Step into a conversation that redefines business freedom and shows what’s possible when you design a life that supports your values, vision, and flow.
Most business owners don’t realise this…
You can create freedom before you feel “ready.”
Before you’ve hit a number, before the timing makes sense, and before life lines up the way you think it should.
That’s the part most people never question.
We’re taught to chase financial freedom first…
And hope time freedom and location freedom show up later.
But for many, later never comes.
This conversation is with someone who flipped that script completely.
Julie Talbot didn’t wait until the portfolio was perfect or the path was clear.
She chose freedom first — and built everything else within that choice.
She now lives nomadically with her husband and kids…
Runs a property business from anywhere in the world…
And has created a rhythm of life that’s both grounded and wildly free.
What struck me most wasn’t the travel.
It was the way she designed stability without being rooted to a single place.
The way her family learns through curiosity instead of rigid structure.|
The way she built a business that supports life — not the other way around.
And beneath all of it is a reminder most of us need:
Freedom isn’t something you earn someday.
It’s something you design — today — with the systems and choices you’re willing to make.
If you’ve been feeling the pull toward more space, more presence, more you…
🎧 Listen to the full interview.
This conversation opens a door you may not have considered before.
KEY TAKEAWAYS: Designing Business Freedom Through Systems & Alignment
- Rethink Your Path to Freedom: You don’t have to wait for financial freedom before pursuing time or location freedom.
- Leverage Technology for Freedom: Embrace the tools, processes, tech and business models, e.g. AI and automation, that enable you to manage your business from anywhere and free up more time for what matters.
- Align with Your Superpowers: Double down on your unique strengths and passions; when your business aligns with what makes you come alive, you’ll find greater motivation and success.
BEST MOMENTS: Business Freedom in Real Life
04:31 – 💬 “I am mentoring and guiding people who want to run a property business, but with location freedom baked in from the start.” — Julie Talbot
22.42 – 💬 “ We can live in the way that we want to, if we choose to, if we choose to design our lives that way.” — Julie Talbot
35:45 – 💬 “Figure out what you actually want from the business, what will make you happy, what you're actually good at, what you're going to stick at, and which type of business fits that, not the other way around.” — Steve Day
TIMESTAMPED OVERVIEW: (Business Freedom — Designing Life on Your Terms)
00:00 Intro: “Designing a Life of Freedom”
03:34 Running a property business remotely.
15:23 Living a nomadic lifestyle with kids.
33:15 Aligning your business with your passion
46:03 The Freedom and Success Mindset
Episode Transcript
Please note: This transcript was generated using automated transcription tools and may contain typographical errors or inaccurately captured words or phrases.
Dr Steve Day: Today\'s episode is about designing a life and a business that gives you true freedom. It\'s about living from freedom first. And creating a life into that by creating assets and wealth and stability that allow you to have the freedom that you want. I\'m joined by Julie Talbot, who\'s a digital nomad that I\'ve known for many years.
Now she lives currently in Thailand. But this is only a shortstop for her as she travels the world with her kids and her husband living a truly digital nomadic lifestyle. We talked about how this works with the family. The decisions she\'s made along the way to allow her to live this lifestyle that she chooses. And how other people can benefit from her learnings.
Whether you choose to be a true nomad or just live with more freedom, she now coaches and mentors people getting into property. To create freedom from the start to choose the right property strategy to actually create freedom within the business from the beginning. Rather than trying to build a business that creates freedom years from now, if at all.
If you are interested in living with more freedom, with more presence, more purpose. And just creating a lifestyle that you\'re truly inspired by and loved living, then listening today. As I think you will find this episode as inspiring as I did. Thanks very much.
Hey, Julie, thank you very much for coming on the show. I\'ve really been excited about speaking to you because it\'s been a little while since we\'ve had a chat. We\'ve obviously got a bit of a history with regards to working together many years ago. And I was excited to hear from you and find out you\'re still on your amazing journey of freedom around the world.
And I wanted to catch up, find out what you\'re doing. How you are helping people. And yeah, just really check in and see what we can, share in line in our thoughts, in line with freedom. And living the life we choose to live rather than bound by the stereotypical normal things that people do.
So welcome to the show, Julie.
Julie Talbot: Oh, thank you Steve. Yeah, it\'s amazing to speak to you being, it was love listening to your podcast. It doesn\'t feel like it\'s been that long at all. But when I was thinking, when was the last time I actually spoke to Steve? Really? Didn\'t just hear him. It\'s been too many years.
Dr Steve Day: Okay. Very, very nice to see you. Cool. We were just chatting as often I do off camera, so to speak. And we got a really interesting conversation and I asked about where, are you living at the moment? And you mentioned you\'re in Thailand. So let\'s start with just a quick intro to the world. Who is Julie Talbot?
What do you do? And, you know, what, how do you do it from Thailand? And then we\'re going to get into the detail later.
Julie Talbot: Okay. So, at the moment we\'re in Thailand, but I\'m an ex expat. So, we moved overseas in 2009, moved to the Middle East. I was the trailing spouse. We moved from my husband\'s work, and then we were expats for 12 years.
And then in 2022, just after Covid, we then went fully nomadic. So since then we\'ve been traveling full time. We took our kids outta school and yeah, kind of the brief was really to go where the wind takes us. But I\'ve been growing our property portfolio since we were expats, really. And, you know, when you figure out how to grow and manage your property business from 4,000 miles away. Which is how far Abu Dhabi was from the UK, actually, if you move into a an nomadic sort of way, nothing actually changes because you\'re still running it online.
You\'re still running it from thousands of miles away. The view\'s just changing more frequently. So, so yeah, so we grow the property. We\'ve been growing the property portfolio from wherever we are in the world as expats and now a nomadic family.
