After years of nonstop work, long-haul flights, and 19-hour days, I was suddenly laid off. So we did something kind of crazy—we bought a truck and an R-Pod 192 trailer (exactly the type of purchases you should make when you’re laid off, right?). Chad was on extended time off from his airline job, and I was finally standing still long enough to ask: what now?
Up until that point, I’d been leading global teams across three time zones. Meetings at 6 a.m. and 11 p.m. were normal. I never really shut off—because somewhere in the world, someone always needed something. I told myself that’s what leadership looked like. That’s what it took.
I was commuting from Raleigh to San Jose every three weeks for a full week at a time. Cross-country flights, late nights, carry-on bags that lived permanently half-packed. I was on a first-name basis with the SkyLounge employees in Atlanta. I even started becoming Facebook friends with a few flight attendants who regularly worked my route. That’s how much I was flying. That’s how normal it had become.
And then it all stopped. Laid off in a company-wide RIF. At first, it felt like failure. But then it felt like…space.
A few weeks later, we hit the road in the RV. And somewhere between slow mornings and long walks with Frankie, I started building again. Working from a folding table, fueled by coffee, Wi-Fi, and just enough momentum. My (also remote) business partner and I had no roadmap—just an idea and time to build it.
Living in the RV gave me work-life balance. Not the version you hear about in HR webinars or corporate handbooks. The kind that actually feels like peace. Like waking up with the sun because the window over your bed is cracked open. Making coffee outside. Heating up some meal-prepped egg bites. Taking the dog for a walk. Maybe dipping a toe in the pool, maybe hiking a short trail. Maybe not doing much at all.
We didn’t rush. We didn’t overbook ourselves. Even when work was busy, it felt manageable—like the time I had back-to-back calls from 10 to 5, but still started the day with breakfast burritos and a hike. That morning carried me through.
It became sustainable. Regenerative. Human.
And if you work in tech, you know how rare that is.
The industry treats balance like weakness. Hustle is glorified. Rest is for other people. You’ve got Reid Hoffman saying, “work-life balance is not the startup game.” Elon Musk telling people to sleep at work. A culture that worships burnout and calls it ambition. (And let’s be honest—most of that RTO noise comes from men. Men with a partner at home doing the invisible labor so they can work 14-hour days uninterrupted. But I digress.)
I knew that version of “success” wasn’t going to work for me. Or for my marriage. Or for the kind of life I wanted to build.
I still worked hard on the road. I was building a business. But the way I worked changed. I didn’t start my days in a panic. I wasn’t fueled by adrenaline or guilt. I was productive because I was rested. I made better decisions because I wasn’t stretched so thin. And at the end of the day, I felt like a person—not just an output machine.
Living in less than 200 square feet teaches you a few things. You can’t do it all. So you get good at picking what matters—and letting the rest wait. I didn’t feel lazy. I felt free.
It also rewired my relationship with time. We didn’t live by alarms or meetings. We paid attention to the light, the weather, how we felt. I worked when it made sense. I rested when I needed to. Sometimes sitting outside with a coffee was the thing that set up the next great idea.
I got better at the work because I got better at the life around it.
And I got flexible. You kind of have to. Stuff breaks. Plans change. The weather throws you off. You learn to pivot without unraveling. That mindset stuck long after the wheels stopped rolling.
There are still days I struggle—saying no, setting boundaries, closing the laptop when it’s enough. But living in the RV, waking up somewhere new, meeting people, adjusting plans on the fly—that taught me how to breathe through the chaos. To trust that not everything needs to be handled right now. That rest is part of the job.
And now? I don’t get the Sunday Scaries anymore.
And while this post is about work, I’ll just say this: slowing down helped in other ways too—especially when it came time to become a mom. But that’s a story for another time.
I have some affiliate links on this post, so I can make (literally) a few pennies of this post to offset my hosting fees. All opinions are genuine and the products I endorse are actually products we use while living full-time in our R-Pod 192.
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