Digital Nomads for Good: The Digital Nomad Movement Meets Charity

Hey Nomads, welcome to Digital Nomad Stories, the podcast. My name is Anne-Klaassen and, together with my co-host, kendra Hasse, we interview digital nomads. Why? Because we want to share stories of how they did it. We talk about remote work, online business, location and dependency, freelancing, travel and, of course, the digital nomad lifestyle. Do you want to know more about us and access all previous episodes? Visit digitalnomadsdoriesco. Alright, let's go into today's episode. Hey, hey, nomads, welcome to a new episode of Digital Nomad Stories. Today I'm here with Aliette and Dom. They are the co-founders of Digital Nomads for Good and they are here to talk about basically managing remote team or remote work and managing remotely when one person is remote and the other person is not, and I'm really excited to hear both sides of that story, because I think it's super interesting to hear both perspectives. And, of course, we'll also talk about Digital Nomads for Good and what they do and what they're working on now, which is super exciting, I think. So I'm super excited to have you guys on the show today, dom and Aliette welcome. Thanks so much for having us.

Yeah, thanks for having us.

Yeah. So to kick things off, can you tell us a little bit more about you and what you do, dom?

maybe we can start with you, sure, so I've spent the last sort of two and a half years now, give or take, working as a Digital Nomad out in Columbia. I was based in Bogota, mostly working for a UK organisation selling software solutions. I actually worked for Aliette he was my boss for quite a long time and yeah, so we've moved on now to start this new project, starting off in Medellin, which is obviously a big Digital Nomad hub In terms of me. I've been kicking around in sales and sales development and company management for two too many years now, and yeah, so it's finally a chance for us to do something a little bit different.

Cool, awesome, very cool. And Aliette, what about you?

I really felt that too many years Now. I sort of looked at Dom's face and I thought when we first met each other, there were no grey hairs. You know, neither of us. We both look so much fresher. So yeah, I'm currently the co-founder and CEO of Digital Nomads for good, so working with Dom in a slightly different fashion to before. So I guess now Dom's my manager and my technically remote views on I don't know, but he's still worked over in Columbia, so we're working with that time difference and the previous to that. I've worked with an awful lot of startups, always focused in sales, sales, development, sales, training. The last couple of years, dom and I have worked at two different businesses together, where I've been the head of SDR, sdr director, and Dom has been part of the SDR team. So I'm brought into these sort of special skills and knowledge in sales, which is how I was able to swing, you know, having a remote, a fully remote work in the first place.

Yeah, awesome. So did you meet initially at work through the jobs that you had?

Let's say yes, yeah, yeah, we grew up in the same area, so we and we're the same age, so we were known to one another, but we didn't really know one another. And then we probably met when we were working at a call center in Richmond selling Sky TV, doing outbound cold calling acquisitions, when there was 150 people on the calling floor and it was chaos. You'd have to sit under your desk so you could hear the person you were speaking to. Oh, wow, yeah that's what we met when we were 19.

Yeah, it's about eight. Yeah, about 18 years, 17, 18 years ago, yeah.

Yeah, so cool, awesome, you go way back. So how did it happen that you, elliot, were a manager and then Dom, you went off the work remotely? Basically Like, what's the story there exactly Did? You start in office and then go remotely from there, or like what was the situation.

Well, before Elliot jumps in, because there's a thing, the bit about how I ended up working for Elliot he should tell. But prior to that, you know, post COVID world, I found myself working for an organization. Well, apart from this, and it was a fully remote job because obviously we all were in those days had to work. So I just finished my master's degree and had found this position and I could not see a reason for me to remain in the UK while still doing this job. I there was nothing pinning me there. So I had a chance to. I voted the company and I said hey, I'm looking to travel a little bit. Can I do the? Can I continue doing this? And they said but as far as they were concerned, they said, look, as long as we don't really know about it, don't care where you are, just as long as you get your own, as long as you're on the right work hours. So it did this for a little while and then then Elliot and I started talking about other potential positions available and then and I was already currently working, working overseas. So it was a. It was a question of what happens next.

Yeah.

And it was. It was a case of, I mean, two separate businesses, actually something I've always done, a lot of this work with startups going sort of hell's sake up the sales team or build it out a bit, and in both of those instances, you know, I saw an opportunity for dog to support us. So you know, I had a slight position of power I had, you know I was able to to sell that concept entirely, because even you know, to the first business, actually having somebody fully remote wasn't an issue, but so they had a lot of remote workers. They were going to global sorry, going global quite quickly, and so remote work was familiar for them and quite easy. For the second business not so much and took a little bit of convincing. But it was really about saying, well, look, you get here actually is, given someone who's living abroad and able to live a, you know, lower cost lifestyle, you actually get an awful lot more Through your money. You'll get someone with a lot more experience. You can hit the ground running.

