Location Independence and Digital Nomadism with Sara Kolata | 024

How can you build a career in architecture that aligns with your passion

for travel and what does it really take to live a location, independent lifestyle.

Find out Asara Kolata shares her journey from traditional architecture to digital

nomadism, to online business growth.

In this episode of architecture business club, the weekly podcast

for solo and small firm architecture practice owners, just like you.

We want to build a profitable future proof architecture business

that fits around their life.

I'm the host John Clayton.

And if you want a business in architecture that gives you more

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They go to architecture business club.com forward slash blueprint and download

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It's the step-by-step formula to freedom for architects, architectural

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And it's absolutely free as a gift from me.

Now let's discuss.

Location independence.

Sara Colata is an architect and digital transformation expert.

Her mission is to raise the financial well being of architects.

She's the host of Architecture Talk Tank, a show which serves as

a platform for industry specialists to talk about business marketing

and profitability in architecture.

Sara helps architecture professionals develop online businesses

and create online courses.

Please.

She also works as a business developer for medium to large size

architecture firms, helping them manage the finances and implement

better client attraction strategies.

Sorra, welcome to Architecture Business Club.

Hey, thank you so much for having me.

Oh, you're very welcome.

It's a pleasure to have you here.

You work very hard with the various projects that you're involved in.

Like one of your passions is skydiving.

It's quite an unusual passion to have, quite an unusual hobby.

How does it feel to jump out of a plane?

Absolutely fabulous, really.

Yeah, I love adventure, you know, and I feel like I've got attracted to this

because the sense of freedom you get, you know, when you push your boundary

and really, you know, Is the feeling I can describe when you fly, it's freedom.

And just overcoming your fears, overcoming your own limitations,

it also is very freeing.

So that's initially what attracted me.

And also just when you follow people on Instagram that are doing this, like.

Jumping out of planes, the way they, they look out there in the sky flying,

um, which has been really appealing.

I wanted to, to feel that.

And so, yeah, I did my course never looked back ever since, but at least it's

been a whole new adventure of doing that.

Sounds amazing.

Would you say you're an adrenaline junkie?

It's

Uh, depends.

I mean, no, not really.

I quite honestly find a lot of peace in doing that.

Like, you just really need to learn to control your fears and your mind,

and you need to be very well prepared, and there is a sense of calmness that

comes upon you when you, when you do it.

You have to focus.

Everything is pre planned and it's really, uh, it just taught me a lot

about how I show up in the world.

I really can attribute a lot of a sense of responsibility.

And I think almost like my, my career successes to skydiving, cause I've

learned to Show up in a different way and take full responsibility for myself.

And I started to apply that mentality to a lot of things I do

in my everyday and my business.

It's accounted to a lot of success.

funny, isn't it?

How?

Those transferable skills, this things that you can learn, that

you can apply to your business.

They can come from the most unusual of places like skydiving.

Perfect example.

We are not here to talk about skydiving for the whole interview though.

As much as I'd love to, cause I love geeking out about stuff like that.

But what we are going to talk about is how architects can craft a location.

Independent business.

I'm really excited to talk about this.

For anyone that isn't familiar with the concept what does it

mean to be location independent?

Yeah, really just to be able to travel, I guess.

And it certainly.

was a big agenda for me all my life.

I loved traveling and it was quite tricky to realize that as much as like

you can travel for architecture, you always tie into, uh, projects, locations

for a longer period of time too.

So even though like you might be building internationally and going back

to certain locations, uh, over long periods of time, and then it's just.

It's, it's not really traveling anymore in a way, like it's not exploring so much.

I quite realized that like the, the, the format of my travels was different

when I was working in architecture and that I wanted more freedom and location

and dependency to the extent of where I can work from different places and

I can really have the time to put down my laptop and explore the environment.

I'm in and do a lot of fun activities.

And so at some point in my life, I just decided to focus in on building a business

that can enable me to do that really.

And so independence in that respect comes from being able

to work from a laptop today.

Got it.

Got it.

So, uh, I mean, you've been quite a globetrotter throughout your career.

You've done a lot of travel after studying architecture in London.

You spent time working in China, Berlin.

