M&R Episode 114: Travel Like A Boss with Johnny FD

In Episode 114 I sat down with expat Johnny FD. He’s a blogger, podcaster, author, drop shipper and has been living location independent from work for many years. He got his start by writing a book called 12 Weeks In Thailand: The Good Life On The Cheap and has never looked back. Not only is he passionate about living a self styled life but he loves talking about how to invest a portion of your earnings for retirement on his other podcast Invest Like A Boss. Enjoy!

Show notes: Johnny FD, Nomad Summit, Travel Like a Boss, Invest Like a Boss, 12 Weeks in Thailand, Life Changes Quick, 4 Hour Work Week, Misfits on Instagram, Support Misfits and Rejects on Patreon, Get a Misfits and Rejects T-shirt or Tank

What up all you beautiful misfits and rejects out there. Thank you for joining me for episode 114 of misfits and rejects in today's episode

I sat down with Johnny FD. He is the host of the podcast travel like a boss

He is the author of 12 weeks in Thailand good life on the cheap and life changes quick

He's a really cool. Dude. I bumped into here in Chiang, right?

He's a digital nomad who has an interesting story of how he got to where he is today

You know like many of us out there who are struggling with our life situations and wanting something different

And then going out there and actually making it happen is a big step, which his story is super inspiring

He made it happen for himself

And he's making very very good money as he continues on this path

Living in Thailand living all around the world just doing some really cool stuff diving in some cool places

Which is what his passion is if you're a first-time listener

Please pull out your phone and hit subscribe if you like this episode

Please rate it and comment on the episode after you finish it

I really appreciate that it helps me in the ratings on iTunes and any podcast player you're listening to this on

Really helps me just get this message out there of inspirational people doing cool things to

Design the life that they've always wanted for themselves

If you want to follow me and my guests you can follow us on Instagram

And if you want to support the podcast you can do that on patreon at miss fits and rejects a monthly donation

Whatever you want. It's all appreciated not expected and with that said please sit back relax and enjoy this episode with Johnny FD

Welcome to miss fits and rejects a podcast about the lifestyle design of ex-patriots travelers entrepreneurs and adventurers

I'm your host Chapin Krueger. Enjoy. I didn't

Cocaine there's just always too many guns and too many bad attitudes

I quit the limiting stories

Really try to overcome that fear

Right there for any of your listeners a lot of what I was to do in the rest of my life was formulated by the fact

I just went and did it

Welcome to another episode of miss bits and rejects today

I'm joined by Johnny FD up here in Chiang Mai, Thailand an individual who I saw speak and was really connected with

What he had to say he's a digital nomad been a digital man for a long time

Build a very successful life for himself thus far meaning that he can sustain himself on the road and and is really good about

Being transparent with how he does it and I thought he'd be great to come on

It's kind of let you guys hear how he's doing what he's doing and and how you might be able to do the same thing

So Johnny, welcome to show. Thank you very much. It's fun. When I saw the title of your podcast

I was like, you know what at first I was like, I don't know if I want to identify as a miss spec

Or reject but I was like, you know what I kind of am like my whole life

I never really felt like I fit into the US and I feel like coming to Thailand

Trying to figure out who I am trying to figure out my authentic self and what really actually makes me happy

That is a path. I'm sure a lot of people are wrong

100% and you couldn't have been yeah, you said perfectly

I think that that's the hard first step though is you first have to accept that maybe you don't fit into your environment

And then it's kind of futile to try and you'd be better off going out and searching for a place you do fit in or maybe

Searching for a network of people or whatever. So maybe we could touch upon real quickly. I know you grew up in San Francisco

What was your life like growing up in San Francisco?

It's funny when I meet people while traveling and they hear I grew up in San Francisco. They're like, oh wow

You know, it must be such a cool place or oh, California. It must be so beautiful

But growing up like my childhood sucked. I grew up in a big city. My parents worked all the time

they would leave for work at 5 30 or 6 in the morning and

I would take the public bus to school by myself as soon as fourth grade

So I was you know, I don't even know like 11 12 years old and

I was on a bus with home with like drunk homeless people like bums crack heads

sometimes I would get you know robbed on the on the bus and check at home and

It wasn't a nice outfit, you know, it wasn't like

The childhood where you grew up, you know

You can just kind of be free go to the neighbors ride your bicycle

There was none of that and it wasn't the cool tech culture it is now, you know, especially first off

I wasn't 21 so I couldn't drink I couldn't go to bars. I wasn't intact. I wasn't doing any of the cool stuff

I was literally just a child in a big city and

I think the other reason why I never really fit in there was I

Mean, I mean part of it is just growing up as a first generation immigrant

My parents, you know hardly spoken English was growing up and it and they were really strict

So I had these rules growing up. I couldn't use the phone

So I would meet a friend, you know in fifth grade and I wasn't allowed to call them

They were not to call me so I couldn't go to their house

They couldn't come over and it was just a really strange childhood, you know, and I think that's a big reason why?

