What Does Your Ambition Leave Room For?

Before we moved to Austin, before I took the travel job, and before the conversation where I decided to stop fighting to keep it, there was a picture of a van in our office.

Our office was the back room of our home, and the picture sat right in front of the computer. Jenny and I had put it there during COVID because we kept coming back to the same thought:

How amazing would it be to build our business while traveling around the country?

We wanted to explore. To spend time in beautiful places. To share experiences we would remember for the rest of our lives.

That dream was already there when I took what felt like the safe option and returned to travel work. If you read my previous post, you know how that chapter ended: three weeks into the job, I was fired, and in the middle of explaining myself, I realized I was ready to let go.

What happened next brought us back to that picture.

From “that would be amazing” to “can we figure this out?”

After the job ended, we started looking at van life as something we could actually do.

We worked through the financial component. Once we figured that out, the conversation became, “Okay, we’re really doing this.”

I talked to people and looked at different vans. There were layouts that didn’t feel right for us, and I had a clear idea of what I wanted. About a week and a half to two weeks before we needed to move out of our apartment, we found it.

I put down a deposit, flew to Ohio, picked up the van, and drove it back.

Then we cleared out our apartment in about three days and hit the road.

A picture that had been sitting in front of our computer had become the place we were going to live and work.

Could we build a business this way?

As we prepared, some people raised questions.

Would we really be able to work from a van? Would clients take us seriously? Would it look unprofessional?

I hadn’t been particularly worried about that. But once those questions were brought up, we thought about them. We cared about our clients and the business we were building, and we wanted to keep doing our work well.

What happened was pretty amazing.

Our business took off. We picked up more clients, and the people we worked with loved seeing where we were.

Every time they jumped on a call, we might be somewhere new. We found beautiful locations, and those places became the background to our conversations. Clients got to see a little of the life we were creating as we supported them in creating theirs.

It became a point of connection.

They were watching us live a dream we had talked about. And I could feel how much that experience was changing the way I showed up.

Living what I was asking others to practice

Part of my work as a coach is helping people connect with what they want and take action toward it.

Living in the van gave that work a deeper meaning for me. I was experiencing the uncertainty, the practical decisions, and the growth that came with pursuing something important to us.

I knew what it felt like to look at a dream and ask how we could make room for it. I also knew what it felt like to hear someone question whether it would work and have to decide how much weight to give that opinion.

As we traveled, I became more confident in the life Jenny and I were building. I felt myself growing as a coach, and I saw our clients making stronger progress, too.

I can’t separate every part of what contributed to that season of growth. But I know that living in a way that felt aligned gave me experience and conviction I could bring into my work.

Our personal growth and our business growth began supporting each other. We were exploring what was possible in our own lives while helping other people do the same.

We have a limited amount of time

There’s something I feel strongly about, and sometimes I say it pretty directly: we’re going to die, and we don’t know how much time we have.

I don’t say that to frighten anyone. I say it because it affects how I want to live.

It’s easy to keep placing the things we care about somewhere in the future. After the business grows. After we make more money. After everything feels settled.

Those practical considerations matter. We had to figure out the finances before we bought the van. There were real decisions and responsibilities involved.

But I also think it’s worth asking how long we’re willing to leave a meaningful desire unexplored.

Traveling with Jenny mattered to me. Sharing those experiences mattered. So did building a business that helped people and gave us room to grow.

I wanted to find out whether those things could exist together.

The space we made helped us grow

When I think about what van life gave us, I think about the places we saw and the memories we made traveling around the country. It was a beautiful chapter of our lives, and one we’ll always look back on fondly.

I also think about the space it gave us to grow.

We had to learn how to live and work in a different way. We got to experience new surroundings and reconsider what we thought we were capable of. We discovered that we could build a business while living a life that felt like our own.

That changed my understanding of ambition.

I still wanted the business to succeed. I wanted to serve more people, become a better coach, and make more income. I also wanted that ambition to leave room for my marriage, adventure, and experiences I couldn’t postpone forever.

During that season, making room for those things helped our business grow. It gave us energy, confidence, and a stronger connection to the work itself.

What are you building your life to include?

Your version of this might look very different from ours.

It might mean having more time with your family, pursuing a creative interest, or having enough room in your week to enjoy the life you’ve worked hard to build.

Whatever it is, I think it deserves a place in the conversation about success.

When you picture the future you’re working toward, what do you actually see yourself doing? Who are you with? What do you want to have time and energy for?

And is there a part of that life you could begin making room for now?

At Inspire Change Collective, we care about those questions because growth touches every part of a person’s life. The way we pursue our goals affects our relationships, our experiences, and how connected we feel to ourselves.

For us, a picture in the back room became a real question. Then it became a plan. Eventually, it became a chapter of our lives that changed what we believed was possible.

I’m grateful we gave it room to become more than a picture.