have in this community.

Andrew

Yeah, it's, it's one of those things where there's so many people to learn from, and we get to share from those experiences. And it's just, it's, it's good to see through other people's filters, see through other people's stories. And I like your perspective that you've shared with us, and how that you get to open people's eyes through the journeys of others, through yourself. And it's very informative, the way that you do that well done just not just through the, through the podcast, but through your writings and through the way you're living. It's, it's very good to see, you know, from all these things you've you've shared from your experiences in the book, which I encourage folks to check out. But what is one of those experiences, people places that you feel like that our listeners should know about?

Nina

Sure, um, that's a really good question, let me actually show the book because I'm talking about it, but I have it here, so I can show it on the video. So this is it my baby.

Allen

Yeah.

Nina

So I think that's where it doesn't this experience is what I recommend is doesn't matter where you are, um, what I would do is try to not go on a sort of crazy contests, contests that you need to see all the countries in the world, but just take it easy when you travel, like, one of the things that I'm that has really changed my life is move more into the slowmading, and just really find community and not just with other nomads, but also with the locals and really like, take time to learn about the culture and how people behave and observe those learnings and take them into your self reflection. And, and it doesn't mean that you need to like meditate for hours to do this. But you know, like, instead of go to a sexy cafe, like, go to a local shop and buy some stuff there, just sit on the side and just see how people are interacting and be open to that. Because even if you don't speak the language, just by body language and looking at people interact, there's so many things that you can learn. And I think it's actually not a disability if you don't know the language, because you don't know what they say. You really open your your minds and your heart and your eyes up for different interactions. So everyone who's listening right now, like if you're abroad, like immerse yourself in a place where there's not your tribe, your people. And just like, I don't know, sit there for 15 minutes and just see what happens. Like, just just be.

Allen

quick question for you. Something you brought up that I thought was really unique and interesting. We have a lot of folks in this lifestyle who moved to places that obviously have to learn a new language. And in your case, you talked about how, you know if we had this interview, many years back, you would not have spoken English. If I were you speak tremendously well. I, I would love you to share with the people on the podcast, who may be saying yourself, hey, I'm moving to a foreign location. I don't know that language. I know I'm going to need to know that language. Other than just going in and immersing yourself, was there other tools that you learned that you use to learn, you know, English in this case, or was it pure immersion? Because you know, well done and I always tip my hat to people that are really good about picking up foreign languages. Fast as somebody who took many years of Spanish and can barely speak anything now, all these years later.

Nina

um, yeah, I think that's a great question. Well, the game changer for me to learn English was that I'm not per se, or I used to not be like super booksmart so trouble learning so learning from English from a book wasn't wasn't working for me. And probably also in school like, you don't talk about the things that interest you. So um, if you're going to learn English or any language, learning with topics that interest you, that excite you, like if you're into photography, like in reading material, listen to material that talks about that. And because that will because you're already closer to your why and your values and your excitement. You just open up more to learn. This is not scientific, maybe it is but this is just my personal experience. And then the other thing that was a real game changer was being around people that speak well English. In Denmark, where first lived everyone spoke broken English, because we all didn't like speak proper English. But then when I moved to Italy, I was living with my, with back then, my housemate, she's Filipina, and through her, I learned everything in the kitchen. Like I couldn't say kitchen cabinet, I didn't know what like, I couldn't point out things. And because I was with her, she, just by living with her, she taught me a lot of English. And then when I started working remotely, or sorry, when I start working in the Philippines, I had to learn more like business English. And I have my team, always checking my emails and just actively learning. I think the third thing was important is that it's a learning curve. Like, you're not going to get it right the first time and you just need to be open up for that stepping stone and the learning curve itself. And if you feel super insecure, you're blocking yourself from an experience. So I think it's just you know, go in be excited. make jokes be, you know, just accept that you don't know everything, like it's fine. Um, yeah, I would say those three things. And of course, there's apps I love Duolingo like, I'm so competitive like here in the area, I want to be the one always like, who's learning with the most?

Allen

Well, no, I think I think you hit upon something because many of us be learned the book languages. But really, in this lifestyle, you want to have the conversational. Because we're here trying to talk to people meeting people, you know, and we're not sitting here conjugating verbs. We're trying to talk to people. So it's, I'm always interested on on folks learn different languages. Now, part of this podcast is also giving people a lot of confidence to travel and to go to different locations, you've moved to different locations. We would you would you share with us maybe a location that you think that people should travel to that maybe is somewhat overlooked? Or are you think is a really unique place that you know, somebody who's taking a soldier and and I loved your comment about slow travel, we were big fans of that, that maybe somebody should think about looking into and visiting.

