Miranda Miller: The Midlife Nomad

April 17, 2026

Guest: Miranda Miller
Career: Writer, Editor, Marketer
Based: Nomadic
Instagram: @themidlifenomads
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/mirandamillerwrites/
Personal Website: miranda-miller.com
Midlife Nomads Website: Midlifenomads.com
Newsletter: midlifenomads.com/subscribe

Episode Description
Miranda Miller didn't wait for the remote work revolution. She was already there. Since 2006, fighting for $15-an-hour writing contracts as a single mum in small-town Canada, scrapping together work on Elance whilst waitressing and working factory shifts. Then someone offered her $1,000 a day to work conferences. She had two babies. She initially said no. But then she called her mum to arrange childcare.

Australia, London, the US—she caught the travel bug and never looked back. Eighteen years later, she's survived every era of remote work. The pre-COVID grind when nobody understood what she did. The COVID burnout when boundaries dissolved and she took on too much. The recovery when she had to intentionally reset, kill projects that weren't working, and choose what actually mattered.

Now she runs Midlife Nomads, a community helping 40-plus professionals make the leap to location independence. Not the backpacker hustle. Not the 30-year-old grind. A different pace. Different priorities. Comfort over adventure. Sustainability over exponential growth. Three years of building slowly, choosing the right people over fast expansion.

This is a masterclass in reframing. When you stop seeing failures as losses and start treating them as experiments, eighteen years of trial and error becomes eighteen years of compounding wisdom. She's killed beloved projects, turned down opportunities, bought fifty domains she'll never use, and learnt that the real skill isn't saying yes to everything—it's knowing which opportunities to pursue before you run yourself ragged.

Timestamps
00:00-00:37 Introduction
00:37-01:48 Guest introduction
01:48-02:12 Been remote since 2008, part-time then full-time nomad
02:12-03:10 Travel durations and recovery time
03:10-04:08 Midlife Nomads origin and purpose
04:08-05:57 Different pace and priorities for 40-plus travellers
05:57-07:15 Starting as single mum, $15/hour struggles
07:15-08:15 Elance platform and women writers' network
08:15-09:12 $1,000/day conference work pivot
09:12-09:25 Catching the travel bug
09:25-10:23 Factory work, hospitality, finding what she's good at
10:23-11:33 Internet as levelling the playing field
11:33-13:33 COVID impact: doors slamming shut, burnout, boundary issues
13:33-15:02 Selling time vs expertise theory
15:02-16:39 Packaging services and productising expertise
16:39-18:49 Contract mindset and reframing
18:49-19:27 Anxiety about proving productivity whilst nomading
19:27-20:12 Reframing mindset from corporate to outcomes-focused
20:12-21:22 Seeing others model the lifestyle, monthly check-ins
21:22-21:58 Becoming a beginner again, permission to suck
21:58-23:48 Building sustainably vs get-rich-quick
23:48-24:44 Three years building Midlife Nomads slowly
24:44-26:04 Daily routine and grounding practices
26:04-27:01 Energy management and seasons
27:01-28:18 Self-imposed pressure and recovering from perfectionism
28:18-29:35 Too many ideas problem, Writer's Den vs Midlife Nomads
29:35-29:58 Reframing failures as experiments, knowing which opportunities to pursue

About This Podcast
Real conversations with successful digital nomads who've built sustainable location-independent income. Strategic insights on how they transitioned, what income streams they built, and what they wish they'd known earlier. No travel tips or lifestyle fluff.

Host
Ibi Malik helps ambitious professionals transition to nomadic careers without income sacrifice.

To watch the video follow this link: https://youtu.be/Ishui5vvCbE

Follow for weekly episodes featuring professionals who've successfully built nomadic income streams.

Episode length: ~30 minutes
Published: 17th April 2026
Episode #11

Guest Reflection
The Midlife Nomad Who Helps Others Rewrite Their Rules

I sat down with Miranda Miller looking forward to hearing about Midlife Nomads, her passion project helping 40-plus professionals transition to location independence. What I got was so much more: 18 years of hard-won wisdom from someone who's been doing this since the term barely existed.

Miranda has been doing this since 2006, when 'digital nomad' wasn't even a proper term yet. She's navigated every era of remote work, survived lockdowns that slammed doors shut whilst others' opened, and built Midlife Nomads over three years of slow, steady work. She's a master at reframing, turning hourly rates into value packages, burnout into boundary resets, failed projects into experiments. She's faced every challenge, made every mistake, and come out the other side with kids in tow.

The advice she shares isn't theory. It's battle-tested wisdom from 18 years on the road: how to manage day-to-day life when your mind spins with project ideas, why giving yourself permission to suck at new things matters, and how the cage you're in is probably one you built yourself.

The $1,000 Turning Point

Miranda became a mum at 24. By 28, she was a single mother in small-town Canada trying to get $15-an-hour writing contracts, fighting for business against people who didn't think they needed to pay writers.

She found Elance, the original Upwork, in 2006. Built a profile over a few years. By 2008, she was doing decent freelance work but still working multiple jobs. Through Elance, she met other women writers and they formed their own private forum, taking on bigger projects together.

Then one of those women came to her with an offer.

"I need you to take on a client for me. It's working at conferences."

Miranda's response was immediate. "Absolutely not, I can't, I have two babies."

