Over the last week or so I’ve received a lot of questions asking me about why I left Falcon to work on my own and really focus on my own process…
The truth is, I needed to start accepting change, I had spent too much time focused only on one strategy, and was starting to become blind to outside possibilities, something I never want to be.
Having an open mind is the best way to grow, meet new people and build great businesses (or fine tune a trading strategy with all your knowledge)
Now I was kinda scared of going out by my own
It’s new, I haven’t been “alone” in more than two years now…
Plus I just moved to a new country (Ukraine) where I don’t know anyone…
All of this brought me back to one of my favorite quotes from Marcus Aurelius
Frightened of change? But what can exist without it?
What’s closer to nature’s heart?
Can you take a hot bath and leave the firewood as it was? Eat food without transforming it? Can any vital process take place without something being changed? Can’t you see?
It’s just the same with you—and just as vital to nature.
If you haven’t read Meditations I can’t recommend it enough, I would probably name it as one of the most influential books I’ve ever read – and I read a fair bit.
Now I agree, if you have a winning process in the FX market, why would you want to change it?
Who said I was creating an entirely new process?
What have I changed
The only change I’ve experienced since leaving falcon are the following
I am able to spend a lot more time backtesting instead of watching content
I am now responsible to build my weekly watch list without relying on anyone else
I am more open minded to potential additions to my trading plan
Not much right?
However having taken the step of change I’ve unlocked something powerful inside of myself that will enable me to fuel my progress to the next level, would it be to prove to myself I can do it by myself or others or whatever I do not mind, all I care about is my results
When I think about it, I like to change countries in order to continuously amaze myself and discover new things, new cultures, new people etc, and I truly believe those changes do improve who I am as a human
So why not do the same thing with my trading?
Socrates is kinda smart?
The aim isn’t to look back on the past and fight that, instead it is to adapt and focus on the future, aim to build something new.
Change is the one that links everything in life (aside from death) so don’t hide from it
Let’s talk about life as a person
New born – Kid – Adolescent – Young Adult – Engaged – Married – Father – Grand Father – Death etc
Living with parents – Living with friends – Living by yourself – Moving in with GF/BF – New house – Bigger house – Bigger house etc etc
Everything changes, don’t fight it, just move forward, there’s no point looking backwards and asking yourself what if 🙂
Accept Change, Be Happy, Move on
Okay finding something to say for this section is going to be hard, I think I’ve made my point, change is natural, the only thing you can do is accept it, be thankful for the new opportunities and challenges you’re going to be faced with and move on…
But yep, just gotta stay unemployabled 🙂
Over did the unemployable part that day 🙂
I hope everyone had an amazing week & week-end! Hope you took some value from this post!
One of the most frequent questions I get is “how do I afford to travel so much” so let’s dig into my expenses!
Cost of living as a digital nomad in Asia
When I was staying in Indonesia, I spent three months living in Lombok and stayed at a hostel for the entire duration because I loved it there…
The hostel I stayed at was:
Bamba – the best hostel in Kuta, Lombok!
So many amazing beaches close by
You can stay an entire month there for around 400$
The breakfast there is included and it’s amazing – there’s a cool swimming pool but more importantly, I love the team that works there, I made so many friends, and would even consider the staff family 🙂
That being said, if you are on a really strict budget, you can find cheaper, especially if you are willing to negotiate once you are there and go to smaller less well known hostels
Food wise, you can eat for 2$ per meal, but if you’re going to want to have something else than local dishes then it can go up, maybe even as high as 5 to 10$ but you don’t need to treat yourself as a king all the time so let’s say a 12$ average per day (that’s a lot) including coffee and beers?
So let’s say 350$ – which can easily be more or less depending on your lifestyle once again
A scooter rental was 5$ per day if I remember correctly so 150$ per month
Fuel + parking (when needed) could add up to maybe 30$ per month
That’s all you really need
400+350+150+30 = 930
With less than 1,000$
you can(easily)live in Lombok, Indonesia
But… That’s not including day trips if you want to rent a boat, if you want to go surfing, if you want to go trekking and need a guide, etc etc, so in the end it will cost you more – maybe even up to 500$ if you really want to go for it 🙂
So 1.5k and you’re set
From that you’ll need to add plane tickets tho
You also need to keep money on the side to pay your taxes, don’t make them wait, it’s not worth playing with them, especially if you run an online business!
