EP033 - What minimalism can teach us in business with Reneé LaTour of Fancy Nomad
About the episode
This episode focuses on a more personal journey: how can we make the best out of remote business operations with a minimalist mindset? If our life is minimalistic, how can we translate this to our business? What is more important, doing every part of the business or focusing on where we can have the maximum impact? To discuss this, I sat down with Reneé LaTour, who helps others to create a lifestyle of freedom through minimalist business operations.
About the guest
Renee is the Business Strategist behind the Ticket To Freedom program that helps 6-figure solopreneurs go from feeling trapped & burnt out to being location independent. She's a full-time traveler and part-time entrepreneur, coining the term Fancy Nomad™ to describe her lifestyle.
With over 16 years of experience and a degree in business management, she's extended her knowledge and experience to help other solo entrepreneurs build businesses that run without them by leveraging the power of systems & delegation, so they can too travel the world while successfully running their business and only working a few hours per day.
Connect with Reneé on LinkedIn.
About the host
My name is Peter Benei, founder of Anywhere Consulting. My mission is to help and inspire a community of remote leaders who can bring more autonomy, transparency, and leverage to their businesses, ultimately empowering their colleagues to be happier, more independent, and more self-conscious.
Connect with me on LinkedIn.
Want to become a guest on the show? Contact me here.
Quotes from the show
Life isn't infinite. You have a short time to make the greatest impact possible and live to your fullest potential. You need to get clear on what does that mean for your life and your business.
There are a lot of nice-to-haves. But are they necessary? You must remind yourself how to deliver in the simplest, most effective way possible.
It comes down to accountability if you really want to start practicing self-leadership. And if you dare to step into yourself. If you dare to take accountability for yourself and start digging things out, it will serve you so much in the long run.
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Welcome everyone to talk about the future of work and the future of leadership. Today we will discuss how to build a six figure business in finance remotely, and how to become a little bit more free from overworking yourself in the process. This episode is a bit unusual from the classic leadership, operational, and future of work episodes that we do here as we focus more on entrepreneurship and unusual industries that people wouldn't think that can be done remotely. I have Reneé LaTour also known as The Fancy Nomad, to discuss this topic. Hey Renee, how are you?
Hey Peter. I'm great. Thank you so much for having me on. I'm excited.
Really appreciate your time. It's so great that you're here. The first question usually is about remote work. So tell me a little bit more about your journey. How did you started working remotely? How did you ended up here?
Yeah, yeah. I love starting there as well, so, but I'm always kind of wondering, well, where in the heck do I start? And so I feel like starting with not having any idea whatsoever that I would ever be working remote. That was never really in the plans. And my background actually is in local government, so I was working in a traditional nine to five for 10 years. And throughout those 10 years, this entrepreneurial spirit that was always within me was percolating more and more. And I was actually sending myself through school in the evening. So I was studying at night and I would go to night class, I would work full-time, and then I would go to school full-time. And when I finally finished my degree in business management, then really you know, wheels started turning and I really started to think about the future that I wanted for myself. Again, still did not include any ounce of remote work. I just knew that I did want more freedom and I just didn't know what that looked like. And what I did know about the traditional nine to five that I was working is that I really wouldn't see much of that freedom until after retirement. So when I looked around at everyone else that I was working with and the people that were above me in the corporate ladder, they had amazing lives. They had financial freedom, they had, you know, happy and healthy families. But they didn't have the expansive freedom that I wanted to travel the world to really say when, where, and how and with who. Like, for example, managing people that you hire versus managing people that you don't hire. And simple things like that. I knew I had to take the entrepreneurial plunge. I just didn't know what that looked like. So I quit my job. I kind of took the burn the boats approach and quit my job and started my entrepreneurial journey. Yeah, I didn't do the whole side hustle thing, which if I could, you know, give myself advice way back in 20 16, I would've said, Hey, chill, chill a little bit and kind of do something on the side. So I dip and dabble and I've tried different things, lots of failures, and eventually ended up joining my partner in his finance company. So he started the company a year prior, and I helped with some of the administrative things like website, you know, PDFs, things like that that come with business that wasn't his strong suit. But when I officially quit my job, I'm a believer in like, a lot of opportunities are right under your nose and a lot of times they're overlooked. And that was a perfect example of when I looked around and I try to see, okay, what entrepreneurs do I know and who has really the most freedom in their life. It was actually my partner. We've already been together for five years at that point. And so when we joined forces, I started in sales and I just started smiling and dialing. I was making a lot of cold calls using LinkedIn to like spy on people and find people that I could, you know, cold call and offer my services to. And then it was only six months in that we took a trip to Europe and we took this trip taking his mom on vacation as a retirement gift to her cuz she could finally, you know, travel and take those multiple weeks off. And we ended up spending over six weeks in Europe running our business remotely. But that again, was never the plan. We thought we were gonna build a physical business and have a brick and mortar with 50 salespeople in this huge team. And that was our