My wife and I recently made a big life decision. We traded in our relatively spacious apartment (by Spanish standards) at the base of the Pyrenees mountains and moved into a relatively small apartment (by anyone’s standards) near the Mediterranean Sea. If it was just the two of us, downsizing wouldn’t have been a big deal as we try to live light. But with two growing kids who have a deep passion for all things toys, we’ve spent much of last summer in negotiation mode.

On my birthday this past year, my 4-year-old ran into our bathroom while I was brushing my teeth and announced — “Papa, we have a head for thinking!” And with a proud look on his face, he then turned around and scurried back to the sofa to watch Po and Tigress kick ass in Kung Fu Panda. With my kid’s inspiration, I had every intention of sitting down that day to knock out 44 other quick truths I’ve learned about how to maximize life.

“Most people spend the first half of their lives collecting and the second half choosing what to keep. Now that you’re closing in on the top of the hill, which lessons learned and pieces of advice do you plan to always carry with you?” A friend asked me this question on my 38th birthday. At the time, I didn’t have a good answer. Looking back, that played a big role in why I decided to write as realizing I was still lost after 13,879 days of walking didn’t feel good.

“We gotta get moving!” I woke up to find my dad standing over me. My bedroom was dark. 6 AM. My groggy eyes could only make out his silhouette. But it was clear he was ready to go. His backpack leaning against the door. “Give me five minutes,” I grumbled before slowly making my way to the shower. “Can you heat up a coffee?” A decade has passed since that encounter.

“If your priority in life is happiness, don’t have kids. If you want to be fulfilled though, you should absolutely have kids.” I’ve heard this thought a few times. As someone who has lived 36 years without kids, as well as seven years as a parent, I agree. Sure, there are days when for 23 hours I don’t look very happy. Depending on when you catch me, I may appear downright miserable.

“I just paid $3,000 to miss my kid’s first birthday!” The day was October 6th, 2015. The place was a random hotel lobby in Costa Rica. I’d flown there from Spain expecting to attend a hearing in my feeble attempt to get back the $250,000 my business partner’s dad had stolen from me half a decade prior. It was my fourth trip in as many years. I couldn’t believe my attorney was now telling me I’d need to make it a fifth as the hearing had been canceled an hour before I was set to take the stand.

Imagine this for a second. You’re laying in a hospital bed. You’re 93-years-old. It’s late. You’re alone. You close your eyes and in a second your life begins to flash before you. You see yourself as a kid playing Wiffleball in your backyard with your best friends. Your heart skips a beat as you think about the first time you laid eyes on the love of your life. As you think about your children tears begin to gently trickle down your cheeks.

A few things had happened of late that made me question the direction I was taking. My motivation and clarity were at an all-time low. “What’s next?” I thought to myself. “Where do I want to take my career and my writing?” Trapped in a vicious cycle, I felt like everything I was doing fell under someone else’s control. With a young family to support, I woke up each day feeling old.

I’m a big believer that the fastest way to change your life is by carrying a notebook everywhere you go. Taking note of the interesting things you come across serves as a solid reminder that your primary job isn’t to do more—it’s to learn more. It can help you to be a better listener and life observer. Plus, collecting thoughts has a funny way of generating new sparks. Since becoming an avid note-taker, however, a glaring pattern’s emerged that’s hard to ignore.

I just celebrated my 12th anniversary of living in Catalunya. When I look back at pictures of myself from before I moved here from the US compared to now, I feel like I’m looking at an entirely different person. Not only have I managed to keep off the 60 pounds I lost during the first few months of living here. But in some photos, I actually look like I’m smiling without having to fake it.

Last week my friend Anthony J. Yeung wrote a post about the little differences between Europe and the US. As an American living in Spain for the last twelve years — who is still very much American in actions and spirit — it got me thinking about all the little funny, quirky, and sometimes not-so-funny things that separate life between these two countries and below is what I’ve got so far.

“Not everything can be found in the US!” An elderly ex-pat said this to a friend and me when we were playing ping-pong in a plaza in front of my apartment a few weeks after I’d moved to Barcelona. At the time, my friend and I thought the guy was a nickel short of a dime bag. But high or not, the guy was right. Whenever I meet someone new, somewhere during the conversation they ask if I’d ever considered moving back to the US before wanting to know about the differences between here and there.

I just finished watching the show White Lotus for the second time. The creator, writer, and director Mike White knows how to craft a compelling narrative while building out interesting characters. The person who stands out to me the most though is the teenage son. His transformation is impressive. By the time the show ends, he’s chasing life and he’s without a doubt the happiest person in the cast which I don’t think is a coincidence.

Four years ago, I decided to create a new habit: every week, no matter what I had going on, I reached out to someone who was doing work I admired and asked them to talk. At the time, I was 39 years old, and since I’d begun working online, many of the people making things I thought were cool, were younger than me. Depending on the week, today, I’m speaking with a broad range of twenty and thirty-somethings from all over the world.