Dr Steve Day: Very cool. And you mentioned also you also help other people to get into this world to understand how to actually make this work in reality rather than just, you know, a pipe dream.
Julie Talbot: Exactly, yes. Yeah. And you know, we. We have some sort of clients on the property side of it who have done portfolio sourcing for years, but we don\'t take on new clients for that side of it. So how can I, you know, help other people? It\'s from it, it\'s from mentoring and guiding people who want to run a property business, but with location freedom baked in from the start because there\'s just this myth.
I feel that you get financial freedom first, and then once you\'ve got financial freedom, then you can get time freedom and location freedom. And you can do that. There\'s nothing wrong with it, but you can choose locational freedom first and whilst you\'ve got location freedom, then scale, to financial freedom and my sort of like route through the freedoms was to choose and time freedom and location freedom first and then have those while scaling to financial freedom.
Yeah, that\'s what I help people with free my mentoring really.
Dr Steve Day: Yeah. And, I love that. This is where I think we are massively aligned and
Julie Talbot: We are.
Dr Steve Day: Yeah. I mean I started this business with that exact, Reason in mind. So I, people that don\'t know, I quit my job as a doctor. So the career, the way to get financial freedom to then live with time and, location freedom.
And I quit my job to get both those things to be able to work on my own terms, to be able to live wherever I want. For me, that was immigrating to Sweden and now live in, outside of Stockholm in Sweden. And if I\'d done it the other way around, I would still be working in the UK now in a job that I wasn\'t loving being trapped by that and still thinking about, you know, when am I going to get this freedom?
And the answer would be never, because I was so far down that line, so far embedded and entrenched in the routines and the way of working in that sort of, that lifestyle with all the expenses that come with it, that you just add to your portfolio of expenses as, everyone does that you\'d never figure out a different way.
So I absolutely love this and I think that. We were saying before as well is, and this is what I\'d love to know, how you did this, because my journey into property was a more typical one. I mean, literally I left university, I had no other job, and I just bought property, and then Remortgaged bought another remortgage, bought another one.
But then I found myself totally overwhelmed by the running of it. I was doing everything there was to do with the property, didn\'t have any staff, any agents, nothing. And so the idea of letting that go was huge for me. All the shift it took, and it was like just if my wife hadn\'t dragged me or tried to drag me outta the country, I probably would still be there.
You know, still running it myself on, the side of my, medical career. So how do you do this differently? Like how do you approach this? Like for people listening who are like. Thinking of getting into property, but worried about it becoming another trap, another thing they have to do at the weekends and whatever.
Like how do you approach it that\'s different?
Julie Talbot: Yeah. So I suppose, you know, my corporate background, just for full transparency, my corporate background, which, you know, for the traditional path to school, university, got, you know, got a job, was all in business process design and organization design and things like that.
So, I, and process improvement like that, was my world. And whilst I could, you know, whilst I did it and I did enjoy it, it just didn\'t really set my heart and fire and I wanted to find something else to do that was more entrepreneurial, that would give me more freedom, more flexibility as like, you know, got older and had a family and things like that.
So that was really how I kind of like stumbled upon property, really looking at, you know, just different businesses, just things that, that I could do, that I could actually make a, business to step out of corporate world into. So my, my background in kind of like process design and organization design and I think really kind of like helped because that I could see that, you know, it was a business and that you can design anything.
Like I see any business but you know, property because it\'s, I\'m quite passionate about it, like creating homes. It\'s something that I get a lot of purpose and, joy from. Any business is just a machine, right? It\'s a sequence of, you know, inputs that you turn into outputs. The outputs is an income generating asset.
The inputs are like, you know, yourself, your strategy and all those sort of things. And there\'s some cogs that move, which turn the inputs into the outputs and you move things along with conveyor belt, right? So, the output excited me. Income, you know, income generating assets that were homes for people.
And so once I, I suppose coming back to your question, which is where do people start? You\'d probably tell I\'ve started talking faster and getting a bit excited. Because I love homes and housing and processes I suppose, and things like that. And applying processes to a topic that I really, enjoy.
It\'s find something that you actually do enjoy and that, and, that you\'re passionate about. And, you know, if you have a business idea, then you can create a process around it and you can make your machine work from anywhere in the world. Really, I suppose I would say for anything like as nomads, we\'ve met lots of people doing lots of different things, which you would never think would be, you know, online businesses.
Like I\'ve met musicians who create music as they travel the world and record it, you know, so there, there\'s just all sorts of businesses that you can do that if you\'re passionate about it. There\'s that whole thing of like, if you wise big enough, you find a way. For me, I wanted to live outside the UK and experience different countries and different cultures, but I also wanted to be creating homes and housing.
I just kind of like in, in my heart, they were just two things that I wanted to do, travel the world with my kids and, provide homes. So, if you have that kind of like, crazy irrational idea, but that you\'re emotional about, then you\'re motivated to find a way to do it.
Dr Steve Day: Yeah, very much so.
And I think that the, that\'s I think where lots of people that I meet, no matter where they\'re on, are in their journey. That they often get into the business of whatever they fall into or whatever they feel is going to make them some money. Like you\'re saying before, the financial freedom first. And the challenge of that is when it gets tough. Or when you realize it takes longer than you expect or whatever the, that comes up that you didn\'t expect or don\'t really want. Then it\'s actually hard to keep going if you\'ve not done, like you say, from a place of passion. And actually something you feel strongly about and behind.
And I think that, like one of the shifts that I think that I\'ve done, we were talking before about coaches that I\'m working with that. Or have been working with for the past couple of years now. And when I sort of fell out, look, fell out, started falling outta love with my work. And started getting into the existential sort of thinking of why the hell are we here?
