People have often asked why I decided to write a book, a question I’ve also asked myself many times over the past 2+ years of hard slog.
It all started for me back when I was spending a great deal of my time travelling as part of my conference and event management business.
Stuck waiting in yet another airport, I picked up Tim Ferris’ book, The 4-Hour Work Week. The tagline – Escape the 9-5, live anywhere and join the new rich – attracted my attention.
I still to this day don’t believe there is such a thing as a 4-hour workweek but the notion of being able to live anywhere and work less suddenly hit home. Though my conference business was successful, it dawned on me that I was trapped in it and tied to my desk when I wasn’t travelling between events.
I was deferring living life until later, right now, the business was my life.
I knew I wanted more, to live more; I needed to seize the day and embrace the working from anywhere concept.
Making the transition didn’t happen overnight, but I knew that for anything at all to happen, I just had to start. I made it my mission to work out how I could do more of the things I loved — travelling and cycling — but still run my business and feel successful.
Over a period of years, I tried and tested communications platforms, project management tools, collaboration tools, email programs and file storage platforms. I worked out systems and procedures and methods to allow me and my team to work effectively from anywhere.
The Working From Anywhere (WFA) concept began to unfold, and then I put it into practice by going to the French Alps for the month of May 2013 to work from there.
It worked so well that I returned for 2 months the following year, then 3 months the next, and every year after.
As friends and clients began to notice my trips to France getting longer each year, their curiosity was piqued. How is it that you’re always travelling, enjoying life and yet still running a great business?
Little by little I began to teach others what I’d done and how they could do it too. I distilled the process into a 5-step system which anyone could implement, regardless of the size of their business or industry. It simply required a willingness to embrace change and the belief that life is for living now, not when you retire.
I soon realised that this was what I wanted to do, to help other people to discover what I had, it felt like it was my purpose in life. So, after 15 years in the conference business, I wound it up to focus on my purpose and WFA.Life was born.
Since then I’ve realised very clearly whom I want to help and how. I’ve learnt by listening and observing the many people on my programs.
I’ve looked on as these business owners discovered the connection and how transitioning their business to work from anywhere became much more than working anywhere — it became their pathway to living life The Carpe Diem Way.
And that’s why I’ve written this book.