The Secret to Living your Dream Life - How We Decided Where to Live

​"To begin with the end in mind means to start with a clear understanding of your destination. It means to know where you're going so that you better understand where you are now and so that the steps you take are always in the right direction." - Stephen Covey

I think I've made a terrible mistake…

I don't know if I will ever forget the day that it hit me. I was sitting at a coworkers desk explaining to him my plan. I had calculated exactly how much I would need to make in order to live the life we wanted, which included:

1. A brand new large SUV, big enough for our whole family
2. A 4-5 bedroom house nearby work and my in-laws, perfect for entertaining
3. A vacation home in a nearby mountain town
4. My wife to move from full-time work to part-time

My thought was that if we had these four things, that would equate to our dream life. We would have the house all our kids' friends want to hang out at, with my wife freed up to spend more time with them. We would have our vacation home in the mountains where we would spend a weekend a month. And we would have a big enough vehicle to get us, and the gear for all our hobbies there!

The best part, it all seemed to work within the pay range of an executive at my company, which was an achievable goal!

That's when my coworker asked me the question that changed everything for me.

Do you think you'll be able to get out a weekend a month as an exec?

I had never thought of it like that. My mind raced! All the executives I know are in almost every single weekend. Will I actually be able to get away every month? And now that I think of it, most have at had at least one divorce. Will I even have a family to take there with me, if I can get the time off?

Has everything I have been working towards, leading me to a life that I don't actually want!?

I thought I had a clear picture of what my final destination looked like, but I had missed the most important part.

I had only run my decisions through part of the necessary filters. Financial - Yes, this would be enough money. Feasibility - Yes, this is an achievable goal.

What I had failed to do was to take it through a filter based on my values!

It suddenly made so much sense. Just like how on the teams I manage, we teach the importance of having a lens for making our decisions through. I needed to create a similar lens for making decisions about my life!

This completely changed my outlook, and I now had a new set of items that my decisions would need to be filtered through. They would still need to make sense financially and be feasible. But now they would also need to satisfy my values of Family, Adventure & Personal Growth.

With this in mind, I set out to create my new lens.

• Family

Being close to family was a non-negotiable for us.

We currently lived within 10 minutes of my in-laws, but had always dreamed of living even closer. If possible, we even talked about how incredible it would be to share a fence with them one day!

In addition, we were currently 3 hours from my side of the family and wanted to remain within a reasonable driving distance.

• Adventure

A place where we could get outside and into nature, that was close enough to make it possible after work.

Our plan of spending a weekend in the mountains, truthfully, only satisfied a small part of what we wanted. If you think about it, if you can only go on adventures on the weekends, that means that at most, you will have 8 days a month. But wait! You can't just go have fun every weekend, you have chores to take care of! So let's assume you can get away with one of the weekend days being for fun and adventure. That seems reasonable. But now you're down to just 4 days a month…

This was unacceptable to us. Our goal was 200 days outside, as a family a year.

That would only be possible if nature was just as short walk or drive away.

• Personal Growth

Improving our health, as parents, and for me, as a leader.

Any new situation would need to provide as much free time as we currently had, if not more.

With our value lens in place, we set out to find a solution!

The road from here was not an easy one. It involved research on multiple cities, weighing the pros and cons. Trips to see in person what would be right. Having to find new jobs that would support. Oh, and my in-laws had just moved less than two years prior to this decision, so having to convince them to move again was no small feat!

But eventually, all the stars aligned, and we officially began living our dream life in the beautiful mountain town of Bend, Oregon in June of 2022!

But here is the part I need to be clear about. Bend was our answer. It is not the answer for everyone.

The lens is the transferable part. Run the same three filters with different values and you land somewhere completely different. A family whose values point at career access and culture and never needing a car should end up in a city. A family whose non-negotiable is twenty minutes from aging parents should end up in a suburb. Someone whose real problem is time and not place might find the answer is staying put and changing what they do with their weeks.

Your values are not my values. That is the entire point.

So run your own plan through all three filters. Financial. Feasibility. Values. If it clears the first two and fails the third, you just found what I found sitting at that coworker's desk!