Guatemala, you've been involved in charity work.

At what point was it in particular that you really decided that you wanted to

be like fully location independent and not tied to a traditional practice and

those traditional architecture projects?

Yeah, it's, it was after six years in Guatemala, I,

I, I went there to start a charity.

The idea of it was, um, sort of the motivation behind it was twofold.

One, I wanted to build and I just felt after doing my internship in China, the,

I don't, I wanna skip or jump over this whole process of being a card monkey.

I saw myself more as visionary creator.

I also always had sort of.

managerial and leadership sort of.

Capacity skills, I don't know, interests talents.

And so I saw myself, I had confidence in my ability to step into that

and manage bigger projects.

And I really just wanted to do that to be fair.

And so, um, you know, being 23 and coming out of that internship in

China, it was like, I don't, Like the projects I was working on there and

the everyday activities I was involved with, and I imagine my life differently.

And so I really just took a massive leap of faith and took my life in my own hands

with designing you know, how I wanted to live in my twenties and having a charity

at the time was connecting My passion for, you know, humanitarian projects, my

passion for natural building a passion for traveling, and then also that ability to

just build and find money for projects, pick up my own projects, put together

teams and, and, uh, make projects happen.

And so I dedicated my twenties to that.

And, um, yeah, I was running tribe lab out of Guatemala.

We're doing projects.

All around Central America also did some refugee projects in France because

there was this big refugee crisis at the time, um, in Europe reasons

why UK, you know, went into Brexit.

But yeah, I did, I did come to France and I worked six months

in a refugee camp as well.

And so it was really interesting at the time.

I did definitely a lot of project management and recruit, recruiting

people, putting together teams.

Fundraising, managing budgets and really just construction management.

We were working as a small team out of an office in Guatemala, but

also had different contractors and collaborators that we worked with.

Being 27 and in the middle of it all there was definitely a lot of things to account

for success, but but I didn't make a good profit and I struggled financially.

And it just got to a point where I just thought, I don't want to

be doing this in my thirties.

I did feel stuck on projects, as I lived in Guatemala, like social media

became bigger and bigger, and I could see people living quite free lives,

enabling themselves to to influence, to be thoughtly influencers and,

uh, use that to their advantage.

And I just thought, you know what?

Like, that could enable me to travel more freely and be gently more free.

And so I did when I wrapped up the business, I did decide that

I'm going to, my second thing is gonna be an online thing.

The online business, now you are the, the editor in

chief of Disrupt Mag and the organizer of Disrupt Symposium.

And this is, this is a totally, there are in-person elements to this, but

you are an online based business.

Could you just elabor elaborate a bit on how it, how it came

about, how it, how it was born?

yeah, I mean, honestly I started let's podcaster, right?

So I started growing a community online, mainly through LinkedIn

and interviewing people.

And then, towards the end of the pandemic I started to organize virtual events.

One of the reasons why I also attribute the big shift and what

was a driving force behind, yeah, I wanted to have an online business.

Those were sort of decisions based upon how I wanted to

live my life in my thirties.

But a big part of it also was that I wanted to learn how to.

Run a business.

I wanted to be a business person at that stage.

I attributed my misfortune with the charity to lack of business

acumen to not knowing how to.

Grow really, I think, managing staff was intuitive at that stage.

I obviously didn't have any business training, but growing

a business, understanding how to scale, I had no idea where to go.

And also because of the lack of business acumen there was just a tremendous, um,

Imposter syndrome, um, that to be fair, took me a very long time to grow out of.

And I think if I just went to a business school, I would have not

had that because I'm quite brave and confident, but, I suffered, um, Like

an imposter syndrome way too long in my life and my career because of

just simply not knowing what to do.

And it was frustrating.

And honestly, even now going back to, to, to, to, to these emotions, I almost feel a

sense of anger and frustration coming up.

And, and that was really a big reason why I went on that journey of

exploring, um, matters of what makes a person successful in architecture.

And so that was sort of that, that, that.

Prominent question was why I started the podcast and I started blogging

about and growing a community around it.

And I'm still in it.

I'm still asking similar questions, maybe just a little bit more

elevated through the magazine.

