Author: Travis Lima

Working with WordPress since 2013. Helping people succeed online.

How to Land a Remote Job

Before the pandemic, a remote job was a utopian ideal that some chosen few were lucky enough to land. This is already changing due to the fact that more companies are forced to adopt a “work from home(WFH)” mindest.

You might be in a situation where you need to find a remote job. The only problem with finding a distributed team to work with is that in many cases you are now competing with the world for the position.

I have compiled a list of tips that I used in my personal journey to finding a remote job. I cannot guarantee it, but I hope it will help you in your WFH journey.

How to Improve your Chances to Land a Remote Job

Right. So you need a remote job. Here is a list of tips that I used that helped me land my position at Paid Memberships Pro, plus a few others that I have picked up throughout the years of being a digital nomad. Good Luck! Let me know how it goes.

1. It’s Not What You Know

You might have heard this saying before. It’s not what you know, it’s who you know. This has been true for most of my career. You see, if you are unknown in your industry it is quite difficult to land a remote job. Why? Because of your unknown status, you need to rely on your skill set, experience, and education to get you through to the next job application.

You might be a very capable, educated, and experienced professional. The one problem is that you are going up against a sea of top candidates. Location is no longer an issue. The world can apply for that same job.

In order to improve your chances of success there are two things you could try:

  • Networking
  • Make content

Both of these might be scary. I get it. But the benefits are really amazing. You might also be thinking that it is impossible to network right now. But while the world is still adjusting to things, you can safely jump on a variety of virtual summits.

Meet new people, make friends, and be yourself. You will do great. Meeting new people and making new connections has been the biggest contributing factor to my career. Also, it what helped me get my current remote job.

On the flip side of meeting new people, you can also start creating content. Sharing knowledge is a great way to help others while exposing what you know to the outside world. Possibly even scarier than networking, content creation involves putting yourself out there and getting all sorts of criticism – or none at all.

However, there is a lot to learn in content creation. Give it a chance. Learn as much as you can from all the aspects of this craft.

2. Level Up

Knowing someone in a position to give you a job is great. But if you are unable to do the job you apply for at all, you might not make it past the interview. If you sense you lack the skills needed to do the job you can take an online course, do some volunteer work, or even try reaching out as an intern for the company you want to work at.

All of which, will depend greatly on your situation and circumstances. To give you an idea, I would study online courses in the evening each night for an hour or two. I would learn about web applications, web design, and graphic design. All of this was done while I was working at a construction job.

Keep in mind that this can take time. But also remember, that you never know where the effort you do today will lead you tomorrow.

Why not try Treehouse to level up your web development skills, or Skillshare to level up everything in between!

3. Go For It!

Just try it. Go on. Take a shot – apply for that job. Even if it is out of your league, you never know. Things might just work out for you. Maybe you will have training on the job, maybe it will lead to another position.

Stay in Touch

More resources are coming soon. Subscribe to my Youtube channel. View my blog for details. Subscribe to my newsletter for more.

How to Reduce Grocery Budget Stress

Maybe you know the feeling? You get paid your salary. Breath a sigh of relief, and head out to the grocery store. It is time to replenish the supplies. Your pantry is sad and bare. Picked clean. Empty.

But all of that is about to change. You see, you have a full bank balance and the power is now in your hands. You feel like a king and as you parade around the isles of the store, you certainly shop like one. Trolley filled to the brim, you proceed to the teller. Everything is going great. That is until you see the blinking green light indicating an amount that is ever on the increase.

It feels like your anxiety levels are matching that of the number of the little LCD screen. You swipe your card and tell yourself that using up more than half of the month’s food budget was necessary while you nervously leave the store.

We’ve All Been There.

I didn’t like living like this. For the first two weeks of the month is a feast, while the last part of the month is a famine. It was stressful. It was disheartening. We were over it.

It was time to try something new, but what? Wasn’t this way of life just the way it is? Or was it?

Reduce Budget Stress

I have already gone through a bit of a story on how I got here. Thanks for reading it 🙂

I am not going to go into too much detail of how we got to this strategy, I won’t torture you any longer. It is time to get right into it. This is my active budget stress-reducing strategy. Are you ready? Here it is:

Budget Stress-Reducing Strategy

  1. Write up a budget – There is no way around it. You need to plan where your money is going. Otherwise, your money seeks to rid itself of you by any means necessary.
  2. Divide it up – Once you have the amount you want to spend, it is time to see how many weeks are in the month ahead. If there are 4 weeks in the month, divide your budget by 4, etc.
  3. Take a calculator – This may seem quite restricting, but I have found it to be rather freeing. Take a calculator with you and punch in any amount of an item that you add to your shopping basket.

