Paso A Paso: Journey to Building A Business Abroad Pt. 1

I often get asked how I ended up in Spain, how I started my business, and why I started my podcast, Flourish in the Foreign.

In truth, it’s kind of a long story. A story full of twists and turns and fateful interferences. And perhaps one day, I’ll lay it all out. However, today, I’ll just start at the very beginning.

Basically, my life took a very sudden turn when I decided to walk the Camino de Santiago.

In 2014, I was supposed to move to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

I ended up walking the Camino de Santiago, a medieval pilgrimage across Spain, instead.

It was the summer of 2014, a year since I had graduated from law school. I accepted an offer to work at a really cool startup based in Kuala Lumpur.

I packed up my *beautiful* Inman Park apartment in Atlanta and moved back in with my mother in preparation for my move.

After a month and a half of farewell parties and waiting for my visa to come through, I was abruptly told that the job offer was being rescinded with little explanation.

I was so angry. And embarrassed. And confused

"What the f*&^ was I supposed to do now?"

I took my anger to Kennesaw Mountain and walked. I hoped that the fresh air, forest critters, and the general “magic of the great outdoors”,  would abate my disappointment.

It didn’t.

So I walked and walked and walked.  

In silence and then with wild outbursts of profanity.

And then an absolutely absurd thought came to me, "walk the Camino de Santiago".

I immediately tried to push it out of my mind. I had only heard of this "long walk" across Spain 6 months prior when a friend had mentioned that it was on her bucket list.

When she explained what it entailed, I replied with an incredulous, but polite "wow, that's interesting...". I must admit, I didn’t think it was interesting. At all.

I had no interest in walking over 500 miles across Spain. With only a backpack. Sleeping in albergues (special hostels for Camino pilgrims).

I liked the type of nature where I could walk back to my car and go home when I wanted.

And yet the thought, "walk the Camino de Santiago" persisted like nothing I had ever experienced. Night and day it was haunting me.

So I acquiesced, reluctantly, and within 3 weeks I was in France to start this walk that I knew almost nothing about (and that I didn't even want to do).

“Paso a Paso, allow each step to be whatever it needs to be. Allow your body and mind to get stronger day by day and you’ll get there in no time.”

My first couple of days on the Camino were rough, to put it mildly. I have never cried so much in public in my entire life. 

 I seriously considered stopping and returning to Atlanta.

But a French woman who had seen me struggling advised that “you have to approach it paso a paso, step by step. It’s too overwhelming to think about if you’ll ever make it to Santiago. Paso a paso, allow each step to be whatever it needs to be. Allow your body and mind to get stronger day by day and you’ll get there in no time.”

And I did. 

Something about walking from the French Pyrenees and ending up on a Galician beach on the Atlantic coast of Spain changed me. Besides giving me debilitating tendonitis in my feet. 

It gave me permission to go my own way and the quiet confidence that once I set my vision, I’d eventually reach my heart’s desire, my destination. Paso a paso.

“ It’s a phrase that roots me in the inevitability of my victory (even when it looks different from the original vision). ”

Paso a paso, that simple phrase that I’m sure I'd heard many times in other ways (in English lol) but only truly received, truly absorbed when I physically had to take it one step at a time.

It’s a phrase that echoes in my mind no matter what I’m doing (and I’m usually not walking 500 miles).

It’s a phrase that roots me in the inevitability of my victory (even when it looks different from the original vision lol).

It’s a phrase that gently reminds me that “arriving” whole is better than arriving quickly or “on time”.

It’s a phrase that  I use to guide my clients as they traverse their own professional Camino.

I guess it’s no surprise that my business strategy clients are women who are called (sometimes begrudgingly so) to go their own way and are determined to do so while enjoying the journey of bringing their vision to fruition.  

If you’ve read this far (yay, thanks) I want you to bet on yourself and set off in the direction of your greatest vision. 

You will get there. 

Paso a paso.

“It’s a phrase that gently reminds me that “arriving” whole is better than arriving quickly or “on time”.”