vision for the company. And at the time we actually had an office. So whenever we weren't there physically in Arizona, the office just sat. And with that trip to Europe, that really opened our eyes, which is kind of funny to say now because like post post Covid, everyone's much more comfortable and familiar with like, working from home and remote work. And at that time we didn't think we knew we could run our business from home. We were already working from home. If I was at the office, my partner was at home and we would kind of shift days that we would be at the office. And then taking that trip to Europe, running the business from there really opened our minds to like, oh, We can do this and we can make this work. We just have to put things in place. Because we were up late at night trying to compensate for the time zone our business is in Arizona so we were, you know, the time zone difference wasn't so fun. But that was the moment that I decided that I wanted to do everything in my power, and I became obsessed with making the operation side of the business very efficient and very lean so that we could have a remote lifestyle and run our business from anywhere. So from there, so that was mid 2017. From that point on, we started taking longer and longer trips. And then now fast forward to 2019, we're completely remote. We do not have the office, we close the office at the end of 2019 and we thrive on having like a very lean team and working on various business projects together with my partner and then also separate. So yeah, so that's been the remote journey. Completely unplanned. But once I got a taste of the lifestyle, I really couldn't, I couldn't turn back. It's been incredible. And we've been able to live in Asia, Africa, Europe, and now I'm in South America and I'm in Argentina. It's incredible. I love it.
This is so inspiring and really great journey because it started with the motivation, I guess, right? So you were free in terms of like, You are free from the, the Bills issue and the money issues. Obviously, but freedom actually doesn't stop with the money stuff. It actually starts by having free from any kind of boundaries in terms of your time, in terms of your own schedule. And I truly believe that too, and I agree with you. Freedom is actually all about having your own schedule. Well, not just, you know, obviously it you need to have the money as well, because that provides you the ability to have your own schedule. But the end goal is not the money, it's the own schedule. And and it's so interesting that you never even thought about that. When you started this whole trip, but suddenly you experienced it and you never wanted to go back there. And by the way, just a quick reflection that you actually closed down the office pre pandemic.
Yes.
And that's also important because most of the companies and most of the people that I talked to, I mean, I've started working remotely since 2014 and I feel like a dinosaur. And most people that I talked to around these topics they started around the pandemic because that was the force of nature, obviously. Everyone needed to shift their mindsets. So again, thanks for sharing this journey. This is so great. Tell me a little bit more about the operations side, because you mentioned that you wanted to optimize the brick and mortar office type of business a fully lean, agile, almost like minimalistic remote company. To start that I think we should discuss what's the industry, because that's also a little bit unusual.
Yeah, yeah so the industry to even convoluted even more so, it is in the finance space. So what we basically operate is a brokerage house. So we broker deals from the bank for . Small businesses who are purchasing equipment. So it's very specific, it's very niche to any business that's located in the US and Canada who is purchasing anything so it could be restaurants, purchasing kitchen equipment, it could be doctors purchasing ultrasound units and everything in between tractors, you know, manufacturing equipment. And they wanna finance it so they can do leases or financing instead of paying cash upfront. That's where we come in and we finance it for them.
Wow. That's like B2B crediting right. Actually, so, exactly right. I've heard like interesting and weird industries and stories on how people work remotely, but that's like one of the most unique ones that I ever heard. It makes a hundred percent sense. So like there are some other companies like the safety wing insured nomads and stuff. They are also brokering financial services to others, obviously but that's like healthcare and healthcare insurance. Yeah. But it's kind of like the same. So it's, everything runs on a set of paperwork. You have to review the business that you're financing through the bank, right. But it's I wouldn't even understand why do we need an office for that? So that's interesting.
Yeah, exactly, exactly. So my partner's background was already in equipment finance. So he studied finance in college and I studied finance as part of my, of my business background. But you really don't need finance experience in this industry. Really. All you need is communication skills. And I say sales skills, but really that just comes down to communicating. And when we really started optimizing the business, relocation independence, he now oversees the sales side of the house, and then I oversee the operations, and that's really all there is to the business. So there's building partnerships, that's what I mean by sales, because like as you said, it's B2B and we go even deeper into our niche and we only communicate with the equipment sellers. So we have very I would say just a very niched and leveraged approach to how we go about business. We partner with the equipment sellers and then the equipment sellers refer their customers to us for financing. So we actually don't even, you don't need to pursue Yeah, you don't. Yeah, we don't pursue small businesses. We're not actively pursuing doctor's offices or farmers. Yes. Or restaurants. We let our partners do that piece of it for us. And so when the customers come to us, they're ready to go. They already know that they want financing. The applications just come in, and then I'm in charge of the operation side of the house where we process those applications. So I have an operations assistant who handles everything based on the US time zone. And so there's, you know, again, it's very hands off for me. At this point we've built our operations to the point where I only work a few hours per week on the business.
