Can I travel for a year with carry-on luggage only?

I’m leaving Melbourne and planning to travel for the next year with carry-on luggage only. Is it crazy? What do you think? Is it possible? 🤯🧳

I’m been staying in an airbnb this last month with a large suitcase of stuff, and I realised I basically only use a percentage of the contents.

I’m thinking if I’m careful and smart with my packing I can travel perpetually with half my stuff. I’ll need to make a few hard decisions, but on the road it’s not the end of the world if I’m missing some conveniences.

The challenge is that I need everything to fit in a bag that I can put in the airplane overhead compartment and weighs under 10kg (and ideally 7kg!).

The weight part might be tricky, but I think I can aim for the size part and then see if I can still get on the plane.

I need your advice. Do you think it’s possible to travel long-term with carry-on only? What are some tips or ideas to make it better? Is this a crazy idea? 🛫🏝️😄

Please share with me on Linkedin.

Thank you all for your support

Thank you everyone for your tremendous support and encouragement. 🙏🙏🙏 It was wonderful to receive your many kind words and messages from my announcement yesterday about quitting my job and starting Terrific. I really appreciate it!

Thank you to all those who sent me personal messages and to those who commented on the post. Special thank you Danielle Thompson, Neha Jha, Simon Fuller, Dana Sayer, Jay D’Aprile, Eva Baluchova, Enrico Lugnan, Dali Chabaane, Stanislas Berteloot, Aristides Ruiz Velazco, Tanuj Dhawan, David Braun, Ilona MATEUS, Hanna Savarin, Toby Culshaw, Ines Baricevic, Hamilton Le, Carlos Morales Rozo, Nailya Zehnalkova, Joseph Sim, Sandy Kong and Mahbub Hassan. ❤️

Wishing you all the very best and look forward to continuing to share my journey and stay connected in the future.

I quit my job and it’s been scary

Before quitting I worried a lot and couldn’t bring myself to do it. I was afraid of lots of things, but especially letting people down.

I was also afraid of leaving a safe and rewarding job for the wild west of entrepreneurship and self employment.

I was (and still am) afraid I would fail.

But I was also afraid, and perhaps a stronger fear, that I was missing out on an opportunity for myself. A chance to learn more and build something of my own.

And so one day I just did it. I met with my manager and told him I’m leaving (without even really knowing where I was going to go or what I was going to do).

After a few months of exploring, learning, and reflecting, I’m very happy to announce that today I’m launching a new consulting agency.

Our mission is to help businesses improve their sales and marketing automation using the latest digital platforms.

The company is called ‘Terrific’ and you can visit us at https://terrific.digital. ✨✨

Thank you to everyone on LinkedIn for your support so far. It’s just the beginning but I couldn’t have done it without everyone.

For those who have also recently quit their jobs I’d love to also hear your stories. What happened? How do you feel now? Please share on LinkedIn.

Your most important apps

What are your most important apps? ❤️📲

How do you organise your phone? You and I spend hours (maybe days) each year looking at our phone and opening apps. A good system will save you time and make you happier!

I’ve got about 100 apps on my phone and most of them I don’t use that often (but enough to keep them for now).

So my tactic is that I try and have everything on one screen and majority just a click away!

The less popular apps I organise into groups and do search when needed. I have them in very vague groups: Admin, Finance, Life, Work, Travel, Learn, Social.

Then I have space for the top 17 apps which I basically use everyday (or every other day). Here’s the list!

📍 Google Maps
📅 Google Calendar
🔑 Authenticator
🎵 Spotify
💖 Instagram
👨‍💼 Slack
📚 Audible
👨‍🎓 Udemy
💌 Gmail
📬 Spark
🤝 LinkedIn
😴 Pillow
🏃 Activity
🎧 BeFocused
📹 Quik
💪 Seven
🤔 Podcasts
🔍 Safari
🐘 Evernote
👋 Whatsapp
💬 Messages

What about you? What are your top apps? How do you like to organise your phone? By groups or folders? Alphabetically? By colour? Randomly? Please share on Linkedin and let me know! What’s your most important app?

Being authentic online

This morning I met a friend for coffee. He has an architecture firm and is considering how best to spend his limited time on marketing. We concluded that the key to an effective marketing strategy, no matter what the size, is AUTHENTICITY. ❤

There are thousands of things you can do to market your business. Whatever it is you start with, it’s crucial that you remain authentic to yourself and your brand.

Personally, I’ve found it difficult to be authentic online. I keep thinking that I need to change who I am or curate my life or something.

I am afraid to share my thoughts.

I continue to be concerned about how they might be interpreted by others. Will people think i’m stupid or boring?

However, as I keep recording myself and I keep sharing I’m receiving some great feedback and support from those around me.

It’s incredibly encouraging and it empowers me to continue to push myself, to share more and be more authentic, in the same way I encourage brands and businesses I work with.

What do you think about being authentic online? Do you have any fears? Is authenticity online a good thing or it’s being overdone?

Would love to hear your thoughts and opinions! Please share with me on LinkedIn.

