The pandemic and government-imposed lockdowns disrupted our lives and some of our goals. A lot of us were immediately isolated from people we were close to. A lot of us lost our careers and profession and were thrown into disarray. We started seeing the true colors of the people, government, and environment around us. The one thing we can agree on is we are not going back to March 2020.

The only option we got is to look ahead, look forward. We see what’s going on around us. Large US cities are crumbling with high rents causing massive out-of-control homeless and drug use with mental illness running the sidewalks and streets. Guns are cheap and readily available and people have a shoot-first attitude if a conflict happens and crime is becoming more violent. Supply chain and inflation issues due to poor work/pay equilibrium where we go out and have to get bad service from low-quality, low-paid workers. Things do not look rosy out here, we can agree on that also.

The United States is faring well versus other markets. Europe is about to have an energy crisis and the UK has the most serious headwinds with food supply and heating fuel price increases. We are going to recommend proper UK sistas quickly find a good ADOS brotha in the USA for the winter – that’s how bad it is about to get in Britain.  Africa and Latin America are likely going to have civil unrest and authoritarian rule to control their masses. Asia is having self-inflicted damage where Japan and China have artificial travel restrictions that is hurting their own economies than protecting them from the virus.

It is important you do not get caught up or get lost in the sauce. Because there are always opportunities that can be pursued to benefit yourself even when everything around the world is going bad. As you know, we are approaching a digitalization age where you can remote work or run a business with automation and machine learning. We are also seeing organic hubs like Puerto Rico, UAE, Portugal, Mexico, South Korea, Austin, and Atlanta where skills and talent are forming in a city and creating an ecosystem. We are witnessing a mature and evolving rise of digital nomads.

Digital nomads are part of The Manufactured Solution customer profile but we are looking at high-worth digital nomads. The ones that want to get a Freezone visa in Dubai and run a digital-first firm, that is the level we are at. We are not looking at broke brothas in the USA following Po-lite or Boyce Watkins typing LOL to another grown man in a comment section. Our solutions are designed where you can move to Portugal and operate a political SMS campaign platform for American politicians with your own curated database of voters and advertising. In other words, you break free and you have a solid business model built upon our stack – that is the future-facing direction while brothas stay stagnant in America typing LOL to another grown man on a Tariq Nasheed live stream.

We are going to have discussions here on Dream and Hustle about becoming a real digital nomad. I have met real digital nomads in Dubai who are operating on a Freezone visa, no taxes, bank account, sponsor their family to get ID cards and join the business, cheap Rolls Royce and Ferraris to buy and rent out and pay for themselves after two years of rentals on renty.ae web site – and hire fine Ethiopian, Nigerian, Thai, Filipino, Indian sistas walking around in their office – weak brothas in America be posers while real moves are being made in hubs like Dubai by digital nomads who are networking and picking up the game from each other. Most of them run crypto support services like crypto settlement solutions where little real work is done and most automated number crunching.

There is something important here – I want you brothas and sistas to realize there is bad information out there about being a digital nomad and we will cover it in detail. First, I don’t want sistas moving to Mexico and listening to some glassy-eyed “house sitter” on YouTube talking about stopping chasing Black Excellence. I’ll call out that broke-ass chick because the sistas got too much Black Girl Magic happening around the world that is exciting and life-changing to listen to some house sitter in Mexico who just wanders around and does not appear to work the real work.

There is this brotha with glasses who is with his family in Portugal and he selling some BS and gassing yall up with his YouTube videos. A lot of these folks talking gassing you up on the expat or digital nomad lifestyle don’t be honest with you guys because some of them come from a very privileged background or they had money sources the average Black person does not have access to. I met a lot of expat overseas only to find out their parents were prominent people and I’m talking to a trust fund brat pretending they grinding like the rest of us.

There is another nomad angle and that is the liveaboards – the van life, the RV life, the cabin cruiser life, or tiny home life. We do not recommend you consider this lifestyle and is a bad move. These lifestyles are you stepping down a notch close to being a homeless bum instead of looking at how to rise up hard. Do not take Eminem and the 8-Mile movie seriously when he said sometimes if you have to rise up here, you have to go down here. There are way better options because you are forgetting something – there is a lot of rural areas being fitted with high-fiber Internet connections and why the smart digital nomads are rushing to Idaho for example. That’s how you move.

