125: The Secrets to Thriving as a Virtual Assistant Freelancer with Digital Nomad Hannah

In this episode, Nienke and Hannah talked about the nitty-gritty of building a thriving freelance career, from getting started as a VA to setting those crucial client boundaries. They tackled challenges head-on and have shared valuable insights and actionable tips to help you conquer the digital nomad world!

As a VA and Freelancer Coach, Recruiter, and the Founder of Digital Nomad Kit, Hannah's rocking multiple income streams while helping thousands of others reach their nomadic goals. With her expertise highly sought-after by major publications like Business Insider, Entrepreneur, and Forbes, she really is shaping the future of digital nomadism!

🔥 Actionable steps to start your career as a freelancer or VA
🔥 Mastering clarity in your offerings and upskilling strategies for success
🔥 Tips for maintaining balance & setting expectations with clients
🔥 Building a sustainable freelance career from Hannah's 15-year journey

Transcript

Nienke Nina (00:01.394)
All right. Hello everyone. Welcome to a new episode of the Digital Nomads Daily Podcast. I'm so excited to talk today with an amazing guest because we have been in out and about of like recording this episode. There were some delays and this and that, you know, life just happens because we're all really busy bees as nomads, especially nomadic entrepreneurs. So I'm really, really happy and excited to finally have Hannah here on the podcast.

Hannah Dixon (00:29.615)
So excited to be here. I'm so glad this finally happened. So nice to meet you.

Nienke Nina (00:34.774)
Right? Alright, so before we go into the episode, I always ask my guests a few quick questions just for the audience, for our listeners today, to get kind of a vibe of what kind of nomad you are. So my first question is, how long have you actually been nomading?

Hannah Dixon (00:50.671)
So nomading 16 years, digital nomading around 11 now. So I was kind of doing the whole analog thing before.

Nienke Nina (00:59.006)
Wow. So you're kind of like a grandma under the nomads.

Hannah Dixon (01:02.275)
Yeah, thanks. Thanks for reminding me.

Nienke Nina (01:07.683)
Alright, and where are you talking from right now?

Hannah Dixon (01:11.355)
I'm currently in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, and this is the first time in all 16 years that I've had a rental contract. So things are changing.

Nienke Nina (01:21.922)
Alright, so we got a little glitch. I actually didn't hear where you're talking from right now.

Hannah Dixon (01:27.131)
Should I just do it again? Can you hear me now? You can't? You can, okay. So I just say it again. Okay. I'm calling in from Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, and this is the first time I've had a rental contract in 16 years. So times are changing.

Nienke Nina (01:29.642)
I can hear you. I can, I can.

Yeah. Ha ha ha.

Nienke Nina (01:46.199)
Woohoo!

Hannah Dixon (01:47.49)
Mm-hmm. Ha ha ha.

Nienke Nina (01:50.122)
Congratulations. Wow. So this is, this is your, your current hub.

Hannah Dixon (01:50.843)
Hehehe

Hannah Dixon (01:57.935)
For now, yeah, for now, thinking about maybe heading over to Europe again next year, I don't know. You know how it is as a nomad, it changes every day.

Nienke Nina (02:06.57)
Yeah, it's funny, like I'm with a non-nomad and it's been only for like, think eight or nine months now. And it's very interesting that he's asking me like questions like very far in the future, as in it's April now and he would be asking me stuff about May and I'm like, why? But it's April, like that's, I still have this mindset and he's already thinking about the holidays in August. And I'm like, yeah, but like, that's August.

Hannah Dixon (02:25.839)
Ha ha ha!

Hannah Dixon (02:34.807)
Yep, I get that.

Nienke Nina (02:36.902)
It's really yeah, but it does feel good to have a hub like especially if you're roving around a lot like at one point it's so nice to just like chill down and have your little office set up. Have a place where you can go to a co-work have your fixed grocery store and not have to think about all of these stuff of these things anymore right.

Hannah Dixon (02:55.031)
That's true. And on the flip side, I feel like I'm acquiring a lot of things, which is stressing me out a lot. Like I have an exercise bike. I'm like, that's not coming with me when I leave an instant pot.

Nienke Nina (02:59.746)
Oh my god, yeah!

Nienke Nina (03:05.454)
I'm sorry.

