My interviewer Remington is a high school student. He said he’s learned vastly more by helping to launch BF news than by anything school has made him study.
Category: Commentary
Why My Wife and I (and Our Three Kids) are Spending Six Weeks in Ecuador
Sticking with an important theme in my life the better question might be, “Why not?”
Still, given our stage in life, our kids ages, and our work and financial situation, it does raise some eyebrows when we tell people of our Ecuadorian excursion planned for early 2016. There are several reasons we chose to do this, not least of which is the fact that there are far, far more reasons we can come up with not to do this.
That’s the thing. The reasons not to will only ever pile up. Screw that. Perfect timing is a myth. If we waited for the right time we never would have gotten married, had kids, adopted, taken new jobs, moved, moved again, started a business, unschooled, and all the other things we cherish most about our life.
The Idea
It began a little less than a year ago. I was flying home from a business trip and listening to an episode of the Tim Ferriss Podcast. It was an excerpt from a book called Vagabonding by Rolf Potts. I knew in my gut I wanted to get out into the broader world with my family. Not out of nowhere. The podcast was just a nudge. My own experience had me jonesing for international adventure for me and my kids already.
Between ages 12-20 I spent at least a few weeks, sometimes a few months, every summer in another country. Mexico, Peru, Kenya, Honduras. These were the most important and formative experiences of my youth. I loved it. It was really hard sometimes. I learned so much and gained so much perspective. Perhaps I’ll write more another time about what these trips did for me, but one of the things was to teach me forward orientation. The first few times it was crushing to make deep connections to dear friends across the world then leave, never to see them again (and pre-Facebook, never to talk to them in most cases). It made me learn to live in the moment and not hold on too tightly to past experiences.
My wife and I have always wanted to travel with our kids and let them experience the world outside the suburbs. Not because we think it’s somehow morally superior or because we want to be international do-gooders. Just because it’s really fun, and the best kind of challenge. We both know how hard it was for us to move from the small-town Midwest just a few states away, and how good it was. It’s too easy to assume your current geography is the best fit for you simply because you’ve never ventured out. We want our kids to feel like the world is small and not be afraid of exploring all of their options. We don’t want the exit option to feel so daunting to them.
The Decision
I got back from that trip and told my wife to listen to the podcast episode. She did. She knew right away what I was going to suggest and she wholeheartedly agreed. Let’s spend some time abroad with the kids. Not a vacation. Not as visitors touring the sites. Just normal, day to day life in a different place. We knew this required more than a few weeks and a location that wasn’t just for popular attractions. Don’t get me wrong, I love popular touristy stuff and we aren’t the type to go searching for the “too cool for the travel guide” spots when we travel. But this wasn’t about travel. It was about living.
I wanted two months, she wanted one, we settled on six weeks. It seemed long enough to make us both uncomfortable and wonder if we’d get bored and restless and homesick. We couldn’t just distract ourselves with novelty for six weeks. We’d have to establish a daily routine. Perfect.
The Timing
It seems weird to try to spend time abroad at this point in our lives. Our kids are 4, 6, and 10. That’s still pretty young. We are not in a place to put money into anything besides day-to-day expenses. I launched my company, Praxis, just two years ago and every ounce of material and mental resources go into building it. We moved here to the Charleston, SC area just four years ago and we love it. It’s beautiful, we’re not bored, and we’re beginning to make very deep and rewarding social bonds. My wife and I are young, so it’s not like the clock is running out on us.
But we don’t want perfection. We don’t want some experience that’s been planned and built up for years or decades. We don’t want to overthink it. We don’t want it to be that big of a deal. We just want to try living somewhere else for a bit. That’s it. When will we be in a better situation? Realistically, never. There will always be something more pressing to spend our energy on.
Besides, there are several ways in which we’re in a perfect position to do this. I own my own business and all of my colleagues work remotely. Besides travel season, all I need is WiFi. I live and breathe Praxis, but where I live and breathe it from is of little relevance most of the time. We unschool our kids. We have no schedule or obligations. One of the reasons we chose to unschool was so that we could do stuff just like this. How many kids get to do that? Our kid aren’t wasting away in cinder block cells all day, so why should we follow the same routine as those that are?
We know it will be really, really hard. Especially for me in the most intense phase of growing a business and trying to revolutionize the world. But everything we do at Praxis is about living life on your terms. If we preach it, we can live it too.
