Entrepreneur, World Traveler and Author Danny Flood on the Different Hunger Podcast

hello everyone I'm here with Danny flood uh Danny is author of the new bestselling book by your own Island he's also spent the last four years traveling around the world to over 30 countries and in that time he started three location independent businesses Danny also manages open World magazine a magazine focusing on digital Nomads adventure and location

independent lifestyle and Entrepreneurship I'm thrilled to have Danny on the show hey Danny how you doing hey Matt I'm doing good it's great to be here it's been a long time in the making absolutely good to have you on yeah so uh why don't we go ahead and get started and um you can tell our listeners uh

what your background is uh yeah sure so as you mentioned I just wrote a book called uh buy your own Island it's available on Amazon you can just search that uh it's it kind of Chronicles it parallels my own Journey as a unemployable 20s something uh graduating into uh recession in the modern economy and kind of figuring

it all out I've been kind of a crash test dummy I suppose and um I was able to kind of turn my life around you know from where I was going and U the book kind of talks about what I've learned over the last several years I've I've been traveling for 5 years now around the world I've

been to over 30 countries um I've never been able to hold it down a job for more than one month uh for some reason and I I really I guess I bristle at the fact that uh anytime someone tells me what to do and I I ask why and they're just like because I said so and I'm

like that's that's not a very good reason this sounds stupid I'm out of here and uh so you can kind of get a little bit about my background awesome so it definitely sounds like you kind of you know like you said you're not a big fan of you know having a boss telling you what to do um

who are some of your main Inspirations growing up that kind of helped shape that um ideology well I guess my biggest influence growing up uh was my Father which was kind of ironic because I really rebelled against my father a lot um My Father Was a Serial entrepreneur he started the company uh ay golf um and also

alela golf which is the the graphite shaft he created the first graphite Chef um and you know he would always uh I mean he he trained me to the entrepreneur since I was like 8 years old you know he told me to go knock around doors in the neighborhood around us and you know offer to take out

people's garbage for them uh stuff like this and um you know he would put up like uh articles in my room you know what it takes to be number one uh Vince Lombardi Earl morale this kind of stuff and you know I had a lot of rules like uh I have to do push-ups and pull-ups every day

and you know he's instilling this discipline in me and you know I kind of carry that into my adulthood um and I'm I'm glad that I I have those instincts now you know it's it's made me disciplined uh but at the same time you know I think that every man uh every individual has to kind of shed

uh what they've been programmed to do and really uh find what works for them and when I became an adult you know I didn't had no sense of myself I had no identity I wanted to really go out into the world and discover who I was um because I was just kind of molded this way I was

molded you know to go to Catholic church every Sunday even though I was saying all these uh reciting all these things and I didn't even know what they mean you know I had to find what was truly authentic to me and um that's kind of what this Journey's been about that's awesome um love love to see that

and hear that you know you kind of didn't follow the path that was set up before you so kind of as you've grown into the person you are today how have those Inspirations kind of changed have you gotten inspiration from different sources or different people kind of walk us through how um that has progressed as you've grown

into who you are today I've kind of been inspired by many of the people that I've met all around the world and they've kind of taught me different things I've I've learned from each culture that I've uh immersed myself in uh when I was back home in the US I felt like I didn't really have any good

mentors I didn't know uh who to turn to I felt this kind of sense of fear and distrust and a little bit of frustration and um I think it manifests itself into this kind of sense of self- superiority to other people but once I you know started to go out and I meet people in Mexico and Brazil

and Thailand and I I realized wow there's all these really interesting people all around the world and really smart they've done all these things that I haven't done and they can teach me something and uh one of the early uh influencers or people who inspired me was this lady in Mexico uh named Maria Navaro and uh one

of the first chips I made was like two months living down there in Mexico uh and I stayed at her place uh she had a little bed and breakfast and I helped her build a website and uh she really taught me about a lot about life because I felt like I still had all these responsibilities back home

and these shackles keeping me there and keeping mehappy and um I felt like I had a lot to lose and she told me you know eho uh you have nothing to lose and uh you know it's it's a great point and um you know she she really helped me to really put things into perspective that whole trip

helped me put things into perspective um and yeah you know when when I went to Buenos sares the first time for three months uh I I had like all these you know same papers all around my wall like my goals and you know my daily rituals and um I was so afraid to to let go of that

part of me I guess um but now that I look back I think that it's all that stuff was just training wheels and it's just preparing you for life um when you go out and just live life you can find inspiration everywhere and uh you can just you know not need all that stuff I think awesome that

