Last month Rich, a co-worker of mine, announced that his 25 year old son was quitting his job and moving to Melbourne, Australia.

There was no better work offer.  No internship.  No exchange grad student type stuff.

He just decided to go.

Rich was baffled.  His son was living on his own with a bachelor’s diploma hanging on the wall and a good job.  He was dialed in on financial security and the path to that successful (and these days- elusive) middle class life.

Why screw up the momentum?  Why start pulling blocks out of the solid free standing Jenga tower he’d built so far?

As Rich storied the details, I smiled wide inside and out. I knew exactly where his son’s head was at and why he was doing this.

How did I know?

Because I did the same thing 20 years ago.

 

 

SABATTICAL!

 

MINI RETIREMENT!

 

 

Call it want, but this is important.

A little revolution in your own life is important.

Not only for what you gain in the experience itself, but also what you leave in its wake.

You want to avoid that slow, deadening vibe of complacency.

It takes hold of your existence like tree roots – Grounding you in place and creating an immovable attitude.

Trees don’t move around a whole lot and neither will you.

 

 

 

Okay – those are great words I just fed you.

Lukewarmly inspiring and fluffy.

But, what the hell am I really talking about?

 

WHAT’S THE PLAN MAN?!?!?!

 

Let’s get back to my Aussie experience and what it meant:

 

Back in 1993 with my own Bachelor of Science Diploma hot off the presses, I moved to Chicago to start my engineering career and begin adult life.

Work, 401K, new friends, 2 weeks of vacation a year.  The corner pieces to the puzzle of middle class American life were set.

I was 23 years old….Then 24….Then 25…A job change in 1996 shook the walls a little….27….28.

5 years burned up like dry grass in a campfire –

 

POOF!

 

I could see 30 on the horizon.

Was this it?

Was this what adult life was like?

 

Go to school,

Get a job,

Get married,

Buy a house,

Have kids,

Work a long time,

Retire,

Die.

 

I was stepping down the default staircase everyone follows.

Some of my friends had already ditched the city and were further down it with pregnant wives and conversations about minivans and life insurance.

Admittedly, it scared me a little.

Up to this point, I had followed all the rules and done what was expected.

 

• High School and University Diplomas – check
• Good Job – check

 

But at 28 years old I had to hit the pause button – stop on that 2^nd stair and take inventory before gravity pulled me to the 3^rd.

I…

• …Could feel that downward pull and didn’t like it.
• …Didn’t want to end up in the windowless basement of my mind.
• …Wasn’t deciding anything.
• …Was following the herd.
• …Wanted, instead, to go up the stairs to the roof deck and take in some unique & extraordinary views.

 

FUCK!

I was restless.

I had yet to live – to pack some LIFE into my living.

In my young wisdom, I surmised that my only real goal in life should be to have no regrets when I was old and crusty – coffee in hand – rocking on a front porch of the retirement home.

Instead of shelving these thoughts and feelings, I stuffed them all in a pot to boil on the front burner of my mind.

I needed a BIG experience…

…To break out.

Australia was it.

 

 

And lacrosse was the vehicle to take me there.

 

I’d heard of people going Down Under to play.  Hooking up with a local club for an in country visa sponsored extended stay.

I wanted that.

It was exactly what my mind needed to break away from the deadening work / life path I had defaulted into.

Plus, I just wanted to do something really cool before turning 30.

30 years old is the demarcation line between adult goofball and adult adulthood.

The time to do this was now before I lost my decision making balance and tumbled down that damn staircase.

I needed to get off that staircase entirely and move counter to everyone else.

Robin Williams can explain it better than me.

 

 

 

I made it happen.

I moved Down Under for a year – played lacrosse, scuba dived my way up the Great Barrier Reef, and ingrained myself in a new culture.

So… Yeah…. I saw and did some really cool stuff.

 

 

 

 

Instantly adopted by the club, 25 new friends and an entire network of good natured lacrosse junkies helped me acclimate to life in the South Pacific.

 

On and on I could go about the richness of the experience.  How it shaped my outlook on living, travel, self-reliance, budgeting, making big ideas happen.

…But what I really want you all to get out of all my nonsense is this:

 

You can take a sabbatical from your work life.

 

Do you hear me?

I mean it.

You don’t need anyone’s permission.

Here, let me turn up the volume –

 

YOU CAN DROP OUT OF THE NORMAL!

