My life after retiring from the 9 to 5… (Ch. 1)

Sharon Tseung 0:02
This is the digital nomad quest podcast with Sharon Tseung. teaching people how to build passive income, become financially free and design their best lives. Hey guys, Sharon from digital nomad quest, and today we’re gonna talk about my life two months after retiring from my nine to five. By the way, my throat is a little bit scratchy. So forgive me if it sounds a little bit weird today. Now, if you guys don’t know already, I recently got laid off two months ago, you guys can check out my video on this later on my YouTube channel. But basically, after getting laid off, I was kind of thinking, what am I going to do with my time? Am I going to try to do all these big things, or am I going to try to relax because basically, I’ve been able to make multiple income streams, or most of which are passive that actually worked for me and was able to make more than my six figure nine to five positions. So that’s kind of why I felt like I was going to retire from the nine five and just focus on these other things that I wanted to do with my life. I’m fortunate that I spent the last seven years kind of working on my online side hustles, building up my rental portfolio to 33 units with my husband and having these passive income streams allows me that financial freedom to kind of do what I want. But anyway, back to the story. So basically, after getting laid off, for some reason, I started getting all these different opportunities. So first off, we were invited to this teachable creator mastermind. So it was only about eight of us, I believe. And we got to sit with top seven to eight figure creators and talk about our businesses and our struggles. So in our mind, we’re like, man, we are small fry in this room, why were we even invited is pretty crazy. So we flew all the way to New York and spent a weekend with these people. And we got to pick each other’s brains, it was really amazing. We learned so much about email funnels, how people were running their businesses, how people were building their teams. So for us that weekend was invaluable, it really made us feel like there’s so much more we could be doing with our businesses and creating impact one of the creators, she measured her success by impact versus by dollar amount, like she cared more about how many people she’s able to impact. And it was so cool seeing that this

group was more about the community and how they could provide value and the dollar amounts would just come because of that. So coming back from that weekend, we were extremely motivated. And it was cool, making new friends like some of them, we still keep in touch. And it’s really nice to have like minded people to kind of talk with because it can get lonely with this entrepreneurship route. Luckily, since I’ve been building this for seven years, I’ve been able to surround myself with other like minded people. So I don’t feel as lonely anymore with this type of stuff. It’s also nice that I work a lot with my husband, because we have similar values and similar interests. So it never feels like I’m tackling this alone. Whereas back in the day, I really felt alone in this. I didn’t know anyone else doing the same thing. So on top of that teachable thing, I got all these random opportunities, and I’m just like, why are people reaching out to me right now. So this TV network actually reached out to interview me and it was like this Chinese TV program and they wanted to follow interesting like Asian Americans and what they’re doing with their lives, I guess. And then I also got a couple of speaking gigs. So one was with his real estate conference, and the other one was with Adobe MAX. And I haven’t really told other people about this. The reason why I didn’t really tell people about the speaking gigs was you know, I am really shy, introverted, public speaking is not my forte. So I was super nervous. There have been multiple nights where I couldn’t sleep because I was just thinking about how I could be messing up on stage. And it’s just really scary for me. The Adobe MAX thing is especially scary for me because it’s a pretty big conference. And there are speakers like Steve Aoki and Jason Sudeikis. And I don’t know how big my room size is for the speaking gig. But hopefully it goes okay, for all of these speaking gigs, I’m going to be talking about social media and like how to grow a following how to monetize it, and luckily, actually finished up with a TV interview and with the other speaking gig. So the speaking gig basically, about two weeks ago, Sean and I spoke at a real estate conference where we talked about how to grow a social media following and how it can benefit with real estate. And we mostly focus on short form video. And then basically the TV crew, the Chinese TV crew filmed most of the talk and then filmed some B roll of me talking to other people getting ready for the talk, working on projects with Sean and then interviewed me afterwards, later in the day. Luckily, everything went well. But I was so nervous for it. We flew to LA to get all this done, and then just recently flew back to Dallas. So I was just extremely stressed. Basically, with all these different things happening. Aside from all of that we also hired a summer intern. So basically, our good friend wanted us to work with his daughter. And initially he was like, oh, maybe you guys can like Teach her stuff and then film it and document it for like a series and then later we were like, actually, I think what would help us and help her is if we did like a paid internship and she helps us with different initiatives and projects and she can learn a lot through it. And basically after that whole teachable creator mastermind she came on board a week later, and then we worked on building up email funnels and building up new products for our community. So it’s been a lot of implementing and we’re still not done. There’s so much work to be done. But all