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Getting Lost to Get Found
I have a belief that if you follow your adventure while traveling, you’ll find yourself and perhaps, make money while you do it. You see, I’m an Adventure Capitalist at heart. What is that? It’s that roaming soul who follows their adventure to create an opportunity for themselves and others. It’s the explorer who looks at the world around them and is brimming with questions. It’s the human that when they see opportunity, they seize it. I first discovered it with Jim Rogers book of the same name.
Us adventure capitalists, we’re the wanderers, the curious, the Magellan’s who don’t travel to escape but to create. But the truth is you have to be able to pay your bills while you do it.
“If you follow your adventure, you’ll find yourself and perhaps, discover a new person entirely.”
My story started years ago as a journalist along the US/Mexico border (you can view my video here) where I got lost to ultimately get found. It continued through finance and corporate America, but it accelerated the moment that I stopped playing by the rules. It took off the moment I focused on becoming a healthier, happier, well-traveled, more interesting human and applying those lessons to business and lifestyle design. That decision to be my crazy self despite the rules led me to understand finance, international business and how to make the globe my office. It led me to the belief that how I consume, create, and cultivate teams and relationships are the most important things I can ever focus upon.
You see I used to have many days spent watching the clock, getting a case of the Monday dreads on Sunday afternoon, counting the days to Friday and otherwise having steady anxiety about my job. Because I used to think that in order to be truly successful you had better bide your time, climb along with everyone else, and maybe even had to wear matching business suits. The horror.
Then one day I picked up The Four Hour Work Week, like so many other young millennials. I read it cover to cover, then I read The Hard Thing About Hard Things, then I read Man’s Search for Himself. And what happened after blending this idea of working to produce, not to log time, with how to build a company, with why it all matters, and finally with how to find yourself, led me to follow my adventure. I left my gig at Goldman Sachs at the time and started traveling for a living in the world of international investments across the Americas. I found this niche that fit me. Emerging economies that necessitated speaking Spanish, where my unique experiences created an edge, and where opportunity abounds because it is just a bit more chaotic than the U.S.
“We consume and create consciously, focusing on that intersection of passion, profit and purpose. ”
Have Passport
WILL TRAVEL... ALWAYS
So I started traveling south, almost weekly. I explored countries like Chile, Colombia, Peru, Brazil, Mexico, Panama, Argentina, and Paraguay to name a few. I was hooked. I realized how you can feasibly make the world your office, can adventure consciously, make money while traveling and then consume so much more thoughtfully.
So if you are with me, if a bit of wanderlust flows through your veins, the question becomes how do you create a life yourself that follows your adventure?
HERE ARE MY STEPS TO TRAVELING FOR A LIVING
“Us adventure capitalists, we’re the wanderers, the curious, the Magellan’s who don’t travel to escape, but to create. ”
1) When I Found the Travel Secret:
Start with WHY it matters at all..
The secret is that exploring is as crucial to our evolution beyond primates and past the unrealized 80%, as water is to a plant, or as tequila is to my personal sanity. It's a tactile education that opens your eyes, your ears, your soul to all the possibilities inherent in the world. If you can internalize the resounding belief that your adventures further your education, you are on the path.
My suggestion: Read the book Walden. Opens your eyes to the beauty of travel.
2) Your Job Title Is Not Sit At Desk All Day Associate
I want you to ask you a question; are you paid specifically to be present at your desk from 9-to-5? Is your job title, “On Location for 8 Hours Associate”? For most, I doubt it. Your job is related to what you do not how long it takes you to do it. If my team can do in 4 hours what the other teams do in 8, all the better. The rest of the time should be theirs to grow, engage and become better humans. The problem is we need to get your bosses, or if you own your own business yourself, to understand this, and set measurable goals to get the job done while not requiring your entire life be spent doing it. So can you realize that your biggest opponent is yourself? That you haven’t tried to ask the question of, HOW can I become a nomadic capitalist?
