All this dream stuff is fine, but you're going to have to pay for it somehow. Last time I checked, we all have to eat, most of us prefer a warm place to sleep, and the chances of getting by without some sort of income are pretty slim. But what can you do besides a traditional job?
The concept of homebased businesses has been around for a few years now. As a matter of fact, I started one in 1995. Worked from home and homeschooled my daughter at the same time (Parade, Working Woman, Family Circle and Money magazines all wrote articles on it). The working from home trend has only grown from then especially with the ease of doing business on via the Internet.
Working from home is great from a 750,000 Hours perspective if your dream involves being in a single location. If you are dreaming of a small holding, a B&B, a cottage by the sea, then a homebased business would fit in quite well. You're in one location.
But what if your ideal lifestyle is a mobile or moving one? Steve and I have had a very nomadic lifestyle since the day we met, multiple locations, different companies, different countries. Creating an income from wherever we were, at home, on the beach and now on the boat. What if you plan on bicycling around the world, backpacking across Europe or sailing some (or all) of the seven seas? A single location homebased business won't suite at all, you need something that will move as you move, a business that can exist 'virtually' anywhere you are. And the Internet has made this eminently possible.
Virtual careers or income generators used to consist of things like writing books and articles, photography, editing, technical writing - and those do still exist in the online business world, perhaps even more so than they used to with blogs, ebooks and ezines. There are many other types of virtual work which lend themselves very well to the more nomadic lifestyle. Here are a few to get you thinking:
- Specialist knowledge - Are you an expert? Do you know a great deal about a certain topic, a certain market? Do you know the 'Secrets of _______'? Specialist knowledge is in demand. People want to know how to do things and often there is little information providing that guidance. What are your hobbies, your interests, your areas of expertise? Have you spent years studying a certain topic? If you have, chances are other people are interested. A friend of ours, Joe, has created the most amazing garden in his back yard, it's like his own private grotto. He's done it in Florida, where it's tough to grow more than scratchy grass and standard bedding plants. He could write an ebook on 'Creating Your Own Secret Garden Sanctuary'. People want insights into how to do leisure time activities, they want to know how to make money, they want to know how to have a life beyond work (the wheels are turning for me now, might write one myself - 'How to Go From Cube to Cruise in a Year or Less!'). What knowledge do you have that you could share?
- Consulting - Also falls under the selling of knowledge category, but with more customer contact and one-to-one connections. Consulting tends to be to businesses, but can also be done from a health, fittness, lifestyle design perspective. Image consultants and personal coaches spring to mind. There are also those highly skilled, very senior consultants who may no longer be doing the road warrior existence, but can be enticed into flying in for a short term engagement.
- Online Stores - Matching customers to goods is very doable via the Internet. Many who run online stores create a niche storefront offering goods in a certain category (wedding linens, products which don't use electricity, sailing goods, etc.), they take orders from customers and place those orders with vendors, who then send the products to the customers. If you understand a niche market and can negotiate with vendors, this can be a terrific online business.
- Information 'Sifter' - One of the big problems with the Internet is there is just too darn much of it. Have you ever done a search on a topic and gotten 2,000,000 results? How on earth are you going to weed through all of that? You scan through the first three or four pages and then lose the will to live. Acting as a 'sifter' and culling information on a certain topic into a concise and accessible format is valuable. Often this is done in a paid subscription newsletter format, you'll see it from financial advisors, those in the know in the real estate or rental market, and I've seen several on travel bargains. But why not do something similar for other niche topics? 'Secret Fly Fishing Spots of the World' - anglers of the world want to know!
- Online Education - Do you have a skill that others want? Use the Internet to teach them! Online courses whether in written, audio, conference or video form are all of interest. In some instances you'll need to get formally licensed for this (if you're teaching people how to get started in a career, for example), but if you're teaching them 'How to Knit a Sweater in Just One Day' you probably won't. 'School' location no longer matters, your 'students' can be located anywhere in the world!
That's five to get your thinking started, there are many more (we'll discuss the best ones in an upcoming publication). Key point here, no matter where you're located in your ideal lifestyle, you can generate an income to support it!
