I would imagine that no matter what your profession might be, when you travel you keep an eye on what the out of towners are up to. In our case, being theme park designers and builders, we love to visit theme parks on our vacations. We always learn many new things! The Disney parks are our favourite. The only thing better than visiting the parks is bringing someone who has never been before. This time we brought Phoebe and Becke, both of whom had never been to Disney World previously. As we walk around with them we see the park through fresh eyes and in the process see many new things ourselves. Our first day was spent at Disney's Animal Kingdom for Phoebe is such a huge fan of all things nature. She was even picked to go up on stage at the bird show and had a great horned owl swoop close over her head and land right above her. GREAT FUN!
TEDx talk
At the end of February I will have the honour of being a presenter at a TEDx event. tedxchilliwack.com The theme of the event is 'Stories that empower us.' My talk is the last of one on the schedule. As I considered the theme of my talk, one subject struck me as really important. 'It's time to retire!' I retired at age twenty-three and firmly believe almost everyone could retire early if they chose. My definition of retirement is as follows... I'll get up when I want. I don't commute. My schedule is flexible. We have enough to be comfortable. We stay home or travel for fun. We do what we love every day, surrounded by family. We have fun. We have a backyard shop where we build cool stuff. And the list goes on...
I see so many people around me putting off these things for decades while they work at something they don't enjoy. Their hope is to be wealthy, healthy and fit enough to be able to do these things when they are too old to work. They trade away their best years against the future few. Is that really logical? So how do we retire early? My talk will show how I did it at age twenty-three and stayed happily retired ever since.
I strongly believe that the small choices we make every single day effect our lives and future in a profound way. We are tomorrow what we choose to do and be today. It sure beats working!
Some day
For every project we build there are three or four more that never make it past the design stage. The reality of budgets, permissions, timing and many other factors sometimes delay or defeat many great ideas. We keep every idea we come up with on file and handy for possible future reference. Inevitably, when they do surface again they are reworked to suit the current application. And once more the ideas presented await their turn at becoming real.
