3 Degrees of Freedom

Ep 158 - Breaking into Location Freedom Today With Workations with Kristie Sullivan

• Derek Clifford • Season 3 • Episode 158

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In this exhilarating episode of 3 Degrees of Freedom, we sit down with the visionary Kristie Sullivan, the trailblazer behind the concept of "workations" – a radical departure from the traditional 9-to-5 grind. Having bid farewell to her flourishing corporate career, Kristie’s journey has crystallized the notion that our wanderlust need not be confined by the shackles of vacation days. As the founder of the Executive Remote Worker community and hailed as "The Workation Concierge," Kristie's story is one of transforming aspirations into actionable steps.

We dive deep into the secrets of unlocking location, time, and financial freedom. While exploring her extraordinary pivot from corporate corridors to world exploration, Kristie divulges her strategies for recognizing hidden opportunities, a superpower that underpins her thriving ventures. As we dissect the very essence of workations – where work and adventure intertwine – we uncover Kristie's expertise in guiding busy professionals to embrace this paradigm shift. Navigating the terrains of financial planning, productivity, and destination curation, she expertly illuminates the path for listeners yearning to break into location freedom today. Join us in this inspiring dialogue as we explore the uncharted realms of workations and gain insights that could revolutionize your journey to a life less ordinary.

Connect with Kristie through the social links below and learn more about her business:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kristie-sullivan-executive-remote-worker/
Websites: https://ultimateworkation.com/

Unlock 3+1 degrees of freedom (time, location, financial + health) with our 5-Point Blueprint! https://elevateequity.org/podcastgift

If you really enjoyed this content and are looking for more, you can continue to learn more about us in several different places for free!

If you'd like to have a FREE copy of our 7 Ways Commercial Real Estate Syndications Protect and Build Wealth, simply click the link below. We are here and vested in your long-term success! elevateequity.org/7waysEbook

Derek Clifford:

And today we have Miss Kristie Sullivan with us on the podcast. How are you today, Kristie?

Kristie Sullivan:

I'm awesome. How are you doing, Derek?

Derek Clifford:

Fantastic. It's good to see you. The internet is amazing place. And it has enabled us to be able to connect through a common connection through Maurice Philogene, amazing individual. And I'm super happy to have you on the show. For those who don't know Kristie she's embarked on an incredible journey of pursuing her dreams of travel without limits after leaving her successful corporate career behind. Kristie realized that professionals no longer need to limit their personal travel to the constraints of vacation time or annual leave. She introduces the concept of workations where individuals can become part time digital nomads, traveling and living in captivating destinations, which. Right now we just had a quick conversation about where you currently are. So I want to learn more about that. All while working remotely, Kristie's superpower lies in her ability to see opportunities where others don't enabling her to create the executive remote worker community and offer personalized location planning and consulting services. She's known as the location concierge and Kristie is passionate about helping busy professionals experience amazing locations. And I know that was quite a mouthful, but I want to make sure they introduce you the right way. Did we miss anything?

Kristie Sullivan:

Yeah. I hope I can live up to all of that. That's really nice. Thank you.

Derek Clifford:

No worries. So the first place that we like to start in all of our podcasts is the same question that we ask every one of them. And obviously I'm going to twist this a little bit because it's pretty obvious what your strongest. Pillar is of the three degrees of freedom. I believe that location freedom is most likely your strongest pillar given that, and I'll ask you to confirm that also, but given that, what would you say is the next priority for you? Would you consider time freedom or financial freedom, the next thing or the next like layer of goals that you want to start tackling and adding to your life?

Kristie Sullivan:

Yeah, I think it's an interesting one. I I'm sure we're going to dig into this, but I spent You know, a little over 20 years working in the corporate world. So I can tell you firsthand that I did not have time freedom. That was a 8 to 5, at least big. And so now I feel like I have a quasi time freedom where I'm not really working a set number of hours with a certain company. And instead, I'm able to set my own calendar and work with people. It's not that I'm on vacation all the time, but I'm like. Have control of my calendar. So to me, that's time freedom thing. So I think and I love helping people so I will always be available and make time for other people. I guess time freedom goes along with choosing where you spend your time. So maybe I have achieved time freedom. So I think the financial freedom is the one that I want to tackle next. The truth of the matter is right now. I'm still, I still have I don't have complete passive income that facilitates my lifestyle quite yet. So that would be definitely the next place I really want to tackle.

