Great Resignation Career Transition. Come back to my old tech career? Reached a Nomad F.I.R.E. Life? Or career transition to a digital nomad?
A trip to Canoa Quebrada and a marketing course
During my last short travel to Canoa Quebrada 2023 June, a great friend of mine told me about his career transition in the past, and I identified a few common points with him.
We stop doing something we’ve done all the entire life, and it is difficult to believe that we can do something else new, or to continue in the old comfort zone…
I’ve also started a digital marketing course at Udemy that made me realize that my personal marketing is fragmented because it seems that I am going to different (even conflicting) directions in my career.
More about this issue explained in “Career transition to a digital nomad?” below in this same post.
Retirement or Great Resignation?
Since 2019 February, I receive retirement from the Brazilian government, as I obtained the needed requirements, according to Brazilian law.
This happened because I started to contribute at a very early age (14 years old), and completed the needed 35-year period at 49 years old.
This is very soon when compared to the Brazilian average retirement age.
Even receiving this retirement income, I kept my job at that time.
In 2021 August, I resigned from my last job, and in addition, I’ve started to receive income from my former company’s private retirement fund.
Despite I am officially retired, when analyzing my past, I noticed that I was actually part of the Great Resignation movement…
The main reason I resigned was that I wanted to do something different after more than 30 years working with Information Technology, and was a bit tired of this.
Today as a Nomad F.I.R.E. life?
The first thing I did after I retired (or made part of the Great Resignation movement) was to solve many pending issues in my life, travel to some places, and search for new opportunities.
After this trip, my original plan when I retired was to spend part-time in some places as a hub to travel around every year.
My choices according to this goal – and the weather in each place – were:
- January to March in Panama – and from there to the USA, Latin America, and Caribbean Island;
- April to June in Lisbon – and from there to the rest of Europe;
The rest of the year in my country, Brazil, in two locations:
- July to September in Fortaleza – and from there to Brazilian North and Northeast cities;
- October to December in São Paulo – and from there to Brazilian South and Southeast cities.
Things didn’t work out exactly this way, as I explain below.
Great Resignation Career Transition -Identified Problems
Inflation
After analyzing my expenses during the last 2 years, I reached the conclusion that these original plans need to be adjusted, as I couldn’t decide yet what kind of work to choose.
Many things increased since my retirement, I can quote a few of them:
- airfare tickets prices;
- healthcare cost;
- real estate prices;
- food prices, etc.
Weather changes
Weather was one of the main criteria for me when choosing my destinations in each quarter.
It seems however that global warming is having effects on the climate all over the world.
Absurdly hot temperatures in summer, bringing more episodes of fires, unusual torrential rains, even hurricanes, in some places.
It seems to me that the weather is relatively good in Fortaleza, when compared to some places I traveled.
Remote work and gentrification
Since the pandemics, the way people work definitely changed.
Corporations want the employees to return to the office, with people wanting to remain working from home (or remotely traveling).
People working remotely and relocating to some cities, caused a rise in the real estate prices, to buy or to rent.
The number of digital nomads grew up.
In some countries, like Mexico or Portugal, we saw the gentrification of some cities, local people with trouble living in their own city, due to rent prices inflation.
Airfare tickets prices
It’s incredible how airfare ticket prices have gone up.
Even in a simple flight like “Ponte Aérea” (São Paulo-Rio de Janeiro connection flight), I never imagined making reservations with months in advance.
In addition to this, the company I added more miles, changed the hub they had in Fortaleza, making the flights longer, with many connections.
Digital Nomad lifestyle cons
The part of the digital nomad life that people admire is the perpetual traveling lifestyle.
But traveling is not just about visiting beautiful places.
If you travel repeatedly (and in my case with a fixed home in Fortaleza), we have all time lost in airports, a broken routine in many daily tasks (like diet or sports), all pending issues to be solved when returning home, etc.
All of these issues take time, and decrease our productivity, and I have to review if this lifestyle is what I really want.
Europe changes
I planned to use Lisbon as my European base, but real estate prices (buy and rent) have increased considerably there.
Besides that, we have the weather changes all over the continent, and since 2021 February, a war in Ukraine.
My question is, do I still want to spend time in Europe nowadays?
Private life
As it involves my private life, I will not write about it, but some few conditions in it changed since the Great Resignation time, in the last 2 years favoring my residence in my fixed base in Fortaleza.
Career transition to a digital nomad?
As I mentioned before, to support a sustainable Nomad F.I.R.E. life, sufficient income is needed, from passive, or active work sources.
As in my opinion, it is still risky to depend upon just my passive income nowadays.
In addition, I guess that I am too new to just retire.
So I tried to investigate some new fields, according to what I like to do, and I searched for some options, after narrowing the options:
- write – as a blogger, maybe as a translator in the future;
- tech – I refused some offers during the last 2 years;
- photo – wow, I’ve been approved to be a Getty photographer;
- design – I created another site with my drawings, and even tried NFTs – non-fungible tokens.
Open AI has launched ChatGPT in 2022 November, and this can cause some effect (positive or negative) in all the fields I mentioned above.
In this search, I noticed things that I could like or not, and things that don’t provide such money – not mentioned here.
When investigating all of these opportunities, I realized there are 3 different people inside me:
- the old one, that desire to continue in the old profession (comfort zone) – as a friend of mine told me in Canoa Quebrada, the same profession as a consultant was the easiest path to change – but I am uncertain if I want to remain in the same profession after more than 30 years;
- the real one, that just doesn’t want to work anymore (just a dreamer);
- the new one, that would like to be a digital nomad (because this one is not a dreamer, and knows that more income is needed), but doesn’t know exactly how to proceed.
I noticed that these 3 people in one are causing a lack of focus, and passing conflicting messages on social networks like LinkedIn, where I have connections of these 3 worlds (the old, the real, the new).
This is the root cause, identified by me, that caused lack of focus in my activities.
The main problem I have to solve, and choose a career path.
Great Resignation Career Transition – Conclusion
Based on all aspects I’ve mentioned above:
- inflation;
- weather changes;
- remote work and gentrification;
- airfare tickets prices;
- digital nomad lifestyle cons;
- Europe changes;
- private life
I decided to change my plans, and live in Fortaleza (remotely working from here), and make short trips to the same destinations I planned before, instead of living a 3-month period in each one.
I don’t consider this as a failure, I am just adjusting my life according to new life situations.
What is remarkable is that I have a lot of love, friendship, and health in my life nowadays, and this is the real wealth, that I am thankful every day.
Let’s see what happens next!