Bonus Tips

  • Shop online.
  • Make a list of what you need.
  • Think about the meals you plan to prepare for the week before you go to the store.
  • Buy more than a week’s worth of essentials when they are on special.

Stay in Touch

More resources are coming soon. Subscribe to my Youtube channel. View my blog for details. Subscribe to my newsletter for more.

Side Hustle with Andrew Lima – 001

Learn about starting a Side Hustle in this Howzit Podcast episode. I recently realized that I thrive most when I am sharing experiences with people. I am a pretty good listener and usually quite interested in how people got to where they are in their life.

Last week, I was conducting my very first webinar interview with a customer for work. It went so well, and I was so charged after the episode that I basically decided right then and there to start a podcast.

That is how The Howzit Podcast was born.

I was so excited that I lined up a couple of guests using Twitter. I had already two guests lined up before I had anything else in place.

Episode 001 – Starting a Side Hustle with Andrew Lima

For my first guest, I chose to interview my very own brother, Andrew Lima. Andrew is great and we certainly have been through a lot together. Who better to start this podcast journey off with than one of the people I am most fond of?

Plus, Andrew has got some serious experience and knowledge on a subject that MANY people want to know about – Side Hustles.

Watch Episode 001

Once I Was Young, but Now I Am Old.

rry - once i was young, now I am old.

“Worry often gives a small thing a big shadow.”

– Swedish Proverb

You may recognize the title of this post. You may not. I was reminded of this when I came across a young couple sitting at a table nearby. The young lady was crying. I don’t know for sure but it looked like they were in the middle of a break-up.

As I saw this young person clearly going through a difficult time, I thought of the start of a bible verse I knew. The verse starts off with the sentence: “Once I was young, but now I am old”. While I sat there and thought about this verse, I thought about my own life. I thought about a time when I was younger. I thought about the problems that I had back then, and how small they seemed now. Even though back then they were monumental.

There was a time when I thought that being cool, or liked by my classmates meant everything to me. An end to a young-love relationship was the end of the world. Struggling to consistently land a kickflip meant catastrophic failure.

Don’t Sweat the Small Things

I wish I could go back in time and tell myself that everything would be okay. That in the end, those things that I was so obsessed with wouldn’t matter in the end. I would tell myself to do my best and to not sweat the small things. Everything was going to be okay.

Growing up.

It was at that moment where I thought about a video I watched. This video was an interview with a 90-something-year-old person who lived a full life. The man was asked to share some words of wisdom for the upcoming generation. What would you like to tell the young people of the world?

The man thought for a minute and said:

“Don’t worry, everything is going to be fine. Try to do your best. Don’t work so hard. Spend time with your loved ones. Do things that really matter. Everything is going to be okay.”

– Unknown

The Realisation

It was at that moment that I started thinking about the present. I thought about my own challenges, and the troubles I was facing. About the young person and their challenges and I thought about the old man and his words of wisdom.

I realized that my problems are relative. When I was young, not landing a skateboard trick was huge. Now I am older and my midlife challenges are far more important and serious — or are they? To someone who is 90 years old. My problems might seem trivial. As you approach the end of your life, the things I am currently facing just seem a lot smaller.

The Trick

As I sat there, waiting for my order to arrive. I thought about a possible trick. If we could learn from others, and look to our past experiences, maybe, just maybe, we could live the best version of our lives today.

What if instead of pounding worries around in my mind, I tried my best. What if I chose not to worry. Dared to believe that everything would work out, some way or another? If I could choose to believe that this moment, this situation, this challenge too shall pass. Everything was going to be okay.

What would my life look like if I took the advice from that 90-year-old man? Just knowing that perhaps one day, I would look back at this time and think, that wasn’t so bad. I wish I didn’t worry so much. I wish I enjoyed life a little bit more. Spent time with my family.

Once I was young, now I am old.

Worrying, obsessing, and agony is part of the human condition. We have so many words of wisdom from those who went before us. But at the same time, we still need to go through life and experience it for ourselves.