What are we doing in all this fall? We\'re just, dots in the, in the universe or whatever. And trying to actually realize that actually what we do can make massive, massive impact. And not just on the people we meet today. But also on future generations. And I remember starting my business and thinking about so else about, what do you want?
I say, oh, leave a legacy, I remember saying this and it\'s like, but a legacy that my kids will be proud of. I was like, well, I used to say. And rather than just a financial legacy or financial burden as they used to call it. Like people, I was in property, systems coaching, as you know, at the beginning.
And what I saw people do was build these big portfolios, which were poorly managed and just time sucking leeches. And, it wasn\'t a legacy, it was actually a burden. It was actually a, you know Yeah.
Julie Talbot: Noose.
Dr Steve Day: Anything, but a gift, you know? And yes, it could generate revenue, but it was, it didn\'t give any joy.
And, I think that one of the things I re I get loads of passion out now is letting people help finding people to. To realign what they do with the greater purpose. And to realize that actually, if you can change who you are today, like you\'ve done massive example of this, like literally just changed everything to live the dream that you want to live and that the people you meet are going to be massively positive, positively affected by the decisions you\'ve made.
And those ripples of impact across like just this conversation happened with you. Now I\'m thinking, I\'m going to ask you in a minute, how the hell do you do this with these kids? because you know, having two young kids, I\'m like, this is impossible for me, but it can\'t be, because I know people that do it. So maybe that\'s the place we could go now.
So if you\'re like me and youre, you would dream of doing something like this, obviously there\'s the convincing the spouse that\'s half the challenge. But actually that comes I think from providing a, not a legitimate, that\'s the wrong word, providing a, path to do this. That\'s actually reality and not just.
A pipe dream, not just something that, oh, I want to go traveling. It\'s like, no, but what does that actually mean? So how do you do this with kids? How do you take your kids outta school and actually ship \'em off around the world of what they feel about it? Do they have challenges or, how have you experienced it?
Julie Talbot: There\'s so many questions in there, Steve. And I think, I mean, really it comes back to when you going to do anything life changing, you kind of just got to, sometimes you just got to, you are never going to have everything figured out, I suppose. When, you want to do something, you kind of just have to do it, and, kind of like accept that not everything\'s going to go according to plan, but part of the journey, the experience is kind of like, figuring it out really.
Dr Steve Day: I completely agree with you. Like moving to Sweden, for me, total unknown, no idea what was going to happen. Would, I be able to survive my business, et cetera.
What? Like what? I had no, no plan. Then my dad died like three months later who was my business partner in the UK running my properties. So I went from, oh, it\'s going to be challenging to, oh shit.
Julie Talbot: Yeah.
Dr Steve Day: How do I do this now? So yeah, things happen, but then one of the things that like now like thinking about, okay, like the nomad lifestyle, so thinking about that specifically, but actually doing that with kids.
I was chatting to one of my clients today who runs, I think called, no, my cruises we were talking about before, and they have loads of families on that boat. People that like yourselves, you are living abroad without conventional schooling. Like how does that work?
Julie Talbot: Oh, it\'s, it is amazing. I sometimes wonder how we ever found time for school, to be honest.
I was talking to him the day who said, how do you find time? How do you find time to do things? And I was like, I, was like, how do you find time to do things? because you have the school run. You\'ve got to make packed lunches, you\'ve got like kids parties at weekends, you\'ve got homework to do.
We have none of that. So actually there\'s like all this, just all this time that you get back. So, I mean, we, we stepped into the whole unschooling kind of world. We started off doing online school at a reduced number of, reduced number of subjects because you wanted to, you know, it still be similar for the kids.
So we kind of like stepped from full-time school to like online school in three subjects where we, were teaching, doing like, delivering the recorded lessons and things. And then after about a year and a half, we just felt that, we just felt like it. It was just restrictive.
So then we stepped away from those three lessons. And it\'s weird when you sort of like take the curriculum away from kids, it\'s kinda like scary saying, right, okay kids, so now you don\'t need to do English, maths or science anymore. But so you\'ve got to learn. So we\'ve got to have, projects and ideas and we\'re going to be, still learning about things, but we can go where your curiosity wants to go.
And we\'re in places, you know, we\'ve just spent, we\'ve just spent four months on the silt road, right? So traveling around Central Asia and we don\'t plan the lessons, but you know, the kids have got to be curious and want to learn. And one of my kids got hugely, it was actually the kids\' idea for why, we went there.
One of them really wanted to go and explore this section of the silt road, learn about the currencies, and then consequently then, because they\'ve got the time, got really into empires and zoroastrianism and ancient religions. And you just, like, if we forced a curriculum and forced four hours a day to get through all these different subjects and it\'s like checklist of things.
There wouldn\'t be them. And the kind. The brain space to have that curiosity. So it takes a lot of trust in a way. You\'ve got to believe in humans, that humans can be curious whether they\'re little humans or big humans. But as adults, we find things to do that interest us. So if you take away the, what you\'re forcing the kids to learn and then, they\'re just curious beings and they go in their own direction.
And we have twins. So it\'s fascinating to see the different directions that we go in, the different things that, that interest them. I mean, it still, it, still feels scary to me to say our kids, don\'t go to school anymore. But then they\'re learning so much and they come up with things and I\'m like, how do you know that?
Like, where did you acquire that knowledge from? Like, we\'ve spent four months traveling around Central Asia not really interacting with, a lot of people. So where have you acquired this, knowledge from? And it\'s just, it\'s amazing to see where they\'ve, where they get stuff from.
Dr Steve Day: Yeah. I can\'t believe it though. How, old are your kids, Julie?
Julie Talbot: They\'re 12 now, so they would be in, I think starting second year of high school sort of age.
