Courtney Bierschbach is a 36-year-old nonprofit consultant and writer who calls a converted fire rig named Rigby her winter home. (thewanderingcourt.substack.com)
Courtney tells the story of her unconventional path—from graphic design and incentive travel jobs that left her drained, to a joyful stint teaching Leave No Trace in national parks, to eventually launching her own consulting business that supports mission-driven nonprofits. She and her husband Nick, both self-employed with control over their time, spend Michigan winters chasing sunshine out west in their 4×4 ambulance, loaded with mountain bikes, paddleboards, and their dog.
She describes how a cancer diagnosis tested her self-employment setup—and how her clients stepped up with care, flexibility, and even soup. We get into how she built a stable consulting income (~$60K/year on ~25 hours/week), her passion for outdoor education, and why she’ll never work under fluorescent lights again.
Courtney also reflects on marrying young, skipping kids, and throwing a pancake-flipping, s’mores-filled wedding that included a Guinness World Record holder. Her version of a rich life? Flexible work, meaningful projects, solo bookstore trips in Scotland, and the freedom to hit the road whenever the snow starts piling up.
Full transcript: dirtbagrich.com/courtney
Recorded in January 2025.
Transcript
This is an AI-generated transcript. Typos and mistakes exist!
Blake Boles 00:00
Courtney Bierschbach, welcome to Dirtbag Rich.
Courtney Bierschbach 00:03
Thanks for having me Blake.
Blake Boles 00:06
Tell me what it’s like to live in an ambulance.
Courtney Bierschbach 00:09
Yeah, so this is probably not the answer you’re expecting, but the first word that comes to mind is actually spacious. I feel like I have lived out of some very small vehicles and spaces.And so when my husband Nick and I got the ambulance, it was intentionally to have more space. And it did, in fact, feel pretty grand once we moved in and filled all of the cabinets and cupboards and things. But of course, it’s exciting and it’s fun and it’s kind of quirky, just like us.
Blake Boles 00:47
Did it still have the markings of an ambulance on the outside and could you flash the lights and did you have a siren?
Courtney Bierschbach 00:54
Uh, so it did have all of the things, um, we bought it from a firefighter. Um, it had been retired from a fire department. Uh, every fire department has their own rules about either the number of years or the number of miles, um, before they have to retire a rig, right? They, they need their rigs to be in tip top shape. You don’t want to buy your truck or an ambulance, uh, breaking down on the way to an emergency.Uh, this one had just been retired because of the age. Um, it had not actually been used significantly. In fact, it had less than 20,000 miles on it, despite being 20 years old. Um, and so, yes, when we brought it home, it had lights and sirens and stickers and all of the things, which was actually kind of one of the first things we had to work on. It’s technically illegal. If you are not a firefighter, um, to be driving one of those around with all of those things on it. Um, so we got it home and immediately had to start, uh, looking less like an ambulance. Um, we did name our rig Rigby. Um, Rigby is still red, um, but, uh, no, no lights and sirens at this point in time.
Blake Boles 02:07
So you still have Rigby, and how long have you lived out of Rigby?
Courtney Bierschbach 02:14
Yeah, so it’s our seasonal home. Usually, actually in the winter, we try to take anywhere from one to four months and head west for sunshine. I’m in snowy northern Michigan where we don’t often see the sun for many weeks at a time. I love the snow, I love the cold, but we definitely start missing the sunshine.So we move out of our tiny home and into the ambulance and then just head west for sunshine and adventure. The nature of our flexible work and whatever projects we have going on usually determines how long we’re gone for. Sometimes it’s longer, sometimes it’s shorter. But we took our first inaugural trip in 2020. It was kind of our COVID project we had been talking about. We had just sold our last van, it was too small. We’re kite boarders and mountain bikers and paddle boarders and climbers. And if you’re living out of a van, that doesn’t leave very much room for your gear and things like that. So we were kind of trying to figure out, okay, we still want to get out there and play, we want to be safe and have our own space. But we need to bring our dog and our computers and all of our toys with us.So Rigby was Nick’s idea. There’s a Facebook group out there for anything and he fell into a group of other people who had converted ambulances. And I was a little skeptic. I was like, what has this ambulance seen? Is it going to be haunted? What is the cleaning going to be like? But ours had never actually been used as an ambulance. It was designed as an ambulance. The fire department bought it. And then our state regulations changed on some of the parameters and they were not able to use it as an ambulance. So they just used it to drive firefighters to and from different scenes.
Blake Boles 04:14
A glorified Uber!
Courtney Bierschbach 04:15
Pretty much, yeah, it was a firefighter Uber.
Blake Boles 04:19
How much did Nick get the ambulance for?
