Nomad Challenge

Greetings!

I figured I would take a little time today to get you all caught up to speed as to how this blog came about. I’ll try to keep this as concise as possible…

First, as you can probably guess, I want to do a lot of traveling around the globe. And as I alluded to in my previous post, my first destination of choice is Australia, although there are many others. Ever since I was little, I’ve always had that bit of wanderlust. I’ve met plenty of people from all over the world, competed in an international sporting event, have a bachelor’s degree in international business, and yet I somehow have only gone out of the country once, and that was to Toronto (not very far outside the U.S., actually, so that doesn’t really count).

Over the years that itch to move about and see the world keeps getting stronger and stronger. I have no regrets over how I have spent the first 10 years of my adult life. Most people who study international business do a semester or two studying abroad. I was on the college’s tennis team and didn’t want to miss out on any of that experience, and I made the right choice. Overall, I’ve done some cool things and met some amazing people during this time. I wouldn’t change a thing.

Second, I recently resigned from my job that I had been at for the past five years (it’s now been a week since I left), and I am taking a little time off to reevaluate where I want to go from here. I won’t to go into all the details. There were a lot of things I liked about the job. It involved one of my bigger passions, I got to travel a good bit around the country to places I probably never would’ve gone to otherwise, and I got to know a lot of great people. What’s so bad about that? Nothing, I’m very grateful for having had that opportunity.

I am also grateful that I finally, after mulling this over for a long time, decided to get out. It was time. I was burnt out (something that happens to people all too frequently in that profession, and many others for that matter) and was really struggling to stay motivated. Long hours and low pay, among other frustrations, got to me. It isn’t even so much the pay. I think if it were a six-figure job I would probably feel the same way. It just wasn’t the right lifestyle for me, not enough balance. I look at where I was headed five, 10, 20 years down the road, and at the people who were already there, and it scared the hell out of me.

For the past few years, I’ve been thinking of ways in which I could work for myself. There was a big craze in real estate and I grabbed every bit of info that I could find on the subject before realizing that it wasn’t really for me. Now what?

If I could pin point the two things that helped me advance in my career it was writing and having some sort of uncanny ability with computers and the internet. Hmmm… why didn’t I think about that before????

Well, now I’m here at a bit of a crossroads. I gave about five weeks notice when I resigned (I’m such a good employee!) and knew this nomad project was something I wanted to work on, although I kept that from most people unless I already knew they were like-minded. I think people were a bit surprised about how calmly I told them that I had no idea what I’d be doing after I left and that I didn’t have another job in the works. I know it was the right decision even though the prospect of not having an income at the moment does scare me a bit from time to time.

So I decided back when I resigned that, while I would still look for a new job, I was going to journal about how I was going about my journey to follow my dream of working and traveling on my own (i.e. being a nomad, if you will, or what The 4-Hour Workweek author Tim Ferriss calls, the “new rich”).

I’d read other stories and how-to guides of people that had successfully gone down this path before, such as the Working Nomad Ebook, and it really excited me! This is what I’ve been looking for all along and I could totally see myself doing this as well! Then I thought, I’ll also journal about my path, except instead of telling my story at the end, I would detail all the emotions, triumphs and bumps along the road as I’m doing it, how unique!?!

Then after searching some more, I realized there are already people who are/have done that as well. AGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!

Oh well, I’m doing it anyway!!! I am learning a great deal and gathering tons of inspiration from these people, although I feel that each one of us have our own unique perspectives and experiences that I think anyone looking for guidance along this avenue can benefit from all of it.

Full steam ahead…

A “drawing” of my future trip to Australia.
(original Sydney Harbor image © Chee-Onn Leong / 123RF)

Greetings!  My name is Kevin and welcome to Nomad Challenge!  This is a blog of my on-going journey toward my dream of remote working and global travel.  Before I let you in on how I got to be where I am right now and why I decided upon this course, I would like to offer my first lesson, if you will, and that is visualization.

As a freshman in university back in 1998, I started reading a book that was required reading for all incoming students in the school of business, and that was Stephen R. Covey’s, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People.  After the first habit “Be Proactive”, comes Habit No. 2, which is “Begin With The End in Mind”.

I have seen this theme in countless business books, success profiles and other similar literature.  I have also seen in my own life the results of both sides of the coin; having a vision and seeing it come to fruition, as well as having no clear vision and thus seeing only confusion and frustration.

With that in mind, let me offer a quick quote from the late comedian Mitch Hedberg as a prelude to a piece of my dream visualization:

“One time a guy handed me a picture of himself and he said, “Here’s a picture of me when I was younger.” Every picture of you is when you were younger. Here’s a picture of me when I’m older. How’d you pull that off? Let me see that camera…”

Well HA, I pulled it off (sort of)!  Here is a picture of me when I am older!

This is me Beginning With The End In Mind
(original Sydney Harbor image © Chee-Onn Leong / 123RF)

So I invite you to follow along as I journal all the highs and lows, the successes as well as the mistakes, in my journey toward achieving my dream lifestyle.  There will sure to be some valuable lessons shared and learned that anyone looking to go along a similar path, or chasing any dream for that matter, will find useful.

Over the next few posts, I will share more of my story and various sources of inspiration and guidance that I think you’ll find valuable, so please check back.

Cheers!
Kevin

Extra Bonus: Would you like to learn how to take a color picture and make it look like a sketch like the image at the top of this post?  Check out this article from wikiHow:
How to Make a Color Image Look Like a Sketch in Photoshop