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You Can’t Be Everything to Everyone

In business, specialising is important. If a company that produces molded plastics is approached to begin producing protein bars, they will likely turn that request away.

They will have trouble producing the protein bars for a competitive price, and if they do somehow get the contract there’s a high chance the customer will be disappointed since they don’t have the years of expertise to make sure the product is of high quality.

Dell will never sell a laptop running OS X, just as Apple will never sell me a phone running Android.

It’s unlikely that either will ever end up supplying airlines with meals. It’s just not what they are good at.

Businesses understand this. But most individuals I know struggle with it.

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How to Write a Great Blog Post

How to Write a Great Blog Post

Writing a great blog post may come easily to some, but if you are reading this article, chances are you’re like me and you have to work for it.

I started my first blog in 2009. I published long posts that made no clear points. They were written for no-one in particular. These posts never ranked in Google, so nobody ever read them.

A decade of learning, failing, succeeding, and working with others in the content production space has helped me to form the process you’ll see in this post.

Today I can write an article and my desired audience have read it by the time the month is out. I’m not the best writer around, but this process helps me to write content that my readers take the time out of their day to email and thank me for.

This isn’t an article on how to write blog posts for SEO, it’s a guide to writing blog posts that people will actually read. When these people do read your blog post, it will help them. Ironically, search engines love content that do those things.

If you want to know how to write a great blog post, read on to find out my methods.

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The 40 Percent Rule

The 40 Percent Rule

Back in 2011, a friend spoke of these magical financial vehicles called “index funds”. What was news to me at the time sparked immediate deep research and eventual action.

Index funds have seen massive traction in the “FIRE” or Financial Independence, Retire Early community. And while there are many funds that track many indexes, the most common recommendations made tend to track the following indexes:

Whether right or wrong, the general consensus from this community is that for every $100 invested today, it will pay you back $4 every year, for at least 33 years.

This is known as the 4 percent rule, and is the “safe withdrawal rate” that finance bloggers like MMM, jlcollinsnh, Millenial Revolution and everyone else rehashing the same stuff over and over are talking about (no disrespect, there’s just very little “new” information).

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No Script

No Script

Life’s cultural script is straightforward, right?

  1. learn to be nice to others
  2. apply yourself in school
  3. go to university, college or some sort of technical training
  4. get a job
  5. find a partner
  6. get married
  7. work hard in your career
  8. save money
  9. buy a house
  10. have kids
  11. work until you’re 65+
  12. retire

Depending on what country you grow up in, the demographic you are in and who your parents are, this script may look different to you, but I’d wager regardless of where you were raised, there’s some sort of prescribed script that has been passed down to you.

And while it’s not uncommon for people to deviate from this script – by choosing not having kids, retiring at 55, or building a business instead of a career, traditionally most people followed most of their life’s script.

But with the rise of the digital nomads, widespread entrepreneurship, remote work and financial independence, more and more are going to discover the unique challenges associated with their newfound freedom.

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How I Became Location Independent

Georgetown in Malaysia

I’ve been asked a number of times recently to write up “my story”. Usually I try and write with you, the reader in mind, but it’s been made clear to me that sharing my personal experiences has a lot of value to those aspiring to become location independent (trust me, it’s not all travel and mountain biking as my Instagram might depict).

When so many “digital nomad coaches” post aspirational photos of themselves getting sand in their laptops or developing text neck at the beach, then claim the answers are all in their $49 ebook, it’s understandable many of you are skeptical.

My goal is to tell you one man’s story of how he got to where he is today. With any luck there’ll be something of use here.

I am not a guru. I am not wildly successful. I have just carved out a humble existence while remaining independent of a single city or country.

In this post I’ll run through how I found myself half way down this path before realising it was even a path, lessons along the way, and my current situation.

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