I will never forget standing in a tiny grocery store in Lake Como, Italy... holding a lemon almost as big as my hand with the leaves still on, and realizing this wasn't a holiday. It was my actual life.

I would I have posted those lemons on instagram, but what you wouldn't fave seen there, is what it actually took to finally be standing there.

I'd built a business I could run from anywhere (a six-figure online membership and consulting business, run entirely over Zoom). I had been running it from my tiny terrace house in London. I could be anywhere, but instead I sat at my kitchen table, day after day... sometimes splashing out to the coffee shop down the road.

What was the point of having autonomy if I was too scared to use it?

In this episode (Joy First Decision #6) I tell the whole story of how my husband and I came to live in Lake Como, Italy, Morzine, France, and Mallorca, Spain after losing my heart dog Olivia, becoming reluctant landlords; moving into a spare room in someone else's house, and then actually hitting the road for the digital nomad life. All while running the business, working with clients, writing a book, and getting paid to speak on stages.

In this episode:

• Why you can build total freedom and still never use it

• That the biggest joy so often sits on the far side of the discomfort you're avoiding

• How the whole thing started with one small choice: a single change to my calendar

If this resonated, follow the show and leave a review. I will see you next time for Joy First Decision #7.

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As you may know, in this season I’ve been sharing the top ten joy first decisions of my life in a nice orderly chronological countdown, and then yesterday happened and had to through out the plan and have this conversation instead.

So, totally out of order, this is joy first decision #5, arriving early and slightly out of breath, with my friend Nicole Begley.

Not that many weeks ago I asked Nicole for ten minutes to hear me out on idea sort of related to our annual launch of the Commercial Pet Photography Academy - and I asked her to listen and not say no before she let me finish.

We have both spent nearly two years streamlining our businesses, cutting and refining programmes, and getting really good at saying no.

Well, long story short, it’s about 8 weeks later and here we are. Yesterday we launched a new brand, a new program, have merged significant revenue streams from our separate businesses into a shared one, and retired a launch we had a great time running for five or so years.

This thing we’ve created is called the Creative Freedom Rebellion.

Today we’re exploring how you tell the difference between being flaky and moving into more alignment (something I refused to let myself do 2 yrs ago which made big, big problems for my biz).

We also share the 4 things we’ve found our most successful clients have in common (even though their versions of freedom, joy and financial success were all quite different).

And we talk about why neither of us wanted to build another room built on polite niceness where the house rule is that ‘we don't talk about that here’.

There is also a clip from the call we ran yesterday, including a really moving moment from one of our clients that I have not stopped thinking about.

Watch the full replay from yesterday: https://www.nicolebegleyedu.com/rebellion

Apply for the Creative Freedom Rebellion: https://www.nicolebegleyedu.com/rebel

Nicole's podcast: https://www.freedomfocusformula.com/blog

If this one lands, we would love to hear from you. xx -Nic & Nicole

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I finally opened the shop I'd wanted for a decade: A photography studio and pet boutique two minutes from my front door, in beautiful Southwest London. I signed a ten-year lease and invested £40,000 pounds in the business (most of which was spent on renovating the derelict space), and I named it 'Little & Large' after my Great Dane and French bulldog. It truly was a dream come true.

But not even two years in, I was clear that this investment, this beautiful dream was actually a big mistake.

In this episode (Joy First Decisions #3 and #4) I tell the whole story: the VAT I never understood, the freedom I lost, the guilt of realizing I'd built my own cage, and the decision I dreaded most which turned out to be the joy first decision in disguise. It's the one that led to Whyfinding®, to the work I actually love, to the next business which grew to six figures in eight months.

If you've ever hung onto something too long because quitting felt like failure, this one's for you.

In this episode:

• How to tell whether a decision is rooted in joy or fear

• Why joy doesn't always look shiny (and often asks for discomfort first)

• What closing the shop made possible that I never could never have foreseen

Go deeper on Substack: joyfirstworld.substack.com

If this resonated, follow the show and leave a review - thank you! See you next time for Joy First Decision #5

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