The Details
We had several constraints and preferences, but a lot of play room. I travel a lot to conferences and events to speak and promote my company and the ideas behind it. We couldn’t go in late spring/early summer, or in the fall. Speaking season. We also needed this to be really, really affordable. As in, all-in, this six weeks in Ecuador needs to cost the same or less as if we had stayed home for the same six weeks. We also needed reliable, solid WiFi. (One of the first things we did was have our AirBnB host run a test and verify the speed, which is the same as what Comcast gives me in SC.)
We weren’t ready to fly more than 4-5 hours with kids as young as four, so South and Central America were the target. We searched around on AirBnB for a few days and found a place that looked crazy cool. A bamboo beach house like something out of Swiss Family Robinson. It was gorgeous, large enough, and well-rated. No A/C and open, so mosquito nets, but otherwise not primitive. Good price, good WiFi. Why not?
The Act
Never the type to dwell too long on a matter, we booked it. Was there something better? Probably. Would it be worth the agonizing and the time and energy to find it? Probably not.
Once our non-refundable house was booked, the rest had to happen as a matter of course. We’ve been alternating between excitement and terror since then, but that’s exactly what we want. Just a little fear to overcome, mixed with the thrill of overcoming it.
We’ll set out just after the Super Bowl (what, you think I’m going to miss the NFL season?) and return around the Ides of March. If all goes to plan it won’t be noticeable from the outside. I’ll be working most of the day most days of the week as usual. The kids will be doing what unschoolers do, which is precisely what drives their curiosity and interest, and we’ll be grocery shopping, going for walks, cooking, cleaning, reading, meeting with people, and enjoying the beach.
We’ll also be sweating, struggling to communicate in a village of Spanish speakers, adapting to new foods and smells and sights, and probably in many moments fighting homesickness.
This may be the first of many experiences living abroad. It may be the last we ever do. That’s why we’re doing it. We need to know. Will we love or hate it? No amount of analysis can answer the question. We’ll go find out for ourselves.
Merry Christmas
When darkness descend upon the land
Its oppressive weight doth bend
Everything that dare to stand
Of beginnings it makes fast end
Layered thick, grief upon grief
Its claws make end of youth
Crushing new; this end its chief
Until it clash with Truth
Truth it came in hidden form
As ancient fables tell
A winter’s night, far from warm
On open ears it fell
Angelic chorus pierced the sky!
The simple shepherds knelt
Did pierce the dark a baby’s cry!
And dark a tremble felt
For all its effort toil and fear
This evil could not slay
A tiny babe great men revere
Whose light came Christmas Day
And with Him all true freedom spoke
All strength and grace and peace
The chains of men and devils broke
In His named oppression ceased
That Christmas Day a light was born!
In sky; upon the earth
By light that darkest curtain torn!
Men’s hearts were freed for mirth
Slaves we were with empty hearts
No evil dark could fill
And who shall darkness tear apart?
This baby Christ child will
This Christmas Day we fix upon
Our freedom’s source and light
And remember that forever long
His birth made all things right
The Quantity of Stuff in Your Life is More Important than Your System
Praxis grad James Walpole blogged today about the problems of too much focus on optimization and “life hacking”.
It got me thinking about those I know who struggle to keep their head above water. People who are creative and productive, but perpetually behind and stressed and overwhelmed. If you’re in that position, I’m going to share a belief that might be depressing, but it might also be heartening: there is no system that can fix it.
You can’t implement a new schedule, or tool, or plugin, or diet, or any other new way of organizing and executing on your stuff that will save you. These systems may be better or worse, but they can’t address the fundamental thing keeping you buried. It’s the quantity of stuff in your life that’s the problem.
I don’t mean physical possessions, though that can be part of it, I mean stuff that’s not core to your mission but that you do or pay attention to or simply keep around anyway. It’s open tabs on your browser that you don’t need to read. It’s emails in your inbox you don’t need to keep. It’s events and engagements you can do without.
If your day is a pipeline transforming inputs to outcomes, no re-arrangement of the pipes can handle the fact that you’re flooding the system with three times the volume it can handle. Or, to use another water analogy, if your progress is a body of water, compare the power of a highly concentrated, pressurized stream like a fire hose, vs. a flood plain sloppily sloshing around.
