Becoming a Digital Nomad

I've just hosted a guest on my Learn To Love Your Words Business Blog. 

They contacted me about an infographic they had created on Becoming A Digital Nomad.

It's given me fresh food for thought and a renewed motivation to crack on and write the books and create the online workshop products I need to give me some regular income while we travel.

It's also got me thinking about my priorities and what I can do now to be better prepared.

My Priorities

My three top takeaways from this Infographic:

1) Live with less

• Last month I wrote about Minimalism and  my quest to reduce the 'stuff' in my life. 

• We've just hired cleaners to clean the house monthly and ahead of the first clean we had a good tidy up. 

• We've already started to get rid of things and I've been gradually squirrelling away books and nic-nacs in the 'gift box' to give to friends and family for birthday and Christmas gifts.

• We've started 'project summer house' - converting the old brick outhouse into a a summerhouse and tool shed. The idea of the project is to recycle as many resources as possible, so all that old flooring and paint under the stairs and all the old wood we have in the outbuilding will be used in the build, this  will free up space and reduce the junk!

It's a work in progress, but we're getting there.

2) Digitise Everything

I've settled on HubSpot as a way to keep track of my contacts and clients and I need to experiment with other digital tools to organise myself. There is probably more I can do via my Android phone - fewer notebooks!

3) Finances

• Keep our debt to a minimum (we're already pretty good at this)
• Build up our savings pot
• Create digital products and an online sales funnel

Love People, Use Things - A Lesson In Minimalism

What if everything you've ever wanted, you don't actually want?

All this 'shopping'. All these meaningless choices.

It's OK to 'want' things, but how often do we ever stop to ask ourselves 'why'?

What gap in our life are we filling with that 'stuff'?


These are questions posed in a documentary I've just discovered on Netflix. 

Here's the  trailer:





Minimalism is worth a watch, when you're snuggled on the sofa on a cold Sunday afternoon!


It's left me thinking and reflecting...

"You will not be happier by consuming more."

Many of us in the western world are trapped in a cycle of compulsory consumption that is tearing apart the fabric of society and destroying the planet.

We've grown up with this lie - sold to us by corporations whose only motivation is to make money - that we need more 'stuff' to find happiness.
 

I could get political and talk about the rise of Neo-Liberalism since Thatcher and Reagan in the '80s, and the Capitalist Economic Model, but in truth, politics bores me (in fact it irritates me). 

I don't want to be preachy here, I just want to share lessons learned for my own life - to inspire myself, and perhaps others. 


It starts with rejecting the undercurrent of consumerism. 


To create a template that works for us. 

To do more with less.

Get Serious

If I'm truly serious about spending more time traveling, experiencing new places and new adventures, I need to learn to let go. 

I need to travel light. 

I need to practice minimal living.

I don't want to be lumbering around carrying baubles and trinkets who's only purpose is decorative.

I'll have to accept that I don't need 50 notebooks, hundreds of coloured pens, shelves full of books, 20 pairs of shoes and a wardrobe full of cheap clothes!


This will be an evolution for me, rather than a revolution. 

Evolution Vs Revolution

I'm not suddenly going to go from a 4 bedroom house with my husband (Graham) - full of stuff accumulated over our 23-year relationship - to living from a backpack! 

I'm not sure, at my age, I can reduce down to 51 things in the entire world (and I don't think I want to!) 

And I certainly don't expect Graham to do this either.

Finding A Balance At Home

I'll admit it, I'm not going to make out I'm all worthy and puritanical about only having what I need!  

I love cosyness. I love softness. I love cushions and fairy lights. I love scented candles and house plants and soft bedding. I love the look and smell of a fully loaded bookcase.

I don't want to live somewhere cold and austere - I'm not intending to renounce all worldy possessions anytime soon and spend my life wearing sack-cloths and sandals!  

(This is not my home and nor would I want it to be!)

All that being true, the whole point of a life as a roaming entrepreneur is to live from a different perspective. 

