prepared to start cycling 2.3 kilometers
the pouring rain and freezing winds are
blowing in my face
today no luck for a tailwind when I
arrive at the office first thing I hear
is mark remember that project he worked
on so hard for the last six months
yeah well sorry man but the client
killed it
okay please start working on the copy
for this website now they wanted to make
you they want you to make it a little
bit less fun and they needed by 10:00
a.m. thanks 24 hours later I put on my
raincoat and I mentally prepared to
start cycling 2.3 kilometers again this
is not the sequel of the famous movie
Groundhog Day I’m not Bill Murray this
was my life for years don’t get me wrong
I enjoyed my job but I was seeing the
same faces and the same places every
single day sounds familiar
until one day I was on my bike in the
pouring rain obviously and this time I
was actually seeing myself from the top
and I saw the same route that I was
taking to work every day and I really
thought is this it is this going to be
the same for the rest of my life it
reminded me of this quote of Einstein
who said insanity is doing the same
things over and over again and expecting
different results
that’s how it felt for me that I was
taking the same route and it was almost
that I was living in the same circle
every single day and I refused to accept
that fact so I quit my job left my
apartment
I picked a better route to work the
entire world but hours I supposed to
make that happen
I’m also not Elon Musk so I cannot take
a falcon axe or a Hyperloop to go to the
other side of the world so I came up
with this idea called the backpacker
intern and the idea was that I was going
to trade my skills not for money but for
room and board at companies abroad would
it work no idea but when I posted the
project on my Facebook page people seem
to like it and not long after that it
got picked up by global media to me it
was crazy to see how my idea suddenly
got spread all over the world and I saw
myself on a tweak
MTV entrepreneur I many more and the job
offers literally came from every corner
of the planet here are a few of my
favorites be our backpacker intern get
on door eat chicken in return internship
proposition in Transylvania with
vampires
and this is a cool one do you want to be
a gardener in Thailand little that I
know five years old I’d be on this stage
telling you how I came to become the
best Thai gardener the world has ever
just kidding but if you have to desire
to become a gardener in Thailand do let
me know because I connect you up next to
these fun offers I actually got more
than 750 job offers from all over the
world and that all happened in just the
first week I gave me the opportunity to
work for companies I previously only
dreamt of working for so now they
actually wanted to hire me and it really
felt like the world was turned upside
down
thanks to this experience at the
opportunity to work with wonderful
people from Red Bull headquarters in
Austria
UNICEF New Zealand Ogilvy Cape Town
Amnesty International Thailand and
basically what I learned from it is that
the world
such a diverse place of people that you
can learn so much from for example I was
working in the favelas of Rio de Janeiro
and I was helping out a charity that
helps extract traffickers deal with
their problems by the use of football so
football is for them a way to learn
about team spirit about gaining more
self-confidence and basically having a
lot of fun and I still remember the
first day on the pitch I heard this
noise in the background like super loud
it was like bang bang bang and I’m like
really joyful so I walked to one of the
kids and I said I go man fireworks and
then kids like full of tattoos 16 years
old looks up to me he’s like no no
professor or shootings I was like whoa
like it was just for me crazy to realize
that just a few blocks away there were
was an actual shooting happening and for
them this was just like any other day
and it made me realize how privileged I
was when I grew up in the Netherlands
safely a few months after this one of
the most crazy things ever happened I
got invited to work with Grammy Award
winner now Rogers in case you don’t know
his name you most likely know at least
one of his songs for example he created
get lucky with Daft Punk and Pharrell
Williams but he also worked with Madonna
Bon Jovi Duran Duran Sam Smith and the
list goes on and he was so kind to
invite me to go to a studio with him in
Los Angeles and certainly I was sitting
on the couch with which he was sitting
next to me in front of me was Chris
Martin from gold lay and the three of
them were grading a track together so
basically three global superstars making
music that was a magical experience for
me as someone who sings with the grace
of a crying baby a Liverpool I had the
honour to meet up with MA
Yusuf’s I in case you don’t know her
please google her story and then you’ll
find out why she won the Nobel Prize for
Peace and she told me that everyone can
change the world but that no one can do
it alone so whenever you have a great
idea don’t be afraid to step up and ask
for help and you notice that more people
will align with your mission and then
you can actually achieve way more things
than you first would have thought by
yourself the journey even brought me all
the way to the coldest continent in the
world Antarctica and I was working for a
cruise company and helping them with
branding and marketing and since I’ve
now actually worked on every single
continent of the world I can tell you
for sure who are the best-dressed
colleagues on the planet they’re not
French they’re not Italians they’re
actually not even humans they’re
penguins and after my journey I realized
that I was not alone in this desire but
that there’s generations stark and
similar routines especially amongst
Millennials of whom 78 percent value
experiences over money what do you
prefer more getting a big paycheck or
collecting stamps in your passport more
and more people are signing up for an
experience driven lifestyle a life where
work and play are combined a life where
the world is your office and I’m also
one of them and I’m not alone
and it’s actually a name for a person
who lived his lifestyle digital nomad so
what’s a digital nomad Nomad is just an
old word for travellers in ancient times
when it was much harder to get from
place to place and digital is just not a
word for Internet
basically it’s a person who can use we
can combine work and travel by using the
