#WeSeeYou is BlackDoctor.org’s series that seeks to highlight and feature those people who are doing something incredible for their health and the health of others. This is our way of shining light on them. Today, we honor Sonia.
Sonia Thompson was one of those sisters that when you looked at her, you just knew that she had it all: job, money, home, credit, freedom, etc.
Working in marketing, she was earning over $200,000 a year, living alone in a three-bedroom townhouse outside of Philadelphia. Things were going pretty good for Sonia.
“I had this job that I loved — for a while — I had a house, I had all the things people say you should have,” she remembers. “I felt like I was living the American Dream.”
But there was something underneath it all that was tugging at Sonia.
“I was in my early 30s and I had this feeling that there had to be more,” Thompson remembered. “It was great when I was acquiring the things, holding this high-powered job, but there was an emptiness there. I thought there had to be more than these physical things and this money. There has to be more to life than getting a mortgage and going to work every day to pay it off.”
The revelation that there was something else out there, kept growing and growing on Sonia. In the first of her nine years working she had realized that the corporate life wasn’t for her. Even as her salary rose over the years, she knew she would have to leave and do something different. So instead of blowing all her hard earned money on “things”, she put her extra money into savings for that “one day.”
READ: The Worst 5 Kind Of Jobs For Your Health
That day came when she returned from a two-week trip to South Africa in early 2012. It was the longest trip she’d taken in nine years working for her employer, and coincided with the completion of a manuscript for her book, “Delight Inside: Build Your Dream Business That Keeps Customers Coming Back for More.” Once she received an annual bonus a month later, she had two years of living expenses saved and was ready to branch out on her own.
Thompson left her six-figure job and sold her 1,600-square-foot home with the idea of building a consulting business around the frameworks outlined in her book.
“I remember that last six months, there were people I knew were unhappy in their jobs but felt stuck. They just didn’t want to leave the “safety” of their jobs. I would tell anyone who is feeling that way that there is so much more to experience and enjoy in life. You’re only getting a tiny slice of it. Maybe you’ll decide the corporate life is for you, but once you decide to explore and see what is possible, you can live the life of your dreams — and probably cheaper than you think you could.”
“Because I had that two-year cushion of savings, I didn’t feel like, ‘Oh, my gosh, I have to make money right now,'” Thompson says. “I had to learn about the type of business I wanted, and I could think strategically instead of…
…taking whatever I could get. That buffer was able to give me what I needed.”
She began doing one-on-one consulting work with clients she found through her network, which turned into the business she runs today: TRY Business School. Now, she offers individual coaching packages to a six-month program. Sonia also offers a series of courses that for additional training and a free summit.
But she’s taking it slow. Right now, her company’s annual revenue is about one-fourth what she had before, but has allowed her to build the lifestyle she truly wants to live: half the year in her hometown of Tampa, Florida, and half the year in Buenos Aires, Argentina, a city that captured her heart when she visited it in 2014.
“It’s more than enough to live very comfortably here in Buenos Aires,” Thompson says. “There isn’t the pressure to make so much. I very much intend to make more in the future, but in the meantime there’s not a lot of pressure.”
When asked to describe how her life compares to her high-earning corporate reality only a few years ago, Thompson said that it’s “peaceful.”
Like so many of us, Sonia lived with day-to-day issues of deadlines, problems, budget cuts, etc–all of it adding up to stress.
“I feel like I lived in a constant state of stress. I was always responding to what my bosses needed. But now I’m able to work from anywhere, which is why I choose to be here in Buenos Aires — and if I don’t like it, I can change it. I feel much more in control of my life and my destiny.”
What would you do if you felt like you were trapped in your job? Do you feel trapped now? Would you walk away from your “Good Job” just to be happy?
Thank you Sonia for showing us the way. Thank you for being our #Shero.
Story originally seen on Yahoo! News.
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