My Journey from OBGYN to Digital Nomad in 18 months

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When I first got the idea that I wanted to travel the world and work remotely, I was an OBGYN resident. You know the kind of doctor that delivers babies and performs pap smears. That is not exactly the type of work that you can do from a cafe in Budapest.

So, yea that was a minor problem. At that point in my life, I didn’t have any skills that lent themselves to remote work, and for a while, I allowed myself to get stuck there.

I listened to podcasts and stalked Instagram accounts of people living that remote work life and thought to myself “must be nice”.  I felt so bitter about the life path I had chosen and was filled with regret that I was doomed to spend the majority of my youth working in a hospital, freezing my butt off in an OR. 

When upper level residents or attendings asked me what I wanted to do (meaning did I want to go to a fellowship or be a generalist) I would tell them “I want to be a travel blogger.” They would laugh it off thinking I was kidding. Truthfully, I thought I was kidding too.

I’m going to be a….copywriter?

Then one day, I saw an Instagram advertisement about becoming a freelance copywriter. Up until that moment, my only knowledge of copy writing was from Peggy on Mad Men. I had no idea it was a viable way to create a remote source of income.

I started doing some investigating and within a week I ended up buying an online course to teach me how to be a copywriter.

Now spoiler alert, I never ended up actually finishing the course or learning much of anything about becoming a copywriter, but this was still a significant moment in my journey to becoming a digital nomad.

This was the first moment my perspective started to shift and I began to think maybe I could find a way to make money online. Maybe I wasn’t actually doomed to waste away in the hospital. And once I had that inkling of a thought, then the pathways to possibility started to open up.

Prior to this, I was closed off. My mindset was “must be nice, but that can’t be my life”. I felt stuck. I felt trapped in my current reality. But once I started to ask myself, “Why not me?” “Why couldn’t I do that too?” All of the opportunities started coming to me.

No wait, let’s try…. travel blogger?

I dabbled with the idea of freelance copywriting for a month or two, but ultimately decided it wasn’t for me. I didn’t feel inspired by the work or the process of becoming a copywriter. The work felt too hard.

I knew I was going to have to work hard to learn a new skill to make money online, but it was also very important to me that I ENJOY the work and enjoy the process. I didn’t see myself being truly passionate about writing other people’s ideas for them. So I kept searching.

I ended up stumbling upon Kristin Addis’ travel blog, Be My Travel Muse and before long developed a full on girl crush. I bought her e-book Conquering Mountains: How to Solo Travel The World Fearlessly. In the book she gives extremely tactical advice for how to make your dreams of traveling the world a reality. There is an entire section dedicated to finances and how to make money WHILE traveling. This is where I first learned about teaching English overseas, but I initially brushed that off.

After reading her e-book and basically every blog post she had ever written, I decided exactly what I wanted to do to earn money while I travel.

I wanted to be Kristin Addis. (I told you I am very prone to girl crushes). So naturally, I needed to become a travel blogger.

I signed up for Nomadic Matt’s Superstar blogging course, bought my domain name theturquoisetraveler.com and got to work setting up my blog. Very quickly after buying this course and learning about the world of travel blogging, I realized I wouldn’t be making money anytime soon with this route.

Travel blogging is a long game and takes on average 2 years to grow your following and start monetizing your blog. I needed a source of income for those two years and so decided that teaching English overseas would be a fantastic way to make a stable income while also living abroad.

Hmm, how about…. English Teacher?

So guess what I did next? I signed up for a course online to get my TEFL certificate and began looking into the process of applying to teach English overseas.

I knew I wanted to be in Asia, because that is where Kristin Addis started her travels (seriously, I have a problem). And after some preliminary research I picked South Korea, because they seemed to offer the best salary and benefits. Plus South Korea was quite an industrialized and developed country which made it an ideal starting off point for my Asian adventures.

While going through the steps to secure my position teaching English in South Korea, I also began to examine if travel blogging was actually right for me. The further I got into Nomadic Matt’s course and the more I learned about the industry and the potential revenue/ income streams, the more it didn’t quite feel like a fit. I didn’t love the idea of working with brands or leading tour groups. All of that seemed fairly stressful and not exactly in line with my zone of genius.

