Mind the Beginner

I’ve had several questions lately about what certain terms are that I’ve been using here. Well, to make things a bit clearer I’m going to provide you with a post on  terms that are being used in the personal development and lifestyle design niche. It’s by no means complete though and I urge you to add more in the comments.

• Let’s start with some names first

Tim Ferris This name really should ring a bell. It’s the guy that started it all (for me at least) He’s the author of “The four hour workweek” and blogger writing about “experiments in lifestyle design”. He’s living the life so many of us want to. It’s probably why his book is so popular, it talks about a something that seems a fantasy and he claims can be reality. However, there are those who believe the four hour workweek to be a lie.

Leo Babauta Blogger over at zenhabits.net and author of the book “the power of less”. Has radically redesigned his life to what he wanted. I could explain it all but it’s easier to read this page.

Jonathan Mead Blogger over at Illuminated mind and author of “reclaim your dreams”. He also writes for zenhabits and lateral action. Someone who really kicks ass in the virtual world stating what it’s really all about without being gentle. He regularly kicks against what people think is reality and gets your head back out of the clouds.

Carl Nelson A friend, blogger at slacker reform, professional lindy hopper, vagabond, philosopher and rising start in the location independence world.

Corbett Barr Blogger at freepersuits writing about lifestyle design, another rising start in the community.

Rolf Potts Author of “vagabonding”, the second book that’s an essential read to anyone who wants to become location independent. Not from the perspective of how to get there, but on what to do when you’ve got it.

Darren Rowse Also known as problogger. A full time blogger making a six figure income through it and a huge name in the blogosphere. Anyone who takes blogging seriously has heard is name and has probably visited his blog as well. A great resource for anything blogrelated.

Seth Godin Writer of a lot of (11 so far) books on diverse subjects in the direction of market development and business.  A name you’ll see pop up from time to time, so I thought I’d mention him.

Steve Pavlina This guy might just be the original personal development blogger. He’s been blogging since 1 oktober 2004

• Some essential literature

The four hour workweek (4HWW) The book that got it all started, or at least put things on the map. In a nutshell this book teaches you how to find an online market, set everything up, automate it and reduce the number of hours you work to the bare minimum while keeping a descent income so you can spend your time on other things.

The Power of less Leo’s book, a nice summary of all his blogposts that will get you up to speed on minimalist thinking when it comes to daily life.

Vagabonding The book about extended world travel or how to “live out of a backpack” for months or yours. Perhaps even giving up a home and constantly traveling the world.

Reclaim your dreams An  eBook on getting away from the 9-5 till 65 life. You can read my review of it here

• Some often used terms

Lifestyle design Everything that has to do with living your life like you want to live it. Severing the ties that keep you from doing what you want to be doing. For most people this means quitting their job (a major timesuck where they are not in control) and setting up an alternative income through Internet. This frees up time so one can do all those things that one dreams of but never does. It’s getting rid of preconceptions that life has to be a certain way just because your parents lived that way or the education system has taught you how to live.  In short: It’s thinking for yourself on how you want to live your life and doing everything you can to live that life right now! Corbett over at Freepersuits has dedicated a blogpost to the subject that’s far more comprehensive that the definition I give here. If you’re interested you can find that blogpost by following this link. It’s a great read and will get things crystal clear.

Muse. A term used by Tim Ferris to describe the thing that generates the Internet income. His muse is a food supplement he’s selling online. Probably by now it’s also his blog and his book.

Vagabond. A person who travels for extended periods of time where not the destination but the travel is important and where at times there is no plan on where to go or on how long to stay there.

Digital Nomad. A vagabond with a laptop and other technical devices who has an Internet income and manages that through his laptop while vagabonding.

Location Independent Professional (LIP). A professional who isn’t bound to a location in order to make an income. More often than not these people generate their income through Internet and might just be called digital nomads as well. That is, if they choose to travel. Being location independent means you can go wherever you want, it doesn’t mean you have to.

Freedom business. This term is used in Project Mojave to describe an Internet business (selling an information product) that generates an income that’s significant enough to quit ones dayjob and become free. This means it consistently generates an income of some 2-4k a month depending on your needs. Also, this business requires little “maintenance” so you have an income that costs little time as well. Although you might not reach the 4 hours a week, it’s definitely doable with about 10 hours a week.

Project Mojave An online program where Clay Collins and some others teach you how to set up a freedom business, in three months or less.

Personal development The ongoing effort to develop oneself and keep learning. Learning new skills, keep questioning ones thoughts, beliefs and habits. You probably know people who do the same thing every day like clockwork. Have a dayjob, don’t read, don’t try new things or whatever. These people don’t develop any further for they don’t expose themselves to new things.

