I remember what it felt like 18 years ago before I left the United States. I was sitting at my desk trying to find a way out of the mess I had made of my life. On the outside, it looked like I was winning. Winning was not how I felt on the inside, but I kept up appearances while trying to find an escape hatch.
I had a respectable job and my income had breached 6 figures and would soon be climbing faster. I was taking a few weeks off every year. One week on skis sliding through the snow, and another week hiding under palm trees with toes wiggling in white sand.
But I wasn’t sure how long I could keep up appearances. I wondered daily when I would grow the balls to give up on appearances and start living a life I was proud of.
Winning the game of appearances wasn’t enough. I wanted to start playing a game that I was proud of. Pushing keys on a keyboard to make a faceless multi-national corporation more money was not enough for me anymore.
I wanted to do something that made a difference. Something that made someone’s life easier. And I knew the fear of losing appearances couldn’t hold me back much longer. I was willing to trade the appearance of success for something meaningful. I just didn’t know what it was.
When I look back on those days, 18 years ago, I had no idea I would be traveling the world, teaching other people how to live on less, how to retire early, and how to find meaning in their lives.
You see, if you are like me, living on less, will give you the time you need to discover meaning in your life. It was not perfectly clear to me before I left the US, that meaning was missing from my life. Now I know it is missing for many people.
Appearances are not enough for most people. They crave meaning. That is why some people never retire. They have jobs that help people in some meaningful way. So they feel like their life has meaning.
Meaning is not always enough. Some people have a creative side. They have meaning, but they can also see ways to help more people faster, more efficiently, with less money, and quicker turnaround times. But they aren’t always in charge of the system.
If they work in a rigid organization that does not honor their creativity, they may go off on their own and help more people faster. Those people often break away and start their own thing helping more people because they are creative souls.
The feeling of satisfaction you get when you are providing value to people in an efficient way, and they thank you for it, is quite addicting. You will want to do it over and over again and think of more ways to get it done quicker and with less time, less effort, and less money.
That is what happened to me when I gave up on appearances and left the US 18 years ago. It was not by design. It was just pure luck. But the feeling of living this way is clear to me and I would recommend it to anyone that is just living for appearances now.
So, 18 years ago, I lacked the time and energy I needed to develop something meaningful in my life. I was just tired at the end of the day. I was out of creative energy. So I had the craving for meaning but not enough gas left in my tank at the end of a work day.
Then I read a book called, The 4-Hour Work Week, by Tim Ferris. That is when I learned that I needed time and energy to create a life of meaning. So I called my boss and said I was quitting. But I offered to work half-time for half pay, so long as I could work from anywhere in the world from my laptop. He said yes.
So I spent the next few years traveling the world living in places that cost half as much as the US. Even though my pay was cut in half, I was living the same lifestyle, because my expenses were also cut in half.
Along the way, I realized that I should retire outside the US because I would only need half as much money to retire. Then, I realized I could retire several years earlier because it would not take as long for my retirement assets to grow large enough to support me since I was living on half as much.
About that same time, the company I was working for half time, completely closed the division I was working for. I lost a job that had no personal meaning for me. So I decided not to get another job. I would not put my resume out.
Instead, I started VagabondBuddha.com. I started teaching people about all of the places I had lived overseas that I loved. I started making videos and writing reports about the best places to retire overseas in paradise.
That is when I started to get feedback from people that were reading my reports. They started thanking me for teaching them how I lived my life. How I was living overseas on less, how I was living a more fascinating life.
People started watching my YouTube videos, as I traveled all over the world. YouTube started paying me for sharing my travels online. Then people started asking me hundreds of questions about my lifestyle. How do you do it?
How do you do international banking? How do you receive your postal mail in the US? How do you receive phone calls on your old phone number? How do you find the property you are renting overseas? How do you travel from place to place for less money?
What are the safest countries? What are the safest cities? What do you do about health care? Have you ever been to the hospital overseas? How do you deal with the language barriers? How did you find the beautiful woman you are with? What are the best countries?
Last count, I have 292 reports covering 73 countries, about how and where to retire overseas, how to get ready to leave your home country, how to find love overseas, how to pack, what to pack, how to stay healthy, what is your workout routine, how do you stay safe living overseas, do you open bank accounts overseas, what was it like being in a foreign hospital, how do you find good doctors?
Eventually, one of my members asked me, Dan, with hundreds of reports, how do I know what ones to read first? What order do I read them in? How do I remember which reports have which information? And I thought, yes, you are right!
So, I created the Retire Overseas Course. It has 7 Lessons that break the information down into the times you need the information. And each lesson has an index so you can find the reports relevant to that time period of your overseas retirement adventure.
Then someone said, Dan, I want to retire overseas, but I don’t have enough monthly cash flow yet. Do you have any ideas about how to make money online with your laptop? And I thought, yes, you are right!
So I created the Hobby Income Course. The hobby income course is intended to solve three problems. First, it is the way I make money now by teaching my favorite hobby in the world–How to Retire Early for Cheap In Paradise overseas. But set up will work for any hobby.
Second, doing my hobby online gives me human interaction and feedback that proves to me that I am making a difference in other people’s lives. People email me first thanking me for opening their eyes to a life that is possible for them–it gives them hope.
People also thank me later once they have taken actions like moving overseas. They send me emails telling me their stories thanking me for changing their lives in positive ways. My life makes a difference now and I hear it daily. It makes me happy.
Third, people realize that they can use the Hobby Income Course framework to teach other hobbies. So, the hobby income course teaches how to create a webpage and a YouTube channel that helps people do other hobbies more easily.
Everyone has something they know that other people want to learn. The key is just finding the right niche of information. That is the first topic covered in the hobby income course.
So that is why I have meaning in my life now. I help people find their way in the world. Whether it is retiring early for cheap in paradise, finding meaning and income in their life by teaching their favorite hobby online, or both.
And people thank me every day. Now I am living a life that I am proud of. It is not perfect, but it feels good on the inside and the outside. My life still has the appearance of success, but now it also feels good inside of me. Plus it gives me the creative outlet I cherish.
I don’t need to drag myself to the keyboard anymore. Now I just head to the keyboard when I figure out a new way to inspire you to live your best life. Now I share whatever I believe will help you believe in yourself and take action each day. And I know you are out there listening. I hear from you every day.
Also, if this sounds like fun to you, just visit VagabondBuddha.com and click Memberships near the top to get all the details you need and to get started right away.