There’s this weird thing that happens every time I take off somewhere for a few weeks or months.
When I arrive, I sort of feel depressed/confused/insane. What am I doing? Why am I here? What was I thinking, leaving my comfort zone of home and coming to this foreign place, where I don’t know many people, things are more difficult, and Trader Joe’s market doesn’t exist?
There’s usually some FUBAR event when traveling, either with plane travel or taxis or Ubers or just somehow getting off track.
Then there’s moving time zones and getting COMPlETELY out of any routine (Day 5 and I’m still experiencing a little jet lag!)
So this Europe adventure has been no different. Luckily, I had a purpose of being here – the DCx Prague event. So there were immediately places to go and people to meet. But the sadness and despair still strikes. This time I bought a one-way ticket with the intention of staying in Europe for 5+ weeks. First couple of days I started doubting the brilliance of this plan.
The DCx meetups helped me see the light. Most people in the group have some sort of business that allows them to travel. Many of the discussions revolved around locations, business, relationships, and of course…Brexit!
So my purpose in going wasn’t just this 3-day meetup, but rather to gain different perspectives on my business and my life.
Here are a few that I’ve come away with the past few days:
1. Some things are obvious, but you just need someone else to point them out.
I’m excited that my online business triswimcoach.com has done significantly better sales-wise in the last 2 months, as I poured a ton of time and energy into it.
But I know this can’t last. I will eventually get tired of working on it and get Shiny Object Syndrome (SOS), start pursuing something else and once again spread myself too thin.
I know that the first part of the path to continuing success & fulfillment in business will be to automate and outsource more of what I’m doing. But I hadn’t taken the action on this.
In one of the masterminds on Day 1, my group emphasized my need to outsource things like advertising.
Yes, I’m good at Facebook Ads, but it’s not what I want to do on a daily basis. I could free up about 3 hours a day by outsourcing this.
Even if I don’t make even 1 more dollar in profits by hiring a team to handle ads, it would be worth it to have 3 more free hours a day to grow this business, OR build something else (or write blog posts).
2. There are countless ways to live.
Some people I met were settled in one location and just came to visit Prague for a few days for the conference. Others were bouncing around and had no idea where they might go next. One couple had a baby in tow, and travel frequently to various places.
For a change, I wasn’t the oldest one in the group (I think there were 3-4 people older and a few around the same). Given the different perspectives on living, it definitely helps me feel invigorated and thrilled to be able to live a little differently than most people I know (especially those over 40!)
3. Relationships are tricky. Being single or being in a relationship are both challenging. I’ve been impressed the past few days how many of the guys in the group have met significant others in various places around the world, and now travel together.
Some of them have businesses together, some have separate businesses, and with others, one works and the other doesn’t.
All can work if priorities are right.
It helps to get away from the 8-5 house-buying, settled down culture for a bit and see that even couples can make alternative lifestyles work.
It was also nice to come back to my place after a day of socializing and be alone, able to recharge my battery for the next event.
4. It’s not one big party for everyone. While there was definitely a good amount of beer drinking to be had the past few days, I noticed a lot of people not partaking in the partying, trading in this time for getting things done.
(I tended to hang out and enjoy the lovely Czech beer, taking a couple of days away from online)
I noticed that some people don’t drink alcohol, but they are kind of overshadowed by the booze-guzzlers, who are louder and prouder of their knowledge of beer and of course…stories!
I was reminded of college. My school was very serious, lots of pre-med and engineering majors who spent the vast majority of their time in the library. On a typical Saturday night, while I might be at a bar filled with about 100 people, many more were in the library with hundreds of people!
I thought it was “normal” to get hammered every weekend, but most people in the school didn’t even partake.
“It’s not always a party” applies even more now. Especially with events like this, it was great to not get FOMO if I didn’t attend every single thing the group was doing.
5. The “4th of July” is just another day in Europe. It felt easy to get some work done, exercise, and get back into a routine.
If I were in San Diego, there would likely be temptation to do 18 different things and even if I did none of them I would stay home and feel too guilty for not “having fun” to actually do any serious work.
Yesterday I “stormed the castle” with the group, which was a lot of fun, outside of the boring tour of the castle.
The longer I’ve been here, the more excited I am to learn, grow, and see and experience new things.
The different perspectives are a major reason why I travel, and while there are times when not much work is getting done, this all gets paid off in various ways.
Now, I’m off to the gym, then a Bitcoin meetup!
Tomorrow I have a low-key birthday and Wednesday I’m off to Poprad, Slovakia for yet another wildly different perspective on life.
Happy Independence Day!