I'm gonna cry now. That's like every entrepreneur's dream, I guess. This is hilarious. Also talk about that you had a business, I guess, in Arizona, right originally, in terms of location and Once you ditch that location suddenly most of your opportunities and, you know, working remotely and pretty much operating the business remotely, most of the opportunities suddenly went beyond that state limit that you are operating into. So that's also a big issue, right? I mean, that's, that's also a really great stuff to, to switch the brick and mortar office type finance business to a almost like a global finance business. Well, obviously US based, but yeah.
Right. And we're still based out of Scottsdale, Arizona. That's still home for the business. But you're right. And I will admit it took us a while, like in our mindset to wrap our heads around not having a physical office. And when you talk about the more acceptable industries that people think of when they think about remote, like, oh, Amazon FBA or marketing or consulting, or something like that. I will say that in the very beginning we weren't as open and outspoken about being remote because we don't want people to feel uncomfortable. Like we're dealing with the finance industry. And we wouldn't want anyone to feel uncomfortable. But in the grand scheme of things. And the reality is nothing changes, absolutely nothing changes. Everything is completely held with the utmost security. There's nothing odd going on with bank accounts or anything, it's just physically me and my partner are physically in other countries, but everything is running just as it was when we were back home. Nothing changes. It's just a mindset shift that even we had to take before closing the office.
This is interesting. And how did you, how did you tackle that? So obviously nothing was as well oiled and optimized on the first week, right? What were the steps that you did take immediately after ditching office? Obviously that was a process or a journey I guess, but but I would love to learn some quick tips or advices for those who are trying to do this mindset shift as well.
Yeah, I would say so. Like I said, it was that trip in Europe that was really just a point that stands out in my mind in 2017 where we decided, oh yeah, this is what we wanna do. We wanna travel way more, not just a week here or there. From there it really came down to realigning our vision and everything that we're doing and everything that we're planning for the business and the future growth to align with that, align with the lifestyle that we wanted. And so again, going from this vision of having this huge brick and mortar, you know, looking out on this, you know, sales floor of all these people, to scaling that way down and getting really creative on what that would look like while continuing to give us all the financial freedom that we wanted. Cuz like you said, the financial freedom was already there. That was like the first level of freedom. And then now it's like, okay, what about time freedom, location freedom, mental freedom, you know, all of the other levels. And so it took just that point of realignment. So I would say First steps first, first things first is getting really clear on what do you want your lifestyle to look like, because, To me, location dependence looks one way, and for someone else it looks completely different. That just looks like, Hey, I have the option if I want to. I don't have to be full blown, you know, digital nomad. So I feel like getting really clear on what you want your lifestyle to look like right now, because like I shared, when I decided to quit my job, I knew that I didn't wanna wait for someday. Like, oh, one day I'll be able to do that, or someday day I'll have enough money or no. Like, you really don't have that. And I'm happy that the whole situation with the pandemic brought all of this to the surface of people realizing that life isn't infinite. That you actually should be considering your life in a very finite way, and you have the short amount of time to make the greatest impact possible, live in your fullest potential. And so when you do that and you really get clear and conscious about your vision for yourself, your own life, your family, everyone involved, and what does that look like for your business? And that's where it really started to align everything together to see how can this really fit and the way that we want it to fit. And not how we think it should be. Cause I think a lot of brick and mortar visualizations and ideas came with traditional ways that businesses look how success looks. Whereas, and we could talk a little bit about the whole fancy nomad thing because a lot of people think nomads are just kind of like these dirty hippies living in hostels and not really running businesses and not really successful. But I can tell you based on obviously my own experience and then also other people that I've met, is, that's pretty far from the truth. There are those nomads out there for sure. And there's nothing wrong with that lifestyle of kind of, you know, hitchhiking and kind of just, you know, going with the flow. But there's a lot of nomads who are running six, seven figure businesses. So I just wanna start by saying it's completely doable and it's a lot more normal than you would. And even I had no idea, you know, like I said, up until when I started traveling. So from there, after realigning the vision, it really comes down to continuously reminding yourself, how can this be simplified? How can we be lean in every single thing that we do? Because there's a lot of nice to haves, oh, this would be amazing if it looked this way. And it looked really pretty. And we had this grandiose, so experience, but is it necessary? So really continuously reminding yourself how can I deliver what I'm delivering to my client's customer, whomever, in the simplest, most effective way possible. And then just working backwards from.