That makes sense, so that was.

That was the pitch.

Yeah, that's interesting to hear. No-transcript. How did that work exactly? You mentioned that you sold it, as you will save money by hiring this person, who works remotely or no?

It is more that you get more value because it's a position that ends more at the start of a lot of sales careers. Not as big of a wage but given the opportunity to work remotely and work in a cheaper location, dom could afford a low wage doing something he was more interested in doing. Equally, that can support the lifestyle.

If I had remained in the UK, the financial burden on me is much, much higher. I would have needed to go for probably double or triple the salary I was actually taking. I wouldn't have been able to take a role at this. I have 18 odd years experience in similar areas. I was able to take a job where it was a relatively junior position from where I have been, but with that freedom of movement that was worth so much to me that you could justify that loss in salary In somewhere like Columbia. You just don't need it. You don't need to earn $80, $90 grand because you can survive comfortably off a decent UK salary.

Exactly, you prioritise more the remote work, remote part and living in Columbia over really being super ambitious and continuing Exactly that, yeah, exactly that.

Van Diddelsen come with Stying at 2, 3 in the morning quite often yeah, when I first out working for the first organisation although Elliot had a pretty good understanding of things like working hours the team I ended up working on wasn't quite as adept at doing that. So I was finding myself starting work about 2 o'clock in the morning and they booked meetings for me at 4 o'clock, 5 o'clock, and they were also like oh, but you're in the United States, so you're not in the United States, but you're in the same time zone, so you can also work 5 or 6 o'clock in the afternoon, their time. And I'm like well, I mean, theoretically I can, but I'm now working 14 hours a day and you don't seem to understand this time difference. No, so, I'd have one manager book of meeting for one time and then another manager book, so I'm actually working two time zones almost fully, which was hell, but again, it's a learning curve. You'd eventually have to stand up and be like this is going to kill me, but so when you end up still working from like 2 in the morning to 11 o'clock in the morning, that's not too bad. You know, you can go out and do stuff in the afternoon. There's nobody in the art galleries and museums which I'm going to definitely say that I go to and or the gym.

That's another one that I definitely do all the time.

I'm always there. It's definitely not just get served earlier in bars. People do look at you funny though when you're turning up at a bar and you're drinking a bottle of wine at sort of 2 o'clock in the afternoon, because for you it's 9 at night. Yeah, yeah, so you just have you. Just, I fully committed to the UK sort of time zones and lived my life on that, so I was hitting, I was going to bed at 7 in the evening, that sort of thing. So it was 6 in the evening. So, yeah, just just fully transfer onto that zone. It was yeah.

Wasn't difficult with, you know, waking up when it's completely dark outside and then going to bed at 7 pm. You know, sometimes I don't know, maybe it's yeah, it curtailes your social life.

It definitely curtailes your social life quite dramatically. I know a lot of nomads that I've spoken to and friends with. They work in things like programming, where they will learn work a certain amount of hours in a day, but those hours they work essentially up to them. A lot of the ones that come from the US again, it's in the same time zone, so it's less of an issue, whereas this particular way around, because I'm doing UK market, then, yeah, so you fit. If I finished work at 11, you know I'm sort of looking to tap out my day, sort of heading home and finishing up about five, so I'm finishing before most of my friends, I'm going to bed before most of my friends have finished work. So it definitely curtailes your life. Then what you do is on a, what I would do on a Friday. I would then go to sleep immediately after work and then transition on to Colombian time for the weekend and then transition back to UK time on the Monday, which was horrendous.

We had some difficult Mondays.

There was some very difficult Mondays. Yeah, I have apologized for most of them.

Yeah, I think that was. It was fun as in because we were already friends. It made it can make this little, yeah, awkward from time to time. You know, like I know, there's a big time difference. I know, probably a Steve, it doesn't happen, it's so rare. But I need you online for like now. But it was Mondays, for Mondays were tough for the team I had based in the UK. Yeah, and people getting up six hours at two in the morning, yeah, I mean Mondays are tough.

I? This is just make me think of when I was a university. I worked as a bartender and I also had to switch my sleep schedule completely every weekend, and then every Monday I was like, oh my god, like dad, and then it took me a while to get used to that sleep schedule again, and then it was weekend again and I had to work nights and then it all started over again. It's, it's tough, it takes a lot of energy, but done for you, it was still worth it.

