Summer meadows.
Queen Anne’s lace.
Picnic blankets made of blue and white gingham.
A laughing four-year-old boy (so long as the fucker is laughing).
A skinny footpath leading down to the ocean.
Cherry cordial.
Flirty jokes.
Tattooed forearms.
Fresh, crisp corn on the cob.
Thick farm-churned butter.
And time. So much time. Life moves so much slower here, like it’s actually yours to spend.
Doesn’t that sound fantastic? I think that sounds fantastic—even though I don’t have a kid nor tattooed forearms, and I’ve somehow made it to thirty-seven without ever trying cherry cordial. (I clearly have some rectifying to do.)
You know what else sounds fantastic?
A cobblestone street in Stockholm. A scarf tied under your chin. A baby blue trench coat swishing elegantly past your knees. A camera in hand—the heavy kind that says something. You stop for a coffee. Pull out a sketchbook. Start drawing the scene: the people, the style, the way it feels to sit there at 3 o’clock in the afternoon on a Wednesday. The server asks you if you’d like another. You wink. Yes, yes, yes, you’ll have just one more. This is too good to abandon.
But then there are the Cotswolds and the idea of renting a cozy little cottage with a thatched roof and a pub down the lane. I would become best friends with people named Beatrice and Basil, and there would be fires, and there would be blankets, and there would be tall, sky-high equestrian boots—and, yes, so many horses. I shall ride all the horses. They will love me like that one horse loved me that time in Asheville, at The Biltmore Estate. I had never felt more connected to an animal before, especially because I am not the type of person to use the phrase “connected to an animal” in the first place. (IFKYK.)
And then, of course, you have the castles of Scotland. And the elephants in Kenya. And the gardens in China. You’ve got the tango in Argentina, and the warm wine in Chile, and the salt flats in Bolivia.
Oh, but don’t forget Australia. And Indonesia. And Morocco. And Egypt.
The pyramids are a must.
These are only a few of the reasons why it’s imperative to set your life up differently, now that the modern economy is here and you can do anything you damn well want: this is currency. ALL of this is an added form of payment you receive as an independent creator. It’s not just about a salary: it’s about time and experiences and joy and pleasure.
Those things are currency, too. And other jobs can’t compete.
Most jobs only come with one form of payment: a salary. In exchange, you offer up your time—and the majority of your life. There’s not a lot of room to say, “I’d like to get paid a quarter million a year while working only in the mornings…and also put me and my family up in a cabin in Norway for the summer, so I can swim in the lake every afternoon and write a novel with my tea when I’m done.”
Most people have to choose:
- Enjoy financial security at the cost of a healthy, spacious quality of life.
- Have a healthy, spacious quality of life at the cost of financial security.
Those have been the only two options for a very long time. But now, there’s a better way. A way that you can get paid in both hard currency ($) and quality of life currency. (QL$)
This is one of the principal core tenets of the nomadic career methodology here at Selfish Forever; it’s a framework that will help you do meaningful work you love and get paid in what I call an omni-directional pattern, enjoying an abundance of yes, money ($) but also quality of life (QL$): time, freedom, travel, purpose, pleasure, family, and experiences—instead of only get paid from one direction. (Money.)
It’s designed to help you have more days in summer meadows with Queen Anne’s lace; more time pursuing passions in the streets of Stockholm; more time exploring the English countryside in a thick pair of equestrian boots (and figuring out if you should really tattoo your forearm?!)…
..while still being compensated generously in hard currency, with so much love and respect and admiration.
The future belongs to creators; to digital nomads; to travelers; to thinkers; to artists; to writers; to wanderers; to professionals and families who are brave enough to try a new way.
And whether you’re thirty five or sixty five, there’s a path here for you.
***
New Selfish Workshop!
If you want to create a nomadic lifestyle, you’ve got to create a nomadic workstyle. You need to make different decisions than most people. You need to have different priorities than most people. And you need to design your work differently than most people.
You can’t work like a typical freelancer. You can’t build a business that never lets you leave the house. You can’t be chained to your desk for 90 hours a day trying to bill enough hourly projects to afford underwear.
Not if you hope to ever see the outside of your Airbnb.
And——————you can’t exclusively make yourself the product, either.
Exclusively selling your services is not compatible with your goals if your goals are to:
1. Maximize return on income
2. Maximize return on time
Every decision you make costs you time. And, time is the new income.
It doesn’t matter if you’re earning three million dollars if your life is not yours. It doesn’t matter if you can afford a mansion in New Hampshire if you can’t also f*ck off to Scotland.
The concept of time as income is so important, I measure it as a real metric of business health—I qualify this as $T. The goal is to optimize both $USD 💰 and $T. 🕰
Because here’s the truth:
⬇️ ⬇️ ⬇️ ⬇️ ⬇️
If your financial health is high, but your time health is poor, then you are poor.
If your time health is high, but your financial health is poor, then you are poor.
You will always have a poor quality of life if you don’t have balance between money earned and time to enjoy it.
The key is in figuring out which business activities produce both income health ($) and time health ($T).
Unfortunately, most businesses only optimize for one.
⬆️ ⬆️ ⬆️ ⬆️ ⬆️
I’ve been developing a framework to maximize both of these, allowing you to create a successful remote business you can run from anywhere in the world. Maximum return on earnings. Maximum return on time. (AKA more of both.) If that sounds like JUST the thing you need this year, sign up for an invite to my new workshop below, before I run off to Vermont and really do buy that house. 😏