This is truly great because it's a again, you might not realize, but we have so much in common that I had this, the same experience and the same journey. So like, I dunno, like, well not 10 years, but like 15 years ago I had a my own agency marketing agency or advertising agency. And at that time, my dream at least at that time was you know, to have a really engaging, creative, great office where people, a lot of people will work. We service a lot of clients around the globe and so on and so on and so on. Now obviously that changed and I did the very same work, but without the office later on. And I just realized that how much you need to little declutter your dreams and your goals in order to meet your ultimate goal, which is obviously free from pretty much anything. Location, time finance, of course, that's also also important. And I also realized that I mean, I'm not sure how you personally live, but obviously because you are traveling, you don't have mansions everywhere. So you are traveling through, I dunno, hotels, Airbnb and stuff. And I had so much shit, so much stuff, so much things, and what I just realized that I moved to Italy like two years ago. And I just realized that once I sold pretty much everything, like 95% of my stuff that I wasted money on now, well now I call it wasted money. But at that time it was, you know, well, not status because I didn't need to prove anything, but enjoyment from the things and the stuff. Now that I, I actually sold everything. It was like, I mean, I would never, ever want to go back to a lifestyle where I am dependent on not be able to move almost within a week if I want to. Now, pretty much all my, all my shit fits into three bigger size briefcases in the car, so I don't really care. And it's so, so free.
Yeah. Yeah. I, I love talking about this topic because my minimalist journey started way before my remote journey. So it started just by being introduced to people like oh gosh, I forget the two guys, their names. But they started this, you know minimalist movement, at least in the States and I was introduced to them like back in 2013. And then Marie Corno, I'm gonna pronounce her last name wrong, with the joy of tidying up if you're Oh, the Marie Condo. Yeah. I always butcher her last name. Between the two minimalism guys, and they were very extreme. They were like all my stuff. It's in one box. And so I had a house that I rented out to my sister. I had an apartment of my own that I had full of stuff and everything, and I loved all my stuff. I had, you know, 12 different wristwatches, I had boxes of shoes, designer purses. I had so much clothes. I had a walk-in closet and so much clothing that I had to switch it out for the seasons. So I had to like box all my clothing up for winter and then switch out my closet every year. And can you imagine how much time is spent taking all my clothes to the cleaners, like doing all of these things to care for my stuff? And of course I had a car. And then my partner also, cuz we didn't live together for like the first four or five years we were together. He also had his own house and he had his own car and all of his stuff. He almost had as much clothes as I had. And so we had tons, I mean, he even had a fish tank. Like we had tons of stuff. And it took that whole, since 2013, we kind of went on the journey together. But separately, cuz we had our own separate thing, you know, things. It took all that time, little by little by little. And there's so many different tricks. We won't get too much into it. I know that's not your, your podcast isn't about minimalism.
No. That's, there were so many little things. That's so great.
Yeah, there were so many little things that I would do to start eliminating and decluttering my life. And it was a long journey because I had so much attachment to things because that really did show my worth. You know, if I showed up to the office looking very, you know, very nice, presentable it was new shoes on everything, you know, prime and perfect, and dressed to the nines, it made me feel more confident and more, you know, more secure in myself. So I did fall back on, on possessions and material things to the point where I was living completely above my means. I had $25,000 in credit card debt. You know, I had never got to a point where I couldn't control, you know, I never felt broke even though I lived check to check, and I was way over my head in credit card debt. I never felt broke. I always felt really optimistic, but minimalism and taking that approach to reducing the clutter in my life, starting with physical things has really changed my whole life. Like, honestly, like that's, the journey's been now 10 years. And throughout that whole journey, our office actually became a very expensive storage unit. That was at one point where we were storing all of our stuff that we weren't ready to get rid of. And now I have only a carryon and my backpack, which I'm not like really a backpack person. So I have just a few possessions and I think I have one box of things that are at my mom's house. Like sentiment.
One carryon. One carryon, and that's it.
Yeah. I only have one carryon and one backpack. One like personal It.
Well, that's like from the full blown four season, well, two seasons I guess, I dunno. In Arizona, two. Yeah. Two seasons. Walk-in closet with probably like 200 items at least from there, and obviously you had the house, which is American style, so obviously not a small one. At least you didn't have the basement issue. I guess my, I mean, sorry, sorry. My, my parents they have a, a huge house with, with a basement as well and everything that do, yeah.
Oh, I had a garage. Yeah, I had a garage full Christmas decorations for one person.
You know, the things that you obviously won't even ever, ever, ever use, but like, don't throw it out it's the basement is a chaotic mess, I guess. Anyway, so, decluttering that down to only one carryon. That's like impressive. Impressive.