Nienke Nina (03:09.19)
Yeah, yeah, I feel you, I feel you. Alright, so one of the favorite questions of all like listeners is always like, how do people make their money? So how does that look for you right now? But also, could you walk us when you're answering that a bit through like your process? Because I know that you've, you know, you all kind of like process to where you are today. And one of the things I find really important is that we don't...

show anything that looks like, oh, this was an overnight success because nothing is.

Hannah Dixon (03:39.107)
Mm-hmm. No, absolutely correct. So I started, like I said, 11 years ago working digitally. Before that, I was working in farms, in bars, in hostels, doing work exchanges around the world. And it wasn't until I met someone who worked online, and they worked in SEO. I didn't know what SEO meant at the time, but all I heard was, you work online. I'm like, hold on a second. I can keep traveling and make money online. And I was hooked. So I started learning everything I could.

She had clients who were web design clients, SEO clients, and they needed more than just that. They needed social media help. They needed customer service help. They needed inbox management. I jumped in and just learned everything I could, and it wasn't until one of my clients said on a team call, they referred to me as their virtual assistant, and I was like, oh, there's a name for this thing that I do. And so that opened like a whole can of worms for me. I started a community because I wanted to meet other people doing this. That community grew very rapidly, and I was sharing my journey as I went.

Um, as I got pretty good at what I was doing, I was earning between five, 10 K a month. I was landing celebrity clients. People were like, teach me, like, how do you do this? And I never thought about teaching, um, or passing on this knowledge that I had. Uh, but because so many people were asking me, I threw together a five day free challenge, like literally on the day, I was like, what would I do next? What would I do next?

And at the end of the week, people were landing clients, like paying clients from not knowing anything to having a client. So I was like, oh, maybe I'm pretty good at this. So fast forward 10 years, I was making my money as a virtual assistant. I'm now a virtual assistant trainer, a freelance trainer, and I also provide entrepreneurs with recruitment services to hire effectively and intelligently as well.

Nienke Nina (05:19.662)
Cool. Love it. Yeah, actually. So funny enough, I also started kind of like just doing all sorts of things. And then when I started this podcast, which was back then still in a video format, that's when I heard about virtual assistants and I kid you not, I really wish I learned about this much quicker. I took a course or something because I had been struggling so long, like.

So long and it creates almost this feeling of that you're like behind or like, you know, you're not good enough and it's not that it's just like, you need to have the right training. So wherever you are, like, it's not always that reflection on who you are as a person, but like having the right resources and community around you makes a tremendous difference. That's also why I really loved that you're here on the podcast today, because I find it really impressive what you've built.

Hannah Dixon (05:51.547)
Hmm.

Hannah Dixon (05:56.93)
Mm.

Hannah Dixon (06:04.376)
Mm-hmm.

Nienke Nina (06:14.258)
I met a few people that took your courses, including talks, and she's just like over the moon about it. And you know, like, it's really nice to see the impact of what you've had in the Nomad community. So that is, that is really awesome. Yeah. So, one of the things that I have struggled with myself as a freelancer, but even as an agency owner, like ridiculously a lot of struggle.

Hannah Dixon (06:27.783)
That's really nice to hear. Thank you for sharing that. Thank you.

Nienke Nina (06:42.802)
But I know that people struggle with this is kind of like boundary setting. But one thing is lending clients. Okay. Like that's one thing, but then once you have lent this client, you go into, especially maybe beginners, this is something which probably teach is like, you're going to offer a lot of different things. And then these clients are getting used to sort of like this super flexible person. So what is your like personal experience with this? And I have you kind of.

Hannah Dixon (06:49.679)
Mm-hmm.

Hannah Dixon (07:02.724)
Mm-hmm.

Nienke Nina (07:09.838)
figure this out for yourself and how to have a more aligned client relationship.

Hannah Dixon (07:13.839)
Mm-hmm. Yeah, so I think you kind of hit the nail on the head already is that a lot of people go in offering all the things or on the flip side of that as well when it comes to pricing, like undervaluing, discounting just to get the client, that kind of thing. And that sets the precedent for the rest of that working relationship, right? So I've been there before, like I've undercharged and I've resented the client, knowing that it was actually me that chose to give that pricing or give that service or do the thing I don't like to do. So I think...

the main thing for me was recognizing that actually I have the control to change this narrative and I can't put the onus on the client. The client is going to treat them as I'm allowing them to treat me. And so I think there's a few things I recommend people doing. One is recognizing that the onus is on you. Two is recognizing that boundaries are not a fixed thing all the time. So I think people like to throw the word boundaries around a lot and be like, everyone should have boundaries up and these walls up. And I think that actually

takes us away from connecting with people on a real level. And when you're working with a client, especially as a VA, as a freelancer, especially if you're working with solopreneurs, that's a very intimate relationship that you have with that client. And so you have the possibility to design the boundaries with that client individually. So I always say there's firm boundaries. These are your non-negotiables. These are, I don't work after this time of day, or I don't work these days, or this is my rate. This is the lowest I can go, you know? And then you've got...