To experience true freedom, and that means being free from the responsibility of too much 'stuff'.

It's not only about letting go of clutter and trinkets, it's also about making the physical space to create the mental space.

It's something I'll need to practice at home, in my every day life. Something to get accustomed to. 

To live with less. 

To declutter.

A Minimal Movement

Finding this trailer on YouTube, made me realise just how much content there is out there on this idea of relinquishing stuff for the sake of stuff and living a simpler, more sustainable life.

The journey towards simplicity

To start that process of decluttering my home, my life and moving towards a more portable existence, I'll need to resolve some fundamentals.

Every possession must serve a purpose or bring joy. I need to evaluate what I have and ask, "Does this add value to my life?".

It's not about living an 'easy' life, but a living a simpler one.

Affordability. Simplicity. Sustainability

 

If we can reduce our life, we can reduce our overheads. Our debts and outgoings. 

Our biggest debt is the mortgage. 

When we returned to the UK from Bulgaria (a story for another time), we had nothing but a car full of stuff. 

For a month we lived in a friend's spare bedroom, before moving into a 1 bed flat.

Of course, we then had to fill that flat with furniture! 

Then we moved to a 2 bed house, with a lodger and 2 cats, which involved buying more furniture to fill the rooms.

Then we moved to our current house, with 3 bedrooms and an attic room. More furniture. More stuff. 

It's amazing how quickly you can fill a newly acquired space!

With acquired space is acquired responsibility to service the debt for that space. 

Servicing that debt to contain our stuff currently involves being at work.

At least, being self-employed, I do actually spend a lot of time in that house. Unlike many people, who have a house and most of the time (except when they're asleep) they're not even in it because they're out earning money to pay for it!

To enable us to travel, we can cover this responsibility by renting the house out - being in a popular urban area. 

We need to declutter to rent the house. We don’t want to be paying to store stuff (anymore)! 

Step 1 - What do we have and what do we need?

Living deliberately: Not ‘consuming’ is not about taking away. 

It’s adding responsibility for the resources we use. 

Adding intention. 

Adding quality. 

Adding value.

Remove the unnecessary and all that remains is what’s important.

Letting Go Is A Process

Step 2: Work shelf by shelf, draw by draw, cupboard by cupboard, room by room.

Fortunately, we don’t have expensive hobbies or expensive tastes, but we've still managed to fill cupboards and storage boxes, and wardrobes and drawers in every room!

Maslow on Motivation

Watching the film and reflecting on the notion of 'Life Editing' reminded me of a motivation model I've studied in my career practice as a trainer, mentor and coach...

Maslow's Heirarchy Of Human Needs

Image source: Wikipedia

In this commonly used model for human motivation, Maslow proposes the phsychological theory that on our journey to self-actualistion (fulfilling our potential) there are various needs that must be met first:

Physiological: Shelter. Food. Water. Sleep.

Safety: Personal, financial and emotional security.

Love/Belonging: Family, friends, companionship, intimacy.

Esteem: Status. To be accepted, valued and respected.

Once these needs have been met, self-actualisation is about the accumulation of experiences and wisdom, not 'stuff'.

More To Life

More to life than bills money and work. 

More to life than working to buy stuff. 

More to life than having a massive debt for a building to store stuff in, and working to pay that debt.

Less is more. Be Intentional. Stay simple.

Step 3: Now all we need to do is live deliberately, with less, and see where the journey takes us! 

A lasting word from the Minimalism film...

Love People, Use Things - because the opposite never works!

The Dangling Baskets of Naples

Naples, summer of 2018.

We're falling into step with the ebb and flow of people meandering along the oversized cobbles of the street.

Broken glass and cigarette butts nessle in the cracks, wear flip flops at your peril around the old part of the city!

1.5 million people live and work on top of each other here, and tourists swell their ranks in the summer.

Crumbling apartment blocks, from every era, crowding along on the narrow streets, creating shaded canyons radiating from sun soaked piazzas.