Oh, 100%, absolutely. I mean you know the advantages that it brings. You know you can speak another language now and you know I have an understanding of totally different culture, which has been, and you know I'm very much somebody who's a believer. If you're gonna go somewhere, then you know you need to integrate on a certain level and understanding the way that people think and the way that people act and the way that people work and so on and so forth is very, very important. But that transition of the transition of time zones, the waking up crazy early provided you're set on UK time, you don't really have an issue and you can wake up quite comfortably at one o'clock in the morning, ready to go ready for start worker two in a really good place. But you need to have that rigidity in your schedule to be able to do that. And that's not always easy because as soon as somebody's like, hey, we're gonna go and do this thing at nine o'clock, you're like, well, I start, you're gonna finish at two, which is when I start work. So yeah, it becomes there's a lot of FOMO. You know that. You experience doing this, but you kind of just have to choose. Like the lifestyle that I have, I want to keep and therefore you have to make quite a lot of sacrifices. It's a lot easier if you're working the same time zone.

Oh yeah, or I think also the other way around. So I'm in European time zones most of the year working for US clients, so that means that the morning is completely mine and I love it. And then I start work, usually at around 2 pm, and then I work until then, usually in the evening. There's still some FOMO, though, like I also miss social activities and meetups and things like that because I'm working sometimes. But yeah, it is really nice to have those mornings. Aliyah, how was it for you, as a manager, to did anything change in your work as a manager? Like, did you have to make any adjustments because there was one team member remote?

Yes, and I think, regrettably, it's one that I wish I'd realized and made sooner actually, which is we were especially with the last business. We're in the process of trying to bring the team together certainly the London-based team together more and get them learning from one another. And whilst it was great when we were doing that and having office days, it was very easy to I hope for myself for saying this but to forget about remote team members. I had a silly mistake actually of not having a stand-up meeting on the days we were in the office, which just meant the remote team members were sort of isolated on those days and absolutely the wrong way to go around it. So I think I did that perhaps a little bit too late and certainly one a bit of advice I would give anyone doing that is just make sure you find time for those team interactions, even if everyone's in the room together and you've just got one remote person. Get everyone on a video call like create. Make sure you keep pulling the team together and don't forget to like pull the team together and don't forget about your remote people, because it can be quite easy to do and you can see that effect and I've seen it in plenty. You can see, that affect their work sometimes as well. Not so much the work, but this is in cells that really affect their motivation, and that's a big part of what we need sales people to do in particular, especially SDRs, who are just rejection day in, day out. Then feeling rejected by your own team is definitely not the one I should shoot yeah. But I mean otherwise it was. You know it was. It worked very well, I think. In all of the other days where we had those video interactions, we still managed to make it feel like the team were all together on our remote days. So we had a hybrid, you know, two days off in the office a week. So on those days where we were having our sort of standups and you know end of day meetings and everything and team training sessions, that did really still feel like we were one team offering together. We did have this huge time zone separating us, but it's just about keeping that up, I think, and making sure that stays regular and consistent. I thought I saw, yeah, you'll get people feeling quite lonely and it's terrible as a manager to find out that you've got two remote workers who are consoling each other. They're feeling lonely and like, oh no, it has happened.

It has happened yeah at the middle of the night. There are things that are unavoidable, though, about those sort of situations, like when we would have a like, for example, training sessions would be in the office, so you'd have six people in an office room and then I, you know, maybe have two people joining in via remotely, just due to the nature of lag, you know that conversation of so rapidly and so organically and naturally within the office space, the Azuramo worker. It's like I'm going to have to use the hands up thing to be able to join in to something that they've already passed in the last 10 seconds. So the faster, the more, the better the team is doing in the office, the less you can really engage in it. And that's just, that's just an eight, that's just. You know I'm on the other side of the planet, you know. Six and a half thousand miles away. That isn't going to be as rapid.

Yeah, it's absolutely that. And then as a manager, you're trying to make sure you caught you know what everybody said making sure if you get their opportunity to speak for something forward and you can face that with the people who are remote, especially if you have got a number of people in a room. I mean, in the previous business the team was fully remote. We have the odd office day, but this was sort of end of COVID times. Everyone was absolutely terrified of leaving their front door If it was anything to do with work, if it was a secret party, your mates. That was true. But I found it easier having a fully remote team. It's easier to to manage that. You know you can have that consistency of standups and meetings and really still create that team atmosphere and environment. Having just, you know, a mixture it's really tough. So I would definitely vote for one of the other. We'll have a remote team if you treat them as a separate team perhaps, but I think it's.

