You want to escape the ordinary …
But you also want a practical plan.
You’re as pragmatic as you are adventurous. You’re a rebel with a retirement plan.
How do you start?
****
After last week’s post, several Afford Anything Rebels asked me how to prepare for a massive leap into the unknown.
Some want to travel. Others want to start their own business. Some just want to ditch the cubicle and see what happens next.
In response, I’ve created The Essential 4-Step Guide to Escaping the Ordinary. The steps have an easy acronym: the ABCD Game Plan.
We’ll tackle the steps in reverse order: DCBA.
The “D” Step: Dive into the Details
(And Set a Damn Deadline!)
What do you want to do?
Travel the world? Launch a business? Become a real estate tycoon?
Whatever your goal, you might have some false assumptions about how to get there.
To shatter those assumptions, delve into the subculture of people who are doing the same thing you’re trying to do. Read books, browse Internet forums, and don’t be afraid to ask silly questions.
- World travel isn’t done through organized tour groups, all-inclusive resorts and Priceline hotel deals. There’s a whole subculture of travel hacks that you should explore.
- Launching your own business isn’t done by printing fancy business cards, renting a nice office and wearing an impressive suit. You need to dig some trenches.
- Real estate investing isn’t confined to the neighborhoods where you yourself would live. There are probably plenty of areas within a 50-mile radius of your home that you’ve never driven through, but that are ripe with profitable opportunity.
Once you take this step, you’ll discover new information that will change for plans — for the better.
- You wouldn’t (shouldn’t) open a boutique just because you “love clothes!” You’d check out the demand. Figure out the overhead. Look at the local industry growth.
- You wouldn’t (shouldn’t) buy stock in Coca-Cola because you love the flavor. You’d check it’s price-to-earnings ratio, it’s book value, and its ticker trends.
- You wouldn’t (shouldn’t) launch a podcast just because you love to talk. There’s a ton more that happens behind-the-scenes. Dig a little deeper. Do some homework. Delve in.
Let’s take travel as an example:
At this early stage in planning, you might be thinking: “I love the beach. Maybe I should go to Aruba.”
But as you dive deeper into the long-term traveler subculture, you’ll begin to understand that your experience in a particular place is created not just by the photogenic attractions, but also by the average prices, infrastructure and amenities.
If you want the privacy of a spacious villa for less than $10 per day, for example, Southeast Asia might be ideal. But if you prefer a jam-packed hipster party hostel, Europe is your zone.
There’s one more essential component to the “D” Step: Set a Damn Deadline. If you don’t, you’ll never make the leap.
The “C” Step: Bust Your “Commitment Cant’s”
This is the most critical step.
Most people who don’t take a dramatic leap into the unknown cite commitments as their reason.
- “But I have a mortgage!”
- “What about my job?”
- “Who’s going to take care of Fido?”
- “My lease doesn’t end until March.”
- “My car payment runs for another three years.”
- “But I just joined this dance troupe …”
- “My boyfriend / girlfriend / spouse isn’t interested in joining me.”
- “Who’s going to water my plants?”
Here’s the hard truth: Most people enter into commitments without thinking of the long-term consequences on their future flexibility and freedom.
(Hence why so many people are in debt.)
You need to do two things: Break the commitments that you can ethically sever, and renegotiate the ones that you can’t.
This is the most crucial step. I repeat: MOST crucial.
Here’s how this would look:
- Mortgage: Find a renter. Or sell the house. If you’re traveling, you won’t be living in the house anyway; why leave it vacant?
- Rent: Ask your landlord if you can replace yourself with a sub-letter. If you can’t, then you know your Damn Deadline – you’ll quit your job at the same time your lease expires. (That’s what I did!) Speaking of which …
- Job: Negotiate to work remotely and part-time. This will give you the freedom to launch a business, travel, or focus on other more interesting pursuits. If your boss says no, fire your boss.
- Pets and Plants: Find a trusted long-term petsitter/plant-sitter, like a close friend or family member.
- Sports Teams, Dance Troupes, etc: If you can ethically leave the team mid-season, do so. Otherwise, you know your Damn Deadline: when the season ends.
Debt and relationships are two types of commitments that get special attention, due to their gravity.
Let’s Tackle Debt:
Freakin’ pay it off already!! OMG people, is this really a question?
Okay, if you have a mortgage, I get it. There’s no rush to pay down your mortgage before an epic round-the-world journey. Stick a renter in your house while you’re traipsing across the globe, and if you bought correctly, that renter should be covering every dime plus extra.
(If you didn’t buy correctly, sell the house. It’s a chain that’s preventing you from traveling and experiencing the life you love.)
