From Normal to Nomad

I was raised in a normal Filipino family. Growing up, I focused on achieving everything I was supposed to: good grades, good job, good husband.

Two things my family taught me: the value of education and the importance of finding good employment that I can dedicate my entire life to until I retire or decide to settle down. It’s either that or I find a better opportunity overseas – doesn’t matter what kind of job as long as I get to set foot into greener pastures.

Pretty much the normal mindset, right?

Until one day the normal got disrupted.

I was working for a Fortune 500 company. I had good benefits, plenty of room for promotion, a hefty 13th month pay, vacation/sick leaves and more. I was secured with where I was but I couldn’t bear the thought of spending even one more week in the same environment.

I had to stop being normal.

That was when I felt like Neo waking up from the matrix realizing that everything I was fed with was a lie.

I accepted the fact that I was conditioned to think normal so I started questioning the belief systems and half-truths told by civilized society. I stopped watching TV and reading the newspaper. Instead, I turned to the Internet and decided to search for answers myself.

I found out that the top 10 percent of the wealthiest people control 90 percent of the money by consciously making abnormal choices.

John Rockefeller, the first known billionaire, was also born into a poor family. He quit school early, worked under different professions until he had the brilliant idea of refining crude oil into kerosene.

Jack Ma grew up poor in communist China. He started a translation business and even though his first two ventures failed, he persevered and invested in his vision to create the online marketplace Alibaba.

Diosdado Banatao was a farmer’s son who would walk barefoot just to finish his high school education. After working with top technology companies and learning as much as he can, he opened his own company Chips and Technologies which he later sold to Intel for $430 million.

I quit my job with less than $20 in my pocket. I asked my sister for a loan so I can buy a laptop, which she eventually gave for free. I spent hours watching tutorial videos, signed up for every freelancing platform, read mindset transformation books and learned about the rags to riches stories of billionaires.

Soon, I landed my first project for $1 per hour on oDesk. It was close to nothing but it validated the digital nomad lifestyle and business model I was aiming for. It wasn’t long until I landed more projects that I had to start my own agency.

Since then I’ve lived in 16 countries and opened up more opportunities for me and my team.

Looking back, I wonder what motivated me to transform my life aside from the fact that I was constantly bored at the office. I remember reading a quote from George Bernard Shaw when I was still in high school that made a really big impact on my life. It said, “People are always blaming their circumstances for what they are. I don’t believe in circumstances. The people who get on in this world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want, and if they can’t find them, make them.”

I may come from a 3rd world country but it doesn’t mean I have to think with the mindset of one.

More to read

• Texas State Aquarium
• No One Wants to Work With me Because I’m Not an American (or a European/Australian/British/1st world citizen)
• One Month Mark
• Poppy Seed Chicken
• My wild summer