Being A Digital Nomad. The Workshop

When people ask me “how can you do all that stuff that you do, like writing on your blog, writing iPhone apps, traveling and so on? When do you have time for this?” I usually answer “How can you NOT do EVERYTHING you want to do in this life?” And, depending on the other person type, this answer usually ignites a new sparkling and fulfilling conversation, or pretty much ends the relationship.

One of the things that are allowing me to “do” a lot of stuff is that I don’t have a fixed job. I didn’t say I don’t provide value I said I didn’t have a fixed job. That’s a very big, and important, difference. With all due respect to people who do have fixed jobs nowadays (especially since it’s so hard to find one) I find this type of creating value a little bit obsolete. I know, there are many areas in our social life that are depending on this model. I don’t think our current society can function without the “job” concept, anyway.

But I also think that if the society would rely only on this type of value creation, progress would be really difficult, if not impossible at all. Breaking up with the norm, testing new boundaries, experimenting new lifestyles, that’s what creates progress. And living a life off the grid, as I tried (and pretty much succeeded) to live in the last 3 years is very different from having a job. In the process, the status-quo is challenged, of course, but that’s life.

Before getting to the real topic of the article, let me tell you that I did have jobs before. I’m not one of those unemployed guys who are taking pride in dodging the system and just surviving without being “enrolled”. I find this quite stupid, to be honest. Not to mention the fact that I really want to enjoy many material aspects of this life, which usually requires significant amounts of money.

As I told you, I know what it takes to have a job, because I was managing my own company for 10 years, until I sold it. And managing your own company is one of the toughest jobs out there, believe me. I was making hundreds of thousands of dollars per year and I know how a million in the bank looks like. But at the same time, I was deeply frustrated and I was living a very sad and limited life.

Introducing Digital Nomading

So, after selling my company, almost 3 years ago now, I decided I won’t go back to that lifestyle anymore. I will do something different. Something that will involve creativity, freedom and flexibility. I didn’t know from the beginning that this will be called “digital nomading”. All I knew was that I want to build a blog and a business on top of it.

The rest was just work, but not the way I used to do it. I like to think that it was intelligent work. Anyway, almost 3 years after selling my company I know split my life between Romania and New Zealand, spend around 80-90 days per year abroad and don’t have any rigid schedule or fixed office. And yet, I manage to live a very relaxed and fulfilling life.

So, because everything must have a name, I named this lifestyle “being a digital nomad”. My first article on this topic was written a few months ago and it sill gets a few social media mentions each week. Which means it’s moderately popular. But it seems that not only the article was popular, it seems that this type of lifestyle is becoming increasingly interesting for other people too. By the way, I’m pretty sure “nomading” is not really a word, but I’m sure you know what I mean.

So, two months ago, a guy from my social network asked for a meeting with me. He was interested in opening an IT company in New Zealand. We met, spent a couple of hours talking about the matter and split up as friends. A few weeks ago, after a presentation I held on an Ignite event in Bucharest, one of the guys in the audience, who also happens to be seasoned business man, asked me the same.

Why not putting together a small workshop about what it takes to be a “digital nomad”, I asked him. And he agreed. In just a few days the workshop was ready. I had an incredible audience, around 30 persons. To my surprise, I didn’t know almost anyone of them. Which means the topic is really hot, it’s not just my imagination.

After the workshop, a few people came to me and asked to do a sequel. After a short conversation with the owner of the place, I agreed to do three more workshops, based on the same material. I will be back in a few days with more info about this.

Until then, feel free to download the 4 keynotes which made the last workshop. I know that some of the slides won’t mean much without the words, but maybe that would be an incentive to come to the next ones.

So, without further ado, here’s the archive: Being A Digital Nomad Workshop (458).

Enjoy!

