📩 In Today’s Email

• TL;DR - What if the only permission you need is your own?

• The Deep Dive: The Distance - When you stop bending, you start becoming.

• The Gear: DJI Osmo Mobile 7P - Pocket-sized control for solo creators.

• The Read: Let Them - Half pep talk, half mom monologue. Momolugue?

• The Stream: The Mel Robbins Podcast.

🤿 The Deep Dive

You know someone who’s been “planning” for three years.

Maybe it’s a friend. Maybe it’s you.

She has the savings. She has the remote job, or at least the qualifications and the opportunity. She’s even got the destination on her computer screensaver, and a list of Airbnbs bookmarked in Lisbon, in Bali, in Buenos Aires…

But every time the moment comes, there’s a new reason it’s not the right time. Her best friend’s birthday is coming up. Her parents are getting older. The Slack chat needs her. Her company might promote her. Her boyfriend is “coming around (still).”

She’s waiting for permission that will never come.

This is the thing it took me longer than the average bear to learn about this life. The hardest part isn’t figuring out visas or finding community or learning to work from coffee shops. Those things have a tendency to sort themselves out.

The hardest part is claiming the right to want something different.

To look at a life that’s perfectly fine and say: I need more than fine.

To walk away from people who love you but maybe don’t fully understand you.

To stop waiting for everyone to be ready and just go.

Why? Because everything will never be ready. They say the stars align. But you know what stars actually never do? Align. You have to move yourself into position. You have to shift your vantage point (optically, metaphorically) until alignment appears. You will not meet the love of your life in your pumpkin carriage at the ball of the prince, ok, maybe one of you will, but the majority will meet the love of your life when you are not prepared in line at Starbucks or the grocery store or at some accidental thing where you weren’t paying attention to your hair and your slippers.

When I finally left, I thought the distance would be just geographic. Miles and time zones and flight connections. Bippity boppity bo. Easy.

But the real distance was something else.

It was the gap between the life everyone expected me to live and the one I was actually building. Between staying comfortable and staying honest. Between the version of myself that fit neatly into other people’s plans and the one that didn’t fit anywhere yet.

That distance is much more terrifying than miles and maps. Because once you see it, you can’t unsee it. That distance is one that potentially you will one day never be able to cross back again, no matter how many memes Ryanair employs to convince you otherwise.

You’ll start noticing all the ways you’ve been bending. The plans you’ve been making around other people’s schedules. The dreams you’ve been postponing because they don’t make sense to anyone but you. The person you’ve been performing as because the real version feels too risky to show.

And then one day, you stop bending.

Maybe it’s booking the flight. Maybe it’s ending the relationship that’s been “fine” for two years. Maybe it’s telling your family you’re not coming home for the holidays because you're finally building something that matters to you.

This isn’t easy, and I’m not saying it’s for everybody. You could even argue that the people it is for are hoping one day to become the people it is not for.

Like match dot com slogan, the app that you are supposed to delete. This could be the lifestyle you are supposed to delete.

It doesn’t have to be as dramatic as I’m making it sound. But it has to be honest.

And here’s what happens when you finally cross that distance.

You stop asking permission. You stop explaining yourself to people who were never going to understand anyway. You stop trying to fit your life into a shape that makes everyone else comfortable.

You learn it’s ok to disappoint some people. Not cruelly, but clearly. You learn that “I’m choosing something different” is a complete sentence. You can ignore the “whys”. You get lots of whys. Remember, sometimes whys are gotcha whys.

Just because I feel like it, is a valid response. Many people aren’t necessarily curious; they are looking to disrupt you, which you don’t need unless you want. You aren’t required to answer questions simply because they are asked.

And yes, some people will fall away. The friend who only liked you when you were available for beers, for fun, for you-name-it. The family member who loved you as long as you stayed the same, stayed what was expected of you (“we don’t have to worry about that one…”). The partner who wanted you, just not this version of you.

It hurts. But it also clears space.

For the people who actually see you. For the work that actually fits. For a life that feels like yours instead of the one you inherited.

And it’s a risk, there is no denying it. A risk that must be calculated.

You gotta wait until nobody’s watching, hit the eject button, and hit the ground running. Run toward the person you’re becoming. While nobody’s watching. Right under the search lights. Run toward the work that lights you up. Run toward the places that inspire you and the experiences that make you feel awake instead of acceptable.

So if you’re standing at that distance right now, looking at the gap between where you are and where you want to be, wondering if you’re allowed to want this, wondering if you’re being selfish or foolish or too much:

You’re not too much. You’re just finally becoming enough.

And the only permission you need is your own.

⌚ The Gear - DJI Osmo Mobile 7P

This thing should not work as well as it does.

The DJI Osmo Mobile 7P looks like a gimmick until you actually start using it, and then it becomes a third hand, a built-in dolly, a secret weapon. It’s pocket-sized, folds up beautifully, and turns shaky chaos into silky motion like some kind of witchcraft.