Dr Steve Day: Yeah. So they\'re older than my oldest is nine, going on 10. And, but my youngest is three and a half. And his pace of learning his interest in the world, like he doesn\'t need a curriculum.
Like they don\'t have one at school, obviously at three and a half years old. But the rate that he is absorbing knowledge and his, like you say, just, learning and wanting to, know stuff. Like he sits there and watches, YouTube from time to time and he comes back and he\'s he\'s totally bilingual and the English is okay.
I speak English to him, but his vocabulary is way beyond anything I\'ve ever taught him. And, his knowledge about stuff, it\'s just like, so you can just see that if you don\'t actually hinder people\'s. Opportunities for experimental, you know, experiments in the world, then why wouldn\'t they just keep on learning that way?
That\'s, I\'ve never really thought of it from that perspective before. I never even thought about the unschooling thing as an option. I was thinking, how are you, how do you get them into school and have any routine with it? But the answer is you don\'t. And that\'s fascinating.
Julie Talbot: Yeah, And it\'s hard. And what\'s hard, like the term in on school in itself is quite unusual because it\'s us as parents, as adults who\'ve been through the school system who you kind of like repeat what you know. Right. So, you know, we assume you went to school, you went to school and you go to school for five days a week for six hours a day, and you have homework, and then you have weekends and it\'s, six weeks, then it\'s a half term.
This is just what, you do, it\'s kind of like, it\'s ingrained into you. So to do something different feels awkward and. And wrong almost. But it, that\'s not how humans necessarily best learn. That was a system that was brought in a few hundred years ago. For practical reasons, for, for, well, you need to go into the history of it, but, for practical reasons so that adults could work.
There was somewhere for the children to go. So if you can step away from, we\'re talking way more about schooling now than property or business, aren\'t we? but it\'s such a big thing like to, if you can let go of all these things that, that we just. Assume about how people learn and, being in age is amazing because you see how, just how things are done differently.
But it\'s more unschooling parents really, because as humans round hundreds of years, we didn\'t really learn by going to school for six hours a day, five days a week. That\'s a pretty new thing. There\'s a great, there\'s a great guy who\'s done a few TED talks if you\'ve come across him before. So Ken Robinson, he\'s done some really, great, just like talks on education and how, schools impact creativity and that system works for some people.
But it doesn\'t work for, everybody. It\'s a, it is a system for mass education. Really.
Dr Steve Day: Yeah, I mean, being, a, as they call it, a neurodivergent guy, so bit of ADHD, then, I look back and think, I mean, I, cope with school quite well. Like the routine was useful for me because it sort of gave me something to do and to focus on, but it was also incredibly disruptive and, not something in many ways that was probably the most beneficial.
But I think about what I do now as a career and how much joy I get from having this more nomadic type of existence. Choosing when I, work, who I work with, the type of work I do. Going back to the point, like I choose what I learn every day. It\'s up to me. And I then never stop learning. It\'s not that I have to learn anything new, I just enjoy it.
And so why wouldn\'t, other people? But the point was like, yeah, it\'s the conditioning that we have that this is the way it\'s always been this way. It\'s got to always be, and, that\'s just on so many levels. The hardest thing for us as adults, whether it\'s breaking free and getting into a property and working with someone like you, learning how to live anywhere in the world on a passive, in relatively passive income or like me, like working with someone like me who shows you how your current business model, whatever it is, can actually give you that complete nomad lifestyle.
It\'s just about redefining what you think work is. It\'s all about this reconditioning. So, yeah. Yeah, totally.
Julie Talbot: And it\'s the whole, I mean, there\'s the whole, if you, think you can or think you can\'t, you\'re right. The Henry Ford sort of thing, I think that\'s who said it and it, really is that, you know, if you can.
We can tell ourselves that anything is possible or that anything isn\'t possible. There\'s another favorite person of mine is Bethany Hamilton. You know, the, she\'s straight, the Hawaiian lady who lost her arm in a shark attack and she was a professional surfer and then got back into personal surfing. But, one arm.
And you just think we can do anything that we set our mind to that we tell ourself we can, or we, or we can\'t. And not everyone wants to live, nomadically or with freedom. But it\'s that, you can, we can live in, the way that we want to if we choose to, if we choose to design our lives that way.
Dr Steve Day: Yeah. And I think, as entrepreneurs, I think most, not most, yeah, probably most of us, that\'s a huge percentage of entrepreneurs that have got brains wired in a way that makes them into the creative risk takers. You know, excitement seeking type personalities. They\'re actually up for all the things we\'re talking about here.
That\'s actually the nature of being an entrepreneur. It people who, like my wife for example, who like stability, who likes the knowing that actually, we\'re going to be able to pay the mortgage next month, mark rather than me. That\'s like, oh, we\'ll figure it out. You know, we\'ve got a credit card, it\'ll be okay back in the day, thankfully, not now, but that, was me for many, many years.
And that\'s the kind of people that you meet when you are an entrepreneur or a nomad. You meet these people who are just like us, who actually see the world differently to, in inverted comm, the norm. And, that\'s a huge, huge number of people. A huge population. But yet all of those people, not all of them, many of those people, the majority, I would argue.
Are living the life of, the, people, maybe like my wife, who actually like that stability, like that predictability. But there\'s nothing wrong with it. It\'s just a different way of existing.
Julie Talbot: There is nothing wrong with it. And someone said to me of the week, and it really, made me pause.
She\'s known me for a while and she said to me, but your life\'s so unstable, Julie. Like, she seemed like genuinely worried for me. And I was like. My life\'s not unstable at all. I\'m really kind of take it back.
Dr Steve Day: I\'ve got a huge property portfolio. What going about?
