I thought it would be worth it to get a little bit of a peek into what I want, my motivations and a little more about me personally.

So you may be wondering, why in the world would this otherwise normal man choose to uproot his family and move halfway around the world? There are multiple reasons.

“It’s a dangerous business going out your door. You step onto the road, and if you don’t keep your feet there’s no knowing where you might be swept off to.”- J.R.R. Tolkien

The obvious one, is that traveling is inherently more exciting and adventurous than yet another night thumbing through Netflix to find something interesting to watch.  I’m looking forward to the adventure of knowing other cultures, and getting out of our comfort zones. No more walking to Tijuana Flats for Taco Tuesdays(sorry Larry) but heading out following our research and talking to locals, looking for that diamond in the rough of culinary adventure. And yes, I have to admit I’m totally jonesing to eat lunch at the Lunch Lady from Bourdain fame.

I grew up a little different than your average American, I was multi-cultural from the get-go. I barely spoke english before I went to Kindergarten, we spoke Spanish in the household. I spent summers in the rougher part of a small coastal town in the Dominican Republic. When you have to fall asleep under a mosquito net while it’s 90 degrees at 10 o’clock at night, and the electricity is off so no fan for air movement, and you’re cramping from the heat it gives a different perspective. I grew up playing baseball in the streets where our ball was an avocado core, and our gloves were hand-made from milk cartons.

I want that for my kids, I want them to see the wide world out there where it isn’t all drive-thrus and hours in front of the boob tube. I want them to experience how small we all are in the context of the larger world out there, but I also want to give them the opportunity to create their own place in this great world of ours.

Let me give you some background of what I plan on doing over the next six months. I’m creating a SAS startup with one of my good friends, it’s a pretty ambitious project with a lot of potential. We expect it to take roughly 2,000 man hours to create. I’m a developer by trade, and am an Applications Architect for a fairly large employer. I plan on project managing this application, as well as doing some of the coding. That’s hard to do while working a normal 40-50 hour work week.

The lifestyle you can live overseas can be quite different than what you have available here. No sitting in traffic, less time cooking meals, less time shopping for groceries, less time cleaning up, less time taking the kids to and from every activity. Our time should be able to be better used for productivity and more quality time with the family.

Ultimately the main reason why I’ve decided it makese sense to move overseas for six months is so that I can concentrate on the business and have enough runway to go for quite a while. If I were to quit today to concentrate on the business, and we got an apartment, I’d have between 6-7 months of cash to float my family, and then either the business is making it or I’m quitting and getting a job. If we move to someplace much cheaper like Romania/Mexico/South East Asia, that runway(cash available) stretches to roughly 36-40 months. That’s ALOT more cushion than I’d have here.

So, while I’m excited about the adventure, and what it will mean for the kids and for me and my wife, ultimately it’s a business decision. I’m doing what’s best to make my business a success, and the best way to do that is to take some of the financial pressure off so that I can make it happen, and still have capital available if I have to invest more in the business.

I hope this gives you a little more insight into the way my brain works, and why I’ve decided it makes sense to move this awesome family so far away from our dear family and friends.

“If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world.”- J.R.R. Tolkien