But really, uh, the, the growth between my podcasting days and then the magazine

was just a response to the audience.

But yeah, I guess the premise of traveling, having an online business

and still the exploration almost into these, these concepts of that

success, profitability and business systems and mindsets are still

what drive me today with Disrupt.

That sounds really exciting and I love the fact.

That what Disrupt has become and what, you know, it's continuing to be is

based on that engagement with, with your audience and your community and

actually discovering what, what is it that they want and, and providing that.

And I think that's a fantastic approach.

It's very important.

I'm sorry that I'm just going to like.

Say that because we say that so often in business, but do we actually do it?

You know, as you identify your passion and you start.

Developing whatever it is, a product or a service for your community.

You just need to understand who these people are and what they really need.

And you need to be nimble and allow to to adjust

I'd want to bring it back now to travel.

The term that people might've heard of, they might not necessarily

understand what it is digital nomads.

I just want to ask like, what does the term digital nomads mean to you?

And would you consider yourself to be one?

I'm not anymore.

Actually, I had my days.

For me, digital Nomad is a person that moves around a lot.

Stays in hotels or Airbnb villas and works out of different locations.

Whether you're an employment or you run your own business, the concept is that you

spend your working hours on a laptop in a wonderful place, and then you put down

your laptop and you just go to the beach.

Or a jungle or you name it, wherever.

And I've done that.

I've done that.

Post Corona, I traveled quite a lot.

I spent the whole summer between, I first lived in Spain, in Puglia

Brava, and then I traveled through France, Italy to Greece, spent my

summer in Greece, went to Bali, and then, And then I moved to Colombia

where I'm, where I'm, I'm still here.

And so I did that for about two years and every single time I would stay in a place

pretty much as long as the visa permitted and move, uh, move locations quite a lot.

So in Bali, I was there three months and.

For parts of it, I would stay in Changu in different hotels.

Then I would rent a villa.

Then I went to East Valley, then I went to Ubud and I rented a villa there.

And so it would be anywhere between three weeks to a month that I would stay on

location with shorter stays in hotels.

It was great.

It was fascinating.

I loved it.

Obviously it sounds like a dream, I'm sure, but, um, there

are obviously downsides to it.

One being.

You have to stay on top of your travel plans, you're basically really dependent

on whatever's going to happen to you, um, on a, you know, on a, on a given day might

be, um, There is an electricity cuts.

There's no internet.

The hotel doesn't have a good connection.

And, you know, it's really loud where you staying your traveling plans got

messed up and you can't show up on a call or you take a call standing somewhere

in the middle of a street in Thailand.

And, you know, it's like cars and everything.

You didn't find a good cafe place.

So you connecting through someone who's like sharing internet with

you and it's just stressful.

It does require a lot of planning, planning ahead, and you just

never can control what's going to happen when you travel.

So, of course, there's ways in which you can deal with it by, booking yourself into

villas, ensuring that they have you know, you have strong internet that you're going

to land in a perfect type of scenario.

But then again, you know, I was in Bali during the rain season and when

it rained really heavily, it would affect internet pretty much everywhere.

The other things that like I didn't consider when I stepped

into it is also time zones.

You think you can manage it until you're there and then it's really hard.

So obviously you do get jet lag if you travel a lot, but also, um, in Bali

specifically, like most of my clients are actually in America and the UK.

And in Bali specifically, I had to basically do all nighters

quite a lot in order to show up.

And you can see even on YouTube, my podcast, I'm interviewing

people in the middle of the night.

So it would mean for me to have to wake up at 1am, put my makeup on and then turn

some little light on and then interview people in the middle of the night.

On an interview like this, just because I'm in Bali and you know, heck with it.

That's my life decisions.

I can't just now ask people to meet me really late their

time because of my podcast.

Right.

So that sort of ended up being tiring.

And then Um, all in all, I think that you sort of start growing an

anxiety about like, where are you going to be next week and what,

what's your life going to look like.

And I also do want to say that it's actually quite expensive, no matter

what is your budget and how you travel, you're always gonna kind

of eventually choose comfort because of the, the mission that you have.

For your business.

And so, comfort costs and, uh, yeah, it does end up being more expensive.

