Tag: Networks

‘Digital Nomad’ isn’t a job description (and how to find that job)

Though I’ve been a digital nomad for a while now I’m still learning new things. One thing I recently realized is how people new to the lifestyle seem to think digital nomad is a job description and we make our money this way.

Now, you can call it many things – a lifestyle, a rebellion or even a movement – but it is not a job. That part of it is entirely separate. We get going by writing, freelancing or starting businesses and that allows us to then move around.

So why do people think of it as a job description? I suspect people have this idea because they’ve been sold a myth. Often, it is made out as if it’s not of this world. The way our lives are often portrayed is as if we’ve passed through the looking glass into a magical realm. A place where the sun always shines, the living is easy and we’ve moved beyond capitalism.

But that’s not true. Quite the opposite. The digital nomad lifestyle is dependent on modern capitalism.

We offer products in exchange for a fee.
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How I Find Clients – Tackling The Most Tenacious Freelancing Problem

When I started freelancing I didn’t have a clue how to actually get clients. So I did what I always do in those situations. I read a lot. A bunch of the articles I read said I should start on the big freelance sites like Upwork. I guess whoever wrote those didn’t know how to get freelancing clients either. That isn’t too strange, as getting those initial clients is probably the hardest part.

So I followed their advice, created a profile, wrote query letters and spent the next six months trying to break through there. In the process, I learned that it is true what they say. The worse the client pays the more demanding they are.

By that standard, Upwork’s clients are among the most demanding out there. The site is infamous for having clients that pay ludicrously low rates. I charged a cent per word there, which is too little to support my girlfriend and myself. And yet still I was regularly undercut by people willing to do it for less.

Those were some pretty miserable months, I can tell you!

Of course, hardship is a phenomenal teacher. I recount some of the lessons I learned there in the article my life as a warning to a friend and a whole generation. The one that matters most here can be summed up pretty simply.
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Why Most Digital Nomads Fail (And How To Avoid It)

Do you know why most digital nomads fail? Most people pick something like, ‘they can’t get their careers off the ground’, ‘they chose the wrong enterprise’, or ‘they can’t hack it as freelancers‘. Others will say it’s because they run out of money, they didn’t budget well, or they got scammed. And yes, these can all be the straws that break the aspiring nomad’s back. The thing is, often these are only symptoms of a much bigger underlying problem.

What am I on about? I’m talking about what I like to call the digital nomad disconnect.

Most travelers eventually feel the need to go home because they’re not socially integrated. The digital nomad’s existence of drifting from place to place might sound appealing, but it has some serious problems. In time, these lead many to pull the plug.

There are two main reasons why this lack of belongingness affects us so. I’ll cover each in turn.
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How to Effectively Market Your Blog on Social Media

Many bloggers still seem to function under the premise that ‘if I build it, they will come’. They spend hours and hours crafting blog posts, put them up, share them on a few social media pages and that’s it.

Of course, the people don’t come and naturally, that’s disappointing. But as every article says that blogging is a long game these bloggers don’t get discouraged. Instead, they return to their keyboards and start writing up the next blog post. They’re convinced that if they just keep at it, sooner or later, if they just write well, they’ll get discovered. And then, then they’ll be famous.

If you’re one of these bloggers then here’s some tough love for you: This doesn’t work.

It’s like trying to get rich by winning the lottery. I mean, how many blogs make it? Let’s be extremely generous and say it’s 10,000 per year. Well, there are about 152 million blogs out there.
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Spreading Words to Help People Help Themselves

On both our about page and in our post introducing this website, we talked about spreading words to help people help themselves. Today we’d like to talk about what words we meant.

We were talking about all of them.

Yup, that’s right. We want to spread all words – be they liberal or conservative, long or short, rude or complimentary. It doesn’t matter if they’re religious, sacrilegious, scientific or mundane.

We hold no prejudice, we aren’t biased and we have no preference. We’re not here to indoctrinate. We’re not trying to convert. In fact, you could say we’re here to do exactly the opposite.

Our aim isn’t to build walls but to open minds.
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