Hi <<First Name>>!

Do you know where this picture is taken?

It’s at a ‘secret’ waterfall, not more than 30 minutes from our
house in Costa Rica.

Seriously, it is a secret… my husband discovered it while out on a run. 

He asked the locals about it. None of them had a clue!

So he took the fam back. We swam, jumped off rocks and swung on the
rope swing.

Our own tropical hidden paradise.

It was incredible.

I think it was a Tuesday.

Why does that matter?

Simply because it illustrates how ridiculously awesome our life is.

We can go swimming in tropical waterfalls in the middle of the week!

And I don’t say this to brag, but just so you know that we do have a
pretty great life.

But it wasn’t always like this.

My husband used to have a job. A regular career position, with
regular hours, vacation days and sick leave. 

He always felt guilty asking for time off. (Isn't that ludicrous?!
Feeling bad taking off time you earned?)

We used to have the mortgage, the bills, and a belief that we had to
play the hand fate dealt us.

What was that fate?

Get a job, work hard, and when you retire then you can do cool stuff --
the stuff you really want to do.

Our fate told us we had to live where we were born, follow the
'normal' path of college, career, retirement and 'paying our dues'.

(Not that loafing through life without adding value is okay, but adding 
value to the world can be done in non-traditional ways.)

Today? Today we work from ‘home’ (wherever in the world that is
for us), set our own hours (for the most part) and are 'living the dream'.

(Being what my friend Natalie Sission likes to call a 'Suitcase
Entrepreneur' -- she even mentioned us in her book!) 

All because we had a dream.

And I started a blog.

When we began traveling back in 2007, I started blogging, mostly to
share our experiences with family and friends.

But after our first ‘rodeo’ (aka travel adventure), subsequent ‘failure’
and our resulting move back to the states to look for work (you know
the story, right?) I began seriously considering the possibility of
earning an income through blogging.

I’d heard about people who were doing it… this new and crazy thing
of earning money online.

Not in a scammy, sleazy internet marketing sort of way.

But good, honest people who were selling 'information products' --
books & ebooks, courses and events (off and online) that were
helping people. (I studied a lot of stuff from Darin Rowse at
Problogger.net.)

So I wanted to start a travel blog.

"Wouldn’t that be great?" I thought to myself.

Travel, adventure, writing about our life-changing, unforgettable
experiences with exotic cultures and people, eating strange foods
and visiting those tropical gems that no one knows about —
and get paid for it? 

The perfect job for financing our travels, wouldn’t you say?

I wasn't exactly sure how I would earn money doing that. But that
was the dream.

Today I’m pretty much living the life I dreamt of!

Piece of cake, right? I just built it, and the money came?

Well, not exactly.

(It actually took several years of trial and error. That's why I want
you to learn from my mistakes.)

Yes, people were and are making great incomes from blogging, even
‘back then’ (waaaay back in 2007).

Darrin Rowse was earning six figures. His 31 Days to Build a
Better Blog book (a must-have ‘bible’) helped me to get started in
building a successful blog…

But there’s a difference between building a successful blog and building
an income producing blog.

I thought they were one in the same.

While the strategies might be similar, there’s a couple of important
differentiations that you must have/do if you actually want to earn money
from your blog, instead of just creating a time-consuming hobby.

Something that I learned… the hard way.

(By the way, Darrin does now have resources teaching you how to 
blog for business, but back then he only had the 31 Day book.)

Because, let’s face it, for many years I missed out on key elements that
kept me from creating income, despite the full-time hobby I had built for
myself — a job that I enjoyed, but that wasn’t paying the bills.

A blog gives you the option for working anywhere in the world, as long as
you have an internet connection.

That is, of course, if you’re actually earning money from it.

So how did I figure it out? How did I create a 'freedom income'? (Or did I?)

Well, this email is already long enough, so that’s what I’ll go into in detail
tomorrow.

Stay tuned.

Take care,

Rachel

P.S. If you're interested, I created a free PDF on how to
become location independent this year. I haven't shared it
with anyone else yet, but I want to give it to you as a free gift.
Watch for it in a coming email.

P.P.S. I’ve recently interviewed dozens of the top travel bloggers in
the industry— Gary Arndty from Everything-Everywhere.com,
Jodi Ettenberg from LegalNomads.com, and Paul Johnson from aluxurytravelblog.com.

I've been compiling their advice into a free report, which I want to give
to you as well, so keep an eye out for that email too. It will share their
advice on how to actually create a profitable travel blog, instead of a
time-consuming hobby! NOT what you want to do, trust me!

P.P.P.S. (Sorry!) IF there's enough interest, I'll be writing a series of
emails on how to create a 'freedom income'.

It will provide the basics for creating the freedom, the money, and
the lifestyle you'd really love to have... you know, fun stuff! 

If you'd be interested something like that, raise your hand here.