When I finally had the freedom not only going away to college in Southern, California

But also coming out to Thailand for the first time that's what I really embraced it

I thought this is the life I missed out on that's cool man. Where did you go to college at UC Irvine?

which was ironically a

Like my last choice, but the it was the best school I can get into

But it wasn't where I wanted to go. I wanted to go to UC Santa Barbara and

for anyone who doesn't know

What California is like Santa Barbara is kind of the surf town and it's in the middle. It's you know

It's not LA or San Francisco. It's kind of in the middle where no one really goes

You know people go people live there obviously go to school to surf

but I felt so I was so afraid of stepping out of my bubble and

being the only

Asian person in the whole university, which I'm sure I wasn't you know wasn't even going to be the first only one

I think I'm just so used to growing up in a city where you know

They were like people that looked like me and culture were like me that I was so afraid that it wouldn't be accepted

and it's so stupid and silly now because

Now I've traveled everywhere in the world. I've lived in random countries. I don't even speak the language

Pretty often I am the only Asian person, you know, or definitely the only Asian American in

Sometimes the whole country or the whole city, you know

Like I spent three months in Ukraine and there's definitely no, you know, not not many at least, you know

Other you know people that look like me, but I don't even notice it anymore because

First I I think I finally realized it doesn't matter

And I think growing up. I don't know if it even mattered then to others or if it just matters

To myself or I thought it mattered to others, right? No, I hear you did

What were your aspirations when you did go to like UC Irvine to become what to do what I had no aspirations

I thought I had to just go to college because that's what you know what I had to do. I

Almost the only real like reason I even went was my best friend at City College

Got into UCLA and I thought well, I should go somewhere too and I couldn't get into UCLA because it's a better school

So I thought okay, I can just go to you know, UC Irvine

But it's funny is even community college. It wasn't my choice to go there. It was just after high school

I thought I didn't know what else to do. And that's kind of the next step is go to college. I

Completely regret wasting those five years

Because it's not that going to college is always a waste of time, but it is if you don't know what you want

You don't know what to study. I

Thought of it as a time to kind of experiment and figure out who I was

And I probably could have gotten a 20 times better experience for half the price if I went to volunteer

somewhere in the world or travel and

It's not that I would recommend someone turn 18 and then come to Thailand and backpack for a year

Because if I was 18 and I had you know, I took the $20,000

I would have spent on college to come to Thailand

I probably would have wasted it on partying and you know drinking and I probably wouldn't have actually learned anything

So it's almost kind of good that I did it when I did

But there had to be a better way

Can I ask what you study?

I mean, yeah, but it's almost irrelevant. All of our degrees are irrelevant. It really is, you know

So one of my goals is the day I become a net worth millionaire

I want to contact every news channel and say, you know, I'm a millionaire. I want to come on

Your show and burn my diploma on air just to prove how useless it is and how little it's helped my life

What was it in that it was social science? Okay, which I mean

I literally chose because it was the easiest of the degrees. I

think if I was interested in a

STEM degree science technology engineering or math, it would have been very beneficial

Unfortunately, I wasn't interested in any of that, you know any of that or I I didn't think I could do any of that. So

aside from knowing exactly

like what you want and

Especially if it's you know, something that has kind of a direct correlation, you know

Like let's say you want to be a doctor or a lawyer

You kind of have to go to school for that and I think that's a good good investment

But my advice to anyone listening is if you don't know what you want to do and it's not a STEM degree

Don't even bother going it's a waste of time and money

So then I mean it sounds like you went five years and you still came out with not a real good idea what you wanted

To do. Yeah, so what'd you do? So I got a corporate job because I thought I had to that's the next step and

I worked for this company called Honeywell the US company

Had a you know shirt and tie on

every every morning would I would iron my crooked and signature white dress shirt put on a tie drive to work sit in a cubicle and

Two years into it I realized like what am I doing? This is you know, I'm not I'm not fulfilling my life

I'm getting I aged so quick in those two years

I think you know the all the drive I had and all the excitement I had of you know being young

It just left, you know, I'm pretty sure I stopped working out

I just I was trying to look older because everyone else in my company was you know in the 40s

So I I like physically and just mentally aged and I started

you know, like I started acting like a

45 or 55 year old man in my mid 20s and I started looking like it too, you know

I got out of shape. I stopped doing any hobbies, you know, I got rid of my sports car and I got you know

I got a sedan because I thought that's what people people should get and

It wasn't until I went to Thailand on a just a vacation, you know

It was a two and a half three week vacation

Then I realized wow

None of that stuff back home mattered like none of the things that I was doing

And you know to be fair if you looked at my social media back then it looked like I was having fun

I would go, you know to the cool bars and clubs every weekend now living up in LA at the time

you know, I would be taking photos with hot girls, you know with bottle service and

Wearing, you know cool clothes, you know unfortunate at the time was also looking back. It was really douchey clothes

You know lots of Ed Hardy lots of rhinestones

And it wasn't me, you know, it was who I thought I should be

Or I who I thought would impressed other people who I thought would get the girl and

even that I realized

the only reason why I

Tried so hard to fit in or be cool or get have a hot girlfriend

was because I felt like if I didn't have that I would be useless that

You know that that wouldn't be good enough and there'd be no reason for me to even be around, right?

I mean sounds I mean, that's I think a lot a lot of people feel you know, and and then to have

Sounds like it was like a light bulb moment or was it like a gradual kind of thing that grew inside of you when you

Did come to Thailand and had this kind of profound experience here. I think the

The downward spiral was really like a long spiral, you know as many many years of

You know feeling not good enough, you know feeling like I needed to be someone else

You know getting rejected, you know

like trying to get a girl's phone number or you know, I just that that was a long spiral, but the

The moment the kind of the upward spiral, I guess

The the moment of clarity came really quickly. I mean first it was definitely within those three weeks of being in Thailand

so right then it was you know, it was

days instead of years

But the moment I can really hone down on was the first day I went scuba diving

It was called discovery scuba diving. It wasn't a certification. It was literally someone holding your hand underwater and

After I mean that moment even it was just jumping in the water and I gave a talk about this and the last Nomad summit

I described the experience of

The jumping through the stargate, you know where you you're on a boat. You have all this heavy gear on

You think you're like, what am I doing? This is I'm going into the unknown

And you take a big giant step, you know, you're falling a few feet off the boat this big splash

You're discombobulated. You have no idea which way it's up or down and

Then you take a breath and you realize like I can actually breathe. This is this is not expected

and then you open your eyes and once the bubbles clear you realize you can see and

And

Once you relax you realize you're floating did midair, you know, you know midwater and you start swimming and you realize wow, I'm weightless