So. I was at a bank in the UK one of the challenger banks and they did the way that, the way they have it is. They have you are either office based or you are remote, and those remote teams are managed by a manager who is also remote, so they're every single person involved in that. The Slack communication is incredibly fluid and constant and it's baked into their culture as being remote. First, transitioning and, you know, being the impetus for a transition into what is essentially a hybrid team does put you in a situation where there's a lot of experience on one side and not a lot and a lot of experience on the other side, but very little of gelling of those two things together. So I think you know it's absolutely right. There were a lot of times when you do feel lonely because you know, because of the time difference and your and especially if you're doing what I was doing, which was, you know, because I'm working UK hours people, then you can really interact with our UK people who have got their own lives back in the UK. So interacting with people where, where I was calling home, is much, much, much more difficult. So I'm, you know, I'm wrapping up at five. I haven't really spoken to anybody that day other than people on the telephone who aren't exactly best pleased to talk to you sometimes, and so the loneliness aspect of things is a very real, it's a very real issue and, you know, if that builds up over a period of time, you can get to a situation where you know there's a couple of times when I would have, when I've messaged you and been like I am not in a healthy place at the moment. This, this, this sucks, you know, and will generally work and it's fine, like if you've got a good manager, you work through that and then you can and luckily I did so that was a massive advantage but I can very, very easily see and feel those times when that that weighs on you quite heavily in terms of trying to balance your life in one place with your, with the reality of working in somewhere fundamentally different.

Yeah, I think that makes a lot of sense and I think what you were saying before which really stood out to me was that keeping remote teams fully remote or keeping an office team fully in office and not mixing the two I think that sounds to me like a really good solution for managers especially, or business owners remote business owners who are struggling with this, or what do you.

There's a large investment, though, because you'd have to then have enough people to justify a remote team, and if you're looking at seven SDRs and then one of them is remote or two of them is remote, you'd have to have another manager to then head up those two people, which would probably be one of them.

Or you get a really good manager who can manage to to small chips, but you know, either way I think, just even the management of the managing them slightly separately. Yeah, I, yeah, if I could go back and do it again, I think I would do that a little bit differently, even with the smaller teams. Tom, to be fair, yeah, I would create a lot more work for myself, but I think it would be better for the people I mean. Yeah, that's if you've got, yeah, office-based team or, you know, a location-based team versus a split of kind of location and remote.

Yeah, was there anything else that didn't really translate? Translate over to the remote workers, like I'm just thinking, like maybe business benefits don't exist, but so it's the social things I missed.

I missed there was a, there was a summer party, there was a Christmas party. Not able to go to them because you know, like the justification for flying six and a half thousand miles for a trip event and then flying back again, just as well being practical, it's 11 hours was 10 and a half hours direct. So you're looking at, you're looking at full days to two days travel, so that's out of the question. So the interaction with the people in the office is quite difficult. Benefits, things, like you know, you get work from home benefits, but you get work from home benefits provided you're in the UK. So it's like, oh, you can have a new table and again you're in Airbnb's most of the time. So you move. We tend to move from place to place. I've got the furniture there, but if I want to set up a desk or sell up an office, there is no permanent residence for me to be able to do that. The shifting of locations on a regular basis is something that detracts quite heavily. So you've got a couple of weeks in one place, a couple of weeks in another place. You've got to bear in mind those weekends where you move from one place to another. That weekend is a right off because you've got to go and do, you've got to get everything got, everything packed, everything moved and then everything set up in the new place. It just there's a few things like that.

There's the other side of it as well. I think, you know, like most, most sales managers in particular, especially the team in the office, they'll be very reactive, so they'll be listening to conversations going on, getting involved in emails and really, you know, adding a lot of benefits to the team there. The remote members don't get that benefit, you know. They get hired because, typically, because they have the experience to not necessarily need that, but it does make sales such a, you know, even for, say, season professionals, it makes such a big difference. I think another really important aspect to consider is, you know, certainly for a business that's mostly office based, you know remote workers don't get the right amount of exposure. They don't get, you know, practically any exposure in the business. Having that opportunity to socialize, you know, go over to other people's desks, solve problems, that sort of thing, that's the sort of stuff that gets people promoted and I think that's something that's easily overlooked with remote workers and it makes sense in a very sad way, you know, because you just you don't see that side of someone. So it'll be often that you'll be hired remotely into a senior management position, but if you're trying to climb the ranks internally. So you know, I think as a SDR it's different here, with Dom, for instance, was doing it because he's suited, but he was trying to do it at the timing and had back loads and loads of experience. For someone who's new in that career. You've got to get some exposure to the rest of the team and then you know to the other teams and management if you're there for a career and if you're just fully remote, it won't happen.

