Refuse to Accept Anything But the Best

Came across an interesting quote today:

It's a funny thing about life; if you refuse to accept anything but the best, you very often get it.
W. Somerset Maugham

Which reminded me of another very interesting Chinese proverb which we have repeatedly found to be true:

Buy the best, cry once

These quotes strike a cord in two different areas, selecting and achieving what we want in terms of our goals. The first describes an approach to selecting and setting goals which we have consistently been very pleasantly surprised with - the bigger and better goals we set, the more we achieve.

The second ties in nicely with the first and actually results in a bit of thriftyness too. If we buy the best (refuse to accept anything but the best), we find we don't 'rebuy'. This is something we have repeatedly made mistakes with, buying something which is 'pretty close but not quite'. The result? A second, third or fourth purchase of essentially the same thing (cry, cry and cry again) costing far more and bringing far less enjoyment than if we'd purchased the right thing the first time.

There's a third quote from Steve (and it may be from somewhere else too):

You always over-estimate what you can do in a day and under-estimate what you can do in a year.

This one ties nicely in with the other two because if you think of achieving the best (dreams and goals) in the context of a day - overwhelming and unachievable. But, if you think in the context of a year or over a period of years, so much of the best becomes very possible.

Bye-Bye Nassau, Hello Big Blue

Skipping along at a spritely 6 knots (can a 12-ton boat be called spritely?) as we leave Nassau and head out over the deep water towards Chub Cay and the Berry Islands. Current depth is 9334 feet, 20 knot winds and 5-10 foot waves (Steve says 5, I say 10).

Deep ocean waters are a very serious inky, dark blue which is very different to the somehow more light-hearted shades of acqua we found in the Exumas. These waters look like they mean business. There is a hint of the sun factor so it's not all grim and ominous.

It's nice to be on the move again, although West Bay is now firmly entrenched on our list of top anchorages. There is so much negative sailing press about Nassau and the crime there that you tend to think of Nassau and New Providence Island as one and the same, but they are not. It's like comparing New York City and Long Island. We had a calm, quiet and undisturbed stay at West Bay (except for the winds) and plan on going back next year. The BASRA (Bahamas Air and Sea Rescue) boat anchored in the middle of the harbor probably helped too!

We're nearly out of red wine and almost out of books. I under brought sufficient books for me and brought just the right amount of books for Steve so we're completely out of 'chick-lit' and I'm OD'ing on 'testosto-lit' (men saving the world with lots of guns and blowing things up, fast cars and aeroplanes, and of course the token beautiful woman)(to be fair, chick lit has its own formula - beautiful woman in trouble meets tall, commanding, handsome rich man. They tend to dislike each other until going through some traumatic experience in which one or the other falls in love. More trauma occurs until the other admits his or her love, at which point they kiss and stroll off into the sunset). It is total cotton-candy reading for both sexes, with no redeeming qualities at all - and I WANT MY COTTON CANDY! No more guy books!

Tonight we'll anchor off Chub Cay and head out early tomorrow morning across the Bahama Banks to Bimini. Today is about 40 miles and tomorrow will be 75. Hopefully the waves will be smaller when we hit the Banks so we can get in a couple last days of fishing and see if we're capable of catching anything besides Barracudas!

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Mediarisis

Today we're posting from the ocean on a deep water passage from Nassau to the Berry Islands. The wind is blowing like stink, the waves are big and I'm scared silly.

Before we left Nassau, I took a peek at the news and saw all the furor on the latest crisis. Looks like the media has squeezed every bit of scare-sales they could from the economic crisis and now they're going to scare us with a health one - swine flu.

Now there could very well be a swine flu epidemic coming, but right now I'll look for facts and ask questions. For example, how many of these swine flu cases existed before they started testing for them all over the world? I don't know about you, but when I go to the doctor with nausea, scratchy throat and a temp, he says, "You've got flu" and sends me home. There's no testing, no examination of what 'strain' my flu is. How much swine flu was being passed around before the media got bored with the financial crisis and needed something new to write about?

Scare mongering sells and it does something else that is much worse. What is your reaction every time one of these scary stories comes out? Do you think, "Wohoo, I'm going to run right out and have an adventure"? Probably not. Or are you more likely to say, "I think I'll play it safe for a while, stick close to home, not take any risks right now - I'll just go to work, stay home and for a treat, I'll go to the mall and go shopping"? How many of these crisises keep us from living our lives to the fullest?

Think back over the last ten years or so, how many times have you felt like you should just hunker down and wait it out (it being whatever crisis the media is focusing on)? I suspect that if you look at the media stories over the past 10 years, a pattern will emerge - the annual health crisis, a terrorism crisis and, oh yeah, it must be about time for an economic crisis. Then just for funsies, let's throw in a political crisis.

Now many of these things are very real and could be a crisis. Whether or not they are, they're certainly dressed up as such - because it sells. I read an article recently entitled, "Hundreds Ill in New York", pretty scary stuff, right? Well it was until I read the whole article, 82 children had stayed home from a school. Now last time I checked '82' wasn't 'hundreds' and I'm not surprised that with all the furor, moms are keeping their children home from school.

If I were a conspiracy theorist, and if I wanted to maintain a docile and productive workforce, I'd scare the heck out of them every few months or so. Keep them anxious and a bit fearful, but not panicking. Keep them worried enough that they stay in line (keep going to work, watching TV and buying at the mall), but don't go off and do anything radical - like live out their dreams.

I don't advocate being an ostrich and sticking your head in the sand, but I do believe in carefully filtering the amount of 'media crisis of the day' that I am exposed to. We'll never make the most of our 750,000 Hours if someone is always jumping out of dark corners and shouting, "Aaaarrrgghh" at us!

And if I'm going to get scared, I'd rather do it myself, thank you, rather than having it manufactured for me by the media. (Signing off as we crest over the top of a 10 foot wave!)

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If I Were in My 20's and Knew What I Know Now...

I'd still go sailing, but I wouldn't wait until I was 46 to do it! My misconception about going sailing (and actually for most of my dreams) was that it was going to be really expensive. I thought I needed thousands and thousands to acquire my dream (the sailboat) and that I would need thousands each month so I could go sailing. I don't know specifically where those messages came from, but they stuck and I held off pursuing my dream for years.

Actually you can get set up on a boat and go sailing for about $10,000, possibly less. (And again, I use sailing as an example, but the following holds true when applied to many other dreams)

There are literally thousands of unused and unloved sailboats sitting in marinas all over the world. Every marina we've ever been to has a row of forlorn less than 30 footers sitting there which obviously haven't been touched by their owners in months, if not years. I spoke about this in an earlier post, but how many of those owners (particularly in this economy) would jump at a few thousand for a boat which they no longer have a use for and no longer wish to pay marina fees on? If the boat is structurally sound with good sails, you can get it going for very little.

Much of the expense in going sailing (and a whole lot of other things) is complexity. Our boat is more expensive because it has systems on it which increase the complexity and the cost. Engines and electronics are expensive. But you know what? You don't have to have an engine or electronics on a boat. Poof, there goes all that cost!

