Since I was young I never felt happy staying in one place. I always dreamed of being able to travel full time and I’m so happy I have finally accomplished that goal.
My fiance (Lloyd) and I have been living the digital nomad life for nearly 5 months now and I can confidently say we are never returning to regular life, ever again.
Contrary to popular beliefs, ‘Nomad Life’ actually isn’t as expensive as some might think. We chose to move to South East Asia to start our nomadic journey, as the cost of living is much more affordable than that of Byron Bay, Australia where we lived previously.
It was a great place to start as we were still finding our feet with making a reliable online income.
In this blog, I want to share with you the things I learned that helped me get to the ultimate level of freedom and hopefully help you to do the same.
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Learn An Online Skill
One of the amazing things about the day and age that we are in now is that there are so many high paying online skills that don’t require a degree or for you to even be in one place.
Blogging, vlogging, video editing, content creation, copywriting, design, social media management, digital marketing, e-commerce, etc. These are all skills that can be learned for free on the internet and have the potential to make you a lot of money (In most cases more than a regular salary job) and you can do them from anywhere in the world! (The dream right?)
For myself, I’ve dabbled a bit in a few of the different categories, however, my online working journey started in the e-commerce space.
My fiance and I started our first e-commerce brand in 2019 where we self-taught everything there was to know about e-commerce through free youtube videos and other online courses.
Fast forward a year and a half later of trial and error and constantly learning, we sold our first e-commerce brand for 6 figures. This set us up to be able to quit our jobs and pursue a nomadic life.
This brings us to where we are today; we are currently teaching students from all over the world how to start successful e-commerce brands as we have. (you can find our course here: )
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Everything In Life Is Temporary
The most common excuses I hear from people when they say “I wish I could live like you” and I always reply “You can” they always respond with “well I can’t because I don’t want to screw my boss over” or “I can’t because I have this rental apartment” or “I can’t because my girlfriend wouldn’t like it”.
I’m telling you right now EVERYTHING IS TEMPORARY.
That job that you are worried about leaving because it’s so “secure” they could close down tomorrow, fire you or replace you in a minute.
That apartment that you rent, could be purchased tomorrow. Your partner that doesn’t want you pursuing your dreams, isn’t the person you’re meant to be with if they don’t want you doing things in YOUR LIFE that make you happy.
There’s always going to be a reason not to do something, but the only thing you should care about is if it’s important to you.
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Downgrade Your Life
This will be the most unpopular advice I give because it’s the most uncomfortable but the most crucial.
When Lloyd and I started our journey we knew we wouldn’t be able to focus the amount of time on our e-commerce business if we continued working 9-5 jobs, having 2 cars and living in an expensive rental property.
So we sold everything we had, moved into a caravan and moved to a small town with nothing going on to work in Lloyd’s sisters' cafe. This was our way of showing we were all in.
There was no going back. It was one of the most terrifying decisions but the best decision we ever made because it showed we were willing to give up our old lives to create our new ones.
If you aren’t willing to get uncomfortable and downgrade your life for a little bit so you can work towards a new and even better one, you don’t want it that bad.
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You Get Out Of Life What You Have The Courage To Ask For
Coming from a not-so-amazing childhood experience, I used to assume that I only deserved a lower-level experience of life. I never believed I was someone who would get to experience a happy, comfortable life because I had never had it in the past.
Mix in those parents who had their dreams crushed and continually told to stop dreaming and just “get a 9-5” and in turn they did the same to me.
However, that never stopped me from dreaming about having a magical exciting life. Once I realized that I had never asked for more out of life and was just living the same as people who didn’t want more and all I had to do was act like someone who wanted more and better, everything changed.
If you want an exciting, magical life you have to ask for it. And think what are you willing to give up in exchange?
If you want to become a wildly successful, happy person what changes do you need to make to make sure that is you? If you know you deserve better in life. Start acting like the person that deserves it, and you’ll see how quickly you get the things you desire.
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Cut Out Negative People and Energy
This is a lesson I wish I learned a long time ago, but something that helped me see drastic quick change as soon as I learned it.
Cutting off friendships and relationships has to be one of the hardest things on the planet. But I promise you, cutting off people that aren’t going to help you get to your end goal in life gives you ALL YOUR POWER BACK.
You will see the second you cut off one person that is no longer positively serving your life, you are rewarded with something or someone that gets you closer to your dream life.
When Lloyd and I decided to pursue our digital nomad life, we decided to become so obsessed with the goals that no one could interfere or project their negativity or fears of things not working out on us so we just kept to ourselves.
Now, many of the people that doubted us, in the beginning, have come to us for help on how they can do the same.
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A Healthy Mind & Healthy Body Are Everything
The fact is, you can’t expect to live an extraordinary life if your brain and body aren’t functioning above average.
And if you want to start a nomadic business journey your brain needs to be on point with how much competition there is out there and to escape the average lifestyle, you need to do something ABOVE AVERAGE.
I had worked out my entire life, for the most part, it was always for aesthetic reasons or getting skinny or looking a certain way. I tried every diet you can name to try to stay thin, but I was as unhappy as shit and my brain isn't functioning how it should be because I was constantly obsessing over food or running on the treadmill for 2 hours a day.
Once I realized you can use exercise as a way of destressing and getting out of your mind and into your body the whole concept changed for me.
I use yoga, meditation and jogging as my way of making sure my mind and body can keep up with my life goals. And also as a way to establish a mind-body connection which is so important for anyone who suffers from anxiety (like my previous self).
I like to use these types of mental exercises to prove to myself and my mind that I am so much stronger and better than I realize and that always transfers into my work.
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You Have ONE LIFE.
It’s crazy to me how many times I heard this in my life and how it never fully sunk in until I was willing to chase after my dreams.
Are you willing to sacrifice your entire life because you’re afraid of what might go wrong? Or because you’re worried about what people might think of you?
The biggest expression of self-love in my opinion is giving yourself the world you’ve always dreamed of living in. Because no one else can do it for you. No one else cares about your happiness as much as you do. I can guarantee you that. So don’t you owe it to yourself to get after everything you’ve ever wanted?
If living a nomadic lifestyle is what you want then you owe it to yourself to find a way to make it happen. So at the end of the day, you can look in the mirror and say “I did this for me”.
I wanted to write this blog, as it’s what I needed to hear when I wanted to pursue this new life. Hearing that other people had found success in turning their life into something magical was what kept me going when times got tough.
And if you are going through the tough times now just know that IT DOES GET BETTER, you just have to believe it does and rather than asking “why is this happening to me?” ask “What is this teaching me” and know things don’t happen to you, they happen FOR YOU.