On that note. Actually, one of the things towards the end that became abundantly apparent that I didn't realize was going to be an issue for me later on was the natural progression from SDR is to an AE, a sales development representative, to an accounts executive. The accounts executive was office based and needs to be office based. There's no way around that. Therefore, I was in a, I was in a um form of meeting, everything's fine, but um, it was like this there's there's position, there's there's a progression system, a new progression system being put in place to naturally guide SDRs to a positions, and it was like I can't be on that because I will never progress in the organization. Now that works because of what I, because of the choices I've made to go into this position the being told categorically there's no possibility for promotion whilst you're working abroad, because it can't happen, and there is only sort of one or two natural progressions, all of which require being office based. They hit quite a hit, harder than I thought it was going to, because it works at the time. But then you realize that, um, yeah, there's, there's, I'm going to be. If I carry on doing this, I'm going to be here in five years in exactly the same position and there's no, there's no possibility without leaving. So that's a bit of a tea progression up and it does. It caught me off guard quite a lot. I didn't think it would, but, um yeah, genuinely surprising.

Yeah, I think that's a, that's a good note and something to consider, and I think the only way around that is to work for a fully remote company, right, because they would they. They have everyone remote, so I think that's the only way around that. Um, but then, yeah, that means.

Or be very, very sure that the thing that you're doing, you're doing for the right reasons. For example, if you've got a family and you're not looking to and you're you're living out somewhere and you want to continue doing that, so you know that really, this will provide you the life that you want pretty much indefinitely. Fantastic, absolutely. We could not recommend it highly enough. But if there's any possibility that you want to do more professionally than what you can do, then you need to think very, very carefully about whether or not it's that position. Do you want to be doing this in five years time?

Yeah, but yeah, and I think to your point, you're actually right it's about the business that you go and work with as well and what, how they approach remote working and what their understanding of it is. Because there is, I've seen over the years from when remote working was like the holy grail and you were really lucky if you maybe got one remote work there a month. Yeah, because, and it was always because I've got to do a whole day's worth of Excel work and it's just so much easier to do on my sofa and my boss would be like I understand that actually, but that's fine to you know a world where you know I interview people who are fresh out of university and they say well, what's your hybrid working policy? Right? What do you mean?

Yeah.

How many days do I get to work from home and I thought I had to earn that you know I felt like I had to earn that over the years. But you know different companies have very different approaches to it and you know, and I've worked with some who have really progressive approaches to hybrid working. You know you do well to have sort of hybrid teams and having remote workers and some office based and I think you know they made the office optional for all the teams where it could be. That was a big part of it, but they just embraced the remote team the right way in company meetings and that kept that inclusion and then you, you know, still kept that opportunity for progression. So I think, yeah, a big part of it is how the business approaches remote that that bank I said I worked for.

they have an office in central London. They have an office in Cardiff as well and they're actually it's more accurate to say that that is a benefit rather than the remote working now, because remote working for them is standard. They're a remote first organization, but having the ability to say, anytime you want to come to the office, anytime you want to use the stuff we've got, yeah, you want to chill on the beanbags, you want to play table tennis, you want to do all that sort of stuff that we have at this base, you could just come in and do work office whenever you want to. There's an actual benefit to that, which is the side of the reverse of where we were.

It's unless, unless exactly where we were when we were based in the UK in like a we work sort of space. The head office was in Finland and had multiple saunas. You'd see it on Slack on the away from keyboard channel all the time it would say SK, quick sauna and you'd be in the UK like oh, that's really unfair.

That sounds really good. That's awesome. I'm also wondering how do you guys work together at Digital Nomads for Good? Maybe, before you answer this question, can you tell us a little bit more about what Digital Nomads for Good actually is Like. What do you guys do? And then you know, I also want to know how you work together there.

Sure, do you want to take this one?

I was wondering who it's going to volunteer. So Digital Nomads for Good is effectively a platform and mechanism for people who are living as Digital Nomads to give back to local charities and community projects in their newly adopted cities. And you know from Dom's experience we noticed, you know there was a real urge for people to do something about the gentrification that's been caused or the impact that they're having when they're traveling, but not really seeing any simple mechanism to do it. And then again I mean Dom over to you here, but just seeing some of the charities and opportunities of you know, smaller organisations that we can help and what very little and how big of an impact that can have.