I used it this week to shoot walk-and-talk footage in the rain, B-roll on a moving escalator, and a few locked shots in a café where I didn’t want to look like a full production team. It held its own in all of it.

The magnet clamp is way stronger than I expected. The AI tracking (especially with gestures) is a little creepy, but it’s also what makes solo shooting possible when you’re on the move. And the new vertical + ultra-wide tilt options on the 7P are subtle upgrades that end up unlocking way more creative angles than you’d think.

Battery life is solid, weight is light, and the whole thing makes you feel like you’re getting away with something: professional-looking shots with none of the gear drama.

Best for: mobile creators, solo filmmakers, digital nomads tired of janky tripods

Not for: people who don’t want to be tempted to film everything

Would I take this on a 2-week trip across Japan, Medellín, or Lisbon?

Already packing it.

📢 Newsletter News

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2. Remember, on the A Texas Nomad website (www.atexasnomad.com) you can choose to listen to a spoken word version of the newsletter in my A.I. recreated voice! It sounds enough like me that even I’d confuse it with me!

🌎 Visa Watch

(Curated for nomads, digital operators & remote wanderers)

🇭🇷 Croatia increases stay to 18 months, but raises income & document bars

As of 2025, Croatia’s digital nomad visa now allows up to 18 months instead of 12. However, applicants must now earn €3,295/month, present six months of pay slips or 12 months of bank savings, and leave the country for six months before reapplying. 

🇳🇿 New Zealand loosens visitor visa rules to attract nomads

The New Zealand government announced that from 27 January 2025, tourists working remotely for foreign employers will be permitted under relaxed rules, part of a strategy to attract remote workers as the country opens up for nomad lifestyles. 

🌍 Global trend: Nomad‑visa market growing fast

By late 2025, more than 40 countries are offering remote‑work or digital‑nomad visas, each varying in income requirement, tax status, application route and renewal terms. The key takeaway: mobility opportunity is rising! 

Note: Always verify the official immigration website of your target country before applying—the rules change, and what was valid six months ago may already be outdated.

🤓 The Read - Let Them by Mel Robbins

Every few years, someone writes a self-help book that goes viral because it says something simple that feels ancient and new at the same time.

Mel Robbins’ Let Them is that book right now.

The idea is clean: stop trying to control people.

Stop managing how they see you, what they think, how they act.

Let them be late.

Let them leave.

Let them misunderstand.

You don’t have to chase, fix, or persuade.

It’s good advice.

It’s also… mom advice.

The book reads like a long, well-meaning talk from the mother who’s always right but can’t quite help reminding you of it.

And maybe that’s why it works for so many people—because, for once, someone is giving permission to stop managing everyone else’s emotional weather.

But for me, it’s also why the book doesn’t fully land.

That same mom energy (comforting, earnest, relentlessly instructive, instinctually searching for potholes and pitfalls) can start to feel like the thing you’re trying to escape from.

Robbins’s stories come mostly from her own life, and at times you can feel the echo: this is advice written by someone who needed it herself.

Nothing wrong with that. Most advice is autobiography.

But I kept wanting a little more depth, a little more precision, a look at what actually happens to the psyche when you finally stop trying to control people, instead of just a blanket “let them.”

Still, there’s a reason this book is resonating.

If you’re in a season of detachment… whether that’s ending a relationship, posting your first video, or saying no to a path that’s “perfectly fine”, the book can be a decent companion.

A pep talk for anyone relearning how to disappoint people without guilt.

Read it if you’re struggling to let go.

But when you’re ready to build something new, you’ll probably outgrow it because the real lesson isn’t to “let them.”

It’s to let you.

🦜 Rio’s Corner

🍿 The Stream - The Mel Robbins Podcast 🎙️

Now look: I had a 50/50 takeaway from her book Let Them.

But her podcast? I’m all in.

Mel Robbins is a fantastic interviewer, better than I expected, honestly. Her solo episodes are fine, but it’s the guest interviews that really shine. And because she’s not pulling from the usual podcast guest circuit.

You’ll hear from Mayo Clinic doctors, working psychologists, even researchers I’ve never seen on other shows. The conversations feel more grounded, less hype-driven. And somehow, even when the guests go deep into science, Mel knows how to bring it back to your actual life.

It’s not about being a motivational machine. It’s about emotional clarity.

I’ve learned a lot.

It’s about boundaries, emotional vampires, and the psychology of saying no.

Which… ties perfectly into this week’s Deep Dive.

Listen to it if you’re building yourself back from the inside out.

🛤️ Outtro

Reinvention begins not with where you land, but with what you make.

Every place is a blank page. What you write there? That’s your legacy.

If this newsletter sparked something, pass it on to a friend, a fellow explorer, or anyone rewriting their life.

This community grows through real connection. One story, one share at a time.

If you enjoyed this, share it.

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See you next week. Don’t Escape. Design.