I came to a culminatory point in my life where I decided that also, You

know, turning 36, I'm ready to settle.

I want to build a life.

And so not spending these tremendous amounts of money per month on

travel, but rather like investing.

And so that changed last year massively for me.

And then now I'm like basically settled, but I'm settled in the Caribbean.

I live in Columbia and, uh, it's wonderful.

I still travel, but travel for business.

I'm on New York time.

So that's incredible because pretty much my whole day aligns

with a lot of calls between the U.

S.

and the U.

K., and it's perfect timing for everything, and it's not as exhausting,

with six years in Guatemala, that was over 15 years now that I

live in Latin America altogether.

Having spent six months last year in Peru as well.

And I travel a lot in Central America as well.

My boyfriend's Mexican.

So There's just, yeah, it's just like, I, I, I feel home here.

I speak the language.

I love these countries and, um, and it is traveling, but

in a different way right now.

And so kind of settling, that's really kind of what's, what's the new era

the new era, the next, the next chapter,

That's right.

it sounds like from what you've described that being a digital

nomads, despite what we might see on Instagram and Tik TOK, that, it isn't

just all sitting around on the beach that there's actually, you still got to do

the work and there's a lot of logistics to sort out, probably something that's

maybe suited to most people for a season or two Not necessarily something for

life and maybe everybody's different, but it sounds like something that's

maybe not sustainable for the long term.

But having said all that, if there are any listeners out there, any

architects or architectural technologists that are thinking that this sounds

interesting, what type of work Could they actually do like what type of

work could a regular architect do as a digital nomad, or if they wanted

to be more location independent.

The thing is like I think what's important to realize

is that it can be tiring if your job doesn't align with your lifestyle.

And in my case, unfortunately I was sort of pushing myself to travel, but

as I mentioned, some of the parameters of how I work, which is for example,

having to align to the U S time zone was just stopping me from being able to.

You know, say for example, exist in a day and sleep in the night, right?

So eventually it takes a toll on you.

But if you do for example, if you're a social media influencer and your job

is to have an engaging, interesting Instagram about architecture and you

travel and you wake up in the morning and all you do is create content and you

don't have calls with another part of the world, or you don't service clients

internationally, and you don't, you basically just live for that social media.

Channel, then I think you can do it.

And in fact, it can be your business.

You don't have that sort of conflict of having too much

other time zones or whatever.

Just follow your flow.

You can do it.

But if you do basically work for a company that is requiring you to do a certain

office hours, then, you know, we're like working on the other side of the world.

It's just going to be.

impossible for you.

I mean, it's just going to be, but you're going to have to do all nighters because

unfortunately you have to 12 hours difference, 13 hour difference sometimes,

you know, and so that's something you can't fight with or overcome.

And I think, if you're ready for it, you know, you can get a job that is remote.

There's definitely a lot of architecture firms that are doing this.

you know, technicians, technologists people that work with software,

that's certainly possible.

It's just a matter of like finding that sort of position.

And the studio being okay with it.

And then, yeah, and then you just have like your normal working hours that you

show up for, and then the rest is up to you, what you're doing with your day.

I don't know from my personal life, cause I never, I didn't have

an employee to, uh, work on that.

It was more just really trying to align my lifestyle to, um, to my own business.

And so it did.

Come to a point where I had to choose what matters to me more growing

my business or traveling and then paying a price on the other end.

But if you decide to travel, say South America and you work for an

American company, you can actually do pretty normal working hours.

And I do have friends.

In fact, one of my best friends has just been here and she is Russian

and she, um, Has an online business.

In fact, two companies she works for and she does some type of part time

hours for both, but then she puts on her laptop and she'll go kite surfing.

She goes with skydiving.

She'll do a lot of different activities.

She can travel and it's really just wonderful.

So I think.

It does work again.

It's definitely harder for her.

When she travels to the countries, obviously where the time zone is not

aligned, but other than that, it works.

So you, you know, if you have a job in employment that supports

that sort of lifestyle, then you can explore a little bit more.

If you are building your own business, you're just going to

have to align your life to the priorities of that business too.