Nina

Yeah, sure. I think that's a great question. I think in general starting like going in, go like travel and finding a location it's really start with what you want to get out of the experience. So earlier I said like it's not a contest. I'm checking like, on like, you know, landmarks it's really not that but it could be for you if you feel like okay, I want to give myself six months to go through Asia and just see everything that I can see. That is fine. Um, but what I do think that if you're on digital, if you're an aspiring digital nomad, or you're nomadic right now and you feel a little bit lonely, and you're like, oh, I have trouble finding my tribe, go to the Nomad hubs, like it's so I have a couple of nomad hubs also in our book but and on our website, we also talk about it but you can go to, to Bali to Mexico, in Portugal, there's a lot of digital nomads in Lisbon and [inaudible] in Portugal. If if you want to meet like-minded people then go where the people are. It's like, you know, you just need to be there, then it's easy. Now, a place that is definitely overlooked for me is Brazil. Like I love this country so much. This country is so gigantic, like if if the Brazilian government's need like an advocate for bringing nomads into Brazil, I would be there person because I love it. I have found the beautiful destinations where I felt super safe. And where I've been like dream, living my dream life, and all goods and I, the Brazilian people are very, very kind people as well. Now, of course, there are some challenges in this country that are very visible in big cities like Rio Sao Paulo, um, but you just have to accept that as well. Because you can't come in and think like, living your best life and real and nothing will happen like if you are idiotic drunk on the street as as a tourist in the middle of the night that you get, you get robbed. But that happens in Paris to and an Amsterdam as well like so but definitely go to Brazil and I believe that's in on all maybe Andrew, you need to help with this Pipa beach. There's like

Andrew

that's what I was gonna bring up. As we wrap up this episode, I knew Allen was going to ask me a question. And that's where I was gonna go. So good point there. I'm glad you were remembering it, too. It's on everybody's mind right now. When they're thinking about community when they go somewhere, and that's, that's, that's what I'm passionate about is the community experience. Because you can, you can look at pictures, you can see someone's Instagram and think, Oh, I'd like to work from there. Then you get there and you think, wow, it's a cold culture, and I'm used to a hot culture, or vice versa, or, you know, just different things that you didn't really investigate further. If you've got community, you can move through any of that. 

Nina

Definitelynin 

Andrew

But if you're alone in a place and you've you feel like you're the only one that's there long term and everyone else is a tourist for a couple of days is isolating.

Nina

Definitely and I think also with Brazil, just to add to that, so Pipa beach definitely check it out, as was the guys from Nomad X. And I think it's really cool that they do that. But another place I'm currently in by I need to cut it is so save very nice, beautiful Internet is a challenge. But I always tried to like just connect with my phone because you have like these power outages here, which is you just need to set yourself up for that but other than that it's not a problem. Floating Annapolis in the south is beautiful. Very safe. Yeah. And Rio. I mean, if you go to Brazil, you have to go to Rio and better the chances I haven't been there. But I mean, as it is in the mountains. Andrew knows how beautiful it is there. But that's on my list is still go there.

Allen

It's I've heard amazing things. And Brazil is like probably like eight or nine different countries if you really break it down by regions. It's so massive. So, so tremendous. So as we wrap up the episode, our audience would love to learn where they can reach out to you and learn more about Digital Nomads Daily. And please share with us that no we'll make sure this is also in the liner notes.

Nina

Sweet Yeah, well first of all, thanks for having me guys. I really enjoyed our conversations lovely meeting you as well. Allen, really, really cool. I'm so people can find me at Digital Nomads Daily. So our website is digitalnomadsdaily.com. And Instagram is the same. And then the book you can get it by book.digitalnomads  daily.com. And also for people that want to learn more about like how our digital nomad succeeds. I started the d&d Club, which is our online learning hub. And if you go to club digital nomads, daily.com, you can find workshops there. And every week we do like or every other week we host like live workshops with experienced digital nomads that talk about their business success. So could be about podcasting. It could be about anything, and it's been a tremendous fun collaboration. So if you want to like hang out with me and the order nomads there, you can definitely do that. And yeah, just say hi. Also, I love chatting with people. So

Allen

I also thought it was even some of the basics, you know, that sleep you had that you had on the on there, you know, some some tips to get to help people get to sleep and you know, the importance of staying healthy. So thank you, Nina for joining us today. Andrew, as always, we learned a lot I took I took a lot of notes, as I often do. And someday we'll catch up with Nina again and learn a little bit about the epic fails. Cuz you mentioned that and I see a lot of success there. But sometimes we learn a lot from the epic fails too and we've had our share of those. Andrew and Hal and both, but your thoughts Andrew is you take us away.

Andrew

Yeah, the key is of, of learning from others learning from our failures, learning from our six that says, a lot of times we we don't actually stop long enough to ponder, to learn from our successes even. So those are some of the things that I took away from this. And there was, there was one golden nugget that she said, and that's Paul's long enough to sit and just be. And that takes practice that doesn't come natural for most people. Because we are so accustomed to jumping from one thing to another to another to actually calm our minds. And to just, you know, be for for event whether you refer to that as meditation or mindfulness or other things, you know, just figure out a way to just calm your mind and clear and and reset at different times during the day and that was there's so many deep thoughts and profound things that I believe comes from Digital Nomads Daily if that was one of the ones that I got today. You know, I thank you everyone for joining in for another episode of The New Nomad. Do subscribe, if you will, whether you're watching this on YouTube, podcasting, or if you're watching it on Spotify, etc, follow and write a great review, share it with others, and join us for another great episode next time.