Sean, at some point you will need to come down to earth, come home, and live in the real world
– Advice of a close friend, 1996
I was 20 years old and I still recall being given this advice. I had recently returned from studying abroad in France and this came from someone who meant well but did not understand I would never agree. In fact the studies in France were my 3rd international exchange program over 3 years time and I was determined to live a globally unconstrained life. This pattern was going to be my “real world” and it reflected my deepest values. Even my undergraduate home university in the United States was located in Phoenix Arizona several thousand miles from where I grew up in Columbus, Ohio. I had no intention of limiting options to those close to home or of settling into what this person meant by “the real world”. The “real world” is where dreams go to die. The real world causes us to suffer in bored silence (typically near where we were born) until we reach our 60s and 70s at which time some aspire to escape the treadmill through traditional retirement. The “real world” is what happens when we fail to intentionally design our lives.
Allow me to introduce myself and explain what I mean…
A Commitment to Intentional Life Design
While I was growing up, my father was a wealth manager and I inherited his passion for this field. I like helping people achieve their financial objectives, but on a more personal level I viewed personal finance mastery as critical to the design of a more intentional life. At the same time I noticed that there is huge dispersion in the knowledge levels of financial advisors working in wealth management and I was determined to sharpen my craft. After graduating college I worked for a few years as a financial advisor but soon returned to school and earned an MBA in Finance from Columbia Business School in New York in order to elevate my financial knowledge. I also became a Certified Financial Planner (CFP®) to go deeper in to personal financial planning.
I noticed as well that financial advice in the USA tends to be very US-centric on many levels. If you live in the US you’ll most likely receive advice on US stocks, US bonds, and US real estate from someone who has never lived outside of the United States and who is unfamiliar with international markets or global life considerations. Surely such dramatic “home bias” limits your world view and constrains your universe of possibilities when it comes to investments but also to how you might consider living your life.
I was committed to a more global expertise, career and life. Following my early career in Ohio I went on to work in New York City (5 years), Singapore (6 years), Australia (2 years), Hong Kong (3 years), and Switzerland (4 years). My wealth management career began in the US (Ohio) in 1997 but over the past 20+ years I have coached clients, and client advisors, in over 20 different countries throughout Asia, Europe, the Middle East, and Latin America. This led to greater experience in global wealth management, but wealth management is not the focus of this website. More importantly, this path led to insight into intentional life design on a globally unconstrained stage.
Do you wish to have the best life that your hometown can offer? Or would you prefer to live the best life that the entire world can offer you? I have friends and relatives who have worked hard to grow within their geographic comfort zones but when they search for career, life, or investment options they (often unconsciously) add constraints based on their comfort zones. If Ohio seems to have fewer exciting career options, have you considered vineyard investment possibilities in Argentina (I did, but that’s a story for another time)? What about possibilities in Asia, Europe, or the Middle East? Even if you do choose to earn an income for now in your native country (or state or town), have you explored how international possibilities might create options in the future (e.g, for retirement or other life stages)?
“Sean, not everyone can do this…”
“Sean, some of us need to look after family…”
“Let’s get back to the real world!”
I feel the tension mounting, but this perspective is not as far fetched or exotic as if first seems. Another country is not so different from another neighborhood or another state. Yes, there are trade-offs to expanding your horizons, but do consider the possibility that your mind may simply be unaccustomed to stretching the boundaries of the stage where your life plays out.
Fast Forward to Today
I now live in Zurich, Switzerland with my wife and two daughters (ages 10 and 13) who have grown up living and attending schools in 4 different countries. Our children are US citizens but they were born in Singapore and have actually not (yet) had the pleasure of living in America where I grew up.
Our family income consists of earnings from my wealth management career, passive investment portfolio income, and rental income from properties in the US and Italy (see our property, Cascina Berchi, here).
To connect more deeply with our Italian cultural heritage (my wife and I have Italian ancestry) our family takes Italian language lessons through immersion programs in Venice, Bologna, Rome, and Montepulciano. If you have never gone on a language learning vacation (a topic for a future post), I highly recommend it! You can enroll your entire family and it is a truly immersive and rewarding way to experience a foreign city together.
