[00:00:00] Speaker 3: Is Africa one of the best kept secrets for remote workers? Right now? Today I sit down with Duncan Malcolm. He's a product manager who spent five years living and working full-time on a sailboat while traveling the Mediterranean. Now he runs a co-living space for digital nomads in Kenya. He breaks down the mental trap that keeps people stuck for years when they could leave tomorrow.

[00:00:24] Speaker 3: The one resume change that took him from getting ghosted to landing contracts. Back to back [00:00:30] Dunking Duncan Dunking kicks off the episode by telling a story of watching Castaway on his boat during a storm and realizing halfway through the movie that he was actually the one in real danger. By the end, you'll hear the one skill Duncan learned in Kenya that now gives them access to places most digital nomads will never see.

[00:00:55] Ryan Mellon: Welcome to Digital Nomad Nation, where we inspire and empower you to achieve location [00:01:00] independence and live life on your own terms. Today we have Duncan. Malcolm. Welcome Duncan.

[00:01:05] Duncan Malcolm: Thanks, Ryan.

[00:01:06] Ryan Mellon: for the listeners out there, we met in Bansko Bulgaria, where, uh, it's one of the coolest, digital nomad hotspots out there right now. So check it out, you, you were just telling me about a, uh, crazy story about watching Castaway Tell us a little bit about that and what happened.

[00:01:23] Duncan Malcolm: Yeah, so we, we were, we were, we were working remotely on, on a, on a sailing boat, on our boat. And, [00:01:30] um, we were doing a chang and shuffle, so we were. we were in Croatia just before it was in Schenghen, so that was, that was good for me. we were in a bay and I don't know why we decided to watch Castaway, but we've watched, started watching Castaway and as we were watching the movie, the weather outside started to rain, started to get like thunder and lightning.

[00:01:49] Duncan Malcolm: And so I'm just kind of watching the movie and it's like halfway through and it's getting like really intense and it's all like, it's all going wild and it's the same outside the boat. And it's like, okay, this is, this is great. Like what a. [00:02:00] What a perfect experience. We've got a good sand system on the boat as well, so it sounded like super real.

[00:02:05] Duncan Malcolm: And then just about halfway through, I just had this kind of. I had this, like I just knew, like we'd been on the boat for years and I just knew that the boat wasn't moving anymore. And I knew that that meant like we are a grand and this wind is blowing us onto the shore, and if we spend any like another minute watching this movie, that's it.

[00:02:22] Duncan Malcolm: We're gonna be doomed. So then I have to get outside the boat. Put on like put on a jacket, but it's like outside. There was like fast, [00:02:30] like super strong winds and rain and lightning and stuff. And I'm like, my wife's like struggling at a helm and we're trying to pull the boat and mo at the same time just to try and like inch it out of this like bay.

[00:02:42] Duncan Malcolm: Oh. It was just chaos man.

[00:02:44] Ryan Mellon: That is chaos man. And so, so did you guys, like, how were you guys feeling about this? Like, oh, I bet a little bit freaked out. Did it take you a long time to get the boat straight and like get the safety?

[00:02:56] Duncan Malcolm: I had like palpitations for like two [00:03:00] days. It was really, it was super stressful. We didn't, I think we moved on somewhere else that had better. That had better holding. We kind of knew that it was a bit average there, but we thought we, we thought we were solid. and it was, you know, it was a lovely bay.

[00:03:12] Duncan Malcolm: It was perfect for working. Like I've got a great photo of Camilla doing yoga with the boat in the background, and it was this like abandoned hotel. So we went for like a little adventure and flew the drone around and we're like, okay, this is perfect. We've got good 4G, good wifi, we can just sit here and work for a week or two.

[00:03:28] Duncan Malcolm: but yeah, then, then we realized why there's [00:03:30] signs saying like, no anchoring.

[00:03:32] Ryan Mellon: Oh, okay. So just ma, maybe not the best,like soil that, for anchoring there? Yeah. Or,

[00:03:41] Duncan Malcolm: Yeah, I think our anchors just doesn't work really well on some of like the, some of the hard packed, hard packed ground. I think that was one of the, that's been one of the challenges on the boat in Europe is just finding the right bays where you've got enough shelter to work and you know, having to like move around all the time.

[00:03:56] Duncan Malcolm: and you're also, you're like close enough to go and get to like a restaurant or [00:04:00] supermarket and shop and stuff, so yeah, that's definitely been been interesting.

[00:04:05] Ryan Mellon: Yeah, I can imagine. So you guys are working and living on a boat, traveling on a boat, but also traveling on by land as well. Like I said, we met in Bansko, and, and that's in Bulgaria. so like, take me back to the very beginning. Like what started your nomad journey? Like what was the catalyst?

[00:04:27] Duncan Malcolm: when I was just, after I finished university, I was kind of unemployed. [00:04:30] My cousin called me up and he was like, Hey, do you wanna do this hosting thing? And I was like, sure, I was, I was gonna start a food company at the time. And I was like, yeah, okay.

[00:04:39] Duncan Malcolm: I'll come down to London and do this it thing with you. And while we were doing that business, we met this, uh, or a friend of his, or I don't know how he, how he came across him. this guy called Nick. Um, Nick was, he's a super bright guy, brilliant coder. He's the kind of guy who literally can pick up any musical instrument and play it perfectly.

[00:04:58] Duncan Malcolm: We went, he was living in a [00:05:00] warehouse in London with a bunch of other arty guys. And, you know, he was, he was a bit eccentric, but he was a coder primarily. Well, that's how he, how he brought in, brought in money, and he was doing work for.

[00:05:12] Ryan Mellon: a computer coder.

[00:05:14] Duncan Malcolm: Like a, yeah, like a developer. Back in 2007, I think that's just when, not long after Ra Ruby on Rails was had kind of come out and it was kind of early, early tech scene.

[00:05:24] Duncan Malcolm: And, so he was, I, I, he, we, he was working for us, but he wasn't actually in our office and he [00:05:30] was basically, Like riding around the UK on a bike with a trailer and like a master he assembled and he would go and stay in these hippie communes and like do remote work and get paid. At the time what was quite a lot of money is like $400 a day.

[00:05:45] Duncan Malcolm: And so I was just like, how do I, how do I get that? I'm like, we're doing this startup and it's all cool, but I wanna do that. I wanna be like, I wanna be on the bike, you know, doing stuff, traveling around and, but I mean, it was,

[00:05:58] Ryan Mellon: is a like a motorbike. [00:06:00] a motorbike, A bicycle bi, like actual

[00:06:03] Duncan Malcolm: like a pushbike. Yeah. Like he was going, like he would, he would go and stay in hippie communes and, he still, I think he still does, he's, he started like a full open source project about how to can, like a collaborate, open source collaboration tool for people doing social initiatives called Carrot World.

[00:06:20] Duncan Malcolm: so he is still, I think he's still living it. so it's like an o for me. He was like the OG nomad. I was like, I've never seen this before. This is so cool.[00:06:30]

[00:06:30] Ryan Mellon: Yeah. 'cause what, what year was this? Probably.

[00:06:33] Duncan Malcolm: 2007, 2008.

[00:06:35] Ryan Mellon: Way before digital nomad was a thing. So he, he kind of inspired you. So then like, how did, so after you met this guy and you saw what he was doing, like, how did it unfold for you to, to get where you are today? Like building businesses, traveling on the boat and flying places too.

[00:06:56] Ryan Mellon: Like all over.