power of the almighty Wi-Fi and if you
think that digital nomads are just a
bunch of backpackers they might look
like that but there are actually people
who are professionals who are making
money with the freedom to work from
anywhere in the world and they use this
freedom to travel because let’s be
honest travel is the most awesome thing
ever right but if you think that life as
a digital nomad is like a never ending
vacation I’m going to wake you up from
that dream life as a digital nomad is
still like real life it looks amazing on
Instagram like we all do but behind the
likes filters and hashtags are actually
imagine you have a meeting with your
most important client but this time you
are on the other side of the world that
means you have to get up in the middle
of the night dealing with the different
time zones it’s 35 degrees the air
conditioning doesn’t work it’s horrible
Wi-Fi and it’s a family of mosquitoes in
your room I can tell you from personal
experience that’s not a good recipe for
a success life on the road can get
pretty stressful especially when you
don’t have a steady income I’ve been
broke twice and explaining to your
parents that you’re not able to
financially take care of yourself when
you’re 29 years old I wouldn’t recommend
it so I’m not sure if parents really
like this whole digital Nomad movement
but I’m really grateful that my parents
could help me out there have been
moments where I’ve never felt so alone
in my whole life since I’m always
traveling or on the other side of the
world
meant that I had to miss a lot of
friends birthdays weddings family
gatherings children being born I even
missed two funerals and then there is no
shoulder to cry on or a friend to get a
hug with or to drink a beer with you
have to deal with these emotions all by
but despite these downs I have never
felt so alive let’s look at why as a
digital nomad your daily routine is
different so every day is an adventure
just think about the new places you’ll
be able to explore or the new smells or
sounds for people you’ll meet along the
way and let’s not forget to mention the
food variety and if trying out a new
taste means that you have to sit on the
toilet for a week because your stomach
doesn’t agree with your adventurous
appetites well then you just have to sit
through it in the United States people
spend an average of four years of their
lives in a car that’s four years stuck
in the commute as a digital nomad you
don’t suffer that fate you don’t even
need a car
so it’s better for the environment it’s
better for your wallet and it the most
importantly it gives you more time so it
means more time for sleeping more time
for yourself for working out more time
for your children or more time to make
children or at least practiced a lot if
you want and another big excel advantage
is that the world will become your
office because you’re working from your
laptop basically you know home is where
the Wi-Fi connects automatically so you
can decide wherever you are at your best
so just ask this question to yourself
where do you actually get the most work
done is it inside the office or is it at
a place where you decide
while you’re at your best for some
people that’s in a coffee place at home
or in a library and as a digital nomad
you have the freedom to choose wherever
that is and that not only saves money on
real estate but it actually makes people
more productive according to Harvard
Business Review
it makes people 13.5 percent more
productive that’s that’s also one of the
reasons why you see co-working and
collating spaces popping up everywhere
like this one in the jungle of boots in
Indonesia again these are people that
are on their flip-flops and their
swimming pants but some of them are
actually working for multi-million
dollar companies or even owning one of
those companies and if you still think
that talent can only be found in Silicon
Valley that you have to be there to
build an awesome career I’m gonna tell
you that to tell it nowadays and the
best people are not a Silicon Valley
they’re in Silicon Valley Silicon deli
basically silicon anywhere with the
tools available today work is no longer
a place it can happen from anywhere
anytime with anyone from any space so I
remember that I was trying to escape the
rain in Amsterdam again
so I started actually a company called
wander brief where we help people to
live life as a digital nomad and me and
my co-founder decided to fly away from
this horrible weather in Amsterdam it
was almost like the other side of the
wall of Game of Thrones it was just we
had to get out so we landed and then we
found out that it was the rain season
but while we’re hiding in the rain we
actually got to know a lot of amazing
people who were also living this digital
nomad life and I even met a CTO and now
co-founder of my company so here you’re
thinking like what is there to learn
from
these journeys and this way of traveling
and living now if i zoom out again I
think about the fact that I was on my
bicycle and my circle was just the few
kilometers and seeing the same faces in
the same places but now by actually
traveling traveling and pushing myself
to go out there I was seeing constantly
new faces and new places and I got to
know so many interesting people where
you know that basically the barriers
between human beings start to disappear
well we may not all be the same
culturally speaking we are all connected
so if there’s one thing that I’ve
learned from working and traveling on
all these continents it’s simple the
more people you know the more you know
yourself so the more people you know the
more you know yourself all of us are on
this journey of life seven billion of us
imagine a life where your route to work
is always different think about the new
people you’ll meet and a new places
you’ll be able to explore and then along
the way it won’t always be easy you will
face your fears and the road will still
be full of ups and downs but by going
out there you’ll finally discover that
the ultimate destination is yourself and
with that in mind think about the impact
you can make or already making and I’m
not just talking about personal
development here I’m talking about how
we can better develop ourselves together
as a human race so I’d like to leave you
with this one question tomorrow or the
next day when you will be in your daily
routine again and then think about this
how far are you willing to travel
to find yourself thank you [Applause]