The woman paused. "Well, they'll pay you 1,000 USD a day."

I laughed when Miranda told me this. Money changes things.

She called her mum, arranged childcare for four days a month, and took the job. Australia. London. Conferences across the US. Representing an SEO company whilst taking university courses and getting into e-commerce.

"I caught the travel bug big time at that point. And I thought, I can't go back to not doing this."

At those conferences, she met people who saw what she was doing and wanted to work with her. The university courses gave her frameworks. The travel gave her perspective. It all compounded.

When COVID Slammed the Door Shut

For most people, COVID opened doors. Remote work suddenly became acceptable. Companies scrambled to figure out how to operate distributed teams. Digital nomadism went mainstream.

For Miranda, it was the opposite.

"COVID was actually like a lot of doors slamming shut."

She was in Ontario, Canada, which had strict lockdowns. Snitch lines. Only one person per family allowed at the grocery store. As a writer and introvert, working from home was fine. Not being able to travel anywhere? That got tough.

But she also saw an opportunity. Small businesses were struggling, needing to pivot everything online overnight. So she helped them, taking on project after project.

"There were a lot of us in marketing who felt like we needed to help people, especially businesses."

The problem? Her boundaries completely dissolved.

"Without travel, there's not that much else to do. So I'll just keep taking on more and more work."

By 2022-23, she hit total burnout. Had to stop. The world was opening up again, and she needed to reset intentionally.

"It was like an intentional resetting of the boundaries. We need to slow down a bit and get back to having a real life."

Time vs Expertise

I have a theory about selling time for money. You can max out around €3,500 to €7,000 a month depending on rates. After that, unless you hire people, you're stuck. The shift has to be from time to expertise.

Miranda's response? "I think it makes a lot of sense."

She sees this constantly at Midlife Nomads. People leaving stable careers with hourly rates, wanting to bring that same model into remote work. It doesn't translate.

"They're going to compare you against the cost of what an employee would be. If you're saying you can have me for X amount of dollars per hour, that's what they're looking at."

The reframe?

"If you tell them I can save your business $40,000 this year by doing X, Y, Z, then it becomes a completely different conversation."

She has one client she's worked with for 14 years. Package-based. Monthly deliverables. They've been acquired three times, and she's grown with them each time.

"They don't really even care how long it takes. They just need to know that the research is being done properly, it's being optimised properly, it's fact checked."

When life happens, she brings in freelancers to help deliver. The client doesn't care. They're not paying for her time. They're paying for outcomes.

"It's a much different conversation than if it were just freelancing as a pseudo employee."

This shift from time-based to outcome-based work sounds simple. But it triggers something deeper in people making the transition.

Trust Anxiety and Proving Value

Some nomads come to me with what I call trust anxiety. They're terrified about proving to clients that they're actually working. It's the shadow side of outcome-based work, especially for people coming from traditional employment.

Miranda gets it. "I think that just totally makes sense for people coming out of a productivity mindset where you need to punch the card. You need to prove your value. You need to be a butt in a seat."

But here's what she learned over 18 years: "They don't actually care. They want to see the end product, the outcome at the end of the month, the thing that's going to make the difference for them. Anything else is really just creating noise and paperwork."

Early on, she tried everything to prove her value. Monthly newsletters showing she was keeping up with industry trends. Regular check-ins. Updates.

"Nobody really cared. They're like, that's really cool that you're doing that. But it wasn't something anyone missed when I stopped doing it."

She was trying to prove her value, but it wasn't adding value to the relationship. The distinction matters.

"Just understanding and taking the time to check in to see why you're doing what you're doing, and is it actually producing an outcome, is super important."

Permission to Suck

One thing Miranda emphasises: you're going to become a beginner again.

"You might be an expert in what you've done, whether it's accounting or teaching or whatever you've done for 25, 30 years. And it's really, really hard to then become a rookie in the online business space."

You might be brilliant at your core skill, but you've never had your own website. Never done social media marketing. Never built a service offering from scratch.

"Giving yourself permission to suck is really important and is also really, really difficult."

The internet gives things fast. Online shopping. Dopamine hits from social media. People assume building something online is equally fast.

It's not.

"If you want to build something sustainable, it takes time."

Miranda knows this intimately. Midlife Nomads has been three years in the making.

"It's not expanding or exponentially growing overnight, but it's slow and steady and the right people are involved, and that is something that has staying power."

She's learned to spot the difference between sustainable building and what she calls burn-and-churn industries. Early in her career, she wrote copy for internet marketers, tapping into people's fears.

"It's effective. Absolutely. But I realised I really don't like that. I actually want to build community and things that matter."

Those things take time. You can't fake them.

Energy Management and Bad Days

Miranda's day-to-day looks different every day, but there's structure. Journaling. Podcast episodes. Grounding routines that travel with her.

But she's also learned something crucial: "Giving myself permission to have a bad day once in a while."

Her work is structured so no single day's lack of productivity will cost her a client. She's learnt to manage energy, not just time.

"I talk a lot about energy management because I've found over the last ten years how vitally important it is to recognise your energy highs and lows."

Some months she's wildly creative, writing books, producing content. Other times? Admin. Social promotion. Different seasons for different work.

"If you sit down at a blank page every morning and try to force something that's not happening, you're going to be miserable."

Sleep quality is her indicator. When things keep her up at night, she sits down with a grid and asks: where am I spending my time? What could I put off for a few months?

