Ep.64 Redefining Success Through Van Life and Creative Passion with Jo Hodson

Jo Hodson, a quietly unconventional creative designer and certified health coach, reveals how she transformed her life by embracing a nomadic lifestyle, self-building her camper van, and leaving behind a decade-long career in architecture. Despite encountering struggles along the way, Jo's journey is a testament to resilience and reinvention. Through candid discussions, she opens up about the loneliness she sometimes faces as an introverted nomad and the importance of building community on the road, urging wellness-based entrepreneurs to chase their multiple passions and challenge societal norms.

Jo, who was diagnosed with ADHD in 2020, shares how she has embraced her unique thought processes to craft a business model aligning with her personal strengths. She recounts her transition from managing a food business to focusing on design and business strategy, highlighting the desire for location independence. By leveraging intense, hyper-focused 'design days', Jo has found a way to overcome self-criticism and foster self-compassion while navigating a multifaceted lifestyle that includes van life, dog/house sitting, and design work.

As we chat, Jo offers insights into trusting one's intuition and the courage required to pursue unconventional paths. She reflects on using unexpected challenges as catalysts for positive change and the necessity of creating mental space to explore new ways of living and working. By resisting societal blueprints and embracing individuality, Jo's story inspires listeners to craft a life that aligns with personal values and unique rhythms. Join us in keeping the spirit of mischief alive, and discover how you, too, can stay bold and rebellious in your journey toward authentic living...

Find Jo here: https://createwellbeingltd.com/
Follow her here: https://www.instagram.com/iamjohodson/

Chapters

• 0:00 Living Unconventionally
• 6:30 Van Life Challenges and New Beginnings
• 13:38 Embracing ADHD for Work and Life
• 20:34 Navigating a Multifaceted Life
• 32:02 Building Community While Living Unconventionally
• 36:33 Trusting the Inner Knowing
• 41:46 Staying Bold With Mischief Movement

Transcript

Jo Hodson: 0:00

But when you're working a very intense career like 60 hours a week, you've got no mental bandwidth to take the time to work out. Well, if I don't do this, then what else? I couldn't leave until I had something to leave to. But I'm never going to have something obvious to leave to unless I've carved out the mental space to work out what the next step would be.

Zoe Greenhalf: 0:21

Hey there welcome, or welcome back to the Mischief Movement podcast. I'm Zoe, your guide on this journey to shake up the status quo and design a life that truly makes you feel alive. If you've ever felt disconnected, stuck on autopilot or trapped in a life that feels more like a treadmill than an adventure, you're in the right place. I know that change can feel scary, so let's turn down the fear and crank up the fierce as we transform your life from the inside out. Whether it's solo episodes packed with actionable advice or interviews with some absolute badass human beings who've dared to defy the norm by living life their way, we're here to inspire, activate, empower and challenge you each week. My mission is simple to help you reawaken your rebel spirit, break free from mediocrity and design a life that's anything but dull. You only get one wildlife, so what are you planning to do with yours? If you're ready to stop settling, start living boldly and create a positive impact along the way, let's dive in and stir up some mischief together Now buckle up and let's go. Hello, hello.

Zoe Greenhalf: 1:36

In this episode of the Mischief Movement podcast, we're diving into the world of Joe Hodson, a quietly unconventional, creative designer, adhder and coach who thrives on doing life and business differently. Jo's journey is a masterclass in resilience and reinvention from her days as an architect to launching a plant-based recipe blog, becoming a certified health coach and even self-building her own camper van to live nomadically across the UK and Europe. She's all about helping wellness-based entrepreneurs embrace their multiple passions and create a life on their own terms. Seriously, I don't think there could have been more synergy if we'd have tried. Anyway, if you're ready to rebel against the ordinary, let's jump in Cool. So this week I'm joined by Jo Hodson and I am very interested to find out what your mischief is. So would you like to share what your mischief is?

Jo Hodson: 2:32

thank you, I'm so happy to be here. I've been following you for a while and there's so much synergy, so, yeah, I'm really excited. So, um, I suppose you could sum me up as a. I'm a nomad. I'm also a late diagnosed ADHDer, which brings all its own mischief. I have a business called Create Wellbeing, and I blend my creative work with traveling the road in my self-converted camper van, and I'm kind of going against society's expectations, living out my 40s on my end terms, and I'm also a massive introvert, so I think the phrase quietly unconventional is something that sums me up quite well.

Zoe Greenhalf: 3:06

I can totally identify with that, as you probably know. So where do we start? That's really interesting. Yeah, I'm particularly keen to hear how you ended up building your own camper van and then living in it.