And you look around and you realize wow, this is a whole new world

This is a place that no one ever told me I can visit

I didn't know this was possible and I didn't know it's possible for me and

I was angry. I was really pissed off

and I think it was because I knew that I

Almost went my whole life without ever experiencing that no one had ever told me that was possible for me. I

never thought it was an option and

If it wasn't, you know for me

You know going on that trip that almost didn't happen because I almost canceled it multiple times

You know if it wasn't for me walking by that dive shop and seeing that sign that said discover scuba diving if it wasn't for

Everything kind of lining up. I would have missed this and I would have been my whole life working in a cubicle

Trying to be someone who I wasn't and being unhappy. How old are you when this happened? I was 27

Still very young. I mean compared to a lot of people, you know out there. Yeah, I mean, yeah looking back, you know

I'm glad I started, you know when I did

but

Same time I felt like I wasted

I

Honestly feel like I wasted a lot of those 27 years

I mean I can relate dude like 17 I didn't see no first 17 in the same way like not that stoked on my situation

Not that I had a bad situation, but then having an awakening as well. Mine happened in the Louvre in Paris

I was lucky enough to have my dad take me on an adventure to Europe

And you know, I can definitely relate to that

What were the steps and you took after you had that kind of moment of clarity to start?

Guess breaking free or walking away from that life that you were unhappy

I was really fortunate that I had read and then we've read the for our work week on the plane and I remembered

the steps that he outlined and this is why I give so much credit to Tim Ferriss and

I recommend, you know the for our work week to pretty much everyone that I meet

And I remember those because I think if it wasn't for reading that book, I would have been too afraid of

Trying to figure out

You know this life of this path of my own but because he had done it already and he outlined the questions to ask

the the kind of the formula it made me

It made me more confident that I can do it myself and I think this is why

Now I blogged so openly

About everything I'm doing is because I want to give others who are starting out who are you know, we're beginning their journey that same

Fighting chance. I'm never gonna do the work for someone else

And I can't guarantee someone will be successful

But what I can do is leave breadcrumbs and be transparent about what I've done and what's worked for me and what I'm doing now

So then if they want to follow along they can that's really rad, dude

Thanks for doing that for all of us because I I appreciate it for sure

what

When did you quit when you say this like I'm done with this job and you moved to Thailand and you gave this

You know the swing of the bat the go that you were

had been reading about

so at the

On the boat itself. It was a three-hour boat ride from that. It was how staying at Phuket, but the island was called Ratchayai. I

Was really lucky that it was a long boat ride

So I had all this time to think after the dive and I remember talking to my instructor this guy named Renee Christophe

He's a Swiss French guy and I said, you know, hey, how you know, how how do you live in Thailand?

Like how did you make you move? He told me his story. He said, you know ten years ago. He he left

Switzerland and he moved him via dive master then dive instructor

And I basically just you know

I asked him a million questions about how I can do it and I could tell he was a bit annoyed

Because I'm sure he people ask this to him all the time and then very few people ever do it

so I

You know gathered a bit of knowledge and then I remember I think I think I sat down and you know in the boat somewhere

I found a pen and paper and I just started writing out

Everything I needed to do. So the first was

I wrote out if everything fails how long would it take me to get back on track and what my plan was

So I figured out okay with housing I can live with my parents for a few months while I get another job

You know, even though I don't ever want to do that again something that I can do, you know, I can

You know always work buy another car. I can buy new clothes and

That thought okay, what do I need to do now?

so I wrote a letter to my roommate in the time because we were sharing a house together and he had just signed a

second year's lease

to renew our our contract and I

Felt really bad for just leaving him hanging

Especially because it was actually my idea to resign the lease before I went to Thailand

Even though it wasn't due until two days after I got back and the reason why I did that was I was so afraid of

Kind of lack of

Stability or security that the idea of going on vacation, even though it's only for two or three weeks

and coming back not knowing if

The landlord would extend for another year

would have ruined my vacation and

It's silly thinking that because why wouldn't the landlord want another year's, you know rent but I was so afraid of

not having security that

I made my landlord

Resigned the lease before I went which ultimately ended up screwing me financially because then we had to pay, you know fines and

and things but I

Remember writing him a letter my roommates saying I'm so sorry, but here are their options, you know

I can find you another roommate. I can you know

like I'll give you all the furniture that we split and that way financially at least you have the upper hand and

I basically just tried to make it right, you know, and then I'm sure he was pissed off. But

At the end of the day, you know, I knew this was this was better for me and I just had to do it. So

Yeah, I basically just follow the steps. So so that step was then okay

Getting rid of everything back in the States and then what time frame did you give yourself to then come back to Thailand and start this venture?

So my original time frame that gave myself I think it was gonna be six months

Or maybe seven. Yeah, because that's what logically made sense. You know, I can go back take my time sell my stuff

You know save up some money

But I remember as soon as I went back and I told a few people about my plan

I started getting bombarded with doubts on why I shouldn't do this

and I remember it wasn't even

Important people that I who I valued their opinion

It was just like a friend of a friend or like a acquaintance and they would all of a sudden bring up a million reasons

Why shouldn't go they would you know, you know ask questions like well, what if when you come back your skills

You know for your job is you know, depleted and I think you know

We learn I can go back to school for it or how you explain the gap in your resume or

You know, what are you gonna do about health care?

