While in Tampa, I had the opportunity to hangout with Andrew Norcross. Andrew is a challenger of the status quo, an outstanding Thesis Theme developer, and all around awesome dude. He does things with WordPress that others dream about. If you are looking for a developer definitely check his stuff out.
Anyways, during our chat we talked about the lifestyle design community and how sometimes people miss the point of lifestyle design. Isn’t the ultimate goal to live a life you choose and enjoy?
More and more traveling is becoming the “defacto” thing for most technomads and location independent professionals. Heck even I am preparing for a trip abroad.
While it is incredibly inspiring to watch people like Adam Baker, Matt Hope, Where is Jenny, and Karol Gajda travel the world, this type of on-the-go lifestyle may not be for everyone.
In our conversation Andrew pointed out that there is a huge subset of people that would love to just have more flexibility in their lives and maybe traveling the world isn’t their personal dream. I think Andrew is right and I think empowering people to do what they love should be the goal of more lifestyle design blogs.
Don’t Buy Into Other People’s Dreams
After some reflection on our conversation I realized one of the biggest problems with many blogs in the lifestyle design niche is that they sell the dream of traveling the world and don’t focus on what YOUR dreams might be.
I know from a traditional marketing standpoint, “selling the dream” is half the battle to building an audience in the lifestyle design community.
While building an audience is important to me and I would love for you to subscribe to this blog and sign up for the newsletter this isn’t my over-arching goal.
My goal is for you to chase YOUR dreams. Don’t chase my dreams! Everyone thrives in different situations, if your life goal is to raise a family, then go boldly and raise the best little rascals you can.
Whatever your goal in life, chase something that will be fulfilling to you.
An Opportunity to Be Bold
I think it is time for people who are doing awesome things with their lives to get some exposure. People that are changing the world are the ones that need to be paid attention to. (If you are doing something awesome contact me, I’d love to hear about it.)
Ideally I hope you use the information on this site to do something that inspires you. Something that will change the world. Something that will impact others. Something that will make you stand out from the crowd.
My goal isn’t to sell you the dream. If you don’t sign up for email updates or follow me on twitter. I don’t care, I just hope you do something great with your life and be an outstanding human.
There is always opportunity to do be bold and do something original. Forget the travel dream, do something that will change the world.
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Hey Nick, awesome name by the way
I’m right there with ya.
I see a lot of people fighting to get out of the status quo, just to get sucked into another form of conformity.
I know from personal experience, that chasing someone else’s dream will always backfire.
It took me 30 years to really see that, even though I knew many years before that, I just didn’t listen to myself… I’m stubborn like that.
For me, my ultimate goal is to have the flexibility to take advantage of opportunities when they come. Too many times I’ve had to say no because I had to be back at work on Monday or something similar… that sucks.
A short term goal of mine is to travel, may not be forever but I want the option if thats what I choose. It’s certainly not for every one and thats cool. I share a similar goal of inspiring people to take action on their dreams. If it happens to be travel then great… the key word being THEIR.
I’m here for you man, whatever I can do to help move that goal forward, let me know.
Dude, thanks for the support. You got awesome stuff going on in your world. Stoked for you!
Great stuff as always, Nick! Really looking forward to hearing about your travels.
Nick, great post! It’s often easy to get caught up and sucked into the dreams of others without taking stock of whether or not those dreams align with what YOU want.
Nick this post is dead on. I like to consider myself a lifestyle designer/work shifter, but I am 40 with a wonderful wife and daughter. I thoroughly enjoy traveling, but my dreams are more focused on flexibility to spend time with my family and friends when and where I want. Like you point out your dreams are going to be different than mine/anyone else. My awesome is going to be different than your awesome – and that is perfectly ok.
Straight up genius here Nick. It takes some intellectual depth to find the points you and Norcross made about the lifestyle design niche. Beyond lifestyle design, a lot of the “make money online” niche works the same way. They’re selling business ideas and strategies that might not be the type of business you want to create. It definitely takes some inner strength and confidence in one’s self to rise above it and continue on the path you’ve chosen.
-Kev
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