#2: Practice Makes Undeniable Progress
Feb 25, 2023Let's Practice Life
Yes. I said, ‘Practice Life’.
Over the past two decades, I’ve gotten extremely good at two key skills critical to Trying Life On, and I practice and execute them constantly:
Geographic Freedom leveraging travel hacking
Ability to Build Meaningful Relationships leading to incredible personal experiences and business opportunities
They represent two of the five freedoms essential to lifestyle design:
- Time Freedom
- Financial Freedom
- Geographic Freedom
- Freedom to Execute Your Purpose
- Freedom to Build Meaningful Relationships
Geographic Freedom
This is the concept of not being tied to one place. It means having personal mobility to plug in, experience the planet, and connect to people as intended. Whether in your city or across the world, unique experiences and seizing opportunities are the spice of life.
That Rat Race feeling many have is because, in part, you’re locked in one location. A virtual job helps but there are also tools you can use and skills you can practice to increase mobility. In the coming weeks, I’ll do a full newsletter on tools I use to automate business and personal life, but let’s focus on one skill, in particular, today: Travel Hacking.
I found the art form in my 20s at the library. I’ve been to almost 100 countries over 350x, and folks think I’m spending $100k a year. Not even close. I’m hacking it.
The original concept when I started in my 20s was to travel in max comfort for the least amount of money.
In my 30s and 40s, I use these skills to turn what others consider extraordinary into ordinary. Going to Turkey, Greece, Spain, or Brazil for the weekend simply to sit at a café and read, explore a business opportunity, or see a friend is commonplace for me. As easy as it is for you to go to Walmart on the weekend, it’s ‘ordinary’ for me to run to the Finnish Arctic for a few days and come back.
Think about how you could use this skill!
Freedom to Build Meaningful Relationships
Relationships are a stronger currency than money when it comes to Trying Life On. And you need to be intentional about it.
When you stay at the office from 9 am-9 pm, go to every happy hour tied to your job, and hang with the same people all the time, you're limited to knowledge (or lack of it) in those circles resulting in lost opportunity and minimal new life experience.
You lack "space" to build relationships OUTSIDE your norm. Intentionally finding and investing in relationships as a core daily activity (NOT networking) is a game changer.
OK. Let’s tie this all together.
I appreciate my 25-year consulting + military + police careers.
I appreciate more that I was wise enough to build relationships and have experiences outside of them.
As noted in the book Die With Zero by Bill Perkins (a solid read for lifestyle design), those experiences and relationships are still paying me “memory dividends” to this day.
Looking back in reflection, I got something right.
I didn’t wait.
- To travel locally
- To travel worldwide
- To build non-work relationships
- To focus on non-work experiences
- To learn skills like travel hacking, not just work
The biggest reason I could start a real estate development company in the Mediterranean just 18 months after retiring was the relationships I built over the years leading up to it.
Just like you, Matt is a professional who is thinking through lifestyle design. So, he signed up for a 1-on-1 consultation with me and we got into it. He’s graciously allowed me to share this clip with you, answering how he can practice and use the skills above to improve his lifestyle today.
I hope you use the information to Practice Life, too.
Talk to you soon.
Maurice