Nienke Nina (08:13.578)
Mm-hmm.

Hannah Dixon (08:39.395)
Flex boundaries, these are the boundaries you design with the client. This is maybe the client says, we launch every two months. So every two months I need you around a little bit more, can you accommodate for that? And then you accommodate for it and you work it into your workflow with that client. So I think it's being able to have those conversations openly with the client. It takes confidence to get there as one. You know, there's the value in yourself, all that stuff, all the inner work that needs to happen to be able to have conversations about boundaries in the first place, but then recognizing that they're not fixed things.

that they actually work better when you bring the client in and you design them together. You've got your non-negotiables, but most boundaries need to be flexible in this kind of work. We work in this work because we enjoy the flexibility. Our clients also enjoy flexibility. So it's finding that middle ground and doing that together.

Nienke Nina (09:24.318)
Yeah, it makes a lot of sense. I love how you separate the two of like the firm and the flexibles because also I a hundred percent see how you say like boundaries are not about walls up. It's just guidelines. You know, it's just like, Hey, this is how we play this game. Uh, or this is how we play or whatever. So I really love that. And I think that because we don't really learn any of these things in schools, boundary setting or guideline setting is such a scary thing to do.

Hannah Dixon (09:37.005)
Yeah.

Hannah Dixon (09:52.941)
Mm-hmm.

Nienke Nina (09:54.432)
probably way more forceful than you mean, but you just want to make that statement so badly. I mean, this is something like, you know, being 100% vulnerable, which I'm always I'm on this podcast, like I'm an empath. So boundary setting for me is a really big scary thing. So whenever I do it, I come like a little bit more strong. And then when I'm so bubbly, people are like, Whoa, what's up with her? But setting boundaries, it's really I'm still, you know, like, juggling with this on

Hannah Dixon (10:01.015)
Yes.

Hannah Dixon (10:10.691)
Mm-hmm.

Hannah Dixon (10:17.019)
Hehehehe

Nienke Nina (10:24.086)
But I also saw the difference, the relationship shift from being a freelancer, being sort of the all round sort of assistant always fixing stuff to like, Hey, my new offer or my package or my solutions that I offer is just this. Do you have any tips for people that, that move away from a certain status or

Hannah Dixon (10:40.549)
Mm-hmm.

Nienke Nina (10:53.166)
Sorry, move away from a certain status or anything in their freelance career, in their VA career and kind of level up, but need to communicate that properly because you had this as well, right? As you started doing a lot of things and then you started to focus on certain things.

Hannah Dixon (11:11.691)
Yeah, I think there's a few things at play here. I'd say first is being really clear on what that new offer is, because I think what a lot of people do is they're testing out the verbiage, right? They're like, what about like this, what about like, and that's totally fine, but then when it becomes apparent that like this is what you wanna do, like you need to go all in on that. That means change your headlines, your bios, everything everywhere, everything needs to be in alignment with that, because nobody knows unless you tell them number one. And two is leveraging the network that you've already built as a freelancer, as a VA, as whatever it is that you do. I think one of the,

Nienke Nina (11:29.582)
Yeah.

Hannah Dixon (11:41.295)
biggest benefits of working for yourself in a freelance fashion is the fact that you get to take your network with you for the entirety of your career. I used to work in fashion many years ago and I built up such a great network and I couldn't take any of those contacts with me. If I'd wanted to work in fashion as a freelancer, I was gonna start from scratch. So obviously that's not what I did. But working as a freelancer for yourself, your network is your life network. It comes with you, it lifts you up and you need to fall back on them in the same way that you need to support your network too.

Nienke Nina (11:49.198)
Hmm.

