Time to Get Serious

The way to give your dreams momentum is simply by acting on what is in your head in the real world. That is all it takes.

For us, that meant taking a 3-month vacation, ahem, “business trip”, to Orlando, Florida with the goal of acquiring just one property.  It would not necessarily become our forever home, but it would become our home base.

Those 12 weeks were an adventure with wins and losses all around. But something very simple stands out to me about that time.

It wasn’t finding the first property.

It wasn’t the closing.

It wasn’t even getting the keys (which admittedly was awesome).

No, the most memorable part of that trip was trying to get to sleep at a reasonable hour.

If you are a parent, then you have discovered and lived the truth that children have an almost inexhaustible supply of energy.

If you do not fill their days with manual labor and calisthenic exercises from the 1970’s they will not go to bed at night.

This is the whole purpose of playgrounds. When community planners decide where to put playsets it is for the mental well-being of the parents, not the kids.

Our children are no different.

One day we were letting them play at a playground–a.k.a. trying to tire them out, so that they would go to bed a few hours later–when I had what most people would call a “moment”, an “epiphany”, if you will.

Now, technically, a moment is a unit of time, it is 90 seconds (Google it, it’s a thing).

I’m not talking about the math part, I am talking about the music. When everything comes together and time stops.

It happened at one of the famous Orlando outdoor outlet malls.

My wife and I were watching the kids play in the playground. We were surrounded by palm trees, blue skies, and beautiful weather as the sun was beginning to set, when I said to her . . .

“People get to live like this? Every day?! These kids don’t know how good they have it. They are in paradise right now. WE are in paradise right now!”

Not the paradise you see in postcards, be it perfect weather (which it was) or palm trees (which were there), but we were happy–really and truly happy. My wife and I.

How we FELT was the destination.

At that moment, I realized when the parents are happy, the kids are going to be happy no matter what.

When things are smooth for the two at the top, everything flows.

It was then that I wanted to flip the 80/20 plan from living in Canada and wintering in Florida–to living in the Sunshine State 80% of the time–and going back north to Canada to see friends and family 20% of the time.

We would never have to escape the weather or anything for that matter.

We could have “both-and”–the best of BOTH worlds–instead of settling for “either-or”.

We wouldn’t have to give up our foodie tours in Toronto (this would have been a dealbreaker). We could keep those AND be in Florida as much as we wanted.

The goal we always had was to retire to Florida.

But why wait until we are “old”?

I wanted that life for my kids right NOW. I wanted them to grow up golfing, swimming, playing tennis, and going to the beach ALL YEAR ROUND.

And, frankly, I wanted that life for me and my wife too.

From that moment at the playground, we got serious about our new plan.

From that moment on, we chose abundance. We chose “both-and”.

Is it time for you to get serious?