You can't, you can't have Have everything, you know, because eventually

nothing's going to have to give.

And so, yeah.

But to be fair, like also I personally spend a fair amount of years in Asia and,

so I will go and visit, three For a month, maybe doing a road

trip around Japan, or it's kind of like a holiday right now,

more than wanting to be in Asia.

I love being here in this part of the world.

And, uh, there's a lot of traveling to do here too.

So, um, so I think if you align it, you know, with, with your business

objectives and you can make it work.

Okay, so align it, align what we do, the work that we do with

the overall business objectives that we have and don't necessarily feel that

you have to be boxed in just working a regular role for a regular practice.

Other opportunities you mentioned there about the idea of, you know, maybe if you

were able to build up following on social media that you you're an influencer.

That was another alternative that you mentioned there that could

still be connected to architecture.

There's probably.

A variety of different online based businesses that don't

require us to work regular office hours or be in the same place.

So that's something that I think is important lesson to just restate there

that, you know, if you do want to be location independent and have that

lifestyle, that it doesn't necessarily have to be that you're just still

working for a traditional practice in a traditional role and asking for

permission to, to work remotely, it could be something completely different.

But still connected to architecture.

So I love that.

There's a, there's a few different ideas for people there.

What about though, what about paying taxes?

You know, death and taxes, the two certainties in life for everybody.

In your experience, how does that actually work?

If you're moving around a lot, that,

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Now, back to the show.

My business is registered in London, and so I pay taxes in

the UK, and that's pretty much it.

Everything goes through, like, British bank accounts, and

I lived there as a student.

I had an English student loan, so it was just kind of natural for

me to register a business there.

But, like, You pay taxes where your business is registered and now in

respect to where you live There is a lot of different ways around it

If you are moving a lot, you don't have to have a tax residency in the

place that you're traveling, right?

For example right now, even though I'm I bought land here in Columbia.

I'm here on a digital Nomad visa.

So it's for two years with a, you can always extend it.

But that doesn't oblige me to pay taxes within Columbia.

So, um, there's a lot of different rules around it.

You just want to look into it, but you normally have a tax residency.

Where are you from or where you operate a business?

For me, it's the UK.

And so I pay taxes in the UK and it's always been the case.

Even with my charity, actually, the business was registered in London.

But I lived in Guatemala and Guatemala does not have laws about

double taxation or anything like that, especially on on an NGO.

So what you want to do is obviously understand first and foremost, your

business taxation and then your personal related to your residency.

But like, um, It's not really that difficult to be honest or complicated.

And it just aligns to, you know, the type of visa you get

in the, in a given country.

So for example, uh, Bali for residency is a whole process, right?

And then like ownership, business registrations you

can't even buy lands there.

And, uh, really, unless you have someone local or register a business

and a bunch of other things.

And so obviously you're going to have to.

Jump through a lot of legal hoops if you decide to invest or live

in a, in a given location, but I was there on a tourist visa.

It was three months.

And so I'm free to behave like a tourist in a given country whilst also having

my business registered somewhere else and a tax residency somewhere else.

And so that's really how it works and you can do that for years.

But yeah, you do pay taxes based upon your income in the

country where your residency is.

that sounds.

More straightforward than I thought it would be.

So that's quite reassuring.

I think for anyone listening that is thinking about doing this.

So I'm

glad.

I mean, you have to consult your lawyer and stuff,

but you get your head around it.

It's really not that complicated.

Do you think there's any destinations that are particularly well

suited to architecture professionals?

what you're interested in, you know, like certainly if you're

like into urban, you know, I'm sure it's really interesting to, to visit

some big cities like Lagos or, you know, there's definitely incredible

locations that the, you know, show in China, for example, you know, urban

development, but then there's also.

Parts of the world are like, uh, extremely sustainable and and have really high

end of, uh, social and environmental.

Values implemented into the way that they develop, be it Scandinavia, for example,

it's just, I think what what traveling gives you is sort of that sort of, well

roundness and ability to understand where people come from, what makes them,

for example, you know, today I spend hours on end every day talking to really

interesting individuals from all over the world that run big architecture practices

and You know, on average, I'll speak to someone in Scandinavia who was brought

up, uh, in an incredible set up, you know, on a farm with really sustainably

minded parents that were when we had a windmill and, you know, producing their

own electricity and purifying the water.