Cut the stuff out. Focus only on the things that give and create energy. That’s when your systems and life-hacks will begin to work. Then they can improve things at the margin. But until you reduce the overwhelming quantity of stuff in your life, no system can save you.
A Few Great Books That Shape My Thinking
Outwitting the Devil, by Napolean Hill
How I Found Freedom in an Unfree World, by Harry Browne
Finite and Infinite Games, by James P. Carse
Anything by C.S. Lewis
Anything by Mark Twain, especially short stories
Zero to One, by Peter Theil
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintanance, by Robert M. Pirsig
A Treatise on Political Economy, by Jean-Baptiste Say
Anything by Ludwig von Mises
The Fabric of the Cosmos, by Brian Greene
Anarchy Unbound, by Peter T. Leeson
How Free Are You? On Obligation and Duty
My good friend Jeff Till just released a phenomenal podcast episode exploring in depth the idea of obligation. Jeff gives both a practical and philosophical account of what personal freedom means.
To him, alarm clocks, vacations, and other common fixtures are indications of your unfreedom. I love Jeff’s take and agree strongly, though there’s still a good bit of nuance and personal exploration needed to tease out the difference between chosen obligations based on intrinsically motivated goals and those that are simply an unchosen chain.
As Seth Godin says, instead of planning your next vacation plan a life you don’t need to escape from.
Unoriginal Haiku
When far, far away
Definition of insane
Must be different
Why Do So Many People Have Birthdays Today?
OK, so I don’t actually know if a lot of people have birthdays today compared to other days. But among my friends and acquaintances (including my daughter), there is a very large cluster of birthdays today, December 19.
Like any serious researcher, I took the question to Facebook. Here’s what my Facebook friends had to say about the reason for this cluster of birthdays:
- St. Patrick’s Day.
- December birthdays are from March conceptions.
- People like to have their birthdays on Friday so they can party through the weekend.
- All the birthdays tomorrow mean lots of babies have been born on that day, historically.
- Math. Odds are a disproportionate number would have birthdays on *some* day.
- Global warming.
- Springtime fertility rituals.
- Induced labor a week before Christmas.
- Spring break.
- It’s called Birthday Concentrationism. During a relatively stagnant Christmas season in 1947, a number of Keynesians gathered to centrally plan everybody’s birthday for a single day of gifting stimulus. Individuals without birthdays on the 18th of December were reassigned said day based upon Pareto efficiency second welfare function something or other. But this would not explain people born after that date, to which I respond “just shut up and enjoy it.”
- I doubt March Madness is to blame!
- They are all angling for Star Wars themed parties. Take the hint and buy them all vintage Star Wars lunch boxes.
- Disproportion syndrome.
- For younger people, weekday birthday prevalence is partially explained by the increasing % of C-sections which skews away from weekends. But afaik December/January have a low rate of births compared to other months, though the days could still be clustered for whatever reason. I wouldn’t be surprised if doctors were more likely to induce prior to the holidays, whether the birth were by c-section ultimately or not.
- Only a small percentage of babies are born on their technical due dates, though I don’t know how many come earlier vs. later. I think first babies are more likely to come late, so if you have a lot of newlywed couples attempting to conceive their first child shortly after the wedding, and wedding season is like May-June, then that could explain a December cluster for instance. But many members of the cluster would still just be there by chance.
Good enough for me! Social media comes through again.
New Blogs to Check Out
Praxis participants and alumni are pretty prolific and I love reading their stuff. Check out some of their posts and other projects.
Some Current Participant Blogs
Some Praxis Graduate Blogs
*Interesting observation: The ladies are far more likely to give their blog a name other than their own. Maybe men are more narcissistic?…
Email From a Praxis Graduate
I got an email yesterday from Mitchell Broderick, a Praxis graduate from our very first class.
I distinctly remember Mitch’s decision to abandon college and step up to the challenge of Praxis. He had to move across the country. He had to build a new network. He had to enter a professional environment with far more responsibility (and opportunity) than any he’d experienced. He had the chance to start doing work immediately that he hoped he would someday be ready for after four years of college. It wasn’t easy.
He rose to the challenge. He took a chance on Praxis and on himself. In his email, he recalled the difficulty of the decision, and the challenge of making this personal investment.
“The return on that investment and struggle has been incredible.”