[00:06:57] Duncan Malcolm: Yeah, sounds great on paper, doesn't it? [00:07:00] the. I think, yeah, so I, I did the startup thing with my cousin. I mean, we were super young. We were like 23. we didn't have any support. This, we didn't have any funding, so we didn't have any like advisors or anyone sensible around us. And so, you know, after about 18 months we fell out.

[00:07:15] Duncan Malcolm: We like in a screaming match. I ran out the office and I was like, we're breaking up. And, I did a few jobs after that, but ultimately I just kind of fell on my face. and I ended up having to move back in with my mom. Uh, who at the time was moving out of her house? She'd [00:07:30] just retired. so I spent a year at her place.

[00:07:33] Duncan Malcolm: and it was just about the time. Mixer G had come out. There's a guy called Andrew Warner. He was doing interviews with, entrepreneurs. And so I literally spent a year just watching his videos and watching any and every course I could. 'cause I was like, I don't wanna do this commercial business development stuff that I'm doing now.

[00:07:49] Duncan Malcolm: I want to get out of it and do something else. Because I knew that sales was like not gonna work for me. I just had to find. Another, any, any other career. and I'd done quite a lot of marketing stuff. So it's like, okay, I'm gonna get good at this [00:08:00] marketing stuff, tried to get good at email marketing and getting autoresponders and all that.

[00:08:05] Duncan Malcolm: Kind of like relatively early at that time stuff. and I moved back to London after a year and like got a job. Brand. I somehow got a job through one of my brother's friends, started doing like one day a week remote work for them. and you know, and then that turned into like two days a week and three days a week.

[00:08:24] Duncan Malcolm: And it kind of grew. And eventually I was doing marketing work for them. And then they wanted to build some apps [00:08:30] and I didn't know anything about building software, but I knew Nick, so Nick helped me build the first version of the software they wanted, and then we kind of did a load of other stuff and just, just kept going.

[00:08:41] Duncan Malcolm: And that was my first kind of remote work experience, um, because that job. I actually ended up going remote with that client. I said to the guys like, I wanna go live in Spain and I want to take two interns with me to do your marketing in Spain. So we moved to Salobreña. I rented a house and an apartment. I hired two [00:09:00] interns from the UK who came with me and we ran.

[00:09:04] Duncan Malcolm: We tried to run a marketing agency remotely in Spain for this client in the uk. It was, it was a catastrophe.

[00:09:12] Ryan Mellon: Oh

[00:09:13] Duncan Malcolm: It was, it was an absolute disaster. because I, I hadn't figured out that the most important thing was like, really great people. I just hired two journalist interns and they were lovely, and I'm sure they've had great careers since, since they worked for us.

[00:09:26] Duncan Malcolm: But, they, they had no experience. Like they were [00:09:30] on day zero and, So, you know, it, it inevitably failed. and I ended up, ended up, back, back in the same position. And so I, I basically realized that I needed to figure out what it was that I wanted to do, and I kind of just went methodically. I took a spreadsheet, I wrote down every single job that I thought I might be able to do.

[00:09:52] Duncan Malcolm: In one column and then in the other columns I just dropped in, like, what's my interest in this thing? How much experience do I have in here? Like, how [00:10:00] realistic would it be for me to even get a job? and how travel able is this like how much can I actually travel around with this job? And there's stuff in there that I wanted to be able to do, but I couldn't, like being developer, I'm a bit dyslexic and I did start trying to program Ruby after I finished with my cousin, but like.

[00:10:16] Duncan Malcolm: Syntax for me was just like overwhelming. Like I find it difficult to figure out a way to put the full stops in the and in English. So doing it in code was was really tough. and it just kind of nailed down two to two jobs and it was either. Be a [00:10:30] project manager or be a product manager, and I knew a project manager was probably better for to the remote work because I was like, there's loads of project managers.

[00:10:39] Duncan Malcolm: You don't really do need to know anything about the work you're doing. And you can go in and do a six month project and then you can go travel for a bit and then you can go back and do another three month project and travel for. I did a project, I got through a sailing friend from a sailing club, got a job and did three months project management gig, working for a, for a government department in the uk and [00:11:00] I hated it.

[00:11:00] Duncan Malcolm: It was one of the worst projects I've ever worked on, and so I was like, okay, I can't do the project management thing. It's, it's too much. But product management I had some experience in from doing the software thing and so then I just kinda hustled to try and get like any job I could and I. And I didn't get any jobs.

[00:11:17] Duncan Malcolm: like I put my CV out. I just kept hammering and hammering and hammering, and I got nowhere. And I eventually hired a CV writing agency in London, and I had like an hour call with a recruiter [00:11:30] or the agency. They rewrote my CV and, um, pretty much straight away. After I started sending that out, I started getting interviews.

[00:11:40] Duncan Malcolm: So I think whatever I put on my CV to start with was just terrible.so got a professional in, got a job at an agency, got a, like a really, like at London Ad Agency, so they were really like, really big clients, like mediacom and Microsoft and all that stuff. and it was super intense and it didn't last long.

[00:11:57] Duncan Malcolm: Eventually they were like, you're not a good fit for what we [00:12:00] do. but it gave me the brand names and once I had those brand names on my cv, I sent the same CV out, updated again. Then just kept getting contracts and contracts and contracts and contracts. yeah, and then I kind of knew that. I was like, okay, well now, now I have the freedom.

[00:12:13] Duncan Malcolm: Now I can come and do a contract and leave.

[00:12:15] Ryan Mellon: Yeah. So take me back to that manager role, that project manager role that you did for the government. Like what did that consist of? Because I think a lot of people listening might think, think like a, a government project [00:12:30] management job. It's not something that's gonna be easily done remotely. So I'm a little bit curious to dig into that a little more.

[00:12:37] Duncan Malcolm: So it wasn't that I could do it remotely, it was more that I could, what I figured is that I didn't think, I mean this was obviously pre COVID, so a lot has changed since then. But I figured that if I can get a job where I can just do short stints and then travel a bit, then that'll give me. They'll get me halfway there because then I can come and do like a short project, earn some money [00:13:00] over three months.

[00:13:00] Duncan Malcolm: 'cause contracting in the UK you get paid pretty well. And then I can go and do some traveling and then I, so I was like, I'll do three months work, three months travel,

[00:13:10] Ryan Mellon: Yeah, so, okay. So basically just grinding out some in-person work, getting a chunk of money, and then, going, traveling and then come back, find a new project, kind of was what your thought process was.

[00:13:21] Duncan Malcolm: Yeah, and I think like, so this is like a common thing that London taxi drivers did at the time. I'm sure they still do. So it was pretty common for London [00:13:30] taxi drivers to do like three to six months work in London, and then they'd go and live in Greece for three to six months and then they'd come back and then they would just rent their taxi to someone else.

[00:13:39] Duncan Malcolm: so it was

[00:13:39] Ryan Mellon: Interesting. That's cool. I, I've heard they make pretty good money there in London,

[00:13:44] Duncan Malcolm: Yeah. Yeah. Black cabs do pretty well. It's very hard to get become, to become a black taxi driver. You have to do the knowledge. And the knowledge is like this super intense by memory test of every single side street and back street in London. So.

[00:13:58] Ryan Mellon: Okay. Yeah, [00:14:00] so it's a, it's an elite group of, uh, Uber drivers over there. Right.

[00:14:05] Duncan Malcolm: Well, yeah, they're not big on the, they're not big fans of Uber.