Courtney Bierschbach 04:23
It was around $15,000, I say around, because we, at the time that we bought it, we also had to do some immediate modifications to be able to get it insured. Believe it or not, if you are a private citizen owning a commercial, a previously commercial vehicle like an ambulance, it’s actually really hard to get it insured because, I mean, fair or rightly enough, if we were to be in a collision with another car, that car is going to be in trouble.Our multi-ton truck is going to be just fine, but we’re going to destroy anything that we would hit or run into. It’s not like we’ve had training in how to drive that vehicle and things like that. We had to make a couple of immediate modifications and get it titled as a motor home to be able to get it insured so that we could actually drive it. We kind of rolled in some of those initial costs into buying it for us. It was like, this is the cost to acquire this thing.
Blake Boles 05:29
Still, 15,000 is not a lot for something with 20,000 miles on it.
Courtney Bierschbach 05:35
And it had 4×4, which was something really important to us, like getting into wild places, living in a place with snow. That was really important to us.And when you’re trying to get a sprinter van or something like that with 4×4, it significantly increases the price. So that was certainly a selling point for us.
Blake Boles 05:56
So you anticipated one of my next questions, which was if moving into an ambulance gave you more space, what was your previous situation? But you said you lived in a van that got too small, not in the room for all the gear and the dog and everything else.But you also have a tiny home that you live in seasonally. This all begs the question, Courtney, at what point did you have a somewhat more normal or typical existence? When’s the last time you had something that the average American can look at and be like, I identify with that.
Courtney Bierschbach 06:29
um maybe college which uh you know at this point in time it has been about 15 years 14 years um and that was you know like a duplex that we were sharing and renting as college students um we did there was a period of time where we were living on the road we had a job that had us camping and in different communities every two to three days um and while we were actively doing that we did buy like a more traditional house like three bedrooms two bathrooms a yard um which was really just expensive storage for us we weren’t staying in it it was just a place to like mail stuff um and to store some of the stuff that we had been carting around since college uh we did when we came off the road we moved into it and immediately were like wow this is a lot of space what are we going to do with it um and immediately split it in half and turn top of it into an airbnb so that when we weren’t traveling we could be meeting other folks and hanging out with people who were traveling um so immediately you know took what was probably close to a normal amount of space um and halved it and started sharing it with strangers
Blake Boles 07:51
Okay, you and Nick have been together for a while. What is it that you two share that leads you to not want to live some sort of normal life, normal jobs, normal house?Like in which ways are you guys crazy?
Courtney Bierschbach 08:09
all of them You know, I think Nick and I have chatted about this and we are really fortunate that growing up We both had parents who really encouraged us to dream big, you know Like you can do whatever you want.You can be whatever you want when you grow up and not just in the light and fluffy ways You know for me, it was also I was pretty defiant Only child growing up And I heard a lot from my mom like well when you’re an adult you can do whatever you want You get to make the rules but until then like right you have to follow my rules So I think growing up I was always really excited for like, okay someday I’m gonna make the rules and they can look however I want So there’s probably some roots in that to growing up and being like I don’t have to do it Like everybody else is doing it Like what do I want to do because now I get to my mom said I get to make the rules now and So for Nick and I we both get pretty itchy when we’re sitting still and I think that’s Looks a little different for each of us, but it’s maybe one of those unifying values we love Learning and experiencing new things and being out and being the people and being outside We also really like spending time with each other And I know that feels like oh, you’re married to each other But I don’t know we’ve talked to a lot of people and even when we got married the people who owned where we got married Said wow you two just look so happy And I thought that was such a weird statement cuz you do weddings so shouldn’t everybody here look happy But I mean we had a job where we spent 24-7 together for an entire year Living out of a tent and came home and as soon as we had to be apart for like regular jobs Missed being together like we did not enjoy the forced time apart so I think that Those two things like wanting to adventure together and not wanting to sit still Have sort of maybe been the foundations of how we’ve built the life that we’re currently living
Blake Boles 10:32
So you’re touching on this already, but what is that you feel like you’re running away from or that you really don’t like about a more normal conventional existence? Like at what point do you start not just feeling antsy or itchy feet, but like start feeling trapped or like, I got to get out of here.I got to quit. I got to leave. And maybe you could point to a few pivotal moments where that really came to ahead.
Courtney Bierschbach 10:59
Oh, that’s such a good question.
Blake Boles 11:03
Like how are you, what are you setting yourself up to avoid in life?
Courtney Bierschbach 11:09
Yeah. So Courtney 1.0, like my first college degree was in graphic design and I got a job working for a university’s sports department. And I was in a windowless cubicle in a basement for 40 hours a week with just like extra cutthroat awful people. And I was so miserable. I was like, this cannot be like what life is about. There has to be something more than this. Like this sucks.And so I turned to rock climbing as a way to kind of work through that and was opened to this world of like people who play outside. That was not something I really grew up with. Like, I mean, sure, right? Like hula hooping in a basketball, but not like camping and backpacking, long hikes. Like there was so much about the outdoors that was new to me that once I became a parent, that that was a thing that you could decide to have in your life.I could never unknow that, right? There is no putting that genie back in the bottle. I don’t think I would have ever been content at that point. And I have tried throughout the years occasionally like, oh, maybe I could do this type of job. And I get into an office and I’m like, no fluorescent lighting, cubicle walls. Like I, my pulse starts racing. I get sweaty. I get grumpy. It’s hard. It’s not, I just don’t think I’m, I’m built for it.