So the truth is,
you’ll probably need to make more than 2k per month
Cost of Living in London
Now, I’m currently in London, so let’s compare 🙂
First off, let me start with:
DON’T STAY IN A HOSTEL IN LONDON
They’re fine if you are staying a few days, but more than that you’ll definitely want to use Airbnb – you want to remain productive while in London, and hostels here aren’t that great because there’s no privacy and not much space to do any work
yep that’s my affiliate link, but let’s be serious, if you don’t have an airbnb account are you coming from Mars?
In my case, the Airbnb is costing me about 1.2k per month, sure I could’ve found something cheaper, but I believe it’s better to stay in a decent place where I can work & cook (without burning the apartment down) than be too cheap
I’ve got a cool view from my Airbnb tho!
I really don’t want to look into how much I’ve spent on coffee, so let’s say that food + coffee + a few drinks ended up around 500$ for the month (wouldn’t be too surprised if it was more)
Probably spent 150$ on “public” transport
So with 1.8k I’ve got my basic living expenses
Then obviously if you want to eat in restaurants, go out and party, visit the UK (the train is bloody expensive), go to museums and all that it’s going to end up being more expensive
So you could live in London on 2k per month if you want a basic lifestyle
If you want something more fun, expect that number to rise very quickly, especially if you want to live in the center of London (I’m in Zone 2 to reduce the cost of rent, no need to commute into the city every day so might as well save money!)
You’ll also need to take into account taxes once again…
So the truth is,
you’ll probably need to make more than 3k per month
The digital nomad lifestlye
So to answer, how much does the digital nomad lifestyle cost:
IT DEPENDS ON YOU.
It depends on where you go
It depends on your standards
It depends if you are going to travel around
It depends on what food you’re eating
If you want to party
If you have loads of taxes to pay
Or you can start hitch hiking around the world and be a true nomad, even better, get yourself a camel, an Indiana Jones hat and hit the road
If you are willing to sleep outside in the nature it will be cheaper, same for a hut, if you want to stay in five star hotels tho… It’ll be different!
I hope that answers your questions!
Sorry I couldn’t give a straight answer but it depends entirely on you!
If you liked this post, it would mean the world to me if you could leave a like 🙂
One of the most frequent questions I get is: “How do I get work done while traveling?”, so will try to answer this one.
I feel like I’ve already used this photo
I DON’T DO ANY WORK…
I spend my days at the beach taking photos duh.
Okay, that’s a lie (I hope you knew that!)
The truth is, it’s not because you’re a digital nomad that you won’t be doing a lot of work – the amount of work you need to do is the exact same as if you were living at home.
But it does depend on your work, as a FX trader, I spend
around three hours a day doing work, but that’s a normal amount of work for any
trader? (Do you spend more time on the charts?)
All I need is to forecast, review my past trades, do some
backtesting and watch some content in order to maintain my skill at the same
level.
That being said, there are days where I spend a lot more time, if I am motivated I can very easily get into a backtesting session and spend around eight hours on it, because I love it.
That being said, if you are not self employed and instead
get paid on an hourly basis (which is what I do on the side), you will have to
spend hours doing work in order to go paid and finish the task you were
assigned, and you’d do the exact same workload as if you were home.
But here’s where the “good shit” comes in…
If you’re in a country where your living expenses are half what
you used to spend it’s rather easy to reduce your workload (still recommend
getting more hours done than the bare minimum) – so instead of working 8 hours
you could work 6 hours rather easily?
Where to work?
That’s the interesting/challenging part, I do try to spend
more money on airbnbs where I know I shall be able to get work done in the mornings.
One of the challenges of being a nomad is that you never
really have an office, especially if you change location rather often and there’s
no co-working space close by that offers a “hot desk” membership.
You need decent wifi in order to be able to do your backtesting and watch content, and that’s not a given sadly…
To be entirely fair, “developing” countries (Indonesia,
Poland, Colombia, Lebanon,…) please don’t bully me for putting Poland there… the
wifi is a hell of a lot better than in developed countries when it comes to
working in coffee shops.