Yeah. Yeah. And we had a storage unit because this is a whole nother story, but during, during Covid we actually stayed abroad. We didn't go back home like most foreigners who we were currently traveling we're in Malaysia, what what was supposed to be for, just for the weekend. And it ended up being a whole year in Malaysia. And we stayed abroad until this past year. We went home in October, 2022 for the first time in three years. And we had a storage unit that we didn't plan on sitting there for three years because our plan was actually to go home more often than we were. And in that storage unit, it was so easy for us to completely get rid of everything and close that storage unit. Because if we didn't touch that stuff for three years, why in the heck would we need it? So yeah, that's completely gone. Yeah, like I said, now, I will say with the caveat, until I do enjoy shopping and I do enjoy I know you said your wife is in fashion design. Cause I love fashion. I love, like, you know, I, I'm very girly, so it's hard for me not to have 16 different serums for my, you know, night care routine. And so until I go shopping too much in whatever country I'm in, I might have to upgrade my luggage to be like a check luggage. And I'm okay with that. I know I don't really get really dogmatic like other people do in the nomad space where they will only stick to the carry-on. That's just where I am right now until I go shopping.
Cool. So, so yeah, obviously financial freedom is super important, but also time and scheduling freedom is also also super important. But also the minimalism is also important because that's freeing you up from dependent on pretty much anything. And Yeah, go on. Sorry.
And knowing what's important to you, like that's the biggest thing I have come away with the minimalist journey. It's not about having less, it's having more of what is important to you. So it's the shift of realizing I actually would rather spend my time because even if money was endless, it's not about the money. Like, I will spend much more money than anyone would think is appropriate for a gym, for example, or a spa, or a nice pair of leggings to work out in. Like, I will spend an absorbent amount of money that someone else would be like, oh my God, that's insane. But it's a value to me. So it's not about less or living really cheaply. I think a lot of people are confused. No, for me it's, you know, and I know you, you understand it too. It's. Having more of what you want. So along that journey, not only reducing things, but also reducing the certain activities that are a low leverage point, like cleaning your own home. I have hired out housekeepers for years for a very long time. I think probably already 10 years. Even when I was still working in nine to five, I had a housekeeper. I would get meal delivery service because it didn't make sense for me to cook my own meals if someone else could do it much better, you know, than I could and I could still eat healthy without spending my time doing that. I could focus on, you know, my job or I could focus on my whatever projects I'm working on with the business. So I just wanted to mention that too, that it's not just about things, it's about other activities that you could be, you know, having someone else do on your behalf.
And everyone should see the full picture, by the way. Because if you so for example, I don't really want to talk about my restaurant bills. But Yeah. Yeah. But if I ever mention that to anyone, everyone looks at me like, Jesus, Jesus Christ. Yeah. But I don't own any anything, so I don't really care. Pretty much. I can name like hundred possessions that are more than thousand dollars, and I'm not even sure that I have hundred of those. But yes, sometimes I do spend all awful, insane amount of money on restaurants because that's, that's super going out is, is super important for, well, not for me, for us also because we are working from home, both of us. It's one of the other issues addressing up stuff. So obviously at home, well, you know, I wouldn't say that we are in the PJ's, but kind of but once we move out and go to on a date or a restaurant we are going full on fancy because I mean, that's the only exception, only time when we can do that. We don't go to the office. We don't have any high end business meetings with people. So obviously we are not presentable in a way. But again, just see the full picture because that tells everyone what, what is the most important part for that particular person. And how do you teach that to others? Because I know that you also may I say coach for others or trying to follow that throughout or journey with you.
Yeah, I don't call myself a coach, but often people do and I'm totally fine. Yeah. Yeah. I don't care about labels. I think these days I'm calling myself a business strategist, but really at the end of the day I love helping and supporting solopreneurs on their business journey. So if you haven't gathered already from our conversation, I'm really about being as efficient as you possibly can and being as lean as you can in your life and your business, and be really crystal clear on what's important to you, and making sure that everything lines up with that, because life is too short. So what I really like to help people with is this whole minimalism concept applied to business, because when you apply it to your business, and again, it's about doing more of what you want. So it's more about being in your zone of genius and cutting everything out. So that could look like eliminating it all together, but a lot of times it looks like really creating those efficiencies and having an outsider's perspective really helps because. You can't read the label from inside the jar. So having an outsider just to strategize with and plan out, okay, how does this look with removing myself, like you said, in a healthy way, not in a scary way that you're not gonna be involved in your business, but how can you be involved in your business as a leader and not as a doer, not doing all of the things, but instead leading it from afar so it has that breathing room to actually grow. And so it can actually be an asset. You know, everyone's talking about legacy and you know, that kind of thing. And I think to myself, You know, I'm not really much into the whole legacy conversation, but I think to myself, well, if you really wanna leave a legacy, it starts with the business or whatever you're creating, right? Whether that's the financial wealth, like investments and things like that. But also your business as an asset. Do you wanna leave the world or your children or your wife or whomever with a pain in the ass? You know? Excuse me, you know, like oh my God, it's not gonna be an ass, it's gonna be a liability. And that's what it would be if you left it where they literally wouldn't know, how does this thing even run without you because you're no longer here. So if you think of that with the end in mind, and it doesn't have to be death, I'm not trying to be morbid but with the end in mind of like, Hey, maybe you, you might wanna start another business. You know, like my partner and I have now, we've started other businesses with the freedom that we have, and it's fun. It's so much fun to just create and kind of have that serial entrepreneurial spirit and kind of be in the beginning stages of starting a business, you know, even though I have this other business running in the background. So there's all of these things that you can do when you open up your mind to really stepping into that leadership role and having a business that can run semi passively without you.