Blake Boles 12:49
What are some of those those experiments, some of those jobs that you tried.
Courtney Bierschbach 12:55
Yeah, I worked for an incentive travel company for a little while. A little while being like six months, I gave it I gave it a good try. And I thought, oh, you know, like planning trips for large groups of people to go places like maybe, you know, that’s enough for me to hold on to. And I sat at a desk and I answered the phone and I made calls surrounded by fluorescent lights. And I never saw any of the wonderful places that I was sending people to, right? Like the soundtrack to my day was like the fax machine and the copier. And we’re out of coffee. And I just felt so mundane and so boring that when I started to look ahead, I thought, oh, gosh, like, I don’t still want to be sitting in this same chair or even another chair in the same building, you know, five years from now.I don’t want to have. And maybe this is probably one of those underlying things or threads having to be there for that set time. Right. Like I had to be there five minutes before my shift started. And I had to stay until the clock struck four p.m. Monday through Friday, every day, unless it’s a national holiday. I just hated not having that autonomy over my time. You know, sometimes I’m more productive in the evening. Sometimes I’m more productive in the morning or on a Saturday. And so being forced to conform and perform, you know, side by side with a bunch of other people who are probably not in their best environment or best time frame. And someone else’s schedule, I think, just became something that I could not do. And I didn’t want to do.
Blake Boles 14:52
I think there’s a lot of people who identify with that and yet still struggle to find a way to make money that is not some equivalent of the, uh, the windowless basement, uh, office job and, or the incentive travel job. Uh, so what was your journey like, you know, away from these places?I see that fluorescent lights was the real theme here away from the fluorescent light places. Uh, how did you start to find a kind of work that, that didn’t feel like it was slowly killing you.
Courtney Bierschbach 15:29
Yeah, I ended up going back to school and getting a degree in recreation. And that opened up some doors for me in terms of starting to work for nature centers and conservation districts, specifically doing environmental education work. So I put in the time and the effort to say I want to be someone who can go play outside with kids and teach them about nature because I wish that someone had taught me all of these cool things when I was younger. So that going back to school and intentionally building a background in that to sort of lean on to start exploring some other opportunities was really helpful.It also meeting and having Nick in my life who was actually already on this path. We met Rock Climbing. He was in the process of training to be a guide at that time. So he would leave and go out for 30 days at a time and take teenagers backpacking. Really sort of started to set us up to look at some more non-traditional jobs. Or I guess maybe in the early days it was kind of a hybrid, right? Like I still showed up to an office building on someone else’s time schedule Monday through Friday. But once I got there, I put on sunscreen and my sunglasses and I went outside most of the time. And that gave me a good balance of a lot of the skills that I lean on today in terms of logistics and coordination and project management. At the time, it was tempered with enough outside time that it felt like an OK trade-off. And as I got older, I continued to, for a while, pick careers that just were fun. I don’t say that flippantly. It wasn’t like I was like, oh, money’s not important. I still needed health insurance and I still needed to pay rent to live somewhere and to buy food and those things. So I was a little bit one foot in each world of traditional job to do all the traditional things. But picking ones really specific that allowed me some freedom and some time outside and some connection to work that I felt like I was making a difference or doing something good for other people. And I compounded that, I think, over time in a way that eventually I had enough of those hard skills and experience to say, actually, I didn’t realize it at the time, but here’s what I want to do to sort of build where I am now, if that makes sense.
Blake Boles 18:32
Um, and environmental education is notoriously low paid also. And I think a lot of people who spend a lot of time in that field look around and they’re like, okay, I can continue living hand to mouth dirtbag style here.Um, as an employee, I can try to fight for one of the very few administration positions in one of these organizations, or I have to do something radically different and so what path did you take? And maybe just start by describing what you do right now for work.
Courtney Bierschbach 19:06
Yeah I wear a few hats and I’m actually really happy about that. I don’t have just one thing that I do. I have a good variety.So I do own my own consulting business and I work primarily with non-profits after spending over a decade inside of them working for local and national ones. I have a pretty good take on some project management things, some communication pieces that really I enjoy working with other non-profits and helping them with those pieces internally. I also am a freelance writer so I write for a couple of regional publications in my area, newspaper journals, things like that. And then I do also work with an organization that allows me to teach athletes how to fundraise. So these are folks who are running anywhere from a 5k to a 250 mile race and they’re using that race as a starting point to build awareness and raise money for a cause that they pick and they care about but they probably haven’t fundraised before. So I get to teach and do some fundraising support for folks who are out there trying to turn their outdoor endeavor into something good.
Blake Boles 20:33
And I feel like there’s still a lot of distance between your life as an environmental educator and then having these like three different, very interesting, uh, yeah, side streams.Can you just, uh, yeah, briefly paint a picture of how you, like what, what happened first and did that enable the next step and the next step?