Julie Talbot: Well, she was meaning like, you know, you change countries all the time and like, you\'re moving around and it must be, it\'s really unstable.
And I was like, we change countries all the time. Yes. You know, we have two backpacks with all of our stuff in. Yes, but you can create stability in, your day to day, in, in your week to week. Like stability doesn\'t necessarily mean stability in your life. Doesn\'t, mean being in, one place. Like, it\'s important for our kids that we have a stable, like life and routine, but moving around doesn\'t sort of like stop that.
You can create stability through that, the structure of your day, through the structure of your weeks, through, through, like when you celebrate holidays and how you do things like where you are and how much you move around. And I can, I, could see our life through her eyes, right? As to how she could see it was unstable, but I was like, but it, isn\'t, you know, like every Sunday we do this.
Every Thursday we do that. We walk 10,000 steps a day. Like there are these kind of like things that. You can just do anywhere which, which give you that, that stability. Like home isn\'t a place, it\'s a..
Dr Steve Day: Do you know where this person lives, Julie?
Julie Talbot: She lives in the UK. Yeah,
Dr Steve Day: I was just thinking, because this is, the, the whole home is your castle sort of thing.
It\'s very much like, you know, the, people when they talk about, oh this my forever home. It\'s all that sort of like, because there\'s a big culture in the UK and you know, I\'m born and bred in the UK and this is very much the way I grew up. There\'s a big culture around the house being like the fixed thing that you get and it\'s the stability and, all that.
And there\'s a huge fear I think of, taking that away. And you know, and suddenly, okay, well I\'ve got no base, I\'ve got no home. Like I\'m,
Julie Talbot: Yeah.
Dr Steve Day: But actually that\'s the freedom. That\'s like, the moment it becomes, oh my God, that thing isn\'t shackling me anymore.
Julie Talbot: Yeah. And that home is a, feeling. It is who you And it, is just how you see things. Right? It, can be who you are with and, where you are. And to some people, so sorry. It can be who you\'re with and what you do. It doesn\'t have to be where, you are, it can, but it doesn\'t, have to be.
Dr Steve Day: And there\'s so many, I mean, we are talking about choice here.
We\'re talking about, well, Yes. Everything\'s a choice. But like many people, their careers force them to move like, whatever. Every year, every few months. Even if you\'re in the Army or any, of the military services. Sorry. If you are, in a doctor, for example, my training, one of the reasons I didn\'t actually want to do medicine, was I didn\'t actually want to be dictated by somewhere else where I was going to live every Few months for five years. It\'s not that actually. It\'s not that I didn\'t want to be in the ute. Well, for the, career choice, it was like. Like, yeah, the idea of moving wasn\'t the problem for me. It was idea of being told where I was going to go. So that\'s, a as well, so I think what we\'re talking about here is something like, this is a total choice thing.
It\'s not like someone\'s forcing you to move around or It\'s like, no, this is the life you want to have. And Yeah. And I\'m sure there\'s some, I\'m sure there\'ll be some element of just disbelief that it\'s even possible for some, for many people. But obviously you\'re living proof. But it is, and as I said before, one of my, one of my clients, he runs cruises for digital nomads.
He\'s got 200 people right now on a boat sailing across the Pacific Ocean. I think they\'ve just, gone through Tonga, Fiji and all that. And, they are all on the boat for a month with their, kids or whatever. And it\'s like there\'s a whole world out there of people who do Oh
Julie Talbot: Yeah, We organized if in, in the last year, and again, this is not properly related, but we\'ve been organizing like, will, schooling hubs basically for the traveling families in different places. And we did a couple in Kazakhstan over the summer. We\'re doing a couple in, Nepal next year. Just, you know, to.
To create pockets of community in different places and to like explore a place where, you\'re going to be with, some other families. Because it\'s great to meet people who live in a place and it\'s great to meet people who are, international, living in a place. But it\'s also good, just in terms of, how to do this with kids and give some sort of stability.
It\'s important for kids to have like mirrors of other people who are living the kind of weird life that they\'re living. Yeah. So for them to be, in contact with other, people who don\'t go to school and who move around all the time and whose, parents were, run online businesses so that they can be anywhere.
And it\'s not a big deal is, an important kind of like thing to have in, in the routine, shall we say.
Dr Steve Day: Yeah. And how, do kids get on with finding friends and having relationships at their sort of peer level?
Julie Talbot: If, my kids were here now and they heard that question, they\'d be rolling around the floor laughing because it\'s, it is something that I think a lot of people worry about or perceive about homeschoolers as well as looking like this, you know, the social side of it.
I mean, they just know so many people and meet so many people where wherever we are, we\'ve been in, in Japan on mountains in like rural areas where there\'s practically nobody around, but there\'s still people as well as bears and, you know, wild balls and things like that. There, there\'s still people and as long as you are happy to talk, even if you can\'t speak the language, then you can, create relationships with people and it\'s, what we\'ve done.
Like, okay, they might not always hang out with 12 year olds because they\'re 12 years old, but they\'ll be quite happily, you know, hang out with people of children and adults of all ages. So. Yeah, sometimes we actually have to have days where we stay at home and don\'t see people because no matter where we are, we just find community or people, whether it\'s, locals or international or expats or the families.
It\'s yeah, there is way more, socialness than you would expect.
Dr Steve Day: Yeah. No, I can see it though. And I think, again, it is just breaking the, idea that it should be done any particular way. Yes. And the word should is just be, if we could just cross that out the dictionary, that would be brilliant. Because there\'s no right or wrong or anything.
Julie Talbot: Yeah. Well, one of my kids said to me the other week, we were somewhere and she just said to me, oh, come on mom, let\'s go out and do that thing and just see what magic happens because, I\'m, I quite comfortable just sort of like, you know. You just, speak to people really, if you\'re in a, if you\'re in a coffee shop or sometimes you\'ll be standing in a park, you can just strike up a conversation with people and, alright, not, everybody speaks back, but sometimes people do.
