The Work Kept Morphing. The Intention Never Did.
Declaration of Intendependence™, Part 4: Be Tenacious
Series hub:https://no2thequo.com/declaration-of-intendependence/
In case you missed it: Part 3: The First Planks
This is not stubbornness with a hashtag
People hear “be tenacious” and picture someone clinging to a plan with white knuckles.
Refusing to quit. Forcing it to work. Grinding until the dream matches the vision board.
That is not tenacity.
That is stubbornness with a hashtag.
Real tenacity is protecting the intention while letting the method evolve.
It is knowing what matters and being ruthlessly flexible about how you get there.
For us, the intention never changed.
Design a life we love. Build the work that makes it possible.
But the “how” has morphed more times than I can count.
Coaching. Pandemic. Pivot. Uber Eats. Repeat.
In the beginning, we had a coaching business.
People hired us to speak. We taught workshops. We had clients and contracts and a rhythm that worked.
Then the pandemic hit and everything stopped.
Not slowed down. Stopped.
No speaking gigs. No in-person events. No income stream that still made sense.
So we did what you do when the bills do not pause for a pandemic.
We took out a pandemic relief loan.
Not because we wanted to. Because rent does not care about your intention.
Then we pivoted again.
Zoom calls replaced stages. We started teaching online. We rebuilt what we knew how to do in a format that fit the new world.
And slowly, the coaching business came back.
Different. Smaller at first. But breathing again.
Except at some point, even that was not enough to cover everything.
So I did something I never thought I would do.
I turned on the Uber Eats app. Nothing like delivering tacos to remind you you’re still alive.
The night I delivered tacos to keep the dream alive
There is no inspirational way to frame this part.
I drove around town delivering food because we needed money and that was the fastest way to get it.
Not glamorous. Not my résumé. Just real.
And you know what?
It worked.
It kept the lights on. It kept us moving. It kept the travel lifestyle alive while we figured out the next move.
Because tenacity is not “I will never compromise.”
Tenacity is “I will do what it takes to protect what matters.”
And what mattered was not the job title.
What mattered was staying on the road.
Linda landed the remote job. I kept delivering burritos.
While I was out delivering someone’s burrito, Linda was building the next thing.
She landed a remote career consultant job with a company that let her work from anywhere.
Stable income. Flexibility to travel. Exactly what we needed when we needed it.
This is how it actually works.
You do not wait for the perfect opportunity to show up and save you.
You take the next right move that keeps the intention alive.
And sometimes that move is a remote job. Sometimes it is Uber Eats. Sometimes it is both at the same time.
Whatever works.
We were protecting the road, not the plan
The whole time, through every pivot, one thing stayed true.
We were protecting the travel lifestyle.
Not the boat. Not the coaching business. Not any specific version of the plan.
The ability to wake up somewhere new and not have to ask permission to be there.
That was the life we loved.
And the work kept changing to make it possible.
In the early days, we had friends and family scattered around the country who let us land at their place when we needed a break.
A week here. A few days there. Homebases we could borrow when house sitting felt like too much movement.
Then we bought the boat and lived aboard in the Keys for a season.
Marina life in the Keys. A place we could leave and come back to. Stability that moved with us.
Until it did not fit anymore.
So we sold it and went to Europe for three months.
Twenty countries. A few cruises. One rental car in Ireland that made us question every life choice we had ever made.
Seriously, that drive tested us more than living on a boat through a tropical storm.
But we came back with something new.
Clarity.
Really? We own a house?!?
Right outside Nashville, Tennessee.
We own a home.
Our own place. Near our grown kids. A spot we can always come back to.
And we still house sit.
We still travel.
We still take detours when something pulls us in a new direction.
Because the life we love is not one thing.
It is a rhythm.
Go. Come back. Go again.
And now we have a place that is actually ours to come back to.
Not someone else’s house we are watching. Not a marina slip we are renting. Ours.
That feels like winning.
What happens when grandbabies show up?
Honestly, we do not know yet.
Our kids are grown. Some are married. Grandbabies are probably coming at some point.
And when they do, the life we love might look completely different.
Maybe we travel less. Maybe we house sit closer to home. Maybe we become the homebase instead of just having one.
I do not know.
And that is okay.
Because tenacity is not about locking into one version of the life and never changing.
Tenacity is staying committed to designing a life we love, even when what we love evolves.
The question that keeps us moving
Every time something shifts, we ask the same question.
Does this still serve the life we want to build?
Not “Is this the plan we made five years ago?”
Not “Is this what other people think we should do?”
Does this still serve the life we want to build right now?
If yes, we keep going.
If no, we let it go and find the next thing.
That is how you stay tenacious without becoming stubborn.
What tenacity actually protects
Tenacity does not protect the plan.
It protects the intention.
When we left the church, the intention was clear.
Stop living by default. Design something on purpose.
Everything since then has been in service of that.
Coaching business. Pandemic relief loan. Zoom speaking. Uber Eats. Remote job. Boat. Europe. Homeownership.
None of those were the point.
They were all just paths toward the same thing.
A life we love. And the work that makes it possible.
That is what we protect.
Not the job. Not the location. Not the version of success that looks good on someone else’s timeline.
The life.
Your turn to be tenacious
If you have been reading this series, you already know your intention.
You made your Declaration. You got aligned. You took action.
Now comes the part that separates the people who talk about changing their life from the people who actually do it.
Staying in it.
Not when it is exciting. Not when it is working perfectly. When it gets hard and messy and nothing looks like the plan anymore.
That is when tenacity matters.
When you have to drive for Uber Eats to keep the dream alive.
When you have to pivot the business model for the third time.
When you have to sell the thing you thought was the answer and try something completely different.
Do it.
Because the plan is not sacred.
The intention is.
Protect that.
Let everything else be flexible.
The life gets built one adjustment at a time
We have been at this for years now.
And the version of our life today looks nothing like the version we imagined when we started.
It is better.
Not because we followed the plan. Because we stayed committed to the intention and kept adjusting.
That is the whole framework.
State it. Align it. Act on it. Protect it.
Not stubborn. Tenacious.
Flexible, adaptable, relentless about protecting what matters.
That is how you build a Declaration of Intendependence.
And that is how the life you love gets built.
One decision at a time. One pivot at a time. One “whatever it takes” moment at a time.
Hell yeah. We’re doing that.
Helmets optional. Detours allowed. Autopilot disengaged.
With love and laughter,
Matt & Linda
No 2 The Quo
What’s Next? Part 5: Don’t Be Afraid to Pivot
“Course Corrections Aren’t Failures“
When to pivot, when to push through, and how to know the difference.
Before We Had the Framework, We Had the Stories
We didn’t start No 2 The Quo with a tidy little life design model and a color-coded spreadsheet.
Shocking, I know.
We started with a few lived decisions. Big ones. Messy ones. The kind where you say, “This is probably fine,” while quietly wondering if you have lost your entire mind.
These three stories explain how we got here before we had the words Declaration of Intendependence™ to describe what we were doing.
These are the origin stories behind No 2 The Quo.
👉 Why We Said No 2 The Quo After the Kids Left Home
👉 It Took Two Years to “Suddenly” Change Our Lives
👉 Yes, We Really Did Pack Our Whole Life Into a Car and Leave
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