Greetings from beautiful Salt Lake City!
We got here via an 11 hour drive from Mesa on Monday that was so stunningly beautiful. We wound through amazing country, and were able to see lots of my husband and kid’s beautiful Navajo Nation (instead of license plates, my kids counted the traditional Navajo homes called hogans).
We are here for our son Josh’s soccer tournament, where they are playing for the regional championship (Go Team Barcelona!).
Getting out of town, experiencing new environments and hanging out with other friends and parents is really fun.
And … because none of us expected our team to win the state championship (!), we were unprepared for this week on the road. Since we are taking a week off for true vacation the first week of July, I knew that I wanted to continue working while here. So I have regularly scheduled tasks, coaching calls and projects I am responsible for this week.
Simple, right? I have a laptop and earphones, what else is needed?
This working nomad stuff is hard!
Because of the field I am in, I know hundreds of people who live the “digital nomad” lifestyle, traveling and working from anywhere.
“Here I am, typing really smart words while lying on the grass with the Eiffel Tower in the background!”
“Look at me on a beach in the Philippines, designing websites!”
“Here I am, coaching from a mountaintop in Peru!”
It all looks really glamorous.
And for some people, it is.
Yesterday, here was me:
“My call is in 1 hour, where can I go? I don’t want to be obnoxious having a call in the hotel lounge. The room is filled with kids horsing around. Can I keep a charge on my laptop if I do 2 calls in a row inside our car outside? Does the wifi work outside? Maybe I can work at the pool, no one is here.”
I felt anxiety slowly creep in.
I managed to work it out, finding a quiet corner with wifi and an outlet and enough privacy to get in my coaching zone.
But I learned something about myself: I really love working from a quiet, stable environment. It is designed to help me get in and out of the deep concentration required to be present in a coaching call.
Is it good to know that I can work from the road when I need to?
Yes, of course. I am super thankful that I have the kind of profession that allows me to be location independent if necessary.
But would I choose to chuck all my stablility to the wind and take the family on a work/life road adventure?
Nope.
At least not right now.
What is your work fantasy?
My clients have heard me say many times:
“That sounds like a fantastic plan! Let’s see how it works in reality by testing it out.”
That business tactic which works for your best friend may not work for you at all.
At the same time, you may find that while avoiding sales positions your whole life, you discover that you actually love to sell when it is your own business.
The only way to find out if your work fantasy is as good in reality as it is in your dreams is to test it out a little bit at a time.
So before you quit your day job or uproot your life, you may want to give your work fantasy a test run by:
- Practicing a new business tactic for 90 days to see how you like it
- Taking a week of your vacation to test out how it feels to write from the road
- Starting a small side hustle to see how it feels to run your own business.
In my Escape from Cubicle Nation days, I would always say that “Hating your job intensely is not a business plan.”
Conversely, loving your business fantasy greatly is not a plan either.
Give it a test in the real world, and see how you feel.
Real life practice is power.
Now I am off to hunt for a quiet and private corner to coach my favorite clients!
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