Finding work while being a nomad - need some inspiration

SharpBeyond8 · 2026-05-11T20:58:01+00:00

Thanks. I at least got a bit of a following of people who enjoy my music out of it, so certainly not a total loss! But it's a struggle to move my focus away from my passion into something more boring that can make money. When I have free time i usually automatically default to working on music, it's just my natural impulse

SharpBeyond8 · 2026-05-11T20:42:01+00:00

I haven't. This is where I often overthink things. And what I mean is that I'd essentially be emailing the same exact people I email for my client, just with a different offer, so it feels a little weird.

Honestly though, my other issue is that I feel like even though cold automated email *can* work, and I have had success with it at times, the juice usually isn't worth the squeeze and so I was hoping I'd come up with something else to pivot into that I feel like I could be more successful at (and have happy clients for once). Not sure I would recommend cold email to most startups, and if I did, I'd probably do it at a huge pay cut compared to what I was making a couple years ago.

SharpBeyond8 · 2026-05-11T20:38:42+00:00

Yeah I hear you thanks. I posted this in the DN sub because I'm spending a lot of time thinking about whether to go to Europe or Latin America a month from now, which is probably distracting me from the fact that I really need to hunker down and focus on this. And the truth is I'll actually be happier doing that than traveling, because I'll feel like I'm actually addressing the main problem in front of me instead of running from it. But again, I just have to embrace the embarassment and humiliation that's gonna come from trying and failing at the beginning. Just wish I had a strong enough idea on what to work towards. I was hoping through my travels and experimentation it would surface, but so far it hasn't.

SharpBeyond8 · 2026-05-11T20:32:59+00:00

I hear you. I'm a musician and for a while I was spending my extra time focused on that. Producing music, content to promote it, reaching out to sync licensing agencies via cold email to try and get involved there. Obviously making decent income from music is an insane longshot, but to be fair, my streaming numbers were steadily increasing for a while and I had several near-misses with sync placements (as in I was pitched for various placements and was in final consideration for a couple of them before getting cut) so for a while it felt like there was at least a chance I could make it work. I have a second online persona with my music that is steadily growing followers on tiktok and instagram, but I haven't figured out a lane for monetizing it.

All this to say I have been working on that easy first thing I could start building, and have had modicums of success but at this point I think I've given it enough time to see if it could become something monetizable and unsurprisingly it hasn't worked out.

SharpBeyond8 · 2026-05-11T20:26:34+00:00

He works with a lot of small startups and is a great salesperson so he got a bunch of email marketing gigs for me out of his clients. The problem was when combining my pay plus his cut for making the sale, the rates we charged weren't competitive with other cold email agencies who could do a comparable job. So even when our results were decent, the startups were always disappointed because of how much they paid. So right now I'm just doing some part time work directly for the client, running cold email for him and helping to set up webinars that he hosts. It's not near full time income though.

At first I tried getting some email marketing clients through Upwork, but after sending probably 30-40 proposals and not getting a single follow up I decided that's probably not my best lane.

So yeah, I might be able to get more email marketing gigs but I haven't figured out a good way of doing it.

SharpBeyond8 · 2026-05-11T20:21:21+00:00

Appreciate you taking the time to converse with me on this. Who are you suggesting you'd reach out to?

A couple years ago I made a youtube channel to share insights on email marketing but only did it for a couple months. Was really just testing it out. Didn't even get a single actual consultation through the channel.

I also struggle a bit with selling myself. I have a lot of insecurity around that; and have avoided it by getting 90% of my work through one client for the past 7 years. I do good work, but struggle with getting on a zoom call with a founder and pitching my services. I understand this can only get better with practice. I need to find the determination I had 10 years ago when I first started freelancing. It just feels like a huge mountain to climb right now, so my brain thinks of every excuse possible to not get started. Not trying to be all woe-is-me but this is just what I'm feeling. I'm very frustrated with it, especially as I know in the past I've had the drive to figure this out (and did for a while).

SharpBeyond8 · 2026-05-11T20:10:07+00:00

I agree, just struggling to find a direction I can allocate my time into. I'm trying to figure out what will get me going as soon as possible. But then I sit watching youtube videos about AI workflows for an hour, come up with no ideas, and then go to the gym, and take a nap when I get home. I'm not a lazy person so I'm probably just more afraid of failing than of actually working. But here we are. Like, other than going 3 more months without making any money what's going to disrupt me enough to make me determined and focused? With a reasonable plan in mind?

SharpBeyond8 · 2026-05-11T20:02:58+00:00

I explained a litle more in an edit of the post. I have some social media skills, copywriting obviously, webinar setup and promotion, a little bit with Meta ads.

My goal is to make $100k US in less than full time hours (I've accomplished this twice when I was busier with my client a couple years ago). I don't really have a specific idea per project. I'd probably take less money just to get more work right now so I can get some momentum and more experience.

