Today, I was listening to an interview with Jimmy Carr, the British comedian. He said the most profound thing that I have ever heard. I immediately recognized it as true for me. It is probably true for anyone who discovers their fundamental purpose in life.
He said, “Every man has two lives. The second life begins when he realizes he really only has one life. Then he paused and said, “And the good is the enemy of the best.”
Comedy is Jimmy’s second life. He was an advertising executive in his first life. But one day, he realized he only had one life to live. So, he quit his good life, started his second life, and became one of the greatest comedians who ever lived. He pursued his fundamental purpose in life. Making people laugh.
In this report, I will share what ultimately pushed me out of my good life in America and what pulled me into a really great life. I have also had the honor to interview 150 Western expats who left their home countries and pursued their dream life overseas.
I will share the eight reasons that push and pull all of us out of a good life and into a great life. I am not suggesting that everyone needs to leave their home country to find greatness. But I am suggesting that these eight reasons are likely to help motivate you to find your personal greatness wherever it is.
I will start by telling my story. What pushed and pulled me into my dreams? Then I will share what pushed and pulled 150 other expat guests that I have interviewed into their dreams.
I left the US 18 years ago and have lived in 73 countries. I will show you a video of my travels as I explain. The beautiful woman in the videos with me is Qiang Hui of Hobo Ventures.
I am living my second life. It began when I realized I only had one life. This is how it happened for me. If you’re struggling to take the leap on your dreams, consider incorporating more of these reasons into your life to help propel you towards your personal greatness.
In my first life, I met my ex-wife in 1988. She had two kids from her first marriage. They were ages 3 and 5 when we met. When my ex-wife divorced me, the kids were ages 16 and 18, and she took them to another state. But the kids and I have stayed in contact.
My ex-wife and I divorced without attorneys. We agreed to everything, so there was no reason to involve attorneys. We have continued to treat each other with respect to this day. She is a good person, and we just drifted apart.
It has been 24 years since we divorced. The kids are both married now with grown kids of their own. One of the grandkids is even married. I flew back to attend the wedding.
I have lived a better life for having known my ex-wife, the kids, and the grandkids. I am very grateful for that.
Back when my ex-wife left with the kids and started a new life in another state. I suddenly had more free time. I also had more income than I needed. My ex-wife was successful in her own career. So I had free time and less need for money.
After my divorce, 24 years ago, I suddenly found myself with an empty social calendar. And I was making more than I needed to live my new, simple, minimalist life.
At the same time, my work life started to feel empty. My job was not helping real people. I was just helping a big, faceless company that was already doing amazingly well. I really loved the people I worked with, and I miss them, and those friendships have lasted the test of time for the most part.
But I didn’t feel attached to my job. My job didn’t have any strategic importance to the faceless big company we all served. I was not involved in any strategic thinking. I was just a small cog in a big, complex wheel that would turn very well, with or without me.
So my mind began to wander. What else could I do with my life if I weren’t sitting at this desk shuffling papers around? I never admitted to myself that I was miserable; maybe it wasn’t that bad, but I needed to drag myself back to that desk every Monday morning.
Fear kept me at that desk for too long. I was not willing to run away without a plan. I was making good money, and I had worked really hard to get where I was. So I spent a few hours per day trying to figure out a new plan. I even put out my resume looking for another job in related fields.
Moving Away From Pain
My desire to escape a life with little personal meaning or purpose was motivating me personally. But running away from a meaningless job was not strong enough to get me to quit. I needed something more.
Moving Towards Pleasure
I wanted to run towards something that I was excited about. But I never figured out what I could run towards that would be exciting, fun, and challenging.
One day, when I was 46 years old, a job recruiter called me and offered me something that sounded extremely exciting. I finally had something to run towards.
You see, for my entire life, I wanted to travel the world. As a boy, I secretly saw myself as a world adventurer. I dreamed that when I grew up, I would travel the world, meet interesting people, try unusual food, listen to new kinds of music, and learn about the diverse cultures of the world.
So when that headhunter called me on the phone and asked me if I would be interested in moving to the other side of the world for a few years, I finally had something to run towards that I was excited about. So I took that job and started my new life running towards world adventures.
And that is why I left my home country and have never moved back. After a few years, I quit that job and started to work remotely on my laptop. I have traveled the world ever since. So, what motivated me was both running from something that didn’t feel meaningful and running towards my lifelong dream.
So that is what motivated me. So what else motivates people to live their dreams? As I travel the world, I meet expats, like me, who have left their home country and are living somewhere else in the world.
I have interviewed over 150 expats living all over the world. In my YouTube interviews, they tell me what motivated them to leave their home countries, and travel the world, or take up residence in other countries.
Looking for Adventure
Many expats traveled on vacation and loved the feeling of freedom, discovery, knowledge, and adventure. Others have seen fascinating places all over the world on the big screen or YouTube videos, and they want to see them with their own eyes.
They see themselves as modern-day explorers. They were okay staying put while they made money and maybe raised a family, but now it is their me-time, and they want some adventure in their lives.
Some are nature lovers and want to see beautiful mountains, lakes, oceans, beaches, and waterfalls. Others are more cultural explorers. They want to investigate ancient cities and cultures that they have heard about their entire lives. Everyone’s definition of adventure can be slightly different.
Finding Love Again
They want to go out into the world and find love. They want to find something beautiful that gets their heart pumping again. They want to fall in love again. They hear there are places where someone like them can fall in love again and have that excitement in life.
Many have been trying to find love in their home country and keep running into the same patterns of disappointment. Some feel disconnected from their home country’s culture in some way and are wondering if they may have better luck in a new place. They hope love is in their future.
Is this all there is?