[00:14:08] Ryan Mellon: Oh, I know. I, there, there, if anyone's listening that's, in that field, they're, I'm sure they're already mad at me for even comparing them to that, but just joking of course. So, so having someone, a professional rewrite your CV sounded like a, a bit of a game changer, and I think maybe a lot of people wouldn't think about [00:14:30] that.

[00:14:30] Ryan Mellon: Like, you know, they. I've had coaching clients that like, I'm not getting anything. I'm not getting anything. And I'm like, well, send me your cv. And I look at it and it does look terrible. It's just arranged, wrong. It doesn't highlight some of their best skills for the job. It's too long. It now you have to, even, it, it's gotta be readable by human and ai.

[00:14:53] Ryan Mellon: Right. It, it, so it's gotten even more challenging because it goes through AI first before it [00:15:00] ever, gets into a human's hands. So you have to kind of look at both of those things. So where did you find this CV person to help you, like rewrite your cv?

[00:15:10] Duncan Malcolm: I, I just, I think I just looked it online. I had previous, I think while I was at university, I'd done some coaching about, like some interview coaching at university in Birmingham. And so I was like aware of the idea that I could hire someone to give me some support to make me move forwards. And I just [00:15:30] Googled, like I, I dunno, I dunno, I can't even remember how I came across the, the concept, but I found the company, I think they're still around.

[00:15:36] Duncan Malcolm: They're called, they were called City cv. And, I had a call with this. I, I, it wasn't super expensive either. It was probably the best 200 quid I've ever spent, from a return on investment perspective. But the, I had a call with a guy who was a recruiter, so previous, in his previous work, he'd been a recruitment consultant and agencies and stuff.

[00:15:56] Duncan Malcolm: And he was now doing this coaching stuff, coaching work. so he just, [00:16:00] he just quizzed me on my CV for like a solid, Solid hour. he went through every single job in my CV and he just asked me like a ton of questions on every single one.

[00:16:10] Duncan Malcolm: I guess he was taking notes or recording it, I dunno. And then two days later he sent me a new CV and it was.

[00:16:17] Ryan Mellon: Magic.

[00:16:17] Duncan Malcolm: completely, yeah, it was completely different. I'd say it was a little bit over exaggerated in some areas, so I kind of pulled back a few things that were maybe a little bit over exaggerated for me.

[00:16:28] Duncan Malcolm: But like, he obviously was [00:16:30] in, he'd worked in the industry so he was probably, seemed to be happy enough. And,

[00:16:34] Ryan Mellon: No, I.

[00:16:35] Ryan Mellon: and I sent it out and just, I went and I think I went from like 50 to a hundred to one in responses to like 10 to one, five to one. That's significant. And just thinking outside of the box and just like hiring that one guy to do, like, you know, give you a second opinion. And that made a huge difference. And you know, just for those, 'cause a lot of'em, my listeners are [00:17:00] American, so cv we call them resumes here, so just to give some context, but I think it's really, uh, good.

[00:17:07] Ryan Mellon: Idea, like when you're just struggling.in one place on something specific like that. Like nowadays, you can go to Fiverr or Upwork and just hire a professional and like get help to that next level. So I think that that was really smart of you, and seems like it was pretty pivotal to getting you into something that was more remote friendly.[00:17:30]

[00:17:30] Ryan Mellon: So take us to like, what you're doing today, like what's your work like today and what, what's, what's happening with you now?

[00:17:38] Duncan Malcolm: Yeah, so I mean, after all that work, I met my wife in London and, she was a teacher, so she wasn't really remote work at the time. And, uh, she's, she was teaching physics in high school and, she wasn't really enjoying it. London Central ci, big city high schools, I think in any, in the US and the UK for sure.

[00:17:54] Duncan Malcolm: Anyway, they're not the, they're not the most friendly places, especially like the public schools and, [00:18:00] So she wasn't enjoying that, but she did a degree in astrophysics and model literature. And I remember being, you know, like in a taxi with her, you know, a another night where she was just like tearing into like, she didn't like what she was doing.

[00:18:11] Duncan Malcolm: And I was like, just, just stop. Just, I'm working right now. You go and retrain. And she's like, what can I do? What can I do? I was like, you've got a degree in physics. You can definitely become a programmer.so she, she did that. She retrained, she became a coder. She, you know, I think that whole process took about three or four years for her to get first [00:18:30] few jobs, then get into contracting, and then get to the point where she was senior enough to be able to kinda dictate terms a bit better.

[00:18:36] Duncan Malcolm: And then during that time, we realized that, I think we already knew that we didn't wanna live in the uk. We wanted to get out the uk. She had grown up in Africa. I had grown up in Europe and I, we were both just, we, we'd had enough of London, like we'd been, I'd been there for about 10, 12 years and she'd been there for five.

[00:18:52] Duncan Malcolm: So we were like, it's time to get out. so we bought a boat. It was just like the most obvious thing to do, like it was by accident. We went on a. [00:19:00] We went down to see this boat in the isle of white, and the guy who was selling it to us just kept dropping the price and, he just kept dropping $10,000, $10,000, $10,000 until we, we were both looking at each other going like, well.

[00:19:13] Duncan Malcolm: You've gotta buy it because it's just like, 'cause he knew he needed to get rid of it and he hadn't had any viewings, I don't think. And it was, it was totally like, it was totally torn apart. Like the person had been refitting it

[00:19:25] Ryan Mellon: Okay.

[00:19:26] Duncan Malcolm: like, so like all the cupboards were out, all the stuff, like all the stuff was outside of the [00:19:30] boat, not in it.

[00:19:31] Ryan Mellon: And so he knew he just needed to get rid of this to anyone. so we bought it and we were like, okay, we're gonna buy this boat and then we're gonna fix it up and then we're gonna sail around the world and work remotely on it. So you're like, we gotta get outta London. We don't like it here. You know, Camilla was. Into something new. She's coding now so she could work remotely. Right. most people that are gonna leave a big city don't just be like, don't, don't normally just go like, all right, well, the way to [00:20:00] leave the city is to buy a boat.

[00:20:02] Ryan Mellon: And get in it and sail around the world. So give us some context there. What, how did that decision come about, the boating thing? Had you been sailing previously growing up? Like where, where did that come from to for that to be your escape plan?

[00:20:20] Duncan Malcolm: Yeah, so we, I had sailed prison since I, since I was a little, little kid since I was about 12. And then when I moved to London, I wanted to go sailing with people, [00:20:30] but the only sailing clubs at the time were really posh, like very yuppie sailing clubs. And I went to one of the boat shows and met some of them and they were just, and I'd been to a very posh school, but I was like, I don't, that's not the people I wanna go sailing with.

[00:20:43] Duncan Malcolm: I just want, I wanna go sailing with normal people, share a boat and go for a couple of beers on a weekend. So I started my own sailing club. And, I literally printed flyers and start giving out flyers in Central London, and I was like 24. And over time we started this club, and that's actually how I found that government [00:21:00] job through one of the guys in the club.

[00:21:01] Duncan Malcolm: And, and then, and then, yeah, so I was, I was sailing like every, every year, I don't know, five, six times. Five, six weekends and running trips abroad. So I was like comfortable sailing and. My partner had kind of got into it through me and she enjoyed it. She thought it was a good laugh, and we kind of talked about like sailing around the world.