Well, that’s it for now, I hope you will all contribute to this blogpost by adding more names, blogs and terms to the comment section.  If you have any questions or if what I’ve written in this blogpost is just pain wrong or hopelessly incomplete please do let me know.

If you liked this blogpost please to give it a “thumbs up” on stumble, digg it, tweet it and use smoke signals to tell others. I’d really appreciate it.

As promised yesterday I’m going to give you another great resource: a list of fears those aspiring to become location independent suffer from and a list of the fears the already independent suffer from.

There are a few recurring themes in these two lists that were composed using the recent Location Independent and Digital Nomad Survey.

Without to much beating around the bush I’m going to give you the results, broken down into a few categories. This post might be rather boring to the casual reader but I’m sure there are plenty of you who see this lost for what it is, a treasure, a wealth of information that you can use. So what exactly are the fears that live in our community?

Let’s look at the aspiring Location Independent first:

In the knowledge department:

• A lack of knowledge (how to’s)
• Failure (this one comes back dozens of times)
• That this doesn’t work out
• Worry that I will have given up everything for something that isn’t as great as I have built it up to be
• Being less well informed (currently working in a newsroom)

Travel:

• Encountering legal issues abroad
• Being so enamored with a foreign place that I won’t be disciplined enough to work
• What to do with all my stuff, I’m not a light packer
• Getting taken advantage of
• Loosing focus or loosing interest in my work in favor of travel
• I will have to reduce my wardrobe!
• Being stranded
• Safety in third world countries
• Political unrest

Regarding money and business:

• Not having/earning enough money (a common fear)
• Failing to maintain that income/long term income stability (another common fear)
• Not being able to handle state-side matters
• The business drying up
• Losing clients
• Having no nest-egg for retirement
• Procrastination
• Money management (don’t want to rely on relatives for that)
• Connections and communication
• Not being able to get on the Internet

Social and family issues:

• Not being home quick enough if a loved one is dying (This actually is my biggest fear)
• Being away from family
• Solitude/loneliness/home sick/being isolated and alone
• Never finding a partner/inability to form deep relationships
• No home base to come back to and relax
• Feelings of detachment
• Lack of face to face social interaction with colleagues
• Being away from my children
• That my wife will get tired of the travel
• That my spouse won’t be happy
• Leaving family behind
• Getting sick or getting into trouble and not having my family with me
• That my fiance will not truly believe we can achieve this life and that ultimately it will lead to the breakdown of our relationship
• Keeping in touch with friends and family
• Judgemental family
• People’s reactions

Other issues:

• Taking to long to get back to it (former LIP)
• Not getting to the point of LIP
• Health insurance
• Being your own safety net
• Work taking over
• Missing out on the fun things that I’m doing right now
• Being forced to return home against my will and search for depressing work in a depressed economy

So far the list of the aspiring location independent. There are a few recurring themes in this list don’t you think? A quick scan tells me it boils down to knowledge (and lack of), insecurity in travel and earnings, loneliness, being away from family and friends and the fear of being unplugged (no Internet).

Now let’s have a look at the fears the Location Independent suffer from. Yes, these people suffer from fear too, they live the life we dream of, is that life a nightmare? I think not, as we saw yesterday it’s hard work though but worth it. There are a few fears here as well that keep coming back. Here is the list, again in a few categories:

Money issues:

• The costs and not making enough income
• Not having the income anymore and having to stop traveling
• Making expensive mistakes
• The money tap will stop
• Not making enough money to fund our old age

The Business

• Being out of touch when a client needs me
• Lack of trust (and therefore business) from clients
• Others thinking I’m not working because I’m not “on site”
• Losing it

Technical dependency:

• Internet failures/hackers
• Forgetting a power cord – seriously
• The Internet dies
• Loss of equipment leading to loss of work information
• Laptop crashing

The downside of the location and travel:

• Large scale disasters and being stuck in a third world country
• Visas.
• Brisbane’s abysmal broadband service
• A plane crash
• Border control
• Health issues in developing countries
• The weather
• Visa issues: That I live abroad illegally and get deported
• That we’ll get bored with it, or that life will become nothing more than cheap thrills and excitements, but bring not lasting joy
• Getting comfortable and settling (yes it’s a fear)
• Finding myself unable to stop someday

Social and family issues:

