Having Less and Living More

One of the questions we get asked most often is, “How did this crazy idea come about?”  The short answer is: it didn’t just pop into our head, our love and desire to travel has always been there, but it took time for us to realize we could turn our values and passions into a true lifestyle.  Looking back it was years in the making and we finally found the courage to align our life with our values despite it being unconventional. So if you are ready for the full back story, read on!

I have been an avid traveler my entire life. I have been to 29 countries (thank you mom for letting me use your United Airlines employee benefits!); some just to backpack, some for educational purposes, and others to volunteer.  I even pitched a travel show to Oprah’s network, OWN, before we were married! You see, I dreamed of having my own travel show. Obviously, that didn’t pan out, although they did call back! I wanted to get all of my exploring and wild adventures out of the way before I settled down and had kids (as if those desires would go away once I did that).  

I had always told Rodrigo that the hardest part of having kids was losing that part of myself and committing to a more stable, predictable life. Besides me traveling extensively, Rod and I both had very traditional upbringings.  We both graduated from college, myself from UNM with an accounting degree and Rod from MIT with an aerospace engineering degree (always an overachiever).  We did our Masters in Business Administration together, found traditional jobs, got married, and then had kids.  We had both followed the “expected” plan and were living a good, stable life. While traveling with kids seemed pretty unfeasible and was way too far from traditional, we decided that we wanted to change things up and start something of our own.

Starting a Company 

Rodrigo was working in the Air Force and trying to decide if he wanted to complete the full 20 years to get military retirement or have a career move. Rod and I decided if we could come up with an awesome business idea to work on together he would get out of the Air Force and be co-founders on this new venture. After a lot of thought and late, late nights, we came up with an innovative children’s clothing line that was made to order called Picksy. We pitched the idea to investors, received great feedback and seed funding to work with.

Rod had the idea that I should also start a children’s blog that we named “Little in Pretties” to gain an audience, so that when we were ready to launch our clothing line we had the perfect place to advertise.  Meanwhile, I was going to Denver to design clothes and sew during the day and when Rod got home from his job we would work until 2 or 3 in the morning. We were pretty excited about this possible next transition in life and loved being a team.

After a few months of hard work, we went to a fabric printing convention in Las Vegas to find the perfect printer for our company. Everything was falling into place, but when it came time to find a warehouse we both started to get cold feet.  We decided to take a step back for a few weeks and figure out what was holding us back since we had the funds, a great idea, and had put in so much work.

The Moment That Changed Our Mindset

During this step back we started to assess what our values are and decided that they are family, freedom, learning, and sharing. While our clothing business seemed to be everything we dreamed of, we started realizing it didn’t align with all of our core values. By owning a factory that manufactured made-to-order clothing in the USA, we would be losing out on a lot of family time and our freedom to travel.  It wasn’t a business that supported location-independent income and was going to be an extremely demanding process during our children’s most formative years. At this time, we started to question what the end goal of owning this business was for us.  Was it to have more money and possessions, or to do something that fulfilled us and met our values?   Most people work for their dream home, more clothes, more items, and the ability to retire to vacation. Is that what we wanted?

Over the years we had become accustomed to the consumer lifestyle and lived contrary to what a minimalist lifestyle entails.  We had our dream home, but realized a large home requires a lot more maintenance and cleaning, higher bills, and more time.  All of those requirements were consuming me and taking away precious moments from our kids whom I wanted to enjoy.  I still love our home and love decorating, and maybe one day when the kids are older and can help out more I may want to return to it, but it isn’t where my priority is now. I had a closet full of clothes yet never could decide what to wear.  The kids had too many toys and only a select handful they seemed to play with, and the rest become a waste of money. We started to realize that we had everything we were working hard to have more of or better of, but those items were only bringing temporary happiness, and after the initial thrill they became one more thing to take care of.  One could say, well you could use the extra money to travel instead of buying more things, but typically with a promotion comes longer hours and more responsibility so less flexibility to take time off.

It was in this moment of soul searching that we decided we wanted to change our life to match our values rather than continue to do what society taught us was the “right path.”  We were tired of working for the next promotion and waiting for the next pay raise to consume more, we wanted to focus on having less and living more. Maybe we are crazy or just plain dumb, or maybe we are just millennials trying to have it all, but why not try to live the life you want since you only get one chance?

We also realized that while Picksy and Little in Pretties weren’t going to succeed if we switched paths, it was an amazing learning experience to prepare us for this new journey as The Jetsetting Family.  While blogging for Little in Pretties, we learned about how to build a website, how to monetize it through affiliate partnerships, and how to get sponsorships. I also practiced photography so that we could collaborate with different brands that we loved and learned how to build those relationships. I believe that the time we spent wasn’t wasted, but more of a huge learning experience that will help us immensely on this new path.  

Now as we start planning our lives as travel bloggers, there are days I wonder if maybe we indeed nuts, but most of the time I am just so excited thinking about how we finally found the niche that aligns with our values. I figure despite it being a risk to take we will never look back and regret the adventures we had.  Values can evolve and change with time, so in a few years we may redirect yet again  or find the perfect balance in-between, but for now I can’t wait to be able to explore the world as a family and spend quality time together every day.