And we tend to like to be in places for a period of time, a couple of weeks minimum, really. So it\'s quite easy to become a regular somewhere and then to get to know, you know, just to create routines where, people know you. And then, it\'s, amazing really just the relationships that you can, and the interactions that you can, have with people.
We, even this summer stayed in a, hostel, which sounds quite surprising for a family. But we stayed in a hostel and we had like our private room there. So consequently the kids were meeting just all sorts of people who, travel in hostels and baking cakes for them and having conversations with them.
And it\'s just, just. Seeing the conversations we\'re having, seeing the people that were meeting, I was just so grateful that they didn\'t go to schools, that they could be experiencing some of, some of that type of thing.
Dr Steve Day: Yeah, I\'m, sure, and I, imagine very much so with kids, just, they\'re so adaptable and they just, these kids in general, I mean, are so adaptable that as soon as you take them out of one type of environment or routine, they just adapt and learn how to thrive in this new way of living.
And I mean, it\'s just, yeah, it\'s cool. I just, it is just amazing to speak to you And just to, to the extremes that, not the extremes, that sounds like it\'s, crazy, but the like how far you\'ve taken this to something that is just so natural for you. It is obviously like the right. Path for you, just speaking to you since when we met nine, eight years ago, thereabouts.
You know, and, I think that, when you meet people in business, you often meet people and they go from sometimes from one idea to the next, or they\'re just in and out of passion with it, whatever. And I think what the people that I\'ve met along the way who like yourself, are as excited today to talk about, what they\'re doing, your life you\'re living, et cetera.
Are all the people that have in inadvertently or intentionally built their business, their life around freedom. Around doing something they are not just passionate about, but that gives them back. Or is intertwined with the way they live to actually serve, serves their lifestyle rather than the way around.
Julie Talbot: Yeah, and this is, sort of why I really, really enjoy working people, working with people on the mentoring side and, on, on the property side because, I feel that there\'s a lot of people trying to find the best strategy and the right strategy and the best area and the right area.
And my key take is there is no one best strategy. There is no one right area, but we can find the right one for you. Based on what excites you, based on what works best for you based on the freedoms that you want, based on, the life that you want. And then you\'re actually going to stick with it.
Because it\'s something that you really just really want to do. You\'re not just doing it because it\'s the one best that you know, that everyone says you should do or that you read most about, or is the latest hot topic or, something like that. So, yeah, I get so much, enjoyment, I suppose, from being able to help people step into what, freedom looks like for them and create the property portfolio and the way of running their portfolio, that work that works for them.
And it\'s just, it isn\'t the same for anybody. So I find it fascinating when people are trying to find the best way. I\'m like, no, there\'s no one best way.
Dr Steve Day: Yeah. And, I love that. One of the things you also mentioned in the, questions, question suggestions, just suggested questions or whatever you call it that, that I asked you to do, was the word superpower.
Yeah. And this is like, leaning into that and I\'m a huge believer in focusing on your superpower and unleashing your superpower. By actually figuring out what the hell that is. And there\'s a lot of the work I\'ve been doing with my mentors is about, aligning the work that I\'m doing with my greatest strengths. And realizing that my greatest strengths are often built on your greatest challenges.
That\'s why they become your strengths. Because you have to overcome something. And this is, this means that everything that I set out with my intention, my thought about why I do the work I do was built on I think the, other people\'s perce, other people\'s opinions or, my perception of what other people think I should be doing of what I\'m hearing other people do, of trying to emulate others.
And there\'s only this work I\'m doing now as deep work now, which leads back into what you are talking about, which is actually, rather than thinking about what the best strategy is, rather than think about all the things, is figure out what you actually want from the business. What will make you happy.
Figure out like what you are actually good at and what you\'re going to stick at. And then figure out which type of business or which type of property strategy fits that, not the other way around.
Julie Talbot: Exactly. Exactly. That\'s, and it\'s, so, it\'s easy to say and it\'s, hard, it\'s harder to do.
But if you, I suppose if you attach yourself to that idea of like, it\'s possible then, then it\'s, then, you can do it. And it\'s, it is why I get so much joy out of helping people with this because, it, yeah, it\'s just, possible and there\'s a strategy for everybody out there, or, there\'s a business for everybody.
Because not everyone wants a property business, right. But if you know you into property, then there\'s a property strategy. Out there for you. Like, I don\'t necessarily love service accommodation. I\'ve tried it, but I couldn\'t get excited about it. But some of my clients, they get so much, so much joy from it.
Whether it\'s because they like creating a, space for families to come together, to be able to make memories together. But they\'ve got that purpose and there and they love it. Or have got other clients who might do service accommodation. Because they really enjoy the, the design, the creativity that it gives them.
And it gives them an outlet for that. And if that\'s, the thing that excites me, then we can make it work a around that because they\'ve got this emotional sort of like, reason for, wanting to do it. Not just like, oh well, you know, that\'s the one where you make the most money. Or that\'s the one where that\'s meant to be the easiest.
We\'re all different, so easy and things, they\'re all just, different for, each of us.
Dr Steve Day: Just thinking about property strategy. So I, have one of my clients as well, he\'s also a, support of digital nomads and, he\'s based in Spain, in Palmer. And he basically sets up, apartments for digital nomads to live in.
And he\'s doing this as a, he\'s building a, like a franchise basically. Is going to be set up with centers all over Europe, originally. In the world, eventually. And, but the reason I say this, because he basically sees his business as a software business, as a technical business. So his interest, his passion is around, building a like massively systemized technical AI automated business.
