3 years ago, I quit my corporate
job as an accountant to follow my dreams and travel the world, and today I'm going to tell you my story. If it's your first time here, my name is Rafaela and I post about life as a digital nomad, my adventures around the world and my photography. Since I opened this channel
a little more than a year ago, I had never shared my story about
how I fully changed my life, and today the video is about that, and to also inspire you if you want to do the same,
so stick around. Hey guys, welcome to my channel, I am very excited to tell you my story. I feel like I've been posting here and sharing things with you guys for quite a while, and you don't know how I ended up here. I wasn't always a travel content creator, I wasn't always a digital nomad. So I'm making this video to take you
with me in my journey. So it all started when I went to university. Everyone needs to go to university, everyone needs to decide a normal
career path for their life, and I did the same! I went to university to study accounting. It's so crazy because accounting is basically
the opposite of what I do nowadays. It's a non creative career at all, and nowadays I do a very creative thing. But yeah, I decided to do accounting because when you're 17 and
you've just finished high school, everyone tells you you need to do a career path, and you need to choose something that will
give you money, that will give you stability, and I had no idea what I wanted to do. I always really liked careers
that were more creative, I remember I wanted to be an actress,
and then I wanted to be an artist. Everything always related to creativity. But when I was telling people what I wanted to do, they would be like "oh no Rafa, this is a hobby! what you want to do is a career".
They would never take it seriously. I remember my dad saying "yeah,
you can do like an acting course, but why don't you do business
on the side, just in case?" So I realized, at a young age, that I had to choose a "stable career", and I ended up choosing a very stable career. I was like "okay, I need to choose something,
I will choose accounting". To be honest, since the start of the course, I could see that that wasn't for me, but at the same time I was like
"I have no idea what else I could do", so might as well just finish my university and see where this will take me. And then I always had this
huge curoisity of travelling, I always wanted to explore the world. I had gone to short trips that made me even more curious about it. In the middle of university, I was like "oh, I will have to work in
an office for such a long time, maybe I need to do like an adventure first, get a gap year, or go work somewhere different in the world. What should I do?". So I had the idea of stopping university for 6 months to go to Australia. So I decided "okay, I can go to Australia
and I can get a job there". For you to take a 6-months gap year
or a 1-year gap year, you need to have quite a good amount of money
if you're not planning to work. But I didn't have enough money
to just take 6 months off, so I was like "okay, I will go to Australia, I'm going to get a job there in whatever I find, and that's going to be good". Okay so I went to Australia, I started working in a fast food cammed Guzman y Gomez while I was doing a business course there, and while I was in Australia, my curiosity about traveling
just got bigger and bigger. I was getting to know a new culture, I was meeting people from all over the world, I started doing trips in Australia. I went to Southeast Asia, and I tried very very different cuisines, I met different people, and that started going up my mind. I was like "oh, there are so many different ways to
live, there are so many different things to see, I want to travel!", and how do these people who post on Instagram travel all the time, how do they do it? And I wanted the same thing. But it's very far, you know,
it's a very far reality. But yeah. So during my time in Australia, I ended up deciding to stay longer in Australia. I didn't stay only 6 months, I ended up staying 1 year and 3 months. And during that time, I was like "I don't want to go back to Brazil,
I don't want to get my degree, I don't want to finish university, I just want to keep travelling, but how can I do that and how can I make money? How can I sustain myself to do that?". Well, I didn't figure it out,
I decided to go back to Brazil because I had a lot of pressure. Everyone I used to say "I don't want to go back,
I don't want to get a degree, I don't want to get my accounting degree,
I don't want to work as an accountant" to, they used to say "Rafa, but you need to have
a career, you need to have a stable life, you need to have money". And I was like "I know!