Jo Hodson: 3:24

Yeah, OK should we start there? Yeah, it was, as with many people. It was a lockdown project, um, okay, but that said, it had been in the back of my mind for many years prior to that. So I guess, backtracking further than that, I used to. I had a career in architecture for nearly a decade, so that was my kind of original thing, and then I left that life in early 2013. So it's probably around about then.

Jo Hodson: 3:53

That's the tiny home thing and just doing things differently. And I've always had that alternative spin, even though I didn't know I was neurodivergent at that point. But I think one of the reasons I didn't do it earlier was because number one, as silly as it sounds, I don't really enjoy driving, so why pick a life that inherently goes? And also, I was worried about being lonely. So the first one, I just thought do you know what? Even if I'm not the sort of person that really enjoys driving, that doesn't mean that I won't enjoy going to cool places, um. And secondly, yeah, the loneliness is a thing I mean. We may or may not get onto that later, um, but again, it's not something that's going to stop me, because you can be lonely wherever you live or however you live. It's about creating community, whatever your lifestyle looks like. So, yeah, there's that, and that is probably one of my current challenges is figuring out community, particularly as an introvert and ADHDer. Um, so, coming back to the sort of the current day, um, lockdown hit and I think for many of us it called it. It created the opportunity to pause, yes, um, and all of our kind of routines and all the things we did.

Jo Hodson: 5:06

An autopilot ground to a halt and that little little creeping idea in the back of my mind came back to sort of the forefront again, and also, around that time, my, my mum had already moved away from the hometown. I grew up and my dad was in the process of moving away and most of my work was already online at that point. So I came to the realization that I didn't need to be in one place and there was no one place that I wanted to be. So it was almost like the obvious answer and I had the time and space to build something. Obviously, I mentioned my career in architecture and I can visualize things in huge detail and kind of build them. My dad's very handy and I think I'd absorbed a lot of that by osmosis through my life, just the DIY sort of things, and he did help. You know, it wasn't like totally me on my own, um, so, yeah, so, jan, uh, when did I finish? I started October 2020 and then I finished by the following summer. So ever yeah, over three and a half years now I've been on the road.

Jo Hodson: 6:04

Um, that's the story, and I didn't really know what, what my expectation was. I think at the time I thought what's the worst that can happen? The worst that can happen is I build the van, it, I don't get on with it, it doesn't van life doesn't suit me, I just sell it again. And at that point they were going like hotcakes. I would have been able to sell it very easily. So it was almost like a no-brainer. There was no real risk, in a way, and I liked the idea of the project. It was much more challenging than I imagined it would be to build it out, but I was so proud when I actually finished it and then I thought, ok, well, I'll just do all four seasons in the van and see what happens at the end of a year. And then, do you know all four seasons in the van and see what happens at the end of a year, and then it just.

Zoe Greenhalf: 6:46

It's just continued on in its own rhythm. Is that what you had in mind then? Was it like a? I'll give myself a year, I would not have any kind of expectations.

Jo Hodson: 6:53

I didn't really have any expectation but I I think I liked the idea of once I'd started giving myself at least a year, because it did take me a long time to adjust and really find that rhythm on the road and I thought, if I try and I and give up too early, I won't have given myself the opportunity to really find that flow and it probably took me the best part of that year to really find that flow. Um, so I'm really glad that I didn't, because I had some tricky things early on that that made it very challenging. But I didn't really have a backup plan and sometimes when you don't have a backup plan, it actually makes you persevere with the initial plan because you've got no other.

Zoe Greenhalf: 7:31

What were those things? What were?

Jo Hodson: 7:32

the challenges that you um. So a few weeks after I finished building the van and I sort of taken off my own my first little road trip, I went to visit some friends near my old home, old hometown, and I'd parked up somewhere that I thought was safe. Um, and there's. There's various apps you can use, like park for night, for example, is one of them, and it it's like a user-generated app that shows places that people have parked up and it gives photos and reviews and things. And this place had a good had, good reviews. There were no signs that said no overnight parking and all that um, and it was in. It was close to an area I knew quite well, but I'd never been stayed in this area overnight. Anyway, in the middle of the night I had my windscreen smashed in by a bunch of bunch of lads, so that was obviously really terrifying and that gave me a lot of anxiety. Off the back of that, even now I very rarely wild camp. I tend to use little camp sites or pub stops and things like that, and I do a lot of house sitting there for people's pets and so there's, you know, all of those things have factored into finding my rhythm, but that only.

