Danielle Thompson takes us on her path through entrepreneurship, building multiple different businesses until she finally found her true passion with The Freelance Travel Network—helping nomadic freelancers grow and profit from their online service business while traveling the world. She explains how she grew and scaled that business while traveling the world herself. Danielle also opens up about her personal development journey. She explains the profound impact that Ayahuasca ceremonies and other psychedelic experiences had on her business breakthroughs, personal growth, and development of self-love. She also takes us on her travel journey since 2015 when she became a full-time digital nomad. She shares her biggest takeaways, epiphanies, struggles, identity conflicts and growth moments from long term stays in Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Lisbon, Bali, and Buenos Aires. She discusses her experience participating in the WiFi Tribe work-travel program and the importance of cultivating and sustaining community in the long-term nomadic lifestyle. Danielle then discusses her personal day structure and productivity habits, including how she gamifies her entire life and the app she uses to do it. She reflects on the significance of what travel means to her and shares her #1 travel hack. She also recommends her #1 most influential book, her favorite productivity app, and shares the one person in the world with whom she would most like to have dinner. FULL SHOW NOTES AVAILABLE AT www.TheMaverickShow.com
Hosted by Matt Bowles
53: Ayahuasca in the Amazon, Self-Love and Building the Freelance Travel Network with Danielle Thompson
Episode #53: Ayahuasca in the Amazon, Self-Love and Building the Freelance Travel Network with Danielle Thompson
Hosted by Matt Bowles
53: Ayahuasca in the Amazon, Self-Love and Building the Freelance Travel Network with Danielle Thompson
Episode Summary
Get The Maverick Show's
Monday Minute Newsletter
Kick off each week with 3 personal
recommendations from me that
you can read in 60 seconds.
About the Guest
Danielle Thompson
Danielle Thompson is a 25-year old serial entrepreneur and full-time digital nomad. She is the founder of Moku, an agency focused on web and app design for tech startups. Her design work has serviced over 100 million users and has helped founders raise over $19 million in seed and VC funding. She is also the founder of The Freelance Travel Network, an online school that helps nomadic freelancers promote, grow and profit from their online service business while traveling the world. Danielle has helped individual freelancers 10x their income and land some of the world’s top brands as clients. Her mission is to empower 1 million freelancers by teaching creatives the business skills they need to get work that inspires them. She runs all of her businesses remotely and has been traveling the world full time since 2015. Since then, she has lived in over 20 countries and has amassed 50,000 Instagram followers.
What You'll Learn
- Why creating certain types of discomfort is important for realizing your higher purpose.
- How and why to develop a greater self-love.
- Danielle’s personal and business breakthroughs from Ayahuasca ceremonies.
Links From the Episode
Disclosure: This page contains affiliate links. If you click through any links and make a purchase, you should assume that Maverick will receive financial compensation (at no additional cost to you). We greatly appreciate you using our affiliate links because it helps to support the show and cover production costs of the podcast.
WORK-TRAVEL PROGRAM IN WHICH DANIELLE PARTICIPATED
OTHER WORK-TRAVEL PROGRAMS/EXPERIENCES IN WHICH MATT PARTICIPATED
- Remote Year (Get a $100 Discount off Remote Year By Using This Link)
- Hacker Paradise (Get a $100 Discount off Hacker Paradise By Using This Link)
- Nomad Train (Get A Discount Enter Code “MAVERICK“)
#1 BOOK DANIELLE RECOMMENDS
#1 TRAVEL APP DANIELLE RECOMMENDS
OTHER RECOMMENDED APPS
THE PERSON WITH WHOM DANIELLE WOULD MOST LIKE TO HAVE DINNER
INTERVIEW TOOK PLACE
OTHER PLACES MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE
DANIELLE’S TOP 3 FAVORITE TRAVEL DESTINATIONS
DANIELLE’S TOP 3 BUCKET LIST DESTINATIONS
CHECK FLIGHT PRICES TO ANY OF THESE LOCATIONS
CONTACT DANIELLE
Time Stamped Show Notes
[3:08] Danielle’s Entrepreneurial Journey
- Her earliest entrepreneurial memories
- Her first creative venture as a photography
- Her first experience with freelancing
- Her first business and the biggest lessons learned
- Her first experience teaching and working with ADHD students
- Validating her ability to charge clients $15,000
- Getting accepted to Toptal and transcending imposter syndrome
[16:25] Danielle’s Digital Nomad Journey
- Her first solo international trip to Costa Rica
- Joining WiFi Tribe for a month in Nicaragua
- Overcoming fears and trepidation about Central American travel
- Deciding to become a full-time nomad, sell all her stuff, and go outside her comfort zone
- The value of work-travel programs and building community
- Traveling to Portugal and experiencing Europe for the first time
- Traveling to Asia and falling in love with Bali
- Matt and Danielle discuss their love for Bangkok
- Matt and Danielle discuss their experiences in Buenos Aires
- Danielle’s identity conflict between the lifestyles in Bali and Buenos Aires
[44:54] Danielle’s Experience with Ayahuasca
- Explaining what Ayahuasca is and her motivation for wanting to experience it
- Re-living childhood traumas re-evaluating deep fears
- Developing clarity and noticing empowering life-changes
- Understanding her purpose and having business breakthroughs
[53:22] Developing Self Love
- Increasing appreciation of her feminine side
- Being self-aware of her own judgments of others
- Assessing her limiting beliefs
- Exploring and appreciating her body through yoga and fitness
- Moving back to Bali to work on self-love
- Actively looking for the beauty in other people
[57:53] The Freelance Travel Network
- Explaining what the Freelance Travel Network Is
- Who The Freelance Travel Network is right for
- How Danielle built and scaled The Freelance Travel Network
- The key to building a social media audience and brand presence
- Danielle’s YouTube content strategy
[1:07:08] Danielle’s Productivity Habits, Day Structure and Lifestyle Design
- How Danielle gamifies her everyday life
- Danielle’s morning routine
- Danielle’s day structure
- Batching Flow time, studio time, and call time.
- Tracking productivity
- Her daily mindfulness practices
- Danielle’s travel cadence and choice to base herself in Bali
- What travel means to Danielle
[1:12:20] The Lightning Round
- The #1 Book Danielle recommends
- The #1 Productivity App Danielle recommends
- Danielle’s #1 travel hack
- The person with whom Danielle would most like to have dinner
- Danielle’s top 3 favorite travel destinations
- Danielle’s top 3 bucket list destinations
[1:16:00] Contact Danielle
Recent Episodes
Hosted by Matt Bowles
338: The Kindness of Strangers in Pakistan, Scuba Diving the Sardine Run, and Lessons from Traveling to 190 Countries with Phil Marcus