"So much of it I was putting on myself. It was internal pressure. Just getting okay with saying no to yourself once in a while was big."

The Cage You Built Yourself

Here's something I've noticed about nomads and solopreneurs: they can say yes to everything. The world is your oyster. Every opportunity is available.

That freedom becomes its own prison.

Miranda laughs about having bought countless domain names over the years. Every time she has an idea, she buys the domain. When she started Midlife Nomads, she also started The Writer's Den, another community and blog.

She tried both for a while, then made a choice. Killed The Writer's Den.

Twenty-year-old Miranda would have seen that as failure. Current Miranda?

"It was an experiment. I tried it and I stuck with the one that felt better and that was more successful."

"Reframing that as not a failure, not a loss, it was an opportunity."

With a remote career, you meet inspiring people constantly. Ideas multiply. Opportunities appear everywhere.

"You have to know which opportunities to pursue or you'll run yourself ragged."

The cage nomads build isn't from lack of options. It's from having too many and not knowing when to say no, even to yourself.

18 Years In

Miranda's been doing this since 2006, navigating every shift in remote work whilst raising kids and building a location-independent career. She's burnt out and reset boundaries, experimented and killed projects, and built Midlife Nomads to help others make the same transition.

The wisdom she offers isn't from a course or a guru. It's from nearly two decades of trial and error, reframing failures into experiments, turning hourly work into value-based packages, and learning that the hardest person to give yourself permission to disappoint is yourself.

She's proof that this life can be for anyone who wants it, at any stage, with kids in tow, if you're willing to become a beginner again and give yourself permission to suck whilst you figure it out.

And maybe that's the real lesson: 18 years in, she's still experimenting.

Digital nomads and location-independent professionals featured on Ibi's Digital Nomad Stories podcast share insights into building sustainable remote careers. Listen to all episodes: www.ibimalik.com/podcasts/ibis-digital-nomad-stories

Episode Transcript

00:00:00:01 - 00:00:37:12
Ibi
Hello and welcome to IV's Digital Nomad Stories, featuring real conversations with professionals who have cracked the code to sustainable, nomadic lifestyles. These people aren't beach and Wi-Fi chasers. They're building competitive advantages that traditional employment could never match. Global mobility, income diversification, and the freedom to capitalize on opportunities anywhere. I'm Abby Malik, your favorite digital nomad consultant. And today I'm joined on the show by Miranda miller, someone who's been doing this Nomad stuff before it even had a name.

00:00:37:12 - 00:01:07:13
Ibi
She started freelance writing in 2006, scrapping for $15 an hour contract as a single mom in a small town, Canada. And then someone offered her $1,000 a day to work conferences. She said no, she had two babies. But then she thought about it again and called her mum to arrange childcare. Australia, London, the US. She caught the travel bug, started traveling and never looked back.

00:01:07:15 - 00:01:43:18
Ibi
18 years later, she survived every era of remote work, from burnt out during Covid when everybody else was celebrating the remote revolution from killing projects that weren't working, and to building midlife nomads, a community that helps 40 plus professionals make the leap to location independence, all with her kids in tow the entire time. This is a masterclass in reframing when you stop seeing failures as losses and start treating them as experiments, 18 years of trial and error becomes 18 years of compounding wisdom.

00:01:43:20 - 00:01:48:05
Ibi
Here's Miranda. How long have you been a digital nomad?

00:01:48:07 - 00:02:01:04
Miranda
Wow. Well, I mean, I was a part time digital nomad for a lot of it. So I would say over the last five years, I've been more seriously Digital nomad. But I've been working remote since about 2008.

00:02:01:06 - 00:02:03:09
Ibi
2008.

00:02:03:11 - 00:02:04:10
Ibi
That's a long time.

00:02:04:10 - 00:02:12:16
Ibi
And wait for the last five years you were full time and before that you were part time. So what did the part time look like? What does that mean for you?

00:02:12:18 - 00:02:29:21
Miranda
Well, that means traveling up to three weeks because as you know, I have a husband and children as well. So a lot of travel to work. Yeah. And and wanting to be home for them as much as I could. And so the more full time is now I can travel, you know, 1 to 3 months at a time.

00:02:29:21 - 00:02:32:06
Miranda
So that opens up a lot more possibilities.

00:02:32:07 - 00:02:34:23
Ibi
Well, it's about a one month or three months.

00:02:35:00 - 00:02:44:22
Miranda
It depends. I mean, like one month and one house is great and then maybe three months in a region. So like if I'm going to take the time to go to Asia, I want to go for three months.

00:02:45:00 - 00:02:52:18
Ibi
It's far right. Like, I don't know, even even for me, like a one month trip in Europe sounds a lot.

00:02:52:20 - 00:02:53:05
Miranda

00:02:53:06 - 00:02:57:16
Ibi
And so Asia even thinks for one month right.

00:02:57:18 - 00:03:09:21
Miranda
Well and you know I do the midlife nomads thing. So our needs are a little bit different. My recovery time is a little bit longer after I spend, you know 16 hours on a plane. So we really want to make sure that it's worth it.

00:03:09:22 - 00:03:12:14
Ibi
Talk us through midlife nomads. What's that?