Jo Hodson: 8:31

I was only about three weeks into van life when that happened, so obviously it was one of my earliest experiences, which in and of itself probably made a bigger impact compared to that happening, say, two years in, when I'd had so much good experience. Um, and then I had, um, a huge mechanical issue where, long story short, I had to replace the entire engine and lots of associated parts. I ended up spending over seven grand fixing the van, which was more than I'd bought the van for in the first place. But obviously by that, by that point, I'd built it all out and it was you know, all my time and energy and all the extra money had gone into it.

Jo Hodson: 9:08

Yeah, so those things happened within that first six months and it yeah, I'm so proud of the fact that I just thought I'm just going to push through this because I've overcome the one thing. And then I overcame the kind of the huge financial thing and then, um, touch wood, but luckily, ever since sort of the January 22, it's everything's been so different. Um, those first six months was hugely rocky. It was almost like it was a test to see if I was really good, yeah, I was thinking that in my head.

Zoe Greenhalf: 9:40

I'm like the universe was just testing you exactly so it's.

Jo Hodson: 9:42

That's what it felt like, um, and it's just been. It's had it still had its own challenges in terms of finding community and all those sorts of things.

Zoe Greenhalf: 9:51

Um, but there's nothing like those first few months yeah, it's interesting because you were so intentional about what you were doing and you made it work. Yeah, um, what was the catalyst behind it all? Because I know you said that you were in architecture before um, and you said that you already had work when you were, yeah, when you decided to get the van.

Jo Hodson: 10:18

So, so, how did it come about? Yeah, I think it was purely because I didn't, when I was thinking to myself okay, where do I want to base myself? Because I had so prior to lockdown, I had started traveling more and I'd done quite a few workaways if you're familiar with that and just volunteering things, and I'd done a few house sits, and so I'd already started to build up a little bit of momentum around, being a little bit more fluid in terms of where I'd base myself.

Zoe Greenhalf: 10:44

That's good, so you were sort of experimenting a little bit.

Jo Hodson: 10:46

I was experimenting with it and I was experimenting with I don't know if I was experimenting with being a full-time nomad, but I just had no desire to be in one place, to be like settled and anchored in one place. That just didn't appeal to me. Is that what you'd been before? Yeah, pretty much. I'd been in um sort of relationships I hadn't really quite worked out. I'd been spent bits of time living with my dad's that probably meant the most recent thing prior to lockdown and then I spent most of lockdown at his and I was like, right, let's just build the van. And so I'd never.

Jo Hodson: 11:17

I probably hadn't really been in a financial position to sort of buy a place of my own, but but to be honest, I'd never had the desire to buy a sort of a standard house. I'd love to build a tiny home one day, but that's a very different energy to just buying a house in an estate somewhere. I just, I just didn't feel it. I never felt it and I thought, do I, do I want to get a like room with a friend? And none of those things really appealed to me and it was.

Jo Hodson: 11:45

I kept, I kept trying to make myself do the normal things and feel some sense of desire for that direction. But none of it did. And because I, you know, I don't have at the time, I didn't have a partner, I don't have kids, I don't have anything that's tying me to one place at all, so it just seemed crazy to do that, just because that's what you do, yeah. So yeah, I think if I hadn't built the van, I would have potentially looked into things like maybe going to spend some time living in a community or I don't know. Don't know what the other options would have been. Yeah, but there would have been some sense of fluidity around where I was choosing to base myself.

Zoe Greenhalf: 12:29

Yeah. So in amongst all of that, was there also a desire to try a new career, or was that something that just happened because the one that you had didn't fit this kind of lifestyle? How did it all sort of come about then?

Jo Hodson: 12:44

So I guess the slightly the bigger picture to that is when I left my architecture career in 2013, so that's over 10 years ago now. Part of the trigger for that was because I'd recently in the year before I'd gone plant-based I'd started blogging. I got really into all the health and wellness I'd always been into like health and fitness, but then the kind of the wellness thing took over and I just began to sort of question so many aspects of my life, yeah, and so blogging and food and recipe development and photography, that all really took off and then over time that kind of morphed into, well, I'd always done all my own design work um, I guess a lot that's from my architecture background and always using the adobe packages and stuff. And but then, before I knew it, a lot of friends and other kind of peers and they were asking me well, who does your website, who does all your, all your graphics? And I was like, well, it's, it's me. So then in around about 2016-17, I sort of formalized that as a design offering. Um, and then that sort of took over then as a sort of design and sort of business strategy and help help people pull things together for primarily for wellness-based businesses, yeah, um, so that was really what I was doing. In amongst all of that, I had a food business as well. So there's lots of different things classic ADHD here with lots of different threads and they all have. They all had a common energy, but there was just lots of different things I was doing, so the food business was parked.