• It’s extraordinarily difficult to feel as if you have established roots when you’re always uprooting yourself to seek new experience. Permanence is a foreign feeling. Maintaining personal relationships requires extra care and attention, particularly when it comes to love and romantic relationships. The lifestyle itself creates no fear – only anticipation of a fresh new day.
• Not being part of a community
• Stability of family life
• Losing friends who aren’t living the same way
• Losing contact with local community and friends
• Having to head home because of a family emergency
• My partner not being able to go somewhere with me
• Never stopping and being looked at like a weirdo by my peers back home
• Loosing the ability to maintain long-term relationships
• To estrange from family an friends
• Lack of community
• That we lose connection with any social network, and cause our son to be deprived of meaningful friendships with other kids (especially any who understand what we’re doing, and why)

Other issues

• A loss of motivation or burnout
• Losing important mail

Atually, if we look at this second list there are remarcabe similarities although I’ve used slightly different categories. Money problems, loosing the business or clients, computer/internet problems, the practical problems of travel and the lack of social interaction with the home front.

Compiling this list we end up with a shortlist of fears:

A lack of knowledge

Not making enough money/security of income

Being stuck or getting into trouble abroad

Not having an internet connection

Social interaction/family ties

I actually believe these five fears sum up all the issues the entire community suffers from in one way or the other. There are however enough LIP’s who claim not to have any fears at all.

There you have it, the list of 86 fears of the Location Independant and Digital Nomad community.

Two weeks ago I asked you to fill in the survey on Location Independence and Digital Nomads set up by freepursuits.com and locationinedependent.com. Well, the two weeks has passed and the result are in.

268 people took the survey that was promoted by a group of lifestyle design bloggers. Of course I immediately took a look at the section where all these blogs were mentioned to see how many people actually know about my blog.

Among the people aspiring to become location independent (n= 174) 4 are regular readers, 10 are familiar with this blog and the rest never heard of my blog before.

Among the people who are already location independent (n=94) also knows as LIP’s 2 regular readers, 7 are familiar with this blog and again, the rest has never heard of my blog before.

A quick scan over all the locations tells me there are 4 people who are currently located in The Netherlands who filled in this survey and I’m one of them. A useless fact, but still…

Well, there are a lot of readers out there in this niche I still need to convince to read my blog don’t you think?

What more is the survey telling us

• There are only 3 people in the survey who seem to be taking part in Project Mojave.
• The vast majority of aspiring LIP’s are full-time employee and work their ass off (40-60 hours a week)
• Within the already LIP there’s a also a high number of hard workers although self-employed. So far for the myth of the 4 hour workweek.  Only 8 claim to work less than 10 hours a week. By contrast 15 work more than 50 hours a week.
• The most common  jobs among the LIP are web design, marketing and writing, Corbett (Freepursuits) wrote about 64 ways the location independent earn a living yesterday.
• One LIP is a professional poker player
• Internet is vital for the LIP to earn a living. (But we knew that already didn’t we?)

And now the most important question that was asked those who aspire to become location independent:

“What could the blogs you read provide you with or write about to help you achieve your lifestyle goals.”

Now this is where things get interesting and to me it’s one of the most valuable part of the entire suvey.

What you’ve asked for

• Motivation
• Success stories and case studies
• Money management
• Support & encouragement
• Technical aspects of the digital nomadic life
• Networking with digital nomads (Apparently there is a need for a true online community)
• Practical tips
• How to’s/tutorials

Is I’m part of the lifestyle design community it’s up to me and my fellow bloggers in this niche to answer the questions people have. Now that we have a good view on what it is you people want to know we can write more specifically about those subjects.

The two biggest fears I’ve concluded from the survey are failure and running out of funds. (although that could be called failure as well). Tomorrow I’ll provide you with a full list of all the fears people have named in the survey. This list is has a few recurring themes and  provide it just to show you you are not alone with your fears. We all suffer from them and there’s no need to give up just because of those fears.

Of course I’ll writing about stuff inspired by this survey, and as you’ve come to expect from me, I’ll make sure to put zen into it.

I want to thank everyone who took part in the survey, if there is anything else you want to know about the results that I didn’t cover I’ll gladly provide you with answers. All the participating blogs have received the results from the survey to you can expect them to write about this as well.

To help bring the community together Corbett Barr from Free Pursuits and Lea Woodward from Location Independent are hosting a “Location Independent and Digital Nomad Survey.” This survey is made for both those who are already location independent and those who aspire to be.

Seeing as I somewhat write about lifestyle design and have touched the sbject of digital nomads and vagabonds on several occasions I consider this blog a part of that community. So naturally this blog -as part of that community- and through that you as my reader would benefit from the results of this survey. 

What’s in it for you?

• A better blog here at Mind the Beginner
• A better blogging community
• An understanding of the community
• The opportunity to be recognized (with a link to your Twitter page or website) in an upcoming post about the survey results at freepursuits.com.

