📍 How I created location freedom
Want a career where you can live and work wherever you want? This is how I leveraged work to create location freedom.
A big motivation for creating my career was a desire to have location independence.
Over the last 30 years, I’ve lived in 6 countries - the US, Denmark, Chile, Hong Kong, Israel, and most recently Mexico. In all of these places, I have cultivated lasting relationships.
I often speak about creating your career as designing a life you love based on what matters most to you.
I value relationships with family and friends highly. Being in community with people I love is what creates great meaning, depth, and happiness in my life.
And while I know this to be true about me, I didn’t always prioritize it.
Jobs I had in the past did not allow me to really show up and be with family and friends as much as I wanted to and I used to feel a lot of pressure to chose between living in the US or Denmark.
To give you a more complete backstory, I was born in New York City and lived there until I went to college in Denmark. I spent my whole 20s in Denmark with stints living abroad before deciding to move back to NYC. I am a citizen of both countries and consider both countries home.
When I lived in Denmark, I had jobs that anchored me to Copenhagen. These positions we’re all in person with limited PTO. This meant I got to go home to the US 1-2 times a year.
When I moved back to the US, my job anchored me to NYC and I had even less PTO #america so I wasn’t able to travel frequently to Denmark. I really missed my friends, community, and family there.
This is when a desire bubbled to become bi-continental.
I was tired of feeling like I had to choose one home, one community, over another.
I’ll be honest with you and share that at first I didn’t think being bi-continental was possible for me. But I started embodying this desire and playing with it becoming my reality.
Here’s an example of what embodying your desire before you have it looks like:
Stranger: “Hi! Nice to meet you. So, where are you from?”
Analisa: “I’m bi-continental. I split my time between NYC and Copenhagen.”
When I first started saying this to people it was ~5% true for me.
Every year, I would visit family and friends in NYC and Copenhagen, but a vacation was a far cry from a 50/50 split of my time, which was what I really wanted.
I also want you to know that I felt extremely extra, uncomfortable, and a little ridiculous telling people I was bi-continental.
In my head, a stranger’s mental response to my statement was “Who does she even think she is?!” which is a little bit crazy because no one ever actually said that to me.
All of the negative voices telling me it wasn’t possible and limiting my potential were self-imposed. I had to consistently remind myself that my desire was TOTALLY valid.
So, I rewrote the story.
Lots of people live between two countries, two cities, two coasts, two houses. If this is true for so many others, why can’t it be true for me? Why can’t I live between two continents? Why should I be ashamed or shy about wanting that?
By saying what I wanted out loud as if it were already mine, I started to believe that it was my reality and go after it.
I kept NYC as my base and proactively did business development to land more clients in Denmark and Europe. This paid off and I started getting more and more clients that frequently brought me to Europe to keynote events, MC conferences, coach startups, and consult organizations on investing in the future of food.
And before I knew it, I was bi-continental.
But the story doesn’t end there!
I mentioned before that I’ve lived in 6 countries so far.
You might have picked up on this already, but I am a globally minded person who does global agrifood innovation work.
I speak 3 languages. I have friends all over. Belonging to only one or two place has never really been my style.
Over time, I realized that my desire is actually to be a global citizen.
How I set up my life and business today reflects that. I have 3 home bases: NYC, Copenhagen, and Puerto Vallarta.
I am able to run my coaching business working with visionary leaders in the agrifood, sustainability, and impact investing space from anywhere.
Additionally, I’ve built out my global network and expanded my client base to be internationally diverse. Today, I am a YES to global opportunities. I am a yes to speaking at global events and working on innovation projects for corporations and in the public sphere that take me around the world.
In this way, I designed my career to be bi-continental and then updated it to support me in being a global citizen.
I got clear about what I wanted. I started to embody that it was already true for me. I took actions that put me in line with that desire. I allowed for my vision to come true.
It’s also important to note that while my story has a happy ending, I did navigate a lot of pitfalls.
Change is hard and scary. It is easier to stay in the familiar.
There were many times where I got in my own way for no good reason other than being afraid of change and getting what I really desired.
But at the end of the day my desire to be a global citizen and maintain close relationships with people I love won.
My invitation for you is to get clear about your values and what matters most to you in this life.
I see incredible results in my clients when they do this work. It’s like everything clicks. They get the clarity. They feel the resonance. Then everything starts to happen so…quickly.
When you know what you want, taking the next step becomes SO much easier. Life flows. You create your reality. You live your values. You go after your dreams. You become the coolest person you know.
If you’re ready to take the next step and build your dream career whether that’s stepping into an executive leadership role, pivoting to something new, starting your own business, expanding your client base, I am here to support you.
Here’s two ways we can work together:
🧑🎨 Creating Your Career is a launchpad for pivoting into a career you love. In this tailored coaching program, you will get clear about what you want to create next and then take steps to make it your reality.
🚀 Visionary Leadership is for entrepreneurs building the companies of tomorrow. From attracting the right investors to building a strong organizational culture, managing employees, co-founder relationships, and holding the company vision no matter what, we work through it all so that you successfully build an organization that will change the world. Reply back to this for more info.
Sending you much love from Mexico where I wrote this post in this beautiful chair.
Hugs,
Analisa