What If You Could Achieve Your 10-Year Goals in 6 Months?
A Week in the Life of a Working Traveller - Week 3
Thomas Edison didn’t just think about inventing the lightbulb.
He didn’t sit around, making endless notes, reading every book on electricity, and waiting until he had the perfect plan before starting.
Nope. He rolled up his sleeves and got to work. He tested, adjusted, failed, and repeated—over 10,000 times—until one day, the breakthrough came.
That’s the beauty of clarity. It doesn’t come from thinking. It comes from doing.
Marie Forleo says it best:
Clarity comes from action.
Yet, so many of us stay stuck in thinking mode. We over-plan, over-analyse, second-guess ourselves, and never actually move forward. We wait for the right moment, the perfect strategy, the foolproof plan.
But the truth is, nothing reveals the right path faster than taking action and seeing what happens.
That’s why, with only 20 weeks left until we leave Brisbane to reignite our full-time nomadic life, I’m diving into a series of experiments.
In his book Zero to One, Peter Thiel famously asks: “If you have a 10-year plan of how to get [somewhere], you should ask: Why can’t you do this in 6 months?”
The idea isn’t that you’ll magically compress a decade’s worth of work into half a year, it’s that by forcing yourself to move faster, you strip away distractions, test ideas quickly, and focus only on what truly matters.
While The Working Traveller is a long-term project for me, nothing sharpens the mind like a deadline. So for the next 20 weeks, I’m treating this as a sprint to see what’s possible before we hit the road.
What can I build, grow, and refine in this focused window of time?
Here’s what I’m testing:
Experiment 1: The Substack Deep Dive
Substack has been on my radar for a while now. Everyone seems to be raving about it as the place to build an audience, connect with like-minded people, and even monetise through subscriptions and digital products.
So far from what I’ve seen the most successful Substackers are those teaching how to do Substack!
How to grow your Substack
How to be a better writer
How to sell stuff on Substack etc
However, I’m in the travel niche with a touch of business - how to create fun side hustles or make money on the road, alongside, how to be a nomad, how to travel smarter, how to increase energy, connection, purpose etc!
So will it work for a niche like mine? Let’s see…
For the next 20 weeks, I’ll be posting 4x a week to Substack:
✅ Monday: A storytelling post - diving into the realities of nomadic life, freedom, travel, and reinvention.
✅ Wednesday: A practical, how-to style post - covering nomadic tips, funding travel, side hustles, and the nitty-gritty of life on the road.
✅ Friday: This very post! My ‘Week in the Life’ - a behind-the-scenes look at what I’m working on, where I’m going, and what’s working (or not).
✅ Sunday: A mindset-focused post - on freedom, financial independence, emotional resilience, and everything that makes this lifestyle possible.
On top of that, I’ll be posting Notes daily, engaging with other creators, and seeing what happens when I go all in for 20 weeks.
Will it grow my audience?
Will it help me figure out what content my target market actually wants?
Will it open doors for monetisation?
We shall see.
And of course, I’ll be reporting my findings right here every Friday.
Experiment 2: The Facebook Engagement Hustle
Did you know you can get paid for posting on Facebook these days?
I should know - I earned a whopping $0.65 last month.
At that rate, I’ll be rolling in… about $7.80 a year. 🤣
But seriously, the earning potential is there. I’ve seen two income reports from two separate creators over the last few weeks. One reported generating $2k from FB Bonuses with a follower account of 82k and the second reported $20k with a follower count of 1.1million.
If my maths is correct that’s around $0.02 per follower per month from engagement payouts alone.
With my current follower count, I should be making around $500 a month. So clearly, I have some work to do.
For the next 20 weeks, I’ll be:
Posting daily (memes, quotes, travel updates, reels, polls - you name it).
Promoting my Substack posts to see if Facebook is a good driver of traffic.
Tracking what actually increases engagement - so I can share what works with you.
At the very least, I should earn more than 65 cents next month!
Experiment 3: The Ecom Pivot (Again)
I’ve gone back and forth on my e-commerce strategy so many times, but I think I’ve finally landed on something that makes sense.
I love the Print on Demand (POD) model, because it allows me to experiment with different designs and concepts with zero upfront investment. The downside is that the profit margins are tiny.
Given my background in Amazon & product manufacturing, I know that owning the supply chain is the way to go for serious profit. So, I’m doing both:
1️⃣ Rebranding my ecom store as ‘Grey Nomad Co’ - to separate it slightly from my personal brand and turn it into a stand-alone, sellable asset. (Also, I just think ‘Grey Nomad Co’ is a stronger product brand.)
2️⃣ Launching a fun range of POD products - because, why not? It’s no risk, and I can test ideas quickly.
3️⃣ Bringing a physical product to Amazon by June - I’ve already ordered samples of:
A rollable backpack
Hiking poles (for our Grey Nomad dodgy knees)
Water shoes & other travel-friendly gear
Let’s see which product makes the cut for my first Amazon launch in June.
Other Things I’m Working On
These are my main projects, however these will run alongside;
Continuous growth of my email subscriber list on Beehiiv, currently at 8,132 subs. I’m testing some new lead magnets to attract a more general 50+ nomad crowd not just those interested in side hustles (I want side hustles to be an element of what I talk about but not the be all and end all - there’s so much more to nomadism!)
Continuous but slow growth of my website, currently at around 20k sessions a month. (Will also form part of my FB page strategy after getting so royally screwed by Google in 2023)
Continuous growth both in numbers and engagement of my FB group 50+ Nomads, currently at 20k members.
The Bigger Picture
At the heart of all these experiments is one big goal:
🌍 Growing The Working Traveller into the ultimate resource for 50+ nomads and travellers, who want to embrace their golden years, explore the world with vitality, connect with like-minded adventurers, and engage in meaningful passion projects.
My passion project is The Working Traveller. For you, it might be starting a side hustle, diving into a volunteering effort, or simply finding new ways to travel long-term without financial stress.
Whatever it looks like, the core idea is the same: living with freedom, purpose, and adventure after 50.
Why Not Join Me?
It’s been a long time since I’ve done a public experiment like this. Testing, tracking, and sharing what actually works in real-time.
It feels exciting, a little daunting, and completely energising, which is exactly why I’m doing it.
Plus, like I said above, action creates clarity and I’m just as bad as the next person for not being accountable to myself.
Every successful creator, entrepreneur, and digital nomad I know didn’t get there by sitting around thinking about it. They got there by doing, experimenting, failing, tweaking, and doing again.
If you’ve been stuck in overthinking mode, waiting for the perfect plan… why not join me?
Set your own deadline, pick a few experiments, and see what happens.
Start small. Start messy. But just start.
👉 And if you’re feeling brave post in the comments below what you’re planning on working on!
In the meantime, I’ll be reporting back every week with what’s working, what’s not, and what I’m learning along the way.
Let’s go!
Ready to Start Your Nomadic Lifestyle? Here’s How I Can Help You:
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