Why Digital Nomads Need To Have Big Goals

If you’re a digital nomad, you should set big goals. I think it’s dangerous if you don’t.

 

1. You Don’t Have Anyone To Compare Yourself Too

 

If you compare your $2,000/month passive income ‘success’ to the people working in the hostel, or the people on vacation in the hostel… you’re in trouble. It’s very easy to relax and feel great about living in Thailand and earning $1,000/month from your online business, or being a freelancer earning $1,500/month in another cheap location where cost-of-living is low.

 

Most importantly, you’ll meet lots of people who think “It’s amazing that you sold $400,000 online last year!” Soon, you’ll start thinking you’re winning, even though you’re just running a tiny, shaky lifestyle business.

 

You’d better be watching those Bill Gates ‘How I Built Microsoft’ videos on YouTube and setting your goals accordingly to compensate for the ‘career advice’ you got from the 50-year-old who’s drinking beer playing pool all night, every night.

 

2. Coming Home Is Relatively Expensive

 

Do you want to be exiled to visa-hopping cheap countries? Ha, probably as much as you’d like to live with your parents forever.

 

If you’re from the USA, Europe, or Australia, and living in South-East Asia, you’re playing Level 1. Low expenses are great when you’re 22 and you need your time back so that you can build a company, but living on $500/month isn’t sustainable over a lifetime. If you’re using that time to learn, take actions, and build a $4,000/mo income steam, you’re thinking ahead to when you will want to be well off in your own country!

 

Even if you don’t plan on returning home, you want to have the option.

 

3. Shoot BIG Or Be Broke

 

If you’re a digital nomad, you’re trying to build a career very unlike any career that has been feasible in the past, except for perhaps traveling salesman. You’re not going to make it work unless you’re putting in some elbow grease to learn fast where there is no playbook, overcome challenges nobody has dealt with, and uncovering opportunities that have never been exploited or explored.

 

If you’re going slowly, you won’t make it happen.

 

4. You CAN Go Big

 

The economics work. The technology allows for it. You’re young and have your time and energy. You can learn anything online.

 

You can make this work. So… don’t waste a good opportunity.

 

5. Don’t Fool Yourself…

 

Loads of people moved to Detroit because of the economics. Lots of money to be made in the car industry, and the cost-of-living was a lot lower than the sky-high $5/hour wages that Ford paid his factory workers.

 

During the California Gold Rush, tens of thousands of people flooded to California because it looked like they would make it rich finding gold. A similar migration took place when oil was found in Texas.

 

But when the dust settled… there were only a few factory owners in Detroit and most people worked for them. Most of the California ‘49ers ended up working for the large mining companies, earning wages (and getting mercury poisoning) on a hydraulic mining crew… or they went home.

 

You traveling abroad is no different. The economics work out, and it looks like you have a chance to make it rich if you get lucky.

 

The digital nomad ‘movement’ is just another opportunity-seeking migration. It’s not something special or unique to the 21-st century. The ‘Internet’ provides opportunities, but you’re still most likely going to end up working for someone else, perhaps as a location independent freelance designer or developer.