Why Harmony and I are blowing up our happy comfortable life.
We’ve lit a stick of dynamite – and I’m so excited to tell you about it.
This week’s email is a little self-indulgent, and I hope also inspiring as I explain why we have a one-way ticket out of Australia in 2025.
Click Here to see where my family is flying first
As I approach the 20th year of my business coaching, I’m moving into the Succeed Up (fourth / Black) phase of the business lifecycle.
This has required rebuilding my business “by design”, and perhaps you’ve seen some of the changes.
The most notable is the creation of the Como business coaching brand (servicing leaders in all industries), and in particular the research, development, and launch of Como Legal Coaching alongside my beautiful wife (and recovering lawyer) Harmony. If you’ve not visited the Como Legal Coaching Instagram page, give us a follow.
Brand is the external manifestation of Culture. And Culture is driven by a clear Why, a clearly defined purpose.
At Como, our purpose is clear:
Creating Freedom Through Business
Why Did We Name Our Company Como?
This is a good question, and one neatly answered by Harmony in this recent video.
Como the company is named for Lake Como, in Northern Italy, where we began our Honeymoon in 2008 and celebrated my first Fathers Day in 2019. See if you can guess which picture is which.
Lake Como remains our favourite place in the world, and is an emblem of our Personal Vision for being business owners – to create freedom for our family to work and travel around the world.
Now, our vision is not your family vision. But our business exists to help your vision as well – my family achieves its freedom only when we help other business owners achieve theirs.
As we are fond of asking:
What’s Your Como?
Our 2025 Freedom
I’m proud to say that we’ve been very successful in business. We practice what we preach: we invest in coaching, and marketing, and functional support (personally and for our business), and we’ve grown wealth through our “real” business.
We’re having too much fun, and we’re far too young and beautiful to retire. So what freedom does this business success allow us?
- Location Independence
- Global Travel, and
- Worldschooling.
Let me unpack these – and do hit ‘Reply’ with your questions! Or email harmony@como.ltd to make sure she’s going this voluntarily!
1. Location Independence: This Changes Nothing
Many of us implemented remote work and homeschooling during the pandemic. Most were glad to see both end! But for the Aldridges, that path began much earlier…
I took on my first remote coaching client in 2010 – that was two years before Zoom was launched. In 2019, I worked from 21 different countries while travelling the world with my beautiful wife and our newborn (plus time with family and friends around the world).
The flying Aldridges were #TrappedInParadise during the pandemic; and we benefited from the Covid Blessing that changed habits and skills for business owners around the world.
Today in 2024, many of my clients have never met me in person. Some haven’t smelled my breath for years. Most others appreciate the flexibility of a fully remote coach, or working via a hybrid approach that includes some in-person coaching 2-4 times per year.
If I can coach business owners from anywhere … then why not offer to coach you from everywhere?
Which brings us back to “Freedom through Business”. The Freedom to run my business from wherever in the world I want.
Is this selfish? Yes – I don’t run my business as a martyr to my clients, and you shouldn’t either.
Does this mean some business owners won’t want to work with me? Yes, my target market is no longer “anyone with a pulse and a chequebook”.
Meeting with local entrepreneurs around the world will add to my skills as a business coach, perspective my ideal clients value. And honestly, I think if I kept this travel a secret most of my clients would never even notice!
2. What Do You Mean Global Travel?
Australia is a long way from almost everywhere else. Jet travel is one of the worst things I can do for the environment. If my family wants to explore the world it makes perfect sense to “slo-mad” around the globe, rather than bouncing back and forth from Brisbane.
As a family we’ve set the goal to visit 6-10 different countries per year, a mix of new adventures and old favourites. As you’ll see below, our plans are open ended and not permanent, and we have some ongoing criteria for happiness.
To answer the questions I’ve received about my current meandering, England will be our base again (Harmony and I lived in London 2010-2012, though cities like Birmingham and Manchester are more likely at this time).