And then they, they moved on to be a director of sustainability at.

Big all the way through to people that have been exploring development

within Africa or working in New York and sort of working within a more,

I would say, certainly America, in my opinion, is as much as like.

Obviously, it's, um, there's a lot of like that zero, zero

and sustainable construction.

The culture is not as sustainably minded as it is, for example, in

Scandinavia or parts of Europe, where, you know, in Amsterdam, you'll have

professionals, like basically upper class.

Literally it's cycling and don't even have a driving license because they don't

need to and so yeah There's just all these sort of different parts of the world that

really inform inform where people come from where ideas come from where Certain

approaches to architecture can come from and I think that that's fascinating.

I think people should travel and You know, I've, uh, I've been talking yesterday

or day before to Julia Watson, who is a, uh, professor and she wrote books

about something she quoted low tech and it's basically a series of approaches

to development and architecture that indigenous people and communities have.

And it's really just a tremendous studying these cultures and these people.

People and what sort of solutions they bring to design is really fascinating.

And so, um, again, I just think, um, travel gives you that well roundedness,

um, and, you know, in, in, uh, in the respect of also just not just development

and sustainability, but also even luxury, the different parts of the world where,

uh, luxurious, beautiful stones come from, like quartz or marble or granite.

And, and, you know, that is really just fascinating and rich as well.

Absolutely.

Yeah, I think travel, um, it's such a great way to broaden your horizons

and to open your mind up to, to new ideas, new ways of thinking.

And as you say that if you're getting the opportunities to spend time in built

environments where you're getting to see different styles of architecture,

different buildings, different materials that you maybe you wouldn't normally

be exposed to in your, your hometown or the area that you came from.

That's really going to enrich the type of work that you can do in your practice.

So yeah, absolutely.

Definitely worth, um, doing some more travel if it's possible for you.

Yeah.

And I think like, I think it's really important to also like not shy away from

seeing travel only as like a tourist activity, but actually like try to

combine it with your work or passion.

Like, yeah.

You know, do go and visit a query or do go and visit some villages because they're

doing something interesting there or go exploring even, um, you know, like,

um, seeing architectures, you know, not just museums that are open to public,

but architectures that are built by, by, by famous architects go and see it.

These libraries.

These, um, these incredible places because they inspire and it gives you a whole

other feeling when you're there, another level of inspiration, understanding,

um, of the work of this architect, their vision, the spaces they create, you know,

so I think really not shying away from, like, combining your tourism activity or

travel with actually, like, Growing in that inspiration, like exposing yourself

to it and, and experiencing that too.

absolutely.

What do you think, um, what do you think architects should

consider before deciding?

To become a digital nomads or to, to change things up to

become location independent.

Are there any things in particular that people should consider?

Do you know what, like, I don't know really what should you

consider per se, but I can say one thing like live your life, live your dreams.

If you want to travel, don't sit in a cubicle doing a cat monkey job.

Stop that right now, immediately stop that.

Basically, there is nothing.

In life that can go worse than you not giving it a shot.

It's something you always wanted to do, right?

It's just nothing to me like there's nothing worse than regret.

There's nothing worse than not having acted on something that you saw inside

telling you if you're looking at someone's profile on Instagram and

you're inspired, why are you inspired?

If you feel a little sense of jealousy, is it because This could be your life

and deep inside you, you know, that this could be your life, but you're

not acting on it because of sets of fears or insecurities or self sabotage,

or someone told you, or maybe you're afraid that you have committed seven

years of your life into an education.

And now you finally got that job and you're working in this office.

And how can you now just ditch all of that to be a traveler?

Well, do you know what you live only once and to be fair, it's very funny.

Like I thought after living in Guatemala and like working there on my charity

for six years, then basically I've got no way back into architecture because

I've built a bunch of mad houses because for the most significant years between

university and my thirties, I lived in a little village, like walking barefoot

basically, and doing all these projects.

I thought that if I went to like.

and applied for a job that would literally laugh at me and my portfolio,

they never gave it a go, even though to be fair, it would have been

probably Tremendous to go and work in a practice in my early thirties.

