Professional Documents
Culture Documents
By Jordan Bates
Introduction
This short guide is divided into two parts. Part One is a 50-sentence introduction to digital nomadism intended to highlight the
boons of the lifestyle. Part Two is a more general guide to exiting
the world of traditional work by any means necessary in order to
live a higher-autonomy life. There is some overlap between Part
One and Part Two; when information is repeated, it is of especial
importance.
If youre not particularly interested in exiting the world of traditional work (or even if you are), I highly recommend looking
into the Effective Altruism movement, as well as the career-selection tools offered by 80,000 Hours, an Effective Altruist organization. These resources can guide you to a more meaningful and
globally impactful career.
This guide is not meant to be comprehensive. It was constructed as an introduction to the subject of higher-autonomy lifestyles.
It is intended to function as a launching-off point and to get the
wheels of your mind turning. It is my sincere hope that this guide
broadens your understanding of the possibilities available to you
and helps you to live a life that aligns with your core values.
spare time.
24/ You need not attend university to train in these skills.
25/ You can use the Internetthe greatest learning resource
ever createdto teach yourself virtually all of these skills for little
to no money.
26/ Use No Excuse List, Coursera, Kahn Academy, and Lynda to get started.
27/ Ive found that the best way to really learn these skills is to
actually build things.
28/ Build a website, start a podcast, make YouTube videos,
launch a blog, start an eBay business, release some music, run a
Facebook page, publish an eBook, create an app, start an online
store, draw a webcomicthe possibilities are truly limitless.
29/ In the ideal, one of these side projects will take off and become a profitable business that can form the foundation of your
career as a digital nomad.
30/ Though to be honest, thats not likely to happen with your
first or even your fifth project. Persistence is absolutely indispensable.
31/ The key thing to realize is that with each project, youre
honing your existing skill set, gaining new skills, and building
your portfolio/resume.
39/ Dont forget to balance all your reading with action and experimentation. Again, learn by doing.
40/ If youre dedicated and smart about how you train, its possible to start from square one and gain the skills necessary to find
online work in roughly 6 months to one year.
41/ Its likely, though, that it will take a minimum of a couple
years before your online career is really up and running.
42/ Dont let this discourage you. As Bill Gates put it, Most
people overestimate what they can do in one year and underestimate what they can do in ten years.
43/ If youre serious about becoming a digital nomad and/or entrepreneur, you should be thinking long-term. Overnight successes do not exist.
44/ In my experience, the journeythe gradual process of
learning, experimenting, and finally, succeedingis extremely
worthwhile.
45/ You probably dont want to have this life handed to you on
a platinum platter. It's more meaningful to earn it.
46/ The reward for all of your hard work is among the sweetest
nectars in the human experience: freedom.
47/ A life of freedom, flexibility, self-reliance, independence,
self-direction, and mobility.
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Anyone know of any initiatives to build large-scale cities/suburbs consisting entirely of tiny homes/cabins/yurts and implementing other paragons of self-reliance/-sufficiency such as solar
panels, community gardens, etc?
It seems to me that rent, mortgages, and debt are the biggest
factors preventing people from gaining greater autonomy, living
as they wish, and escaping jobs they don't like. This could change
if people had more options to buy a small, cozy home for $25k
and live more self-sufficiently.
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This also seems like a potentially far more sustainable mode of
mass society.
Where are the people working on this? ReGen Villages is the
closest thing I can think of.
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and will be for the foreseeable future. The sort of skills I mentioned in Part One:
In short, begin by honing some of the following practical, marketable skills: writing, graphic design, illustration, animation, programming, copywriting, SEO, social media marketing, project
management, blogging, viral content creation, growth hacking,
email marketing, podcasting, basic business skills, WordPress,
data analysis, copyediting, and/or customer service.
One or more of these skills is probably going to be necessary to
find online work, and having multiple of them is preferable. If
you dont have any of these skills, everyone has to start somewhere. The best way is to learn by diving in and doing.
NoExcuseList.com is a spectacular list of pretty much all of the
best online education resources if you want to teach yourself a
new skill. With the power of the Internet, you can teach yourself
virtually anything nowadays. This is an important thing to understand, as your success working online will likely depend heavily
on your ability to diligently teach yourself new things and apply
them.
If you already possess one or more of the skills I listed, you
might be able to find work. We Work Remotely and Working
Nomads are a couple of job websites solely dedicated to job listings for remote/online work. There are many other sites like this.
Google is your friend. Craigslist, Indeed, and other more traditional job sites also have plenty of listings for online/remote work.
You should be willing to scour these websites for promising leads,
and you should be well-versed in how to effectively play the job
application game. If you arent, start doing some googling. This
brief guide to applying for jobs from Wait But Why is one of the
best succinct guides Ive seen.
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Teaching yourself relevant skills and hitting the job search like
a hell-bent juggernaut is a reliable, systematic approach to finding
online work. If you go this route and are very persistent, you will
almost certainly find results.