Now that you know, you're gonna be gone without health insurance

we're gonna do a lot when your visa expires, you know, or what are you gonna do when your passport expires and then you have to

Come back and reapply for the passport and all these questions that I honestly didn't have the answer to

And I chose not to think about it

Partially partially because I knew it would bog me down as it would never do it

But also because I knew it didn't really matter, you know, I knew that you know, like my passport didn't expire for another

Set, you know six seven years like why should I work it like? Yeah, I should probably

Have a plan for that at some point, you know

Am I gonna go back to the US to get another passport or should I just not think about it for six or seven years?

until it actually expires or you know, and

These are things that

Your friends and your family and even acquaintances will tell you

that

Part of it is, you know, they mean well, right part of it is they don't want you getting stuck in a bad situation

but a bigger part of it is

them reflecting their own fears on you and

finding out a way

where

It doesn't make sense for you to go because if it makes sense for you to go or if you've if you figure out a way out

it's a bad reflection on them on why they couldn't figure out a way and I don't like to be

that negative on people

But the long like the more time has passed the more I realized

People pretty much I would say 95% of people that I've spoken to back home whether it's my

family members my aunts my uncles

or

friends of friends or just people I knew

almost all of them had

non encouraging or negative things to say when I first went and it wasn't until I

Started actually making more money while traveling

Than I was back home and this, you know, this took me six or seven years

so it was a long journey of just, you know negative doubt and

Every time I went back they would say, you know, are you gonna give up and come back to the real world yet?

Are you going to?

You know get back to reality. I can get a real job

it was it was really difficult to do that for that many years especially because I had a lot of doubts and it's you know, and

Financially, I wasn't secure and I didn't know if it was the right move or not

you know, it took a long time to figure out if I was even doing the right thing and

I would like to think that you know, they would have saw that I was happy and they would have supported me

but it really didn't happen until I like

financially proved them wrong and then all of a sudden

They would say yeah, I always believed in you. I was always supporting you

This is such a beautiful story, dude

Thank you so much for sharing the way you are because I think there's a lot of people including myself who can relate

And I've had a great supportive family

But you know, it's right like somehow once that money, you know is added to the equation that you are financially secure and successful then like oh

Yeah, like totally knew you could do it or you know, like you you're you're doing the right thing

You know, it's just so interesting how that works. But I mean congratulations dude. I mean for enduring that kind of like

Difficulty dude, I mean everyone has self-doubt and I have you know ones you love doubting you as well throughout those years

Probably wasn't easy but so it took six to seven years and to kind of get to where you're at

Yeah, it took a long time. I mean to be fair. I wasn't actively trying to make money the first four years

I was working as a dive master, which is basically underwater scuba diving guide

And my goal was to be able to just pursue my passion to follow

What made me happy because remember growing up? I never had any passions. I always felt like I was left out

Everyone else I knew loved basketball. They loved watching baseball or football

They loved you know

baseball cards or fantasy football or

Or all these other like things that I just never cared about, you know, I tried

I've really tried to like these things and I never I never cared about them. I was never passionate about it

I didn't like playing it. I didn't like watching it. I didn't like talking about it. I definitely didn't like talking about a

fantasy version of

You know the game because I just didn't understand it which wasn't my thing and you know, then it

Scuba diving was the first time I really felt like this is something that I want to do every day

I want to wake up. I'm excited about it. I want to talk about it and

For four years, it was the best time of my life. I

Would literally wake up put on my board shorts

You know walk out on to a usually white sand beach

Hop onto a boat, you know with a bunch of dive gear meet cool people from around the world that had come

You know to go diving show them around just show them cool fish get excited about it

have a

Buffet lunch either on the boat or back of the resort that was included because you know as staff, you know

You're gonna eat with the guests and then go for another dive

come back have a beer and over the sunset and

Have dinner that was usually included as well or if I was you know, depending on which where I was working

You know, sometimes you would

go to like a local, you know Thai restaurant with your you know, like your new friends that you made and

They would want to buy you drinks

It was just like it was a great life like it really was and I did this not only in Thailand, but

You know, I went to Borneo

went to you know to Bali I went to Australia I went to the Caribbean's and

I got to dive in some of the coolest places in the world

for free while getting my combination or my food pay for or at least enough money to cover it, you know, and

It was a blast. Like I really encourage everyone

to follow that for a few years before you even start thinking about money because I think there's too many people who

Come to Thailand and right away. They want to start an online business even though

their hearts not yet, you know, and I could tell that they need to get things out of the system first because

Yeah, I guess, you know, they're talking about starting an online business, but then four days a week you can see them

you know

Going to the waterfalls or going to a pool or like going out partying because they haven't got that their system yet

That's an interesting point of view in the sense that like it came to a point sounds like where your passion

Was either not you were as passionate about it or the money thing became such a significant

Drive in your life that you had to shift gears or something like that. Is that kind of what happened?

Yeah, so it was kind of a mixture where

at that end of I think the third year of diving and

For some people that might think all three years isn't that long

You know, I worked at my job for 10 or 20 or whatever, but that scuba diving is like every day you're in the water

You're like you it's it's it's an active three years, you know, I did a calculation and I realized that

Because I spent so much time

underwater

it's been the equivalent of the entire month of my life under water and

It's just it's rough on the body. You know, you're waking up early, you know, you're

Like and you know responsible for people's lives. So it was really fun. But then

After three years, I realized okay, I have no money at all on the bank, you know, I can get by

But I can't you know, I can't afford to save anything. I can't afford to travel

I can't even afford to buy new scuba diving gear. So I thought the next logical step was to

Take the courses to become a an actual instructor where I can start to certify new people will be a teacher

So I went through that that process, you know, I spent the last couple thousand dollars I had, you know

I flew to the Caribbean's to do it and I regretted it pretty much instantly

first it killed my love for the passion because it became all about business and regulations and

Like filling out, you know liability forms making sure your students felt liability forms upselling them to the next course

Convincing them to become an instructor as well. Like it was just like it was just wasn't a nice experience and

My entire training was all about that and not actually how to teach

So when they threw me into my first class, I realized I have no idea how to teach

anything because then it teaches how to teach and

after that kind of mock

Mock class they're like, okay, you know now get out of here

There's no jobs for you on this island because all we do is certify new people

So I had to go back to Thailand with no skills no building, you know

not knowing how to teach but had this new three thousand dollar certification under my belt and I