Hannah Dixon (12:11.963)
And that can look like reaching out to clients and simply letting them know that you have these new offers. And if they know anybody who might want to refer you, that's, that's the number one thing I'd probably do. Also leaning on them for feedback. Is this something that you think sounds valuable? What kind of value would you place on this? Do you know anybody who might need this service? And then your extended network, you know, LinkedIn, Instagram, wherever it is that you're hanging out. Um, shouting about it loud and proud is one thing doing things like all sign posts. You need to let people know you're in business. The same you walk past.

a motel or a hotel that says vacancy or no vacancy, you need to do that for yourself too. Nobody's gonna know about telling them. But then leaning on that network, recognizing that the network doesn't go because you've changed direction. In fact, it comes with you and it can support you and lift you up.

Nienke Nina (12:54.218)
Yeah, I love it. Such a great reminder also for our listeners, because there's so many people that are listening to that podcast, to this podcast that are either working in a remote job or in a job right now that want to go like fully remote freelance. And the this idea of like we're, we start from scratch. If you think about it with the network approach that you just mentioned, you might actually

Um, you're not starting from scratch because you already have collected things and you have golden nuggets in your pocket. You just need to recognize them. Be aware of that. Love it. So aside from, uh, boundary setting, another thing that I see that's, um, this is a marketing narrative. I don't really agree with. So this is also in my agency that we really focus on is this thing about.

Hannah Dixon (13:28.311)
Yep, totally.

Nienke Nina (13:45.15)
You need to be online all the time. All the internet heroes are doing all of these things. I need to do that as well. I'm so, this is something I don't do in my agency. We're always like very, very highly focused on online platforms. I'm really curious about your advice for starting freelancers, VAs that maybe don't have that, that signature offer yet or that clarity, but they still want to market themselves. Like how, how would you approach that?

Hannah Dixon (14:13.819)
I mean, I like what you said there about not really having to be everywhere all the time. I'm extremely on the side of I'd rather show up intentionally than all the time. So when I personally, in my own business and my own life, when I show up on social media, it's because I have something to say that I really want to share, not because I feel like I have to share every day. And that has led to much better results than, you know, posting every single day because of

visibility sake. I'm doing air quotes because nobody can see that. I'll have to say it. And I think that back to your question, what somebody, I actually forgot your question. Can you repeat it again? Can we cut this part?

Nienke Nina (14:58.947)
It's really focused on like, what is the advice that you would give for like more like starting freelancers VA that don't have that signature offer yet or that don't have that clarity yet in what they're offering.

Hannah Dixon (15:04.141)
Mm-hmm.

Hannah Dixon (15:07.707)
Mm-hmm. Right, okay. Yeah. I would also recommend starting to look at, well, first of all, there's doing the work of identifying what you might want to be doing, and then you wanna start seeing if you can validate that. So number one, I always say, if you wanna do a real actionable thing, you can set up a piece of paper, or you can do it on Canva or something if you like. Three columns in the first column, what am I really good at? And in that,

I don't want you to just put things that you're good at professionally. I want you to put everything you're good at. If you're good at yoga, if you're good at making people laugh, you're good at customer service, put it all down. Just let yourself have a brain dump. Because for me, if you're starting as a freelancer, you're starting a business, right? You're an entrepreneur. And if you're doing that, if you're coming from a nine to five environment and you're moving into entrepreneurship, there is no point doing it. If there's no alignment, like you're going to move into doing something you don't like doing, it doesn't make any sense. So put everything down that you that you're good at.

Nienke Nina (15:40.236)
Mm.

Nienke Nina (15:59.278)
Yeah, I even took that.

Hannah Dixon (16:02.367)
including the things that are not quote unquote professional. In the second column, I want you to put, what do you enjoy doing? And I want you to call on that first column and put everything that you enjoy doing and you're good at in that second column. Because there's things that we're good at that we don't enjoy. I'm really good at data entry, do I enjoy it? No, hell no. So you wanna move across the things you actually enjoy doing, so you start narrowing it down a bit more. And in the third column is what can I get paid for? And this is where you need to think outside the box a little bit, because almost any type of business

Nienke Nina (16:05.972)
Mm-hmm.

Nienke Nina (16:20.298)
Thank you.

Hannah Dixon (16:31.875)
any type of solopreneur, even large corporations can benefit from the use of freelancers and are benefiting from the use of freelancers. And so there's, we need to start thinking what goes into their online presence? What goes in, not even their online presence, there's offline stuff that you can help in a digital way as well. So if you would, I'll give a really weird example just to prove that this works across the board. Let's say that you're really good at building websites. That's one of the skills that you have. You really...