00:03:12:16 - 00:03:37:00
Miranda
Midlife nomads started as my passion project. Just realizing that people my age. So I'm 45, people in their 40s, 50s and beyond, are wanting to travel in a way that is different from expats and also very different from vacationing. So a lot of us are working. You know, maybe we're not that fun to hang out with because we can't just take off at two in the afternoon and we need to have good Wi-Fi.

00:03:37:00 - 00:04:08:15
Miranda
We have to stay connected. But it's I've had a lot of fun exploring what the possibilities are for us so we can slow travel. We can work as digital nomads in these different places. We don't necessarily want to stay in hostels. I do love a good hostel that has like a private room with your own bathroom. That can be great, but we're looking for a little bit of a level up, I think from like the backpacker experience, a lot of us.

00:04:08:17 - 00:04:32:02

So it kind of brings a few things to mind, right? There's like there's the backpacker experience of the hostels and the this and of that. Then there's like the 30 year old professional nomad. Right. Which is a bit different. You could argue I'm in that category and then you've got the midlife nomad. So how does a midlife nomad compare to this 30 year old professional chap?

00:04:32:04 - 00:04:58:06
Miranda
You know, it's funny, I would say I've met some 30 year olds traveling who are more like a midlife nomad. They're like an old soul and they like the slow travel. And I've met some 40 and 50 year olds who still want to do the fast paced, like, let's go to ten cities in two months. But in general, I just noticed traveling with groups like Hacker Paradise that we had a mix of people, and there was just a bit of a different pace for the older group.

00:04:58:08 - 00:05:04:16
Miranda
Yeah, it was just something I noticed and I thought, okay, that's interesting. Let's dig into that a little bit more.

00:05:04:18 - 00:05:21:14

Is it so it's pace the the do you find like the money side is also different. Like how much they are willing to spend. Or maybe it's the stability of having funds. Does that play a part in it?

00:05:21:14 - 00:05:44:00
Miranda
I think it can. There are some even 20 year olds who have built wildly successful businesses and have a lot of money. So I don't know if it's the money that we're bringing in, but I think middle aged folks tend to have different priorities and spend it in different ways. So we're looking for sometimes comfort more than adventure and making sure that we have the kitchen stuff that we need to have.

00:05:44:01 - 00:05:55:06
Miranda
You know, when you're moving from place to place, you still want a bit of stability. And I think just by virtue of age and experience, we tend to know a little bit more about what that is. Does that make sense?

00:05:55:07 - 00:05:57:12

It makes absolute sense.

00:05:57:14 - 00:06:07:07

All right. So if it's been since 2008, you said that means that you were one of the 20 somethings when you started.

00:06:07:12 - 00:06:08:07
Miranda
I was.

00:06:08:08 - 00:06:09:15

So ago.

00:06:09:17 - 00:06:38:23
Miranda
Right. Well, a little bit of a different start, I think, than a lot of people had because I had my first son at 24. I was married very early. By the time I had two children. I was separated very shortly after. So, you know, 2008, I was a 26 year, 28 year old single mother. And how I actually got started was trying to get writing contracts as a small town Canada writer was very difficult.

00:06:38:23 - 00:06:56:00
Miranda
So I'm trying to get contracts that are like $15 an hour and still fighting for this business with people being like, I can write, I don't need to pay a writer, you know? So I found this platform called Elance, which was that is the OG Upwork. So this is where that all started.

00:06:56:00 - 00:06:58:08

Oh my God. And that was like history.

00:06:58:13 - 00:07:15:19
Miranda
It was actually earlier, I'm going to say 2006. I started on Elance, but it took a few years to build up a profile. And I was doing, you know, a pretty good business there by 2008. And just like, wow, you know, people online will pay me to do what I actually really like doing. Now, it wasn't enough of it.

00:07:15:19 - 00:07:28:21
Miranda
So I was still working at a library. I was still occasionally waitressing, stuff like that. But I met some women through the Elance platform, and we started our own private forum, just a group of women writers from all.

00:07:28:21 - 00:07:34:00

Over America. Yeah, they were other service providers on.

00:07:34:01 - 00:07:53:14
Miranda
Yes. So sometimes we met on group projects like we would. If you want to take on a bigger contract, you have to subcontract to some other writers. And so we would meet through projects or maybe the same company had hired both of us. So we were put in a working situation together, and we just kind of realized, okay, there's a lot of power in us networking together.

00:07:53:17 - 00:07:56:18

Well, yeah, I mean, this like similar souls, right? Yeah, absolutely.

00:07:56:18 - 00:08:15:17
Miranda
And we could take on bigger projects. We could act more as an agency than just individual freelancers, which gives you a little bit more power. Sure. And one of these women in 2008 said, I need you to take on a client for me. I can't serve this client anymore. And I said, cool, what is it? And she said, well, it's working at conferences.

00:08:15:17 - 00:08:24:02
Miranda
And I said, absolutely not, I can't, I have two babies. You know, my my kids are very young. Well, they'll pay you 1,000 USD a day.

00:08:24:04 - 00:08:25:18

And I changes a lot of things.

00:08:25:19 - 00:08:26:00
Miranda
It.

00:08:26:00 - 00:08:28:06

Did to the audience. We can let you know that changes.

00:08:28:06 - 00:08:29:06

Many things.

