My wife and I are moving to Spain for a year, starting in just over a month.
It’s amazing to me how the number one comment I get (typically from people I don’t know) is “You’re so lucky!” I’ve learned to smile and mutter something polite, but each time a battle rages on internally as to whether I really want to “get into it” with the person in front of me.
I know they mean well, and that they’re simply projecting their own feelings but maybe that’s my biggest frustration. I want to say (in the most humble way possible), “Luck had very little to do with it. This has been 18 months of planning, 12 months of saving cash, 6 months of dawn to dusk working (to get the business to a point of stability I’m comfortable with), multiple trips to the Spanish embassy, etc, etc.”
Am I lucky we live in a country globally accepted as tourists? Definitely. Do I consider us fortunate to both be in good health and able to make the trip? No question.
But running a business that allows me geographic freedom wasn’t luck, it was a choice.
Building an incredible team that can support “on the ground efforts” wasn’t luck, it was borne from a shared purpose and a culture of complete transparency.
Even marrying a woman who shares my interests and passion for adventure came from being clear on who I was as a person (and who she was) and entering into a “heads up” partnership.
I’m not against luck. I just think that giving too much credence to luck strips you of your power. We can all be lucky. We just need to work our asses off to get there.
For those interested, I will absolutely still remain active in the day to day operation of Actionable Books and Actionable Workshops. The geographic distance doesn’t actually change much for us, as the team is already spread across 3 countries and 4 time zones. I believe this distance will afford me some much needed “quiet time” to work on a few projects that have been on the back burner for far too long.