But you know dive shop to dive shop begging for a job. So I'll do it for free

I just need the experience and they all looked at me. They're like no like we don't like

We're not gonna spend our time and money training you like you need to pay us

To learn how to you know to be an intern you have to do a paid

internship and I really felt like it was just like one big kind of money-making wheel for Patty and

These dive centers and I just I was so angry

I remember actually just writing a really like scathing bad review of the dive shop that I went to and

That asshole ended up suit like trying to sue me for you know writing a negative review and

They had TripAdvisor take it down because you know, and then they had

like they tried to tear me apart, you know, and they like, you know, basically just had it was just like a really bad experience and

The end of the day I was just a customer. I was a paying customer saying hey, don't go with you to the dive center

these guys are assholes and

When I got these cease-and-desist letters from from both Patty and from each other die center, I

Was afraid because I was broke. I had just paid all this money to a certification and they're threatening

They basically they made me sign a contract saying I would never say anything bad about them

And I didn't realize that included I can't write a bad review or they'll take away my certification

I just paid for so it was just a fucking mess and all of a sudden I went from loving diving to

Hating it, you know being being scared and then not being able to

even you know work as one because now it was too qualified to be a dive master and I don't want to go back to

working for

$600 a month and barely getting by I wanted to be able to be an instructor, you know

And that was the whole reason why I spent the money to do it

to not having the

Experience to do it and just not having any any way out and it was a really hard time in my life

How long that last for before you kind of picked yourself that bad of it and moved on it was a few months

It it was you know, maybe two months on utility itself that that Caribbean Island and the best thing I did

was

instead of

Staying there, you know and just being stressed. I thought well, I'm here already

the best thing I can do is

Just

Backpack for a month and just you know clear my mind. So I went to Guatemala. It's a really beautiful place

It was just because every single person I had met on that island

I hadn't said they you know, they had gone from Guatemala and how amazing was it's more like their favorite places

They were been so that was a really good experience. It's you know, being in Central America already and getting to see you know, how beautiful

Little villages and like out to land was going up to these waterfalls culture moxon pay

Seeing the old Mayan ruins of Tikal. That was really beautiful. You know, I definitely regretted

Getting my instructor certification

You know going you to tell her diving with these guys

So remember to Thailand I spent you know, the little money I had left flew back to Thailand back to Koh Tao

which is kind of known as the

Like the beginner divers paradise 50 dive shops in one small island. It's probably more now and

And

Basically spent door-to-door and it still took me over I think six weeks of

Literally going daily. I just refused to give up

I think most people would have but you know gave up went back got a normal job and they would have gave up on their

dreams and this is what pissed me off so much about these guys is I

Felt like I was just kidding. I got robbed

I felt like they sold me a dream of being an instructor and you know, and obviously, you know their rebuttal is like

Oh, we never promised you a job, you know, like this, you know, blah blah

But they know what they're doing. They know they're certifying way

you know the certifying, you know 50 people a month and there's only three instructors of ten, you know, maybe ten instructors any shop, you know, and

it's this it's just like a

It's a system kind of set up for for people to fail

you know, and it's not like entrepreneurship or if you fail it's it's because you know, I mean

At least you have your own shot, you know, like if you start a business on your own

Yeah, not everyone's wants to seed but at least that that's up to you. You know, you have your own shot

You don't have to beg someone for a job

well

Within the diving industry unless you're gonna open your own dive shop, which is probably not gonna happen

You're kind of reliant on getting a job from someone else and if there is way more

Instructors getting certified every month then there are jobs opening every month

It's someone's gonna get screwed and it's like 90% people getting screwed

So now what point did you say? Okay, this isn't for me like well, I mean, I see

I know why you said it wasn't for you

But then when did you get that final push to say, okay now it's time to move online

And what am I gonna do to make online business a viable option for myself? Well, I was really lucky that

before just finally giving up I

kind of sold my soul and

I

finally I met

One dive shop that said oh you speak Chinese that's like kinda and they're like, well we desperately need

Chinese instructors

Because we have all this new influx of Chinese tourists and I said I was like my Chinese isn't that good

You know, like I have no idea how to even say scuba diving in Chinese

you know, I said I could have a casual conversation, but like this there's no way I can teach and

His response was your Chinese is better than mine like good come teach

So I ended up doing that for about a year and I got the experience

So I actually did get it and I ended up teaching for a year or two

But it's still I mean it still was a kind of a rough rough experience

But what it was is even though I knew

Now, you know, I can make enough money to kind of save a bit. I was really

Trading my time for money. I wasn't I wasn't loving anymore. I wasn't passionate about it and I

Remember talking, you know

these older instructors, you know, and

To see how unhappy with they were they were always complaining. They're always moaning about

You know basically just bitching about life and I used to think I don't want to I don't want to get there in their shoes

I don't want to wake up 50 years old still on this island

You know with a bunch of 25 year old backpackers 20 year old backpackers and just you know, hating my life and just like

ruining their day

so I knew I had to do something else and

That's when I moved to Chiang Mai

Actually, I first do Muay Thai, you know, I figured let me just do this

You know the sport get in shape if I'm gonna go back to the u.s

Let me at least be in shape like let me let me have something to show for it

So I did Muay Thai for about a year or two had six fights and

Just living off savings

It was like I mean, yeah, I guess I had some savings left from from working as an instructor for a while

A lot of it was just living as cheap as possible. I was living

in a hut

like a literal babu hut for I think it was I want to say it was a

1500 baht a month just $45, you know, I had no bathroom I had

You know, I had a just a like an extension cord running into my hut. I had I slept on the floor

But it was in the backyard of the gym. So it was my fair, you know, it was fine, right and I ate dollar types