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niche itch that you know many people would like to have
scratchedand designing a product or service specifically tailored to that demand. So rather than focusing on finding an audience first, you focus first on your productwhat people are going
to buy from you. Theres much more I could say on the topic of
starting/running a business, but an in-depth guide to entrepreneurship is beyond the scope of this book. Again, I highly recommend diving into /r/entrepreneur. Reading Paul Grahams classic
essay, How to Make Wealth, might also be a good idea. Also
this.
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determination, youll likely enjoy the process and surprise yourself with the success you find in time. Patience is key too, but you
have to balance patience with an ability to make things happen.
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In Sum
I think far more people could do the things Ive mentioned here
but are held back by fear, cognitive distortions, and lack of
knowledge/realization of the feasibility of these options.
To clarify, I dont fault anyone for living however theyre living.
I dont think the lifestyles Ive described are inherently better
than some other lifestyle, and I dont think theyre for everyone.
It isnt all orgasms and star dust. There are trade-offs and sacrifices you will need to make if you want badly enough to live a
high-autonomy lifestyle.
At least at this stage of my life, high-autonomy models of living seem to suit me much better than the day-job-centric model
most people exist within, and I know many others feel similarly.
Thats why I thought it would be useful to share these thoughts in
response to the meme with which I opened this essay. I hope
youve found some useful food for thought in these words, anonymous friend from the Interwebz.
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Footnotes:
1. Except perhaps during periods of pre-history in which the human population was relatively low and everyone was a huntergatherer. Its possible that during this time most people had a significant amount of free time and autonomy, though this is unclear.
2. I say this as a single/childless American and recognize that
what Im suggesting is less attainable in other life contexts. Ideally Id like to see high-autonomy lifestyles become feasible for all
humans, but at this point thats certainly not the case. I do not
take this opportunity for granted, but rather try to learn as much
as possible, share what I learn, and help others in the process.
3. Im not sure if anyone else has coined this term, or something
similar. A quick Google search revealed nothing. It seems appropriate here, as I enjoy much of the work I do for HighExistence
and engage regularly in imaginative play through my work. There
are certainly other aspects of my job that are more tedious/laborious, but much of it feels like work-play. Alan Watts sentiment
seems relevant: This is the real secret of life to be completely
engaged with what you are doing in the here and now. And instead of calling it work, realize it is play.
4. I should make a distinction between working online/remotely
and adopting a digital nomad lifestyle (working online while traveling the world). One can certainly do the former without doing
the latter, and there might be good reasons to prefer a stationary
lifestyle to a nomadic one. Again, though, many people who work
online are attracted to the idea of travel, especially since they can
live more cheaply abroad.
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Conclusion
A final thing that I want to mention in concluding this book relates to overcoming an outdated work paradigm in favor of recognizing the world in which we now live.
Many people yet find themselves afraid to take chances or do
unconventional things career-wise because they remain rooted in
the old paradigm that says, You must decide now what you will
do for the next 40 years of your life. What you decide to do now
is likely going to dictate the direction of the rest of your life.
I wont argue that what you choose to do now doesnt have implications for the rest of your life, but I will argue that this is far less
true than ever before. Far, far less. If you feel overwhelmed in the
face of the futureif you feel you have to make some kind of permanent decisiontake a deep breath. This is no longer true. Its
never been easier and more doable to do something for a few
months or a year then totally change direction to something else.
Research suggests that young people today will have twelve to fifteen jobs in their lifetime, on average.
Realizing that my next decisions are not my final decisions
helps me not to feel so overwhelmed by the dizziness of freedom.
Whatever you do next, you will learn from it and it will give you a
better idea of what you really want to do/become. Experimentation and tinkering are becoming more and more essential to finding one's place in the emerging world of work. Don't feel bad
about not knowing exactly what you want. Just do something
and discover as you go along.
And, consider doing some unorthodox things. Consider attempting some of the options discussed in this book. The risk in
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Further Study:
The 4-Hour Workweek: Escape 9-5, Live Anywhere, and
Join the New Rich:
This book by Tim Ferriss is widely regarded as something of a
Digital Nomad's Bible. If you're interested in pursuing this lifestyle, its one of the best books to read. You can grab it on Amazon or read the key insights on Blinkist for free.
The Dark Side of the Digital Nomad:
If you're considering pursuing the digital nomad lifestyle, it's
worth understanding that as with any lifestyle, there are downsides. This article of Mark Manson's is a great summary of the
shadow aspects of the digital nomad mode of existence.
The $100 Startup: Reinvent the Way You Make a Living, Do
What You Love, and Create a New Future:
This book by Chris Guillebeau is another one widely regarded as
a staple of digital nomad literature. It looks at dozens of case
studies of successful micro-businesses to show you what is possible. You can grab it on Amazon or read the key insights on
Blinkist for free.
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