... AT BEING
{ PREMIER ISSUE 2018 } KHARISMA MAGAZINE
61
HOMELESS ; so it ’ s much more accessible for you to be able to access people in India , and the Philippines and Germany and Brazil and be able to work with teams across the world , using things like Skype , which is amazing , Gmail - you know , Google dropbox and then sharing all your files , et cetera , and have kind of an international team that you can access at anytime , you know .
That used to be incredibly difficult and a lot of people weren ’ t keen to work with cross-cultures , but now it ’ s so much easier because all these tools help connect us so much more quickly , and with a lot of reliability and security .
WHICH IS NOT WHAT EVERYBODY WANTS TO DO
These are all just a couple of reasons . I think I touched on a little bit more than that but these are some of the more exciting things that I know people are aware of , but I sometimes wonder how aware we really are of the advances in technology and the knowledge that we are acquiring ; it ’ s just going to open up so many doors .
Kharisma : It is indeed , especially as you said , with everything changing so rapidly and , social media and all these various online tools makes it really easy to do that , so since you have a number of individuals out there listening , want to do the same thing , want to create more freedom in their lives , but yet still have a successful business , what would you say it would really take to do that ?
Natalie : I think it takes you getting really clear on what that lifestyle looks like as we talked about but they ’ re all more of your perfect days , but what it really takes is belief in yourself , as I ’ ve found , as I said before , everybody has a skill – set or talent that is valuable to somebody else where they can package their knowledge and skills in a certain way that will allow them to make money , and be able to do that from anywhere . Within reason , I think almost anybody , and people can push back on me on that , but I think it ’ s really true .
So then , once you have those kind of abilities to be able to do that from anywhere , what a lot of people struggle with is this mindset of , “ Can I do it anywhere ? I ’ ve always been known to be working in an office and work between these hours and people expect to see me face to face . I have friends , and family , and community that I need to be around .” And my challenge back to you is , well , why ?
Because that ’ s kind of what we ’ ve always grown up with , but it ’ s changing so rapidly , you know , you don ’ t have to be in the same locations as your team , you can continue to have relationships with your friends and family from afar , thanks to all these great tools , and you certainly don ’ t have to be in an office ; you don ’ t even have to be inside to be able to work successfully . So really I think the biggest pushbacks that I see from people , or the biggest challenge is getting past that , which is what I ’ ve always done , and moving into the newer times where anything is possible .
Kharisma : Awesome ! Now , Natalie , as you know , Timothy Ferriss , he is the author of the book called The Four-Hour Work Week , and in that book , he talks a lot about outsourcing . Why is outsourcing so critical to being a suitcase entrepreneur ?
Natalie : It really is ! In fact , I actually don ’ t think it ’ s really just for a suitcase entrepreneur , I truly think that as ‘ solo-preneurs ’ we tend to take on so much and we ’ re never really going to grow our business , or be able to have more freedom in our lifestyle if we are doing everything .
So regardless of being a suitcase entrepreneur , outsourcing workers helped me to get rid of certain tasks that I am capable of doing , but it really was not the best use of my time , or tasks that I can ’ t stand doing , or tasks that I ’ m actually not that good at , and handing them over to people who excel in them , which makes so much more sense , and usually can do it in half the time that I can and for a lot less money that I would be charging myself out of personally .