Nienke Nina (16:48.471)
Yeah.

Hannah Dixon (17:00.607)
love Mexican food and you really love talking with people and having a good time. What can you get paid for? Like realistically, you can build websites, but if you build them for everybody, who are you really building them for? You could build websites for restaurants, Mexican restaurants. They're going to hire you over somebody who doesn't know anything about Mexican food because you're going to come in with that energy and the language that they understand and they're going to pay you more to do it as well.

Nienke Nina (17:27.347)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Hannah Dixon (17:27.703)
So I'd start looking at what you're good at, what you enjoy doing from that, who you might wanna serve from that and start there knowing that it's gonna change. I think that's a big thing I'll add as well is that imperfect action is always better than no action at all. And so when you start identifying an area or two that you can move forward in, take those steps because you don't know what doors are available to you unless you can take those first steps.

And so take those steps knowing it's gonna change. It will change. That's the nature of this work. You have the ability to change and adapt when you start identifying what you do and don't like. And then having conversations with people, reaching out to the Mexican restaurant and being like, hey, I noticed you don't have an ordering system. Is that something you'd be interested in? And then building yourself a little portfolio. If people are worried about not having anything to put in a portfolio, do the work for yourself. If you wanna be an Instagram manager, guess what? Your Instagram account.

is your portfolio. You wanna be a web designer? Your website is your portfolio. So you can get started building your own business up and serve that up to potential clients say, is this something you'd want? What would it look like if this was a perfect scenario? Start validating it, but start telling people. You need to start telling people and recognizing, I'd say one more thing, sorry, I'm going on a tangent here, but one more thing I would say is that people get afraid of putting themselves out there. I totally get that, right? If you're not used to being visible in a certain way,

Nienke Nina (18:30.175)
Yeah.

Nienke Nina (18:35.96)
I love it. Go, go, go.

Hannah Dixon (18:45.887)
If you're going to work online, you need to be online in some capacity and there is an element of visibility. And if you're afraid of that, one of the things I'll say, which is a little unorthodox, but it is totally true, is that when you're first starting, you have all the space in the world to mess up because the bittersweet truth is nobody's watching yet. You have all this space in the world to mess up and refine and mess up again and refine. And as you grow, things just get better and better. If you're not embarrassed of the work you did five years ago, you haven't grown. So recognize that.

part of the journey is allowing yourself to, you know, mess up a little bit and test the waters.

Nienke Nina (19:22.262)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I love that. Well, I love so many things of what you just said. One thing that, well, there's two things that really stand out, but one thing that really stands out, which is so connected to how I have been making decisions also this past, um, well, I would say almost a year is that finding, like work with people or with projects or, or in industries niches that truly excite you because that's one thing of you can do a job, but if you are looking

at a screen and you don't like what you're seeing on your screen, like where the heck are you gonna find the motivation to do it? Like even a Spotify playlist is not gonna save you here. It's just it just won't. And this is also something that I connected to that so late in my life. Like, it's so funny. And I feel like I'm a bit of a lay bloomer with stuff. But then on the other end, I'm like, yeah, who cares? It's like

Hannah Dixon (20:03.403)
Mm-hmm.

Nienke Nina (20:18.278)
I was always working with people that, I was working with people that just kind of came to me, but not having that filtering system, right? And now I have that and my niche is completely focused on nomadic audiences. Like, heck makes sense. I mean, I have a digital nomads daily podcast. Like I talk digital nomadism remote work every day. So I have a niche now where people ask me like, what is your niche? It's like, it's like digital nomads slash remote work slash freedom printer.

Hannah Dixon (20:32.864)
Mm-hmm.

Hannah Dixon (20:39.536)
Mm-hmm.

Nienke Nina (20:48.152)
me this makes sense. So I love that you said that because it goes a lot into like narratives that I recently talked more about is finding that alignment. And yeah, go to your bucket of things that you love doing and just like find your knees in there. Like, it's so important that you love your job, especially if you're gonna do this and you have to self motivate and you have to tackle challenges and all of these things like if the job sucks. Oh my god.

Hannah Dixon (20:49.305)
Yeah.

Nienke Nina (21:17.342)
Like it's no freedom, right?

