– English Lyrics

Lyrics & Translation

[English]

Hello, this is Taylor. So, this month I

have some insane travel, like insanely

cool travel, but I'll be gone for almost

a month. I'm starting here in New

York, then LA, then to

Korea, then Vietnam, then Taiwan, then

back to LA, then Houston before I end up

back in New York. However, do my revenue

streams stop for that month? Do we put

getting that bread on hold? No. But how?

How am I able to travel for a month and

still maintain a welloiled machine?

Because these days, I am a lot better

about making sure that my business,

which entails filming, script writing,

video editing, daily correspondence with

brands that I'm working with, still runs

while I'm gone. And I like to think that

I do it in a way where I still feel like

I'm getting a proper vacation at the

same time. So, I thought I would tell

you guys today some of the techniques

that I employ in order to achieve this

without burning out and also exactly how

much revenue I was able to secure while

I was gone. And these tips, as always, I

try to make them applicable to a wide

audience. So, this is not just for

remote workers. This will apply to a lot

of different jobs. So, we'll start with

my foundational principles. Then, we'll

move on to my execution tactics and then

my scaling strategy. I still use a lot

of buzzwords even though I'm no longer

in consulting. So, the heart of the

foundation, plan ahead and ruthlessly

prioritize. Wow, Taylor, plan ahead and

prioritize. How groundbreaking. No, no,

no. Listen, I'm talking plan ahead on

steroids. In my case for this video,

scripting my ideas ahead of time means

that it's no problem to switch between

New York or Houston or Taiwan. It's not

rocket science. It's just preparation.

So, here's what I used to do. I would

get to a travel spot and then feel like

I have to film everything to make a

video, but then I would give up halfway

through because I just wanted to live

out that experience in real time and

didn't really plan ahead at all. Or I

would feel like I should sit down at a

cafe for 2 hours while on vacation so I

don't fall super far behind. But my

tasks at hand were kind of unclear, so I

would end up not doing anything or

spinning my wheels and spending more

time at that cafe and eating into my

vacation. Chaos. Now I try to lay out

before my trip or during the trip during

the in between times like on flights

exactly what has to be done each day so

that way my business can still run while

leaving myself plenty of leftover time

to enjoy my vacation. And having this

extremely dialed might sound very type A

and like it leaves no room for

flexibility, but I genuinely believe it

is the opposite. Somewhat

counterintuitively, in my opinion,

structure is what sets you free. No

matter what your job is, prepping the

to-dos ahead of time and sticking to

them removes the guesswork. So today,

for example, because I wrote the script

to this video ahead of time, I knew

exactly what few minutes of footage I

had to get today while here in Taiwan.

And then I'm free to be a tourist and do

whatever else I want with my time

without stressing that I have more

things on my plate. And this is so much

better for my workflow than to

haphazardly film everything and then

feel like I have to put together the

story and the video editing later on.

but then don't have enough footage. No

more of that. It is such a stressful

process. Okay, but it's not just

planning ahead. It's being extremely

strict with myself about priorities,

especially before I leave on my travels.

This is something I have got leaps and

bounds better at, although there's still

plenty of room for improvement. I lay

out my list of tasks that I have to do

before I leave. Some examples for me in

this case were first, while I was in LA

before going to Asia, getting footage at

Arowan for my business case video. and

arrowans are only in LA. So, you know,

responding to three different brands

with ideas and video concepts for

upcoming brand deals, sending all my tax

documents to my CPA, mailing something

to the Department of State, and buying a

travel size facial cleanser because I

only have fulls size ones. Now, my

instinct would be to do the fun one

first to go shopping for some

skinincare. But I could do that one

anywhere. Heck, I might as well wait

until I'm in Korea to do that one

because Korean skincare is goated. No, I

prioritized things that had to get done

before getting on my flights. So, that

started with my LLC admin stuff, which I

had to do before leaving New York. Then

getting all my tax documents to my CPA

because tax day is April 15th. I'm

traveling until April 1st and I don't

want to say that until the last minute.