My suggestion: Go to your whiteboard. Or buy one if you don't have one. Write on there how could I travel more and earn money while doing it? Write up as many solutions as possible. See what happens when you start testing them. But be ready, once you take the red pill... you'll never go back.
Here’s a list to get you started:
Pick a company you like in the US that isn’t selling in Latin America, go set up distribution agreements there - aka Flywheel, SoulCycle, Whoop Armbands - whatever
Create an Etsy site where you buy goods in another country and sell them in US on the site
Ping the coolest boutique hotels in other countries and see if they need your skill set
Go to F500 company websites and search for foreign job postings
Create a podcast where you interview cool locations in other countries and promote to US and charge them for access to US market
3) Learn the Solo Routine:
“What do you mean you are going to Patagonia by yourself?” just about everyone questioned me. I would reiterate, “I am going by myself because I want to. I'm just heading down south and seeing where it takes me. No itinerary and probably the wrong shoes.”
To which at the end of this conversation most people say, “Be safe,” and promptly switch topics. Here's the thing I'm 30, not 22. Solo international travel is utterly questionable to most people, especially considering I have a relatively high-powered job, familial obligations and then throw on that I travel almost weekly regardless. However, the truth is, if you don't go now you just may never go.
My suggestion: Plan a solo getaway. Could be nothing more lavish than a road trip. Travel courage is a muscle, you just need to flex it.
“The man who goes alone can start today, but he who travels with another must wait till that other is ready.”
4) When the Inevitable Moment Comes SEIZE IT:
Seizing every opportunity in my life is one of the key reasons I've been successful, in a slightly less horrifyingly caricature of Jim Carey in the movie Yes Man, (where he says yes to everything). I do try to take on as many experiences as humanly possible. Carpe Diem may have become a cliché but it became one for a reason, we so very seldom do in fact seize the day. Instead, one day rolls into the next until we look back and exclaim where did the years go? In this way, we fantasize about the future and what we will do with it while putting off today what we will supposedly do tomorrow.
My suggestion: Start with waking up an hour before you normally do. Get work in early and learn to produce at level that is above those around you, freedom is given to those that produce.
4) Consume More Consciously
Unless you're hiding a trust fund, travel may be something that seems to be for those lucky few without real responsibilities. If you are feeling like you don't have the time, the money, the opportunity, start adding by subtracting. So that means we buy less, better things. That next graphic tee you see, skip it. Invest in conscious pieces, reduce, reuse, recycle your wardrobe and your wallet.
My suggestion: Go to your closet. What in there can you sell online on ebay, etsy, craigslist? Repeat with every room in your house. Money is literally surrounding you. Start making room in your wallet and in your space to allow in the new.
I move a lot. Each time I sell as much as I can to lighten my load. I just sold all my plants for an average of $60 a plant on craigslist.
AND try a spending hiatus. I like to think of this like a juice cleanse. Before you buy anything you have to wait 24 hours to pull the trigger. It's amazing how many small dimes will accumulate.
Travel Purposefully
I travel every week. However, I cannot remember the last time I took a trip and didn't incorporate work into it. AND I love that. We aren't talking the kind of work you gouge eyes out over, we are talking playing for a living. Before I took my last two-week trip to Belize here is my list of how I maximized travel so I can do more of it (now you can too):
I reached out to every single hotel to ask for discounts. I got one at every hotel. Now more than ever.
I reached out to brands/hotels to see if they would sponsor parts of it in exchange for content.
I got up at 6am every day on vacation and worked the first two hours to fund it. Emails & coconuts baby.
Setup meetings with 3 people I found interesting and that I could potentially collaborate with in country. Email is so powerful.
I'm a points savage. I use them everywhere and accumulate thoughtfully.
My suggestion: Try some form of mixing my tactics above.
Follow your adventure.. it’ll take you where you need to go.
Love you animals,
Codie
THIS WEEK I GAVE YOU MY EXACT guide for CREATE A WEBSITE IN 24 HOURS.
#Yourewelcome ---> https://www.codiesanchez.com/blog/create-a-website-in-24-hours