For all its busyness, to the observer, Naples doesn't cut a prosperous figure.

Boxes and battered crates teeter in festering piles in the back alleys. Graffiti, fly posters and OSB patch boards are the patina of these grimy streets.

Scooters zip through, weaving between pedestrians like bees about to swarm.

Every vehicle is dinged and dented, dust caked and forlorn in the sensory-battering throng of the streets. The song of this city is the buzz of Vespa engines and the impatient blair of horns.

Moments of tranquillity are rare in such purposefulness. Then we strolled into the Quatro Espanol, the Spanish District - named after the Spanish soldiers Garrisoned there during the reign of Ferdinand of Aragon.

We watch as women lower plastic baskets down from their balconies to street level.

Vendors take the money from the basket, replace it with goods the customer has phoned ahead for, and the basket is then hoisted back up these UNESCO protected tall apartment blocks.

Colourful, cheap plastic baskets dangle from so many of these windows, while below, people walk past unawares.

Built in the Renaissance, these, tall, slender apartment blocks don't have lifts and who wants to walk up four flights of stairs in 28 degrees for a loaf of bread and a bottle of beer from the shop!

Vision or Vanity?

Every business needs a vision, but not every entrepreneur has to be a visionary.

If you close your eyes and imagine where you would like your life to be in, say, 5 years, what might it look like?

Life in 5 Years

Each time I've done exactly that, what I see, where I imagine myself, is not in the front of my computer in my attic office!

In those daydreams, I've been on the prow of a speedboat, or laying on a bed of fur in a yurt, or cruising along the Amalfi Coast in a vintage convertible,  big bug-eyed sunglasses and a flowery scarf billowing behind me, Audrey Hepburn Style.

Where The Future Takes Us

This is where I imagine my future will take me. But these aren't one-off holidays - a few days hiatus between long spells of air-conditioned offices - No. 

The overwhelming feeling I've had in all these flights of fancy has been that these are high points of everyday life. 

Freedom of self-employment has allowed me to live a nomadic lifestyle.

This is the vision for my business. The vision for our life.

What's stopping this from being my life right now?

Is It Vanity?

This is where I find myself thinking of it as just 'vanity'. 

I can't only think of myself, I have a husband and a mortgage. A husband in a full-time office based job which pays that mortgage!

The thing that stops this being my reality is my responsibility to my life partner, in all things.

The challenge therefore, is to find a way to be true to both.

Is it Vision?

Writing about the 'vision' for my business is the first step to making these changes.

The first steps towards creating a reality that suits both of us.

Being Blogger

Blogging has served me well as a means to an end, doing the thing I'll do anyway... writing.

I started my first blog in 2013, the year I published my first book, when my worlds as an author and business advisor collided in 2015, I started my consultancy business. 

That has since evolved into Learn To Love Your Words and my specialty is as a blogging mentor for business.

Building my marketing around content was the obvious solution. 

The first blog was about becoming an author - I still keep this blog on my author website.

The second blog was to grow my influence as a writing mentor and build a business.

This (third blog!) is about challenging my reality and sharing my love of travelling.

I have an innate curiosity. I love exploring and discovery. I love meeting new people and having new experiences.

I want to discover more of this amazing, diverse and fascinating planet we inhabit.

Life's Little Luxuries

However, I also enjoy a little luxury! 

I don't mean traveling 5-star, I mean not living out of a backpack and sleeping in bug infested hovels.

I mean travelling, but maintaining a comfortable life. Earning enough money to enjoy eating and drinking out, Cafe Culture and sleeping in a comfortable - private - bedroom.

Being able to enjoy the trappings of travel, as well as living with the locals.

I would hate to travel to a once in a lifetime place and not be able to afford the entrance fee!

Perhaps this blog will turn out to be an experiment in vanity? 

Or perhaps I'll achieve the vision of location independence - of being a Wandering Entrepreneur,  a Roaming Entrepreneur? 

In the end, it doesn't matter, as long as the journey is enjoyable!