Derek Clifford:

But that's exactly why this is so amazing what you've been able to build here because many people may find themselves in the same spot where maybe they have a little bit of passive income and still have to work or maybe their spouse has to work or some combination, right? Or maybe there's a part time situation there, but what I've, what I love about your story is that you're not allowing that story to dictate where you live your life, right? So you still have that location, freedom, peace. Let's, just talk real quick about your decision to leave your corporate career and pursue this life of travel. What kinds of fears and challenges came up when you were going through this journey?

Kristie Sullivan:

Yeah. I graduated college in the late nineties. That's how old I am. So that kind of gives you perspective on the idea of remote working didn't exist back then. Being an accountant. So anyways, worked my way. The corporate ladder, I'm a former CPA. So I think that accounting and finance background, the biggest hurdle that I had to overcome mentally, while I always had a passion for travel, the biggest hurdle for me to overcome mentally was the financial side of it, because I've always had the steady paycheck, the consistent job, the so getting comfortable with that was the hardest part. So what I decided to do. Was so my significant other is a little bit more of a free spirit, even though he's a former software engineer. He was also more of a free spirit. So he, was the 1 that kind of planted the seed about being able to work from anywhere or travel while you work or whatever. And I was like, yeah, that's awesome, but not for people that have achieved what I've achieved in my career and such. But, it was like, oh, yeah, I find those, the travel blogs and the videos on YouTube are interesting, but for other people, I'll just do my annual vacation every year and basically pin my hopes on retirement. Okay, that was like, where I was at until early 2019 when a good friend of mine, we were the same age and she passed away. And she said on her deathbed, her biggest regret was not traveling more. And so it was like this. I get goosebumps every time I like say that because it's just wow I, need to like, do something like this travel passion. I need to figure it out because me spending the rest of my life in an office would be. A shame and I had this that fear of regret of not trying something is was like, super motivated. And then I was in in the, I can totally remember this day sitting in the boardroom at work and we're waiting for the meeting to start and people were just chatting about their life dreams or something. And. Almost as if I blacked out, I was like I want to, live somewhere outside the U. S. for a month, at least a month. And I thought once I realize what I just said it was like, welcomed everyone was nodding and whatever, but the company I worked for wasn't super amenable to remote working. So I was like, Oh, my gosh, what did I just say? But I also realized like, Hey, that's. That's my truth. That's my, that is my passion, my dream in life. So the, my friend passing away, this happening, putting it out in the universe set me on path for okay, I really need to figure this out. And then that's where I think my accounting and finance background kicks in and it's okay I need to, make sure I have the money to do this. So to me, that was my first step. So I went on basically a wholesale selling spree of all of my stuff for the most part. Like I, I joked and I said, if to like people, it's anything's for sale you like the shirt make me an offer or whatever. It was just I just wanted to sell everything and I had put. And I had this mindset where I don't know, I think I saw in some travel blog, they said you could live in Thailand for a month on a thousand dollars U. S. right? And from that point on, everything I spent my money on was, like, pegged to that thousand dollars a month I might have gone to, I might have, Gone to the spa and spent 500 on a Saturday, but it's like that's 2 weeks in Thailand. Would I rather go to the spa or spend 2 weeks in Thailand in right? I changed my spending habits. I tried to sell as much as I could, because I wanted to have a nest egg to at least live a year. That was my runway. And so I thought if I can accumulate that nest egg. That safety net, then I have options. So to me, it was all about options. While first thing I was hoping to do was keep my job, but do it remotely. But I always, but then it was like, if that wasn't going to work, then maybe like a 12 month sabbatical would be the next thing but I didn't know exactly what it was going to be, but I didn't want the fact that I didn't have any money like set aside. To be something that held me back.

