Year Disrupted - 1 Month After Quitting 9 to 5 To Travel The World

Skye Khilji 0:02
Welcome to the Free The Wage Slave podcast. The podcast dedicated to helping frustrated nine to fivers get out of the rat race and succeed working for themselves. I'm Skye Khilji, a former corporate insurance wage slave who now travels the world year round working from my laptop. This is Episode One with Abhi and Gabrielle from Year Disrupted. These guys are just one month into their digital nomad journey, going straight from California to Columbia. They're going to share with you how they did it and how you can do the same. I think you'll enjoy this one. Alright, so we have Gabrielle and Abhi from Year Disrupted on the show with us today. And we're gonna kick things off right at the top. So guys, tell us who you are and where you're from?

Gabrielle 0:44
Okay, well My name is Gabrielle. I am originally coming from California. I grew up in Colorado, but went to school in California and have been living there for the past six years now.

Abhi 0:58
Yep and my name is Abhi. Born in India and came to the US for college, went to an engineering school for my industrial engineering degree. Worked in the automotive industry for about eight years and was in California for the past four years before we decided to sell everything and and start traveling.

Skye Khilji 1:26
Right and I love where you guys are at. I love your entire journey, the whole yeardisrupted.com website that you have, and we're going to dig into all of that, but paint a picture for us what was life like before you embarked on this wonderful journey that you're on?

Gabrielle 1:43
Yeah, so I guess we have a little bit of a different timelines in our personal lives just because I am six years younger than Abhi so I was a little newer into my professional career, which is a quick rundown for me. I studied Creative Writing in college, I've always been an insanely creative person and that's always been a huge part of my own livelihood, I guess. But when it came time to graduate college, I became increasingly more interested in business and entrepreneurship and when I left college, I was straying away from that more creative and academic route. I didn't want to just be a writer, but that's where I discovered marketing. When I got a job offer from a company I interned for and I was never really that excited about working for them, no offense to them, but I just I never felt super passionate about it, it was more like okay, this is my option, comfortable salary, room to grow here. Let's just check it out and if I hate it, I'll leave and that's kind of what I told myself before even starting it but we all know how that works. You take a job, you start off with a salary and pretty soon that's just your life. So I had been working there for about a year and I liked the work that I was doing. There are some internal issues with the company but I soon realized like, what this is, this is what working is, this is what work life is. I'm lucky that I have a lot of really great friends who are older than me and meeting Abhi as well and us to starting to date and realizing that a lot of people who are older than me and very well established in their career, making way more money than I did, in higher positions there was something missing. Like they they weren't fulfilled. And that's kind of what I was gathering and I could almost just see my life kind of projected in front of me and that freaked me out a bit. So I was new into my career but already starting to question things. I started thinking like what if? What if there was another way? What if? What if this wasn't how it needed to be? And I was lucky that my gears started turning a bit early because there are some internal issues at my company. And my boss actually pulled me aside and said, like, "Hey, you know what? If it might be a good idea to consider your next career move" and not that she was going to fire me, but just you know, our department it was underfunded and nobody respected it. So she was kind of trying to like, warn all of us like, if you want to make moves in your career, maybe now's the time to start looking. So luckily, that issue at my company started really me questioning the entire system in general.

Skye Khilji 4:47
Yeah, I think it's quite an interesting point. Its so easy to get seduced by the benefits package of the company. And you know, you start find yourself living paycheck to paycheck and so many people I talk to have the same story, where, you know, things are rosy on the outside but inside there's this churning, and this turmoil happens. And, you know, I love what you said about projecting yourself maybe 20, 30 years into the future. For me it was seeing the executives in corporate and just realizing all of that money's not worth it for 80 hours a week and you know, a job you hate. Right? That's definitely, definitely something I see a lot of people with.

Gabrielle 5:27
Oh, absolutely.

Skye Khilji 5:28
So Abhi, was your journey kind of similar to that?

