From Corporate Engineer to Freedom Business Owner: How Luke Built a Six-Figure Lifestyle Business in Under Six Months
When mechanical engineer Luke was earning $160,000 a year, he found himself trapped in the corporate cycle despite his professional success. Long hours, limited flexibility, and diminishing satisfaction led him to make a dramatic decision: take a gap year with his family to travel around Australia in a caravan.
What happened next transformed not just his career, but his entire approach to life and work. Within just six months of returning, Luke and his wife built a high six-figure online business that allowed them both to escape the corporate grind, work remotely, and prioritize time with their young family.
Click below to hear how a burned-out engineer discovered a path to financial independence and lifestyle freedom by leveraging digital skills, recognising untapped assets, and approaching problems with an engineer’s mindset.
Luke Was Quickly Becoming Burnt Out from Corporate Life
After spending nearly 15 years as a reliability engineer across mining operations in South Australia and Queensland, Luke had built a successful career by conventional standards. But the reality of corporate life was taking its toll.
“I was effectively pretty burned out from work, really struggling to enjoy the types of problem-solving that I was doing because of the bureaucracy.”
Luke and his wife had already started making decisions for their family a few years ago, such as moving back from Mackay to South Australia to be closer to home, which also came with a pay cut.
He Decided to Take a Gap Year with the Family…
The stress continued to mount as Luke balanced his role as the primary breadwinner with his desire to be present for his young children, then aged three and six.
His wife, a speech pathologist, was working part-time for a major telehealth company as the children reached school age, but Luke still shouldered the main financial responsibility for the family.
Something had to change. That’s when they made the bold decision to take a gap year.
“We decided, for the sake of our kids, to spend a gap year traveling around Australia. We did that in a caravan for 12 months. It did take a bit of a financial hit to do so, but what it allowed me to do was to really clear my headspace.”
…Even Though It Would Mean Sacrificing His 6-Figure Salary
The decision wasn’t made lightly. By Luke’s own calculations, the opportunity cost of the trip easily reached six figures when factoring in lost income. However, the family had built enough financial security through previous real estate investments to make it feasible.
Rather than purchasing an expensive setup, they bought a used Ford Ranger and a 2006 Wings of Rapid caravan. “We went very base level,” Luke admits. “We get a bit of a look in the caravan parks from people with really flashed-up rigs. But we chose this because our kids are pretty rough on gear, so it means we don’t have to worry about it too much.”
He Discovered the Value of Creating Work-Life Balance
Here’s what Luke Realised Were Non-Negotiables for Him and His Family…
The year on the road gave Luke and his wife the mental space to reassess their priorities and define what they truly wanted from their work and lives. By the end of their journey, they had crystallized four non-negotiable goals for their future:
- The ability to work remotely, from anywhere
- Flexible hours to spend more time with their children
- Building passive income assets for financial security
- Regaining control over their time and lives
Initially, Luke attempted to achieve these goals within the traditional employment structure.
“I ended up taking a role as a consulting engineer, which meant a lot of working from home and occasionally visiting mine sites. At the start, it was really good. It was giving me a lot more control and freedom.”
Work-Life Balance Was Slowly Lost Over Time – Something Had to Change!
However, over time, the role began to morph back into a traditional nine-to-five position with even more demanding hours. “At one point it was 12-hour workdays, six weeks in a row. It was very hard to get through,” Luke recalls. “That’s what the work and the project needed, but that comes at the sacrifice of what our family needed.”
Meanwhile, Luke’s wife was experiencing similar frustrations with her telehealth position, feeling undervalued and lacking control over her work hours and client selection. The couple found themselves back at square one, though now with much clearer vision about what they wanted.
The Pivotal Moment: Leveraging Existing Talent with New Digital Skills
How Luke was able to create a website for his wife’s new business idea…
The turning point came about three or four months before Luke and his wife planned another trip—this time around Tasmania for five to six months. Luke’s wife approached him with a proposition that would change everything.
“She’d finally had enough of her work. She’d gotten to the point where she wasn’t feeling valued there, and she wasn’t feeling in control of the hours she was working or the types of work she wanted to do.”
That’s when a lightbulb went off. Luke had been developing digital skills through the Digital Investors program, learning how to build and optimize websites. His wife suggested a partnership: if she quit her job, would Luke help her build a business using his new digital knowledge to create a website that could generate leads for her speech pathology practice?
“We looked at the numbers and went, this actually makes a lot of sense,” Luke says. With his wife’s confidence in his abilities, Luke built her first professional website—one of his first real local business websites.
Luke’s New Website for His Wife Increased Her Business Income From 5 to 6 Figures
The results were remarkable. “We started seeing the leads start pouring in from about four or six weeks afterwards,” Luke shares.
This allowed them to implement their plan with confidence. When they left for Tasmania, his wife was working just three days a week but earning nearly double what she had made at the telehealth company.
During their five-month Tasmanian adventure, the business continued to grow. Luke stepped away from his job to look after their children while his wife worked her three days per week. “I spent my three days at playgrounds and bakeries and things like that,” he laughs. Meanwhile, both partners continued building and refining the business.