that's great and it sounds like we have uh the fact that we like to pull inspiration from many different sources in common uh one thing that I kind of come across in my own life is that it's easy for me to kind of overload myself with information and I'm sure you know you may have experienced something similar

traveling to all these different places and researching and and studying from other sources of inspiration as well how how do you kind of defend yourself against the kind of information overload how do you defend yourself against being overwhelmed by all of this awesome information that is out there how do you kind of sort through it and Target

in on the most meaningful um yeah I mean I just kind of eliminate it basically yeah so I mean I I basically just kind of eliminate I I don't um I don't read anymore I went through a period where I was reading you know one book A Week um but you know learning just for the sake of

learning it's it's like it's like panning for gold with holes you know in the bottom of the pot uh it's it's all I mean that's not good expression but it's it's like um it just goes through you know one ear and out the other and um I call it basically so I read a book on creativity right

and there's there's two different uh terms the author uses one is free range exploration so that's when you're just like drawing inspiration from many sources taking in all this information doesn't matter you don't filter it or anything then there's another term called firing range exploration so firing range exploration you know exactly what it is you're looking for

before you start taking in this information so as long as you you define what it is you actually need you can get it very quickly and so I I practice a lot of firing range exploration because these days I'm more focus on creating content rather than consuming it and so you know I don't read or watch the

news um if I if I go on Facebook I I don't log into the homepage I log into to uh uh for SL messages so I go right to my inbox I don't want to I bypass the newsfeed I don't want to be distracted by any of that stuff um you know if I work I find it

a lot better to work without Wi-Fi so I'll go on the the sub you know the train or the subway and I'll I'll do my writing there because I'm I'm much more productive I don't I'm not distracted by Wi-Fi um so you talk about defending yourself I think the best way is just to remove it entirely awesome

and those are some really good insights that you raised I really like the point about knowing what you're looking for before you kind of go after it and look for it that's you know valuable stuff for sure yeah exactly so definitely so um so Danny tell us what you have going on currently uh well at the moment

I'm in Bangkok and uh I just spent the last month backpacking I went to Malaysia I was uh I traveled around the country I was traveling with a Czech couple that I met down there uh the Czech uh husband he's the mayor of a town in the Czech Republic so it was pretty interesting and they were on

holiday we're driving around yeah we went I went to the uh world's oldest rainforest Tam managara I went to Cameron Highlands where a famous American disappeared uh some 80 years ago 70 years ago um business-wise uh I just published the book and it's it's done really well I've been featured on about uh 30 or 40 different podcasts

uh we hit the bestseller charts for a couple of weeks in uh self-help categories uh business and money categories um otherwise you I'm working on publishing a series of other short books how-to books about four or five in the next two months and uh we're working to publish our our magazine which is called open world uh magazine

that's going to be a digital magazine awesome that sounds like uh you've got a lot of super exciting stuff going on and I'm sure that our listeners like me are super jealous while we're sitting at our desks but um tell us Danny what made you decide to write a book and how do you envision that it impacts

your readers I started writing the book about uh a year and a half ago and um all I knew is that uh I was traveling around the world I was having a lot of fun I was you know having the time of my life but uh I felt a little bit empty because um work-wise I felt totally

uninspired I wasn't interested in the work I really had to force myself to to sit down and and do what I was doing even though I was only working maybe 10 or 12 hours a week um the the more I kind of removed myself from the work the less interested in it I was and um I was

at this High you know where I I completed this motorbike trip across you know Vietnam and and half of Southeast Asia and uh had a blast but then after that I was you know I was in Malaysia I was in panang and then uh I realized like you know the work's not fulfilling me I want to do

something more whatever I do next I want it to be bigger than what I've done already uh I don't want to you know slink back to a nine-to-five job and you know live a small life I want to I want to keep pushing the bar higher you know I'm at this Plateau I want to raise the I

want to raise to the next level and so for me the answer kind of you know revealed itself I was like I'm going to write a book and I'm going to write the book that I wish I'd had you know four or five years ago when I was starting out and I was frustrated didn't know how to

start out my life and I'm going to take the best of everything I've learned these last few years and and condens it into this book and uh the book really talks about the steps I've taken step by step by step to change from where I was to where I am now so i' love to see that you're

continuing to push yourself you know to the next level and you're you know you're not satisfied by mediocrity obviously um so the name of your book bu your own Island um it's really serves as a metaphor and I I'd like for you to talk to our listeners about kind of what that metaphor means to you and um