Courtney Bierschbach 20:54
Yeah, so around 2020 and the pandemic, I made a really big, wild shift. I mean, the world was crazy then anyway, but I left a perfectly good job that I was very bored and stuck inside with, working in higher education at that point in time. And a friend who I was on a board of a mountain biking organization said, hey, I work for this tech startup and you have great people skills. And I know that you don’t know anything about tech and software testing, but I think it’d be great helping us figure out our people stuff. And I was like, well, you know, I’ve never tried that before, so sure, why not? And I was able to, you know, being invited in and that way kind of set my terms of like, hey, like I’m going to work on my own time. I’m going to work from home when I can. And sort of really start to have some ownership over my time and what I was willing to give to someone else’s company or organization.I learned so much working for a tech startup. I was employee, like number four, I think. And by the time I left, I had grown the team with our fellow leadership to a team of 20. I was brought in to do people stuff. By the time I left, I was the CFO. You know, it was a very wild and exciting ride that had enough going on that even though I was sitting on a computer and inside, I was so engaged and really enjoyed what I was building. But I knew I could see down the runway that, okay, this is at some point going to stop being exciting and start just being stressful. And what do I want to do next? And one of the things that came out of that was startups and nonprofits are so similar in that they never have enough money. Everything’s always on fire and everyone’s wearing multiple hats. I shouldn’t say always, but a lot of the time. And the way that those two industries or sectors rather approach problems is so different, right? Nonprofits sort of have these legacy models. We’ve been doing this for 30 years. That’s the way we’ve always done it. Startups are like, I have to solve this problem right now. What are the five tools or apps or services or ways that I can just get this done right now? And so I saw a potential for a lot of crossover and how to use some of the methodologies and the tools that were being used in startup space for nonprofits. So while I was there, I started my own consulting business on the side. And that’s what grew into what is my business today. But it started with just one client on the side where I said, Hey, like, let me show you a couple of tools to help these problems that I hear you talking about. And grew word of mouth from there so that by the time I was ready to leave that startup, I had sort of built the next ride for me to get on.And I built it intentionally so that I could control the time, I could control the clients that I was picking, the work that I wanted to do for the first time.
Courtney Bierschbach 24:29
And because of all of the previous experiences and sort of whittling down, I realized like the work needs to be important. And if I get to go outside, that’s great too.But having ownership over my time so I can see on the calendar, okay, I’ve got about 20 hours of work this week, but that means the rest of the time is mine to go run to go ski to take my dog and go for an adventure to go camping with Nick. And that finally felt like I found the right sweet spot of having meaningful work and control over my schedule so that the rest of the time I can play an adventure and travel and explore.
Blake Boles 25:14
Um, it’s a really beautiful summary and, uh, your foresight, you know, I think a lot of people would have trouble walking away when they are chief financial officer and they’re in a growing company and, and just to look down the line and say, like, I think I know where this is going to lead. It’s going to be that some version of that fluorescent box again. Uh, and to, to then take these steps to build your little consulting career on the side enough so that you can then confidently walk away. Um, yeah, that’s really impressive, Courtney.And I’m curious, do you do more consulting for nonprofits or for startups?
Courtney Bierschbach 25:56
four nonprofits. Actually, all of my clients with the exception of one are nonprofits, and the one exception is actually like a local government unit. So I currently do not do any for-profit work.Some of the writing that I do is for for-profit publications and businesses, but currently all nonprofit folks.
Blake Boles 26:22
And is the consulting the main way that you earn money?
Courtney Bierschbach 26:25
It is. Yeah.
Blake Boles 26:27
And can you talk a little bit about the economics of this thing you’ve created for yourself, like how much do you work? How much do you earn if it’s per hour or if there’s another way that you measure this and yeah, just anything else that feels important to share.
Courtney Bierschbach 26:45
Yeah, so in the consulting world, there is so much variety in how folks choose to charge for things. Some folks are by the hour, some are by the project, some are retainer models. And I’ve played around with a variety of those options, and I’ve found that the most successful model is actually not about what makes sense for me, but what makes sense for my client.I mean, don’t get me wrong, great. I have to get paid. Again, I have to have money to exist. But not having a one-size-fits-all plan in terms of what ways that people pay or when they pay, I have one client who I work with online just one event. They do one fundraising event for a year, and I spend the year helping them plan that. So we meet once a month to move the ball forward towards this event. So for them, it makes sense to pay hourly because it’s such minimal sporadic work. Whereas I have another client who I’m organizing their leadership cohort that meets multiple times throughout the month on a year-round basis with dozens and dozens of participants. So there’s significantly more work, so it looks closer to a retainer model for them.So it really varies, and I wanted to always feel right for the client. Again, knowing I have to make a living off of this, but it sort of ebbs and flows based on the type of work that we’re doing together.
Blake Boles 28:36
And maybe over recent years, what’s the range that you’ve earned through this consulting work, like in total over the year, just to get a sense of how much you’re living off of?