Derek Clifford:

Yeah. So I love this. This is very this is very close hitting close to home to me because I had these exact same thought patterns as we embarked on this adventure of three degrees of freedom. And we, went through the same thought patterns, or at least I did in, our family situation. And the thing is, that it's all, of these decision making. These decisions that that, we're making are based on mindset and how, much we're willing to lean into fear. And so I'm speaking to these, the audience that's listening to you talk right now, Kristie, that have probably played out these scenarios in their head and are thinking about doing something like this. And I can say that I've been there and I can, I've, I relate with that. And the thing that really did it for me. Which is going along those same lines of view is okay, maybe I can burn all my vacation time and build up a nest egg and just really go enjoy. Then you realize how cheap it is to live over there for a long time. And then you're like, oh, can I get a work, a working remote situation? Or can I maybe take a sabbatical or something? I realized for me that probably the best way to do it was to just leave the job and have the confidence that if I wanted to come back, there would be a job somewhere waiting for me. Because if you really do have the skills and the, abilities, then jobs are not going to be short to come by. It's just something that you have to be confident in yourself in doing. And odds are, if you're thinking about doing something like this, you're an open minded person. And most likely you're ready to take on a challenge like that. And the worst case scenario is that you just have to go back to work, right? When you run out of capital. That's just one, one, one little mindset shift that kind of worked. It worked wonders for me when, I was planning this all out.

Kristie Sullivan:

Yeah, thinking about this as we were like, trying to plan how this was all going to work or whatever. I thought like he, my significant other was like what's the worst case scenario? I said, I blow through everything and I have no money. And I think that's in my mind, I had that as so irresponsible. If I was listening to someone else tell this story and they blew through all their money and I don't know. And he said, that's the worst case scenario. He said, first of all, I guarantee you had a good time doing it. Your life will never be the same. And he said, you can always go home and go back and get a job. You a j you have a network, you have skillset, you Yeah.

Derek Clifford:

Yeah. It's,

Kristie Sullivan:

that's the worst case.

Derek Clifford:

It's and to us, at least for me, like I'm I am an A type personality as well, and so I like to have plans for things. But going through the shift of making this. Making, this pivot I found that I, my, my personality started to change from someone who is like gripping onto things really closely and wanting to plan everything, even in the beginning of our location, freedom to now looking at things from a more balanced point of view and just not worrying about things like it's, strange what happens. And so if there's listeners or maybe even clients that you work with, I'm sure that you see a shift. Like that somewhere as people enter this transition territory of these locations. So what I want to do is I actually want to talk about what locations are. I want to give you an opportunity to talk about how they're different from traditional vacations and how you'd like to think about. Workations when you start talking about it with people who are maybe are interested in learning more.

Kristie Sullivan:

Oh, yeah, I love it. I love this question because it's interesting because it seems like on social media. I've seen I've been tagged in posts and people because people are like, I think the concept of locations is stupid and blah, blah, blah, blah. And it's I think, and I love commenting because I want to clarify, I think there's a lot of misconceptions of what it is. And so I, I do my best to try and educate people on this opportunity and what that what it means. To me, a workation is traveling. Yeah. To me, a workation is traveling somewhere interesting at least. For a set period of time, so we often take we, I often plan for my clients 1 month locations going somewhere for a month to live. And while you're there. You work your normal, you work as if you like normal, you work your normal time you work. So we will together. We structure the the month what it's going to look like we structure it. So Monday through Friday, you're doing the same hours. You're still working the same thing. You're still being I'd argue more productive even during that time. But the beauty of all of this is you're in, you're already in an amazing location. So during all those non working hours, you can spend them doing learning about the local history and culture, exploring the nature around that area learning a language, meeting new people. There's so many opportunities. And, I think for, in my opinion, the location that I'm talking about isn't Like that stereotypical 20 something backpacker that really doesn't have a job and he is just, he or she is just traveling around partying and whatever, right? This is, like this. To me, workation is a tool in a in, a per, in a corporate person's toolbox to travel. So I think vacation time and disconnecting is super valuable and important. This just adds another element to it. One of my clients took, would take an annual vacation every year with their family to Mexico. That was just what they did every January, one week of vacation. Great. When we started working together. In the past year, she's taken she continues to take that 1 week of vacation with her family, but she's added to that 2 months of taking she's taken to 1 month work patients. So she's added 60 days of travel every year to what she was doing. The 7 days before. So it's. An incredible like opportunity and she chooses to take some fake PTO time during those locations because she could do that. She said I'll just take every Friday off. So she takes 4 days of PTO in the course of a month. And, but she gets to be in Croatia for a month, right? That's a pretty incredible what locations are not. And this is where I think the misconceptions come into play is it's not like pretending to work. Like you're really on vacation. You just sprinkle a little work in there. It's you're not working less. You're not working more. It's the same. You're like, you're just it's not a time to just play around. It's. It's an opportunity to do your work and be, impactful at your job, like you normally are. But then when you're not working, you have all of these amazing opportunities. So one of my clients would say it's just it's crazy to wake up, you do a little bit of work in the morning and then you go out for lunch and you're in Budapest, like you're, already there.