Perfect. Perfect. And I think one of the, so when I speak with the leaders who are leading like 50-100 or even more people, one of the most important factor I think they need to factor in when they are making any kind of decision is that being a little bit more intentional on what they are trained to do. But and here's the harsh part and the hard part, being intentional starts with having some sort of like a self-reflection. And most people are not self-reflective. So, and I'm still struggling to understand and explain to others, and maybe you can weigh in here. That how can, or can you learn to be a little bit more self-reflective? We, in the last like half an hour, I think we discussed a lot of stuff about understand what is super important for you. Understand what your goals are with your life, personal life, but that can apply to business as you're working as a leader figure out what's the mission for the company, figure out what's the vision for you as a leader create some sort of like a leadership plan around that. But again, everything starts like step zero is to have self-reflection. What do you think? Can it be learned or what would be the best way to approach it?
Yeah, I would say it's learned through practice. And I love how you said, you know, when you think about your mission and your vision for your business, you need to think about your mission and vision for your life. You know? And that's where it starts. And when you think about leaders leading 50, a hundred, you know, these huge teams, it does come down to self-leadership first and foremost. And that self-leadership comes with that intentionality, comes with that consciousness of how you are leading yourself and being truly happy because you can try your best to kind of stuff things down, but it is gonna come up in one way or another. And I really do want everyone, because there's really no reason not to have that fulfillment in their life, to have that happiness. And as you know, and that's why this is a cliche, happiness is an inside job. It's easy to point outward at, oh, the economy or all these people, or, oh, this industry. But that's not reality. If you really want to start practicing self-leadership, it comes down to accountability. And if you have the courage to step into yourself. Accountability, that's step one. Be accountable for yourself because you're an adult. Okay? You're not a child. Maybe something's happening, you're a child and I think you should address them. Like, you know, I won't get, go down the the trauma train, but the, those things need to be addressed. So if you can have the courage to take accountability for yourself and start digging that stuff out, it is going to serve you so much in the long run. And I feel like step one to doing it is to give yourself some space. And that can look different for everybody, whatever that needs to look like, you know, for an individual. But whatever that feels like to you. And it usually will come to you. Like if you think of that, that question, how can I give myself space? Today, this weekend, maybe a whole week of space. How can I just, and some people have to force themselves, especially high performers, like force space on yourself because that's where the clarity lies.
It's like pretty much spending time on yourself, with yourself. That's hard for most people, I think. And that's why all these I don't know, yoga camps retreats, like everything around that, even based stuff usually work because they force people into the situation of being a little bit more self-conscious and self-reflective. And do you teach them to these principles to, to others as well?
Yeah, I openly share everything that I've experimented with, I call them experiments because they change, like, you know, something that I did, you know, years ago isn't, wasn't what I do now. So, you know, when we talk about morning routines and meditations and evening routines, there are so many things that you can do in so many practices, and those are just tools in your toolbox that over time you have this toolbox that you can go into when you are feeling anxious or when you feel kind of disconnected, or when you feel like you're being you know, there's anger coming up. You have all of these different tools and there's always new things to learn. Like right now, I am knee deep into, into nervous system and regulating your nervous system. And that's something that I am digging deep into somatic practices. But in the past I've gotten really deep into meditations. I've gotten really deep into breath work. So there's a lot of tools that you can use. It, it really de it depends on, again, your willingness to just wanna experiment. And throughout the process of experimenting, never to be too harsh on yourself, because there's a lot of people online selling tickets, and I'm gonna say it, just call it what it is telling you that you're doing something wrong or this is the only way, or this is how you're gonna heal yourself. And that's just bullshit. Like, there is not one way, there are ways that will work for you, and it's only going to be discovered by you trying things out. So I would say just start by having an open mind, you know, and then that comes with practice. Opening your mind as a practice opening your heart is even a bigger practice. And that's something even for myself, like my daily mission is to open my heart. Like, if I can just continuously open my heart, open my heart then I'm, you know I'm serving in my highest power. And so, It just comes down to being, being a seeker and having that open mind to seek out books and teachers and different things on YouTube. Because there are so many resources and tools out there. You don't even need to pay for them really. You can, you can go down free rabbit holes all day long and learn about tools that could help you. And I like that you brought up retreats. I love retreats. Definitely. Cuz like you said, it forces you because it's, you don't, if you, if for example, I wanted to read a book about about breath work, that's fine. But then I actually have to practice the breath work if I'm just gonna read the book, that does mean no good. So when you do go to a retreat, It does force you to actually put things into practice. And I would say like, of the retreats that I went through, that I've gone through throughout my life, they have been pivotal moments for me. I've gone to a Tony Robbins event and walked on fire. It was a pivotal moment for me. I've done a body cleanse in Costa Rica where you go and you're in the jungle doing crazy, crazy things. I don't even wanna get into details, Jesus. But it was, it was a pivotal moment. You know, like, so I do love those things, but those are temporary. But again, tooling your toolbox for every day practice. I hope that answers the question.