I don't say I want to be poor, I just want to find a way to be able
to do what I want to do". But okay, I couldn't figure it out, I was very sad at that time because I decided to go back to Brazil
to get my degree, and that's what I did. I went back to Brazil, went back to university, started studying a lot, then got a proper job, and I got the "dream job". One of the biggest companies
in the accounting, like big 4, it's called EY, Ernst & Young. Everyone was so happy for me:
"you got accepted!", and I remember leaving the interview, and I was like "I think I did well and
I think I'm going to be accepted", and I started crying, but it wasn't about happiness, it was like
"I don't know if I want to work here". You know, so many people are excited
about working in a corporate job excited about being in an office for hours,
but I don't know if I want that. And I started crying and I was like "wow, I probably was just accepted in one of the biggest
and best companies for you to work in accounting, and I'm crying". My whole family
was super happy for me, it was time to actually start
my career as an accountant. I started working there and it was terrible, it was not for me, I was trying to fit in, I was trying to pretend that
I was enjoying it the whole time, and I used to think the whole time "I need to figure out a way to stop that and go abroad and travel and
make money in the meantime". And that was for 8 months, I worked
in that company for 8 or 9 months, during the beginning of Covid. And one day, I was already thinking of quitting, it was part of my plan, I wanted
to quit for a while already. And then I went through a break up, it made me open my eyes to be honest, cause I was like "I need to change
something in my life because I'm just unhappy. I'm unhappy". One or two days after the break up, I quit. I talked to my superior and I was like
"I can't do this anymore". I don't want to be in a life where a company will decide when I take holidays. I was working for a lot of hours, I was working from like 7 to 10 pm sometimes,
sometimes midnight, and not being paid extra time.
I don't want to have this office hours, and then in the weekend you go to a restaurant
with friends and that's it, that's life, you know. No, I want to experience things, I want to do activities, I want to be able to decide my own holidays. This is not life! I want to either go back to Australia, go back to working in a fast food, make probably more money than
what I was making at that time, working less because you're paid by hour. So I decided to quit without a plan,
without an idea, what should I do with my life now? A few months before that, I started getting
interested in photography more and more, and being like "maybe I can use photography
and start travelling as a photograher", but I had no idea how to do that. I have a friend that I met in Australia and
she was kind of a travel content creator, so she knew a lot about what to do to start, and then I talked to her and I told her
"I have no idea what I want to do, but I know I want to travel and I know a lot of
people travel around the world and get paid". So she told me "Rafa, every I know in this field invest in photography". So she told me "invest in photography, that's a way that I know that people
travel the world", and she did that. So I said okay, I'm going to invest in photography. My brother had an old camera, a bit broken. I asked him "can I get it?", and he said
"if you said for the repair, it's yours". So I paid for the repair, the camera became mine, it was a Nikon D3200, I started from scratch,
I started from zero, I had no idea what I was doing. Like, I had done a bit of photography,
but for hobby, not knowing how to do the manual
or anything like that. So I started putting a lot of effort and learning and taking pictures of
my garden and doing all that stuff. But I was like "I need to do something
else to change my life". I'm here in São Paulo in Brazil. When I told anyone that I wanted to be
a travel content creator, that I wanted to be a travel whatever influencer, or photographer, people would just look
at me in a weird way, because everyone worked in banks, they worked in big companies and
they are building their dream life, a corporate life, and I didn't want that, so anytime
I was saying what I wanted to do and that I had no plan, they were
always like "Rafa, come on. What do you mean? You want to just travel? You need money, you need a career, you need a life". And it was very... Like, I understand where they come from, but at the same time, it was very discouraging, very discouraging that they didn't even say
"yeah, there is an option for you to do that". And then I decided "okay, I need to do something, I need to go somewhere to start this new life, cause if I stay here, everyone around me will look me down
and judge me and be discouraging". And I was like okay, that's fine. But if I told anyone, my parents,
that I would just go, they would be like "Rafa, what do you mean?". So I decided to buy tickets to go to London, it was in the middle of Covid, I was feeling very trapped, Brazil was terrible
to stay during Covid. London was a good option to go, so I decided "I'm moving to London". And I have no plans, I want to start a new life. I had saved some money from Australia, actually, in my job in Brazil I couldn't save anything. I had saved like 3,000 - 3,500. Part of that I used for the flight, and the rest I could probably
survive for like 2 months in London, but I said "I'm going to figure it out". So I bought my tickets, I went to London, and I decided to tell my parents
2 or 3 weeks before I went, and they were like... My dad was like "what?!" They were always supportive parents, but my dad mainly. He wanted me to have a proper career, so he was shocked, he was like
"but Rafa, what about a career? You need to get a proper job.