So the answer is:
I usually work at home during my “productive” hours – the
first three hours – if there’s a desk, one of my requirements for airbnbs
(highly recommend it),
I like outdoor standing (home made) desks
Then go out and do work at a coffee shop, however the work
done in coffee shops is a lot less productive than at home, but I need the
change of scenery – and it’s easier to keep doing work when you’re not the
single one, otherwise the urge to go out and explore is super strong
Be a tourist for the afternoon, then get more work done in
the evening at home or with a glass of wine!
That being said, if you are spending a month or more in one
location, I highly recommend joining a co-working space, you’ll not only get to
meet other self employed individuals and make friends but you’ll also get into
a habit of working from there, which is great because you have a separation between
home and work, something that’s not really possible when working from home.
Growth as a digital nomad
Now, as I just talked about, it’s rather easy to get work
done as a digital nomad, you just have to say “fuck you” to your excuses and
remember that you are only able to travel because of the work you do, hence,
you need to prioritize the work over being a tourist.
That being said,
I don’t think living as a digital nomad is the best way to grow your business, instead, I would even argue it’s a bad idea
If you are aiming to scale your business, launch a new product, create a new offering, or even increase your returns as a forex trader or even learn an entire new trading style you’d be better off staying in one place
I’m not going to write too much about this, because I think
Iman Gadhzi did a great job explaining it in this video, highly recommend it,
shows the life about being a digital nomad, but after the six minute mark he
talks about the downside of Variation and being a digital nomad.
You want to be repetive, you want to do the same shit, you
want to have your routine, you don’t want to do new stuff every day, have a
schedule, make sure you’re productive.
Anyway, hope you’re well and enjoyed this blog post!
Onwards,
Oh, and, if you’ve enjoyed this blog post, would mean the
world to me if you left a like or a comment 😊
Okay, I may be biased, I was staying with one of my best friends for the first ten days before moving out to an Airbnb to be a little more productive… But yep, I definitely recommend going to Lebanon!
It’s insane to think about the history of the country, it’s a key location on the Med linking Europe to Africa and Asia so it had a strategic importance for thousands of years! Different cultures, different religions all living in the same country – didn’t see any conflict when I was there, but it is rather clear that they still have a lot of scares
This may sound stupid, but my favorite part of Beirut was going on road trips, the entire country is basically made of mountains (hence loads of valleys) and the view from up there is just fantastic – we went to the top of Mount Lebanon while on our way to the Bekaa Valley (to visit the ruins in Baalbek) – and were above the clouds… Driving all the way up woundy roads was a true pleasure!
The Baalbek ruins
All in all here were my favorite road trips:
1- To the Baalbek ruins in the Bekaa valley (you get to see loads of poppy plantations on the way too :S)
2- Byblos & Batroun (can be done together in one day) – really nice places to just enjoy a beer by the water –> If you go to Batroun we went to Colonel Beer Microbrewery for a beer on the beach while watching the sunset, it was magical
3- Doing a wine tour would be amazing, they have some really good wine growers in the region (especially Chateau Kefraya) but otherwise Jeita Grotto is highly recommended! (I didn’t go, but heard GREAT things!)
The view from Batroun Castle(?)
Now don’t get me wrong, as much as I love road trips I really enjoyed staying in Beirut itself!
During my stay downtown I stayed in Gemmayzeh, which is a really nice part of town! It’s close to Armemia, which is the road with all the bars, but it’s still really quiet, so was the perfect mix for me! Hamra (another neighborhood) is really nice, a bit more higher class and less young I believe.
One of my favorite things to do in Beirut was walk on the corniche (the road is called Paris..) next to the lighthouse during sunset, there’s loads of people there just soaking in the last sun rays
Love that place for sunset!
The “Place of Martyrs” is worth going to – you’ll have the view on the Mohammad Al-Amin Mosque and from there you can easily walk to Place de L’etoile, the Roman Ruins (not super super impressive) and then heading to the Souk or just get a coffee in the expensive part of town is quite fun, it’s a totally different side than what you’d expect!
Now for the important part…
FOOD
I have to say, I love eating a manou2she for breakfast, would that be with Zatar or whatever – my two favorite places for that was “The Lebanese Bakery” and Fern Ghattas, but that being said, wherever you go I’m sure they’ll be great!
