Doing vs. Owning

I think I am still in the middle of a cross-road in my life. I am finding it increasingly interesting assessing and challenging many assumptions that I have held for most of my life. I am still not really sure what sparked it all. Maybe being involved in one Company for more than 10 years, or just the stimulation from reading books like Steve Jobs, A Million Miles or 4-hour workweek. Or it could just be some unresolved sense of seeking a purpose in life. It is also videos like this one that sparks these kinds of thoughts:

What do I desire? I have been watching it every day for a week or two now.

So try and follow this train of thought.

I would like to be able to tell a great life story in my old age that can keep my grandchildren and hopefully great grandchildren on the edge of their seats. As Donald Miller said in ‘A Million Miles’ living a great story requires a little more intend, and more action.

So I think that Timothy Ferriss hit the nail on the head when he says in the 4 hour work week: The opposite of Happiness is not sadness but boredom. So what I should be doing is seeking the things that would make life exciting. These would also be the elements that would make the story so much more worth telling!

These thoughts have led me to consider the contrast between doing and owning things. Let me explain.

The path that I was on looked something like this: Work very hard, hopefully be increasingly successful, and earn more money every year. As my income increases every year, I acquire more and more possessions (mostly not assets). Cars and houses get bigger and more expensive, our lives get increasingly more and more cluttered by things that serve as distractions for a little while but then quickly start to gather dust in some corner of the house.

It becomes more and more challenging to balance all the competing priorities in life, work, marriage, kids, health and my own personal needs demand escalating amounts of time and attention. If all goes well in 30/40/50 years we are financially well enough prepared to only do the things in life that we really want to. Only to find that many of the things on our bucket list is now not really within our reach.

It feels like this would be a life mostly about gather and owning possessions. I am not sure this is the story I would like to tell. I don’t want to follow in the footsteps of the previous generation and get to the promised retirement only to find that the best year of my life was spent working to pay off debt in a job or business I don’t like. It is like Alan Watts says:

“Forget the money. Because if you say that getting the money is the most important thing; you will spend your life completely wasting your time. You will be doing things you don’t like doing in order to go on living that is to go on doing things you don’t like doing. Which is STUPID?”

The crazy thing for me now looking back at the last three or four years is that I would have argued ferociously that I loved what I was doing and could not have imagined doing anything differently. The other day I was doing my logbook for my tax return, and realised I did about 70 trips to the airport in one year. That must have been more than 100 flights in one year. What was I thinking?

Hindsight is a perfect science. I hope to one day put the pieces back together of how I’ve managed to get off that road. I think one thing is for sure, it would never have happened if I didn’t read as much as I do.

So here is my current take on the future.

I am going to strive to do more things rather than own more things. I want to show our kids as much of the world as I can. Maybe we home school through primary school to give us another 10 years to travel as much as we can, do as much as we can and write a story better than what we can even imagine now.

Allot of the details is still sketchy, I need to find how to generate income no matter where we are in the world. For now I am going to teach myself how to code while we are in Fernie and see where that leads me.

Many things are unknown, but we will figure it out over time… What do you think about doing vs. owning? Am I going crazy? Please comment below and let’s chat about it.

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The 4-hour workweek – Review

I was just about ready for a significant life change, when the 4-hour workweek came across my desk. I can’t recall how that happened but the timing was perfect. Timothy Ferriss have become a bit of a celeb after this book, and a few others that followed.

==> Click here to buy: The 4-Hour Workweek NOW <==

While not everybody will like his American style, hard selling approach, I really enjoyed and learned a great deal from this book. Here is of the idea in the book that really resonated with me:

The old industrial era model of working for 40-50 years to retire and then do the things you like is broken. Or maybe it has always been broken, and we are only realising it now. The first challenge the model face is that most people end up having to continue working to maintain their lifestyle. More and more people are also realising that many things, mostly activities, you want to do is not possible when you reach that age.

The New Rich is a new breed of people practising Life-style design and seeking adventure, for them the old ideas of retirement is the worst-case scenario. By understanding that income is all relative to the time you have to spend to earn it. The New Rich also realize the timing is never right to make the life-style changes needed to life a fulfilled life.

Ferriss also remarks that the opposite of happiness is NOT sadness but rather boredom. So to lead a happy life you should seek excitement. Look for the things that make you excited about getting out of bed every day and no day will be a work day!

==> Click here to buy: The 4-Hour Workweek NOW <==

The biggest take away for me was the idea that real freedom come if you can successfully separate your income from you location. Ferriss estimated by doing that you automatically increase what the money is worth to you by 3-10 times. And thereby you enable yourself to seek the things that really make you happy.