Then filming all the local LA business

stuff because obviously that had to be

done in LA. I think you're getting it. I

don't need to tell you how to prioritize

a task list, but I can speak for myself.

I used to be really bad at this where I

would do the fun, easy, lowhanging fruit

tasks first and then not be strict with

myself about what actually had to get

done and in what order and then I would

just be stressing about the undone tasks

while on my trip. Now I try to put out

all the little fires in order of

importance first so I can clear up some

mind space. And believe me, it has made

a world of difference. So to make this

very actionable, the exact way that I do

this and stay on top of everything is

through a very simple notion page. No,

this is not a transition to a sponsor

where I make these little check boxes.

Maybe a title like need to do before

leaving New York and then need to do

before leaving LA to Asia, then need to

do while in Asia. Then I file away the

to-dos in this order and then rank them

in order of priority. It's really as

simple as any task list, but this helps

a lot for me and I do not let myself

skip around anymore to the best of my

ability. These same exact principles

applied while I was in consulting as

well. By the way, again, this isn't just

for remote work. The world of difference

it would make to take 10 minutes at the

end of my Fridays to look back at the

week and kind of plan my priorities for

the week ahead or just taking 5 minutes

on a Sunday evening to look at what I

was going to have to do that week.

Granted, I probably couldn't fly to Asia

for 4 weeks at that time without taking

actual paid time off, but you know,

broad strokes. So that is my main

foundation, planning ahead and

prioritizing in a lot of detail, more

detail than I normally would while just

working in New York with business as

usual. Okay, moving to execution

tactics. The next thing that I do to

maintain my revenue while traveling is

to really take advantage of the in

between times. The first in between

time, probably my favorite one, flights.

Oh my gosh, you're a captive audience.

There's no Wi-Fi or no fast Wi-Fi at

least. basically have coffee on tap. Say

less. It's the perfect environment. I am

writing the script to this exact video,

the one that you're watching right now,

on my flight from LA to Seoul. It's a

12-hour flight, and of course, I snacked

a bit. I even watched a movie. A real

pain if you're curious, and I really,

really liked it. It was very charming.

Anyway, would recommend. But honestly,

for about 7 and 1/2, 8 hours, I pretty

much worked. I should note that I do

take time here and there where I

completely unplug. Okay, I'm not a

complete hardo, but in this case, being

gone for so long, I kind of wanted to

work out a way where I could figure out

a hybrid model that actually worked for

me, and we'll talk more at the end about

why I actually generally prefer this

approach. Okay, another in between time

that I really took advantage of on this

trip, those early morning hours when

you're super super jet-logged, but it's

too early and nothing's open yet. Here I

am in the Airbnb, our first morning in

Soul. Here I am, early morning in Hanoi,

Vietnam. My first night there, I passed

out at like 8:45 p.m. Slept like 9

hours. My mom was still asleep and I saw

the coffee shops weren't open yet, so I

just knocked out like an hour and a half

of work right here on this couch. Next

in between time, boom, at the airport

waiting to board. The perfect boring

downtime that I could be using to knock

out a little bit of a script or film a

part of this video. Granted, with super

early flights like this one, I'm not

always especially keen on taking

advantage of this particular in between

time, but sometimes I am, sometimes I'm

not. This morning happens to be one

where I'm actually somehow a little bit

energized even though I didn't sleep

very much. So, all of this planning and

maximizing the in between moments isn't

just about staying busy. It directly

impacts my bottom line. So, let me break

down exactly how these strategies keep

revenue flowing at a relatively normal

pace while I'm traveling and exactly how

much revenue I was still able to capture

while I was gone. Starting with brand

deals, which makes up the most

significant portion of my income. The

priority tasks that I mentioned earlier,

a lot of those were finalizing brand

partnerships that I'll film in the

coming weeks after I get back from my

travels. But because they require time

and attention in the month or two

leading up to execution, I still have to

tend to them. So, by front-loading this

work, finding reasonable ways that I can

still address these things while

traveling, and being clear with the

brand partners about my travel schedule

as needed, I was still able to secure

$56,000 in brand partnerships while I

was gone. Next, YouTube ad revenue,

which is my second largest income

stream. While I'm filming this video in

Taiwan, videos that I posted weeks,

months, years ago are still generating

YouTube ad revenue. This passive income

stream continues whether I'm in New York

or Hanoi or Taiwan, but only as long as

I've properly planned my content

calendar ahead of time to maintain

fairly consistent uploads. So, while

traveling, my channel still generated

about $3,000 oops, sorry, $3,000 in ad

revenue. But I should note that that is

still a slowdown for my channel. I

didn't post new videos while I was here.