[00:21:21] Duncan Malcolm: Like she really liked that idea. And we both kind of locked onto this idea of like, let's get, let's go sailing around the world. And I remember being on a [00:21:30] boat. They ran the ILE race, which is like something like 2000 boats raced around the ILE of white in any, whatever the conditions are on that day. And on that day they were horrendous.

[00:21:40] Duncan Malcolm: It was like big waves and windy and it wasn't raining, but it wasn't like, it wasn't friendly. And we had, I think we had eight people on the boat including us and. By the time we'd got an hour in or two hours into the race and we were coming up to the first big corner where it gets a bit wavy. Everyone was down below.

[00:21:58] Duncan Malcolm: There was, they'd all gone down. They were [00:22:00] all throwing up downstairs. And me and, uh, me and Camilla were upstairs. We had a bottle of Prosecco in one hand and helm in the other hand. And we were singing like three green bottles sitting on a wall. And Kim goes like, is it gonna be like this when we go sailing around the world?

[00:22:15] Duncan Malcolm: And I was like, I, I hope it's not this bad, but like sure, like we can do this for the next couple of years. No problem. Um, so I think we already, I think we already had that like idea of like, this could be a great thing to [00:22:30] do. and I think we, we were looking at boats online a bit. They're not really, seriously, we didn't have any money.

[00:22:36] Duncan Malcolm: Like I think between us we had about $5,000.So when we went to see this boat and the guy dropped the price, we were both working at the time. So we, we had the money coming in, we just didn't have the money in our hands. So we went online and got some, like a bunch of unsecured loans pre-approved, and then we just pressed the buttons all at the same time.

[00:22:56] Duncan Malcolm: And three out of the four loans came in. That paid for most of the [00:23:00] boats. We were able to pay the rest of it like a month later when we got paid. And then we had a boat. Like it's,

[00:23:06] Ryan Mellon: Nice.

[00:23:08] Duncan Malcolm: yeah, it was a bit crazy. We didn't, I mean, we didn't have anywhere tomorrow. It, we, the, the whole thing was just like, it was

[00:23:14] Ryan Mellon: yeah, just figuring it out one step at a time. But yeah, no like telling the understanding how you guys were doing some sailing for fun previously and growing up sailing, um, definitely makes more sense for the escape plan to be, a boat. [00:23:30] And so you guys fix up the boat. You did, I imagine you did a lot of the work yourself, and then when did you start like actually traveling in the boat?

[00:23:40] Duncan Malcolm: Almost straight away because we, we couldn't afford to pay the A apart the rent in our apartment anymore. So we had to move, we had to get the boat in the water as soon as we possibly could find the cheapest marina, but that still had a train line into London so we could get to work and. Start commuting and living on the [00:24:00] boat.

[00:24:00] Duncan Malcolm: And so we did that in one place for, until we had enough stuff on it that we could move around a bit in like basic, we had like a, like a project list of stuff from the most important thing to the least. But in that three years when we were fixing up, we started living remotely on the boat because COVID hit.

[00:24:17] Duncan Malcolm: Um, we lived on the boat during COVID, so that was our, like our first full remote on the boat. Time. so we lived lit literally in a river in outside of London. and then we just kind of potted around the UK just [00:24:30] like as we were getting different things done. 'cause we left like the most expensive stuff to the last, so like.

[00:24:35] Duncan Malcolm: Buying a load of lithium batteries, which was like, and all the electrical stuff that was like three or $4,000. So we were like, okay, well let's leave the most expensive bits at the end, like, you know, new, new rigging or whatever. I think we had to buy new sales. 'cause they were literally just like, even though they were trying to sew them back together, they were, they were falling apart.

[00:24:52] Duncan Malcolm: But,

[00:24:52] Ryan Mellon: Super expensive.

[00:24:54] Duncan Malcolm: yeah. Well you have to do it once, right?

[00:24:57] Ryan Mellon: Yeah. Yeah. At least.

[00:24:59] Duncan Malcolm: At [00:25:00] least. Yeah. And then we just, so yeah, we, we would then start to live on the boat. Just, we were full time for, from then on, for about five years. started in the uk. We started in the east of the uk. We did some time around the east coast of the uk, sailed there and then we sailed all the way around and just stopped in places that we liked.

[00:25:20] Duncan Malcolm: So, you know, like we spent like two or three months around the idle white and just anchored just anywhere around there. And that area's lovely. I mean it's, it's kind of like the Fort Lauderdale. Of the [00:25:30] UK for sailing. So you've got like loads of regattas happening and nice posh pubs and all the rest of it.

[00:25:35] Duncan Malcolm: But we were just, we're on the anchor. We put a big 4G antenna on the A 4G outdoor, router on the back of the boat. So we were just sitting there happily working away with our solar panels and stuff, and then dinging in to go and. To, you know, to get to a nice butcher or whatever. I think that was like the main things, like is there a good pub that does good food and is there a nice butcher nearby where we can get like some marada meat to put on the barbecue grill?

[00:25:59] Duncan Malcolm: and then we just kept [00:26:00] doing that all the way down the coast until we got to Plymouth.then we got hit by another COVID lockdown thing. I think we spent the winter in Plymouth. And then the next summer we, we left, we went up, we did a little bit of a training run with some crew, and then we sailed nonstop from Plymouth to Marbella in Spain.

[00:26:19] Duncan Malcolm: And then we just dotted around the Mediterranean. same setup. So we had, I think.

[00:26:24] Ryan Mellon: I.

[00:26:25] Duncan Malcolm: I don't know if we had starlink by that point or if it was out yet, but the [00:26:30] 4G was great. Like we could, like, I think people think about living and sailing and working on a boat that you're gonna be like, like it's gonna be like a storm and you're sitting there coding or whatever.

[00:26:39] Duncan Malcolm: But that's really not what happened. You know, you do like a few days of sailing, you find a nice bay with hopefully some nice neighbors. You drop the anchor and you spend three weeks there like just not moving. So, um, so we just did that.

[00:26:52] Ryan Mellon: That's awesome. Yeah, I've spent some time on a friend's boat, a couple friends' boats down in The Bahamas. and the first [00:27:00] time was during COVID and there wasn't starlink really, available. And we were all working on just like sim cards on our cell phones. And I did that for a whole month, just floating in The Bahamas.

[00:27:12] Ryan Mellon: During the middle of lockdown and, just working remotely. And it was perfectly fine. You know, you have to move the boat every once in a while, to take on water or, empty out your tanks and stuff. But other than that, it, it was, it was awesome. You know, it was a great place to be during COVID.

[00:27:29] Duncan Malcolm: we loved it. I [00:27:30] mean, I, and I still love it. Like we, we were in, we spent about a month and a half in Iha. We then went to Sardinia. We spent about eight months in Sardinia. Uh, we went to Greece, spent time in Greece, Albania, Croatia, Croatia, where that, like that storm situation happened. And then more time in Greece.

[00:27:50] Duncan Malcolm: but it was during all that, like, unfortunately during that whole, this whole project, Brexit happened and I am currently British. My partner's Dutch, and so we [00:28:00] got stuck. I think we were, we were stuck somewhere. We were in Italy and I'd ran out of, uh, I was running out of days to, to stay Shenghen and.

[00:28:09] Duncan Malcolm: Again, a little bit like the boat. We didn't really have like a plan, but Camilla was born in Kenya, so we were like, okay, let's, let's fly to Kenya 'cause we've got time now for a winter. Let's do three months in Kenya. Then we go to Tanzania and travel around a bit. I was terrified 'cause I was like, is there gonna be internet there?