That\'s, like what his, he talks about his business being, the fact it\'s in property is almost, I think, in inconsequential to him when you speak to sometimes. So, so it\'s like you just, he\'s found something he\'s truly passionate about. Building this, scalable reproducible machine. But it happens to be developing awesomely cool, like affordable properties for nomads.
For the short nomads. And it\'s just like, so it combines these two things together, so yeah.
Julie Talbot: But yeah. Yeah. It is finding those things that you\'ve, that you\'re passionate about. I remember about, I was in this corporate meeting in, mid twenties or something like that. And there was an icebreaker session.
And the icebreaker session was, you know, everyone had to just draw a picture. Then present it back to introduce yourself to people. And I was kind of like, at the time where I knew I wanted to leave, so I felt like a really big fraud. But I hadn\'t quite figured out what the next thing was.
So I\'m sat there thinking she just, I want to surf around the world. I just like that was all I could think surfing around the world. So I drew like surfing around the world. And then, you have that moment of truth where you put your pitch on the, table and everyone else starts presenting and everyone else is like, I want to buy a house and I want to have children.
And I\'m like, oh, crap. They\'re going to know that I\'m about to resign, I\'m around. But..
Dr Steve Day: Did his act?
Julie Talbot: I didn\'t know. Like it wasn\'t, to me, it wasn\'t obvious to everybody else that this is where, I wanted to be. Yeah. But my point is sometimes we just, we kind of like feeling our, just knowing our heart, the thing that, that we want to do.
So clearly, even back then, like I had this, desire to be location free, but still be able to be working wherever I was. And we\'ve kind of, if you\'ve got that, just, if that idea is strong enough, then you can find a way to, find a way to make it work. Design the machine that gives you the ability to, to do that.
Because it\'s not about not working, right. It\'s about being able to take your work wherever it is you want to be.
Dr Steve Day: Absolutely. And with that, said, I mean like, if you want to do this in property, anyone listening, Julie is your woman to speak to, and if you don\'t want to do it, property speak to me.
Julie Talbot: Yeah, exactly.
Dr Steve Day: We\'ve got the whole, we\'ve got the whole world covered.
Julie Talbot: Yeah. We have just some sort of collaboration for Steve. Honestly, I swear when I first, saw what you were doing in systemizing and everything, I remember just being like, wow, you\'d, created what I was like imagining in terms of like the systemization and things like that.
And I\'d actually created in other businesses the way of systemizing and how you\'d done things, but in other businesses. So it was, uncanny when I met you, it was like, wow.
Dr Steve Day: Yeah. I mean..
Julie Talbot: I love what you do.
Dr Steve Day: Our early conversations were always, lots of fun. Oh, with that in mind, I remember you once posted, and this is sort of a shout out to a future, shout out to everybody else who listens to this, but you once posted about using RecruitRight. And I remember this day because it was one of the best reviews, early reviews I got cool about the recruit right hiring system. And it really made my day, I still remember to this day. I probably remember some of the, wording of it because it really hit home for me emotionally.
And, but I\'ve just been, my, what I\'ve been spending my past couple of weeks working on is, AIing the hell out of it? So, ooh, I will let you, in on the Vita and you can have a little of play. Yeah, and basically using AI to take away all the bits that you, the barriers that people got with actually getting started with that re with the recruitment piece.
And when I\'m talking recruitment, for anybody listening, I\'m talking about hiring remotely. So you can live remotely. The, like this, it still works for hiring people in house and people use it, but that\'s not what I built it for. I built it for this, for running businesses, being able to live anywhere in the world and having a global team.
That\'s the, that was the philosophy of building it. And so.
Julie Talbot: Yeah. No, I remember that. And that, that, that system as you did it was amazing. Just following the process. The fact there\'s going to be an AI aspect to it was, is, brilliant. Anybody listening, like, get, that from you, but get on your wait list for whatever it is.
Dr Steve Day: Yeah. Be I\'ll be, launching that as a, standalone very, very soon. So, yeah, keep listening if you, want know more interesting. Wasn\'t meant to be, wasn\'t meant to be a big pitch for, the repeat. We got it.
Julie Talbot: It\'s funny you say that. It\'s, funny you say that. So something I wasn\'t even going to talk about, but I have like, my most important, process, if you like, one of my most important processes is, viewing, being able to view properties.
And for me that was the light on moment for being able to just, you know. Do anything that I needed to be able to do. It was creating this like viewings, viewings process. And I was actually experimenting other day with like, so I\'ve got like a mini course on that, just like how to have like a view, how to put a viewings process in place.
It\'s just like a short workshop. But I was experimenting with that the day, like, could I, could I put that into AI? Could I make that into an AI resource so somebody would use it? So I was, I was certainly, I\'m not nowhere near thinking about launching anything to do with that, but it was a thought in my brain.
I was experimenting with, how, it would look and trying to make it work. So funny.
Dr Steve Day: One of my, one of my, clients is a structural engineer. And so one of the things that he has to do is go and do reports. And so basically go into building surveys and all the rest of it, and so we were discussing the other day. He\'s been playing around with using AI to basically look at the, high res photos and create reports off the back of them building, building up the knowledge base to actually make those reports pretty much good to go.
And, that\'s doing engineering work. So like from a viewings perspective, if you can get somebody to go in there with a camera, you don\'t need the measurements. So one of my, one of my good mates, it\'s like a Matterport competitor and, they\'d like, Cameras were a couple hundred quid, which a 3D scanning camera.
Not scanning, sorry. A 3D camera. 360 degree 3D camera. But not scanning. Because that\'s the difference between Matterport. But for viewings, for doing digital walkthroughs so you can basically walk through And open doors and all the rest of it. So that couple hundred quid and it\'s exactly the same job as like these five, five grand cameras from, for Matterport.