I just filmed a bunch of them and worked

with my video editors to make progress

on existing pre-f filmed footage. More

on that later. But this $3,000 is just

pure passive income from old videos. And

speaking of passive income, if you guys

have been around for a while watching my

videos, you know that I am passionate

about making money in fun, creative

ways. Yeah, you are. Yep. And a method

that I've mentioned to you guys before

that you can totally do while traveling

is print ondemand. What's that? So,

print on demand is a way to create

custom products that you can sell on

various marketplaces without having to

hold inventory because the item is only

created after someone places an order.

It's kind of like drop shipping for

custom merch. Oh, and why do you like it

compared to traditional merch

fulfillment? Good question. It's because

after you create the products and list

them for sale, it runs completely in the

background. So, I can make sales on

designs that I created weeks ago while,

I don't know, eating street food in

Vietnam. Wait, so cool. Can you show me?

For sure. Come look. So, I'll show you

how to use it using Gelato. who I'm

lucky to be partnering with on today's

video. They are the world's largest

print on demand network with over 140

providers across 32 countries. Yay.

Okay, show me. Okay, so if we browse

through their product catalog, I've

really been loving wall art options

because profit margins are higher.

They're highquality customized statement

pieces that you can hang on your walls.

And as with all these other categories,

there's zero inventory to manage. So,

I'm going to upload my own photos that I

took. Nothing like hanging your own

photos, am I right? So, I'm going to do

one of some beautiful town houses that I

took in Brooklyn last spring and then

another one of me in Utah because I

really love the composition of this

photo. Just doing some sizing. This is

really just a drag and drop. It is

extremely user friendly. Then I just hit

order because I'm ordering it for

myself. But if I was selling it, Gelato

makes it really, really easy because

they integrate with so many different

marketplaces. So, I could post this wall

art for sale on my say Etsy account

directly from Gelato. And then once the

order comes in on Etsy, Gelato

automatically fulfills that order for

you. Right. Yeah, exactly. It finds the

nearest print provider, ships it

directly to the buyer, and my hands are

tied behind my back, and then fast

forward. Wow, magic. That was fast. I

get to unbox the art and hang it on my

walls, and it's awesome. Admittedly, it

doesn't usually take 30 seconds like it

just did. But 90% of gelato orders are

produced locally wherever the customers

are, which is also why 90% of gelato

orders arrive within 5 days of ordering,

even though they're made on demand. So,

30 seconds, 5 days or less, kind of the

same. So, if you want to try Gelato for

yourself, you can get 50% off of your

first order if placed within 48 hours of

signing up using the link in my

description. And the 50% off is great

for like a test sample order to check

quality and all that good stuff. So

thanks to Gelato for partnering with me

on this. We absolutely love a location

independent revenue stream. Okay, so the

foundation was planning ahead and

prioritizing on steroids. Execution

mainly comes down to taking advantage of

those in between times while traveling.

And now let's move to my scaling

strategy. So something I have done and I

still have a long way to go, but it's

get more comfortable with trading money

for time. So, if you've seen some of my

more recent videos, you might know that

I've been going through the process of

hiring a video editor to help me buy

back my time to work on other videos in

the meantime. And even though I will

still do a large portion of the editing

myself because I want to, having someone

else help me do half of it or even more,

whatever it comes out to, allows me to

parallel process and get started on the

script or the filming for the next

video. Okay, this might sound childish,

but it actually is the perfect analogy.

