Lessons I Lear n Fr omMy Family
Real estate can be all-consuming. It's easy to get trapped into working
days, nights, and weekends, which pretty much takes the fun out of
nights and weekends. I've been there. A few years ago I found myself
completely burned out from working so hard to make my business work
and not seeing the results I was striving for. At the same time my wife
was burned out from trying to start her own career (she's a writer, more
on that below) while taking care of the kids and getting little support
from me.
Taking t hem swimming wit h a ridicul ousl y l arge pool t oy...
We realized that raising kids, while growing our businesses, was not
working, at least not the way we were trying to do it. We needed to
change course. We needed a RESTART button.
So we did somet hing crazy.
We decided to go on an epic adventure with our kids. We left the
country for 3 months on a shoestring budget and with no clear vision of
how our vagabonding would go. We enrolled our kids in a foreign
school, attempted to run our businesses remotely, and basically figured
it out along the way. The trip was so amazing (for us and for our kids)
that we've made it a priority to leave home for months at a time every
year. It has helped us in more ways than I could express in a single
article. (In fact, my wife is writing a book series about it; you can see
more about what she is doing and our adventures at
VagabondingWithKids.com.)
Learning how t o make pizza f rom scrat ch...
Of course, when we are not vagabonding with our kids, we are finding
mini-adventures around home. The reason is that we have learned
having adventures with our kids makes us feel wealthy, very wealthy.
FACT: Traveling (or just going anywhere) with your kids, can be hard. But
it also makes your experiences that much richer, more meaningful, and
more memorable.
When we are busy in the game of life we often let precious moments go
by without noticing them. When you do notice them, you get a
happiness you can't buy with money.
We are in between trips at the moment, but still enjoying adventures
with our kids to capture those moments and experiences that result in a
prosperity you can't equal with any dollar amount. And we don't always
need to leave the country, either.
Or just t aking one daught er and one pirat e out f or chocol at e chip
pancakes...
Somet imes it 's camping in t he backyard or on t he deck...
I'm learning that having a passion for the work you do is an amazing
thing. But finding a way to keep your passions for work while still
creating time to have amazing adventures with your kids is an unrivaled
feeling. I don't know how to describe it other than I feel wealthy. Some
of the wealthiest people I know in the traditional sense don't have any
time, in fact their days are so scripted and full that I don't desire to be
them. I've been there, and could go back there, but instead I'm aiming
for success in my work and in my personal life, because that balance is
true wealth. And I can't help feeling like I hit the jackpot. So I'm sharing
with you my winning hand.
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