A sailboat has sails, that's what you are supposed to use to move the boat around. For thousands of years, sailors have moved their boats all around the world without engines and electronics. You can sail a boat onto and off of an anchor and if you have a fairly small boat, you can use a sculling oar to maneuver.

Without engines and electronics, your ongoing costs are fuel for your stove and food. Many people can quite easily earn enough for that along the way.

Larry and Lin Pardy have spent the past 20 years cruising the world on their sailboat and they have focused on making it unstoppable. For them, unstoppable is never having a system which can break down and stop the trip. They've eliminated the majority of systems that most boaters would consider essential (engines, electronics) or replaced them with non-technical solutions. They work along the way, usually by taking odd jobs and writing books / articles. They've developed skills in sailing, weather forecasting, boat repairs, navigation so that they don't need technical solutions to supplement missing skills. A book that we really enjoyed was Self-Sufficient Sailor
which discusses how to build the necessary skills and make your boat unstoppable.

My misconception kept me from even exploring my dreams for many years, I could have gone when I was in my 20's, I just didn't know it...

"All my life, I've eaten too much and slept too little..."

...commented Steve the other day. It's amazing how little you eat when you
prepare it yourself and you only eat what you're hungry for. We're both
charter members of the 'Clean Plate Club' and as such, when presented with a
plate of food tend to eat a plate of food.

On this trip though, the amounts on the plate have grown smaller and
smaller. For breakfast, we split a bagel. Lunch is half a sandwich each,
maybe with a bit of fruit. Dinner is usually a smallish piece of meat and
some veg or a pasta / rice meat veg combo (a curry, Jambalya, carbonnera,
etc.). If we go out to lunch and eat a WHOLE BURGER, we tend to have cheese
and crackers for dinner. This morning we each had A pancake with A slice of
bacon. We are probably eating a quarter of what we used to eat.

Steve has probably lost 50 pounds, none of his clothes fit him anymore.
Mine's coming off a bit more slowly, but I put on a pair of shorts that I
wore when I was 28 and managed to button them up so that's a definite
improvement. The big test will be when we get back home and put on the
motorbike leathers, that should be really interesting!

We're not good at deprivation and there certainly hasn't been any of that at
all. The food we've been eating has been great (see the recipes), we've
just been eating less and less of it.

We're also sleeping like ROCKS! And what a treat that is. It's been years
since I've had a complete and deep night's sleep. If the anchorage isn't
rolly, we sleep at least 8 and sometimes 10 hours - what a difference from
my 6 with a 'two hour middle of the night reading so I can get back to sleep
interval'.

As we get further along and the supplies dwindle, I'm experimenting with
different combinations based upon what foods I have left. This one came out
particularly yummy.

Spaghetti Carbonnera (on Steriods)

1/2 a tomato
a handful of black olives
1/2 a cup of chopped very salty ham
one stick of celery, chopped
1/2 onion, chopped
2 heaping tblsp of cream cheese
2-3 heaping tblsp of sour cream
Enough angel hair pasta for two

Boil the water for pasta and cook pasta while doing the following:

Fry the onion and celery in a little olive oil, when softened and lightly
browned add in tomato, olives and ham. Cook through. Mix in cream cheese
until it is melted and coats all the ingredients. Mix in sour cream and do
the same. Pour in the cooked pasta and toss all together.

I'm sure it fails all health guidelines, but I'm also sure it's healthier
than what you get from a package and you certainly have a better idea of
what's in it than what you get from a restaurant. Besides it was absolutely
delicious - enjoy!

What a Difference a Little Experience Makes!

In early December, we were waiting out some very strong winds in Cayo Costa,
similar in strength to what we're experiencing right now. It's funny how a
little experience makes all the difference in what you experience!

At Cayo Costa, we were worried and at times a bit scared. We didn't have a
clue whether the anchor would hold and if the winds would be too strong for
us to deal with. The wind was howling in the rigging and that kept us awake
at night. It was blowing about 30 knots. We were confined below because it
was cold, cold, cold! We really didn't relax for a minute, but were
constantly tensed for 'something' to happen. We were happy to be on our
way, but overwhelmed by the reality of 'being out there'.

At West Bay, five months later. Steve's lounging around recouperating and
reading up a storm and I'm blogging. We have half an ear listening to the
wind and for the anchor, but other than Steve stepping out on deck
periodically to 'feel' the anchor (resting his foot on the anchor chain to
feel if it is moving along the ocean floor) we're not paying a whole lot of
attention to it. We're not confined below because the enclosure keeps the
wind out, even when it is blowing 30 knots for days. We're paying
attention, but there's no anxiety in the air. During the day, we read,
write, amuse ourselves. At night, we have dinner in the cockpit and when we
go to bed, we sleep deeply.

It's totally different. What a difference a bit of experience makes!

Work / Life Balance is for Losers

At about midday while on a motorbike trip to Spain a couple years ago, Steve and I stopped at a gas / petrol station for fuel. The attendant came out and shoo'd us away, it was lunchtime and he was not going to serve us. "But, but, we have money, he's losing a sale!", I sputtered to Steve then and over the course of the next two weeks, unable to believe that someone would turn down a sale when we were standing right there with money in our hands. Steve's response, "He's probably going home to have lunch with his family." I, as a product of the American consumer culture, was simply stunned that someone would turn down a sale and it took me a while to come to an understanding that actually not every culture puts the same value on work and money as the Americans do. They value other things, such as lunch with one's family. That man didn't have work / life balance, he had a life which transcended his work.

I wonder if we all are the losers in trying to achieve the fabled work / life balance. There is something inherently wrong with that phrase and I take issue with its accuracy. Work is placed first indicating that it has priority or is most important, more important than life - that there is only work and everything else is lumped into the catch-all word life. And with today's 70-hour workweeks becoming more and more the norm, it's also not accurate, perhaps a better phrase would be 'work with a hint of life squeezed in around the edges'.

Now, to be clear, I am not anti-work. I loved what I did before we took off sailing and I still have 'life with a bit of work tucked in around the edges'. Well-considered work chosen after looking at all options and work which brings joy and excitement into one's life is a very good thing. I am against an assumption that work is the priority which must come first before life. I also believe the language and phrases we use drive behaviour - if we verbally put work first, it comes first in our thoughts and in our actions. Therefore and particularly in this instance, the language should be accurate.

If you look, much of the literature you read on achieving work / life balance is really on how to fit your life around work. There's a work focus rather than how to have a really great life that work is a part of:

"A fully human life is a life in balance, and that means giving due time to all of the things that enrich us, fulfill us, and make our lives worth living. When Freud said that work and love were essential components of a happy life, he didn't mean that these were one and the same thing."
Bruce Weinstein, PhD, The Ethics of Work-Life Balance, Business Week, March 27, 2009.

Life comes first and work is just one of life's components. In putting work first (particularly without the consideration discussed above), we all lose. There are many, many other components which should be included to bring the work / life balance phrase to a more accurate form - family, interests, health, etc. Sounds simple, but would we would think differently about the whole concept if we used a different phrase - 'Life Balance'?

