The value of picking up and leaving
I moved out of Las Vegas to Fayetteville North Carolina recently.
I left a stable job I liked, a lot of incredible humans I’m lucky to call friends, and a city I love,
Why would anyone do this?
Main reasons
1. Nikki’s grandfather is getting old and we wanted to be near him for a while.
This happens to a lot of people right, relatives get old and we want to be near them. It’s often hard to just pick up and move to for aging family member because we all have jobs, responsibilities, and bills right? What is the point of me buying all this real estate and creating freedom if it doesn’t allow me any freedom? I’m not sure how long we will stay in Fayetteville but we have the ability to be here, so we did it. As Nassim Taleb says, if you want to do something in your life but you can’t or won’t because of money: you’re a slave.
2. Our house was mostly maxed out on equity gains.
A little under 3 years ago I made a post about why I was moving to Vegas. A big part of the reason was me knowing that home prices were going to increase. We bought our house out there for $223,000 and now it’s worth ~$280,000 (hasn’t sold yet so here’s hoping it’s worth $280k). The market is slowing now and it’s not going to go up another 70k in 2.5 years so I am of the opinion that have captured the bulk of the short run gains. In the near future maybe prices will go up, maybe they will go down, regardless I definitely don’t want to own a home during a potential downturn. The rent rates in Vegas won’t allow my house to be profitable, so it’ll be a negative cashflow rental which is not an investment I want to own.
If I can sell now and walk away with ~$60k that’s money in my pockets now, how many months of negative cash flow would it be to equal that sixty grand?
Seems the best option is to take the money and run while I can.
3. I want to be closer to my business for a while
I’ve been buying a TON of houses for myself and other people in the last 3 years and I’ve been long distance the whole time. That’s been fun and profitable, but I want to grow it a bit more hands on for a little while. Being on the ground gets me a LOT more content production, networking opportunities, and allows me to more efficiently capitalize on opportunity.
The value of moving in general
1. You should move because you can
200 years ago people didn’t move because it was brutally difficult and often involved a few fatalities. Families lived a lot closer, resources weren’t as abundant, and picking up and starting over hurt a lot more. These days 50% of my social life is online anyway which is location independent. Location arbitrage is a lot more effective as well, I know where the opportunities are nationally and I can just go there to capitalize. In the past it just wasn’t as lucrative to move because locations didn’t grow at exponentially different rates as they do now. This is not something to be taken lightly. It’s also CHEAP to move, and living in new places with different cultures gives you a broader understanding of the world. There are so many reasons to move, and so few not to. The bottom line is, for ~12,000 years of human history moving was difficult and often impossible, now it’s cheap and fairly easy, my opinion is that this is a new opportunity for humans and it’s scary: that means you should do it.
2. How else do I know where I want to live?
If you live where you were born, how do you know you really want to live there? Sure it’s easy and you’re comfortable there, but it wasn’t your choice. If you move somewhere you hate then you have reference, if you move 5-6 places over your life then you have a better perspective and are better able to make your choice. I’ve lived in Rhode Island, Georgia, North Carolina, Arizona, and Nevada and while Nevada is my overwhelming favorite I had to live other places for ~33 years before I found that out, and maybe I’ll like the next few places even more….gotta try to find out.
3. Complacency is the thing I hate the most in life
Momentum can work for or against you. Momentum can help you when starting something new, or being productive, but momentum can be hard to stop when you’re just going through the motions. How many years are you going to work at a job you hate before you change something? Maybe you never change it…..
For me, giving things up and making big changes brings me valuable reflection. Maybe I leave Nevada and realize I loved it and should have never left, I can move back! Maybe I leave and find that there are things I liked and things I didn’t like, this allows me to make a better decision next time.
Momentum is like a wave. We are all riding waves we didn’t create, some good and some bad. I love living in America, but I was born here, I didn’t choose it, so maybe I don’t really know if this is my favorite country to live in. If I was born somewhere else I would probably love it there too right? I think that’s notable. Some people have jobs they have worked at for 10 years and not because they love that job but because they had to pay bills, some people work for 20 years at a place just to pay the bills. This isn’t a choice this is a wave of momentum. What about friendships? Do you love your friends, did you choose your friends or did you just meet them randomly or through proximity and now you’re stuck with them because making new friends is difficult? These are waves we all ride, and I think it’s valuable to STOP the wave sometimes, and start over, try to make a wave I know I want to ride on. Moving is a great way to stop a lot of momentum and get a chance to create your own wave.
4. It’s hard to change when the people around you haven’t
Do you want to grow and change? I hope you do, and you probably want this for yourself.
It’s hard to become different when the people you see every day are the same. They treat you the same, they expect you to be the same, and they might not grow with you. It’s hard to give up friends, nearly impossible, but it’s easier if you just pick up and leave the state completely. Then when you get to the new place, you tell them you’re this new person, they believe you, and then you are this new person. I’ts fuckin MAGIC!
It sounds like nonsense but this is literally the basis for all my confidence.
I was very insecure kid, but I moved at 18 for the Army and it wasn’t the military that helped as much as just being around new people that didn’t remember all the stupid and embarrassing things I did. I acted nice, and acted confident, and they believed I was nice and confident. EASY! The more I move, the more people I can bring into my circle that I’ve chosen.
If you stay with the same people your whole life, you’re limited to their growth, if you get used to moving and starting fresh then your limits of growth are eliminated.
5. “In the midst of chaos, there is also opportunity” – Sun Tzu
There is nothing to gain from monotony. It’s when people are in front of new unknowns, when you have fresh perspective, when your mind hasn’t been poisoned by limitations that you can really begin to take advantage of your situation. Like when you see potential in things when you are new to them, for instance when you start a new job you see all the possibilities but after 2 years it just seems like the same day in and day out “the way things are done”. A new relationship has tons of blissful upside, but an old relationship is just business as usual.
Our minds see new things as opportunity and old things as “been there done that”. This is not reality, but it is how our mind forms things for us. Complacency is a creative killer. Change creates the chaos that allows us to see massive potential in things.
I said all that to say this:
Over the next few months I’m going to spend my time enjoying my freedom for no reason other than I can and I feel that it’s my responsibility to do so.
I’m going to flip a house or two in Fayetteville. I’ll talk more about this in another post
I’m going to do a TON of content production and finally really ramp up my video efforts which I’ve been very timid to pursue.
I’m going to travel a bit along the east coast and maybe Europe.
In 3 or 4 months I don’t know what I’m going to do and that’s OK, I will know where to point my ambitions when the universe tells me the correct answer.