Now a more random list of places I enjoyed the food is T Marbouta in Hamra, it’s nothing special, but great food 🙂
Cafe Em Nazih is a more or less really touristy place – but they have a decent amount of choice and you can play backgammon while having a beer or food 🙂 It’s also next to Coop D’Etat which is a rooftop bar
Two more random (and further out) recommendations are Falafel Abou Andre, it was the first place I ate when I got there, and we got hummus with pine nuts, it was amazing! I got addicted 🙂 La Girouette in Broummana (there’s a few places with a nice view of Beirut) has live music with an amazing musicians every thursday – friday and saturday (call ahead to make sure but that was the schedule when I was there!)
Coin Perdu was a fun place to have dinner too (mainly because it was close to where I lived :P) on the St Nicolas Stairs, Loris is another nice spot!
There’s also loads of good places for food, for falafel sandwiches, grilled haloumi etc etc, I’m sure where ever you go it will be amazing!
Oh and make sure you try out local beers, try loads of different coffee shops and get lost in the city
The only downside Beirut has, is it was too hot in August, I was sweating a bit too much for my liking, but I definitely wouldn’t mind going back one of these days!
Enjoy your trip!
Oh and I actually enjoyed going to museums when I was there! That’s me saying that yep… Rather surprised about that myself! We went to the National Museum of Beirut, which was rather cool! (You get to see the times when Egypt occupied Lebanon)
Forecasting, backtesting and having a trading plan are the three pillars of successful in the FX market.
Do you have a forecasting routine? If so, keep it up! (let me know what it is)
If you want to become a full-time FX trader, you will have to develop a trading plan, backtest it, and forecast potential moves.
That’s (more or less) everything you need.
What is forecasting?
Figured I probably should do a quick explanation of what I mean by forecasting…
It’s basically “guessing” where the market will go next and how…
Sounds rather easy right? It doesn’t even take that much time
Forecast for EUR/CAD on the 11th of September
This is my forecast for EUR/CAD, I just drew on trading-view the potential scenarios that could happen, I know there are many other potential ways the market could evolve during the day, but in my view, this is the most likely.
You could use different drawing colors based on “I’m willing to take this scenario” & “Not willing to take this scenario” (that’s actually a good idea, I should do that)
If it’s this easy what’s the benefit
Let me start this section with: I go a lot more in depth with my forecasting process, just scroll down if you already know the benefits
There’s five key benefits for a trader, but I was lazy while building this infographic so here’s 3 key points...
1- It will increase your confidence, you are able to track whenever or not your forecast actually took place, which in turn will increase your confidence in your ability to be a few steps ahead of the market (which is key to be profitable)
2- You’ll be prepared, doing your forecasting is basically drawing out all the possible/probably scenarios – you’ll be able to decide ahead of time what price action you’ll want to see before taking a trade – all you need to do is execute your plan
3- It’s easier to profit, having done your forecast in the morning you are a less likely going to miss a trade during the day since you are able to place your alerts at all the key areas. Plus, it also increases the likelihood of you sticking to your trading plan
And the bonus two…
4- It will decrease your emotional attachment to potential trades, and trades you are currently holding: by drawing out several possibility you know that there is no guarantee that the price will do exactly what you want it to, it doesn’t care, instead it makes you realize, we are only playing an edge
5- It allows you to switch from analyst to a trader.
It’s really important to be an analyst when it’s the weekend and when doing your forecasting, however, when the markets are live, and there’s a potential trade set-up in the making you need to become a trader, not an analyst. Having done the analysis that morning will help you execute.
Here’s a video explaining it if you don’t like reading…
My forecasting process
Now let’s dig into my process, that’s probably why you’re here (sorry for making you wait)
I recently did a tweak so here’s a breakdown of what I used to do and what I do now, not a huge difference, but really happy so far
I used to draw at least three possible scenarios:
Two potential entries, so how the price gets there and where I’d be interest
One scenario where I wouldn’t be able to take the trade, either the market goes in the opposite direction or just impulses through everything I was eyeing up
That was done first thing in the morning and last thing before going to bed, because that way I would force myself to think about the possible, the probable and admit, the price isn’t necessarily going to go where I want it to
In the morning it was to plan the day ahead, at night it was to have my subconscious think about the market while I was sleeping, and once again, forecast where the price would go over the next seven/eight hours
It was a really cool exercise, but I wasn’t getting the most out of it…
Now I do my forecasting somewhat differently
I use my trading journal to track those morning forecasts (I keep everything in my excel file, from reason to trade, to monthly asr, to journal, to forecasting etc, I like having everything in one place)
Here’s this week example
So to quickly explain, I track the day of the forecast, the pairs I’m interested in, the direction, then three potential scenarios that could play out (out of many), a screenshot of the potential moves + drawings.
