In December one of my main client contracts will come to an end and as such I have been slowly starting to think about what I will do next year. Much as I love living in Zurich it is a very expensive place to be based without a permanent job so I am toying with the idea of moving somewhere cheaper. Having also just had my heartbroken by a Swiss chap I am also less happy here than I was and contemplating a move.
Traditionally people would move based on where their job is and for many the first move abroad is the result of a job offer. This was true for me too – the first time I moved abroad as an adult was an office transfer from the McKinsey London office to their Zurich office. Since then I have become a veritable frequent mover and have lived in Switzerland 5 times, Spain twice, Denmark once and London twice. Most of the moves have been work related but not all, and not all by choice. Some would say I’ve had my fair share of bad luck with work – redundancy, the brand I was working on failing in PhIII, interview & reality not matching up, etc. – but I like to think of it as good luck. It is thanks to my luck that I have had this truly interesting career, with a breadth of highly relevant experience, with multiple organisations and in multiple countries.
It is thanks to this experience that I am also able to seriously consider not only what my next job will be but also seriously think about where I want to work. Unlike when I started my career, today, thanks to the blend of my experience, area of expertise and technology, I can contemplate moving anywhere in the world. I no longer need a fixed office or a permanent 9 – 5 job or even be based in the same country as my work / client. I can seriously consider becoming one of a growing number of digital nomads.
This freedom and flexibility is behind the growing number of people becoming digital nomads. Many of them are millennials not yet ready to settle down and wanting to travel the world but there is a growing number of seasoned professionals, like myself, who place increasing value on this freedom and flexibility. Whilst many of the jobs these digital nomads do are as developers or content creators, and not always particularly senior, times are changing. One of the roles I do for example, reverse mentoring, I can do extremely well remotely (in fact it is sometimes easier to share a screen remotely rather than squish around a physical screen in a room together) – all I need is good wifi. For other work that requires me to be face to face it is generally easy enough to hop on a flight. In fact it may even be cheaper for clients to have me working as a digital nomad, and pay for the long haul flight, simply because I can charge less per diem if I am based somewhere like Thailand as opposed to Switzerland.
Whilst being based near a beach does sound wonderfully rosy it is not without its drawbacks. I am actually quite a settled, homey person, and would never have chosen to move jobs or countries this often by choice. However this is the deck that I was dealt and I now also realise that life is short and that home is where you make it. It is also thanks to my autoimmune disease that I have learned to truly value my quality of life.
Whilst I do not see myself being an endless digital nomad at this point in my life I feel it may be a good move for me. I am still young and healthy enough to do this. There is still much of the world I want to explore and new skills I want to learn (like free-diving) but I do not have the resources, or inclination, to take a gap year and just travel. I would like to continue working but travel – the classic digital nomad. Who knows where I will end up – ideally with a permanent job somewhere near a beach 🙂 – but I feel ready for a new chapter in my life and a new journey. And so I am starting to explore my options as a digital native, and in the process replacing the hopes and dreams I had with my ex with new hopes and dreams, and in doing so help my heart heal.
