Today is a special day for me…. Besides the fact that I am moving on to the next decade (ouch!), it is also the dawn of a whole new life that is opening up to us.
So no article on travel this time, but a much more personal article to explain a little bit how we came to be nomads and why we do what we do…
The path to entrepreneurship
Today I’m 30 years old and tomorrow I’m about to celebrate my last day of work! Tomorrow at noon we will also return our apartment!
We found a buyer who took over our lease on the one hand, but who also agreed to buy all our furniture from us!
We came back from our world tour just 18 months ago and I had the chance to find a great job in a Zurich startup. I loved this experience, I learned a lot, I met golden people, but above all it made me realize that I didn’t want to spend my life working for someone else! 🙂
I always knew that one day I would start my own business, never really knowing when the right time would come.
Is it now? I honestly have no idea, but I feel ready!
30 years a new momentum!
To be completely honest, the end date of our contract is a bit of a coincidence. We knew we still wanted to enjoy the summer in Switzerland, I had a big project at work that kept me busy for the last 8 months and I didn’t want to leave before I could complete it.
Whether it fits with my birthday is a nice sign of fate, or rather that’s how I see it.
For 11 years now I have had a rather special relationship with this date. So no, I reassure you I’m not an aging phobic, but I’ve pretty much stopped celebrating my birthday since I was 19.
On August 25, 2005 I celebrated my 19th birthday, but it was also the day I lost my mother to a long illness. The doctors told us all summer that she was going to die soon, but she wanted to be there for my birthday and to see me get my high school diploma! In short, she clung on to this date, a bit like an objective not to let this dirty disease win before that moment…. She did it! When the nurses told her it was the 25th, she fell asleep peacefully, she knew she had accompanied me where she had promised!
The day everything changed
I still remember that day as if it was yesterday! For me, my world stopped turning in an instant… That moment when on the morning of my birthday I arrived in our kitchen and I saw the look of my father with the phone in his hand. He didn’t have to tell me anything…. I knew…
Before leaving, my mother wanted to give me a gift for my high school diploma. From her hospital bed she made phone calls, she moved heaven and earth to organize something I had been dreaming of for a long time! A trip to New York!
She took care of everything: the flight, the hotel, the little envelopes with dollars and instructions:
- 100$ to go in last-minute to buy a ticket for a muscial. The instruction was clear: don’t book in advance, but go to the small counter in times square the same day and take the one that tempts you
- 60$ to go for a steak in a steak house she knew
- 100 to spend in an outlet center she discovered when she went there a few years earlier
- etc…
A promise
When she gave me the envelopes she made me promise to leave even though she would no longer be there. At that time I had no idea what a whirlwind of emotions I would find myself in following her death. But I made her the promise
It was with a heavy heart that a few weeks later I flew to the big apple! It was my first trip across the Atlantic without my parents, my first “adult” trip.
My mother loved to travel and kept telling me that what she wanted for me was: to study something I liked, find someone good to share my life with but also and above all that I would go and discover the world!
I think she’d be pretty proud of me if she saw me today. I’m not particularly religious, but I secretly hope she still watches me from somewhere.
New start
Losing my mother at 19 years old was a hard blow, it turned a lot of things upside down, a lot of things. But in hindsight I think it will also have allowed me to make choices that I wouldn’t have made otherwise.
Well, yes, first of all I followed the path!
A bachelor’s degree in my hometown? Fine!
A master’s degree in English 250km from my home? It’s good for languages!
A first professional experience abroad? Excellent for the CV!
Ditch everything at 27 to go around the world? This is good for morale! 🙂
But what about leaving a job you appreciate again at 30 when all your friends are moving in “for good” and starting a family? Embark on the adventure of entrepreneurship in nomadic mode. Drop one’s apartment to a complete stranger and leave him absolutely all our possessions. (furniture certainly, but also sheets, coffee machine, vacuum cleaner, etc…). We literally leave with nothing but our clothes, some memories, computers and backpacks!
Some people tell us that we are brave, others will say that we are lucky. But let’s be honest for two minutes, I think most people also think that we are simply a bit crazy…
Instagram does not always reflect real life
In recent months, many people have been asking us: “But what exactly are you going to do? »
It’s very paradoxical, because every time we try to answer that question, we go into a very vague explanation. We don’t know where we’ll be in two months yet. We don’t know exactly how much we will earn in 6 months and even less on which continent we will spend the Christmas and New Year holidays.
But strangely enough, in our heads the plan is quite clear. But I think people just don’t ask us the right questions.
Who knows…. Since we were young, we have been told that we need a job in order to be able to afford leisure activities that please us. So call us great fools, modern-day hippies (not hipsters please!), but we still believe that you can be happy and earn a living by doing what you love.
A nomadic life, not always understood
Over the past few months, my colleagues have been making fun of me several times:
“Well, by the time we present such a project in November you’ll be sipping a cocktail on a beach… Lucky girl, go! »
Haha then I confess, I laugh with a good heart every time! And it is very likely that in November we will be somewhere on the Asian continent. You may even see a picture on instagram with a beautiful beach and a cocktail. (we’ll even take one with the little umbrella, NA!)
But I also know that by embarking on an entrepreneurial journey we are embarking on an adventure where we will probably work much more than we do now. If we’re lucky, in 6 months we’ll be able to earn a quarter of our current salary, but we’ll most likely spend our evenings working rather than drinking wine with our friends (my liver will probably be delighted with this metamorphosis).
The nomadic challenge awaits us
In short, all this to say that the next few months will probably be richer in travel, richer in articles (yes yes, we are full of good resolutions). But we can’t fool ourselves, they will also be decisive in the turn of our business plan! And we reassure you instead of thinking about our meeting the next day before going to sleep we won’t be thinking about our next location for the beach towel…
We will reflect on our projects, on the administrative side of the lives of young entrepreneurs, on the reasons that led us to give up everything to try this crazy adventure.
We will have our doubts, our lively discussions to find a compromise on the management of a project. Give in a quote or to remind a customer who has unfortunately failed to pay his invoices.
So today I’m celebrating my 30th birthday and I’ve decided to question my life. To give myself a chance to develop new skills, to do what I love.
With Benoit by my side, who, let’s face it, has no more entrepreneurial experience than I do, strangely enough I leave serene.
This summer I married the man of my life, and now more than ever I feel ready for a new adventure!
This coming year promises to be crazy! Charged certainly, full of questions and doubts, probably some disappointments too, but madly exciting.
In short, I can’t wait to do a review in a year’s time to see where all this has led us! In the meantime, I have a birthday to celebrate! Because yes, I will enjoy this one!
Kisses,
Fabienne
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