When I first started my business, it was just me and my wife Tylene, and our $450 laptop.

And I’ve been privileged to be able to grow the business from just the two of us to a team of 20 (give or take) full time team members around the world.

Now most people would call this a “virtual team”…

But after hearing Dan Martell talk about the difference between a virtual and a “distributed” team, I’ve decided that I want to take “virtual team” out of my vocabulary.

Saying that something is virtual implies that it’s not real. It lacks a sense of commitment, permanence, and cohesion…

And these are all things that I DO have on my team.

We’re a committed, A-Level, high performing team…we just happen to be distributed in different locations.

From my home base in Austin, Texas, to LA, Colorado, Ukraine, the Philippines, to the coast of Israel, I thought I’d give you a (partial) tour of my distributed team’s global headquarters.

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MARKETING DIVISION

Danielle Weil – Lead Copywriter

Location: Haifa, Israel

Three things in my office I can’t live without:

1. Computer
2. COFFEE
3. My (paper) planner

What’s surprising about my workspace? When it comes to getting stuff done, I’m very organized, but my workspace is ALWAYS messy (I call it organized chaos).

View from my window: The Carmel hills and the Mediterranean sea

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Ian Nagy – Conversion & Traffic Specialist

Location: Los Angeles, California, USA

Three things in my office I can’t live without:

1. My Macbook Pro
2. Bose noise-cancelling headphones
3.  Pull up bar

What’s surprising about my workspace? I’ve broken 2 reclining chairs in the past 2 months.

View from my window: The view here is of Big Sur Hwy 1 in CA. The wife and I occasionally take road trips, and I sit the back and work while she drives. Thanks to an AC power adapter and my cell hotspot, this is one of my most productive spaces! (Note: my “everyday” office is a bit more boring…UCLA grad student housing apartments in West LA)

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Ron Reich – Marketing Director

Location: Claremont, California, USA

Three things in my office I can’t live without:

1. MacBook Pro
2. Kitchen Timer
3. 3 x 5 Notecards

What’s surprising about my workspace? My 7-month old dog Trever is almost always laying by my feet while I work

View from my window: My back porch

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CUSTOMER CARE DIVISION

Kimberly Hunt – Customer Support Director

 Location: Austin, Texas, USA

Three things in my office I can’t live without:

1. Dual monitors (don’t know how I went so long without two!)
2. Tablet
3. My coffee warmer

What’s surprising about my workspace? I currently have 3 pet beds in my office (I have 1 dog and 1 cat who like to hang out with me while I work).

View from my window: My backyard (small garden, tree, playscape for my son).

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Megan Snider – Customer Support Specialist

 Location: San Saba, Texas, USA

Three things in my office I can’t live without:

1. Handheld baby monitor
2. Next Level ELITE pen (writes so smoothly)
3. My pink mouse

What’s surprising about my workspace? It also doubles as a playroom for my 10 month old son.

View from my window: My chicken coop area and the cows grazing beyond the fence.

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IT DIVISION

Peter Wydooghe – Tech & Automation Manager

Location: Mineral, WA, USA (close to Mt. Ranier National Park)

Three things in my office I can’t live without: 

1. Coffee from Organold (Alkaline coffee with Reishi Mushroom / a healthy coffee)
2. Of course, my computer
3. My dog, being of total support

What’s surprising about my workspace? To remind myself to learn something new every day, I look at a picture of a brain scan that shows how it is wired.

View from my window:  My garden, with the forest and mountains behind it.

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EVENTS DIVISION

Kate Vanden Bos – Events Organizer

Location: Austin, TX, USA

Three things in my office I can’t live without: 

1. Macbook Air
2. Fresh Air
3. Hot Tea

What’s surprising about my workspace? It’s constantly changing! I have created a lifestyle and work style where as long as I have internet and my laptop with me, I can literally work from anywhere – even propped up in bed with a cup of tea!

View from my window: Changes every day – I don’t sit in the same place very often. I like to move around and change my scenery or the room I’m in. It varies from a coffee shop, an ocean scene, a mountain scape, a pool, but I have been known to sit in the middle of a park with my laptop too!

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NLM COMMUNITY DIVISION

Brandon Schmid – ASK Method Specialist

 Location: Barrie, Ontario, Canada

Three things in my office I can’t live without: 

1. My family (they aren’t technically in my office but no matter what I couldn’t do any of what I do without the support and encouragement of my family)
2. My iPad
3. My Lego set (I build Lego as a stress reliever)

What’s surprising about my workspace? I have a giant Lego set that I’m working on. I do this as stress reliever but also because it’s so much damn fun. The set I’m working on is the biggest complete set they sell at 3,288 pieces.

View from my window: Into my backyard. We have a creek and protected environmental land behind us.

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Eddys Velasquez – ASK Method Specialist

 Location: Victoria, Texas, USA

Three things in my office I can’t live without: 

1. Computer
2. Hard drive with EVERYTHING on it
3. Director of operations = my cat “Shadow” lol

View from my window: What window?

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John Pagulayan – ASK Method Specialist

Location: Laguna, Philippines

Three things in my office I can’t live without:

1. Coffee
2. Marker – It would seem kinda weird but I print out the product copy, landing page and sales page copy when writing emails for clients. I use the marker whenever I see something that can be used as a hook for email.
3. Moleskine Notebook that I carry in my back pocket just in case an idea hits me unexpectedly.