We'd every day and I would compete and I would make

Usually between 5,000 to 10,000 baht per fight, which isn't that much money

It's 150 to 300 bucks and it was just kind of enough to get by and it I had realized

You know after my sixth fight, you know, I'm really getting like pretty seriously injured, you know, just like

Let's beat up a broken nose. I think I fractured my foot. I realized like I can't do this

I can't keep fighting for a couple hundred bucks

Like this isn't this isn't gonna end well and that's when I decided I needed I need to do something else

so I googled how do you make money online and

Let me turn down a rabbit hole

yeah, you talked about all the different ways and I like how you broke it down for all the newbies of the

digital nomad scene

Which is like they are there's this list of things you can do to actually make money in this time frame

Which was I think like three months like you could probably make money with the next two months doing these things and then there's these

Things which is more like building a brand and building a business. We're just gonna take you product five years

So like start here and then work towards the brand building, you know down the line after you get yourself, you know

Financing more viable which I'd like

what'd you choose to start with I

Published a book and I think I just like look through a list of possible ways to make money online

And one of them was like, you know writing an e-book and this is when Amazon Kindle just started

Popular, you know, it was this this was 2012. Okay, so maybe to the beginning of 2013

and I remember

It was the first time kind of in history that self publishing was relatively easy

So I locked myself in my apartment

That was directly opposite the more time gym, I think it was

4,000 bottom month so it's about $120 us a month and

Or maybe yeah, maybe a bit more. It was relatively cheap. I like that

I think my cost of living back then were

Was just a few hundred dollars, but I didn't have that much left, you know, and I thought okay

I could probably survive if I just live as cheap as possible. I didn't have a motorbike

I never took a taxi for months

I would just walk to the supermarket buy food come come back to my room and just type

And I did that for two months publish this book 12 weeks in Thailand the good life on the cheap

It's all about those first four years of my life

Really broken down to 12 weeks at a time, you know, because that's you might my

My life is kind of like I would go somewhere for three months

Work in one dive resort and then hear about a better place move to that one

You know find find out about Muay Thai go do that for three months have a fight go back to scuba diving

it was just kind of a

Pretty fun journey. I'm glad I wrote that book because it it's something that

You know, I want to reread once every five years even myself just to relive those moments and I'm glad

It's out there for everyone because anyone who's just starting out that maybe if you're not necessarily interested in

You know starting business right away making money and you just like I just want to enjoy life

I just want to follow my passions and you know do cool things for a few years

That's the book I'll tell people to read it's still online. It's still online. Yeah, people get it people still write reviews about it

You know every month saying like hey, thanks so much for this book. This is exactly what I wanted. That's amazing

So, I mean that was written in 2012 ish your published on 12th and what do you still make a passive income on it?

So I still make

Between 50 bucks I was on average $50 a month from that book

Which you know isn't a ton of money, but we need we add it up

That's no marketing matches. That's zero marketing. Yeah, that's just on Amazon

you know and it's because it's a good book people write reviews people share with their friends and then once in a blue moon, you know,

somebody will like we'll ask about it, but

This is what's nice about passive income is that's something I wrote five or six years ago

That in the beginning when it was new and kind of hot it would make me

$200 a month, you know, which

Wasn't enough to live in Thailand, but it was it was getting close. It was you know a significant amount of money and

Even now when I don't need

That income stream necessarily. It's a nice addition because you know as I'm as I broke down in my talk

No, my coffee club all these in passive income streams add up and

Why wouldn't you do it? You know if you can work two months five years ago and

Continue to take a check for you know, two months of work five years ago

Maybe you know possibly for the rest of your life, but at least you know for the next five ten years

Why wouldn't you do it? Absolutely then what was your next venture after that?

So I had realized even though it was nice making $200 a month from the book to live

Even cheaply in Thailand. I would need to write two more books and I didn't first, you know that that was a lot of work

you know, it's gonna be another four months of my life and

Then I would kind of still be just just be getting by

So I was looking for something that can replace an actual US salary

You know back in the US I was making 50 grand a year

But after taxes, maybe that's you know, three grand a month or something and I thought if I can make that

While living in Thailand I would be set and that would allow me to move back to the US if you wanted to allow me

to travel

So I wanted to start an actual business, you know

I wanted to sell I wanted to sell physical products and I remember asking a bunch of people say this is what I want

I don't know if this exists

But I want to sell physical products and everyone said like no, it's a terrible idea

You don't have to spend all this money importing. You don't have to even get a warehouse. You don't have to do this

you don't have to do that and

They're like you should do SEO instead or you should learn how to program instead or you should do this instead

And I just kept looking I just kept you know ignoring, you know

Everyone's everyone's thoughts because I knew there had to be something and it wasn't until I met this guy named Anton

Who was helping me?

you know, basically giving me ideas on how I can sell more books and

When he finally it was finally his turn to talk about, you know what he was doing

So I think so basically what happened was I met this guy on Facebook somehow. I think it was a Facebook group or

Actually, it wasn't a Facebook group back then. It was I think was a forum for people who read the for our work week

And there wasn't that many people so we had connected he had saw I was living in Thailand

Or Chiang Mai and he messaged me saying hey, do you know of a good gym in Chiang Mai?

No, and I saw he was interested in for work week and business. So I said, yeah, but you know, here's the info

This is the gym I go to

Do you want to meet for dinner?