And it's not just for YouTubers, I

promise. So, imagining you're cooking a

Thanksgiving dinner. You have your

turkey, mashed potatoes, cranberry

sauce. What else? I don't know. My My

family does southern green beans with

it. Think of all the work that goes into

the turkey. Brining it, adding the

spices, putting it in the oven where it

has to stay for what, like 4 hours? I

don't know. My mom does it, but it seems

like a long time. Imagine waiting for

that turkey to fully finish before

moving on to the mashed potatoes, and

then waiting for the mashed potatoes to

be totally done before moving on to the

cranberry sauce. Insanity. Dinner would

never happen in time. That is basically

how I ran my business for almost 5

years. But what if you parallel process?

Boil the potatoes while the turkey

cooks. Open the can of cranberry sauce

while the potatoes are boiling. Let's be

real. We're all eating out of the can,

right? You see where I'm going? But now,

let's kick it up a notch. Imagine you

have a sue chef. While the turkey comes

out of the oven and you start slicing

it, you have a whole another person to

start mashing the potatoes. Magic. Sure,

it'll take some time to get aligned with

your sue chef on exactly how you like

your potatoes to be done, but once

you're on the same page, that work

should really pay off in the long run.

And now you can produce three separate

Thanksgiving dinners in the same amount

of time that you used to be able to make

just one by yourself. The analogy

obviously is that while my video editor

is helping take a first pass at that

other footage, I can be working on the

script to the next one or in Taiwan

filming another one. So, I'm trading

money for more of my time back with the

hopes to scale and increase my output.

Now, because I am very particular with

my work, I personally think it's pretty

important to become an expert at every

step of the Thanksgiving dinner process

yourself first before hiring a sue chef.

I do understand the argument for hiring

even sooner, but if I didn't go through

those years of troubleshooting and going

through that trial and error to craft a

really specific style and taste of my

own, I wouldn't know how to articulate

to someone else exactly what I want.

Sure, you could hire sooner and then

grow together, and that's not

necessarily a bad thing, but I don't

know. I'm glad that I held off for a

long time. So, that's a very specific

example on how YouTubers could save

time. But for others, maybe it's hiring

a virtual assistant who could help you

sift through emails so you could put

more of your time towards more value

additive tasks or hiring a trip planner

because maybe you hate scouring the

internet for recommendations and would

rather save your time to get ahead on

something different. I read a whole book

about this in fact and it goes into a

lot more detail than I am right now,

like how to place specific tasks into

quadrants where the x-axis is how much

you enjoy the task and the y-axis is how

value additive that task is to your

company. And Dan Martell says that you

should outsource anything in that lower

left quadrant ASAP. There are exceptions

because I kind of did the opposite. The

first task that I hired for was the one

that I might enjoy the most and one that

is arguably the most value additive to

my business, but it is the most time

consuming by far. So there's that

element too. So rather than trading your

time and energy, which is a very finite

resource, but instead trading money at

some rate that makes sense for you is

what will enable you to have some work

going on in the background while you're

traveling. Of course, this also applies

when you're not traveling. But I found

this parallel processing especially

helpful while I was gone. So why even do

this in between hybrid working method?

Why not just put work on pause, actually

unplug and take your vacation so you

really feel like you're getting a mental

recharge and then come back to it

afterwards? I kind of asked myself the

same question while writing the script.

And I realized that the main reason for

me, aside from it directly affecting my

bottom line, which we already discussed,

is that I want to if you're also lucky

enough to really enjoy your work, you

know that feeling of it energizing you

and giving you some purpose and

fulfillment. So, even though traveling

and seeing the world is one of my

all-time favorite things to do, of

course, I have found that doing a bit of

work here and there while I'm traveling,

actually keeps me feeling a bit more

energized and also keeps me from that

kind of uncomfy emotion of feeling like

I'm super far behind. Perfect example,

my mom and I had a 4:00 a.m. wake up

time to catch our flight from Hanoi to

Taipei, and I was stressed and angry

about not having enough plans figured

out for us for when we landed in Taipei,

like not booking a place to stay. And

then I brought myself to work a little

bit on the plane and I started to get

excited about some new video ideas. And

then I got a little energized and it

just put me in a better mood for

everything else and actually switched my

mindset from being stressed to we'll

figure it out. It's all good. It's going

to be okay.