Courtney Bierschbach 28:52
Yeah, right off the gate when I left startup land in the tech world, I was like, okay, I need to be making as much as I was. So, you know, I was aiming for around six figures and quickly realized like, oh, if I’m not working 50, 60 plus hour weeks, I have a lot more time to do some of the stuff in my own life that I was so tired and exhausted and was trying to outsource, right?Like, I don’t have to pay for a shipped service to have my groceries delivered. Like, I have the time and capacity to go to the grocery store now. So, like, I really started looking at, you know, what I wanted my life to look like and what I wanted to be doing versus what I wanted to pay to do or have done. And realized I don’t actually need to work that much or let along, I guess, make that much. So, now I intentionally make around $60,000 a year. And that feels comfortable to me where I can do some of the things that I couldn’t do as young Courtney, you know, leading nature camps, like, uh, saving, having a 401k, some of those things that when you’re living paycheck to paycheck in, you know, nonprofit land, just aren’t attainable. But also be comfortable in my small tiny house and my ambulance traveling, going new places. Yeah, that’s, it was an intentional choice. I could make more, but I would need to work more. And that’s a lever I can always pull if I feel like, okay, like I can see a big expense or something coming up, or, you know, I want to start saving more for something. But right now I’m, I feel like I’m in a sweet spot where I’m living my version of a luxury life. I own my time and I can go camping in my ambulance this weekend. Right? Like, that’s my rich life. So, like, I feel like I’m in that sweet spot of, of making all the pieces work.
Blake Boles 31:04
Yeah, I like that. Your version of the luxury life.How many hours a week do you work on average, and how is this distributed over the months or the entire year? And how much are you able to actually truly not work and have free time where you don’t need to be really thinking about clients or checking the phone all the time?
Courtney Bierschbach 31:31
Yeah, I would say the average is about 25 hours, maybe 30 a week. Of course, there are occasional times where that may drop off or increase based on an event or some larger project. But I was really intentional about having a couple of clients that give me consistent weekly work so that I had a little bit of that predictability in my schedule. You know, I didn’t want it to be so unexpected where I’m like sitting around with nothing to do this week and next week everything’s on fire and I have more hours of work to do than there are days in the hour or hours in the day. So it’s pretty consistent around that 25 to 30 mark, again, give or take depending on projects.And I really control when that happens, it’s certainly better in some instances to do some things during the business week. If I’m needing to call people and be in touch with other businesses or organizations, it’s best if I can do some of those things nine to five in the time zone of those businesses. But most of the work isn’t tied to set hours or days of the week. In fact, some of the athletes that I work with, right, like they’re fundraising outside of work. They don’t have time during their work schedule to talk about how they’re fundraising. So I have a lot of flexibility in when stuff gets done, but I am ferocious in protecting my boundaries. And so for me, you know, Nick doesn’t work Saturdays and Sundays. So unless I have a big one of a kind event, I also right now don’t work Saturdays and Sundays. I took it a step further this year, one of my focuses is spending more time writing. And so I said, okay, I’m not going to do any meetings or take any projects on Mondays. On Mondays, I write. So now, you know, that’s something that I’m trying starting this year is on Mondays, just dedicating that time to writing to be at home somewhere else. So condensing down other meetings and projects and things into four days instead of spreading them out over five or six days.
Blake Boles 33:57
What’s an adventure or trip that you went on in recent years when you’ve been living the schedule that you just described that really would not have been possible if you were in a traditional job or your old startup position?
Courtney Bierschbach 34:14
Um, so many of them, right? It’s like, it’s appalling. What comes as vacation time. Um, and so many places, uh, like five days a year, 10 days a year. That’s just never going to cut it for me.Um, so most of my travel, even last year, wouldn’t have been able to happen in a more traditional job, um, last year I went to Morocco, the Canary islands. Uh, I went to Ireland and Scotland. Uh, I did a couple of races. Uh, I went out to Joshua Tree National Park, right. Just listing those places probably took me the amount of time that most people would get for vacation. Uh, and some of them were true vacations that I just totally unplugged and didn’t do anything. Some of them, like my trip to Scotland, uh, I went solo. I just really wanted to go drink tea and go book shopping. Um, and my partner Nick was like, no, I’m not interested in that. So I went solo. And since it was just me, I would open up my computer, work on some stuff for a couple hours in the morning and then spend the rest of the day exploring bookstores and having good tea and cake.
Blake Boles 35:34
I love that image of you just treating yourself to really nice cake and really nice bookstores day after day. You’re like, Courtney, would you like to get some more cake today? Yes, I would.
Courtney Bierschbach 35:44
Exactly, yeah.
Blake Boles 35:48
Um, let’s shift gears a bit and can you tell me about your cancer scare?