of this was like stressing me out. There’s just so much I was working on. And on the content side, I was feeling burnt out, I was pretty focused on these other projects that I was feeling like I was neglecting the content side. And I still kind of feel like I am, I think I’ve been in this slow period where my mind has been on other things, especially after kind of retiring. And it can be hard to continuously pump out content, but I’m getting my motivation back now after you know, filming this video, for example, it’s getting me back to that motivated state. But there’s been a few weeks where I’ve just been like kind of chillin, playing a lot of video games and watching a lot of TV, especially after the TV interview. And the speaking gig, I’m just like, let me just like kind of enjoy my time because I’ve been moving on the go a lot, I was really stressed. So after that LA trip, I was like, let me just chill. But since I have been kind of neglecting content, and not filming a lot of new stuff, researching topics and doing all the important things, I haven’t been feeling the best to be honest, I wasn’t being productive. And I was just like, What do I want to do with my life. But now I’m kind of getting back into it, like I mentioned. So I’m working on scripting more. And then I’ve also been kind of looking at my goals in life. So I went to this conference, and they were saying write down 101 goals. It was a talk by the author of the Chicken Soup for the Soul books, and I thought it was a good idea. So I’m on like, 75 or something on the bucket list. I’m going to show you guys actually. So here’s a bit of what my bucket list kind of looks like right now. Because I have to have 101 Like I just decided to write anything I could think of so you know, I mentioned that, you know, passive income and net worth goals weren’t like a thing, but I still put it here because I might as well send you know, 101 goals, right? But it’s not something that’s like totally necessary, but I was like, might as well but also there’s all these other things like I want to go back into music again. In the future I want to do like get better at Logic Pro like music production. So I used to do music. I had this YouTube music channel, but I always felt like the technical side. I wasn’t like really good at it. So I needed to get better. Like I think the greatest side I’m decent at like creating concepts and making the songs like the ones that I played were ones that I wrote, right but other than music, my whole passion is just like creating I love creating things from nothing. So you know, I have like business ideas like by laundromat by vending machine or ATM or coin pusher by carwash by another type of boring business. These are things that we’re working on right now like creating email funnels and courses, random things like I want to buy a boat and live on it build a tiny home. I also want to buy properties in different places like this on a food truck. Yeah, the sheds a tiny house conversion, that’s probably the same thing as build a tiny home. So maybe I’ll just replace that healthwise, like be able to cook healthy dishes. I also had like own a garden. So grow a garden, get good at fishing and stuff. Like I think it’s so cool to like grow my own food or whatever. So yeah, a lot of random things, a lot of travel goals and stuff like that just kind of revealing that was a little bit private, I just realized. But basically, there’s so many goals with my life that I think it’d be cool to do. And a lot of them are pretty random. So there are a lot of like business type of goals and real estate type of goals. But there’s also a lot of like music or gardening or building a home or owning a boat, just a lot of random goals. And the thing with this exercise is like I had a bucket list before but when I reviewed a lot of those items, I didn’t really care about achieving a lot of those things. I just kind of took ideas from other people’s bucket lists online, and just like built one but crafting this over like these last couple months, I’ve been trying to make it so that each one of these things are actually things that I want to do. So during this break time after I did my speaking gig after I did the TV interview, which I was super proud of like, I was so proud of myself after doing those things, because it was super out of my comfort zone. Like I never imagined myself doing things like that. But it was really cool that I forced myself to do it. And I’m trying to get better and better at things. And I feel like when I challenged myself it helps with my anxiety too because he changes my baseline of what I’m comfortable with and makes it so I’m more brave and less anxious, more confident, things like that. Well anyway, back to the story during this downtime. I was like how can I get better at these goals of like build a house or grow a garden so I started buying like books like this, like the good gut, I have no idea if this is a good book or not. But it seems to be helpful for me understanding what type of foods I should be eating to help with my health and you know, health is wealth, right if I you know, make a ton of money or do all these different things. But then I only had a little bit of time left in my life because I wasn’t taking care of my health, I would really regret it. So it’s important for me to make sure that I am taking care of my health and eating good foods. Like I think there’s so many parts of my diet that could be improved. And by studying what’s actually happening in my body, it’ll probably motivate me more to kind of eat better. Another thing is I bought this book like how to build a house. So I’ve been kind of studying that I also bought a course on tiny houses. I’ve been watching a lot of YouTube videos on how to do it and I realize it’s easier than I thought but it’s still a lot of work and still complicated. So I’m still learning different things. So in the future Probably try the sheds a tiny house