But what if. What if we could take that advice now? Live as though we already went through life. Live in the present moment. Be thankful. Trust and have faith that everything was going to be okay.

I don’t know about you, but this gave me hope. Life is not easy, but we really only have one shot at it. Let us live now while we are young. So that we don’t look back when we are old and regret all the things we wish we did or didn’t do.

Don’t worry. Enjoy life. Try your best. Do what matters. Spend time with your loved ones.

Stay in Touch

More resources are coming soon. Subscribe to my Youtube channel. View my blog for details. Subscribe to my newsletter for more.

Progress is Slow. Play the Long Game.

Progress is not about getting lucky and striking the big one. Although things can happen like that, it often doesn’t. Progress is about sticking to something. Moving slow and steady. Building momentum, by simply moving forward. Bit by bit.

I am reading the book, Atomic Habits by James Clear. A fantastic book that talks about how small consistent changes to your habits can yield very big results over time.

Make Progress Slowly

I have found this to be true with life and almost everything that you might want to develop. Want to read a 300-page book? Instead of trying to do it in one sitting, why not ready 10 pages each day for 30 days? Tackling 10 pages seems a lot more reasonable than climbing a 300 pager mountain in one feat.

Progress

Just like investing over time. Our efforts can compound over time too. This means that if we consistently make small increments each day, we will reap major results if we are patient enough. James Clear writes, “Imagine if you could make 1% progress each day”.

That is what it means to make progress slowly. To play the long game. Keep at it. Don’t give up.

Stay in Touch

More resources are coming soon. Subscribe to my Youtube channel. View my blog for details. Subscribe to my newsletter for more.

I am Building a Product!

This next venture sure is going to be exciting. I have decided to start executing some of my ideas that I have been having over the years. I would like to introduce Quest to you. A free dark theme for Slack.

Launch Fast. Fail Fast.

I came across the idea for Quest, like many of my other unactioned ideas. While browsing Twitter one day, I saw a tweet that inspired it all.

However, Quest, unlike any of my other ideas is different. How? Well, Quest was the first project that I decided to execute on. And it feels pretty good.

The main idea is to execute. Quickly and effectively. This usually means a sacrifice of quality for sure. But, I don’t think I could stand another idea going cold on me. No. It’s time to try things out and learn by doing.

Quest a free dark slack theme
Quest – A free dark theme for Slack.

Quest – A Free Dark Slack Theme

So what is this product? Quest is a dark Slack theme that is available for anyone to download and use. It was designed specifically for digital nomads, designers, and developers alike. Many of these online professionals communicate with their clients and team members for hours each day on Slack.

Quest was designed to be easy on the eye and to offer its users a delightful yet unintrusive experience. The ultimate dark Slack theme.

Check it out here: https://questtheme.com/

Stay in Touch

More resources are coming soon. Subscribe to my Youtube channel. View my blog for details. Subscribe to my newsletter for more.

10 Life-Changing Lessons I Learned from Toxic Twitter.

10 Life-Changing Lessons I Learned from Toxic Twitter.

Maybe you’ve experienced ‘Toxic Twitter.’ Maybe you haven’t. Up until recently, I hadn’t known what everyone was going on about. That is until I decided to leave the comfort of my scrolling through feeds, and decided to let the world know about an opinion I had.

I am not going to get into the details here. Because quite frankly, it doesn’t matter. But to give you a little context, I will tell you this.

I agreed with a particular person’s tweet. I responded with my own life experiences. A band of users who didn’t agree with me or the author of the tweet decided to let us know how they feel — in great detail. Words were said, personal character attacks were made. Overall, a pretty average day as far as social media goes.

As I stood in my living room, reading the replies. I was surprised. How was it possible for one person to openly say these insults to another stranger?

A Storm is Brewing

I started to compile my reply. I wanted to make the other person understand my point of view a little better — it failed. It made it worse. The person on the other end of this string of data somewhere on the opposite end of the planet got even more fired up.

When this happened, I was on the brink of declaring war. The situation felt sorely misunderstood and their tweet left a small but sharp sting, right in my mid-section.

I felt hurt, misunderstood, and wronged. This needed to be corrected.

As I was about to hit the reply button, a thought popped into my head. Is it worth engaging with this person? What do you hope to gain? An apology? From someone who openly and intentionally through hurtful comments, hoping for a reaction? No chance. Toxic Twitter is real.