Jo Hodson: 14:10

Ultimately, that was the only thing I let go of because that had a, that was a physical product and it required at the time I was making it and I didn't want to be tied to a location. So, yeah, I then just continued with with the design type stuff. I use that loosely because I find that there are coaching elements that come into that to tease out kind of the I guess the the real depth of what the person in the business. I think sometimes people don't show all of who they are to be able to connect to the people they connect with, and that's been my own journey as well, and so I find that naturally comes through, and when I'm working with people I'm not just sort of a purist graphic designer by any stretch, but that was what I then spent some time doing.

Jo Hodson: 14:58

I was doing a little bit of consulting for other brands as well on the side, just to kind of give me some consistency, particularly when I started out and took to the road initially, um, but yeah, that's sort of how all that over time just kind of morphed and found its own own flow. There wasn't any huge pivot, there was. There was always a sort of relationship along the way, um, and just just, I guess the nature of how I worked evolved, um, and the sorts of projects I would do and, for example, now I'll do things like a design day or a, you know, really intense short time frame burst of work, rather than that sounds fun.

Zoe Greenhalf: 15:35

What does that? What does a design day look like?

Jo Hodson: 15:37

oh, it's so much fun. And again, that really works for my brain. I was diagnosed with ADHD at the beginning of 2020, so again that was like my lockdown, like oh, what's going on here? A lot of realization there. And over the last few years, one of the things I have been working a lot harder on is really sitting with how I want to deliver my services, because even if a client brings a product to me that that I'm really interested in, if, if that client relationship drifts for a number of months, I will lose interest, even if the thing is really exciting to me.

Jo Hodson: 16:12

I know I work best when I can be like hyper focused. It's sharp. Sharp, like attention, boom. I can like work hyper-focused. It's short, sharp, like attention, boom.

Jo Hodson: 16:18

I can work a really long day like bring everything together in a short timeframe, and so that's basically what I do in a design day, whether it's various different elements of graphics or flyers or PDFs or it might be like a one-page website From morning to like the evening. It's kind of hyper-focused and contained. There'll be kind of prep work in kind of hyper focused and and contained. There'll be, there'll be kind of prep work in the lead up to it and there'll be like a follow-up day where we might type loose ends but the kind of the bulk of the work, of the design work or whatever it is, will be contained within a sort of a 10-hour window, um, and it also works just with my lifestyle.

Jo Hodson: 16:56

You know, if I I can't always guarantee when I'm traveling how good my wife I will be, but I can, I can always make sure I can be in an area bursts, um, and I think also it, it kind of works better both ways because you know, when there's like back and forth emails constantly or there's these bits updated you just so much momentum is lost in kind of like where was I again? What was it? Where did we get to? You know just that having to remind yourself and get kind of get back in the swing of things takes bandwidth. Yeah, from my point of view, but also from the client's point of view yeah.

Zoe Greenhalf: 17:45

Yeah, I mean, you've taken it a step further. It's not just about being intentional in terms of how you're living your life, but also in the way that you're working. Yeah, um, presumably the ADHD diagnosis has had an impact on that, but correct me if I'm wrong.

Jo Hodson: 18:00

Yeah, no, I think it has. I think for so much of my life I'd been just battling with myself. I'm still a work in progress in terms of quietening my inner critic, because that's very loud and I am a massive overthinker. But I think my self-compassion is definitely something that has got better, because now I don't have that the inner voice is not so deafening insofar as well. Maybe you're just a rubbish human. I've got like proof that no, I'm not just a rubbish human.

Jo Hodson: 18:29

Actually, there's a reason as to why I think and do things in this way and again, it's it okay, I've been working for myself for over 10 years, but for the, especially the early years, I was trying to kind of follow all the you know the top business gurus who say you should just focus on one thing and work in a certain way or take on a client for 12 months, because that's like the, the best way of like. You know, if you have 10 clients for 12 months, it's much easier than having a like a client for three months and you've got to keep. I just it didn't.

Jo Hodson: 19:03

It made sense like on paper, but it never sat right with me and so I was in this constant battle of trying to fit the way I'd been told to do things yeah both throughout my childhood and like education years, but also then how I was engaging with the business world, and this was before I'd found communities of ADHD thinkers and other the people who who showed that it was okay to do things differently. So that has been a big exploration these last few years and giving myself that permission so much of it is just self-permission in case you haven't heard, you can now purchase mischief movement merch.