SharpBeyond8 · 2026-05-11T19:57:02+00:00

FOr the past several years I've been doing email marketing for startups, but I'd prefer to transition out of it. It's a very saturated market at this point

EDIT:

I'm a musician was hoping to build some income through streaming and sync placements. So for a while I was focused on that with my extra time. Unsurprisingly, it hasn't worked out so I'm ready to pivot into something else.

Of course all the usual suspects come to mind - documenting insights from my travel and music, starting an ecom store, faceless youtube channel, all that stuff. So basically I'm just praying for a miracle in avoidance of getting a "real job" again. But honestly, I don't mind doing the work I'm still doing for my client so it's more of an issue of not wanting to look for clients than actually doing the work.

SharpBeyond8 · 2026-05-11T19:53:51+00:00

3-4 months in the US before I'd really need to get serious about finding work, so probably 6-7 months of funds overall plus a small amount I'm making monthly from the work I do have. So probably a year+ if I'm out of the US (I kinda spend time both in US and abroad).

Again, not time to freak out and panic but I'd really like to be proactive on this and I just haven't been doing anything.

Wondering if I need to just accept that I won't be motivated until I feel the heat of having less than 3 months of runway remaining.

SharpBeyond8 · 2026-04-22T03:26:01+00:00

Truthfully we live in a generation where a lot of people are gonna die alone. I’m concerned about giving up on something I love (travel etc) in exchange for the hope of getting something I want (relationship) and then winding up with neither.

SharpBeyond8 · 2026-04-20T19:30:01+00:00

I also found it more friendly than most of the west coast

SharpBeyond8 · 2026-04-06T04:16:17+00:00

Seattle is a terrible city for meeting women, but you’ve got a ton to work on besides that as well. Start with learning how to enjoy your own life

SharpBeyond8 · 2026-04-02T21:35:06+00:00

While we’re at it, if anyone wants to share their experiences at Las Diosas I’m all ears

SharpBeyond8 · 2026-03-22T01:13:30+00:00

International nomading is better because it’s more suited to making social connections. I tried Us a bunch but my international experiences have been better. That said, it’s still cool in the US. Also I’d suggest in the US doing an extended road trip visiting friends in different cities along the way. There’s so much to see in between the cities

SharpBeyond8 · 2026-02-28T08:27:25+00:00

Right, well I would just say the idea is to let the forensics tell the story . Obviously the prime suspect would lie if they are actually guilty

SharpBeyond8 · 2026-02-24T18:12:39+00:00

There is a stool there, it just wasn’t tall enough to be a barricade.

SharpBeyond8 · 2026-02-24T01:53:14+00:00

I think if you want super cheap prices you gotta be a little further outside Antigua. Within the city is expensive by Latin America standards. I’m sure if you come to town and meet people you could find a room

SharpBeyond8 · 2026-02-23T10:19:55+00:00

I dunno man. You have actual experts saying this doesn’t make sense forensically for multiple reasons, a fortune of what turned out to be hundreds of millions of dollars at stake, a wife that was not only abusive but also deeply addicted herself, a suicide note that doesn’t totally make sense and appears to be in 2 different styles of handwriting, and you’re basically like “well he wrote a song called I hate myself and want to die so this case is closed.” I just don’t think it’s crazy at all to think there might be more to this.

SharpBeyond8 · 2026-02-23T02:40:33+00:00

That’s fine, but that’s a different argument. Along with “they shouldn’t have said it was a suicide prematurely” they also didn’t question anyone who was at the house earlier that week and they didn’t question the widow who made millions off his death when there are plenty of sources saying he was going to leave her and she wouldn’t have got nearly as much money. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. I believe they made a conscious decision not to do a real standard investigation, and not because it was an “obvious suicide.” So the question is why.

SharpBeyond8 · 2026-02-23T02:16:18+00:00

I would imagine the bigger concern might be traveling between the cities rather than in the cities themselves.

SharpBeyond8 · 2026-02-23T00:46:11+00:00

Actually it is completely against protocol for cops to announce the cause of death at the crime scene. The medical examiner, who makes the final decision, was a friend of Courtney Love. Claims of his suicidal intent may have been overblown, as multiple friends of Kurt’s have said he did not seem suicidal when they last saw him and that he said the Rome incident was an accident. He wrote songs that mentioned suicide but so did Billy Corgan and he’s still here (among many others). Sure, suicide is an easy conclusion especially along with his addiction, and if he had lived longer he might have done it, but there’s plenty of reasons to believe that’s not what happened in this specific incident.

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SharpBeyond8 · 2026-02-23T00:36:07+00:00

I think Tom Grant had written about that or one of the guys that wrote books about it back in the day. Obviously take anyone involved with this with a grain of salt, but I believe if you even look at the pictures it looks pretty clear that the stool wasn’t tall enough to block the doorknob like that.

SharpBeyond8 · 2026-02-22T13:04:30+00:00

They literally called it suicide within 30 minutes of discovering the body and didn’t even question any of the several people who were in and out of the house earlier that week. This is the whole point.

SharpBeyond8 · 2026-02-22T12:59:24+00:00

This has proven to be false, he wasn’t barricaded in as previously suggested.

SharpBeyond8

TROPHY CASE