Hannah Dixon (21:18.691)
Yeah, exactly. And that's the thing that we're looking for. I love that you are also exploring that right now, because I think that people disregard that so much. They just think, well, they're thinking about the money, like I want to get the money in, but I'll tell you what, the money comes in tenfold when you're in alignment as well. And I will just add to all of this as well and say that I gave very like, you know, industry sort of experiences. You can also look at.

Nienke Nina (21:27.35)
Yeah.

Nienke Nina (21:33.218)
Yeah, absolutely.

Hannah Dixon (21:44.439)
like I think you touched on it just now is that looking at values as well, like values as a way to niche, you can niche buy. I want to work with people who care about the environment. Like there's your niche. It doesn't need to be, oh, in the construction industry or in the, you know, the tech industry, it can just be across the board. That is the common theme.

Nienke Nina (22:00.01)
Yeah. Or you can even niche on problems that you're solving for specific people. Like, when we run to our processes, like when we built our funnels, like one of the things that we hammer on is like, okay, but what problem are you actually solving? Like, it's like, yes, you can do like Alex or Mosi style create your offer and all of these things. But like, it's more of like, what is that real underlying problem? And what's your personal connection to solving that problem? Like?

Hannah Dixon (22:15.108)
Mm-hmm.

Hannah Dixon (22:28.003)
Right?

Nienke Nina (22:28.586)
What is your story there? And then we create marketing narratives around that. Yeah, no, I love this. Oh my God, it's almost another episode topic. Now, the other thing that really stood out for me is about the money part. I think one of the most toxic narratives that is happening in the nomad space for a really long time already is this sort of like overnight success and that freedom equals money. And it just makes me barf. Like, really.

Hannah Dixon (22:35.332)
Hehehehe

Hannah Dixon (22:55.099)
Mm-hmm, yep.

Nienke Nina (22:57.818)
You also mentioned that things went well. You made a few K's like great. What is the, um, how would you go about like setting expectations for yourself and goals realistically when, when you're like a starting freelancer or VA, or when you're like switching to a specific. Offer or solution.

Hannah Dixon (23:22.511)
So I would say number one is recognize what success looks like for you because it's different for everybody. And I think that as hard as it is, trying to limit the opportunity for comparison artists to occur. And that may mean on a very extreme level, that may mean literally putting your blinders on a little bit and staying in your lane. I've had to do that because I've found myself in the past being like, well, this person's done that or that person's doing this or.

you know, this kind of, and that can really eat away at you, especially if you're getting started. So putting your blinders on, following your direction yourself and recognizing what success looks like for you. So maybe success for you is you want a little homestead somewhere and you just want enough money. I hate saying enough money because I feel like it's a little bit of a, anyway, that's a whole nother topic, but you know, I just need the money to, you know, sustain my small little farm here and my family.

Nienke Nina (24:09.006)
I'm going to go to bed.

Hannah Dixon (24:17.203)
Or it could be, I wanna live in a penthouse in New York City. Or it could be, actually, I just want more time with my family and I don't really need the money. It's just that I wanna enjoy my work. So I think it's really important to identify what success is to you when it comes to whatever the new endeavor is that you're embarking on. And then that helps you to not put those comparisons in place, because it makes you recognize that you have your own unique path, and that's what you're working towards. So when it does come up, because it will come up, it does for everybody in some way, at some point.

Um, is saying, Oh, hang on a second. Like I had to do this recently, complete transparency. I had someone who's also in my industry and I was like, damn, she's like wildly successful and so much more than I could ever be. And then I was thinking about it and I was like, hang on a second. Do I want her life? Is that what I'm aiming towards? And I was like, actually, no, I don't want a huge team. I don't want this like.

multinational corporation, I don't want to be dealing with investors. I want to live my happy little life. And so I think it's really important to always come back to that. So identifying what that looks like for you is something you can always fall back on because then you can say, okay, this is actually where I'm going. I'm not going there or there. I'm going here. And this is what success looks like to me.

Nienke Nina (25:16.545)
I think.

Nienke Nina (25:21.1)
Yeah.

Nienke Nina (25:32.822)
Yeah.

Wow, I'm so happy you touched on that. It's so important. It's like, I think that this is like the biggest misconception about like living a freedom lifestyle in general. Like whose freedom lifestyle you're actually living? Is that your freedom lifestyle? Like, are you like curious and exploring that constantly? Or are we just copycats of like whoever is doing what? And like, it's really good to get inspiration from other people. But I think that we forget this very important step

Hannah Dixon (25:46.337)
Yes.

