I’m Moving to Brazil (Estou me mudando para o Brasil!)

by Scott - 67 Comments

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In 5 days, I’m moving to Rio De Janeiro Brazil…and I could not be more excited about it.

Ipanema-beach-in-Rio-de-Janeiro-Brazil

Ipanema Beach – Where I’ll Be Living

This journey begins with the conclusion of a special one.

Two weeks ago was my last day at SinglePlatform. My experience there made the past 2 years the best ones of my life and I couldn’t be more fortunate to have spent everyday with such incredible people. I love you guys.

So…uh…why are you doing this?

Well, there’s a lot of reasons.

If I had 100 million dollars, here’s what I’d do consistently after an egregious vacation:

  • Live in a beautiful place with great friends 
  • Create and do things that help people lead happier, more fulfilling lives
  • Work on improving and better understanding myself
  • Consistently spend time with people I love and ones that help me grow
  • Learn new skills and read a lot
  • Teach people things that I think are important
  • Do things that contribute to a healthy life (exercise, diet, meditation)

This picture describes my perceived Utopia at this point in my life.

The funny thing is, I don’t need 100 million dollars to do this. In fact, I don’t need much money at all to do this right now. So I am.

Another Big Reason for This Move:

The ambition to live abroad with friends has a much higher potential for getting blocked by “life getting in the way” than most of my other ones.

Realistically, the chances that I do this grows increasingly smaller as I encounter potential commitments that could make doing this much more challenging.

  • I could meet my future wife…who I might have already met
  • I could start or work for a company which isn’t location independent
  • Someone I love could get sick

Any of these things could pump the brakes on making this dream a reality. This scares me.

Why is this scary?

Because right now my biggest fear in life is regret.

I try to overcome this fear by using a decision making framework based on this idea of “data collection”…

Stop using big words. What the hell are you talking about?

The only way to avoid regret is to have confidence that you made good decisions. This comes from the understanding and reference points created by experiences.

So…whether we’re talking about my career or romantic life, my top priority at this point in my life is having the experiences to truly understand what makes me happy and fulfilled. In order to accomplish this, I’m intentionally pursuing a vast scope of experiences which are directed by all the experiences leading up to that.

My thoughts in a nutshell:

The only way to arrive at your utopia is to continually run straight towards it, constantly reflecting and re-directing as you achieve a better understanding of what you truly want.

The goal is understanding, not success. Because in order to be TRULY SUCCESSFUL, a.k.a love your life, you must understand. Think about that for a minute…

The amazing thing about this mindset is that there is literally no concept of failure. Everything is learning that allows you to adjust your rudder so that you’re moving closer to your ideal destination.

This mindset is a secret to courageousness -> action.

Note* understanding how to make a positive effect on humanity within the framework of a happy life is part of understanding thyself because if you aren’t happy, you aren’t going to do something consistently.

Why Striving For Understanding Early Is Important

The sooner you fully grasp these things, the greater portion of your life you’ll be able to spend running in stride.

When you truly understand your life’s work and your actions are in harmony with this, I sense you’ll not only reach the greatest level of happiness, but also highest levels of impact due to the zeal and consistency that you bring to your actions.

Why Brazil?

This quote that Tim Ferriss highlights in the Four Hour Chef sounds a lot like Brazil.

“Argentina has the best wine in the world, the best steak, the most beautiful women, and you can live like a king for pennies on the dollar.”

Though Rio ain’t cheap, I have a soft spot for the beach, warm weather, beautiful women, and vibrant cultures. What can I say.

I also like that Rio is only 1 hour time difference from New York. This is ideal for chatting with my family, friends, and business contacts.

But really…

I’m moving down there with some of my closest friends and thought partners Ben, Charlie, and Benji.

I’ve never met a more supportive, thoughtful, and holistically ambitious group of people. Ben and Charlie pioneered Rio as being the destination of choice and made a damn strong case to me why it’s so awesome (I’ve never been!!!).

One valuable lesson I’ve learned about happiness is that it’s not where you are, it’s who you’re with. So a huge reason for why Brazil is the abroad destination of choice is because that’s where the people I want to spend the next part of my journey with are.

To quote Nancy Britton, the best woman I know:

[quote style=”1″]The prettiest place is where the people you love are[/quote]

I love these guys. I love my Mom and Dad too, but Newtown PA isn’t as cool as Rio.

What are you going to do there?