Then here’s the addition, I then come back the next morning and figure out which one happened, sometimes it was a fourth option, that happens.
But here, you can see I had forecasted the move 12 times out of 15 – not picture perfect but pretty darn close.
How do you think that makes me feel? How would that make you feel?
More confident in your skill? Yes
Happy because you get to collect more data? Yes
More likely to execute the next time you see a trade set-up? Yes
I highly recommend you to do the same
It takes less than thirty minutes in the morning, yet you have the entire day planned ahead
You know what you want to see before taking a trade – that’s key, it reduces your hesitation to trigger a trade, and avoids you from taking low quality trades
You are also able to be “free” and that’s one of the main reasons people start trading, they want to have free time. If you don’t know what you want to see in order to take a trade you’ll just stay in front of your computer, and basically be a slave to the market.
Don’t be a slave to the FX market: Forecast in the morning
Anyway,
I hope you enjoyed this blog post! If you did, please leave a like or share it? ❤ Would mean the world to me!
If you’ve recently came to realize you could take your side hustle/passion
and make it your primary source of income congrats! That’s amazing, I still remember
the day I realized I could sustain myself trading forex – was when I was
writing cover letters for jobs just before graduation, I didn’t end up applying
for those jobs after that realization (except one, McKinsey but they shot me
down – something I’m grateful for)😊
But yeah, congrats, that’s really impressive! Would it be trading, photography, your blog, designing cool tee-shirts or whatever it makes me so happy when I hear people are making a living doing what they love.
Maybe you take photos of fruits and vegetables and somehow managed to turn it into a business… I mean it looks cool!
That being said, it’s not because you are able to go and turn
your hobby into your sole income that you should quit your job or become a
digital nomad – first you need to transform it from a hobby into a business and
start looking at it that way.
When it’s a hobby it’s amazing, you get most of the upsides and
you are quite blind to the downsides while being able to stop whenever you wish
since that’s not the only thing you do.
Be prepared for the transition!
If you decide to take your trading and make it your income
source and quit your job then be prepared for:
Having lower returns that what you’ve come to expect
in the first first few months since you’ll have some added stress, it happens
to a lot of people who just took the jump
Create a rather strict routine, it’s not because
you don’t need to be at the office at 8 or 9am that you should still be in bed…
You will have nearly no external barriers to becoming a couch potato, you will
be the responsible for everything. While making sure you prioritize sleep, I
didn’t in the past, and that’s one of my biggest regrets, making sure the brain
gets its off time is really important
See your income fluctuating, you won’t be making
the exact same amount every month/every quarter (which is why I believe it is
extremely important to have a six-month cash buffer before taking the step
(mainly to reduce the pressure)) That being said, if you make three times more
(on average) than what you spend you can probably just take out a fixed amount
every month/quarter depending on your choice.
You’ll spend way more time on your computer (next to an ikea plant)thinking that it will mean you will make more money – sadly that doesn’t go in hand, I wish it did, but instead it’s actually important to start disconnecting from the charts, if you spend too much time looking at them you will likely want to take a trade or micro-manage them – which in turn will probably have a negative impact on your income/returns.
Accept the fact that your passion is now your job,
which means you will need to find a new hobby and start learning something new
in order to maintain your self development and your brain plasticity.
An advice I would give to anyone
about to go full-time with their trading or side hustle would be to measure the
amount of time they spend on it while still spending time at their job. Why?
If you spend an hour and half on
the charts while working per day, make sure you don’t spend more than three
hours (the double amount).
I understand that it may sound counter-productive,
after all, you have now way more time to improve your craft and boost those
returns, but if you were able to get to this point and replace your income with
if there’s no need to spend that much more time working on it. There’s a point
where spending more time will not only bring you diminishing returns but also
reduce the enjoyment you get from it.
Something Neil Cartwright also points out is keep doing what brought you to this point, keep doing the exact same thing, don’t become too cocky, it’s not because your trading as really improved that you should stop your previous routine, if you used to watch content everyday, keep doing it, if you were meditating, keep doing it, if you were back testing three times a week, keep doing it. You probably got the point by now, but, just keep doing whatever you used to do.
