Quick note before we dive in:
I'm hosting several free online workshops over the next few weeks.
2 big ones coming up:
- How to Pay Less Tax (Happening tomorrow at 2pm EST!)
- Building Worldwide Teams (July 1st)
If you register, I'll send you a copy of the recording even if you can't attend live.
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What is this all about?
Almost everything I write about is related to business and the tools + skills you need in order to make money and grow companies.
But what's the end goal here?
Isn't it to live a good, fulfilling, and happy life? You know, the aspects of life that aren't related to work?
That's what today's email is about.
Unfortunately, business and financial success is only one part of this game. It's a very important part, but it's not the only thing that matters.
No matter how rich we are, we still wake up every day in the same body with the same issues and the same people around us.
In my opinion, to be truly successful, a person needs to be well-rounded and balanced, so you have to focus on a lot more than just money and your career.
There is fitness and physical health. There is your mind and your mental health. There are relationships with your friends, your spouse, and your children.
The people around you to share this life with is what's important.
Business is fun. It is my calling, and I will always be involved in it since there are few things in life more enjoyable to me than growing companies. It is so challenging and addictive that it is hard to want to do other things when you’re in the thick of it.
But ultimately, starting and running a business isn’t just about the money. It’s about having the freedom to do what you want to do when you want to do it.
Here's a few more things outside of work, you should think more about:
Geography:
I feel strongly that too many people live where they live because that’s where they were born or got a job, not because they actually want to live there. More people should take ownership over their location and move away from home.
In 2017, my wife and I were renting a crappy three-bedroom apartment in Medford, Massachusetts, above an appliance store at 454 Main Street. We stepped around broken washers and dryers to get in the door and walked up many steps to our apartment. We had a four-month-old baby, our first.
On paper, it made perfect sense. I had been building my student storage business, Storage Squad, in the Boston area since 2014, and my wife was now a stay-at-home mom for the first time. But we were paying $2,500 per month in rent. The winters were long, and we parked on the street. The traffic was horrible. The people weren’t friendly. Homes worth buying were more than $500,000 at that time and were forty-five minutes from the city. So we decided to leave.
My wife was from a small town in upstate New York, and I’m from a small town in southern Indiana. Neither was right for us. So we made a list of things we wanted and didn’t show each other our lists until we were finished.
My list looked like this:
- Warm climate
- Low traffic
- Good country club
- Major college in town
- Nice restaurants/breweries
- Airport within 1.5 hours
My wife’s list looked like this:
- Good churches
- Family friendly
- Good schools
- Yoga / food / music
- Mountains within two hours
We did our research and found Raleigh, North Carolina; Asheville, North Carolina; and Athens, Georgia. Right away, we discovered that Asheville’s airport was too small, and Raleigh was too expensive. But in Athens, we could buy a four-bedroom, new-build house ten minutes from downtown for less than $300,000. On our second visit, we put in an offer on a home and moved. It was the best decision we ever made.
My advice:
Have the courage to find a new place to live with more of what you want. Don’t feel tied to where you were raised.
Friendships:
People brag about the weather in San Diego. The opportunity in New York City. The food scene in Houston. The outdoor adventures in Colorado. The fishing in Key West. The energy in college towns. The list goes on.
But what they don’t tell you is that the most important part of any city you choose is the community. Your friends. The people who you spend time with. Great people can make any city great. No friends at all can make any region brutal.
Making friends takes work. If you aren’t willing to do the work, you won’t make any friends in a new environment and you will be miserable.
A lot of lonely people on social media complain about not having any friends but make zero effort to do things with people.
If you sit in your house playing video games or watching Netflix, you will not make friends. If you wait for people to come up to you and invite you to do things, it won’t happen.
When we moved to Athens, Georgia, we didn’t know anybody within three hours. Not a single person.
Today, seven years later, we have an amazing community of friends we do everything with, from vacationing to playing golf to getting coffee and dinner. Our kids play together. Our community is strong!
My advice:
Bring energy to conversations and ask people about themselves. Approach people your age and strike up conversations.
Ask other grown adults for their phone numbers and invite them to do things like play golf or get dinner.
Say yes when people invite you to things even if you don’t feel like going. Read the book The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People which is a self-help classic. It works. We made friends this way, and they are a super-important part of our life.
Marriage and Family:
I’m of the opinion people are waiting way too long to get married and have children.
They keep working and dating and traveling and putting off making the sacrifice because it isn’t a priority. That is a massive mistake.
My advice:
Get married young and have more kids than you can afford.
I have been able to accomplish a lot more in business and in life since I married my wife and had kids with her.
Priorities shift in a whole new way, and you refocus on productive habits that are more beneficial to you and everyone around you.
There is a level of discipline that is required in marriage and parenting that bleeds over in good ways to other areas of life. Especially your career.
One of the big problems is the illusion of infinite choice.
Dating apps where there is always somebody new to meet and have dinner with or date for a little while. Cities full of thirty-five to forty-five-year-old single people. In my opinion this is a total disaster.
Having kids gets harder when you are older. Changing your ways and settling down gets harder if you’ve spent twenty years dating different people and doing whatever you want all the time.
We’ve also been sold on this idea that “getting it out of your system” is a good plan. The travel. The sleeping around. The freedom. In reality, it doesn’t work this way.
It builds bad habits and delays one of the most rewarding things about life: Children.
Something amazing happens when you have kids: You grow up. You mature. You get better at life. You make better decisions. You make more money.
I don’t know if it’s evolution or a natural occurrence, but it is very real. I got better at all aspects of life when I got married and had kids.
I’ve never met anyone who wishes they’d had fewer kids. But I’ve met a lot of people who regret waiting so long and wish they’d had more kids.
Every person I know over fifty years old cares about one thing above all else: Their kids and grandkids.
There is also an illusion of “perfection” that exists as you keep looking and dating and looking and dating.
In reality most people would be much better off finding somebody with two traits and getting married:
- You can trust them. They are morally sound and share your values.
- They keep calm under pressure, and they are emotionally stable.
The trust one is obvious. The second one is the one a lot of people mess up.
Life gets hard especially when you have kids, jobs, a house to care for, responsibilities, and so on. If your spouse is an emotional mess every time something stressful happens, you’re in for a long road.
Date somebody long enough to figure out how they operate under pressure and then get married if you are happy with the result.
I hope this helps.
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A few posts to check out:
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Onward and upward,
Nick Huber
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