Derek Clifford:

That's absolutely right. Yeah, I love this concept, right? You are minimizing the distance between the experiences that you can have in the outside world while still meeting your commitments to your, family, your finances and your overall career. It's very fulfilling in a certain way and it's for people that are very intentional because people want to be They want to experience new things, but yet also keep their life in balance. Just a couple of questions following up here on this. How does this work for someone who maybe doesn't even think it's possible in their, in, in their job? And let's say they're white collar, right? They do they do work mostly through a computer, through emails and Excel or something like that. And haven't brought the subject up or have a closed minded boss or have some, sort of fear, right? Do you coach people through bringing this up to their supervisors and their manager team about like building a proposal or how do you go through this and add value to your clients?

Kristie Sullivan:

Yeah. So, far, I don't know if you would call it. It's the low hanging fruit. It's the people that already can work from they know they can work remotely. They may be already work from home all the time. The employer doesn't care. But a lot of people are in that situation where a common 1 is, oh we work hybrid I love that term because it can mean anything. Yeah. And I'm always so curious. So it does involve a conversation. So I want to talk with people because I want to understand if they're like I would love to take a workation, but I work hybrid. Okay. Let's talk about what that means. So if that means I have to be in the office 1 day a week. Do you think for if you have guardrails, it's you're going to be gone 2 or 4 weeks or whatever. Could you just miss those days for in the course of a month? Maybe can you go a month without going into the office? Have you asked? I put together actually a a six step, I have an ebook that I walk people through in a process for how to, I call it how to pitch work patient to your employer. Your boss. I think the reality is. Is you go through this process and I think it's iterative. Some people, it could be like a one and done, right? They, go through all these steps and the boss is you're right. Sure, but then the reality might be, oh, there might be some follow up CD to do. So maybe it's like a cycle, like an iterative thing. Or you have to, you have, you come to a fork in the road. It's I'm either going to have to just I love my job so much that I am willing to just stick it out, maybe continue the conversation and try and work through this. Or I may have to start looking for a job that does let me work remotely. It depends on how. Passionate I am about traveling, right? Like how important that is. So that's really the kind of conversation that needs to happen. And I have like tons of resources and contacts that can help people with all of those things.

Derek Clifford:

Yeah. Yeah. That those are important resources for people to start thinking about. And you can never start this conversation or have these thoughts too early. At least that's the way I think about it, especially if you're living a life of intention, which is the three degrees. At least in my mind. For people that have done these workations and maybe even for yourself, can you talk a little bit about how the work play life responsibilities shifts, right? Like, how does that how does it start to develop the mind, right? Can you talk a little bit about what that does to, to, your mindset and what that, what kind of benefits and what kind of experiences do people go through when they make these changes?

Kristie Sullivan:

Yeah, I think there's a huge, there's a huge mindset change and I put it under the umbrella of shifting from a vacation mindset to a workation mindset. To me, vacation is like a firecracker. It's like short, busy X price, right? You're just spending money because it's vacation and whatever, right? Because you need, it needs, you need to get it all in. A workation is because you're working while you're there, you have the opportunity to spread that out. It's a little more relaxing. You don't have to like it's not jam packed with things, but to be most effective, one of the concerns a lot of people have is. They're like it's it would be hard for me to get any work done if I'm in an amazing destination and it's like. Fair my editorial comment would be like, maybe you don't really like your job that much. Yeah. Yeah, but but I think the important piece of it is being intentional. I love that word and scheduling your time. So I spend and maybe this is my type a or account kind of planning personality, but it's I feel if you take the time to build out your schedule and plan that fun stuff, you're more likely to stick to that and be focused on the stuff. You have the work stuff. So the way that we. The way that we structure things is really Monday through Friday. We don't really schedule anything because you're focused on work now. Depending on where you're located, that could be different the time that you're not working during the week. So like in Europe, when we're in Europe, which I love, and working U. S. business hours for us, it lets us like sleep in, go for coffee.