Zoe Greenhalf: 19:49

It's all done through tmail, a uk print on demand platform offering global delivery, organic cotton and production powered by renewable energy. Not only can you now tell everyone you are a true mischief maker, but if you feel inspired to create your own T-shirts, stickers or mugs, you could also give T-mail a try, because it's a great way to experiment your ideas and take fast action with low risk. You'll find the links in the show notes, so write yourself a little reminder for later. And let's get back to the episode In terms of your sort of quiet unconventionality. How else does that manifest itself? Because it's really interesting that you're. You know you're on the road, you're also doing some dog sitting, you are doing design work. Are there lots of different strands to your life at the moment?

Jo Hodson: 20:48

Yeah, there are and I and you know I really enjoy it like that. You know I don't want to have it. Would be easier in some ways to have just one focus, because then in my head I'd have a clear answer when someone says, oh, what do you do? There'd be like a really clear answer I do this thing. But I've never been like that and I think it will depend on who I'm talking to as to which part of me I present first, because if I'm speaking to another pet owner or something like the pet sitting tends to come out, particularly if it's in an area that I'm interested in, potentially sitting um, or more often than not this sort of the design side of things come out.

Jo Hodson: 21:23

Um, it might be that I lead with the kind of the van life thing. It really depends on who I'm speaking to as to what part of me leads. I think the the quietly unconventional. A lot of that has come from the fact that I've just never been like a really bold, gregarious, wearing cool clothes kind of visually obvious alternative, particularly in that sort of the wellness field where I spent a number of years around very obviously alternative people A lot of the time I can easily fly under the radar, and that's a very comfortable place for me to be, so to do things that are very different, particularly, for example, when I first went vegan, which was like 2012, before it was mainstream yeah.

Jo Hodson: 22:11

I found that very challenging because I didn't like people asking me questions, which was well their own fear and their own thinking and their own, you know.

Jo Hodson: 22:20

It was triggering, for I just wanted to not just do my own thing without having all these debates and questions, and I found that so hard.

Jo Hodson: 22:27

And I guess if I was more outwardly and more of a kind of an extrovert, I would have really enjoyed those opportunities to have these conversations and things. But I found being kind of the center of attention or like kind of sticking my head about the parapet. I found that really hard and it's something I've had to get used to because my natural way of being is to do things differently in terms of how my brain's wired, but my extrovert tendency is just want to hide and not be obvious at all. So figuring out a way of of like amalgamating those two things in ways that don't overwhelm me, I think with van life, you know, it's always that little space to come back to. So if I have had days that are overwhelming for whatever reason, I've got my little cozy nest that I can always retreat to, and I think that's another reason, um, why there are so many neurodivergent people who live the van life really yeah, I hadn't realized how many people I'd connected with online have.

Jo Hodson: 23:30

Now I've got to know them better are also ADHDers or or would consider themselves as such, even if they haven't had a formal diagnosis. And it makes sense because there's that constant novelty. You're in control, you've got the spontaneity element of it, so you've got the kind of shiny shiny and the sort of the stimulation, but equally you've got that consistent safe space to come back to at the end of each day and you're in control of where you go, how you move. You can kind of have that decompression time, which is also incredibly important. So this lifestyle really works for my mind body needs in many ways.

Zoe Greenhalf: 24:12

So isn't that just? That's just real life. That's just what's happened, and and that's what makes things interesting. You know, um, you know it's the intentionality at the end of the day, isn't it? It's, it's, this is who I am, what's going to work for me, to allow me to be the best I can be, be my most authentic self and feel fulfilled in what I'm doing at the end of the day, exactly exactly it's in, it's in.

Jo Hodson: 24:39

The architecture thing is really interesting because it's only been in more recent years. As I reflected back I realized what that sort of season of my life was about, because I don't think it was ever my calling. But I think what I was trying to do at that point was kind of find a way to merge the academic side of me because I did very well at school academically but but I was always a creative at heart. But that's not something that's celebrated in the education system. My parents were fully supportive of that, so it wasn't something that was being pushed on me to go towards the academic side from home, but the school system was. So there was so much kind of underlying pressure and an obvious pressure as well to, you know, not waste your good grades and all this stuff, um. And so I think basically my reason for choosing the architecture route was a way of doing creativity in a in a way that had status and prestige, and I worked for a quite um like what a modern, very interesting architectural practice that had won lots of awards and things.

