Be your own boss

 

It all started with an adventure. An adventure that helped me get back the confidence I had lost. That gave me the headspace to think about who I was and what I wanted to do with my life. Which equipped me with useful skills that would help me build a career – resilience, a step-by-step mindset and an ability to think outside the box.

During my first big adventure – hiking the length of Israel – my blog started to grow a following. Excited by this I threw myself into blogging and started giving interviews and talks at events and festivals.

“I never even considered that being my own boss was an option. That I could create something from scratch and build a career from my passions. But in the space of just a couple of years, i did just that”

 

Shortly after, noticing the lack of women in the outdoors, I had the idea to create a women’s adventure community which I called Love Her Wild. Within the space of 2 years, the online community has grown to over 6,000 members. I’ve organised all-female adventures and events all round the world, run a mentoring program and supported dozens by providing free spaces on adventures to women in need.

I can now call myself an award winning sponsored adventurer…..?!

I’ve learnt a huge amount along the way and I want to use this space to share my advice and guidance for anyone who wants to build something – be it a side-hustle, a blog or a career.

I’d recommend you start with – my messy career path to adventurer  – which reflects a bit on my background and my earlier career.

 

Making money

So how do I actually make money from adventuring?

A game changer for me income wise was launching Patreon (you can check out my Patreon page here). For content creators and leaders this is a really fantastic platform. Check out my top tips:

Building a blog

At the basis of everything I built was a thriving blog. It took about 12 months to get my monthly traffic tipping almost 10,000 unique monthly visitors. That gave me an audience and a following that helped me build my adventuring career.

Build a brand

A brand isn’t just a product or organisation. An author, a blogger or an influencer is also a brand.

Digital nomad

I spent almost 3 years living as a digital nomad (travelling full-time while I worked on the move) which was an amazing experience – although not with out it’s challenges.

Check out what I think are the Pros & cons of being a digital nomad and why ultimately I Why I’m quitting being a digital nomad

Be your own boss top tips

It’s certainly not an easy journey running your own business. I often say that the best way to succeed with your ideas is to spend time working on you, understanding your weaknesses and your self-limiting beliefs. There have been some useful tips I’ve picked up along the way.

Sponsorship and press

Working with brands really helped get my name out there. It’s a great option for supporting a project, event or even you individualy as an influencer.

Getting your name in the papers can help you raise awareness and drum up support for your project: