How I Learned To Stop Working and Travel the World
Somewhere we lost touch. With ourselves. WIth each other. With reality.
We work to pay our mortgage. We work to pay our bills. We work half our waking hours just to get by, with no promise of a better tomorrow... sadly, the only promise tomorrow offers is that we'll have to get up and do it all over again. This unfortunately has become the reality for most of us and, like it or not, it's here to stay.
Or is it?
Only a few years ago I worked two full time jobs - travel agent by day, waiter by night - just to get by. My wife Darcie worked 60 hours a week in a cubicle for a company that didn't value her. She once saved the company close to $1,500,000 dollars - certainly no small chunk of change - and all she got in return was a positive quarterly review. No bonus, no raise... just a slight nod of approval... two months later.
Well, that was the crowbar that broke the camel's back. It was then we decided that the purpose of life is to live. Rather than squander our years away building someone else's fortune, we opted for the freedom to chase our own dreams. Please don't think we renounced all material possessions. I could tell you that we don't care about money, that we'd be just as happy penniless in a hippie commune as sailing around the world on our own yacht... but I'd be lying. We like money for what it can buy us.
You see, money can buy just about anything. It buys freedom as easily as it can buy a prison; I know several over achievers with six or seven figure salaries who can't afford to take a month off... you can't help but wonder "Are these people really wealthy, and if they are, do I want to be?" The principle that guides us is not how much money we can make, but how much time we can have to pursue our passions.
Of course, you'll have to figure out a method of funding these pursuits. You can't just quit your job, pack your bags and board the next flight to Fiji without some money saved up. But what if you could somehow create a passive income stream that pays you over and over again without you having to work for it? Imagine going to work on Monday and getting paid Tuesday, Wednesday Thursday and Friday... without going to work?
This happens all the time when you create an online business. It may take a month or so to get your business up and running but once it's set up it practically runs itself, allowing you to experience life at your own pace.
We should know. After only one year of working online we managed to quit our jobs and spend the next year traveling the world. Was the hard work worth it? You bet!
Are we part of the Young and Fabulously Wealthy? Hardly. We have a monthly budget, fly coach and cook our own meals (though we do eat out once or twice a week). On the socioeconomic surface we're the same as anyone else in our neighborhood.
But underneath the surface lies an important difference. While our neighbors get up and go to work, we plan our next vacation. During rush hour traffic we're hiking. When it's time to work, we do so from the comfort of our own home... whichever continent that may be at the time. Unlike our neighbors we can pack our bags and go wherever we wish, whenever we want. Money really can buy freedom.
You see, life isn't as hard as we make it out to be. With a little elbow grease you too can enjoy the luxury of financial freedom and travel the world. This is why we wrote the book Business In A Backpack: A Step-By-Step Guide To Building A Business While Traveling The World: to help people like you create passive income to fund your dreams.
What you'll get here at Stream-Life is the straight story on what you need to do in order to make money online from two regular people who have done it themselves. You'll learn how to research a market and determine whether or not you can make money, how to create a simple website that will sell your product, plus a whole lot of other cool marketing tricks that will help you along the way.
If you're interested in hiring us for web design, Adwords management or other consultative services, visit our Consulting page. We've helped a variety of people -from those new to creating an online business to seasoned marketers to even universities- build and improve their online business.
To your freedom,
Adam and Darcie
I want to leave you with the following quote; it has given me strength to continue the good fight, even in the darkest of times.
"I have learned that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours... If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them."
-Henry David Thoreau
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