[00:28:26] Duncan Malcolm: Is there power? There is as just like this is a bit wild. [00:28:30] We went there and I was like, worst case scenario, I'll come back next week and I can always go and work in, I can go to Bansko or something. and it was great. So we spent I think three months in, in Kenya, living and working on the coast. And then we went to Zanzibar for like a couple of weeks.

[00:28:48] Duncan Malcolm: I think we were there for, I think we cut Zanzibar a bit short 'cause the internet wasn't that great. But it was, while I was there, I met a guy called Mo at a random nomad Facebook meetup group. [00:29:00] And so I went there, had a couple of beers with him and three or four other people and, started chatting to him.

[00:29:07] Duncan Malcolm: And then during that week, I think, or during the two weeks we meet, met up for a few more dinners. 'cause he was just there on his own. So we had grabbed some food and a beer. And while I was chatting to me, he was like, well, have you ever been to Bansko? you know, you should go and, you know, if you're not, if you've never been go there.

[00:29:23] Duncan Malcolm: And I didn't really think about it much after that. We went back, we went sailing, we did more touring around Europe and [00:29:30] stuff. but when the, when I was running out days again after having bounced around a few countries. we're like, oh, where did that guy say we should go in Bulgaria? got in touch with him.

[00:29:38] Duncan Malcolm: He was like, you need to go and stay Avalon. You need to go and meet these people here. Go and stay. Just call this guy, tell him I sent you. It'll all be fine. And it was, it was great. Like, uh, you know, we came here, we met loads of really nice people. and, you know, and the kind of the rest is history. So Bansko ended up being one of our like little hubs that we, you know, that we base ourselves out [00:30:00] of.

[00:30:00] Duncan Malcolm: and it is kind of handy, right? 'cause it's next to the med. So it's good for Greece. I can get to Kenya. so it kind of ties all together. but yeah, it's, it's been a bit wild. and during that trip we kind of made that decision to try and start a business in Kenya. 'cause we were living in this resort, which is like a kite resort and we're like, oh my God, this place, everything, it's got everything except co-living.

[00:30:19] Duncan Malcolm: And we're like, alright, let's go ahead and go a co-living. I, I'm not sure if it's a decision I regret yet. I would say it's been a lot hard, well, it's been what, like three or four years now, but [00:30:30] I would say it's been a lot harder than I. Than I first anticipated, and I've made all the same mistakes that I did when I was doing that agency stuff right at the beginning, which is I hired a bunch of people who didn't have the right experience because I didn't know how to hire people.

[00:30:44] Duncan Malcolm: Like I didn't know how to be a manager or how to run a business properly. Like I could hire an engineer, or I could hire a product person, but I didn't know how to hire like a chef or like an operations manager or like a, like all that

[00:30:56] Ryan Mellon: that have.

[00:30:56] Duncan Malcolm: wild.

[00:30:57] Ryan Mellon: Yeah. Hiring people that have skills that you [00:31:00] don't really have or you've never done

[00:31:01] Duncan Malcolm: Or I can't

[00:31:02] Ryan Mellon: it's, it's different. Yeah.

[00:31:04] Duncan Malcolm: Yeah. And I have no way to figure out if they're good or not, or they're gonna be good. And I've got no, had no sense of, of how it was gonna work. So I'd say it's been wildly difficult. but also like great as well. Like I've learned a lot. I, I can now, I can have, build stuff like the, I think the biggest thing before we did the stuff in Kenya.

[00:31:22] Duncan Malcolm: Was that we, I'd built like a garden shed with my cousin in his back garden. And now we've built like container houses and [00:31:30] like full plumbing and now, and, and the crazy thing is when I now go back to the boat and I've got a problem on the boat, which before I'd have been like, oh my God, this is a huge problem.

[00:31:39] Duncan Malcolm: Now I'm just like, oh, this is a tiny problem. It take me five minutes. Like, let's drill through here. Let's cut this stuff off. So it is completely changed my perspective, in a good way. Like I, I feel like I've learned some new skills.

[00:31:50] Ryan Mellon: It sounds like it. Yeah, absolutely. So tell us a little bit about, more about the co-living. Like where is it, what's it like? What do you guys offer for other [00:32:00] nomads? What's the experience?

[00:32:02] Duncan Malcolm: Yeah, so I kind of was looking for, I've had this, like, I don't really tell people this, but I've had this kind of long, ever since my mom moved out, Brussels always had this insecurity about not having somewhere to live, like not having a home. And I, I, yeah. Not having a home base. Yeah. Not having a like, or like an apartment I own or a house that I own, just living on a boat.

[00:32:24] Duncan Malcolm: You get quite this, this quite transient situation. Boat also is not really an appreciating asset. Usually [00:32:30] it's a bit risky, it might sink. so I've always had that kind of fear and that's what we were trying to set up in Kenya was just like a, a home base. So we, we try to do everything to make it as, as nice as possible.

[00:32:42] Duncan Malcolm: So we set up rooms with on suite bathrooms that weren't like plugged onto each other so that, you know, people can sleep properly and air conditioned and nice mattresses, just like all the stuff that you, that you want when you're living somewhere and a gym and a coworking and internet that works. Just like, [00:33:00] just, just a base that is just a hub that you can use as a, as a place to stay.

[00:33:05] Duncan Malcolm: and I think we're more or less there, with, with all the infrastructure and the rooms and the people, we're about to move it all. So that's gonna be completely wild. Next year we're removing the whole thing, 10 kilometers down the road. But, it's built out of containers so. Hopefully it'll be like Lego. but I like the location. Like I, I was into kite surfing. The idea for me was I wanted a place where I could go kite surfing, and it seemed a little bit like the boat. It just seemed [00:33:30] like, oh, this is a thing. Let's do this thing. so, so we did.

[00:33:33] Ryan Mellon: That's awesome. And you are probably one of the only co-working, co-living in that area, right?

[00:33:40] Duncan Malcolm: I think we're the only permanent one. We were one of the first in East Africa and we're definitely the only like physical building, co-living. there are like people who are doing retreats and there's a couple of those that have started up and they're getting more and more, which is great. Like it's about like my partner went to [00:34:00] Athens Nomad Fest.

[00:34:01] Duncan Malcolm: A couple of weeks ago, and that's a completely different crowd to the Bansko crowd. And 90% of them hadn't even, it didn't even cross their mind that they could go to Africa and go and remote work from Africa. They, they're like, this is wild. I can be in the same time zone and I can, you know, and I can remote work in a, you know, outside of Schenghen or, you know, just somewhere else that's not cold for the winter.

[00:34:23] Duncan Malcolm: so I think it's, it's just a new place. and it's a bit wild. Like it's a bit wild west. It's. You know, [00:34:30] like Southeast Asia is very well, a very well trodden path. Like the banana pancake trail and all that stuff is like super well established. It's been going on since, you know, 20, 30, 40 years. Um, longer, like since the sixties, right?

[00:34:43] Duncan Malcolm: So.

[00:34:44] Ryan Mellon: sixties before, no, before when they were just nomads, not digital noad.

[00:34:49] Duncan Malcolm: Yeah, there were just nom mattering around and you know, like hippie off and, um, so yeah, there's a, there's a lot of that now in, in Africa where it's just, it's just all new. So we have [00:35:00] had people who come there to, to Africa or to Skippers or to wherever, and they're very kind of like, they're. The majority of people are, they're up for the adventure and they can live with it, but there is a small percentage who come and they're just like, this is a bit too much.