Abhi 5:33
Not really. So it was quite a bit different. I came, you know, I've always been into cars growing up, I always wanted to work on cars. So that's kind of where you know what I went to school for. And then once I graduated, I didn't get a job in the automotive industry seemed like that was the dream. I got a job at Toyota as an engineer. But as you know, your went by so I moved to Cincinnati Ohio which is in a right in the Midwest where all the automotive companies are but it's very you know, blue collar started working their first year was good but then as you are working at the company you realize it's it's you know not what do you expect that it to be so even if I was working hard I couldn't get a promotion at the company because you had to be at a company for five years before they would even allow you to get a promotion. And you know, a couple other things. So I did realize that that maybe that was not the company for me, but I still saw myself looking for other jobs. I thought maybe this is not the right fit that but there's gotta be other companies out there that that I would love to work at. And so I moved to California and started working for a tech startup. That was my last job and basically everything but that job is what I wanted in a company. It was it was a tech startup, very startup culture, fast paced, great technology. It was an EV bus company. So something I really believe in, you know, they were helping the environment. But what came out to be as the corporate culture was still there. No matter how much work I got done, it became about how many hours I was in the office and you know, how I was getting along with other people and I need to need it to impress my managers and VP just to try to get a promotion. So I started to realize that to that, you know, even if the company's What do you believe in at the end of the day, just the extra amount of hours you're expected to be at work. Whether or not, you know, you're able to get your work done at a faster rate, and just the corporate culture that that that's just not for me. And that's what kind of sad and making me look at where I am and the people at the company that were, you know, VPS and managers is, you know, seeing if that's where I want to be in the future, and the answer was no. So that's when we decided okay, there are things that we want to do with our lives that are not really what our current jobs are. So why are we still here? And why not just pull the trigger, take the risk and quit our jobs and work on things we are passionate about.

Skye Khilji 8:47
Right? So talk to me about that process. The the seed has been planted in in both of you, I guess, you're coming home and, you know, talking to each other about how bad the day was. What was the process for you guys in you know, fix Carrying out what you wanted to do, and then you know making that a reality.

Gabrielle 9:04
Yeah, so at the time, at least for me, you know, I, I didn't know much about being a digital nomad or anything else. And I always undersold myself, I always thought, you know, I'm too young to start my own business. I'm too young to freelance. I don't have enough experience. Those are the limiting beliefs I told myself. But it was actually, I had a friend, kind of when I was starting to consider the next steps in my career, one of my friends told me to read the four hour workweek. And it's a second time in my life, I've been recommended that book by somebody I trust. So I started to read it, then, you know, I was at a frustrating place at my job. I hadn't even been there long. I was ready to leave. I you know, was starting to look at this the steps I needed to take in order to get to a place where I could even prove myself you know, you have to work a certain number of years in an entry level position. And kind of like what are you saying it's it's you know, years before the the Work and the termination. So we actually last February really almost a year actually, probably a year ago. We woke up early one morning and we went to a cafe and we did our dream mining. And both our six and 12 month dream lines, they got us so excited. We basically were crying, we are so excited that we realized that not neither of our dreams had anything to do with our jobs. Right. So that was in February and when that was a crazy realization. That was shortly, shortly around then was when I started working, started exploring, exploring freelancing on the side and I was still working a full time job. And it was more just for like, let's see this, I always undersold myself and it was really Abhi who was like, just do it just put up a profile, work on things that you're good at and see what happens. And so by April, actually, so two months really, I was in a position where I could quit my job. And, and fully go freelancing. And and I wanted to so I quit my job in April. And everyone was like, oh, did you get a new position? What are you doing next? I'm like, you know, I don't know. I'm just going to figure it out. And I remember I was expecting so many people at my company on my last day of work to be like, I don't know about that. Maybe I should rethink this. But instead, I got so many people who are 10, 15 years older than me, with husbands and mortgages being like, I'm really jealous. That sounds awesome. So a couple months of me working on my freelance business, think about how it could grow it showed both of us just how sustainable of a life we could live. If we decided to move into a non corporate capacity and all that Abhi kind of take over here for how he started, you know, thinking through that on his own because basically I quit in April. We left in January. He quit into tember so there is a few month period where it was me working freelance full time to get something steady and I'll kind of let him take over from here.