00:08:29:08 - 00:09:00:21
Miranda
It does. And so I called my mother and said, mom, I need you to come stay for four days a month so I can work these conferences. And that that was like, honestly. So I opening I was sent to Australia all over the US, London, UK, representing this SEO company at conferences. At the same time I was taking some university courses, I got into e-commerce, realized I really loved this world, and at those conferences I met other people who were like, hey, you kind of know what you're doing, you know, let's do some projects together.

00:09:00:23 - 00:09:09:09
Miranda
So that that was just like transformational. And I think I caught the travel bug big time at that point. And I thought, I can't go back to not doing this.

00:09:09:11 - 00:09:10:10

Why would you.

00:09:10:11 - 00:09:12:21
Miranda
It just grew from there.

00:09:12:23 - 00:09:25:16

Super interesting. Super interesting. What's the the why behind all of this? Was it just was it purely coincidental or was there some kind of underlying feeling driving the situation?

00:09:25:18 - 00:09:42:05
Miranda
Wow. These are deep questions. You know, I feel like I struggled to find things I was good at that I enjoyed doing. And so I just kept coming back to writing. And as I learned new things, you know, I worked in a factory. At one point I worked in hospitality.

00:09:42:06 - 00:09:43:00

A factory.

00:09:43:00 - 00:09:46:07
Miranda
I did. I worked on an automotive assembly line.

00:09:46:09 - 00:09:48:10

Doing actual automotive assembly.

00:09:48:11 - 00:09:55:08
Miranda
Yes. Yeah. Putting parts together the car parts. It was for a company called Tenneco. And they made shocks.

00:09:55:10 - 00:09:56:00

Wow.

00:09:56:06 - 00:10:05:20
Miranda
Yeah. And so just, you know, learning all of these different things and like, how does this all come together? Well, there are clients out there who will pay you to write about those things.

00:10:05:20 - 00:10:06:09

So of.

00:10:06:09 - 00:10:09:23
Miranda
Course, you know, it just came together from there.

00:10:10:00 - 00:10:18:15

I have a theory that the internet is the biggest opportunity that our generation was handed, and maybe we're from different generations, but what do you feel about that?

00:10:18:16 - 00:10:40:20
Miranda
I think it was a massive leveling of the playing field. So there were so many of us who didn't have opportunities, you know, unless I was going to move to a big city, I was never going to work for a large publication. But I was doing that. Suddenly in 2010, long before Covid, people were interested in using freelancers and consultants in that.

00:10:40:20 - 00:10:44:07
Miranda
And so that opened a lot of doors.

00:10:44:09 - 00:10:54:22

Definitely, definitely. Okay, so one thing is the.

00:10:55:00 - 00:11:18:18

The Covid period really changed things for a lot of people, the Covid. So I'll talk about myself. For example, pre-COVID I was a nomad, but Covid opened the door to everything. For me. It was like before that I was still a nomad, but I was kind of challenging the status quo. And then after Covid, I was like, oh my God, I'm in my element.

00:11:18:18 - 00:11:33:14

This is this is exactly what I needed for the world. And then on the flip side, there's a lot of people that like Covid hit. And then they were like, oh, I've just fallen into this. This is possible. But you were doing that from ages before. How did Covid affect you?

00:11:33:16 - 00:11:50:15
Miranda
Covid was actually like a lot of doors slamming shut all of a sudden because I was in Ontario, Canada when this happened and they had very strict lockdowns to the point that like at one point, they started a snitch line. The government wanted you to tell on people if there were too many people at the neighbor's house and stuff.

00:11:50:15 - 00:12:10:08
Miranda
So it was very, you know, only one person in the family could go to the grocery store. As far as the, you know, being a writer and an introvert, I was in my glory. I was like, I'm totally fine staying home and working, but did start to get pretty stir crazy not being able to travel anywhere. That definitely got tough.

00:12:10:08 - 00:12:20:18
Miranda
So in 2021, as soon as Mexico opened up and if you had the right vaccinations, you were able to get on an airplane. I was out of there to go to Mexico for.

00:12:20:18 - 00:12:23:03

A bit. Makes sense. Yeah. Makes sense.

00:12:23:07 - 00:12:27:21

What about like professional opportunities? Did they increase after that period.

00:12:27:23 - 00:12:50:09
Miranda
When Covid first hit? There were a lot of us in marketing who felt like we needed to help people, especially businesses. Like I was so busy helping businesses, small businesses that maybe needed to pivot their entire, you know, product or service line. They had to do everything differently. And that was really difficult for them to change everything on their website and suddenly have an online ordering platform.

00:12:50:09 - 00:13:14:09
Miranda
And so there was all kinds of that work. But I also realized in about 20, 22, 23 that I was just taking on way too much because my boundaries had completely dissolved. And so you do have to have really strong boundaries when you work from home or when you're a digital nomad and you work from wherever. And I just felt during Covid, like without travel, there's not that much else to do.

00:13:14:09 - 00:13:33:17
Miranda
So I'll just keep taking on more and more work and got to a point where that was just total burnout and had to stop. It was like an intentional resetting of the boundaries, like, okay, you know, the world's opening up again. We need to slow down a bit and get back to having a real life.

00:13:33:19 - 00:14:03:04

Let's talk about work. Let's talk about taking on work. So I have a theory that you sell time for money up until a point where you've maxed out your time, and then you start selling experience or expertise for money. And that is where it can really expand. But a lot of us still end up spending, spending a lot of time selling time for money, myself included.