It brought you here so it must be
a good thing!
Now it’s your primary income… It’s a business
Now it’s a business, so start thinking about your monthly
costs, how can you optimize and streamline the process, how can you leverage up
and increase your profits, get in touch with a great accountant and figure out
how to reduce your taxation etc etc.
While talking about the business side it’s also important to mention the fact that most successful businesses don’t pay out a 100% dividend, instead they constantly re-invest in the company (usually they do it to buy new machines or have more marketing or hire more staff, for us that just means leaving money in the trading account).
Wish my reports looked this cool
Now, if you’ve already been on this blog you’ll have noticed
I also provide a monthly trade recap, which is basically an overview of my
month (I have one way more detailed that I keep for myself) but the reason I do
this, is because I’m treating my trading as a business.
Businesses need to publish quarterly income statement and
all the other stuff, why wouldn’t you? If you run a business selling tee-shirts,
wouldn’t you be looking at your revenue/profit/ad spend/ROI etc? If you don’t I
would be surprised if your store keeps on going.
If you own a coffee shop, I’m sure you will be looking at
your profits, revenue, costs etc while trying to figure out a way to boost your
profits and potentially open in a new location?
Trading is a business, so make sure you spend time treating
it as one. Don’t forget to think about the monthly reports, create a trading
report where you will write down every single trade you took, the return, the
reason for the entry and exit and all of this.
Obviously, you will have to keep doing your Advanced Self
Review and spend time trying to find the tweaks you need to go through in order
to improve.
A good example would be my mentors, even tho they have been
trading for more than five years profitably they are still reviewing their
months in order to make sure they are still on their top game and continuously improving.
Make sure you still enjoy it – and don’t only do it for the
money
It’s not because you are going to turn your hobby/passion into your primary income source that you’ll start to despise it, I still enjoy trading and learning about the market remains one of my favorite things to do. But, you must start treating trading as a business instead of a fun activity you do because you think it’s nice side income or just because you want to keep yourself busy. We all get what we want from the market, so make sure you align your wants to this new reality.
Lastly, it’s something I’ve only recently started to realize
but it’s not because you are now making money doing something you love that you
should be blind to other opportunities. Diversity in your income source makes
you anti-fragile and that should be the end goal.
Aim to become anti-fragile – being self-employed and having turned your passion into your income source is fantastic but keep in mind there’s no shame starting something new on top of that or even potentially getting a job in a industry you’re really interested in.
For example, I’m really into space because my long-term goal
is in that world, if I get the opportunity to work in a cool start-up with
really smart individuals in that industry I’d jump on that chance.
Anyway, I hope this was helpful.
I hope this was useful! If it was it would mean the world to
me if you’d like this post or even leave a comment if you’d add something to
this article!
Let’s talk about the highlight, the downside and once there, what happens?
Let me start with, it’s pretty amazing – I mean it. We usually define a digital nomad as someone that works remotely to earn a living and are able to travel whenever/wherever they wish. Sounds pretty amazing if you ask me… But yep, there are downsides!
The highlight:
You get to travel (duh that’s pretty obvious Max…) to places you’ve always wanted to go – well I still want to go to Mars but apparently there’s no wifi there… One day 🙂
I mean Mars isn’t even on this map neither is the Moon 🙂 and I clearly need to do more of Africa & Asia
Traveling to new places is the highlight not because of the new location, but more about the people and experiences (read that as the memories you make). You won’t remember everything about your trips, that’s for sure.
Afterall,
Memories is the only thing we keep.
Life isn’t only about FOREX or affiliate marketing or copy writting or whatever. Do you remember all the trades you took a year ago? I don’t that’s for sure – but do I remember renting a villa outside of Medellin last August to celebrate el Dia de las Flores with friends I met there absolutely.
It was a fun night and an amazing group of people!
Working
long hours is worth it, if it enables you to make memories forever. Heck, you
don’t even need to work remotely or even for yourself, you just have to enjoy
what you do.
You don’t
need to become a digital nomad to make these memories, you don’t need to find a
way to build yourself up as a freelancer or get a job that allows you to work
remotely to be able to achieve these dreams of yours.