Abhi 12:09
Right so for me also the point where, you know the seed was sown was that dream mining part that we did and realizing that what our dreams were had nothing to do with what our current jobs were. And that combined with, you know, in March, I took a trip to Antarctica, and I met a lot of people on the cruise who were working remotely, and just traveling through South America. So just learning from their stories and how they were, you know, living their lives. That also inspired me a lot. So, when I came back, it started to become almost a weekly discussion between us that How awesome would it be if you could just like travel for an entire year and make money while doing it? And so then we're Gabby starting to make money on fiber that further reinforced everything that that Yeah, look, she's already making great money freelancing. So this is doable. And then for me in August, timing, August, September timing, it started to become more like the time it was game time. And it was like, Oh, I think we really want to do this. So I put up a freelance profiles who just to see if I wanted to make money while traveling and freelancing, what kind of money I will get. And same thing I got lucky I had a couple of great projects, right in the first month, where I had, you know, clients that were paying me on a weekly basis. So that gave me the confidence that I can do this too. And then at that point, we were like, Okay, I guess we're we're doing this in 2020. And I think late September, October, we decided to book our tickets. Yeah. And then and then it was just a matter of me quitting my job.

Gabrielle 14:01
And then we also discuss like what, you know, our dream lines excited as so much and, and for me, I thought I was crazy putting in my dream line like I want to travel the world while generating income for 12 months, I literally wrote that before we even months away from making this plan I wrote, I wanted to own my own business that I wanted to have a team. You know, if I looked at it from fear and limiting beliefs, I'm like, I'm too young. I'm too inexperienced. I don't have enough. money saved up. But we realized like, what do we want to? We both Okay, we check the box. This does seem doable, we can at least pay the bills next year. But what do we want to do if we can pay the bills? Like what else do we want to do? And that's when I started thinking of working on my business of growing my current services. hobby always wanted to try day trading and get better at that. So it just it got us so excited of you know, if we can check the box that we have enough money to feed and house ourselves, like what are the other possibilities and that's, I think what really motivated us to just go out And decided to do it.

Abhi 15:01
Yeah, I think for most people, the the fear is quitting your job and having no income. And certainly that was a fear for us too. So just laying out what it would cost us for an entire year to do this, even if we were not making any money, and then just, you know, looking at our savings, and what income we had coming from freelancing, we felt pretty confident that okay, we can we can make this happen.

Skye Khilji 15:26
That's wonderful. I just want to dig into the freelancing a little bit. You know, there's a many paths out of the nine to five and freelancing is such a popular one. It was the one that I took when I did it, I didn't use the skills I had in the insurance industry. I went into marketing, it was my, you know, passion outside of work. So Abhi, with your first freelancing projects. Were they related to your day job, or was it something completely different?

Abhi 15:53
It was no longer related to my day job. So my last position was a In a sourcing role in a procurement role, but I've held a position in the past where I was a program manager. And so I'm a certified Program Manager. And when we started to look at what freelancing I could do, that was the one skill that there was a demand for. So, so that's the one I decided to set up a profile for. I'm a certified Program Manager. And it seems like there's a lot of startups and small companies that are looking for people to manage their projects. And that was the reason I, I used that skill.

Skye Khilji 16:38
That's awesome. I think it's definitely a smart thing to you know, dig back into your past, into those skills that you know, you've learned and put the work in at some point in the past, you know, you can monetize them now. And something like project management is recurring. It's, it's a great way to get started. So I love that you guys were able to put up your profiles online and get the income coming in quickly. So were you finding clients on your own? Were you using some of the freelancing websites? Just talk us through in a bit of detail that process?