Blogging 101

This post is to announce my second live workshop, after the mentorship I started a few months ago. This workshop is called, as you may already have guessed, “Blogging 101”. Blogging is something very close to me (after all, I’m doing this for more than 5 years, in different languages and niches). But I’m not doing this workshop only because I love blogging as a lifestyle: over the years I accumulated a lot of know-how and hands-on experience. So, it was about time to start sharing this in a live workshop.

This one will be a lot bigger than my mentorship course, both in terms of attendance and duration. It will spread over 3 days and accommodate 20 to 40 people. I’m doing this together with my good friend Mihai Popa-Radu, a certified coach and founder of Seeds For Success, one of the most reputable executive coaching and change management companies in Romania. Mihai works with individuals and companies from Romania and abroad, who, as he does, believe in the motto: “Impossible is a matter of opinion!” Elected coach of 2008, Mihai is founder of Romanian Coaching Association and member of International Coach Federation si European Coaching Institute. Mihai exert his professional interest in the following areas: executive coaching, leadership psychology, change management and personal branding.

To be honest, I’m really, really excited about this workshop. I even re-read this blog post a few times and re-written the first paragraph, in order to make it sound more grounded. The first version was exhilarating.

And this is exactly how I feel. I’m thrilled with enthusiasm and I can’t wait to start this! Ok, chill down, Dragos, just make sure your message goes through .

The workshop will be split in 3 sections: beginners, intermediate and advanced. Each section will be covered in one day, including lunch break. It will start at 9:30 each day and end at 17:30. There will be a one hour lunch break, as I already said.

As always, I did a little bit of dry testing around my friends and the response was overwhelming, I think I already have 25% of the seats taken even before the course was announced. But relax, will do our best to accommodate everyone, if you take action fast enough for us to make the necessary adjustments. The location is gorgeous – all of my mentees already know it, we’re doing our mentorship there – and there’s plenty of space.

Workshop Target and Structure

Who’s going to benefit from this workshop? The short answer: there’s something in it for everybody. The long answer: if you want to embrace blogging as an alternative income generator, then this workshop is for you. I tried to line up a pretty safe topic list and stretched the insertion points from the early beginner up to the advanced blogger.

Here’s a short outline of each day:

Beginner Day

• what is a blog?
• why having a blog?
• the building blocks of a blog
• how to measure a blog
• practical exercises

Intermediate Day

• blog content creation
• blog measuring and profiling
• creative writing techniques
• personal branding segment (held by my partner Mihai Popa-Radu)
• publishing filters
• practical exercises

Advanced Day

• blog promotion and social networking
• search engine optimization
• making money with a blog
• practical exercises

As the workshop advances there will be less and less theoretical speaking and more time alloted to the practical exercises and direct interaction, including live blogging and evaluation. One of the most interesting areas will be the “making money with a blog” part in the Advanced Day, where I will share some of my personal stories, as well as some of the most interesting case studies I met, including icon bloggers like Darren Rowse, Brain Clark or Steve Pavlina.

Another interesting point will be my friend’s Mihai intervention about personal branding, during the day 2, so be sure to book that day if you’re interested on how to mix personal branding with blogging.

Workshop Dates And Price Structure

The entire course will be split into 3 parts, as I already wrote, but what I didn’t wrote is that those days will be at one week distance from each other. This will allow not only a better digestion of all those theoretical concepts but it will also make practical exercises and evaluations much easier.

Here are the scheduled dates:

• Beginners: 13th November (Friday)
• Intermediate: 20th November (Friday)
• Advanced: 27th November (Friday)

Price structure:

• Beginners day: 200 EUR
• Intermediate day: 250 EUR
• Advanced day: 250 EUR

There is a 50 EUR discount applied for anyone who applies until November 10th (in special honor of my birthday ),  for any of the days. Also, if you book together there is an additional volume discount, bringing the total price of the entire workshop to 450 EUR. Of course, you can book only one, or two days if you want.

Please keep in mind we do have a limited number of seats and although we will do our best to ensure we will accommodate everyone, we cannot guarantee that beforehand. As I already told you, the initial response was already overwhelming.

