Check out the video!
Check out my interview with Dennis, who is currently working on a project with a Cancer Research firm in Silicon Valley. Dennis is changing the world, while traveling it! This interview is part of my 4 question series where I ask successful digital nomads from all over the world and all walks of life to answer the 4 questions we all want to know the answer to.
- Who are you? Tell us about what you do and how you got where you are.
- Where is your favorite place to work remote?
- What are 2 tips you would give someone who wants to work at your favorite place?
- What are (or were) your biggest fears around working abroad? And how did you address these?
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Transcripts Of The Video
00:01
coming in this is lauren with the four
00:03
question series so i am here with dennis
00:06
as a reminder the four question series
00:07
of the four questions um i asked digital
00:10
nomads
00:11
um to get the answers to questions that
00:13
we all have
00:14
so i’m here with dennis dennis is going
00:16
to tell us first off a little bit about
00:18
what he does
00:19
yes hi um i’m dennis i’m originally from
00:24
manila philippines i’m now
00:27
based in las vegas nevada i’m a software
00:30
engineer i work for a consulting company
00:32
that specializes in
00:33
laboratory information management
00:35
systems and
00:36
currently i’m working on a project for a
00:40
cancer research
00:41
firm based in silicon valley
00:45
and so we were dennis and i were talking
00:47
before this and that’s one thing
00:49
um that’s almost kind of a misconception
00:51
is that if you’re in a job like that
00:53
where you’re working on cancer research
00:54
a lot of people are worried about
00:56
security and stuff like that while
00:57
they’re
00:58
working abroad and you can have those
01:00
sort of jobs it’s not necessarily always
01:02
like a freelance blogging or
01:04
graphic design or digital advertising
01:07
like i do
01:08
you can have maybe a more traditional
01:10
job
01:11
like a software engineer for a big
01:13
consulting firm and still
01:15
managed to travel that’s correct because
01:16
even though a lot
01:19
a lot of my colleagues are office based
01:22
but we actually have team members from
01:26
all over the world so we
01:27
we work with uh with colleagues from
01:29
different time zones uh
01:31
uruguay india
01:35
so even even before the pandemic started
01:38
everyone was already in the mindset that
01:40
we have to work with people’s schedules
01:42
and different time zones and yeah
01:43
and virtual remote working okay
01:47
so in that case maybe somebody who’s
01:49
already working at an international
01:51
business they might have
01:52
even if it is a more traditional
01:55
traditionally office job
01:57
um if you’re at an international
01:58
business you might be more likely to
02:01
be able to work remote because they’re
02:02
already used to working with uh
02:04
people in varying time zones yes i would
02:06
say uh in my case uh because i can
02:09
pretty much uh work anywhere i i tend to
02:12
do a combination of
02:14
uh going on vacation and then at the
02:16
same time working remotely while i’m on
02:17
vacations like
02:18
extend the time when i’m uh on a
02:21
different location
02:22
um like we were talking about earlier my
02:25
favorite one of my favorite places that
02:27
i worked at when i was uh traveling
02:31
is um actually in kolanta in thailand
02:34
uh that’s an island okay um
02:38
just a a couple hours flight from
02:40
bangkok uh
02:41
and the reason is i have friends that
02:42
are based there they were uh
02:45
swedish and they were living and working
02:47
in sweden and that part of the
02:49
winter so they moved there on the
02:52
swedish enclave in holland
02:54
so i visited them we played each
02:56
volleyball
02:57
um did you scuba dive because that’s the
02:59
big thing in kolata for as i recall
03:01
uh i didn’t unfortunately but i think
03:04
i’m so much in that swedish enclave
03:07
during that time
03:08
but the great thing is that the uh
03:10
internet is reliable which is really
03:11
really important
03:13
so i was able to um there’s no
03:16
inefficiency with working even though i
03:18
was based there
03:20
uh so yeah i i that’s probably one of my
03:22
favorite places that i i i
03:24
can see myself coming back and being
03:26
based again and working for
03:27
several months all right yeah i was a
03:30
huge fan of coca-cola in kosovo i didn’t
03:32
have a chance to see kolanta
03:34
i don’t know what the internet is like
03:35
in those places i wasn’t a digital nomad
03:37
at that point
03:38
per se right um but yeah i would
03:41
recommend that that part of the world as
03:42
well
03:43
um so what are your two tips for
03:45
somebody who
03:46
is interested in working in kolanta or
03:49
maybe even
03:50
thailand uh more generally for uh i’d
03:52
say i think
03:53
it would be good to do do it gradually
03:55
like what i said i would do a vacation
03:57
but i would extend it
03:58
so half of the time i’m in a remote
04:01
location
04:02
i’m i’m really on vacation i don’t have
04:04
to work at all
04:05
and then the other half of the time that
04:07
i’m doing combination
04:08
are working um the only the challenge of
04:12
course
04:12
apart from the wi-fi connection uh the
04:14
speed in my case we work with so much
04:16
data so it’s really important that the
04:19
bandwidth is consistent and reliable
04:21
yeah uh but also the
04:22
the time zone right like for me uh i
04:25
can’t
04:26
i’m immediately switch back to a
04:29
different time zone
04:30
um uh so for me i need that adjustment
04:33
period whenever i’m
04:34
we’re mostly working somewhere else so i
