09/10/2025
💭 Is This Really It?
You’ve done everything right.
A nice house. A steady income. A family.
From the outside, your life looks great.
But sometimes… when it’s quiet for a moment…
you hear that small voice whisper:
“Is this really it?”
So familiar.
We felt the same way.
Muriel worked in social care for years.
Always there for others.
Always giving, giving, giving.
Until one day—there was nothing left to give.
A burnout.
She sat at home, empty, exhausted.
“I spent my whole life helping others,” she said,
“but somewhere along the way, I forgot myself.”
And me?
I was running a restaurant with thirty employees.
Always full, always busy, always smiling for the customers.
But inside, I was running on fumes.
We earned well…
but we weren’t living.
Every night we came home drained.
The kids were already asleep.
Weekends were spent catching up—laundry, errands, bills.
Life became one endless loop of work, sleep, repeat.
Sometimes I’d stare out the window,
watching the city lights fade,
and wonder, when does it end?
But I remembered that feeling from somewhere.
From before the house, the kids, the responsibilities.
Back when we were free.
Years earlier, we’d packed our backpacks and spent over a year traveling the world.
Nepal. Australia. Southeast Asia. South America.
We had almost no money—
but we felt rich.
Every day brought a new sunrise,
a new country,
a new adventure.
No schedules. No stress.
Just life, as it was meant to be lived.
I remember saying to Muriel back then:
“I never want to lose this feeling.”
But life happens.
You grow up.
You take on responsibilities.
You chase “security.”
And slowly, that feeling of freedom fades away.
Until one day, you wake up
and realize you’ve built your own cage—
only this one has a mortgage and a pension plan.
Then came the breaking point.
One wrong business decision.
And everything collapsed.
💥 Three hundred thousand in debt.
💥 Panic.
💥 Shame.
💥 Fear.
I can still see myself sitting at the kitchen table that night,
the rain hitting the window,
and whispering,
“I give everything… but for what?”
I looked at Muriel and said quietly,
“There has to be another way. Something that actually works. Something that gives us our life back.”
She sighed.
“And what would that be?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “But I’m going to find it.”
That night I opened my laptop.
I started searching.
Story after story of people doing things differently.
People working online.
Not tied to an office, a boss, or a city.
People who had found a way to make a living—
and still have a life.
At first, I didn’t believe it.
It sounded too good to be true.
But somewhere deep inside, that old travel spirit woke up again.
That craving for freedom, space, and possibility.
What if this was real?
I messaged a family I’d found online who had been traveling full-time for years.
To my surprise, they replied the next day.
“It’s not magic,” they wrote.
“It’s learning, failing, getting back up—but it works.”
And in that moment, something clicked.
If they can do it, so can we.
I started learning.
Late at night, after the restaurant closed.
Marketing. Funnels. Email. Content.
I had no idea what I was doing,
but for the first time in years, I felt alive again.
The first online income came in—small, but real.
A few months later, Muriel was able to quit her job.
Her entire salary—replaced.
One less thing to worry about 😉
We both felt it.
This was the way forward.
In 2017, after selling my last restaurant and
becoming debt free for the first time in 12 years,
we took a trip to Costa Rica.
Just a vacation… or so we thought.
One evening, we sat on a veranda overlooking the jungle and the ocean.
Muriel turned to me and said,
“Do you feel that?”
I nodded.
“Peace. Real peace.”
We looked at each other and said the same words at the same time:
“Let’s do it.”
A year later, we sold everything and left the Netherlands.
No Plan B.
No safety net.
Just trust.
We bought a piece of land near the beach and started over.
No stress.
No traffic.
No endless meetings.
We work a few hours a day now—
and the rest of the time, we live.
We have time for each other.
For our kids.
For life itself.
And the best part?
We’ve now helped hundreds of people
around the world to do the same.
Ordinary people.
Parents. Nurses. Teachers. Entrepreneurs.
All realizing that the biggest risk
is staying stuck where you are.
Sometimes we still sit on that same veranda,
watching the sun melt into the ocean.
And we say to each other,
“Can you imagine if we never had the courage to do this?”
Then we smile,
because we know:
this is what life is supposed to feel like.
And maybe you feel it too.
That quiet voice saying,
“There has to be more than this.”
Listen to it.
Because if there’s ever been a time to take control of your future—
it’s now.
The world is changing fast.
Jobs are uncertain.
Politics are messy.
But freedom?
That’s still yours to claim.
👉 Watch our free course, “Nomad By Design.”
We’ll show you exactly how we built an online income that gives us the freedom to live on our own terms—
and how you can do the same.
🎥 https://www.dirkandmuriel.live/nomadbydesign
From sunny Costa Rica,
Dirk & Muriel