Sleep tracking

Sleep is so critical to my day. 😴😴😴

If I have a good night’s sleep then I can start the day firing. But if I go to bed too late then I’m half useless in the morning. What about you?

I find I sleep best at 11pm and then I can wake up refreshed. I use an app called Pillow to track my sleep patterns. It automatically starts tracking from when my head hits the pillow, until I wake.

The app helps me check how much REM and fee sleep I get. It also suggests best time to sleep each night based on my data.

What about you? Do you consider sleep important? Do you track your sleep? Share with me on LinkedIn.

Email inbox management

I used to be drowning in emails. Everyday I would carry the weight of 3,000+ unread emails in my subconscious, wondering if I was ever going to get to them (and secretly knowing I never would). 😭😭😭

One day I decided enough was enough and I did the number one hack to organising my inbox. I selected all the emails, 2 months old or more, and I archived all of them – wiped them from my inbox and from my mind!

🙂All of a sudden I was left with just a few hundred emails that were unread.

😈Then I did a search for “unsubscribe” and came upon most of my newsletters and other marketing emails. Then newsletter-by-newsletter I unsubscribed from 99% (I wasn’t reading them anyway) and then archived those that were already in my inbox.

🤬If a newsletter or marketing email wasn’t easy to unsubscribe then I’d hit REPORT SPAM! Time to clean-up the world, one spamming email at a time.

🤓Following that, I setup filters in Gmail to organise incoming emails based on rules, so they skipped my inbox whenever possible.

😇And each day as new emails, newsletters, marketing came in, I’d unsubscribe, archive or setup another filter.

Now I live with a clean inbox that is emptied almost every day and lives in the blissful state of Zero. 💆‍♂️💆

What do you do to manage your inbox? Do you attempt Inbox Zero or do you prefer to let your inbox grow and flow? Share with me on LinkedIn.

Cognitive enhancement

Have you tried brain enhancers or XCT oil? Are you popping vitamin pills in the everlasting attempt to gain an edge over others (or even over yourself)? ☕💊🤯

I’ve been drinking XCT oil with my coffee for last few months (on and off) and I really notice the positive effect. It’s made from coconut oil, and is healthy source of fat for heightened brain function.

🤯Helps with concentration and ability to focus!
⚡Rapidly absorbs in the body and changes into ketones to give long-lasting energy
🍕It staves off my hunger so I can concentrate (easier with an empty stomach)
☕Easy to drink in my coffee (and actually adds a flavour I like)

There are more concentrated varieties also available, but for me, XCT really hits the perfect place between cost and value.
1. Bulletproof Brain Octane
2. Bulletproof XCT Oil
3. Nature’s Way MCT Oil

In additional to MCT oil I also take a few vitamins each day to help my body and mind be their best.
💊1. Bulletproof Brain Softgels for digestion & cognition
💊2. Bioceuticals UltraBiotics for better stomach
💊3. Fusion Health Men’s Balance for vibrancy

What do you think about vitamins or supplements? Share with me on Linkedin.

Staying healthy, the easy way

Staying healthy is critical to ensure your body and mind operate at their best. What do you to be at your best? 🏋🏋️‍♀️

Here’s my schedule, which is simple but sustainable, so I can keep it up (and not blow it off after just a few days)!

🤸‍♂️7-minute workout (every morning)
🧘‍♂️Meditation (every other morning)
🚴Cycling (whenever it’s too far to walk)
🚶Walking (every other evening)

And I track everything using the Workout app and the Activity app on my Apple Watch and iPhone.

The overall goal isn’t to lose weight or get ripped (diet is best for this), but instead to maintain my body’s health, activate my brain, and ensure I’m not slouched over a laptop all day and become a blob.

What about you? How do you keep a healthy body and healthy mind? Do you do exercise? Do you meditate? Any other tips you can share? Share with me on Linkedin.

Setting new years resolutions

Over the last few days I’ve been reflecting on the process of setting new years resolutions. I was thinking, is there any point?! We all know they’re going to be ignored in a couple of days. 🤷‍♀️🤷‍♂️

So I found a model outlined by Tim Ferriss called PYR = Past Year Review. It involves reviewing the last year and outlining activities, people and commitments. Then optimising the coming year to increase the positive and decrease the negative.

⬆️😊 & ⬇️😤

It took me about 2 hours to go through my year and I already feel I have more direction for the coming year. Give it a go as well!

1️⃣ Using a notepad, create 2 columns: POSITIVE and NEGATIVE
2️⃣ Review your last year using your calendar (or I found it easier to use my photo album)
3️⃣ Jot down the ‘People’ or ‘Activities’ or ‘Commitments’ that triggered peak positive or negative emotions for that month in appropriate columns
4️⃣ Once you’ve finished the year, review and ask yourself, “What 20% of each column produced the most reliable or powerful peaks?”
5️⃣ Take the ‘positive’ leaders and schedule more of them for the coming year. Then take the ’negative’ leaders and create a ’Not-to-do’ List and leave it somewhere visible to remind you.

Do you set new years resolutions? Share with me on LinkedIn.