Strands of Genius: 10 Years as Nomads

plus: all the places we haven't been

Mar 28, 2023

WORKING ON | a creative evaluation tool for a CPG brand conglomerate, strategy sprint for an agency

LOOKING AHEAD

April 3-9 | Beersheba Springs, TN
April 9-11 | Dallas, TX
April 11-26 | Beersheba Springs, TN
May 1- June 9 | Seattle, WA

:: WHAT’S NEW & WEEKLY GRATITUDE ::

As I write this newsletter today on Monday, March 27th, 2023, we are celebrating our 10 YEAR NOMADIVERSARY. 3,652 days. 47 countries and countless cities.

Even 10 years in, it still feels kinda crazy, y’all! I woke up this morning to a notification from my computer and then ran back to bed to wake Faris up and tell him. Of all the accomplishments we’ve celebrated, this feels like a big one. Ten years of living out of suitcases, without a home base. Ten years of working for ourselves, from coffee shops and hotels and Airbnbs all over the world. Ten years of really, truly building a life we love.

When we left NYC, we never in a million years thought we’d still be traveling 10 years later. But it was only 8 months into living as nomads that we decided it was a lifestyle rather than a sabbatical.

Over the years people have never stopped asking “When will you settle down?” (Or some version of that question.) It’s always confused us because when you’re at a job you love, no one asks “When are you quitting?” When you’re in a home you love, no one asks “When are you moving?” When you’re with a partner you love, no one asks “When will you find someone else?”

In life, you make the best decisions you can with the information you have at any given time. When/if/as information is updated, you change your mind. We’ve never thought of this as a forever thing. But each year we’ve asked ourselves “What do we want more of? What do we want less of?” and refined our life based on that. Of course, sometimes life throws pandemics at you, or clients that ghost you. It’s beyond your control, but it still changes you.

Each year, our style of nomad’ing has changed, and I’m sure it will continue to evolve to represent our evolving desires. The first couple of years, we were traveling sometimes every week. In the aftermath of the pandemic, we’ve found ourselves spending longer in a city - a month, rather than a week. And yet, we’ve still got the itch to explore. We don’t love airports as much as we used to, but we love arriving in another part of the world and getting to make friends wherever we may be.

Plus, there are really truly so many places we haven’t been. And we’re dying to see what else the world’s got in store for us.

This week, we’re especially thankful for:

daffodils, 75F (22C) and sunny weather in March (!!), chicken enchilada soup, neighbors on the mountain, phone dates, house tours, light shows, trail runners, porch hangs, kindle time, outdoor yoga, long walks, time to decompress & YOU.

:: THE LINKS ::

HOW IT ALL BEGAN

We wrote this piece after living on the road for two years. Remember - it wasn’t until 8 months into our travels that we really thought the nomad thing was there to stay. These early reflections are from January 2015. We call ourselves accidental entrepreneurs because we didn’t intentionally choose this path. We lived in a world of people who lived to work. And while we loved what we did, we fell into a different camp: We worked to live. And more specifically, to fund our wanderlust. This is not, in any way, an attempt to suggest that our path is the future, the present, or even replicable. There were and are so many particulars that make this work for us, as we’ll try to explain.

LIFE LESSONS FROM LIVING NOMADICALLY

Faris has always said that there are some lessons you learn once, and others you have to learn repeatedly. Here are some of the lessons we’ve learned (and re-learned) from living on the road. But even though they’re lessons from the road, they really are just life lessons, applicable to nomads or not.

WHY WE DON’T HAVE AN EXIT STRATEGY

It was three years into our nomad living that we decided on our foundational tenet: Make OUR LIFE our life’s work. We’re strategists at heart — so why wouldn’t we apply the same principles to crafting a life we love? For us, this translates as no exit strategy. We don’t want to delay living a life we love, for a retirement that may or may not be in our future.

The narrative fallacy is very persuasive. It seems to suggest that if you just could do what Steve Jobs did, and act like you think he acted, and maybe wear turtle necks, that you could start a great company too. But that’s bullshit, because you are not Steve Jobs and neither are we. Contexts are specific, your life is unique, and if we were to give you advice, it would be simply to embrace that. Embrace making decisions in a world of perfect uncertainty, because you can only ever make the best decision with what you know, where you are.

Got any questions about nomad living?

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:: THE ADVICE WE KEEP LIVING OUR LIVES BY ::

From Dallas Clayton, a children’s book artist.

:: WHERE WE’VE (HAVEN’T) BEEN TOGETHER ::

One of the most popular questions we’re asked is “how many places have you been?” We calculate it approximately once a year for a talk where someone says “hey it would be great if you could start off and just show people all the places you’ve been.” So we look at the last time someone asked us to include that, and then calculate any new countries, and update the slide.

