Real remote workers gather in Albufeira

This week's newsletter comes to you from the NomadWorld festival in Albufeira, Portugal, which has been a refreshing and laid-back few days of networking, learning, and celebrating. 

The Wi-Fi has also been ironically laid back too, so apologies to anyone who has waited longer than usual for post approvals this week, and I am sorry too that this newsletter might be quite brief and to the point. There's lots of stuff to share, but meaningful reflections from NomadWorld may have to wait until I am back at my desk next week.

There's still lots of stuff going on though, including this week's podcast - which is a great interview with career coach Lesley Elder-Aznar , who has helped loads of professionals identify their niche and successfully transition to remote working. 

Maybe she could help you too? Have a listen and see if you're inspired.

While I love creating strategic content plans for my clients, when it comes to Remote Work Europe and this newsletter, it's fair to say things are often a little looser, more spontaneous. Like builders' houses, or cobblers' shoes... Sometimes I am super intentional about what I want to share with you, but other times I am left looking around at what's going on right now, and deciding what the overall theme is which somehow unifies all the different bits.

Today it's obvious that what's inspiring me is helping more of YOU dear readers to get here. Not necessarily to Albufeira (although there is much to enjoy), but to be part of this group of genuinely location-independent people who are hanging out here, and it's a great mix of real people with hugely diverse careers. 

Dare I say it, some of these remote work and digital nomad events attract mainly those in the related services, media, and advocacy space. In other words, we're all there to promote our stuff to each other, as the only way to justify an eye-watering ticket price. These events are still often very worthwhile and interesting, but it can feel like it's at one remove from real life.

But The Nomad World has been an accessible and refreshing change of pace, and it's full of real people, doing real work, and here just to network and learn. I have met people working remotely as personal trainers, packaging designers, product engineers, insurance brokers, and recruiters. Some of them don't even have blogs! Ordinary enough jobs, being done by normal people, living extraordinary lives. 

They're living proof that jobs and careers exist in the remote space, and that's what I am living to help you achieve right now. It absolutely made my day to be tagged in a new job update by a Remote Work Spain member last week, I am still glowing from that acknowledgement (so please keep your success stories coming in!)

And if Lesley's coaching doesn't hit the spot, remember we have our webinar with Hannah Dixon coming up NEXT WEEK - following on from her podcast interview in episode 3, she is joining us for an exclusive masterclass all about how to create a great career as a virtual assistant - it's free to join us, so get on it! Just click 'going' on the event page and you'll get a notification when we go live on Wednesday evening:

And don't forget - the LinkedIn Challenge!

The final way I want to help you achieve remote work success is through our upcoming LinkedIn challenge, where a small group of us will be working together to post and comment every weekday for four weeks - boosting our engagement, polishing our profiles, and consistently building and growing our audience, our value, and our authority, on LinkedIn.

If you move fast you can still join us for the earlybird price (until midnight on Saturday 14th) - but please note, there are no discounts on offer when it come to doing the work! That's the real investment. 

So please read the 'Level Up Your LinkedIn Challenge' page carefully before you commit, to level up your LinkedIn with us.

Because next year, I want to see you on the beach in the Algarve - or travelling the world, or strolling to your favourite coffee shop, or happily working from home around your family. Whatever your vision of the perfect remote life looks like.

And yes, in reply to a whingy DM I received last week: Each of the 3 offers on this page has a pricetag. 

You can figure out all of this on your own, like Lesley, Hannah, and I did. And you can enjoy the free content we distribute in our podcasts and events and blogs, where genuine value is freely shared every week. 

Then if you are serious about the benefits you want to enjoy from the job of your dreams, you can give yourself a meaningful advantage by investing in the premium services we offer, either directly or through our partners. It's an investment in YOURSELF, and only you can decide whether that is worthwhile to you (the LinkedIn challenge is very affordable in cash terms, however, it does require you to consistently invest time in your remote future, every weekday for 4 weeks.) 

What are you rich in? What’s it worth to you? Only you can answer that.

But when you look at the job ads on this site that allow real remote work, bear in mind the potential areas and populations from which they can recruit, and try to imagine the size of the competition - and the importance of gaining any advantage you can, for your next move. Actually here in LinkedIn you can see how many people have already applied.

I am cheering for you and doing everything I can to help.

And I even send you a list of remote vacancies in the email version of this newsletter every week, if you would prefer to receive that instead.

Until next #freelancefriday,

Maya Middlemiss