How to change your life by building a location independent income

Becoming a digital nomad entrepreneur is no easy feat. A lot of people romanticize it but building a location-independent income is hard.

It needs to be fully remote, and synchronous with your career aspirations.

You don’t want to settle for some half-assed freelancing.

It is cool to travel but is it really worth it if you have to pause your entire life for it?

The ultimate goal is to build projects that make you financially free.

I made the plunge into digital nomad entrepreneurship 7 months ago and I want to share my learnings so far.

(Here’s a cool pic of Japan before we continue)

I've identified 4 pillars that allow me to travel the world while working and will continue to do so in the future.

4 Pillars for Earning, Learning, and Creating Long-Term Wealth while traveling the world

Generate Part-Time Income from Existing Skills

To travel the world, you need a steady cash flow to pay the bills. The easiest way is to monetize skills you already have quickly through part-time remote gigs. This could be building websites, mobile apps, financial models, or providing consulting for your industry.

Platforms like Fiverr, Upwork, and LinkedIn ProFinder make it easy to sell your services globally. Or use your personal network and previous employers to find short-term projects.

Twitter is also underrated for this. Post your work & watch the inbound leads come in.

The key is finding quick ways to generate income so you can focus the rest on building higher ROI projects.

While I lived in Japan for 3 months, I only really needed about 2-3k per month to live comfortably.

With the ability to travel and live anywhere, you also can choose locations that are much cheaper than your home country. This makes it even easier to make a living.

TLDR: Build a 1-person service agency around your most valuable skills to earn income while only part-time

Build Ventures with Fast Returns That Grow Your Skills

Invest time in projects that provide faster returns and build more valuable skills. For example, you could create an e-commerce store, build client apps, or launch an online course. The faster the ROI, the more time you have for other ventures.

This pillar’s objective is to take your skills from the 1st pillar but increase the amount of leverage.

This is where you want to build digital products, productize services, online courses, online books, small brands, etc.

Choose projects that force you to learn in-demand skills like coding, marketing, writing, and personal branding. Over time, combining skill-building with fast returns will make you a more competent builder (Which unlocks the ability to create generational wealth → 4th pillar I talk about below).

TLDR: Focus on skill-building with higher leverage projects (agencies, digital products, online courses, etc.). Investing in yourself to become more competent unlocks new life-changing opportunities

Build an Audience Online

Becoming location-independent is so much easier if you have an online audience. Choose a medium you enjoy and can stick with long-term. This could be through blogging, YouTube, podcasting, or Twitter/Instagram.

Find a niche you're passionate about that allows you to provide unique value.

Consistently put out great content and grow your subscribers over time. An engaged audience provides opportunities like sponsorships, product sales, and partnerships.

An audience is the cheapest and best distribution channel out there.

If you can build one, you will be miles ahead of competitors.

TLDR: Build an audience to have one of the best distribution channels out there and one of the best sources of leverage in the digital age

Work Towards Creating Generational Wealth

Have an ambitious long-term vision beyond short-term income. Building a business, brand, or passive income source will change your legacy’s financial situation.

You could aim to build a seven-figure company, create a well-known personal brand, or develop category-defining products.

All the skills & knowledge you built from the previous pillars culminate in this.

Keep this big-picture perspective in mind as you balance short-term work.

TLDR: Aim towards building ambitious projects that have generational wealth-building possibilities. The more competent you are the better the probability of building something life-changing.

I hope you enjoyed this one. 

If you want to see more of my content, feel free to check out my posts on X 👇

If you’re curious about what I’m working on at the moment. Check out learniverse.xyz to gamify your learning with AI-powered course creation.