Gabrielle 17:11
Yeah. So for me, I, you know, I originally signed up for Fiverr and Upwork. And like I said, my background was in writing creative writing. So the first profiles I put were just like, editing, that's, that's my bread and butter. I love editing. But, you know, there wasn't a lot of demand for that. And there wasn't a lot of I didn't get much, many hits for that. So I thought, Okay, well, how can I make something that's that's kind of my own, and that doesn't exist yet. And I realized that you know, a lot of there's a lot of marketing services, a lot of editing services, but there weren't a lot of branding services. And what I loved about my last position, what I kind of made my own was, was the idea of branding companies. It's kind of a fusion of creative writing and marketing. It's like, equal part. Strategy equal parts creativity. So I tried to look on fiber and Upwork for what did exist and then kind of make something my own maybe like what what I could create that was unique. That wasn't just duplicating another service on there. So I put, you know, I price I thought, okay, branding is kind of this vague umbrella term, how can I like quantify it? So I kind of thought through my own system, and I was really lucky that somebody, somebody purchased my gig on Fiverr, I think on a whim, and that was when I had it really low price. It was just $15 for my lowest package. And I remember the The first time I sent my order, and I was actually at a conference, it was kind of like a Find Your Passion Mind Valley Conference. And one of the big themes was like monetize your passion. So it was I feel like some crazy coincidence that I was submitting my first order on fiber as I was learning all that stuff. And so Fiverr takes its commission, you know, the I made my first $12 I remember I cried like I cried, I literally cried because I was so happy that I made my it was the very first $12 I made on my own. And I got a five star review. And the guy wanted to work with me again. And then I don't know if he gave me just really positive feedback on the backend of fiber but the orders just kind of started trickling in and I was just getting amazing feedback. And this is coming from for me who told myself I'm too young, I'm too inexperienced to freelance, I was giving them so much value they were they were so grateful they they were getting so much value and it gave me a purpose to think that okay, maybe I've stumbled upon something that people really need that they're not getting from other gigs or other places. And and then I think just the positive feedback loop on fiber continued and then I was able to raise my prices and raise my prices and raise my prices and create other gigs and then eventually get clients off of Fiverr who wanted to continue working with me. So that was just so reassuring. And it was it was so motivating and, and just the, the great feeling of, you know, the little wins the five star, the the outside clients then finally retainer clients and then it just really built from there. And it was just such a great feeling.

Skye Khilji 20:19
I think that's super smart. Instead of doing what everybody else is doing and competing, you know, you took the time to find something unique and the benefits really paid off. That's so smart.

Gabrielle 20:30
Thank you.

Skye Khilji 20:32
You're welcome! So Abhi, just walk us through on your side. You're doing the project management, you've got some recurring clients, I guess you guys are seeing the income come up to a level where you're comfortable to take that next step?

Abhi 20:45
So for me personally, yeah, you know, I set up a profile on Fiverr too, and, and turned out that pretty much everyone who was looking for a project manager wanted something long term, someone's who manage their projects. So I met a couple clients who just wanted to put me on a retainer. And so right now, I would not say that I have enough income to, to make me feel that I'm comfortable. It's nowhere near the money I was making before I quit my job. But for me the project management freelancing is on the something I'm using to support my expenses and pay my bills. My main focus so far and the, you know, since we left us and since we've been doing this remote work, my main focus has been on day trading. That's something I've been doing on and off for the over the past five years. I knew that something if given the ability to work on full time, I could really get good at. So that's the part I'm focusing on. I have two clients at the moment for project management that our regular clients And, you know, I have enough income coming in there to cover my bills. And this was kind of the plan. And so so everything's going according to plan so far.

Skye Khilji 22:10
I think that's really common. What I see a lot and my journey was I was in a nine to five. And that was paying for me to do the thing I really wanted to do in my evenings and weekends. And now that I'm free of the nine to five, I have the thing that pays my expenses and lets me travel. And that allows me the time, you know, to build my side projects like this podcast and do those other things. It seems to be, you know, a common route for a lot of us. So what I'm hearing is you guys got to that point, where you've said, Look, I've had enough of this corporate life, this future that's already planned out for me. You've dream lined, you've started, you know, freelancing and getting your income up. So are you now at the point where you've jumped ship or are you still you know, where you were still working a little bit just To make sure that this was going to keep working out before you left the country, where are we on that timeline?