The Myth of the $5 Bottle of Wine

This is probably heretical or wine sacrilege, but I'd like to tackle the myth surrounding the $5 bottle of wine - the one that says you cannot get a decent bottle of wine for $5. Wine drinkers tend to spend a great deal more than $5 for a bottle of wine and if you like a bottle or half a bottle with your dinner, it adds up. It can add up to the extent that it slows down your progress towards your dream lifestyle.

Now I am NOT going to advocate that you should give up your wine, heaven forbid! Steve and I are big wine drinkers and have no interest in giving up steak and red wine, pizza and red wine, chicken in cream sauce with white wine - you get the picture.

I do want to share a discovery we made when provisioning our boat for this trip. Since we were stocking up for being away from supermarkets (and wine stores) for months at a time, I had to lay in a full stock of wine for the period, half a bottle of wine a day for 3 months or 45 bottles. When you're looking at 45 bottles of wine at $8, $12, $15 a bottle, the cost adds up. Given what we had just spent readying the boat and on the rest of the provisions, my spending threshold was nearing and I didn't want to spend a fortune on wine.

So I went to a wine superstore in Tampa and bought every interesting looking bottle of wine in the $5 range, 45 bottles at $5 each, and crossed my fingers hoping that they would be drinkable. It was a high risk strategy for someone who is a California, Italy, and Chilean wine snob and who has decided preferences about boldness, sweetness and thinness of wines. We drink a lot of wine and have a pretty clear understanding of what's good and what's not.

This strategy was somewhat influenced by a dinner we had in Orlando last year where the head of one of the software companies took us out to dinner. This guy really enjoyed his wine and ordered close to $1000 worth over the course of the meal. Now we had never had a $200 bottle of wine before and the wine was lovely.

In talking it over after we got home though, we assessed whether (to us) there was $190 difference in taste between the $200 bottle and the $10 bottle we were typically getting at the time. Did it taste $190 better? It was better, but not $190 better. So (for us) the increase in price for the bottle of wine did not deliver the comparable increase in taste.

If you compared a $200 bottle of wine side by side with a $5 or $10 bottle of wine, the chances are very good that the $200 bottle of wine would taste better - but who does that?! We typically have wine with a nice meal, we don't have a wine tasting. If the wine goes well with the food, it's usually very nice.

(Btw, if you get a bottle of wine which is a little sharp, a little sour for your taste - serve it with pickles or something with vinegar in it. Sweetens it right up and a so-so wine turns into something really nice!)

My sister told me of a recent 'Blind Wine Tasting Party' where everyone brought a bottle of wine under $10 and over $20. One of the cheapest wines came in second place. We're going to have our own to test this and see what the results are.

Anyway, back to the $5 wine adventure. 45 bottles of wine at $5 each. Guess how many bad ones we've had? Not a one. (To be fair, there was one that was a bit thin, but that is a taste preference of ours rather than something wrong with the wine.)

West Bay Bound

Sitting out the weather in West Bay, which is actually fine with us. As
you'll see from the pictures, it's a rather nice place to sit tight while
the wind blows itself out. Much nicer than bouncing around on all the waves
kicked up by these winds!

It's amazing that after close to five months of the two of us living on the
boat with very little outside influence we still find things to talk about.
You'd think we'd have nothing left to say. Each day we have a long
conversation about something and I'm pleased to say it is more than a long
discussion about the weather (although we do have those too!). The topics
have drifted and changed along the way. We speak very little about work
anymore and much more on things that one or the other has been thinking
about.

Yesterday was a Red Book Review and we spent about 5 hours talking about the
goals we had set at the beginning of the year and where we were on them.
Some things are holding steady, but some are being adjusted as we get used
to (and find we really enjoy) our new lifestyle. Most things are on target,
some we can't start until we get home, some needed tweaking and we added
some. If we'd been in the midst of the hurly-burly, we wouldn't have spent
so much time, would have had more of a 'here's what we've done', a 'look how
far we've come!' and 'here's what we need to do next'. Yesterday was the
first time we've done an RBR having the luxury of time to have a big
discussion around it.

Yesterday was also the (newly) traditional 'Blowing Like Stink Pizza and a
Movie Night'. Steve was well enough to make a Stevie Special Pizza and it
was the best one so far, he's really getting the hang of this and we've
decided there will be pizza making parties and movie nights over the summer
(could be a 'Chucking it Down with Rain Pizza and Movie Night' when we're in
Blackburn!). No more Dominos for us.

It's been romantic movie week at Chez Snowbird with Music and Lyrics last
night and an earlier watching of Meet Joe Black. Steve says, "That Brad
Pitt is an ugly little bugger, isn't he?"

You Can't Play at This

Starting to think about the boat learnings and boat projects for next year,
and one thing that comes to mind is you can't play at this. If we were
sailing up the coast of America with all its easily accessible products and
services, we could afford to be less rigourous about some things, we could
play at it a bit, but not out here. If there was a problem in the US, we'd
simply call Tow Boat US and they would promptly come out and bring us in to
some place where we could fix it. West Marines are on every corner, stuffed
to the rafters with the things you need to fix virtually any problem. If
you need parts, go online and, poof!, they appear on your doorstep the next
day.

Things are very different once you venture off the shores of American and
into the Bahamian islands. Haven't seen a West Marine since we left the US.
Many of the islands have just one or no houses on them. You're lucky to
find a food store, water or a fuel dock. They don't have Fedex (at least
not for sending out, it may be available for sending in). So you have to be
a lot more prepared than you would be if you had immediate access to
resources.

Take our starter motor that blew, for example. If Steve hadn't had a spare,
that means the engine wouldn't start. Now in the US that wouldn't be a huge
problem, but it's a rather larger issue here. There is no place to get a
starter motor here so you would have to order one and have it shipped over
here, where someone would put it on a little puddle jumper plane and fly it
to an island which has an airport. But what if there's no airport at the
island that you're at? Well, you have to get to an island with an airport.
But, wait a minute, I don't have a starter motor! See the problem?

Now you could argue that we have a sailboat and we could simply sail
wherever we need to and there is some merit in that, provided that the winds
are right and that there is no tricky narrow passage around some big rocks
or coral. There would be some other things going on, however. Without a
starter motor, the engine cannot run. And the engine powers EVERYTHING
else. No engine - no freezer and no refridgeration so if we're waiting days
for a starter motor, there goes all of the frozen and fridge food (and we
have no ice for drinks). No water pressure for water for the showers and no
pump to empty the showers afterwards. No power for the laptops (oh,
nnnooooo!!!). With a huge supply of canned goods, we wouldn't starve and we
could probably work around some of the others, but this does fall into
slightly more than a minor inconvenience.

Even something as simple as heading back home is fairly serious. Now you
could think, heck, it's only three days so let's use up all the food and use
up all the water, right? I don't think so. There's an awful lot of ocean
between here and there, it makes a lot of sense to have a month's worth of
both food and water standing by. Knock on wood, it should only take 3 days
(after we finally get going again), but what if it doesn't?

This year was about getting used to the boat and seeing if we liked living
on it, and if we could live on it for an extended length of time. There
have been many discussions assessing whether this was the right boat for us
or would something different suit us better. After those discussions and
sitting down to make up an 'ideal boat' list, we've found that with some
modifications this boat suits us just fine. With that decision made, now
Steve's putting together a long list of things that he wants to do to bring
the boat further up to snuff. We want reliable systems and redundancy in
those systems, just in case!

