My Portable Business Lifestyle — Going Mobile in Costa Rica

Today marks the first day of a new journey — next stop, Costa Rica. I wanted to post this article to reflect on some of my ideas about travel, relocation, business, and lifestyle design. As I’ve said many times before, entrepreneurship (especially Internet Business) is a fantastic way to open these doors and create a more fulfilling business and personal life….

Why Relocate Your Life and Your Business?

Relocation has been at the center of my lifestyle-design and business-building strategy since my first journey to Berlin in early 2009. Much of this was inspired by the well-known business book, The Four Hour Work Week.

A Four Hour Work Week? Are You Kidding?

Not really up to speed on all this 4HWW (Four Hour Work Week) mumbo jumbo? Take a gander at my 4HWW Series articles here…

4HWW Part One
4HWW Part Two
4HWW Part Three
4HWW Part Four
4HWW Part Five

I once read that the best ways to power up your motivation is this…

1. Back yourself into a corner.
2. Do everything in your power to get out.

I believe this is exactly why I managed to go from a $37,000 per year college instructor to a six-figure Internet Business owner in just a few years.

To go from zero to 60 required serious motivation, and I had it. No doubt about it. But here’s the real key: to muster super-high levels of motivation requires LOTS of reasons to succeed. It can’t be *just* about money or *just* about travel. And it can’t be *just* about prestige or status. You’ve got to find LOTS of reasons and they MUST be very real to your mind, body, and soul.

Maybe that last line sounds a bit hokey, but I’m quite serious.

If your reasons for doing something big don’t resonate on a mental, emotional, and spiritual/higher level, then you’re simply NOT going to make it happen. Again, I’m talking about doing something BIG, something life-changing. The reason most people never take action to achieve something big is because they don’t really want to do it. Why not? They don’t have enough reasons.

Before I read the 4HWW, I already had a desire to start building a business. In fact, I already had a business. It just wasn’t exactly running like a machine. The ideas behind The Four Hour Work Week resonated with me in many powerful ways and on many meaningful levels. I wanted to travel more. I wanted to meet different people from around the world. I wanted to experience different types of cultures, cuisines, and ways of life. And most of all — I wanted to live a better life. I wanted to work smarter not harder.

To put it all in one simple statement: I knew the rat-race sucked and I didn’t want to spend my life doing it.

Relocate, Renew, Recharge

Before I get too far astray in this blog-sized novel, let’s get back to what’s happening right now. As I write this, I’m sitting on an AeroMexico flight to Costa Rica. My girlfriend is sitting next to me playing on her iPad while I’m over here struggling to speak Spanish with the flight attendant pouring my coffee. Life is good. Pura vida!

What is it about travel that inspires us so much? It’s two things: Time and Freedom.

Think about it. Why are vacations so damn wonderful? Time and Freedom. And why do most people in modern cultures look forward to retirement so much? Time and Freedom. Remember childhood? What was so great about the playground, school recess, and summer vacation? Time and Freedom.

This is exactly why I love relocation so much. In a nutshell, relocation is traveling to a new place to live, work, and play. But for me it’s really a chance to recapture the true spirit of things and get back to the basics.

Mini Retirement v. Relocation Recalibration

My last relocation in early 2009 to Berlin, Germany, was more of a 4HWW mini-retirement. I went there to get away from work and to learn more about myself. But this time my purpose is much different. One of the best things about relocation is the process you go through right before you leave. It works like this: First, you unpack your current life. Then, you pack up your new life and hit the road. Somewhere in between you get rid of 80% of the crap you don’t really need. When it’s all finished, you feel a great sense of relief, clarity, and lightness. It’s probably one of the most therapeutic things you could ever do for yourself.

This time around instead of a mini-retirement, I’m looking at this journey as more of a “Relocation Recalibration.” Instead of avoiding work, I’m going to reclaim more balance between work-and-play. For my business and personal life, I’m looking to do one very important thing — focus on what’s really important in life and ignore everything else.

As Stephen Covey once put it — “Begin with the end in mind.” The path will unfold before you…

Related posts:

1. My Four Hour Work Week Story Part 4 – Making the 4HWW Lifestyle Work
2. My Four Hour Work Week Story Part 2 – How My Fairy Tale Became Reality
3. My Four Hour Work Week Story Part 5 – Beyond a Four Hour Work Week
4. My Four Hour Work Week Story Part 1 – What is a Four Hour Work Week?
5. My Four Hour Work Week Story Part 3 – Not Working is Really Not Working