Well I plan on doing a lot of things. Here’s a few:

  • Continute to learn Portugese so I can fully experience and embrace the culture. I’ve been using Duolingo, Pimsleur and a textbook to teach myself for the past month
  • Become an exceptional marketer. Right now I’m a shotgun marketer. I create something and hope it hits. I’m looking to become an expert marksmen, wielding a high powered rifle. Growing all my assets will be the sandbox for this.
  • Spending more time reading books. Because I’ve had an employer and am of the create > consume mindset, I haven’t made much time for reading at all
  • Create more content (video, a book, blog posts, etc)
  • Get healthier and in better shape through strengthening my meditation, stretching, fitness and eating habits
  • Continually cut down on drinking. My roommates aren’t drinkers which will be incredibly helpful. The fastest way to change yourself is to change your environment/social circle!!
  • Continue to scale and automate existing income-generating projects
  • Develop a more holistic understanding of the following topics through intentional study and reflection: Courage, Charisma, Leverage, Authenticity, Attraction, Contrast (intentionally doing something different than everyone else). This desire stems from the fact that I perceive these as high-leverage elements of performance and happiness. This is probably why I’m drawn to them.
  • Travel to other countries and cities in South America. Already got a trip booked to Chile in October!
  • Volunteer
  • Maintain a killer tan

But dude aren’t you going to have a job? How are you going to make moolah!?

I’m incredibly fortunate.

Each month the revenue I make off educational content I created continues to grow. Last month I made more off them than my paycheck from a good paying business development job…crayyy

**Just so everyone knows, there is no trust fund, lottery, or parents to support this journey. If everything fails and my money magically evaporates, I’m incredibly lucky to be able to move back in with my parents, but my move to Brazil is an entirely self-supported move.

I do have greater ambitions than becoming online course man. I probably will create 1 or 2 more digital products because I generally enjoy it and then maybe do something else. Not sure though.

I’m thinking that I’m going to try and make a business out of my passion for helping others actualize their performance and happiness potential in the most scalable way possible. I have no idea what that looks like but that kind of excites me….many of us, including myself, become our best when we introduce chaos and controlled uncertainty into our lives.

I could feel entirely different in 3 months, but this is where my head is at now.

How long will you be there?

I’m not sure, but at least 6 months. Considering the World Cup is next summer I could see myself sticking around for a bit ; )

Are you coming back to New York?

I’m not really sure. I’ve loved my time there, but there’s many places I want to see and live.

If I’m totally transparent, I think I’ll be back there someday in the next 5 years because of the high concentration of smart, ambitious, beautiful women. I gotta find a partner in crime at some point! In fact, I think this is the most important decision of my life so I’ll for sure be optimizing for this instead of picking a location based on where I can best build a software company. Again, cray right?

What did your parents say?

“Scott what the $%# are you doing!”

I kid, I kid…sort of.

I’m fortunate to have parents who love me a ton. They’re super conservative, but love me enough that they continue to let me do my thing throughout my life.

Naturally when I told them they were a bit upset because I’ll be far away. But after explaining why this was important to me, they eventually became supportive of me “spreading my wings”…my Mom says I’m just not allowed to meet the future Mrs. Britton down there. We’ll see.

For the record, the most amazing blessing in my life has been having parents that love and support me. I’m as sooo lucky for this. Love you guys!

Aren’t you worried about you career? You could have ran biz dev at…

I’ve had a bunch of friends bring this up.

“Dude there’s all this momentum from SinglePlatform, your blog, newsletter etc…don’t you think it makes sense to capitalize on it? I mean you could run biz dev at [X company]”

I’m not really worried about it at all actually.

I’m  about to go live in paradise with some of my closest friends while working on my own business that I enjoy. That is success. More so than achieving some artificial financial milestone that leaves you feeling like…and dennnnn.

“Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony.”

Parker Palmer calls this an undivided life – a phrase I’ve grown to love. This move yields much more of an undivided life than doing API deals or enterprise sales at a software company.

Again, I think there’s a much greater likelihood of me regretting not doing this, than going to run biz dev at someone else’s tech company. Even if it was the next facebook, see above on what I’d do if I had 100 million dollars…this….

Then there’s the group of my Dad’s friends who have grey or no hair that like dropping this one:

“But how are you going to explain the hole in your resume?”

Dude…I don’t ever plan on having a job where someone cares about a hole in my resume. The type of companies I want to be a part of will be buying into me, not a chronological list of work experience. Besides the people that I hope to work with will think someone having the courage to run to their utopia is badass, not a bad thing.

 

So that’s what I’m up to for the next however long till I’m no longer excited everyday. If you find yourself wandering down to the beaches of Copacabana don’t be afraid to say hi : )

Here’s to now!!

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