- I’m excited at the sheer volume of business opportunities available in the UK right now.
- A lingering Brexit and this month’s Autumn Budget notwithstanding.
- On my two trips this year I’ve met with almost 100 small business owners…
- Most are happy to moan, but they are all minding their own business and getting on with things.
In many ways I’m reminded of moving to London in the middle of the Global Financial Crisis. While that seemed like a terrible time, the advice I received was “Don’t Waste a Good Recession” – and I was kept busy helping SMEs because I brought them fresh energy and a global perspective when they needed it most.
So What About Australia…?
Australia remains our domicile – we’re not selling up and leaving. Our plane ticket isn’t until mid-March, and how much time we spend down under will depend on those hybrid clients.
Having successfully navigated remote, global coaching for 10+ years our Australian client base of businesses will continue to thrive.
I am finding that attempting to explain our specific plans is frying a lot of minds. Not for the first time in my life, I am defying all attempts to categorise me into a box.
It’s one thing to “travel a lot” – people understand that. It’s another thing to “move abroad” – ditto.
But what the hell does it mean to have a year which includes Disneyland in Japan, a Worldschooling farm in Spain, beaches in Cyprus, and a special Christmas destination up towards the North Pole … all while still running a coaching business, helping clients achieve amazing outcomes, and keeping our team employed?
Frankly, it means whatever my family want it to mean. Which is why I feel so Proud to have created this life.
Now you know why I have a Dateline in my weekly emails!
3. What is Worldschooling?
Far more important than business or adventure is how we raise our child. There are lots of reasons why parents might choose to homeschool – due to the time commitment from otherwise working parents, it’s one of the most expensive gifts you can give a child.
Worldschooling takes this approach to another level, seeking to integrate the exploration of the world into the education of the child. Think:
- Maths making meals in Mexico
- Reading Rowling in Reading, and
- The occasional history excursion to Stonehenge, Giza, or the Manor House where Posh and Becks got engaged.
Is Worldschooling a load of tree-hugging hippy crap?
In Malaysia last Christmas we met 8 different Worldschooling families, and that was without planning to do so. We’ve since joined online communities of 50,000+ families doing the same thing, meaning stereotypes about a lack of socialisation can be put to rest.
The wisdom of those parents doing this successfully
is drowning out all the people saying it can’t be done.
Every family is different, and we’ve discovered there’s a LOT of different pedagogies and curricula to investigate. Similar to how our medical team were fully supportive when we flew a four-month-old baby to Amsterdam, our current school teachers and principal are fully supportive of this adventure.
And as my favourite barista in Brisbane said: “If I discovered my parents could have homeschooled me while we travelled the world, but they didn’t do it, I would never forgive them.”
Do you know any other nomadic or homeschooling families? We’d love an introduction.
How does this make you feel? Scared or Excited for me, or a bit of both?!
What Does this Actually Mean to You?
I think there’s a micro and a macro scale answer.
On a micro scale, this doesn’t mean much to my clients and networks. I’m already working with companies around the world – the more timezones change, the more they stay the same. I’ll see more of my friends in Birmingham than Brisbane, but my phone number won’t be changing.
On a macro scale, I hope this transparency helps to lead by example in some small way. It’s very easy for any consultant to preach “freedom through business” while still driving a car they can’t afford to a job they don’t like so they can buy things they don’t want.
That doesn’t describe our clients – the kind of people (for Jacob – mostly men, mostly dads; for Harmony – mostly women, mostly law firm partners) who are genuinely doing incredible things to give their family a better life, whatever that means for them.
So when you do feel stuck, or uncertain, or lacking some of the courage you once had … remember that Harmony and I could have stayed in comfortable Brisbane, increasing our fees and our hours worked in pursuit of another zero on the bank account … but instead we decided to blow up that comfortable life in pursuit of great happiness for our family.
Which just leaves one more question…
What’s Your Como?