Courtney Bierschbach 35:56
Yeah, so I found a lump on my neck, and it’s kind of a strange thing. You look at yourself every day in the mirror, or at least I do. I don’t know if you do, Blake. But I was looking at my neck one day and I thought, huh, had I always been there? You know, you look at yourself every day, so things that change slowly sometimes just sneak up. Like it had probably been growing, it had to have been growing for a while. But there was just one day where I thought, I don’t always remember that being there. Made a doctor’s appointment.He said, hmm, yeah, that’s probably fine. But you know, we’ll do a biopsy. They did the biopsy. They said everything’s fine. And there was just something in my gut that I turned to the doctor and I remember saying, you know, like, no offense. I know you’re a doctor and I’m not. But could we get another opinion of someone who specifically works on this part of the body? And so this was near my thyroid. And so I said, can you refer me to an endocrinologist? Like, I don’t mean any disrespect to you, but I would just feel better. You know, if my normal doctor who doesn’t treat, you know, scrapes in the flu, just someone else could take a look at this. And I walked into that office and the guy said, that needs to come out right now. So that was my first kind of like, oh, like, maybe something is amiss here. At that point, we hadn’t even contended the cancer as a possibility. And it wasn’t until after I had my first surgery to remove the lump, which we had named Hank and made it into my charts. I think like I told one doctor like, oh, yeah, like I named him Hank, like, freaking Hank, like, causing me all these problems. And they put it in there. And every person like the anesthesiologist, the person doing the blood draw would be like, Oh, is this Hank? And I’m like, Oh, my God, like everybody knows. After the first surgery, after we evicted Hank, all of the pathology came back. And it was cancer.There are three types of thyroid cancer, I was right in the middle. Not the best, not the worst. But it meant that I needed to have more things done before I could be considered cancer free. So some additional surgeries and medications and things like that. It really surprised us. We were not expecting that. I was not expecting that. And it was a pretty big curve ball. It tested a lot of the things that we thought, okay, you know, we’re prepared, you know, here’s our rainy day fund, here’s our nest egg. You know, you in your mind, sometimes you think you have a plan for if something goes wrong, what you’ll do that allows you to just keep moving through everyday life. And this was a real opportunity to test it because, you know, I couldn’t work.
Courtney Bierschbach 39:01
And when you work for yourself, that means there’s no sick pay, there’s no paid time off. There’s no FMLA or anything like that. For both of us, you know, at the time, for my husband as well. And so not even just initial surgeries, but driving to and from doctors appointments and the amount of time that I was spending in appointments and different doctors and different specialists paired with just feeling terrible meant that I really couldn’t do my job in the way that I had been doing it before. But I had built such solid relationships with my clients that every single one of them said, work when you can. Let us know when you need us to pick up something for you. We understand that you’ll have good days and bad days when you have good days and you want to do work. That’s fine. You can do it. But there’s no pressure to produce or perform or do anything right now, which as a business owner, I kind of always thought I had that autonomy, but to hear it from my clients in such a graceful and respectful way really solidified that I had built great relationships and great clients and that it was going to be okay, right?I could work when I felt like working. My clients weren’t going to just disappear into the abyss. I wasn’t going to have to rebuild my business when this is over, but I could still take the time that I needed to heal and to recover. And so I am cancer free. I actually go next week for my next appointment where hopefully we are celebrating two years cancer free.
Blake Boles 40:50
Congratulations, and I think, yeah, an episode like this could be the kind of thing that a lot of people fear when they think about taking this self-employment or very unconventional path, like there is not enough security for when something like this happens, but it seems like, you know, because you guys did have some savings, your rainy day fund, you were able to work less, but also what I’m hearing is that your relationship to your source of income was not just you and your employer, but, you know, you kind of had this distributed set of relationships with multiple long-term clients who you have a personal relationship with. And I guess even if one or two of them had said like, hey, we need someone who’s like really grinding full time right now, and if that’s not you, then we’re going to have to look elsewhere.You would have had other people who would have remained, yeah, would have continued to create the safety net, the economic safety net for you as a self-employed person. And so that even seems a bit safer than just the single point of failure, which is an employer.
Courtney Bierschbach 42:05
Yeah, absolutely. You know, it was probably one of the more beautiful parts of the experience.I had clients showing up at my house with soup. I had clients who were like, hey, if you give me the password, I will log in and just do the things for you, you know, things that they had previously been like, we don’t have the capacity to do this. That’s why we’re hiring you. They were like, we will make it happen. So it was really beautiful to know, you know, all the time and effort that I put into not just selecting clients that I felt good about the work, but people I really actually wanted to work with and enjoy working with, you know, felt the same way about what we were building.
Blake Boles 42:53
So I’ve gotten the sense that you derive your sense of purpose from working with nonprofits, working with clients whose missions you believe in, but it seems like after this incident, maybe that sense of purpose or meaning is even deeper because these people really showed up for you in a really big and unexpected way.
Courtney Bierschbach 43:16
Yeah, I mean, I, I always knew they were good humans, right? Like, they were doing the good work that I wanted to be a part of. And it’s one thing to sit at a desk and punch numbers into your computer for an organization that’s doing good work. But each of us has the capability of individually being a good human and walking that walk.And all of those folks, you know, from a half a dozen different companies and organizations, you know, weren’t just phoning it in. They showed up and really reminded me that our communities and the communities we’re a part of matter so much more than a lot of other things that we tend to value more.