You can find the suvey by following this link Thanks for participating and stay tuned.

In addition you might want to visit the other participating blogs on Lifestyle Design:

WebWorkerDaily, Digital Nomads, Nomadness, Slacker Reform, Muselife, Mind the Beginner,Technomadia, Exile Lifestyle, Intrepid Lifestyle, Jet Set Citizen, Live Uncomfortably, Mine Your Resources, Thrilling Heroics, Most Likely to Die Alone and Vagabonding 

(and the hosts, Free Pursuits and Location Independent).

The Survey is an opportunity for the growing location independent and digital nomad community to understand more about the group (and those people who aspire to become location independent).

Do you ever wonder what other location independents do for a living? What about how many hours they work and whether they make more or less money than when they worked a regular job? What about where they live, how much time they spend traveling or whether they maintain a permanent home somewhere?

This is the type of information we will gather with your help. Answers to these questions will be indispensable in helping all of us better understand who makes up the community, and how we can better serve them. 

A bit of a chaotic post today. You might recall me writing about Project Mojave in my post on Monday and my writing about it stating that I hope it really does work while at the same time trying to kick everyone who believed in such things and keeps reading without acting upon it. After that ass-kicking blogpost on Monday and the long post on hormones last Wednesday I though I’d go in a different direction today.

I want the globe to be my playground

Project Mojave  opened up to new subscribers last Tuesday 4.30pm PST. At which time it was 1:30 am where my bed and computer are located at the moment so I was sound asleep seeing as I had to get up at 5 am the following day.

Now this is where Carl (Slacker Reform) comes into the picture. This guy really is amazing as I’ve said before. He gave me a heads-up on the project back in April and I’ve been hearing about his adventures on the project for the last month. He got so excited about it all that he really wanted to have me on the project too.

So how do you do that? Remember I was asleep at the time the project went live. I could of course sign in on at a later time but perhaps I would miss out on all the nice bonus material. I could also just wait for the next run of the program but who knows when that one would be. I went to sleep with some thoughts about that and thinking about an offer Carl made me…

..

In the mean time

..

…He signed me up and made all the arrangements! There was a mail in my mailbox the next morning with my login details stating that everything was payed for. Although this was the offer Carl made me while we were talking over twitter I never imagined him doing this for real. I’ve known Carl now for little over a month and we have only talked using twitter and through blog comments, and now this. I knew we were roughly on the same wavelength now and then but this is absolutely crazy. I guess he really wants me on the project and I’m very happy to be on it!

Sorry for the rant-like blogpost but it’s hard to write properly when you’re this excited. So for the next three months I’ll be simultaneously doing three things aside from my every day life:

• Run this blog like I have these past months and reach my goal of 500 views a day, followed by transferring this blog to it’s own domain
• Working with Project Mojave to create a freedom business, perhaps I can combine this blog and the project here and there. You’ll notice soon enough
• Preparing for university which starts this September but for which I still have to do a math test or more accurately a test in proposition and predicate logic.They want to see if I can wrap my head around that kind of thinking

So what is the future holding for me?

• A successful blog, where I can vent my creativity and generate a small side income
• An income through online entrepreneurship aka running a freedom business which will make me location independent
• A degree in information science which if the first two things don’t work out will be my “backup” to a normal job, with more than enough possibilities there to either earn enough to be financially independent or become an entrepreneur using what I’ve learned at uni. I’ll be learning some major computing skills there and whichever way my life goes this will come in handy

All things considering one of my biggest life goals is Financial Independence to do all the things I’ve been dreaming of. To summarize: I want the globe to be my playground as a zen inspired vagabond/digital nomad and I will achieve that, one way or the other.

Here in The Netherlands there is a whole subculture around squatters. Squatters are people who occupy buildings without having a lawful claim to it. Squatting over here is legal as long as the building has not been used for over a year. Buildings that would otherwise stay empty and in disuse. This has been going on since the latter half of the 20th century and however annoying it can be to property owners they serve a function. No property owner here can get away with leaving a building empty for to long. It’s a constant game between owners and squatters.

You’re probably wondering where I’m going with this one: Squatters were my inspiration for this post or rather the skills these squatters have learned to be able to live like they do. They have a minimalist lifestyle. According to law when you occupy a building you need a bed, a table and a chair in order to establish yourself. A mattress, a barstool and a wooden board on a couple of crates is all they need. Some squatters literally own nothing more than the clothes on their back and a mattress.