It's individual. And it surely does answer the question. It's pretty much you need to, you need to have the drive, but the journey will be different for everyone. Maybe that's a little bit too personal question, but because you have a partner and you are both working remotely and living together as well, how do you, and we also do the same, how do you, how do you find time for yourself in. Terms of like, we talk about the that you need to allocate me time for you, and sometimes it's really hard, especially, so just to give you my example to discuss this is that we, my wife and me she's very extrovert as well. I'm also very extrovert. We are both a little bit introvert in terms of like our feelings and stuff, but very openly and well loudly communicate with like an Italian couple, I guess and it's really hard to manage the time together sometimes because everything is, well, I wouldn't say so much noise, but again, we are very open and communicative. So we solve this with with one simple trick is everyone goes on their own vacations alone every half a year or so. So like, I dunno, two or three weeks or whatever.
I love it.
And we never, I mean, we are trying not to write and call each other, of course. Never works, but still the tries there. But again, at least we are in a separate location, obviously. Usually it's different countries either even. Yeah. So how, but how do you do that? How do you find your time?
I love, I love your trick. That is definitely, that's where I want to, that's what I wanna incorporate in our relationship for sure. So this past summer, last summer, we're almost onto next summer. So last summer we did that, but it wasn't like planned, like, we're gonna take our own solo trips. I planned for a special event that was going on in Bulgaria while we were in Turkey, so he stayed in Turkey. But I totally agree, like after that week, it really did bring, bring something special. It's almost, it's hard to describe, but it did bring some kind of special vibe, like magic back to our relationship. Not that anything was gone or missing, but it really did. It was nice to have that separation, that physical separation. So that's awesome. I love that. And that's definitely something that I wanna be more strategic about. Like that would be like you said, once or twice a year at least. So for us, It is very interesting. People often think like, wait, what? Especially during COVID because during Lockdowns and everything, we traveled together, we work together everything. So we are like two peas in a pod and some of it is just unexplainable. We really get together. We get along really well together. But I will give him a lot of credit because he brings a lot of the fun. Like we have a lot of fun. Like we're constantly laughing, joking, making the energy in our, in our place that we're in light. So whether it's a hotel room, we're Airbnb, we make it very light. So we constantly, that's like the vibe in our home is fun. Like if you're not having fun, like what the hell are you doing? And I have to give him credit for that cuz I can get really serious and really structured cuz I bring the structure and so he does help bring that balance to our space. And then the other thing is just having so much communication about what our day, what our plan is for the day, what our plan is for the week. But one thing I think that makes our relationship really thrive is what it's always been in the beginning. So even way before we were remote, way before we worked together and lived together. So we've been together almost 13 years. The first five years we did not live together. Then we moved in together. We lived in Arizona for several years before being remote. So throughout that whole transition period in our relationship, we've always had our own space. We've never been the type of couple that constantly calls each other to check in. We would just give each other a heads up, like if we were gonna come home late, we would just give each other a heads up just out of respect. But I never held tabs on him, and he never kept tabs on me. And often people are very kind of put off by this, you know, I'll go out with my girlfriends and they'll say, oh, what's, you know, what's, what's he up to? And I'm like, I don't know. I have no idea what he's doing. Like, what's it to me? You know, I'm here with you. Why would I be worried about what he's doing? And it's the same for him. So we've always had this separation, but oneness. And that really keeps us having like a healthy relationship because my relationship is sacred. And it comes before work, it comes before travel, it comes before everything. And yeah, like we're a family. So that's, that's family first, you know, in my eyes. And and so I think that's something that's always made us a really powerful team is that we've always been very individuals while also being, you know a unit if that makes sense.
Totally. Totally. Actually everyone is, is alone as an individual, but you know, still living together. Much like in companies, by the way. I think we can, people can learn a lot about how to manage people and work together with people just by looking at their, that's why I love bringing out, up relationship stuff, by the way. Because you can learn a lot from the really classic, almost like boring pair, couple family relationships or mom and dad or parenting or these, these analogies usually do work really well in business scenarios as well, because people tend to forget that companies are run by people who are also having a life at home. So yeah. Cool. Yeah. What's the future you, looks, looks for you for this year? Show me some details. How do you see the future for you?