Blake Boles 44:08
Hmm. Let’s talk about this, um, other person who’s been in your life since you were 21, Nick.Um, you’ve, you’ve spoken a little bit about him, but can you tell me about his work and his flexibility and how well it matches up with the very flexible life that you’ve created for yourself.
Courtney Bierschbach 44:29
Yeah. Oh, you asked me about him. I just got the biggest smile. He’s my favorite person.Blake, Nick and I, yeah, we have been together since our early twenties and we periodically build in time throughout the year to kind of reflect. We just had a really big sort of like a household mini retreat. Like we went away for a day and like worked on our businesses and our household goals and like, almost like a business meeting, right? But for our partnership, I guess, if you will. And we’re just reflecting on, you know, folks that we’ve known or been friends with for a long time and how different our lives look and how really okay we are with that and how much gratitude we have for what we’ve built together. He currently is in a similar position where he owns his own company and he’s an independent contractor supporting some other projects, too.So he owns a landscaping company. He sort of like me and given right, his background is in also recreation. So it’s like, wait, how did you end up with a landscaping company? Nick is the golden retriever in our relationship. People love him. And he is that guy, even though we’ve only lived here for a number of years, that like he walks into somewhere and people are like, oh, hey, Nick, like everybody knows him and wants to talk to him. And he just sort of like fell into wanting to help other people and something that there was a need for in our community was landscaping. I like being outside. I used to do that in college and it allows him to take winters off and have this time to totally unplug if he wants. Although, as I mentioned, we both get itchy sitting still. So he did also take on learning carpentry. So he’s also working as an independent contractor, helping out with some carpentry and like building houses and things in our community. But again, has that complete ownership over his time and schedule so that if it’s the right wind conditions, he can say, actually, I’m going to go out and go kite boarding today because the weather is perfect for this or it’s a super calm morning. I’m going to go out and take a flight in my powered paramotor and I’ll come in in the afternoon and do some things. So he and I, again, having that shared value of autonomy over our time and the ability to push pause or pivot so that we can have time to do the things that light us up has been, you know, one of those unifying things for for both of us in building our less than conventional life.
Blake Boles 47:43
It’s nice that you have similar lifestyles and life goals, and you also seem to have a similar sense of humor because you previously told me that at your wedding, you had the Guinness Book of World Record people there for the longest pancake throw.Can you tell me more about that?
Courtney Bierschbach 47:58
Yeah, I think we were so fortunate in getting married before Instagram and Tik Tok and even Pinterest were things. And we were still in college. We were just like, I know this is my person and just ready to tell the whole world, like, let’s have a party and tell people. And so, you know, think about yourself when you were in your 20s planning a wedding with this person that’s your best friend without any outside influence. So it was really special.We got to decide exactly, like, how we wanted to celebrate with people. And for us, that looked like getting married first thing in the morning because I didn’t want to wait around all day. Like, I’m excited. Let’s do the thing and then celebrate. Itchy feet. Yeah. And I love, we both love breakfast. It’s my favorite food. So I’m like, perfect. We got married in the morning. We’ll have breakfast. I started looking around for companies and lo and behold, at the time, the company that was in the Guinness Book of World Records for farthest throne pancake, which who even knew that was a thing, also catered in the area that we were in. And I thought, yes, while people are standing in line to get their food, they can be watching other people catch their pancakes. Like, this is great. I saw nothing wrong with it. Some of our parents were like, you’re doing what? But then, you know, as they started to see the other pieces come together, where, you know, later that evening we had people come back for hot dogs and hamburgers and a camp fire and s’mores and dancing. And, you know, we cut our wedding cake with a brand new, never been used. I have to clarify that. But the cat hole trowel, like what you use to dig a hole when you’re camping and you can go to the bathroom. That’s what we cut our wedding cake with. You know, we just we made it represent us. Everything we registered for was we only registered at REI. It was all camping equipment. The pots and pans that we got that we still have are a camping set. We just were authentic selves. And it turned out, I mean, people still die, see, you know, not as often infrequent as some other family members when I see them will say, you know, your wedding was still one of the best parties I’ve ever been to. So I think there’s something in that, you know, being authentic and goofy and playful.
Blake Boles 50:40
Hmm. Um, you’ve told me that you don’t need a big house. You’re happy to drive an old car, but you do want a passport full of stamps and you want a life that’s meaningful.And as someone who got married to your, your best friend, your person quite early and seems so aligned on values. Um, where did the question of, of children come in? And where do you two stand on that today?
Courtney Bierschbach 51:09
Yeah, this is such a big question and I’m hopeful that by answering it, I can like share this with everyone I know and, you know, finally put some of this question to rest for some folks who maybe haven’t taken the hint previously. In the early days, it was sort of like, it could happen, it could not happen. We were kind of okay with it either way.At the time, we both had jobs where we were working with kids. And so it’s like, yeah, having one of our own would be fine. Like, we’ll just throw them in the backpack and carry on and keep adventuring and, you know, grow our family in that way. And then a couple years into our marriage, we had a really unique opportunity to have a job where we were traveling and on the road and camping in different places every two to three days.