And now I talk to like leaders of these huge firms and I tell them that story is

like a matter of fact, like a funny thing, and they're like, this is tremendous.

Like we have very few candidates that come from this unique walks

of life, but we don't hire based on in like your, your portfolio or

like what softwares, you know, like if we invite you to the interview.

Oftentimes we'll like already check your profile, but we were hiring

people, individuals that can bring something to our office culture.

And so something I wish I knew at the time is that even though I stepped

away from architecture, it only made me as an individual, more interesting

and maybe not for every single job opportunity, but there surely would

be one or two that would be like.

She's interesting and she had an incredible, um, you know, expertise

or experience that could bring a lot to our London practice, you know, and,

and, and so that's the thing is like, it's sometimes when you think you step

away from your traditional path that you're just like doomed now, this is it.

I don't know.

You're a backpacker or some type of hippie.

It's not true.

No, if you go out there to the world, living your dream, exploring

your passions, you're developing skills that all these other people

that stayed behind don't have now.

So as you come back, you've got more to offer and just know that,

that everything you choose in life.

Adds to your value and don't forget that and don't think that that discriminates

against you just because you didn't follow the traditional path and so What

I would say is, you know Go after your dreams and design your unique career

because like we live in this times right now where You can be successful in many

different ways, shapes, and forms, and you can create your own life and you

can make money and you can add value and you can contribute to academia and

practice and other people's offices and many different spectrums of things.

You can influence by allowing yourself to be you and developing

who you truly are with it, right?

So your authentic self.

And in order to.

Allow yourself to grow.

You have to go out there and explore these parts of you that inspire,

because inspiration is that inner voice telling you, I probably should

be doing something different today.

And so go out there and do it.

I don't know how to prepare you better because you never

know what's around the corner.

The only thing is follow your heart, follow your inner voice.

Because if you don't, You're literally not living your life.

You're living a life that the education, the career, the university, the,

the job, your mom, your parents, your religion told you to live.

But like the only foolish life you came here to live as your own.

And like, even though you studied so many years of architecture and did all these

things and you think you should be doing, I think it's so very important to be you.

Because that builds on skill sets that now our industry, not just architecture,

but also the world at large is growing to appreciate, it's growing to appreciate the

uniqueness within people and individuals.

And so I think there's never been a better time to give it a go.

And there is no, like, no one can tell you how to prepare.

You can't just pack your backpack for living your fullest life.

You have to just.

Allow for it to be and grow into it and figure out how to be agile to adapt.

And sometimes, you know, you're going to step in a puddle or sometimes

you're going to get your head burned with the sun and so what, so be it.

It's just the way you learn really.

And so, yeah, it applies to traveling.

It applies to building businesses.

It applies to life.

It's all the same thing.

You can't, you can't prepare for your best life.

You can only hope for the best, but you have to go out of your comfort

zone and experiment a little.

And that's the only way that you can like kind of stretch your boundaries,

you know, in the direction where your heart is telling you to go.

I love that.

Follow your heart, be you.

And I think another thing that everyone should remember is that let's be honest,

like most of life's regrets that we have is things that we haven't done.

It's not the things that we do.

It's the things that we don't do.

So don't be limited and just, just do it.

Give it a go.

Yeah.

And also, I think, you know, it's mad because we have a lot of dreams.

I have a lot of dreams.

We have a lot of dreams.

And sometimes it's like.

You know, I remember like when I was very young, we had this traveler

women in Poland that she was doing.

She had like her own TV show traveling and she was doing a lot of like extreme

sports activities and everything.

I always kind of wanted to do something like that, like have a TV show and travel.

And my life went all the other ways.

But I keep still remembering those little tiny dreams that like completely

make no sense in my career today.

And I'm still thinking that I should fulfill them in some way, shape or

form, you know, and that's the thing.

It's like, why not?

can design a career to make it work.

And so again, going back to this whole conversation we had about

traveling, if this is in your essence, and it certainly was in mine, Yeah.

If it's in your essence, you're going to have to figure out how you're going

to make your career work with travel.