I got out of bed to discover the floor of my family room littered with 27 toy dinosaurs, arranged in alphabetical order. My five-year-old son, Liam, was in his fort, gazing at the prehistoric land he just created and laughing to himself. Like most people, I have goals. But without a doubt, my primary one right now is to wake up like Liam as opposed to not feeling overly stressed, anxious, or flat-out terrified.

Our kids and I were fighting for pole-position to see pictures on my wife’s phone when she stopped us by saying the one phrase that always shuts us up — “I have a good idea!” She then pushed the three of us aside and clicked a button that magically displayed the pictures on her phone onto our television like she was fulfilling a life-long dream of being on Star Trek.

At the age of 43, the freedom to do whatever I want, whenever I want — the kind of freedom many people are trying to sell today — doesn’t interest me very much. I’ve had that kind of freedom. I’m much more motivated ensuring my days are anchored to people who matter and I’m attached to projects that fill me up. If you’re after this type of mindset, rather than designing your dream day, here’s a recipe for how to lead more fulfilling days.

One of the best decisions I’ve made over the last few years is creating a shortlist of questions to ask myself to better navigate life. Questions like, “What’s the next right little step I can take?” and “What would this look like if it were easy?” have the power to create forward progress when the world pushes you back, whereas questions like “If I say yes to this, what am I saying no to?

“My horse! My horse! Has anyone seen my horse?” The villager ran into town asking everyone and anyone if they’d seen his prized possession. Hours later, after inspecting every barn and bakery, the defeated man sat down on a nearby bench to think about what in the world he was gonna do. “What’s troubling you?” Startled, the villager’s sunken head shot up and locked eyes with an elderly woman who’d quietly sat down beside him.

I became an essentialist the old-fashioned way — I lost all my money. At the time, having my ex-business partner’s dad steal $250,000 from me sure wasn’t fun. But in hindsight, after finally dragging myself off a barstool, it turned out to be the best thing to ever happen to me. There’s something liberating about having little left to lose. Having no choice but to start over from zero gave me a clean slate to think about what and who I wanted in my life while handing me the life experience to know what and who I didn’t want in my life.

When reading “The Warren Buffett Way" I came across a line that has been running around in my head ever since — “You only have to get things right a few times. 12 investment decisions in my career have made all the difference.” Having recently turned 40, it seemed like a fitting exercise to follow Warren’s lead and get down on paper what my personal best decisions have been that have led me to a place where most days I wake up smiling.

“What helped you get through the last 12 very bad months? What little things made you smile? It’s worth getting these things down on paper. They’re worth taking with you!” I was talking to my coach. As someone who leans negative, thinking about what went well this past year wasn’t an easy conversation to have. I’m a feeler. I always have been. When I think about COVID, I go dark.

“This is gonna hurt!” I stared at the man, rested my sweaty palms on my knees, and nodded my head to let him know I was ready to begin. “Good. Now, I want you to close your eyes, take a deep breath, and think back to the first time you ever felt embarrassed because of your stutter. Don’t overthink it. Just find the moment. Once you’re there, let me know.”

I had just dug into the amazing meal my mother-in-law had made when I heard something that made it hard to take another bite. Every Tuesday, my father-in-law Lluis goes hiking with his buddies. It’s his time. The mountains are his place. He normally doesn’t return till late. While we were eating, however, we heard the front door open and Lluis let out a massive sigh before joining us in the kitchen.

When I first arrived in Barcelona in the early spring of 2010, I positioned myself as a chaser and someone with the stones to see the world. But that was a lie. The decision was a Hail Mary. After being financially wiped out by my ex-business partner’s dad in Central America 18 months earlier, and responding by choosing to turn my life into the lyrics of a bad country song, I needed to do something — anything — to try to smile again without having to fake it.

I walked out of the meeting feeling eight feet tall. For the previous two and a half years I’d been fighting to turn my side-gig into my main job and the freshly-inked contract in my backpack signified all the hard work had been worth it. However, that indescribable feeling of having your dreams turn into reality was short-lived. Later that night, while eating celebratory pizza and ice cream with my wife and our two kids, out of the blue my heart began to race and my palms began to gush with sweat.

“What are you up to this weekend? Maybe we can hang out?” What do normal people do in situations like this? Blink? I tried to keep blinking. But as I wrote down the number of the woman standing in front of me, my visibly shaking hands made it pretty clear that I was a 10 out of 10 on the frazzled scale. “Sorry about that. I haven’t had a drink yet today,” I joked.