Unlike sailing the coast of America, out here, you can't play at this.

The Power of Perspective

I have been called Pollyanna. The people who made this comment may not have meant it as a compliment, but I certainly take it as one.

Steve informs me that the British contingent may not have been exposed to Disney's Pollyanna. Pollyanna was a movie in which the lead character always tried to keep a positive attitude and find the good in the situations she found herself in no matter what other people around her thought or said - she called it the 'Glad Game'. She kept her 'positivity' through all sorts of challenging situations and made an impact on those around her, she transformed them - to the extent that when she lost the use of her legs and finally lost her positive perspective, they helped her to recover, both physically and mentally using the same approach. Although the terms pollyannaish and pollyannaism are often used as derrogatory terms when referring to others, what the words really mean is "someone who is cheerfully optimistic and who always maintains a generous attitude toward the motives of other people" (Wikipedia).

As a business leader, we found our attitudes and perspective had a huge impact on others. In big transformation programmes, we couldn't afford to have a bad day because it affected the perspectives of those around us. In what we do now, perspective also makes a huge difference. One of Steve's favourite sayings is, "The difference between an adventure and ordeal is attitude."

Our perspective affects us and it also really affects those around us. Have you ever noticed how you feel after hanging around someone who gripes, moans and picks out the worst in everything? I feel completely exhausted, and I don't want to spend very much time with that person. Some people have made glooming and dooming a habit (and aren't they having a good time in this economy?!). All they talk about, all they think about is how bad it all is, how terrible. They can look at the most beautiful painting and will pick out only the errors. They can be in the middle of the best experience and will focus in on only what isn't exactly right.

Other people choose the opposite perspective, keeping positive and looking for what's going right rather than what's going wrong. They will find good things or good learnings out of the worst experiences. They look at every situation and ask themselves, "What is the good in this?" Sometimes there's a lot of good, when you look for it. Sometimes the good isn't in the situation, but in the lesson(s) you learn. And what a lot of energy they have! Have you ever been around a really positive person and felt your energy change because of them?

Perspective is habit forming, whether good or bad. Have you ever listened to a group of people in the office have a good old gripe and then noticed that they gripe about the same things the next day and the next? Boring! They cannot seem to talk about anything in a different way. It's a habit and they're stuck in it. Listen to yourself talking, is the majority of your speech complaining, fault-finding, picking out the negatives? Or do you find yourself discussing how something is great or how it can be fixed or trying to get the negative people to look at things in a more positive way? Either a negative or a positive perspective is habit forming.

Which perspective brings more energy into the room (and which person has more energy within themselves)?

I remember one of the most powerful books I ever read, Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl. He chose to find the good, the positive in one of the worst possible experiences, a WWII concentration camp. This book taught me so much, but most of all that if Frankl could find goodness in his experience, I could certainly find good in mine.

Perspective is a choice and a habit. In your search for and journey to your dream lifestyle, perspective will have a huge impact on your experience - and your progress! Perspective can be positive or negative, whichever you choose your experience will match. Pollyanna has a point!

New Pics!

An early morning sunrise, Steve and I in our morning coffee location
(watching the sunrise) and the injury zone. Off to MacDuffs for lunch and a
Norman's Cay welcome!

Norman's to New Providence

Another Super Steve adventure! Tuesday night we were barbequing chicken wings (last of the hot sauce, oh nooooo!) and we spotted a dingy which had been lifted off the beach by the extra high tide. It was slowly making its way down the coast as the waves bumped it further and further away. Now please note, we were just sitting down to chicken wings! We called the Beach Club and the restaurant a bunch of times hoping that we could simply tell the people that their dingy had pulled loose and that they would come and deal with it themselves, but no response at all. Finally, we set the wings aside and got in our dingy to go get it and put it back on the beach.

The waves on shore were a bit bigger and rollier than they looked from the boat, and they had been piling into the dingy so it was filled with water (think heavy, really really heavy). We managed to tip it up so the water ran out and between us heaved it back onto the beach. We tied it down to a rock and dug in its anchor.

Then we faced the challenge of getting back into our dingy in rolly surf! Now, think about this for a moment, there is the dingy, the motor, us, a steep beach, the surf and the rocks. The goal is to get us into the dingy with the motor on and heading back. The difficulty is we have to be in the dingy in deep enough water to start the engine, but we can't climb into the dingy in deep enough water to start the engine. Now normally what we do is push the dingy out into the water, hop in and use the momentum to carry us out far enough to start the engine – tough to do in this situation when every wave is pushing us back onto the shore. The solution was for me to get in and start the engine while Steve held it against the surf. He then leapt in as I gunned it forward.

By this point, we were both soaked (and Steve ended up with a back relapse the next day). The question that arises (and the one that we asked ourselves at the end of it) was why did we do that? We could have simply attempted to call the owners on the radio and then looked the other way. The first reason is that dingys with their motors are expensive ($2500 - $5000). Without your dingy, you have to swim everywhere – rather difficult for getting groceries. In the Bahamas, dingys and motors are hard to replace. There are no West Marines just down the road where you can get another. The final reason, it was the right thing to do and if the situation were reversed we hope someone would do it for us.
Even though the wings were cold, they and the wine were still very nice!

We Left Norman's Cay early this morning for Nassau. It's a blustery day! Tiny whitecaps on the waves and the wind generator (our own little electrical production plant) is churning out the volts. I'm charging both laptops right now and will move on to mobiles so we're all juiced up once we hit civilization.

Have to go down below in a minute because I hear stuff flying about as we surf over the peaks and troughs of the waves.
Power and communications have been more in demand on this trip than originally thought. Of course we knew we'd use power and want to communicate with our family and friends, but we didn't know to what extent and what the 'boat reality' would be like. Steve would feel plugged in with a couple of check in telephone calls over the course of the trip (although he really enjoys the emails and Skypes that I do and the ones that we receive), I would be quite happy with daily communications. Women and men have different communication needs – or at least this woman and this man do!

So we're going to have to get communications and power a little bit better sorted out for next year. (We still haven't heard that woman from the UK sing yet (Rafael says she's from Blackburn, Mom says she's from Scotland, we just don't know)– so out of the loop, but then again last night's sunset and starry sky were fantastic.) I've got my eye on satellite which still costs, but we need to explore whether it will cost more than the $10 a day we pay when we do hook up to wifi. I would also like to explore solar charging for the electronics – there's an awful lot of sun out here that could be put to better use than simply improving our suntans and fading our fabrics!

Heading back is making us nostalgic and excited at the same time. We have so enjoyed this adventure that in some ways we never want it to end. Then again there are lots of adventures in the plan for the rest of the year, new things that we've never done before (motorbiking to Ireland, tandeming (Steve has his eye on a route in Germany ('Just think, if we're biking, all the beer and spatzle you want!') and I'm pushing for Italy (need that annual Italian fix!) plus seeing our family and friends who we've missed on this trip.

Good job we've got an enclosure! Just had a big wave splash all over the front of it – would have had an ex-laptop!

