If you think that a digital nomad life is only good for millennials think again. In this article, I open my heart and explain the 10 reasons that made me became a digital nomad after 40, actually at 46!
The truth is that I reached a moment in my life when I felt the need for change, for new challenges, new adventures, and new objectives. I felt I had stagnated professionally and intellectually. Rings a bell?
10 Reasons why I beacme a digital nomad
Although the term is self-explanatory, let me just quickly clarify what being a digital nomad means. A digital nomad is a person who makes a living with an internet-based activity which can be pursued from anywhere in the world, as long as there is a digital device (computer, tablet, smartphone) and Internet connection.
It’s pretty straightforward.
Now, let me tell you what has led me to this amazing lifestyle that brought new vibrancy and freshness into my life.
1 – Midlife Crisis
Yes, I have to admit that probably what triggered this whole process was the realization that I am probably half way into my life and that until recently I hadn’t truly lived. Not in the way that I had envisioned, anyway. Yet, there are so many things I still want to do and learn in this lifetime!
2 – Overworked and underpaid
In 2011 I set up my own marketing company. If you remember, this was still during the peak of the economic crises that hit most economies. I put a lot of love and effort into my new project, stopped listening to the news and luckily I survived. After some adjustments to the scope of the company, I ended up marketing Portuguese wines in foreign European markets. As a result, for six years I gave my heart and soul to Krosslink – Wine Sinergy, working long hours, with basically no weekends, holidays and a lot of stress. A few years down the line, in the summer of 2016, James brought to my attention that “This is not a life”. He was right. The balance between workload and return was not right.
3 -A crying need for freedom
I was feeling trapped in my own company. I was suffocated with excessive work and no time to think outside the box. My days became an intense and exhausting routine, which led to me to what I thought was a mediocre life of just work, work, work. What for? I was certainly not accumulating any wealth and I was definitely not happy. One thing I was sure of: I did not want to be stuck in an office (although I love my home office!) 24/7!
4 – I was becoming antisocial
As James once put it, I was “becoming too picky” about the people we hung out with, but the truth is that I started to have no patience whatsoever for BS, big egos and intolerance.
On one hand, I started distancing myself from people who were in a different vibration and that gave way to discover positive aspects of other friends who actually had a lot more in common with my new perspective of life and happiness.
5 – An innate thirst for cultural knowledge
The life I was leading didn’t allow any time for cultural activities, reading, socializing or meeting new people. I was feeling culturally paralyzed, if that makes any sense to you. What I mean is, I wasn’t learning anything other than work-related subjects and that made me feel intellectually mummified!
6 – Change in Values – The Minimalist Perspective
After various life events, my values gradually started to change. I realized that I had been placing importance on the wrong things. I needed to simplify and downsize, due to our transient lifestyle and constant business travels. In addition, every year for around four to five months we move out of our house because we rent it out. Thus, it didn’t make sense to have so many clothes, shoes, accessories, papers, business flyers, and so many other things that one tends to collect unnecessarily.
One day, I came across the blog The Minimalist Vegan that suggested a film, which is also a book called “Minimalism – Live a Meaningful Life”. That tip came at the perfect time! It was just the last incentive I needed to finally take on a “less is more” approach to material things. I proceeded to make a major clean up in my office and gave away lots of clothes, shoes and bags that I had not touched in years. It was such a liberating feeling!
“It’s never too late to stop everything, reinvent yourself and start again.”
7 – Change in values – Being Vs Having
With all these changes, my objectives in life started to change as well. I was no longer interested in having things for compensation. I just wanted to be happy by retrieving the things that made me feel good.
8 – Where is happiness?
When I actually took the time to look around me, I saw a staggering amount of dissatisfaction and frustration. It seemed like most people I know were fed up with their lives. Fed up with their jobs, their spouses, their companies and even their kids. What type of life is that? Where is happiness? Aren’t we here to be happy?
9 – Realizing it’s never too late to go after our dreams
When I started to dig into the subject of happiness I was already in the process of finding it by living a yoga lifestyle. Thanks to yoga practice and the book “The Success Principles“, by American success coach and writer Jack Canfield, I realized that the source of my happiness should come, amongst other factors, from finding a professional activity that made me happy. After all, most of our time is spent working. It made sense.
The book took me step-by-step, through exercises that revived what activities, since my childhood, made me feel good and happy. My list resulted in reading, writing, socializing, yoga, making people feel happy and special and traveling to learn about new cultures. Next step was to puzzle it all together.
10 – A way of putting my goodie-goodie self to work
Anybody who knows me beyond the surface knows that I am very open-minded and cannot stand injustice and any kind of prejudice. People have differences. That’s the colour of life! How boring would this world be if we all had the same habits, faith, colour, taste, political views? How would we grow as human beings? How would we learn with our fellow humans? How would we learn about tolerance? This posture in life has given me a tag of goodie-goodie from an early age.
How does this relate to being a digital nomad? It allows me, through my blog, to travel and write about the differences I encounter, informing readers that, at the end of the day we are all, as the Thai say, “same-same but different”.A new way of life
This change in lifestyle and profession has been a challenge, as it entailed learning in depth a new set of marketing tools and rules. Though it keeps me on my toes, I am absolutely happy doing what I love: reading, writing, learning, traveling and enjoying life.
Just as I felt the need to change my life and reinvent myself, so do many people out there. Becoming a digital nomad and running this blog is a way to inspire and motivate people to step outside of their comfort zone in the quest for their bliss. I want to share my experiences to prove that it is really never too late!
James and I have our saying: “this life is too short not to be lived to its fullest”.
We hope to inspire you to go out there and make your happiness happen.
Before we go, let me thank you for being here.
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May The Bliss be with you.