I walked into the lobby of our hotel and sat down in the first open chair I could find. Then in the angriest voice, my exhausted ass could muster, I turned to my dad and said, “I just missed my son’s first birthday for absolutely nothing.” I’d flown down to Central America for the fourth time in as many years to attend a court trial regarding a costly mess I’d gotten myself into years earlier.

“Holy Shit!” Liam, our 5-year-old screamed. “Holy Shit!” Luc, his parrot-like little brother echoed. My wife and I had hoped after spending 3 months without seeing a single blade of grass, the sun and sea would burn off some of our kid’s pent-up lockdown energy. But that’s not exactly how things played out. Not even thirty minutes after we packed up our car and made the hour drive to a quaint little fishing village on the coast for a “work-cation”, our kid’s excitement had reached a whole new level.

“What in the world are you reading? The 4-Hour-Workweek? Really? You’d be a lot better off if you gave Tim Ferriss a break and picked up a book from Tom Peters instead.” My dad said the words above to me over a decade ago right before I packed up my bags and moved to Barcelona. Like most of his advice at that point in my life, I let his words go straight in one ear and right out the other.

Towards the end of 2019, following the lead of Noah Kagan, founder of AppSumo, I changed up my reading habits. Instead of reading whatever was hot, I decided to take one person a week and learn as much as I could about them. Over the last few months, I’ve dug into the lives of some seriously interesting people. This isn’t to slight Oprah, Roald Dahl, Warren Buffett, or Elizabeth Gilbert. They’re all tremendous.

“Marc! Marc! Por fin!” I’d heard stories about Marc and we’d exchanged a few letters over the years, but we’d never met in person. While his youngest sister and I were falling in love in Barcelona, he was partaking in a 3-year Buddhist retreat in the remote hills of central France. Before I could turn my head to see where my mother-in-law was screaming to get my first glimpse of the man I’d heard so much about, my wife and her family made a mad dash towards him.

Life isn’t only about chasing your goals. I grabbed two cups of lousy French coffee and made my way through the crowd towards my brother-in-law. He was smiling. I was nervous. It was the first time we’d met in person. “Thanks for making the drive up here with my sister and parents,” he said. “Not a problem,” I replied. “I’ve never been to France, let alone a Buddhist monastery, so it wasn’t that big of an ask.

Ten years ago I was in rough shape. I lost just about every dime I had thanks to the father of my business partner stealing $250,000 from me. I was 60 pounds overweight, and in order to fall asleep most nights, I heavily medicated myself with a not so delicate mix of cheap booze and expensive drugs. Today, my life is exactly where I want it to be. I’m married to the woman I was meant to be with and I’m doing work that I enjoy.

My only goal growing up was to have as many experiences as possible during my time on this beautiful round ball called Earth. 41 years have passed and looking back on my life I like to think I’ve done a good job of accomplishing that goal. I’ve lived across three continents and I’ve traveled to countless countries. I’ve started a handful of businesses and I’ve worked across half a dozen sectors.

When I was 8 years old my mom took me to visit my dad in the hospital. He had been battling cancer and had just come out of surgery. I remember standing next to his bed and him holding my hand. I remember being scared and I remember him looking me dead in the eyes and asking me why I couldn’t talk to him. I don’t remember what I said — if anything at all.

The best way to write your own story is by asking others about theirs Eight years ago when people asked me why I had decided to trade in a comfy management job for a one-way ticket to Spain, where I had zero friends and the same number of work opportunities, I told them that I wanted to see the world. But that was a lie. I left because I had made a mess of the world I had created.

I love a good quote from Dale Carnegie as much as the next person. The same goes for Marcus Aurelius. But personally, nothing impacts me more than when someone I know — who knows me — says something that travels straight through my ears and hits me hard in both my head and heart. The quotes below aren’t from a New York Times bestseller. Nor are they from someone who talks people into running over a bed of coals.

One of the first things that stood out when I moved to Barcelona 10 years ago is that many of the streets and monuments are named after artists. As someone who grew in the US surrounded by the names of kings of industry or politicians, I found this refreshing. Whenever I leave my apartment, I’m reminded of the importance of making art. Over time, this message rubbed off as I slowly began to prioritize artistic goals over business ones and since then I’ve never felt more fulfilled.

In a conversation with Conor Neill, my go-to source for all things leadership and communication, he hit me with something that made me think: “When it comes to figuring out what most people want to do with their lives it takes the average person 50 years.” Walking home that afternoon after our conversation I thought about how fortunate I was to have figured out the answer to that question so soon.

“Our parents don’t see us as we are — they see the kid they remember. Our friends don’t see us as we are — they see the friend they remember. Only a stranger met on your travels sees you as you truly are right now.” These words were shared with me recently by Conor Neill, Leadership and Communication Professor at IESE Business School (#1 center for executive education — Financial Times) and owner of a Youtube channel that discusses these very topics, when discussing how important travel is in regards to raising your self-awareness.