What are you going to do in London? Do you have enough money to sustain yourself?" and I was like "no, I have money for 2 months, and I just need to get out
of here to start a new life. I don't know what I'm going to do there,
I just know that I want to travel". They were like: okay... I went there feeling very lost and feeling
like I didn't know anyone in London. I am here to start a new life, and my goal is to learn photography,
to become a photographer, to become a travel photographer,
to become a travel content creator, and share my adventures around the world. How would I do that, I had no idea! I arrived in London, my first thought was "my money
is going to finish in 2 months". So even if I want to try something out and travel the world, I don't have the money yet. So I'm going to get a random here in London, just so I can sustain myself, and on all my free time, I'm going
to study photography on YouTube. I'm going to network with photographers, participate in a community of photographers that I had to idea if it existed, but I was like "I bet I can find them",
and that was it. I met a Brazilian in one of my first days in London, and I told her that I was looking for a job. It was in the middle of Covid, so it wasn't that easy to get jobs, because things like restaurants were all closed. So she said "Rafa, I have a cleaning agency", and that was perfect, I was like
"do you need a cleaner?" Was I ever a cleaner? No, but... I can become one. So I was like okay, I'm going to be
a cleaner for her cleaning agency, I started saving money, and I started studying photography. And also, something that really really helped me was the networking and the community I found in the UK, cause on Instagram, I started posting on my page, I started with 0 followers because I decided
to start a new account rather than using my personal one. I started from scratch, and I started messaging every London photographer, probably I was very annoying. I was messaging every London photographer, I started seeing that people were
doing meet ups of photography. I just started going to all the meet ups. I need to give a shoutout to the UK shooters, I went to a lot of meet ups from there, and they were so so inspiring. The best one I went to was the female photographer, and it was so inspiring. After that one, I was like "oh my God, I want to create content like this and I want to inspire people to create, to follow their dreams and to travel, you know. It was a mixture of feelings, and yeah, thank you so much, UK shooters. And also thank you so much opticalwander, he's Sam, he also does a lot of meet ups in London, and I was able to meet so many awesome
photographers through his meet ups that also inspired me a lot to keep going and to keep trying to follow my dream. So that was for about a year that
I was working as a cleaner, that I was learning photography. And then after a year, I was feeling more confident. So far, I hadn't made no money
at all with photography. I had my first paid shoot. It was so funny, because the guy was a yoga teacher and he asked for my rates on Instagram, and I said my rates were 20 pounds per hour. That's insanely low, but I was so afraid of asking someone to pay me for my photos. I was like "am I this quality?", you know. To me, 20 was good, 20 per hour. But that's so low for photography, that's so low. But yeah, that was my first paid job, but it gave me confidence to start working better, and a lot of photographer friends told me "Rafa, change your rates, that's ridiculous, you can't. Your photos are really good, you can charge this". Okay, so after that, I changed my rates, I was slowly getting hired, and I started getting more and more
jobs as a photographer and I was still a cleaner. Slowly, I started doing less hours of cleaning, and then I started asking her
to give me less shifts, because I was having more photography jobs, but still not able to just quit the cleaning. But I was like "I need to figure out a way so I can have photography clients while I travel, because I want to travel, I want to be
able to make money on the road, I want to work with brands, I want to do that". So I need to start trying out collaborations, and I did a lot of amazing collaborations. I started reaching out, my first collaboration was with a boat in the canal of London. It's like an Airbnb boat, it was so nice. I took pictures for her, for her social media. I also did some short videos. She was like
"I love your pictures, I have a marketing manager, can I use you
as my photographer for my clients?". And I was like "that is perfect!", cause I was still kind of struggling
,to find more clients. and when I found her, she started
putting me in all of her marketing clients. And then I was like, "I'm having
more jobs as a photographer!", but I wanted to get into travel photography, I want to be able to travel and
share the places that I am, and all that, you know? And by the way, by this time, I had saved
enough money to buy my new camera, so I decided to buy the Sony A7 III,
it's the camera that I still have nowadays, and that really changed my photography career, and I started getting more and more collaborations, because I was reaching out a lot. Like, some days I would be like "okay,
I need to reach out to all of these places". And then I got collaborations with campervans that I created a full video with my friends,
my photography friends. Finally got a product photography /
travel photography. It was this Cooler brand,
they found me on Instagram, and they said "okay, how much is your rate? Can you take our products with you