How To Attend

The best way to get your seat is to contact me via email (you can find my email in the contact page) and I will give you the necessary details. Be prepared to spend the entire day so I would highly appreciate if your phones will be switched off for the workshop and all your other problems will be left outside. I’m really into this event and since I want to give the best I can, I want to make sure you’re prepared to receive it.

That being said, I really, really look forward to start this.

Steve Pavlina Conscious Growth Workshop – Day One

The first day started around 8 AM with registration. Only when I got in the hotel lobby I realized that I didn’t actually know where the workshop is going to take place. I just assumed there has to be some conferences center around and after just  a few minutes of walking in the crowded casino (yes, even at 7:30 AM)), I found it. At the entrance, I was welcomed by Erin Pavlina and another 3 people who were helping her.

The first impression was very pleasant. I had a very clear feeling of “deja-vu”, or at least Erin seemed extremely familiar to me, although she looks very different from the pictures I already saw. I registered, shook hands and got my badge and handout. I had a look at the hall, a medium sized hall with a deck in the back where the video setup was built.

There were 3 cameras and a mixer (not visible in the picture above, but quite a complicated setup, if you ask me). Later on during the workshop I learned the whole event will be mastered on a DVD, which will be, of course, on sale. Early birds discounts, available.

After registration I hit the Starbucks near the elevators for some quick breakfast. In less than half an hour I was back again and took my place in the second half of the room, the rightmost chair. The session was opened on time by Darren LaCroix , World Champion in Public  Speaking, which turned to be one of Steve’s friends. The opening was pretty short, very energetic but at the same time pretty common sense (no lights, smoke or screams). In a matter of minutes, we were already having a running workshop instead of an impatient crowd.

But before even starting to talk, Steve tried a little exercise on us: ice-breaking, of course, with a 1 on 1 discussion with your neighbor. I met my chair neighbor, a nice girl from Hong-Kong, and exchanged some quick impressions. It didn’t took more than 2 minutes. After that, Steve asked a few of us to stand up and publicly tell the reasons for being there. Again, this didn’t take longer than 2 minutes. And after that, we were finally on track. I have to admit the ice-breaker was on of the smoothest I witnessed, we actually slide towards the presentation without any friction.

Truth, Love And Power

The first day workshop was dedicated to some abstract concepts, namely Truth, Love and Power, the building blocks of Steve’s reality description system. We spent the morning listening to Steve’s explanations about those core principles. I won’t go into any details here, feel free to visit Steve’s blog for more info, or to buy his book Personal Development For Smart People. At certain time intervals we had some written exercises. Nothing complex, just some notes, no more than several sentences. The writing exercises were well balanced in the whole mix, in terms of time spent and focus.

Before lunch break we had another interesting exercise, in which Steve wanted us to test our predictions about one’s evolution. He asked for a volunteer to get up on stage and share a little bit about his life. Based on what the volunteer said we were asked to make some predictions about how the subject’s life will be in one year. The volunteer Steve picked was Angela, a girl from Seattle which I met at the yesterday meetup at Caesar’s Palace. It was very interesting to see how people predicted the evolution based on a limited set of info. I took the bullet and gave my 2 cents too, predicting that in less than 1 year Angela will quit her job and start a new career in direct sales or counseling. Steve asked me if I was ready to bet all my life earnings on it. Feeling pretty confident, I said yes. And added that I am ready to pay her to become a counselor, if that will help. Laughs. Well, time will tell.

Another nice exercise was exactly before the lunch break, and it was actually a prediction about what we are going to have for lunch. Steve asked us to write exactly what we would like to eat and do our best to eat that. I wrote something about a raw food wrap and a salad, psyched to follow my path to one of the Vegas famous raw food restaurants and have that lunch. On my way out I asked Erin if she knows the address of a raw food restaurant and she told me that “driving 20 minutes back and forth is not an option for such a short break” and maybe I should wait until evening. I had no other chance but to listen to her, so my lunch was only 50% identical with what I wrote. The salad part, that is. Instead of a raw food wrap I had a vegetarian sandwich.