I really loved this book, and it has had a huge impact on my own ideas of what I would like to do with the rest of my life. You should read it!

Here is a video of Q&A session with Timothy Ferriss on some of the other things in the 4-hour workweek:

A Million Miles in a Thousand Years by Donald Miller

This was a life changing read for me. It was a simple, engaging and truly thought provoking read. Then again I say simple, and that is what I remember now looking back at the book, although some parts of the story was gripping and unpredictable.

He starts the story where he found himself in life after he ‘made’ it. Having written a bestseller ‘Blue like Jazz’, financially better off and constantly at speaking engagements and other activities that would seem to be the ultimate place every writer would aspire to be. Miller however struggles to get out of bed in the morning.

=>Click to buy: A Million Miles in a Thousand Years: How I Learned to Live a Better Story <=

The twist in the story starts when Miller is approached by two guys who would like to turn his book into a movie. Through there interactions he realizes that would have to rewrite his New York best-selling book to turn it into a movie.

He learns about the characters, plots and storylines that need to be in place to make a movie work. He learns that nobody want to watch a boring movie! But here is the amazing conclusion that he found himself at: If that applies to making a movie, then it also applies to real life.

He starts turning his life around start doing things he has always wanted to and after a wild ride gets to meet his dad for the first time. It was a really a gripping read.

As I mentioned it was really life changing to me. Are you living the story that will keep your children and grandchildren on the edge of their seats? What are the things you would need to change to make that possible?

Those are the questions I asked myself after reading this book, and this was really the start to me making so drastic changes in my own life. If you ever wondered about these types of questions make sure to read “A Million Miles in a Thousand Years” as soon as possible.

My big takeaway: Make sure your life is a story worth telling.

=>Click to buy: A Million Miles in a Thousand Years: How I Learned to Live a Better Story <=

Here is a clip where Miller talks about this book:

Moving and Selling

In the 13 years we have been married (yes we were 21) we must have moved around 13 times by now. This includes moving to Cape Town and back, and Durban and back. So when we decided to take this Fernie Adventure, neither of us wanted to move out of our home in Pretoria. But we eventually decided that it made more sense financially to rather rent out the house than leaving it empty for 5 months.

We rented out our home in Woodlands for a year.

In beginning of October we moved out of Woodlands, and in with my parents. LOL – Never thought I would have to do that again. Luckily they could accommodate us; we will stay here till we go and once we are back till the lease (12 months) run out.

The next piece of admin we had to do was deciding what to do with our cars. Ankie is still in love with her RunX after all these years, so we will keep it. But I decide to sell the X3 since it still has 20 000 km to go on the motor plan and then we can save on the insurance.

After a bit of research I decided on the Price – R230 000. I wanted to sell privately so had a look at AA autobay, but the fine print pointed out that they take 3.5% of the selling price. So I rather place an ad on autotrader, and will try Gumtree this week. Hopefully I can get it sold in the next three weeks! Shout if anybody wants a new ride!

Meanwhile the kids are having a royal time at my parents’ house, and they also had great fun last weekend at the Carnival and with the De Jager’s, in preparation for their visit in Fernie. Have a look:

Must say I love learning about editing the videos. Doing the typing sequence was awesomeness! 😉

Moving and Selling is just another part of our journey. But we are slowly realising that a simpler life might be better in the long run. It will however be a journey to get there.

Getting to the other side of the world with two kids!

About a minute after we finally decided to go to Fernie, with the whole family, the thought of travelling with two kids under 4 started to dawn on us. For those of you who don’t know, Fernie is just about on the other side of the world. Have a look at this map:

View Larger Map

Not only are we going to the other side of the world, the cheapest flight we could get was through Frankfurt in Germany. If all goes well we will land in Calgary (YYC) after 26 hours of travelling, which would still leave us with a 2.5 hour drive to get to Fernie. To make things more interesting, Fernie does not have a public transport system.

So we had to decide whether to hire a car for the five months or buy one. It turned out that it will be about half the price to buy a car, insure it and then sell it again before we leave. So we decided to buy what they call a truck, something like this:

I have always wanted a big Truck! ;)

It sounded like you need this sort of car to survive in the snowy mountain side.

Another challenge we had was deciding what we would do with the kids while we are on the Ski instructor’s course. There are some great kinder garden options in Fernie, but they are very expensive by South African standards. There is a great FREE early learning programme, but the kids must be accompanied by an adult.

It didn’t take us long to decide to take a nanny along to make the whole trip a little easier.So Eunice Vermaak gets a chance to go see Canada first-hand, and we get some help with the kids. Hopefully this will at least give one of us time to take a break here or there on the 25+ hours of travel.