how it's impacted your life yeah sure but before I answer that um I wanted to add a quote from Dan Gable if that's right yeah of course regarding the last question Bruce Lee says something similar but uh he says I'm a big believer in starting with high standards and raising them we make progress only when we push

ourselves to the highest level if we don't progress we backslide into bad habits laziness and poor attitude and I love Dan Gable because he's one of the most uh successful athletes in history he had a 192 and one uh wrestling record he trained you know multiple Champions I think had like some 15 titles when he was the

coach at Iowa and um yeah I mean that just that just reflects perfectly how I feel uh regarding the answer I just gave so now um I wasn't really sure how to title the book I had a bunch of different uh well had a working title which didn't really reflect anything uh that I wanted to uh didn't

Encompass what the meaning of the book The the term buy your own Island um it's kind of like a metaphor for it to take whatever your lifelong dream is and make it reality and make it practical and achievable and I know that there's thousands of people that are doing this right now um you know Gary vaynerchuk is

an example he says his ultimate goal is to own the New York Jets and um you know everything he does is aligned to that that lifelong goal that he has to own the New York Jets we don't know if he's going to get there or not but he's he's come pretty far you know and uh this this

concept by own Island it's a story about guys whom I know who uh you know in in less than 15 minutes they bought their own Island they found it one that was up for sale uh on Ki which is the Canadian version of Craigslist uh the guy emailed a few of his friends and they all pitched in

and for me I like that story because they bought their own Island but it's it's like the ultimate symbol of Independence and freedom and looking back on my own Journey it was it was all about freedom I wanted the freedom to to do what I wanted in my life I I didn't know what my destiny was going

to be but I knew that if I could have a freedom to choose uh that's that's what it all came down to so it's a metaphor and it's it's an example and I want to inspire people by that and some of the other stories in the book and say you know this is possible I want to help

you get there this is how you can do it awesome stuff and again the whole idea of getting after it whatever it is is really inspiring and is especially to see someone like yourself just kind of traveling the world living the dream and trying to inspire others to do the same hats off to you Mr Mr flood

oh thanks yeah well I I think part of the problem is people don't really even know what it is they want you know they're just kind of spinning the wheels um and they haven't really defined what would actually make them come alive you know what would they would be most passionate about they kind of think about it

and they brush it aside you know if you ask someone how they are how are you doing they say oh I'm fine but life isn't about being fine you know life should be about more than that it should be about being you know fantastic and just waking up every day because you're so excited to just start and

you know do what you're doing and continue in the direction you're going and pursue your purpose and your passion I mean that's that's when life is really worth living but I think it what happens is people don't step back and and really Define what is this island you know what is the the metaphor you know that I'm

what's my ultimate goal and you know where am I going um you know and it really kind of requires a a labotomy of sorts you know because when I um when I started doing this myself I was kind of following I was still on the train tracks I was still going along you know doing what I should

be doing but I was getting frustrated because I was going around in circles you know and um and I really had to step back and alter the way I was doing things to really uh figure out what am I going to do with my life awesome so surely as our listeners can tell you know you're kind of

a lifelong entrepreneur you're always looking to kind of find solutions to problems that sometimes don't even exist but surely somewhere along the way you've run into some failures you've run into some obstacles Could you um kind of talk us through um an instance in which You' kind of fell flat on your face and then following that kind

of how you recovered from that failure um sure yeah I don't really think of failure as that big of a deal because it's it's kind of par for the course I suppose uh I have written a post on this actually on my uh website if you check out open world mag.com about this very topic awesome um I

I don't remember the name of that post but okay I I'll include the link uh for our listeners uh following the call yeah sure so I mean like I said it's part for the of course I mean it's it's it happens uh you know I I might email 40 reporters and I hear back from one or two

you know but for me that's a success you know and I look at success success and failure are two sides of the same coin and it really comes down to how you define it um Tony Robbins says that you know you're successful at something if if you give it your best effort and you learn something and that's

that's really what it comes down to because it's it's a path of continual learning and know if you give your best effort and you learn something you're successful and you can do better the next time um you know and and you have to expect that you're going to face some failure and rejection but it makes you uh

better in some way if you're a stoicist you can take any event that happens and interpret it in a positive way and way that's going to move you forward and it's it's just like if you practice Jiu-Jitsu for example when you start doing Jiu-Jitsu you're going to get thrown around a lot but the more you get thrown

