Barbara Winter tells an envy-provoking story of becoming a “gypsy teacher and seminar leader.” She always wanted to travel, doubted her career choice, and was bored in her early jobs. So …. she became Joyfully Jobless:

I was afraid something was terribly wrong with me, that I might be a perpetual malcontent. What I know now is that a bigger dream was trying to be born—a dream of a creative, passion-filled business.

What I didn’t anticipate was that becoming Joyfully Jobless was a passport to the adventurous life of my childhood dreams. As a gypsy teacher and seminar leader, I’ve acquired more than a million miles of travel on a single airline. My business has led me to wonderful cities and towns in the US, Canada and Europe where I’ve met fascinating people I never would have known had I stayed home. My world continues to get bigger every day.

To guide others to live the Joyfully Jobless life, Winter wrote a book, Making a Living Without a Job. Winter, who calls herself “a passionate storyteller her entire life,” says “she would rather read a great story than an instructional manual any day.” blogs stories of and thoughts about her Joyfully Jobless life at Buon Viaggio.

And one of the workshops she leads is called Compelling Storytelling!, about which she writes: “What if you could make your message so memorable that people would want to hear what you have to say? What if you learned to approach marketing from a storyteller’s perspective?”

At her main Joyfully Jobless site, she collects stories from others who are Joyfully Jobless.

I remain conflicted about whether I’m joyfully jobless (see my entry on my “retirement” story). I know I’m joyful and have great freedom to plan my time. I’m just not sure if I’m jobless or not. I work (hard) and get paid for it. I’m just not sure if it counts as a job.