00:14:03:08 - 00:14:26:18

I think, you know, a lot of nomads, especially sell time for money. What is my theory is that they can sell time for money up to a maximum of €7,000. That's my theory. I think 3500 is pretty solid. Like that's if you're maxed out on a low rate, you can be earning 3500 euros comfortably on a higher rate.

00:14:26:18 - 00:14:39:20

You're on 7000. And after that, it's unless you're on super high day rates or super high hourly. After that, you need people working for you and that kind of stuff. What do you think about my theory?

00:14:40:01 - 00:15:02:19
Miranda
I think it makes a lot of sense. I think you do get to a point where if you are that busy and you want your income to grow, you don't have more hours. You have to figure out how to package things, even if it's a service that you're providing. There's always a way that you can package this. And I talk a lot about this at Midlife Nomads, because we have a lot of people who are leaving a career where they've had a stable income, they've had an hourly rate.

00:15:02:19 - 00:15:04:08
Miranda
That's the only model they know.

00:15:04:08 - 00:15:06:00

And so when comfortable.

00:15:06:01 - 00:15:30:13
Miranda
Yes. And so when they want to transition into remote work, they want to take that mindset with them. But it doesn't always translate to success. So just saying I can do this for you at $45 an hour, if they haven't calculated all of their travel expenses and software costs and insurance and the pension no one's providing for you anymore, you know you're going to quickly realize that that isn't enough, first of all.

00:15:30:13 - 00:15:41:02
Miranda
So getting your pricing right, but then also the way that we try to sell things to people, they're going to compare you against the cost of what an employee would be to provide that same thing, right?

00:15:41:03 - 00:15:41:15

Sure.

00:15:41:16 - 00:15:54:23
Miranda
If you're saying you can have me for X amount of dollars per hour, yeah, that's what they're looking at. If you tell them I can save your business $40,000 this year by doing x, y, z, then it becomes a completely different conversation.

00:15:55:00 - 00:15:59:12

You've reframed the entire yes scenario.

00:15:59:14 - 00:16:12:22
Miranda
Yes. So and if you can package that up in a way and say, I will provide this for you every month and get yourself on long term contracts, that's where you start to get really stable. Nomad life.

00:16:13:00 - 00:16:14:09

Interesting.

00:16:14:09 - 00:16:25:01
Miranda
So I have one client that I've had for 14 years and it is a package based. I provide this to you every month and they've been acquired three times. It's kept growing.

00:16:25:02 - 00:16:26:09

But and you grow with.

00:16:26:09 - 00:16:30:01
Miranda
It and I grow with it. And I can always count on that being there for me.

00:16:30:02 - 00:16:31:14

How does it.

00:16:31:16 - 00:16:40:13

How does it work? Like what's the contract kind of structure like do you have fixed deliverables that you deliver once per month or like just walk us.

00:16:40:13 - 00:16:41:01

Through it.

00:16:41:03 - 00:17:01:16
Miranda
Once per month? And I can assure them that, you know, this amount of due diligence is going into that. So they don't really even care how long it takes. They just need to know that the research is being done properly. It's being optimized properly, it's fact checked. It's copy checked. So there's a process that I've lined out and said, I will make sure this happens consistently every month.

00:17:01:17 - 00:17:03:06
Miranda
Sorry, I'm tapping the table again.

00:17:03:11 - 00:17:05:12

Right. You're getting into your float.

00:17:05:14 - 00:17:29:08
Miranda
And and so they're reassured that that's going to happen. And they just want those deliverables on time every time that they can put to work for them. And I can guarantee that that will happen. So over the years, sometimes that is meant taking on freelancers to help me when I've had things going on in my life, as we all do, because yay, sandwich generation, you know, parents and children.

00:17:29:10 - 00:17:46:14
Miranda
But they don't care. Like, I don't have to explain that to them every time because it's deliverable based. They're not paying for my time. It it it's a much different conversation than if it were just freelancing as a pseudo employee.

00:17:46:16 - 00:17:52:12

What about.

00:17:52:14 - 00:18:03:22

Some people have come to me with when I'd call trust anxiety as a nomad, and that is.

00:18:04:00 - 00:18:10:07

They're trying to be nomads, but they're really trying to demonstrate to their clients that they can do.

00:18:10:07 - 00:18:11:06

It, you know, that.

00:18:11:06 - 00:18:35:17

They're actually working and, you know, they something like a once per month contract or something that would scare them, maybe because it's like, oh, how do we show that we're making all of this output? And at first I kind of passed it off. I actually remember saying to someone, you don't work at little like little as a supermarket in the.

00:18:35:17 - 00:18:37:02

You can't, you know, you don't need.

00:18:37:02 - 00:18:38:02

To like stamp your.

00:18:38:02 - 00:18:41:11

Card, right, right, right. But then I started.

00:18:41:11 - 00:18:49:13

Realizing this is the actual thing. People are like super anxious about showing that they're actually working while they're Nomad. What do you think about that?

00:18:49:13 - 00:19:09:22
Miranda
I think that just totally makes sense for people coming out of a productivity mindset where, like you said, you need to punch the card, you need to prove your value. You need to be a but in a seat. And so there's a lot of internal work that needs to happen to break free of that mindset and realize they don't actually care, like they want to see the end product.