So, to give an idea, a lot of charities, the small charities, for example in Colombia, use the Colombian-specific banking systems known as, like Necki and Dabby Plata, which are owned by large banks, but they're very, very specific that you could only have if you have a Colombian identification card, so you can't use them otherwise. Therefore, it's very difficult to give money to charities. There's no mechanism to pay tax, there's no mechanism to give anything to local services, and so on and so forth. But there is a very, very strong desire to do something. So we went, we, elia and I, discussed the idea of working with local charities, on a little working, that are operating in various places on a small scale, to take money from the nomad community and be able to offer a platform whereby people can select from a list of charities that they the ones that they feel most connected to, and then that money will then go to these charities. Now we work with about 12 or 13 in Medellin at the moment it's around that kind of number at a second and they do everything, from this one which works up in the mountains in what's called an invasion zone, which is a very, very difficult to live strata zero level of living. Most of the houses, a lot of them made out of, you know, bits of cars and things like that and they look after 300 children and they provide them with food every single day. They provide English lessons for them. It's the work they do is absolutely amazing. There's another one that looks after children and their guardians. The children have for children who have cancer and they so. They again small scale organisation working with 16 children and then 16 guardians with them. They also have another building for adults who have cancer as well. There are some that provide food. There are some that provide jobs. There's some that provide security for widows after their parents, after their husbands die and you know, they're left with children with no income because coding lessons. Coding lessons massive thing absolutely there's a coding coding organisation and one of them. And then we've got and some animal charities and one that you know tries to get people off the streets by helping them learn how to play football but better and then providing food and dance classes in English and all sorts of other things. So there's a lot of different things that can appeal to a lot of different types of people, but so people can essentially just choose what method, who they'd like to give to most, and then ultimately that will. Then we make sure we ensure the legitimacy of these organisations by going to visit them. We have personal relationships with each one of them and then we report back on those projects that we're doing. So, for example, the one up in the mountains that needs, you know, that looks after the children and provides them with food. They one of their buildings. They had two buildings originally. One of them is subsided because they're on the side of a mountain, so it's fallen down. That needs to be rebuilt. They've had enough money to get the ground tested, but so it's suitable for building, but they need to get the money to actually get that done. So we're not looking at volunteering at the moment. We're not looking at anything other than, or providing toys or clothing. We're just looking at getting the financials from one place to another to provide those resources.

For their most immediate projects Exactly and then feeding that back, you know. So, using that charity's example, we, dom and I, actually went up there. It was a one experience for sure. It was really quite moving, to be honest, as we started to ascend so ever into this area, towards what the Foundation School was. The two people from that charity had amassed a small army of children who were all coming up with them for either, you know, that day's lunch or lesson or whatever it may be, and you could see this sort of love and respect from everyone within that community towards the charity, just because of all the good work they were doing. And you know it was $120 for 300 children in a day.

That will provide them with food.

Yeah, and they're funded entirely from donations. So it's really about trying to offset a little bit of the impact digital nomers have on their travel and giving them the opportunity to do that about causes that they care about, and then keep them posted on what's actually happening and you know what positive impact they are having.

Yeah, exactly. I mean, I've been nomaning for five years now and I, you know, completely agree with you. So many nomads want to do something good, especially because we're a guest in the country that we visit. You know, and we have an impact there, some positive, some negative. And I think it's really beautiful that you provide a way to do more good in the countries that we visit Because we want that. But then, how right, and you're solving that problem. You're telling us how.

It's not an easy thing to do.

It's not easy.

There was not a mechanism where the places I've been to and I've done a decent amount of South America there just isn't a resource for us to be able to contribute direct. Yeah, you know the idea is, if you look at organisations like the British World, british Legion, for example, the Poppy Appeal, they've created this world whereby which I think is absolutely incredible whereby every November in the UK everybody wears a poppy, because that's the dumb thing. I'd love to be in a situation in a few years time where, if you're a digital nomad, you give money to local charities Now via us or via directly, as long as we have a mechanism in place. That means it makes me very sad when people I know talk about the digital nomads coming in and being a lech on society and things like that and just the gentrification aspects of it. I'd like to see us get to a place where we can be, where people are looked at as being they're a net benefit for the local area they come to, because if they're going there, they're contributing to that area. And if you're wearing like my dream is that if you're wearing a DNFG logo, then we know that you're giving to those people around you. Yeah, so offsetting now we're not going to. We can't reverse gentrification. It's not a thing that can happen. The organization, these restaurants and bars and clubs and all they've been set up. They hire locals. They create huge amounts of jobs. There's loads of benefits there, but they're less tangible. It's hard to see them unless you understand the economics of the area. And if they obviously nobodies were to leave, then those businesses closed down, loads of people lose their jobs, the money flows out of the economy. It's all quite negative, more negative than if they're there. This is something which is much more tangible where people can see okay, that person is living here and they are. We know for a fact that they are contributing to our society in a tangible, meaningful way. That's where my that's where I am.