Yeah, good question. So I have an interesting way, maybe it's not the interesting, I don't know, but I have an interesting way that I like to go about vision goals and kind of like planning. So I like to plan, so I plan every quarter out. So this week was my week off, second quarter, right? So we're going into q2 and so this week was my week off reflecting on Q1 and planning for the next quarter. So I do that planning around everything, not just business, business, any kind of like development that I wanna have. Physical, like really hitting on all cylinders of life. So, you know, focusing on business growth and really building up a network more selling of the program that I'm offering. And then also learning Spanish. So I just picked getting really into it, like actually hiring a a, a tutor to learn Spanish. So that's definitely like on my next quarter. And then also as I mentioned, getting into somatic practices and nervous system healing and all of that. So those are kind of like my three pillars for this quarter coming up. I don't look too much further into that. So I have my aspirational visions but I don't look much further than this next quarter. That's really like my year, if you will. And then as far as travel goes, I don't plan anything past a month. So in May I'll be, it's kind of crazy.
Wow. Well, let me stop you here. So yeah. So you are right now in Argentina. But you are never book, and I guess it's an Airbnb or whatever you never book a flat or a house or whatever for more than a month.
It's very rare. It's very, very rare. Wow. And I feel like almost every single time I book it in advance, I regret it. And like case in point for Argentina, we looked, so we kind of, we kind of, and again, because planning travel can be a full-time job in itself. Yeah. Yeah. So my partner and I kind of divide and conquer. So when we were in, we were in Peru prior to Argentina, I was looking at apartments in Argentina and it was kind of, not very many. It was kind of slim pickings. So I thought, well, we better book something, you know, upfront. And we did, and it was fine. It was, it was a great, it was right across the street from the botanical gardens, which I loved. But it wasn't really necessary because now being here, we're going on month three of being here in Argentina, we also travel really slow. So when you said that, I'm like, yep, I'm right there with you. When we so we've been here now three months. The last Airbnb we were staying at, we booked the day before for a whole entire month. And then the one I'm in now, we booked four days before. So it really does depend on the city and how much supply and demand there are for Airbnbs. But I do not like to book in advance. I often feel like I'm kind of stuck in a city that I wasn't really familiar with. So if it's a place that I know, like for example, if I'm gonna go back home to Scottsdale, I'm comfortable planning that one out because I know which neighborhood I wanna be in. I could even, possibly even reach out to someone where I've already stayed there before and stay in the same, you know stay in the same apartment. But if it's new cities, I really don't like to plan too much in advance. Cause then I feel locked in. And then again, I like to keep my horizons open to who knows, maybe, you know, we are gonna plan a trip to to Pennsylvania in May for a family function. And then from there we're gonna be back in the States. So maybe we'll stay in the States, maybe we'll go off to Europe. Maybe we'll come back to South America. So I like to kind of keep it open. I don't really like too laser focused on the travel. So I don't plan more than a month. So I do, I do tend to pay more than normal, I guess, normal travelers or like a lot of travelers that I talk to and I tell them how much I'm paying for my flat and they're like, wait, what? And I'm okay with that because I want a comfortable bed with, you know, nice hotel linens. I want an a nice restroom, a proper kitchen. Like I want to be comfortable. And it's a very important for me because I'm working from home as well, like. I know a lot of other people when they travel, they'll kind of sacrifice on their apartment because they'll go to like co-working spaces and things like that. So that makes sense, you know, to each their own. But for me, like the comfort of the apartment is very important to me and my partner. So our apartment that we're in now, it actually has a co-working space on the first floor with a coffee machine, there's a pool down there. It's really nice, it's very comfortable. I have a beautiful view, so like everything is how I want it to be. And for the most part, we have pretty good experiences. There's some hiccups here and there. It comes with a lifestyle and it's worth it to me, like it as a trade off.
Hundred percent. How people can find you digitally.
Yeah, that's probably more secure because I want, I will be here only for another month, so find me online. No, I hang out on LinkedIn where we met, so definitely come hang out with me on LinkedIn. I'd love to hear from you. Yeah, I'm very approachable, so send me a DM if you have any questions. I'm happy to help.
Thank you very much. Again. I know it was a little bit more personal conversation, but I really wanted to keep that way. And it was super inspiring for those who are seeking for a little bit more self-reflection that can be applied in not just their private life also it's important but also the lifestyle choices that they make and also the business decisions that they make. That's super important. So again, really appreciate of coming here and thank you for your time.
Yeah. You're so, yeah. You're so right, Peter, and I'm, I'm had a lot of fun, so I enjoyed the conversation so much. I'm glad you did too. Hope your listeners did as well, and thank you so much for having me on. It was a lot of fun.
