working for a Fortune 500 company as a project manager. Rochelle was working as a production manager for a large-format print shop, and we were doing alright. We bought our first house together, filled it with furniture, and sat back to reflect on what we had done. The problem was, there was only one thing going through our minds.

This is it?

See, we thought that doing what we were “supposed” to do — buy a house, a couple of cars, then settle down and have 2.1 kids — would yield a life of enjoyable contentment. But looking around at our over-glorified storage unit, we realized that there was something missing from our lives.

Even though we were making a respectable income, we were still in debt, still having to spend 9-5 working under our bosses, and still only able to take a meager couple of weeks to vacation each year. It occurred to us that we weren’t happy, and no sofa or objet d’art with a HomeSense sticker on the bottom was going to change that.

So, we did what any young, seemingly foolish couple would do — we quit our jobs, sold everything we owned, and became nomadic freelancers.

We sold our house, we sold our new furniture, we sold our cars, we packed our few remaining belongings into suitcases, and we headed for the airport.

And that’s where our crazy life together really began.

Over the next three years, we struggled immensely trying to build our businesses and secure consistent client work to keep us afloat. Things became so dire at one point that our credit cards had run out and we were scanning the beaches on the Pacific coast of Costa Rica for a place to sleep. We felt completely defeated and utterly lost.

It wasn’t until we started simplifying our efforts that we were able to turn our lives around and create some room to breathe. This meant overhauling our freelance strategy and developing a system that would help us maintain a consistent flow of clients. We’ve since decided to call it The Remote Freedom System, and it’s the same system we use to this very day to earn our living from wherever we choose.