🛵 Travel Picks & Brain Tricks

Defining "Lifestyle Rich" and Exploring My New Productivity Tool

Mar 28

flat lay photography of camera, book, and bag — Photo by Annie Spratt

You’re in a beautiful garden, but it’s overcast. You’re wondering if anything could blow away the clouds and reveal the treasures of the world you find yourself in.

And just like a genie granting your wish, I walk right up and whisper in your ear.

*spspspsppsspsp*

From afar, it sounds like when you try to call your cat while it sheepishly looks at you and then, in true asshole fashion, just walks away.

But alas, the whisper was something more.

Suddenly, the clouds part, a beam of sunshine comes through, lighting up the flowers, fruits, and berries - a world of natural treasure.

A chorus of angels appear from above as the clouds part, chanting a melodic “aaaaaaa” like they’re revealing something.

A soft beat starts coming through the bushes, and all of a sudden, the entirety of NSYNC emerges dressed in gold while the angels hold the melodic tone and slowly start synchronizing in harmony.

🎶 Byeeee

🎶 Byeeeeee

🎶 Byeeeeeeee

And as NSYNC do an impromptu live show starting with “Bye Bye Bye.” The children cry, people our age cheer, and you nod solemnly at me.

You remember the little whisper, and you couldn’t agree more.

You pump a fist in the air and yell at the top of your lungs.

“TRAVEL IS FUCKING BACK BABY - time to go, Go, GOOOOO!”

We put on our aviators, pack our Ospreys, and leave for our flight.

Bye, Bye, Byyyyee.

🛵 Scoot Scoot Scoot

And as countries start allowing degenerate tourists like myself to enter their lovely homes, I’m greeted with options and opportunities. Thoughts that I haven’t had since that one guy decided that a bat was a good substitute for a chicken wing.

Top 30 Anchorman 2 Gif GIFs | Find the best GIF on Gfycat

And the ah, bat, um… man… The Batman… held the “Most Hated Man” title for precisely 2 years after Putin took the title a month ago.

Both events causing unhappiness and suffering around the world, and for the purposes of this little rant, both affecting those same options and opportunities we were talking about before.

So now, because I’m selfish and want to don my aviators and pack my bags with you - I’m making this about me.

Lately, a series of somewhat-fortunate events occurred in my life, leading me to dust off my travel backpack and start a blank document titled: Potential Destinations.

So far, I’ve got:

The Philippines
Korea (Plus Japan for a third time)
India
Mexico
Spain
Portugal
US (East Coast)

And in the past, I’ve hit up a couple dozen destinations, so this isn’t new. Call me a connoisseur of the backpacking life, my friend.

I’d go to destinations and try to explore them for as little money as possible, sometimes for free, and other times for a profit - I’ve actually got my ultimate guide here.

This time I’m optimizing for that digital nomad lifestyle, and before you roll your eyes and slap me across my stupid face - I’m definitely not talking about the classic picture of some dude on the beach with his laptop drinking a pina colada.

I’m more talking about being lifestyle rich.

🏝 Lifestyle Rich

You might have heard about this before, but let me tell you my take.

Lifestyle Rich is about building your lifestyle around what you want to do now, rather than maximizing your income to do it eventually.

Let me explain that again, but with an example:

If your ideal lifestyle is:

Going for swims in the morning.
Zipping around on boats.
Eating delicious food.
Blowing off steam at beach parties.
Exploring nature in your downtime.
Doing yoga, martial arts, working out, etc.

All while working on creative projects - you can get that lifestyle at multiple price points.

🏙 In Sydney, that will cost you about 4000 to 5000 USD a month.*

🌊 In Los Angeles, it’ll be 4500 to 5500 USD a month.*

But…

🏝 In Koh Phangan, it’s less than 1000 USD a month.*

*Figures from nomadlist.

What…

“You’re telling me I can remotely earn my income in US dollars, at US salary/revenue rates, and keep my expenses under a grand a month?”

Yes, my friend.

This isn’t actually new, though. People have been doing this for years. The trend skyrocketed after the release of The 4-Hour Workweek, and let me tell you; people had their doubts.

This was 2007.

The book spent a lot of time talking about making remote work possible with your current employer, but now it’s 2022 - this is so incredibly normal it hurts (so good).

And the implication to all of this is that passion projects usually earn us a whole lot less than corporate careers, but that might not be a problem if we’re lifestyle rich.

Who cares if you’re earning a measly 1.5K a month when your lifestyle only costs 1K a month, right?

This brings us back to my itchy feet.

💻 I’m 27, And I’m Feeling Like Some Change

I’ve been in and out of corporate jobs, freelanced, backpacked for a year, traveled for longer, and tried a lot of the dark arts like writing, coding, brewing espresso, and taking massive dumps.

Besides all the travel, I’ve mostly lived in relatively small cities, and after seeing some of the cool places out there, I had a thought.

“Fuck it, let’s give these destinations a longer-haul try.”

Naval Ravikant, our modern time philosopher, has said this before:

Naval @naval

The three big decisions - what you do, where you live, and who you’re with.

And as we mess about on this giant space disco ball, I’ve personally noticed that the middle one, the one about where you live, directly impacts the other two. Hell, I think it’s the most important one.

So here’s the update: By the end of the year, I will have changed locations and hopefully added a few extra countries to the growing list.

If you’re in a similar place to me, what’s stopping you from giving this a try? Need a step-by-step guide? Because I can deliver… mistakes and all.

So hang around for the goods, and I hope you enjoyed my little travel rant.

🔗 Link Dump

I’ve written a few articles lately, and my favorite little discovery came about from a podcast with an economist.

🎁 An article I wrote about The Clawback Incentive - A brilliant economist’s explanation on a seriously motivational brain trick for productivity.
👻 I did a breakdown for the new version of the Ghost CMS - so if you’re sick of WordPress, give this article a read.
🐣 My most popular tweet last week - and the numbers have also grown - will definitely be sharing stats in the following email.
🦁 The coolest thread I’ve seen on living and hunting with real-life hunter-gatherers.
🎹 Mark Rober doing a crazy stunt on a robot piano - he makes it play the most complex song it can, music never played on analog piano.
🎨 Finally changed my personal site’s front page and added a little freelancing pitch page for content writing.

That’s all, folks!

I’ll catch you in the next one :)

✌ Sah

The Professional Generalist