Gabrielle 23:07
We are. If you mentioned jumping ship, we are completely in the water now swimming around, but no in a good way. We decided just the significance of beginning a new decade. And, you know, 2020 New Year. I think we're both symbolic people in that way. We decided, Okay, what if what if it's what if we just think of it in terms of like 2020 World Tour? What if we do that I love so that was always kind of up ahead. like okay, this seems like a good time to wrap things up, begin a new year and new decade traveling. So we actually celebrated New Year's with our friends and family back home. And then we took off for many in Colombia on January 3.

Skye Khilji 23:55
That's awesome. So you've been there January 3, and am I right that you're wrapping up Columbia now?

Gabrielle 24:01
Yeah, that's right. We decided to just we we decided to stay in Colombia for about six/seven weeks. We we left with the intention of wanting to stay in places for more like two to three months. But we just decided to test out the waters here in Columbia to have a ticket in and a ticket out but really our plan is to go to other places with with less of a structured plan. So yeah, we are wrapping up our time in medicine. We can't believe it's gone by so quickly. You know, just a couple of weeks took it took a couple weeks to really get get the hang of it for me. I had been working from home a bit longer for ABI it was new. So just new city new way of life. Really just dove straight into that especially for him and now we are planning our next steps.

Skye Khilji 24:52
That's awesome. So how much time are you guys actually spending working versus exploring the location that you're living in?

Abhi 25:00
So I think so far, pretty significant amount of time we are still working because we are trying to grow our business and and get to a place where we're comfortable where we are comfortable with our income. I think right now we are still in a in a hustling phase. So I think for both of us, we work about six to eight hours a day. I think maybe five? Yeah, yes. We take a lot of breaks in the middle. You know, we take lunch breaks. But yeah, I think we're still working quite a bit during the weekdays. And then we still try to keep at least one day, completely free for absolutely no work at all. And we don't even allow each other to talk about work.

Gabrielle 25:50
I guess to clarify, like, when obviously, at least from my perspective, you know, I was able to get to a point where I was making more money than I was at my corporate job. So for me, it's not necessarily like in a place of being comfortable income wise. I want to just make clear like we are we are hustling right now because we we want to, you know, and we have these passions that we're exploring. We're both extremely entrepreneurial, we love projects, we actually love to work. So for us like and we're also working on our own blog, on the side to create resources. And I'm, I'm diving into scaling my business so for us, it's like an exciting amount of work where we we are no longer working these I would say, honestly, five hours a day if I'm being honest, because we do take naps and go to the gym. But I would say these five hours a day are really just it's creative time. It's time to explore obviously working on his trading strategy. I'm working on scaling my business so it's, it's those passion projects that we're working toward that will make us that larger income, but it's It's really like we're not clocking in hours so we can make X amount of money we're really just exploring. So we are working but it but in a way that's adding real value to our lives.

Skye Khilji 27:11
Right. I think there's a bit of a myth with this digital nomad thing. You know, the Instagram and I'm probably guilty of this. You look at Instagram, it looks like you know, it's laptop by the pool, and you're constantly in all the best places. I've been in Budapest now eight days, and I haven't left the apartment other than to get food.

Gabrielle 27:29
Oh my gosh.

Skye Khilji 27:30
Yeah, it's kind of crazy like that, you know, a lot of nomads they do work full time, and even beyond full time, and I really like what you touched on Gabrielle, which is that yes, the cost of living is lower and if you're earning in dollars, and you're paying your accommodation and your expenses in local, sure, there's a bigger differential and that's great. But you know, there's things you're working towards. So it's quite normal to really just put those hours in and hustle as you said.