And over dinner

He helped you know, he gave me a ton of ideas on how I could sell more books, you know

He said yeah, you could probably

Scale up your book sales from $200 a month to 300 a month or 400 a month by doing, you know

These things, you know better better title but optimization all these things and he was really smart

You know, I knew he I could just tell he knew what he was talking about

So when I asked what he did and he said I sell, you know expensive items online and that's like how you like

He I was like, are you taking a break? He's like no, I'm doing it from here while traveling

He explained to me the the the model was called dropshipping where you would instead of buying physical items

Having in the warehouse and then shipping it after someone buys an item

you basically just become an authorized dealer for a brand or a company, you know for a product and

You list on your website people after people buy it, you know, and they pay you

You basically just send an email to that supplier and say okay

Can you send this item to this person directly? You know another word for it would be

direct from for manufacturer, you know, it's almost like imagine if you bought a

Let's say you bought it like a MacBook from bestbuy.com

But the box comes from Apple

Directly from Apple you're like no one's gonna really freak out thinking like oh why why isn't in a best buy box?

There's happy came directly from the manufacturer. It's kind of like that, but I would do it, you know for

big furniture items

Usually items costing, you know $300 to $3,000. Nice. And so that's kind of where you really started seeing money come in

Yeah, that was the first time I had replaced my 95 income. I think the first month I made well first month

I mean nothing for second month. I mean nothing third month

You know because it took a while to learn the system then wrap it up

But the third month the first month actually started making sales. I think I made $1,500 and I was ecstatic, you know, and

Eventually, you know, I optimize things got some more suppliers figure things out. I would make anywhere between

2,000 to

$5,000 a month from that store. That's rad. What's been your best year thus far?

I mean because are you still drop shipping or you have the other ventures now? Yeah, so I

I've actually sold a few stores now, but and it's kind of a

I guess a complicated model, but what I realized is instead of making, you know, two to five grand

Running a store and I think a lot of people don't realize that even though

We like to call it passive income because most of the sales come in all the sales come in while we're sleeping

Mainly because the time zone difference, you know, and you could technically do it from anywhere

You could technically automate a lot of things you can outsource a lot of things. It's still running a business. It's still running, you know

I still have like having a full-time full-time job, even if

Most of the time you're logging in for an hour a day or two hours a day, you know

It's felt like having a full-time job

So I would I sold the you know, I would sell the store for

normally three times annual profit, which is 27 times monthly profit and

I'll have this chunk of money that I would put into investments and which would start bringing me in another stream of passive income

And I realize and then I'll take a break

I would not work for three or four months and I realized this is like a really nice model

So I've done that now four times and actually just today ironically, I started building another store

Okay with the goal of flipping it again

12 months from now. That's rad, dude

Yeah, and in the speech you gave you said that your best you made what like three hundred and eighty five thousand or something?

Yeah, three hundred twenty five thousand dollars and which is insane because I

Never ever would have imagined that was possible. Not even just for myself. But like for anyone I didn't you know

I mean, it's kind of stupid because you know, obviously there's plenty of people in the world like not maybe plenty

But like there's people in the world who make millions of dollars a year

But I just never thought it would be possible for anyone I knew, you know, and definitely not for myself

So the fact that I mean even a hundred grand a year

I really thought was gonna be out of my reach in my lifetime or out of my friend's lifetime

Because my you know, I would have been happy making $15 in there. I think that was the goal, right and

The fact that I made over 300 grand in a year and to be fair

the big chunk of that came from one of the store sales for

60 I think was 62,000

So

But I mean either way it was just it it's all added up and that's kind of what we talked about earlier

We're having multiple students income and then having something you can sell like that's how you get these big boosts

Absolutely. What type of hobbies now do you keep yourself saying with?

I mean, I know you say you're not working like nine nine hours eight hours a day, but it still feels like a full-time job

So what kind of stuff do you do for fun? So now I focus a lot of Brazilian jiu-jitsu

If anyone's you know

Ever watches UFC or MMA. It's the grappling part of it. It's one of the few martial arts

You know besides like boxing or Muay Thai that you spar and actually works in the real world

So I really like that. I

Still like scuba dive. I'm actually going on the trip to the Maldives next month for 12 days on a boat

We'll have no internet for 12 days. I'm gonna be diving

With you know, manna rays will be whale sharks just like probably other sharks as well. I'm really looking forward to that

That's awesome did on it, you know on a scale of a happy scale

You know based on where you came from and how you kind of grew up and felt like you didn't fit in like

Where do you where do you see your life now? I'm a hundred times happier than I was living in California

You know in LA. It's still not perfect. I don't want people thinking I'm always happy because sometimes you know

I'll go through slumps in my life. I mean actually pretty recently just like

You know for the last couple months also really kind of just I don't I don't know

I don't even know why except there was no real reason to be in a slump

It just I think part of it was just because I had gotten out of my exercise routine

My diet was really bad, so I just felt like shit

You know, I just didn't feel vibrant and it feel you know, and it and it feel like I had that much energy and

I'm glad we're talking today

Because I actually I've been I've been intermittent fasting again. So I've had a bulletproof coffee today

It's like 5 p.m. And I haven't had a meal

I was going to eat actually before this interview, but the maids cleaning my room and I

Feel great. I have so much fucking energy, you know, I started squatting again. I started

Hitting the gym and I started new presented Jesus again. I started eating paleo again and I could tell

You know, even though it's only been a few weeks that I'm back on that upward trajectory where

Mentally, you know, I'm more focused. I'm more energy. I'm happier overall

My sex drive is back up my testosterone feels higher

I'm just like more excited about life and I want to get back to that point where I feel really really good

And then I'm gonna record a video to myself and just say Johnny

Don't ever fucking let yourself get out of shape again because you hate the way it feels when you are that's a great idea

I like that recording yourself when you're at that peak performance and that peak joy that peak happiness

You guys look back and say oh, that's what it's like

What kind of goals do you have set for yourself at this point? Like do you have any you just live day to day or what?