That's the dream.

That's the dream, Now that will take some time. And again, we're not trying to bully people into doing things like this, but I do like the idea that we can change and because we're working on a project by project basis I mean earlier all talked to you about the project by project thing, which could fundamentally change people's perception of charities as well. Lg, why don't you just grab that one?

So some bold claims, but no, I just it is a bold. You know, I do feel like with the focus on smaller charities, you know, particularly in the areas in which you're traveling, you can have a more immediate impact and positive effect and then making sure that you're actually being aware of that being told. Hey, you know, you're $120 fed 300 children. That's amazing. Yeah, that's very different from and you know, I don't want to take anything away from those bigger charities, but throwing 10 per month into, you know, multinational charity, that's bringing, you know, 500 plus million in donations per year where you're getting the same newsletter as everyone else. So, yeah, I think this is really about that smaller, more immediate impact and it's yeah, it's really the best way to help keep the charities engaged as well and hopefully keep the members engaged. You know, I'd like to dream of a world where they're no matter as well, travel, go to new cities, find us there, but, you know, hold on to one or two charities from the previous city just because it meant that much to them. But we shall see.

Yeah, I mean you have such a beautiful mission. How do you work together at Digital Nomads for Good, like with all the you know remote work talk?

how do you manage?

working across continents for Digital Nomads for Good, and also having another job right?

I think you both work on it, no so actually we're both working on this full time at the moment. Awesome, so the foreseeable future and yeah, so we're both working this full time right now. It's been an interesting switch in dynamic, I suppose because Dominic is, although back in the UK temporarily at the moment for a wedding, is still based out in Columbia, so I've switched to working in Columbia Lawyers in the UK so and actually doing something similar to what you you're doing, which has been interesting. How we work together Things mostly long, drawn out, cold, uncomfortable silences no, we we spend given, given, given. You know everything we're doing and trying to start a business is quite terrifying but, you know, very exciting. At the same time. We've got some semi-share hours working flexibly, but you know I'm typically online to 10 as well, or a little later, but I exclude one or two evenings a week. I'm glad to see my friends I just have I can see, but you know we spend a lot of time on calls together whilst working for four or three on separate things. Just to keep that kind of togetherness working on them. You know what I mean To to avoid that loneliness that we've got in a much bigger team.

The one of the things I find is the more work and as this I think it will resonate the more work we do, the more work we do, which actually by that. By that I mean if you sometimes you do find yourself in a situation where there's a lot of unknown unknowns, there's a lot of spreadsheets we have to go through, there's a lot of documentation we need to draw up, there's a lot of things like employee contracts and and getting in contact with financiers and all this sort of stuff, and it's, it's, it's tough, you know, it's tough to stay motivated, but once you get a bit, so we'll have a meeting and then we'll come out of that meeting and be like yeah this is it. Let's go and let's let's go, let's, and we'll actually end up, you know, double or tripling our work. You know our work output based on the fact that we did some work. Yeah, it's keeping that moment. It's because it's momentum. You know, once it, once it starts rolling, then you can get an incredibly large amount done in a day. And yes, we do work on weird time time differences and there'll be days when we're just like this is this feels impossible, what we're trying to do feels impossible. And then something will spark in our mind and then one of us will start texting the other one going oh my God, I just realized we can do this, we can do this, we can do this. And I'm looking at my phone and I'm going. It's 11 o'clock at night, elliot, do you really do? this, and then we're like fine let's have a call, let's go until two o'clock in the morning. So the time, the time frame aspect of things is occasionally quite tricky. And again, for a startup it's not the same as having an established business where your fallback options are your management, because there is nobody above us. So yeah. So we have, you know, we and there are a couple of other people working for us. There's one down in Little Hampton, there's one in Canada, so we're all, luckily, we're in the same sort of times, and we've got another person in Medellin as well, and so managing five people in essentially five different cities is tough. So self autonomy is really important in making sure you've got people on board who are driven and you know. Having that vibe check to make sure that they believe in the thing that we're doing is, I genuinely believe, more important than maybe there if they're not. Their technical knowledge is important, but their attitude towards DNFG is infinitely more so. Yeah, so, yeah, so that's that's. That's something I want to add.