Jo Hodson: 25:41

I didn't work in London. I refused because I just I would struggle with the city. So I worked at a practice that was in a. That's interesting, isn't it? Because you knew even then, yeah, yeah, even then, even though that's where most of the design jobs were and most of my, um, most of the people on my course were getting the jobs in London. So there was this real pull and I lived in Stevenage, which is 20 minutes from King's Cross on the train line, like I lived in a commuter town at that time and everything was like sort of pushing me in that direction. But I knew I wouldn't have been able to hack it, I couldn't face this idea of commuting to a city. And I don't regret that career.

Jo Hodson: 26:18

You, you know, I, I learned, I got a lot out of it. I learned which parts of the process I enjoyed, I learned a lot about myself. Um, there was a lot of, a lot of good that was in there, but it was just never my calling. But I think one of the reasons and I imagine I'm not alone in this I think one of the reasons I didn't leave sooner than I did, because I was there about eight and a half, nine years and I probably knew after about three years that this wasn't my my thing, yeah, um, but when you're working a very intense career, like 60 hours a week, you've got no mental bandwidth to take the time to work out. Well, if I don't do this, then what else? And I think I was kind of waiting. I couldn't leave until I had something to leave to. That was kind of the story that I was running in my head, which you know makes sense. But I'm never going to have something obvious to leave to unless I've carved out the mental space to work out what the next step would be, and it took so long to find.

Jo Hodson: 27:20

In the end, I basically left without a backup plan and then figured out my way because I didn't know what else. I didn't know where to leave to. There were so many opportunities and potential ideas and things I wanted to explore. The blog had started to build momentum. I hadn't monetized it or anything at that point, but it started to build momentum. So I knew there was something there. I remember saying to myself right, I'll give it six months and if there's if it's not building obvious momentum and there's, it's bringing me some kind of obvious income, even if it's not, you know, hugely income generating that point. But if by the summer this is not doing something obvious, then I'll have to go and get a proper job. Um, but luckily by the summer there was enough momentum and enough clarity of direction and that I just kept going with it um, that's such a good point because you're absolutely right.

Zoe Greenhalf: 28:20

It's very easy to think you should just know what you want to go into. You know you don't want this thing, yeah, so you should just be able to know what you do want and it's not especially. Yeah, you say you need that time. You need to have time to sit down and think about it or try a few things and give yourself that space. But when you're working so hard, I mean I can draw parallels with being a parent or just stepping into, you know, motherhood or fatherhood, or you just have a baby and you think I don't have the bandwidth, like I can't think it's just get through the day, maybe I'll have a chance tomorrow. No, get through that day, maybe I'll have a chance the next.

Zoe Greenhalf: 29:02

And months go by, years go by in people's lives where finding that time can be a real challenge. And you know, at the end of the day you did. The only thing you could possibly do at that point, presumably, is just okay enough, so you can't find the time yeah, it's just quick.

Jo Hodson: 29:22

I think what happened in the end, um and this is probably quite another interesting point is that it got to the point where it was coming up to the November of that year and I had to give like a month's notice. And I remember just thinking to myself if I'm here, if I'm still here in January, I'm going to be here another year, and another year and another year, and I was coming up towards my 30th birthday. It might have been the year I was like 29, but I think if I'd been there another year I would have then been 30. And just suddenly that was enough.

Jo Hodson: 29:52

That fear that, oh my gosh, you know I'll be here another year and basically my life is just coasting along in neutral. The fear of staying suddenly became bigger than the fear of leaving and it was so incremental, but until it just the balance tips. And that was the moment when I realized if I didn't leave now, then when will I leave? And like I can even feel goosebumps as I'm saying it, but I just remember that like real visceral feeling of wow, if I don't leave, there's never going to be a perfect time. If there is such a thing as a perfect time, this is probably it.

Zoe Greenhalf: 30:26

Yeah, it's about as close as you're going to get. Everybody's tipping point is different, isn't it? Yeah?

Jo Hodson: 30:31

and that was definitely mine. Yeah, that sort of all those different factors that filtered into my thought process in that moment of November 2012, um, and it was just such a subtle shift, but it was enough to just tip the balance yeah, yeah, and how's life looking now?

Zoe Greenhalf: 30:50

then? What's on the horizon? What are you dreaming about for the next five or ten years? Or very much just see where the van life takes you.