Then we are going to talk about the digital nomad business models – the best and most optimal business model for a digital nomad is not 9-5 work but automated work and things that work themselves out. That means you are writing and releasing books and those books are on the marketplace creating residual income for years, if not decades. That means you have digital automation business models like APIs that can store advertisement assets and upload them to edge-centers to display on jumbotrons around the world. You cannot be some goddamn virtual assistant, that sounds stupid. The sista who built that house over in Bali had a YouTube video explaining she moved to Dubai and she has a scheduling platform – that is the kind of move you make as a digital nomad, a platform-based business model that has either user-generated content or self-service automation. Let me say something real quick – you can move to Dubai or Korea and be a video blogger and do walking videos and make your money, we will discuss this as well. You got a lot of rich original content you can create in Dubai or Seoul, seriously.

Another thing and I wrote this in a previous article – think about that 401k and consider the fact that is an outdated retirement model. I told a woman that was retiring that she should not retire, she should rewire. A bulb lit up in her head because even though she was in her 60s, she realizes what I was talking about. She created a sports technology-related company with the data skills she did throughout her entire white-collar career. I want you to understand this – you can be in your 60s and 70s creating digital-first business models instead of waiting on that 401k to pay up.

I see 401k as that slave-gaslighting where we were told we are to suffer on earth and after we die, we will have a beautiful afterlife in heaven – wait for the afterlife, the slaves were told. Are you 47 years old and got $550,000 in your 401k? You better consider your right now instead of the “afterlife” of turning 65 and consider cashing that out, they can have the penalty and taxes and you claim your life and new direction right now. Take whatever is left over which is still a good chunk of cash and start your digital nomad move, maybe move to Colombia or Panama and start up an Afro-Latino stock photography firm that sells stock photos on Getty, Adobe Stock, or Shutter stock – see how much cash making opportunity is out here in this world for you in this digital age?

One of the best (if not the best) house music songs created came out of South Africa – Prince Kaybee and Msaki performing “Fetch Your Life” and when you see the video or hear the song, you will see why.

Fetch your life, go on be alive,

Ain't nobody living out ya,

Be someone who's living out ya

Fetch your life, go on be alive

Ain't nobody living out ya,

Be someone who's living out ya

Note: the lyrics on these websites are incorrect – this is the correct verse.

“Fetch Your Life” is the theme song and the anthem of this new era and new movement that is on the horizon in this digital age. You go watch the video or listen to the song – you do that first.

It’s time for you to get on the game and realize the moves that are being made right now. You can fetch your life and be free and use digital solutions to fund your lifestyle instead of working 9-5 in a corporate setting. You can buy a nice laptop from a pawn shop – I be buying up those i7, 16Gb ram, and 520Gb NVEE solid states for $300 at the pawn shops – that’s a lot of power for a digital nomad move.  

Join groups or create real groups to get with like-minded folks and create real planning and strategy. Meet up at the Starbucks patio or sneak inside the hotel lobby seating area and have a get-together meeting over drinks at the hotel bar to meet in person. Be serious about fetching your life, looking at opportunities in this digital age that give you unprecedented access to growth where you own multiple homes, own multiple passports, own multiple digital-first operations and you are around top-notch Black Excellence and a diversity of people.

I cannot tell you how beautiful the journey is to meet new people all the time who is excited about your story and the journey you are on. I cannot explain to you the excitement of the unknown of going out taking calculated chances and it works out and you see things turning your way. I cannot describe the feeling of being truly independent and you got money to blow and you moving in silence on toxic people from your past and elevating yourself above a Black culture that did not want to see you succeed – Mark 6:4.

The only way you going to realize this is when you fetch your life, own your story and journey, consider cashing out that 401k for right now, and learn what is your big next move to escape and become free like a bird with its wing stretched out.