Derek Clifford:

That's incredible.

Kristie Sullivan:

Swim, yeah, you get to enjoy the great, a great part of the day. And then when 9 o'clock in New York City, when business opens up, it's 3 PM in Europe, and then we just start working. And so that's Monday through Friday, right? So there's lots of things you could do in the mornings, hikes go to parks, go swimming, just chill on the beach lots of different things. But, the key, I think, is the weekends is really the days where you have. The time to really enjoy the destination. So that's where we focus on. If you're there in a month, have 4 weekends. And maybe two of those eight days are going to be traveling. So we think through the timing of how everybody's different too, on what they want to do, but you don't, it's not go cramming things in like a vacation. It's just very different and it's intentional. It's planned. And so I, and I always say one week of vacation to me, one week of vacation of the fun stuff. Is a month of workation.

Derek Clifford:

Yeah. Yeah. One thing, one thing that I have to bust here, just the, some myths that I've been finding is that, and I'm sure you're going to agree with me on this. Because I know you've been doing it is that when people think of travel, they think of, oh right now my wife and I were in, we're in Japan. So when you go to Japan, you spend two weeks and you go from Kyoto to Tokyo, to Hiroshima, to all these places and you do a whirlwind trip. And so what. What I think is encouraging is to tell people or remind people who are listening to this podcast and also who are potential clients of yours that when you go to a location situation, you're going to have a home base for a month, right? It's going to be one place for you to really get to know that culture, that food, that language, the people the whole city, right? That's, your opportunity. It is not going to be. This work situation at work and then this work situation or this like constant go when you're traveling, right? It's a different type of travel. It's you're enjoying your Airbnb, you're in a different locale. Yes, you're going to be able to go out and sit on the beach or go up into the mountains if you don't have that in your local area and you're out traveling. But that's something that really was a big mind shift to and a big aha moment for a lot of people is that whenever they go on vacations, they try to put Cram everything in and it ends up becoming more work than when they were at home and more stress. So then when they go back to work, they're even more stressed because they're behind on their job or there's emails that have backed up and everything. And then they also are not rested from a vacation, their jet lags and all that good stuff. So just something I wanted to point out there in addition to your points there on, on balancing it.

Kristie Sullivan:

How many times have you heard, I need a vacation from my vacation? It's just, it's crazy, right? And I think back to the last big trip I did when I was still in the corporate world was Germany. And we stayed, it, we went 10 days and we stayed in each place for max two nights. Some were one night. Maybe three nights, but not we hit like in 10 days, we had five or six cities or towns, right? So that's, so now when I, when we plan work patients, it's like either one place for one month or two places tops for two weeks each. You're setting up a home base. Like I would every, and we talk about this all the time. It's it's too risky when you have to work. I don't want to risk it's just, it's risky. And it's a lot of work to reset up in a new place.

Derek Clifford:

That's exactly right. That was just about to bring that up too, is when your lifestyle is this thing I can tell you right now, I've got two lights, an external camera, a microphone, and a whole bunch of electronics right around me. And every time we switch locations. Here in Japan, it's a pain in the butt because we've got to pack it up and then put it into the carry on and it goes in the train or it goes in the plane. And so it's very, important for people to realize that a workation is much different than a. Non relaxing style vacation where you're just whirlwind tripping through a city. So yeah very, good point there. Now.

Kristie Sullivan:

And the other thing I like really quick, I'll just add is when you stay in places, you have what I might call, and maybe it's cliche, more authentic experience. Like when you stay, like something that always sticks in my head is we went, we spent a month in Skopje, North Macedonia last summer. And we, every morning there was just a block away was like this really cool cafe. And so every morning we had, we went for coffee there and then in the evenings, it turns into a bar. So we would sometimes go for happy hour. There you get to know like local people, like you are when you become a regular in places you get to meet people.

Derek Clifford:

Deeper, deeper connections. Yeah.