Jo Hodson: 30:58

I would love to build a tiny home because, um, touching one things I mentioned at the beginning was the sort of the one of the challenges again, being an introvert doesn't help is when you're constantly moving it is hard to build community and maintain sort of maintain relationships. I do sometimes struggle with that sort of object permanence thing is that you know, when people and things aren't in front of me they can feel very abstract, and so I would like to create sort of just the experience of community again and have a regular gym classes to go to and those sorts of things. You know they're the things I really miss. It's tiny things like use an example of a gym class like walking into a room of a class that you've been to numerous times before, even if it's just been for a few months, and people looking up and recognizing you, and just that slight nod of recognition rather than just being this invisible human that's gone to a gym, just as a one-off class as I'm passing through. That is so, so significant and I really miss those things.

Jo Hodson: 32:02

I think also because, because I'm the one doing the traveling and most of the people I I come across are the ones kind of stationary it's always down to me to initiate the conversations or the connections, and it's something I find really hard.

Jo Hodson: 32:15

I find initiation hard and so it's a lot on me to. If I want not to feel lonely, I need to initiate the connections, and that can become quite heavy. So one of the things I would love to do in the next five years would be to build a tiny house somewhere that I can then use it as a holiday let, so that I can basically live there up to I think it's about 24 weeks of the year. You can technically live somewhere if it's a holiday let. Um, so I'd have like a semi base and then, yes, when it's being let out, I'd travel. I'd love to build, you know, the um, uh, like canopy and stars type. Yes, that kind of thing. I'd love to build an on off-grid tiny home. That's sort of using all the principles I built into the van in a slightly larger way, um, for for me, but also then to let out.

Zoe Greenhalf: 33:08

So then I'm kind of almost being paid to travel because I just travel when it's and I feel like that, feels like yeah, a space like that would have so much potential for for all kinds of, yeah, things.

Jo Hodson: 33:20

I can feel the creativity, I can feel kind of the wellnessy stuff. I could feel things like, um, I could have more in person sort of coaching or workshop type. There'd be lots of things that I could see that would, um, allow the space for, like physically, but also just like energetically um things I can't do when I'm, but also just like energetically um things I can't do when I'm constantly in motion. So that is definitely something, um, I can feel. It feels very tangible. It's just a case of you know, it's the land and things like that which we know what happened, but that's that's kind of where, the where, like the cost and whatever is but um, so that is definitely something that's on my agenda. But between now and then, I think van life suits me well, that combined with house sits. So I kind of do a hybrid of looking after people's pets and, yeah, basically in between travels in the van and other than the sort of the focus on more intentionally creating community, which is not impossible as you're traveling, it's just harder. Creating community, which is not impossible as you're traveling, it's just harder, yeah, um. So that is a focus for me because I think that would be the kind of the first.

Jo Hodson: 34:24

Why I would feel burnt out by van life would be if, if I was not made not gaining kind of traction on creating community in a sense of belonging. Sometimes I can just be. I can go weeks without speaking to other people and you get stuck in your own little over thingy head and it's not always a great place when you get to that that point. Um, so van life is still working well, my van is still. I'd love to build another van as well in the meantime, but, um, I have so many ideas I want to do. There's only so many things you can fit into a van and there's only, you know, you have to kind of pick one layout and there's other layouts and things I want to explore.

Zoe Greenhalf: 35:01

So I build another van at some point but then ultimately build a tiny home, maybe a couple of them okay, just before we wrap up, I would like to ask you is there a message that you would like to leave the listeners with? Is there something about your story that perhaps you wish you'd known that somebody had told you or warned you about, or something that you feel like you could advise people listening?

Jo Hodson: 35:27

find myself sort of going back to my school days and that sense of, you know, being an introvert, being someone who was a people pleaser, didn't't want to disappoint other people, didn't want to disappoint my teachers.

Jo Hodson: 35:40

I didn't trust my own intuition, I didn't have that inner self-validation for a long, long time and I think one of the biggest things I wish I'd, I guess, focused on nurturing within myself is that it's okay to disappoint people, it's okay to go your own path and go against expectations.

Jo Hodson: 36:05

Um, because I didn't believe that for so long. For so long, and the quietly unconventional side of me, you know, still struggles from time to time, still still doesn't, doesn't necessarily trust that this is the right way forward or that I'll be shot down or it won't work, and people say, look, told you so. But none of that matters, because experimentation is part of the process. You need to fail in order to learn and to grow and to evolve. And so, just trusting that little voice, even if you can't articulate what it is you want to do, trust the feeling, because sometimes an inner feeling will come through so much differently, will come through before there's any words to put to it, so you won't necessarily be able to articulate to someone else after you're pursuing, but you just have that inner knowing and that is enough. That inner knowing is enough. It doesn't have to have language at that point and that will come in time and other people may understand and they may never understand.