My laptop has been functional, but a PIB for the whole trip. It's a PC so it runs all of the Sailmail (HF radio communications for when we're out of wifi range) and the big wifi antenna that we use for long range Internet access. The screen is all shiny which is great when you're inside, but absolutely rubbish for using up on deck in the sunshine (it makes a wonderful mirror though!). And with its maximum battery life of 30-45 minutes, it's been a real power sink (and yes, a second battery would be nice, but they seem to have stopped making them – surprise, surprise!). The MacBook has been great, but it doesn't run the above software (and yes, there is something called 'partitioning the drive' where we could run both Mac and PC stuff, but I don't know how to do it, would have to research it to figure it out – would rather 'experiment' with that when I'm within easy reach of technical support).

Just checked down below and, yup, most of the books have leapt off the bookshelves again. Project for next year, something to keep the books reined in. Don't know if I'll ever get used to seeing a big wave at the same height as me sitting in the cockpit! It has gotten easier though.

I'm going to be very interested in our reaction to being back in the US. The most people we've been around have been a few at two to three tables in some out of the way island restaurant. Cars? One every once in a while cruising by slowly enough for the driver to say hello and us to say hello back. I suspect the difference will be quite striking (to say the least) when we get back to the US!

Okay, really big wave splashing on the enclosure. Time to take out the knitting! More later.

Okay, it's calmer(ish) now. The trip back from Staniel Cay to Fort Lauderdale will be about 230 miles which we'll take in 30-40 mile increments. We had tossed around the idea of simply doing it all in a big overnighter, but to 'preserve the back' we'll take it day by day. And it looks a bit blowy over the weekend so we'll sit that one out!

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A Lot of People Think This Costs a Lot of Money

"I wish I could afford to do that" is what we often hear when someone finds out we've quit serious work and gone sailing. People often put off their dreams because they think they cannot afford them, but actually the cost of 'living' (out one's dreams) versus the cost of being a 'productive member of society' (with all its associated trappings) can be quite low.

Personally, I find it really difficult to avoid spending money when I'm in 'regular life'. When I'm at home, with the car and subject to all of the obvious and subliminal 'buy this, buy it, buy it RIGHT NOW' messages, the temptations are enormous. Actually, I'm amazed that there isn't more of a debt problem for people. When I'm off in my own 'personal paradise', it's very different.

When I'm off living out my dreams, I actually have to work to (or seriously think about) spending money. Lunch out? It's not a 'convenience' drive through and inhalation of some horrible food on the road, it's a special event, a treat. Most of the things I want to do are right in, on or around the sailboat and I don't need to purchase entertainment. Since I started doing the things that make me happy, I greatly reduced the money I spent on a never-ending quest to buy happiness.

The cost of 'living' versus 'living regular life' is quite low. You need food and shelter, some entertainment. There is the cost of health care (which is admittedly lower in the UK than in the US), but what would the cost of health care be if you had time to focus on preventing illness rather than curing it after it takes hold? What if you had a lifestyle that allowed time for eating well, keeping fit and keeping stress levels virtually non-existent? Costs of 'living' are much less.
(I've used sailing as an example for this discussion, but substitute almost any other dream lifestyle for sailing and the points still hold true.)

A lot of people think going sailing is really expensive and it can be very expensive, but it doesn't have to be. You certainly can spend a fortune on a boat, staying in marinas, and eating out frequently at restaurants. (And actually many people do this in regular life, live in an expensive house, stay at hotels, and eat out all the time – sound familiar?). You can also spend very little if you choose.

Anchoring your boat in a beautiful Bahamian harbour is absolutely free. Having a freshly caught fish for dinner in your cockpit with a view better than almost any restaurant? The cost of a bottle of white wine to go with it. Spending your days exploring, snorkelling, walking on the islands, free.

Your expenses? Once you're past the initial acquisition costs for the boat, expenses are food, fuel, repairs (they can be big or small depending upon your skills), entertainment, health care and communications. Some people spend $100 a week, some people spend thousands a month – it depends upon your skills and your choices.

Initial acquisition costs for a boat (or an RV or place in the country, whatever your dream is) don't have to be high if you have the skills to take something and fix it up. We've met people out here in new sailboats the same size as ours costing $200,000, ours cost less than a third of that and is of better quality (new stuff isn't always best). If you were a young couple, you might not need a 41-foot, two bedroom, two bath sailboat. You might be like the couple we saw tanned and trim in their 20's on a 30-footer. It is smaller, but it's cheaper to acquire (probably a third of what we paid or less for a fixer upper, particularly in this market), cheaper to run and maintain. Also, they're out living their dreams now.

Something that makes things so expensive is that we don't have the ability to do things ourselves anymore. Here's a really simple example. How many people learn to cook really, really well? If you cannot cook well, you turn to restaurants for a nice meal, and there are some wonderful restaurant meals out there. But what if you cooked as well as the restaurants? It took us about a year of focused effort, but we now cook as well or better than the majority of restaurants out there. An expensive meal that used to cost us over $100 (or £100) now costs us less than $15 – with wine. If we go out now, it is for the experience (and a nice meal) rather than just to be able to have a nice meal. For the $100 we used to spend, we now have 10 nice meals.

If we buy another car (notice I said if, not when), it will be an older one that Steve can fix himself rather than a new one that has so many electronics that it must be serviced by someone else. So many things are more expensive when you pay someone else to do them.

People think living out your dreams costs a lot of money. I would argue that not living out your dreams costs more. Because you're working (and you don't have the skills), you pay someone else to fix things, to prepare things and you then 'treat' yourself for all the time you spend working (to pay for the things you don't have the skills to do). We're just as guilty of this as anyone, when I think of the money we've dished out to do things we could have done ourselves I cringe.

It depends upon your skills and your choices, but it doesn't have to cost a lot to live out your dreams!

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Sailing Downwind and Big Barracudas

After 10 days in lovely Staniel Cay, it was time to go. Yesterday we pulled up both anchors (yes, we can do the Bahamian moor!) and started headed back out to sea. Moss had grown on the anchors, they'd been in there so long! It was such a good anchorage (calm from all angles, beautiful and plenty to do), we hated to leave. We consoled ourselves that we'd be back next year.

We were very excited about this sail, it was going to be downwind. As you may remember from many of our posts, we typically sail to windward. As a matter of fact, we are experts at beating into the wind! We have had little to no downwind sailing on this trip and after yesterday, I have to say it is everything it's cracked up to be and more! Seven hours of coasting gently along at 5-7 knots through some of the prettiest seas you can imagine. Barely had to touch a sail and no slamming into the waves. We wanted to keep going forever!

Managed to insert a little fishing into all that leisurely sailing. We caught the biggest barracuda ever! This is no 'fish story', it was huge! (Stop laughing.) It was so heavy Steve couldn't even lift it out of the water (hence no picture - I said stop laughing!). Unfortunately we don't eat barracuda so it went back into the sea. I really do think we bought the Best Blue Barracuda Lure by mistake.