Kristie Sullivan:

Yes. And so like a pack. Hey, how are you doing? We're seeing that now in Saranda, Albania. It's like the people at the grocery store. Once they see you a couple of times, they know, you're not just, they're never going to get a one and done. They're never going to see you. So I love that. That's one of the best parts.

Derek Clifford:

That is yeah, that happened to me in Portugal also between my wife and it's an amazing thing to be able to do that it gives you an into the culture and I just I love that. Yeah, I have two questions left for you before we head into the rapid round, because we're actually getting into the, end of the show here already it's it's flown by. But the first question that I have is in regards to. Selecting and curating destinations for locations. What types of things do you consider when you're talking about a productive work week plus maximizing that that lifestyle that people are looking for, what type of things do you look for? What questions do you ask?

Kristie Sullivan:

Yeah. First of all I only plan I only work with people and plan locations and destinations where I have personal experience. So the whole point of this is that I've lived it already. And I have connections local connections, and I know you know I have the inside scoop because I've been right. I'm so I think that's like a huge benefit but in a lot of cases the things that that, we talked about is that the time of year matters because Most people, like I'm from Minnesota, so I know people there would love to escape somewhere warm in December through March. So whether, so the, what are the destinations? What do, what destinations do I have good experience that are good for remote working and have interesting things to do? So I think the time of year is a big one. The time of year also matters when it comes to like peak season. So I'm a huge fan of Dubrovnik, Croatia for a Workation. You, you have to realize if you go there in July and August, that's peak season, it's gonna be slammed with tourists. Prices are gonna be higher. But if you go like shoulders, see June September, different story, right? So the timing of the year affects the decision to the for the destination. A lot of people like if you're in the US, it might be easier for them to say. So I've spent a lot of time in Playa del Carmen in Mexico. That's a way easier trip. Because they fly into Cancun, take a shuttle to apply it. Super simple, right? You have a built in community right there. A lot of new accommodations. Internet's good. All of those great restaurants, cafes. That's an easier flight though. So mentally, I think people might be more inclined to like if you're like, A new, maybe a first time taking a location that's maybe a good spot to check it out. Maybe the next step then is oh, Budapest or Dubrovnik or, another there's kind of levels of, difficulty, of course, stuff.

Derek Clifford:

So yeah, that's that makes that makes complete sense for me. And I know that you also have to factor in kids and if there are kids what they're what would work for them and their school year. So I completely get that as well. So the last question that I have for you is It's just an extension of the previous question, which is what advice do you have for people who are intrigued by this idea? And then feel hesitant to take this first step or even bring it up. Can you speak to those people who are like, man, this is, this would be amazing to do, but I don't know all the butts come up. Can you talk to that?

Kristie Sullivan:

I have a lot of, people are like, we're like me, I totally get it. It's oh, that's so cool that people are doing this good for them. That's just not for me. I think that's a big 1 until you actually start if you really take the time to start digging in and asking yourself the questions, the right questions, like you had said earlier. I think the biggest thing in my opinion is to start thinking about, I think the first step is to think about like your role at work and if you could do it, honestly, like we all got slammed and forced to work from home during the pandemic, some people for three years. Yeah. You can't tell me. The world didn't end either. You can't tell me that remote working doesn't work. There's, better ways to implement it. I totally agree with that. But I think all of these obstacles are, you can overcome them or at least start the conversation and at a minimum, have a plan to do this in baby steps. If a lot of my clients can go to Croatia, no big deal, but I meet other people and we talk and they're like my employer won't let me leave the U S which okay. I think there's opportunity to teach them to overcome that. But I also think. It would be a great opportunity for them to start inside the U. S., maybe start do a mini workcation in the U. S. and test it out and show them you're demonstrating, hey, look, I went to maybe I used to live in Virginia, I went to North Carolina for a long weekend and I worked three days from there, no problem, right? So you're warming them up to. Maybe more.