around um the more experience you get and then you you graduate to another belt and then um you get thrown around some more and you know you basically Advance by just getting tossed around and getting your ass kicked and that's that's exactly the way it works with an entrepreneur I hate to tell anyone this who who thinks

otherwise but um you know it's it's not about milk and honey about you know setting your own hours or being your own boss it's it's about you know working 80 hours a week so you can avoid working 40 hours a week you have to be willing to make that sacrifice um but I think it's worth it because

you make so much progress and you advance so so far you know then so much further than you would if you just uh didn't take that path so awesome and again great advice a lot of people I'm sure being Your Own Boss all that I'm sure it crosses everyone's mind at some point but really the fear of

failure and the fear of going off and for whatever reason not accomplishing your goals is what scares a lot of people out of even taking that leap so could you kind of talk talk to that point and kind of put a fire under some of our listeners Bellys and and kind of um get them thinking about you

know there's really not that much to be worried about yeah sure I mean I think that if you're focusing on the potential for failure that you're you're looking through the wrong end of the telescope so a telescope has you know the part where you see in and has the part where you see out and these people are

looking at the part where they see out to see you know the opposite direction um and it really comes down to what George Lucas says uh he has a quote where he says you have to find something that you love enough to be able to take the risks jump over the hurdles and break through the brick walls

that are going to be placed in front of you if you don't have that kind of feeling for what you're doing then you're going to stop at the first giant hurdle so you're if you're thinking about the failure you know the potential for failure you're focusing on the hurdles but you have to really focus on what you

want and if something if you want something badly enough you're going to do whatever you have to to get it and the reason why more people aren't successful more successful in life is because they don't have compelling reasons for what they're doing and it all starts with question why uh so in my book by your own Island

I talk about this concept five wise principle and you can apply it to business but you can also apply it to your own personal life so let's say you listen to a podcast and the host says why he says you should do a morning ritual um okay well that sounds like good advice but then I ask myself

why should I do a morning ritual because you know when I wake up in the morning I I want to be more productive I want to start quicker I want to I could gain you know back an hour or two of my day if I start doing a morning ritual so if I have compelling reasons to do

it I'm going to do it if I if it's a new year and I think I should go to the gym I'm probably not going to do it but if I ask myself why I can say I want to have more energy and feel great I want to get into shape I want to have a six-pack I

want my friends to be jealous I mean if you can create these reasons and you have enough compelling reasons backing you that's going to push you forward and um you know a good example another good example of this is Arnold Schwarzenegger uh Arnold Schwarzenegger you know just dominated his competition uh in the uh bodybuilding and uh people

asked him why he was so confident and he said you know my confidence comes from my vision he I imagined myself on that Podium holding the trophy with all the other guys looking up to me uh so so he had really strong reasons back what he was doing and that uh enabled him to succeed and I think

it's true of any Endeavor awesome and and I love how you're kind of combining um sources from all different areas you know we've got um Arnold Schwarz Ander Fitness earlier we talking about various authors it's it's good to kind of again get the full spectrum of kind of these different sources of inspiration and and knowledge that that

obviously you know have contributed to your success today so um again I love to hear hear that um as well Danny um would you mind sharing some of your primary sources of Happiness kind of what what really drives you and what fulfills you most about kind of where you are today and you know what you've made of

yourself yeah sure so um before about two years ago I was getting my happiness from you know different Adventures I was doing like uh traveling around the world on a motorbike or uh sailing across the South China Sea or you know exploring the Amazon um but now I I I can still do all that stuff but I

I get a lot more fulfillment and enjoyment from uh the work that I'm doing now because I feel like I'm making a difference you know and and making an impact because I I hear people people write to me and they say you know you inspire me to do this or you know I need help with this and

I can I can help solve their problems um in my previous life when I was doing digital advertising for digital marketing for uh businesses I I didn't have that feeling I felt like I only mattered to a few people you know maybe four or five people um and that's fine you know but I I feel like with

the work I'm doing it's it's creating a bigger impact and awesome yeah in regards to fulfillment it comes down to you know Tony Shay says there's three three PS basically there's pleasure passion and purpose um you know purpose is the hardest to acquire but it's it's the strongest so awesome yeah so just a few more questions for

you okay building off of that last point that you raised around purpose uh what would you tell others like me other 20-some such as myself who are kind of in the process of figuring out our careers our passions and our purpose you know what would be one piece of advice that you would give your 20-some self you've

heard of this concept called the lifestyle design right y absolutely obviously uh I would say forget lifestyle design and focus on lifestyle Discovery and that basically comes down to uh you know Jim Cary in that movie uh yes yes man yes I do so yeah he's basically a guy who's in his shell he you know he says