Gabrielle 27:58
Yeah, absolutely. And well, in that, you know, that's what we wanted this year to be about. We want to see the world and get the things that we want to do out of traveling. But really, you know, what we realized when we did our dream lines is we wanted to explore trading, I wanted to explore owning my own business, and we just never would have been able to do that. And give it the attention it deserves at our corporate jobs. So we're definitely not by the pool every day. But we but we don't mind it like we it's, it's a balance that we create for ourselves. And we've loved every minute of it so far.

Abhi 28:33
Yeah. And it's like, you know, when you're passionate about something, it gets easier. So we're not being forced to be an office or sit at a desk anywhere. We know what we need to get done for the things that we are passionate about. And it becomes a lot easier because we're working for ourselves. And these are the things we want. So we just sit down and work really hard. When we have stuff to do, and when we get our stuff done, we go on and have fun. Yeah, so it's definitely been great balance working here than it was back home.

Skye Khilji 29:12
Yeah, totally. Definitely. Definitely. I think the freedom is just such an underrated part of the trading the extra money that we may be not making for the freedom you'd make their trade every single day of the week. No doubt. Right. Absolutely.

So Year Disrupted, is it a year disrupted? Or do you think it'll become a decade disrupted?

Gabrielle 29:38
We've, I had friends who basically said bye to me and they're like, You're not coming back for a while. I can't believe you're only going for a year. I think that one thing we, you know, South Southern California was we didn't we neither of us grew up there but it became our home. It felt I moved around a lot as a kid. So Southern California felt more of a home to me than anywhere else. So I think we originally entered it in the year knowing Okay, eventually we might want to like settle down and get a house or a dog or something. But I think within like a matter of weeks in being here, we're like, we might be here longer than a year, I think chances are, we probably will be travelling for longer than a year. But I think one thing we've totally realized and, excuse me, it gives us something to work towards is we want to be location independent in our lives in our lifestyle for the rest of our lives, right.

Abhi 30:35
Yeah, I think, given how fast these past six months, six weeks have gone by, and before, before we even left, we kind of had the feeling that one year seems like it's gonna fly by before we know it. So there's there's a pretty good chance though this may turn into more and more than a year disrupt.

Skye Khilji 30:56
Yeah, yeah, you guys are unemployable. Now, that's for sure.

Gabrielle 31:01
I've just I've taken a red marker and just put an X through my CV.

Skye Khilji 31:06
Right right right.

So what's next on the travel bucket list? What are the places you've got in your in your minds and your hearts?

Gabrielle 31:15
Well, we're we are headed to India for about a month for most of March to spend some time with obvious family and and see the country I've never been to India. And then really where we want to post up is is we miss the water. So we actually caught us at an interesting time because our hold on Excuse me. I'm sorry, our plan had always been to go directly to Bali and post up there for months. But now we're really we know we're going to Southeast Asia. We originally thought it would be like Chiang Mai, a nomad hot spot in Bali by the beach. But now that we've like kind of made this our own Figuring out what we want figure out what we don't want where we don't know right now we're like, we really need to figure that out. We're headed to India for a month. But what's amazing is like, we don't have to go to the main hot spot, we can find another place and make it our hot spot. So that's kind of what we're thinking about right now.

Abhi 32:18
Yeah, so we've been like looking at places and Chiang Mai and what we've realized is, it's more expensive than we would have expected it to be. And then it just seems like where every single influencer and remote worker is going to so I think between her and I, we personally want a more authentic experience and get to really like deep dive in the local culture. So we're starting to look at maybe there are other places that are not so packed with influencers and and remote workers, where we may have a better experience.

Gabrielle 33:00
So yeah, right? No, not to knock on our own community. We love it. But, you know, we're just like, we love the possibilities we can go anywhere. So, you know, at first we're like, oh, well, we'll hop from one hot spot to the next. But really now that we're in the thick of it, we're like, you know, we can go wherever I'm sure you feel that way in in Budapest, it might not be first on someone's radar, but I love that city. So we can we kind of want to find a place and make it our own.