Hannah Dixon (25:59.13)
Mm-hmm.

Nienke Nina (26:05.48)
how would, what does this mean to my life? How does that look and feel? How can I like apply it? Like all of these things and it's, yeah, so I've resonated a lot with that conversation. All right. Um, I have one more question, which is a bit more focused on like, I guess like that's the sort of big scare right now of like, who AI is taking over a job, what's happening?

Hannah Dixon (26:27.972)
Yeah.

Nienke Nina (26:32.062)
I love it also for the podcast, but I have to say, I need people, I need humans to look at the content. So from my experience, even though I use AI, we leverage it. We love the teacher clients. I just taught my non-nomad boyfriend how to use AI and he was sitting on the train. Like, Oh my God, like, it's really cute, but we need people and we need humans. So what is your take on this?

Hannah Dixon (26:40.067)
Mm-hmm.

Hannah Dixon (26:51.087)
Hehehe

Hannah Dixon (26:57.899)
Yeah, I love that you said that because I'm going to echo exactly what you said is that we do need humans. And what I'm finding, like I said, I have the recruitment arm of my business. And what we're finding is people aren't coming and saying they want to use AI instead of VA's they're saying, I want VA's who are educated in this because people never want to do the things, right? People always are going to want to outsource and they're outsourcing AI skills as well. Now. Um, but just like you said, there's a human touch that cannot be replaced. It simply cannot be replaced. So it may be a case of.

Leaning into your creative problem solving skills, leaning into being able to have those conversations like I said earlier, you know, boundaries saying all those kinds of things that only humans can do well. But then recognizing that AI is an incredible skill set for you to adopt and start learning about the different tools and different applications because people are looking for people who have these AI capabilities. And I'm seeing that I'd say 50% of the roles that are coming through to our VA community are people who they are listing AI capabilities.

as a desirable skill.

Nienke Nina (27:57.251)
Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, we have that too. And it's also like, it's not just to, to say like with this specifically, oh, you just need to have done a few things. It's AI, it's like show people the process of how you're leveraging AI so you can give the really added value to someone else's business. Like if someone comes to me and be like, hey, I want to work with you on your promotional content for your podcast, I'm going to use AI for this. And this is my process.

And I see like, oh my God, it's like melt, like complete melt. I'm like, yes, let's go. Whereas if it's just like, oh yeah, I use this for this prompt and that's it. Like it, I think it's also the thinking of like, how do you apply this? How do you leverage this? How, what, if you can solve this thing with AI, oh my God, like what else can you solve? Amazing. So for me as like, yeah.

Hannah Dixon (28:31.376)
Hehehehe.

Hannah Dixon (28:42.066)
Mm-hmm.

Hannah Dixon (28:47.891)
Mm-hmm, absolutely. It's that thought process, that innovation that you're bringing into someone's business, absolutely.

Nienke Nina (28:54.974)
Yeah, yeah, you become so highly valuable. And this is also something that I really love about a freelance or entrepreneurship lifestyle, or journey, I always say it's kind of like self development and steroids, right? It's really freaking hard to be an entrepreneur, freelancer, or VA. But if you're open yourself up to new opportunities, learn be part of amazing communities, you can really find those golden nuggets to kind of like

Differentiate yourself from the rest and really, really stand out and then align with yourself with the things that you want like bomb great career.

Hannah Dixon (29:29.983)
Mm-hmm, totally agree. Love that you said that.

Nienke Nina (29:32.426)
Lauren, oh my God, there's so many things I want to ask you, but like, we always have like a 30 minute cap, more or less on the podcast. So I think it would be great if you can just come back another time because there's just so many more things. Before we go, I always ask my guests if they have one question for me. So

Hannah Dixon (29:39.012)
Hehehehe

Hannah Dixon (29:44.303)
Let's do it.

Hannah Dixon (29:54.131)
My question for you is, I want to think about how I want to phrase this.

Nienke Nina (29:59.553)
I'm sorry.

Hannah Dixon (30:00.947)
What is or is there, start again, scratch that. Can you talk about a time, if there has been a time, where you thought about throwing in the tail as an entrepreneur and how you came back from that?

Nienke Nina (30:06.717)
Oh good.

Nienke Nina (30:19.766)
Wow, I'm, I feel like I think about this like maybe two times a week, three times a week, even still. It's like, it's, it's.

