Plenty of people have wisely told me that my lifestyle is a form of dissociation. In truth, my ‘lifestyle’ has taught me invaluable lessons about life and business. Lessons that continuously guide me toward deeper fulfilment and greater impact. Lessons, four to be precise, which I’ll share with you today.
These ‘people’ suggesting I dissociate were family members, coaches, therapists, and even friends. These people were also people who have never travelled the way I do, built a business like mine, or fully expressed their inner joy and desires through their lifestyle like I now do. They’ve never walked a day of their lives in my shoes.
My ‘lifestyle’ is that of what you might call a digital nomad. On the surface, at least. And it is true that I travel perpetually and have my kitchen equipment stored in, forgotten about, and likely scrambled all over my mom’s basement.
But a nomad? Without a base? I’m not that. Conversely, travelling has allowed me to re-establish my very heart as an inner haven of trust, connection, and love. And aren’t these the true descriptors of ‘home’?
Let’s see. I’ve so far defined people, lifestyle, and what else? Oh, of course, my business. That one is independent of location and serves soul-driven founders through professional coaching. My business is my ultimate teacher, and the beholder of the life and business lessons I’m about to share with you.
Expat goes rogue
First, though, let me backup. See, I haven’t always been a location-independent business owner. In a previous career, I was a German expat living in Los Angeles. There, I was a professional fundraiser and event producer in the classical performing arts.
In that career, I was very much schmoozing the rich folk of Los Angeles in hopes of eliciting a check from their expensive purses before guiding them out the door of venues I wouldn’t have had access to without another donor’s membership to said club.
Beautiful life. Office from 8 to 6, concerts from 8 to 10, donor dinners until midnight.
The result? I felt chained not only to a desk but chained to other people’s idea of success. I was doing what I thought would grant me a successful career. I found I was exceedingly successful at it, as well.
Except, I hated every minute of it: living my dream of working and living in Los Angeles was turning into a nightmare. I longed to work from the beach, travel, meet fellow vagabond souls, and have an actual impact on my community with the work I was doing.
I started waking up early to journal, contemplating the big questions of life:
· What does success look like for me?
· Am I allowed to be successful and happy? At the same time?
· If money wasn’t an issue, what would I do? Where would I be?
· What do I want out of life?
It felt slightly scandalous to me to be sitting in the Café outside the office, pondering these questions. Businessmen and women were rushing in to grab their on-the-go coffee. ‘Gawd, I’d hate to grow up to live their life,’ I thought.
Eventually, 5 years ago, these ponderings led to the submission of my resignation letter and the booking of a one-way ticket to Vietnam.
Change is underway
One thing led to another, and I can now safely share that both training programs and life have trained me to become a professional coach who’s making a living helping people (re)-define success and forge a life in defiance of business suits and dresses.
5 years, over 20 countries’ stamps in my passport, 1 business, and 1 love story later, I’m here to tell the story and share 4 lessons I’ve learned from re-defining success and taking my life and career on the road.
Lesson 1: Joy is a business strategy
Born in Germany, I became an expat at age 19 and learned that while you might try to run and hide from your past, the emotional baggage you’ve collected will travel with you. Past trauma claims quite a bit of space in your energetic suitcase.
No matter where you go, you’ll take yourself with you. Ultimately, you must recognize that you can either build from a place of wounding or a place of healing. This is true, by the way, both for relationships and for businesses.
As you engage a therapist or coach to help you move from pain into loving and from hurt into forgiveness, there’ll come a crossing on your path when you get to choose joy. At that crossing, joy can become a loving and attentive guide in your business, if you let it.
Ask yourself: What brings me the most joy, and how can I make room for that in my business? When do I feel most joyful in my business? Which business partners do I approach with the most joy?
If you allow joy to become a business strategy, you’ll create a business that aligns with your values, purpose, and mission.
Lesson 2: Your needs will change…and can (must) determine your next move in business
Plenty of online business owners start their business out of a need to make money. Totally valid need and goal. It’s important to recognize that once that need is met, new needs might bubble to the surface.
Think of Marslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. It teaches us that once ‘lower’ needs, such as shelter and nourishment, are met, new needs naturally arise. Make room for arising needs in your business.
Different needs will likely require different structures and even strategies in your business. A money need might dictate the number of clients you take on or your fees. Meanwhile, a freedom need might dictate the next course you create and how you market that.
You have permission to create and re-create exactly the type of business structure that handsomely supports your needs, today.
Lesson 3: Minimalism encourages greater service
You can be location-independent and live a cluttered life with 5 bed sheets and 40 tea cups. However, you can’t be an online business owner, a digital nomad, and have that excess of stuff. Airlines won’t allow it. Minimalism is the natural result. And there’s a beautiful lesson here for life and business.
Much like I’ve had to decide which pair of trousers will get me the most bang for my b…space, I’ve begun to guide my clients into simplifying their strategies and actions toward what would get them the most impact for their time.
In my world, impact equals income. The question I ask is: “If your level of service in the world would directly determine your level of income, how much should you have in the bank now? And which actions can you take to increase your service?”
Which simple act of service might have the greatest impact on your bottom line? Why write a complicated sales page when a dedicated webinar can serve much more deeply? Why send long-winded emails when a simple link to a video can serve more powerfully? Have a look at your business and see if you can reorient it towards simplified service.
To amplify your impact, you’ll want to diminish the amount of excess tasks.
Lesson 4: Success is yours to define, over and over again
When looking outside ourselves for a definition of success, we can quickly land ourselves on a path that’s inauthentic to our values and sacrificial to our needs.
Quickly after conjuring the courage to admit to myself my dreams of freedom and travel, I realised that all traditional definitions of success were, at best, incomplete. Most definitions are either focused on career milestones or financial income. Both aren’t bad goals. At the same time, neither are complete, holistic definitions of success either.
It’s YOUR mighty privilege to define what success is, tastes, feels, and looks like to you. I was once told that success is a metaphor for how we live our lives. If success for you is to create one big adventure, your life will become the manifestation of that metaphor. As with any metaphor, your definition of success, too, can change, evolve, integrate more of your joy, needs, and dreams, or lose aspects of it.
You’re the architect of your own, unapologetically successful, authentic life. Start designing today.
What about you?
What will you do with this one wild and beautiful life?
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