The reason he emailed me was to let me know that, exactly one year after completing the program, he hit his ambitious sales goal for the year and cleared six figures (working as a VP of business development for the same company he spent his Praxis apprenticeship with).
No degree. No college debt. No hoops to jump through. Mitch became the person he wanted to be and is living a life he assumed he’d have to wait a decade or more to live. And he’s just getting started.
There is an experimental, exploratory element of the program. You can take a year to get out into the world, test yourself, engage in personal development projects, be challenged by advisors and coaches, take charge of your own education, build better habits, and see what entrepreneurship is all about. But Mitch is a great example of the fact that this isn’t just a one-year good time. Praxis isn’t just about a short-term experience. It’s about building the career and life you want in the long term. You get an amazing job with the program that can be the first step in your career. As Mitch put it,
“Praxis isn’t something that contrarians do to be different for a year. They do it because it works. They get awesome jobs making great money.”
And Mitch is the first to tell you, it’s not about money. It’s about becoming the kind of person that can create value and achieve your own personal goals, material and otherwise.
I shudder at the thought of an ambitious grinder like Mitch languishing in a cinder block classroom somewhere under fluorescent lights. He’s worth more than that. He was ready to engage the real world and create his own path, not sit on someone else’s conveyor belt.
How many Mitch’s are out there, ready to break the mold? This is why we do what we do.
Discover Praxis if you think you have what it takes.
Say Goodbye
Alright, time to be a little vulnerable…
I’m totally comfortable writing, speaking, podcasting, and Facebooking many aspects of my life and thoughts. But music has always been something I keep pretty close. It’s a private hobby and I’m a little embarrassed to expose it to the world.
I don’t write songs often anymore, but about a year ago a melody and lyrics popped into my head and I worked it into a song. After interviewing musician Tim LeVan Miller on the podcast I was inspired to try something I’ve always wanted to do but never made a priority: record one of my songs in an actual studio. I’ve only ever recorded them in one take with my iPhone voice memo app.
In other words, I’ve never really heard my own songs. When I write them, I hear them as they could be, with a full band, and parts that are above my skill level. I wanted to hear this song as I imagined it.
Tim was awesome enough to not only give me time in his studio, but to produce it, add a bridge, and play many of the instruments. I haven’t had this much fun collaborating on a song since my days in Second Floor Jungle (Kalamazoo’s most famous youth group coffee house folk band).
Anyway, here’s the song. I recommend listening with headphones to get the stereo effect. I also recommend listening a few times in a row. It grows on you.
I hope you like it. But most importantly, I like it, so I say success!
15 Minutes a Day is Better than Two Hours a Week
I took several Spanish classes in my teens. I hated them all and didn’t do that well with anything besides the pronunciation.
I also took half a dozen trips to Spanish speaking countries in my teens. I did incredibly well making basic conversation in Spanish.
I got to thinking about this while listening to an episode of Praxis participant Ryan Ferguson’s The World Wanderers Podcast. Language is one of those things that is really dumb to try to learn in a classroom. The incentives are all wrong. When you really want something – to get to know a person, or to find a bathroom – you’ll engage your cognitive capacity at a high level. Learning to navigate another country is a great way to grapple with the language and gain some proficiency. When your only incentive is a test, how will you rewire your brain to say “The apple is green” in another language? More important than how is why? Why would you want to say that anyway?
Here’s the thing. It’s not always easy to get to another country and learn a language by necessity. You can try other hacks, like pick a day of the week where everyone in your house is only allowed to speak Spanish, but this can be pretty tough too. So if classroom learning is subpar and you can’t immerse yourself, what can you do?
I downloaded the free Duolingo app on my iPhone. I love it! Yes, it’s basically glorified flash cards, but it’s very fun, quick, has cute animations, easy progress tracking, and lets you practice pronunciation (my favorite part) using the phone’s mic. I also love it because it works well with a breakthrough discovery I’ve made about other aspects of my personal growth in the last few years: tiny daily challenges work better than big goals.
I blog every day because there’s no excuse to not push out at least something. I do one form of exercise every day because there’s no excuse to not do at least a few push ups.
Since my family is embarking on an Ecuadorian adventure early in 2016, I decided I wanted to brush up on my Spanish. I added an activity to my daily tasks spreadsheet that just says, “Spanish”. I do 10-15 minutes a day on Duolingo. Some days I do a lot more, some days I barely hit it. I’ve done it every day but two in the last 60 days.