conversion. And it makes me feel happier that I am trying to work on these different things. So I’m really trying to be more intentional with how I spend my time, though I’ve been relaxing a lot, I think I am taking initiative to cross out a lot of these bucket list items. Because I know a lot of these will take a lot of time. And I have to spend time learning these skills in order for me to accomplish them. Like some of them are pretty easy, like I just needed go to certain place, like go to South America, or go on a hot air balloon like these are things I can do and cross it off pretty easily. But the ones that take time, like I need to start working on them now. So that’s what’s been making me happier lately. I’m trying not to force myself to make content when I’m not motivated to do it. Because that’s one aspect of my life. And there are a lot of other things I’m passionate about too. I’m also trying not to beat myself up when I’m not as motivated for those things and just come back to it when I’m ready. And now I feel a lot more ready to make even more interesting content for you guys. And putting that time to research a lot of these things I know in that laid off video I talked about oh, maybe I will do two YouTube videos a week. But I’m not going to force myself I’m gonna see what happens and just kind of continuously look back on my 101 goals and make sure I’m taking steps towards each one. Another thing is actually bought this hydroponic system. So I can start working on the garden, I wrote that I wanted to grow a garden. But I don’t know if I necessarily want to have an outdoor one, especially right now like it’s so hot in Dallas, because growing and outside garden means you have a lot more work there pests and bugs where you have to figure out ways to get rid of them. Whereas a hydroponic system, it grows in water, there’s no soil involved. So it’s a lot easier. There are 12 pods where I can basically plant little seeds, I planted some bok choy seeds here, and within a few days, it’s already starting to grow a little bit and I’m trying to see what will happen but I’m just really excited and I bought even more seeds like spinach seeds, peas, lettuce as well. And I hear you can just keep snipping off the food when it grows. And it’ll just keep growing and growing. So that’s exciting, because it also seems kind of cost efficient. You know, there is initial setup cost, but it seems kind of worth it in that perspective. Like I don’t have to drive to buy groceries less, we haven’t been good about cooking. So this is going to be really good for my health. Other things on my 101 goals was to travel. So Shawn and I after the wedding went to Europe, and I kind of wanted to show him what life would be like if we were able to digital nomad a little bit. And I think he started to grow into that idea that it would be pretty cool. So I think next year, maybe we would be able to travel and spend more time in different places. Another one of my goals was that I would learn Korean Spanish and get better at Chinese. And one of the things I wanted to do was like full immersion programs and get better at these languages. Because I think if I forced myself to speak those languages and not use any other languages and study at the same time, I’d probably be able to get more proficient in a shorter period of time. So I found a couple of programs like in Taiwan, where I could learn Chinese as well as the Spanish one in Barcelona. And I think there are ones in South Korea as well. And Shawn seems to be down to do it with me. So hopefully we get to do that next year. At the same time on top of content, like I mentioned, we’re you know, buying other properties and things like that. So we’re doing it a lot slower. Because there are downturns in the market, we’re just kind of monitoring and seeing kind of how the prices will be but we did buy a cheap $65,000 distressed property that we’ve been working on. And I’ve actually been kind of figuring out the colors for it figuring out the aesthetic, really excited for where it’s going to be it’s been about one and a half months now I believe hopefully we get it all renovated soon maybe in the next few weeks. But initially we’re going to Airbnb it out. But now we’re gonna do a mid or a long term rental on it. Because of the city regulations, we’re not able to do it anymore with short term Airbnb is the city we bought the property in it states that you can’t have an Airbnb within 500 feet of another one. And even though on the site it looked clear, we call the city later and found out another owner was in process of creating an Airbnb within that vicinity. So we can’t do it anymore. But the workaround is 30 Nights plus or long term like one year leases. So that’s what we’re gonna do. So now that I’m retired from the nine to five, I’m still going to be investing in real estate, I’m also still going to be working on things like funnels products for the community, because I was really inspired from the craters from that teachable mastermind and I want to create that value for the community. It also creates more passive income for us but it’s not something that I’m like we have to do this or whatever because I do want to enjoy my time I want to work on these other goals that I mentioned because all of this is for nothing if you’re just constantly chasing money that’s why my whole motto is to build passive income become financially free and design your best lives and I feel like I’m at that state where I’m trying to design my best life I’m trying to do all the things that matter to me most now hope you guys enjoyed this update on the two months after being retired from my nine out of five I wonder if you guys can relate if you guys like some of my bucket list items.

So I hope you guys enjoyed this episode. Please make sure to rate review and subscribe. It really helps our podcast grow and Thanks again I’ll see you guys in the next one

Transcribed by https://otter.ai