The No. 1 thing this Army vet learned from living in a van [Video]

In 2019, Sophie Hilaire Goldie was a consultant at McKinsey & Company, traveling constantly and barely living in her New York City apartment.

That summer, the former captain in the U.S. Army climbed Mount Everest, an experience that she says changed the course of her life.

“When I did that, I had this epiphany that I wanted to spend more time in nature and Central Park to me wasn’t really the level of nature I needed,” Hilaire Goldie tells CNBC Make It.

“On the plane ride home, I knew I couldn’t go back to life in New York,” she says. “That moment of knowing launched the next chapter — van life, homesteading, and loving myself. The mountain did transform me. She gave me direction and that’s been the real gift.”

When Hilaire Goldie returned to NYC, she didn’t renew her lease. But then the covid-19 pandemic hit and she found herself without …