[00:35:13] Duncan Malcolm: Like, there's not enough established Starbucks coffee shops here, and it's freaking me out. so like it's, I think it's like for the, for the adventure spirited people, they can,

[00:35:25] Ryan Mellon: Yeah, it's not for beginners. And I think you told me when we were talking [00:35:30] about this over drinks at in Bansko, you said, you know, if you like camping, you're gonna love, Africa. Like, but if you don't like camping, it's gonna be a little bit more difficult for you.

[00:35:42] Duncan Malcolm: Yeah, I had a call this week with, yeah, I think that that's, that's essentially it. Like if you can, if you can live with camping, if you can deal with, The ad hocness or like a bit of rough living or things that are just unexpected and go wrong every so often because there's no planning. Like in [00:36:00] Europe, everything's super organized and there's a plan and everything's really organized step by step by step.

[00:36:04] Duncan Malcolm: Like in Africa, there's no plan, like people don't plan. There's just like, everyone's just living day to day. 'cause that's just how things work. Like it's just like this is, this is what's happening next. And it's, it's great for a nomad 'cause you can just. Go anywhere you like. You don't need to really make up a plan.

[00:36:20] Duncan Malcolm: You can get a bust from here to there. There's no, like, there'll be some tickets, but like the chances of it being fully booked is, you know, usually quite low. so you can, you [00:36:30] can ad hoc it quite, quite easily if you've got that kind of, uh, adventure.

[00:36:35] Ryan Mellon: And, and what's one of the top adventure things to do there? I know that you and Camilla ride, like motorbikes, like off-roading, motorbikes a lot, like at all over the place. Is that a top thing, for you there around your co-living?

[00:36:50] Duncan Malcolm: for me it is. I th and I thought a lot more people would be into it, but I've found that it's very small percentage. Most people want to come and do a safari and [00:37:00] see all the animals and, you know, see, you know, elephants and giraffes and lions and cheetahs, and, and most people go and do, do that, and they'd get that out of it.

[00:37:10] Duncan Malcolm: but I think you, I think the people who really have, like, I occasionally find a person or a couple who, who get like wild adventures and um. There was a couple who came and stayed with us this year, Jake and Eloise, and they had a wild adventure so they came and stayed with us for a bit. they rented a [00:37:30] motorbike from like the guy opposite us.

[00:37:32] Duncan Malcolm: We lent her, Eloise a bike 'cause she's a little bit shorter. And they went on this like wild af after having got their work sorted out 'cause they're freelancing. They went on this mad bike trip where they just toured all of East African countries and just went everywhere. And, that that's the kind of nice thing that you can do.

[00:37:50] Duncan Malcolm: You just get on a bike and just ride out and find new towns and new places. And that's why I kinda say like, if you like camping, you, you'll love Africa because [00:38:00] you can, you can just find places to stay and they're gonna be a bit rough and ready. They'll probably be internet. There'll probably be power.

[00:38:08] Duncan Malcolm: As long as you've got a power bank, you'll be fine. but if you can rough and ready it, then you can really get the most outta it. Like anyone can come and stay at a nice co-living or go and stay at a nice place in Nairobi or wherever, or like, you know, go down to Cape Town and live in service departments.

[00:38:22] Duncan Malcolm: That's not really like the, the full, you're not, you're getting like a really thin slice of the overall experience, like the people [00:38:30] who, who really get the full rich, deep culture get in there. Now, while, while it's still, I mean, Africa's still tribal, right? There's still. You can go into the middle of the bush in Kenya and there's like farmers and kids like everywhere.

[00:38:43] Duncan Malcolm: Like you can't, you can just ride for a hundred miles and you'll just find random people just living their lives. and it's not gonna be like that forever. Like eventually it will. Change. People will move into cities. Everything that's happened in Europe and the, you know, other parts of the world will, will happen in, in Africa and [00:39:00] are happening quickly.

[00:39:01] Duncan Malcolm: Like the, the speed and pace of development is, is rapid. so what is there now will not always be there, but the people who go out and see it there, like Jake and Eloise, they're the ones who get the, the, the real full experience. 'cause they can. And you don't have to do it on a motorbike, you can do it on a bus.

[00:39:18] Duncan Malcolm: Right. There's informal bus networks all across the continent. There's like, as long as you've got a valid passport and some cash, you know anything's possible.

[00:39:26] Ryan Mellon: Sounds like a lot of adventure.

[00:39:29] Duncan Malcolm: yeah. It's, it's, there's [00:39:30] a lot of adventure.

[00:39:31] Ryan Mellon: Definitely. So tell me what is something that you wish you knew before you started this journey?

[00:39:39] Duncan Malcolm: I could have started sooner, I think I had, we had this, we had this debt on the boat and we were living in the UK and we had this thing in our head that we had to stay in the uk. If we didn't stay in the uk, we wouldn't be able to find jobs or we wouldn't be able to keep our jobs or, and this was like a big thing like, 'cause we wanted to leave like at [00:40:00] least two years before we did.

[00:40:01] Duncan Malcolm: And it was really stressful and sad and like depressing to be like so close to being able to leave. But also so far, and I think we could have. What we realized as soon as we left the UK is that we should have done it. Like at that moment when we were like, fuck it, let's just get on and go out. Let's, we should have done it.

[00:40:22] Duncan Malcolm: Like we should

[00:40:23] Ryan Mellon: Just left the country right away and just,

[00:40:26] Duncan Malcolm: Yeah. We were really worried, we were terrified about paying off this debt and stuff and I think [00:40:30] we'd paid off. I think, you know, after, after 18 months we paid off at least half of it, so it wasn't like overly burdensome, but we just had this like mental block in our

[00:40:39] Ryan Mellon: Just like

[00:40:39] Ryan Mellon: we could have just sailed across the channel and lived in France for six months or three months and see how it worked out. And if it didn't work, sail back. Like, I think we, we just had this like overly ground picture of what we wanted to do, and we could have done a much smaller step to test it.

[00:40:54] Duncan Malcolm: And it wouldn't have hurt that badly, even if it went wrong. Like we could have gone to the net, we could have sailed the boat across to [00:41:00] the Netherlands. There's loads of places to anchor and hang out there. It's friendly, easygoing. Easy flights back home and stuff. Like, we should have done that. And then we would've known very quickly that actually we can just keep this adventure going.

[00:41:14] Duncan Malcolm: but I think we were just, we were just kinda set on like this, we, we, we preset a path and we, we probably could have been more flexible with it.

[00:41:22] Ryan Mellon: I hear that a lot from guests and also like when I'm, when I have clients, you know, they always have some, some sort of hangup that's not [00:41:30] really a hangup if, if you talk it through and you figure it out and like I always tell 'em like, you get know, go on a test run. Just take one month or two months or three months and maybe you don't even leave your home country.

[00:41:40] Ryan Mellon: Like if you're in the States, you can just go on a road trip. they're so big, you know? Or you could get a boat and do the boat life thing and just go up and down the coast. The inner coastal waterways, it's pretty safe. It's a pretty easy way to, to figure, figure some things out and not be too far offshore if something were to happen.

[00:41:59] Ryan Mellon: [00:42:00] Um, and so it's like breaking through that mental blocks and just like. Committing to that, you're gonna start and then figuring everything else out from there is like, I think that's really important. So, that's a good piece of advice.