Master And Servant

After the break, things started to pick up. We talked about the combination of the core principles (Truth, Love and Power) which created Oneness, Authority and so on. We had several more writing exercises and another on stage appearance with Steve, this time featuring a guy who wanted to share something about his relationship.

But the highlight of the afternoon session was the authority exercise, something Steve called “Master and Servant”. We had to form groups of 3 and pretend that one of us is the master and the other ones are the servants. Each master had to give orders and the servant had to obey. Or not. And then we take turns. It was incredibly fun and also amazingly chaotic. People did their best to create the strangest commands and servants seemed very happy to obey. There were people climbing on the chairs, dancing, shouting out loud or giving and receiving massages. In a matter of seconds the hall changed from an ordered assembly of people into a brownian, highly entropic, impossible to follow crowd of random master and servant role players. One guy had the very lucky command to come and rub my (recently shaved) head. I said “lucky” because anyone who rub my recently shaved head is going to win the lottery. Seriously. .

My group was with the Hong Kong girl and a guy from Slovakia (which I of course candidly mistaken several times as Slovenia when I tried to make some dumb conversation like: “I heard a lot of nice things about your main city, Ljubljana”). When the girl was the master she wanted us, boys, to do some arm wrestling for her. And we did. Milan, the guy from Slovakia, was politely enough to let me win (although his arm was twice as thick as mine). When I was master I teach the girl how to count from 1 to 5 in Romanian. And also gave Milan the task of telling me at least 3 areas in which I can improve. The first one was my accent. The second was my dressing. And the third one was related to my chair position: seems like Milan was sitting right after me and couldn’t see a thing because of my chair position. So he kindly told me that I will greatly improve myself if I’ll move my chair so he can actually see something.

It was really fun doing this exercise and we all felt energetic and jazzed. But after we finished it, Steve told us we’re going to do it again. This time, with a complete change of perspective. If, as masters, we were empowering the first time, try to do something disempowering. If, as servants, we were obeying, try to be bully and disrespectful. So, this time I decided to put my servants to circle around the hall. When they got back I was very disappointed, because “this is not a way to circle around the hall”. So, I asked them to do it again, this time counter-clockwise. Of course, I felt like crap doing this, even if it was just for the sake of playing. As a servant, I was really bully and talkative, not executing the orders and trying to start a fight. Again, felt like crap . One of the tasks we received at some point (this 2nd time the borders between masters and servants started to blend a little and we couldn’t remember who was who) was to make a picture with Steve and Erin. Which you may see right here. I’m the guy with the recently shaved head, if you didn’t got that yet.

After this exercise the first workshop was almost done. At the end, Erin was invited on the scene to make some announcements about Steve’s book (Steve signed his book which was also on sale in the hall) and about the raw vegan restaurants we can find in the city (my lunch break question must had something to do with it, I suppose). I would have been great to go with them in a raw vegan restaurant but I was really, really sleepy, so I decided to go up in my room and, yes, sleep. Turned out to be a pretty good decision.

Almost forgot, Erin had another appearance on the stage, during the first part of the workshop, telling us quite a nice story about how to use your power to achieve your goals. At some point Erin was (or maybe still is) a Trekkie, which means a Star Trek fan. She wanted so bad to go on the set and see how and where Star Trek was made. I will leave you the joy to discover the story once you buy the DVD, for now suffice to say that it was a very nice story.

Red Lines

Steve had some red lines in his speech, many of them related to what he writes in his blog. The whole workshop vibe was about change: quit your job, quit your relationship, confront your current life situation. But the real life experience of those concepts in this live workshop is completely different from what you experience on the blog.