to your travels and photograph them? Because we want to show that our
products are travel-friendly and perfect for travel situations, outdoor situations". I was like "yes, that's perfect!", and I worked with them for about, to be honest,
like the beginning of this year. So like a year and a half, bringing them to all my travels, and they would pay me for a package of 10 photos and also for Reels, separately. When I got that client, I was still in London with all the random other photography ones,
doing the collaborations, still doing the cleaning,
and I got the product photography. And I was like "I have saved some money,
I need to take another risk now". Covid was there. I thought okay, it's time to try to travel
and create content with the money that I have saved, and try to make money on the road, cause the more you try and the more
you meet people who are doing that, you learn so much and you learn about
new ways of making money. And I won a photography competition, and I was sent to Svalbard. When I won that competition,
I was like okay, after that... I was already planning to do a trip around Europe
and around the Balkans, and when I won that photography competition,
I was like okay, this is going to be it, this is going to be
the start of me trying to make this a living. I was still very small on Instagram, my YouTube was non existing, I'm going to backpack around the Balkans,
I'm going to go to Svalbard, because I won the photography competition, and you can watch the video
of my Svalbard trip here. So I went to Svalbard and then
I went to the Balkans, and while I was travelling in the Balkans, I met my boyfriend Jesse. He has been a digital nomad and working on the road for 7 years, and he gave me a lot of insights. He gave me a lot of ideas that I had not thought before. He's a writer, he's not a photograpger. He started finding his jobs through
and online platform for freelancers, and he said "I'm sure you can find something". You can edit photography for other people, you can edit videos for other people. At that time, I was still not
very confident with video work. I was already doing simple video work for clients, so like Reels, TikToks and short video format. And I was like, I can do that! And I started trying Upwork, and I started working online, so I had the money online,
the product photography ones, and I was like "okay, this is
starting to become something". I travelled a little more, a bit more, for like 6 months last year. And I started getting more and
more confident about it, and I started making enough money to sustain myself, and I was like okay, I'm going to Bali. I know that in Bali, lots of
digital nomads live there, and I'm gonna have a lot of insight, a lot of ideas, and I'll finally be able to feel confident about it, because to be honest, I've been doing... I've been a nomad and working
and making money on the road for 2 years now, but I wasn't confident that I was doing that. Because I was like "but what if...",
always kind of scared. And then this year I went to Bali, and I met so many digital nomads, and my income got bigger and I was finally able to feel like "okay, this is a career, and I can feel safe". I started posting more here, and I also make money through YouTube now. It's not a lot, but it does help me. And yeah, so I went to Bali,
I got a lot of clients there, I got clients with tour companies, I got clients with a lot of based people in Bali, and I also had some pretty nice jobs
where I went travelling with groups. Tour groups, so like a person
organizes a trip for 10 other people, and they want a photographer to go with them. I did like 4 groups, some groups were like 10-day long
and they paid my daily rate and my expenses, and I was like "this is so nice, I can travel with them, just photograph them, create content for their trip, drone content, video, photo, cause I started getting more and more
confident about video work. And yes, I became more and more confident
with my nomad career, and that's where I am now. I make enough money to travel and to save through my own content, and through my own effort as a photographer, as a videographer. I do still have a lot of dreams
and goals to achieve, but being able to say "I did it"
from the crazy ideas 3 and a half years ago, completely without a shape, I started building something and nowadays I am a travel photographer,
a travel content creator that can make enough money
to save and travel and leave, it's just amazing. So basically yeah, this is my story. I think it was very long, I hope you enjoyed it, but as I said, I still have a lot of goals, I want to grow my YouTube channel. Hopefully I can inspire you to take a leap, to take a risk and again, I wasn't rich, I didn't have
a lot of money, I worked as a cleaner to be able to reach where I am now. I want to be able to inspire you to do what you want, follow your dream, to travel, to go out of your comfort zone, and to explore the world. I've had people telling me "you inspired me
to do this", "I bought a drone because of you", "I did my solo trip because of you", that really fulfilled me, because I feel like I want
to take you in my journey. My journey is still ongoing. And yeah, this was my life story from an accountant working a 9 to 5, and now I'm a travel photographer
and content creator digital nomad, and I'm very happy to say that. Hopefully this story touched you. If it did, subscribe and like this video and also share it with people
you want to share it to. And yeah, I'll see you in the next one. See you!
