Ambition Reframed

Celebrating Two Years of Life in Provence

I didn't plan to live in Provence.

The move happened gradually, its energy slowly embedding itself in me. It didn't care that I fought it along the way. It steadily infiltrated my core, eventually replacing what I always thought I wanted with something new, or perhaps dreams discarded. 

Have you ever experienced that feeling?

Of course, it's not entirely true that I didn't plan to live in Provence. Part of me did.

In late 2019, while living and working in London, having just sold our family home in the US, we searched for and found a house on a hill in a twelfth-century village. In January 2020, we became its owner, and our belongings soon arrived from the US. 

At that time, I was at the start of a brief mental health and bereavement leave due to burnout and the sudden death of my mother. Unbeknownst to me, the universe generously provided me with a sanctuary to heal. 

So, those first few days, I stayed behind at our new house as my family headed back to London and the US. 

No lawn furniture in sight; the first morning, I dragged a living room lounger out to the patio to stretch out and enjoy the sun. Listening to the birds, I took in the view and enjoyed the silence.

I hung laundry on the line. Ate fresh fruit and a croissant on the terrace for breakfast, fresh vegetables, and a baguette for lunch. I journaled in my lavender Moleskin while studying the green hills above and the valley below. I meandered the winding village streets and alleys with my dog and collected firewood for the evening. And I ended the day with dinner before the wood-burning stove, where I remained cozy under the blankets all night.

Life was an exquisite day, on repeat.

I didn't know it then, but that was the beginning of the end of my life as I knew it.

In man, ambition is the common'st thing; Each one by nature loves to be a king.

- Robert Herrick, Ambition

Realizing Ambition

I moved from the US to London for my corporate job in 2018. Ecstatic about achieving a personal goal of living abroad, I cherished my London life and the people, roles, and company that brought me there.

Not just walking around but entering, working, and living within iconic London establishments and sights, I experienced pinch-me moments of realization that I, a first-generation Cuban-American who had a traumatic childhood and was homeless in university, could live this most incredible life.

I served as senior corporate affairs & thought leadership leader for Pearson, where I brought and continued to hone my expertise on education, the future of learning, and work. With a remit extending across markets, I finally saw the world. I was the quintessential kid in the candy store.

To get there, I empty nested, leaving the nest for a forty-something life adventure. Saying goodbye to good friends, an entire life, and the family home, I flew across the pond with my Labrador and four suitcases. Our family, with two children in university and one in boarding school, began an exotic dance of international flights over holidays, offering us tickets to a new way of life. I moved quickly into it, with no intention of going back.

Realizing ambition was a dreamy, dopamine-filled experience; there wasn’t space to realize anything else.

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Different Sides

I've always had different sides that have coexisted, only, for that period, they might as well have been named London and Provence. 

In Provence, I began to live out my domestic, artistic, and gardening fantasies and let off steam. Shifting from black work clothes to colorful linen dresses, I mainly lived outdoors and shopped at local markets, reviving my senses. Putting my newly minted diploma in wine and gastronomy to work, I tasted, cooked, and paired each day. Peter Mayle and Martha Stewart would understand.

In London, I had always been 'busy,' driven by 'achievement' and 'success,' and forging a new life in the UK. I was taking on new professional challenges, speaking at conferences, and growing exponentially, or so I thought. Even after I left corporate, I was fulfilling my ambitions in other ways, studying wine, gastronomy & management at Le Cordon Bleu.

Outside of work, life was about forging new friendships, enjoying the city, walking – or riding my hunter-green Brompton with the brown leather seat – to work through the Royal Parks, and spending endless hours wandering in them with my Labrador, Toby. I loved it all! 

In my mental model, London was where I lived and worked. A vacation home in Provence was a great addition. Many Brits would understand. 

“Why should we be in such desperate haste to succeed, and in such desperate enterprises? If a [woman] does not keep pace with [her] companions, perhaps it is because [she] hears a different drummer. Let [her] step to the music which [she] hears, however measured or far away.”
- Thoreau (Note: Gender pronouns revised).

Ambition Reframed

Provence has been one of my most outstanding teachers. Her classroom, the expanse of culture and nature, combined with her bounties. 

From the beginning, she offered me privileges I never knew I so desperately needed: time and space – for healing and acceptance, to stop 'busy,' to embrace the unknown, to explore myself and those around me, to be adventurous, to learn, consider, re-think – and, ultimately, re-compose – my future of work. 

I made the shift from a traditional paradigm of work to an entrepreneurial one, which has, today, resulted in not one but several businesses that are near and dear to my heart and also well-aligned with my strengths and expertise. An introvert, I now delight in meeting new people, welcoming new clients and creative challenges, and forming new friendships. The road here was bumpy, but I’ve learned to go slow to go smooth.

Here, I flourish in nature and am at one with lavender, the thirteen olive trees in my garden, the language that still trips off my tongue in the wrong way, and the vast quantity of farm fresh food that fuels my hours of creativity in the kitchen and bar. A pared-back life, they and their friends, mindfulness, meditation, and silence enable me to be fully present in my focus - on myself, my family, my ideas, writing, businesses, and my clients, each in turn.

It feels like I've spent time stitching my different sides together, except I know fully that they're organically fused. The journey, albeit painful, has been more about accepting that so many different qualities can coexist in me and granting myself permission to stop viewing them as separate. I've also learned that they require different nurturing, but, cared for as one, they are mutually reinforcing - the essence of me. 

When is it that we define our ambition? 

When we clear out the noise - of our parents, siblings, school, professors, friends, bosses, the world - and hear and listen to ourselves?

I was raised to be myself. Yet, somewhere along the line, like many, I learned to construct a professional self: twins in one body, split in half, one remains at home while the other goes to the office.

The same goes for my past. I kept it locked up, separate from the present or the future, yet another fracture.

I look back and wish I hadn’t severed myself. But, now I appreciate that we each live one complex life, and that’s okay.

As Morten Albaek suggests in one of my favorite books, One Life: the mistaken belief society teaches us is that we can split our life - ourselves - up into parts and still have meaning. Then, to recover meaning, we must bring the pieces of us back together, to find and accept the whole.

Now that I am whole, the personal informs the professional and vice-versa, all treasures to enjoy and share. And, the past, well, it's what futures are built upon.

This month, as I celebrate two years of living in Provence full-time, I am grateful to have gained the wisdom to accept my heart's desire rather than fight it with outdated societal or personal notions of ambition.

After all, why spend time contemplating the future of work if it's not going to be different from the past?

I’ve often counselled people to build a life they don't want to escape from; today, my life is an exquisite day, on repeat, and that has made all the difference.