Paul is a transformational coach, working with people all over the world to help them to transform their lives and solve problems they thought couldn’t be solved. He’s helped people with things as varied as drug and alcohol addiction, overcoming anxiety and depression, repairing lost relationships with family members and transforming careers.
We had the pleasure to host him at Sun and Co. the whole month of October and decided to share his powerful story. Keep reading to learn more about Paul’s journey and how he’s turned his life around to become location independent.
How did you become a digital nomad/ location independent?
That’s a long story…! The short version is I used to be a corporate lawyer. I was working 100 hours per week with my own law firm before reading ‘The 4 Hour Work Week’ by Tim Ferris, which just confirmed in my mind that there was a better way to live my life.
I built other businesses to try to create a more location independent lifestyle, then slowly transitioned from running my own companies to becoming a consultant. It took a few years of testing different approaches, figuring out what worked and what didn’t.
I eventually moved into coaching, which I now do via Zoom calls working from anywhere.
What are the challenges in this process and how do you handle them?
There are lots of practical challenges to becoming location independent, but I’d say the biggest challenges people face are psychological and emotional.
We are surrounded by people who will tell us that this lifestyle isn’t achievable or isn’t sustainable, and that’s enough to put many people off doing it because of the fear involved.
The first step is to accept that everyone is afraid when they make big changes in their lives. The difference with the people who take action isn’t a lack of fear, it’s the acceptance of that fear and taking practical steps to make the changes anyway.
Once you’ve dealt with the emotional and psychological hurdles, the practical challenges are much easier to deal with. Start by asking yourself “how can I overcome this?”, rather than telling yourself that you can’t.
After making the change, the biggest challenges I’ve found are the little things you miss from having your own place, such as your own bed! But the trade-off is more than worth it for the incredible people you meet, the conversations you have and the interesting places you get to see.
What’s been your favourite part about coliving / Jávea/ Sun and Co.?
There are so many it’s hard to write a summary! Having been to a few co-living type communities, I can say with certainty that the best thing any business like Sun and Co. can do is create an environment that feels like home (or, in my opinion, even better than home!), and
that’s something Sun and Co. does really well.
The house is lovely with great facilities, Silvia and Jon are brilliant hosts and really easy to get on with, and the people are fantastic.
Meeting like-minded people, having fun and interesting conversations, playing games, having drinks, going on hikes, cooking meals together, laughing a lot, and being in a beautiful town near the beach are all highlights of my stay here.
If you had one piece of advice to give to someone who is thinking about quitting their job to be location independent, what would it be?
Don’t avoid whatever the fearful thoughts are that are holding you back. In life generally, when something frightens us we tend to bury it and try our best to stay away from it. But the counter-intuitive way to deal with it is to move towards it, not away.
Write down in as much detail as possible everything you think is stopping you from living the life you want to live. Then pretend someone has a gun to your head and says they’ll pull the trigger unless you find a solution to every problem.
By approaching it from the perspective of how you can do it rather than why you can’t, you’ll probably find that all of the stories you’re telling yourself about why it’s not possible can be solved.
Remember that no life comes without its problems and challenges – the life you lead right now has plenty of them. This isn’t about finding a perfect life, it’s about creating a life that ticks as many of the boxes of the things you really want to do.
Paul is the founder of paul7cope.com. He also helps people with free content via his YouTube channel and podcast.