Being able to travel constantly is amazing – you meet more people, you get to explore more places – you get to dance in strange places you’d have never dreamt off and taste so many different beers (actually that may be the highlight: Being a digital nomad enables you to try an extremely large amount of different beers – fuck living in one place, after a while you’ve tried all of them 😀 )
Craft beers on the beach with a friend watching the sunset… Is the type of memory I chase
Anyway,
all of this rant was to say – the best part of being a digital nomad is it
becomes easier to experience different things you’d usually never even dream
off because you are outside your comfort zone.
I’m
guessing none of that positive aspect is news to you anyway..
The downside:
Now this
kinda sucks because most people will hate me for saying there’s any downsides
to being a digital nomad… But it’s true there are (quite a few to be
truthful).
Everything we love as an opposite side
To know brightness we need darkness
Lewis Mocker does a great job showing the two sides, I just can’t remember which video to link sorry – it may be this one:
Give it a watch, he’s a good guy!
Having a lot of money has downsides (more taxes, people think you’re an awful person etc)
Being a
digital nomad or even a forex trader has downsides (you are responsible for
yourself, something you’re not used to, most of your revenue will never be
stable etc)
But to be
truthful being fully responsible and not having a stable income isn’t the real
downside, they can actually be seen as a positive.
The main
challenge with being a digital nomad is saying good bye to people. Every time
you make a really good friend it’s more than likely they will leave or you will
leave and you won’t meet for the next few months or more
You won’t
be seeing your “home” friends as often, it’s a lot harder to meet-up
for drinks on a friday night if you’re on a different continent (strange eh)
It gets
lonely.
Literally – I didn’t spend more than 3 hours with
the same person while I was in Greece
You end
up hating saying good bye to those amazing people so you avoid making new
friends after a while.
I’ve been
in that trap, only recently realized I’m giving up the best part of being a
digital nomad because I’m scared of saying bye.
When you
become a digital nomad – I have no doubt you would like to if you’re reading
this post – don’t forget this.
Learn to
appreciate saying good bye to people, try to turn it into a positive, every
single good bye you say will usually lead to a new friend, you just have to say
“Hi” once more.
It’s not
the easiest thing to do, but if you need to talk about it, feel free to message
me.
Becoming a full-time FX trader enables you to become a nomad, but what’s next?
There’s
so many courses out-there trying to teach you to become a “digital
nomad” would it be marketing gurus, or even forex education company but
once there no one talks about it…
The
incentive for everyone that helps you (or tries to sell you stuff) is to help
you get there, not to thrive once you’ve reached that goal.
Becoming a digital nomad isn’t the end of the journey, it’s only the beginning
It’s a bit like climbing a mountain – but getting to the top is being happy, confident, consistent, and thriving. Becoming able to live life on your own terms is one of the first camps, there’s still a lot of hurdles you are yet to be faced with
But there’s always new peaks to aim for
I wish there was more about getting there, for sure climbing the first peak – becoming a nomad or a full-time FX trader is great but you need to keep hiking higher. Life doesn’t finish there, instead the view you have over your life is only starting to be amazing, so keep hiking because the view from the top is always more enjoyable.
I’ll do my
best to share a few things on that aspect.
The first one being, keep saying hello to new people. It may sound obvious, but at one point you will fall into the loneliness trap, it’s happened to everyone I’ve met that have been on the road for more than a year traveling to different locations on a regular basis.
Everything that comes into your life will have to be balanced, everything bad will lead to something good, someone cheating on you will lead you to meet a better person, you losing money trading may teach you a key lesson, being lonely may help you find a new best friend etc.
Start to look where’s the lesson, where’s the pleasure you’re about to receive to every time you are faced with a challenge. For every challenge you are faced it will be offset with a reward, as long as you go out there and are willing to go through the pain and struggle. It’s all about balance.
Keep looking at the positive side of things and of your situation – and remember why you do it. It’s easy to quit if you forget the why.
The first step is to love what you do. While remembering why you do it
Embrace the challenges, be grateful for them, offset the positive and negative – you need the two sides, avoid being in a negative mindset, try to become grateful for everything. It’s freaking hard, but as soon as you neutralize all your worries you will be able to keep on going forward and even thrive
Thanks for taking the time to read this blog post! I hope you enjoyed seeing the other side of becoming a digital nomad / full time FX trader – and realized that’s not the end.
If you liked this article, it would mean the world to me if you’d share it or even just liked it on wordpress 🙂
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