YOU CAN DO SOMETHING ELSE!

 

People – your family and friends – will question this.

They won’t get it, but will be secretly envious.  They will try to dissuade you because if you succeed at your sabbatical, it’ll shine a light on their safe, rule following, default lives.

 

Don’t listen – Forge ahead and start your one person revolution.

 

If you’re in your 20s, do you really want to work constantly for the next 40+ years?

Are you older? – in your 40s or 50s?  Do you really want to wait 10-20 more years until retirement to LIVE!

Make a sabbatical happen.

You’ll survive.

And your career will too.

 

• Teach English in Costa Rica.
• Build a cabin in the Colorado mountains.
• Move to Paris for a year.
• Hike the Appalachian Trail.
• Ride your bike cross country (my favorite obviously).

 

There are thousands of people out there right now.  Out on their own sabbaticals, living intentionally.  Living a something they dreamed up at work.

Google anything about it.

Those people are out there.  You never see them because they are not sitting alone in their cars, inching along on their way to work like you are.

 

 

 

Once you move the idea from the nebulous –

I’d love to do that someday.

 

To the pragmatic  –

I am doing this next year.

 

And start the process of sorting the details you’re on your way.

 

Flipping that mental switch to ON and starting the mechanics of making the plan happen is the key.

• Yes, your regular life will become a little fucked up.
• Yes, this will be hard.
• Yes, there will be dozens of little details to sort out – travel, housing, insurance, money, all your stuff.
• Yes, that part will all suck.

People mentally defeat their big ideas because of this minutia.

They can’t overcome it.  BUT you can – And you must!

Look to history as a guide – people have done much more with much less.

• Lewis and Clark walked from Pittsburgh to the Pacific Ocean.
• Edmund Hillary climbed Everest.
• Sarah Lavender-Smith and her family travelled the world for 10 months*.

*I follow her blog.  She shows all of you that saying,

“But, I have young kids in school”

is still no excuse.

 

Once the momentum builds – Once the date on the calendar inches closer – Once you sort the initial details.  The rewards will be there before you leave/start.

Luckily, I was a single dude with no pets when I made the move to Australia.

I had to pack up all my shit, sublet my apartment, leave my car with a friend, quit my job, make travel plans, sort out all the details with the lacrosse club over there, and save enough cash to launch with.

It was a lot, but I loved it all because that process set my mind free.

 

 

Last April was the 20 year anniversary of my departure to Adelaide.  I smiled contentedly when that thought occurred to me because my life has been enriched so much from the experience.

How?

Well there are a dozen things I could say, but how about this:

It gave me the courage and know how to make two more mini retirements happen.

 

At 33, after completing my 2 year certificate in Controls Engineering, I took the summer off and traveled around Western Europe for 10 weeks.

I was changing careers and jobless at the time so it made the life logistics a little easier.

 

 

 

 

 

Then at 43 we all know what happened.

I approached my boss in 2012 and told him I wanted to ride my bike across the country.

The formula for pulling this off was pretty straight forward.  I had been a model employee at work for 10 years.  No sick days, hit all my project ship dates, etc.  I made myself valuable to the company.  Then, I made the ride a fundraiser for a local Not-For-Profit here in Boston.

“I just want to help the kids” – was the narrative.

I gave them a year’s notice.

Done.

My boss agreed.  The owner of the company agreed.  And on July 9^th, 2013 I swung my leg over the top tube of my bike in downtown Seattle and spent the next 10 weeks riding across America.

 

 

 

 

The best time of my life!

 

There it is.

I’ve been in the working world for 26 years and have taken 3 sabbaticals.  Gone on 3 adventures that were extended, life changing, and better than any 2 week work vacation.

My career never suffered.  I planned the shit out of each mini retirement – and – yeah – maybe – had some luck in there.  But I was prepared and…

 

…Moved the needle from life complacency to life satisfaction.

 

 

YOU CAN DO THIS THIS!

DON’T TALK YOURSELF OUT OF IT.

MAKE A PLAN.

 

Identify the most difficult detail sabotaging your sabbatical right now.

Work on solving that.

If you can then the rest will fall into place.

Let me reiterate.  Once you put your plan in motion, you are already mentally on your sabbatical.  Because executing the details – that process – is part of the adventure too.

You’ll see.

 

JUST GO FOR IT!

 

I’m going to leave you with the great and famous quote from the late author Hunter S. Thompson.