…Luke’s Wife Loved Her New Business & He Didn’t Have to Return Back to Corporate Work
“By the time we got back after six months, her books were completely full. She had a full caseload. That generates more than what I was earning as an engineer in the first place.”
This success marked a decisive turning point. Luke’s wife’s business was now generating enough income that he didn’t need to return to corporate work. Instead, he could focus on building his own digital agency full-time.
Luke Now Focuses on Building a Sustainable Online Business
With the financial pressure lifted, Luke had the freedom to pursue his own business ventures. He established Amplify Web Design, a leading digital agency in Adelaide and Murray Bridge, South Australia.
Despite living in the small town of Callington—about 20 minutes from any of the larger centres—Luke has been able to serve clients across Australia, including some in Queensland’s Gold Coast and Townsville.
“We’re locally networking, but we’re also able to serve customers and clients right across Australia.”
1./ He Launched a Digital Agency Already Earning a Minimum of $5k per Month
Luke has been actively working on his digital agency for only about 12 weeks as of the interview, yet he’s already approaching $5,000-$6,000 per month in revenue—an impressive achievement for a new business. Combined with his wife’s thriving practice, the couple has successfully replaced their corporate incomes with businesses they control completely.
2./ He Used His Existing Engineering Skills to Support His New Online Business
The transition hasn’t been without challenges. As an engineer, Luke has had to develop entirely new skill sets, particularly in sales and marketing. “Engineers just love to sit down and solve a problem. Being able to sell that problem in the first place is an entirely new skill set I’ve had to learn,” he admits.
His approach reflects his background:
“When I first started, I thought, well, I’ve also got an MBA in business, how does that actually relate into web design? Then it wasn’t until I built the first couple that I realized the engineering is about analysing big data sets and turning that into information. Using my MBA, I’m able to turn that into a business strategy, and then using the skills from the Digital Investors program, I turn that into a website. All those three things connect and flow really well.”
3./ He Diversifies His Income By Building Passion Websites
In addition to his agency, Luke is exploring other digital business models. He’s built a directory for his local business region and is developing another for the aviation industry—his second passion. He also owns several small content sites that serve as practice platforms while he builds toward a more substantial portfolio.
“I’m looking to try and establish a portfolio of content sites, probably around that $50,000 mark, to be able to start generating an income that we’re not having to actively go out and pursue.”
Living the Freedom Lifestyle: The Real Rewards Luke Discovered
Today, Luke and his wife have achieved all four of their original goals. They work remotely from their 30-acre property, control their own hours, are building income-producing assets, and have regained control over their time.
The real benefits extend far beyond financial success. “We took Wednesday morning last week to go and see our kids at their school assembly, and we both sat there. This is the second time we’ve been able to do that,” Luke shares. “That ability to control and manage our time flexibly means that, at the end of the day, our family benefits significantly from the time that we can spend with our boys and really pursuing the things that we want to do.”
Their property gives their children space to “ride motorbikes” and be “rough and tumble little boys” in ways that wouldn’t be possible if both parents were still tied to rigid corporate schedules. The financial success is meaningful, but the lifestyle transformation is priceless.
“When I reflect on it, this was the point at which I finally was able to take the step and take the risk because I was no longer under the pressure of being that income producer for the family. I could step back and try something new, something that I was going to really enjoy.”
Key Lessons from Luke’s Online Lifestyle Transformation
Luke’s journey offers valuable insights for anyone feeling trapped in a corporate role, especially primary breadwinners who see no clear path to greater freedom:
1. Take time to gain clarity: The gap year gave Luke and his wife the mental space to identify what truly mattered to them. Without this clarity, they might have continued making changes that didn’t address their core needs.
2. Identify untapped assets: By recognizing his wife’s professional expertise as a potential business asset, the couple created a path to financial independence that leveraged their existing skills and qualifications.
3. Apply transferable skills: Luke’s engineering background and MBA education proved directly applicable to his new digital business, which helped him create a trusted digital agency in Adelaide. This demonstrates how existing expertise can find new applications in unexpected fields.
4. Start with minimal risk: By building his wife’s business first while maintaining his income, Luke created a safety net that eventually gave him the freedom to pursue his own ventures without financial pressure.
5. Define clear success criteria: The couple’s four specific goals gave them a framework for evaluating opportunities and making decisions that aligned with their priorities.
Are You Looking to Create Financial Independence for You and Your Family?
If you’re contemplating a similar transition, Luke’s story shows that escaping the corporate trap doesn’t necessarily require sacrificing financial stability. If you resonated with Luke’s story and would like to learn how to create Financial Independence for your family, sign up for our Free Masterclass.
With strategic planning, digital skills, and a willingness to see existing assets in new ways, it’s possible to create a freedom lifestyle that surpasses conventional careers in both income and satisfaction.
As Luke succinctly puts it:
“We came back from that first trip knowing that we wanted to be able to work remotely, to spend more time working from home. We wanted the flexibility in our hours. We wanted to build an income-producing asset so that we weren’t reliant on that pay cheque to pay cheque. And we really wanted that control back over our time.”
By focusing relentlessly on these priorities, Luke and his family have created a life they once only dreamed about—proving that with the right approach, such transformations can happen far more quickly than most people imagine.
