by Joe Hearn | Jan 22, 2015 | Lifestyle Design, Pursuits, Retirement
Success in just about anything can be boiled down to two things: 1) Knowing what works and 2) Doing what works. At Intentional Retirement I try to balance my writing between those two things. Sometimes I write about what it takes to have a secure, meaningful retirement. Sometimes I put those things into practice and then write about my experience.
Not surprisingly, I plan on doing more of that in 2015, but with a small twist. During the week I’ll continue to write about the nuts and bolts of a great retirement, but each Saturday I’ll write what I call a “Bucket List” post. It will be a short story about something fun or interesting that I’ve done (or am in the process of doing) from my Bucket List. I’ll include a “How To” with each article in case some of you want to try it out. I’ll post them on Saturday to give you a little weekend inspiration and also so you can feel free to pass over it or save it for later if you’ve had a busy week.
To make it fun, I thought I’d do a little giveaway with some of the posts. And by little, I mean I’ll be giving stuff away all year and it will include small things like books and big things like plane tickets. I’ll post more on the prizes and rules below.
I hope you follow along and enjoy the articles, but more than that I hope you’ll use them as inspiration for your own adventures. We’re not designed to just sit around and think about life or endlessly make plans for “Someday.” We’re designed to live life. The only way to make that happen—to make 2015 different and better than any other year—is to make plans and execute them. Knowing what works. Doing what works.
Bucket List Giveaway Rules
How do I enter? There are two primary ways to enter. First, you can follow one or more of the Intentional Retirement Social Media sites. For example, like us on Facebook and you’ll get one entry. Follow our Pinterest page and get another entry. Ditto for Twitter and Instagram. If you already follow us on one of those then you’re already entered in the giveaway (see how easy that was).
Second, you can tell your friends about the site and encourage them to sign up for our Free Retirement Toolkit. If someone you refer signs up for the Toolkit, I’ll give each of you 5 entries in the giveaway (note: if you’re already signed up then you’ve already got 5 entries). For example, get 10 of your friends to sign up and you get 50 entries and they each get 5. The only catch is that I need to know who to give credit to, so you just need to let me know. There are two easy ways to do that. You can CC (or BCC) joe@intentionalretirement.com on the email when you tell your friends about the site. Then if any of the people in that email sign up, I’ll give you the credit. You can also just have your friend respond to the “Welcome” email they get after signing up to let me know who referred them. Bottom line, just let me know who to credit.
Can I enter more than once? Yep. Every time you do the things described above you’ll get an additional entry (or entries). And no, you can’t “like-unlike-relike” or “subscribe-unsubscribe-resubscribe” to get multiple entries. All of the entries will be cataloged in a spreadsheet and maintained throughout the year. Winners will be randomly drawn from that spreadsheet, so the more entries you have, the greater your odds of winning something.
What are the prizes? The grand prize is $1,000 plane ticket on your airline of choice, anywhere you want to go. This will come in the form of a gift card on that airline, so you can use it for multiple tickets if you prefer. I’ll give that away on New Year’s Eve of 2015 so you can ring in the New Year by going somewhere awesome. Throughout the rest of the year I’ll be giving away books that I’m reading, books or guides that I’ve written, gear associated with certain Bucket List items and things I pick up on my travels.
Legal mumbo jumbo. Void where prohibited. No purchase necessary. See the official rules over here.
Five-second summary: Follow along throughout the year. Get your friends to do the same. Win cool stuff. Repeat.
As always, thanks for following along. I’m excited for 2015 and I hope you are too. Touch base if there’s ever anything I can do to help.
~ Joe
Photo by Ben Carr. Used under Creative Commons License.
by Joe Hearn | Sep 26, 2014 | Lifestyle Design, Pursuits
Before updating you on the book giveaway, I just wanted to say THANK YOU! You guys are fantastic. To enter the contest for the free copy of The Happiness of Pursuit, all you had to do was leave a comment or drop me an email to tell me where in the world you call home. You did that for sure (hundreds of you in fact), but you didn’t stop there. Many of you thanked me, showered me with kind words, shared inspiring stories from your own retirement, and otherwise were just all kinds of awesome. So thank you. It was great to hear from each and every one of you.