Skye Khilji 33:26
There's definitely that middle ground between I love meeting people who are on the same journey, because I can learn from them. But in the same way, I want to get immersed in the culture and as Abhi said, that authentic experience. So I think striking that balance between the two so important and you know, that really makes the year disrupted such a such a great and fulfilling one.

Gabrielle 33:46
And that's what we love about travel. I mean, that's we realized that on our first date, how much we love travel. So part of traveling is really getting to know a place and the culture. So that's that's what we're excited about. At least for next few steps here.

Skye Khilji 34:01
Yeah. So I'm a bit of a tech guy. So I love my Bose headphones for example, I'm wearing them now they're like the greatest thing I've ever bought. So I always ask people what are those like essential pieces of tech or apps or equipment that just make that Nomad life easier for you?

Gabrielle 34:21
I am going to completely let Abhi answer this one because I am a poet at heart so honestly a notebook and a pen is my is my heart and soul. avi handles all tech in this lifestyle. So I'm just gonna let him take it away.

Abhi 34:38
Yeah, I think for us, we we may have more tech than than a normal remote traveler or remote worker. So I think as far as the sensor goes, obviously, you know, your phones, your computer's touch. But then, you know me being a trader I knew I needed extra screen space. So I had two monitors at home. They're both like 30 inch monitors, and we decided to pack those and bring those with us. So everyone we've told about

Gabrielle 35:11
Everyone is not a single person.

Abhi 35:15
But they've come in really handy for home offices, specially for me because I need to look at a lot of data. Other than that for tech, I love taking photos. That's kind of, you know, my hobby. So I did bring all my camera gear with me. Because we are also recording ourselves. We do have some microphones we packed with us. Other than that, yeah, I mean, we both brought our headphones. So I think yeah, we definitely packed a lot of tech and at some point during this year, we may get rid of some of it. But so far we've needed everything be packed.

Gabrielle 35:57
I'm personally just a sucker for my own Apple Watch. I don't really use it for anything but activity tracking, but just for the sheer purpose of like, Oh, we can go to salsa lessons and figure out our money how many calories we burn, burning, like, you know, 800 calories doing dancing salsa. I don't I love like counting different activities. And that's one thing we love that you're disrupted is getting involved in local hobbies. So taken up salsa here, so I love how my Apple Watch is like a durably able to track all of that.

Skye Khilji 36:31
Yeah, that's awesome. So you mentioned Year Disrupted, I want to dig into that a little bit with you guys. So what is Year Disrupted? What is it today and what do you hope it will become?

Gabrielle 36:41
Yeah, so back home you know now it seems crazy because we're fully inundated in the digital nomad lifestyle meeting digital nomads, but I like I said I didn't know anything about what this lifestyle was. I was like I stunk suck my head into the corporate world. I didn't even know people were doing this. And if it They were I thought it's because they had a lot of money or something. But we really want to be a resource for people to, to learn from our just to get like a candid view of our own journey. And then we really want to teach people things that we wish we would have known whether it's finding a place, how to budget, how to start your own freelance career diving into that. So for us, it's we're kind of multi platform. We have a podcast where we share, just kind of like deep dive into different topics, blog where we is really a resource platform, and then our Instagram where you can see all of these amazing photos and my weird captions and kind of just get an idea for who we are and what we stand for. And I'll be honest, we came up with the name, but we loved what that meant for our own lives.

Abhi 37:52
Right. Yeah. So the goal with Year Disrupted was when we started to look into this whole process, a lot of the a lot of The resources we found, were people who were already doing this for a really long time. And were well established. It wasn't really clear what they were doing for work. But it seemed like yes, they were remote workers. So we couldn't find anything for people like us who were just starting out. And you know, the questions about what to pack? Or how do we go about budgeting for this year? And how could we really quit our jobs and yeah, and those extra income. So those kind of things we really couldn't find anywhere. We just found, you know, top 10 places to go and like what each city is about and the local culture and the Nomad culture. So we decided that a lot of people that were our friends and family, were asking us questions about how did you decide to do that? How did you find ways to make money on the side? Those questions were not answered, and we had to figure those things out on our own. So we decided to create a platform where we can help people find those, you know, answers to those questions.