The master vibe on the blog is most of the time a courageous disruptive action which must have the power to change your life for good. Steve’s writing style is very powerful and that makes his blog one of the best motivators on the web. He changed the life of many people only by his writing and he changed it in a very powerful way.

But the same concepts explained in real life by Steve are very different. The decision to change your life is always backed up with thought and consciousness. Steve’s speech is not aggressive nor even combative. It’s balanced and punched with humor and moderate gesture. The voice tone is even lower than in some of his podcasts and the whole stage performance is geared towards balance not towards disruption. I think this is one of the most important changes I noticed so far in this workshop.

That was it. In less than 2 hours starts the second day.

Steve Pavlina Conscious Growth Workshop Teaser – Morning Las Vegas

For the last 48 hours I was in Las Vegas where I attend to Steve Pavlina’s Conscious Growth Workshop at Harrah’s hotel, which will start in a few hours. I decided to come earlier because jetlag is not amongst my closest friends, if you know what I mean. And staying on planes for more than 19 hours, plus the ground airport hassle to check-in, transfer and board the connection flights didn’t make things easier also. Add a 10 hours time difference between Las Vegas and Bucharest and now you’ll understand why I was here 48 hours before the event.

Conscious Growth Workshop Meetup

Last evening I had the chance to meet at least a third of the total workshop audience. From what I read on Steve’s blog, there are 133 persons attending to the workshop (not including any last minute changes) and at the yesterday’s meetup there were at least 40 persons. We met in a coffee bar in Caesar’s Palace and what initially had to be a small gathering of a few people, soon become a sort of an ad-hoc social party. We literally took over the coffee bar.

I don’t remember all the names, but I do remember quite a nice vibe and a lot of talking. Everybody was eager to start meeting new people, to talk about their expectations, their lives or Vegas. In no particular order. One thing soon become clear: my name is not English-friendly. I had to repeat it at least 2-3 times every time I met someone new and I still don’t think they got it right. At some point, someone suggested to change it, just during the seminar, for something more manageable, like Bob or Mike. Easier to remember.

We talked for about one and a half hour and I really don’t know when this time really flew. What I do  know is that I had to hit the bed at some point because I was really sleepy. Woke up at 3 AM, still awfully early for Vegas, but relaxed and motivated. We’re now only a few hours away from the workshop and I really look forward to it. One thing I know is that I won’t be able to do any live blogging from there and I highly doubt I would be able to do some real time tweeting also. There was a clear message from Steve on his blog about that and I have to agree with him. Oh, and even if this was allowed, one thing I discovered about Vegas is that WiFi is something really expensive around here. I mean every decent hotel in the world gives you free WiFi in the standard, but at Caesar’s Palace you have to pay for it. I guess it’s a marketing strategy: instead of wasting time and money on that silly WiFi, why don’t you guys just use those 20 bucks for a nice, honest and totally unsuccessful gambling session?

Morning Las Vegas

Speaking of Vegas, I’m impressed. In fact, I’m more than impressed, I’m puzzled. I do plan to write extensively about it in the next days, so I will only publish some pictures now with some short comments. Pictures were taken yesterday morning, between 5 and 8 AM (told you I had a hard time coping with that jetlag).

Bugsy Siegel's famous Flamingo in the morning light

Las Vegas glmaour Bellaggio in the sunrise. In the back you can see a glimpse of Caesars' Palace

The Strip in the early morning. On the right side, a pilar of Eiffel Tour replica.

The Strip doesn't sleep. New hotels are built day and night.

Excalibur towers

Feels like you're there. I mean, New York, New York!

We couldn't miss the Statue Of Liberty, of course.

In case you forget where you are. Caesar's Palace, of course.

Caesar's Palace Forums Shops with the incredible artifical "sky" over it.

Is this guy really waving at me? Or at the slot machines?

Oh, I got it! It was about those ladies. Those Romans! Always after women. Pool time, I guess.