Untethering myself from a corporate job, a mortgage and expectations from other people to follow my own path has been EXTREMELY refreshing. But has not been without its challenges. Challenges mainly meaning judgement and misunderstanding from people whose opinion I actually respect. The actual doing has been pretty straightforward – handing in my notice at work, selling my flat, moving out of London. None of those things really depend on anyone other than Harry and I. But it has been hard to explain our huge shift in lifestyle to some friends and family members. 

I get it – you aren’t supposed to quit a high paying corporate job with clear career progression, sell London property or leave the country. I had achieved a lot of the things you’re ‘supposed to do’ relatively young – good job, good money, I had bought London property, got a dog, got married etc. I’m a smart, driven person and at the time I was fully focused on achieving those goals and I was genuinely very happy and fulfilled with my life in my early 20s. I think this is really why some people were nervous about me giving it all up for a completely different path – what I had achieved was safe, predictable and had set me up for a relatively successful life. Basically I had something to lose. 

But predictable and safe are two words I would absolutely never use to describe myself. Among my ‘safe and predictable’ life I was always hunting for adventure – off-road motorbiking around Romania, sailing around the Caribbean, jumping on a last minute flight to hike around Washington. What I never had though, was total freedom – I had bosses and a job to answer to, a mortgage to pay and in some ways people’s expectations to live up to. I’ve always had a yearning for more adventures and to do something different. I love adventures and honestly London was boring, expensive and my time was always on someone else’s terms. 

A gigantic factor in all of this is obviously cash. At my job I was making good money and had all the fluffy corporate benefits that go along with working for a global company. Pair this with Harry’s City salary and we were pretty much financially free (to a certain extent). We comfortably paid our bills, did basically whatever we wanted, went on holidays, drove a nice car etc but that didn’t equal fulfilment. Every year we would make a bit more money, get a slightly bigger bonus, but to what end – we could go on an extra holiday and buy a slightly better car? It just started to feel like an endless circle and at the centre was always answering to someone else. The trade off between money and freedom just wasn’t paying off anymore.(I know, I know get your tiny violin out). Obviously I’m in an extremely privileged position to even have this to consider giving up but surely that’s not a good enough reason to not chase your dreams? 

Giving up our salaries is what freaked people (my parents lol) out the most – on paper we were solid and had a nice, safe, predictable (boring) financial future. We had what a lot of people would probably never consider giving up – it would be too much of a risk. But taking risks does not phase me in the slightest. I actually love taking risks and this, in a lot of ways, is one of the more sensible risks I have ever taken. I totally back myself to pull off our goals and there is no reason we won’t be able to achieve everything we have set out to.

Basically it is 100% worth it to risk the safety of what we had for the potential (and I hope very likely) possibility of living a free life completely on our own terms. There are a couple of reasons giving up our London life didn’t even feel like a decision we had to consider.

1. An unwavering sense of purpose and direction (lol maybe delusion) for building our own successful businesses instead of working for someone else. I want all the rewards of the work I do. 
2. I don’t want to live with a ‘what if’ – if this all goes horribly wrong I’ll just live in a tent in my parents cellar. 
3. I am extremely motivated to not have to live in a cold, wet climate. 
4. Our combined skill sets make a pretty good team. 
5. If you talk the talk you gotta walk the walk

Look, anyone that knows me knows I’ve always wanted to live on a tropical island and that island is not going to buy itself?! So despite always buying my euro millions ticket, funnily enough I had not made millions that way so I better make it happen myself.