So for landlords or people that want to do remote viewings, they\'re absolutely ideal. And again, I\'m not trying to picture this, I\'m just.
Julie Talbot: Yeah.
Dr Steve Day: If you want these details, let me know and we\'ll speak afterwards. But, Eye tour, that\'s the name of the, I can\'t remember his name, eye tour if anyone\'s in interested. Anyway, little pitch for you there, James Plug.
And the point was that with AI now, like the reality is you could get anybody to walk in. Stick that camera in the room, walk out, press a button, go around like that. And the AI will then do whatever you want, create the descriptions for you. If you walk around the property, give you, like whatever you need, like do the inventories for you.
Like that\'s the reality we\'re getting into. So the, jobs that used to be really annoying, having to get someone to come in, like go and do tick to box inventories, you\'re relying on them being reliable. Because if you screw it up and then your tenants can, like, you can\'t get the money back off your tenants, all this stuff.
These reality checks for many landlords when they\'re try and get other people to help them do it, which I had these, teething problems when I went remote. They\'re never going to do it as well as you. They\'re never going to, they\'re never going to look under the bed or whatever it is. Using AI now is, there\'s massive opportunities to like, streamline stuff and just make it, you know, that little bit better without actually requiring to have somebody massively capable.
Julie Talbot: Yeah. Yeah, There\'s so many options.
Dr Steve Day: There you go. Cool. Julie, I would love to keep chatting with you, but I, unfortunately not, unfortunately. It sounds terrible. I\'ve got to go pick up my kids.
Julie Talbot: You\'ve got school run?
Dr Steve Day: I\'ve got school run. I don\'t live the, the, unfortunately I don\'t live the, the no schooling or the anti-schooling. What was it called? The?
Julie Talbot: Unschooling.
Dr Steve Day: Unschooling. That was it. Not anti-schooling. Sorry. I must go and get them before they think I\'ve deserted them. But before I do tell people how they can get a hold of you if they want to know more about how you could potentially mentor them into creating a wonderful lifestyle that you have.
Julie Talbot: Yeah, well I have a, I am on Instagram at Julie Rose Tolbert, and I have, a simple checklist, three, three simple steps to start a scale, a property portfolio with location freedom from outside the UK. So that\'s, a, good, simple, short place to start. It is on my Instagram, sort of like page, if you want to grab that and send me a bit of a message and say hi as well.
I try and keep some time ring first from here and, you know, here and there to do like, 50 minute calls when we can. We can\'t always, it depends where we are. But, we\'re Thailand at the moment having a bit of quiet time, so I\'ve got some timer ring friends, so yeah. Check out my Insta page and see what we\'ve got.
Dr Steve Day: I\'ve got a, I\'ve got a, so it is instagram.com obviously, and then julierosetalbot, and then you\'ve also got bit.ly, so bit.ly/3simplestepstofreedom.
Julie Talbot: Yep. That is on my bio as well on Instagram, so you can grab it from there.
Dr Steve Day: There you go. Before you go, Julie, I have to ask you one question. Ask everybody this. This podcast is called Systemize Your Success, but what does success mean to you and why?
Julie Talbot: Success is for me, it\'s being able to be present for my family. And grow and run a business that I\'m really proud to be able to be in, which is creating homes. And to be able to, be able to do them both from wherever we want to be in the world. That, that is success for me at the moment.
Dr Steve Day: Do you know what I love about your answer, Julie? It\'s, it was in, in the present tense. It\'s not what success will be, it\'s what success is and you are living it. So amazing. Cool.
Julie Talbot: Thank you.
Dr Steve Day: Lovely to catch up with you. Julie. Thank you so much for your time today. Really appreciate you coming on the show.
Julie Talbot: Thank you. And thank you Steve for everything you do. I find what you do, so inspiring for, any small businesses and larger businesses and I love the way you just present systemizing and making it so accessible. So thank you for everything you do and please, please, please keep doing it.
Dr Steve Day: No, thank you very much. Cheers, Julie.
Julie Talbot: Bye.
VALUABLE RESOURCES
From Dr Steve Day:
- Free access to our Recruit Right Hiring and DIDACT Frameworks here: https://sys.academy/guides
From Julie Talbot:
- 3 Steps to Location Freedom: https://bit.ly/3simplestepstofreedom
LINKS TO CONNECT WITH THE GUEST
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/julierosetalbot/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/julie.talbot.359
ABOUT THE GUEST
Julie is an active UK property investor, strategist, and freedom seeker, reshaping how to grow and manage a UK property business by putting time and location freedom first.
With a background in business design and process management, Julie helps expats and nomads make strategic choices that unlock time and location freedom so that they can scale or manage their UK property ventures, from wherever they are, want to be in the world.
LINKS TO CONNECT WITH THE HOST
- Podcast: https://www.systemizeyoursuccess.com
- Website: https://systemsandoutsourcing.com/
- Facebook Group: https://facebook.com/groups/systemsandoutsourcing/
- LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/company/systemsandoutsourcing/
- Instagram: https://instagram.com/systems_and_outsourcing/
- YouTube: https://youtube.com/@drsteveday42
- TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@drsteveday42
ABOUT THE HOST
Steve moved to Sweden in 2015 and transformed how he ran his businesses—switching to a fully remote model. A former NHS doctor, with a background in computing and property investing, he now helps overwhelmed business owners systemise and outsource effectively. Through his courses and coaching, Steve teaches how to automate operations and work with affordable virtual assistants, freeing up time and increasing profits. He runs his UK-based businesses remotely with support from a team of UK and Filipino VAs. He is also passionate about helping others build scalable, stress-free companies using smart systems and virtual support.