 Traveling for an extended period of time is becoming less of a dream and more of a real goal for people to aim for

The difference between them and the homeless is that they choose to live this way and quite often do have an income. There are even grad students who live this way with nothing more than their books and a place to sleep. A computer can be used at the public library or at university, washing yourself might be done by going to the local swimming pool every few days. Their lifestyle certainly is not for everyone but there is one thing they got down to an art form: minimalist living. I admire them for that skill and their creativity.

Digital Nomads

On a slightly different level there are the digital nomads who are gaining popularity on the Internet. People who quite literally live out of a backpack. Earning enough money to sustain their travels and day to day activities through Internet entrepreneurship.

There is an immense sense of freedom to be had when living this way. A freedom I would almost encourage you to try and experience if you ever get the chance. Most digital nomads I know of run a blog as a means of income. Take Carl Nelson for instance, a professional dancer who has been traveling through the USA the last few months with nothing more than his single suitcase and shoulderbag. He already knows I envy him for this. A bit higher up the nomadic food chain we find people like Tim Ferriss (yes, the 4 hour workweek guy) and Chris Guillebeau. Although as far as I know both these do have a “home base” from where they travel and come back to. (and receive snail mail probably.)

Flashpackers

Another name that sometimes is used for these people is “flashpackers”. Although not applicable to every digital nomad a flashpacker is someone who travels in the same way a backpacker does, but with less stuff. More digital toys (iPod, laptop, GPS perhaps, high-end digital camera) and far less clothing. What they need while traveling they buy. Clothing can be very cheap is you don’t mind not wearing a certain brand and when shirt’s cost you maybe 4 dollars each (in Asia for instance) you might opt for the same strategy unless you want to be frugal. Wear it until it’s time to move on. Toss all the cheap clothing you can’t fit in your bag and take the rest with you to replace later on. You can easily travel the world with only two of everything, washing one while wearing the other.

• Now we hit on a slight problem a lot of people share: missing the ability to throw something out that doesn’t serve a real purpose anymore (other than sentimental value).

To often we are tied down by the things we own. All those little things that clutter our home or our desk. That porcelain dog figure your aunt gave you, the useless collection of pens that just sit there drying up when you have that one favorite pen you always use, the DVD collection you built up but never watch. Let’s face it, humans are pack rats by nature. We have evolved (I a strong believer of Darwin’s evolution theory but also harbor some Buddhist thought patterns.) in an environment where more was always better. Throwing away anything that might some day be useful could be deadly. (deadly taken literally here) So we waste nothing keep everything. 

And now we live in our huge homes, with everything we could ever want and it’s still not enough because now we’re trapped by our belongings. Traveling the world can’t be done because we worry about out plasma TV being stolen or the priceless tropical fish that needs to be fed and only we know how exactly to do that. 

Materialism isn’t everything, freedom is

Not only our physical belongings tie us down, our social ties also “help” in staying put. “What will the neighbors think” or “how am I going to explain this to my parents”. Our species started out as nomadic but ever since we started farming we got tied down. Sometimes living our whole lives in the same region just because we grew up there and knew everyone. And we were happy. 

But now with the ever diminishing size of the globe due to all the means of transport and the Internet traveling for an extended period of time (Vagabonding or living like a digital nomad) is becoming less of a dream and more of a real goal for people to aim for.

What sets squatters, digital nomads and flashpackers apart from the rest of us? They have acquired the skill to travel very lightly for extended periods of time. Not being tied down by their worldly possessions. They also acquired the skill to generate an income, wherever they are. 

The beginner’s mind

How do we begin with this? – This blog is about beginning after all so I’d better tell you how to get started – It starts with recognizing the things that tie us down and adopting a minimalistic lifestyle. Materialism isn’t everything, freedom is. I leave it up to you to decide what freedom is and if you should adopt this way of life. Who is happier, the squatter who can live anywhere? Or the CEO with his giant house and obligations? If you’re happy where you are right now by all means do stay there. If there is some place else you’d rather be, know that many have gone before you.

How to we begin setting up an income? The fun bit is you don’t have to. Money isn’t everything either. You need enough of it to get to where you want to and maybe to pay for your food and a place to sleep. On other continents however it’s not that hard to find a cheap place to sleep or even to get invited to stay somewhere. It’s not about money, it’s about social skills and people. 

I’m not a digital nomad myself nor am I a world traveler. I’m an outspoken minimalist however who is always looking for ways to strealine my worldly possessions so eventually I’ll have only those things that can be contained within a backpack. My biggest problem will be my book collection for which I will probably have to rent a very small apartment somewhere. A place to call “home base” so to speak. With nothing more than a bed, a table and a chair… hundreds of books, an Internet connection and a meditation pillow.

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