on building a financially stable, location-independent business with creativity, intuition, and a type-b personality
JAN 29, 2026
TLDR: How I started building and running my own online business 13 years ago, when I realised it was the only career option for me, when I thought my type-b personality could never, ever run a business, but it turns out I actually, totally could, and can and do, which has turned into one of the greatest joys of my life.
I am on my second masala chai. There is a giant bowl of mixed fruit in front of me, papaya, banana, pineapple, pomegranate seeds, with muesli and curd, that I will spend the next three to four hours luxuriously eating while I work. I love fruit. I have always loved fruit, but fruit in the tropics tastes inexplicably better. I do not know why this is true. I do not make the rules.
It is Monday, and it is a workday. I have emails to write, marketing tasks to tend to, Zoom meetings to attend, and a private client session in the evening that was rescheduled from last week when the wifi went out for an entire day. Unreliable wifi is probably one of the highest stress factors of my very type-B, self-employed life.
A year ago, I thought I would have my feet firmly planted in one place, building a life rooted in that place. And then life decided that this was not the life meant for me. Instead, I am in India, sitting in a cafe overlooking the Tungabhadra River in Hampi, the lost city of gods. I am slowly weaving my way south to go to an Ayurvedic retreat, the main reason I came to India.
This makes it sound like I am a digital nomad, which I am absolutely not. I dislike the term and find most people who operate under it irritating. I am not here to optimise my lifestyle or collect experiences. I am a woman rebuilding her life after a total collapse in my personal world, and coming to India to nourish my body and my wavering spirit made more sense than sitting alone in a small apartment in the cold, battling the seasonal depression that inevitably appears when daylight hours shorten and temperatures drop below 16°C. It just happens that thirteen years ago, I had the very wise idea to build a business that was location independent, not because I wanted to be untethered, but because I wanted the security that comes from creating your own thing in an increasingly insecure world.
What I am here for is time and space. The kind of time and space that healing and grief require, and that our modern Western world does not allow for. There, I had to keep going at a speed my soul could not keep pace with. Here, I can slow down enough for my body to match my internal rhythm, no longer flanked on all sides by the demand to do more, better, faster, harder. This is something I have struggled with my entire life, the inability or refusal to keep pace with a world I fundamentally do not want to participate in.
Omg, cute! This little girl just came up to me and offered me sweets, and I thought she was trying to sell them to me, so I said “no, thank you”, and then her mother (?) told me it’s her birthday, and it’s tradition to give people sweets on your birthday, so of course I accepted. Her name is Amrita, and she’s turning 10. Happy birthday, Amrita!
Which brings me, loosely, to my point. Given my sensitive personality and my inability to follow rules simply because they exist, it was always clear that the only way I would be able to function in society was by working for myself. I am a terrible employee. I cannot align myself with things I do not genuinely believe in. The lack of integrity causes physical pain in my body.
But I am also the most type-b person. My business runs on intuition, pattern reading and vibes. I barely do spreadsheets, and I don’t have coherent systems of organisation. I am organised in a chaotic, beautiful, fluid way that makes sense only to me, and I am happy about that. I am consistently inconsistent, and also determined and disclplined but mostly just really devoted to creating a beautiful life through psychology and art and poetry and beauty and pragmatism. So when I decided I wanted to have my own business without having what I thought were necessary business skills, I thwarted myself. Until I decided to try anyway.
Sorry for the randomness, but I’m having a bit of a stream-of-consciousness write-it-as-it-happens moment, which includes natural interruptions. I just went to use the bathroom and thought to remind anyone who is romanticising my life right now that while yes, everything can be and should be romanticised, everywhere you go, there are challenges.
India is not an easy place. Not in the way Paris is easy, which is where I was before I came here. Squat toilets are the norm, and while I genuinely love squatting as a bodily practice, cleanliness is not guaranteed. Comfort is inconsistent. Beds are often uncomfortable. Hotels and homestays receive excellent ratings for experiences that would be considered below average elsewhere. If your stomach is not accustomed to spice, every meal is a potential gamble. Wifi can be excellent or disappear entirely without warning, which is stressful when your work depends on it. None of this is a complaint. I am very happy to be here. The benefits outweigh the costs, for now. I simply want to be clear that no place is paradise by default. Any place can be paradise or hell depending on context, capacity, and timing.
There’s this trend going around since the start of this year where people are sharing their 2016, which is cute, but the year that actually changed my life was 2013. I was living a version of my dream life, and had been burned exactly 0 times. I was made up of hope and optimism and maybe 1 single insecurity. That was the year I enrolled in an online business course and started my business, which very quickly grew into something capable of supporting both me and my distinctly non-traditional way of living.
As a type-b woman, I am naturally curious, persistent, and an unconventional thinker who uses intuition as a strategy. Intuition does not give you the entire plan. It gives you the next right step. It often points toward a new direction long before the how becomes clear. In 2013, I kept receiving a very strong internal message that I needed help in the areas that did not come naturally to me. I did not need more creativity. I needed structure. BSchool gave me systems, language, and a framework sturdy enough to support my intuitive way of working without disregarding it.
Looking back, I can see how an intuitive, type-b approach to business has shaped my personal brand, influenced what I create, and placed me in opportunities I was uniquely prepared for. It is only in retrospect that the path appears coherent. Intuition requires radical self-trust, but it is sustained by systems and processes. Thirteen years later, I still return to parts of that course when I need inspiration, grounding, or a strong backbone for my business. I watch a few videos, revisit an exercise, and remember what actually matters and what works for me.
In two weeks, across three days from Tuesday, February 10th to Thursday, February 12th, the business course I did is running a free Dream Business Bootcamp. If you feel that internal nudge or a sense of curiosity, you can find more information here.
What I know now, and did not know then, is that the question is rarely whether you are capable. It is whether you trust yourself enough and believe you can find a structure that can hold the way you already think, feel, and move through the world without asking you to become someone else.
Thirteen years ago, I did not suddenly become more linear or more traditionally business-minded. I learned how to let structures carry the weight so that I could do what I do best. If that resonates, the Dream Business Bootcamp is a fun place to begin.
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It is Wednesday, and it is another workday. I am sitting in a co-working office in Bangalore not far from the train station, where I arrived early this morning and will depart from later tonight as I continue moving south. The space is quiet and insulated, a small pocket of stillness, and a reprieve from the mass of people moving continuously outside.
If I am being honest with myself, living and travelling this way was exhilarating a decade ago. Now, it feels different. Less romantic. Less novel. I notice my tolerance is lower, my body more discerning, my nervous system clearer about what it needs. I love that. I love seeing how I have changed, how my expectations and priorities have matured, how much more I value steadiness over stimulation. This trip has been clarifying. It is showing me how I want to orient my life and my business going forward around support, depth, and continuity.
I am acutely aware of the privilege inherent in even being able to have these reflections. The privilege of time, of choice, of mobility, of financial resourcing. That privilege comes partly from circumstance and partly from years of intentional effort, from consciously designing a life that extends from who I actually am rather than who the world told me I should be. That kind of life does not happen accidentally. It requires courage. It requires risk. It requires a willingness to let things unfold differently than you imagined, and the capacity to stay present when they do.
I have immense respect for anyone who chooses a path outside the status quo. Not because it is more virtuous, but because it demands a level of self-responsibility that most people are never taught how to hold. Building a life and a business that reflect your internal reality is not always comfortable, but it is honest. An honesty that compounds.