00:19:10:00 - 00:19:24:06
Miranda
You know, the outcome at the end of the month, the thing that's going to make the difference for them and anything else is really just creating noise and paperwork that it doesn't really serve you and it doesn't really serve them either. So why why would you do that?

00:19:24:07 - 00:19:27:15

How can it sounds like you're very good at reframing.

00:19:27:15 - 00:19:30:06

Things, right? I try it's a theme.

00:19:30:06 - 00:19:49:18

Coming across here. Like we've talked about contracts and reframing contracts. Now we're effectively talking about reframing a mindset. How does someone who stuck in that original mindset, you know, like not midlife nomad, but midlife corporate employee who wants to be midlife nomad? How do they get from A to B?

00:19:50:00 - 00:20:12:17
Miranda
I think there's several pieces to it. One is you need to see people modeling the thing that you want to be. So seeking out groups where you can see that this actually works. There's no hocus pocus. It's not like a get get quick rich thing overnight. You actually have to make changes and see that this is possible and people are doing it and they're not exceptional people.

00:20:12:17 - 00:20:37:08
Miranda
This is something that is open to any kind of person to to make these shifts that make you more valuable as a resource and not just a productivity machine. Right. And then I think one thing that has helped me a lot is journaling more and doing monthly check ins. So are the things that I'm doing actually working? Is it creating more work for me?

00:20:37:08 - 00:20:55:00
Miranda
Is it driving more satisfaction in my clients or, you know, and I've experimented with a lot of things over the years. Should I do a monthly newsletter and check in with them and like, show them that I know what's going on in the industry? Nobody really cared. So yeah, among clients, they're like, that's really cool that you're doing that.

00:20:55:00 - 00:21:22:00
Miranda
But it wasn't something anyone missed when I stopped doing it. So I thought, okay, that's probably just making me feel better. You know, I'm trying to prove my value to them, but it's not adding value in our relationship in a way that makes it worth the time it's taking. And so just understanding and taking the time to check in to see why you're doing what you're doing and is it actually producing an outcome is super important.

00:21:22:00 - 00:21:43:00
Miranda
And then I think also getting okay with becoming a beginner again, because you might be an expert in what you've done, whether it's accounting or teaching or whatever you've done for 25, 30 years. And it's really, really hard to then become a rookie, you know, in the online business space where you're like, I might be an expert in that, but I've never had my own website.

00:21:43:00 - 00:21:58:12
Miranda
I've never done social media. Now I have to do all these things that are brand new to me. And so giving yourself permission to suck is really important. And it's also really, really difficult.

00:21:58:14 - 00:22:05:19

Yeah, I really I really feel that I feel like.

00:22:05:21 - 00:22:15:06

I feel like it's such a paradoxical thing that the internet can give you things so fast, right?

00:22:15:07 - 00:22:16:00

Like online.

00:22:16:00 - 00:22:18:13

Shopping, the dopamine hit from social.

00:22:18:13 - 00:22:20:00

Media can all come so.

00:22:20:00 - 00:22:39:03

Fast, right? But honestly, building something properly on the internet is not a fast process. And I think it's because humans perceive everything on the internet as faster, that they think that you can get rich quick.

00:22:39:06 - 00:22:39:15

You know.

00:22:39:16 - 00:22:51:19

You can just like put your shit out there and you'll just suddenly get a whole load of clients flowing in through the door because it's the gold mine. But realistically speaking, I mean, it's a it's a hard graft.

00:22:51:21 - 00:23:17:16
Miranda
Yeah. If you want to build something sustainable, it does. It takes time. And early in my career, I worked for a lot of internet marketers that, you know, I did a lot of copywriting, the sort of really tapping into people's fears. And, and I realized I really don't like that, you know, it's effective. Absolutely. And there's a lot of burn and churn kind of industries that, you know, like there's a lot in health and wellness and dating.

00:23:17:16 - 00:23:36:00
Miranda
And I realize I don't want to do those things. I actually want to build community and things that matter. And so those things do take time. You can't fake that. It does. It takes it takes a long time to build. So midlife nomads I've been working on for about three years, and I'm happy with the state that it's in.

00:23:36:00 - 00:23:48:07
Miranda
It's not, you know, expansion or exponentially growing overnight, but it's slow and steady and the right people are involved, and that is something that has staying power.

00:23:48:09 - 00:23:49:18

It's very inspiring.

00:23:49:21 - 00:23:50:15
Miranda
Thank you.

00:23:50:20 - 00:23:52:21

Very inspiring.

00:23:52:23 - 00:23:57:19

Maybe one day I'll be able to do something like that with Digital nomad stories, and.

00:23:57:21 - 00:24:03:18
Miranda
One day you will hit midlife. It'd be it's going to happen. It's inevitable. Damn it.

00:24:03:19 - 00:24:07:11

Test it. Elon Musk want to have a live serum by then?

00:24:07:16 - 00:24:12:11
Miranda
He might. He might. That just means we can all live forever.

00:24:12:13 - 00:24:16:12

That's too much effort, to be honest.

00:24:16:14 - 00:24:44:12

Okay, let's talk about, like, day to day, right? So I think at least from this conversation, obviously we've been speaking more in the last weeks, but I'm getting a good idea of like your your frameworks for things and the reasons that you're doing the stuff that you're doing. But what about day to day? What does your day to day life look like?