I feel like that this happens when I, when I'm, uh, well, for sure, one of my periods. So fair enough. Uh, but this happens when in two moments, one, when things are going so well, I'm like, oh my God, some shit needs to be at the end of this, like that something needs to happen, which is going to be also done like applying mindfulness and just staying calm. That's for me a sign when I have these sensations of like, Whoa.

Hannah Dixon (30:39.348)
Mm-hmm. Ha ha

Hannah Dixon (30:51.451)
I'm gonna go.

Nienke Nina (31:01.142)
I'm doing too much, I'm overdoing it, slow down. Um, and it also happens when, um, when I get a lot of nos or something in one week, let's say we have all these sales calls and projects are not going through and things it's just like, it's just not flowing. That's when it happens. Now, what I do is I have two sort of go-to things, um, community. So there's people that I trust that are in similar boats or have similar goals.

That's, those are the people I'll reach out to. I don't ask my boyfriend about this. I don't tell him about this, not my mom or my dad, like no one like that. Like I really specifically go to people that understand this day-to-day challenge of being an entrepreneur. I think that's very important. And then the other thing is, is that I just give myself a lot of love and a lot of grace. And I would just like, you know, give myself a big fat hug because

It is challenging and it's really difficult. Add nomadism and working like a traveling to that. So I think that we sometimes forget that. So those are the things, uh, when it happens and then how I would overcome that. Yeah.

Hannah Dixon (32:10.947)
I loved it. Thank you for sharing. I think what's really important what you said there, because I think people disregard that ebb and flow of entrepreneur, you know, the entrepreneurial roller coaster. And I love that you mentioned giving yourself grace because you know deep down that it is a roller coaster, right? And you're choosing to do that. And I think that's incredibly brave.

Nienke Nina (32:19.117)
Yeah.

Nienke Nina (32:26.898)
Yeah, and also maybe to that, like, if you have this low mood or not so great mood, so to say, stay away from social media, because it's really painful to see them, your internet heroes or someone like, for example, someone that you just talked about, like, to see them doing so great. But then the end of the day, you'd never know because it's always online, you don't know how these people are feeling. So just stay away from social media, like go watch Tetsonk or something.

Hannah Dixon (32:35.475)
Yes.

Hannah Dixon (32:42.255)
Yep.

Hannah Dixon (32:48.692)
Exactly.

Hannah Dixon (32:54.564)
And you know what? When you're feeling really good and you're all over social media, those people are probably looking at you thinking the same thing. Yeah.

Nienke Nina (33:02.19)
Literally, literally. Actually, I noticed because I had a client of mine that was saying like, Oh my god, you're always so beautiful and your smiles and this and that and I was like, I will just give you a screenshot of my real camera roll like how many like try like this is like one out of hundreds.

Hannah Dixon (33:17.331)
I'm sorry.

Hannah Dixon (33:22.575)
I'm sorry.

Nienke Nina (33:22.73)
So just to give her context, right? Because I was like, I'm not your Instagram girl. I'm completely awkward. I like my eyes go like up and down in the same time. I'm not that person. And I think it's so important that people, like we see what we wanna see, but there's always more to see. Like always more if you open.

Hannah Dixon (33:28.495)
Ha ha

Hannah Dixon (33:33.654)
Yeah.

Hannah Dixon (33:38.495)
Yeah, absolutely. It's like when you get those emails, like I said, I hope, I hope this finds you well. I'm like, Oh, I've been in bed for three days, but I'm not going to tell you that. But yeah, that's the reality sometimes.

Nienke Nina (33:48.946)
Yeah. Right. Amazing. All right. So if people want to learn how to become a VA, how to master their current VA career, right, because not just for new VA's or just want to be part of your community or get some inspiration, where can they find you online?

Hannah Dixon (34:03.235)
Mm-hmm.

Hannah Dixon (34:08.679)
On Instagram, I'm pretty active at digital nomad kit. That's digital nomad kit or digital nomad kit.com or just Hannah Dixon.

Nienke Nina (34:17.614)
Cool, we're gonna add this to the show notes. Thank you so much for joining. I really, really enjoyed it. And I'm so happy that after so many months, we finally were able to make it.

Hannah Dixon (34:26.567)
Likewise, thank you so much for having me.

Nienke Nina (34:29.197)
Thank you. All right, I'm just gonna.