WHAT HAVE I DONE??

One more slide and I’d be finished

My third Powerpoint of the day

I’d soon be able to flip over and sift through the mountain of email

All of the messages to me or “fyi”s that accumulated during my 6-hour block of video calls

How did I get here?

I’ve been at the VP and General Manager level for many years

I even founded and owned a retail startups and a couple of brands

Making people feel more confident, inspired, and joyful because of the products that I’ve created and sold has been an exciting career

But this isn’t that

I now manage from a little corner of my New York City apartment

This is what fashion, done remotely, looks like

I don’t see people. I see characters on my screen

Like I’m in a role-playing game

And in this game, I have to make Powerpoints just to enter a meeting

WTF?

That day, a year and a half ago, I knew I was done

I was certainly done working with this company

I thought I might be done with the retail industry

I didn’t need just a break

I needed a reset

THE GETAWAY

I can be impulsive

I think and feel creatively and am fed through external inspiration

But I’m also disciplined, analytical, strategic, pragmatic

An interesting mix. One that suits the work that I’ve done

So the impulsive side said, let’s get out. NOW. You don’t need this in your life

But the other voice, the pragmatic one said, let’s plan this thing

You don’t want to run away from something, you want to run towards something

So I planned. I planned my exit

Towards freedom, the thing that I value the most in life

I had already reached financial freedom

What I craved was time freedom, location freedom, the freedom to do exactly what I want

Without compromise

So I made an exit strategy

From my 6-figure corporate job

From the burden of things that I owned

From an unfulfilling lifestyle

I made a plan

And I executed

I used my Bento Blueprint goal-setting framework to guide me

I was always terrible at setting and sticking to goals

I used to obsess over one or two things and go deep on those, neglecting everything else

There just wasn’t a system that worked for me

So I made my own

And here I am

SIESTA

As I write this, I’m in northern Thailand, in a lovely mountain city called Chiang Mai. It’s rich with Buddhist temples, lush landscapes, and the song of birds outside my window

I’ve had the great fortune to live in Thailand, Spain, Portugal, and Bali this year, in addition to my time in New York

I’m exactly where I want to be

While in Valencia, Spain, I had a remarkable realization

As a driven, growth-focused, entrepreneurial American, I need motion

I’ve never been able to just go to the ocean and sit on the beach

Everyday, on my way to the gym, I would pass cafes full of Valencians

Hanging out. Drinking. Smoking. Sometimes old men. Sometimes families

But always, they were there. In the morning. In the afternoon. In the evening

What are these people doing? Don’t they have somewhere to be?

Until I realized. They are living

This is life in Spain

This is life in Europe

This is life in many other countries

Working to live. Not living to work

I’ve always lived to work

I needed to change my mindset

And think about how I want to spend my time

I changed my environment

But I hadn’t changed my thinking

It was a powerful 💡 moment for me

Now I spend my time helping others on their business journey

And writing. And reading

While still traveling

This is what I planned for

This is my life now!

CHAD’S ROUND-UP

📚 What I read: Feel-Good Productivity by Ali Abdaal- A great read by a former doctor turned content creator on how to enrich your life and work through positive emotions and mindset. Very useful and not the usual boring frameworks that one might expect a productivity book to have

🎞️ What I watched: Never Too Small Simone Giertz’ Small L.A. House- One of my favorite Youtube series on tiny homes features inventory and robot-builder Simone’s well-designed 630 square foot house

🕵🏻‍♂️ An interesting discovery: I was trying to find an article that I remembered reading but Google was no help. I discovered Archive.ph, a website tool that can find historical web pages, even bypassing those pesky paywalls. I’m a fan

That’s all for 2024. Wishing you all the best for the New Year

I’m rooting for you!

Chad