Derek Clifford:

Yeah. Yeah. And imagine if you can really just knock it out of the park, right? If you can do incredible work and be even more productive than when you were in the office that would be a really good thing. And then eventually they'll start thinking, I guess I don't need to see you in the office. I'll just see you on the zoom screen that type of thing. So I completely agree with everything that you're, that you've said. And I think that this is really important for people to listen to because. The reason I'm so passionate about especially location freedom is that my wife and I, we sold our house in the California Bay area. And just to live in the California Bay area, it was like 10, 000 a month for mortgage expenses, taxes, and everything just to live there. And Even when we were traveling within the U. S. because it was a COVID thing for where I was working at the time. Even when we were traveling in the U. S., going to the Midwest or going to Texas or going to Georgia or the East Coast, right? Some parts of the East Coast. It was like we could live way better than we were living in California. For half the cost. And at that point, that's what our passive income was already at. And so we were trying to hit our passive income goals with the Bay Area expenses, the California expenses. And so we found ourselves when we unraveled that layer of location freedom, we became financially free. And so that's something that for the people that are going to take the workations to the next level, that's why I love what you do is you're like this you're the gatekeeper to eventually becoming a full time digital nomad, if that's what you want to do because then you'll have the ability to choose and have more control of your expenses, while you still have income coming in. So it's just a beautiful thing. And I just love what you're doing here. Being the workation concierge, I think that's a really amazing thing.

Kristie Sullivan:

Yeah, no, I think, yeah, and like you said it, does, it's a, when you start thinking about the dollars and cents of it.

Derek Clifford:

It's a no brainer. Yeah.

Kristie Sullivan:

I did the numbers here. We're spending. Yeah. We're spending a fraction of what we did.

Derek Clifford:

Yes, absolutely. So we took our capital gains from our house from our private residence and then we put it into an apartment building is a joint venture. And of course that you know, is going up in net worth and it's pumping out cash flow. It's just a really Yeah. Like you guys there, there are solutions to things. You just got to do some research make the right decisions and start tackling the fear, start working on the mindset piece. And so again really loved having you on this podcast, but before we go, we have our rapid round, which is the same five or six questions that we ask every one of our guests. And they're meant to be answered in about a 32nd duration. So if you're ready, we're going to rapidly ask them to you before we head out for the day. Is that going to work? Yeah. Cool. Number one, name any resource that was or is essential in your journey to pursuing all of this freedom you have now.

Kristie Sullivan:

I would definitely say reading the travel blogs, all of this travel content that's out there. There's people out there making amazing content. That is super helpful for you to think about and plan to help you I'm a big into the preparing, right? So they letting you know what to expect. You're not going to plan. You can't plan for everything. But if you can get 95 percent of the way there. You're in really good shape.

Derek Clifford:

Yeah. Yeah. YouTube University goes a long way as well as all those blogs and podcasts. Tons of material out there. So love it. Love it. Number two, if you woke up, your business was gone, and all you had was 500, a laptop, a place to live, and some food. What would you do first to rebuild what you have right now?

Kristie Sullivan:

I would get a STEM card so I had Wi Fi to get working on building a social media presence. I think, the social media as I was saying the, content that people are building online. The network that you can build, like us meeting as an example, I would be reaching out to, I'd be reaching out to you, Derek. And that's really. What do you think I need some help and brainstorm and start thinking about things, you know.

Derek Clifford:

Beautiful working on the network. I think that's always a good place to go. Okay. Number three, what does your self reflection and your goal setting practice look like day by day?

Kristie Sullivan:

Oh, I love that question because my partner and I, every morning, we're coffee lovers. We're become coffee snobs over the last 40 years. This is, it's like a ritual for us. So we have coffee every morning. Either we make it with our little espresso, travel espresso maker or go to a cafe, depends on where we're at. But Every morning we have coffee and we talk about what we accomplished the day before, what are three things that we want to accomplish that day before we set our day in motion. And then I love the ritual at the end of the day. Wine could be water, wine, nothing fancy, but we have a glass of wine, maybe a shot of tequila if we're in Mexico, but it's like a ritual to talk about your day and what you accomplished.

Derek Clifford:

Yeah, that's really cool. A debrief, a daily debrief. I like that. That's really great. All right. Number four, what are the core work habits that you attribute most to your success?

Kristie Sullivan:

I'm stubborn as hell is probably the number one thing. And I think I think that persistence at stubbornness is made me like, I'm not a quitter. That's probably the biggest there's not every day is going to be like glorious and whatever. But and it's, I'm learning this entrepreneurial journey. It's very different than when you're in the corporate world. So you just have to be prepared for the roller coaster and be stubborn as hell.