Blake Boles 52:05
you to talk about at the very end because it’s such a good story. I’m just saving it for the end.
Courtney Bierschbach 52:10
perfect. But you know, we couldn’t even take our dog with us. We definitely wouldn’t have been able to take a mini-human with us. And so, you know, we had to firmly push pause on, you know, thinking like, oh, it might be okay.And coming out of that, we realized that we wanted to travel more, that we wanted to be more nimble. And I know there are people out there who will say, oh, wait, Courtney, like you can have kids and still do all of the things that you’re doing. And I think it became a little bit more than just the flexibility and the agility, but we just both really value extreme sports and deep adventure. And I know that having a child doesn’t have to change those things, but for us, it felt like I don’t think that that is the adventure that we want to go on. And for a while, we just kept checking in like, yeah, I still don’t think that’s something I want right now. Like, how about you? So we always really held some open communication about it. And you know, eventually we got to a point where it’s like, okay, we’ve been saying the same thing for 10 years now. I guess that’s kind of a decision. There wasn’t any one point where it was like, we’re making the decision and this is it for all of time. It was just a gentle, continuous checking in and still being like, yeah, that’s not a thing we feel called to do or like we’re missing out on.
Blake Boles 53:51
And that’s how it continues to be today.
Courtney Bierschbach 53:53
Yep. There are some additional pieces, I guess, for me now that that door feels maybe a little bit more permanent post-cancer because the cancer that I had was, you know, a more hormonal cancer that the, you know, when a woman becomes pregnant, there are lots of hormones that change and grow and the increased risk for secondary cancer occurrence is significantly higher once you’ve had cancer.And so, you know, not that it was like, oh, well, we were now we were thinking, yes, but now because of this, it’s just like one more reason that we feel pretty grounded in the decision that we have been previously making.
Blake Boles 54:41
Mm-hmm. Great. Well, I’d love to close, Courtney, with this period in your life that you’ve referenced many times, it seems like really a pivotal year in which you and Nick got hired, and there was a lot of competition for this space, to be leave-no-trace educators at national parks and other public lands all across the U.S. Am I getting this correct? Yes. Like the dream job, right?
Courtney Bierschbach 55:11
Really, it, it was, um, and we had to do so much like unpacking afterwards about not using that as the measuring stick. Um, right. Like we, it was like, oh, did we just peek at like, you know, 25 crap. Now what? Um, so we had to do a lot of reframing after it because it was the dream job.Um, you know, we were basically on an all expenses paid trip while still getting paid in addition to our expenses being covered to camp and travel around to national parks and public lands in a brand new Subaru, teaching people how to play outdoors responsibly. Like I, there was there, you couldn’t craft a better job for us at that point in time in our lives. Um, and you know, it really became sort of this touchstone for us that solidified, wow, we’re kind of not normal job people. Like we were thriving in this job where, you know, Nick was driving hundreds of miles a day and I’m sitting in the passenger seat, making campground reservations and building lesson plans for kindergartners. And then we’re showing up and setting up our tent and cooking dinner on the campfire and waking up and teaching a class in the morning on repeat. Um, and in between there, you know, mountain biking and hiking and paddle boarding and climbing and all of these beautiful places that we were visiting. Um, just solidified that it was possible to thrive and be happy and to make a living outside of a cubicle, um, you know, outside of even the, the jobs that we had that were kind of balancing between a traditional job and some time outside, it, it showed us that, you know, if you can dream it, even if you weren’t dreaming it, like look at this possibility and opportunity, um, to know, live your beautiful, rich optimum life. Um, and so yeah, we learned and grew throughout that. And when we came back, I don’t think there was ever a hope or a prayer that we were going to be able to sit in a cubicle after that.
Blake Boles 57:33
This final nail in the coffin.
Courtney Bierschbach 57:35
Yeah.
Blake Boles 57:37
Courtney, if anyone wants to find out what you’re up to, do you have an online presence you can point them toward?
Courtney Bierschbach 57:46
Yeah, I have a sub-stack where I’ve been sharing past and present adventures for Nick and I. It’s called The Wandering Court, C-O-U-R-T, like Court as in Courtney. So people can subscribe for free and follow along with all of the fun that we get up to.We have an Instagram, but we have also intentionally kind of shied away from social media looking forward to doing some more long-form content. So the substack is the best way to get a hold of us or to see what’s going on.
Blake Boles 58:21
And I’ll definitely put a link to that substack in the show notes.
Courtney Bierschbach 58:25
Thanks. Thanks, Blake.
Blake Boles 58:27
Courtney, thanks so much for coming on Dirtbag Rich.
Courtney Bierschbach 58:30
Thanks for having me. Have a great day, Blake.