10 Tips on Dealing with Toxic Twitter

I deleted my reply and decided to let everything sink in and think about the situation. After much thought, I went against my humanistic nature and decided not to reply to this person. I even took it one step further and deleted my initial response to the original thread.

On the surface, it would appear that I lost this online battle. I didn’t. And here’s why. Below are my 10 life-changing lessons that I learned from dealing with toxic twitter.

1) Everyone is entitled to their opinion. Just like I chose to have my say about the matter. Anyone is allowed to add their opinion to the conversation. Even if it is (viciously) in disagreement with your thoughts.

2) People don’t always follow the same rules. This is a hard fact to come to terms with. But in the example above, both I and this Twitter user were right — in our own eyes. This leads me to my next point.

Be better.

3) Don’t engage with someone maliciously. Imagine that we were having a conversation and you share an opinion with me. Instead of talking it through, I immediately respond by jabbing you in the nose. You would feel, well, hurt. Probably in more ways than one.

But if you look at point number two, remember that in our own eyes, we are both ‘correct’. The only difference here is that I am not playing by your moral rules.

If someone is openly malicious, there is an extremely small chance that you can reason with them, or come to some sort of resolution. Trolls are not playing by your moral code. They threw that job to get a reaction. They want to hurt and tear down. Engaging with someone who has an agenda like this is impossible. You won’t win, because you are probably not willing to stoop down to that level to win. This is a good thing by the way. Otherwise, there would be anarchy.

4) If a troll’s mission is to tear down and destroy, there is only one way to come out on top. Let this situation make you better. I decided to delete my tweet and walk away. Not because I was weak, but because I decided not to let this situation define me. I wanted to grow from it. If a troll hopes to destroy a part of you, and you develop and improve because of the situation — who wins? You do. Because you achieved the exact opposite of what they were hoping for.

Make the world a better place.

5) Do the opposite. I read an article about a person who made it their mission to engage with aggressive online users. They went out to show them who’s boss. Set them straight. The more they engaged the more enraged they become. Unfortunately what ended up happening was the exact opposite of what they initially intended. They started to become a troll and would seek out ‘stupid’ people on social media and start verbally abusing them.

It turns out, two wrongs don’t make a right. I went out to my Twitter feed and started to reply to people. I focused on leaving genuine, positive, and inspiring replies on other people’s tweets. Do the opposite of what a troll would do — make Twitter a better place instead.

6) Two sides to a tale. There are always two sides to a tale. We will never know what another person has been through. Perhaps, they feel justified in their behavior. Maybe, something tragic happened to them that lead them down this path of pain and aggression. Does this give a free pass to do what they want regardless of anyone else but themselves — certainly not? But it always helps to try and put yourself in the shoes of the other person, even just for a moment.

7) Walking away was freeing. The quicker I could walk away from the start of this conflict, the better. While a storm was brewing on my phone. It was a beautiful sunny afternoon. Putting my phone down, walking outside, and moving on with my life was truly the better option.

8) Choose words wisely. Looking back, I could have probably worded my tweet better. Changing a word or two can change your tone of voice and still deliver the message effectively.

9) Engage with people who make you happy. Life’s too short. If you’re going to spend it on social media then engage with people who are worth your time and bring value to your life.

10) Live more in the real world. Not toxic Twitter.

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More resources are coming soon. Subscribe to my Youtube channel. View my blog for details. Subscribe to my newsletter for more.

How to Build Wealth by Saving Money

how to build wealth by saving money

One of the biggest mistakes I made in my twenties was to assume that I would start saving money when my financial situation improved. I want to share my story with you. Hopefully, this article will show you how to build wealth (over time) by saving money.

Humble Beginnings 

I got married in my early twenties. I got retrenched about a month before the wedding – fun. As you can imagine, this was a pretty stressful time. We proceeded with our wedding plans, but it would take several months for me to would start seeing an income. My wife was in the last year of her nursing degree. She was earning a student salary, which came to around R5000 or $286 per month. With that quaint salary, we needed to pay our rent, buy groceries, and make sure my wife had enough petrol to get to university, the hospital she worked at, and back home.

To say that we were spread thin would be a massive understatement. I think Bilbo Baggins said it best in a scene of the Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the ring.