Ok, no for real this time: Life coach!

I returned back to my original desires. I wanted to travel the world and work remotely, but that didn’t necessarily mean that my work also had to be about traveling. While I was questioning if travel blogging was right for me, an email popped into my inbox about a Life Coach Training Program with Jeannine Yoder.

While reading this email, I had my biggest aha moment yet. It all finally made sense. This is what I was meant to do. I had always been secretly obsessed with personal development. Legit, in high school, instead of reading Seventeen magazine like a normal teenager, I had a subscription to Psychology Today. Before I could drive, I would have my parents drop me off at Books A Million so I could secretly browse the self-help aisle, devouring any and every book I could find about how to live a better, happier life.

The years of being obsessed with personal development and psychology and motivational quotes all dovetailed perfectly into this new career path of becoming a life coach and helping other people live their best life. I knew that this was the work I was always meant to be doing, but I had just lost my way and taken a brief detour to medical school.

After completing the free holiday challenge with Jeannine Yoder, I applied and got accepted into Mentor Masterclass, a year long life coach training program. I finally had a plan that felt exactly right.

From side hustle to full time digital nomad

2019 was a year full of life changes and new beginnings. In January I started my life coach training program and in February I set off to South Korea to start my job teaching English.

At that point my plan was to teach English for 2 years while building up my life coaching business. After 2 years, I hoped to make enough money from my life coaching business to quit teaching English and go full time digital nomad, which was the ultimate goal.

I was decently content with that plan initially, I knew that building up my own life coaching business and totally pivoting career paths was going to be a long game. I was realistic about the fact that I couldn’t just go from zero to digital nomad in a few weeks time.

However, patience has never been my strong suit. After one semester of teaching English and side hustling my buns off to build my life coaching business, I was exhausted.

I would stay up past midnight for my live coaching classes and sister circles and then wake up at 7am to go into work. The time difference was killing me, and the 9-5 grind, while better than my previous 80 hour work weeks in medicine, was still far from ideal.

I did have all my weekends off and I used them to explore as much as I could, but I craved even greater freedom and flexibility. Still, it seemed so far off, because I was still under the impression that I had to build my life coaching business up fully before quitting my teaching job.

Then, an entire new set of possibilities opened up when I met a real life digital nomad. Through my life coach training program I was paired up with Eva Peterson, a former architect who had quit her corporate job several years prior to travel the world. After our first conversation, I changed the direction of my imagined future once again.

She opened my eyes to the world of teaching English online. Which I knew existed, but for some reason, had never even looked into it or considered it for myself. Once I talked to Eva, she told me about how she had been traveling the world for the past 2+ years teaching English online and freelancing. Hearing her story about how this life was possible for her, showed me how possible it was for me too.

Once again, I had a new plan in place. I would complete my current teaching contract teaching English in S Korea. As soon as the year was up, I would start teaching English online and go full time digital nomad for reals.

And that is exactly what happened.

I got hired for VIP Kid in November of 2019 and began teaching part time after school and on weekends to “build up my bookings”. Then on January 26^th 2020, I finished my contract in South Korea and took off for Vietnam to begin my digital nomad adventure.

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So as you can see my path to becoming a digital nomad was very winding. I went through a handful of different phases and iterations, and invested in several online courses, before I finally landed on my ultimate career path of life coaching.

Hopefully from my story, you can see that this life is entirely possible for you, if you truly want it. I am not special in any way. I started completely from ground zero and have successfully found a way to make money online. All it took was some resourcefulness and a deep desire to make it happen. With a compelling enough why, you will figure out the how.

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If you want to learn more about this topic, I did an interview series on my IGTV about how to become a digital nomad. I interviewed 3 different people about how they got started making money online. CLick the links below to watch these interviews.

How to quit your job to travel when you don’t know what’s next.

Learn how to be a podcast manager and start making money online.

How to create passive income so you can start traveling the world.

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Wondering if you have what it takes to quit your job and travel full time? Check out my decision making worksheet below to decide if this path is right for you!

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