[00:42:16] Duncan Malcolm: Yeah, limiting beliefs. I can't remember who, who coined that frame, but, yeah. Phrase. But yeah, limiting beliefs is, I was aware of Limit or was it, you know, something that comes up all the time. But yeah, we would, we just had this, this mental block. I mean, I remember [00:42:30] vividly being at like, Liverpool Street Station, which is in the mid middle of the city of London, the financial district.

[00:42:36] Duncan Malcolm: I remember sitting there with my partner and we're sitting there at a, a pub table and we've got a beer and we're just like, we almost crying and we're looking each other. We, we, we really wanna go, but we're like, oh no, but we should really stay and do another year and do another contract or whatever, and we should have just.

[00:42:51] Duncan Malcolm: We were building up too much pressure on ourselves and we were building up too much pressure on the expectation of what we were doing. We were putting in too much stress on our current situation, [00:43:00] and we would've made our life a lot easier if we'd just gone Right. Let's do it. Let's go like, exactly like you said.

[00:43:06] Duncan Malcolm: Let's go do it for two weeks. Let's gonna do it for a month. We, I think we probably had enough cash to keep us going for a few months by that point. So let's just go and do a few months and see how it works out. Let's not go so far.

[00:43:18] Ryan Mellon: In worst case scenario, it doesn't work out. You come back home and you're back where you started and you probably

[00:43:24] Duncan Malcolm: Call your, call your CV consultant. Get your CV retouched up and throw it back out in the [00:43:30] pond.

[00:43:30] Ryan Mellon: Start over again. But also on that month or three months, you probably learned some lessons in the meantime, what you could have done better, what, how you could have been more prepared.

[00:43:39] Ryan Mellon: And then that second time when you're ready to take that jump, like you're gonna be like 10 steps ahead. So it's always good to just like, go ahead and make the jump and like do it, and figure it out on the way. So

[00:43:52] Duncan Malcolm: Yeah, jump off the cliff and build the plane on the way down. What's the startup way? Right?

[00:43:57] Ryan Mellon: That's a, that's not a bad deal. Yeah. When it comes to [00:44:00] becoming a digital nomad, I mean, just a little bit in savings is definitely gonna help and some skills online, but it's, it's a lot easier than people think. And especially if you're coming from a place that has a high cost of living, you're traveling at low cost of the living places, you don't need nearly as much money to survive as you.

[00:44:20] Ryan Mellon: Expect at home. And that's another huge like mind block and limiting belief that I hear from people all the time at two. They think that because they're making [00:44:30] $80,000 a year in the US and that's why you, they feel they need to survive. They also need to make $80,000 a year to travel the world. And it's like, no, you could do it on 30 or 40, like no problem.

[00:44:42] Ryan Mellon: So, you know, it's like. Yeah, it, it can be as low as you want it to be, like, depending on how comfortable you want it to be. Right. But like, at least half of whatever you're making, it's, it's so crazy. So, I think it's important to put [00:45:00] that out there and

[00:45:01] Duncan Malcolm: I think Van, I mean, I think, I think Vans, you know, vans and boats, you can pretty much live for almost nothing, right?

[00:45:07] Ryan Mellon: for pretty cheap. Yeah.

[00:45:09] Duncan Malcolm: pretty, but I think you can test, test that for free. Like you can go and stay in an RV park for like a couple of weeks, or you can go and. Camping. Like I, I literally, I did it this year.

[00:45:19] Duncan Malcolm: I got, I got a motorbike here in Bulgaria. I got a tent and I just went and stayed in a campsite for a couple of days and I was like, how is it work? How is it with me? Remote working in a [00:45:30] campsite? Went for like two days, figured out what I didn't have. Went like a couple of weeks later. Once I had a few more bits and pieces and then tried again.

[00:45:38] Duncan Malcolm: I was like, okay, this is cool. This is what's working. This is what's not working. Now I'm, now I'm like slowly learning and then next time I do it, I'm like, okay, I'm gonna do it, but I'm gonna go and do it with like two other people. 'cause I was like, I'm, this is great. I'm really enjoying like being by the beach, but I'm on my own and it's really boring.

[00:45:53] Duncan Malcolm: Um,

[00:45:53] Duncan Malcolm: it'd be cool if I had like. Two other people

[00:45:55] Ryan Mellon: friends.

[00:45:56] Duncan Malcolm: then we can, yeah, some friends and we can tour around or find a nice [00:46:00] campsite where they're like friendly people and you can meet up and make friends or at the kite center or the whatever the, whatever the thing is. 'cause you can always find those hubs like you can.

[00:46:08] Ryan Mellon: Like, even if it's not like a digital nomad place, you go to any like, kite school, surf school, dive school, you're gonna find a community of people just like instantly. So I think it's just about finding whatever it is. The thing is, you, you might not even be like the most interested in it, but like they find the thing where you're gonna find the. Yeah, whatever hobbies you might have, or [00:46:30] maybe it's, you've always been interested in it, you never had time before 'cause you're working too much and not, traveling. So like, it's always a great time to like find those new, hobbies and, and like. Figure out those new things that you've always wanted to do because now you, you usually generally have more time on your hands to,

[00:46:53] Duncan Malcolm: I think it's a difficult one for like entrepreneurs as well. People running their own businesses have this stress and. I think one of the lessons [00:47:00] that I've learned in the last six months acutely, or the last three months acutely, is, you know, I had, I, like, I was totally burnt out on our skippers project, our co-living project in Kenya.

[00:47:11] Duncan Malcolm: Like, I'd, I'd spent, I was working seven days a week. I wasn't sleeping like I was just, I was all over the place. I wasn't healthy, I wasn't walking anywhere and. You know, it had a serious impact on me, my health, my relationship, just, and work. And the reason I was doing it was 'cause I had this thing in my head again, [00:47:30] another limiting belief.

[00:47:30] Duncan Malcolm: I was like, this thing won't work unless I'm here. And that, that wasn't true. Like, I did not need to be there now yet. I didn't reorganize some people. I needed to put together a plan. I went away for a few months. I came back to Europe. I wrote down a list. I was like, okay, these are the three things I need to do.

[00:47:48] Duncan Malcolm: I need to get one of these, one of those, get rid of two of those, put this together to get this recipe right. And then I, I have not been at the co-living now for almost 10 [00:48:00] weeks, There have been challenges, there's been things gone wrong, but the team who are there are learning way more than if I was there.

[00:48:08] Duncan Malcolm: 'cause if I was there, they're just gonna say, Hey boss, you know, you,

[00:48:12] Ryan Mellon: Come to

[00:48:12] Duncan Malcolm: tell me what. Yeah. Then they're not gonna get the independence. Whereas if. The, you know, if you are not there and you force people to become independent and it might not work out, it might be that the person you leave in charge is a disaster and you have to go back and find someone else.

[00:48:27] Duncan Malcolm: Or reorganize. Or retrain, and you [00:48:30] might need to bounce back and forth a few times, but eventually. You'll start leaving. It's like kids, you know, eventually they have to leave the house. They can't stay in the pram forever. They have to start walking, and then they have to go to school. And then like, eventually they're gonna, they're gonna go out into that big, bad world themselves.

[00:48:45] Duncan Malcolm: And it's the same with the business. You know, like if you are the only person who can do it, then you're doing something wrong. You need to slowly like, bounce away from it. Like even if you just go away for, like, I found if I just went away for a week, everything changed. Just leave for a week. And [00:49:00] then you figure out what's not working.