This morning I printed all your emails and comments, dropped them in a pillow case, shook it up, and picked out somebody at random. That somebody was Dennis from Pacific City, Oregon. Congrats Dennis! The book is on the way. (Note: After the drawing everything went into our secure shred/recycle bin).
If you didn’t win, I’d still encourage you to swing by your local bookstore and pick up a copy. It’s a fast read and timely as you start to think and plan for 2015.
What makes a great quest?
All this talk about having a quest might have you wondering, “What exactly qualifies as a quest?” Chris shares 5 things:
- A quest has a clear goal and a specific end point
- A quest presents a clear challenge.
- A quest requires sacrifice of some kind.
- A quest is often driven by a calling or sense of mission
- A quest requires a series of small steps and incremental progress toward the goal.
Let’s look at an example. In the emails over the last few days a reader shared with me her plans to hike the 500-mile Camino de Santiago between France and Spain next year. Does that qualify as a quest?
- Clear goal and specific endpoint = Walk 500 miles. Stop at the steps of the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostella. Check.
- Clear challenge = Did I mention it’s 500 miles? Check.
- Sacrifice = Expense, time off work, weeks of walking. Check.
- Often driven by calling or mission = This particular quest is often done as a spiritual pilgrimage, but many do it as a way to answer the call of adventure and excitement in their life. Check.
- A series of small steps and incremental progress toward the goal = It takes about 2,000 steps to walk a mile, so 500 miles equals 1,000,000 steps. Hiking the El Camino is literally taking small steps toward your goal. Check.
How about you?
We have a few months left in 2014. As you think about 2015 and beyond, consider the list above and see if you can dream up a quest that brings meaning, excitement, and purpose to your life. As I mentioned last week, I’m doing this over the coming months as well, so touch base if you have any questions or if there’s anything I can do for you.
Have a great weekend, and remember…Life is short. Be intentional.
Joe
Photo by Nick Kelly.
by Joe Hearn | Sep 19, 2014 | Happiness, Pursuits
A few weeks ago I received an advance copy of Chris Guillebeau’s new book The Happiness of Pursuit (catchy title, no?). For those who don’t know Chris, he has a hugely popular blog and is a New York Times bestselling author, but he is probably best known for his goal (recently completed) of visiting every country in the world.
In the book Chris talks about the importance of finding quests that bring purpose and excitement to your life. He offers his quest to visit every country as an example, then weaves dozens more examples throughout the book where ordinary people turned a big idea and a willingness to act into a new adventure.
Get a free copy of the book
I’ve really enjoyed reading through the book and have been using it to outline a fun new quest for 2015 (more on that later this year). If you’re interested in living an intentional, meaningful life, I’d encourage you to check it out as well. In fact, I’m going to give you a free copy. Well, one of you anyway. My copy of the book is dog-eared and marked up, so I picked up another one to give away.
How to enter the giveaway? There are thousands of people all around the world who subscribe to the weekly updates at Intentional Retirement. In just the last few weeks we’ve had people sign up from as far away as North Pole Alaska, Norbury United Kingdom, and Quarry Bay Hong Kong.
I love hearing from those readers (that’s you!), so to enter the contest just go to Intentional Retirement and leave a short comment at the end of this post saying hi and the city you call home. If you’d prefer, you can also email me at joe@intentionalretirement.com. That’s it. “Hi Joe! I’m reading this article in <insert city>.” I’ll pick one of you at random from the comments/emails and follow up with you to get you your free book.
Have a great weekend!
Joe
by Joe Hearn | Sep 11, 2014 | Happiness, Lifestyle Design, Pursuits
If you’ve had a chance to read A Brief Guide to Retirement Bliss, you know how important I think it is to decide what you really want out of life and to take those plans really seriously. If you don’t decide, then three things will likely happen:
- Other people will decide for you
- You’ll say “yes” to things that don’t get you any closer to the life you want
- You will default to the uninspiring and unproductive
If your days are designed by those three things, then each day will find you further and further from the life (and eventual retirement) that you want.
Which leads me to that important question I mentioned earlier. Before adding something to your to-do list or saying “yes” to another commitment, ask yourself:
“Will this get me closer to what I really want out of life?”
If the answer is “No” then don’t do it. What’s the point of busying yourself with a bunch of tasks that don’t get you any closer to a purposeful, satisfying life?