After our lovely sail (please note it was DOWNWIND!), we arrived at Norman's Cay in time to have the anchor down and be sitting in the cockpit, toasts in hand before sundown. Norman's Cay has a little beachside restaurant right next to the little airplane runway. A big drug runner used to own the island (he's in jail now), one of his planes crashed in the harbor and it's supposed to be a great snorkeling site - that's tomorrow's trip, along with dinner out at the restaurant.

Today's trip was over to the beach - where we did YOGA! Steve is determined to heal his back slowly while taking some gentle exercise, yoga is perfect for strengthening in a very gentle way. Imagine the most beautiful picture of the Bahamas you have ever seen, white sandy beach, waves gently lapping on the shore, a soft southern breeze, sailboats bobbing in the harbor as you do some of the most relaxing exercise ever. We're going to do it all over again tomorrow!

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Beginning Your Adventures

"Begin your adventures as early as you can.  I promise you, you will not get burned out.  It actually becomes the most enjoyable way to spend time on Earth, as opposed to just pacing the cage."   Jimmy Buffett, A Pirate Looks at Fifty

 

Common 'wisdom' is that you have to put off your adventures until retirement.  (And when I say adventures, I'm talking about doing what you want to do.)  Our philosophy is a bit different, adventures begin when you are in your prime and ready to have those adventures, and you define when that is - not the media, not the government and not those with 'common' wisdom.  Your prime can be when you're in your 20's and you're physically prime.  Your prime may be in your 70's when you're mentally and experientially prime.  Or perhaps you'll decide that you can have several primes, or many.

 

There is a fallacy that we must first work and then have our adventures.  The adventures must wait.  With today's technology and some lifestyle choices, that is no longer the route necessary.  Just because somebody says you must work and then retire, doesn't make it so.  You can have your adventures throughout your life or you can have them early on and then work at something you love.

 

And also, just because someone says you must retire and sit in a rocking chair at 65 (or 68 or whatever 'they' say these days) doesn't mean you have to do that either.   You could have some adventures and then do something that you find really interesting, that perhaps brings in an income.  With the internet, no one knows whether you're 10 or 90.  That age discrimination you would encounter in an office doesn't exist behind a computer screen.

 

Have your adventures, have your work, have both - in the order that you choose.

The Value of Now

Came across a couple of wonderful examples of living one's dreams.  They make me think about the value of doing things now versus waiting.  Check out these two photos of boats in the same bay in the Bahamas.  The small boat has a couple on it and their dog.  The big boat has a crew plus a couple and some friends.

 

The thing that I think is interesting here is the small boat can be bought for very little money (or bought and fixed up for even less) and then, poof!, you're off living out your dreams - now (in your 20's, 30's, 40's).  The big boat (unless Daddy left you that trust fund) will take many years to earn pushing you well into late 50's or 60's before you head out to enjoy your dreams.

 

Now the little boat is a lot smaller and it doesn't come with a crew.  However, it is very funky and cute - and, most importantly, very comfortable.  It's got a great deck on the back, perfect for diving from, dining alfresco and just watching the world go by.  That size also comes in a price range that many people can afford with some work, savings, and a little effort.  You can have the little boat now.

 

The big boat, well, it has everything - big screen this and electronic that, plush everywhere and lots of space.  It also has the associated big price tag.  You can have all that, but you have to work for the next 20 years to get it.  Are those things worth 20 years of your life?

 

The financial advisors and writers we read suggest that you need big chunks of cash in order to retire, big chunks of cash that will take until you're at least 65 to earn.  I think that's a myth designed to keep the consumerist economy chugging along.  You are conditioned to have more, more, more rather than to realise when you have enough (remember, Steve's Concept of Enoughness - what is enough for you?  Never mind what everyone else thinks is enough for you!).  There are plenty of people (besides us) who aren't waiting, who are having their ideal lifestyle now.  All too often we put things off because we want the 'big one', the big house, the big boat, the jet-set lifestyle, but have a think about it, is it you that really wants that or have you simply been told that you want it / must have it so many times that you believe you do?

 

And don't forget, along with waiting 20 years, there's also the issue of health and physical capability.  There is a difference between what you feel like at 46 as compared to what you feel like at 66.  All those advisors neglect to mention that if you put your dreams on hold for 20 years you might not be (physically) able to pursue them - heck, you might not even be here!  (As you may have noted, I do not find the idea of putting things off until later appealing, this is a big reason why!)  How many people do you know who have reached the age of 65 or 68 and find that they (or their partner) are no longer capable of doing those things they've dreamt about and saved for for so long?

 

Is it worth the wait just so you can have the bigger _______ (fill in the blank) or would a smaller _______ suffice if you could do go now?  Would a smaller _______ work if you could have it for 20 extra years?  (Hmm, let me think, would I want 20 extra years cruising the Bahamas or a bigger boat?  The word DUH comes to mind!)  It's certainly worth considering, don't you think?

 

So what's the value of living your dreams 20 years early? 

Very Cheeky!

Steve was barbequing last night and had a visitor. This seagull hovered and
hovered and hovered all the time Steve was cooking the chicken. Guess he
thought he might get something. No luck for him though, Steve warded him
off and protected our dinner!

Do seagulls eat chicken?

Dream Vampires

As you think about and start to put together your plans for your ideal lifestyle, you start to get really excited about them.  The whole business is very exciting!  You get so excited that you want to share those plans with the folks you know and the folks you love.  Let me give you a tip here, DON'T!  Do-not-do-this!  If you want to have the wind taken out of your sails faster than you can say big dream, share your vaguely formulated dream with someone you know and listen as they 'helpfully' tear your dream to shreds, 'kindly' providing you with all of their insights into how your dream cannot possibly work.

 

Actually many of the people you know and love won't do that (at least not intentionally), but a few will and as they are tearing your dream to shreds, your motivation melts away at the same time.  There may be no malice in them at all and they may truely believe they are being helpful, but some people just don't 'get' dreams.They are so down to earth and practical, dreaming doesn't make sense to them.  Either way, intentional or not, they suck the life out of your dreams and leave you holding a hollow shell.  I call them Dream Vampires, avoid them like the plague!

 

Share your dream very carefully because when it is in its infancy (especially if this is your first foray into living your dreams) it is very delicate.  It is not fully formed, the whys and whyfores are not completely thought out, all the t's have not been crossed and the i's dotted, you don't know how it's all going to work - you're just at the beginning, for goodness sake!  And if at this stage you are grilled, 'But what about this?' 'Have you thought about that?' 'How's this going to work?' and 'Oooohhh, I don't think that's a very good idea', you might lose confidence and run right back to your safe little house, TV, mall, or cubicle.  Dream Vampires suck away your confidence, your energy and enthusiasm.  That is NOT what you need at this stage of the game!

 

Plan and discuss your dream and your plan with your partner, if you're a pair.  If you're a singleton, is there someone who always supports your ideas and who just thinks you're wonderful?  That's the person to bounce your new thoughts and visions off of.  And during Dream Infancy, your dream is your own special secret, not ready to be shared with a wider audience yet.

 

Stay away from the Dream Vampires until you're fully protected, until your dreams move out of infancy, when you have a complete (and perhaps cast in stone) plan for how you're going to move to your ideal lifestyle and maybe you've even already done many of the steps in the plan.  If you're already on your way, it's easy to just ignore the Dream Vampires!

