Nomads feel lonely not because they travel.

..Or why I am building Nomad Nexus.

Have you ever heard one of those?

“You feel lonely because you travel so much.”

“What are you running away from?”

“You’re blurred from constantly changing scenery.”

Last one is the most difficult one. Because it’s not wrong.

I first encountered the sudden, painful realization of deep emptiness sitting in the hot, glazing sun (that didn’t feel as hot as it used to) in a cozy cafe terrace overlooking rice fields and turquoise water.

“Where the fuck am I.”

That wasn’t a question, it was a statement. I didn’t know where I was, who I was and whereto my path was leading. And that was the moment I realized, that I’m lost. No purpose. No goals. No appreciation. No belonging. No satisfaction. Nothing. I burned out.

(by the way, you can watch “my story” in pictures here)

Dennis (my mentor), 16 years older, sat right next to me sipping on his americano and biting into this huge, bleeding burger, looking unbothered, while my inner world collapsed.

I needed a few minutes to understand what exactly I was feeling. I lost myself in spirals of questions - “Should I go home? Is this type of life really for me? Should I go back to college?”

Should I, could I, would I. Fear is what I felt. Afraid of stopping something supposedly good, afraid of continuing something without a sense behind it. And then immediately, afraid of being afraid: How did I end up here? I was doing so well, just… yesterday, I believe?

My enthusiasm lacked purpose and meaning, my relationships were short, my travel was fast. Indeed, it kinda did feel like running away. Away from myself.

Funny enough, myself was the exact goal I always had in mind. Me. I wanted to love myself, give to myself, appreciate me and be on the throne, on the peak of the selfishness pyramid.

"Needs are endless”, Dennis said.

He always prayed about giving, charity, helping, providing, leaving something after death and I thought I understood, I thought I always listened closely. But I never lived it. The pyramid was a closed, eventually ending structure, being on the peak of it literally meant there is no more to go. There is no more to see. You’ve done it, congratulations. Now you love yourself, you’re super confident, have money to travel and conquer the world, but there is nothing to conquer anymore. Where’s your confidence now?

I needed a purpose. Something, I could pursue, a deeper meaning or a goal to live for, whether fictional or not. I bought a coaching (laughed at myself three times about it, never thought I would invest money into mindset) and heard the most important sentence in my whole live so far:

“How do you interpret Growing Above Yourself?” and it clicked.

I always thought that’s an inner process, a self-development thing, but now, paying money for this zoom and actually thinking about it I started seeing light. In the end, I paid for it, would be good to see some impact, right?

Above YOUrself is literally above you. It’s not about me anymore.

What I always hated most certainly is being useless. I feel miserable waking up wasted after a senseless night, miserable talking to boring people, miserable not doing something productive.

After this phase I started slowing down. Slowing down and being more mindful of my actions helped me channel my energy and focus on more valuable things. Projects or work that had a purpose sustained longer, made more money and were more fun. Going to less parties and “madmonkey” hostels made less friends for the night, but reflected in more friends for years. In people who understood.

Understood what?

That “What are you running away from?” was never a “nomad thing”. Nomads feel lonely, doesn’t matter if they travel fast or slow, because their travels resulted in their mindset growth and now nobody understands them.

Whether it’s a cafe on the Portuguese Coast full of young german tourist girls, Canggu full of way too overpacked backpackers or your small little home-town with friends and family in northern Europe, they all have one thing in common - they are conventional.

I’m not saying we took the right path, I’m also not saying there is a “correct” mindset. It’s your own. Your path, your vertical, your axis you are growing in, define the visual part yourself, but this path is nothing like conventional. Entrepreneurs made 7.4% of the whole population in 2023. Full-time travelling entrepreneurs represent approximately 0.37% of this world.

No wonder that feels lonely.

Nomad Nexus will solve that. That’s my goal. I want YOU to feel like you belong.

I want to inspire teenagers, Gen Z, kids, young entrepreneurs and just ambitious self-employed or aspiring-to-become people to connect, build a community, exchange knowledge and information, because I truly believe that knowledge creates equality, no one owns truth, and the only way to give human beings the opportunity of living a multi-facetted human being live is by empowering them to do cool stuff they like with a community and knowledge.

Join me, let’s build an empire together.

Share with your friends if you liked it, and thanks for reading this 875 words. Appreciate your time.