no to every invitation he never shows up half the battle in life is showing up so when you see opportunities when opportunities come just say yes just say yes more if you see a path if you see a fork in the road uh take it um you know because the more that you you do that you're you're

going to expand your comfort zone and you're going to expand your your level of confidence and your ability to take action and that's going to carry over and manifest into every area of your life if you see you know some girl you want to talk to and you don't know what to say to her just just say

something even if it's stupid or just say hello you know just just do it because you're going to be able to build off that and it's going to make you a better rounded person and it's going to be a reference experience that you can use later so awesome yeah so all of you guys listening you know that

girl at the bar this weekend tell him Danny flood sent you to talk to her all right if I could give one more example uh Matt um yeah I was in Guam a few months ago and I I was supposed to record a podcast with this guy uh uh Sean about language languages and I felt like super

sick I had this horrible headache and I was like you know I was on the verge of just canceling on him but I knew that if I if I canel I wasn't going to be able to get him back on on to you know agree to be interviewed with his schedule so I was like all right it

I'll just do it and and whenever I I feel like that resistance you know like I'm if I I don't I'm not sure if I want to come on to a call because I've been doing a lot of interviews I'll just I'll just think back to that time when I didn't feel that good but the interview turned

out fantastic and that's basically a reference experience where I felt that I had this you know resistance but I I I overcame it and I did a great job anyway so it's it's just about feeling that you know fear that resistance and just pushing forward anyway um and then you can use that to to build on it

later awesome awesome advice again so just to kind of wrap things up getting more to the kind of technical side of you know living life on the road and being a successful digital Nomad per se um as you are what are some resources whether it be you know online applications program programs or even tools that you have

in your backpack what are some resources that you couldn't live without and have contributed to your successes today um yeah sure so I guess it's a little bit ironic uh even though I am a location independent entrepreneur I don't rely too much on technology um one of my favorite things is just to have a notebook uh and

also a journal um you know just just having a journal I can I can write into it whenever I I want um if I'm ever feeling like upset about something or just you know frustrated I can just write out my feelings um that really helps a lot I can I can write things that I'm grateful for and

that that makes an impact on how I think um I'm big on keeping to-do list as far as you know technical stuff uh I've been using a couple different tools lately which uh for email so I see that email is a great opportunity uh for marketing but most of us don't use it that way um it's a

great free tool for marketing and I've been using two apps in particular for Google or Gmail and one is called streak and it's just a basically free CRM system that you can add to your inbox uh and it has really useful features like using Snippets um you can do customized Mass mail merges uh and then another one

is boomerang so Boomerang allows you to time an email so if you know after this conversation if I wanted to follow follow up with you Matt I could I could write another email and time it to go out in one month from now so it automatically follows up you know if someone says you know I'm busy now

come back later I just start typing an email and I say okay all right set it to two months and then I follow up with them automatically so I think email is a great tool if yeah exactly if you're if you're a blogger or you know trying to get some some Buzz for yourself I think that email

is a great tool to Market yourself if you don't have a lot of resources r on awesome and um I'll include links to those resources that you mentioned um on the podcast post as well yeah sure and um in my book uh you know if you're going to use email use it the right way I wouldn't uh

I have a lot of tips I I just posted a tip uh on using email to get what you want um actually I can I can paste a link to that I just published that like two days ago uh and also in my my book I have a guide to using email so that you can communicate effectively

and reach uh influential people which I think is very important awesome absolutely um so Danny if our readers or sorry if our listeners want to follow along with um all the exciting stuff that you have going on what's the best way to do that yeah sure so you can join us at openworld mag.com that's the that's our

blog we also have a podcast um we're on episode 34 now I think and uh yeah subscribe to our podcast we also have a magazine digital magazine that we're going to be publishing soon my goal is to create the first printed magazine uh dedicated to this this lifestyle this uh digital Nomad location independent lifestyle design um that's

really the goal like you know we want to be uh on the Shelf next to Maxim magazine and we're going to kick the crap out of them because our magazine 10 times better than them so awesome yeah so yeah open open World mag and then you know uh I have a free audiobook uh for buy your own

Island you can go to buy youron island.com audio- book maybe you can put a link to that as well awesome I will do that dny all right well uh that wraps things up for today's podcast thanks again to Danny flood uh for his awesome insights and uh inspiring uh conversation yeah thank you Matt all right have a

good one Danny you too for