If you have a student loan at some stupidly-low interest rate, like 2 percent (less than inflation), and some token monthly payment, like $40 per month, you also get a pass. There’s no massive rush to pay that off.
But if you have any debt that’s higher than 6 percent interest, start living on ramen noodles and stop making excuses. Decimate that beast.
Next, Relationships:
I hear from a lot of people that they want to do X (become their own boss, spend a year in Italy) but their significant other isn’t on-board.
Now, I’m not a relationship counselor. But I see this as a massive problem in your compatibility. You two have a serious divergence of values and priorities, and those need to get aligned.
I once ended a relationship with someone purely based on the fact that I was going to travel for two years. This other guy had a thriving career as a magazine editor and wanted to stay stateside. He had zero interest in traipsing the globe.
I’m proud of him. But we’re not compatible. In my world, “I never want to travel” is a deal-breaker.
So our relationship ended, and I traveled solo before meeting someone else.
So the moral of the story is:
- If your partner supports the concept, but can’t participate, then you’ll have to negotiate the freedom to embark on this adventure solo.
- If your partner doesn’t even support the concept, well, you’ve got mismatched values.
The “B” Step: Budget
This step is pretty straightforward.
Now that you’ve delved into the details (i.e. you’ve done your homework), you have a rough idea of how much your undertaking will cost. And you know your Damn Deadline.
Divide cost by time.
Easiest. Step. Ever.
For example:
“I want to spend 12 months traveling Southeast Asia. I know I can live comfortably on $35 per day. Multiplied by 365 days, that’s $12,775.
“That sounds like a lot, until you consider that it’s WAY cheaper than my cost-of-living here at home.
“Okay, now let’s add a 10 percent buffer to that estimate. This brings us to $14,052. My Deadline is one year from now. This means I’ll need to start saving $270 per week.
“Hmm. My freelance / consulting / teaching side hustle brings in $200 per week. If I cancel my cable, cook from scratch and stop getting plastered at bars, I bet I could save another $70 per week.”
Boom! That’s how it’s done.
Let’s try it for aspiring entrepreneurs:
“I’ve been working this awesome side hustle in the evenings and weekends for the past year. It’s already bringing in $475 every week, or $1,900 per month. And I only work at it 10 hours a week.
“I really think that if I ditched my crummy cubicle job, I could make this a full-time gig.
“Let’s think through this. My cost-of-living is $3,000 per month. I want to save enough to support myself in full for six months.
“That’s $18,000. If I save all the money that I make through this side hustle, I could build those reserves in a little over 9 months. I’ll use cash from my regular day job to pay my estimated taxes during that time.
“Those 9 months will also give me time to seriously ramp up my efforts – to 15 or 20 hours a week – and see if that extra effort yields more income and opportunity.
“Of course, I probably won’t need to tap that $18,000 reserve. After all, when I ditch the cubicle, I’ll already be pulling in almost $2,000 per month or more. Still, I’ll sleep easier knowing that it’s there.”
The “A” Step: Be Ready to Act Alone
This is going to seem like the scariest step. But it’s crucial.
You can’t waste your life waiting for someone in your existing network to join you on your adventure. Your current friends are not necessarily the most reliable, qualified or desirable people to accompany you (or to partner with you) on your travel or business idea.
You must be prepared to start this journey alone.
Yeah … alone.
Scary, right?
BOO!
But don’t worry. You’ll never truly be alone.
Once you start along your adventure – whether that’s entrepreneurship, investing, travel, or any other escapade – you’ll meet be plenty of people who will befriend you and help you along the way.
By definition, you’ll meet people who are journeying the same route.
Some of these people will become mentors. Leaders. Trusted friends. You’re on the cusp of bonding with some of the most brilliant, interesting people that you’ll ever encounter.
You just haven’t met them yet.
And you’ll never meet them if you keep wallowing in your living room.
Your success, in fact, will hinge on your connections with this new rockstar network. In business, this is self-evident. But you’ll discover that this is true in non-professional pursuits, such as travel, as well.
In travel, your adventure will be characterized by the people you encounter, not the postcard-gracing attractions you see. Your fondest memories won’t be visiting the Pyramids. Instead, at the end of it all, you’ll remember that time that you got into a water-balloon fight with those goofy twins in the Czech Republic, after which you all went out for banana toffee cake and a cup of lemon tea.
Doesn’t it sound awesome? I can’t wait to enjoy a slice of banana toffee cake with new friends I haven’t met yet.
Or to start that business that I haven’t imagined yet.
Or buy the rental property I haven’t seen yet.
A-B-C-D.
Or, if you’re a contrarian like me, D-C-B-A.
That’s the key to getting started.