Others just wake up one day and ask themselves, Is this all there is? There doesn’t seem to be anything new or exciting in their life. They have walked the same streets in their home countries, they have eaten the food, drunk these concoctions, and smelled the flowers. They are content that they know their home country.
They feel that another trip around the sun will be a repeat of everything they already know. They want to break out of everything they know and find themselves in a place where they can learn new things and feel alive in their senses again.
Is this all there is? Did I miss something? Was my head down working when the things that mattered happened. Is it too late for me to feel alive again in my life?
Money Fears
They have watched inflation take away their choices. They worry that they may not have enough to live a comfortable life if they stay in their home country. They wonder, will they be happy in a new land where one dollar becomes 2 or 3 dollars? Will they have more money living overseas? Will they find freedom from their money fears in a place where things are substantially cheaper?
Taking Control of the Future
Others feel like they are living their life under the pressure of conformance. Whose life are they living? Is it time to take control of their life, their decisions, and their choices? Will they have the courage to follow their own heart finally?
Their parents, teachers, spouse, employer, and children all provided a path for what needs to be done next in their lives. Is it time for them to take control of this new phase in life? What choices will they make when the path in front of them is empty? Do they have the courage to take the future into their own hands?
What would life look like if they walked out of the past into a future that started experiencing the world, experiencing life now, without all of that social influence?
Why do we set our children free, but never ourselves? Can I move forward into my me-time without judging my past choices for doing what my family needed, for doing what society needed, for doing what my country needed?
When do I get to be free? What choices will I make now that there is only me (or only my spouse and I) to take care of, to protect, to make happy? If I set myself free, who will I be, who will we be? I want to know what choices I will make when I am only taking my own advice.
Will I go fishing, will I go for long walks without a map, will I play an instrument, write a book? Will I sit home and watch movies all day? Will I fall in love again? What adventure will I seek when I get up in the morning? What will my life look like when my calendar is empty? Will I even need a calendar? What will the free me do when I wake up in a new world?
Fear of irrelevance.
My children are grown and gone. They don’t need me anymore. I don’t want to grow old looking at the phone, wondering when they will call. Is there a new world out there where I can contribute and feel needed? Can I find both excitement and purpose in another land?
Is there somewhere I will feel needed and possibly even loved? Can I make a difference or contribute my time, volunteer work, or even money where I can change people’s lives? I feel invisible in my home country. Will I be seen overseas?
There are two more things you won’t really notice until you move overseas. One is that time slows down, and the other is that you may not be invisible to the opposite sex anymore. Let me explain.
Invisible.
Invisibility is something I hear most often from expats who have lived overseas for a few years and then go home for a visit. Their family is often happy to see them, and they have a lot of fun visiting family and friends when they go home for visits.
But when they just walk down the street or go to a mall, they feel invisible as compared to living overseas.
Before I left the US at age 46, I was starting to feel invisible. I was not as young and youthful, and I could walk into a room without being noticed. But when I land overseas, I get constant eye contact, even now at age 64. People are curious about foreigners overseas.
So my stock is higher overseas. I am no longer invisible. This may seem immature or petty. But some cultures honor age as wisdom. This may not seem like a big deal, but when you feel the difference, you will see what a big deal it is.
Time Slows Down
When you completely change your life in some major way in retirement, you actually slow time down. This might sound like bullshit but it was proven in a scientific study in 2023. I will include the link so you can read it yourself. But here is the gist.
In the study, young adults were compared to retirees. Retirees reported that the years were flying by nearly twice as often as the young adults. But there was a subset of reitrees in the study that were identified as super-agers. These super-agers did not feel time rushing.
These super-agers were learning new skills, socially involved with others, and had varying types of environmental stimuli from day to day. All of the environmental challenges and variations of environmental stimulus kept their brains clicking images of everything new in their life.
The rapid and varied change in the super-agers’ lives slowed their perception of time because they had more things in the day they were logging into memory. This experience and recall of it helped slow their loss of memory, also.
The key is to force your life, your routine, your body, and your mind off autopilot, and you will live a longer retirement. Time won’t actually change, but your perception of time and will slow, so it will feel like you have more life.
There is nothing that changes your environment and slows time faster than moving to a new country and learning everything all over again. You will live forever, or at least it will feel like you’re living forever. Now Christmas will feel like it took 12 months to get here instead of 2 months.
Of course, this also works if you start a whole new life in your home country. That will just be harder to accomplish because not as much will be changing as quickly when you are in your home country.
Summary
Here is a quick summary of how you can get yourself off the couch and start living your second life. Grab a notebook and start designing your second life.
- Focus on things you want to move away from in your second life. But that may not be enough for some people.
- Decide on a dream you will pursue in your second life. Visualize how it would look in your second life so you have a clear picture of what you are moving towards.
- Visualize the adventures that you will live in your second life. Where in the world do your adventures have the best chance of happening?
- Decide that you will fall in love again in your second life, with your spouse or someone new. How would that romance look? Skinny dipping, bonfire, candlelight dinners?
- Let it sink in that your first life is not all there is. What was missing from your first life that you will focus on in your second life? This is not all there is if you decide.
- Money Fears are real in your first life. If you live somewhere expensive, do a few exploratory visits. See how much you could actually live on. There is nothing like verifying a lower cost of living with your feet on the ground that will help calm those fears.
- Take control of your future second life. Sit down and write all the things that you will do differently once you are living your second life. What won’t you do anymore? What will you do? What will you do once you are in charge of your life without the peanut gallery putting in their 2 cents?
- What contributions could you make in a place where your money or time can help people? Whose life could you make better? What would it feel like to be somewhere where you could make a real difference? Where would that be? What would you do?
Okay, thanks for watching. And make sure to grab my free ebook, How I Fired My Boss and Traveled the World for 18+ Years. Also, if you would like to hear expats all over the world share stories about their second life overseas, watch this YouTube Playlist.