04:36
can sort of shift my
04:38
sleeping and like working time to the
04:41
new location that i met
04:42
so i think people forget they think they
04:43
could just arrive on the airport and
04:44
they could like
04:45
you know do zoom calls at 3am so i think
04:47
that’s important to keep in mind
04:49
for sure so kind of to reiterate there
04:51
one
04:52
is it doesn’t have to be all or nothing
04:54
you can go and take like a shorter break
04:56
and
04:56
right um kind of like hey let’s try out
04:59
thailand for two to four six weeks
05:01
right maybe before i move there for
05:02
three four six right however long
05:04
however many months
05:05
yeah and if you do if you do like it
05:07
then you can just understand
05:08
yeah for sure that’s a good point and
05:10
then secondly which
05:11
actually i do this but i don’t even
05:13
think about it is
05:14
all i’ve always um
05:18
have make sure i have a couple days for
05:20
my flights right and so i actually only
05:22
book meetings tuesday wednesday and
05:23
thursday
05:24
and i’ll try to book flights um on the
05:27
most expensive days unfortunately
05:29
friday saturday sunday monday that way
05:31
at least i have like a 24-hour schedule
05:33
where i can kind of get
05:35
fit in but it sounds like you do the
05:36
same thing where it’s like give yourself
05:38
a day or two at least
05:39
after you land that way you’re not
05:41
freaking out and trying to jump on a
05:42
call while you just got out of the
05:44
airport
05:44
yes exactly that’s that’s the difference
05:47
okay okay
05:48
yeah i like that um so um
05:52
go through and we already have three of
05:54
those so the last one
05:55
what is your biggest what are your two
05:57
biggest fears so one biggest fear
05:59
um if you can’t think of two when you’re
06:01
working abroad and how do you handle
06:03
that
06:05
uh i honestly don’t have any fears at
06:08
all because in some places
06:09
i feel like i am actually much more
06:12
productive you know i
06:13
don’t really feel like i have to worry
06:15
about how well i would perform
06:18
like when i was based in um zagreb in
06:21
croatia
06:23
it was it was my setup was great i have
06:25
like a desk and
06:26
i mean it’s not necessarily worse off
06:30
than my
06:30
my home office it was actually better
06:32
because
06:34
i feel like uh much more comfortable
06:36
working
06:37
over there okay so interesting in terms
06:39
of fears i think um
06:43
i think there’s still a little bit of
06:44
stigma from traditional
06:46
workers because they don’t understand um
06:49
when someone is based
06:50
elsewhere yeah um
06:53
but it quickly dissipates if you if
06:55
you’re just able to
06:56
be reliable you know you don’t play it
06:59
on the pulse
07:00
you do the things that you say you will
07:02
do uh even though there might be dubious
07:04
about
07:06
why you’re like in a different location
07:07
as opposed to at home
07:09
or the office it immediately goes away
07:12
because they can tell
07:12
right away who is productive and
07:15
efficient and reliable
07:17
so i think that’s the important thing to
07:19
keep in mind to allay those like
07:21
you know uncertainties about co-workers
07:24
that work remotely
07:25
okay so for your concern or your biggest
07:28
fear
07:29
it’s not necessarily your biggest fear
07:30
it’s maybe other people’s biggest fear
07:32
your employers because for your clients
07:34
biggest fear that
07:35
now you’re going to be less productive
07:37
or you’re not going to show up on time
07:38
or you’re going to have internet
07:39
problems or whatever when you’re working
07:40
abroad
07:41
so making sure that you’re maybe even
07:44
doing a better job when you’re working
07:45
abroad than
07:46
when you’re at home that way you can
07:48
mitigate that yeah so it’s not
07:50
necessarily a fear it’s more like
07:51
it’s like it’s an important thing that i
07:53
have to keep in mind
07:54
because i think the burden should be on
07:57
me when i’m working remotely
07:58
and because no one wants to hear that
08:00
like oh i’m uh
08:02
you know still trying to get the
08:04
password for
08:05
you know this nobody wants to hear any
08:07
of those things so you have to take care
08:09
of all those things
08:10
so all of those background things have
08:13
been handled by yeah and they just have
08:15
to deal with all of the
08:16
actual work absolutely because actually
08:20
that’s one of my biggest pet peeves is
08:21
when i’m like
08:23
when somebody’s working for me and
08:24
they’re like oh i’m traveling
08:26
sorry it’s going to be a day or two now
08:28
it’s like dude this is your job you know
08:29
what i mean like your job’s in travel
08:31
and work
08:31
yeah you have to keep the separation
08:33
like all of the logistical stuff
08:35
you have to deal with it’s on your
08:37
shoulder absolutely so your employer
08:39
your co-worker they
08:40
do not they should not have to know any
08:42
of those things yeah
08:44
yeah you should be able to go and not
08:46
even tell them and they shouldn’t be
08:47
able to notice the difference exactly
08:48
yeah for sure
08:49
that’s a good one those are fair there’s
08:51
a lot of really good insights and those
08:52
are unique ones and i haven’t heard that
08:54
yet
08:55
um i forgot to mention at the beginning
08:56
we’re coming in here from santorini you
08:58
can’t see too much of it right now
08:59
obviously in the background but uh
09:00
dennis thank you for your time i’ll be
09:02
tagging dennis in here as well
09:03
um i don’t know dennis may already get a
09:07
lot of instagram messages but if you
09:08
have any questions maybe he’ll
09:10
answer i’ll be happy for you all right
09:13
have a good one until next time