Gabrielle 39:05
And we wanted to also talk about the digital nomad philosophy. You know, I think you touched on something great, which is, it's not all poolside cocktails and you know, beaches and stuff. It's such a fulfilling way of life, but it's one that takes mindfulness and balance. So we also wanted to tap into the philosophy tools we learned like Okay, keep out like, like dream lining or you know, fear setting or even I wrote like, 1000 word blog on on the day I quit my job and, you know, things like that, where we want to show people that they're not alone if they're having these fears or these wins. So we just want to continue to grow it. Really we want it to be like an idea, a brand new thing that people can, can maybe apply to their own life and we want people to associate it with positivity, Authenticity, travel, mindfulness and an entrepreneurial spirit, I'd say those are our pillars.

Abhi 40:08
And then the name Year Disrupted came from, you know, just the when we were thinking of doing this over and over again, the term disrupt came in that we are about to disrupt everything that we've been doing in our lives, everything that's been taught to us. You know, growing up, it's always been graduate and high school, go to college graduate, find yourself a nice, nice job, and then just work for their retirement and get a house. And that's been the way of life for, you know, people and our parents, and people are older than us. So for us to change all of that and say, we don't have to live that way. And that doesn't have to be our life was was in a way disrupting all of our beliefs. And then Kind of the reason where we came at this year is about disrupting everything and starting over. And so it's, it's Year Disrupted.

Skye Khilji 41:08
I love that you guys are bridging that gap between the point where somebody says, Okay, I'm ready to do something about my life. So they're ready and they're willing, but they don't really know how. So I love that you're filling in that gap and answering some of those questions. So where can people find you? This is the chance drop all of the socials, all of the links, let us know where we can find and follow you.

Gabrielle 41:30
Yeah, well, we were lucky that Abhi came up with a fabulous name that was untapped so far. So we are your disrupted on all platforms at Year Disrupted on Instagram. We have a podcast on Apple podcasts, Spotify, Google Year Disrupted and YearDisrupted.com. So short and sweet note no variations in the name. And those are all the platforms that you can find us on.

Skye Khilji 41:55
Alright, and I recommend everybody does follow these guys. I love what they're doing. They're doing great, great work and sharing their journey, which I think is so important. They're not just showcasing the highlights, they're showing you absolutely everything, all of the questions you need answering the good parts, the bad parts, I would definitely follow Year Disrupted. So guys, just as we wrap up the podcast, I want to say that it's been a pleasure having you on there, and I'd love you both just to share some final words for those people out there, who are where you were, who are thinking about doing something and they haven't took the leap yet. What would be your final piece of advice for them?

Gabrielle 42:33
For me, I would say one of the best pieces of advice I learned from another entrepreneur, Jules heard the founder of fuel drinks, is that like no, nothing can replace doing no amount of planning, thinking or what anything can replace the value of doing. So if there's something you're thinking about. Doing is is a critical part of that. So it's kind of like an Nike just do it thing. But, you know, be Be mindful and and do it. I would say that that's my, that's my final word.

Abhi 43:09
Yeah, my final words will be just do not give in to the fear. You know, I think for me personally, all the growth in my life has been by overcoming fears, you know, I've quit my job twice and you know, had a lot of other moments where I had to overcome fear and it's always turned out to be a great experience. So I would just say, you know, this life is totally possible. You just have to not fear about what's going to happen and just look at all the downsides and and take the leap of faith.

Skye Khilji 43:50
Wise words, guys, thank you so much. It's been a pleasure having you on and everybody follow Year Disrupted on all of the socials.

Gabrielle 43:59
Thank you so much.

Abhi 44:00
Thank you so much. It's been a pleasure.

Skye Khilji 44:02
Alright. Thanks, guys.

Gabrielle 44:04
Thank you