A little lifestyle experiment
With that in mind, I’d like to propose a little lifestyle experiment. There are 16 weeks left in 2014. What can you do in that time to rework and reshape your schedule so that 2015 and beyond is spent focused on things that actually get you closer to what you want your life to be about? What commitments can you wind down? What goals can you set? How can you better align your time with your priorities? Here are a few articles that might help:
Good luck!
Joe
Photo by Nick Kelly.
by Joe Hearn | Jul 8, 2014 | Lifestyle Design, Mini-retirements, Pursuits, Travel
“One cannot really come to appreciate one’s life, save by playing with it and hazarding it a little.” ~ Jack London
Just over a month ago we packed our bags and hit the road for Mini-Retirement #1. The trip was part vacation and part experiment as I tested out some of the things that I’ve been writing about here at Intentional Retirement.
Before I fill you in on how it went (spoiler alert: it involves a visit to the emergency room), let’s do a quick review of the “What?” and “Why?”
What is a mini-retirement?
A mini-retirement is when you take small chunks of your retirement (say a month or two) and spread them out during your working years. That way you can do some of the things that you’ve been putting off until “Someday” while you’re still relatively young and healthy and you’ve got your kids and/or friends around to enjoy them with you. A mini-retirement can focus on travel, hobbies, or anything else you’ve wanted to do but have been putting off until retirement. For more on the concept read this: The Case for Mini-Retirements.
Why?
Because you only have one short, precious go-around at this life. You can either spend it dreaming about “Someday” or you can decide what you really want out of life and start taking those plans very seriously.
How did things go?
When I first proposed the trip to my wife I told her it would either be a great time as a family or the biggest mistake we ever made. Thankfully, it was 100 percent the former. The weather was perfect, the people were friendly, and the scenery was absolutely amazing. We hiked places like the Cliffs of Moher and the Wales Coast Path. We frequented local pubs where live music, a cold pint, and friendly conversation with the locals were always on tap. We took guided tours through a few thousand years of history in places like Stonehenge, the Roman Baths, Buckingham Palace, Westminster Abbey, the Tower of London, the Guinness Brewery, and the Jameson Distillery. Most of all, we spent four weeks of relaxing, memorable, focused time as a family. I could go on and on about what we saw and did, but instead I thought I’d share a few takeaways from the trip that you can use for your own life and retirement.
12 Takeaways
Have a quest. All told, we were gone 31 days, but the trip was much more than that. It was 9 months of saving, planning, anticipation, dinnertime conversations, overcoming obstacles and figuring out logistics. And once the planning was over we actually got to summon a little courage and sail away from safe harbor. We got to have interesting experiences and make memories that will last a lifetime. We got to return home different than when we left. In short, it wasn’t a vacation. It was a quest. A quest can take an ordinary month or year and turn it into something interesting, exciting and memorable. There are about 25 weeks left in 2014. What kind of quest can you dream up?
The conditions are never perfect. Had we waited for the stars to align perfectly, we never would have gone. The time never seems to be right. You could always use a little more money or a few more days at the office. But we went anyway (non-refundable airfare and accommodations are always a good motivator) and you know what? Everything worked out great. So don’t wait for the perfect time. It will never come.
If it’s going to be, it’s up to me. Write that on your bathroom mirror. It might sound a little corny, but at the end of the day, it’s not your boss, your spouse, your trainer, or that retirement blogger who are going to make things happen in your life. It’s you. Period. No one can live your life for you. The hard work of making things happen is your responsibility and the satisfaction of a life well lived is your reward.
Your health is WAY more important than you’re making it. Almost everywhere we went there were tour buses loaded with traditional retirees. Some of those people were spry and fit and able to get around, but many of them had visible health issues and were limited to exploring within a very short distance of the bus. Contrast that with the couple we saw while hiking in Wales. They looked to be in their mid-70s, but you could tell that they had worked at staying fit and healthy throughout life, which is why they could head out for an all day hike on a rugged coastline. We can’t control everything about our health, but we can control much of it. I came home from this trip with a renewed desire to be healthy so I can enjoy whatever years I have left to the full.
