Jason Moore chose a travel lifestyle straight out of college despite having $20k in student debt. This is something I generally advise against, but Jason took a route that was both financially responsible and also got him traveling right away. From there he designed a location independent lifestyle and career that he continues to work in today, inspiring others to achieve their travel and location independent career dreams.
Join me in this interview where we turn the career design model on its head for a fresh approach to getting what you want out of life.
Other Awesome Interviews to Check Out:
Pros & Cons of the Digital Nomad Lifestyle vs. Having a Home Base, with Sherry Ott
Pivoting to Podcasts After 9 Years of Full-Time Travel, with Gary Arndt
21 Years of Full-Time Travel, with Wandering Earl, founder of Remote Club
Full-Time Travel as a Digital Nomad Family of 5, Growing Up Without Borders
Jump right into my Awesome Interview Series videos on YouTube here – and please give it a thumbs up, leave comments and subscribe!
How Jason Moore Went From Zero to Travel (With Student Debt no Less)
When Jason graduated, he knew he wanted a travel lifestyle, despite societal pressure to get a stable job, buy a house, and generally keep up with the Joneses.
So he looked outside the box for jobs that would require him to travel. Lo and behold, he stumbled on “experiential marketing” and spent 10 years working in an industry that saw him constantly on the road, doing things like driving around the USA in a giant orange tabby cat-shaped van, and working as a tour manager for a famous indie rock band!
This was a fabulous way to get Jason on the road, but also with a steady paycheck that would allow him to pay down his debt and set himself up financially for his next move….
Which was to branch out on his own as a digital nomad freelancer. That worked out well, and when he was ready he transitioned from freelancing to being a digital entrepreneur and running multiple online businesses.
He spent a decade as a digital nomad (before such things were considered “cool”), and he continues to have a location independent career while living in Norway with his wife and two kids.
Jason’s online endeavours are all geared towards helping people realize their own location independent dreams. As a pioneer in the industry, he does this in a few ways:
First of all, he was podcasting before podcasts were en vogue. For many years now, Jason has been the voice behind the Zero to Travel Podcast, with over 7 million downloads and 500+ 5-star reviews.
He is also the co-founder of Location Indie; a community he started with his buddy Travis Sherry at a time when no platforms existed to connect location independent folk to share ideas and inspiration. That community has grown in many ways (from breadth of membership to what’s on offer), and is connected to ventures like the Paradise Pack and Lifestyle Launch Academy.
Watch my Interview With Jason Moore!
This jam-packed interview is full of advice and tips around the location independent lifestyle and different ways to achieve it.
Click here to watch it on YouTube, or watch below!
Jason’s Approach to the Location Independent Career and Lifestyle
Most people focus their efforts on their career first, and then find a way to make their career fit their dream lifestyle (and unfortunately it doesn’t often work). Jason flips the model on its head and encourages people to focus on their lifestyle dreams first, and then find and design a career that fits the bill.
In this interview, we talk about things like:
- The beauty of the travel lifestyle; if your priority is travel, it can take many forms.
- The travel culture in the USA the late 90s (for example taking a gap year was virtually unheard of).
- Experiential marketing and event marketing, and how it is an industry that pays you to travel!
- How you can scale a freelance business into an entrepreneurial venture with outsourcing.
How Location Independent is not Synonymous With Alone
While you might think that running a location independent career and lifestyle is isolating, it doesn’t have to be. Jason contends that spending time with like-minded people in-person is incredibly important, and is worth the effort. At Location Indie, they host in-person events like Camp Indie to connect members of their online community in person.
I’ll agree that the quality of my own online relationships and collaborations rose exponentially when I (finally) started attending conferences and networking events within my industry. Even my friendship with Jason was solidified when we met up in Boulder Colorado back in 2014.
We discuss:
- The importance of making connections at live events, and how Jason met his business partner at one such event (World Domination Summit).
- How Travis and Jason founded Location Indie during a 3-day shut-in in Ocean City during winter.
How to Transition to Location Independence
Jason’s businesses are all about the transition to location independence. From Zero to Travel for a dose of audio inspiration, to Location Indie for education, networking, and accountability – he has dedicated his entrepreneurial life to this cause. This was the greatest theme that our entire interview wove around. Here are some things we chatted about on this topic:
- The three different types of careers you can have whilst being location independent and the differences therein.
- How to transition to location independence, and how to avoid some of the common pitfalls that many people fall into.
- Why the best time to start your location independent lifestyle is when you have a full-time job.
- The wisdom in going location independent by first starting a side-hustle and leveraging your existing skills and contacts.
- How Jason went from having a steady job to freelancing to being an entrepreneur.
- How you can start a service business or freelance career in a day, as opposed to creating an e-commerce business from the ground up.
- Why your intended location makes a big difference when estimating how much money you need to be earning.
- Why it’s important to realize that the leap to becoming location independent will be uncomfortable and scary, no matter how well you’ve prepared for it.
The Most Important (and Overlooked) Elements of LI Lifestyle Design
I am a big proponent of the more esoteric elements of life that, on the surface, seem pretty cut and dry. For example, as a former financial planner, I used to set aside all the charts and graphs and investment prospectuses and instead I’d ask my clients what they wanted to do with their lives. My contention was that money won’t do you any good if you don’t know how it is going to help you live your best life.
Jason agrees. Here’s how this translates to location independent lifestyle design:
- The Triangle of Freedom (time, location/lifestyle, finance), and the requirement to zone in on one element at a time in order to really move forward.
- How Work-Life-Productivity + Travel is paradoxical.
- The importance of having a goal that informs your decisions and gives you the “why” to keep going.
- How the Lifestyle Launch Academy works, and how it specifically addresses elements that are commonly overlooked but are incredibly important.
- Why your business will fail if you can’t conquer the mental barriers.
- How it’s great to fantasize about the travel adventures you’ll have with a location independent career, but that the reality (and even the magic) of the lifestyle is in the day-to-day.
Click Here to watch my chat with Jason about all this and more!
