Have you ever met any Indian Digital Nomad?
You will find one soon.
"I manage a remote team remotely" says Mayur Sontakke, the founder of Remote Explorers. Mayur represents a new breed of travelers, the remote workers aka Digital Nomads.
As per Cambridge Dictionary, "Remote working" means a situation in which an employee works mainly from home and communicates with the company by email and telephone.
After going through the above definition, you might ask, if this is as simple as working from home, why there is this new term and why is this new word "Digital Nomad" taking the world by storm!
Well, these digital nomads took the game to a higher level by redefined the term "Home"!
According to digital nomads like Mayur, home is a place where there is a strong connection, not of family relationships but that of a reliable fast WiFi!
They travel around the world while working on their projects to earn a living.
Working and traveling simultaneously is not as easy as it's been romanticized by the new age social media mavens. But by having an adequate skill sets and a bit of luck, it can get slightly easier just like what happened to Mayur.
"I was lucky to get a remote job in 2014 that let me travel without being unemployed. ", Mayur says. He is currently working as a manager for an investment research startup, from wherever he feels like, over the internet. So he is working and living in different places simultaneously and his remote job helps this lifestyle!
"I manage a team of financial analysts who work remotely. I travelled within India with my work for a few months. However, 2016 June, I took a step and worked from different locations in SE Asia for almost a year." He adds.
It was after one of such trips, he decided to fly in to Kochi from Bali. That was the time I met him at the backpacker hostel where I was working. That time I was not aware of his side venture "Remote Explorers".
Digital nomad community around the world is looking for retreats, better infrastructure and community setup from where they can work on their projects. Remote explorer is an Indian initiative towards that scene.
Remote Explorers is a retreat for location independent professionals (entrepreneurs, freelancers, remote workers, and explorers) who want to experience India while getting things done.
During such Digital Nomad retreats, the organizers take care of food, accommodation, transportation and other logistical requirements, local experiences and sight seeing, and of course reliable high-speed internet and power backup, dedicated workspace and access to the community and partners. In this case Mayur's team is the organizers and they help the digital nomads with all of these facilities.
Having a steady salary from remote job and having flexible working hours, help Mayur to focus on his other interests such as setting up his own venture, traveling the world and so on.
At first, I started working from home. Keeping motivation and discipline was quite hard at the beginning but soon I got into the habit of not letting myself treat this as a vacation.
My family had apprehensions at the beginning but they realized that I'm happier while traveling and started taking it as a matter of pride.
My life is much more fulfilling and fun compared to my corporate past.
I always tell people to build a solid skill-set first than getting carried away with the enticing thought of following passion for traveling. That ways, you will save yourself from a lot of anxiety and frustration. In my case my core competency is financial analysis and team management.
For most part, yes. However, there are definitely some minuses like feeling lonely on the road when you are traveling solo. I can no longer complain about that as I met my wife while traveling. 😀
What do you think about Mayur’s story? Do you want to follow a life similar to this Indian digital nomad?
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