Mobile You, Mobile Income

All this dream stuff is fine, but you're going to have to pay for it somehow.  Last time I checked, we all have to eat, most of us prefer a warm place to sleep, and the chances of getting by without some sort of income are pretty slim.  But what can you do besides a traditional job?

The concept of homebased businesses has been around for a few years now.  As a matter of fact, I started one in 1995.  Worked from home and homeschooled my daughter at the same time (Parade, Working Woman, Family Circle and Money magazines all wrote articles on it).  The working from home trend has only grown from then especially with the ease of doing business on via the Internet. 

Working from home is great from a 750,000 Hours perspective if your dream involves being in a single location.  If you are dreaming of a small holding, a B&B, a cottage by the sea, then a homebased business would fit in quite well.  You're in one location. 

But what if your ideal lifestyle is a mobile or moving one?  Steve and I have had a very nomadic lifestyle since the day we met, multiple locations, different companies, different countries.  Creating an income from wherever we were, at home, on the beach and now on the boat.  What if you plan on bicycling around the world, backpacking across Europe or sailing some (or all) of the seven seas?  A single location homebased business won't suite at all, you need something that will move as you move, a business that can exist 'virtually' anywhere you are.  And the Internet has made this eminently possible.

Virtual careers or income generators used to consist of things like writing books and articles, photography, editing, technical writing - and those do still exist in the online business world, perhaps even more so than they used to with blogs, ebooks and ezines.  There are many other types of virtual work which lend themselves very well to the more nomadic lifestyle.  Here are a few to get you thinking:

- Specialist knowledge - Are you an expert?  Do you know a great deal about a certain topic, a certain market?  Do you know the 'Secrets of _______'?  Specialist knowledge is in demand.  People want to know how to do things and often there is little information providing that guidance.  What are your hobbies, your interests, your areas of expertise?  Have you spent years studying a certain topic?  If you have, chances are other people are interested.  A friend of ours, Joe, has created the most amazing garden in his back yard, it's like his own private grotto.  He's done it in Florida, where it's tough to grow more than scratchy grass and standard bedding plants.  He could write an ebook on 'Creating Your Own Secret Garden Sanctuary'.  People want insights into how to do leisure time activities, they want to know how to make money, they want to know how to have a life beyond work (the wheels are turning for me now, might write one myself - 'How to Go From Cube to Cruise in a Year or Less!').  What knowledge do you have that you could share?

- Consulting - Also falls under the selling of knowledge category, but with more customer contact and one-to-one connections.  Consulting tends to be to businesses, but can also be done from a health, fittness, lifestyle design perspective.  Image consultants and personal coaches spring to mind.  There are also those highly skilled, very senior consultants who may no longer be doing the road warrior existence, but can be enticed into flying in for a short term engagement.

- Online Stores - Matching customers to goods is very doable via the Internet.  Many who run online stores create a niche storefront offering goods in a certain category (wedding linens, products which don't use electricity, sailing goods, etc.), they take orders from customers and place those orders with vendors, who then send the products to the customers.  If you understand a niche market and can negotiate with vendors, this can be a terrific online business.

- Information 'Sifter' - One of the big problems with the Internet is there is just too darn much of it.  Have you ever done a search on a topic and gotten 2,000,000 results?  How on earth are you going to weed through all of that?  You scan through the first three or four pages and then lose the will to live.  Acting as a 'sifter' and culling information on a certain topic into a concise and accessible format is valuable.  Often this is done in a paid subscription newsletter format, you'll see it from financial advisors, those in the know in the real estate or rental market, and I've seen several on travel bargains.  But why not do something similar for other niche topics?  'Secret Fly Fishing Spots of the World' - anglers of the world want to know!

- Online Education - Do you have a skill that others want?  Use the Internet to teach them!  Online courses whether in written, audio, conference or video form are all of interest.  In some instances you'll need to get formally licensed for this (if you're teaching people how to get started in a career, for example), but if you're teaching them 'How to Knit a Sweater in Just One Day' you probably won't.  'School' location no longer matters, your 'students' can be located anywhere in the world!

That's five to get your thinking started, there are many more (we'll discuss the best ones in an upcoming publication).  Key point here, no matter where you're located in your ideal lifestyle, you can generate an income to support it!

The Turning Point and Back in Commission (Sort Of!)

It looks like Staniel Cay is the turning point for our trip, we'll start off tomorrow heading north. Mixed emotions about that, in some ways we'd like to keep on going. The lifestyle is great, very relaxed, beautiful and certainly healthier for us. We're happy with the boat (although we've got a
nice list of projects for next year!) and we can live together comfortably in the space that we have. But in other ways, we're looking forward to getting home, seeing everyone and moving on to the next phase of this year's plan (oh, yes, the Red Book reminds us of all the other things we have coming up!).

Without an underwater camera, I couldn't take photos of Thunderball Cave, but here's a video to show what it looks like. Think there might be an underwater camera on the list for next year. There is so much to see down there!

We've been pretty quiet due to Steve's injury and are almost out of books (ohhhhh nooooooo, things are getting desperate!). Good news though! Steve is almost back in action! The back / sciatica are calming down. He's able to sit up for longer periods of time and we were able to go out to lunch yesterday! Took the dingy over to Staniel Cay and went to the yacht club
for a burger. It's still very weird driving the dingy over the sharks as we go to the dingy dock.

The other island across from Staniel Cay is called Big Major and I read online this morning that there are rather friendly pigs there. We've encountered pigs on our motorbike before, might be interesting to encounter them by boat. Have to see if Steve is interested in a little jaunt!

Moving from Labor to Capitalist

The vast majority of people are labor.  Labor - People who are paid money for the wealth they create, usually not paid in proportion to the wealth they create - the surplus value between what they are paid and total wealth created is what is given to the Capitalists.  Capitalists are the recipients of the wealth created by labor, that surplus value created by labor gives them an income.

We live in a capitalist system, but we are not taught how to be capitalists.  We are taught to be labor.  All of your our education prepares us to make a living by working for someone else.  We seldom, if ever, encounter a class or a teacher who teaches us how to become a capitalist, or how to create an income from capital (or from other people's labor, for that matter).  Neither Steve nor I ever encountered 'Capitalism 101' in our educational path.  We don't remember any teacher who taught us how to become capitalists, there were plenty who taught us how to be labor.

How do you amass enough capital to produce an income, how do you become a capitalist?  You've got two choices, you can amass enough of your own capital to generate an income or you can use other people's capital (leverage capital) to create your income (think of taking out a mortgage to buy a rental property).  To leverage capital you have to create a better return than what you are paying.  Now that is some of what's gone with today's economy, people have leveraged too much.  That doesn't make the approach bad, the application of the approach has been done incorrectly.

In working out how much capital do you need, there are a number of variables.  The two fundamentals are what income do you require, and what return on capital do you need?  There are a couple of complications - tax and inflation.  From a tax perspective, the relation between gross income and net income is not linear.  The greater the income, the greater the proportion of that income is taken in taxation.  The other complication is inflation, if the income is to be self-sustaining the capital must not only deliver the income, but it must also deliver the growth in capital so that the income grows in proportion to inflation.  Some investments do this better than others, e.g. property, over time the value of property and property rental income would increase with inflation.  Cash investments, less so.