Derek Clifford:

Yeah. No, I love that. That's great. All right. Number five. Is there any books that you recommend to people to follow along your journey to attaining the three degrees of freedom?

Kristie Sullivan:

You know what? I think one of my favorite books, and it's probably cliche to people listening and you, but rich dad, poor dad, I think is like an incredible book. It's talk about like mindset shift. And getting, achieving that freedom and the passive income and all the things you talk about.

Derek Clifford:

I can't, yeah it's, I can't stress the purple Bible enough. That's what it is to me is the purple Bible. And it's the it's, so well written because it's, like a storytelling. It's, told in parables. And I think it's, one of the most powerful books out there for people who are don't know about this lifestyle or like what is possible. Thank you. That's always the first place to start for some inspiration. And it's, about time for me to go back and reread it just because it's yeah. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Last, yeah. Last bonus question that I have for you is what tool or process has become one of your most important time, money, or energy saving ninja magic tricks that you use every day.

Kristie Sullivan:

Oh okay. So I'm also working on I'm working on this. This is multiple with traveling and because I'm working on acquiring a Hungarian citizenship, I have to learn the language. Yes. Right now and almost always. Google Translate is like my number one, like most used app, either Maps, Google Maps or Google Translate seems to be the biggest. Albania is completely different than the Slavic languages we're used to in the Balkans and whatever, right? Having, learning things.

Derek Clifford:

Yeah, no that's fantastic. And Google lens that you can use with Google translate where you literally like it's magic, you hold up your phone and you, you, point your phone at a sign or some packaging or something. And the phone will literally in magic, like through, through the lens, like through your phones front facing a display, it'll translate. What it's seeing on the camera and put it it's, incredible. I'm sure people have seen it before, but if you haven't seen it before, it's magic, everyone is like so impressed when they're like, Oh my gosh. And you can do conversations. Like you can speak into it in English and then have it speak Albanian for instance. And then they will speak Albanian and then it's all in the app. And so you got to play with it for a little bit. It's really incredible.

Kristie Sullivan:

I didn't know that one. That one's cool.

Derek Clifford:

Yeah, absolutely.

Kristie Sullivan:

And I will say, I do advocate people when you're in a foreign country learn, a little, especially when you're there for a month, learn the basics, at least the pleasantries, right? Yeah. Yeah. So yeah, a hundred percent.

Derek Clifford:

Yeah, like even for you to have to bust out Google translate to say thank you like it's not, yeah, that you shouldn't have to do that. But anyway, Kristie, it has been an amazing time having you on and actually the time just flew by. I can't believe we're already almost at the top of the hour. But before we go, can you tell a little bit about how people can reach out to you or find out more about what's going on in your world.

Kristie Sullivan:

Yeah, absolutely. Check out, I'm on, I'm very active on LinkedIn and Twitter at Kristie, search Kristie Sullivan. I'm sure Kristie DS. I also have a website. It's ExecutiveRemoteWorker.Com and I also have there, you can sign up for a newsletter. So I try and people that are interested in locations, and they're ready to go, or they're not quite ready to go, but they need a little more they're interested location curious as I call it, they can up there. I try and keep in touch with people there.

Derek Clifford:

So amazing.

Kristie Sullivan:

And then also at the website, I have a community, an online community called the Executive Remote Worker Community. So you can sign up to the website there too.

Derek Clifford:

Sounds good. And I think the ebook you maybe have provided to us in the production materials to put this podcast together. So we're putting that in the show notes for this episode that's specifically dedicated to you and your message. Kristie, thanks again for coming on the show. It was absolute pleasure to have you here.

Kristie Sullivan:

Thank you so much, Derek. I really appreciate it. Yeah. And I hope you enjoy the rest of your time in Japan.

Derek Clifford:

Thank you so much. I really appreciate that. And to the listeners out there, really appreciate you listening all the way, especially to this point in the podcast. And please, wherever you're watching or listening to this podcast, we encourage you guys to like subscribe, thumbs up. Engage with us because the more you engage with us, the more we'll be able to find amazing guests like Kristie and then also incredible listeners like yourself with the algorithm appeasing the algorithm gods as we like to say. So thank you very much, Kristie. Once again great having you on and you guys have a fantastic week. We'll see you next time. Take care.