00:24:44:14 - 00:24:52:10

As someone who's been traveling for 20 years, for five years with a passion project and an actual job and this and all of that, what does it look like?

00:24:52:12 - 00:25:12:07
Miranda
You know, it looks a little different every day, but there has to be structure. And so there are some things that I take with me, like journaling and listening to my calm app, Jay Shetty episodes in the morning and just, you know, wherever I am doing these, these few things that make me kind of grounded and, and wherever I am, this is still who I am.

00:25:12:08 - 00:25:33:02
Miranda
You know, that's important. But also then having the the freedom and giving myself permission to have a bad day once in a while to structure my work so that I don't have any deadlines where if I just didn't, you know, I had nothing in me for that day that I'm not going to lose a client over it, you know, making sure that my work is set up in that way.

00:25:33:02 - 00:25:58:06
Miranda
And then also, I talk a lot about energy management because I've found over the last ten years how vitally important it is to recognize your energy high and lows. We have them, you know, different times of the month, different times of the year, especially living in Nordic countries, you know, and so I go through phases where I might be super productive for a month and really creative and create a lot of stuff.

00:25:58:07 - 00:26:21:00
Miranda
You know, I've written a few books and that's when you get into that mode. But if that's not happening, you also have to honor that and go, okay, I need to set this aside for a bit and work on my admin, work on my social promotion. You know, I feel like there's a season for everything, but if you sit down at a blank page every morning and try to force something that's not happening, you're going to be miserable.

00:26:21:00 - 00:26:32:17
Miranda
So just respecting that you're going to have these different seasons and making sure you're not overpromising so that you can give yourself time to have those different stages.

00:26:32:18 - 00:26:41:08

I have a question. It might be a bit of a therapy kind of question, but what?

00:26:41:10 - 00:26:46:00

What does that look like in.

00:26:46:02 - 00:26:59:18

Do you notice in your body a change or in your mind a change? Or do you notice something that lets you know, okay, this is the wrong time for this. I should be doing this instead.

00:26:59:19 - 00:27:23:11
Miranda
Yes. Yeah. So sleep quality if things are keeping me up at night, if I'm too stressed out about, you know, deadlines and things that I need to get done, that's when I want to sit down and go. What are my priorities right now? Am I loading things on that don't need to be a priority right now? So actually sit down and like make a tick tac toe kind of grid and go, where am I spending my time?

00:27:23:11 - 00:27:43:20
Miranda
And is there anything that I could put off for a few months? And sometimes it's, you know, just self pressure, you know, I said I was going to write this book. I haven't got it done yet. Okay, fine. So stop fighting with it every morning. Just like put it off for two months. No one else even cares. And that was just realizing that so much of it I was putting on myself.

00:27:43:21 - 00:27:54:21
Miranda
It wasn't external pressure and and just getting okay with saying no to yourself once in a while was big.

00:27:54:23 - 00:28:15:06

Yeah. Especially oftentimes our cage is the one we create for ourselves and especially nomads. So I think a lot of nomads are entrepreneurs, rather solopreneurs. And the thing with the solopreneur entrepreneurial mindset is that you.

00:28:15:08 - 00:28:18:00

You can you can do everything and anything.

00:28:18:00 - 00:28:18:11
Miranda
Yes.

00:28:18:12 - 00:28:20:18

Oh, so you can't say yes to everything.

00:28:20:19 - 00:28:21:14
Miranda
And that's hard.

00:28:21:15 - 00:28:22:16

Well, does you always do.

00:28:22:17 - 00:28:46:13
Miranda
Yeah. Yeah. Sometimes I, I have too many ideas. You know, we've talked about squatting on domains and having 50. Every time I have an idea I buy the domain for it. So I've got 50 of them sitting there. But sometimes I've had to make choices. Like, I started a few things around the time I started Midlife Nomads. I started another one called The Writer's Den, and so I wanted that to be a community and a blog as well.

00:28:46:15 - 00:29:09:22
Miranda
And so I tried both for a little while and went, which one actually feels better? And just giving yourself permission to try and then kill one of your darlings if it's not working for you is big. Whereas I think probably 20 year old me, 30 year old me would have seen that as a failure. It was no, it was an experiment, you know, I tried it and I stuck with the one that felt better and that was more successful.

00:29:09:22 - 00:29:35:01
Miranda
And so I feel good about that, you know, so reframing that as not a failure, not a loss. It was it was an opportunity. And I went with this one is big because you're going to have so many opportunities. If if you have a remote career, you're meeting all these inspiring people all over the world, you have to know which opportunities to pursue or you'll run yourself ragged.

00:29:35:03 - 00:29:41:07

True that. And it's funny because that's also what a lot of other people have said. Dave said that.

00:29:41:09 - 00:29:43:00
Miranda
Dave Smart, we should listen to Dave.

00:29:43:00 - 00:29:45:02

We should smart. He's an actual professor.

00:29:45:03 - 00:29:47:07
Miranda
I know.

00:29:47:09 - 00:29:51:05

We're actually at time, but it was absolutely a pleasure.

00:29:51:06 - 00:29:53:18
Miranda
Thank you. Thank you for having me on. This was so fun.

00:29:53:19 - 00:29:56:12

It was it was absolutely. And as I said, you're very inspiring.

00:29:56:12 - 00:29:58:02
Miranda
Well thank you. You are too.