Do you think it's easier because your friends, that you've known each other for so long, or do you think it makes it more difficult sometimes?

The comment.

Depends on the day.

Yeah, it's both. It's both of those things right. It is easier because we've known each other for so long and we do know what makes each other tick. We also know how to kind of fire one another up about something. You know if I can see that Tom's running with a good idea. So, like the years of working with him and knowing him, I sort of know just how to prompt him a bit more to go yeah, keep you, to keep you, and make it grow and grow. And then, in a very similar way, tom, tom, just that with me as well. But then, equally, because we do know each other so well, like it's quite easy to frustrate what we have that we know yeah yeah, as as old friends would do.

So I think sometimes finding that balance, is a thin line between firing somebody up and winding somebody up. It's because, because you've got that safe space with somebody, you can, you can I've I've done this a couple of months ago and I could, you know, because I feel like I'm in a safe space with somebody, you lose that professionalism and you have to try and maintain that, that attitude of what we're doing. And also, yeah, and don't drink white wine. That's a tip, it's, it's. It can be, it can be very stressful because you're trying to balance that, that that genuinely work life are the same thing. They are the same person. Yeah, you're just looking at a different aspect of them.

Yeah, so that was actually my next question. Do you ever have that? You just hang out socially and then someone has a work idea and then you go. You go on a whole like yeah, into a work meeting.

Yeah, happens all the time. I mean, this all happened. This happens even when we're in different countries that one of us will be out. We'll be talking about the business, talking about something. We'll have this great idea. Then there'll be a message, then another message, Then it's like just just get on the phone quickly and then I'm outside the pub. You know, 20 minutes talking about this amazing idea. It just had to get that happens all the time.

We're trying to play a video game and we go, ok, let's, let's do this and we'll start. We'll be trying to work out what we're going to do. Let's have some time, because we talk about work all the time. Let's do this, have a little bit of time. We'll have a glass of wine. We'll talk about something that's not work related. Twenty minutes later, on, a spreadsheet going but this work really well. We could do this thing and it'll be great, and then then then people will really appreciate this and we can reward them. And yeah, so it's. It's main like trying to find time to to not work is probably more difficult than finding time to work.

Yeah, I agree, yeah, interesting, I told. I absolutely recognize this. I started a business with a friend in the past and even treated a business that I make it. We stopped doing it after a few months, but I recognize all of this.

Like are you still friends? No this is Sorry, but I didn't have anything to do with that though. So you know, you'll make it, You'll make it.

I also didn't know her for 18 years before. So, it's completely different situation.

No, we've, we've come, we always go be friends. He just knows too much now.

That's, you have to keep him.

Yeah, no, this is, they are there are too many opportunities for. Blackmail.

There are to be fair. Well that that was. It goes both ways, it goes both ways.

Also very true, also very true.

I love that. Well, thank you so much for sharing about your remote work slash, non-remote work lessons and the work that you do at no Digital Nomads for Good. Can you tell us where people can find you if they want to learn more, if they want to help, of course, if they want to do good?

Sure. So at the moment, our web is just being devented, so we're hoping to be able to launch towards the end of the very start of next year. I mentioned January he's looking quite realistic and that we are still looking in medicine and for the time being, we are on Instagram. So I think that link will be with this, along with we do also have a GoFundMe, which is really just for our initial start up costs, really getting the business off the ground, getting the platform built which we're having built regardless, but really anything anyone would be happy to do right now to help us along the way to that journey would be fantastic. And then, yeah, hopefully we're in a couple of months we'll actually be able to to set it up and running and live and give all of you guys a way to donate to some of the charities.

We do have a mailing list available. That's at DNFGorguk. I think, a lot of the links for things are on there as well, but that's just. It's a holding site for the time.

OK, perfect, we'll make sure to add all the links to the show notes as well, so when you're listening, you can just go to the show notes, click the links there and I was mentioning January of 2024,. By the way, if you would be listening to this episode later than, the website should be live and you can find it in the show note there. Guys, thank you so much for coming on the podcast. This was a really interesting and super fun. So, yeah, thank you. Thank you so much for being here today.

Thank you so much for inviting us.

Yeah, thanks, my first podcast. Not as terrifying as I expected, but yeah, really good fun, thank you.

Thank you so much, really appreciate it.

And that's it for today. Thank you so much for listening. I appreciate it very, very much. I would appreciate it even more if you could leave a review on Apple Podcasts for me. That way, more people can find this podcast, more people can hear the inspiring stories that we're sharing, and the more people we can impact for the better. So, thank you so much if you are going to leave a review. I really appreciate you and I will see you in the next episode.