I’ve been asked hundreds of times in the last year, why I moved to California. My short answer is usually, “I wanted a new adventure.” In fact, it’s my automatic response, much like when someone says, “How are you?” and the quick response is, “Fine.” There is usually much more under the surface.
Besides a short stint
in Atlanta after graduating from Virginia Tech, I have lived in Virginia all of my life. And the vast majority of that time, I lived in the Richmond metro area. I was settled with lots of business and social contacts, great friends, a beautiful home and all the trappings of a ‘good’ life. So why would I just pick up and leave everything behind?
For me, it boils down to being a master at what I preach and teach. It’s about being true to who I am. With the coaching and consulting work that I’ve done over the years, I’ve always taught folks how to break through their comfort zones and leave the land of status quo. It’s so easy to get stuck in a ‘good’ life (or struggle through a ‘bad’ one for that matter). Living in the land of status quo makes us feel comfortable, safe and secure.
But is life about feeling comfortable and surviving? I think that it’s the easy way. It’s the default way that we get lulled into. But do we want to just have it easy? Do we want to merely survive or do we want to thrive? To really thrive, we need to face new and bigger challenges. Humans are actually wired to push ourselves. We feel ‘alive’ when we conquer a new mountain. It’s how we grow and stretch. Now you may be thinking, did I really have to move 3,000 miles to challenge myself? I could have certainly embraced plenty of opportunities for growth and stayed put, no doubt.
But I’m not one for tiptoeing into a good life challenge. I’m more of a jump in with both feet kinda guy. I haven’t always been that way. Believe it not, I was a shy kid who didn’t like to talk to strangers or be put in new situations. And I had my awkward teen years where I felt like I didn’t fit in, as I think many of us did. And I’ve certainly done my share of settling into a good status quo life over the years.
My perspective is a bit different now. Older and wiser, perhaps? Realizing that life is too short, definitely! So when I was creating some changes in my life, I wanted a big life adventure. I wanted an adventure that would be fun, but more importantly, one that would shake the heck out of my land of status quo.
I remember having a conversation with Laura, my business partner at Dancing Elephants, years ago about living in new places. It’s very different to live somewhere new, versus just going for a visit or vacation. You’re forced to look at everything differently. Your familiar routines are all disrupted. You don’t even know where to go for the simplest things…to buy groceries, to get a haircut or to see a doctor.
Consequently, you have a great opportunity to challenge yourself about all your routines. Are they serving you? Do you do them out of a default mode? Are there better ways to do them? Or should you even do them at all?
And if you’re so inclined, you get a chance to reinvent yourself. You get to choose where to focus your time and energy in ways that may be different than what you are used to. You’re exposed to new ways of doing things and new people to learn from. So you grow and change in both subtle and substantive ways. And at an accelerated pace.
Living a comfortable, secure life may be appealing to many, and perhaps, even to me at some point. Not just now. There is too much to explore in this great big world that helps me discover how I fit in and how I can continue to grow and evolve. So California is not my be all and end all (although it’s way cool). It’s simply a new mountain to climb on my journey.