What’s surprising about my workspace? That’s my temporary workstation for two weeks now while we’re getting the whole house fixed. I’m usually found on the second floor terrace.

View from my window: right now it is the kitchen remodel

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Russell Lundstrom – ASK Method Specialist

Location: Denver, Colorado, USA

Three things in my office I can’t live without:

1. My headphones, turntable, vinyl records, and Spotify subscription.
2. KISS and Dimebag helping me get through my day.
3. The photos of my inspiration: my wife and kiddos.

What’s something surprising about my workspace? It is my personal refuge. My place to go to be by myself and have a chance to focus. Our teams are scattered around the globe, so in Denver here it is just me and my bud, Ozzy (the prince of darkness there behind the desk).

View from my window: Well, I look out over the Southeastern plains of suburban Denver. I have a great view of the outdoor smoking section of the next door bar. On the plus side, I share space with a florist and am right next to a bbq joint so I start my days with lovely floral scents and end them with some mouthwatering, smoky bbq.

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Steve Mastroianni – ASK Method Specialist

Location: Toronto, Ontario, Canada

Three things in my office I can’t live without:

1. Enounce MySpeed, VLC Player, and SmarterPlayer (to play audio and video at 2-3x speed)
2. Pictures of my family (to remind me why I do what I do)
   
3. My guitar to periodically escape from the grind and re-focus my mind

What’s something surprising about my workspace? To the outsider, my desk and application layout look absolutely insane, but my workflow is extremely efficient and every single piece was designed for maximum productivity.

View from my window: Downtown Toronto condo-scape (letting some sunlight into my cave)

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Svitlana Kushnirenko – NLM Community Manager

Location: Zaporizhzhia, Ukraine

Three things in my office I can’t live without:

1. Computer + Second display
2. My cat (when he’s not there, his place is taken by a cup of coffee)
3. Kindle version of ASK

What’s surprising about my workspace? There is actually another cat here sitting on my chair right behind me. She doesn’t like publicity that much.

View from my window: The heart of the city where once in the 15th century the first Cossacks community was born.

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Yassin Shaar – NLM Community Director

Location: Pampanga, Philippines

Three things in my office I can’t live without:

1. Cup of Coffee
2. Headset
3. Multi-Output Cord

What’s surprising about my workspace? In order to coincide with US Central time I end up working mostly at night…I haven’t seen daylight for a while!

View from my window: My backyard

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EXECUTIVE DIVISION

Tylene Levesque – Chief Operations Officer

Location: Georgetown, Texas, USA

Three things in my office I can’t live without:

1. Computer (duh!) – MacBook Pro (surprise gift from Ryan) + mStand Laptop Stand
2. Sit/Stand Desk – Traded in my treadmill desk for the Ikea Bekant Sit/Stand Desk – I love it.
3. Happy/Pretty Things – I spend a lot of time working (operations and finance) so I need things around me that make me smile. Family photos, artwork made by my boys, an essential oil diffuser, and my air-filtering plants give my office a little more life. (Nasa Clear Air Study explains my obsession with having plants indoors).

What’s surprising about my workspace? My office is right next door to Ryan’s yet we still communicate mostly via Slack like the rest of the team.

Our boys (Henry 4 and Bradley 1) help me out in my office regularly (yes, they each have little jobs). They also love playing with Lego or office supplies on the floor and get a huge thrill watching paper magically appear when something is printed.

View from my window: The immediate area behind our home is currently under construction as we are waiting for a community green space to be finished. Just beyond that I overlook a large park with walking trails/river and can watch traffic zoom by on I-35 (the major highway that goes through Texas).

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Ryan Levesque – Chief Executive Officer

 Location: Georgetown, Texas, USA

Three things in my office I can’t live without:

1. Plantronics Wireless Headset –  (We live in a four-story brownstone, so I’m regularly going up and down stairs – to the kitchen, to the rooftop, and the headset is key).
2. Glass Whiteboard – Sometimes when I’m on a call, I’ll turn on my webcam and start sketching out ideas – for ads, infographics, landing pages – you name it.
3. Ironman Crayon Drawing (by Henry) on my wall – When things get stressful or I hit a roadblock on something, I turn to that drawing and am instantly grounded and reminded of what’s truly important.

What’s surprising about my workspace? My Softbox Lighting Kit – I have two massive Softboxes sitting on the floor of my office.

I haven’t used those damn things in over a year.They are too much of a pain in the butt for me to take them apart and put back in the box…and too big for me to store somewhere outside the office.

So they just sit there on the floor in purgatory. My uninvited office companions. Taking up precious floor space. Observing my every move, staring at me day after day.

And each day I ask myself, in the immortal (paraphrased) words of The Clash: “Should they stay or should they go?”

And inevitably…they live to see another day.

What can I say?

I work hard so I can be lazy.

Can you relate?

View from my window: Same as Tylene’s…our offices are right next to each other.

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Conclusion

Now that you’ve gotten a taste of my team’s global workspaces, and you’ve gotten a peek into my office setup, I want to hear from you:

What does YOUR workspace look like? What are the things you can’t live without? What do you see from your window?

Post a picture of your workspace in the comments below, and let’s see how many entrepreneurs we have covering the globe.

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