Jennifer Lankford began a PR consultancy and moved to Costa Rica after shedding her job at a startup.
She’s now centered on aligning her work together with her private values and prioritizing her way of life.
Lankford’s each day routine in Costa Rica consists of early mornings, mountaineering, browsing, and strategic work.
This as-told-to essay relies on a dialog with Jennifer Lankford, the 45-year-old CEO of Lankford Communications, who relocated to Costa Rica. The next has been edited for size and readability.
I am the CEO of Lankford Communications, and I dwell in Jaco, Costa Rica. I previously lived in Portland and the Bay Space. My firm is distant.
I’ve spent the previous 20+ years in strategic communications and PR. I labored for a number of tech corporations earlier than turning into a senior advertising and marketing supervisor at Intel. When my enterprise unit dissolved, I took a task at a startup known as Buoyant in 2017, after which was poached right into a senior position at a high-growth safety startup, which, on the time, felt like I “lastly made it.”
It appeared like a prestigious position, and I used to be actually beginning to transfer up the ladder in my profession with an enormous position on the sizzling new startup on the town. Issues did not prove the way in which I anticipated, and I used to be fired from the safety startup in January 2019.
I had beforehand consulted between roles, so I dove again in and constructed my very own PR consultancy. I additionally determined to go away my life behind and transfer to Costa Rica. I am so comfortable right here.
I used to be fired a couple of months earlier than the startup’s acquisition
Being let go from an thrilling startup was jarring. It occurred abruptly and despatched me right into a spiral of self-doubt. In hindsight, it was merely a foul match, and one I ought to have seen sooner. The tradition’s values did not align with mine.
I had tied a lot of my identification and self-worth to my success in that position, however as soon as the preliminary shock wore off, I noticed I felt extra relieved than offended. As a substitute of dashing again into one other related job, I requested myself a extra elementary query: For what sort of life am I really optimizing?
Inside days, I launched my web site. I signed my first purchasers shortly, and by January 2020, had leased my first workplace in Portland. That solely lasted a couple of months earlier than the COVID-19 shutdowns, however the enterprise took off. All of a sudden, the validation I would as soon as sought from titles and managers was coming from constructing one thing that was genuinely mine.
An concept I would thought of for years lastly felt practical: relocating to Costa Rica, which I had visited a couple of instances. Browsing was my past love earlier than my profession acquired in the way in which, and the pandemic proved that distant work may help the form of way of life I dreamed of. By the tip of 2020, I gave myself permission to design my work round my life, reasonably than the opposite means round.
I’ve by no means been happier
Lankford browsing.Jennifer Lankford
I am now not prepared to prepare my life round methods or organizations that deal with burnout as ambition and fixed development as the one measure of price.
I design my schedule round centered, high-impact strategic work reasonably than fixed availability. I am extra selective in regards to the folks and corporations I work with. I select management groups that worth variety, transparency, and long-term considering, and merchandise that resolve actual issues.
I hike frequently, surf virtually each day, and spend most of my time outside. I’ve adopted two rescue canine who carry construction and pleasure to my days. I am healthier than ever, much less harassed, and extra current than I’ve ever been.
Maybe most surprisingly, my work has improved in ways in which matter most to my purchasers with clearer technique, stronger positioning, and extra impactful outcomes.
In Costa Rica, days are easy, and my mornings begin early
I get up round 5:30 a.m. to the sound of birds, make espresso, and start the day with a hike or an extended stroll on the seaside with my canine earlier than the warmth units in. After that, I sit all the way down to do my most centered work: technique, writing, and shopper collaboration.
I not often take conferences late within the day, and normally work round 25 hours Monday by Friday. My output, nevertheless, is larger than it ever was after I was working twice that. I am incomes six figures, too.
Within the afternoons, I will cool off with a swim, observe Spanish, learn, or take a nap earlier than wrapping up work and heading to the seaside for sundown. I’ve a ton of pals right here, and it is a very worldwide neighborhood.
Residing nearer to the equator has reset my relationship with time and relaxation. I am normally in mattress by 8 p.m. and up with the solar.
To others who really feel caught of their careers, I would inform them to query the assumptions they’ve inherited about success
Rethink the concept stepping off the ladder, even briefly, means failure. I all the time encourage girls to construct their careers and create actual monetary safety — I could not have made this transfer with out doing that myself. I had a cushion, giant retainers, and a booming enterprise, so I wasn’t too anxious about cash. I later refinanced and offered my home in Portland to purchase a house right here.
The place I urge extra warning is in how a lot weight we give to titles, status, and momentum inside methods that do not return the identical care or loyalty. Staying longer than obligatory in environments that drain you could be its personal entice. When corporations fail to worth their folks, selecting to work for your self is usually a direct path to autonomy and larger pleasure.
You needn’t blow up your life to make a change, however you do should be trustworthy about what your job is costing you bodily and emotionally. For me, strolling away wasn’t giving up; it was selecting my bodily and psychological well being. The aim is not to reject success, however to outline it extra rigorously. What sort of way of life do you really need to dwell, beginning when?
If private pursuits must rank larger in your life than they do now, make room for them. Typically probably the most significant shift is not an enormous transfer, however a choice to cease suspending the life you really need.
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