Separately, we are also pursuing dual US/Italian citizenship. One of my life goals is to ensure my children have both US and EU work authorization along with the language skills (Italian, French, German) necessary to be able to work or live wherever their dreams take them. We expect to have our Italian citizenship sometime in the year 2022 and this also enhances possibilities for college studies for our children outside the United States (European schools are far less expensive).
On the more recreational side, my wife and I use our interest in wine as a lens for exploring the world (see our wine adventures here at ExecutiveWineEducation). Wine is a perfect way to experience international cultures! My wife Angela leads wine clubs (great way to meet people!) and occasionally works at wine events (e.g, for James Suckling, a well known wine critic) in the various cities we’ve lived in. We are both Certified Specialists of Wine (Society of Wine Educators) and Angela is also WSET Level 3 certified.
This is what intentional lifestyle design looks like, particularly with a globally unconstrained stage. Intentional lifestyle design involves taking inventory of your fundamental values (I elaborate here on taking a “fundamental inventory”) and then aligning your time and resources to those values in the form of deliberately crafted habits. If you apply this exercise to a globally unconstrained stage, the compounding effect over time is tremendous. This exercise does not respect any vision of what the “real world” is supposed to entail and from a distance it seems to break all the rules you implicitly thought you had to play by.
Do I have to quit my job? …stop drinking lattes? …hold off on having kids? …wait till retirement? Grind out brutal work hours?
Many people live out brilliant, passionate careers while working for corporations! Especially now that Covid has accelarated more flexible and remote work, it is difficult to paint your company as the “bad guy”.
No, I do not believe that we all need to live frugally for 30 years while skipping the morning latte and evening wine (I’m not known for skipping either). Financial independence is definitely a worthwhile ambition, but don’t postpone your lifestyle dreams to a misguided image of blissful retirement at age 70. An intentionally designed life should provide well-being along the way and not only in our final chapters.
Successful lifestyle design is not about grinding it out and I do not think that the universe cares about what you think is fair. A focus on hard work and waiting for the universe to deliver fairness is a child’s plan. However, once we understand certain life design principles, especially if we apply them to a global stage, I believe we can self-direct with intention and advance with unfair speed and advantages.
What is “Self Coaching”?
Self Coaching is a framework for making you accountable for you when it comes to “operationalizing” your intentional life design. It is the way forward and it begins with realizing that no one is coming to save you or sort this out. Your success, failure, and well-being is ultimately in your hands. You cannot leave your destiny in the hands of your parents, your partner, your employer, your financial planner, your psychologist, or mentor. Even if you have effective coaches in life (I hope you do), it is ultimately up to you and you alone to coach yourself. This is not scary. It is liberating. It means that you are driving and you always have been.
This framework involves the development of a “strategic self” that will help the current version of you serve the future versions of you through superior (and potentially globally unconstrained) life design. This framework also involves the development of your “execution self“, the version of you that delivers on that plan. This “execution self” is the version of you that wakes up early in the morning when the alarm goes off and wants to hit snooze. …or it is the version of you that hears the alarm and gets out of bed according to plan to deliver an extraordinary, intentionally designed life.
To infuse your life with with intention also requires greater self knowledge than most of us have now. We think we know ourselves but a few simple exercises can show that we often don’t. Not really. If we don’t have a clear grip on our fundamental values, strengths, assets, and goals then how can we intentionally shape our habits to align our time, money, and resources?
Why am I writing this?
I am fascinated with the topic of intentional, globally unconstrained life design and this site is a means of establishing a sense of community around this and related “Self Coaching” topics. I am in love with the idea that if you crack the code(s) then the world opens up in a new frame and certain “rules” no longer apply (or never did). I also personally enjoy writing and this site is a creative outlet to share certain life experiences and refine ideas and concepts. I do not receive any compensation for anything written in these posts nor is this writing sponsored by, or a representation of, my employer or anyone else.
I hope the posts and reflections are of value to you. Please feel free to share your own experiences in the comments with me as well.
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Disclaimer
Any posts shared on this site express my personal views. Posts written or views expressed are not on behalf of any corporation or employer. While I may write on topics of general educational interest I will never offer personal investment advice, tax advice, or medical advice, on this site. Be sure to seek personal, professional guidance relating to your own personal circumstances.