Lea Woodward

Do you have a high-paying job? Do you fear the unknowns of working for yourself and living somewhere foreign?  Lea Woodward has been there and done that. She escaped the rat race. She worked for herself and quickly surpassed her old full-time income. She travels the world with her husband–moving from place to place about every three months. Lea sculpted a life of variety, independence, and abundance.

Objective
Travel. Notice what she and her husband like about each location.  “Our dream is to find 2-4 places we absolutely love, buy homes there and then shuttle between them throughout the year” (Freelance Switch interview).

Background
Lea was born June 30, 1977 in Hong Kong and adopted by British parents. She grew up in the UK, often traveling overseas. She majored in German and Business in college. She knows English, French, German and some Italian and Spanish.

Fast forward to 2005. Lea worked at Accenture as a management consultant. She commanded a high salary. However, her days were long and draining. Then her mother died.  She resigned shortly after that.

She became self-employed as a personal trainer. She built a client base and survived quite well.

Lea’s husband, Jon, was laid off from his graphic design job in September 2006.  It was for the second time in three years.  “How can we get rid of our mortgage, free up some assets and be a bit more flexible,” Lea asked herself.  Jon started a graphic design business right away. He quickly acquired many clients.  Lea and Jon surpassed their previous full-time incomes by January 2007.

Lea desired to make money online “by just fiddling about with some websites, e-books, affiliate  programs and all that hype” (Lea’s e-book, p12).  She hired an internet marketing coach. Soon, she started a consulting business. She targeted her health and fitness colleagues. She required six or 12 month contracts.

Lea created a clear vision for her life.  Her coach encouraged her to do so. She asked herself:

What do you really want from your life? Where would you rather be? Really?

Lea and Jon wanted to explore their options for long-term settlement. They knew they didn’t want to settle in the UK. They wanted travel through Central and South America. They wanted to live in the Caribbean.  They realized that their physical location mattered no more. They could operate their businesses over the internet.  They were free to wander.

Travels
Lea and Jon lived in Panama, Buenos Aires, Grenada, and Toronto in 2007. They lived in South Africa and Dubai in 2008.

Lea is not a backpacker; she lives for comforts. She always lives in a short-term apartment in a safe area.

Lea and Jon dream big about where they want to go next. They list several places they want to go over the next months.  The locations may be spread across the globe. They verify an abundance of short term apartment rentals in each location. They script a frugal flight pattern through the set of locations.

Income
Lea started as a digital nomad with a monthly revenue of $5000. She had ten clients, all on 6-12 month contracts, each paying $500/month.

She created the Location Independent Living blog in February 2007. She writes for an audience of location independent professionals (LIP). She writes about living and working from anywhere.  Her blog had 75 visitors per day and 70 feed subscribers in September 2007. She also became a guest blogger on Rolf Pott’s vagablogging.net that month. She published an e-book about the digital nomadic lifestyle in October 2007.

She started a slew of consulting businesses in 2007 under the name Kinetiva.  Kinetiva can improve your business’s strategy, marketing, graphic design, operations, and technology. It can help self-employed publishers and fitness pros automate their income. It can help you design a digital nomadic lifestyle for yourself and get you better abs.

Lea launched LIP System in October 2007. LIP System is an online forum to help small groups of people attain the digital nomadic lifestyle. She uses 37signals’ project management web-app, BaseCamp, to manage each members coaching.  She groups several people at the same stage in attaining LIP lifestyle into one project. She charges $160/month per member and requires a three month contract.  37Signals bills her between $24/month to $150/month total, depending on the number of active projects.  This venture is pure profit for her.

Lea launched LIP Quarterly in November 2007. It is a quarterly report that shares in-depth information about digital nomadic topics.  She charges $80/year.  Subscribers have access to previous issues. She discontinued the report some time in 2008.

Lea and Jon also have a home in Nottingham, England which they rent to cover the mortgage. It may not be profitable now, but once their mortgage is paid off–it will be. At least it’s not an expense for them.

Takeaways

Consulting can be a means to survive as a digital nomad.  You must be a good communicator, comfortable with technology, and passionate about the subject you wish to consult.

Interviews

http://freelanceswitch.com/interviews/living-the-freelance-dream-lea-woodward/