[00:49:01] Duncan Malcolm: 'cause you can leave for a week, you can figure out all the loose cracks in your operations and you've got a new list of things to do. And then you can fix all those and then a month later you can then leave for two weeks and then see what happens. So yeah, I think you can, you can crack those limiting beliefs.

[00:49:16] Ryan Mellon: you, you see the cracks that happen from your employees when you get back, but then you just like getting outta the situation and seeing your business from the outside and not being in it all day. You get a little bit of different perception and, [00:49:30] insight, I would say, from just changing up your location as well.

[00:49:34] Ryan Mellon: So I think it's like twofold, like PO positive to do something like that.

[00:49:38] Duncan Malcolm: I think it's doing better without me if I'm like perfectly honest.I'm

[00:49:43] Ryan Mellon: That's great. That's what you want.

[00:49:45] Duncan Malcolm: I think there's like one or two things that I can do better. Like, there's some like relationship stuff that I can do better face-to-face, and that's always gonna be the case if you are like the founder of the thing, like the, they're, they're always gonna have that origin and that, that [00:50:00] connection potentially better to clients.

[00:50:01] Duncan Malcolm: But, I am better not there 'cause I'm able to focus on more important stuff like telling, you know, like going and sorting out our bookings or sorting out, like in the last weeks we've sorted out our accounting, we've sorted out stuff with our, with the tax office in Kenya where we haven't been organized before and now we're like pulling it all together.

[00:50:19] Duncan Malcolm: I've hired an executive assistant who's now taken off. All of the like back office stuff off me. And I'm now just focusing on like really obvious stuff that I should have done before. Like this week we [00:50:30] did an in-room brochure that has all the information about like the local area, like really, like, it sounds really dumb, but like, just getting away from the coalface is just so important.

[00:50:40] Ryan Mellon: awesome. Well, it sounds like it's going pretty good, and maybe I'll have to come down there and check out the Coliving sometime.

[00:50:46] Duncan Malcolm: come down to Kenya, come down to the coast, see us, go other places. Travel around as much as you can.I think, I think people have this perception that Africa's unsafe or that there's no internet. There are some countries that are, are like that. [00:51:00] Kenya is just wild. Like the 4G plus in Kenya is just, you can be in the, you can be in the bush and you get like 150 meg on your phone.

[00:51:06] Duncan Malcolm: It's,

[00:51:07] Ryan Mellon: wow. All

[00:51:08] Duncan Malcolm: yeah, it's,

[00:51:09] Duncan Malcolm: it's a good place to check out.

[00:51:11] Ryan Mellon: Okay. Awesome. I wanted to just do a couple rapid fire questions.

[00:51:15] Duncan Malcolm: Sure.

[00:51:16] Ryan Mellon: So what's one of your number one go-to apps for working remotely or travel?

[00:51:22] Duncan Malcolm: Working remotely or travel. I dunno if I've got it on my desk here, but like my go-to thing for travel is my charge block. I've got this [00:51:30] like, uh, 25,000 milliamp charge block that can charge my MacBook, like I think it does at least one full charge.

[00:51:37] Duncan Malcolm: That for me is the key thing. I can go anywhere as long as I've got like a sim card and I've got that thing. It doesn't matter where I am, whether I'm in a country that has no power or has power or whatever, I can just like go wild with that. That's my, that's my thing, especially like camping as well.

[00:51:53] Ryan Mellon: Okay. Yeah, that totally makes sense. I love that. And that's another one a question that I always ask is like, what? [00:52:00] What, what item do you never travel without? So that's perfect. what would you say is like, best way to make friends in, in a new city?

[00:52:10] Duncan Malcolm: Find a hobby. It Whether it's going, going to a kite school and learning, meeting people doing kites or surfing dive school. I've got a friend who she went and did a ballet at like a, like a, a modern dance course, in Nairobi and spent like a month there and made like a million new friends and a whole community of people.

[00:52:29] Duncan Malcolm: So [00:52:30] yeah, I just go and go and do classes. It's gotta be the way.

[00:52:34] Ryan Mellon: Okay, do you have a most valuable skill that you've developed as a digital nomad?

[00:52:40] Duncan Malcolm: Oh, skill motorbikes. I wouldn't have got into motorbikes if I hadn't gone to Kenya and if I hadn't stepped outta my comfort zone. And so I, I. I started riding bikes in Kenya, before I got a license, and then I came back to Europe. I did my full bike license and then, [00:53:00] you know, I now use bikes everywhere I go.

[00:53:02] Duncan Malcolm: And so for me that that skill gives me access because I can go and rent a bike or a scooter anywhere in the world. I did the test, so I'm clever enough not to do it in like flip flops and like a pair of shorts. So like a pair, put a pair of trainers on. So I don't like screw up my legs, but that gives me access.

[00:53:19] Duncan Malcolm: Anywhere I can then get on a motorbike and go and ride into the hills and explore and, and see, see like traveling away that I. That I wouldn't [00:53:30] otherwise be able to. And you see so much more perspective on a bike than you do in a car. 'cause you're, you know, you're out there,

[00:53:37] Ryan Mellon: You're

[00:53:37] Duncan Malcolm: little bit

[00:53:37] Ryan Mellon: it

[00:53:37] Duncan Malcolm: dangerous depending on where you're going, but like it's gives you a lot more freedom.

[00:53:43] Ryan Mellon: Love that. Love that answer. And the first person to ever have that answer on the podcast, so that's awesome.

[00:53:50] Duncan Malcolm: Yes.

[00:53:51] Ryan Mellon: where can people find you?

[00:53:52] Duncan Malcolm: Sure so people can find me on LinkedIn, just Duncan dot Malcolm. And then for [00:54:00] Skippers at Live Skippers or at Live Skippers on Instagram.so you can reach out to us there or on WhatsApp, on the website and stuff and ask questions and we're like, I, I take calls from anyone who wants to go to Kenya or Africa or East Africa in general.

[00:54:14] Duncan Malcolm: 'cause that's where, where I know, and I'll just sit and chat to them for half an hour about their trip. Even if they don't wanna come and stay with us. Like, I spent 40 minutes this week talking to a nice lady in Italy and she was just like, you told me so much. And I'm like, well, I want you to have a good time.

[00:54:28] Duncan Malcolm: And like, I can, I've [00:54:30] been, I've lived there, I've been all the places so I can tell you where you should go, where you shouldn't go. Like I'm, I'm happy to spend the time with people 'cause it's, because I think there's a lot of, a lot of, a lot of value there, A lot of ex, a lot of experience.

[00:54:43] Ryan Mellon: Love it. All right, well thank you so much for taking the time today and I hope you have a great rest of your day.

[00:54:49] Duncan Malcolm: No worries. Thanks Ryan. I appreciate it.

[00:54:51] Ryan Mellon: Thanks for listening to another episode of Digital Nomad Nation. I hope today's stories have inspired you to take the [00:55:00] next step towards location independence. If you've enjoyed the show, please share it with a friend and leave a review on Apple Podcasts or your favorite podcast app. Your support fuels our mission to inspire the digital nomad lifestyle.

[00:55:14] Ryan Mellon: Before you go, don't forget to grab your free copy of my guide, Seven Ways to Become a Digital Nomad. It's packed with practical tips to kickstart your nomadic journey. You can find the link in the episode description. And remember, the life you've always dreamed of is just one bold decision [00:55:30] away. Until next time, this is the Digital Nomad Coach, Ryan Mellon, signing off.
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