About

Do you believe there’s something more to your life than the path you’re currently on? I certainly did. Which is why I stepped off the well-trodden, familiar path and forged my own…

My days are spent doing pretty much what I choose. With my little family. Wherever we choose to call home at that particular time of the year. Sometimes that’s in our home base in a small market town in the heart of England. At other times it’s halfway round the world on a tropical island. We have the freedom to choose and the freedom to move…

We live and play by our own rules. We’re living a life of our own making and pioneering our own path along the way. Would you like that too?

You CAN do this – yes even in this economy, especially in this economy – so that you’re no longer at the mercy of one you can’t control. We’ve done it and you can too.

What you will find on the blog

Posts about forging your own path – behind-the-scenes posts about how we’re doing it with Inspiring Ventures and insights about how you can too.
A weekly “In the Flow” post – sharing the things (music, food, resources, articles etc.) which have helped me find flow each week.
Personal & business updates – sharing stuff that’s going on in my world…the stuff that results from pioneering our own path. The good, the bad and the ugly. In business and in life.

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More About You

Our ventures attract a wide range of people – we’ve designed them that way because we believe everyone should know that there’s an alternative to the conventional path and that you can pioneer your own path.

You’ll find my own personal guiding principles and operating beliefs in the sidebar, at the top of the page. On a more personal, individual level, I write for and work with a specific type of person…maybe this is you:

You value…Love, Integrity, Freedom, Excellence and Knowledge.
You’re on a mission to…carve your own path in life.
You never compromise…your values nor mission, even if it can sometimes be to your own detriment.
You think most people see you as…steely, fierce, strong, brave and maybe even hard.
You know you’re really…soft, warm and faithful but it’s a constant challenge to let your guard down and lower your shield.
You’re currently working on…your business and making a scratch but not the big dent you’d like.
You struggle with…knowing exactly how to get where you want to go.
You can see…some but perhaps not all of the bigger picture and you struggle to see the path to get to it.
You are curious…about all things woo woo (aka spiritual!) but you’re not quite ready to open yourself fully to it. You’d like to though ;)

More About Me

Hi! I’m Lea Woodward (Lea pronounced as in Lee-ah and not Lee). I’m somewhat of a serial entrepreneur and usually have several projects on the go at any one time – you can see the portfolio of current projects in the sidebar over on the right. I’m a wife to Jonathan – a talented illustrator, and a mother to Mali who keeps us both on our toes!

Quick Soundbytes

I’m Filipina but adopted by English parents from birth – when I think about what my childhood and early life could have been like, I consider that to be one of the luckiest events of my life.
I actually loved working in the rat race – it’s the office politics and ridiculous company policies that wore me down & I quit the very first day back in the office after a 6 month sabbatical. I think that’s still a company record.
I’m a closet woo woo – actually, there’s less being-in-the-closet about it, I just don’t wear it like a badge on my arm. I regularly use woo woo techniques in business and I’m on a mission to help others do the same and experience the benefits too.
I’m mostly a big fan of social networking sites like Twitter, Facebook & Pinterest.
I’m 5 feet and 1.5 inches – the 0.5 is very important. If you’re also this ~~short~~ petite, you’ll know.
I have a very British accent but also speak German, French, a bit of Spanish & a bit of Italian.
I was listed in Forbes magazine’s Thirty Women Entrepreneurs To Follow on Twitter.
My projects have been featured in the BBC (here & here), the Guardian (here & here), La Repubblica (Italy’s 2nd largest newspaper here), the Huffington Post, Cosmopolitan magazine (in Italy & Sweden) and other international media outlets.

The Back Story

I’m a former management consultant – I left university with no clue about what I wanted to do and foolishly thought that consulting would help me figure that out. At the time, working for then Andersen Consulting (now Accenture) was my dream job. I soon learned better!

After a personal tragedy forced me to re-evaluate my life (holding your Mum’s hand while she dies can do that to you), I quit the rat race and became a personal trainer. I told you that my time at Accenture didn’t help me figure out what I really wanted to do!

I then focused my training and client services more on holistic health (rather than just fitness – think metabolic typing, the CHEK approach and other unconventional but effective strategies) but this morphed into a 2 year journey to heal my own body and system – and repair the damage and havoc caused by my hedonistic lifestyle in the City.

After another unfortunate event (my husband, Jonathan, was made redundant) once again forced us to re-evaluate our lifestyle, we decided to get smart. That’s when we became location independent, coined the phrase and set off for destinations unknown.

Along the way, we set up the site, Location Independent, to help other people create a life of freedom, untethered by their geographic location and follow in our footsteps.

We also became parents to the cutest little Munchkin we could ever have wished for (and that’s after having announced to the world, right here on this blog, that we didn’t want kids!).

And we finally figured out how to tie everything we were passionate about into something resembling a business which enables us to pioneer our own path and helps others do the same too. That’s what Inspiring Ventures is today.

Legalities & Such

A list of full disclosures and relationships which may be relevant:

I co-founded Inspiring Ventures, a digital publishing company.
All sites in the Inspiring Ventures network – including this one – may include affiliate links for services, products and resources I endorse and recommend.
I sometimes (but rarely) use Amazon Affiliate links to point to books I’ve reviewed or enjoyed.
I am an affiliate for the Headway Theme for WordPress (upon which this site is built).I am an affiliate for Bluehost, the hosting company we use for all of our websites.
I sometimes use affiliate links in posts for products or services I have tried and fully endorse.

While I would prefer this site to be ad-free, at times I may try out advertising in a form which I believe won’t compromise the experience for readers nor my own integrity. Phew, that’s the legal bit out of the way.

What to do next?

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