Funny to think that a random Tuesday night, watching my favourite comfort movie, Chalet Girl for about the 5th time, completely changed my life’s trajectory. I was hating my job in London at the time, and felt pretty lost. My anxiety was through the roof, and I just didn’t feel like I was in my own life at all. I knew something needed to change, and I just thought what if I became a chalet, “I have nothing to lose”. So that night, I looked up chalet girl jobs online, there wasn’t much out there but then I found a random facebook group chat and saw “Looking for a chalet host for a luxury 5* Chalet in Courchevel 1850, immediate start”. So I just went for it.
I thought f*ck it. Life’s short. The plan was to just get out there, and the rest I’d just have to figure out. And yes, I’ll admit it, I absolutely had the Chalet Girl movie expectation in my head. It wasn’t delusion, just a bit of optimism in all the chaos.
The lessons were actually pretty uncomfortable to learn at the time, but invaluable. And they’re still the ones I live by now.
Here are the big ones…
1. Everyone has a “worry hole”
That was one of the first things I noticed. I grew up thinking that people who “had it all”, genuinely had it all. But let me tell you, no matter how successful someone is, how wealthy they are, how perfect their life looks from the outside, everyone has this “worry hole”. This is something that has helped me make sense of what it is to be human. It makes us as humans a little more, well human, and it helps to remove the fluff that tried to distract us from that very thing. If we want to be scientific about it, it’s our negativity bias doing it job. Some people learn how to live with it. Others spend their entire lives trying to fill it. It made me understand early that life isn’t about eliminating worry, it’s about learning how to manage it without letting it run your life.
2. Confidence comes from doing, not thinking
This one hit me fast. Confidence is not handed to you, it’s earnt. You build confidence through positive reinforcement, by acting before you feel ready. You create it through repetition, through evidence, through proving to yourself that you can handle things you didn’t think you could. The more I did, the more I collected proof that I could do it. It also something you have to maintain, it can slip away if you don’t look after it properly.
3. Hedonism is a good thing when it’s tasteful
Hedonism at its simplest is the pursuit of pleasure. When it’s intentional, not chaotic, not escapist but tasteful - it’s a good thing. To me, that means living fully without losing yourself; choosing experiences that actually mean something instead of chasing highs that don’t last; knowing when to indulge and when to pause; and letting joy be intentional, not escapist. That season taught me that pleasure doesn’t have to be destructive, and that fun doesn’t have to be shallow. If anything, the most meaningful moments were the ones I wasn’t performing for anyone. The small rituals, and the quiet moments with a coffee before the chaos began.
4. You can earn a living by living
This lesson cracked my entire idea of “work” apart. I genuinely thought life was meant to be a straight line: degree, job, climb ladder, retire, die. But working a ski season taught me that your lifestyle can become your work. That you can build a career through the way you live, the people you meet, the energy you carry, the moments you choose, the stories you create. Living isn’t something you do after work. Living can be your work, if you choose it.
5. Money still gives you problems
Just different ones. Being close to extreme wealth taught me that money solves all the small inconveniences, but very few of the big existential ones. It makes life easier, not necessarily fuller. And the problems it brings, status pressure, emptiness, comparison, loneliness, responsibility are ones people on the outside don’t see until they’re in it. That season taught me not to pedestal wealth, not to glamorise it, and not to assume it’s the finish line. It made me value taste, behaviour, character and emotional intelligence far more.
6. Don’t do the same thing twice
This became one of the most important lessons. I could have very easily done another ski season. I literally said to my chalet manager “I’ll see you next year!”. She replied and said, “don’t do the same thing twice”. And I am still so grateful that she said that because it made me stop and think. I didn’t love scrubbing toilets and making beds, but I did love what my ski season gave me. So I needed to take those lessons and actually apply them. It’s very easy to repeat a season, or anything for that matter, when it’s familiar and fun. But I learnt early that there’s a fine line between evolving and pressing replay. Doing something once for the experience is growth. Doing it twice out of comfort is avoidance. I could have gone back. I could have stayed in that loop for years. But something in me knew I needed to move forward, even if I didn’t know where I was heading.
And underneath all of it…
And underneath all of it, I did not realise at the time that those months in Courchevel were shaping the way I live now. I did not have the words then, but I was already practising the beginnings of what I now call Tasteful Hedonism®. It came through the way I paid attention, the way I chose moments that felt right rather than expected, the way I trusted myself even when nothing felt certain, and the way I cared about how life felt rather than how it looked.
Taste has always been about discernment for me. It is not about appearance. It is about sensitivity and the ability to recognise what is good for you and what is only good from a distance. Courchevel showed me that very clearly. I saw that you can have everything in the world and still feel detached. I also saw that you can have very little certainty and still feel alive, grounded, and connected. It taught me that taste is about how you carry yourself, how you treat people, how you make decisions, and how you experience your own life.
Tasteful Hedonism® grew out of that season without me knowing it. It became the only language that made sense of why I lived the way I did. I enjoyed life without losing myself. I paid attention without overthinking. I made choices that felt aligned even when they were not logical. I trusted my instincts even when I had no evidence. I found pleasure in presence rather than escape and I learnt that you can build your life without abandoning what makes you feel human.
Looking back, Courchevel gave me the first threads of all of this. It taught me that enjoyment does not have to be careless. It taught me that confidence grows from trusting your own taste. It taught me that life can feel full without becoming chaotic. And it taught me that your philosophy often lives in you long before you find the words. Tasteful Hedonism® was already there. I just had to grow into the language.
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