And so either you go in, like I did, you know, go to study in a different place.

Like I studied in London and I worked in Shanghai.

Then I moved to Berlin for work.

Then I started the charity in Guatemala that I was traveling

for this, that, the other.

So you, you, you find like a purpose why you travel or you.

Add purpose to your life as you travel, whichever way you go, like

you're going to have to make it work.

And so basically I can't equip you any better than just telling you, like,

know yourself, follow your heart.

And if it is in your essence to travel, like it's just going to bug you until

you start fulfilling yourself, basically.

That's the truth.

That's brilliant.

That's it.

That's been a really inspiring conversation, Sarah.

I'm sure that everyone listening is going to be enjoying this as much as I have.

It's been fantastic.

Is there anything else that you wanted to add that we haven't

covered in the conversation?

I think the one thing is learn new things.

I constantly learn new things.

Not only I take lots of online courses.

Like pretty much I move from one to another and non stop if I'm not subscribed

to a platform like Mindvalley on which I do meditation courses, self development,

business stuff, like social media courses, I subscribe to courses on like I'll

see you Instagram profiles that people put up about how to better travel, do

hotel collaborations, work with brands.

I don't know, develop your social media platforms, speak on stages, write

a book, self publish, you name it.

Basically, if you want to stretch, you know, yourself into developing yourself,

designing yourself, designing your perfect life, you just need to know.

So much of how people do it, right?

So it's learning like never stop learning.

I mean, that's the, that's the only thing I think that can equip you for,

um, for being able to pull it off really.

Continuous learning is so important, especially in our industry.

And I think.

There's never been, I mean, in some ways it's never been easier.

There's so much, um, content available and resources for people these days.

So yeah, absolutely.

So important to do that.

I've got one final question for you.

And.

It's, it's so well suited.

I ask this to every single guest that comes on the show.

Uh, but it's like my travel questions.

I, I also love travel and discovering new places.

You've been to a lot of different places around the world, but

could you just tell me one?

of your favorite places and what you love about it.

It could be anywhere near or far.

It doesn't have to be the favorite.

It could just be one of the places that springs to mind.

Yeah.

There's really no.

like Greece, no place like home, they say it's, it's been home.

I've brought, I was brought up there.

So but it's just a magnificent country.

It's just, I can't say enough.

The people, the music, the food.

I mean, the sea, the color of the sea, the way it makes you feel,

how tranquil it is, um, the.

Endless shores and islands.

And I mean, I really can't say enough, the feeling you get there, how you

slow down when you're there, it's just incredible, perfect temperature,

perfect weather, perfect beaches, food.

So, you know, definitely a huge retirement plan for me.

It's a little bit challenging economically to live there just because it's such

a, uh, Tourist driven, uh, country that, you know, it kind of dies out.

The islands do die out.

Um, basically for 10 months in a year, you know, realistically speaking.

So it's impossible to live in unless you're in Athens, but

I'm not a city person anymore.

I used to be, I'm not anymore.

So now I live in the Caribbean on the beach, which is kind of the closest I

found really to, to how I was brought up, uh, but still having plans and

dreams of investing in Greece for sure.

fantastic.

I'm sure you get there one day.

Sarah, thank you so much for this conversation.

I've really enjoyed it.

Could you please let everybody know.

Where is the best place to connect with you?

Yeah, definitely.

Disruptmag.

com is the website of the magazine.

It's really something I would say I promote the most today.

There's been a lot of different activities, uh, podcasts, courses,

blogs, and things I've done.

But I think finding me on LinkedIn, Sarah Collada, DisruptMag.

com.

And then, um, also, Sarah at DisruptMag.

com is the email and, and that's it really.

I think connecting on LinkedIn is probably the best because I promote

also events there and other activities.

And, um, there is a newsletter and a lot of interviews with people we hold.

So it's a wonderful platform to follow our activities and my life as well.

Awesome.

So I recommend everyone goes and checks it out.

disruptmag.

com and LinkedIn to connect with Sarah.

Brilliant.

Okay.

We'll leave it there.

So thanks again ever so much, and I'll catch up with you soon.

Thank you.

Next time I'll be chatting about lead generation.

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