Yeah, I wish I I had like bigger financial goals. I think a part of that slump was I used to

You know the beginning like you know, I had these financial goals

The first was I wanted to be a tight millionaire. I wrote about this in my second book life changes quick

You know, I started with thousand dollars in the bank. I had you know, a couple hundred bucks coming in every month and

My goal was if I can save up thirty thousand dollars, which is about one million tight bought then I would be set

You know and not that I would be set forever

But I would be set in a sense where if I ever wanted to take two or three years off of working

I could just coast off of that in Thailand like pretty easily, you know

Because you can get by here for 600 bucks a month and it was kind of more of a buffer. It was more of a mental

Release knowing that if I can hit that goal like I will never have to worry again and

It was so exciting, you know, I literally wrote a book about

This hitting this goal and how you know how I achieved it how I felt and

from 30 grand

Which felt like it was impossible

to

You know making the next 30 grand

My next goal after that was like I need another goal and I was in Vietnam at the time

I thought okay. I want to be a Vietnamese billionaire, which is about 70,000 us and when I hit that goal, I

Didn't even tell anyone I didn't celebrate, you know

I was like I didn't care anymore and then but I went from 70 grand to

Half half a million dollars like five hundred thousand dollars in at worth which you would think would be a huge celebration

I didn't care either. Like I just didn't it didn't feel any different it

It's it's I know some people listen to this will you know think I'm an asshole for it, but

Or some people might be relieved that money doesn't really matter that much doesn't like I'm not any happier today

You know or having you know, 500 grand in the bank than it was having 30 grand

It was it's literally the same feeling

If anything, it made me more depressed thinking like oh man

It's gonna be so hard to get you know to be a millionaire and then thinking okay, if I had a million dollars

What would I do and?

At first being excited and then thinking like okay, I can't even afford to buy a house in California

like I can barely you know buy condo and then then what I'll have zero like and then have a liability these maintenance fees and

I just got really depressed for a while thinking like like it doesn't even fucking matter. It doesn't doesn't buy you shit

and I think finally I

Figured out

My goals like money-based goals. I think in the beginning tab that buffer is really important

But anything aside from that is is really useless so now my only goals is I

Want to get back in shape I would always feel good because I know that if I could just hit this one goal

Everything else falls in place so that that's my goal not only for this year

but for the rest of my life is just always be at peak performance feel good be in shape have the energy and

then

Everything else from second nice. Do I like that cool? That's a good one

So right now the audience want to check out what you got you got Johnny fd.com that's your blog

Yeah, post you on that what monthly a couple. Yeah, I would say a couple times a month

But a lot of my old posts are really good. So, you know anyone wants to know like for example

I've been posting my income reports for the last three years

I literally screenshot my dashboards and just show you exactly how much money I spent every month how much money I made from what sources

They're less detailed now just they take so fucking long to write

But if you go back two years, you know or when I started I would literally spend two days

You know show like breaking down the counting of every single thing I I did

And I was in the second most kind of popular posts or my travel post

So whenever I go to a new country or a new city and I spend you know, a few months there

I write everything about that city that I would want to share with friends or I want to remember for myself

And I share that that's awesome dude, and then you also have a really cool podcast called travel like a boss

Yeah, so the travel like a boss podcast is I would say three times a month. It used to be weekly but

I've kind of fallen short on that now

Mainly because it's takes it takes so much time right as you know

But those are interviews with people who I meet while traveling to have a location-dependent business who are making money online

And the reason why I love doing it

It's not only talking about the travel and the lifestyle of it

But also kind of figure out different business models that work for people

That's right, and I'll put the show notes all these links

But then just to remind us the books that you have online right now or what?

Yes, you can just go to Amazon buy if you want or you can Google it 12 weeks in Thailand the good life of the cheap

And life changes quick

You're the man dude. Thanks so much for sharing your story with us

I mean for me especially I can relate in so many ways as that can picture your trajectory going up

You know and it's been really pleasure meeting you and hope that we get to maybe chat again in the future

Yeah, it's been really fun and anyone who's listening this check my amazing place. It's full of

artists entrepreneurs, you know yogis digital nomads

People do Muay Thai. You know just like it's really a good spot

And if you want to hang out in person and meet not just me, but you know 400 plus other people

The digital nomad conferences we call the nomad summit. That's every January

So the next one's January 19th 2019

You can check it out watch videos from the previous years you get tickets for the next year nomads summit comm

It's it's it's probably like the the best way to see what's possible because you meet so many people who are doing the same thing

Thanks, brother. Yeah, thank you. It's been fun. Awesome. Thank you so much Johnny

I really appreciate your authenticity your

Transparency, you know you really show us the vulnerability in which you felt for a lot of your life

And then the steps you took to design the life that you're living now and making really good money at it

So congratulations, my friend. We are tremendously inspired by you and keep doing what you do

Remember if you're a new listener, please pull your phone and subscribe

Please rate please comment

This really helps me in the ratings if you want to support miss this and rejects you can do it at patreon atmosphere

Rejects a monthly donation. It's all appreciated not expected following on Instagram is cool, too

You get to see me how I'm designing my life where I'm going in this world how I'm meeting these people

You also get to see the faces of these people that I'm meeting and the lot environments that we're having a lot of these

Conversations and so be sure to follow us follow miss fits and rejects on Instagram and I want you all to know

I think you also very beautiful. I wish you all the best this year 2019. Let's make it a good one

We only get one shot at this, please stay tuned have a lot of great episodes coming up with some fascinating fascinating people

I'm meeting over here in Asia, and I'm just gonna keep rolling out all these really inspirational episodes for you

I hope this helps

I hope that you are finding some motivation to go out and design the life that you've always dreamed of and with that said again

I think you all are so very beautiful much. Love. See you next episode. Thank you for listening to miss bits and rejects

I hope this inspire you to think about your life situation where you're at

Possibly make a big decision to

Choose something different for yourself if you're unhappy with where you're at in life. I

Hope these people that I interview inspire you to go out and spread your wings and try something new

To live a different lifestyle that maybe your whole life people were telling me was the wrong one

But when in fact it it's the perfect one for you

And I'll see you next time

You