Mind the Beginner

I just got back from a two week vacation. There were three of us and we had a car at our disposal. Although I consider myself a minimalist I still was packing a big weekend bag, a backpack (my laptopbag) and my mediation mat (even rolled up it’s still quite big). My in-line skates were thrown in the trunk as well as a jacket.

All in I had filed the trunk of the car for about 1/3

After everything was packed the three of us wanted to take along, not only the trunk was full, but the back seats were covered as well, leaving a niche for the backseat driver to fold in to.

Something went wrong there, don’t you think?!

Here I am, blogging (among other things) about minimalism and I need 1/3 of a car trunk to haul everything! That’s just wrong. Upon getting home I did what everything does when home: unpack. But I did it consciously. Not just stuffing everything back to where it belongs, but looking at it and asking myself “did I use this?” and in several cases following the answer with a second question “Then why the *bleep* did I bring it along?!”

Going through my bag this way took some time and served the dual purpose of being my meditation for the evening. Meditative unpacking, give it a try.

In the end I had a nice pile of stuff I actually didn’t use in the whole two weeks. Among them: a pair of shoes, two books, 2 shirts, 2 pairs of socks and a math book I’m supposed to be studying to get ready for University. Unlike Pareto’s law roughly 60% of the content of my bag got serious use, the rest was fluff. I used the skates, but only once. I used my meditation mat every evening and the jacket was used almost every day.

All in I could have packed a lot less and still be on vacation but I need to take this packing more seriously if I’m ever going to be truly location independent. After all, everything has to fit in a carry-on, even if the vacation lasts for  year.

If I dropped the skates AND found a portable solution for my meditation mat AND didn’t pack the fluff I think I could have gotten it all in a single bag.

Sorry for the rambling post but there is a message here, a lesson: Next time you unpack your bag after a vacation do it consciously. Ask yourself if you used it and if not why you brought it along. After a few passes I’m sure you’ll be packing far less next time.

Thanks everyone for the nice tweets and comments the past two weeks, I’ve been far less active than I was hoping to be but I’m back home now and read to start kicking again.

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.