We recently connected with Kirsten Ebey and have shared our conversation below.

Kirsten , thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. We’d love to hear your thoughts about making remote work effective.

I own two businesses – one that supports remote work (Nomad Coworking Space) and one that is a virtual project management firm (Path to Summit LLC). In the pm firm, there are 7 of us that are spread out throughout the world, coming together to implement better project management strategies for businesses that are also spread throughout the world. Since inception in 2017, we have always been remote, so by the time the pandemic rolled around, we were an “old hat” at working remotely and had the opportunity to help our current & previous clients make the transition smoothly with our experience. The pitfalls to working remotely can include loneliness, misunderstanding of use of time, poor time management, and communication that is non-holistic.
Nomad Coworking Space was created to resolve that loneliness and lack of connection to community by creating a space to share ideas, energy, and get work done.

Non-obvious benefits to working from home include the intentionality of every single communication, cutting down on the back & forth that often takes up more time than it’s worth. I love that my streamlined communication that I learned working remotely has impacted me in a way that I’m in less meetings and working more efficiently.
Additionally, the immense focus that I gain and hours worth of deep work that I can achieve by being able to put on special playlists and really dig deep into what I’m doing without interruptions. I love the continued focus I achieve while working remotely.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

In 2018, I came home from a paid vacation to a sudden lay off & a $1200 severance. We were living in Denver at the time, and our rent was well over the $1200 I’d received. I had created an LLC the previous year for contract project management consulting work, and decided that I would build out that LLC from the ground up. That was my second lay off in 2 years, and so the corporate world no longer provided me with a sense of stability that it previously had, so why not jump head first into entrepreneurship? I had nothing to lose.

I had to make money fast as my husband and I had bills and rent – you know, all of that fun stuff. During the day, I began walking dogs on the WAG app to make money, get exercise, and interact with wonderful animals. It was actually really great for staying positive during this time of crazy uncertainty! At night, or very early in the morning, I would build out Path to Summit LLC, carving out services, business planning, creating freelancer profiles everywhere, submitting proposals, etc. At first, my goal was to be able to buy groceries. Once I achieved that, my goal moved on to be able to pay the monthly rent and buy groceries. When I achieved that, I set a new goal to pay for the wifi, so on and so forth. Within a year, I was making as much as I did in corporate, and meeting the COOLEST clients! I worked with Porsche, Circle K, DR Horton, and some other pretty big players from the corporate world.

My approach as a project manager has always been the same – people first. I infuse emotional intelligence into project management, and figure out what motivates each project team member to accomplishing their tasks. It’s different from person to person, and applying regular project management methodology to each scenario, I’ve found, really turns people off. BUT! if you connect with them, find out what motivates them, and create connection with every team member, the project’s success rate is MUCH higher, and everyone ends up feeling far more accomplished once the project’s complete. I’m proud of the connections and impact I’ve been able to make with every level of employee in the companies that I work with, all from the comfort of my own space. Of the 400+ projects that I’ve worked on in the last 6 years, I’ve traveled on site to see clientsonly TWICE. Some of the clients that I started off with “back in the day” of the company’s inception are still our clients today and I hold some of my most treasured relationships with clients that I’ve never met in person.

So how does Nomad play into this? Well, previously I mentioned that I’ve been remote for the better part of almost 6 years. Before we had kids two years ago, my husband and I would work remotely all over the world – Bali, Singapore, Belize, Cabo, Thailand, Italy, you name it. We brought our work with us everywhere and got to see, experience, and work in amazing places. When we had two kids in two years (2021 and 2023) we settled in to our home, creating our shared offices within one of the rooms. We still worked at coffee shops, or other places like that, but as our family grew and we weren’t traveling as much, we wanted a place to go and get work done as well as connect with other remote workers. Here in Algiers Point, and at the time on the west bank in general, there weren’t any coworking spaces. In October of 2022, a commercial spot came up available on Seguin. We walked past it during a walk in the ‘hood, and thought it’d be perfect for our office as well as a coworking space. Algiers Point, much like a lot of other communities, had been pretty locked down throughout the pandemic, and we wanted a way to welcome back remote workers, tourists that needed a spot to work, and community members to the Algiers Point way – neighborhood connection. After the birth of our second child in February 2023, we were able to open up Nomad Coworking Space to the public, offering a space to come together as a community to share ideas, energy, and get work done, all while connecting with one another. We also offer venue rental for educational, cultural, and business events, which has been really cool to watch the community congregate to learn new skills. We offer classes on several business topics, a business incubator session once per month, and a monthly pop up where we showcase entrepreneurs just starting out on their journeys.

Are there any books, videos, essays or other resources that have significantly impacted your management and entrepreneurial thinking and philosophy?

Think Again by Adam Grant This book really stretched my mind while also upholding my philosophy in emotional intelligence and the art of curiosity. I would highly recommend this book to anybody and everybody who owns a business especially. It gives really great insight into how others think, how we are conditioned, motivational interviewing, all kinds of great stuff. I pick it up pretty frequently.

Another one – Deep Work by Cal Newport. What awesome insight into how to achieve and remain in Deep Work. This is another book that I pick up from time to time to be reminded of the different techniques for focus and getting things done effectively.

The Emyth, I could go on and on about this book.

Emotional Intelligence 2.0. This book was a huge influence in my masters thesis on whether or not an organization’s level of emotional intelligence impacts its culture. I learned so much about myself and how I want to lead, influence, and manage from this book.

How’d you meet your business partner?

My Nomad Co-owner is my husband. We’ve been together since 2018 and actually met on MySpace. I was 21 and looking for people to go to the club with – nothing romatic, just looking to make more friends outside of my small town and go out with in Grand Rapids, MI. I reviewed the important things – you know, music choices, movies he liked, whether or not he was active in going out, all of that. I messaged him and asked if I could tag along with him some time and he said “sure”. Over the next few months, we didn’t end up hanging out, but we would jump on AIM (remember that?) everyday and chat about our days, or schoolwork, or whatever was going on. Again, nothing romantic. One day, my friends ditched me for lunch and so I had logged on to AIM while I started doing my homework. He asked why I was online because he knew I had plans to go out to lunch. I said that my friends had ditched me and so, there I was, back online. He asked if I had gas in my car, to which I replied yes, and he asked if he could take me to lunch in Grand Rapids. I said sure, but the only place I knew how to get to was a TGI Fridays off of one specific exit. So that’s where we first met, and we’ve been together ever since. We finished Business college together for undergrad, then went on to get our masters together. We moved from Michigan to Colorado, back to Michigan, to here (New Orleans, Louisiana). It’s been a great ride.
So, to recap, we lived together, went to school together (all the same classes and degrees), and actually worked in corporate together prior to working in our own businesses together. There have definitely been some tough times in our relationship, but we’ve worked really hard to keep our relationship multi-faceted, and shutting off business when it’s necessary to do so.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.pathtosummit.com www.nomad-nola.com
• Instagram: @pathtosummitllc @nomad_nola
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pathtosummit/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/projectmanagerkirsten
• Youtube: https://youtube.com/@pathtosummitllc9042?si=31x09FRE3modGr-c