Zoe Greenhalf: 37:05

But either way, the inner knowing is your north star oh, and I'm nodding away because I just feel what you're saying so deeply.

Jo Hodson: 37:12

I don't think I've ever really thought about that before. I think it's because I was just sort of thinking back to my school days and just not acknowledging it was even there yes, it's funny.

Zoe Greenhalf: 37:23

When you talked about you know this, the whole quietly unconventional thing is something that I've become very aware of recently. You know, you look back and you think actually there was always that unconventional streak in me, despite the fact that I didn't want to stand out.

Zoe Greenhalf: 37:39

I didn't want to draw attention to myself and, as you said, you know I was nodding away when you were talking about sort of creating that balance. It's really hard because part of you doesn't want to follow the herd and wants to do your own thing, but not at the expense of your inner peace. You don't want, you're not craving attention, it just. It's just that the unconventional path feels more aligned to you.

Jo Hodson: 38:06

I remember saying to a business coach years ago I remember saying I wish I could just be okay with settling. I wish I could just have a normal job and be okay with that. I was so frustrated that I couldn't. Yeah it's, but there we are.

Zoe Greenhalf: 38:24

So where can people find out more about you?

Jo Hodson: 38:27

My favorite place to hang out is Instagram, so on am I am joe hodgson and I share my life on the road. My house sits, my work, and I get quite raw and vulnerable on there because one of the ways that I think I I think to process, I speak to process things, and so I share a lot of my stories. Um, my website is createwellbeinglimitedcom. Um, so both of those places you can find out more about my work, but also just geta feel for who I am day to day brilliant joe.

Jo Hodson: 38:56

Thank you so much I'm so happy to have this conversation.

Zoe Greenhalf: 39:00

It's been a lot of fun so, before we go, here are my takeaways from joe's episode number one be on the lookout for opportunities and remember that they may come disguised as a complete disaster. Getting laid off, splitting from a partner, moving to a place to even a global pandemic, are all difficult circumstances to navigate on the surface, but often we can flip the script and turn them into something positive, to give yourself a fighting chance. If you've mustered the courage to try something new and scary. Set yourself a time goal so you don've mustered the courage to try something new and scary. Set yourself a time goal so you don't throw in the towel at the first hurdle. Three sometimes having no plan B is the best thing to help propel you forward, even when it feels uncomfortable. Four if you have an idea about what you'd like to do in the future, see if you can start experimenting in small ways in the present.

Zoe Greenhalf: 39:57

Jo was able to test her dream of leading a more nomadic lifestyle by taking on small projects like workaways, volunteering and house sitting before she committed to her plan to buy a van. Five part of designing your life intentionally is knowing how you work best, which might not conform to the standard nine to five or even hybrid office format. So don't be afraid to experiment with new ways of working that allow your day to flow, your energy to remain high and your focus to last. Six give yourself permission to not fit in Somebody's blueprint to running a business, starting a hobby, making money or setting goals. Is them selling you whatever worked for them? Get used to the idea that you will probably find more joy and fulfillment from tuning in to who you are and knowing how you function as a human. Seven the question what do you do? Can be really uncomfortable, especially when you have many skills, different experiences and multiple income streams. But you can always adapt your reply to your circumstances and even craft different responses depending on who you're talking to.

Zoe Greenhalf: 41:04

Eight so often we stay too long in situations we know aren't right for us because we're too busy to figure out where to go next. But unless we make time to reflect and create mental space to help those creative solutions flow, we won't be able to get off the treadmill and pursue what we really want. Nine everyone has a tipping point where the fear of staying the same finally begins to outweigh the fear of making a change. So what's yours? And number 10, don't let other people's expectations hold you back from trying things failing and trying again, because experimentation is part of the process.

Zoe Greenhalf: 41:46

That's a wrap on another episode of the Mischief Movement podcast. If today's content stirred something in you, let's keep in touch on Instagram or connect with me on LinkedIn. You can even click the link in the show notes to sign up to my Mischief Mail newsletter, where you'll get exclusive insights on upcoming episodes and your chance to submit questions to future guests. But shh don't tell anyone, it's our secret. For more info on ways to work with me and some fun free resources, check out the website themischiefmovementcom. Until next time, stay bold, stay rebellious and, of course, keep making mischief. Thank you.