“I feel thin, sort of stretched, like butter scraped over too much bread.”

Under Pressure

This situation left us with little wiggle room to do much, let alone save money. I would often snark and get upset at the very thought of saving money. We were too busy trying to survive. There was no time or mind space to think about our financial future. Or so I thought.

The truth is, I was afraid. Confronting the situation felt daunting. I didn’t know what to do. I told myself that we would start saving when our financial situation improved. Instead of worrying about saving money, I thought. Let’s focus all our energy on improving our financial status first. We will start putting money away soon, but not right now.

Light at the End of the Tunnel

After months of job searching, finally, I got a call from a company. It was a construction company. The needed a QA/QC clerk to help manage their quality assurance documentation. My qualifications fitted the bill – I got the job!

I started at my new job and was earning a very decent entry-level salary. You would think that this was it. It was time to start saving and putting money away for a rainy day. Maybe even start putting my money to work by investing it. Truthfully, I wish this was the case. I finally had some cash to spend. Now was the time to live a little, you know? Enjoy the fruits of my labor. Oh, I will be saving for my future, and yessiree, I will most certainly be investing too. I mean, I have my whole life ahead of me, right?

Promotion

A few months went by, and my wife and I were working hard. We decided to build up our nest a little bit. We still were pretty credit-averse, but we weren’t putting anything away. If we did, and an opportunity came up to go on a week-long vacation, we would check our bank balance, see some funds, and use it. 

While this was fine, we never really had an idea of what our money should be doing. Maybe we were doing enough? Perhaps we weren’t? Who knows.

A couple of months at my job, I got called into my boss’s office. He was skimming over my resume and had a couple of pieces of paper in his hand. “Was I in trouble?” I thought. It turns out my boss needed another employee to handle some extra work that came up. It was work that fell outside of the overall scope of the job. Interestingly enough I was qualified to take on the role. And my boss remembered seeing my qualifications when we had a chat in my initial job interview. 

And just like that, I was promoted. I was thrilled.

With my promotion came three times the amount of money I was currently earning. Surely, now would be the opportune time to start investing in my future. 

Well, maybe not just yet.

The Most Valuable Lesson of My Life 

A couple of more months went by, and I was earning a decent wage. Especially when you consider that less than a year before I was making no money.

We were still not saving any money, and interestingly enough, our expenses shot up just as quickly as our income had. Before we knew it, we were living paycheck to paycheck, and we didn’t feel all that much different. You see, we were in this consumer trap. We were buying a lot of things that we didn’t need. Quite a few of those purchases were short-lived pleasures like going out to eat (regularly), going to the movies, and buying gadgets that promised to make us happy – it didn’t.

If you don’t have a handle on your expenses and money, you can quickly start living paycheck to paycheck. No matter how much you’re earning. That is the reason why celebrities incur vast amounts of debt or go bankrupt. But truthfully, that is an article on its own.

Please don’t do what I did. Start saving and investing now.

It’s important to note that I was at my job for less than a year. The side effect of earning three times my salary was a considerable amount of stress and responsibility. So I am happy to report that I wasn’t living lavishly and irresponsible for too long. I am a little glad that I did. It was a very beneficial learning experience. But please. Don’t make the same mistake I did. Start saving and start today.

The main reason why I wish I started saving and investing even when I had little or no money is because of compounding. Known as the eighth wonder of the world, coined by Albert Einstein. Compounding allows your investment to grow at an exponential rate – literally. The one catch?

It takes time.

I am not going to go into the details of how compounding works. If you would like, there are vast amounts of resources and calculators that you can use to get a better idea of the effects of compound interest. Just know that it is pretty incredible.

Building up a savings habit

The second important reason to start saving when you have little money is that you will build up a habit by doing so. I reasoned away investing. I put it off until a later date. Because of this, I never built up a savings habit. Instead, I built up a spending habit. 

One will make you a king. The other will keep you a slave.

Suppose you can start saving when you’re young, even if it is an insignificant amount. You will firstly develop a savings habit that will benefit you for the rest of your life. And you will leverage the power of compounding. Both of these concepts can seem pretty dull, especially if you are a bright-eyed youngster looking to experience life. But in the end, it will be worth it. You will have more freedom, more options, and you won’t have to wait until you’re sixty-something to start reaping the rewards of this either.

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