It has been a while since the last post but I’m working on some projects so I’m justified.

Last night I was chilling with a friend of mine at Jamaica, the bar on the last floor of the International Hotel in Tunis, trying to trace a balance of this Tunisian experience, considering life, goals, ambitions  so I want to share with you some random thoughts.

That ugly word called “career”

Career..in our times, the line between private and working life is so thin and in some cases, it doesn’t exist. “Career” is for our parents, when I hear this word, my mind goes straight to the 9-5 lifestyle: get a job, rise the scale, get a family, buy an house, get your retirement.

Well, of course there are still a lot of people with those goals, and I respect them, but it’s not for me. I prefer to talk about life, life’s goals, how I want to conduce my life. Work? Well if you want to get somewhere, of course you have to work, hard, but if you are following your true goals, your true ambitions, you live with your values and your beliefs, you are just realizing yourself so I don’t consider it work anymore. This is Gary Vaynerchuk’s philosophy: Crush It!: Why NOW Is the Time to Cash In on Your Passion , his book, is mindblowing.

Lifestyle design

Lot of hype around these words. The first one was Tim Ferriss with his book, The 4-Hour Workweek, Expanded and Updated: Expanded and Updated, With Over 100 New Pages of Cutting-Edge Content.:  another world, another life are possible. I think that there are some really good ideas in his book but you don’t have to take everything like gold, because Tim Ferriss is not working just four hours per week, but since he’s following his passions, well he doesn’t perceive it as work (just for repeating myself).I like a lot the idea of the Pareto’s Law (80/20: the 80% of the results come from the 20% of our efforts) applied to personal productivity. It’s also interesting his philosophy: don’t postpone your life, live your dreams right now.

Another nice thing is that: you don’t need millions to live like a king. The true treasure now is time, not money. I can share an example from my experience:

3 weeks ago, I was at Dana Club a 5 stars hotel in Hammamet, sipping a cold beer in a swimming pool. What’s the price? 30 dinars for 2 beers and one pizza (15 euro).

15 euro? Of course in Europe is not possible something like that, but we are lucky, we are living in a world where distances are short. You can take a plane from Europe (100 euro) and in two hours you are on the white beaches of Tunisia, living like a king with an average European salary.

Networking

It’s the biggest asset that we have. You can be the best in your field but if you don’t have the right connections with the world, you will be just a number, another wasted talent. But if you have skills and a good network, you can get wherever you want. There is a great book about that: Never Eat Alone: And Other Secrets to Success, One Relationship at a Time
by Keith Ferrazzi.

Lot of words, let’s face the facts

Is it possible to live another life? Is it possible to escape the cubicle? Yes it is, there are a lot of people that do it, with success. I’m still working on this project so I suggest you to check the following blogs:

Freepursuits

Location Independent Professionals

Escape from Cublicle Nation

Almost Fearless

Chris Guillebeau

Cheers

AT

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