You can't stop me. Don't even try. I can

push you down the elevator escalator.

I will say this was so not the case when

I was in consulting. I very happily

unplugged completely when I took my

vacations. And I do think that's a bit

easier to do when you're a salaried

employee and you have a bit less

crossover between your work and life.

Beep beep beep. Reality check. Final

section. Important. I feel kind of like

a fraud making this video because pretty

much every single day that I was

traveling, I for sure thought to myself,

gez, I feel really far behind. Or, ugh,

I haven't responded to that brand yet,

but now it's 4:00 a.m. their local time,

but I'm exhausted from the day. Or, man,

I still haven't reviewed that video

draft. I really need to set aside some

time for that. Like, I do not have this

completely dialed yet. But, I have

become noticeably a lot better at this.

And when I thought about why, these are

the things that I came up with in this

video. And so I thought it would be

helpful to at least a few of you for me

to share these things. Another reality

check. This obviously is not passive

work that I'm doing and I don't want to

imply that I'm still actively working.

You know, responding to emails once or

twice a day by no means fully

unplugging. I still filmed this video

while I was traveling. But do I still

think that there are times and places to

fully unplug even if you do love your

work? Yes. You think I'm going to be on

my I don't know honeymoon and working?

Maybe a little. I just usually prefer

taking my fully unplugged time more

sporadically. So, one day here, one

weekend there, rather than four full

weeks straight. So, in summary, plan

ahead and prioritize in a very detailed

fashion. Take advantage of those

extended in between times like on

flights or in the early mornings with

jet lag. And if you're in the position

to do so, consider trading more of your

money for your time back in order to

scale this process. This approach is not

about never taking breaks. It's about

finding a sustainable balance that

allows you to enjoy extended travel time

while still maintaining momentum in your

business, and it is my favorite way to

do it. So, I hope this video was helpful

to you in some way. Thumbs up and

subscribe if it was. Cheers from Taiwan.

Turtle

out. I'm sweaty. It's hot. It is that

season where I'm sweating in this chair

cuz I can't run the AC at the same time

cuz it's too loud. So, my upper lip

always gets wet. I always get this one

mixed up. Not trading time for money.

The other way around. It's just dewy,

guys. Not

sweat. New York soundtrack.

Key Vocabulary

Vocabulary	Meanings
travel /ˈtrævəl/ A1	noun - the act of going from one place to another, typically for business, vacation or leisure verb - to go from one place to another
business /ˈbɪznəs/ B1	noun - an organization or company
plan /plæn/ A1	noun - a detailed proposal for doing or achieving something verb - to make a detailed proposal for doing or achieving something
prioritize /praɪˈɒrɪtaɪz/ B2	verb - to decide the order of importance or urgency of tasks
revenue /ˈrɛvənjuː/ B2	noun - income, especially that earned from business
vacation /vəˈkeɪʃən/ A2	noun - a period of time devoted to pleasure, rest, or relaxation
work /wɜːrk/ A1	noun - activity involving mental or physical effort done in order to achieve a result verb - to be engaged in physical or mental activity to achieve a result
film /fɪlm/ A2	noun - a motion picture verb - to record or capture on film or video
edit /ˈɛdɪt/ B1	verb - to prepare written material for publication or modify a recording
script /skrɪpt/ B1	noun - the text of a play, film, or broadcast
brand /brænd/ B1	noun - a type of product manufactured by a company
income /ˈɪnkʌm/ B1	noun - money received, especially on a regular basis
passive /ˈpæsɪv/ B2	adjective - not taking part in something; inactive
demand /dɪˈmænd/ B1	noun - a request or desire for something
print /prɪnt/ A2	verb - to produce text or pictures on paper with ink
product /ˈprɒdʌkt/ B1	noun - an article or substance produced for sale
sell /sɛl/ A1	verb - to give or hand over something in exchange for money
hire /ˈhaɪər/ A2	verb - to employ someone to do work
scale /skeɪl/ B2	verb - to increase in size, amount, or number
time /taɪm/ A1	noun - the indefinite continued progress of existence