Solitude begins where the pavement ends. The Cliffs of Moher are absolutely stunning. They are sheer, 600-foot cliffs that abruptly delineate where Ireland ends and the Atlantic Ocean begins. The parking lot was a zoo. The visitor center too. The concrete viewing platform was pushing allowable capacity. But if you walked 50 feet (Seriously. 50 feet.) away from the pavement, you pretty much had the path to yourself. What came next was one of the most beautiful 8-mile hikes you could ever hope to take. Rolling hills. Beautiful wildflowers. Grazing sheep and horses. And mile after mile of those cliffs all to yourself. Too often people pull into the parking lot, get out for a quick look, check off the item on their bucket list, update their status on Facebook, and then move on to the next place. The more I travel, the more I realize that some of the best things are found away from the crowds and off the beaten path.
Live an extravagantly modest lifestyle. We’ve learned a few tricks for traveling on a budget over the years, but there was no getting around the fact that this trip was expensive. That’s ok though, because we’re willing to spend miserly on things that aren’t important to us so we can spend a bit more extravagantly on things that are. I like this way of thinking because it provides you with a bigger “return on investment” for the dollars that you’re spending. You can read more about it here: The benefits of an extravagantly modest lifestyle.
Most of our excuses are bogus. People are nice pretty much everywhere. They don’t hate Americans. The food won’t make you sick. You can afford it. You have the time. The excuses we tell ourselves are usually red herrings for “I’m not making it a priority and I don’t want to put in the effort.” Sorry if that’s blunt, but it’s true. If it’s not happening, it’s almost certainly your fault. You can make that truth sting less by deflecting the blame onto something else, but that won’t get you any closer to your ideal life.
Things will go wrong, but you’ll figure it out. My previous point doesn’t mean that things won’t ever go wrong. They will. I can’t think of a trip where something hasn’t gone comically wrong. I sliced my thumb open cooking a late dinner in a small town in England and had to figure out where to go to get stitches. I lost my credit card in Paris. I had my car break down in the middle of nowhere in El Salvador. Yes, things will sometimes go wrong when you travel, but that’s not a reason to stay home. You’ll figure it out and move forward. It’s all part of the adventure.
Rent houses whenever possible (they’re usually cheaper and better than hotels). Hotels are small, cramped and impersonal. Houses give you a place to spread out. They give you a place to cook meals and do laundry. They make you feel more like you’re at home. Not only that, but they put you in a neighborhood so you can get away from the touristy places and experience the restaurants and shops popular with the locals. We usually rent from either Airbnb or VRBO.
The longer you can go, the better. All vacation days are not created equally. Modern travel can be challenging. Navigating airport security and then spending the day in Peasant Class on a cramped airplane can be exhausting. If you take a seven day vacation (the typical break in the U.S.), two of those days are spent in the aforementioned airplane and two of those days are spent either a) recovering from the airplane or b) packing up to get back on the airplane. That leaves 3 actual days of vacation. 3 days is a weekend. So basically, our modern vacations are super expensive, exhausting weekends. You can remedy this by taking a two week vacation (or three or four). When you do that, the travel days are a smaller part of the whole and you can actually enjoy your time away.
Go where the dollar is strong. One reason we chose Ireland and England was because my wife wanted to be somewhere English speaking for our first experience with such a long trip. I doubt we could have made a worse choice when it came to expenses. The Euro is strong against the dollar and the Pound is even stronger. Between the conversion rate, the VAT tax, and the fact that major tourist cities are expensive to begin with, we could pretty much count on everything being 2-3 times more expensive than at home. It doesn’t take long when you’re spending $25 on a cheeseburger or $8 on a pint of Guinness before you decide that your next trip will be to somewhere like Ecuador or Vietnam.
Last, but not least: Don’t wait. “I wish we had started doing these sooner” was a common refrain toward the end of the trip. I can’t turn back the clock, but I’ll definitely make use of mini-retirements in the future. The lesson here was not to wait. Delayed gratification is overrated. Regardless of whether your goal is travel or something entirely different, get started on that now. Doing something that you’ve always wanted to do is like planting a tree. Sure, the best time to start was 20 years ago. But the next best time to start is now.
Thanks for following along with this little adventure. I hope you found something useful or encouraging for your own life. Also, thanks for being patient while I took a break from writing during the trip. I’ll get back to my normal posting schedule now that I’m back. And remember…
Life is short. Be Intentional.
Joe
P.S. If you want to see some pics from the trip, just visit my Instagram page.