For me, this pattern is vastly superior to taking a one hour class twice a week. By getting Spanish bouncing around in my brain every day I find weird things happening. I’m beginning to have a few random thoughts in Spanish. Just a word or phrase, sometimes apropos of nothing, but it means my brain is being primed. It’s like listening to a song every day. Pretty soon it just comes out all the time. My ears are being trained to hear things and my tongue to form new words associated with old concepts.
Of course, upon arrival in Ecuador I will realize how little Duolingo prepared me for fast-paced real world conversation, but I can’t realistically do anything about that. The daily Spanish is fun, totally doable in my schedule, and it’s making some kind of progress. The power of the compounding effect comes in to play. If I improve my Spanish by only a fraction of a percent every day, it begins to get serious before long.
In case you’re wondering, Duolingo tells me I’m currently 10% fluent. On the one hand, that’s probably a huge exaggeration. I’d fail any Spanish test. On the other hand, that’s probably a huge understatement. I know from experience that once I get into a place where I need it, I’ll get where and what I want more like 2/3 of the time.
What other things might you learn better by doing a little every day instead of setting some big huge goal or taking some formal class?
Illogical Haiku
A Few Exciting Things Coming Up…
It’s the time of year when family and holiday events take up the days and nights, and a new year is nigh. I’m trying to sit back and enjoy it before the flurry in 2016. Just a few new happenings…
- New podcast stuff including sponsors, original music and more.
- New book will be live and available to all.
- Two big Praxis developments.
- Family spending 6 weeks living in Ecuador.
And a lot more. Stay tuned. For now, join me in a little relaxation even as you finish your work for the year.
Sometimes You Have to Create a Chip on Your Own Shoulder
NBA great Stephen Curry has a chip on his shoulder. It’s clear when you watch him play. Even as he’s gotten better, it’s grown bigger. This is what great performers do. They play with a chip.
Steph is a great example of how the factual truth of a situation by itself does not dictate what kind of orientation we have toward it. There are two stories about Steph Curry, both true.
In one story he was born with great genes to an NBA star dad and volleyball playing mom. He grew up with plenty of money and access to basketball training facilities, coaches, mentors, and opportunities galore. He honed his skills, went to a good school, played well, got drafted for good money, and continued excel with a great team and organization around him.
By this account, which is factually correct, he is one of the most fortunate people on earth. How could this gifted athlete have a chip on his shoulder?
In another story Steph grew up with more pressure than most people could imagine. His star athlete parents had done more than most kids could ever hope to in sports. He lived under their shadow. He didn’t grow as tall as he should have for basketball, and was too skinny. Despite practicing the sport almost from birth, not a single major college was interested in him. He ended up at a tiny liberal arts school. He played well, but he was not fortunate enough to be on a team with any hope of a national title. Despite his amazing shooting ability and NCAA tournament performance, Steph was questioned as an NBA talent. He was seen as too small, and mostly just a shooter without a full range of skills. He entered the league with virtually no hype compared to most future MVP’s. He had to scratch and claw through a historically great Western Conference for the first several years of his career before making it to the finals. When there, even though the team he led won, he did not get finals MVP.
By this account, which is factually correct, he is one of the biggest underdog greats in sports history. How could this constantly overlooked late-bloomer not have a chip on his shoulder?
Steph can choose which set of facts to focus on and which narrative to tell himself. Off the court, Steph is likely aware of the great life he’s had and thankful for it. Remembering the best facts about ourselves is a powerful defense against self-pity. Yet it seems pretty clear that, come game day, he’s thinking about the second story. He’s not just happy to be there. He’s got something to prove.
At Praxis we like to tell the participants at the start of the program these two bits of professional advice:
- Don’t take anything personally
- Take everything personally
The first is a reminder to think in terms of rational choice theory. Deciding someone is wrong or out to get you is unhelpful for determining how to work around them.
The second is a reminder to stay sharp because no one cares about your success. In fact, if you’re doing your own thing, they probably doubt you. Good. Use that. Not with malice toward them in real life, but as fuel for the narrative you weave of your own hero’s journey.
See, we can all be like Steph Curry after all! Now go watch some amazing highlight videos.