While we’re fortunate for all of these experiences, it also feels crazy to treat the world like a checklist. We spent a month in Chile, but that’s a country the entire length of a continent. A month barely scratched the surface! I mean, we lived in NYC for 5 years and only scratched the surface!

This beautiful world, it’s a big place. So instead of telling you all the places we’ve been… Here are the 160-ish countries we haven’t been.

PS: Yes, Japan is still top of our ‘want to go’ list. Philippines are also up there. We also really want to visit Iraq, where Faris’ family is from (and where his aunt still lives.) And we could keep going and going. There are so many places we’d love to explore!!

In Europe:

Albania
Armenia
Austria
Azerbaijan
Belarus
Bosnia
Czech Republic
Denmark
Estonia
Finland
Georgia
Guernsey
Hungary
Iceland (Faris has been on his own)
Jersey
Kosovo
Latvia
Liechtenstein
Luxembourg
Malta (Faris has been on his own)
Moldova
Monaco (Faris has been on his own)
Montenegro
North Macedonia
Poland
Russia
San Marino
Serbia
Slovakia (Faris has been on his own)
Switzerland (We’ve both been on our own, but never together)
Ukraine

In North America:

Anguilla
Antigua
Bahamas (Roșie has been on her own)
Barbados
Bermuda
Bonair, Sait Eustachius and Saba
British Virgin Islands
Cayman Islands
Cuba (Faris has been on his own)
Curacao
Dominica
El Salvador
Greenland
Grenada
Guadeloupe
Guatemala
Haiti (Roșie haș been on her own)
Honduras
Jamaica
Martinique
Montserrat
Nicaragua
Panama
Puerto Rico (Rosie has been on her own)
Saint Barthelemy
Saint Kitts and Nevis
Saint Lucia
Saint Martin
Saint Pierre and Miquelon
Saint Vincent and the Grenadines
Saint Maarten
Trinidad and Tobago
US Virgin Islands

In South America:

Colombia (Faris has been on his own)
Ecuador
Falkland Islands
French Guiana
Guyana
Paraguay
South Georgia and South Sandwich Islands
Suriname
Venezuela

In Africa:

Burkina Faso
Burundi
Cameroon
Cape Verde
Central African Republic
Chad
Comoros
Cote d’Ivoire
Democratic Republic of Congo
Djibouti
Egypt (Faris has been on his own)
Equatorial Guinea
Eritrea
eSwatini
Gabon
Gambia
Ghana
Glorioso Islands
Guinea
Guinea-Bissau
Juan De Nova Island
Keyna
Lesotho
Liberia
Libya
Madagascar
Malawi
Mali
Mauritania
Mauritius
Mayotte
Morocco (We’ve been on our own, but never together)
Mozambique
Mamibia
Niger
Nigeria
Republic of Congo
Reunion
Rwanda
Saint Helena
São Tomé and Principe
Senegal
Seychelles
Sierra Leone
Somalia
South Africa (Faris has been on his own)
South Sudan
Sudan
Tanzania
Togo
Tunisia
Uganda

In Asia:

Afghanistan
Bahrain
Bangladesh
Bhutan
British Indian Ocean Territory
Brunei
China
Hong Kong (Faris has been on his own, but so long ago it was still British)
Iran
Iraq
Israel (Faris has been on his own)
Japan
Jordan
Kazakhstan
Kuwait
Kyrgyzstan
Lebanon
Macau
Mongolia
Nepal
North Korea
Oman
Pakistan
Palestine
Philippines
Qatar
Saudi Arabia
South Korea
Syria
Taiwan
Tajikistan
Timor-Leste
Turkmenistan
Uzbekistan

If we can ever be of help to you, even outside of a formal engagement, please don’t hesitate to let us know.

rockON,
faris & rosie & ashley | your friends over at geniussteals.co

@faris is always tweeting
@rosieyakob hangs out on instagram
@ashley also writes for deaf, tattooed & employed

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It's called Genius Steals because we believe ideas are new combinations and that nothing can come from nothing. But copying is lazy. We believe the best way to innovate is to look at the best of that which came before and combine those elements into new solutions.

Co-Founders Faris & Rosie are award-winning strategists and creative directors, writers, consultants and public speakers who have been living on the road/runway since March 2013, working with companies all over the world. Our Director of Operations is nomadic like us, our accounting team is based in Tennessee where our company is registered, our admin extraordinaire is based in Playa del Carmen, and our collaborators are all over the world. Being nomadic allows us to go wherever clients need us to be, and to be inspired by the world in between.

Hit reply and let’s talk about how we might be able to work together :)

Strands of Genius