We need to also recognise the way the tax system is currently set up.  Between 0 and £6000, every pound you earn is not taxed - every pound is worth a pound.  From £6000 to £36,000 (roughly), by the time you've paid NI, you've paid 31 pence in tax for every pound that you earn so £1 = .69.  From £36,000 upwards, you are effectively paying .45 pence for every pound that you earn so £1 = .55.  So if you wanted £20,000, you'd need to earn £6000 (£1 = £1) and then you need to earn another £21,000 (£1 = .69 therefore £21,000 = £14,000 approx). 

(Although I have shown this example using the UK tax system and £'s, the concept is the same for the US tax system and $'s - as the tax goes up, you must earn proportionally much more capital for a small increase in income.)

Back to the fundamentals and the first question, what income do you require? 

- To get a gross income of £18,000 a year, at 10% you'd need £180,000.

- To get a gross income of £40,000 a year, at 10% you'd need £400,000.  That is, you need to amass an additional £220,000 in capital to earn an additional £12,000 a year

- To get a gross income £100,000 a year, at 10% you would need £1,000,000.  Or you would need to amass an additional £820,000 in capital.

(We use 10% because it is easy, what we are trying to show is the radical difference in proportions of capital needed to generate small differences in income.)

Now remember the tax implications here, to have £6000 net, you need to earn £6000 gross.  To have £12,000 net, you need to earn £15,000 gross.  The amount you need to generate an income of £6000 a year is £60,000 and the amount you to generate an income of £12,000 is £150,000 so while you doubled the income, you have to amass two and a half times the capital to generate that income.  At higher rates of tax, it is even worse than that.  You have to work significantly longer and harder to generate a relatively small improvement in annual income.  So the most effective thing you can do is reduce your income requirement.  

There are a huge number of things that you can do to reduce your requirement for income, which we will be talking about in an upcoming post.  We'll also be talking about ways to amass the capital quicker and exploring how to live well on £18,000 a year.

And quite frankly, the time to amass £180,000 is far shorter and far more doable for most folks than the time it would take to amass £1,000,000.  So the more modest the income you need, the shorter the time to get it (and not more than you need) - which means you'll move more quickly from being labor to living your dream lifestyle!

No Playmate!

Steve's pinched a nerve in his back and has been out of commission for the
past three days - no playmate for me! (That hugely heavy starter motor
probably did it!) He's been limited to lying down, reading and sitting up
for just long enough to inhale his food before having to lie back down
again. Luckily we're in the perfect anchorage (beautiful, good holding,
shops, fairly calm and it has wifi!) which has makes the required stillness
much easier on both of us.

One thing that comes to light during times like this is what a team
operation this is, how much of a team we are, and that actually we haven't
adequately prepared for when one of the team is out of commission.

This boat takes two people to run it. You could run it with one, but some
things would need to be set up differently than they are currently. One
reason I haven't moved the boat by myself is that with Steve out, I cannot
get the dingy (actually the motor) back on the boat by myself. There are
some things that it takes two of us to do.

There are also some things that I do not know how to do as I've discovered.
I didn't know how to light the barbeque, I don't know how to bring in the
anchor, I didn't know how to do the morning engine check. In our team,
Steve barbeques and is master of the engine domain. By only one of us
knowing how to do something, we have no duplication in skills, so we're not
prepared for one of us (particularly Steve) to be out of commission. We
have plenty of redundancy in systems (parts, tools, etc.), but not
redundancy in skills. Not insurmountable, but something we have to work on.
I now know how to work the barbeque.

(Btw, while I was barbequing chicken wings the other night, there was a six
foot shark hovering right next to the boat. He hung around for the longest
time. Do you think sharks like buffalo wings? Well, he wasn't getting any
of mine!)

This whole sailing experience forces you to become stronger as a team. You
have to work together to get most of the day to day business done. To run
to the store, it takes two to get the 'car' in the water and put its engine
and other bits (life jackets, gas tank, anchor) on. To move to a new
location, takes two, one to drive the boat and one to pull up the anchor and
arrange the sails. Even dinner takes two, one to cook and one to wash up.
There is this constant interaction and intermingling as we work together
which we did to a certain extent on land, but not anywhere near as much as
we do now. It forces you to be very careful about how you treat the other
person, we're often in high stress situations and it would be easy to take
that stress out on each other, but that isn't really very teamlike, is it?
We've learned a great deal about how to speak to each other so that we end a
day with a hug and a "Well done!" rather than stressed and shrieking at each
other like some folks we've heard about. So if nothing else from all of
this, we've strengthened how we work together and are a much better team for
it!

(But I'll like it much better when Steve is back to his normal self, the
engine room is not for me - and I miss my playmate!)

Play with Your Toys!

Do you have a house or garage full of toys? Things that you just had to have, things that you used for a while and now they are sitting unused and untouched. We spend a great deal of time acquiring our toys, but quickly put them down and head out in pursuit of the next toy. We spent many years eagerly pursuing the next toy and the next and the next, but somehow the satisfaction that came with acquiring the toy lasted for shorter and shorter periods of time. In today's economy, the common advice is to sell your toys and make money off them (to pay bills or to buy other toys). I would like to suggest the opposite, keep your toys and play with them.

Part of the 750,000 Hours philosophy is to have fun now and to have fun along the way. Life is not all nose to the grindstone, work, work, work. And while achieving your dreams is important, if that's your only focus, you miss out on a whole lot of fun on the journey. So how do you build in that fun while you're working towards and saving for your dream lifestyle? Why not pull out some of those toys that you worked so hard to acquire (and loved so much at one time) and play with them?

Bikes in the garage? Take a ride with someone you love, bring a picnic (and your Red Book?!). Roller blades, skates, skis, balls, rackets, the list of outdoor entertainment toys goes on and on. What about indoor entertainment? We've rediscovered games. You know, games, where you spend an evening competing with live people perhaps over a nice glass of wine? Live somewhere beautiful and have the gear to get out and enjoy it (sneakers, hiking boots)? How many 'learn a language' CDs do you have hanging around? What other skills have you really wanted to learn, an instrument, a craft, an art? Are the 'toys' for doing those things sitting right in your house?

We've made a conscious effort to avoid buying new toys and to play with what we have. We loved the things we bought when we bought them so where did that enthusiasm go and how could we bring it back? What we found is if we removed the distraction and pursuit of the next toy, often that love and enthusiasm for what we have comes rushing right back! The result, Steve and I are both learning to play music, the sax and the guitar, and we listen to the music we have. In the evenings, we, our family and our friends talk, laugh and vigourously compete to win at games which have been sitting on the shelf for years. I've made both practical and nice things for us to use on the boat. We love having our family and friends over for 'themed' dinners - Italian, American, French. We're swimming and snorkling, and the Italian lessons will be underway any minute. We've learned how to sail, how to live on a boat, and tons about weather and nature.

It's funny, but we often buy our toys because they're part of our dreams - how many of those dreams do you already have?