USING WAY TOO MANY CAPS WHEN I AM EXCITED BECAUSE I AM AN ELDER MILLENNIAL AND I WILL ALSO PROBABLY USE LOTS OF THESE 😂 😂 😂 😂 😂

GUILTY PLEASURE

Writing for 3 hours every morning. Brainstorming in giant Moleskines. Photographing historic architecture. Getting on podcasts. Writing newsletters. Creepin' on international real estate. Investing in wine. (That's a euphemism for drinking it, obviously!)

YOU CAN FIND ME

Slovenia *SWOON!* Croatia. Bosnia. Montenegro. Sicily. London. Wales. Norway. 🤩

upcoming travel

Santiago, Chile. Edinburgh, Scotland. Lisbon, Portugal. San Sebastian, Spain. London, England. 

FAVORITE PLACES TO GO

Usually I'll throw in a joke about needing to do something else besides scoop ice cream for eternity—which I did under-the-table for eight years since the age of 13 (mint is my favorite!)—but my real answer is this:

I never saw a traditional definition of "work" modeled for me at home. I grew up with a single mother with a severe, debilitating social phobia, and we survived on social security disability and tomatoes from the garden. And so, ever since I was a little girl, I began this life-long mission to investigate this world of "work"—and hopefully money and two-story houses (my dream back then)—and figure out how to do it well. I would be the BEST worker in all the land!

And, I was. A fully-paid college scholarship from the founder of Monster.com landed me an incredible private education, and from there I took off to the big city of Philadelphia to make something of myself. 

I was going to be a Very Successful Person™. 

In my new Very Successful Life™, BMWs made my jaw drop. Starbucks was also new, and so were women with coiffed hair drinking $15 martinis at lunch. I was fascinated. 

My flimsy blazer from Forever 21 and I would march into the high-rise where I had managed to get my first job, and as predicted, I did my job exceptionally well. I went in on Saturdays and I studied outside of work and I made extra efforts to become a linchpin. My work was my security blanket, particularly after my mom passed away weeks before my college graduation.

My efforts were quickly rewarded in Philadelphia, possibly because clients weren't used to small-town enthusiasm, and they trusted me. I was betting on my ambitious spirit as a key advantage, and I was right: promotion after promotion eventually led to an offer of company shares, and later I'd grow into an executive role at a national magazine in the advertising department. Professionally, life was good. There was just one problem: 

None of it felt good. 

The harder I worked, the more disillusioned I became. I had always been under the impression that hard work equaled a good life, but it was clear that I had made some false assumptions: assumptions that had shaped the course of my entire career thus far. 

I became determined to research what REALLY made for a good life and how to do work you were proud of, and that's when I started what would later become an award-winning blog & book with Penguin Random House, appropriately titled THE MIDDLE FINGER PROJECT. 

What began as a blog evolved into an education & training company, and I'm proud to say I was one of the earliest pioneers of remote work—I designed, sold, and gave hundreds of online workshops and helped thousands of individuals from around the world. Inside, the curriculum always returned to one theme: You don't need to wait for someone to give you the job. Here's how you can create your own.

Over a period of over a decade, my work directly impacted the careers of tens of thousands of people who left behind generic jobs in exchange for something that mattered. Oftentimes, this led to solopreneurship—or, what is currently known as the creator economy. Thousands of today's creators were protegés of the original methods I developed, which was incredibly rewarding until the community began to face a new problem: 

Burnout.

Turns out, the dark underbelly of working for yourself and making things that matter is that sometimes, it can matter TOO much. You can lose yourself in ambition.

There was, however, one antidote that seemed to cure this new, shiny brand of workaholism: 

Travel. 

Or, in other words, the promise of an even more meaningful experience waiting for you out there. 

In a modern world that struggles with work/life balance, travel is the fastest way to shift things back into balance again. This was something I discovered for myself, as I'd been a digital nomad since 2009 and it became a central part of my life. (And still is.)

It was my work that gave me a sense of purpose, but it was travel that gave me a sense of meaning. 

Eventually, I began developing an innovative career model to combine both my early methods of independent work with the benefits of a remote lifestyle: how can we do work that matters to us, without having it consume us? How can we create maximum impact with healthy effort? How can we create generous, bountiful incomes without constantly pushing a boulder up a hill? How can we still have plenty of space in our days for the other things we want to do, and be, and see, and care about?

It's not just about creating a well-loved career. 

It's about creating a well-loved life.

What made a girl from a trailer park grow up to study work?

In the hundreds of interviews I've done over the course of my career—some with better lighting than others 😅—I get asked one question more than most: